E 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 Ex Lihris 
 
 SIR MICHAEL SADLER 
 
 ACQUIRED 1948 
 
 WITH THE HELP OF ALUMNI Ol" THE 
 
 SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
 
 SELECTED WRITINGS OF 
 THOMAS GODOLPHIN 
 
 ROOPER WITH A MEMOIR 
 BY R. G. TATTON
 
 SELECTED WRITINGS OF 
 THOMAS GODOLPHIN 
 
 ROOPER M.A. BALLIOL COLLEGE 
 OXFORD LATE H.M. INSPECTOR OF 
 SCHOOLS EDITED WITH A MEMOIR 
 BY R. G. TATTON SOMETIME FELLOW 
 AND TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE 
 
 LONDON: BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED 
 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C. GLASGOW AND 
 DUBLIN MCMVII
 
 UB 
 
 116 
 
 TO THE TEACHERS 
 
 IN THE SCHOOLS WHICH WERE UNDER HIS CARE 
 
 VERY MANY OF WHOM FOUND IN THEIR INSPECTOR 
 
 THEIR BEST FRIEND 
 
 AND AN INSPIRATION IN THEIR LIVES 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The essays and other papers included in the present 
 volume are a selection from School and Home Life (by- 
 arrangement with Messrs. Brown and Co., Hull), published 
 in 1896, and Educational Studies and Addresses, issued by 
 the present publishers in 1901, together with a paper on 
 " Practical Education in Rural Schools ", published by the 
 Agricultural Education Committee, by whose permission it 
 is included here. The first seven, and the three which stand 
 last but two in the selection, are from the earlier, the rest, 
 with the exception of the one mentioned, from the later 
 volume. 
 
 The papers contained in School and Home Life were read, 
 as the author tells us in the preface, on various occasions 
 during a period of ten years in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 
 and were prepared for audiences composed of parents and 
 teachers. His aim was "to assist, in the actual practice of 
 education, those who have to instruct and manage young 
 children ". 
 
 The Educational Studies and Addresses were most of 
 them, as the preface informs us, read before various branches 
 of the Parents' National Educational Union, and nearly all 
 appeared in the Parents' Review. They were written " to 
 assist the members of that association, and others who are 
 concerned with education, to maintain an interest in studies 
 which are not the less important because they are not novel.
 
 viii Preface 
 
 Sound principles that are old may" (he modestly adds) 
 *' easily be laid on the shelf and forgotten, unless in each 
 successive generation a few industrious people can be found 
 who will take the trouble to draw them forth from the store- 
 house." 
 
 In the present volume the aim of the editor has been to 
 include, in the first place, the most important of the author's 
 more systematic studies in educational theory and method, 
 and in certain subjects of school education to which he 
 devoted special attention, and to add to these as large a 
 selection as the limits of space allowed from those of his 
 other writings which appear to be of most general interest 
 and most characteristic of the writer. The difficulties in 
 making such a selection are manifest. Much that might 
 well have been included has been perforce omitted, and the 
 editor is conscious that many readers may miss in these 
 pages some of what they regard as Rooper's best work. But 
 he does not think that of what has been included there is 
 anything which such readers would willingly have spared. 
 
 Without attempting here a critical estimate of Rooper's 
 writings, it may be said that their special claim to attention 
 as a contribution to educational literature lies in the author's 
 exceptional, in some respects unique, combination of practical 
 experience with grasp of educational theory — " probably no 
 one else ", says Professor Bosanquet, " could have written 
 them " — and in the power which went along with this of 
 clear and simple statement in the presentation of theory and 
 its application to practice. "You have the gift", wrote 
 Professor Seth, " of saying hard things in an easy way, and 
 being at once popular and accurate." Such a " gift " does not 
 come of itself, and Rooper's clearness was the result of patient 
 and long-sustained thinking. For while most of his writings 
 were composed in the scanty leisure of his life as a School
 
 Preface ix 
 
 Inspector, it must be remembered that they deal with different 
 branches and aspects of a single subject to which he had given 
 his best thought all his life, and which was never out of his 
 mind. The most remarkable example of his power of making 
 hard matter plain is probably the essay which he entitles " A 
 Pot of Green Feathers", and of this he said, as I have recorded 
 in the Memoir, that it took him seven years. He would carry 
 a subject about with him in his mind till it worked itself out 
 into perfect clearness. Many of the essays were no doubt 
 written more easily, yet all are essentially Chips from a Work- 
 shops and, as a great painter claimed for his slighter work, 
 they represent the experience of a lifetime. 
 
 But over and above all this there is something more which 
 impresses us in Rooper's writings, and which flows not from 
 experience and study but from the writer's personality. The 
 wide outlook, the faith in principle, the union of ideal aims 
 with practical sense, the sympathetic insight — " he writes ", it 
 was said of him, " like a man and a woman rolled into one " — 
 the understanding and love of children, the humour and gaiety 
 of spirit, the belief in good and in human nature — these are 
 some of the virtues which we find in his writings, and they 
 were the virtues of the man. 
 
 A few words must be added as to the Memoir. A life so 
 uneventful as Rooper's, and so removed from great affairs, 
 may seem hardly to call for extended biographical notice. 
 But in republishing the writings of one with whom theory 
 and practice went hand in hand, it was felt that it would 
 be well to give some account of the practical work, which 
 was, after all, the main business of his life, and of which his 
 writings were the direct outcome, and at the same time to 
 place upon record the impression made upon those who knew 
 him of a singularly beautiful character. The impossibility of 
 separating the man from his work, and equally of giving any
 
 X Preface 
 
 intelligible account of the work without entering into partic- 
 ulars, must excuse what may be felt to be the excessive detail 
 in some parts of the Memoir. 
 
 I have acknowledged in the Memoir itself my indebtedness 
 to Rooper's many friends and colleagues who have assisted me 
 in its preparation. They do not need my thanks ; it is enough 
 to say that without their help it could not have been attempted. 
 I can only trust that its inadequacy, of which no one can be 
 so sensible as the writer, will not make them feel it altogether 
 unworthy of its subject.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Memoir xiii 
 
 Essays and Addresses 
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers ....... 3 
 
 Object Teaching: or, Words and Things - - - - - 31 
 
 Drawing in Infant Schools. A Study in Practical Psychology - 58 
 
 Methods of Teaching Children between Seven and Nine Years of 
 Age 77 
 
 On the Relation of Manual Occupations to other Studies in Ele- 
 mentary Schools .--.-.-., g8- 
 
 Handwork in Education - - - - - - - - 112 
 
 A Plea for Sldjd 122 
 
 Address on Manual Training - - - - - - - 132 
 
 The Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Technical Educa- 
 tion of Women - - - - - - - - - 156 
 
 Practical Instruction in Rural Schools- - . . . . 164 
 
 An Experiment in School Gardening - - - - - - i69' 
 
 Geography in Elementary Education - - - - - - 179 
 
 On Methods of Teaching Geography -.---- 196- 
 
 Lord Collingwood's Theory and Practice of Education - - 204. 
 
 Lyonesse. Education at Home 7^«'5«5' Education at a Public School 217 
 
 Mothers and Sons. The Religious Difficulty .... 235, 
 
 Reverence ; or, The Ideal in Education . . . - - 247 
 
 Gaiety in Education --------- 258 
 
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. A Literary Object-study - - 273 
 
 Index 289
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 /
 
 I. EARLY YEARS, HARROW AND OXFORD 
 
 Thomas Godolphin Rooper was born December 26, 1847, 
 at Abbots Ripton, Huntingdonshire. He was the younger 
 son of the Rev. William Henry Rooper, by his third wife, 
 Frances Catherine, younger daughter of Mr. John Heathcote 
 of Conington Castle in the same county. Mr. Rooper, who 
 was a Liberal High Churchman, was a man of considerable 
 ability and independence of mind ; and a volume of memoirs, 
 dictated shortly before his death, and printed for private 
 circulation, gives a vivid picture, not without touches of satire, 
 of clerical and county society as he knew it in the middle part 
 of the century. He held for twenty years the family living of 
 Abbots Ripton, but in 1853 his health failed, and he retired 
 to Brighton, where his father was living, and except for a few 
 years during which he was incumbent of St. Andrew's, Hove, 
 he took no other preferment. He remained at Brighton till 
 1867 (the year after his son Godolphin went up to Oxford), 
 when he took a house on the Thames, Ouseley Lodge, near 
 Old Windsor, which was the home of the family for the next 
 sixteen years. On his wife's death in 1882, Mr. Rooper moved 
 to Bournemouth, where he died in 1 893. He was three times 
 married. His first wife, Miss Caroline Buck, died with her 
 infant daughter within a year of her marriage, and two years 
 after her death he married Miss Caroline Astell of Everton 
 House, Huntingdonshire. This marriage, however, was also 
 destined to be short-lived, and in 1839 Mr. Rooper was left a 
 second time a widower with one son, William Trevor, born in 
 1837. In 1 84 1 he married Miss Heathcote, and by her he 
 had six daughters (one of whom died in infancy) and one son, 
 the subject of this memoir. 
 
 The home was a happy one, distinguished by culture and
 
 xvi Metnoir 
 
 refinement, and home influences and affections counted for 
 much in Godolphin Rooper's life. His elder brother, Trevor 
 (ten years his senior), first at Harrow and then in the Rifle 
 Brigade,^ was a sort of hero to him. " How I admired the 
 manly tone of my brother, how winning were his gaiety and 
 confidence, how good-natured he was to me! What stories 
 he told me of his school adv^entures! . , . Years rolled by, 
 my brother was besieging Sebastopol, but I never forgot that 
 I was to have the pleasure of one day taking his place at 
 Lyonesse, and never ceased to regard it as the greatest 
 honour and distinction that could possibly fall to my lot." 
 Of his sisters and his devotion to them and theirs to him, 
 both during the earlier and the later part of his life, it is 
 hardly possible to speak here. Few brothers have been to 
 their sisters what he was, entering into their lives, helping 
 them in their studies, making their happiness his first care. 
 
 His mother was a woman of fine and rare character, in 
 whom a deeply religious temperament was combined with an 
 unusual breadth of mind and a gift of sympathy which 
 enabled her to identify herself with her son's interests, and 
 with the ideas and aspirations which came to him as his mind 
 expanded. " Many a mother", he writes in Mothers and Sons 
 (and it is his own experience he is relating), " retains the 
 confidence of her schoolboy son on serious subjects long after 
 he has assumed an attitude of reserve towards all the rest 
 of his elders and betters. Happy mothers! Happier sons!" 
 Speaking of changes in religious opinion, he urges upon 
 parents that they should open their minds to their children's 
 difficulties, and try to understand them. "If they speak out 
 what is in their mind, shall we condemn them, and not rather 
 approve? When so much is changing, is it not natural and 
 right to ask what is permanent?" And again he desires to 
 encourage those parents who are themselves depressed by the 
 
 ^ Captain William Trevor Rooper received his commission in the ist Battalion Rifle 
 Brigade from the Prince Consort in December, 1854. He was present at the siege of 
 Sebastopol, and obtained his company, September, 1858. He subsequently changed 
 into the 3rd Battalion, and served in India. He died of consumption, July 2, 1872.
 
 Harrow xvii 
 
 religious difficulty, not to exaggerate it, and not to abandon 
 religious teaching altogether. " Do not let us throw away 
 wheat and chaff in a fit of despondency caused by Biblical 
 criticism and the apparent hostility to truth of many pious 
 preachers, but let us continue to cling to the Gospels, and 
 read them daily with the children as far the most important 
 part of their education." 
 
 Outside the home circle the strongest influences in his life 
 were undoubtedly Harrow and Oxford. The Harrow staff, 
 when Rooper went there as a boy of fourteen in 1862, was a 
 very remarkable one. H. Montagu Butler had been appointed 
 two years before to succeed Dr. Vaughan as head-master, and 
 the brilliance of his gifts, his personal charm and power, his 
 splendid public spirit, were never more inspiring than in those 
 early years of his head-mastership. By his side were B. F. 
 Westcott, the saintly scholar, who, thirty years later, as 
 Bishop of Durham, settled the miners' strike; two future 
 head-masters, F. W. Farrar and E. H. Bradby; those two 
 beautiful characters, Edwin Vaughan and John Smith; 
 Frederic Rendal, A. G. Watson, and, to name only one other, 
 Edward Bo wen, probably the greatest teacher of them all. 
 
 Rooper was in the head-master's house. He went rapidly 
 up the school at the head of his form till he reached the sixth, 
 where the competition becomes severer, and where, though he 
 always took a high place, he experienced the discipline of 
 meeting with his superiors. He never became a first-rate 
 scholar, and a certain want of facility and power of expression 
 (though his style, as he formed it for himself later, was both 
 clear and forcible) told against him in examinations. He 
 developed slowly, and the real force and originality of char- 
 acter and mind, which made him in after years a power in 
 the educational world, did not come fully into view in school, 
 or even in college days. But if there was some disappoint- 
 ment in respect of school distinctions, it was never allowed 
 to depress him; he took his own measure with that fine 
 combination of modesty and self-reliance which was always 
 characteristic of him, and went manfully on his way. Few 
 -J 2
 
 xvili Memoir 
 
 boys lived a fuller or happier life. School work was an 
 enjoyment and never a burden to him, and there was no 
 lack of interests outside. He was not an athlete, and never 
 excelled in school games, though he was no bad racket and 
 fives player; but he had abundant bodily vigour, and in after 
 days at Oxford he became, not indeed a powerful, but an 
 accomplished oarsman. Both at Harrow and all through his 
 life he was a great walker, and walks and runs into the country 
 with a chosen friend filled many a half- holiday afternoon. 
 And not the afternoons only, for we read in " Lyonnesse " 
 how " a tramp in the dewy meadows at six o'clock in the 
 morning is no bad preparation for a day's work ". Then 
 began his study of botany, which was a lifelong delight to 
 him. He tells us how he enjoyed the study of flowers, and 
 that he discovered the habitat of almost every flowering plant 
 within two hours' run of the school. The formation of a school 
 Scientific Society, at a time when science was not yet a part 
 of the school curriculum, was, I believe, mainly due to his 
 initiative. This enterprise was encouraged and actively sup- 
 ported by Farrar, who was always ready to welcome any sign 
 of originality among his pupils. He had a great appreciation 
 of Rooper, and later on, when he was head-master of Marl- 
 borough, offered him a place on his staff. 
 
 It is a great pleasure to be able to conclude this brief 
 record of Rooper's early years with the following letter which 
 the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, has been good 
 enough to contribute to the memoir of one of his old Harrow 
 pupils by another. 
 
 Persey Hotel, Blairgowrie, 
 September 2, igo4. 
 
 My Dear Tatton, 
 
 You have asked me to give you a {q\^ 
 recollections of our dear friend Rooper, drawn mainly from 
 old Harrow days. I find the task somewhat difficult, because 
 memory will not always come at call, but it is somewhat less 
 ■difficult if I am allowed to imagine myself having a quiet
 
 Harroiv xix 
 
 talk with you than if I attempt to write something, however 
 informal, for others to read. 
 
 Rooper was in my house at Harrow for rather more than 
 four years and a half, from January, 1862, to July, 1866. He 
 was never a very prominent boy, having no great skill at 
 games, and never reaching quite the higher places among our 
 intellectual workers. He was from the first, and throughout 
 his school course, gentle, modest, unselfish, affectionate, and, 
 I should hope, happy both with his companions and with the 
 masters. He came from a refined and loving home, full of 
 literary and artistic traditions, and he seemed imbued with 
 these all the time he was with us, only in a simple and wholly 
 unpedantic way. A public school has, of course, many types 
 of character. There is the Tom Brown type, and the Win- 
 throp Mackworth Praed type, and the Arthur Stanley type, 
 and the Arthur Clough type, and the Frank Balfour type. 
 It is as great an error to suppose that Tom Brown, truly as 
 he is drawn, represents the average public-school boy, as it is 
 to suppose that Arthur Pendennis represented the average 
 undergraduate of fifty years ago. If an adequate picture of 
 public-school life is to be painted, the canvas must be very 
 broad. It must find room, if only in the background, for 
 boys like our dear friend, deeply attached to their school and 
 very proud of it, but never satisfied with the prevalent athletic 
 ideals; not widely known, or making very many friends, but 
 founding some friendships destined never to perish, and 
 exercising from first to last, probably unconsciously, what 
 I may call a quiet " home " influence in favour of things 
 intellectual — books, art, music, science, botanical and other 
 collections, the trend of political, religious, and, in some cases, 
 even philosophical opinions. 
 
 It was to this class, larger than the readers of the delight- 
 ful Tom Brown might suppose, that T. G. Rooper belonged. 
 But even in this set of companions he was never exactly a 
 leader. He was a simple, loyal, civilized, and very lovable 
 boy, with the stamp of a gracious home very visible upon 
 him.
 
 XX 
 
 Memoir 
 
 My clearest recollection of him at school is in his last 
 year, the first two terms of 1866, when he was head of one 
 half, the smaller half, of my house. We called it the " Old 
 House ", and a " poor thing " it was — low, dark, stuff)', 
 inflammable, — but fortunately, through a very opportune 
 auction, it had just become " mine own ". From that moment 
 its fate was sealed. It was sentenced to be pulled down, 
 and rebuilt on a much larger and roomier scale. During 
 the three months of the summer term, while the work of 
 demolition and reconstruction was proceeding, some twent)'- 
 five homeless boys crossed the street into temporary exile 
 in an old house near the church. Rooper went with 
 them as their head. It was here that his high and pure 
 character told visibly for good, and he had humour enough 
 to bring me, day after day, as we sat together in the 
 house-hall at dinner, amusing stories of the Vita Niiova 
 of himself and his charge during this strange interregnum. 
 I doubt if he enjoyed any part of his Harrow life more than 
 this little final episode, which might easily, with a less cheery 
 and sweet-tempered captain, have led to some honest British 
 grumblings on the part of the young crew. As it was, they 
 seemed to " enter into the fun ", and for this I always gave 
 the good captain a predominant share of credit. Loyalty and 
 sweet temper were indeed part of his nature. 
 
 One of my most trifling Ricordi of this my dear pupil is 
 perhaps "below the dignity of your history"; but as he and 
 I sometimes made fun of the little secret long years after, 
 his shade might more than forgive my betrayal. It must 
 have been during the " Seven Weeks' War " between Austria 
 and Prussia in the summer of 1866, Rooper and I were 
 talking at dinner of one of its incidents, and I hazarded the 
 not very piquant remark, that the confident account of to- 
 day was precisely contradictory of the confident account of 
 yesterday, and that in short it was far from easy to get at the 
 historical truth even of what was passing under one's ver)- 
 eyes, how much more difficult, &c., &c. I fear it may have 
 had rather a soporific effect on our friend, for his first com-
 
 Harrow xxi 
 
 ment was : " Yes, sir, I dare say you may have felt much the 
 same when the first accounts of Waterloo reached your ears!" 
 I looked a little askance, just to see if my dear and only 
 too reverent pupil was for the first time indulging in irony at 
 my expense. Suddenly he blushed scarlet. The little fit of 
 absent-mindedness had passed, and an explanation followed, 
 not without laughter on both sides. 
 
 I may leave to you to speak of his all-important years at 
 Balliol, of Jowett's warm affection for him, and of his happy 
 connexion, as a tutor for some years, with the present Duke 
 of Bedford. It was in the interval between the close of this 
 tutorship and his appointment as a Government School 
 Inspector that he spent some months with us at Harrow, 
 from February to July, 1877, giving lessons daily to my 
 young children and to a few others. It was charming to 
 see him with them, so playful, so entertaining, so intelligent 
 in catching their characters, so skilful in teaching while hardly 
 seeming to teach, so full of sympathy and affection. It was 
 then that we came to admire as well as love him, and to see 
 how he had developed intellectually under his Oxford train- 
 ing, without losing any of his old boyish and home -like 
 simplicity. It was easy to prophesy what his success would 
 be as an official inspector, how he would quickly and perma- 
 nently win not the confidence only but the love of all with 
 whom he would have to deal — managers, masters, mistresses, 
 parents, young children, — and how the days of his periodical 
 inspection would be looked forward to not as a terror or 
 a bore but as a delight and an encouragement. How this 
 easy prophesy was fulfilled, first in the north of England and 
 then in the south, your Memoir will soon be telling the world. 
 We, his friends, who have read his admirable books on educa- 
 tional subjects, have known it for many years, and we shall 
 now rejoice that others also know it. We know what a 
 truthful, courteous, knightly, Christian spirit was taken from 
 the earth when Godolphin Rooper passed away. As Mac- 
 aulay has said of Chatham in one of the favourite passages 
 of my boyhood, read at Harrow in the then " Monitors'
 
 xxii Memoir 
 
 Library", more than fifty years ago, "among the eminent 
 men whose bones he near his, scarcely one has left a more 
 stainless, and none, a more splendid name ", so we may 
 dare to say of this true servant of his country and of one 
 of her most sacred causes, the education of her younger and 
 poorer children, that among the many dear friends whom 
 you and I have known at Harrow, at Oxford, and in these 
 latter days, scarcely one has lived a more fruitful, and none, 
 a more beautiful life. 
 
 Always, my dear Tatton, affectionately yours, 
 
 H. MONTAGU BUTLER. 
 
 From Harrow Rooper went in October, 1866, to Balliol, 
 where his open and impressionable mind came under a new 
 set of influences, which more than any others determined his 
 ways of thinking and his career. He lived at Oxford a quiet 
 and studious life, as at Harrow, not making a large acquaint- 
 ance or taking a prominent place in College life, but happy in 
 the society of his friends, devoutly religious, but without any 
 ostentation, eager for knowledge, and resolved on making the 
 most of all that Oxford had to give. He was very modest in 
 his estimate of his powers, but I think he always felt that he 
 had it in him to set his own stamp on whatever work might 
 fall to him in life, and it was the tempering and shaping of 
 the instrument — the forming of his mind and character — 
 rather than academic success, though he was not indifferent 
 to this, that he thought of most. But he was quite unpe- 
 dantic (to repeat Dr. Butler's word), always simple and 
 natural, with great powers of enjoyment and an almost boyish 
 gaiety which never left him. He felt strongly the charm 
 which every man of active mind finds in greater or less degree 
 in University life — the new sense of independence, the new 
 outlook, the freedom of study and companionship, the frank, 
 democratic spirit which accepts men simply for what they are, 
 and which is one of the best features in the best College life,
 
 F7'iendships at Oxford xxiii 
 
 the contact of mind with mind, the loss of which he laments 
 after leaving Oxford — above all, the influence and stimulus of 
 great teachers. 
 
 He read for the Classical Schools, taking a second-class 
 in Moderations and the same place in the Final Schools, 
 narrowly missing a first, as he was told by T. H. Green, who 
 was an examiner. The work was absorbing, and Rooper was 
 a thorough and not a rapid worker, but he found leisure for 
 a good deal of serious reading besides. Goethe's Wilhelni 
 Meister and Lewes' Life of Goethe were, I think, books which 
 much influenced his ideas on education. He was intending 
 at this time to take Orders, and he almost always spent some 
 hours on Sundays in Biblical study. 
 
 His most intimate friends were C. B. Heberden, now 
 Principal of Brasenose College; Bernard Bosanquet, now Pro- 
 fessor of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews, and formerly 
 Fellow of University College; and (he has the happiness to 
 add) the writer of this memoir — all Harrow contemporaries. 
 His friendship was then, and it remained, one of the best 
 things in our lives. I recall the genial welcome when we 
 came up (he was a little senior to us), the fast-growing 
 intimacy, the long evening talks, the Shakespeare readings on 
 Sunday evenings, afternoons on the river, and last, not least, 
 the visits to Ouseley, where he took despotic command, and 
 picnics and water-parties obeyed his will. They were pleasant 
 days. 
 
 Other College friends were Edwin Harrison, one of Jowett's 
 favourite pupils, whose brilliant promise was cut short by 
 breakdown in health ; R. L. Leighton, afterwards Head-master 
 of Wakefield Grammar School and Bristol Grammar School; 
 C. S. Loch, the present Secretary of the Charity Organization 
 Society, and J. P. Hughes, now Bishop of Llandaff ; and out- 
 side the College G. P. Bidder, afterwards Fellow of St. John's 
 College, and for sometime Vicar of St. Giles, Oxford, and 
 F. C. Mills, who became an active worker in East London 
 — both friends from Harrow days. Nor must I forget another 
 Harrow and Oxford contemporary, J. F. Gibson, a gifted and
 
 xxiv Memoir 
 
 lovable nature too early lost to us, though Rooper's friendship 
 with him was formed not at Oxford, but later on at Newcastle. 
 
 Of all his Oxford friends, the one who kept up the most 
 unbroken intercourse with him in after years, when he was 
 working out his ideas on education, was Bosanquet; and I 
 think he would have said that, after Jowett and T, H. Green, 
 his greatest intellectual debt was to him. 
 
 The Balliol staff of that day was probably the strongest 
 that any college in Oxford has known. The two men whose 
 teaching and influence were of most importance to Rooper 
 were undoubtedly Jowett and T. H. Green, and of these I 
 shall have to speak at some length. But there were others to 
 whom he owed much, and it was his nature to appreciate 
 excellence wherever he found it, and to draw from every 
 source. He was one of the few undergraduates who saw 
 much of the Master, Robert Scott, a scholar of great emi- 
 nence, shy with younger men, and out of sympathy with the 
 Liberal movement, but whose services to the College Rooper 
 always held had never been fairly recognized by the world. 
 His tutor was E. C. Woollcombe, a fine scholar of the old 
 school, most gentle and kindly of men, who taught him much, 
 and for whom he always cherished a warm regard. Edwin 
 Palmer and W. L. Newman were lecturing, the one on Greek 
 and Latin Literature, the other on Ancient History, both 
 most stimulating forces, which Rooper must have felt strongly. 
 J. L. Strachan Davidson and John Purves were junior 
 Fellows, but Rooper, I think, did not come under either of 
 these ; and the same applies to the most brilliant name among 
 them all, Henry J. S. Smith. But in recalling the Balliol of 
 those days they cannot be left out. 
 
 I come back to Jowett and Green. Jowett was still, after 
 thirty years of tutorial life, " the great Balliol Tutor ", as 
 Clough had called him five-and-twenty years before. His 
 extraordinary vigour and freshness of mind, his devotion to 
 his pupils, his stimulating speech and presence, his " com- 
 bination of force of character and gentleness",^ his " unlikeness 
 
 ^ W. L. Newman, in Life and Letters of Jowett.
 
 Influence of Jozvett xxv 
 
 to everybody else" (to apply an expression which he used 
 himself of Arnold Toynbee), could not fail to impress a nature 
 like Rooper's. The range of his teaching activity at this 
 time was very wide — he lectured on Plato and the history 
 •of Greek Philosophy, on Thucydides and Sophocles, on 
 Political Economy, and lastly on the History of Religion, 
 This last course, as was usual with Jowett, was rather sugges- 
 tive than systematic; the aim was not so much to convey 
 information, still less to instil a set of opinions, but rather 
 to indicate a critical method, to open fresh points of view and 
 make men think for themselves. It was illuminating to find 
 the books of the New Testament approached with perfect 
 candour as literature, and to be told to read an Epistle of St. 
 Paul at a sitting. Rooper attended these lectures with great 
 assiduity, making full notes, and working at the subject by 
 himself. The first thing he had done when he came up to 
 Balliol was to read through Jowett's edition of the Epistles 
 to the Thessalonians, Romans and Galatians, and Jowett's 
 teaching, in which the religious spirit and the spirit of criticism 
 went hand in hand, appealed to the temper of his own mind, 
 at once so open to truth and so devotional. The essay on 
 the Atonement, for example, made a deep and lasting im- 
 pression on his mind. It is difficult to say how far we may 
 attribute to the direct teaching of Jowett the change which, 
 during the three or four years from nineteen to twenty-three, 
 came over his religious opinions, and caused him, after many 
 searchings of heart, to relinquish the long-cherished idea of 
 taking orders. No doubt it worked along with other forces. 
 It would be a mistake, however, to regard the teaching of 
 Jowett as negative or subversive. But he stimulated reflection, 
 and opened the mind for the reception of new ideas. 
 
 The influence of Green is difficult to define. In the first 
 place, no doubt, it was the influence on a young and ardent 
 mind of a great thinker and a great character. Rooper was 
 impressed, like so many others, by his teacher's enthusiasm 
 for ideas, his love of truth, his simplicity of life. His practical 
 mind was impressed also by the reality of the man, the in-
 
 xxvi Memoir 
 
 separableness in him of speculation and practice, the direct 
 bearing of his philosophy on conduct, his political sagacity 
 and strength of conviction, and he had insight enough to 
 appreciate the deep humanity and kindness which lay behind 
 the bluntness of speech and the reserve of the philosopher. 
 All this was enough to constitute for him a life-long influence 
 and inspiration. But there was something more than this; 
 Rooper always felt that Green's teaching had laid the founda- 
 tion of the beliefs in which he lived and worked. I speak 
 here with hesitation, but I think that there were at least two 
 articles of his creed which he traced directly to Green's 
 teaching — the one of a more general character, the other 
 more special and concerned with education. 
 
 I. The first was his idealism, the belief, as against ma- 
 terialism on the one side and supernaturalism on the other,, 
 that the world is the expression of reason, and that, because 
 it is so, it is within that world, the world of our knowledge 
 and moral endeavour, and not outside it, that the spiritual 
 is to be found. Rooper was a great student of Darwin,, 
 and he accepted the Darwinian conclusions, but he did not 
 regard them as inconsistent with the spiritual interpretation 
 of history and experience. He had imagination, and there 
 was, I think, something in him, in the best sense, of the 
 mystic — certainly his mind was intensely religious — but he 
 would not rest religion on doubtful facts, or belief on any- 
 thing less than reason, and the interpretation of the Christian 
 idea, which he chiefly owed to Green, as essentially ethical 
 and spiritual, and therefore independent of theological con- 
 troversies and changes of opinion, was of supreme impor- 
 tance to him. In the essay already referred to he writes: 
 " Unquestionably the foundation of faith for youth in these 
 days is seriously shaken. The question forces itself on the 
 attention whether in the long process of the education of the 
 human race Christianity has been but an episode, which is 
 drawing to an end. . . . Moving in such a sphere of thought 
 I approach the great question of the day — whether the Cross 
 is to be in the future what it has been in the past — the centre
 
 Influence of T. H. Green xxvii 
 
 of moral teaching in Christendom " (p. 236 inf^. I shall not 
 attempt to condense the thoughtful answer which he gives to 
 the question thus boldly raised ; but I will quote one sentence 
 from it, which seems to embody, as far as is possible in a few 
 words, what Christianity was to himself: " To be crucified 
 with Christ is to grasp and hold in the mind the death which 
 He died, as an inspiration to act from day to day throughout 
 life". It was this conception of Christianity which made it 
 possible and helpful to him to attend the services of the 
 Church, to attend Communion, and to find, as he did, his 
 deepest spiritual support in the Gospels and in St. Paul. 
 
 2. The second point is one which chiefly concerns his. 
 views on education, the doctrine, derived from Kant, that in 
 all experience the mind itself is a determining factor. This 
 is not the supposed doctrine of " Intuitionism " (which no one 
 holds), that a child is born with an intuitive perception of 
 moral or mathematical truth, but that as is the mind and its 
 actual content, so will be the object it apprehends. Applied 
 to education it amounts to the common-sense doctrine that 
 we have to start from the mind as it is, and therefore from 
 the known and the familiar, and that new knowledge can 
 only be taken in by being related to what is already there, and 
 will be interpreted and altered accordingly; the new attaches 
 itself to the old and takes its character from it. This is 
 the theme of perhaps the most remarkable of Rooper's essays. 
 The Pot of Gree7i Feathers. (See also the essay on Drawings 
 in Infant Schools.) The mere bald statement of the doctrine 
 may make it appear obvious and trite, but it is otherwise 
 when we try to understand it and to apply it to the art of 
 education. Rooper's essay is indeed extremely clear, but, like 
 so much that he wrote, its clearness is the result of long 
 thought and labour. To repeat what I have said in the 
 Preface, he would carry a subject about with him in his mind 
 for weeks and months together, returning to it again and 
 again in the intervals of his work; and he would spend 
 infinite pains in thinking a difficult subject out into sim- 
 plicity. I spoke of this essay to him not long before his
 
 xxviii Memoir 
 
 ■death, and he said: "It took me seven years". The essay, 
 which was printed separately, and has had a wide circulation 
 both in this country and in America, embodies, as he tells us, 
 the results of his study of various writers on psychology, but 
 he always spoke of Green's teaching as the original source 
 to him of the ideas which are worked out in it. 
 
 This, however, is to anticipate. He took a second class 
 in Classical Moderations in 1868, and the same position in 
 the Final Classical Schools ("narrowly missing a first", as 
 Green, who was one of the examiners, told him) at the end 
 of 1870. As already remarked, he had originally intended 
 taking Orders, and letters written in 1 871-1872 show that it 
 was only slowly and with reluctance that he abandoned the 
 idea. 
 
 "Tell me", he writes in January, 1871, "what you think 
 about the Church? I confess I sometimes waver where I 
 stood firm before. Whatever I may think myself I often am 
 struck by the behaviour of the many when they talk about 
 unbelief in the Church. I admit at Oxford this difficulty 
 vanishes, but it confronts one in the world. How painfully 
 I realize being away from my fellows, how I feel the want 
 •of conversation and interchange of ideas." 
 
 And again, a year later: " I am in a great quandary about 
 •entering the Church. I wish we could converse. I fear that 
 what I say may fail to give you the insight into my line of 
 thought. No doubt Jowett would say ' follow the dictates of 
 ■conscience, and if you are troubled with a too delicate one 
 I pity you, but cannot help you '. But then my difficulty is, 
 'Ought not your conscience to be delicate? It often strikes me 
 that men are not sufficiently careful about so-called verbal 
 truth; it is as if there were a truth which is important and 
 another truth which is less important. ... If the conscience 
 ■of the man of culture is chiefly used in recognizing a higher 
 line of action, and by following this gets more tender and 
 refined, ought we to sign the 39, although it is justifiable 
 \i.e. though on other grounds we could justify it], and with 
 a strict idea of truth should we not think it a higher thing
 
 Letters xxix: 
 
 not to sign? We thus admit that to sign is good, but not to 
 sign is better. (Is this delicacy of conscience or pedantry?) 
 The common objection is, how can you read ' I beHeve, &c.', 
 Sunday after Sunday, when you don't? 
 
 " On the other side, how absurd to sacrifice a great whole 
 of good for some little bit of Jesuitical questioning. Able 
 men in the Church from the beginning until now have never 
 held their oaths, &c., as checks to free enquiry, and again, one 
 must not be led away by the taunts of the vulgar, who think 
 they speak the plain truth without varnish when they simply 
 state half the question, and that inaccurately. Thus weighty 
 considerations on the one side seem to beget new ones on the 
 other, so that I am perplexed sore." 
 
 The ' delicate conscience ' prevailed, and in the course of 
 this year (1872) he seems to have finally decided against the 
 clerical profession. Meanwhile, however, keeping the ques- 
 tion open in his mind, he had accepted, early in 1871, an offer 
 from Mr. Hastings Russell (who in 1872 succeeded his cousin,, 
 William, 8th Duke of Bedford, in the dukedom) of a private 
 tutorship to his younger son Herbrand (the present duke), 
 then a boy of thirteen. Before taking up his post he spent 
 some months in the spring and summer of 1871 in Germany,, 
 working at the language, studying German ideas of education,, 
 and visiting some of the battle-fields. 
 
 "Depend upon it," he writes, "that this is the time to see 
 Germany. Their best qualities are now more palpable. I 
 admire the German army system because it gives every 
 citizen a vivid notion of his duties to his country. Every 
 little village has a board posted up on which the company 
 and regiment to which it belongs is conspicuously inscribed,, 
 so that no man can forget that he may have to lay down his 
 life for his country. I walked over the battle-fields and 
 learned to give a very full significance to the empty-sounding 
 phrase, Duke et decorum est, &c. I learned that the highesi 
 life implies a readiness to give it up at any moment. Thus 
 do common platitudes live and breathe in the presence of 
 great achievements."
 
 II. TUTORSHIP, 1871-1877 
 
 In July, 1 87 1, he entered on his appointment. Intended 
 ■originally to be only temporary, the event turned out other- 
 wise, and for the next five and a half years, to January, 1877, 
 when his pupil entered Balliol College, Rooper lived the 
 uneventful life of a private tutor. Living in lodgings (an 
 arrangement, however, which he greatly preferred), he was 
 •often oppressed with the sense of loneliness, and sometimes 
 felt keenly that he had not full scope for his powers. More- 
 over, it was not a career, and after he had given up the idea 
 of taking orders his future was quite uncertain. But there 
 were many compensations. He took to his pupil from the 
 first, "a bright- looking little fellow with pleasant manners, 
 such as are peculiar to aristocracy, and which move my 
 admiration in spite of all radical instincts and education", and 
 he was*interested in carrying out his own ideas of education, 
 in which the Duke, who had great confidence in him, left him 
 a very free hand. A " statement of work done by Lord 
 Herbrand Russell under my superintendence between July, 
 1871, and January, 1877," comprises, besides a long list of 
 Greek and Latin authors, Macaulay and other standard 
 histories, and also a considerable amount of natural science, 
 including Huxley's Physiolog}>, Darwin's Oj'igin of Species, 
 and two series of lectures in Anatomy at South Kensington in 
 1 874-1 875. He had leisure to read and study for himself, and 
 he read widely at this period, largely (though not exclusively) 
 in direct connection with his work with his pupil, classical 
 literature and history, English history, and science. The 
 Origin of Species was very thoroughly studied, and he also 
 read other works of Darwin, in which he found a great 
 stimulus to his study of botany. Both at this time and after-
 
 At Woburn and Endsleigh xxxi 
 
 wards, even in his busiest years, he Hked to devote some part 
 of his Sundays to religious and theological literature, and 
 especially to the study of the New Testament. 
 
 Again, country life was a great enjoyment to him. From 
 Endsleigh he writes, soon after his arrival : " This is a charm- 
 ing valley, whether we walk along the winding Tamar and 
 through the woods and meadows which ' adorn its banks and 
 are adorned of it ', or whether we choose the uplands with 
 the vast views of Cornish moors and Cornish tors. Herbrand 
 is an excellent walker, a young ostrich in fact, and his com- 
 panionship pleasurable, though, of course, he usually rides." 
 
 He writes from Woburn: " I am entered upon a new phase 
 of my life, and will tell you a little about it. My cottage stands 
 on the edge of the park, about two miles from the house. 
 Every morning at 9.30 a pony carriage, drawn by two little 
 Shetland ponies, calls here to convey me to Woburn Abbey. 
 Just at this season the drive through the park is very plea- 
 sant, and I like to watch these charming ponies scarce so 
 big as rats. After my morning's work I find my way home 
 afoot. ... I wander through the park about the green rides, 
 and the woods and the walks are very enjoyable. Besides 
 this park, which is thirteen miles round, Ampthill Park is 
 close at hand, from whence a lovely view may be seen, and 
 there are its historical associations. . . . The family are most 
 courteous and good-natured in every way, feeding the hungry 
 with game and satisfying the thirsty with wine." 
 
 And again, at a later date: "On Thursday Herbrand and 
 self made our annual expedition down the Lyd and past 
 its confluence with the Tamar, and along the main stream to 
 Endsleigh. Luckily the water was not high, and the journey 
 was not attended with the same difficulties as last year, when 
 I came to grief and Herbrand showed his skill by navigating 
 the course successfully." He and his pupil walked and rowed 
 and worked together, read the classics and English history 
 and (later on) Darwin, attended lectures on anatomy at 
 South Kensington, and became fast friends. The tutorship, as 
 already stated, lasted till January, 1877, when Lord Herbrand
 
 xxxii Memoir 
 
 went to Balliol, but he worked with him again in the Long" 
 Vacation of that year, and the two continued their friend- 
 ship after the relation of tutor and pupil had ceased between 
 them. In 1879 Lord Herbrand joined the Grenadier Guards,, 
 and in October, 1882, he writes a long letter to his old 
 teacher from Cairo, giving a graphic picture of his experience 
 at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and of the events preceding it. 
 
 Rooper formed a close friendship during the years at VVo- 
 burn with his pupil's elder brother, then Marquis of Tavistock,, 
 and this friendship, together with that of Lady Tavistock 
 (now the Duchess Adeline), were an incident of his tutorship' 
 which gave great happiness to him. He thought very highly 
 of Lord Tavistock's ability, especially of his knowledge and 
 judgment in political affairs, and his early death in 1893, only 
 two years after his succession to the dukedom, was lamented 
 by few more than it was by Rooper. Lord Herbrand 
 succeeded his brother, and it was with keen interest and 
 pleasure that Rooper saw his old pupil taking a prominent 
 place in the county and in the House of Lords and becoming 
 an active public man. 
 
 In conclusion, I should wish to say a few words on his 
 relations with the Duke, Lord Herbrand's father. Rooper 
 had the highest regard and respect for the Duke; he admired 
 his originality of character, his independence and uncon- 
 ventionality, and his strong sense of public duty, and he was 
 attracted by the kindness of heart and genuine desire for 
 human good, which, in spite of what he himself called his 
 'pessimism', were conspicuous in him. The refined and culti- 
 vated tone, too, which he found at Woburn appealed to 
 Rooper. Writing some time afterwards he says : " I certainly 
 find that there is no society among my friends [here] at all 
 equal to the Russells in breadth, liberality, or refinement of 
 sentiment ". And the duke on his side was impressed by 
 Rooper's character, " his sense of duty, his love of work, his 
 simple tastes and habit of life", and he valued highly his influ- 
 ence with his sons. At the close of the tutorship he writes: 
 " I have often attempted to thank you for the many years
 
 Diary xxxiii 
 
 of patient devotion to the duty you had undertaken, and I 
 renew the attempt, without the hope of succeeding. . . . 
 Whenever (if ever) I may be able to be of any service to 
 you in life,^ pray do not allow diffidence to make you hesitate 
 before you write to me. I shall ask you as a favour to do 
 this." 
 
 Again (in a conversation which Rooper records in a letter 
 to his mother) : " Tavistock appears to have a real affection 
 for you, and I am very glad of it. What you say to him 
 makes him think, and I thank you for it. I only wish my 
 sons " (he continued) " to be good members of society ; I am 
 not anxious for them to surpass others in anything or be 
 conspicuous among men; all I want is that they may be less 
 idle, less useless, less vulgar than too many rich youths of 
 the present generation." I may add a few extracts from 
 the Diary and from letters: — 
 
 From the Diary. July i8, i8yy. 
 
 " In the evening the Duke came up and paid me a long visit. 
 ' I am glad ', said he, ' to find myself at Endsleigh with all my children 
 about me again. It cannot happen often; they go out into the 
 world and we see little of them.' He said he was glad Tavistock took 
 to his work in the House of Commons. 'It is a fine school. In 
 committees a man understands how business is best disposed. On 
 the floor of the House a man stands on his own bottom entirely, and 
 has no conventional humbug to support him of any kind. Miall 
 always says he longs for the House of Commons again, for that is 
 the only place where religious toleration is absolute.' He regretted 
 much that he had brought up his sons to be so comfortable; as they 
 grew older they would see that too much comfort was a mistake. 
 He was sure now that youth ought to be early inured to hardship." 
 
 From the Diary. Sept. j, iSyy. 
 
 " The Duke accompanied me in his travelling-carriage to Crawley. 
 Nothing can be kinder than his conduct to me. He had put into 
 
 ^ His support was of material assistance to Rooper in obtaining the school-inspectorship. 
 
 3
 
 xxxiv Memoir 
 
 the carriage half a dozen of claret, a brace of partridges, a neck of 
 mutton, and some parmesan cheese.^ He stepped into the house 
 and inspected the rooms upstairs and down, and left me in exile at 
 Patmos in good humour. Wonderful to hear him quote passages 
 from all literatures — English, Italian, French, German, — to hear him 
 describe his adventures in the Peninsula with his father in the Don 
 Pedro affair, when he was under fire, to listen to his criticisms on all 
 kinds of subjects, political, agricultural and scientific, never saying 
 a foolish thing." 
 
 To his mother. Nov. i8yy. 
 
 " ' You undertake ', the Duke said, ' a very hard and wearisome 
 profession [the School-Inspectorship], but it is a very useful one, and 
 much may be made of it if you will devote yourself to it. At present 
 I am sure there is a great deal of very imperfect inspection.' . . . 
 He then said a good many clever things about education — home 
 versus public school. Some foreign eminence used to say to his 
 [the Duke's] mother, 'the best form of education yet developed is 
 that in the English public schools, mats dest detestable.^ ' The fact 
 is, nobody yet knows enough about education — it is dynamic, not 
 systematic at present. Home education is usually bad, because it 
 means education among servants, grooms, &c., but if people live 
 with their children it is another matter.' The same friend 'used to 
 abuse the nursery as a bad and peculiarly English institution — " La 
 Siberie des enfants" he called it. Foreign people have their children 
 about them much more than English. How can people who live 
 for society do their duty to their children?' ... I said, perhaps 
 Balliol has too much influence in the Education Office. ' No, don't 
 say that,' he said, ' when it has done so much for my children.' " 
 
 I conclude this chapter in his life with some further 
 passages from his Diary and from letters of this period, 
 bearing mainly, though not exclusively, on religion. They 
 are given, not because they contain any very striking or 
 original thoughts — he became more original as he grew older 
 — but because they take us near to him. 
 
 ^ On another occasion he sends him "a sheep's head pie, a favourite dish of the 
 ■Queen's". Similar little attentions, "to make my anchorite life happier" are often 
 recorded in the Diary.
 
 Letters xxxv 
 
 To R. G. Tatton. 
 
 " It is now that I realize that Oxford Hfe is a thing of the past. 
 So slow is my imagination that up to this I always had a hazy notion 
 that we should not yet separate; and now that four years' companion- 
 ship will be at times a golden dream and at times a keel on which 
 the ship is to be built — the starting-point of our endeavours. But 
 the most serious thing is, as you put it, the loss of intercourse with 
 the good and the wise. The people I meet in the world seem to me 
 'not to know truth' but to be all sophists, if you will think that I 
 mean all that we have been taught to mean by that. ... Of course 
 I meet lots of practically good people and admire, but I don't meet 
 any more those who embody ideas in action. . . . Still I must not 
 let you think I am dissatisfied with my lot, I only express my fears 
 about the Kingdom of Heaven, to use an obsolete phrase. I know 
 that I can do more good here than at Oxford." 
 
 To the same. 
 
 " I find myself carrying on the diverse streams of learning which 
 had their rise at Oxford. I hope they may meet at last and roll 
 on in one channel. But that must be in some kind of practical 
 work, and among the less educated Englishmen. I wish I had 
 something definite to say about the when and the how this would 
 come to pass. One reason of my own uncertainty is a good one 
 to hear, namely — so much that I think ought to be done is being 
 done by others that it is not easy to find any specially appropriate 
 work. I do hope I shall manage to live in quite a different state 
 of life from that to which it has pleased God to call me. . . . Oh, 
 for a freer and more cultivated society — a more ascetic cultivation 
 of art and a nobler aim in life! How hateful is this comfort-seeking 
 spirit that pervades. Only let us alone to lick our own fingers — 
 there, that is the maxim that all act upon. When I compare Salis- 
 bury Cathedral, 400 feet high, and the houses of the close, 40 feet 
 high, with London houses overshadowing the churches, then I realize 
 the relation of Gothic Christianity to the nineteenth-century revival 
 of it."
 
 xxxvi Memoir 
 
 From the Diary, i8y2-yj. 
 
 " Time was when you looked forward to no ordinary life of dull 
 respectability, when you were inspired by the high examples of those 
 labouring for Christ in crowded cities. How far otherwise has it all 
 turned out. Wait, there is yet an undeveloped future. Outward 
 circumstances bind you, the nearest duties constrain you, there is 
 such a thing as a very selfish kind of heroism — wait and work, and 
 beware lest your capacity for nobler feelings be impaired; watch and 
 pray, for you may easily acquiesce in a lower life when present 
 circumstances prevent you following a higher. Meanwhile much 
 may be done as quiet work." 
 
 "Why do I go to church? Every earnest man who has been 
 brought up a Christian feels the need of outwardly expressing his 
 determination to fight on the side of good, and to exercise all the 
 self-denial that that implies. He cannot bear isolation in his good 
 resolves. The Christians acknowledge one creed and pray for what 
 they desire. Though I cannot do that I sympathize w-ith the 
 Christians in the remaining object of their foregathering, namely, 
 to declare their readiness to ' do ' as Christ did." 
 
 " For my part I think that all who pursue goodness and truth, 
 struggling to escape from the common life, and believing in the 
 progressive perfectibility of man, and working to that end, may be 
 said to have faith in religion, even though none of the religious 
 creeds are professed. There is such a thing as a ' creative ' worship 
 of an ideal." 
 
 " In any study of theology we ought to lay it down as a canon that 
 it is of much more importance that what we believe should be true 
 than that we should believe any dogma whatever." 
 
 "Christianity can no longer be regarded as isolated while it is 
 shown more clearly than ever to be unique — it has points of con- 
 nection everywhere, and gathers up and completes all the spiritual 
 aspirations of men scattered throughout the world." 
 
 "Those who guide the thoughts of intelligent laymen of the 
 present day are no longer the clergy. They impede rather than 
 stimulate the intellectual development of the age. It is the great 
 lay thinkers who are the real instructors, and whose noble works in 
 literature and science have replaced both pulpit and confessional. 
 Christianity handed over the poor to the charity of the rich, but now
 
 Diary xxxvii 
 
 we would help the poor to help themselves and be independent. 
 Under the new theological system our activities will be employed 
 to execute the will of Heaven as it is manifested in the known order 
 of nature. If the fall of man is the central conception of one system 
 his progress is the central conception of the other." 
 
 " Have we obtained a new idea of knowledge which shuts out 
 all thinking about God? Shall the great mass of definite objects of 
 study abolish all thoughts of the Infinite? Shall we say: I have too 
 much to occupy my thoughts regarding the process of nature to find 
 time for the old subjects of thought, as to the Origin of the World, 
 &c.? If this is the case, must not the religion of sorrow die out? 
 Will not men and women cease to care for the sick and the afflicted, 
 looking upon the race of men as the race of animals, where we kill 
 off the defective stock? Will not man rejoice in his strength as the 
 best bred dog, spurning beneath him all that is inferior? What but 
 the belief in God will lead men and women to go among the foul 
 alleys of the city at the risk of contagion as the work of a life?" 
 
 "The question concerning God comes to this: Is the gradual 
 development of good through a series of events causing much evil 
 inconsistent with our ideas of divine perfection? Will all the ideas 
 associated with Christian theology perish together with Christian 
 theology? Oh, for someone to try to teach these ideas to the 
 common people! You do not need to propagate a new form of 
 religion, but rather to try to make certain people better, less careless, 
 less thoughtless, less ignorant, less immoral. Try to make them 
 nobler by uniting their thoughts to living ideas of goodness. * I 
 often think,' said one, 'that what many a poor criminal wants to 
 make him right is not punishment so much as comfort.' " 
 
 "What support is there then for the dying? The highest and 
 strongest support is a consciousness of an active and well-spent life, 
 then the weary one falls asleep as one that has ended a hard day's work." 
 
 " It were a good thing to put an end to the base and degrading 
 fears associated with dying, to get people to understand that after a 
 well-spent life a man should die as calmly as he would fall asleep after 
 a good day's work. What a contradiction there is between Christ's 
 teaching and modern Ufa — yet I think I do not condemn modern 
 life, but rather the inexpansive mind of the Church. Two sides of 
 hfe seem ignored in the strictly Christian life, namely, family life and 
 civic life, and I must add the artistic side of life, in which I include
 
 xxxviii Memoir 
 
 wealth. . . , Modern churchmen try to force these things into 
 Christ's teaching, but we ought to acknowledge that our view of life 
 is wider on account of the extent of our knowledge in other direc- 
 tions. It is foolish to force new wine into old bottles. Let us 
 admire the Christian life and learn all we can from it, but yet 
 let us remember that there are new things not dreamt of in Christian 
 philosophy. Do not let us seek reconciliation of conflicting ideas, 
 but accept what our reason admits, and let us wait, when we shall 
 find inconsistent ideas settle the matter quietly between themselves. 
 Let the growth of the new be gradual." 
 
 " It is a pity to hear people in these times complaining of the 
 decay of the religious spirit, and of the havoc made by men of 
 science and atheists. Are matters so hopeless as is represented? 
 What is religion? It is an active living force known by its results, 
 but no more admitting an exact definition than electricity or heat. 
 It does not tell a man what he is to do, for that is the office of many 
 sciences, nor does it tell him what he is to believe, for that is the 
 office of theology, but it is an emotion which forces him to do his 
 best when he tries to do anything at all." 
 
 " It is a worthy aspiration to show that an earnest man can seek 
 after goodness now as much as in former times, and to put to shame 
 this shallow faint-hearted foppery of despair." 
 
 "With Bosanquet and Heberden at Salisbury. When will the 
 men of our race get force enough again to produce anything so beau- 
 tiful, so original, so magnificent, as this cathedral. How can we 
 arrive at that ascetic pursuit of art which the monks followed with 
 such unselfishness, with such noble lavishness? how follow true art 
 and not sell ourselves to comfort ? how keep up that dignity of life 
 which is cherished by the Church without the support of ecclesiastical 
 machinery?" 
 
 "Christmas, 1873. The Church Bells. How many centuries 
 have men been rejoicing over the reign of peace and goodwill to 
 mankind, and yet where are the signs that we are drawing nearer 
 and nearer. Who makes it the aim of his life to burst the bonds of 
 rank and wealth, and to lead the divided classes of society to know 
 one another and to work together for a common unselfish end? 
 These bells are sarcastic — so far from all classes of men coalescing, 
 the whole course of events separates them more and more every 
 year. Every year some new barrier is formed, making divisions
 
 Diary xxxix 
 
 smaller still, and we become more and more exclusive to each other, 
 more and more fenced in, both within and without, against our kind. 
 What keeps the social fabric together at all is a wonder. Soon the 
 need of this may come, and woe to all the privileged classes. It is 
 the positive need, the policy, of everyone to think how he can help 
 to put an end to this tendency to isolation, to this terrible centrifugal 
 force in the nation." 
 
 " It is good to have Ideals before us. . . . With our eyes fixed on 
 ideals we may escape the death in life which ensues when a man 
 allows himself to be oppressed by the same repetition of the daily 
 round of trivial duties. We may throw a spirit into our everyday 
 life which may make all common tasks special tasks, and can kindle 
 a fire within us by whose warmth we may keep up to the end the 
 ardour with which we begin." 
 
 " His life is only half a life after all whose time is wholly given 
 to other people's business or his own. There should be in all of us 
 some element of repose, and repose comes through self-concentration. 
 There should be a corner of the soul in which a private sphinx sits 
 ensconced in lonely and severe and unapproachable reserve."
 
 III. FIRST PERIOD OF SCHOOL-INSPECTORSHIP: 
 NEWCASTLE, 1877-1882 
 
 The education of the people was a cause which always lay 
 near to Rooper's heart, and he had long felt attracted to the 
 career of a School-Inspector. Early in 1876, after consulta- 
 tion with Dr. Butler, he determined to apply for an appoint- 
 ment. His application was strongly backed by Jowett and 
 by the Duke of Bedford, and in November, 1877, he was 
 appointed by Sir F. Sandford as Second Inspector in the 
 Northumberland district. His tutorship had come to a close 
 in January of that year, when Lord Herbrand went up to 
 Balliol, and the intervening months were spent very happily. 
 From February to July he was at Harrow, making a new 
 experience in education, which may well have been of service 
 to him in his subsequent work. During those six months he 
 acted as tutor to Dr. and Mrs. Butler's young children, and 
 I may repeat here the sentence in Dr. Butler's letter in which 
 he records his impression of Rooper's ways with children. 
 " It was charming", he says, "to see him with them — so play- 
 ful, so entertaining, so intelligent in catching their characters, 
 so skilful in teaching while hardly seeming to teach, so full 
 of sympathy and affection." He easily won the affection of 
 his pupils in return, most of all of the eldest boy — now a 
 master at Harrow — who was preparing for Elstree, and he 
 confirmed and strengthened his friendship with Dr. and Mrs. 
 Butler, which, as with so many who learnt to know them at 
 Harrow, was one of the best possessions of his life. 
 
 The autumn months he spent with his old pupil, assisting 
 him in his vacation work — this also a time to which he looked 
 back with special pleasure — and in November came the 
 appointment to Newcastle, when he entered on the career 
 which was to be in so many ways fruitful of good to educa- 
 
 xl
 
 Inspectorship — Newcastle xli 
 
 tion in England. His life as a School- Inspector falls into 
 three periods: — Five years in Northumberland as Second 
 Inspector under Mr. D. E. Pennethorne, thirteen years in 
 charge of the Bradford District, and the last seven years, to his 
 ■death in May, 1903, in charge of the Southampton District. 
 
 I shall not dwell at length on what I may perhaps call 
 his period of apprenticeship. He threw himself vigorously 
 into the work; he was gaining experience, and maturing 
 his views; but as second in command there was less oppor- 
 tunity for initiative than he found later on. Then, however, 
 as afterwards, his qualities were apparent: the whole-hearted 
 devotion to duty; the sincerity of mind and purpose, which 
 made acquiescence in mere routine impossible to him and 
 drove him forward always to learn all he could of the best 
 that had been thought and practised in education, whether in 
 England or abroad, and to carry out, so far as might be, what 
 he knew; the breadth of his interests and sympathies; the 
 singular combination in him of modesty and self-reliance; 
 his personal charm, his gentleness, his humour; his almost 
 feminine gift of sympathy; his affection for his friends; his 
 complete unselfishness. He was highly strung, and he suffered 
 from constitutional shyness which, combined with a certain 
 nervous hesitancy in speech, seems to have militated at first 
 against his efficiency. The shyness wore off, we are told, as 
 lie became accustomed to the work, but he never perhaps 
 entirely got over it. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Pennethorne for the following 
 account of his impressions of Rooper at that period: — 
 
 " He was at first very shy and nervous, and did not like being 
 left alone with the class and its teacher in a class-room, but this soon 
 wore off as he got accustomed to the work. It has been said to me 
 that he did not show by his manner whether the school was doing 
 well or ill, that he kept his feelings to himself. ... I used to enjoy 
 seeing him at the end of the week, when he would come in and tell 
 his experiences. From the first he took great interest in his work, 
 but always saw the humorous side of what he had to do. He was 
 decidedly hard worked, as he came to me at a time when the work
 
 xlii Memoir 
 
 was very heavy and the schools were increasing every year, but I 
 never heard him complain but once, when I agreed with him that 
 I had set him a very hard, and almost an impossible, day's work. . . . 
 He did work outside his official duties. For example, he examined 
 the House of Education at Ambleside. Hard worked as he was, he 
 would find time to take long walks on Saturday and Sunday, gathering 
 botanical specimens, and would draw their parts at large on a black- 
 board, in order that he might give lectures to others. He showed 
 me an account of his visit during the vacation to some German 
 school, written, I think, for the Pall Mall Gazette, and I was much 
 struck by the style in which it was written. I read later a pamphlet 
 of his, and again I felt the influence of his style. It was not vigour 
 so much as refined and subtle insight. Subjects did not only present 
 their surface to him, and he had a charming manner of expressing 
 his thought." 
 
 After his appointment to Bradford Mr. Pennethorne still 
 saw him from time to time, and relates that in a conversation 
 at Harrogate " he told me how much he was doing for the 
 teachers, not in any boasting spirit, but as if it were the 
 natural thing to do. He seemed to be devoting himself 
 and all that he had to the cause of education and those who 
 were anxious to learn the work of teachers. Inspecting 
 schools was not a business to him by which he earned his 
 living, but a passion for education." 
 
 The visit to German schools in 1881, of which Mr. Penne- 
 thorne speaks, was the first of a series which he undertook to 
 study elementary education in that country, and which bore 
 such good fruit. He spent a fortnight at Leipzig and Dres- 
 den, visiting schools every day, acquainting himself with the 
 curriculum, hearing the lessons given, and conversing with 
 the teachers, learning, as his habit was, their views and aims. 
 His diary contains full notes, sometimes of the curriculum in 
 detail, sometimes of special points which struck him, as, for 
 instance, at a kindergarten : " The mistress first showed me 
 the little ones at play and singing — she had twenty-four, but 
 could manage fifty; they all looked bright and happy. She 
 keeps a book showing the character of each child; she has
 
 Visit to Germany — Death of Mi's. Rooper xliii 
 
 a morning hymn, then a talk about an object, also a garden in 
 connection with the school where the children sow, and watch 
 the growth of plants." 
 
 The following summer holiday we find him at Hamburg 
 upon the same quest. He is studying Froebel, and he meets 
 here Dr. Lange, Froebel's son-in-law, and takes counsel 
 with him on the study of Froebel's life. Leaving Hamburg,, 
 we are glad to find the bow relaxed; he journeys by way 
 of Liibeck and other towns to Copenhagen, where he visits 
 Elsinor, and " stands on the flag terrace where Hamlet met 
 his father's ghost". The return journey to England on this 
 occasion seems to have been a trial, for the entry on Sept. 2 
 is — " London, 8.15. In the evening, Ouseley, where all well, 
 and the pleasure of returning home compensates for all the 
 annoyance of foreign travel, and makes it worth the doing." 
 But in fact he usually enjoyed travel, and the Diary is full 
 of bright comment on all that interests him — scenery, 
 manners, art — and on the companions whom the chance of 
 travel throws in his way; for, travelling as he did, alone, he 
 was the most companionable of men, and always ready to 
 make friends. 
 
 Early in this year, 1 882, the greatest sorrow of his life had 
 befallen him. After a few weeks' illness, " not from disease, the 
 doctor said, but old age ", his mother died. I will transcribe 
 the simple words with which the Diary for this year ends. 
 
 "So passes away 1882, and the end is happier than the opening, 
 for the immediate presence of a great sorrow has passed away, and 
 the family is more vigorous in mind and body than it has been for 
 some time. E seems a new person. But we that were sepa- 
 rated last year [at the beginning of the year], does not love grow 
 stronger in absence? . . . May thy memory, Mother mine, preserve 
 in me the goodness you implanted and cherished, and then when 
 mind again meets mind, you may not say : ' That mind I know not ; 
 it is not what I made it to become; it is spoilt'." 
 
 So passes away 1882. With the next year came the 
 appointment to Bradford, and a new chapter in his life begins.
 
 IV. BRADFORD, 1882-1895 
 
 It was a happy fortune that sent Rooper to Bradford. 
 The district included the great populous centres of Bradford 
 itself, with Keighley and the Worth Valley, and smaller 
 towns such as Skipton, the centre of Craven, and others, 
 and extended north-west to the villages of Upper Wharfdale 
 ■and Airedale, and the Yorkshire portions of Ribblesdale and 
 Lunesdale. The combination of town and country suited 
 him; each had its own educational problems, and the busy 
 life of Bradford and the quiet of the Yorkshire dales equally 
 appealed to him. He was fortunate also in his appointment 
 ■coinciding with that of Mr. J. R. Blakiston, formerly Fellow 
 of Trinity College, Cambridge, as superintendent of the 
 North-East Division (Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumber- 
 land), a man for whose intellectual powers and educational 
 ■enthusiasm he had the highest respect, who was full of 
 sympathy with his aims, and with whom he formed a warm 
 friendship, which ended only with his death. I am indebted 
 to Mr. Blakiston for the following communication: — 
 
 " I vividly recall my first meeting with Rooper at York on the 
 •eve of the Easter Conference of the Inspectors of the North-east 
 Division. A very few minutes' conversation put us completely en 
 rapport; each took to the other instinctively, at once unconsciously 
 recognizing kindred spirits and common zeal for education. His 
 •charming demeanour, his unaffected simplicity and earnest enthusiasm 
 for our common work, the deference of his manner and speech to 
 me as his senior, his keen appreciation of humour, made upon me 
 an impression which all our subsequent intercourse more than con- 
 firmed; for it was my great happiness and privilege to find that our 
 mutual regard not only survived eleven years, but grew stronger 
 every year, notwithstanding the difference in our ages, till I felt to 
 
 xliv
 
 Inspectorship — Bradford xlv 
 
 him as a brother. ... As soon as he was settled in Bradford he 
 made earnest efforts to carry out a reform in the methods of teaching, 
 geography, on which I had been engaged at Leicester. He took up 
 enthusiastically what he thought was a rational way of teaching the 
 subject, and therefore encountered for a time some ill-feeling among 
 teachers who had taught on the old cut-and-dry, list-of-names style. 
 Of this ill-will I saw painful evidence during the discussion following a 
 paper which I had asked him to read at a meeting of Bradford teachers. 
 Never afterwards, however, did I, when visiting various schools in 
 Bradford district, either in his company or in his absence, see signs of 
 other than friendly relations between the teachers and their inspector. 
 " He also spent both labour and money in getting up a geo- 
 graphical exhibition and inducing friends to read papers, so as tO' 
 arouse an intelligent interest in the subject. Perceiving how seriously 
 his efforts to secure intelligent teaching were hindered by the lack 
 of trained and educated teachers, our friend next turned his atten- 
 tion to the establishment of classes for the improvement of ex-pupil 
 teachers unable to enter a college. On these classes he bestowed, 
 freely and generously, time, thought and money. Not content with, 
 this, he also spared no efforts to further Slojd and other hand-and-eye 
 training. Though not a very strong man he added to his other 
 heavy official work, which was so well done that no appeal from his 
 decisions was ever made to me, lectures and papers on these and 
 other subjects, and he subsequently devoted time and money to 
 supplying elementary schools with gardens and to the delivery of" 
 practical lessons on the management of them. After his transference 
 to Southampton, finding the methods in some infant schools in the 
 South of England less rational than those which he had left in York- 
 shire, Rooper took up enthusiastically an idea which had occurred 
 to me of late years, to produce a booklet which might help to reheve 
 both teachers and taught from the dreary routine. It was a great joy 
 to me to secure his hearty approval of its contents, which his pain, 
 during the last winter did not debar him from expressing. To his, 
 memory, as an earnest and genial worker, it has since been my 
 privilege to dedicate a revised edition of the work, in which he took, 
 such sympathetic interest to the last." 
 
 To this appreciation I add two others, the first by Mr.. 
 A. G. Legard, Divisional Inspector of Schools for Wales, his.
 
 xlvi Memoir 
 
 colleague for some years in the West Riding, the other by 
 Mr. George Sedgwick, his trusted and devoted assistant 
 during the whole of his twelve years at Bradford. 
 
 "Although Rooper and I were undergraduates together at Balliol, 
 he was much junior to me, and I knew him but slightly. 
 
 "When, however, we were both young men, he was stationed at 
 Bradford and I was stationed at Leeds, as inspectors of schools, and 
 we had naturally many interests in common. We subsequently each 
 of us made Harrogate our head-quarters, and often took walks to- 
 gether in that delightful district on Sunday afternoons. A close 
 friendship then grew up between us, and although at a later date 
 I received an appointment in Wales, and he took up work at South- 
 ampton, the early ties formed in the West Riding were never 
 severed, and I hardly considered any educational gathering or con- 
 ference with which I was connected complete unless I secured his 
 presence and co-operation. 
 
 "To Rooper I may frankly say that I owe more than I do to 
 any man except to our common tutor the late T. H. Green. 
 
 " In the early years after the passing of the Education Act of 1870 
 much of the work of an inspector of schools was of an uninteresting 
 and formal character. His duty was to assess the grants, and there 
 was little else with which he was obliged to concern himself To 
 ^j Rooper belongs the credit of showing his colleagues how it was 
 possible to rise superior to mere routine and formalism without any 
 relaxation of official duties. 
 
 " He threw himself with energy into every movement that was 
 likely to increase the interest of teachers in their profession, and 
 humanize their work. He saw, for example, as a student of Plato, 
 the far-reaching benefits of children being brought up among sur- 
 roundings of an elevating kind, and gave practical effect to his 
 views by initiating at Bradford an exhibition of pictures that were 
 suitable for schools. 
 
 "Again, when the idea of manual training was quite in its infancy 
 in England, he started a small carpentering class at Bradford that met 
 on certain evenings in the week in very poor premises, and showed 
 in a little pamphlet how it was possible to carry on such a class. 
 I shall never forget a certain walk which we took together, in which 
 he put before me in a light that had never occurred to me before the
 
 Inspectorship — Bradford xlvii 
 
 educational value of hand-work. In later years he was an ardent, 
 though never a bigoted, disciple of the Swedish system of Slojd. 
 
 " In the days when Rooper and I were at school and at Oxford 
 little attention was paid to the teaching of science, but when the 
 scientific revival began, the instruction in the elementary schools was 
 to some extent influenced by this movement. In order to keep 
 himself abreast of these new developments, which were of much 
 importance in the West Riding, Rooper one year devoted some 
 weeks of his well-earned holiday to a course of scientific study at 
 South Kensington. He thus put into effect the maxim on which he 
 always laid so much stress, that knowledge, to be of any value, should 
 be acquired at first hand. 
 
 " Up to the closing years of his life he followed out the same 
 practice by personally attending holiday courses for teachers in 
 Nature Study. 
 
 "Although Rooper's chief concern was education, it must not be 
 supposed that he did not take, as might have been expected from a 
 pupil of T. H. Green, a keen interest in other public and social 
 questions. As a civil servant he was debarred from taking any part 
 in politics, but in letters and in private discussion he showed that he 
 kept in close touch with matters that affected our national life. He 
 was thus no mere pedant, and the many-sided interest that he dis- 
 played in affairs outside his profession was one of his sources of 
 strength in the arduous life that he led as a school inspector." 
 
 A. G. LEGARD, 
 
 Divisional Inspector of 
 
 Schools for Wales. 
 
 "Soon after Mr. Rooper's appointment as H.M. Inspector in 
 charge of the Bradford District, it became apparent that a new force 
 had arrived among us, and that a new spirit was henceforth to ani- 
 mate the entire administration of local affairs under the Board of 
 Education. To say that before this time there had been a slavish 
 adherence to rigid rule and to the strict letter of codes and regula- 
 tions is no disparagement of his predecessors, for such was the usual 
 manner of the times. Mr. Rooper very soon showed to all con- 
 cerned that, so far as he could prevent it, sound methods and useful 
 experiments should not be strangled by red tape, but that the end 
 and aim of all educational machinery should be kept continually in
 
 xlviii Memoir 
 
 view. Hence, individuality on the part of teachers in framing 
 schemes of instruction was encouraged, even though this might con- 
 travene the strict letter of official regulations. Wider freedom for 
 teachers, for school managers, and for inspectors was demanded. 
 
 " Mr. Rooper soon saw that the training and equipment of the 
 teacher is the most important factor in the education of the people. 
 For various reasons an unusual proportion of young teachers in the 
 Bradford District did not proceed to a training college, but laboriously 
 studied for their certificate examination concurrently with their work 
 in school. To remedy as far as possible this defect, he organized- 
 classes for instruction in the various subjects of the teachers' cur- 
 riculum. He secured the services of the best local teachers, utilizing 
 largely the excellent staff then at the Bradford Grammar School, and 
 for several years he bore unaided the entire financial burden. 
 
 " Not only does education generally owe much to his stimulus 
 and inspiration, but the teaching of various subjects was almost re- 
 volutionized by his exertions." 
 
 Mr. Sedgwick instances more especially Geography, Manual 
 Training, and Infant School Teaching, subjects also mentioned 
 by Mr. Blakiston. He then goes on to speak of Rooper's 
 
 "extraordinary tact in dealing with those who could not at first 
 appreciate his aims and methods. He had to deal in the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire with a highly independent and self-reliant type- 
 of character, and the most delicate handling was required in the 
 pursuance of his ends. He ever followed the line of least resistance, 
 and those who were in his confidence saw sometimes with amuse- 
 ment how he led others who thought at the time that they were lead- 
 ing him, and how by tactful diplomacy he accomplished certain 
 things which would have been impossible to one less gifted. 
 
 "Another marked feature in his character was his openness of 
 mind and his readiness to learn from everyone, however humble or 
 however young, with whom he might come into contact. Many of 
 the movements with which his name came to be associated were not 
 in the first instance due to his own initiative or invention. But he 
 had a remarkable faculty for seeing what was good, and at the same 
 time possible of execution, in the ideas of others, and by his energy 
 and zeal, furthered by his readiness to render financial help, he trans- 
 lated ideas and aspirations into fruitful and productive action."
 
 hispectorship — Bradford xlix 
 
 Mr. Sedgwick continues: 
 
 " Little has been said of him [in the notices which appeared after 
 his death] in the character of a companion and a friend. Yet it was 
 when freed from the cares and responsibilities of official work that 
 his personal charm and magnetic influence were most apparent. As 
 I write, memories crowd upon me of quiet strolls on summer evenings 
 by the rushing Wharfe, of long tramps over Craven Hills, during 
 which no mention was made of teachers or schools, of acts or codes, 
 but when Nature's charms were dwelt on with loving appreciation. 
 He was a great admirer of the scenery of Craven and the dales in 
 the north-west of Yorkshire. There is scarcely a cave which we 
 have not explored together, or a hill that we have not climbed in 
 the wide region comprising the upper courses of the Lune, the Ribble, 
 the Wharfe, and the Aire. The folk-lore of the district had special 
 attractions for him, and he listened with the greatest interest to old 
 farmers, labourers, inn-keepers, and others, who could throw any light 
 upon the early history of the quiet villages of that delightful district. 
 To this day his walking feats in these remote valleys are talked of. 
 Spending a week-end at Kettlewell, he went on Sunday to church 
 at Middleham, the walk over the pass and down Coverdale being 
 sixteen miles each way; or staying over the Sunday at Settle, he 
 would attend church at Whalley. This gave the impression of 
 stamina and strength, and the news of his death in the prime of life 
 came with all the greater shock to those who had not seen much 
 of him in recent years. 
 
 " Mr. Rooper's relations with his colleagues were of the happiest 
 kind. To those in subordinate positions there was no assumption 
 of superiority; each was treated as a trusted equal and co-worker, 
 and credited with the same high motives, the same zeal for the pubHc 
 service, and the same interest in all educational efforts as he had 
 himself. Working in the north of England, he made it a point of 
 duty to keep in continual touch with London and with Oxford, and 
 men of distinction in the educational world were often to be met 
 at his table. His hospitality was also shown in the little dinners 
 to members of his staff before a conference, and after he went to live 
 in the purer air of Harrogate he would often invite his colleagues 
 or over-worked teachers for a week-end, or arrange a delightful 
 holiday for little waifs from Bradford slums. 
 
 4
 
 1 Memoir 
 
 " His undisguised contempt for everything in the nature of cant, 
 together with his general air of 'man of the world' may have 
 obscured to some the vein of deep religious feeling apparent to those 
 who knew him best. In one of his walks in the neighbourhood of 
 Kettlewell he came upon a rude wayside stone cross, and on his 
 return to the inn where he was staying, he inscribed in the visitors' 
 book these lines: 
 
 " ' Crux mihi gratia et quies 
 
 " ' High on the ridge of Great Whernside, 
 Fretted and time-worn and lone, 
 Reared by the monks in past ages. 
 Stands a rude cruciform stone. 
 
 " * Many a wanderer has neared it. 
 Many unheeding have gone ; 
 Some have knelt sadly, remembering 
 They bore a cross of their own. 
 
 " * What was the mystical meaning 
 Thus to the traveller given ? 
 Beacons that marked here his pathway 
 Taught him his home was in Heaven.'" 
 
 GEORGE SEDGWICK. 
 
 Such was the impression he made on those who worked 
 with him. I will now recapitulate what may be regarded as 
 the main directions in which his influence made itself felt in 
 the schools. They were — 
 
 1. The education of the younger teachers. 
 
 2. Reforms in the curriculum and in the methods of teach- 
 ing, more especially the introduction of Manual Training, the 
 encouragement of Natural Science, and improved methods in 
 the study of Geography and in the teaching in Infant Schools. 
 He also began in this period those " Experiments in School 
 Gardening ", one of which, carried out later on at Boscombe, 
 " has served as a model ", we are told on good authority, " for 
 countless others in England and abroad ".^ 
 
 ^ See Mr. J. C. Medd's paper, pp. Ixxvii seq.
 
 Pupil-Teacher Classes li 
 
 3. Something less tangible, the new spirit which he 
 infused, his freshness and enthusiasm, his intolerance of 
 routine and encouragement of individuality in the teachers, 
 his power of making men feel themselves not labourers under 
 a task-master, but comrades in a common work. A high 
 standard was exacted, but probably under no inspector did 
 a good teacher feel himself so free. 
 
 I will add a few words on each of these heads. 
 
 I. The importance of his work in the establishment of 
 certificate classes for the younger teachers, a large proportion 
 of whom had no opportunity of going to a training-college, 
 is testified to both by Mr. Blakiston and Mr. Sedgwick. No 
 part of his work in Bradford was more appreciated, and it 
 illustrates well two great principles on which he acted — first, 
 that if the public machinery is not there you must invent 
 your own and do the best you can with it, but, on the other 
 hand, that the only guarantee of permanence is in the support 
 of public bodies, and that you must win them over to your 
 side. These classes are also a remarkable example of his 
 almost lavish generosity with money. He was not a rich 
 man, and he practised the most careful personal economy, 
 but both at this period and later he spent a large proportion 
 of his professional income on the work. His energy and 
 cheerful liberality impressed the men with whom he worked 
 in Yorkshire, and the classes were eventually taken over by 
 the Bradford School Board. Of these classes Mr. J. W. Young, 
 afterwards head of the Bradford Pupil-Teachers' Centre, has 
 sent me the following account: — 
 
 "The aim of the classes was to enable the ex-pupil-teachers to 
 prepare for the certificate examination of the Board of Education. 
 The classes were commenced in the autumn of 1889, and a capable 
 and efficient staff of teachers was employed. The students paid a 
 small fee, the deficit being met each year by Mr. Rooper. At the 
 beginning of 1891, as the County Council of Bradford had voted out 
 of the educational instruction grant the sum of ^100 towards the 
 cost of the classes, a responsible committee of management was
 
 lii Memoir 
 
 formed. For the first three years there was still an annual deficit, 
 which Mr. Rooper met out of his own purse. At the end of 1893 
 the classes were taken over entirely by the Bradford School Board. 
 Mr. Rooper had spent out of his own pocket over these classes 
 upwards of ^450. 
 
 "The classes were a great success both as regards educational 
 value and the results of the examination; the number of those who 
 took advantage of them averaged about 150 each year, many students 
 coming from a considerable distance. Similar classes were formed 
 at Keighley and Shipley in 1892; two additional classes were added 
 to give head - teachers an opportunity of seeing how elementary 
 science can be taught in schools. In 1893 a course on Psychology 
 was added by Mr. Rooper. The lecturer was Professor Welton of 
 the Yorkshire College, and twenty -three teachers attended; the 
 course had a direct bearing on the science and art of teaching. 
 The entire cost of this class was again defrayed by Mr. Rooper." 
 
 Besides the certificate classes (for ex -pupil -teachers) he 
 originated a movement which led to the eventual establish- 
 ment of Pupil-Teachers' Centres, which became afterwards so 
 general. There was also an unofficial and informal " Airedale 
 Pupil -Teachers' Association" extending from Bradford to 
 Settle, which was started by Rooper and Mr. Sedgwick, and 
 over which the latter now presides. 
 
 2. It would be out of place in a short memoir, even if my 
 knowledge were adequate to the task, to elaborate in detail 
 the reforms which Rooper introduced or forwarded in the 
 teaching, and it is the less necessary as I am able, on most 
 points, to refer my readers to the essays in this volume, in 
 which he speaks for himself. The following remarks are in- 
 tended chiefly to illustrate the spirit in which he set to work. 
 
 (i) His ideas on the educational importance of Manual 
 Training are very clearly expressed in the essays in this 
 volume. Manual training is insisted on, not as a part of 
 technical, but of general education. It is true that "early 
 training in hand-work will tend to make men more skilful 
 workmen afterwards ", but the object is a wider one. We are
 
 Manual Training liii 
 
 to " beware of industrialism in education ". " Do not think ", 
 he says, addressing the Yorkshire dalesmen, famous for their 
 love of song, " that we wash you to sacrifice the muses for 
 mere material gain ; we wish to make life fuller and com- 
 pleter." In advocating manual training he wishes to empha- 
 size the ideas of its first founders, namely, that " all education 
 must be spiritual ", and that its true aim is nothing less than 
 to make the child "as perfect a human being as nature permits 
 him to be made ". It is on this broad ground, as an indis- 
 pensable element in education so conceived, that Rooper rests 
 the case for manual training. He lays stress on the changes 
 in industrial life during the last hundred years. Time was 
 when every household was a "miniature technical school". 
 But in the present day " machinery saves hand labour 
 and nothing is done at home. If the training of the hand 
 is omitted at school the hand is never trained at all." This 
 means not only the loss of manual dexterity, but a cramping 
 of the intellectual powers, for, as modern physiology teaches, 
 there is a close connection between the training of the hand 
 and the actual growth of the brain. Further, he finds in 
 training in wood-work one of the best of moral disciplines. 
 It enforces attention and concentration, it brings the student 
 into contact with real things, and in dealing with the " stub- 
 born timber " he learns something of " the effort which is 
 required to master the external world ". Lastly, manual 
 training may be made the means of developing the sense 
 of beauty, and it is one of the great recommendations of the 
 Slojd system that it insists' on beautiful forms in the objects 
 which the student is required to shape. 
 
 He began in Bradford in his usual experimental way. In 
 1887 he set up a carpentering class in a cellar under a school 
 in one of the poorest districts in the town. Here, again, 
 money was wanted for the start, and, as usual, Rooper found 
 it. Other classes were established in due course and taken up 
 by the Board, and it is a striking experience now to pass 
 from the cellar of Wapping Road School, which was the scene 
 of the first experiment, to the spacious and well-lighted rooms,
 
 liv Memoir 
 
 e.g. of the Bellevue Higher Grade School, with its splendid 
 equipment and its 600 boys, who are all put through courses 
 not only in wood-work but in iron-work. This is manual 
 training in excelsis, but there is a romance about first begin- 
 nings, and Rooper's pioneer class in the cellar at Wapping 
 Road School is still affectionately remembered in Bradford. 
 At the present time nearly all the 5th and 6th standard boys 
 in the Bradford schools have teaching in wood-work. 
 
 One of the essays in this volume is entitled A Plea for 
 Sldjd, and his introduction of the Swedish method of hand- 
 work into Bradford is a good example of Rooper's enterprising 
 ways. In 1890, at Rooper's instigation, Mr. C. E. Neville, a 
 member of his staff, went to Naas (where he himself had 
 been a few years before) for a six weeks' course of instruction 
 in Slojd. On his return he gave an address on the subject, 
 to a large gathering of teachers in Bradford, which aroused 
 considerable interest. Rooper, who was present, expressed 
 his opinion that the educational value of Slojd seemed to him 
 now even higher than it did before, and urged the teachers to 
 organize classes for instruction in the subject. About forty 
 teachers entered their names; the services of Miss Andren, 
 a member of the staff at Naas, and an excellent teacher, 
 were engaged, and the number of students rapidly increased. 
 Rooper himself joined the classes and worked regularly at 
 the bench.^ The new system did not at once commend itself 
 to all the teachers, and it was characteristic of Rooper that 
 he did not insist on its general adoption, but allowed the 
 Swedish and English systems to go on side by side. But 
 Slojd made way. Miss Andren was offered and accepted a 
 permanent appointment, and there are now a large number 
 of classes under her superintendence in the Bradford district. 
 
 (ii) There was no subject in the elementary school curri- 
 culum of which Rooper considered so little was made and so 
 much might be made as Geography. " As commonly taught 
 
 ^ In the same way we find him later on at Southampton himself attending a 
 special course of lectures which he arranged for teachers at the farm school of the 
 Hampshire County Council on practical education in rural schools.
 
 The Study of Geogi'aphy Iv 
 
 it has been a dreary repetition of names and statistics of no 
 interest to the learner, and of little use except perhaps to the 
 sorting department of the post-office. ... A pitman, looking 
 at a poster which advertised a course of lectures on the ' Age 
 of Elizabeth ', was heard to remark : ' The Age of Elizabeth 
 — well, I'm blest if I care how old she is '. Many a child 
 in former days had the same opinion of the length of the 
 Yang-tse-kiang ; the facts were as dead as a skeleton. . . ," 
 But in truth, " of all the subjects which belong to education, 
 there is none which is more attractive; it is almost the only 
 one, except what is called the science of common things, 
 which keeps the teacher and scholar in touch with new dis- 
 coveries and fresh developments". (See Essay, pp. 179 seq?) 
 
 His ideas on Geography and how to teach it will be found 
 in two papers in this volume, which were read, the one before 
 the British Association at Bradford, the other at the annual 
 meeting of the Geographical Society, in January, 1901. They 
 may be briefly indicated as follows: — 
 
 (i) Geography is the study of the earth as the stage on 
 which the drama of the human race is played, and is therefore 
 to be connected with history. It is also to be connected 
 with other studies — climate, flora and fauna, the circulation 
 of water, glaciers, &c. 
 
 (2) It deals with relations of space, hence the conception 
 of shape, distance, and direction must be made familiar to the 
 pupils. The children can be taught to construct a plan of 
 the class-room to scale, and this will be found to be not a 
 dry but a most fascinating study. They may also be taught 
 to make " graphic records of short walks, or even longer ex- 
 peditions ". 
 
 (3) In all education we must begin with the familiar and 
 what is next to us, and so in geography with the neighbour- 
 hood of the home. He would begin with a relief map or 
 model of the locality, and along with this a phptograph of it 
 as an introduction to the idea of a map. Next comes the 
 pictorial-map or bird's-eye view, and after this the ordnance 
 map of the same district. He attached great importance to
 
 Ivi Memoir 
 
 relief-maps, and obtained their introduction generally into 
 Bradford schools. 
 
 (4) Lastly, we come to the wall map, which is " the foun- 
 dation of all real study of geography ". He would have a 
 graduated series of maps, "the first physical, showing hills 
 and rivers, the next counties and towns and railways, the 
 next industrial and economic facts and easy statistics ". He 
 would also like to see " boldly-drawn historical maps of Eng- 
 land for use in schools, showing England under the Romans, 
 Anglo-Saxon England, and Mediaeval England". All his 
 remarks on the use of the map will be found full of sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 In conclusion he strongly recommends expeditions for 
 practical work, " by which much spirit is awakened in young 
 students of geography ", and commends the example here of 
 French schools. I shall speak later on of this point in con- 
 nection with the geographical society which he founded in 
 Southampton. 
 
 In 1887 he organized a geographical exhibition at Brad- 
 ford, with lectures and prizes for essays in geographical 
 subjects. The prize essay on the geography of Yorkshire, 
 by Mr. M. Tait, one of the Head-teachers, was afterwards 
 expanded and published (E. J. Arnold, Leeds), and is in 
 many respects a model example of a county guide - book. 
 Its special features are the basing of the arrangement on the 
 physical geography of the county, and the connection of the 
 physical geography with the social and industrial develop- 
 ment. 
 
 (iii) When Rooper came to Bradford the Kindergarten 
 was unknown there, and the introduction of Kindergarten 
 methods throughout the district was one of the most impor- 
 tant of his reforms. He took great delight in the Infant 
 Schools, partly from his love of young children, and partly 
 perhaps because there was more room there for elasticity and 
 individuality. I have heard it said that to gain Mr. Rooper's 
 good word all you had to do was to show him something 
 new, and probably there was truth in this. He had no belief
 
 Infant Schools Ivii 
 
 in finality and every belief in freedom. In 1884 he delivered 
 to the Teachers' Association an address on teaching in Infant 
 .Schools. This address, which was printed separately (E. J. 
 Arnold, Leeds), was not included in either of his published 
 volumes of essays. Doubtless he felt it was too technical for 
 the general public. The essays, however, included in this 
 volume give the reader a very clear idea of his views on the 
 teaching of infants and young children, I shall not attempt 
 to expound these, but I will cite the concluding sentences 
 of the above-mentioned address, which show him more careful 
 for the spirit in which the teacher should approach his task 
 ■even than for the method of instruction: — 
 
 " I only offer my plan as a guide, and I am sure many 
 teachers can amend it both in principle and in detail. A 
 •complete and universally acceptable plan of early training 
 has yet to be formulated, and if we wait till authorities are 
 all agreed, this generation of infants will want the proverbial 
 half-loaf which is better than no bread. I hope teachers will 
 work with me and with one another. I hope they will dis- 
 cuss what is best to do, and be eager to seek out improved 
 methods and variety of teaching devices. Nothing is worse 
 for infants than a dead routine. I have set down nothing 
 that I have not seen actually done. I have given nothing 
 ■on trust or as a theory. . . . You will need a sharp eye to 
 keep every child's attention engaged on his work ; vigorous 
 and spirited delivery; a kindly, even playful, manner. A 
 stranger visiting an Infant School should find neither the 
 silence of fear nor the hubbub of distracted attention, but the 
 busy stillness of many little minds absorbed in appropriate 
 ■occupations. . . . 
 
 " I feel like other teachers, like the great men whose 
 names I mentioned at the outset, how high a task lies before 
 all those who presume to instruct children, especially the 
 youngest. The responsibility is great, and success involves 
 the combination of opposite virtues, such as laborious per- 
 severance with buoyant spirits; zealous, almost enthusiastic 
 •energy with strict discipline; and this amid a daily monoton-
 
 Iviii Memoir 
 
 ous routine of seeming trifles. But the labour is not without 
 its reward. The present happiness of the Httle ones is a 
 great gain, and, in addition, there is the fair promise of good 
 hope. The grown man may disappoint his teacher, but 
 while there is youth there is hope, and the younger the child,, 
 the more hope." 
 
 (iv) The subject of reforms in the education in rural 
 schools, connected with the establishment of School Gardens 
 and the development of what is now familiar as " Nature- 
 Study ", is reserved for the next section, and I will only note 
 here that Rooper's first school garden, which was also the first 
 in England, was established at Harrogate during this period. 
 
 3. " They collect statistics and call it inspecting schools." 
 So half playfully, half bitterly, he once described the mechani- 
 cal method of inspection, which was perhaps the natural 
 result of the mechanical system — so many passes, so many 
 failures in so many subjects, so much grant — imposed by 
 the old code. How different was the view he himself took 
 of his duties, the foregoing will, I hope, have made apparent. 
 His inspections were thorough, and as alread}- said, a high 
 standard was required, but he abhorred red tape and merely 
 mechanical tests. He would sometimes excuse the annual 
 examination in the case of a school which was working to his 
 satisfaction, and from the first the teachers were led to un- 
 derstand that what their inspector looked to was not merely^ 
 or chiefly, results which could be expressed in figures, but 
 the whole tone and spirit of the school, order and cleanliness,. 
 the children happy and wide awake, the teaching intelligent 
 and rising above routine. Any sign of initiative or originality 
 of method was welcomed, and he was always ready himself not 
 with criticism merely but with suggestion. It was said that 
 " he would always listen to reason, and would submit a new 
 idea or proposal (as, for example, in the case of Slojd) to the 
 opinion of the teachers, and not force it on them against their 
 own judgment." In the words of another: "Acting always 
 as he did along definite lines of thought with a determined
 
 A Personal Influence lix 
 
 purpose", he allowed space for individuality, and "although he 
 had very pronounced views on methods of teaching he never 
 interfered with a teacher who was doing good work in his own 
 way ". Thus it was felt that he was " no formal examiner, 
 but a friend whose visits were desired by scholars and teachers 
 alike ", and this rather surprising tribute to an inspector will be 
 understood from the following description by Miss Mason of 
 his inspectional visits to the House of Education, Ambleside: — 
 
 " The charming thing to both mistresses and students was 
 his kind and inspiring personal interest in the subjects taught. 
 He had a way of leaving the household more in love with 
 knowledge than before. . . . He had always the happy way 
 of making a teacher feel, whether the class was for making 
 buns or working problems, that the subject was excessively 
 interesting in itself and for itself. . . . Once or twice ... he 
 came to us, I believe at great inconvenience, to give lessons 
 for the students in which he knew he could help them. On 
 one of these occasions the student was giving a rather dull 
 history lesson before him ; he took up the subject, and such an 
 unfolding of associations, graphic pictures and living interests 
 perhaps we had none of us heard before. This lesson was 
 hardly a model, for I think there are few persons in the country 
 who could have opened such a store-house." This was not 
 an elementary school, but the present writer has himself 
 listened to a geography lesson from him at one of his own 
 Board schools to which the above description would have 
 accurately applied. 
 
 An eminent head-teacher said to me that when he began 
 he did not make sufficient allowance, and thought things could 
 be done more rapidly than was possible. But such errors were 
 only lapses of judgment due to inexperience and did not repre- 
 sent the prevailing temper of his mind. He was not one of those 
 who "are impatient and for precipitating things". On the con- 
 trary, as in his character so in his work, no virtue was more 
 deep-seated in this ardent reformer than his patience and faith 
 in time. To quote his own words, he knew that "the minds of 
 men do not work in a single season like the soil of the field.
 
 Ix Memoir 
 
 Ideas have not only to be understood, but they have also to 
 be reconciled with previously existing ideas and adapted to 
 the mental furniture of the growing generation. . . . The 
 nature of the required changes must be explained in the first 
 instance, but means to carry them out can only be discovered 
 by patience and by taking plenty of time " (Essay on Herbert 
 Spencer's Education). 
 
 But while he was patient and considerate, he was far from 
 being easy-going, and the severity of his earlier reports on 
 inefficient schools which he found in his district seems to have 
 led to much indignant protest against what were regarded as 
 the unreasonable requirements of the new inspector. I believe 
 it is considered that there was some ground for these com- 
 plaints, and that after the first few years he recognized that, 
 as things were, he was demanding too much, and that, as 
 Mr. Sedgwick observes, the teaching could only be generally 
 improved by the improvement of the teachers, a task to 
 which, as we have seen, he set himself with all his energy. 
 However this may be, the ill-feeling disappeared as the 
 teachers came to know him better; none could fail to recog- 
 nize his transparent sincerity, his readiness to make personal 
 sacrifices, and his thoughtful kindness and constant care for 
 the interests of those who were under his charge. A resolu- 
 tion of sympathy passed by the Airedale Pupil -Teachers' 
 Association at his death speaks of his " inspiring influence 
 and unremitting labours", and adds that " many hundreds 
 of young teachers were materially helped by the personal 
 interest which he showed in their welfare ". Again, a former 
 head-master writes: "He was the best friend I found during 
 the ten years I spent in the West Riding". He aspired to 
 exercise (as he said himself) " a personal as distinguished 
 from a merely official influence", and he succeeded; nor would 
 he have desired any better tribute to the spirit of his life's 
 work than such words as these, or than those other words 
 which were spoken of him after his death : " He was the best 
 friend the teachers ever had ", 
 
 It is worth while adding that no bias for or against the
 
 Voluntary Schools Ixi 
 
 Board or the Voluntary system was allowed to influence 
 his action. His classes for pupil -teachers brought the two 
 together, and one of the warmest expressions of regret on 
 his leaving Bradford was from a Catholic priest, speaking in 
 the name of the managers of the Catholic schools. I re- 
 member his saying once that while the worst schools were 
 usually Voluntary schools, the Voluntary school at its best 
 was the best of schools because of the greater personal 
 attention of the managers. He attached great importance 
 to the influence of active and zealous managers. " The 
 managers ought to be kept up to the mark; they expect 
 the inspector to improve their schools, and they ought to 
 do it themselves." 
 
 Lastly, he was himself all the time, in his scanty leisure, 
 reading, studying, and thinking out educational problems, or 
 acquainting himself with foreign methods of education, or 
 conducting on his own account, as in the case of school 
 gardens, some educational experiment, and embodying his 
 ideas from time to time in lectures or addresses. These 
 addresses, delivered to audiences consisting largely of teachers, 
 showed their inspector to them as a man who, while in the 
 active work of his profession labouring more abundantly than 
 they all, managed to find time to keep abreast of the best 
 educational thought, and who was not a critic merely, but a 
 constructive thinker and a leader.
 
 V. SOUTHAMPTON, 1897-1903 
 
 In the autumn of 1897 Rooper was transferred to the 
 Southampton district, which included the Isle of Wight. His 
 father's death had occurred two years before, and his object in 
 applying for the exchange was to be near his sisters at their 
 home in Bournemouth. The seven years at Southampton 
 were among the happiest and most fruitful of his life. It was 
 quickly discovered, as at Bradford, that a man of initiative 
 was at work, and Mr. Acland's reform of the Education Code 
 in 1893, with the cessation of the mechanical system of pay- 
 ment by results, gave new scope to an inspector of Rooper's 
 stamp. His position was established. His health at this time 
 was still good, and experience and recognition had brought 
 confidence. He had been appointed by the Board of Educa- 
 tion in 1890 to visit and report upon School Gardens in 
 Germany,^ and his reputation stood high with the Depart- 
 ment. 
 
 His writings had a large circulation in America as well as 
 in this country, and his influence was widely felt. Other 
 inspectors came to study his work in rural schools, and the 
 Canadian Commissioner of Agriculture, Dr. J. W. Robertson, 
 during his visit to England in 1890-91, came to see him with 
 the same object. (See Mr. J. C. Medd's paper, p. Ixxxi.) The 
 stiffness and reserve which was sometimes a difficulty in earlier 
 days had quite passed away, and his natural charm and great 
 power of sympathy made themselves felt at this time more 
 generally than ever before. " Many changes were made," says 
 one, " but always with such sympathy and loving tact that 
 they were welcomed instead of disliked." 
 
 ^ The Report is to be found in the Blue Book of 1901 issued by the Department. 
 
 Ixii
 
 Practical Education Ixiii 
 
 The subject which more, perhaps, than any other occupied 
 his thoughts at this time was the reform in the education in 
 Country Schools referred to near the end of the last section. 
 Briefly stated the idea is twofold: first, that the teaching 
 should be associated throughout with the study of nature; and 
 next, and in close connection with this, that it should be 
 made " practical ", that is to say, that " the course of study 
 should be framed with direct reference to the conditions that 
 surround village homes". In the important movement for 
 the reform of Rural Education and the introduction of Nature 
 Study into the curriculum of the schools, Rooper may be 
 said to have been the pioneer.^ I have to thank his friend, 
 Mr. J. C. Medd, who speaks with authority on the subject, for 
 an account of this movement and of Rooper's relation to it, 
 which forms a most valuable contribution to this memoir. 
 Mr. Medd's paper follows at the conclusion of the present 
 section, and should be read in connection with the essays 
 entitled Practical Instruction in Rural Schools and Ati Ex- 
 periment in School Gardeni?ig. Both the term Nature Study 
 and Rooper's own phrase " practical instruction " may easily 
 be misunderstood, and it is essential to observe (i) that what 
 Rooper had in mind was not the introduction of a fresh 
 subject into the curriculum, but, as Mr. Medd expresses it, 
 " a change of the teacher's attitude towards all subjects " ; and 
 (2) that practical is not to be confused wnth technical. But 
 it is enough here to refer the reader to Mr. Medd's paper. 
 
 In general it may be said that Rooper's work in the 
 Southampton schools was, in spirit and method, a continua- 
 tion of his work at Bradford, and if I abstain from enlarging 
 on it in detail, his friends and colleagues at Southampton 
 must understand that it is only because it would be in essen- 
 tials repetition. But something must be said, first of the 
 work he undertook in the district for the benefit of the 
 teachers, and secondly, of his services to general and tech- 
 
 1 In the instructions to Local Authorities recently issued by the Board of Edu- 
 cation, most of Rooper's recommendations are substantially embodied.
 
 Ixiv Memoir 
 
 nical education, by which his influence was carried beyond 
 the sphere of the elementary schools. 
 
 I. His care is still for the teachers, and above all for the 
 younger members of the profession. He felt that the better 
 education of the teachers was the first thing needed for the 
 improvement of the schools, and it was a constant pre- 
 occupation with him. He would have first-rate men down 
 from London to lecture to them on special subjects, such as- 
 the teaching of singing, or to give a series of lessons in brush- 
 drawing or manual training. But perhaps the most valuable,, 
 as it was the most difficult, undertaking which he carried out 
 for the benefit of the teachers, was the establishment of Pupil- 
 Teacher Centres. It was seldom at this time that a young- 
 teacher in the district went to a Training College, and there 
 was no organization for collective teaching. He at once set 
 to work to remedy this. Central classes for pupil -teachers 
 were formed at Southampton, and for the Isle of Wight at 
 Newport, which acting teachers were also encouraged to 
 attend, and independent classes for the latter were arranged 
 later on. In the Isle of Wight in particular, owing to the 
 distance of the schools apart and other causes, the difficulties 
 in the organization of these classes were extremely formidable. 
 The Head-teacher at the Newport Centre, Miss Hinton, who 
 had charge of the classes from the beginning, and whom I 
 have to thank for my information on the subject, writes: "I 
 feel certain that no other man could have succeeded, in 1897, 
 in establishing collective teaching for the pupil-teachers in the 
 Isle of Wight. Everybody regarded the attempt as quixotic." 
 But it succeeded. There was opposition and indifference to 
 contend with, but he met with good support from the Volun- 
 tary Schools Association, from school managers, and from 
 some of the School Boards. He found in the Rev. A. G. 
 Friar, Rector of Shanklin, who throughout acted as secretary 
 and treasurer to the Pupil-Teachers' Association in the island, 
 a colleague after his own heart, and he would certainly have 
 said that without Mr. Friar's co-operation the work could 
 hardly have been carried through.
 
 Pupil -Teacher Cetitres Ixv 
 
 The classes were held at first on Saturday mornings only, 
 and under a single teacher, seventy-four students attending in 
 the first session. Subsequently the managers were persuaded 
 to allow their pupil-teachers one of the working days of the 
 week, and Wednesday morning and afternoon classes were 
 added. The staff was strengthened; and at the time of 
 Rooper's death, nearly all the pupil -teachers in the island 
 were regular attendants at the Centre. 
 
 The Southampton Centre was equally successful, but the 
 above may suffice as an illustration. The classes, both at 
 Newport and Southampton, are now carried on under the 
 Local Education Authority. We have here a record of 
 modest work in a confined sphere; but is it too much to say 
 that if, during the years of Rooper's inspectorship at Bradford 
 and Southampton, similar efforts to those initiated by him for 
 the benefit of the younger teachers had been made throughout 
 England, the elementary education of the country would have 
 been lifted, as it was in his own schools, to a new level? 
 
 It may be added here that he took a great interest in the 
 Salisbury Training College, assisting the inspector, Mr. Scott- 
 Howard, at the annual inspections, and delivering addresses 
 on several occasions to the students. 
 
 II. Passing to matters outside his official work, (i) I may 
 name first his active and constant support of the Parents' 
 Educational Union. The Union was founded by his friend 
 Miss Charlotte Mason, of the House of Education, Ambleside, 
 for the encouragement of the study by parents themselves of 
 questions connected with the education and bringing up of 
 children. Rooper wished the home education of young 
 children to be more rational and less haphazard than it 
 usually is, and he attached great importance to the work of 
 the Parents' Union in bringing to the knowledge of parents 
 generally the best that has been thought and said on the 
 subject. Most of the papers in Educational Studies and 
 Addresses were, as he tells us in the preface, read before 
 various branches of the Union, and appeared in its organ The 
 
 5
 
 Ixvi Memoir 
 
 Parents' Review. His association with the Parents' Educa- 
 tional Union was the source of many of his most valued 
 friendships, 
 
 (2) In 1897 he founded a Geographical Society at South- 
 ampton, of which to the end of his life he was the moving 
 spirit. 
 
 He gives an account of this " youngest Geographical 
 Society" in the essay already alluded to, and strongly urges the 
 formation of similar societies in other large centres. Certainly 
 under his guidance the Southampton Society prospered. Over 
 four hundred members joined in the first year. It was warmly 
 welcomed by Sir Clements Markham, who gave the inaugural 
 address, and obtained valuable privileges from the Royal 
 Geographical Society for the members. A library was formed 
 and housed in the Hartley College, and lectures, both occa- 
 sional and systematic, were arranged during the winter 
 months. But perhaps the most interesting part of the work 
 of the society was the summer expeditions, which were 
 organized by Rooper on quite novel lines. A small area 
 would be taken, e.g. in the New Forest, and the company 
 ■divided into sections for the investigation of the area chosen. 
 One section, under expert guidance, maps out by aid of a 
 prismatic compass a track through the area, the other sections 
 taking the flora and fauna, one the forest trees, another plants 
 and flowers, others bird and insect life. At the end of the 
 day the sections meet and the leaders report. On another 
 occasion there is a dredging expedition to the Solent. These 
 •expeditions were attended largely, but not exclusively, by 
 school-teachers. The society also carried out a favourite idea 
 of Rooper's in promoting the publication of maps of the 
 county for use in schools, " showing in bold and not too 
 minute rendering — {a) its physical geography, {b) geology, 
 {c) archaeology, id) history, {e) industries". 
 
 (3) Passing to a wider field, he played a leading part in 
 the development of technical education under the Hamp- 
 shire County Council, particularly in connection with evening 
 continuation schools. We are speaking of a period when
 
 Natu7'e of Rooper s Injiuence Ixvii 
 
 elementary and technical education were still in separate 
 hands, and Rooper's official duties were confined to the 
 former; but he took the most active interest in the educa- 
 tional work of the County Council, and, setting himself as he 
 did to bring the work of his own department into relation 
 with the work of the Council, he went far to anticipate, at 
 least in spirit, the unifying policy of the Act of 1892. For 
 my information here I am indebted to Mr. J. C. Cowan, 
 Director of technical education to the Hampshire County 
 Council. The account which he has been good enough to 
 send me is interesting both as an appreciation of Rooper's 
 character and influence, and as a record of some critical years 
 in our educational history. 
 
 " I confess I do not know a more difificult task than to attempt 
 to place before the public that knew him personally, and the larger 
 public to whom he was known only by his writings, any real or 
 tangible conception of Mr. Rooper as he was to those admitted to 
 his friendship. To me he always appeared a sensitive delicate nature, 
 made for study and meditation, but drawn into rougher ways by the 
 force of circumstances. To say in what his power consisted is beyond 
 me; it was everywhere, but mostly unseen. He was extremely modest, 
 but mingled with his unassuming quiet manner was a consciousness 
 of his force, a thorough knowledge of what he could do personally, 
 and what he could get others to carry out for him; and when a 
 scheme was in hand he neither lost sight of it nor got out of touch 
 for a moment with the various agencies destined to mould it to his 
 design. ... It was in friendly conferences, in committees, at dinner, 
 that his magnetism was felt; and yet this hardly describes the in- 
 fluence, for his most perfectly-cut scheme was rather put forward in 
 a series of questions, as if he was drawing it out of his hearers, I am 
 incUned to think this was so skilfully done as to deceive many into 
 the belief that the entire scheme was their own. It is, I am sure, an 
 attribute of a great mind that it moulds into a complete whole and 
 crystallizes current ideas : gives definite shape to the nebulous thoughts 
 of others; Rooper possessed this to a singular degree. 
 
 "Our friendship began in 1896. Early in the previous year I had 
 been appointed director of technical education to the Hampshire 
 County Council, and he was transferred within a twelvemonth from
 
 Ixviii Memoir 
 
 the Bradford to the Southampton District. His first care was to 
 seek me out and become acquainted with the work in the county, 
 and the ideas and methods behind it. From that day to his death 
 we were fast friends, and not a single scheme of importance did I 
 bring before the Council without first talking it over with Mr. Rooper. 
 
 *' Much followed from that initial interview. First the meeting in 
 conference of His Majesty's Inspectors to discuss the relations of the 
 Board of Education officials with those of the Council, one result 
 being that he and two of his colleagues joined the Council's Board of 
 Examiners, and rendered most valuable service to the cause of educa- 
 tion on matters relating to junior County Scholarships. It was to his 
 inspiration later that there was added by the Council a certificate of 
 merit for candidates from elementary schools, approximating some- 
 what to the much-discussed leaving certificate. 
 
 " In another and equally important branch of the work his wise 
 advice was of the greatest possible help, namely, in the development 
 of the Evening Continuation Schools. It was mainly to his generous 
 sinking of himself and elevation of the county authority that the 
 influence of the latter was made felt in his district without minimizing 
 the importance of the position held by himself and his colleagues. 
 To those immediately engaged in the organization of education for 
 the county councils in its initial stages, it was a matter of first-class 
 moment, in view of the confused state of the law, to have someone 
 who was ready to join hands with the Council in one common aim, 
 and to emphasize the importance of looking to the Council as the 
 mainspring of local action. The evening-school work was in a state 
 of confusion all over the country. The schoolmasters, to whose 
 energy the schools were entrusted, were naturally prone to follow the 
 advice of inspectors to whom they looked for so much in their day- 
 schools, and with two sets of inspectors with divided aims, serving 
 two distinct public bodies with little communication between them, 
 there were ever present the forces that make for confusion and dis- 
 cord. It was only to be expected that there would arise a striving to 
 secure financial support from both bodies while leaning to the one 
 with the older traditions. It was Mr. Rooper's work to bring about 
 a better understanding, without which progress would have been 
 impossible. He made it clear throughout his district that if the 
 County Council grants were asked for the views of the Council must 
 be respected, and that the purpose of the Council was not merely to
 
 Nature Study — The County Councils Ixix 
 
 augment the grants of the Board, but to promote the cause of tech- 
 nical education; that therefore something higher than elementary 
 instruction was rightly expected. He did more, for when he had 
 gained experience of the conditions of the schools, he made a series 
 of suggestions for the proper discharge of the duties of teachers in 
 evening-schools which were incorporated in subsequent editions of 
 the Evening-School Rules. 
 
 " Some two or three years ago the educational world was made 
 aware of the importance of Nature Study as a very special study in 
 rural elementary schools. We talked the matter over in London, 
 where we had been together at a conference. The difficulty seemed 
 the ways and means to instruct the teachers. I suggested the 
 Council's Farm School during the long vacation as the readiest 
 instrument at hand for coping with the difficulty. A scheme was 
 at once drafted and accepted by the Council, and in August of the 
 year 1901 about twenty-four teachers joined the school for a special 
 course of study. It was characteristic of Mr. Rooper's thoroughness 
 that he entered as a student himself, lived with the others as one of 
 themselves, and worked as hard as the most ardent beginner whose 
 future reputation and promotion rested on his devotion to the subject 
 in hand. . . . 
 
 "When the Education Act of 1892 was before Parliament he was 
 full of enthusiasm for the good work that could be done. He was 
 heart and soul for the County Council being the authority, no other 
 agency seemed to him to be possible or workable. He thought the 
 Act a good one, and capable, if properly handled, of realizing all that 
 was expected of it by its authors; he did not look upon it as ideal, 
 but good under the conditions. Discussing the elementary section 
 of the Bill, he would say: "You must either compromise with the 
 Church Party or drop it". He thought the County Councils had 
 earned the confidence of the Government by their promotion of 
 technical instruction, and by their handling of the problem of evening- 
 schools. ' They have simplified the problem and made the linking- 
 up process easy.' . . . 
 
 " To speak of what he was as a friend is more beyond me than 
 to deal in this halting manner with the sides of his life that touched 
 one's official work. He was delightful, refined, generous, upright — a 
 gentleman. One thing I never saw in him during the years of our 
 friendship together, namely, anger: he was firm, but never allowed
 
 Ixx Memoir 
 
 anger to sway his thoughts or actions; and another trait was his 
 fairness to those with whom he had nothing in common: he never 
 abused, he never said a spiteful word of anyone. He never talked 
 religion, possibly because he daily lived it." 
 
 (4) I come lastly to the foundation of the Hartley Uni- 
 versity College at Southampton. Rooper was very proud of 
 the college, and it was perhaps the most important enterprise 
 with which he was connected at Southampton; but I must 
 be content with the briefest reference to it. The Hartley 
 Institute was doing admirable work as a centre of technical 
 teaching when Rooper came to Southampton, and he was 
 not only among the first who realized its possibilities, but he 
 probably did more than any other man to shape and define, 
 and ultimately to realize, the aspirations which were in the 
 minds of many. When its conversion into a University 
 College was determined on, and in the early days, when its 
 policy was being worked out, Rooper was the trusted coun- 
 sellor of those who were directly responsible. As in the case 
 of Mr. Cowan and the County Council, so it was here. The 
 principal of the college, Dr. Richardson, assures me that he 
 did nothing without consulting Rooper. He became a mem- 
 ber of the Council of the College, but as usual his most 
 important influence was exerted, not officially, or before the 
 eyes of the public, but out of sight. His services were well 
 appreciated by those with whom and for whom he worked. 
 At his death the college was the centre of the movement for 
 founding a memorial to him, two of its professors acting 
 as secretaries to the fund, and the tablet set up in the 
 college to his memory^ testifies to the sense which was en- 
 tertained of the greatness of his services and of his noble 
 character. 
 
 ^ See p, xcii.
 
 VI. ROOFER'S RELATION TO 
 RURAL EDUCATION 
 
 By J. C. MEDD 
 
 To deal adequately with Rooper's relationship to rural 
 education would involve a detailed history of the question 
 during the past ten years, for he was more or less intimately 
 associated with its every phase. 
 
 Within the limits of this notice reference can only be 
 made to a few of the more important features. The long- 
 felt dissatisfaction with the unsuitability of the instruction 
 in rural schools culminated in the formation of the Agri- 
 cultural Education Committee, with Sir William Hart Dyke 
 as its Chairman, and Mr. Henry Hobhouse, M.P., as Hon. 
 Secretary, in the autumn of 1899. In all the initial steps 
 leading to this Rooper took the greatest interest, for it fore- 
 shadowed the realization of what he, almost in isolation, had 
 been striving for since the commencement of his official 
 career, namely, the adaptation of curricula to the circum- 
 stances of children and their surroundings, and the introduc- 
 tion of more practical teaching. The aim of the Committee 
 was to differentiate the curriculum of the rural from that 
 of the urban school, not by lowering the standard of educa- 
 tion but by making the child's environment the basis of his 
 lessons, by bringing him into direct contact with the living 
 world, and by familiarizing him with the simple facts of 
 nature. This aim, however, was at first misunderstood, and it 
 was supposed that the underlying purpose of the Committee 
 was to promote some definite form of agricultural instruction, 
 to convert the elementary school into a sort of little farm, 
 and to chain the labourer to the land by withholding from 
 him all knowledge whereby he might rise. Rooper, it is 
 needless to say, had no such purpose. To him, as to the 
 
 Ixxi
 
 Ixxii Memoir 
 
 Committee, the improvement of education was the object in 
 view. In a letter dated June 15, 1899, he wrote: 
 
 " I am sure there can be no such thing as education in 
 agriculture in rural schools. The children are too young. 
 A comparatively slight modification of the existing curricu- 
 lum will serve to keep the children in touch with rural life 
 and occupations. The atmosphere in a rural school should 
 not be the same as in a town school. The illustrations to 
 the object lessons and lessons in simple science, and the 
 adaptation of the rules in arithmetic and the mensuration 
 exercises may all promote an intelligent knowledge of country 
 pursuits. It is not by any heroic or revolutionary change 
 that we can improve rural schools. It is only by gradually 
 amending the course of study in detail. I do not think even 
 the Code needs altering. What ought to be done can be 
 done under it as it stands. A much more thorough study 
 and understanding of what can be done and how to do it 
 is required on the part of all connected with elementary 
 education, and much work has to be done by many heads 
 before the end can be reached." 
 
 Again and again he insisted upon the futility of imagin- 
 ing that the village school could be remodelled by a stroke 
 of the pen. Reform could only be gradual, and must come 
 from within. The Board was powerless unless it had the 
 active co-operation of school managers and teachers. No 
 stereotyped forms of instruction were either desirable or 
 practicable. There must be local initiative and local enter- 
 prise. The warnings which he constantly uttered are equally 
 needed to-day, when there is the same vague discontent and 
 the same vague demand that the Board of Education shall 
 adopt a different policy, while little or no effort is made to 
 take advantage of what was permitted by the Code of 1900. 
 In the course of an address, which he delivered at a village 
 supper in Stratton on February 27, 1899, he said: 
 
 "In my opionion there is no need for despair. 'Time', 
 says the proverb, ' brings roses.' All that is wanted is an 
 intelligent appreciation of the situation, and a gradual modi-
 
 Agricultural Education Committee Ixxiii 
 
 fication of our plans of school work. Changes must be made, 
 but they must be made slowly and by a process of individual 
 experiment and trial. Reform must feel its way. It is 
 equally fatal to stand still and do nothing and to advance 
 in hot haste. Let each village do but a little and experience 
 will soon accumulate. Let us encourage change rather than 
 force it. Do not let us imitate foreign bureaucracies, which 
 order this or that subject to be universally taught before 
 there are teachers who understand it, or superiors who can 
 guide and promote it. Judicious encouragement will secure 
 spontaneous efforts, and these go much further than forced 
 labour." 
 
 When the Agricultural Education Committee was definitely 
 formed in October, 1899, Rooper was at once placed upon the 
 executive. This position, however, he was obliged to resign, 
 from the obvious impossibility of serving upon a Committee 
 whose mission was to urge the Department of the State, 
 to which he was himself attached, to inaugurate a new 
 departure. But he still continued to advise the Committee, 
 and many of his suggestions were embodied in the resolutions 
 passed by the executive in November and December of the 
 same year. The proposals thus adopted were formally laid 
 before the Duke of Devonshire by a deputation from the 
 Committee on January 26, 1900. The Duke expressed his 
 general agreement with the views advocated, and the Code, 
 which shortly followed, was largely drawn in accordance with 
 the Committee's wishes, foremost amongst which had been 
 a block grant, and greater liberty in framing curricula to 
 meet local needs. So far as any single individual can be 
 said to have taught the public what was wanted, and how 
 to formulate its demands, Rooper might fairly claim the 
 credit. It was remarked with justice at the time that the 
 Committee was only forcing an open door, for, within the 
 Board itself, influences were at work to secure a modification 
 of the Code in the direction desired; but, as was frequently 
 acknowledged by the Duke of Devonshire and others, the 
 action of the Agricultural Education Committee greatly
 
 Ixxiv Memoir 
 
 facilitated the changes. To that action no one contributed 
 more than Rooper. He had studied the question in all its 
 bearings, and knew from personal experience what was 
 practicable and expedient. On this point Mr. Henry Hob- 
 house, who was Chairman of the Departmental Committee 
 on Training Colleges, has kindly sent me the following 
 note: — 
 
 " I was not fortunate enough to deal directly with Mr. 
 Rooper as a School Inspector, but had occasion to see him 
 frequently at the time we were forming the Agricultural 
 Education Committee, in the work of which he took a great 
 interest. His great practical experience of elementary school 
 work, and of the experiments made in his own district to 
 adapt that work to the needs of agricultural life, made all 
 his suggestions of the greatest value. The evidence he gave 
 to the Departmental Committee on Training College courses 
 of instruction in 1901 was of great interest, and materially 
 influenced the recommendations of the Committee. There 
 can be no doubt that in his own district a great impulse was 
 given to practical teaching of an industrial and agricultural 
 character owing to his untiring exertions, ready sympathy, 
 and unfailing liberality in assisting any new movement of 
 the kind." 
 
 Rooper was quick to take advantage of the opportunities 
 offered by the new Code, and at once entered upon a period 
 of ceaseless activity, which unquestionably shortened his life. 
 Animated by the zeal of a missionary, he spared neither time^ 
 trouble nor expense to advance the cause of rural education. 
 No one appealed to him in vain, and his advice was sought 
 far and wide. He was ready to attend any meeting where 
 fresh ground might be broken, and would, for instance,, 
 journey from Hampshire to Norwich and back the same 
 day to speak for perhaps half an hour. All this, it must 
 be remembered, was in addition to his ordinary work as. 
 an inspector, to which everything else was subordinated.. 
 He honoured his profession, both for its own sake and 
 because it enabled him to preach his gospel of reform with
 
 Nature Study Ixxv 
 
 an authority that might otherwise have been lacking. In the 
 summer of 1900 he was invited by the Royal Commission 
 to serve upon the International Jury on Primary Instruction 
 at the Paris Exhibition, a post for which his close study 
 of the systems of elementary education in many countries 
 eminently qualified him, but which was incompatible with 
 his official position. 
 
 Towards the end of 1901 it was felt that the time had 
 arrived, if systematic progress were to be made, for an exhi- 
 bition in London to illustrate the various methods hitherto 
 adopted in Nature Study, and to render the experience of 
 individual schools generally available. Into this project 
 Rooper threw himself heart and soul. Sir John Cockburn 
 became Chairman of a Committee for carrying it out, and 
 he at once joined its Executive. He rarely, if ever, failed 
 to attend a meeting, and the success which the Exhibition 
 attained the following year was largely due to his enthu- 
 siastic determination to make it a success. Not the least 
 of his services was the organization of a preliminary exhibi- 
 tion at Southampton for the town and district. 
 
 It was subsequently decided by the Bath and West of 
 England Society to hold a Nature Study Exhibition in con- 
 nection with each of its annual migratory shows, and Rooper 
 gladly accepted the invitation to join the Society's Science 
 and Art Committee, which was responsible for the arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 He had become to a large extent the guiding spirit of 
 the whole movement, and his one aim throughout was to 
 create a truer conception of what education really involves. 
 " That is the best education," he said, " not which imparts, 
 the greatest knowledge, but which develops the greatest 
 mental force." This was his fundamental principle. Early- 
 associations with the country and an intense love for it 
 predisposed him to take the rural school under his special 
 care, and it afforded him the most favourable field for putting^ 
 his theories into practice. He never for a moment imagined 
 that changes in the curriculum would materially diminish
 
 Ixxvi Memoir 
 
 the desertion of the villages, which he knew to be due to 
 complex social and economic causes. At the most he felt 
 that, if children from their earliest years were familiarized 
 with the simple facts of nature and were interested in them, 
 the towns might lose something of their attraction. But 
 whether that were so or not was a minor consideration. The 
 important thing was to secure for every child facilities for 
 the training and development of all its faculties. Nature 
 Study seemed to him the best instrument for effecting 
 this, but it is as difficult to summarize his views as it is 
 to define Nature Study itself. He did not advocate it as 
 a new specific subject to be introduced into an already over- 
 crowded time-table, but rather as a change of the teacher's 
 attitude towards all subjects. His desire was to make the 
 living world the groundwork for other lessons in reading, 
 composition, mathematics, drawing, geography, and so on, 
 and in an admirable leaflet. Practical Instruction in Rural 
 Schools, published by the Agricultural Education Committee, 
 he showed how this might be done. By using Nature Study 
 as the constant handmaid to supplement and illustrate the 
 other lessons, by correlating all the instruction with natural 
 phenomena, and by infusing reality into all the work, he 
 saw that an influence might be created which would permeate 
 the whole range of studies and that children, instead of being 
 taught merely to remember, would learn to observe and 
 to think. " Observation is the mother of inference ; given 
 the former, the latter is inevitable," so Dr. Jackman of Chicago 
 has recently remarked.^ Such was Rooper's stand-point. 
 " To awaken a spirit of wonder and curiosity ", he used to 
 say, " is a step towards creating a desire for knowledge." 
 Lack of intelligence and inability to exercise the reflective 
 faculties were the normal result of a system of instruction 
 which confined itself exclusively to books, and these were 
 the evils which he set himself resolutely to overcome. But 
 if Nature Study was to preserve its vitality, it must be 
 
 1 The third Year Book of the National Society for the Scientific Study of Education, 
 Part 2, p. 15, Chicago, 1904,
 
 School Gardens Ixxvii 
 
 informal ; any attempt to treat it as an exact science and 
 to reduce it to text-book methods would be fatal. Nor 
 should any stereotyped programme be imposed. "Uniformity 
 of procedure ", he said, " is neither necessary nor desirable. 
 Every school should possess a character of its own." And he 
 reminded the public that " any reasonable scheme of work 
 which is suitable to the circumstances of the children and the 
 neighbourhood will no doubt be approved by the inspector " — 
 a fact which school-managers are apt to overlook. 
 
 With School Gardens, which are the obvious complement 
 of Nature Study, his name will always be associated. In 
 this direction more perhaps than in any other he was literally 
 the pioneer, although with characteristic modesty he was 
 always careful to explain that he was only a reaper where 
 others had sown. " School gardens have been established 
 in some countries for nearly a hundred years — they are no 
 new fancy ", but the recognition to-day of the garden as 
 a normal part of a thoroughly equipped school is entirely 
 due to him. The one which he established at Boscombe has 
 served as the model for countless others in England and 
 abroad, while his Special Report on the subject, referred to 
 below, is the accepted authority on the subject. In defining 
 the object of a school garden he insisted that it was " cer- 
 tainly not to put boys as apprentices to gardening. Some 
 boys, no doubt, who learn gardening, will become gardeners 
 in a professional way when they grow older, but it would 
 be wholly out of place in school unless it serves a general 
 purpose as well as having a technical aim." The boys were 
 to find illustrations for their lessons in natural science, and 
 to make practical application of them quite as much as to 
 receive instruction in the rudiments of the gardener's craft. 
 They would then learn the true nature of an experiment, the 
 methods of modern science, in what way observations are 
 made and inferences drawn from them, and the sources of 
 error. To ensure this, as great a variety of crops should be 
 cultivated as possible, for the educational benefit was equally 
 great from failure as from success. When addressing a
 
 Ixxviii Memoir 
 
 conference in connection with the Nature Study Exhibition 
 of 1902 he brought out the educational aspect more strongly. 
 "' The purpose of the school garden ", he said, " should be to 
 strengthen and improve the usual instruction and training 
 which are given in primary schools. Therefore the garden 
 is not a mere appendix to a school, such that the rest of the 
 work will remain the same, whether the boys use it or not. 
 The garden must be incorporated in the organization of the 
 school." " The final result of the combination of book-work 
 and hand-work is to make the scholars grow up into thinking 
 and observant men, who will prove generally serviceable in 
 the affairs of practical life. . . . Besides positive knowledge 
 the work in the garden cultivates a love of industry, order 
 and tidiness; it builds up a feeling for beauty of form and 
 colour in flowers and trees and fruits, and touches the heart 
 of them as well as their brain." In May, 1900, he had been 
 requested by the Board of Education to visit and report 
 upon School Gardens in Germany, and the result of his in- 
 vestigations is given in vol. ix of Special Reports. The paper 
 is of considerable value as explaining German methods in 
 horticultural instruction and the improvements in the horti- 
 culture or agriculture of particular districts which have fol- 
 lowed from them, but the paper has always seemed to me 
 to emphasize the technical rather than the educational side. 
 Technical training of every kind is out of place at the ele- 
 mentary school. There is a natural tendency to regard the 
 school garden from the purely horticultural point of view, 
 and to lose sight of its proper function. On this occasion 
 Rooper, in my opinion, allowed his enthusiasm for good 
 workmanship to lead him unconsciously to encourage rather 
 than discountenance this tendency. 
 
 That such was not his intention is manifest from all his 
 other writings, and nowhere more clearly than in his advo- 
 cacy of every form of hand-work. " Learn by doing " was 
 his favourite motto, and the claim which any subject had to 
 a permanent place in the curriculum must be based upon the 
 extent to which it lightened or aided the process of learning.
 
 Ideal of Education Ixxix 
 
 *'■ Manual training ", he said, " is not a mere training of the 
 hand for industry, but a training of the head through the 
 hand." And again: "Manual occupations are not to be in- 
 troduced into the school routine for the immediate or ex- 
 clusive purpose of training the hand or cultivating technical 
 knack. They are, on the contrary, intended to serve the same 
 purpose as science or literature serves. They are a necessary 
 part of a complete intellectual and moral training. No sub- 
 ject deserves to form a part of general training unless it can 
 be shown to have the power of strengthening the understand- 
 ing and the will." Animated as he was by deep religious 
 feeling, he subordinated every other consideration to the ulti- 
 mate moral and spiritual effect which all instruction had upon 
 character. In one of his most beautiful essays — that on 
 "Reverence" — he wrote: "I have dealt with reverence of 
 two kinds, as suggested by Goethe's famous allegory — rever- 
 ence for things on earth, and reverence for man in society. 
 There remains one more ideal, the greatest of all, one that 
 will change but will never decay; an ideal that is ancient, 
 yet ever modern, most well known and yet never carried 
 into effect without being original, an ideal that is most 
 worthy of being dwelt upon in a time when so many are 
 inclined to disregard it, because they say: 'Old things are 
 passed away: behold all things are become new'. The chief 
 part of education is reverence for the Christian life." 
 
 Mr. Hobhouse has alluded to Rooper's "unfailing liberality 
 in assisting any new movement". Of this I had two con- 
 spicuous examples. Happening to be in France in 1900, I 
 was much struck by the efforts made by the Syndicate Agri- 
 coles and kindred societies to stimulate teachers to make 
 themselves familiar with the circumstances of their respec- 
 tive communes. Prizes are awarded annually to those 
 teachers who furnish the best accounts of the system of 
 land tenure, the size of the holdings, the character of the 
 crops and soil, the rates of wages, the rent of houses and 
 land, together with other details bearings upon the social and 
 economic conditions of the people. This induces the teacher
 
 Ixxx Memoir 
 
 to acquire a vast amount of information which cannot fail to 
 be of service to him in his profession, besides providing the 
 authorities with a number of very valuable statistics. I men- 
 tioned this to Rooper, and he forthwith offered prizes of the 
 value of £1^, £10, and £^ to the teachers in his Hampshire 
 district for corresponding papers. The prizes were upon 
 somewhat too liberal a scale, and the scope of the enquiry^ 
 as suggested by the questions, was a little too wide, but 
 many of the essays which were submitted to me were full 
 of promise and encouragement. Similarly, after a visit ta 
 Holland the following year, I told him of the excellent 
 industrial schools for girls {Industrie -scholen voor Meisjes)^ 
 at which a three years' course of systematic and continuous 
 instruction in all branches of domestic science and women's 
 industrial employment is provided for girls on leaving the 
 elementary schools. He realized directly how vastly superior 
 this was to the spasmodic instruction usually provided in 
 England, and at once endeavoured to remodel a school at 
 Newport, Isle of Wight, upon identical lines. In pursuance 
 of his design he consulted every authority on the subject, and 
 carefully studied the systems in vogue both here and abroad. 
 
 As a public speaker Rooper was not particularly effective,, 
 nor did he do justice to himself when reading his papers. 
 His excessive modesty somehow prevented him from exer- 
 cising the powers which he undoubtedly possessed. But na 
 man could take greater pains to prepare himself for any 
 meeting. His papers were always well written, stimulating,, 
 and finely phrased. He had the happy gift of combining 
 high principles with sound practical common sense. It was 
 his invariable custom to surround himself with everything 
 that might prove helpful to his audience: — plans and photo- 
 graphs of school gardens, specimens of rough carpentry from 
 Germany, and of home-made apparatus, the construction of 
 which he thoroughly understood. Before one of the delight- 
 ful gatherings which his cousin, the Rev. Walter Earle, held 
 annually at Bilton Grange, I remember his suddenly fearing^ 
 that he might not have enough books to illustrate effectually
 
 Roopers Wide Influence Ixxxi 
 
 what was needed for a village library. He thereupon tele- 
 graphed to London for £i% worth more, which were duly on 
 view. The list of books which he compiled on that occasion 
 is appended to this notice. Others would obviously be added 
 now, but the list still remains the best guide on the formation 
 of a library for a rural school. 
 
 In the case of all Civil servants it is not easy to explain 
 the exact nature of their services or influence. They simply 
 form part of the machinery of a great Department of the 
 State, and, in proportion to the fidelity with which they fulfil 
 that function, are comparatively unknown to the general 
 public. This was especially so with Rooper. His strong 
 sense of duty compelled him to be in all respects loyal to his 
 superiors, and his retiring disposition made him shrink from 
 anything like self-advertisement. But his influence penetrated 
 far beyond the limits of this country. His paper on the Bos- 
 combe School Gardens was reprinted in the United States in 
 the Report of the Commissioner of Education for the year 
 1897-98. And Dr. Harris, the Commissioner of Education, 
 in his well-known manual on science teaching, recommended 
 the essays on " Apperception " and " Object Lessons " for 
 general use in all American Normal Schools. During 1900 
 and 1901 Dr. J. W. Robertson, Commissioner of Agriculture 
 for the Dominion of Canada, visited England to ascertain by 
 an examination of our methods how most effectually to ex- 
 pend the funds which Sir William C. Macdonald had entrusted 
 to him for the improvement of rural education from British 
 Columbia to Prince Edward Island. He met Rooper fre- 
 quently, and his warm expression of gratitude may fitly close 
 this poor tribute to the memory of a noble life. In a letter 
 to me from Ottawa on October 5, 1904, he wrote: "I liked 
 Rooper immensely for himself, for his work, and for his en- 
 thusiasm on behalf of education at rural schools. I derived 
 great benefit from my visits to him, and my visits with him 
 to the schools which were under his charge as inspector. 
 Contact with him was a nourishment to my own spirit, for 
 which I am deeply grateful. His insight and his presight„ 
 
 6
 
 Ixxxii Memoir 
 
 directed by entire unselfishness, and solicitude for the welfare 
 of the children and the schools, were those of a great leader 
 in educational matters. I think I shall best express my 
 appreciation of his friendship by helping on in Canada the 
 movement for the improvement of rural schools, which lay 
 so near his heart. Devotion to that cause doubtless deprived 
 him of health at an all too early age; and yet there is some 
 consolation in remembering that the intensity of his life, by 
 means of the quickening influence which he exercised upon 
 others, has made channels through which his good work will 
 continue to flow out to the rural populations of England, 
 Canada, and elsewhere." 
 
 J. C. MEDD.
 
 EXAMPLE OF A LIBRARY SUITABLE FOR A 
 RURAL SCHOOL 
 
 A.— BOOKS FOR TEACHERS 
 
 Our Country's Birds. Gordon {Simpkin ^ Marshalt). 
 
 Our Country's Flowers. „ „ 
 
 Text-book of Agricultural Entomology. 
 
 Ormerod (^Simpkin 6^ Marshalt). 
 Agriculture: Practical and Scientific. Muir {Maanillan). 
 
 Food of Plants. Laurie {Macmillan). 
 
 Naked-Eye Botany. Kitchener {Percivat). 
 
 Notes on Collecting and Preserving Natural History Objects. 
 
 Taylor {Allen). 
 The Chemistry of the Garden. Cousins {Macmillan). 
 
 Farm Insects. Curtis {Blackie). 
 
 British Grasses. A. Pratt {S. P. C. K.). 
 
 Hortus Gramineus : Grasses and Weeds of Agriculture. 
 
 Sinclair {Ridgway). 
 Chemistry in Daily Life. Lassar-Cohn {Grevel). 
 
 Object Lessons in Botany. Snelgrove {Jarrold). 
 
 Object Lessons in Natural History. Snelgrove {Jarrold). 
 
 The Oak. Marshall Ward (A'. Paul). 
 
 Forest Trees. Nisbet {Macmillan). 
 
 On Buds. Lubbock {K. Paul). 
 
 On Seedlings. Lubbock {K. Paul). 
 
 Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves. Lubbock {Macmillan). 
 
 Nature-Lore and Nature Note-Books. 
 
 {House of Education., Ambleside). 
 KoUar on Insects Injurious to Gardeners. London ( W. Smith). 
 
 Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects. Lubbock {Macmillan). 
 
 Round the Year. Miale {Macmillan). 
 
 Natural History of Aquatic Insects. Miale {Macmillan). 
 
 First Elements of Experimental Geometry. Bert {Cassell). 
 
 Object Teaching for Young Children. 
 
 Wilhelmina Rooper {O. Newtnan), 
 Practical Introduction to Chemistry. Shenstone {Macmillan). 
 
 Ixxxiii
 
 Ixxxiv 
 
 Memoir 
 
 Physical Laboratory Practice. 
 
 Experimental Science. I 
 
 Progressive Lessons in Science. 
 
 Table and Market Poultry. 
 
 Object Lessons in Geography. 
 
 British Mammals. 
 
 The Out-Door World. 
 
 The Study of Animal Life. 
 
 British Mosses. Jameson 
 
 British Moths. 
 
 British Butterflies. 
 
 British Birds. 
 
 Flowers of the Field. 
 
 The Colours of Animals. 
 
 Natural History of Selborne. 
 
 Worthington {Longmans). 
 
 .ishman and Bezant {Blackie). 
 
 Abbott and Key {Biackie). 
 
 Tegetmeier {N. Cox). 
 
 Frew {Biackie). 
 
 Lyddeker {Aile?i). 
 
 Furneaux {Longmans). 
 
 Thomson {Murray). 
 
 {6 College Road, Eastbourne). 
 
 Tutte {Routledge). 
 
 Coleman {Routledge). 
 
 Johns {S. P. C K.). 
 
 Johns {S. P. C. K.). 
 
 Poulton {K. Paul). 
 
 Gilbert White {S. P. C. K.). 
 
 B.- 
 
 -BOOKS FOR GENERAL READING IN COUNTRY 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 The Boy's Own Book of Natural History. Wood {Routledge). 
 
 Rambles and Adventures of our School Field Club. 
 
 G. Davies {K. Paul). 
 
 Madam How and Lady Why. 
 The Fairy Land of Science. 
 Tenants of an Old Farm. 
 A Year with the Birds. 
 Tales of the Birds. 
 My Back-Yard Zoo. 
 Romance of the Insect World. 
 Popular Natural History. 
 Walks of a Naturalist. 
 
 Kingsley {Macmillan). 
 
 Buckley {Stanford). 
 
 Cook {Hodder &= Stoughton). 
 
 ^^'arde Fowler {Macmillan). 
 
 Warde Fowler {Macmillan). 
 
 Wood {Isbister). 
 
 Badenoch {Macmillan). 
 
 Lubbock {National Society). 
 
 Houghton {Groombridge). 
 
 Habits and Instincts of Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes. 
 
 Lee {Griffith &' Farran). 
 
 The Population of an Old Pear-Tree. 
 
 The Senses of Animals. 
 
 Notes and Jottings from Animal Life. 
 
 Thoughts on a Pebble. 
 
 Nature near London. 
 
 Wild Nature Won by Kindness. 
 
 Ponds and Ditches. 
 
 Van Bruyssel {Macmillan). 
 
 Lubbock {K. Paul). 
 
 F. Buckland {Smith, Elder). 
 
 Mantell {Reeve). 
 
 Jefferies {Chatto 6^ IVindus). 
 
 Burgwen {Unwin). 
 
 Cooke {S. P. C. K.).
 
 A Library for Rural Schools Ixxxv 
 
 Lane and Field. Wood {S. P. C. K.). 
 
 The Woodlands. Cooke {S. P. C. K.). 
 
 Curiosities of Natural History, four vols. Buckland {Bmtley). 
 
 The Honey Bee Harris {R. T. S). 
 
 Rambles with Nature Students. Brightwen {R. T. S.). 
 
 The Brook and its Banks. J. G. Wood (R. T. S.). 
 
 Insect Lives. Simpson {R. T. S.). 
 
 How to Study Wild Flowers. Henslow (R. T. S.). 
 
 Ponds and Rock Pools. Scherrew (R. T. S.\ 
 
 Natural History for Boys and Girls. Gordon {R. T. S.). 
 
 Easy Lessons on Things around us. Giberne {R. T. S.). 
 
 Chats about Birds. Tutte {Gill). 
 
 Insects and Spiders. Tutte {Gill). 
 
 Random Recollections of Woodland. Tutte {Gill). 
 
 Rambles in Search of Shells. Harting ( Van Voorst). 
 
 Through a Pocket Lens Scherrew {R. T. S.). 
 
 Ants and their Ways. White {R. T. S). 
 
 C— BOOKS ON MANUAL TRAINING 
 
 Brushwork. M. Hudson {O. Newman). 
 
 Sand-modelling. Major and Tarbuck {O. Newman). 
 
 Swedish Cardboard Modelling. Hewett {King, Halifax). 
 
 Educational Hand-work in Rural Schools. Gotze {O. Newman). 
 
 Harbutt's Plastic Method. {Chapman 6^ Hall). 
 
 Observation Lessons in Science, correlated with Drawing. 
 
 Ricks and Wilkinson {Macmillan). 
 
 MAGAZINES AND PAMPHLETS 
 
 Nature Notes. Selborne Society {E. Stock). 
 
 Society for the Protection of Birds, Educational Series. 
 
 {326 High Holborn, London). 
 Cornel Nature Study Leaflets. 
 
 University of Ithaca, New York, U.S.A.). 
 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. 
 Description of Boscombe School Gardens. 
 
 T. G. Rooper {Eyre cs* Spottiswoode). 
 Hand and Eye. {O. Newman). 
 
 Practical Teacher Art Monthly. {Hughes).
 
 VII. CONCLUSION 
 
 In the midst of this full and vigorous life he was unex- 
 pectedly, and, as it seemed, with great suddenness, struck 
 down. His bodily and mental vigour had never been greater 
 than in the later years of his life at Southampton. In August 
 1902 he spent some weeks in Switzerland, taking long walks 
 as his custom was, one by his own estimate of no less than 
 fifty miles. He had no suspicion that there was anything 
 wrong, or any need for precaution, but the physical strain 
 following on severe mental effort may well have hastened 
 the breakdown. It was in October of this year that the 
 first symptoms of the malady which was to prove fatal 
 made their appearance. He was attacked by what he 
 thought were sciatic pains, and began to experience difficulty 
 in walking. He went to Brighton for rest and bracing, and 
 on his return wrote to Mr. Blakiston on November 21st: "I 
 am certainly much better for Brighton — in body by reason of 
 the bracing air, and in mind by reason of my companionship 
 with you"; and, a few days later, "My sciatica is slowly 
 getting better". But the improvement did not continue, 
 and he was ordered a three-weeks' course at Bath. The 
 seriousness of his illness now became manifest, and on 
 December nth he writes to the same friend: "The Bath 
 cure makes me feel low; the doctor tells me I am suffering 
 from nervous collapse, owing to too much exercise of energy. 
 I have not taken holiday enough, and lectured too often; 
 but I have always tried to refute the charge made against 
 the Inspectorate of sterility by giving a better example, 
 and have overdone it." The course at Bath brought no real 
 improvement, and he suffered almost continual pain; but 
 he was still hopeful of recovery. On January 25th he writes 
 to Mr. Blakiston : " Feeling a little better. I have had several 
 
 Ixxxvi
 
 Last Illness Ixxxvii 
 
 nights without pain and with hope, but after the long-drawn 
 pain and semi-acute torture I am very weak. To think that 
 last August I walked one day fifty miles, and now I find it 
 takes an hour to cover one two-mile round. The doctor says 
 there is no reason why I should not cover fifty miles again 
 next summer. Sciatica pulls me down, but as they assure me 
 there are no complications, they think I shall in time be all 
 right. I live from day to day." 
 
 The opinion reported in this letter seems strangely san- 
 guine in view of the event. It appears that there were 
 certain favourable symptoms, and it was felt that the best 
 chance of recovery lay in his own hopefulness, which it was 
 wise to encourage. But the disease, which proved to be 
 spinal tuberculosis, was in fact rapidly advancing, and by 
 the end of February paralysis of the lower limbs had set in. 
 Early in March Sir Thomas Barlow was consulted, and the 
 opinion he expressed left little room for hope. He himself, 
 though he knew his situation was critical, refused to despair, 
 and he waited patiently and cheerfully for whatever the event 
 was to be. He enjoyed seeing his friends and being read to, 
 and he would have his couch moved to the open window, 
 where he could look out on the children at play. " It makes 
 me glad ", he said, " when I see them all so happy." He 
 would quote Mr. Gladstone's words : " I have had so many 
 years of health I am not going to complain of sickness now ". 
 And when, as the paralysis extended, all hope of recovery was 
 finally abandoned, and he knew that his cherished schemes 
 must fall from his hands, there was no repining. " I think ", 
 says one who was with him, " that he put away all care and 
 thoughts of work when he felt that his work was done, and 
 troubled no more." " I feel ", he said, " like a soldier dying 
 on the field of battle." 
 
 He had great happiness in the assurances of affection and 
 gratitude which came to him during these last weeks. 
 
 "You will leave many behind", wrote Sir R. L. Morant, "who will 
 sorely miss your guidance and help, but all will think happily of you 
 all their lives, and will live better because of you and of your life which
 
 Ixxxviii Memoir 
 
 they have known. I too, at the threshold of a very heavy task, had 
 counted on so much help and friendly counsel from your ripe experi- 
 ence and enthusiastic sympathy. But your work remains, and the 
 standard that you have set. . . . There are hundreds, indeed thou- 
 sands, who will sympathize deeply with you in your sickness, and will 
 be blessing your name for the help which you have given them 
 through all your overworked time, and the chances of good work 
 which by your zeal you have opened up to them." 
 
 I will add two extracts from letters to his sisters, which 
 express what so many were feeling, and which must have 
 done him good to read. The first from one of his old head- 
 masters in the Bradford District: 
 
 " Although it is some years since he left Skipton, the memory of 
 his work here, his kindness to me, and the interest he showed in my 
 work have always been an inspiration to me ". 
 
 And this from Miss C. H. Mason, of the House of Educa- 
 tion, Ambleside, the friend to whom his second volume of 
 Essays was dedicated : 
 
 " Mr. Rooper has known how to attract to himself perfect friend- 
 ship alike from men and women. I wish I could tell you the 
 wonderful sustaining power he has been to me in all my uphill 
 endeavours. ... It is so good that he can see the spring coming 
 and the children playing. I am sending a quaint little picture 
 which I like to look at, and like to send because I shall miss it. 
 Your brother, too, is a Christopher, and his bearing of the children 
 will not be forgot. But, alas, the heavy flood has overwhelmed him." 
 
 His manly endurance and resignation was what those who 
 knew him would have expected from him. He had great 
 suffering, and he bore it with perfect fortitude. His cheerful- 
 ness never failed. Nor had the thought of death any terror 
 for him. He had written in his diary twenty years before: 
 ^' It is time to have done with the craven fear of death, and 
 to recognize death for what it is, a necessary part of life ". 
 For him no craven fear was possible, and a humble but 
 assured composure at the presence of death was indeed
 
 His Death Ixxxix 
 
 simply the continuation and completion of a life which was 
 one long act of obedience. He spoke little during his illness 
 of his thoughts concerning the Unseen, but those who knew 
 him had the assurance that, as in his pure and devoted life, so 
 in the serene death which closed it, he rested on the will of 
 God. He liked to have the Bible, especially the Psalms and 
 the Gospels, and prayers from the Prayer-book, read to him 
 by a sister or by the nurse, and he valued greatly the daily 
 visit of his friend the Rev. C. Percival.^ He received the Holy 
 Communion with his family shortly before he died. Death 
 when it came was painless, and he retained his clearness of 
 mind to the last. " His end was so calm and peaceful we 
 scarcely knew when he passed away, but in the final moments 
 there came a radiant look almost of childlike gladness — I 
 shall never forget it — as of something finished well. His 
 last words were, 'Press forward', 'help from Him'." He died 
 on the 20th of May, 1903, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. 
 
 His death was felt in the educational world as a serious 
 public loss. Mr. Henry Hobhouse wrote: 
 
 " His untimely death will, I can assure you, be an almost irrepar- 
 able loss to the cause of education in southern England. His great 
 experience, deep knowledge, and remarkable enthusiasm for agricul- 
 tural and ruraJ education made him invaluable to schools in country 
 districts." 
 
 Devoted public service is accepted in this country almost 
 as a matter of course, but he himself would have valued 
 highly the recognition of his work, which is contained in the 
 following letter to the writer of this Memoir from the Secre- 
 tary to the Board of Education: — 
 
 " Whitehall, 
 December ^rd, igo4. 
 
 "Dear Sir, 
 
 "The Board of Education, to whom I have submitted your 
 request for some note upon the official services of the late Mr. 
 
 1 He had made a selection of prayers and passages of Scripture, which he seems at 
 one time to have thought of printing.
 
 xc Memoir 
 
 Rooper, authorize me to say that they gladly welcome this oppor- 
 tunity of testifying to the high value of his work as one of His 
 Majesty's Inspectors, Amongst recent matters in which he specially 
 helped in public education, I may mention the general introduction 
 of Object Lessons for younger children, the application of Object 
 Teaching to the special circumstances of country schools and the 
 encouragement of Gardening as a school subject, in which connection 
 he paid a visit to Germany and wrote two papers for our Special 
 Reports. Mr. Rooper was most devoted to his work, and the 
 Board's Inspectorate have sustained great loss by his death. j 
 
 " I am, yours very truly,] 
 
 " Robert L. Morant, 
 Secretary of the Board of Education." 
 
 But, in taking leave of him, we do not think only of the 
 good public servant and the unwearied worker in the cause 
 of education. It needed more than this to account for the 
 remarkable outburst of feeling which was evoked by his 
 death. It can be said of him with truth that his death was 
 felt by many hundreds of men and women as a personal 
 bereavement. " I have prayed God to spare him, but He 
 knows best and we must resign." " No one could ever be 
 to us teachers what Mr. Rooper was. He was an inspiration 
 to all of us." " To fill his place as regards the schools will be 
 almost impossible, for the Pupil -Teachers worked quite as 
 much to please him as to help themselves." Such was the 
 affection he inspired among the teachers in his schools. 
 
 Official relations were transformed by him into something 
 different, and the resolutions expressing the general sense of 
 loss felt at his death which were passed by School Boards and 
 other educational bodies with which he had been associated 
 were no mere formal utterances. In a letter transmitting one 
 such resolution to his family we read : 
 
 " It is seldom that in official life room is found for the profound 
 respect and esteem in which your brother was held by all who had 
 business with him. His high ideal of, and enthusiasm for, the work
 
 Tributes from Friends and Colleagues xci 
 
 in which we were associated made his visits to us more Hke those of 
 a friend, and most sincerely do the members join in this expression 
 of condolence with you in your great sorrow." 
 
 The Chairman of the Southampton Board spoke of his 
 loss as " a calamity to the town. Never shall we see his 
 like again." 
 
 At an educational conference at Southampton, the chair- 
 man, after speaking of the "gentle thoroughness and sym- 
 pathy " which were at once apparent, goes on to say : 
 
 " Closer acquaintance deepened the good impressions we first 
 formed, and we all came to look upon him as a true friend. He 
 was always alike, well or ill; always gentle, thoughtful, ever ready 
 to help, and help in the most effective manner, for his knowledge 
 of educational theories and methods appeared unbounded. His 
 character seemed without a flaw. He was full of beautiful traits. 
 Whatever he touched he lifted it into an atmosphere of brightness 
 and intelligence. . . . The world is enormously poorer in love and 
 zeal by his death." 
 
 I may be allowed to add a few passages from letters 
 received by his family. One writes: 
 
 " It would be impossible to exaggerate what I owed to him. He 
 was my truest friend; in all my work I invariably looked to him for 
 counsel and sympathy; he is still present to my thoughts in every- 
 thing that I do. At first I felt that I could not write to you about 
 him. Words seem so cold, and his death was the ending of my 
 happiest experience." 
 
 And again: 
 
 " I never met him without receiving good, I never left him with- 
 out experiencing the calm joy that comes from higher thoughts stirred 
 into life and action by a gracious influence. I cannot work for think- 
 ing of him. I wish one could say all one's thoughts — it is better not, 
 perhaps. To me he was the highest pattern of an English Christian 
 gentleman it has been my good fortune to know."
 
 xcii Memoir 
 
 And another: 
 
 " For us who believe in his behefs, who follow them at a far 
 greater distance than he, the memory of a great life is after the 
 first sorrow the inspiring note. No letters that you receive will do 
 faint justice to the enthusiasm and beauty of his modest untiring 
 ways. A perfect stranger said to me once, 'Who is that with the 
 Christ-like face?' All who knew him sympathize with you deeply, all 
 who knew him will be the better for the fine spirit that has passed." 
 
 The following letter from Mr. M. E. Sadler may fitly 
 close these tributes to his memory: — 
 
 " I heard yesterday with deep sorrow the news of Mr. Rooper's 
 death. I have not yet been able to realize all that this means to 
 England. It is a national loss; the value of his influence on the 
 side of all that is right and high-minded in education was incalcul- 
 able. For years he has been an inspirer of good work in hundreds 
 and thousands of others. He never spoke a word about education 
 without raising the issue to the highest plane, and nothing mean or 
 self-seeking could hold up its head against his clear insight. Among 
 all the forces which have been at work in education during these last 
 critical years, I believe that few have been so potent and none more 
 ennobling than his teaching and example." 
 
 In the Bradford and Southampton Districts resolutions 
 vi^ere independently adopted to found a Memorial in com- 
 memoration of his services. At Bradford it took the form 
 of an Annual Prize for Geography, to be held at the Grammar 
 School; and at Southampton, of a Scholarship open to past and 
 present pupils of the Elementary Schools in the District, to 
 be held at the University College, and a tablet to his memory 
 to be placed in the College. It would have gratified him to 
 know that among the subscribers were a large number not 
 only of teachers but of the children in the schools. The tablet 
 in the College is inscribed to him: "in recognition of his 
 many and great virtues, wide knowledge, unfailing wisdom, 
 and eminent services to the cause of education. ' Maxima 
 debetur pueris reverentia.' "
 
 A Complete Life xciii 
 
 We speak of the death of such a man at a comparatively 
 early age and at the height of his influence, as premature. 
 Yet his early death was perhaps only the natural result of 
 excessive mental energy wearing out a bodily frame which, in 
 spite of his active habits, was never really robust. He was 
 always overworking and he was quite av/are of this, though 
 he never realized that there was danger in it, and he would 
 probably have said that if he had relaxed his efforts he could 
 not have done the work he had to do. 
 
 Nor assuredly can we think of his life as incomplete. 
 That which, on looking back, most impresses those who knew 
 him best is rather its completeness, to which a few years added 
 or taken away matter little. Thus his lifelong friend, Pro- 
 fessor Bosanquet, wrote: "It strikes me that his life was 
 wonderfully complete, and you would not have wished him 
 to linger on if his powers were never again to be worthy of 
 him. Few men have done such work or died more distinctly 
 in the service of their country." And Mr. C. S. Loch, also 
 a friend from College days, strikes the same note: "I feel 
 that the life was very complete, very definite in its aims, 
 and very perfect in its self-fulfilment ". The work passes to 
 other hands, but the life had fulfilled its purpose. 
 
 We may apply the word completeness to him in another 
 sense which has been perhaps too much in the background in 
 this Memoir. He was many-sided and entirely human. In 
 spite of overwork and delicate health he was full of the joy of 
 life. He was very much in earnest, but he was " not at all 
 a prig" — his sense of humour and his gaiety of spirit saved 
 him from that — and in the home circle or in the society of his 
 friends he was the most delightful of companions. He had 
 wide interests beyond his work. Books and nature — I have 
 spoken of his love of botany and his long walks in the York- 
 shire dales and in Switzerland — were an unfailing resource to 
 him, and he had cultivated his strong natural taste for art, 
 making a study in particular of English landscape painting 
 and of architecture. He was also an accomplished photo-
 
 xciv Memoir 
 
 grapher, and would spend long days on a holiday tour in 
 photographing architectural details or ice forms on a glacier. 
 He could play, but he could not be simply idle, and he was 
 probably never in his life dull. 
 
 But, as with most strenuous Englishmen, his chief happi- 
 ness was no doubt in his work. " Blessed is he who has found 
 his work " — work in which he believes and in which the best 
 that is in him finds expression. This good fortune Rooper 
 had, and his belief in the work carried him happily through 
 one of the most laborious of lives. In the exacting daily 
 routine of business which falls to a school-inspector's lot, he 
 never lost his freshness of spirit, and nothing was trivial to 
 him which bore on the end he had set before him. He was 
 one of those who, in his own words, " can see the future 
 through the present and the fulfilment in the promise". 
 Many men enter on life with high aims and hopes, and 
 then as the years advance " the visions fade away " and they 
 acquiesce in the standards of the world about them. He 
 remained an idealist to the last and never outlived his en- 
 thusiasms.
 
 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
 
 THE POT OF GREEN FEATHERS 
 
 As the title of this paper seems a little strange, a few- 
 words are necessary to explain its meaning. Some years ago 
 I was listening to an object-lesson given to a class of very 
 young children by a pupil-teacher, who chose for her subject 
 a pot of beautiful fresh green ferns. She began by holding 
 up the plant before the class, and asking whether any child 
 could say what it was. At first no child answered, but pre- 
 sently a little girl said: "It is a pot of green feathers". 
 Thereupon the teacher turned to me and said: "Poor little 
 thing! She knows no better." 
 
 But I fell to thinking on the matter. Did the child really 
 suppose that the ferns were feathers? Or did she rather use 
 the name of a familiar thing to describe what she knew to be 
 different, and yet noticed to be in some respects like? This 
 train of thought led me to put together what I knew of per- 
 ception, and the following chapter is the result of my labours. 
 
 The principal authority which I have closely followed is 
 Dr. Karl Lange's Apperception, but I have derived much help 
 from Herbart's Psychology, Bernard Perez' First Three Years 
 of Childhood, Romanes' Mental Evolution in Man, and the 
 lectures of the late Professor T. H. Green. 
 
 What do we know of the outer world? Of that which 
 is not self? Of objects? How do we know anything of the 
 outer world? We receive impressions from it; a table feels 
 hard, a book looks brown in colour, oblong in shape, and we 
 say it is thick or thin. Are we simply receivers of these 
 impressions — hard, brown, oblong? Are our minds inactive 
 
 3 7
 
 4 Essays and Addresses 
 
 in the process of getting to know these impressions? Or are 
 they active? Are lumps of the outside somehow forced in 
 upon our minds entire, without corresponding action on the 
 mind's part? 
 
 No, our minds are not passive; the opposite is true. 
 Through the senses the mind receives impressions, but these 
 contributions from the senses would not be objects of know- 
 ledge, would not be interpreted, would not be recognized, 
 unless the mind itself worked upon them and assimilated 
 them, converting the unknown stimulus from without into a 
 sensation which we can hold in our thoughts and compare 
 with other sensations within us. The mind converts the un- 
 known stimulus from without into the known sensation. The 
 outer world, then, is no more wholly the outer world when 
 we know it. In our knowledge of the outer world there is 
 always something contributed by the mind itself. 
 
 The truth that the mind adds to and changes the impres- 
 sions which it receives through the senses is illustrated by the 
 very different conceptions to which exactly the same land- 
 scape gives rise in different people. The geologist can tell 
 you of the strata, the botanist of the vegetation, the landscape 
 painter of the light and shade, the various colouring, and the 
 grouping of the objects, and yet, perhaps, no one of them 
 notices exactly what the others notice. A plank of wood, 
 again, seems a simple object, and able to tell one tale to all; 
 but how much it tells to a joiner concerning which it is dumb 
 to a casual observer! 
 
 Or, again, visit as a grown man the school-room or the 
 playground where you played as a child, especially if you 
 have not visited the scene in the interval. How changed all 
 seems! The rooms that used to look so large have become 
 dwarfed. The tremendous long throw which you used to 
 make with a ball from one end of the playground to the 
 other, to what a narrow distance it has shrunk! Yet the 
 room and the ground are what they were. It is your mind 
 that has changed. The change in your mind has brought 
 about for you a change in the thing. Two people, then, or
 
 The Pot of G^'een Feathers 5 
 
 e\-en one's self at different times of one's life, may perceive 
 the same object without obtaining the same perception. Yet 
 if the external object stamped itself on the mind as a seal or 
 die stamps itself on wax — if the mind were as passive as wax 
 — how could one object give rise to such different impressions? 
 The difference must be due to the mind. 
 
 Neither is it difficult to understand that this is the case, if 
 we think what is the nature of the process by which the mind 
 interprets the impressions which it receives from outward 
 objects. When the mind receives an impression it refers it 
 to a previously-received impression that happens to resemble 
 it. Thus every new impression is interpreted by means of 
 old ones, and, consequently, every new perception is affected, 
 coloured as it were, by the already acquired contents of the 
 mind, and nothing can be known or recognized at all until 
 reference and comparison have been made to previous per- 
 ception. 
 
 My object in the present chapter is to make this point, 
 perception, which I admit is not easy, as clear as I can. Per- 
 ception of an object is not so simple a matter as it at first 
 seems to be. "Oh," someone will say, "simple enough! A 
 dog runs past me; through my senses I receive sensations of 
 the animal, and I know that I see a dog." But this is no 
 perfect account; for suppose two strange animals, say, a 
 Tasvianian Devil and an OrnitJiorhynchus, come up the street 
 together, my senses will make me aware of their presence; 
 but, if I have not learned anything about them previously, 
 I shall not know, I do not say merely their names, but not 
 even their exact shape and distinguishing marks. I shall 
 say: " What in the name of wonder are they?" After a little 
 looking at the strange pair I should say: "One is a kind of 
 bear, and the other is a kind of duck — a funny bear and a 
 funny duck." 
 
 Observe how the process of interpretation of my im- 
 pressions goes on. Looking at the Tasmanian Devil, my 
 impressions divide themselves into two classes: one set of 
 impressions resembles impressions of bears which I have pre^
 
 6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 viously received, while the other set finds nothing already- 
 existing in the mind to which it can attach itself. A kind 
 of fight goes on between new and old. In the end the points 
 of resemblance overpower the points of dissimilarity, and I 
 judge the one animal (the Tasmanian Devil), in spite ot 
 much unlikeness, to be a kind of bear, in doing which I am 
 wrong, as it is a kind of marsupial; and in judging, by a 
 similar process, the Ornithorhynchus to be a sort of bird, 
 because of its bill, the mind equally makes a mistake, or, as 
 we say, forms a wrong impression. 
 
 There are then at least two parts in the process of know- 
 ing any object. First of all, there is the excitation of our 
 nerves, the nervous stimulus which makes us feel that we 
 have a feeling, but does not explain what the feeling is; and 
 secondly, there is the interpretation of the feeling by a mental 
 action, through which the undetermined and as yet unknown 
 sensations or gifts of the senses are referred to known im- 
 pressions and explained. 
 
 It is this act of mental assimilation of the impressions 
 which we receive from external objects that I now wish to 
 discuss. I am not dealing with the question of the origin of 
 our impressions, or the physiological basis of them, but with 
 the growth of knowledge in the understanding by the working" 
 of the mind upon impressions. I think that modern psycho- 
 logists have carried the analysis of this process sufficiently 
 far for the results of their studies to be of practical value to 
 teachers and parents. If we have to teach, is it not useful to 
 know how the mind acquires knowledge? 
 
 Take an object and set it before a child — say a fern. If 
 the child has never seen a fern before, he does not know what 
 it is. He receives impressions of it, but he cannot interpret 
 them adequately. The botanist looks at the same fern, and 
 not only sees and knows that it is a fern, but also what kind 
 it is, how it is distinguished from other ferns, where it grows, 
 how it may be cultivated, and all about it. The difference 
 between the knowledge which the sight of the fern gives to 
 the child and to the botanist does not depend upon the fern,
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers 7 
 
 but upon the state of mind of the two observers. The mind 
 adds infinitely more to the impression received when it is 
 the botanist's mind which receives it, than when it is the 
 comparatively empty and uninformed mind of the child. 
 What you can know of an object depends upon what you 
 already know both of it and of other things. Philosophers 
 and poets like Kingsley, Carlyle, Herder, Goethe, as well as 
 educationalists and psychologists, impress on us the truth: 
 " In regarding an object we can only see what we have been 
 trained to see".^ 
 
 Impressions, then, have to be interpreted before they are 
 clear to us. What is the easiest case of our interpreting im- 
 pressions? Perhaps some such as the following: I see a man 
 a little way off and say to myself: " Here comes my brother". 
 I have so often recognized my brother that the whole process 
 of recognition goes on in my mind without any check or 
 hindrance. The existing mental conception of my brother 
 masters completely and promptly the fresh impressions which 
 his present appearance make upon me. The identification 
 of the new and the old is uninterrupted, prompt, and imme- 
 diate. The same speed and accuracy of interpretation is 
 observable in the prompt and correct recognition by a good 
 reader of the words and sentences in his book. 
 
 Now take an opposite case, when it is hard instead of 
 easy to interpret impressions. Suppose that we see some- 
 thing which is quite new to us. Suppose that the new im- 
 pressions do not connect themselves with any previously 
 assimilated impressions, and that, try as we may to refer 
 them to something known, all is in vain. Then we feel 
 puzzled: a hindrance, or check, or obstruction occurs in our 
 minds. If the impression be very strong, it may cause us 
 to " lose our heads", as we say, or it may even overwhelm us. 
 
 1 " We can only see what we have been trained to see." — Carlyle. 
 "We only hear what we know." — Goethe. 
 "What we are not we can neither know nor feel." — Herder. 
 
 " We can neither know, nor touch, nor see, except as we have learned." — Rousseau. 
 In other words, the present impression produces only such an effect on the mind 
 as the past history of the mind renders possible.
 
 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 It is narrated that one of the natives of the interior of 
 Africa, who was accompanying Livingstone to Europe, no 
 sooner found himself on the great Indian Ocean, with nothing 
 but heaving waters far and near in his view, than he became 
 overpowered by the immense impression which this new 
 experience made upon his mind, and flung himself overboard 
 into the waves, never to rise again. Similarly, at the Paris 
 Exhibition, every evening when the gun is fired at the Eiffel 
 Tower for the last time at ten o'clock, it is not unusual to 
 see a sort of frenzy among the visitors. Under the already 
 strong impression produced by the electric illuminations, the 
 luminous fountains, and the varied magnificence of the great 
 show, some people seem to be seized with a veritable panic. 
 Cries of admiration escape from some, and terror from others, 
 followed by fainting, attacks of hysteria, and prostration. 
 
 Similar shocks occasionally prove fatal. Not long ago, 
 a little girl, four years old, was standing on the platform, near 
 Sittingbourne, with her parents, who were on their way to 
 Kent for the hop-picking season, when an express train 
 dashed through the station. The little one was terror-stricken, 
 and on the journey down screamed every time an engine 
 came within sight or hearing. She dropped dead. The 
 doctor ascribed death to the shock. 
 
 To assimilate, then, a wholly new impression is necessarily 
 a task of some difficulty, but the results are luckily not 
 always so sensational as those which I have just described, 
 and the following is an account of what more usually takes 
 place. 
 
 If the new impression is not of a nature to make us feel 
 strongly, and if it is isolated and unconnected with any other 
 knowledge present to our minds, it probably passes away 
 quickly and sinks into oblivion, just as a little child may take 
 notice of a shooting-star on a summer night, and after wonder- 
 ing for a moment, thinks of it no more; if, however, our 
 feelings are] excited, and if the object which gives us the im- 
 pression remains before us long enough to make the im- 
 pression strong, then the impression becomes associated with
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers 9 
 
 the feelings, and the will comes into play, in consequence of 
 which we determine to remember the new impression, and 
 to seek an explanation of it. With this object, the mind 
 searches more carefully its previous stock of ideas, comparing 
 the new with the old, rejecting the totally unlike and retain- 
 ing the like or most like, and in the end it overcomes the 
 obstacle to assimilation, and finds a place for the new along 
 with the old mental stores, thereby enriching itself, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously — unconsciously in earlier years, 
 and consciously afterwards. 
 
 As an instance, I will suppose a child who has only seen 
 blue violets finds a white one. Of his impressions of the 
 white flower, some are new and some are old. The greater 
 part are old, and lead him to infer that he sees a violet; but 
 the impression of whiteness is new, and leads him to say: 
 " This is not a violet ". Let us represent the characteristics 
 by which he recognizes a blue violet by the letters A B C D, 
 the D standing for the colour blue, and A B C for all the 
 rest of the flower. When now he finds a white violet, he 
 again notes A B C as before, but instead of D, the colour 
 blue, he receives the impression E, the colour white. Had 
 the colour been the same, the impression of the flower would 
 have coincided with previous impressions of violets, but the 
 difference between D and E causes an obstruction or hin- 
 drance to this inference. The mind is not at ease with 
 itself, the agreement of new and old only reaches a certain 
 way. The old mental image and the newly acquired one 
 do not exactly tally. 
 
 What happens? In the two mental images now present, 
 side by side, in the mind, the new and the old (the new being 
 more vivid, the old being more firmly established), the like 
 elements, namely, ABC, strengthen each other and unite 
 to make a clear image, while the unlike elements D and E, 
 the blue and the white, obstruct each other, become dim and 
 at last obscured. The like elements in the end overcome 
 the obstruction caused by the unlike and beat them out of 
 the field of mental vision, so that the two partly resembling
 
 lO Essays and Addresses 
 
 impressions become blended or fused, as by mental smelting, 
 into one. The two are recognized as one by the mind. The 
 old appropriates or assimilates the new. The child finds 
 an old £';rpression for the new /wpression, and says to itself: 
 "It is a violet". 
 
 Of course an impression need not belong to any one 
 previously acquired impression or group of impressions only; 
 it may be connected with other groups. In this case it will 
 be recalled to consciousness on more frequent occasions than 
 if it belonged to one other mental state only. Hence a new 
 impression, if you give it time, may find for itself many more 
 points of attachment with previous impressions and ideas 
 than it found just at first. 
 
 For instance, I may visit Amiens Cathedral. Presently, 
 when I have admired the building, I recall to mind various 
 historic events that took place at the capital of Picardy. I 
 remember that Julius Caesar started thence to conquer Britain, 
 that Peter the Hermit was born there, and that not far off 
 Edward III won the battle of Crecy, and that its name often 
 comes up in the long Hundred Years' War. I think of the 
 peace of Amiens in 1802, the visit of Bonaparte to Amiens 
 when he prepared to invade England, and lastly, of the 
 German army in 1870. One impression calls up another, 
 and the whole mass together strengthens and confirms and 
 amplifies the original impression. Isolated, these separate 
 events are of less interest than when grouped together with 
 my actual inspection of the ancient building. 
 
 A wise man, therefore (if I may draw a passing moral), 
 does not, if he can help it, decide or act in a hurry, under 
 the influence of new impressions, but he will give them time 
 to find points of connection with old impressions. What 
 may to-day seem irreconcilable with truth, or honour, or 
 happiness may prove, when time has been allowed for 
 assimilation, inconsistent neither with sincerity, nor good 
 name, nor good fortune. 
 
 Educationists, like Mr. Arnold, also, will continue to im- 
 plore the public to simplify the studies of children, being
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers ii 
 
 convinced that unless the mind has leisure to work by itself 
 on the stuff or matter which is prescribed to it by the teacher, 
 the thinking faculty, on which all progress depends, will be 
 paralysed, and dead knowledge will be a substitute for living. 
 The mind will have no power of expanding from within, for it 
 will become a passive recipient of knowledge, only able to 
 discharge again what has been stuffed into it, and quite power- 
 less to make fresh combinations and discoveries. " Cram " is 
 the rapid acquisition of a great deal of knowledge. Learning 
 so acquired, though useful for a barrister, has less educational 
 value than the public believe, for it does not promote but 
 rather tends to destroy the active and constructive powers of 
 the mind. 
 
 When the mind has much difficulty to overcome in assimi- 
 lating a new impression, and hence has to spend time in so 
 doing, it is beneiited by the process, for the necessity of care, 
 caution, and accurate observation, and much rummaging (if I 
 may venture on the expression) among the ideas in the mind 
 tends, in the first place, to sharpen the senses — the sight, the 
 touch, the hearing, and the rest — by making them sensitive 
 to fine shades which might otherwise escape us, and, in the 
 second, to amplify and enlarge meagre impressions. 
 
 The eye, by itself, for example, only reveals to us surfaces. 
 How, then, do we seem to see solid bodies? A baby stretches 
 out its hand for the moon: how is it that what seems so near 
 to him looks so far off from us? Because in our case the im- 
 pressions conveyed by the eye are supplemented by the impres- 
 sions received through the touch, and the two distinct sets of 
 impressions combined together in the mind furnish us with the 
 conception of a third dimension, besides length and breadth, 
 viz., depth. The child, who has not yet got so far as to have 
 sufficiently often united the impressions derived from looking 
 with those derived from touching and moving, cannot rightly 
 interpret the impression which he receives. The moon seems 
 quite close to him. 
 
 Impressions, on the other hand, which pass easily into their 
 place in the mind do not always tend to clearness of ideas.
 
 12 Essays and Addresses 
 
 People may look at an object hundreds of times for a special 
 purpose, and, beyond serving that purpose, get no permanent 
 impressions at all. Many people who look at a clock or watch 
 many times a day, cannot at once, when asked, draw from 
 memory a dial with the hours correctly placed upon it. 
 
 The process of assimilation may even mislead, just as 
 familiarity with an object may hinder accurate observation. 
 Goethe says there is a moment in a young man's life when he 
 can see no blemish in the lady he loves, and no fault in the 
 author he admires. A man in love ma)' think that his Ange- 
 lina sings divinely sweet, though her voice is like a crow's. 
 He interprets the impressions which he receives according to 
 previously-formed impressions. 
 
 This leads us to see that it is not right to say, as we 
 sometimes do say: "My senses play me false". The senses 
 do not lie. The ear does not, in the instance in question, 
 convey sweet sounds. The sense of hearing does not judge 
 at all. The ear conveys the sound truly enough. The judg- 
 ment concerning the sound is formed in the mind of the 
 listener. It is this judgment which is falsified by prejudice, 
 the lover being naturally prepossessed in favour of his 
 mistress. 
 
 So the wanderer by night in the graveyard, in the un- 
 certain light of the misty moon, judges a tall gravestone to 
 be a "sheeted ghost". His eye is not at fault; his judgment 
 is. He receives the impression from the object truly, but he 
 refers his impression to the wTong group or store of previous 
 knowledge. He should refer it to optical phenomena, diffrac- 
 tion of light and the rest. He actually does think of pictures 
 and stories of vague appearances of human shapes w^ithout 
 human substance, and of all the superstitious imaginings of 
 poor, frail human nature. His senses are not under control 
 of his reason. 
 
 We have seen, then, how each impression that we receive 
 from external objects is, consciously or unconsciously, inter- 
 preted and made know^n to us by a kind of internal classifi- 
 cation through which it is referred to that part of our store of
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers 13 
 
 knowledge with which its resemblance connects it. We have 
 now to see that, in this process of interpretation of a new im- 
 pression by that which is old, the previously-existing mass of 
 knowledge which interprets the new is itself modified and 
 made clearer. 
 
 Suppose a child lives in the flat of the fen near Cambridge,, 
 and that by going to the Gogmagog Hills he learns to form 
 an idea of what a hill is. Then suppose him to be trans- 
 ported to Birmingham, where he goes out to the Lickey Hills. 
 These he will recognize as hills by aid of the previous con- 
 ception of a hill which he has formed in his mind ; but, at the 
 same time, he enlarges his ideas of a hill, and if he travels 
 farther west, and climbs the Malvern Hills and the Welsh 
 Hills, he will still further amplify his conception. Now let 
 him study the elements of geology and physical geography, 
 and learn to trace the connection between the shape of hills 
 and the rock or soil composing them, together with the action 
 of wind and water, heat and frost, and the word " hills " will 
 have a yet extended meaning. 
 
 Every time you refer an object to a class, as when you sayr 
 "Yonder mass," it may be Ingleborough, "is a hill," you not 
 only explain the thing about which you are talking (Ingle- 
 borough), but you also add to your idea of the class (hill) to 
 which you refer it. The new thing is explained by old or 
 already existing ideas, but for the service which the old does 
 the new in thus interpreting it the old idea receives payment 
 or recompense in being made itself more clear. 
 
 Suppose you have a dozen pictures — apes, bears, foxes„ 
 lions, tigers, &c. Then every time you show one of these 
 to a child, and the child learns to say: "That tiger is an 
 animal," " That lion is an animal," he not only learns some- 
 thing about the tiger, the lion, and the rest, but also extends 
 his conception of what an animal is. Hence we can see when 
 it is that learning a name is instructive: it is when the name 
 is a record of something actually witnessed. If, however, you 
 tell a child who does not know what a ship is, or what wind 
 is, or what the sea is, that a sail is the canvas on which the
 
 14 Essays and Addresses 
 
 wind blows to move the ship across the sea, the names are 
 only names and do not add to his knowledge of objects. 
 
 So far we have chiefly considered the case where impres- 
 sions from the outside world, or from outward objects, are 
 being interpreted by the mind, as in the case of violets, the 
 pot of ferns and the like; but a similar process goes on wholly 
 in the mind between ideas which exist there after external 
 objects have been removed. Consider how weak fugitive im- 
 pressions may be strengthened and held fast by this process. 
 Alongside the feeble, and therefore fugitive, impression, arises 
 a mass of previously-acquired and nearly-connected impres- 
 sions and ideas, dominating the former, and, by means of 
 connections with other stores of knowledge, setting up a 
 movement in the mind which lights up the obscure im- 
 pression, defines it, and fixes it in the mind ineradicably. 
 
 For example: I find a little white flower on the top of 
 Great Whernside — Rubus ChanicBviorus. I might notice it 
 for a moment and pass on oblivious. Suppose, however, that 
 it occurs to me next day to think of the so-called zones of 
 vegetation, and how the Pennine Hills were once covered with 
 the ice-sheet as Greenland now is, and how England then had 
 an arctic flora, and how it may be that this flower, which in 
 England only grows 2000 feet above the sea, being killed by 
 the warmth of lower levels, may perhaps be a botanical relic 
 of that surprising geological epoch, and then what interest 
 attaches to that flower! Why the very spot on which it 
 grows seems stamped indelibly on the mind. 
 
 Nothing new, then, can be a subject of knowledge until it 
 is not merely mechanically associated (as a passing breeze 
 with the story which I read under a tree), but is associated, 
 by a psychological process, with something in the mind which 
 is already stored up there, the new seeking among the old for 
 something resembling itself, and not allowing the mind peace 
 until such has been found, or until the new impression has 
 passed out of consciousness. 
 
 This process of interpreting impressions and ideas by 
 reference to previous impressions and ideas must not be
 
 The Pot of Green Feather's 15 
 
 confounded with reference of such interpreted impressions to 
 self When you refer this process to self, when you recognize 
 yourself as going through the process, and as being the subject 
 of the assimilating process, this is self-observation. You may 
 have this self-consciousness either along with the interpreting 
 process, or after it, or not at all. Dogs, parrots, and many 
 animals clearly interpret impressions and objects as one of a 
 class, — as a kitten did which, after eating a piece of raw meat, 
 afterwards chewed a ball of red blotting-paper, inferring it to 
 be meat from its colour; but they do not do this with recog- 
 nition of self as the subject of the process. Children do not 
 appear to be conscious in their thoughts and actions much 
 before they are three years old, and their minds seem at first 
 much to resemble the minds of animals. 
 
 We may now further apply this principle of the growth of 
 the mind to practical work in the class-room. When some- 
 thing new presents itself to us, it does not, as a rule, except 
 when it affects the emotions in some way, arrest our attention, 
 unless it is connected with something already known by us. 
 
 A young child visited the British Museum, and was next 
 day asked what he had noticed. He remarked upon the 
 enormous size of the door-mats. Most other impressions 
 were fugitive, being isolated in his mind. The mats he knew 
 about, because he compared them with the door-mat at home. 
 Among all the birds, the only one he remembered was the 
 hen, and, passing by the bears and tigers with indifference, 
 he was pleased to recognize a stuffed specimen of the domestic 
 cat. The child only remembered what he was already familiar 
 with, for the many impressions from other objects neutralized 
 each other, and passed into oblivion. 
 
 One great art in teaching is the art of finding links and 
 connections between isolated facts, and of making the child 
 see that what seems quite new is an extension of what is 
 already in his mind. Few people would long remember the 
 name and date of a single Chinese king picked by chance 
 from a list extending back thousands of years. Facts of 
 English history are not much easier to remember than this
 
 1 6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 for children who are not gifted with strong mechanical 
 memories. Hence the value of presenting names, dates and 
 events in connection with external memorials, such as monu- 
 ments, buildings, battle-fields, or with poems and current 
 events and the like. Story, object and poem illustrate and 
 strengthen each other. It ought not to be hard to teach 
 English history in the town of York, where there is a con- 
 tinuous series of objects illustrating the course of affairs 
 from prehistoric times to the present date. Our object in 
 teaching should be to present facts in organic relation to each 
 other, instead of getting them learnt by heart as a list of 
 disconnected names. 
 
 If, then, all the growth of the mind, from earliest to 
 latest years, takes place through the apprehension of new 
 knowledge by old, then the first business of the young 
 child in the world is to learn to interpret rightly the im- 
 pressions that he receives from objects. To receive and 
 master the gifts of his senses is his first duty. 
 
 But this task cannot in the early stages be fulfilled in 
 a strictly systematic way. You cannot present all the world 
 piece-meal to the child, object after object, in strictly logical 
 order. One educationist objected to little children visiting 
 a wood or forest, because the different sorts of trees were 
 there all jumbled together, instead of being scientifically 
 classified and arranged as they would be in a botanical 
 garden. The child, however, must take the world as he 
 finds it. Impressions come crowding in upon him in such 
 numbers that he has no time at first for paying minute atten- 
 tion to any one. In truth, so massed and grouped are his 
 impressions that one may almost say that the outer world 
 presents itself to him as a whole — of course an obscure 
 unanalysed whole, — and that it is a matter of difficulty to 
 isolate one perception clearly from its concomitant percep- 
 tions. 
 
 The whole must be analysed into parts bit by bit. Out 
 of the mass of obscure and ill-defined impressions, educa- 
 tionists should study which are they which stand out and
 
 The Pot of Gj'een Feathers 17 
 
 arrest attention most readily, and in what order they do 
 this. We do not find that those impressions are most strik- 
 ing which are logically the most important, but rather those 
 to which the practical needs of daily life give prominence 
 — food, clothing, parents, brothers, sisters, other children and 
 their experiences. Such are the things that children are 
 most taken up with. But each impression, once grasped, is 
 the basis or starting-point for understanding another, and 
 thus the manifold variety of objects is simplified and brought 
 within the compass of memory by a sort of unconscious 
 reasoning. 
 
 A child, for instance, who kept a chicken, but never saw 
 a chicken at table, being limited in its meat diet to beef, 
 when at last the chicken came to table roasted, called it 
 "hen-beef", clearly interpreting, by an elementary process 
 of reasoning, the new by the old. Take a child to a wild- 
 beast show, and observe how he names the animals by aid 
 of a very general resemblance to those he may previously 
 know. The elephant is a donkey, because he has four legs; 
 the otter is a fish; and so on. These comparisons are not 
 jests, nor even mere play of fancy, but the result of an effort 
 of an inexperienced mind to assimilate new impressions. The 
 child is only following the mental process which we all have 
 to follow in becoming masters of our impressions and extend- 
 ing our knowledge. Clearly the child's limited stock of ideas 
 renders it easier for him to make mistakes than it is for us to 
 do so; but in some matters it is well to remember that we 
 are no further advanced than children, and consequently 
 often behave as such. 
 
 A little French child, a year old, who had travelled much, 
 named an engine " Fafer " (its way of saying Cheinin de fer) ; 
 afterwards it named steam-boat, coffee-pot and spirit-lamp, 
 anything that hissed and smoked, "Fafer" — the obvious points 
 of resemblance spontaneously fusing together in the child's 
 mind and becoming classified, not quite incorrectly. Another 
 child, who learnt to call a star by its right name, applied 
 star as a name to candle, gas, and other bright objects, clearly
 
 1 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 interpreting the new by the old, by use of elementary classifi- 
 cation or reasoning. 
 
 Thus we see the value and helpfulness of language, in the 
 process of acquiring and interpreting impressions. Having 
 once separated, from the indistinct masses of impressions 
 borne in upon him from the outside world, some one distinct 
 impression, and having marked that impression with a name, 
 the child is thenceforth readily able to recognize the same 
 impression (in the instance just noted, that of brightness) 
 when mixed up with quite other masses of impressions, and 
 to fix its attention on that one alone. 
 
 Thus the word helps the mind to grow and expand. The 
 use of the word is a real help to the knowledge of things. 
 The name, when learnt in connection with the observation 
 and handling of an object, is not merely a name, a barren 
 symbol for nothing signified, but it is a means for acquiring 
 fresh knowledge as occasion serves. A name thus learnt {i.e. 
 in presence of the object), when applied by the learner to 
 a new impression exactly resembling the former, is really 
 an expression of and an addition to the mental stores. It is 
 then as the filling in of a sketch, or as the further completion 
 of an unfinished circle. 
 
 How different is such naming from learning by heart 
 the names of objects without handling the things signified? 
 How often have text-books of science, geography, and history 
 been prescribed to be got up for examination, and how often 
 have the results been disappointing? The student thus taught 
 sees only the difference of a letter in the alphabet between 
 CarboNic Acid and CarboLic Acid, JacobiN and JacobiTe, 
 and a mere transposition of a figure in expressing an incline 
 as 8 inches in i mile, instead of i inch in 8 miles. The words 
 call up no mental image. The figure 8 is a symbol only, 
 as it does not call up the image of 8 things. A name given 
 in the presence of the object serves afterwards to recall the 
 image or picture of that object, and it does this the more 
 perfectly the more accurately the object is studied in the 
 first instance.
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers 19 
 
 Children, for want of language, signify many of their 
 impressions by gestures before they can describe them in 
 words; and gesture language, especially if encouraged, pre- 
 cedes spoken language, besides accompanying it. Children 
 are imitative; they love to act over again what they have 
 seen, especially when much impressed, as in George Eliot's 
 pathetic description of the baby-boy attending his mother's 
 funeral in puzzled wonder, and thinking " how he would play 
 at this with his sister when he got home ". With children 
 this " acting ", or " playing at being ", more resembles talking 
 over, giving expression to and describing what has been seen, 
 noted, and assimilated, than aimless exercise of the muscles 
 and the intelligence. 
 
 How profoundly right, therefore, Froebel was in making so 
 much of action-songs in his Kindergarten, and how excellent 
 his games are, in which every action of the child corresponds 
 to some observed impressions with which the child is familiar. 
 Froebel's actions correspond to realities, and are not mere 
 physical movement. They are forms of expression of things. 
 They correspond to facts, and advance the observ^ation and 
 knowledge of things which ought to be familiar to everyone, 
 such as sowing, reaping. 
 
 Now to go back to my pot of ferns. The child sees ferns 
 for the first time, and cannot tell what they are. He receives 
 impressions which are new, and these seek interpretation in 
 the manner which I have described. They hunt about in 
 the mind for similar impressions previously received. At last 
 the impression of the fern attaches itself to the impression of 
 feathers; the crisp curl of the frond and its delicate branches 
 much resemble feathers. It is true there is a hindrance to 
 the judgment: the fern is not quite like the feather. Some 
 points are like and some are not. In the end, however, those 
 which are alike overpower those which are unlike, and the 
 child says : " These are feathers." 
 
 The child has not got false impressions; he interprets
 
 20 Essays and Addresses 
 
 wrongly. Further study, fresh observation and comparison, 
 will soon rectify the error. Hence the need of taking careful 
 note of children's mistakes, distinguishing between thoughtless 
 answers and those which, also very wrong, arise from mis- 
 directed mental effort. Careless answers should be checked, 
 but well-meant thought, even if unsuccessful, should be 
 encouraged. Therefore an answer like that of the " green 
 feathers " should be dealt with in the way of praise rather 
 than censure. 
 
 Sometimes it is not merely an object that is incorrectly 
 interpreted, and subsequently better understood. It occa- 
 sionally happens to us that a whole group of thoughts is 
 thus modified by the acquisition of some new knowledge; 
 and instead of the new merely forming an addition to the 
 old, it wholly changes it. Such was the result of the teaching 
 of Copernicus and Galileo, and, in our own day, of that of 
 Darwin. The discoveries of these men caused such wide- 
 reaching alteration of preconceived ideas that the new know- 
 ledge was at first received with discomfort and mental un- 
 easiness, which caused the discoverer to be looked upon with 
 suspicion, regarded as an enemy, and persecuted. When in 
 the case of an individual some new conception changes the 
 character in this way by some powerful influence, as in the 
 case of St. Paul, we call it " conversion ". 
 
 Well, then, it may be said, in these cases your position is 
 given up. The new should be regarded as the means by 
 which the old is known, instead of the old as interpreting the 
 new. But this is not the case, for however overpowering 
 the new conception may be for a time, yet in the end the 
 whole store of knowledge in the mind proves too strong for 
 it, overpowers it, and finds some place for it, after which the 
 mind is at peace with itself, and appears to have been en- 
 larged, and not diminished or divided by the fresh experience, 
 however strange and unusual it may have been. 
 
 I have shown, then, that when the child called a pot of 
 ferns a " pot of green feathers " she was by no means using 
 a name without attaching any meaning to it, and that she
 
 The Pot of Gi'een Feathei's 21 
 
 should have been encouraged for a praiseworthy effort to 
 explain what she saw. It is, however, the business of parents 
 and teachers to help the child to learn exactly what it is that 
 he names. 
 
 A child, for instance, saw a duck on the water, and was 
 taught to call it " Quack ". But the child included in this 
 name the water as well as the duck, and then applied it to 
 all birds on the one hand, and all liquids on the other, calling 
 a French coin with the eagle on it a " Quack ", and also a 
 bottle of French wine "Quack". Such a mistake in naming 
 is to be guarded against, as obviously tending to confusion of 
 thought. The poet Schiller, as a child, lived by the Necker, 
 and called all rivers which he saw " Necker ". Such an error 
 is less serious, as it is easily put right. If the child notes 
 its impressions, and refers them intelligently to previous im- 
 pressions as best he can, then it is not important if he is 
 not correct about names. 
 
 We — teachers and parents — may take a hint from this, 
 and be more ready to give class names to begin with, leaving 
 details to come later. Teach the child in front of a picture 
 of a herring, or, better, pictures of herring, sole, and pike, 
 " That is a fish " first of all, and only afterwards " That fish 
 is a herring ". For teaching general names, such as bird, 
 beast, fish, and reptile, in presence of pictures of eagle, cow, 
 herring, and adder, has a twofold use. The class name (fish, 
 beast, &c.) thus given (i) directs the child's attention to a few 
 points among many, and those easy to grasp, and hence is a 
 guide to the child's mental powers, which are apt to be over- 
 whelmed by the number of individual impressions of things, 
 all disconnected and isolated, much in the same way as in an 
 intricate country full of cross-roads your way is made easy 
 if you are told to ignore all other tracks and follow the road 
 bordered by telegraph-posts, and (2) it enables the child to 
 understand the usual conversation of its elders, and the words 
 and language in books. 
 
 Grown-up people use general terms in daily conversation, 
 which children, without help from teachers, only slowly
 
 22 Essays and Addresses 
 
 acquire. Many of these simpler class names are easily taught 
 and are a pleasure to the children to learn, for they answer 
 to the natural early stages of elementary reasoning. Country 
 children often have a small vocabulary of general terms com- 
 pared with town children, and less understand the language of 
 books; but on the other hand, from exercising their senses on 
 objects, and from being brought into close contact with out- 
 of-door work, they often have a greater real power of observ- 
 ing and interpreting things outside themselves, and have 
 greater originality in this respect than town children, who 
 are sharper in talk and society. Both kinds, however — the 
 knowledge of language and the mastery of objects, — should 
 be taught together, for both are indispensable in life. 
 
 Young children are perhaps quicker than older people to 
 note superficial resemblance of things. This is the case, no 
 doubt, because they have fewer old impressions, and com- 
 parison among a few things is more rapidly and expedi- 
 tiously made. They have to pay for this advantage, however, 
 because they are liable to misinterpret impressions — to call a 
 pot of ferns a pot of feathers, — to refer impressions to the 
 wrong group in their mind — to a group with which they are 
 accidentally and not logically connected. 
 
 What is more, objects are not so clearly distinguished — 
 set over against each other — with children as with grown 
 people. Children hardly distinguish themselves into soul 
 and body. They know of their undivided personality — 
 body, mind, and soul — that it moves, feels happy, sad,, 
 hungry, &c., and they attribute the same feelings to all other 
 things. Birds, beasts, and inanimate objects are like affected 
 with themselves. "Jack the dog is thirsty", "Poll is angry", 
 " Kitty is sleepy ", " the stars blink ", " the engine goes to 
 bed ", " the knife is naughty to cut me ". They do not dis- 
 distinguish between figures of speech or metaphors and 
 realities. Their minds move in a region of twilight, in 
 which the real and the unreal are confounded, the true 
 additions to knowledge, the actual gifts of the senses, con- 
 fused and blurred and altered by the additions which the
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers 23 
 
 mind itself makes to them, and they cannot separate the 
 one from the other. 
 
 To this stage of mental progress how appropriate are 
 fables, allegories, fairy stories, parables, and the like. If 
 anyone thinks that it would be better if the child's mind 
 could move only in the sphere of the exact, I would reply 
 (i) that this does not seem to be nature's process; (2) that 
 looking to the mode of growth of the mind, it does not seem 
 even possible; and (3) that if you try to keep the child's 
 mind to exactness you may clip and pluck the wings of 
 imagination. 
 
 Now, without imagination there is little advance in know- 
 ledge, little discovery in the sphere of morality. Without 
 some imagination you are quite unable to put yourself in 
 the place of another, which is the basis of sympathy and 
 mental support and the foundation of the social fabric. The 
 mere sight of a neighbour's joy or sorrow does not awaken 
 sympathy. 
 
 Three little children were thrown out of a train in an 
 accident, and one was frightfully mangled to death; but 
 the other two, who were unhurt, and could not realize what 
 had happened, stooped down and went on plucking daisies 
 with unconcern. In the case of young children you can 
 hardly go too far in the way of associating new learning 
 with personal feeling, even at the expense of exactness, and 
 the infant-school teacher who, in a lesson on the sun, instead 
 of dwelling on its roundness, brightness and heat, began 
 by calling it a lamp in the sky, lighted in the morning and 
 put out at night, lighted for men to go about their work and 
 put out for them to go to sleep, showed a true knowledge 
 of the key that opens the door into the child's mind. 
 
 This information is not exact, but, inasmuch as it is based 
 on what children understand and like to hear about, it finds 
 a ready entrance into their minds. But it is clear that what 
 is to the child its natural mode of expression is arrived at by 
 the teacher only through imagination, and hence arises the 
 teacher's difficulty. It is a useful hint to study the children's
 
 24 Essays and Addresses 
 
 own lead and follow it. School necessarily limits the child's 
 life. You cannot bring all creation within the four walls of the 
 class-room. But what you lose in extent you gain in depth ; 
 you lose variety, you gain in concentration. Before school- 
 time, all things engage the child's attention in turns, and no- 
 thing long. At school he has to attend to a few things, and to 
 keep his attention fixed upon them for short periods at first, 
 but for increasingly longer ones. It is a matter of practice 
 and experience to find out what things most readily arrest 
 attention and in what way information can best be conveyed 
 so as to arrest attention, and it is in these matters that the 
 skill of the teacher comes in. 
 
 I am not sure that if the teacher's art is to be summed 
 up briefly, it may not be described as the art of developing 
 the power of fixed attention. For instance, when we present 
 a picture or even an object to a child, neither object nor (still 
 less) picture, explains itself. The object needs to be pointed 
 out piecemeal, and all its parts called attention to separately, 
 for the child only sees it as a whole, about which it can say 
 but little, and of which it soon tires. The picture but very 
 partially represents the objects which the artist depicts, much 
 being suggested and left to the imagination of the beholder. 
 Even when we say we actually see an object we forget how 
 much of what we think we see is really inference from some 
 small part of what we see, and nothing is more deceptive than 
 merely ocular evidence. Thus pictures of things which the 
 children have seen are much better to commence with than 
 pictures of things which they have not seen, and the former 
 should serve as a preparation for the latter. 
 
 But even pictures will only go a certain way in making 
 known to us things past and things remote, facts of history 
 and geography. The greater part of advanced instruction 
 must be conveyed by words. Is it an historical scene we are 
 treating of? The child and many grown people interpret all 
 by their own experience; towns and houses in history re- 
 semble in his mind those with which he is familiar; men and 
 women move about in the dresses of his near neighbours;
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers 25 
 
 their aspect and language are in his mind the same as those 
 of his people with whom he daily converses. Such inac- 
 curacies may be partly corrected, but in the main they are 
 unavoidable. History cannot be communicated with com- 
 plete truth ; the lives of men and women personally unknown 
 can be only partially conceived. Hence Goethe says: "The 
 past is a book with seven seals ". 
 
 The best plan is to read the past with one eye on the 
 present. Look at the pictures of the Holy Family as drawn 
 by Italian and Dutch painters. The chief fact which they 
 intended to depict is not obscured but made clearer by the 
 painter having made the homely surroundings Dutch or 
 Italian rather than Oriental. In history and geography, in 
 order to help the child to understand old times and realize 
 what distant lands are, we must store his mind with concep- 
 tions based upon frequent observations of present time and of 
 his own home and its surroundings. 
 
 How far such observations may carry the student in inter- 
 preting the unseen is proved by the beauty and correctness 
 of the descriptions of Alpine countries which were written 
 by Schiller before he had seen the Alps. In history the 
 most human part of the narrative takes the firmest hold of 
 the mind, and the story of " King Alfred and the Cakes ", 
 though not a very noble historical anecdote, serves at least to 
 fix the name of the king in the child's mind, who would not 
 so easily remember the peace of Wedmore. He knows more 
 about eating than about making treaties. 
 
 We may now trace the process of acquiring knowledge in 
 its more advanced stage. The child has now learned that a 
 pot of ferns is not a pot of feathers. Perhaps, however, he 
 has only seen one kind of fern — say a Lady-fern. After a 
 few weeks he may see another — perhaps a Maiden-hair. The 
 points of resemblance between the two make him say: "That 
 is a fern": the points of difference hinder the process of 
 assimilation and make him doubt; in the end the mass of old
 
 26 Essays and Addresses 
 
 impressions resembling each other overpower impressions 
 which differ and he says: "This is a fern", and in so doing 
 he enlarges his conception of what a fern is. 
 
 Let us now suppose that he comes across a good teacher, 
 who shows him many kinds of ferns, and points out the 
 difference between ferns and flowering plants and mosses. 
 Every fresh distinction, every observation of a new fern, helps 
 to modify his previous knowledge. Old and new impressions 
 react on each other. 
 
 But now, mark how essentially the same and yet how 
 different are the two mental states: the earlier one, namely, 
 when the child (I would say the child's mind) recognizes of 
 its own accord the second plant as a fern by means of its 
 previous acquaintance with another fern, judging from more 
 or less superficial resemblance, and the latter state of mind 
 when he has learnt all the scientific distinctions by which a 
 fern is classified in a different class from flowering plants and 
 mosses. We have now passed from Infant School learning 
 to the instruction which is appropriate to the Upper School 
 and the advanced classes. The child has outgrown a state in 
 which the mind reasons unconsciously, and has arrived at a 
 state in which reasoning is conscious; he has left behind a 
 condition or stage of development in which he was at the 
 mercy of his impressions, and has progressed to a state of 
 mind in which he can compare, check, and control his im- 
 pressions. He has passed from a state in which he uncon- 
 sciously accepted what was presented to his mind, to a state 
 in which he can infer, judge, and criticise. 
 
 The pot of ferns is now seen to have more points in which 
 it is unlike feathers than points in which it resembles them. 
 Of the many impressions derived from looking at the pot of 
 ferns, the feather-like impression which at first stands out 
 from the rest and forces itself on the mind, to the exclusion 
 of the other impressions which would, if attended to, modify 
 the judgment, is now by means of conscious reasoning 
 brought under proper control, and put in a subordinate 
 position. What appeared to be a fact is now seen to be a
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers 27 
 
 fancy, and after all a fancy which expresses some element 
 of truth — viz., the resemblance between ferns and feathers. 
 
 These considerations, perhaps, throw some light upon Dr. 
 Allbutt's warning to parents about the dreams and illusions 
 of children. The fancies of childhood, he thinks, are some- 
 times the antechamber of insanity in adults. I do not think 
 he intended to knock on the head many poetic and popular 
 conceptions about children's fancies, as was stated in some 
 evening review of his remarks.^ It is clear, however, that the 
 crude method of assimilating knowledge, which is natural 
 and apparently inevitable in a child, ought by degrees to 
 yield to more accurate conceptions under the influence of 
 wise instructions. 
 
 It is one thing to confuse ideas unconsciously; it is another 
 thing to do so consciously. The child makes an unconscious 
 mistake in calling ferns feathers, but if this confusion is 
 
 ^Childhood's Dreams: Imagination or Insanity? In the course of the 
 meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association, held at York, Dr. Clifford AUbutt 
 •(of Leeds) read a paper on the "Insanity of Children", which, if its statements be 
 well founded, knocks on the head many poetic and popular conceptions. Wordsworth 
 speaks of a child's ideas being a reminiscence of " that imperial palace whence he came". 
 Dr. Allbutt sees in them only a step towards the insane asylum. Most people regard 
 it as a healthy sign if the children have pretty fancies, and those are thought to be 
 happiest who keep their illusions longest. But Dr. Allbutt would reverse this judg- 
 ment. The fairy dreams of childhood are only the result of defective organization, 
 and healthy growth consists in their evaporation. 
 
 Here are some of the chief passages in Dr. Allbutt's paper: The insanity of children 
 was the vestibule of the insanity of adults ; in children they saw in simple primary 
 forms that with which they are familiar in the more complex and derivative forms of 
 insanity in adults. If a man lived in a vain show, far more so did the child ; if a man's 
 mind was but a phantom in relation to the world, so fantastic was the child's mind in 
 relation to that of the man. Fantastic — that was the key to the childish mind. In 
 him was no definite boundary between the real and the unreal. Day-dreams which in 
 an adult would be absurd, were to a child the only realities. As the child grew older, 
 and sense impressions organized themselves more definitely and submitted to com- 
 parison, fantasy became make-believe, and the child slipped backwards and forwards 
 between unconscious, semi-conscious and conscious self-deception. Pretty were the 
 fancies of a child, yet the healthy growth of the child consisted in their evaporation. 
 But if the growth of the mind were something other than healthy, then these fancies 
 kept their empire; they did not attenuate, and the child did not put off its visions. 
 They were not likely to forget that the persistence of insanity in children might prevent 
 the due advance of the organization of the results of impressions, and might ultimately, 
 as adolescence approached, leave the sufferer in a state of more or less imbecility. — 
 Pall Mall Gazette.
 
 28 Essays and Addresses 
 
 cherished by the child after he well knows the real distinction 
 between the two, and if he acquires or cultivates a habit of 
 mind in which reality is made to give way to make-believe 
 and pretence, the child may lose control over his judgment 
 and become in the end imbecile. The best antidote to foolish 
 imaginings appears to me to be the time-honoured fables of 
 ^sop, the sacred parables and allegories, and the best modern 
 fancies for children, like those of Andersen or Ruskin. Fan- 
 tastic the child will be: it is our business to make his fancy 
 healthy. 
 
 The object, then, of learning in education is not only to 
 make the mind fuller and to enrich the understanding, but, 
 if the instruction be of the right kind, the additional know- 
 ledge ought to make the old knowledge more exact and better 
 defined. The method of acquiring the extended knowledge, 
 also, ought to have even more far-reaching results than the 
 information itself Accustomed to right methods of study, 
 the child will learn to be cautious in dealing with fresh 
 impressions, to feel the pleasure of receiving new impressions 
 and the need of care in referring them to their proper class, 
 to realize the danger to which everyone is liable of forming 
 hasty judgments and to weigh evidence for and against a 
 provisional judgment. 
 
 In short, study ought at least to make the student 
 acquainted with the limits of knowledge in general, and the 
 lirfiitations of his knowledge in particular. The country 
 proverb: "He does not know a hawk from a heronshaw", 
 illustrates the sort of progress that learning should produce 
 in a child. He must acquire at school the power of appre- 
 hending quickly and correctly. He must become sharp in 
 receiving impressions, and accurate in referring them to the 
 class to which, not fancy, but reasoned judgment, leads him 
 to refer them. 
 
 Accurate and complete conceptions, true logical defini- 
 tions in all matters that we deal with in daily life, cannot be 
 obtained by any of us. We can only keep the ideal of perfect 
 knowledge before our eyes as a guide to us in the path of
 
 The Pot of Green Feathers 29 
 
 right knowledge. The educational value of the acquisition 
 of knowledge is to improve the natural powers of thought and 
 judgment, and to enable the learner to deal with the masses 
 of observed facts which press more and more heavily on us as 
 we have to move amid the complications of mature life. In 
 acquiring knowledge the mind is naturally active, and not 
 merely passive. The active element is most precious, and 
 modern education often tends to strangle it. Yet instruction 
 which does not add increased energy to the thinking powers is 
 failing of its purpose. Learning cannot be free from drudgery,, 
 and a great deal of the process of teaching and learning — say 
 what you will — must be a tax on patience and endurance; 
 neither can we entirely dispense with the mere mechanical 
 exercise of the memory ; but if the method pursued is correct,, 
 the drudgery ends in an increase of the energy of the mind, 
 and a desire and a power to advance to new knowledge and 
 discovery. 
 
 You cannot undertake at school to fit every child for 
 entering a trade, or craft, or profession, without further 
 learning; but what he has learnt as a child ought to develop 
 his constructive faculties, and to enable him to deal effectively 
 with the matter which he will have to handle in the stern 
 school of life. And if, in addition to this, he has acquired an 
 ingrained preference for the good before the bad, the true 
 before the false, the beautiful before the foul, and what is of 
 God before what is of the Devil, his education has been as 
 complete as it admits of being made. 
 
 As in the early stages of life, so in the later, our know- 
 ledge and our conduct depend as much on what is within us 
 as on what is without. The work of life cannot be well done 
 mechanically; in this everyone must be partly original and 
 constructive, for the world is not merely what we find it, but 
 partly what we make it, and what Coleridge has finely said of 
 Nature applies to all we think and do: 
 
 * ' O Lady, we receive but what we give, 
 And in our life alone does nature live;
 
 _30 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud! 
 And would we aught behold of higher worth 
 Than that inanimate cold world allowed 
 To the poor, loveless, ever anxious crowd, 
 Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth 
 A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud 
 Enveloping the earth." 
 
 That education is the best, not which imparts the greatest 
 amount of knowledge, but which develops the greatest 
 amount of mental force.
 
 OBJECT TEACHING 
 OR WORDS AND THINGS 
 
 Her eyes are open. 
 
 Aye, but their sense is shut. — Shakespeare. 
 
 I have attempted in the following pages to introduce Eng- 
 lish readers to a group of German thinkers who have worked 
 out theoretically and practically the bearing of certain im- 
 portant philosophic principles on practical education. 
 
 Many experienced parents and teachers hold that the 
 training of young children is far better conducted in the 
 absence of leading principles to guide it. They point out that 
 there is no reason to suppose that the most successful teachers 
 have been students of philosophy, and they infer that a study 
 of philosophic principles is of no consequence to a teacher. 
 
 It appears to me, however, that they who argue thus, mis- 
 take the function of philosophy. German writers on education 
 have not sought to reveal some new and untried method of 
 teaching, but rather to study the causes of success where suc- 
 cess has been attained. After making due allowance for the 
 magic influence of genius in a great teacher (which, of course, 
 dies with him except for its indirect effects), it is still possible, 
 with the view of finding out as much as may be of the secret of 
 his success, to ascertain how he actually taught. Such research 
 is worth while, because even if it appear after all that the great 
 man's influence on his pupils was really a kind of magic or 
 legerdemain, and as such inimitable, nevertheless it is interest- 
 ing to know how the trick was done. 
 
 Few, however, will really doubt that it is possible to dis- 
 entangle a few leading principles which lie at the basis of 
 successful teaching. It does not, of course, follow that because 
 
 31
 
 32 Essays and Addresses 
 
 a teacher is acquainted with these principles he will be able 
 to apply them with effect, but the knowledge will certainly 
 aid him in his difficult task. Teachers, like poets, are " born, 
 not made"; but, whereas no one is a poet on compulsion, 
 all parents are compelled to be teachers and a vast number 
 of others besides parents must undertake the training of 
 children without being specially endowed by nature with a 
 genius for education. 
 
 The reason why one teacher can keep up the attention of 
 a class in a lesson on Greek irregular verbs, while another sees 
 the attention of his class wandering in the midst of a lesson 
 on Hannibal and the Romans, appears to be thought by some 
 an insoluble mystery, and by others a mystery not worth 
 solving. For myself, I believe that the studies of German 
 writers on education help to solve such mysteries, and I hold 
 that in the interests of childhood they are worth solving. 
 My hope is that the following brief paper may direct the 
 attention of others engaged in teaching to an inexhaustible 
 gold-mine of educational philosophy in which I have dug with 
 great profit to myself. 
 
 On a particular occasion, during a recent visit of the 
 Empress of Germany to London, it became the duty of the 
 reporters of the public journals to describe Her Imperial 
 Majesty's dress. Subsequently the Globe collected the de- 
 scriptions of the costume as they were given by different 
 reporters, to this effect: 
 
 The Times stated that the empress was in "gold brocade", 
 while, according to the Daily News, she wore a " sumptuous 
 white-silk dress". The Standard, however, took another view: 
 *' The empress wore something which we trust it is not vulgar 
 to call light mauve". On the other hand, the Daily Chronicle 
 was hardly in accord with any of the others: " To us it seemed 
 almost a sea-green, and yet there was now a cream and now 
 an ivory sheen to it ". 
 
 No wonder that the Globe asks emphatically: "What did
 
 Object Teaching ; or, IVords and Things ■y^'^^ 
 
 the empress wear?" This incident seems to me another 
 illustration of what I tried to explain in the foregoing essay. 
 I endeavoured there to prove that we do not, as common sense 
 is apt to suppose, learn directly from an object that lies before 
 us nearly as much as we seem to do. I showed that the mind 
 of the beholder, with its existing stock of ideas, adds to the 
 impressions which it receives from the object as much as, or 
 more than, it actually receives from them. Many impressions 
 which seem to enter the mind directly from the object 
 really make their way in only mediately, as the result of 
 inferences and combinations made by the mind itself. 
 Something is supplied by the object and something else is 
 supplied by the mind. 
 
 The consequence is that our knowledge of an object is not, 
 as it seems to be, entirely determined by the object, and the 
 statement that " the senses are the gateways of knowledge " 
 must be accepted as one which conveys only a partial truth. 
 *' What," says somebody, "can I not believe my own senses?" 
 *' Certainly," I reply, " but only if you carefully distinguish 
 between the actual gifts of the senses and your inferences from 
 those gifts." The process of interpreting impressions was 
 popularly explained in the last essay, but those who wish to 
 see the question much more philosophically treated should 
 read Mr. Stout's article on Apperception, in a recent number 
 of Mmd. I propose in the present chapter to assume a know- 
 ledge of this process, and to proceed a little further in the 
 application of psychological principles to educational practice. 
 My intention is to explain what I know of Object Teaching — 
 that kind of teaching which ought to be the foundation of all 
 learning, however abstract and advanced. 
 
 Object teaching has so much in common with other kinds 
 of teaching, especially with language lessons and information 
 lessons, that it is frequently confused with them. The distinc- 
 tion between them is, however, of the utmost importance, and 
 the true nature of object teaching can hardly be made clear 
 without drawing the distinction. My first point, therefore, 
 will be to show what object teaching has in common with
 
 34 Essays and Addresses 
 
 language teaching, or, in other terms, the relation of words to 
 things. 
 
 The process of apprehension is from the vague " whole " 
 to a "whole" made definite by a knowledge of its parts. If 
 an object be presented to our eyes for the first time, we cannot 
 at once obtain a clear vision of all its separate parts and 
 qualities. By fixing our attention we become aware of a 
 number of different parts and qualities, which we make out 
 one after the other in more or less rapid succession; but the 
 mental image of the object which we obtain in this way is 
 far from clear or well defined. The object as it is first viewed 
 by the inner vision is like a mass of hills in a sea of mist. 
 Just as the numberless summits are there massed together 
 into one ill-defined elevation of land, so the parts and qualities 
 of the objects are massed together into a vague multitude 
 about which we can say little that is precise. 
 
 The process of arriving at definition and precision is one 
 of analysis. Out of the confused mass of impressions, first one 
 emerges into clearness and then another, until the division 
 of the whole is as complete as our mind can make it. The 
 process of analysis of an unfamiliar object is far from easy,, 
 because each separate quality and part exists in the object as 
 a portion of an undivided whole. 
 
 A piece of lump-sugar, for instance, is to a young child a 
 composite whole which he cannot analyse for himself Older 
 persons can say that it is white, hard, sweet, sparkling, and 
 crystalline; but we cannot present to the child the whiteness,, 
 or the hardness, or any of the other qualities as separate 
 objects outside and independent of the lump. We can only 
 place beside the sugar other white things, such as salt, milk,, 
 fat, or cotton, and direct attention to the quality which they 
 have in common, namely, whiteness. In this way only we can 
 guide the child to make for itself the mental effort which is 
 needed for reaching the abstract conception, whiteness, and if 
 we wish to lead him to the conception of hardness, sweetness 
 and the rest, we must proceed in the same way. 
 
 The process seems to prove that language is practically
 
 Object Teaching ; or, Words mtd Things 35 
 
 essential for success in such acquisition of knowledge, and the 
 truth is, as we shall see more and more clearly in the sequel, 
 that apart from " words " there are for human science no 
 " things ", because the analysis of a whole into its parts can 
 proceed but a very little way without words. When we take 
 notice of the various parts and qualities of an object, and give 
 each a name successively, what is there to fix these parts in 
 the mind as complements of one whole but the name which 
 we give to the whole object? Essential as the word is for 
 analysis, it is quite as necessary for synthesis — that is, for 
 reuniting in thought what our thought has separated. 
 
 There is another mental process which the word greatly 
 assists. In the presence of a new object, if it is sufficiently 
 startling in its nature, we forget ourselves and are lost in the 
 object. Self-consciousness vanishes. We can no longer say: 
 " That is an object, and this is I." We are in that strange 
 condition of mind which supervenes when we witness a fine 
 soliloquy well acted on the stage — say, Hamlet's " To be or 
 not to be" — or a love scene. If the actors are really success- 
 ful, the scene before us does not seem to be going on in our 
 presence. The thought of ourselves as present would create 
 a disagreeable feeling of intrusion. 
 
 In certain states of mind the inner and outer are blended 
 into one. When the consciousness of the distinction between 
 the " I " and the " not I ", that is, between the " I " and the 
 object, begins to arise, it is language which defines and renders 
 permanent the distinction. Disturbed by a sudden peal of 
 thunder in the night, we wake in a confused state of mind till 
 the word " thunder " occurs to us, and seems to extricate us 
 from the feeling of " not knowing our own selves ". 
 
 In this way it comes about that speech may be regarded 
 as an act of deliverance for the understanding. When from 
 amidst the whirl of sensations which crowd in upon the mind, 
 or from the overpowering effect produced by a single group 
 of impressions, it has obtained mastery over itself and reduced 
 confusion to order, there arises a feeling of triumph which 
 finds expression for itself bv means of words, and often by
 
 36 Essays and Addresses 
 
 gestures as well. The internal sense of victory reacts upon 
 the body, and the body reflects the feeling of the mind. The 
 reaction of the mind on the bodily organism causes the 
 utterance of the word, and now there are present in the 
 consciousness two things — the object known and the utter- 
 ance of the sound or the name of the object. 
 
 These two are intimately associated, and so strong is the 
 association that afterwards one alone, if both are not present, 
 calls the other into consciousness. I see, for instance, a lake 
 before me, and I cry: "Windermere". Or I read of Winder- 
 mere in a book, and I think at once of my mental image of 
 the lake; I see a view of the lake in my mind's eye. 
 
 This association occurs where the knowledge of the object 
 and of the name of the object have been associated in acquisi- 
 tion. Where word and object are thus associated the word is 
 in a special way the mark or indication or sign of the object, 
 and such words are significant words, in a special sense of the 
 word significant. The utterance of them is weighted with a 
 mental reproduction of the thing signified, and it is by no 
 means so rapidly or so easily made as the utterance of a 
 word that reproduces no mental image, and is a mere sound. 
 If words were more significant in this sense than they are to 
 most people, orators would use fewer of them; for really 
 significant words, inasmuch as they thus carry weight, pass 
 much more slowly through the mind than the others, which 
 are as empty ships that float lightly and sail quickly, owing 
 to the absence of cargo. 
 
 The word, then, mediates between the mind and the 
 object. The object is without us, and the knowledge of the 
 object is within us. Between the inner and the outer — that 
 is, between the object and our knowledge of the object — comes 
 the word as a support to the mind in mastering the object. 
 By means of the word the mind can set itself opposite to the 
 object, and separate itself from it more completely than dur- 
 ing the actual contemplation which precedes recognition of 
 an object. 
 
 The spoken word is well suited for mediating between
 
 Object Teaching ; or^ Words and Things 37 
 
 mind and object, because of its double nature. It is on the 
 one hand physical and outward, being the product of the 
 bodily organism; and on the other hand inward and imma- 
 terial, because it is called into being by the mind, and 
 expresses an inward impression. Inasmuch as the nature 
 of the spoken word is inward, it is related to inward impres- 
 sions; but inasmuch as its nature is also outward, being a 
 physical thing, it helps the mind to present to itself its 
 inward impressions as outward objects. 
 
 Everyone may notice that as soon as a young child has 
 once recognized and named a particular object (no matter 
 whether he invents a name for himself or imitates his mother), 
 he loves to keep on repeating the name as often as he sees 
 the object. The pleasure of recognition is marked by the 
 utterance of the word. 
 
 However long we regard an object, we do not take in all 
 that can be known about it, but only so much of it as we our- 
 selves are able to comprehend. A name, in the same way 
 does not indicate all the qualities of a thing, but only the 
 most prominent. The baby-child calls his dog "bow-wow"; 
 that is to say, one single lively impression, that of barking, is 
 named and taken to represent a large collection of impres- 
 sions. A number of separate impressions are by means of 
 the word " bow-wow " converted into a concise whole, and in 
 place of several separate items of observations made succes- 
 sively and often at long intervals, we now have in the word 
 or name a brief summary of them, recalling the whole. 
 
 The word which thus summarizes for us what we know of 
 an object serves as a fixed point around which we can group 
 all else which we may afterwards learn about the object. 
 
 The child hears the dog bark, and sees it run, jump, 
 pursue, catch flies and worry the cat, and the name dog in 
 the end calls up all these qualities. Then, inasmuch as the 
 child sees other dogs behaving like his own, he uses the name 
 dog to describe the whole fused mass of similar impressions, 
 and " dog " becomes a class name. Every fresh impression 
 about a dog which the child acquires is associated with the
 
 38 Essays and Addresses 
 
 name "dog", which thus collects a wider and fuller meaninsj;'. 
 The word then may be regarded as a net spread by the mind 
 to catch the results of new observations and retain them. 
 
 The word " mountain ", for instance, remains the same, 
 although after seeing the Lake mountains in England, the 
 mountains of Central Europe, and the Swiss mountains, my 
 conception of the thing changes very considerably. 
 
 Words in this way lose something of their original mean- 
 ing. "Wolf" meant originally "the tearer ", and "mouse" 
 meant "the thief". "Lady" meant (perhaps) " bread- 
 kneader". Who thinks of such meanings now? Thus it is 
 clear that the current meaning of a word often depends upon 
 the connection in which it is used at the time, and not upon 
 its etymology, as is amusingly shown in the little invitation 
 and acceptance of two French ladies which I read lately in 
 a French comic paper: " Voulez \o\is five-odockej' ch^z moi?" 
 " Avec plaisir. Mais a quelle heure?" 
 
 The word, then, briefly to resume its uses, aids us to 
 analyse an object into its component parts. We look at a 
 dog and see it sometimes running, sometimes sleeping, some- 
 times black, but in every different case we see the dog as 
 a whole. Our eyes do not divide for us the thing, dog, from 
 the action, running. It is by use of the word dog that we are 
 able to separate in thought the object dog from its various 
 properties and activities. The more searching and varied our 
 observations and the more we increase our knowledge of 
 these properties of an object, the richer becomes the signifi- 
 cance of the word and the more refined and definite becomes 
 our knowledge of the thing. 
 
 By use of the word, again, we can group together many 
 different but similar impressions. We call many shades of 
 green — apple, emerald, sage, and grass — all green. Words 
 help us at pleasure to restore past impressions of objects to 
 consciousness, and make it possible for us, out of a cumbrous 
 or perhaps ill-defined mass, to recall particular impressions. 
 Words give us a mastery over our stores of past impressions 
 which we should not possess if the whole of every object had
 
 Object Teaching; or^ Words and Things 39 
 
 to be recalled every time we wished to speak of it, instead of 
 so much of it as is sufficient for our immediate purpose. By 
 words we can study the properties of things independently of 
 things themselves and by words we can arrive at the concep- 
 tion of general ideas and enter into the domain of science. 
 Without words we can look at objects and know them as 
 animals do, but we can have little or no science. Object 
 teaching should bring us into ever closer touch with objects; 
 but to effect this contact the right use of the right words is 
 indispensable. 
 
 But you may say: " If you insist so much on the import- 
 ance of language, why do you attach so little importance to 
 formal grammar as a class subject?" My answer is, that 
 there is a wide difference between learning a foreign language 
 and learning your mother tongue. Grammar lessons in con- 
 nection with his mother tongue are commenced long after 
 the child has learnt to talk and read it. The function of the 
 grammarian in dealing with the grammar of his own tongue 
 is to take the language as he finds it used, and note its agree- 
 ment with or variation from the laws which govern human 
 speech; and, as far as possible, to explain discrepancies. 
 
 It seems, however, that this study is hardly possible until 
 the student has learnt some other language besides his own, 
 with which he may compare its usages. Those will speak 
 the purest English who converse with people whose diction 
 and pronunciation are sound and clear and whose vocabu- 
 lary is ample and correctly used. Following rules of grammar 
 when you are acquainted only with your mother tongue leads 
 to as many mistakes as it cures. For instance, the rule that 
 adverbs and not adjectives modify verbs, as " I write badly ", 
 not " I write bad ", leads students to say " I feel badly " when 
 they do not mean to complain of their power of feeling, but 
 to describe their own physical condition. A describing and 
 not a modifying word is there wanted. They ought to say: 
 " I feel bad ", " I feel sick ". " You look sad ", again, has a 
 different meaning from " You look sadly ". 
 
 Command of English, therefore, is gained by constant
 
 40 Essays and Addresses 
 
 practice, by attending to the corrections of someone who has 
 a good acquaintance with the current use of it, and by reading 
 well-written books. To learn enough of grammar to parse 
 " he woidd have writtefi ", is a lengthy process, and the time 
 which it requires may more usefully be spent in other studies. 
 I have noticed, in looking over papers in grammar and com- 
 position, that a sound knowledge of grammar is quite consis- 
 tent with undeveloped powers of writing and understanding 
 plain English. To bring it so far as to distinguish the parts 
 of speech and to analyse sentences hardly deserves to be 
 called learning grammar; but so much probably every child 
 would learn in the lessons on composition. I think, however, 
 that every child ought to learn some foreign language, and 
 then the study of formal grammar becomes much more useful. 
 
 The study of Objects is the forming correct impressions 
 from objects which are actually presented to the senses; and 
 though it is the lowest stage of intellectual development, it is 
 the foundation. Man shares this study with animals, but it is 
 the base of his whole mental superstructure. The mind has 
 no ready-made knowledge of things and no innate ideas or 
 conceptions. At the most it has aptness for acquiring them. 
 Step by step, by daily contact with the outer world, by action 
 and reaction of itself on objects and of objects on itself, by 
 the reception of impressions and by the elaboration of them 
 through internal processes, the mind wins its laborious way 
 to that degree of intellectual, moral, and spiritual elevation of 
 which it is capable. 
 
 The main business of the Object Teacher is to enable the 
 learner to form correct impressions, and there is no more 
 important branch of instruction. Like the reporters, we look 
 at a lady's dress. We then shut our eyes and try to recall 
 what we saw. We have in our mind a mental image of the 
 dress. Similar mental images are the starting-point of all 
 knowledge. If the impression first received is wanting in 
 clearness and precision, if the mind cannot assimilate the 
 impression, or if it cannot express in words what the impres- 
 sion is, as in the case of the same reporters, the mental image
 
 Object Teaching; <9r, Words and Things 41 
 
 will not be an improvement upon the impressions on which it 
 is based, but will be full of confusion and obscurity. 
 
 A clear mental image can only be formed by trained 
 attention to impressions from objects, by which the parts and 
 characteristics are carefully grasped and impressions nearly 
 alike clearly distinguished from impressions really alike. 
 Vague, obscure, and shifting impressions of an object will 
 never help us to know it rightly, however frequently they are 
 made. Four reporters take note of a dress and are at vari- 
 ance in describing its colour. 
 
 Another reason for the need of trained attention to im- 
 pressions is to be found in the fact that our mental image of 
 a particular object, when provided with a name, soon passes 
 from being particular and individual and supplies us with 
 a conception of a class. 
 
 At first we name a particular animal dog. We afterwards 
 think of all kinds of dogs under the name dog. Any par- 
 ticular dog which we note is seen in connection with many 
 special characteristics, such as size, colour, action, and the 
 like; whereas our general conception of "dog" only retains 
 the most general impressions. The content of the class 
 name — the name dog as applied to all individual dogs — must 
 needs be much more vague and indefinite than the same name 
 when applied to a particular dog which we are looking at. 
 
 Our general notions, therefore, although based on im- 
 pressions from objects, can never be as clear and full and 
 free from vagueness as the result of the original studies of 
 particular objects upon which they are based. How import- 
 ant, therefore, that the study of such impressions of individual 
 objects should be as exact as it admits of being made; for 
 otherwise our conceptions are like a copy of an ill-drawn 
 picture, which, besides suffering from the defects of all copies, 
 has this additional disadvantage, that it exaggerates the 
 original imperfections of the first picture. 
 
 Good Object Teaching Leads to {i) Accurate Perception and 
 (2) Accurate Description. — The trained use of the senses is 
 necessary not only to the man of science, whose pursuits are
 
 42 Essays and Addresses 
 
 wholly based on the study of objects, but to the artist, who 
 needs a vivid and accurate perception of all the parts and 
 relations of the objects which he represents, and even to the 
 ordinary artisan, if he is to introduce into his work any 
 original thought or design. By the early training of the 
 senses a man may learn to look out for what is new in 
 objects, and to find it where one less carefully trained sees 
 only what is familiar. The link between the inner world of 
 the mind and objects, or the outer world, is speech. Speech 
 is a spiritual hand for grasping objects by the mind. By 
 words we fix in our minds our own impressions, and by words 
 we communicate them to other people. Words express the 
 relation of our consciousness to objects, and we mostly com- 
 prehend objects as words present them to our minds. Want 
 of language, want of words filled with clear, definite meaning, 
 is the greatest hindrance to culture. 
 
 Object teaching, then, should, in connection with language 
 teaching, form the children's conceptions, and supply them 
 with a good store of significant words, together with a know- 
 ledge of the right way to apply them. Object teaching 
 places children closely in contact with nature and human 
 nature, the two sources of human knowledge and moral ex- 
 perience. There is a knowledge of words which is really a 
 knowledge of things. Object teaching is the reconciliation 
 of the old antithesis between them. 
 
 METHOD OF OBJECT TEACHING 
 
 I. Divide the Object into Parts. — Having described the 
 end and aim of Object Teaching I now come to its Method. 
 The key to the art of training the senses is analysis. An 
 object presented to a child for the first time gives him a 
 confused sense of impressions. The child must be shown 
 how to divide this whole into convenient parts in an orderly 
 manner. His attention must be directed first to one part 
 and then to another, and afterwards the bearing of one part 
 on another must be carefully worked out.
 
 Object Teaching ; or^ Words and Things 43 
 
 2. Reunite the Parts into the Whole. — After this analysis 
 or study of detail the object must be again studied as a 
 whole. It should never, after being thus pulled to pieces, 
 be left in fragments, as it were, but the careful division of 
 the separate parts should be followed by a reconstruction of 
 them into the original whole. Such an attentive study of 
 an object must replace the hasty, fugitive, and unstable 
 glance which usually satisfies a child. In studying an object 
 it should not be forgotten that in nature things are not sepa- 
 rate and independent existences; the attention must not be 
 so wholly confined to the object and its parts as to allow the 
 child to forget its relation to other things. Let the child 
 see what part the object plays in its usual surroundings and 
 dwell upon its material, its origin, its use, its hurtfulness, its 
 opposites and its resemblances. 
 
 The aim of Object Teaching is to furnish the child with 
 a method of acquiring knowledge for himself Even children 
 can study a particular object thoroughly up to a certain 
 point, and the habit thus acquired extends itself to objects 
 which are not treated of by the teacher in school. In fact 
 the right sort of Object Teaching develops a faculty of study 
 which is of infinitely more consequence than the actual in- 
 formation obtained. The faculty which is developed is of 
 universal application, while the knowledge of the object 
 studied in developing it is necessarily limited and restricted. 
 If I have studied with attention a very few of the manifesta- 
 tions of the effects of gravity, and have really assimilated 
 them, I am able to study other forces with greater ease. The 
 use I can make of my knowledge depends not so much on 
 what I can write down in an examination — often a cumbrous 
 and superfluous store — as upon the way in which I have been 
 taught. 
 
 Teaching of this kind cannot be a hasty process. Time 
 is needed for the mind to play freely over the object, and 
 time is needed for recapitulation. After each part or char- 
 acteristic has been considered separately, it should be again 
 reconsidered in relation to the whole. As there are three
 
 44 Essays and Addresses 
 
 characteristics of good powers of observation which the de- 
 tailed analysis of an object tends to promote — namely, speed 
 in responding to impressions, infallibility in interpreting them 
 and exhaustiveness in examining their origin — so there are 
 three advantages which recapitulation secures — namely, vivid- 
 ness of the mental image, strength and mental hold upon it 
 and versatility in employing it. 
 
 Necessarily, therefore, in true Object Teaching the object 
 must be kept frequently and long under the child's notice, 
 and his memory must be checked by repeated comparison 
 of his mental image with the actual object. 
 
 Hence drawing — that best external evidence of the inner 
 mental image — or modelling, should be resorted to as early 
 as possible. Even a very young child would early learn to 
 reproduce from memory the shape of a particular ivy leaf, 
 and then match the drawing or model with the original. 
 The temptation of the teacher is to trust to the child's 
 memory, which is usually a perfect lumber-room of confused 
 and inaccurate impressions. The object should be with- 
 drawn from sight bit by bit while it is being studied. Where 
 it is proved that the child has a vague or inaccurate notion 
 of any part, let that vagueness be cleared away by fresh 
 reference to the object. In this way the carrying power of 
 the memory is surely, if slowly, increased. One of the ablest 
 specimens of object teaching in its elementary stage is printed 
 in Mrs. Sewell's life, and I can give no better illustration of 
 my meaning. 
 
 AN EXAMPLE OF OBJECT TEACHING 
 
 A little boy — we will say about four years old — runs from 
 the garden to his mother. 
 
 " Oh! Mother, do come and look at this beautiful thing on 
 the rose-tree; I want to know what it is." 
 
 " I am busy now, Charles ; tell me what it is like. What 
 colour is it?" 
 
 " Red, I think."
 
 Object Teaching; or^ Wo7'ds and Thi^igs 45 
 
 " Oh, I suppose it is a ladybird!" 
 
 " Oh no, it is a great deal bigger than a ladybird!" 
 
 "Well, perhaps it is a tiger-moth; that has two red wings. 
 Look, like this" — and the mother slightly sketches the tiger- 
 moth on the slate. 
 
 " Oh no, it is not at all like that!" 
 
 " Is it this colour?" 
 
 " No, it is not so red as that." 
 
 " Perhaps it is the colour of this mahogany chair?" 
 
 " No, not just like that." 
 
 " Perhaps like this nut?" 
 
 " Yes, it is very much like that." 
 
 " Well, this is light-brown, not red. But what shape is 
 this beautiful creature?" 
 
 "Oh, I think it is round!" 
 
 The mother draws a round figure on the slate. "Is it like 
 this?" 
 
 " No, not so round." 
 
 The mother makes a long thing in the form of a long 
 caterpillar. 
 
 " No, it is not so long." 
 
 The mother then draws an oval. 
 
 " Yes, it is very much like that." 
 
 " And has it no feet?" 
 
 " I think it has some feet," 
 
 " How many? I suppose two feet, like the birds. Are 
 they like these?" 
 
 " Oh no! I am sure they are not like those," 
 
 " You had better go and look at it again, and come and 
 tell me." 
 
 " Mother, it has six legs." 
 
 The mother draws two on one side and four on the other. 
 " Is that right?" 
 
 " No, it has three on each side." 
 
 The mother corrects it. " Is that right?" 
 
 " Yes, that is really right." 
 
 " You will see by this example," said Mrs, Sewell, " how
 
 46 Essays and Addresses 
 
 much of accurate observation this lesson will have taught the 
 child. Children will never weary of this sort of instruction, 
 and it is impossible to calculate how much the child will 
 gain; very soon he will endeavour to guide his mother's 
 fingers to the correct form, and next endeavour to form the 
 figure himself The value of the habit of accurate observation 
 is not to be told. In this way a child obtains the power of 
 using his own mind, and he learns the value of correct lan- 
 guage and description. 
 
 " Had the mother simply complied with the child's request, 
 and gone into the garden and said: 'That is a stag-beetle', 
 the subject would have been closed and the child's interest 
 quenched. Had a servant been with the child she probably 
 would leave the question thus: 'Oh, that's a nasty beetle; 
 don't touch it or it will kill you with those great nippers; 
 come away from it.' Then the child would not only have 
 its interest quenched, but would be taught to fear a harmless 
 insect, and the creature would become an object of disgust." 
 
 If, then. Object Teaching be what I have attempted to 
 describe, the instruction must commence with an object or 
 specimen. To talk to the children about things not seen 
 during the lesson is not object teaching. Again, a conversa- 
 tion about all kinds of things in a superficial way is certainly 
 a valuable lesson for a certain purpose. It conveys general 
 information and corrects a tendency to pedantry, which is 
 the besetting sin of all school work, but it is not object teach- 
 ing. Talking over many things is not the same in effect 
 as talking over nothing, but it is practice in conversation, the 
 use of words, mustering ideas, quickness in recalling past 
 impressions, and grammar, rather than training the powers 
 of observation and attention or laying the foundation of 
 Icnowledge by developing the faculties which we possess for 
 attaining knowledge. 
 
 Nothing should be called an object lesson which does not 
 improve the senses of the child, and make him able, of 
 himself, to advance in the true path of acquiring knowledge. 
 The information conveyed in chats and lectures ends with
 
 Object Teaching; or, Words and Things 47 
 
 the passive reception of it. The child is suffarcinated with 
 facts Hke the Strasburg geese, but the facts are not imparted 
 in such a way as to form the starting-point of further learning 
 or to lay the foundation of a method of observation and 
 research. 
 
 In concluding this brief account of the theory of object 
 teaching, I ask: What is the aim of object teaching? Is it 
 talk? Is it the mastery of language? Is it the mustering 
 of ideas? Is it conveying general information? All these 
 kinds of instruction are needed, but they are not properly 
 object teaching. This begins with a keen, many-sided, and 
 accurate observation of a familiar specimen. 
 
 You may now fairly challenge me to give some concrete 
 instance of what I consider good object teaching. " These 
 are very fair philosophies of yours, no doubt," it may be 
 urged, " but unless you reduce your theories to practice, how 
 can we be sure that they are not like the proverbial horse 
 which is a very good steed in a stable, but an arrant jade on 
 the journey?" 
 
 After some consideration I have chosen as the subject of 
 my lesson the common duck, not that I mean to make up one 
 adapted only for infants, for I intend it for children over ten 
 years, but because of its familiarity and the ease of procuring 
 a specimen. Of course the compilation is intended to take up 
 much more than one lesson time, and I can only give the 
 matter of the lesson, as it would take too long to show the 
 method. 
 
 In a lesson on the duck I should avoid commencing with 
 its Latin name (Anas boschus), its ornithological classification, 
 and its history under domestication, and I should prefer to take 
 first of all what we see of it ourselves. The children must be 
 made to visit a pond, where there are ducks, very frequently — 
 the first time with their teacher, and afterwards by themselves ; 
 and the points which I state as facts should be gained by 
 questioning the class after they have been to the pond and 
 watched the ducks. A live duck should also be brought into 
 the school from time to time.
 
 48 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Where does the duck Hve? Mostly in the water, even in 
 winter. If we swam about in water which was nearly freezing 
 we should be starved with cold. What is the difference be- 
 tween us and the duck? The duck has feathers and we are 
 without such covering; and further, the legs and feet of the 
 duck are not made like ours. They do not contain so 
 much blood. Compared with ours they are less fleshy, and 
 expose less blood to the surface where it gets chilled by air 
 or water. 
 
 Now let us examine the duck's clothing of feathers. On 
 the sunny side of a pond we can pick them up in numbers. 
 Are they all of the same size? No, some are smaller than 
 others. Let us examine a large feather. It consists of two 
 parts, a firm stem which at one end is inserted into the skin, 
 and, at a certain distance above the end, branches spread 
 out on two opposite sides. We call the stem the quill, and 
 make pens of them, as goose-quills and crow-quills. Note that 
 in the larger feathers the branches cling to each other closely. 
 In the smaller they are separate and fluffy. Which are softer? 
 Which do we make beds of? The difference we mark by a 
 name. The small feathers we call down. 
 
 Now look at the duck's body. Which feathers are out- 
 side? We cannot see the down until we pluck off the feathers. 
 The down clings close to the body; and notice that the lower 
 and inner part of some of the large feathers is also downy. 
 Thus the duck has underclothing as well as a dress to wear. 
 These two coats keep it warm even in cold water. (The 
 difference between the circulation and the breathing in birds 
 and mammals should be introduced when the children are 
 more advanced.) 
 
 Now look under the duck's skin. There is a layer of 
 yellow fat. (What people live on fat and smear them- 
 selves with fat? Why?) So the duck is kept doubly 
 warm. 
 
 Does the water soak the duck's feathers as it swims? 
 Any lady who has a feather in her hat fears the rain will 
 spoil it, and so it does. The water hardly wets a duck's
 
 Object Teaching ; or, Wo7^ds and Things 49 
 
 feathers. Note how it slides off a duck's back in drops like 
 peas. How is this? 
 
 First look at the arrangement of the outer and larger 
 feathers. They lie close pressed together and overlap each 
 other like tiles on a roof, off which the water flows from one 
 to the other without getting between them, and the outer 
 feathers protect the downy inner ones. If the wind is blowing 
 and the rain falling, the duck swims to meet the wind, and the 
 penthouse of feathers is so arranged as to have its free and 
 weaker end turned away from the wind. We see how easily 
 the water drops off the feathers, but if you look at the tiles of 
 a roof you will see that they get wet in a storm though the 
 people beneath remain dry. 
 
 Do the duck's feathers themselves get wet? Try. Take 
 a feather which has recently been dropped by a duck, and 
 wet the upper side of it. It keeps dry like oiled silk. The 
 reason is that it has been oiled. Where does the oil come 
 from? Is it exuded from all over the duck's body? If this 
 were so then the down would be oiled, which lies nearest 
 the body. But the down, unlike the larger feathers, does get 
 wet if you put it in water, as you see, and so the source of the 
 oil cannot be in the general surface of the skin. 
 
 Now watch the duck on a sunny day, either when it is 
 sitting on a sunny bank, or when it is floating about on the 
 calm surface of the water. Sometimes it is sleeping with its 
 head under its wing. Sometimes it works its bill about, now 
 moving it in the feathers near the tail, and now, as it were, 
 smoothing down the other feathers of its body. The duck 
 has a wart-like excrescence near the root of its tail, and this 
 body secretes the oil, which the duck, by use of its bill, smears 
 over the feathers to make them waterproof 
 
 Now watch the duck on the pond. When a dog swims it 
 sinks all its body in the water as far as its neck, and so does a 
 horse, and so does a man, and, what is more, all of these never 
 cease moving their limbs, in order to keep their heads above 
 water. The duck swims on the surface of the water more like 
 a cork, and can float without moving a muscle. Now what
 
 50 Essays and Addresses 
 
 makes a cork swim so lightly? Look at it. A cork is full 
 of holes, and the holes are full of air. Look how lightly a 
 bladder full of air floats. Is a duck full of air.? 
 
 Let us examine a duck more closely, and look inside it as 
 well as outside. First compare the flight feathers of the wing, 
 the tail feathers, and the covering feathers. 
 
 Then examine a wing and see how many joints it has, and 
 how it unfolds and is folded, and note how the feathers lie. 
 
 Then remove a wing and spread it out on a board for 
 better study, and name the kinds of feathers on it. 
 
 Then, with a sharp knife, cut delicately through the skin 
 over the breastbone, and fold it back and fasten it. Show the 
 strong and thick muscles. Why does a bird want such strong 
 muscles? 
 
 Then cut through the breastbone, or separate the breast- 
 bone and the ribs to show the hollow of the breast. Show the 
 thin tissues in which air is collected. 
 
 Clean the upper bone of a wing, and show a small hole in 
 it near the shoulder. 
 
 Saw through a bone lengthways and across. Show that it 
 is hollow, and that the hole in the bone admits air from the 
 air-spaces above found, so that the duck's bones are filled with 
 air. 
 
 The appearance and position of the lungs can be con- 
 trasted with those of a rabbit or any other mammal. Anyone 
 who has to clean and truss a chicken for roasting will not be 
 shocked at dissecting a duck. The comparatively solid bone 
 of a mammal can be contrasted with those of a bird. Besides 
 the air in the breastbones, the quills of the feathers are full of 
 air, and the close-packed outer feathers keep much air be- 
 neath them among the down. No wonder, then, the duck 
 swims on the surface of the water, while the dog, when he 
 swims, has only his head out. 
 
 Now look at the shape of the body. Apart from head 
 and neck it is oval, but not a perfect oval. It is somewhat 
 flattened, that is, it is wider from right to left than it is deep 
 from below to the top of its back. This flattening makes it
 
 Object Teaching; or^ Words and Things 51 
 
 rest more securely on the water than it would if its body were 
 perfectly oval. 
 
 Notice how the duck swims. It moves its feet alternately, 
 exactly as in walking on land. Its feet have skin between the 
 toes. Examine a foot. With its outstretched broad surface 
 it fans the water. Compare the foot of a hen. Which is best 
 for swimming? The feet push out backward and the body 
 moves forward. Have you watched men rowing a boat? If 
 the body moves forward when the feet are moving backward, 
 what happens when the feet are pulled in again? Does not 
 the body move backward? Watch the feet. When they are 
 pushed back, the toes spread out and make, with the skin 
 between them, a broad surface. When they are pulled in, the 
 toes draw together and curl up a little, just as happens when 
 the duck lifts its foot in walking on dry land. Thus the foot 
 presents as little surface as possible to the water when it is 
 being drawn in again. 
 
 You will notice that the toes do not bend quite in the 
 same way as our fingers do. Our fingers we bend at our plea- 
 sure, but the duck's toes bend of themselves, and the skin 
 folds up between them. As soon as they meet the resistance 
 of the water in swimming, the toes and skin between them are 
 spread out by the pressure of the water. 
 
 Now notice the position of the feet on the legs. The feet 
 are set inwards, and are less convenient for walking on land. 
 Compare a hen and a duck when they walk. The duck 
 waddles. Watch the duck swim. The right foot in striking 
 out backward pushes the body forward towards the left. The 
 left foot similarly pushes the body forward towards the right 
 again. Thus the body moves forward in a straight line, 
 although neither foot pushes it quite straight forward. 
 
 Lay two books of one size fllat on the table. Push them 
 
 forward by shoving the end corners alternately, but push one 
 
 book in a diagonal direction each time, and the other in a 
 
 perpendicular direction. Contrast the movements of the two 
 
 books. Which motion makes the book move more easily 
 
 forward? If the duck's feet were so set on that each stroke 
 
 10
 
 52 Essays and Addresses 
 
 in swimming were made exactly in a straight line backwards, 
 would its progress be as easy as now, when the stroke is made 
 sideways? 
 
 The legs of the duck are short. As it swims you see only 
 its feet. The part of the leg which is inside the skin is stout. 
 The free part is thin and sinewy. Take a flat ruler and move 
 it through the water broadside, first holding it by one end so 
 that nearly all the ruler is in the water, and then holding it 
 by the middle so that only a third of the ruler is in the water. 
 In the second case the ruler is moved more easily. Which 
 case does the duck's leg resemble? 
 
 Examine the muscle of the duck's leg; its strength, size, 
 colour, and attachment. The muscle of the foot. Look at 
 the position of the legs. They are set on towards the hinder 
 end of the body. Some water-birds have their legs set on 
 more in the middle, like the moor-hen. On the contrary, the 
 grebe has its legs set on still farther back than the duck, and 
 when it wants to stand it has to set its body nearly vertical or 
 upright in consequence. 
 
 This position may be again illustrated by holding a book 
 between the finger and thumb {a) horizontally and {b) near 
 one end. The duck walks uneasily on land: of course, be- 
 cause its build is contrived for aquatic habits — look at its 
 feathers, its toes, the length and position of its feet! The 
 hen's legs look quite different. They are longer and more 
 flexible. The toes are longer, being without a web. Much 
 more of the legs is outside the skin. You can see a joint more 
 than you can see in the duck. 
 
 Compare, however, a duck's leg and a hen's leg after 
 separating both from the body. Show the skeleton of the 
 two legs, and compare and contrast the upper joint of the 
 duck's leg and the hen's drumstick. 
 
 If you hold a small book between your finger and thumb, 
 and make it walk along the table on the tips of them, the 
 book moves more easily when you grasp it in the middle than 
 when you grasp it near the end. Of course this can be ex- 
 plained by reference to mechanics if it is thought desirable.
 
 Object Teaching; or, Words and Things 53 
 
 The centre of gravity should be in a vertical line with the 
 centre of support, or at any rate it must not be outside of it. 
 The connection between this principle and the oval shape of 
 the bird's body can be shown, and similarly in regard to the 
 bend of the legs. But even without this, a parallel instance 
 leads to thoughtful observation of nature, and this leads on 
 presently to a more accurate and quantitative study. It is 
 possible to compare the foot of the coot or grebe, which has 
 a fringe of web on each side of the toe, as an intermediate 
 form between a hen and a duck. 
 
 What does the duck do on the pond? It seeks food 
 Watch how it plunges its head under water and searches 
 among the water-weeds or in the mud. Its name comes from 
 this action. To duck is to dip the head. Besides weeds, the 
 duck eats snails, fish, frogs, eggs and spawn, caddis-worms, 
 beetles and the like. 
 
 See how long it holds its head under water without taking 
 breath. Remember how much air it has in its body. Watch 
 the duck raise its head from the water with its prey in its 
 bill. It swallows the food but lets the water flow away. 
 The duck does not want to swallow too much water. You 
 can watch the duck drink. It only swallows a few drops 
 while stretching out its head and neck. 
 
 We men can take a good mouthful of water. Why 
 cannot the duck? Look at the duck's bill. There are no 
 lips like ours. Inside its mouth you see channels and grooves 
 crossing from side to side, and the free ends form a fringe 
 or strainer. The edges of the tongue have a similar fringe. 
 These serve two purposes. They help to hold the prey firm 
 in the beak and they help to strain the water off it. 
 
 How can the duck find its prey in the weeds? True, 
 as it has eyes, it, like us, can see under water, but poking 
 about in the mud it soon makes the water thick. 
 
 Compare the hen's beak with the duck's. The hen's is 
 pointed and hornlike. The duck's is broad and more like 
 a skin. Now we will cut the skin from base to point down 
 the middle. Then we will make another cut in the left side
 
 54 Essays and Addi-esses 
 
 across so as to divide it into an upper and an under section. 
 Now we will turn back to the lower section. There you will 
 see a great number of nerves. 
 
 We men have many nerves under the skin at the tips 
 of our fingers, and by the means of them we can tell in 
 the dark whether we are touching a piece of bread or a 
 stone. The duck uses its bill as we do our fingers, only 
 far more cleverly. Blind men, however, see with their 
 fingers. 
 
 Look at the tongue of the duck ; see how thick and fleshy 
 it is, not dry like that of some birds. That helps it to get 
 its food. Now, then, as we have seen how well adapted the 
 duck's feet and legs are for living much on the water, so we 
 see how well its bill is constructed for the same purpose. 
 What can you remember about its covering in this connection? 
 
 I have no space to continue about nesting and brooding 
 and hatching, or the development of the chick. After treat- 
 ing of all of these, it would be desirable to introduce the 
 conception of classification. By comparing the duck with 
 geese and swans, and contrasting them with sparrows and 
 robins, storks and cranes, you can show the difference 
 between swimming birds and waders and perchers. 
 
 A study like this can most readily be made in the country, 
 where the children can visit a pond frequently and watch the 
 ducks and note their habits; but most towns possess parks 
 with lakes on which ducks swim about. Occasional expedi- 
 tions, on summer evenings or Saturdays, for the purpose of 
 investigating natural objects in their surroundings, would be 
 well-spent time. 
 
 If every detail that is dwelt upon is illustrated by present- 
 ing it to the eye of the children, and in many cases to the 
 touch, such a lesson is not like a compendium of scientific 
 facts which is learned by heart. On the contrary, the object 
 is presented as much as possible as it lives and moves in its 
 natural surroundings. It is not a mummified specimen out of 
 a museum, from which all the grace and beauty of life and 
 warmth and motion have been abstracted. A girl taught on
 
 Object Teaching; or, Words and Things 55 
 
 this principle is not likely to commence a theme on her 
 mother with the remark : " Mother is the female parent of 
 the child," where there is too much science; neither would 
 a boy, when asked to describe an ordinary hen's Qgg, answer: 
 " An Qgg is an oblong white object with a shell composed 
 of gravel," where there is too little science. 
 
 Again, the talk about the duck has not passed into a 
 general-information lesson. We have not discussed duck- 
 shooting, decoys, and the like; neither have we gone into 
 the "culinary" preparation of the duck, all of which might 
 be usefully dealt with in their place. It has been an object 
 lesson within the meaning of that term, as I have already 
 described it. 
 
 I have been reading the second report of the committee 
 of the British Association on present methods of teaching 
 chemistry, and I appreciate very keenly the excellence of the 
 pamphlet. What there is said of chemistry is true of science. 
 " The most," it is written, " that can be properly aimed at in 
 teaching chemistry (I should prefer to extend the statement 
 and say science) in elementary schools is the training of the 
 faculties of observation and of orderly thinking, and the stim- 
 ulation of the instinct of enquiry which is the possession of 
 every uneducated child. By restricting the teaching to 
 common things this can easily be done, and so an interest 
 aroused both in the phenomena of nature and in those 
 involved in industrial operations." 
 
 What the report says of books on chemistry is true of 
 books on other sciences. We need more books for instruction 
 that may show how chemistry and other subjects may be 
 approached naturally and logically from a study of common 
 things and of everyday phenomena. 
 
 The British Association Report recommends the peri- 
 patetic system of teaching science as the only one at present 
 practicable, because a high standard of scientific knowledge 
 is absolutely necessary for the proper educative teaching of 
 the most elementary chemistry. I incline to think myself 
 that, where possible, it is better that all instruction should
 
 56 Essays and Addresses 
 
 be given by some member of the school staff. I think that 
 a good organizing teacher, who can direct, advise, and en- 
 courage the class teachers in different schools in a district, 
 would produce in the end more and better results than a 
 peripatetic teacher, because the latter can never know at all 
 intimately the number of individual scholars whom he will 
 have to address, and can know little of the contents of their 
 minds or how to get hold of them. 
 
 The kind of science teaching in elementary schools in 
 Germany and Switzerland is well described in this report, 
 where it is stated to be of the most simple and general 
 character as distinguished from the systematic instruction 
 for technical purposes, which begins in polytechnics and 
 higher schools. The higher teaching demands as its basis 
 that the elementary science lesson shall not merely have 
 given information, but that it shall have developed intelli- 
 gence, that it shall have been rational and thorough, and 
 that it shall have been given by good teachers. I do not 
 myself know of any peripatetic teachers in Berlin, but I 
 met with teachers in large schools whose duty consisted 
 entirely in teaching and superintending the teaching of 
 science, just as one teacher often deals with needlework 
 in England. No doubt in country districts the peripatetic 
 system is at present often the only possible one, and also 
 in towns where the schools are small or not large enough 
 to occupy the whole of the time of a science teacher. 
 
 However taught, science in its elementary stage must be 
 of the nature of object teaching. The subject may consist 
 of a connected series of object lessons in a particular study, 
 such as many teachers are now devising in domestic economy, 
 physiology, mechanics and physics, or the field of enquiry may 
 be more general, or the teaching may be applied to history 
 or social science ; but the real worth of this study of objects is 
 not the quantity of ground covered and information imparted, 
 but the quality and method of instruction. The observations 
 must be made or verified by the scholars themselves, who are 
 thus trained to use and trust their own senses and powers of
 
 Object Teaching; or^ Wo7'ds and Things 57 
 
 inference instead of repeating other people's descriptions or 
 accounts in books. 
 
 This kind of object teaching is an antidote to the degra- 
 dation of learning, which we all know and deplore, but can 
 never wholly escape. After a full and living description of an 
 object the teacher writes down a few of the salient points in 
 his development, which, of course, prove of immense value first 
 to the examinee and afterwards to the examiner. The next 
 step is that, in order to save time, the full account is omitted 
 in teaching, and the dry bones of the skeleton are studied 
 exclusively by the student as his sole weapon of defence 
 against the examiner, and he abandons all hope of taking 
 any interest in his studies except as means to a pass. 
 
 It only remains for me to express my obligations in 
 writing this paper to two German authors — Karl Richter, 
 whose excellent treatise on Object Teaching has been the 
 principal source for the first part of it; and Friedrich Junge, 
 whose book, called The Village Pond, has supplied me with 
 materials for the second part.
 
 DRAWING IN INFANT SCHOOLS 
 
 A STUDY IN PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 A famous chemist, when asked if he could account for the 
 secret of his success, replied that he set it down to the fact 
 that, in making his experiments, he was in the habit of examin- 
 ing the residues, which most students threw away. Now, I 
 suppose that at first sight nothing can seem more profitless 
 than the study of the scribblings of the lisping limners of 
 the infant school. I hope, however, to prove that these 
 scrawls are really worth the closest attention, because they 
 both throw light on the teaching of drawing in general, and, 
 what is of even more importance, are significant as illustrating 
 the process by which the knowledge of an object grows up in 
 the child's mind. We shall find ourselves, as we watch a 
 child drawing, introduced behind the scenes, and able, to 
 some extent, to witness the mind of the child in the act 
 of grasping objects which are before its eyes. 
 
 In order to indicate the line of study, I will begin by 
 describing an experiment which I made. Choosing a little 
 girl from a class of children about six years of age, I placed 
 her in front of the class and asked the others to draw her face. 
 The girl stood fronting the class, and therefore was to be 
 drawn full face. When the drawing had been made I asked 
 the little model to make a half-turn, so that she now stood 
 sideways before the class. I then asked the class to draw the 
 face in the new position — i.e. in profile. 
 
 When I came to examine the results of the artists' efforts, 
 I was surprised to find that in some cases an apparently un- 
 accountable mistake had been made. When the model had 
 stood full face, the copy presented it in profile, and when the 
 
 58
 
 Drawing in Infant Schools 
 
 59 
 
 model had stood sideways, the copy presented it full face. If 
 the reader is at a loss to understand how I judge the inten- 
 tion of the artist from 
 the imperfect drawings, 
 I refer him to the posi- 
 tion of the nose. When 
 the m.odel stands full 
 face, the nose is in the 
 middle of the face; 
 when the model stands 
 sideways, the nose is at 
 
 the side. The child, however, in drawing the full face, has 
 put the nose at the side, and, contariwise, in drawing the 
 profile, has set it in the middle. 
 
 I shall endeavour to explain the cause of this strange 
 discrepancy. As the first step in this explanation, I repro- 
 duce two drawings 
 of a tin mug. The 
 model was set up 
 as before, in two 
 positions succes- 
 sively. In the first 
 position the handle 
 was seen in the 
 middle — that is, 
 
 fore-shortened. In the drawing, however, the handle appears 
 at the side instead of in the middle. In the second position 
 the handle again appears at the side, where it should be. 
 There is a slight difference in the two drawings, for the 
 handle is not placed on the same side in both. 
 
 All this is curious, it may be said, but what valuable 
 lesson are we to derive from these juvenile absurdities? 
 When we look at an object an image appears in our minds 
 as soon as we take our eyes off it. Have we any evidence as 
 to the nature of this image? We think of two things — one 
 thing is the image in the mind, the other is the object which 
 gave rise to the image, and which we picture to ourselves as
 
 6o Essays and Addresses 
 
 wholly outside the mind. Can we tell what is the degree of 
 correspondence between that which we call outer and that 
 which we call inner? Again, do we know exactly how the 
 mental picture is formed? Can we, for example, say with 
 certainty whether the mental image is constructed bit by bit, 
 growing up in the mind by degrees; or should we rather say 
 that it is received by the mind as a whole, in the same way 
 that the impression of a seal is received on wax at one pres- 
 sure? Many people seem to think that the eye instructs the 
 mind by a kind of "look and say" method. " If," it is often 
 said, " a primrose be placed before the eye of the child, an 
 image of that flower will be stamped on the child's mind," 
 and it is thought that, whether the child can give a name to 
 it or not, he sees the whole object correctly. If this be true, 
 it follows that a child has only to look long enough at an 
 object in order to procure an accurate mental image of it. 
 Learning directly from nature thus seems a very simple 
 thing, and words appear to be less a help than a hindrance 
 to knowledge. We are also led by this hypothesis to con- 
 trast knowledge of words with knowledge of things, and to 
 insist that if the student knows things the words will take 
 care of themselves. 
 
 Now, philosophy since its dawn has forever been pointing 
 out the difficulty in accepting the seeming truism that the 
 mind is to the object as a blank sheet of paper to a printer. 
 Common sense, on the other hand, has continually revolted 
 from the conclusions of philosophers, who appear to it to 
 contend that men do not touch the tangible nor see the 
 visible. The history of teaching, on the other hand, seems 
 rather to support the judgment of philosophy than that of 
 popular opinion and common sense. Practical teachers have 
 usually found that children lem'n so little through the senses 
 that they have almost entirely abandoned the attempt to fill 
 the mind by aid of those channels. Even now, for example, 
 most people will teach a table of weights before giving the 
 children any practice in weighing. Teachers have shown a 
 profound mistrust of the senses, and seem, in despair, to
 
 Draiving in hifant Schools 6i 
 
 have abandoned all reliance on them as a basis of learning. 
 It seems, however, that the arguments of philosophers can 
 be submitted to practical tests. We can to some extent 
 form an estimate of the accuracy of the information which 
 is derived from what I have called the " look and sa}' " 
 method of studying nature. We can make experiments and 
 ascertain the correctness of the mental image which is formed 
 in the child's mind when he examines an object. We can 
 give some answer to the question : " When a child's mental 
 image of an object is compared with the object itself, how far 
 will it stand the test of the comparison?" We can make 
 a visible and tangible measurement of the mental gain after 
 the eye has been at work receiving impressions from an 
 object. 
 
 The study of the drawings of children throws light on this 
 obscure subject. The crude draughtsmanship of a child helps 
 us to estimate the correspondence between his mental image 
 of an object and the original, and to measure his power of 
 improving, enlarging, and correcting the picture which he sees 
 within. 
 
 It will be observed that we are making a study of the 
 images of objects received through the eye, and therefore we 
 must be careful as to the nature of the drawings which we 
 study. What the child draws in jest, or for amusement, or 
 by any effort of imagination, must be excluded. The method 
 of observation will be to set up some simple object before 
 a child and to bid him draw it just as he sees it. A French 
 philosopher, M. Passy, has made experiments in this direc- 
 tion, and has published them in a recent number of the 
 Revue Philosophique. My aim in this paper is to unfold the 
 leading ideas of M. Passy, and to show their bearing on the 
 study of practical psychology. 
 
 There are two kinds of children who will be experimented 
 on. Some will have already been in the habit of drawing 
 things. Others will never have held a pencil in their hands 
 before. There is a considerable difference between the be- 
 haviour of the two. M. Passy thus describes the practised
 
 62 Essays and Addresses 
 
 hand : " This child," he observes, " sets to work without hesi- 
 tation ; he seizes his pencil, secure of his power, and completes 
 his design with a few strokes; his execution is almost auto- 
 matic, and nothing will induce him to study his model with 
 attention. If you bid him look at what he is drawing, he just 
 casts a cursory and half-contemptuous glance, and then goes 
 on quite regardless of what he has seen. His drawing is 
 always the same, and it commences and ends at the same 
 place. As soon as he has done he hands you his work with 
 an air of triumph; he is possessed of an infallible receipt, and 
 error is out of the question : ' That is the way a horse is done ; 
 that is the way you do a man.' " 
 
 It is easy to see in the execution a certain dexterity, or at 
 least a confidence of touch which is in amusing contrast to 
 the absurdity of the result. 
 
 " Let me give," says M. Passy, " an account of some ex- 
 periments with my own children, who had already been 
 shown by their nurse, or someone else, how to draw a man: 
 Placing myself so as to be seen in profile, I asked Octavius to 
 make a drawing of me. He draws me full face, and, though 
 my body is hidden by the table, he draws my whole figure. 
 I now place myself full face and ask him to draw me again. 
 He does so, and hands over exactly the same result as before. 
 In a third attempt I get a drawing of my head alone; but the 
 infant (he is seven years old) has been put out by the change 
 and got wrong in consequence. He has omitted eyes, ears, 
 hair, and mouth. I remark to him: 'Have you left nothing 
 out?' 'Nothing,' says he. 'What do we see with?' say I. 
 'With eyes,' says he; and pit-pat two little rounds go down 
 for eyes. 'What do we eat with?' 'Our mouth.' Down go 
 two little lines for the mouth. ' What do we hear with?' 
 * Our ears.' He draws an ear on the left side, and moves his 
 pencil across to add the second ear, but he finds the place 
 occupied already by the nose, so he goes back and sets it 
 beside the first ear. It is a remarkable fact that the child 
 who has got into the habit of mechanically reproducing a 
 conventional figure cannot rid his mind of it so as to be
 
 Drawing ifi Infant Schools 63 
 
 able to return to real observation, and hence the correc- 
 tions which he makes are more unskilful than the original 
 errors, 
 
 " Now, consider a second case. Placing myself in profile, 
 as before, I explain to Paul, a seven years' child of excep- 
 tional intelligence, that in the position in which I place myself 
 he can only see one eye and one ear, and, in short, only one 
 side of my figure. He draws me as if seeing me full face, 
 with mouth, two ears, and nose, but so far defers to facts as to 
 leave out one eye. Presently I hear a scratching. Paul was 
 removing an ear, because, said he: 'I see I could not see it.' 
 The only difference which he made between the full-face 
 drawing and the profile was that in the latter he left out one 
 eye and one ear. The correction was soon forgotten, for in 
 two months he again drew me in the same 
 position (in profile) with two eyes and two 
 ears." 
 
 Now, in both these cases the children 
 had been shown by their nurse or their 
 mother how to draw certain objects, and 
 had been supplied with an idea of a human 
 face which had taken possession of their minds. In regard 
 to methods of teaching drawing, it is worth noticing how 
 soon the eye and hand are accustomed to follow a fixed 
 routine. The little child who has learnt to copy the drawing 
 of an object becomes henceforth incapable of drawing it in 
 any other position, and he cannot be got to make any 
 improvement on his first design. 
 
 Children who have never handled a pencil before behave 
 quite differently from those whose work has just been de- 
 scribed. " I placed," says M. Passy, " a vase before a little 
 girl of six years, a daughter of a peasant, who had never 
 drawn before. It was difficult to get her to set to work. 
 She took up her pencil, but instead of using it, put it in her 
 mouth, bent her head over the paper, shifted uneasily on her 
 chair, twisted her feet round the bars, and displayed every 
 sign of embarrassment; then she took a look at the model
 
 64 Essays and Addresses 
 
 and seemed to address herself as to a task of great difficulty. 
 At last she brings it so far as to put her pencil on the paper, 
 but even then she could not make up her mind to begin. In 
 order to make her understand what I want, I hold her hand 
 and guide it so that she makes the outline of the vase. Then 
 she makes an attempt of her own, although not without much 
 hesitation and embarrassment. The result is quite formless, 
 and I am obliged to ask her to explain the different parts, 
 which are to me incomprehensible. It was, however, some 
 compensation to find that a second attempt, made some days 
 afterwards, without any remark having been made about the 
 first, displayed a striking advance. There was a most strik- 
 ing contrast in respect of capacity for improvement in the 
 peasant child, who had never drawn before, and the little 
 Paul and Octavius, who were experienced nursery artists." 
 
 M. Passy finds that, as compared with the children of 
 wealthier people, the little peasant boys and girls are more 
 conscientious in their drawings, bring to bear more power of 
 attention, and make more sensible progress. 
 
 It would appear that the habit of seeing and imitating 
 ready - drawn representations of objects blunts the edge of 
 personal effort even in dealing with fresh objects. A very few 
 experiments are sufficient to convince the observer of the 
 facility with which the hand and eye fall into routine. The 
 tendency to repetition manifests itself sometimes after even a 
 single drawing, and this is especially the case when the draw- 
 ing is left in the child's hands. In this case the child almost 
 always copies himself In making experiments, therefore, of 
 this kind care must be taken (i) to avoid objects which the 
 child has drawn, (2) to avoid objects which he has seen other 
 children draw and (3) to attend to those mistakes chiefly 
 which recur with a certain persistency. 
 
 It will, I think, be clear that the rude representations of 
 objects which the children make are often not taken by their 
 authors to be true pictures of the objects, but rather con- 
 ventional ways of representing them, whether designed by 
 themselves or copied from other sources. Nevertheless, in
 
 Drawing in Infa^it Schools 65 
 
 spite of this mental reservation, there is a tendency for these 
 pictures to act injuriously in two ways. In the first place, 
 they soon become deeply engraven on the memory and 
 supplant the more accurate mental images formed by the 
 contemplation of the object; and, secondly, they form a kind 
 of mould into which all fresh observations are run and thus 
 prevent the child from gaining new knowledge, even by a 
 prolonged study of the object. The imperfect mental image 
 hinders the acquisition of knowledge, partly by preventing 
 any attention being paid to special features, or to features 
 not previously observed; and partly because, through mental 
 laziness, the familiar mental and conventional image of the 
 object supplants the fresh image before it has had any 
 permanent effect. Rapidly recognizing the object from a 
 superficial glance, the child refers it to the type already 
 existing in his mind, and is at no pains to acquire additional 
 details beyond those which are already contained in that 
 type. The child looks and learns nothing. Eyes he has, 
 but he cannot see. The senses, which are the foundation of 
 knowledge, are here a hindrance to it. 
 
 I have now, however, to revert to the drawing of the face 
 and the mug with misplaced nose and handle respectively. 
 Some little time ago I asked a little girl to write an 
 account of one of the pictures in her school. " In our school," 
 she began, "there is a picture of a horse. It looks you straight 
 in the face. I think the artist must be very clever, for any- 
 one can draw a horse sideways; I can do that. But I cannot 
 draw the horse when he stands so that his head is in front of 
 his tail." 
 
 Now, one of the first results which appear from a com- 
 parison of several drawings, especially if you arrange them in 
 tables of two columns, one of which shows the actual position 
 of the object and the other the position drawn by the child, 
 is this: Things which are correctly drawn in one position are 
 hopelessly incorrect in another. Moreover, different children, 
 attempting the same object, err in precisely the same way. 
 What is the law of error?
 
 66 
 
 Essays and Addresses 
 
 It seems to be as follows: — The drawing is correct or not 
 according as the visual impression is or is not in accord with 
 the idea of the form of the object which is in the mind of the 
 child before commencing. 
 
 The child's prepossessions are the chief source of error. 
 The great difficulty is the third dimension of space. The 
 child has at his disposal only two dimensions on his paper, 
 and he does not know how to indicate the third, which his 
 previous knowledge acquaints him with in the object which 
 he is trying to draw. 
 
 When, for instance, the cup was set up so that the handle 
 stood out at the side, the child drew it correctly. In the case 
 where the handle projected towards him, and was seen, there- 
 fore, foreshortened, his drawing was erroneous. His action in 
 trying to draw the cup in this position was important to note. 
 He leaned himself sideways, forcing himself into an attitude in 
 which he could see the object as it appeared to him in his 
 
 mind. In other words, he adjusted 
 the model to the existing mental 
 image, instead of acquiring a new 
 mental image. In the end he drew 
 the handle, not as he saw it, but 
 as he knew it to be. 
 
 It is now easier to understand 
 
 how it is that in drawing a face 
 
 the child is apt to put the nose 
 
 at the side when the face looks 
 
 full at him. It is in accordance 
 
 with a sort of law that the child 
 
 sets foreshortened parts of objects 
 
 at the edge of the figure, making 
 
 them full size. In some cases 
 
 the child omits the nose altogether 
 
 when the face is full. The child's 
 
 treatment of the eye is very interesting. Seen in profile, the 
 
 eye is foreshortened, but the child draws it as if he saw it in 
 
 full face. The child only sees a part of the eye. He restores
 
 Drawing in Infant Schools 67 
 
 the other part as he knows it is. Curiously enough, this error is 
 seen in the work of savages, in the quaint reHcs of the Mexicans, 
 and even in the much more advanced art of the Egyptians. 
 
 In drawing the full face, it will be observed that the child 
 makes the ears as he sees them when the head is in profile. 
 He does not foreshorten them. Here, again, he is reproduc- 
 ing an old mental image, and not one formed at the time of 
 drawing. 
 
 I noticed one curious variation in which the child drew the 
 side face the same as a full face, except that he had made 
 the chin point the way the face was directed. Experiments 
 in the child's drawing of perspective produce similar results. 
 Placing a simple box before a child full front, he drew rightly 
 enough a rectangle. On changing the position so that he saw 
 two sides in perspective, I got a curious drawing. He drew 
 two separate and disconnected figures ; the one a rectangle as 
 before, and the other a square drawn a little distance from it, 
 intended to be a representation of the shorter side of the box. 
 In another case, the child drew the two sides of the box in 
 position, but did not make the more distant line smaller than 
 the nearer one, so that perspective was omitted altogether. 
 Of course, here again the child drew, not the object which he 
 saw before him, but some image which he had already in his 
 mind, and which was called up by a glance at the object. His 
 eye, if he attended to what it told him, would give him the 
 image of receding lines as smaller than nearer ones. He is, 
 however, so accustomed to make corrections in the gifts of his 
 senses that he cannot grasp the object as it presents itself to 
 him in nature, but sees only the corrected image of it. The 
 mind falsifies the impression altogether, and nothing is 
 learned from the latter. 
 
 M. Passy tested the matter by showing the children a 
 photograph of a funnel with the neck foreshortened; they 
 think it is a nosegay. A flat-iron with the handle turned to 
 the front they pronounce to be a bell. Yet drawings of these 
 same objects, executed, however rudely, by one child, are. 
 recognized with ease by another. 
 
 11
 
 68 
 
 Essays and Addresses 
 
 The great difficulty in object teaching is to help the child 
 to interpret the gifts of the senses correctly; and so hard is 
 
 this, as I have said, that many 
 authorities seem inclined to 
 abandon the attempt and re- 
 sume the mediaeval devotion 
 to literary studies. If, then, 
 perspective is so hardly recog- 
 nized, what shall we say of 
 drawing copies in which it is 
 deliberately falsified? I give 
 here a drawing of a house in 
 which this is the case, and I 
 can only say that you might 
 as well expect to help chil- 
 dren to draw by such copies 
 as these as to aid children to distinguish colours correctly if 
 you put on them a pair of blue spectacles. 
 
 Another feature in the drawings of infants 
 is the difficulty which they experience in 
 grasping the relative proportions of parts, A 
 cup, for instance, which is wider than it is high 
 will be drawn in converse proportion. Perhaps 
 this is again an instance of the error before 
 indicated. Cups are not usually more wide than 
 deep, and the child draws, not the cup before 
 him, but the more usual picture which is 
 already established in his mind as a fixed 
 type, and is called up by the hasty view of 
 the particular cup which you show him. 
 
 Details, again, are exaggerated. The child 
 delights in caricature and in the grotesque, 
 far more than lovers of pure art could wish. 
 Here is a drawing done from nature by a 
 sharp boy of six. The various parts seem to 
 me good, and the face was really like the boy who stood 
 as model. But the proportions are absurd. Anyone who
 
 Drawing in Infant Schools 69 
 
 has noticed the picture of the Battle of Sant Egidio, by- 
 Paolo Uccello, in the English National Gallery, must have 
 noticed with surprise the contrast between the drawing of 
 the horses and of the men. The men in armour are admir- 
 ably painted, but the horses are quite ridiculous. It seems 
 that it was an innovation in the fourteenth century to paint 
 horses, and competition had not sharpened the artist's powers 
 of observation and execution. The toy-like horses in this 
 picture remind me of children's drawings. Children seem 
 to paint details, and the object is hardly realized as a whole. 
 The child has not learnt to keep two parts in the mind at 
 the same time. One detail is not subordinated to another 
 in the field of vision as it is in nature. A clear instance 
 of the isolation, in the child's mind, of details which are 
 really parts of one whole, is well shown in the drawing of 
 an oblong and a square, some space apart, to stand for the 
 two sides of a box seen in perspective. In drawing a head 
 nearly all beginners make the upper part much too small 
 compared with the lower; they do not allow for the brain. 
 So, too, the mouth is almost always set too low. 
 
 Besides the difficulty of holding two, and, still more, a 
 number of separate points in the mind at once and duly 
 subordinated one to the other, there is the difficulty caused 
 by attention to that which most attracts attention. A point 
 that specially attracts attention tends to be exaggerated. If, 
 as seems to be the case, the perception of the whole object is 
 one mental act, then the part of the object which absorbs 
 most of the mental activity looms proportionately larger than 
 the rest. 
 
 But the lessons which we have had in perception furnish 
 us with another reason why the drawing of beginners is so 
 strangely inexact. In all perception, in every act of per- 
 ceiving, the law of economy holds. We pay attention, not 
 to all the impressions which we could receive from an object, 
 but only to such a number as may be sufficient to enable us 
 to recognize it. Hence, of the most familiar objects we often 
 have the least detailed images in our minds; and though we
 
 70 Essays and Addresses 
 
 should recognize our father sooner than any other man in a 
 crowd, yet we might find it easier to draw a sketch from 
 memory of a striking stranger, once seen, than a memory 
 picture of our father, whom we know so well. Indeed, fami- 
 liarity, so far from providing us with more exact mental pic- 
 tures, tends to set up a process of denudation of detail, and to 
 leave in the mind a bare abstraction of the object. Because 
 the child is less self-conscious, he sets on paper these meagre 
 residues of observations in a way that older persons are 
 ashamed of, and hence the value of the drawings of children 
 to the student of psychology. The child does not draw the 
 result of his impressions at the moment, but only the abbre- 
 viation of them which exists in his mind, and which is called 
 up by a glance at the object. What a child draws is really an 
 indication of the contents of his mind in regard to an object, 
 and there is no doubt that the attempt is to draw an object, 
 and the subsequent comparison of the drawing with the model 
 does define and complete the mental image of the object 
 drawn. 
 
 I will now endeavour to put together a few lessons which 
 may be derived from my study of Infants' Drawing. In the 
 first place, I wish to defend the Kindergarten drawing on 
 square- ruled paper. It is, to begin with, a happy and an 
 absorbing occupation. Were it no more, it would be valuable 
 for this alone. But it is much more. Children can early learn 
 from it what is the use and meaning of symmetry, and this 
 without technical language. Anyone who has seen what 
 clever geometrical patterns children can draw from their own 
 designs, with a little encouragement of the right sort, will 
 see a valuable introduction through Kindergarten drawing to 
 weaving and flower-gardening and many other crafts. A 
 gardener, for instance, visited the Raw Nook Infant School to 
 see after his child, and was so struck with some of the Kinder- 
 garten patterns designed by the infants that he copied them 
 for his own use. " Shall I," said a young woman to the 
 teacher who was beginning to instruct her in weaving — " Shall 
 I find it hard to learn?" " Well," said he, " have you ever
 
 Drawing in Infant Schools 
 
 71 
 
 learnt to do any Kindergarten work? If so, it is easier for 
 you to learn." The point to remember is that Froebel was 
 much interested in 
 crystallography and 
 its connection with 
 geometrical forms. All 
 Kindergarten drawing 
 which is not founded 
 on geometrical forms 
 is debased, and not 
 according to the idea 
 of the founder. Sym- 
 metry is not the same 
 thing as proportion, but 
 is of even greater prac- 
 tical value in everyday life, and is as useful to a girl laying 
 a tea-table as to an architect. I may mention, however, two 
 common errors which children should be taught to avoid. 
 They should mark the beginning and end of each line by 
 a slight dot, and then join them by one swift, firm, light 
 stroke. The mistakes which children make are that they 
 draw from square to square, lengthening their line piecemeal 
 and breaking up one line into little pieces, and they press 
 heavily on the pencil. The just balance of masses is, no doubt, 
 of more consequence in painting than mere symmetrical correct- 
 ness, but an appreciation of symmetry leads to an appreciation 
 of harmonious disposition of masses of light and shade. 
 
 " But," it will be said, " do you recommend curved lines on 
 the square ruled paper? A geometrical curve is wholly dif- 
 ferent from the artistic line of beauty, or the curve of natural 
 forms, such as the outline of leaves and the curve of their 
 veining." My answer is that the curve of a leaf is indeed 
 different from a geometrical curve, but there is much reason 
 to think that the natural form is, after all, based on the 
 geometrical. The lovely frost forms, for example, which we 
 see in winter on the window-panes, resemble, though with an 
 important difference, the natural forms of leaves. As a rule,
 
 72 
 
 Essays and Addresses 
 
 the frost foliage is stiff and formal, but when the crystals are 
 formed under certain conditions, the shapes are almost as 
 free flowing as natural forms. 
 
 I refer the reader to an example of this, which will be 
 found in Nature for December 8, 1892. Mr. Ruskin, in his 
 Elements of Drazvmg, has well pointed out the difference 
 between graceful and ungraceful curvature. He says that 
 a graceful curve approaches in some part of its course to 
 straightness, and that it varies, never remaining equal in 
 
 degree at different parts 
 of its course. Thus there 
 is a steady change from 
 less to more curvature, 
 or from more to less, but 
 no part of the line is the 
 segment of a circle, and 
 therefore cannot be drawn 
 by compasses. Now the 
 curves that can be most 
 readily drawn on square 
 ruled paper are doubtless 
 false from an artistic point 
 of view, because they ap- 
 proach to segments of 
 circles ; but, on the other hand, by the aid of these squares 
 it is not hard to get quite young children to draw very 
 creditable circles and half-circles — in itself a useful accom- 
 plishment, although not for artistic purposes. I think, 
 moreover, that these regular curves may be used as an 
 introduction to the artistic curves of growing and living 
 forms, such as the branches of trees, the veins of leaves, or 
 the shape of fruit, like a pear. My reason is as follows: — 
 A number of crystals adhering together, as in frost flowers, 
 present a very regular appearance, no doubt ; but if they are 
 separated a little by moisture, and acted upon by wind or 
 other force while they are being built together, the resulting 
 form has much of the charm of irregularity and arbitrariness
 
 Drawing in Infant Schools 73 
 
 within limits which so pleases us in living and growing forms. 
 The best way, however, to understand the living form is to 
 study the geometrical form of which it is a more beautiful 
 variation. Leaves and flowers of geometrical curve are false 
 to nature, but if, when such forms have been drawn, they are 
 contrasted with the living and growing forms, which I believe 
 to be modifications of them, the young students may be 
 taught to seize the difference and draw the freer curves after 
 having mastered the more easily drawn geometrical curves. 
 I may refer, for example, to the way in which some teachers 
 make use of geometrical shapes — for instance, a cylinder — 
 to enable children to draw cylindrical objects like trunks of 
 trees, a lighthouse, and a sea -anemone. The system is 
 thoroughly carried out in the so-called Prang system, which 
 has been adopted in some American schools. 
 
 It is my belief that it is of great consequence to establish 
 early in the mind of a child conceptions of symmetry, such 
 as, I think, drawing on square -ruled paper produces. Mr. 
 Symonds affirms that even in the compositions of Michael 
 Angelo a want of symmetrical design remained with him 
 throughout his life. We have seen how large a share the 
 mind has in combining the impressions which it receives 
 from the outside, and we can understand how important are 
 the early images which a child learns to construct for itself 
 in interpreting impressions. Geometrical patterns, both in 
 curved and straight lines, seem to me the best foundation 
 for this all-important sense of symmetry which helps us in 
 so many duties in daily life. 
 
 On the other hand, to draw objects in false perspective 
 on square-ruled paper is a huge mistake. You are furnish- 
 ing the young child with false impressions, which he will 
 have the greatest difficulty in unlearning, and which mean- 
 while vitiate his observation of nature in a hundred ways. 
 You make it ten times harder for him to interpret the gift 
 of his senses, and even lead him to mistrust his senses 
 unfairly, because you have made him misinterpret them by 
 the false form of vision which you have supplied him with.
 
 74 Essays and Addresses 
 
 On square -ruled paper only geometrical shapes should 
 be attempied by young children when they commence, and 
 all those modifications of artistic shapes of vases and other 
 graceful objects, which have to be reshaped to fit the squares, 
 thereby losing all their grace, should be avoided most scrupu- 
 lously. There is no connection between the artistic shape 
 and the modified form. As I have said, however, geometrical 
 forms which almost by accident resemble leaves, flowers, or 
 fruit seem to be more legitimate, because, if they are com- 
 pared with the living forms, the difference between the two 
 may be readily explained, and the relation of the growing 
 and varying form to the lifeless crystalline shape may be 
 made easy and interesting. 
 
 Our studies in infants' drawing again seem to indicate 
 that it is a mistake to set young children to copy outline 
 drawings of objects before they have tried to draw the 
 objects themselves, or carefully examined them in nature. 
 In the first place, flat copies of objects have this inherent 
 defect, that they shirk the third dimension difficulty. To 
 suppress the difficulty of foreshortening seems a bad way 
 of helping the child to master it. Secondly, these drawings 
 are sure to prevent the children from forming an indepen- 
 dent idea of the object drawn. They will not henceforward 
 see the object with their own eyes, but only with the limited, 
 and often imperfect, vision of another. They will not see 
 nature, but only a copy of nature. In order to master the 
 use of the pencil, let the children practise geometrical patterns 
 first of all, and not copy drawings of natural forms. As 
 soon as children can use the pencil it is possible to get 
 them to draw from nature. I think a teacher might place 
 before the child a large water-jar, or some piece of pottery, 
 large, bold, and of good shape. She might ask the children 
 to draw the model, and then, by way of correction, instead 
 of correcting the mistakes with a pencil, rather endeavour 
 to point out to the child where he has failed in making a 
 true image in his mind of the real shape of the object. The 
 aim of the teacher should be to help the scholar to use his
 
 Drawing in Infant Schools 75 
 
 eyes to a better purpose. If she corrects the child's lines 
 herself she makes him more lazy in using his eyes, and less 
 attentive to detail and characteristic features. The teacher 
 may build up the shape herself on the blackboard before the 
 children, showing, step by step, how the eye may be aided to 
 measure the object and the hand to set down truly the sym- 
 metry of the parts by use of dots and guiding-lines. 
 
 The habit of symmetrical drawing on square-ruled slates, 
 acquired by working out geometrical patterns, will greatly 
 assist the child when he afterwards begins to set out points 
 and guiding-lines for drawing objects. But in thus drawing 
 an object before the class the object should itself be exhibited 
 and studied in detail. Many children who, after all, fail to 
 draw correctly may, nevertheless, improve instead of deterio- 
 rating their mental image of the object by aid of the drawing 
 lesson ; and art masters who take in hand young persons of six- 
 teen will not find that they have to commence work by teaching 
 their pupils to unlearn. Unsuccessful attempts may, when 
 they fail to produce a work of art, nevertheless increase the 
 blunderer's science by increasing his knowledge of the object. 
 
 As a variation, I think it is very useful to teach young chil- 
 dren to draw by aid of rule and compass. Let them make large 
 circles and then draw diameters crossing at right angles, thus 
 making a frame for a square. They can also draw pentagons, 
 and hexagons in the same way — that is, inside circles. They 
 can learn to rule their lines of given length (two, three, four 
 inches, and so forth) and get preliminary notions of measurement. 
 
 Lastly, I would recommend to the attention of all teachers 
 the valuable letter of Sir L. Alma Tadema in the February 
 number of Hand and Eye, 1893, in which he calls attention 
 to the value of brush drawing. Those who wish children to 
 learn to take in and love the grace of growing forms will 
 realize how much more readily the reproduction of them may 
 be made by the sweep of the brush than by the stroke of 
 the pencil. 
 
 In all civilized nations every child is taught to draw. If 
 we ask with what object are they taught drawing, it is import-
 
 76 JEssays and Addresses 
 
 ant to notice that two answers are possible. A parent who 
 gets instruction in drawing for his child may desire either of 
 two things, or both of them. He may desire his son to 
 become an artist, or he may desire him to be able to draw 
 what he sees — that is, in other words, to become a draughts- 
 man. The two callings may be combined, but are really quite 
 distinct. We have great draughtsmen, like Sowerby — who 
 painted objects for works on natural history — whose pictures 
 would be excluded from Burlington House; and we have 
 a great artist like Lady Waterford, whose draughtsmanship 
 was often imperfect. 
 
 The main use of teaching drawing to ordinary children is 
 to make them draughtsmen rather than artists, and the teach- 
 ing of drawing should be like all other studies — an aid to the 
 training of the mind. By drawing objects children should 
 learn to improve, enlarge, and define their mental impressions 
 of them, and this they can only do if they are taught by 
 people who are accustomed to observe objects. It is not the 
 aim of parents to make their children into bad artists. Are 
 there as many as ten artists of high rank in a million of the 
 population? An artist satisfies who can give us a harmoni- 
 ous and pleasing arrangement of colour, in a picture which 
 suggests something to our mind. We do not ask for photo- 
 graphic v/ork from an artist, although, indeed, it is true that 
 some pictures at Burlington House do remind us of bits of 
 second-hand photographs enlarged and coloured, but they are 
 not art. The teaching of drawing which we want in schools 
 is largely an education of the eye, and this means a sharpen- 
 ing of the observing powers. The teacher of drawing is a 
 teacher of seeing. An artist's picture may be very pleasing 
 in spite of the fact that a scientific knowledge of the objects 
 painted is conspicuously absent, but we do not wish to teach 
 children to draw pleasing pictures so much as to render, as 
 exactly as their faculties permit them, objects that are really 
 worth prolonged study, and objects of which the accurate 
 knowledge that is obtained by drawing them strengthens and 
 enlarges the understanding.
 
 METHODS OF TEACHING CHILDREN 
 BETWEEN SEVEN AND NINE 
 YEARS OF AGE 
 
 NEED FOR A CHANGE 
 
 That there is a gulf yawning wide open between the way 
 in which children are taught or occupied in the infant school 
 or kindergarten, and the way in which they are dealt with in 
 the lower classes of schools for older children, needs no 
 demonstration. 
 
 The experience of our infant schools has taught us that 
 the monotonous repetition of exercises in reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic, which used to prevail before the introduction 
 of " varied occupations ", is not the soundest and quickest way 
 of learning even the " three elementary subjects ". 
 
 " Hammer, hammer, hammer, on the hard high road " is 
 the ruin of the colt, and a mere " hammer, hammer, hammer ", 
 on the weary trivium of the " three R's " is the intellectual 
 ruin of the child in all departments of the elementary school. 
 I do not blame the teachers for the meagre education which 
 was long given in the lower standards, for under the system 
 by which the Government contracted to pay a fixed sum of 
 money for every child that the teachers could raise to a 
 certain minimum standard of efficiency, it was impossible for 
 them to attempt a varied programme of studies. 
 
 Now, however, that the contract system has been aban- 
 doned, there is no longer any reason why teachers who are 
 possessed of an aspiring disposition should not construct as 
 varied and interesting a time-table for junior standards as 
 hangs up in many an infant school. It is the aim of this
 
 78 Essays and Addresses 
 
 paper to indicate the lines on which improvement may be 
 effected in the instruction of children between the ages of 
 seven and nine. 
 
 Since I decline at the outset to recognize the three R's as 
 the essence of elementary education, I am bound, therefore, 
 to explain what in the range of elementary studies I conceive 
 to be more worthy of emphasis than reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic. 
 
 For the three R's I substitute Nature and Human Nature 
 as the epitome of educational studies. Of these twins neither 
 should be neglected, although the latter is the more import- 
 ant. Until lately, while little attention was paid even to 
 human nature, nature received no attention at all. As soon 
 as the scholar entered the school the door was shut behind 
 him on nature. 
 
 Nevertheless, in suppressing the exaggerated emphasis 
 which has been unintentionally directed to mechanical exer- 
 cises in the " three R's ", I am convinced that studies in 
 nature and human nature will carry with them the acquisition 
 of power to read, write, and cypher in a manner which will 
 satisfy the most mechanical of examiners, so long as he 
 remembers that examinations were made for the child and 
 not the child for examinations. 
 
 In the junior standards the first aim of the teacher must 
 be to develop the best side of human nature in his scholars, 
 and this can only be done by making them acquainted, 
 through literary studies, with the best side of human nature 
 among their fellow-creatures. 
 
 I cannot, however, be useful or understood unless I de- 
 scend to detail. Had not an unexpected, but, perhaps, 
 unavoidable result of a spread of knowledge been the exclu- 
 sion of Bible stories from ordinary reading matter, I should 
 have commenced with them, but yielding to facts, I pass over 
 that book and proceed to others of second rank. 
 
 In dealing with those subjects which have a direct bearing 
 upon either nature or human nature, an important distinction
 
 Methods of Teaching Children 79 
 
 must be drawn between instruction \n facts and instruction in 
 language — language without which the child cannot clearly 
 comprehend facts or communicate them to others. 
 
 The distinction between the study of facts and the study 
 of language is obscured, because the study of language itself, 
 from a particular point of view, happens to include some of 
 the most important facts which can possibly be studied. 
 
 The analysis of children's studies may be carried further. 
 We may draw a distinction between the process of receiving 
 facts from the lips of the teacher and the processes of repro- 
 ducing facts by speech or hand. 
 
 The first training of the child must be based upon system- 
 atic cultivation of the powers of observation and imagination. 
 Closely interwoven with these is the cultivation of powers 
 of describing in correct language what is observed or imagined. 
 Lastly, manual training supports and amplifies both the faculty 
 of observation and the faculty of expression. 
 
 For the purpose of the teacher it is no disadvantage that 
 what I have called lessons in facts cannot be severed as by 
 the stroke of a sharp knife from lessons in language. In the 
 early stages of education a sense of the connection and the 
 mutual relation of various branches of study is hard to 
 establish in the child's mind. The main fault of the present 
 routine in Standards I and II is the isolated way in which 
 each subject is treated. Doubtless, for the advanced student, 
 the isolation of his study is indispensable to a thorough 
 knowledge of its detail. In the early stages of mental exer- 
 cise this isolation of the various branches of study from one 
 another tends to hinder the harmonious development of the 
 faculties. 
 
 The first and most important kind of learning, then, is 
 that of "things and their names", which is, unfortunately, 
 very liable to be confused with the study of the " names of 
 things ". The study of " things and their names " comes first ; 
 it should be followed, and to a great extent accompanied, by 
 a study both of the names of things and the ways of making 
 correct predications by aid of those names.
 
 8o Essays and Addresses 
 
 What then are the " things and their names " with which 
 our study should commence? I would put, in the first place, 
 the narration to the class (or if the teacher finds narration 
 uncongenial, reading aloud before the class), of stories like 
 Mrs. Gatty's Parables from Nature \ Jean Ingelow's Stories 
 told to a Child; yEsop's Fables; stories of kindness to ani- 
 mals — (Man, because he is a man, may learn much from a 
 beast, not, as some cynics would say, because he is a beast) — 
 stories of courage and strength of character, especially in little 
 children, and Grimm's Household Tales. By aid of questions 
 of the right sort, the children may be led to express their 
 answers in complete sentences, and in this way they will 
 gradually acquire considerable powers of expressing them- 
 selves in correct English, while their ears will be trained to 
 detect common defects of grammar, pronunciation, and syn- 
 tax. It is clear that all stories of this kind are centred in the 
 home and home-life and the family, the axis round which all 
 early teaching should revolve. These lessons will make most, 
 if not all, children reflect, and they will be also directly useful 
 as language lessons. No lesson to young children is complete 
 unless it teaches them, besides other things, these two addi- 
 tional ones — reflection, and expression of their thoughts. I 
 do not except either number or music, or even handwork. 
 It is much more difficult to teach children to talk English 
 than to pass in reading. Yet those who cannot talk English 
 can rarely follow the sense of a good English book with 
 sufficient ease to make the study of English literature a 
 pleasure. 
 
 Next to stories such as I have described, but again by no 
 means sharply divided from them, I would place stories from 
 history, and while I would give the preference to stories that 
 are connected with the History of England, and particularly 
 with the locality in which the child lives, I would also appeal 
 to the histories of all nations, and especially of Greece and 
 Rome. Many of the stories of both Greek and Roman 
 heroism are as near to the understanding of the simplest child 
 as are the reminiscences of his grandmother, and I believe
 
 Methods of Teaching Children 8i 
 
 that if you seek for concrete illustrations of great ideas like 
 My Country, Government, Anarchy, Freedom, Privilege, 
 Patriotism, and the like, you will more readily find them in 
 ancient than in modern history. No boy, or girl either, can 
 listen to the story of the faith of Romulus, the courage of 
 Scaevola, the sacrifice of Curtius, or Spartan endurance and 
 heroism without being elevated and inspired by these ex- 
 amples. These stories, if carefully narrated, like those to 
 which I have previously alluded, will also train the children 
 to reflect and to use their own speech-organs and will quicken 
 the sense of hearing. The advantage of such stories is that 
 they are worth the concentrated attention of adults as well as 
 children, and time spent in working them up need not be 
 grudged. 
 
 I have not yet exhausted my programme of oral instruc- 
 tion, by which, as may be seen from my placing it in the 
 forefront, I lay great store. 
 
 I do not know whether Mr. Besant wrote in jest or 
 earnest when he described a young lady whose education had 
 consisted of talking " subjects " with her father and acquiring 
 skill in drawing. In spite of her ignorance of the " three 
 R's ", the lady is equally charming and intelligent. I take it 
 that in The Golden Butterfly the novelist wished to emphasize 
 the immense value of good oral instruction. 
 
 I fear that the art of oral instruction has been injured by 
 the immoderate use of written examinations. The results 
 of good oral instruction cannot be adequately tested by 
 written answering. Since, to save time, examinations 
 have been chiefly paper work, there has been no profit to 
 be made out of oral teaching, and it has been pushed aside 
 and neglected. 
 
 An introduction to Geography should be made by means 
 of conversational lessons on the construction of plans and 
 maps of the school and neighbourhood and on relief models 
 of the locality. Inasmuch as this study may be based upon 
 simple but convenient measurement, it forms a valuable
 
 82 Essays and Addresses 
 
 connecting-link between modern scientific methods and de- 
 scriptive knowledge. 
 
 The first aim of these local maps is not so much to 
 convey a knowledge of the names of streets or villages, but 
 rather to show the method by which hills, rivers, roads and 
 places are laid down on a map. 
 
 The abstract is being taught through the concrete, and 
 that is why the first maps and models to be studied should be 
 those of the child's own neighbourhood, and not of some 
 remote and unknown region, or, worse still, of an imaginary 
 district. 
 
 The youngest children of the junior standards will be able 
 to reflect with interest, and even pleasure, as they follow on 
 a map the course of the stream which they have themselves 
 walked along, that there is reason for every wide-spreading 
 flowery meadow and every overhanging rock, and that causes 
 which they cannot explain without help, they can ascertain 
 by asking their teacher. 
 
 Stories of explorations on the Nile, in Australia, or in the 
 Polar regions, if briefly told and well illustrated, will interest 
 the youngest children and enlarge their ideas. 
 
 Connected with the study of the surface of the ground 
 should be some acquaintance with the common birds, beasts, 
 fishes, and insects which they may meet with or pick up in 
 their walks. No school should be without its aquarium or 
 vivarium, and the children may be relied on to bring, when 
 required, cats or rabbits or doves, to illustrate special lessons. 
 At this stage of their study the children should concern them- 
 selves more with what an animal is like, what it does, and 
 what it eats, and how it breathes, swims, or flies, than with 
 reasons and explanations. Such discussions belong to a later 
 period of school life. Classification, too, should be incidental, 
 as a thing led up to in the last resort rather than the primary 
 object. Plants and animals should not be abstracted from 
 their natural surroundings, as when studied in laboratories, 
 but in the closest connection with them. The living organism
 
 Methods of Teaching Children 83 
 
 should be studied as part of the panorama which surrounds 
 the child, in which he is himself included, and not as a speci- 
 men in a museum, dried and ticketed. 
 
 As it is an object not to be lost sight of in all the instruc- 
 tion of young children, to connect subject with subject, studies 
 in natural history should contain conduct lessons, and culti- 
 vate a desire to be kind to animals and avoid giving unneces- 
 sary pain. The teacher's skill in managing young children 
 consists largely in finding ways of connecting together not 
 merely the parts of one study, but different studies with each 
 other. 
 
 It will be observed that I classify in my table the science 
 of number with the study of facts. I am perfectly certain 
 that arithmetic would be much more formative, and much 
 less wearisome, if the methods of teaching it which are com- 
 mon in infant schools were continued in the first and second 
 standards. 
 
 Instead of monotonous exercise in addition and subtraction 
 of numbers, so large that they present no picture whatever to 
 the child's mind, I would urge teachers to commence the year 
 in Standard I with a recapitulation of the analysis of number 
 between i and 20, aided by Brown's ball-frame, number pic- 
 tures, cubes and varied devices for making the study con- 
 crete instead of abstract and intelligent instead of mechanical. 
 This visual study should be accompanied by much varied 
 oral application and easy reasoning. Useful hints may be 
 obtained from Brown's Elements of Number''^ and Turnbull's 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 I would have practice in all the four so-called rules worked 
 at first in low figures not exceeding three times twelve. I 
 would have the usual signs (-f- — x -^) for addition, sub- 
 traction, multiplication, and division taught by the actual use 
 of them, and not by explanations. I would teach the way of 
 
 1 Brown's Elements of Number, edited by J. R.'Blakiston, late H.M. Inspector of 
 Schools. Price One Shilling. 
 
 12
 
 84 Essays and Addf'esses 
 
 representing the operation of division by position ; I mean by 
 writing the dividend over the divisor, for this would familiarize 
 the children with the mode of writing vulgar fractions, as well 
 as halfpence and farthings. The idea of a fraction should be, 
 without explanation of it, implanted in the mind by actual 
 exercises in measuring and cutting up in equal pieces. The 
 common confusion in thought between measuring wholes and 
 severing wholes should, by concrete practice in the two pro- 
 cesses, be made impossible. The children should try how 
 often a six-inch rule will measure a yard-stick, and also into 
 how many strips of six inches they can cut up a yard of 
 paper. They will see with their hands that measuring is a 
 different process from dividing, although both processes may 
 lead to the same numerical answer. The distinction is im- 
 portant, as I think a good deal of dubious social philosophy 
 at the present day is based on a confusion between them. 
 There are things which you can measure but not divide, and 
 one of these is credit. 
 
 I agree, too, with Mr. Munn, in his Practical Hints on 
 Teaching Arithmetic, that the use of the decimal notation 
 should be taught at this stage. There should also be exer- 
 cises in practical weighing, and practice in estimating weight. 
 A varied occupation of great use would be the arrangement 
 of half a dozen or eight little bags of sand, containing respec- 
 tively y^ oz., Yo, oz., y^ oz., I oz., 154^ OZ., I^ oz., I^ oz., 2 oz. 
 With practice, children might learn to estimate these weights 
 with a considerable degree of accuracy. The first practice 
 consists in trying to arrange the bags in order of their weight. 
 The younger the children the more delicate is their sense 
 of fine distinctions, and the older the scholar the harder it 
 becomes to teach him to take notice of them. 
 
 Constant application of the knowledge of number to the 
 common occupations of daily life would accustom the children 
 to deal readily with all those sums which require thought, 
 and even those which involve two operations, such as first 
 adding and then multiplying. As useful practice, and a 
 good way of connecting the number lesson with reading, I
 
 Methods of Teaching Children 85 
 
 recommend the plan of writing on the blackboard a story 
 containing some simple numerical statement, which the class 
 will reckon after reading. So long as the children are allowed 
 to deal with numbers greater than they can visualize, arith- 
 metic cannot be intelligently taught to large classes. I should 
 like to confine Standard I mainly, though not exclusively, to 
 number within the range of i and no. (Scheme B of 
 Code.) 
 
 I attach great importance to the classification of the 
 science of number under the head of instruction in objects, 
 because, although in its advanced stage it is the most abstract 
 of all knowledge, in the beginning it ought to be kept as 
 concrete as possible. I should commence it with the study 
 of objects from a particular point of view, that is, in their 
 numerical aspect. The study of number should be carefully 
 and systematically kept in view during the instruction which 
 is given in other subjects. For example, in the plan of the 
 school, the construction and use of the scale will form also 
 a number lesson. So also in the study of the plan of the 
 neighbourhood number knowledge may be no less usefully 
 applied. The local map, showing neighbouring towns and 
 villages, suggests the application of the knowledge of number 
 in measuring distances, and in finding out how long it will 
 take to walk to some place at two miles, three miles, or four 
 miles an hour, and similar exercises. 
 
 The comparative lengths of neighbouring rivers, or the 
 heights of neighbouring hills, suggest the use of subtraction 
 in a concrete form. The connection between elementary 
 geography and the study of number is obvious, but the truth 
 is there are few conversational lessons, whether in history or 
 natural history, or even stories descriptive of family life, where 
 applications of the knowledge of number may not be intro- 
 duced in a natural and interesting manner. The intelligent 
 apprehension of number has been much hindered by the 
 isolated position which the study has usually occupied in the 
 school routine. Jarrold's Mental AritJuiietic contains some 
 very useful hints on the conversational treatment of arith-
 
 86 Essays ajtd Addresses 
 
 metic, and on some of the common applications of it to daily 
 life. 
 
 As a useful source for lessons in substances and forces 
 I strongly advise reference to a French book, La Science 
 Amusante, par To?/i Tit. It is a description of a number of 
 simple and interesting experiments which are performed 
 without special apparatus and can be mostly repeated by 
 children at home. They familiarize the learners with sub- 
 stances and forces which they will afterwards, in higher 
 standards or schools, study with precision and completeness. 
 They may be play, but they are play with a purpose, and 
 usefully relieve the strain of more exacting studies. As an 
 example, Tom Tit bids you take two fresh eggs, boil the one 
 hard and leave the other uncooked. By aid of a strong elastic 
 band passed round the longer axis you can fasten each egg 
 on the end of a string. Then tie the strings to a gas bracket 
 and let the eggs hang down side by side. Then give each 
 Qgg a sharp twist and let the children watch them spin. Now 
 lay hold of both eggs and stop their spinning. One of them, 
 as soon as you release it, begins to spin again. Let the 
 children guess whether it is the boiled or the unboiled Qgg. 
 Then explain the reason. 
 
 Other useful books are Prof. Miall's Object Lessons, and 
 Snelgrove's Object Lessons in Botany. 
 
 I now come to those subjects which are primarily con- 
 cerned with the expi'ession of facts, although, as I have said, 
 they are not sharply divided from those which deal chiefl}' 
 with the acquirement of facts. The chief of these is the 
 practical study of the English language. The aim of it is to 
 understand, speak, and write English. Whatsoever is not 
 essential to this aim is not a necessary part of the routine of 
 work in elementary schools. 
 
 The first steps in the study of English are conversational 
 object lessons, in which the children learn to answer oral
 
 Methods of Teaching Children 87 
 
 questions in complete sentences. The same object lesson 
 should be given more than once, with different purposes. 
 The first time it will be given with the view of imparting 
 interesting information by the judicious guidance of the 
 children's powers of observation. When the facts have been 
 acquired, and the children's minds have been stored with a 
 set of mental images, the lesson may be given again with a 
 special view to the formation of the verbal expression for 
 those images. It may be used a third time for a writing or 
 transcription lesson, with a view of showing children how to 
 express words and sentences in writing which they have dealt 
 with orally. 
 
 The first point is to procure an answer from each child 
 which shall be clearly uttered, deliberate, and audible to all 
 the class. The emphasis also must be rightly placed. The 
 teacher should then proceed by the method of analysis. He 
 starts from a sentence, short but complete, descriptive of 
 some fact that has been noted either in an object or a picture. 
 Then the sentence is shown to be made up of separate words, 
 which may be chalked on the blackboard and the number of 
 them counted. Then one of the words may be shown to be 
 made up of syllables. Finally a one-syllabled word may be 
 divided into sounds, and thus we get to word-building, which 
 is the basis of all language study. By dividing words so far 
 as possible according to their etymology, that is, by separat- 
 ing the stem of the word from its affix and suffix, you may 
 prepare the child unconsciously for the more advanced study 
 of English composition in the upper standards. For instance, 
 write up pict-ure, not pic-ture. It must be admitted, how- 
 ever, that word-building, as a spelling and reading exercise, 
 often clashes with word-building as an etymological study. 
 When a few sentences have been correctly worked out and 
 written up on the blackboard, the children may copy them 
 on a slate. When copied they should be read out aloud by 
 some of the children individually, so that the teacher may see 
 whether the right emphasis has been caught or not. On this 
 plan, good reading will be seen to be a kind of good talking.
 
 88 Essays a? id Add/Besses 
 
 If reading lessons were thus based on varied object teaching, 
 the children would acquire the command of a far larger voca- 
 bulary both for reading and speaking than they derive from 
 the exclusive use of Readers, in which the vocabulary is 
 studiously limited. 
 
 By degrees the different forms of sentences will be noted, 
 and if noted may be easily named, for a technical name is 
 only tiresome and difficult when you have to learn it before 
 making acquaintance with the thing signified by it. Teach 
 things and their names — things first and then their names — 
 and the lesson is not dry. It is not, however, at all necessary 
 to insist on the use of technical nomenclature. When attrac- 
 tive stories, such as Grimm's Household Tales, are reproduced 
 in sentences made up by the class, the children will soon learn 
 to mark the difference between " You are right," " Are you 
 right?", " Do it right." They will easily recognize the change 
 in the order of words according as they express a statement, 
 a question, or a command, and they will soon understand the 
 meaning of the full stop, the note of interrogation, and the 
 note of exclamation, to say nothing of commas. They will 
 also learn the importance of the order of words in a sentence, 
 and will reflect upon the difference between " I may do it " 
 and "May I do it.?" 
 
 These things will, as it were, slide into the mind imper- 
 ceptibly, in the ordinary course of the daily use of language 
 as applied to the expression of facts, or the reproduction of 
 narrative. 
 
 The child's ear will be trained to a sense of form, and we 
 shall not have pupil teachers writing letters in which such an 
 expression as this occurs: "The weather as been so bad that 
 I could not get ". 
 
 To make word-building an interesting and a useful pre- 
 liminary training to advanced composition I advise everyone 
 to get Peter Trainer's Spelling taught by Word-building, and 
 Mason's Word-building, also Brown's Scholar s Own Word- 
 builder, published for the separate standards.
 
 Methods of Teaching Children 89 
 
 The true preparation for the reading lesson is object 
 teaching, so that from the study of fact we pass to the ex- 
 pression of the fact in a correct sentence. The next stage 
 is to express the oral sentence in a written form on the black- 
 board. Lastly, the learner passes back from the written 
 sentence to the oral answer and so to the object. The 
 links in the chain should be gone over both ways. The 
 teacher, after examining before the class a picture from the 
 summer number of the Graphic, say of a waterfall in the 
 Lake District, will write on the blackboard a few sentences 
 descriptive of it. These sentences the children will read, and 
 they will afterwards point out in the picture the objects which 
 have been described in words. After reading, the next stage 
 is to transcribe the sentences from the blackboard on to the 
 slate or paper. Thus while at first speaking passes into 
 reading and reading into writing, afterwards writing passes 
 into reading and reading into speaking. The three exercises 
 are closely connected and interwoven. 
 
 The next stage, which however belongs to Standard II, 
 is the connection between spelling and writing, in which the 
 sentence is not transcribed from a blackboard or book, but 
 taken down direct from the lips of a person reading it; that 
 is dictation. Dictation is not a mere exercise in spelling. It 
 includes practice in catching and recognizing words, and fol- 
 lowing the meaning of a passage read. 
 
 As a further introduction to the practical use of English, 
 I believe that if an object or a picture has been carefully 
 studied, and the facts about it stated in simple sentences and 
 written on the blackboard, children will be able to do pro- 
 gressive exercises like the following, which I call kindergarten 
 exercises, in grammar and composition, because children learn 
 by doing. 
 
 {a) Write down the names of (say) six things which have 
 been learnt about the picture or object, e.g., "A Seaside 
 Scene ". — Spade, sand, sea, water, ship, sail. 
 
 ib) Write down short sentences about the things, e.g., " The 
 girls dig in the sand ".
 
 go Assays and Addresses 
 
 In the latter exercise the correction will deal with five 
 points : 
 
 (i) The meaning of the sentence. (Is it sense?) 
 
 (2) The form of the sentence and the position of the words. 
 
 (Does the child say what he means to say?) 
 
 (3) The form of the words. (Spelling.) 
 
 (4) The stops, full-stop or mark of question. Capitals. 
 
 (5) Writing, finish and joining of letters. 
 
 There should be, in every school, a library of books 
 suitable to the age of the scholars, and they should be 
 encouraged by every possible device to take them home 
 for private reading. 
 
 Closely connected with the reading lesson, if reading is 
 what I have described it — a kind of good talking — is reci- 
 tation. Many teachers already make a good deal out of 
 this subject, but I wish that the thoughtful preparation which 
 is given to it in a few schools were the rule in all. I think 
 that it is quite worth while for everyone, and especially 
 teachers, to go through a short course of elocutionary exer- 
 cises. I admit the danger of exaggeration, of acting instead 
 of reciting, and of overdoing it, but as I would rather a man 
 dressed in bad taste than that he should always dress in black 
 for fear of wearing colours that are ill-matched, so I would 
 rather have less perfect elocution than none at all. There is 
 really nothing, short of actual original composition, which so 
 makes the student realize the meaning of a poem as having 
 to recite it with due emphasis. The beauty of the exercise is, 
 that even if one mode of emphasis is the best, there are usually 
 numerous other ways that are suggestive, and not without a 
 value in awakening intelligent criticism. 
 
 Recitations, grave and gay, should not be confined to 
 a paltry score of lines, like "Mary had a little lamb", or 
 " Freddy and the Cherry-tree ", but should present at least 
 as much variety and spirit as belongs to the recitations in 
 almost all infant schools.
 
 Methods of Teachi7ig Children 91 
 
 I should like to find the songs sung by Standards I and 
 II as closely connected with the studies and occupations of 
 children between seven and nine as are the songs sung in 
 infant schools with the daily lives of children from three to 
 six. Humour should by no means be omitted and songs 
 by Alfred Gatty should have a conspicuous place in the list. 
 I often think that time must be wasted in memorizing the 
 words of songs. Could not the time spent be better filled 
 with musical exercises and a greater variety of songs, if they 
 were read from a song book? The children should be helped 
 to read the words of the song by the usual word-building 
 exercises, and in this way reading-lessons would assist the 
 music-lessons. I do not think it would be very difficult to 
 find points of connection between the songs which are sung 
 and some of the branches of oral instruction, so that music 
 as well as other studies may be an integral part of the whole 
 course, and not an ornamental appendage. 
 
 Drawing, I think, like music and number, has suffered by 
 being isolated from other studies. Surely handwriting, for 
 one thing, should be taught in connection with drawing. I 
 have observed persons who cared little for drawing, while 
 it was a mere exercise in copying curved lines, take great 
 interest in it when they were taught to utilize their skill, 
 while acquiring it, in some practical way. 
 
 There are many simple objects — they must, of course, for 
 this purpose, be simple objects — which a child who has used 
 a pencil at all may attempt to draw; as examples, I would 
 give the strap-shaped petal of the dandelion for a child who 
 has been examining that flower under the teacher's direction. 
 If children try to reproduce both by word of mouth and by 
 pencil, or, as Sir L. Alma Tadema would have it, by brush, 
 some fact which the judicious selection of the teacher has 
 brought under their notice, they will take an interest in fact, 
 language and drawing far greater than when they study the 
 three in isolation. Natural Science, Philology, and Art are 
 not one profession but three professions. In the beginning
 
 92 Essays and Addresses 
 
 it is not so. The preliminary studies for all three should be 
 interwoven. At that sta^e the three are one. 
 
 Connected and intimately associated with drawing should 
 be Handwork. Many teachers are busy at the present time 
 devising- courses of modelling and cardboard work suitable 
 for young children. It is too early at present to insist on 
 the absolute superiority of any one of these schemes, if indeed 
 uniformity in the matter is really desirable. Meanwhile every- 
 one who makes serious and intelligent experiments in this 
 direction is deserving well of his country. The best exercises 
 for Standards I and II appear to be modelling and cutting out 
 shapes in paper, or even cardboard, from exact measurement. 
 
 I believe that it will be found useful to introduce, in 
 Standards I and II, exercises which are preliminary to 
 cooking. 
 
 Drill ought surely to be introduced into every school, and 
 some pains should be taken to help the children to play 
 games in the playground. I observe that while in some 
 schools the children find out games for themselves, in many 
 cases they run aimlessly about, amusing themselves in a very 
 purposeless, spiritless and uninterested manner. 
 
 There are so many games which groups of children, from 
 a dozen to sixty in number, can take part in, that it would be 
 worth while for young teachers to show the children how to 
 play them. After all, one of the most important parts of 
 early training is to learn to play fairly, and, in an exciting 
 game, without loss of temper. Although the moral value of 
 games in the playground need by no means be explained to 
 the players, they get all the advantages of the game, without 
 being aware that there is more purpose in it than mere amuse- 
 ment and pastime. 
 
 I recommend reference to a book of Playground and In- 
 door Gaines for Boys and Girls, by Winifred Wilson, which is 
 full of useful hints. Among others are games which cultivate 
 adroitness in various ways. Of course, where children play
 
 Methods of Teaching Children 93 
 
 football, or invent good games for themselves, the teacher 
 need not offer further help. 
 
 I incline to think many people, who agree with me that a 
 scheme of studies and occupations, such as I have described, 
 is desirable, will assert that it is not practicable. I believe, 
 however, that it is practicable where the staff of teachers is 
 adequate, and where there exist on the staff teachers with 
 .sufficient youthfulness of mind and energy to attend lectures 
 and classes, given by ladies and gentlemen who possess special 
 knowledge, and the gift of imparting it. 
 
 I will indicate the kind of school where it is impossible 
 to adopt my scheme. Picture to yourself a school of 170 
 children thus staffed: — 
 
 Standard I. 40 children taught by 1st Year P. T. 
 , 11,40 „ „ „ 2nd Year P. T. 
 
 „ III, 40 „ „ „ Article 68. 
 
 „ IV to VI, 50,, „ „ Head Teacher. 
 
 It is clear that if the junior standards are to be as well 
 cared for as they are in the infant schools which they have 
 recently left, they must not be entirely handed over to 
 teachers of little experience, with very little special know- 
 ledge of the methods suitable for young children, and very 
 ittle time for acquiring such special knowledge. 
 
 In presenting a Table of Studies and Occupations suitable 
 for Standards I and II, it will be seen that besides suggesting 
 a classification which is not usual in this country, namely 
 studies in which facts are acquired^ as distinguished from 
 studies in which facts are expressed, I have also suggested 
 the heads of a specimen group of studies sufficient for a 
 week or ten days. I wish, in the selection of the subjects 
 which I have here made, to illustrate a principle. The prin- 
 ciple is this. Whereas in the syllabus of studies hitherto 
 drawn up in most schools there is, as a rule, a connection 
 between the successive lessons which are cjiven in each
 
 94 Essays and Addresses 
 
 separate subject, there is seldom any connection between the 
 subjects themselves. 
 
 In the geography of England, for instance, the scheme of 
 lessons usually commences with the physical features, and 
 ends with the political divisions of the country. Thus, if 
 the heads of the lessons on England are arranged in a 
 column, some connection will be apparent between each of 
 them. The items will not follow at haphazard. 
 
 A similar order will be noticeable in the study of history 
 and most other subjects. The heads, when arranged in a 
 vertical column, will be seen to be connected. It has, hitherto, 
 not been the rule to attempt any connection between the 
 geography lesson and the history lesson. A lesson in 
 geography in the morning has not been connected with a 
 lesson in history in the afternoon, and the arithmetic lesson 
 has had no bearing on either. In my table I have shown the 
 kind of way in which it may be attempted to form links, or, 
 at any rate, points of contact, between the various studies of 
 the day's routine, as well as between the previous and subse- 
 quent portions of the same particular study. 
 
 For instance, on referring to my table it will be seen 
 that the stories of David and Goliath, Manlius Torquatus, 
 and Nelson all illustrate the virtues of courage and love of 
 country. The exercises in reading, word-building, and tran- 
 scription or dictation are connected with one of the stories. 
 The recitation illustrates the same spirit of willingness to die, 
 if need be, in the country's cause. The song repeats the same 
 theme. What I call both vertical and horizontal connections 
 in the table of studies will be noted. 
 
 Note. — The stories of David, Nelson and Manlius all bear on Courage, and 
 connected with the same subject are the Speech Exercises — viz., the Picture 
 Lesson on Nelson, the story of Nelson in the Reader, the Recitation " Eng- 
 land's Dead", and the Song "Hearts of Oak". The Object Lessons are all 
 connected with the River Aire, the Willows on its banks, the Fish in the stream 
 and the Pressure of Water. The Number Lesson is connected with the Measure- 
 ment and Map of the River. Handwork, both Drawing and Modelling, is also 
 connected with the Object teaching through the Willow. The Table is an ex- 
 ample of the way in which a connection of thought may be made to run through 
 the columns horizontally as well as vertically.
 
 Methods of Teaching Child7'en 
 
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 96 Essays and Addi^esses 
 
 ROUTINE FOR ONE DAY, BASED ON ABOVE TABLE 
 OF STUDIES 
 
 Morning 
 9.0 to 9.35— Bible Stories. 
 9.35 to 10.10 — Number Lesson — 
 
 {a) Ball Frame, or other Visual Instruction. 
 
 (,b) Application of Number Lesson to varied practical calculations. 
 
 (r) Ring-wise Addition and Subtraction. 
 
 {d) Written application of Number in varied calculations. 
 10. 10 to 10.30 — Vocal Music or Recitation. 
 
 10.30 to 1 1. o — Story from History or Home Life, with Sentence-making pre- 
 paratory to Afternoon Reading Lesson. 
 Il.o to 1 1. 15 — Playground — Drill or Games. 
 11.15 to 12.0 — Drawing and Writing, or Transcription. 
 
 Afternoon 
 
 1.30 to 2.0 — Reading Lesson from Blackboard, based on Morning's Story 
 
 Lesson. 
 2.0 to 2.20 — Number Lesson — Measurement or Weighing. 
 2.20 to 2.45 — Object Lesson (Geography or other). 
 2.45 to 3.0 — Playground. 
 3.0 to 4.0 — Handwork, Cooking, or Needlework. 
 
 Similarly in another sphere of thought the River Aire is 
 connected with the willow which so often shelters its waters, 
 with the familiar fish which every boy can catch and keep 
 in a bottle for observation, with the simple experiment of 
 the fountain showing the pressure of water, with the measure- 
 ment of the river and drawing a plan of it to scale, with the 
 drawing lesson in which a willow leaf is delineated and with 
 handwork in which willow leaves are modelled. 
 
 I do not expect to see this principle carried out with 
 abject obedience. I might myself, for instance, have linked 
 all the subjects into one group, whereas I have divided them 
 into two. I am sure, however, that this plan of connecting 
 studies is a fruitful one if judiciously applied. 
 
 Am I exaggerating when I maintain that my scheme of 
 work would tend to humanize the children in a way that our 
 present methods are repeatedly charged with failing to do? 
 That my scheme would have been impracticable some years
 
 Methods of Teaching Children 97 
 
 ago I admit, but it is feasible to-day, because the number of 
 teachers who are not merely well educated but also accom- 
 plished is increasing rapidly. The elementary schools are 
 blamed again and again because they do not sufficiently 
 form the characters of children and because the scholars on 
 leaving have formed no taste for further study and no love of 
 reading. That to many schools these accusations are wholly 
 inapplicable I gladly admit, but that there is truth in them I 
 wish from the bottom of my heart that I could conscientiously 
 deny. 
 
 In my scheme the children would receive more and better 
 oral instruction, and that in connection with studies that help 
 to form character, and although it would be Quixotic to ex- 
 pect to turn out no bad boys and girls at all, at any rate we 
 should be able, if we worked on these lines, to say that we 
 had done all that our present knowledge of the subject of 
 education enables us to do and to meet those who blame us 
 for the inadequacy of our efforts without the unpleasant 
 feeling that we deserve their reproach.
 
 ON THE RELATION OF MANUAL OCCU- 
 PATIONS TO OTHER STUDIES IN 
 ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 
 
 There is very prevalent at the present time a popular 
 demand for an improved course of studies in Elementary 
 Schools, which may easily end in the domination of a popular 
 fallacy, I refer to the demand that education should be less 
 bookish and more practical. I imagine, however, that among 
 things undeniably practical few are more so than the use of 
 the right book at the right time. On the other hand, what 
 can be more unpractical than false or antiquated practice, 
 whether on farms, or in workshops, or in manufactories? If 
 the popular demand for improved education takes shape in 
 the cry: "More handwork and less brainwork ", then there is 
 a fallacy concealed in the popular understanding, and there is 
 no kind of fallacy which is more difficult to deal with than 
 one which underlies an opinion that is both obvious and 
 wrong. My object in this paper is to disabuse the minds of 
 those who regard handwork as the antithesis of brainwork in 
 education. 
 
 Few deny that children are sent to school to prepare for 
 life, and not to learn a particular way of earning a livelihood. 
 Yet many do not see any inconsistency when they admit this 
 as a truth, and at the same time maintain that education, to 
 be useful, should enable a school child to learn something at 
 school which he can continue as a trade or profession on 
 leaving. For them learning means earning. Learning, they 
 think, " wJiich does not end in adding brass is merely addling 
 brains". The primary school is, at any rate, a preparation 
 for life, so that all that is taught there should have a general 
 
 98
 
 Manual Occupations and Other Studies 99 
 
 bearing. As soon as a subject is taught at any school, if that 
 subject has an almost exclusive bearing on the child's money- 
 earning power, and is not of general application, the school 
 becomes a Technical School. 
 
 The difference between a school and a technical school is 
 this. The aim of a school which is not a technical school is 
 that the scholar may learn how to acquire knowledge; in a 
 technical school he learns how to put knowledge to use. In 
 giving a classical training, if the masters were to teach Latin 
 and Greek in such a way that every scholar would be fitted 
 on leaving their school to become a schoolmaster and nothing 
 else, the education would be a technical education. The 
 difference between technical instruction and general instruc- 
 tion lies not in the subject, but in the method and purpose 
 of the course of study. French, for instance, is a subject 
 of technical instruction when the aim of the learner is to buy 
 and sell in the French market or conduct French commercial 
 correspondence. French forms a part of general education 
 when the aim of the learner is to be able to read and appre- 
 ciate French literature. Arithmetic, if taught as a set of rules 
 or operations for buying, selling, measuring and banking, is 
 technical instruction. If it is taught as an introduction to 
 the properties of number and the processes of reasoning 
 which depend upon them, it is a part of general education. 
 
 I insist upon this distinction between technical and 
 general instruction, because, although it may appear to be 
 sufficiently obvious, much confusion still prevails in the mind 
 of the public because it is not clearly grasped. 
 
 What is technical instruction? asks the newly-elected 
 County Councillor. He looks down the South Kensington 
 list of subjects recognized as constituting such instruction, 
 and concludes from the titles and names which he finds 
 therein that there is virtually no difference between technical 
 and general education, because the subjects are the same. 
 Yet the difference between the two kinds of education is wide,, 
 and should grow even wider. There is a danger that practi- 
 cal men may take up more and more of the school-life of the 
 
 13
 
 lOO Essays and Addresses 
 
 child with strictly technical training, and diminish the price- 
 less hours which are available for general training. In the 
 eyes of the practical man technical training assumes an ex- 
 aggerated importance, because there " seems to be money in 
 it ". We shall, with difficulty, persuade practical sense that 
 the commonwealth comes before the workshop, and that we 
 must train the man before the workman. The first aim of 
 general education is the good of the nation by the elevation 
 of the social condition of the people, while the first aim of 
 technical education is to improve workmanship. 
 
 If it is easy to confuse technical and general training 
 when speaking of a study like French, how much easier is it 
 to make the same confusion when manual training is under 
 consideration. Some of the most sensible and practical men 
 pertinently ask: " How is it possible to train the hand gener- 
 ally?" It is not impossible, they allow, to train the hand of 
 the lacemaker or of the machinist for their respective crafts; 
 but what sort of hand-training, they ask, which is helpful to 
 a lacemaker can also be of service to an engineer, or, rather, 
 a "fitter" in the engineering business? Manual training, they 
 argue, as a branch of technical instruction, is an impossibility 
 in schools which are not technical schools. 
 
 I have no answer to make to this argument, but I con- 
 tend, and will do my best to prove to you, that manual 
 training is not a mere training of the hand for industry, but 
 a training of the mind through the hand, and that just as 
 children learn much through the eye, and incidentally train 
 the eye in using it, so they can learn through the hand and 
 incidentally train the hand through its use. What children 
 learn through the eye may improve the power of vision, 
 and, under hygienic conditions (which are, however, too often 
 neglected), not unfrequently does so, but the improvement 
 of the eye as an instrument of observation is not the primary 
 object, say of a lesson in handwriting. Similarl}-, manual 
 occupations are not to be introduced into the school routine 
 for the immediate or exclusive purpose of training the hand 
 or cultivating technical knack. Thev are, on the contrarv, 
 
 J
 
 Manual Occupations and Other Studies loi 
 
 intended to serve the same purpose as science or literature 
 serves. They are a necessary part of a complete intellectual 
 and moral training. No subject deserves to form a part of 
 general training unless it can be shown to have the power of 
 strengthening the understanding and the will. If manual 
 training is viewed only in the light of its bearing on industrial 
 life, it will be very difficult to prove that there is any place 
 for it at all in a well-considered school routine. But the 
 subject must be studied in the light of our educational ex- 
 perience as a whole, and we must avoid narrowing our views 
 to that aspect which presents itself to the partial and limited 
 range of an artisan, or an engineer, or even a specialist in any 
 of the arts or crafts. 
 
 It is very important that we should not delude ourselves 
 into believing that the object of manual training is simpler 
 than it is. It is plausible and attractive to have a plain and 
 simple story to tell. But if simplicity is won by the omission 
 of all that is not easy to grasp, the value of the plain state- 
 ment is very slight in spite of its being intelligible. Do not 
 let us fancy that we have expressed the last word on manual 
 training when we say: "Teach the use of a few ordinary 
 English joiners' tools, especially plane, saw, and chisel, in 
 making a few common joints from working drawings ". So 
 long as the New Code whittled down the education given in 
 elementary schools to reading, writing and arithmetic, this 
 simple course of study not only produced very imperfect 
 power of reading, writing and reckoning, but completely 
 failed to stimulate the scholars to enlarge their minds by 
 spontaneous efforts. 
 
 I need scarcely say that I look upon manual training as 
 of far greater value than if it merely produced a " handy 
 man ", such as your gardener, for instance, who can grow you 
 a cabbage and also make you a rabbit-hutch or a summer- 
 house; but, even if I confined my conception of the value of 
 manual training to this limited result, I should, as a man of 
 practical knowledge, desire something more than practice in 
 the use of plane, saw and chisel. The other day I was
 
 I02 Essays a7id Addresses 
 
 witnessing a demonstration given by a demonstrator in horti- 
 culture. He showed some boys how to make two different 
 kinds of grafts. The only instrument which he used was a 
 pruning-knife. It occurred to me as I watched the demon- 
 stration that the use of the knife required some address, and 
 that boys might have made a good deal of progress in the 
 use of plane, chisel and saw without being very "handy" in 
 making a graft or budding a rose. Perhaps, however, so long 
 as agriculture and horticulture were examined by means of 
 papers written in the country, and revised in London, the 
 absence or presence of handiness was not very likely to be 
 discovered by the examiners. The trainers of the modern 
 system of instruction, by excessive use of written examina- 
 tions, have discovered a powerful sterilizer of the growth of 
 observation and reasoning. 
 
 No living student of language or science has reached 
 middle age without becoming aware that many of the con- 
 clusions which he was taught to accept as correct and sound 
 in his youth, he has had, in the light of maturer knowledge, 
 to abandon. Now the collation of facts and methods of study 
 upon which those erroneous or incomplete conclusions were 
 based have been of enduring value in spite of the mistaken 
 inferences. The important part of the study was the process 
 of acquisition. The thing acquired, a false conclusion, was 
 of evanescent value. Yet the written examinations which 
 middle-aged men passed in their youth tested mainly the 
 knowledge of conclusions, while the proces.ses by which those 
 conclusions were reached remained almost untested by the 
 examiner. It is a valuable feature in manual occupation that 
 it fixes attention upon the need of process, growth and time 
 in education, and that while written examinations may serve 
 to conceal imperfect knowledge by a clever conjuring with 
 words and phrases, in manual work the real net result of the 
 sum of the exercise of the senses and the intellect upon certain 
 objects and branches of knowledge can be effectively tested. 
 
 I do not for a moment wish to depreciate abstract studies 
 in comparison with so-called concrete ones, but I do think it
 
 Manual Occupations and Other Studies 103 
 
 is a remarkable fact that some of those heroes of science 
 who have met with the highest success in abstruse and philo- 
 sophical discoveries have been remarkable for their manual 
 exercises in early life. Thus, of Galileo we read: "Galileo, 
 from his earliest childhood, was remarkable for intellectual 
 aptitude as well as for mechanical invention. His favourite 
 pastime was the construction of toy machines, not the less 
 original and ingenious that their successful working was 
 usually much hindered by the scarcity of suitable materials." 
 Newton, again, displayed very early a taste and aptitude for 
 mechanical contrivances. He made windmills, water-clocks, 
 kites, and dials, and he is said to have invented a four-wheeled 
 carriage which was to be moved by the rider. I like to think 
 of Newton riding on a cycle of his own invention. Spinoza, 
 like Galileo, ground lenses, and Descartes did the same, com- 
 bining with this craft that of gardening. I believe that there 
 is a very close connection between the intelligent use of the 
 hand in youth and the solid output of the reasoning powers 
 in maturity. 
 
 I will now endeavour to explain more exactly what I con- 
 ceive to be the relation between manual training and other 
 sides of mental cultivation, and to show that handwork must 
 not be set down as the opposite of brainwork and why I think 
 that manual occupations at school ought to aim at something 
 far beyond handiness in after life. 
 
 The knowledge which the child derives from his studies 
 may be divided into three classes. First, the knowledge 
 which is acquired at first hand ; second, the knowledge which 
 is acquired by analogy; and third, the knowledge which is 
 acquired from books and lessons by an effort of memory, 
 apart from observation and reasoning. I do not intend to 
 dwell on this third class, the mere ear and memory knowledge, 
 because almost all authorities are agreed in condemning it 
 as the basis of mental training. Of course, in the advanced 
 stages of study, bookwork rightly plays a more important 
 part. We are dealing with learning in its elementary 
 stasfes.
 
 I04 Essays and Addresses 
 
 I wish to explain the important difference between know- 
 ledge acquired first hand and that which is acquired by 
 analogy, and I will try to show how the latter should grow 
 out of the former. I can best make these points clear by 
 an example. A boy acquires knowledge at first hand if 
 he bores a hole through the bark of a tree in early summer, 
 and notes how sap exudes from the growing layer between 
 the ready-formed wood and the bark. 
 
 Next let him bore a hole in the stem of a particular plant 
 called Euphorbia or Mercury, which grows in many woods in 
 England. Let him note the milk}' juice which flows from the 
 hole and taste it. He now learns at first hand that there 
 is a plant which has a milky-looking pungent juice. So far 
 the scholar has been dealing with objects, and has been having 
 object lessons. Now I pass on to a third stage in the instruc- 
 tion, which is not, properly speaking, object teaching, although 
 it has often been accepted as such by educational authorities. 
 Exhibit to the scholar a picture of the indiarubber-tree, or 
 more properly, caoutchouc (Koochook) tree, the Siphonia 
 elastica. Explain that this tree is one of the Euphorbia 
 kind, and grows in the tropical parts of South America. 
 Inform the scholar that men cut a cross section in the bark 
 and collect a milky-looking sap, which is sticky and tenacious, 
 from which waterproof garments, shoes, children's balls, tubing 
 and other articles are manufactured. 
 
 All this information is worth having, but it is not obtained 
 first hand. It is a story told to a child, and the facts thus 
 imparted have a different effect on the mind from the obser- 
 vations which he made on the stems of plants when he bored 
 into them for himself. The knowledge which he acquired at 
 first hand he is able to test for himself in the light of all the 
 experience he has at command. The facts told him about 
 the South American plant he must accept on trust, and he 
 cannot check them by other experience. This is a ver)- 
 important difference. 
 
 Yet I wish to point out that the information about the 
 caoutchouc-tree, when it is given as complementary to the
 
 Manual Occupations and Other Studies 105 
 
 knowledge acquired by the scholar at first hand, through his 
 own observation of the sap in certain plants, is different in 
 quality from information about indiarubber conveyed inde- 
 pendently of any previous observations on other kindred 
 plants made by the student himself. 
 
 The student's own examination of the Mercury or Eu- 
 phorbia which he finds in the wood is knowledge at first 
 hand. The information conveyed to him subsequently by 
 the teacher in connection with a picture of the Siphonia 
 elastica is knowledge by analogy. This is a real illustration 
 of the method of " proceeding from the known to the un- 
 known ", a phrase which is much misunderstood. Of course, 
 the scholar cannot possess himself of as complete a know- 
 ledge of the indiarubber-tree of South America if he learns 
 about it by analogy as if he had actually seen the tree grow- 
 ing in the tropical forest, and had made the requisite incision 
 for himself and had collected the juice. 
 
 Nevertheless, his own observation of the Euphorbia in 
 England will supply him with knowledge which, by reason 
 of its analogy with the unseen, will enable him to compre- 
 hend it much more correctly and adequately than if he had 
 no such preliminary knowledge. 
 
 Now, most of our general information will necessarily be 
 knowledge by analogy rather than knowledge acquired at 
 first hand. The adequacy of our knowledge by analogy will, 
 however, depend upon the extent and accuracy of our know- 
 ledge at first hand. Knowledge obtained first hand may be 
 divided into two classes. 
 
 There is the knowledge we obtain through personal obser- 
 vation, as when a student examines the rings of growth in 
 the stump of an oak-tree which has been recently sawn 
 through. This is one class. The second kind, and even 
 more important, is the knowledge acquired by the conscious 
 application of our own power in producing an object by our 
 hands, which we " will " to construct, as when a boy makes 
 a wooden box. This second kind of knowledge at first hand 
 is so important that it deserves a special name to describe it.
 
 io6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 It has been called dynamic knowledge, and it is of a kind 
 which is especially fruitful to the possessor. Lastly, dynamic 
 knowledge at first hand leads to dynamic knowledge by 
 analogy. For instance, a boy makes a toy telephone. He 
 constructs a little drum out of cardboard and the membrane 
 used to cover a marmalade pot. He cuts the drum in half so 
 as to form two cups. Through the membrane at the bottom 
 of each cup he passes a string, tying a knot at each end of 
 the string to keep the cups attached to it. He then whispers 
 into one of the cups, while a friend holds the other cup to his 
 ear at the far end of the string. The string is kept tight, and 
 the length of it is sufficient to span the room. The boy is 
 surprised and pleased to find how the low sound of the voice 
 is carried from the one end of the room to the other. It is 
 possible for the boy to observe the sw^ing of the membrane 
 outwards and inwards as the speaker's breath beats upon it in 
 speaking and the way in which the string communicates the 
 vibration to the membrane of the distant cup. 
 
 All this is knowledge at first hand, and, inasmuch as it is 
 based upon two things — (i) observation and (2) conscious 
 effort on the part of the observer in constructing a machine — 
 it is dynamic knowledge at first hand. 
 
 It is now possible, by aid of this dynamic knowledge at 
 first hand, to give a boy who has acquired it a knowledge 
 of a telephone which shall be analogous knowledge of the 
 dynamic kind. The explanation of a real telephone, if the 
 instrument itself cannot be produced and examined — and, 
 perhaps, even then — is much more complete if a boy has 
 constructed a toy one than if he has only a i&w diagrams 
 or pictures on which to base his study. 
 
 What the teacher has to do is to store the child's mind — 
 first, with as much knowledge gained at first hand as possible; 
 and secondly, with knowledge based upon the first kind by 
 analogy in the way described. The teacher should also assist 
 the child to work with his hands in such a way as to acquire 
 dynamic knowledge at first hand, and to pass on from such 
 knowledge to dynamic knowledge by analogy.
 
 Manual Occupations and Other Studies 107 
 
 To come nearer to everyday work in school. A student, 
 for example, who makes a section of a common English 
 flower, and draws a diagram of it to illustrate certain points, 
 has a dynamic knowledge of a diagram of a section of an 
 English plant which will enable him to understand the dia- 
 gram of some foreign plant which he cannot see, but finds 
 drawn for him in a book. The student of books who has no 
 dynamic knowledge is not really master of his subject in the 
 same way as a student who has such knowledge. So a youth 
 who has used a microscope, and made drawings of the objects 
 studied, will have a better comprehension of the diagrams 
 drawn by others in books of deep research than one who has 
 not. 
 
 In the study of objects a child may procure knowledge at 
 first hand by walks in woods and fields, in marshes and moors, 
 and in the school garden. Animal life he may learn in the 
 same way, and also by observing tame animals kept at school 
 or at home. By collecting, preserving, dissecting, drawing, 
 modelling, or the like, he may acquire dynamic knowledge at 
 first hand, from which he can pass by analogy to the compre- 
 hension of information where direct observation is impossible 
 for him. 
 
 That kind of information and learning which is the most 
 important for life is based on analogy from knowledge gained 
 at first hand and from dynamic knowledge gained at first 
 hand. Other information is apt to be sterile, and the prodigy 
 of the examination -room, possessed of a powerful verbal 
 memory, is sometimes in after-life no more master of practical 
 affairs than a football is master of the contending elevens who 
 kick it about. 
 
 Object teaching, then, and handwork are closely associ- 
 ated in practice, being, indeed, to some extent the same thing 
 viewed in different aspects. One main use of handwork in 
 schools is to promote knowledge and insight. One main use 
 of object teaching is to enable the hand to work more correctly 
 and accurately, and the eye to see more clearly. Each kind 
 of work reinforces the other.
 
 io8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 I will corroborate my views by two brief quotations, one 
 from an eminent artist and the other from a distinguished 
 student of philosophy and education. Sir L. Alma Tadema, 
 speaking at South Kensington last summer, remarked as 
 follows: — "To know in art is the greatest necessity. If you 
 know how a plant grows you will be able to render it. If you 
 do not know, you will mistake forms for what they are not: 
 for nature is much too complex and far too complete for an 
 untrained eye to understand without knowledge. For in- 
 stance, a gardener in mid-winter will tell you which is an 
 apple-tree and which is a pear-tree. How many landscape 
 painters are there who would be able to do the same? You 
 must not misunderstand me. I do not mean that a w^ork of 
 art must give everything the artist can see. What is required 
 is that every touch, every line, slight as they may be, must 
 render the feeling of what it has to represent, and that is not 
 to be done without the necessary knowledge." Mr. R. L. 
 Nettleship, whose premature death is so great a loss to English 
 thought, remarks in his essay on Education in Plato's Re- 
 public: " We may collect engravings and photographs and 
 china, and make ourselves learned in the history of art; we 
 may found museums and institutes, and spread casts of Venus 
 and Apollo through the land ; we may give thousands of 
 pounds for pieces of clever vulgarity; but we shall not make 
 English life much more beautiful or more joyous unless we 
 can produce art which will educate the nation to see with its 
 eyes and hear with its ears the country in which it dwells and 
 the history which it inherits ". 
 
 And thus I have endeavoured to prove that our aim in 
 introducing handwork into schools is an educational and not 
 an industrial one. We seek to improve education, not indus- 
 try. The handwork which w^e introduce must be organically 
 connected with the other school work. We do not want to 
 intrude a new subject, like those basaltic dykes which here 
 and there cut clean across the sedimentary strata of the North 
 of England and interrupt their continuity. The primary 
 object is educational. The benefit to industry is incidental.
 
 Manual Occupations and Other Studies 109 
 
 We do not want to narrow down the school routine to the 
 limits of this or that workshop, but rather to pave the way for 
 the introduction of general knowledge and culture into the 
 confined and cramping occupations of the modern manufac- 
 tory. It is not a question of introducing the knack of the 
 workshop into schools, but, on the contrary, of introducing the 
 width of view and interest be}'ond the moment's employment 
 which characterize the education given at a good school, into 
 the workshop. 
 
 We do not wish to overcrowd time-tables or pile up subject 
 upon subject. We desire to teach old subjects in a new and 
 better way, even if we cover less ground in respect of matter. 
 We desire to open the doors and windows of schools and 
 let in nature, which scholasticism excluded as carefully as 
 draughts. We desire to combine also knowledge of art with 
 knowledge of nature. 
 
 I will conclude by offering a brief estimate of the various 
 branches of manual occupation pursued in elementary schools, 
 especially in the three lower standards. There are, speaking 
 broadly, only three branches of manual training. The first re- 
 lates to Form, the second to Colour, and the third to Measure- 
 ment. To be of educational value, all three branches must be 
 taken in close connection with a knowledge of objects. 
 
 For acquiring a knowledge of Form, I think Clay Model- 
 ling will be allowed by universal consent to be the most 
 effective kind of Handwork. It demands accurate observa- 
 tion of the object which is chosen as a model, and observation 
 will depend upon correct instruction as to the build or growth 
 of the object. A knowledge of Form depends also upon ob- 
 servation of light and shade. In modelling an object, its 
 outline cannot be considered apart from mass, as it is in free- 
 hand drawing. Clay modelling, however, lacks the charm of 
 colour. 
 
 Colour may be studied in various ways. When care is 
 taken to produce a variety of good shades of coloured paper 
 it is possible to combine the drawing, cutting and mounting 
 of a number of patterns, such as those which still decorate
 
 iio Essays atid Addresses 
 
 the walls of some mediaeval churches. The drawing may be 
 done partly by templates, and partly by freehand. The use 
 of templates makes it possible to stamp on the mind quite 
 indelibly certain beautiful curves at an early age. This kind 
 of exercise has been very highly developed under the London 
 School Board. The defect of it is that the manipulation is 
 somewhat monotonous. The knowledge which it promotes 
 is that of geometrical forms and flat designs placed upon 
 them. This exercise, again, does not lead to an increase of 
 knowledge of varied objects. It does, however, cultivate 
 accuracy and good taste in colour and design, and also a 
 sense of harmony and proportion. 
 
 Brushwork, or painting, demands a clear perception of 
 form and an intimate knowledge of objects, and cultivates 
 delicacy of touch, but it does not train the student to great 
 accuracy or conduce to any great feeling for colour. Children, 
 however, can express their idea of a flower, as, for instance, a 
 bluebell and its leaves, much more easily with the sole use of 
 a brush than by use of a lead pencil. There is no doubt that 
 if a child forms a wrong impression of an object like a flower, 
 the error becomes obvious when he tries to draw his im- 
 pression. 
 
 Lastly, Cardboard work forms an excellent training in 
 accuracy of measurement and cutting true to measure, and 
 furnishes an elementary notion of construction. Success, 
 however, depends largely upon the attainment of a particular 
 use of the knife, and hence less variety is possible than in clay 
 modelling or brush drawing. It must be remembered, how- 
 ever, that while in woodwork accuracy is sufficient if the error 
 does not exceed a millimetre, in cardboard work so much error 
 is gross and palpable. 
 
 What shall be said of needlework and embroidery for 
 girls, and straw-plaiting or basket-weaving? 
 
 The objection to straw-plaiting and basket-weaving ap- 
 pears to me to be that both consist in acquiring a particular 
 use of the hand which is extremely limited in its application, 
 and that it practically amounts to learning a trade. Em-
 
 Manual Occupations and Other Studies in 
 
 broidery, on the other hand, might be so taught as to cultivate 
 taste in design and colour. The analysis of patterns of ac- 
 knowledged beauty which are the product of different coun- 
 tries in different centuries, might be made a most intellectual 
 and stimulating exercise. It belongs, however, to the Con- 
 tinuation School, as it is too elaborate a study for younger 
 children. 
 
 It appears, then, that the best materials for elementary 
 manual occupations are clay, colour and paper or cardboard, 
 and that the instruments are the thumb for modelling, the 
 brush for drawing and the scissors or knife for paper and 
 cardboard work. It appears, too, that these three branches 
 of manual occupation are none of them complete when con- 
 sidered by themselves, but when employed to supplement 
 each other, serve to give children a firmer grasp of the outside 
 world than they can possess without it. In suitable combina- 
 tion and succession they cultivate good taste and the percep- 
 tion of beauty, and while developing manual dexterity, and 
 exercising the reason and intelligence, they increase the power 
 and the will to act.
 
 HANDWORK IN EDUCATION 
 
 Education which has been based chiefly on bookvvork and 
 oral instruction is incomplete. The object of introducing 
 handwork is to complete, to round off and perfect educa- 
 tion. 
 
 I do not wish to dwell upon the value of handwork as a 
 part of the training of the future craftsman. It may be that 
 a boy will turn out a better baker who has learnt joinery, and 
 that a mason will build a better wall who has learnt in his 
 youth the elements of metal work. Individually I believe 
 that this will be the case, but in advocating the introduction 
 of handwork into our educational course I am considering 
 the child's immediate good and not his ultimate walk in life. 
 The most important truth of educational reformers is this, 
 that in discussing the subjects of instruction you must con- 
 sider the child's present needs first of all, — its future and 
 contingent occupation only in the second place. You must 
 not set the end of the child's education entirely outside the 
 daily life of the child. If you cannot show that what you 
 are teaching the child is doing it some immediate good, there 
 is a probability that you are wasting your labour, for the 
 future may never come, and the end that you set for the child 
 may not turn out to be the walk in life which the child after- 
 wards as a grown man elects to follow. Hence, although I 
 believe that early training in handwork will tend to make 
 men more skilful workmen afterwards, I do not set this ad- 
 vantage in the forefront of my advocacy of its introduction. 
 So far from wishing to apprentice boys to a trade while yet at 
 school, my desire is that the future carpenter may practise 
 at school, not carpentering, but metal work, modelling, glass
 
 Handwork in Education 113 
 
 work, or some craft as different as may be from that by which 
 he will earn his living. I do not wish to teach at school what 
 can be better learnt afterwards. I do not wish to influence 
 any particular industry, but to develop early such a skill in 
 the use of the hand as will enable the learner to take to any 
 craft more readily than he could have done without this 
 training, and to make him less awkward in daily life. Ask 
 a boy to fold a piece of paper — how often the fold is quite 
 crooked. Desire him to tear a sheet in half — how often he 
 tears it into irregular fragments. Tell a child to put a 
 stamp on a letter — is it not often affixed upside down and 
 all awry? 
 
 I believe that there is such a thing as a preparatory 
 training for the improvement of manual dexterity, and that 
 this may be — and ought to be — given to the children of the 
 rich and poor alike. At present it is more frequent in schools 
 for the rich than in other schools ; and considering that ninety 
 per cent, it is said, of the population live by the use of their 
 hands, I think it is absurd that the early training of the hand 
 should be neglected. At the same time we should not try to 
 make boys at school apprentices to special trades. I need 
 scarcely dwell upon the fact that this is as impossible as it is 
 undesirable. Before a man can possess that mastery of a 
 business which will enable him to live by it, consider what 
 is pre-supposed — what knowledge of materials and prices, 
 of workshop recipes, of traditional habits and practice ; what 
 absolute control over his tools, what reliable use of his hand, 
 what resource in difficulty — all this can only be gained as the 
 result of years of intercourse with a master and years of 
 practice. No boy can learn it in the few lessons that it is 
 proposed to give him during his school days and immediately 
 afterwards. Our object, however, is not to turn out appren- 
 tices, but to give the brain a certain command over the hand. 
 I am perfectly certain that manual training will never interfere 
 with any existing handicraftsmen. 
 
 Another reason for not proceeding too far with any 
 existing industry is this, you do not find that a craft which
 
 114 Essays and Addresses 
 
 has once been mastered has any further educational value. 
 The educational value consists in the dicipline of mastering 
 difficulties. 
 
 I will next say one word as to the comparative value of 
 book learning and handwork. 
 
 I cannot too strongly emphasize the fact that in my 
 opinion much the most important part of early training 
 is book work and oral instruction, without which in these 
 days very little abstract thought and reasoning are possible. 
 Although I advocate manual instruction, I am the last person 
 in the world to depreciate literature, and I believe that an 
 intelligent study of the Bible and Shakespeare, and of classical 
 English writers, is incomparably more important to the future 
 as well as to the present welfare of the child than all the 
 manual training that you can possibly give him. As a mere 
 matter of social happiness I insist upon the importance of 
 literature as the chief part of early training. If you dispense 
 with literature in early training, and confine your instruction 
 to subjects that have a direct bearing upon trade, commerce 
 and industry, you will soon divide the nation into two groups, 
 separated instead of united by the education which they have 
 received, and instead of furthering the cultivation of the many 
 you will relegate them to the position of inferiority from which 
 they have been slowly rescued. The experience of history 
 proves that without cultivating imagination and taste through 
 literature in some shape or form, whether oral or otherwise, 
 men have but little pre-eminence above the beasts that perish. 
 I confess that I have more sympathy with the one-sided 
 individual who declared that all he wanted his son taught was 
 a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, than I have with the 
 man who desired that his son might learn nothing but the 
 practice of a trade. 
 
 I have known men whose education has been confined to 
 the study of things, and wonderfully shrewd and capable 
 some of these men are. I suppose some of the most con- 
 spicuous examples are to be found among the farmers in the 
 Midlands, Such men are, however, liable to one irreparable
 
 Handwork in Educatio7i 1 1 5 
 
 defect. They understand only what is straight before them, 
 and if things there go wrong they seem terribly at a loss. 
 The ablest land agent I ever knew, himself the son of a 
 Yorkshire farmer, used to deplore the absence of book learn- 
 ing among the farmers and declared that for want of theo- 
 retical knowledge they were poorly equipped in the struggle 
 with nature and economic laws, and were perpetually learning 
 in the school of experience, which is the school of fools. I 
 know that a prophet may easily be blinder to what is straight 
 before him than his ass, but I contend that in imitating the 
 virtues of that worthy beast we ought not to neglect the 
 cultivation of the prophet's more distant vision ; and that we 
 should learn to extend our mental horizon as much as pos- 
 sible and to render our mind's eye, like our bodily eye, capable 
 of adjusting itself to the vision of things both far and near. 
 This we can do only by aid of book learning. Book learning, 
 however much decried, is in my opinion of first-rate import- 
 ance in education. 
 
 Having thus indicated what kind of position I claim for 
 manual training in education, viz., as something indispensable 
 but subordinate, I proceed to show some of the ways in 
 which I think it is likely to be of immediate value to the 
 growing child. 
 
 I must begin by referring to an admirable paper on 
 "Manual Training" in the 1888 volume of the National 
 Review, written by Sir James Crichton Browne. In that 
 paper the physical and psychological basis of the arguments 
 in favour of early training for the hand is very clearly ex- 
 plained. He describes the parts of the brain, and shows that 
 this organ does not act as one whole, but that particular 
 muscles of the body are connected with particular centres in 
 the brain. Neglect or injury to the muscle may impair the 
 brain-centre connected with it, while if the muscle is divided 
 from the brain, by the severing of the connecting nerve, the 
 brain becomes dwarfed or atrophied in that part which, before 
 the accident, was connected with the muscle. This connec- 
 tion between special centres in the brain and special muscles 
 
 14
 
 ii6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 of the body is proved partly by actual experiment and partly 
 by observation of the effects of accident and disease. For 
 example, post-mortem examination shows that, if a leg is lost 
 early in life, the centre in the brain connected with the leg is 
 dwarfed or atrophied, and in cases where, owing to a patient 
 being long bedridden, the leg muscles are not used, they be- 
 come atrophied and powerless. If the nerves connected with 
 the leg muscles and their brain-centre be divided, the muscles 
 soon become flabby and degenerate. Brain and muscle must 
 work together for the proper health of both. More than this, 
 it can be shown that the special brain-centres do not develop 
 all at the same time or all at once. The first centre to be 
 developed is that connected with muscles used in sucking. 
 The centre connected with the muscles used in walking is 
 developed earlier than that connected with the speech organs. 
 The brain-centre connected with the hand is probably being 
 developed between the fii'st and the fourteenth year. It is 
 further stated that during the nascent or growing period of 
 the centre it is of the utmost importance to exercise the 
 muscles connected with it, so that both centre and muscle 
 may be properly developed. 
 
 The most active period of growth of the centre in the brain 
 that co-ordinates the muscles of the hand is between the fourth 
 and the fourteenth year. If, then, the hand is not exercised 
 ■during this period the time lost can never be made up, for no 
 amount of subsequent exercise will produce the same effect as 
 suitable exercise during the period of growth. What seems 
 still more strange is that not only does the dexterous use of 
 the hand depend upon the proper exercise of its muscles at 
 the proper time, but the understanding itself is influenced for 
 good or evil by the cultivation or neglect of the muscles of 
 the body. These brain-centres do not merely set muscles in 
 motion in response to some external irritation. So-called 
 reflex nerve-centres do that much, such as are found in the 
 spine. The brain centres can of themselves set muscles in 
 motion, and through them we carry out our will. What is 
 more, these brain-centres store up experience for us, and help
 
 Handwork in Education 117 
 
 us to reproduce it when we wish to think of it over again. 
 Our sense of the roundness of an orange, for example, de- 
 pends upon our muscular effort in following with our eye the 
 circumference of the fruit when we look at it. The brain- 
 centre not only controls the movement of the eye in thus 
 defining the shape of the orange, but in this centre is stored 
 up some trace of the muscular movement necessary to acquire 
 this knowledge, and it is through this brain-centre as thus 
 affected that we can reproduce at will the rounded shape of 
 the orange — the " oblate spheroid " of the pedants. 
 
 Hence the connection between mind and body, between 
 the understanding and the muscles, becomes much clearer to 
 us than it was before. Hence we see that neglect of such 
 muscular training as is given in handwork not merely renders 
 the hayid awkward but really cripples the mind as well. 
 Neglect hand-training and you not only spoil the craftsman 
 but you also curtail and dwarf the mental powers. Sir 
 James Crichton Browne thinks that modelling and drawing 
 are sufficient to exercise the hand during the school-days — 
 between, that is, the kindergarten and the fourteenth year. 
 
 I have condensed an elaborate article into a brief space, 
 but I strongly advise everyone to read it for himself, as I am 
 conscious that I have not done full justice to the arguments 
 which it contains. 
 
 I now pass on to the intellectual value of handwork as 
 a branch of ordinary instruction. 
 
 Handwork is the only kind of instruction in which you 
 can make certain that the learner is not trusting to words, 
 and to words only. No doubt in the matter of geography, 
 physics, mathematics and the like, visible illustration tends to 
 aid the student to get beyond words, but it is astonishing how 
 soon even the most tangible illustration becomes a matter of 
 words; and when the teacher thinks the pupil has really got 
 hold of the fact which he wishes him to apprehend, he is 
 often disappointed by discovering, perhaps through an acci- 
 dent, that the pupil has only a word knowledge after all,
 
 ii8 Essays mid Addresses 
 
 which breaks down in practical application. Now without 
 use of the eye the young joiner cannot rule out and saw 
 a straight line. Whatever inward impression he has of a 
 straight line he brings its accuracy to the test in many kinds 
 of handwork. Book learning does without doubt divert the 
 attention from many things going on around us of which the 
 eye ought to take notice, and handwork is a useful corrective 
 to this defect. Schooling in its incomplete form takes the 
 edge off the natural faculty of observation and makes it blunt 
 and dead. A country bumpkin will often tell you the exact 
 number of wild ducks on a pond which he passed, when a 
 scholar will not even have noticed whether there were any 
 birds on the pond at all. 
 
 Secondly, handwork greatly affects the invaluable habit of 
 attention. Attention is affected in two ways — first of all it is 
 strengthened and secondly it is tested. In order to perform 
 so simple an operation as ruling a straight line and sawing 
 along it afterwards, considerable concentration of the atten- 
 tion is requisite and, if the mind wanders, the operator is 
 very quickly made aware of the fact by the abrasion of his 
 skin. A boy may believe that his mind is engaged in learn- 
 ing his task and if he keeps still the teacher may share his 
 opinion ; but the boy may be applying half his mind only 
 and the rest of it may be wool-gathering. Manual operations 
 demand the whole of the attention and strengthen the habit 
 of concentration. They also test it; because, if the attention 
 is not fixed on the task, the incorrectness of the work proves 
 itself quickly and completely. 
 
 Thirdly, handwork cultivates what I call the practical 
 intelligence. The boy learns, more clearly than in any other 
 way, the effort and determination which are requisite to 
 master the outside world. He has an idea in his head, which 
 he desires to carry out in making himself a box. Before he 
 has been at work very long he will discover what stubborn 
 material timber is, and how much patience and care he must 
 employ before he can see his mental image of a box pre- 
 sented before him as the finished and complete issue of his
 
 Handwork in Education 119 
 
 brain and hand, fit for holding flowers and ferns. Handwork 
 should be a sort of bridge between learning and life; and just 
 as in arithmetic children are taught to apply money sums to 
 working out bills of parcels, so boys may learn to cut out of 
 a plank the side of a box which shall contain a given number 
 of cubic inches or feet. Modelling also is of immense help in 
 learning geography, and some boys would sooner learn to 
 make a model of a country than to draw a map of it. Glass 
 work is a help in chemistry, and metal work in physics. 
 
 Next I come to the hygienic point of view. Handwork is 
 valuable to growing boys as an exercise. Of course all exer- 
 cise is useful, but exercise which serves a double purpose 
 deserves double encouragement. It trains the senses — 
 muscles of the eye and hand, and the nerves in connection, 
 are all brought into play. The muscles of the legs, arms 
 and back grow thicker and stronger; fats in the system are 
 consumed ; decomposition and recomposition — through which 
 the body is built up, repaired and reinforced — go on apace; 
 the lungs are expanded ; air is frequently changed and resi- 
 dual air in the lungs is freshened; the circulation is quick- 
 ened ; the brain is freed from superabundant blood ; the 
 appetite is sharpened and digestion is improved. It should 
 be remembered that those good results come from the exer- 
 cise of various muscles and not from the constant employ- 
 ment of one set, and hence the desirability of using various 
 tools. In handwork the craftsman seldom has to put forth 
 any sudden and violent exertion of his strength; he has to 
 apply a steady and continuous but moderate force, and this is 
 good for brain and nerves, together with the rest of the bodily 
 organism. 
 
 I claim also for handwork certain effects on the will — or, 
 as they are called, moral advantages. Handwork encourages 
 the virtues of diligence, perseverance, love of order, neatness, 
 dexterity, caution, a love of construction, a respect for the 
 work of men's hands and a contempt for wanton destruction. 
 Would our architects and masons, in repairing old buildings, 
 have sacrificed so much old wood and stone carving if they
 
 I20 Essays mid Addresses 
 
 had ever tried themselves to produce similar work? I have 
 seen a fine piece of carved stone employed to prop open the 
 door of a pig-sty. Would this have been the case if the 
 owner's education had included some proper instruction in 
 handicraft? He would have had more respect for an artist's 
 work. This power of appreciating the great difficulty of 
 turning out good work is as important as any result of 
 manual training. The public would not discourage able and 
 thorough mechanics by accepting very inferior goods if their 
 practical judgment had been formed by a little experience in 
 the elements of handwork; and, knowing the amount of 
 labour required to produce good work, they would not be so 
 anxious to procure it at prices that are not remunerative. At 
 present the sale of cheap and worthless goods is due partly to 
 the customers being deceived, because they are too ignorant 
 to distinguish between good and bad, and partly to a willing- 
 ness to accept a sham, because they can count upon their 
 friends being unable to distinguish between the real good 
 thing itself and that cheap imitation of it with which they are 
 put off. Bad wares tend to drive out good and bad workmen 
 consequently are placed on a level with good ones. In allow- 
 ing themselves to be deceived the public inflict injury upon 
 others. 
 
 Besides this, there is another moral influence which flows 
 from learning the use of the hand. You advocate Temper- 
 ance. You want to combat drinking and gambling, the 
 musical public-house and the like. Many youths (though 
 not all) may be induced to avoid such temptations, which are 
 not after all so irresistibly attractive, if you only provide 
 them with other occupations. Education by itself, without 
 suitable occupation for young people after leaving school, will 
 not put an end to youthful criminals. In Saxony the sta- 
 tistics show, between 1871 and 1883, a great increase in 
 juvenile crime. The comparison of the following figures is 
 not encouraging to educationists who hope to reduce crime 
 by education, for the Saxon system is one of the completest 
 in Germany.
 
 Handwork in Education 121 
 
 Convictions of Juveniles for Stealing: 
 1871 1140 I 1872 1474 I 1882 1995 
 
 That is to say, there has been an increase in the number of 
 children convicted of stealing, amounting to 74 per cent in 
 ten years.
 
 A PLEA FOR SLOJD 
 
 Slojd is a foreign name for a foreign educational method. 
 It is a Swedish invention. There exists in England a common 
 prejudice against anything foreign, and Englishmen can enter 
 fully into the spirit of him who cried : " Are not Abana and 
 Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of 
 Israel?" But such a spirit ill becomes Englishmen, for we 
 have been ever quick to adopt and adapt the inventions of 
 foreigners. In the Middle Ages the English sent their wool 
 to Flanders to be woven, till they learnt from the Flemings 
 the art of weaving it at home. Even in the case of steel, that 
 peculiarly British industry, the process of manufacture was 
 improved by the refugees from the Netherlands, who fled to 
 Sheffield in order to escape the delicate attentions of Alva. 
 
 We have in England the spirit of enterprise and the gift 
 of inventiveness ; we have the will to achieve and the energy. 
 What more do we want? There are two things which are at 
 present the possession of a privileged few, but which ought to 
 be almost public property; I mean, good taste and a scientific 
 habit of mind. These are two of our wants, and the way to 
 supply them is to provide more mental discipline. 
 
 "Mental discipline!" someone may say; "but I thought 
 you proposed to tell me about Slojd, which is handwork." I 
 reply that I regard Slojd as emphatically a part of mental 
 discipline and I mean to make this clear. 
 
 Slojd is educational handwork. This qualifying word 
 " educational " is very important, and will explain why I 
 speak of Slojd as a part of much-needed mental discipline, 
 and also why I differ from the engineers and other craftsmen 
 who advocate shorter cuts to success in handicraft. 
 
 122
 
 A Plea for Slojd 123 
 
 There is handicraft which is not educational, because there 
 is in it hardly any mental training. I will give three examples 
 from my own experience: — (i) Blacking boots; (2) Using a 
 broom, as in sweeping a lawn; (3) Making a dove-tail joint. 
 
 I know a certain amount of dexterity is necessary to do 
 each of these things well, but it is a dexterity which is quickly 
 acquired, and, when acquired, it has not a wide application. 
 
 An examination of the models worked as in a course of 
 Slojd will show the great difference between it and the usual 
 practice in the construction of joints, which is the basis of 
 all other courses that I have seen. Doubtless the better 
 judge is he who has worked at the course, but even a careful 
 inspection of the models will avail to some degree. The first 
 and most far-reaching distinction consists in this: that the 
 early exercises are not based upon the mere use of the ruler 
 and compass and mechanical drawing. The chief object of 
 the craftsman, as of everyone else engaged in education, 
 should be to train the eye. Now, if you wish to teach a child 
 to draw a straight line by freehand, you will not commence, 
 if you are an experienced teacher, by giving him a ruler to 
 do it with. Once let him rely on a ruler, and he will be slow 
 to learn to rely on his unaided skill of hand. If you wish a 
 child to learn to draw a circle by hand, you will not com- 
 mence by giving him a pair of compasses. The perfect round 
 which he can readily produce by their aid will not help him 
 to draw and shade a ball. In the same way, if you want a 
 child to cut a true surface, whether flat or rounded, do not 
 give him a plane but a knife. The plane will do the work 
 of producing a flat surface almost mechanically in a few 
 strokes. The knife will only produce a flat surface by 
 application of brain work through delicate observation of 
 the eye. It takes time, but the time is gained, not wasted. 
 The curve can only be cut by hand, and hence, in other 
 courses of woodwork, curved forms are eschewed, except 
 those that can be cut with a fret saw, and drawn with an 
 *' architect's curve". Now, if there is one outline more 
 characteristic of beauty in art than another, it is that of a
 
 124 Essays and Addresses 
 
 curved surface. The joiner and the engineer are content with 
 the accuracy of rule and square, and the curves, if any, are 
 the curves produced by a mechanical contrivance. In spite 
 of the command of enormous forces, engineers as yet have 
 not produced structures of beauty such as are at all compar- 
 able to our magnificent heritage in mediaeval art. It will 
 take time before engineers can learn to combine strength 
 and beauty. It is the merit of Slojd that it prepares the 
 way for the study of truth in curved surface. Slojd, then, 
 cultivates a taste for beauty in form, and this brings me to 
 the famous and much maligned Slojd spoon. 
 
 When you talk to one of the British public of Slojd, after 
 asking you for particulars of the life of Mr. Sloyd, your friend 
 next remarks: "Oh, yes! you take a knife and cut a wooden 
 spoon"; with which crushing remark he seems to think argu- 
 ment is closed. " Why discuss the matter more? It is folly." 
 Yes! Go to an English brush shop, and purchase an English 
 wooden spoon. Examine its uncouth outline and rough 
 finish. To spend time in carving that object would indeed 
 be folly! But, if you care to present to yourself thoughts 
 and ideas of grace in a form which is real, solid, and tangible; 
 if you desire to cut out graceful shapes, I doubt if you will 
 find any group of curves at once simpler and more graceful 
 than in a well-made Slojd spoon. Men with hobbies for 
 collecting plate will show you with pride vessels of gold and 
 silver decorated with rich chasing; but they come back with 
 greatest affection and admiration to the simplest piece of 
 all, a silver spoon of perfect shape, lying on velvet in the 
 unadorned simplicity of purest art. In teaching a child to 
 admire beauty of form, you must not commence by intro- 
 ducing him to some elaborate piece of carving, in which the 
 sumptuous detail conceals the broad outline of the design. 
 You must present to him an object in which the subtle line 
 of grace is not overlaid with a multiplicity of ornamental 
 addition, but is displayed in its very simplest form. Study, 
 then, the Slojd spoon, and see whether its shape is not of 
 this nature. Let a child produce this shape by hand, and he
 
 A Plea for Slojd 125 
 
 has learnt more of beauty in form than the choicest freehand 
 drawing copies will ever teach him apart from this kind of 
 handwork. A line is but an abstraction. What is a beauti- 
 ful line but the edge of a beautiful object — its boundary? 
 What is the edge apart from the mass? The outline of a 
 ridge of mountains is many times more magnificent if 
 memory enables the beholder to fill in the mass of which it 
 is the outline. Study mass and outline together, but do not 
 start with the abstract. 
 
 To study and to imitate the shape of a Slojd spoon, even 
 if you fail, is an education; if you succeed, it is an acquire- 
 ment not merely of a new dexterity but of a new power of 
 perception. The hand possesses fresh skill in manipulation; 
 the brain has an increased faculty of apprehending. A bodily 
 organ has certainly been improved, but the intellect has been 
 expanded as well; and thus, as I said, Slojd gives what we 
 English need, an improved jiiental training. 
 
 I have shown you, in the case of one of the Slojd models 
 how it supplies this need, and from this one example you 
 may fairly judge of the .system. But I have heard it said: 
 " Do you not get this perfection of form and finish by aid of 
 sand-paper?" I might retort to a joiner and cabinet-maker: 
 " Do you not complete your work by aid of putty?" Better 
 elaborate exactness with glass-paper than hide defects by 
 putty. 
 
 But I have a higher argument in favour of the use of 
 sand-paper. You can acquire a sensitiveness of touch and 
 corresponding correctness of eye more effectively by judicious 
 use of it than in any other way. Consider the sculptor putting 
 the finishing touches to his figure of a human face. Perhaps 
 for weeks before the final completion of the surface he 
 removes daily but a little dust, measured in grammes. Then 
 comes the modern restorer of ancient buildings, and chips off 
 an eighth of an inch of the original surface. His admirers 
 wonder why the restored carving looks so tame and spiritless. 
 Had he and they practised as children the delicate manipula- 
 tion required to produce a true surface even in a peg or a spoon.
 
 126 • Essays and Addresses 
 
 they would not have supposed that you could pare off an 
 eighth of an inch of a sculptor's carving of a human face and 
 leave the design unspoiled by your handiwork. 
 
 The peculiarly delicate manipulation which is practised in 
 Slojd cannot be acquired in a hurry, and success can only be 
 obtained by those who are prepared to abandon haste. Every 
 model in Slojd is based upon the exercises of the previous 
 model and is itself an introduction to the model which is to 
 follow. It is therefore not possible to annex to a series of 
 joints, such as is the usual English course of woodwork, a few 
 of the most striking Slojd models, under the impression that 
 thus the advantages of both systems may be combined. As 
 it would be futile to extract a single chapter in a novel apart 
 from the context and to introduce it into a wholly different 
 story, so it is equally meaningless to pick out a few of the 
 most obviously valuable of the Slojd models and work them 
 into another and wholly different system. The primary use 
 of the Slojd model is the training which its introduction 
 affords, and this training cannot be gained by making one or 
 two particular models apart from the rest, but only by work- 
 ing steadily through the intimately connected series. Each 
 model no doubt serves an end in itself Some useful article 
 is made. But, in addition to this, each model has an aim 
 outside itself, namely, a training and a discipline which is 
 only partly attained in the completion of the one particular 
 model in hand. The model itself is only part of a well-con- 
 sidered whole which is an elaborate system having a unity in 
 itself, and therefore must be worked at as a whole before its 
 results are wholly obtained. 
 
 Slojd then is not to be named in the same breath with 
 the ordinary courses of woodwork practised in this country. 
 I am aware that many authorities will confuse between the 
 English and the Swedish practice, thinking them much alike. 
 No confusion is greater or more readily made than that 
 between things outwardly resembling each other, such as 
 the hawk and the heronshaw, the moon and green cheese. 
 In order to avoid this confusion yourself and to be able to
 
 A Plea for Slojd 127 
 
 deal with it in other people, I would urge you to study the 
 theory of Slojd. The training of the mind must start from 
 a study of the mind, if we are to get beyond the merest 
 empiricism and opportunism. The practical man goes on 
 complacently practising the errors of his ancestors amidst the 
 approbation and applause of an ignorant public. To correct 
 such false practice resort must be had to sound theory, and 
 on such theory Slojd practice is firmly based. Apart from 
 its specific purpose, I know no better introduction to the 
 theory of mental training and the craft of the teacher in 
 general than Herr Saloman's lectures on Slojd. Doubtless 
 many famous teachers have practised the most scientific 
 methods of imparting knowledge and of training children's 
 minds, without ever having studied any theory. Cowper's 
 mother, for instance, who occupied her little son in the 
 kindergarten occupation of pricking the pattern of her dress 
 on paper with a pin, had never heard of Froebel, but she 
 followed Froebel's method in anticipating his procedure. 
 Nevertheless, successful as unconscious adoption of the right 
 method is sure to be, it is subject to this serious defect: such 
 a teacher, though successful himself, cannot impart the secret 
 of his success to others. The magician is great who succeeds 
 with his magic ; he is the " thrice great Hermes ", Hermes 
 Trismegistos, who can communicate to others the mystery of 
 his art. Slojd is a part of general education, rather than of 
 strictly technical instruction. It is as essential to the future 
 Lord Chancellor as to the future village wheelwright. It is 
 not a means of developing an aptitude for a particular craft, 
 but it is intended to fill up a gap in elementary education, 
 which experience shows to exist where education is purel}' 
 literary. 
 
 Slojd aids the child to live what is well called the 
 physiological life; that is, life in accordance with the recom- 
 mendations of those who study the growth and development 
 and the maintenance of the human frame. It exercises the 
 chief vital organs in a healthy way, and trains muscular 
 activity. Slojd again, from the point of view of those who
 
 128 Essays and Addresses 
 
 study the growing science psychophysics, is based upon true 
 principles. Dr. Warner has dwelt upon this fact. To what 
 is manual dexterity due? Manual dexterity depends upon 
 the rapidity and certainty with which the complicated group 
 of muscles concerned act together or successively in response 
 to different currents from the brain to the muscles, through 
 the nerves connecting the brain and muscles. This rapidity 
 of response, though partly due to the quality of the organs, 
 depends greatly upon practice. Repetition of the same 
 movement produces skill in use. The secret of manual 
 dexterity is repetition. In accordance with this principle, in 
 the early stages of Slojd, the movement of the knife is 
 practised very thoroughly. The repetition of the same 
 movement in cutting away wood with a knife is characteristic 
 of Slojd. Another principle in education is, however, that 
 repetition is apt to be monotonous, and monotony wearies 
 and disgusts the learner. Mark how in Slojd the requisite 
 repetition is secured, and yet the undesirable monotony is 
 avoided. The same action of the knife produces in the first 
 few models quite different objects. Repetition is provided 
 for, whilst the child escapes the monotony. The child's 
 natural desire for change is studied and kept under control. 
 Slojd starts from a study of the nature of the child in still 
 another way. Most children find preparatory exercises very 
 dull. To make a long series of varied joints, before con- 
 structing a single piece of joinery, is wearisome to an extreme 
 degree. In Slojd the child makes at the outset an object 
 which he can use, such as a penholder. The work is thus 
 made pleasant, because the practice is intelligible. The end 
 of the day's practice is not wholly outside the day. 
 
 What is most characteristic of modern learning? It is 
 the effort to get in closer touch with objects. Formerly the 
 learner was directed to types and classes and catalogues. 
 Now he is taught to study individual things, each with its 
 individual characteristics. This principle pervades modern 
 art, literature, and science. Slojd is a specimen of the best 
 kind of object teaching. Learners study the art of exact
 
 A Plea f 07^ Slojd 129 
 
 measurement in a way that tables in a Barnard Smith's Arith- 
 metic fail to bring home to them. They learn the use of 
 drawing in a way that freehand curlycues never made them 
 realize, and they understand the strength of resistance and the 
 varied character of different tissues and vegetable cells in a 
 way that no text-book on botany can equally well impress on 
 their minds. Nearly all modern learning, being got up for 
 examination purposes, has comparatively little value except 
 for establishing reputation for ability. Children pass with 
 distinction in Latin, French, and the like, who can neither 
 write nor read either language with ease. They are none the 
 less clever children to earn distinction. We have made a 
 mistake. The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. We 
 must go back to life. We may look forward to a day when, 
 perhaps at the cost of sacrificing this cheap sieve for bolting 
 intellectual power, we may find new means of establishing 
 reputations, means less rough-and-ready than monster examin- 
 ations, where scholars are examined by tens of thousands in 
 exactly the same papers, means less liable to react injuriously 
 on education. A system like Slojd seems to me to be a .step 
 in the right direction. The training of the modern school, 
 like the training of the modern workshop, is to make men 
 as like machines as possible. " What," said I to a member 
 of a great firm of engineers, " is the chief aim of your inven- 
 tion just now?" "To substitute," he replied, "a machine 
 which will do its work on Monday morning, in place of a man 
 who is usually drunk." Machinery is more than half of it 
 labour-saving contrivance, and as such develops a spirit of 
 dependence. We want more self-reliance, more trust in force 
 inside the human frame and less in those forces which are 
 outside of it. Slojd develops this spirit of independence. 
 Slojd trains the eye, and gives a perception of nicety of form, 
 of beauty of shape, a perception which can only be obtained 
 through handwork, a perception of objects which can only be 
 produced by hand. Slojd tests the patience and strengthens 
 the will, because it forces the worker to face and overcome the 
 obstinacy of the material in which he works. Success can
 
 130 Essays and Addresses 
 
 only be achieved by perseverance, firmness and a determin- 
 ation not to be beaten. 
 
 Slojd has been but recently introduced into England, and 
 is but a promising infant; but in Sweden the system is twenty- 
 one years old, and it has attained its majority. At Naas the 
 work began in a tentative manner, and was undertaken in 
 a truly scientific spirit. The originators were men of patience, 
 inquisitiveness and inventiveness; men who were adaptable 
 and ready to listen to criticism and learn of the learned. 
 Consequently, improvements have been successive and con- 
 tinuous, and there is no other course in the world in which 
 general and specific knowledge have been so closely inter- 
 woven, or in which the requirements of education and of the 
 workshop have been so carefully reconciled. 
 
 Some years ago it was decided to introduce drill into 
 schools, and at once there were many who adopted military 
 drill for their purpose. The Germans, the most military of 
 nations on earth, argued that this was a mistake. The muscles 
 of the body should be trained generally, and not only those 
 particular ones which are necessary for military purposes. 
 " The technical training of the soldier," it was argued, " will 
 be better given later on, after a sound general training of the 
 muscles has been supplied at school." It is the schoolmaster's 
 duty to train faculties and not to develop faculties^ and it is 
 waste of time to teach at school what can be as well or better 
 taught in the business of life. Military drill was therefore 
 abandoned in favour of a system of gymnastics, which, in 
 some form or other, has everywhere supplanted the soldier's 
 drill. I have no doubt that much the same thing will happen 
 in regard to manual training. Engineers and soldiers will 
 try the usual workshop training, as they tried military drill. 
 They will find it, as in that case, inadequate. They will in 
 the end abandon the special for the general training, and 
 prove the truth of the old adage, that the longest way round 
 is often the shortest way home. 
 
 ' Probably read " to train faculty and not to develop faculties". — Ed.
 
 A Plea for Slojd 131 
 
 I trust I have afforded some arguments for establishing- 
 the value and merits of Slojd with opponents who doubt and 
 deny both. Woe to that nation which stands still while other 
 nations are continuously struggling after improvement! 
 
 Accumulation of capitalized wealth, vast mineral resources, 
 a splendid geographical position — these advantages avail less 
 and less as the advances of science place all nations on one 
 footing. We shall hold our own in the world as a people if 
 our teachers are determined that children shall be trained in 
 the discipline that leads to wisdom, the discipline that leads 
 to health and the discipline that leads to strength, and such 
 discipline, I am convinced, will be found in Swedish Slojd. 
 
 15
 
 ADDRESS ON MANUAL TRAINING^ 
 
 I have often had the pleasure of taking part in conferences 
 on manual training, and I cannot say anything new. My 
 object to-day is to review the reasons for its adoption which 
 influence its advocates. The movement spreads continuously, 
 in ever-widening circles. Its progress during the last twenty 
 years has been perhaps slower than some might desire, but 
 the ground won is held, and the advance is sure. The growth 
 resembles that of the oak and not of the mushroom. After 
 all, there is plenty of time in the next century. 
 
 Manual training is advocated on many grounds: it is a 
 necessary part of sound intellectual training; the laws of 
 sound health demand its practice; and art, science and 
 industry all require its support. I, however, addressing 
 teachers in West Riding schools, wish to emphasize the ideas 
 of its first founders — the spirit of men like Uno Cygnaeus, the 
 father of Finnish elementary schools, and Herr Salomon, the 
 founder of Swedish manual training. 
 
 These men never ceased to dwell on the idea that all 
 education must be spiritual. " Work in education is work for 
 God ", they afiirm, and " all education is something sacred ". 
 Their thoughts are the conceptions of men who regard edu- 
 cation as something higher than a mere industrial question. 
 Improved education has something higher in view than 
 increase in corn and oil and wine, as if a large school were 
 but the entrance or porch to a still larger barn or granary. 
 These men set the needs of humanity in the forefront, and 
 their first aim is the sound training of the child, to make him 
 
 ^ Delivered to Teachers at the Bradford Educational Exhibition, December, 1899. 
 
 132
 
 Address on Mamcal Training 133 
 
 become as perfect a human being as his nature permits him 
 to be made. They desire that every child that is born shall 
 become complete as a man, and not a mere animated tool for 
 use in industry or commerce — mere labour for the cheapest 
 market. 
 
 Manual training is essential to the proper development of 
 all human beings. The West Riding, unless I am mistaken, 
 is yet a land where music and song are loved without stint. 
 Let the Yorkshire dalesmen cling to this precious birthright 
 and not think for one moment that advocates of manual 
 training bid them make any sacrifice of the Muses for merely 
 material gains, or toss away the solid end of life, which is 
 ideal, to win the luxuries of fine raiment and the like, which 
 are the realities of kings' palaces. Our aim is to make life 
 not emptier, but fuller; to make the vision of the poet and 
 the meaning of music more fruitful and inspiring; and to 
 awaken wider sympathies between man and man. We wish 
 to contribute to the solidarity of the human race by enlarging 
 the early experience of each member. We wish to avoid 
 cramping and confining the growing mind through a one- 
 sided and narrow book-training. Our desire is to set the roar 
 of the mill and the clang of the forge to the music of great 
 thoughts and great tunes. Manual and literary training 
 must be combined. 
 
 Perhaps someone will ask why manual training is more 
 necessary in schools at the present time than it was in the 
 days of our fathers. A moment's reflection will supply a 
 complete answer. During the past hundred years a great 
 change in the conditions of industrial life has been in process, 
 and the change has had an important bearing upon the way 
 we all live at the end of the nineteenth century. If you talk, 
 for instance, with almost any farmer whose years number 
 enough to have whitened his hair, he will tell you how in the 
 days of his youth every household was a miniature technical 
 school. In every homestead, each day of the week and each 
 season of the year provided different occupations, which called 
 into play the active use of the hand, alike for men and women.
 
 134 Essays and Addresses 
 
 aided by boys and girls. Monday, it might be, there was 
 baking; Tuesday, brewing; Wednesday, perhaps threshing; 
 Thursday, thatching: Friday, constructing a hovel, or some 
 rough carpentry. The women spun and wove. In different 
 neighbourhoods different things were made; but in every 
 home all were busy with their hands. In these days, all those 
 things that once had to be made at home are purchased at a 
 store, or brought round by a tradesman's cart. Machinery 
 saves hand labour, and nothing is made at home. Now it 
 is clear that in old days, when the hand was trained at 
 home by many and varied occupations, all that the school 
 had to do was to supplement this manual work by a certain 
 amount of book-learning. In the present day, if the train- 
 ing of the hand is omitted at school, the hand is never 
 trained at all. 
 
 Yet the training of the hand is essential. Students of 
 anatomy, and biology, and mental science — men like Sir 
 James C. Browne in this country and Professor Marshal in 
 Leipzig— are agreed as to the overwhelming importance of 
 the proper dev^elopment of the muscles of the hand during 
 childhood, and especially before the age of fourteen, by which 
 period the nervous and muscular apparatus concerned in the 
 skilled use of the hand is more or less complete, and cannot 
 so well be modified. Further, it is insisted on that the proper 
 development of the brain itself depends upon the proper and 
 varied employment of the hand in early years. This fact may 
 appear a paradox to many, but the clearest illustration of it is 
 to be found in the observation made by anatomists in dissecting 
 the brain of a person who has lost a limb in infancy and has 
 died in maturity. It appears that the part of the brain tissue 
 which was connected through nerves with that lost limb is 
 dwarfed, atrophied, and undeveloped. What happens when 
 a limb is lost altogether happens also to some extent when 
 the limb is little exercised. " Men," says Marshal, " who 
 attach little importance to manual training are blind. Scales 
 must fall from their eyes before they can see how intimately 
 humanity and civilization are bound up with the use of the
 
 Address on Manual Training 135 
 
 hand, and admit the fact that no man's head-work is as com- 
 plete as it might be unless he has learned the use of his 
 hands." 
 
 It cannot, I think, be denied that the character of the 
 average home has changed since it has ceased to be a minia- 
 ture technical school. There are fewer educational incentives 
 in it, and more opportunities for amusement. Hence there is 
 less practical intelligence, less of the spirit of industry, less 
 thrift, and less moral earnestness. 
 
 Education in which the use of the hand is no less suitably- 
 attended to than the use of books will lead to a life more 
 healthy, more happy, and more natural than a training con- 
 fined to literary studies. Modern literary taste might easily 
 improve. If school life is reduced to a mere cram of text- 
 books studied for examination purposes, and supplemented 
 by professional athleticism, what can be expected of the 
 scholars in later life but a contemptuous performance of the 
 drudgery of business during the day, followed by the false 
 excitement of betting and gambling, varied with the banali- 
 ties of music-halls, after the day's work.? 
 
 But the handwork in the school must be of the right kind. 
 Beware of industrialism in education. Beware of thinking it 
 proper or possible to make money out of a child's labour 
 and in so doing to educate him at the same time. There are 
 here and there farmers and gentlemen in country districts 
 who would send a boy to scare crows from morning to dusk, 
 and call that occupation education — technical education, of 
 course. In towns there are those who would set children, for 
 example, to gum envelopes all day, and call that mental 
 training, or character-forming, or technical education. 
 
 Children at school cannot be prepared for a special calling 
 in after-life. If any zealous person imagines this to be pos- 
 sible, a glance at the bulky volume called The London Trades 
 Directory would be enough to correct him. The important 
 point to consider is rather this: Has their school life tended 
 to unfit the children for their calling in after-life? Do the 
 children, on leaving school, find themselves content to take
 
 136 Essays and Addresses 
 
 up whatever occupation they may have to earn their living- 
 by? An education which unfits the scholar for his subse- 
 quent career as an apprentice to a trade or calling is most 
 unsatisfactory. It ought to be possible to avoid this defect 
 without attempting what is quite impossible — to prepare a 
 school-child for a trade. Mere book-learning which is not 
 supplemented by handwork does tend to unfit children to 
 take up work which demands the use of the hand. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that the training of the 
 mind is to be sacrificed to the training of the muscles. Apart 
 from the use of the hand, the brain itself as an organ is im- 
 perfectly developed. The early exercise of the muscles of the 
 hand develops the brain as much as the development of the 
 brain aids the growth of the finer muscular activities. It is 
 not possible to choose between training the intellect and 
 training the muscles. Both must be trained together to make 
 a complete man. 
 
 To put this in another way. Nervous force is brought 
 into play in the reception of impressions through the senses; 
 again, as often as muscular reaction follows the stimulation 
 of the nerves, nervous force is also brought into play. For 
 health in mind and body there must be a balance between 
 these two kinds of nervous activity— between the force which 
 is chiefly receptive and the force which is chiefly creative, as 
 between imports and exports. 
 
 There is in most children a wholesome desire to perform 
 acts, if not constructive, then destructive. It is the fault of 
 the teaching if this desire is not guided into habits of making 
 rather than marring. The true remedy for stupid and cruel 
 displays of force in hobbledehoys, and of " Hooliganism ", is 
 manual training. 
 
 Manual training, then, must be considered as a part of 
 general education, and must be introduced into the school 
 routine for its own sake, and not because it subserves the 
 purpose of technical education. The method of instruction 
 must on no account be assimilated to workshop training or 
 that of technical schools. It must be systematically de-
 
 Address on Manual Training 137 
 
 veloped on lines suited to this conception of it as a part of 
 general education, as in Sweden and Germany. It must not 
 be taught on any system which is simply industrial. For this 
 reason, the school children must not devote all their time to 
 perfecting a few joints and mere preliminary exercises. They 
 must construct simple articles of which some use can be 
 made, and the use of which they can see. 
 
 If we ask for what standards and classes manual training 
 is needed, the answer is: "For all". It must begin with the 
 kindergarten, and must continue in the lower standards and 
 so on through the school. The later we commence hand and 
 eye training, the harder it is to secure success. If when 
 children first go to school their senses of touch and sight are 
 neglected, the number of children with purblind vision and 
 blunted tactile perception will be greater in proportion to this 
 early neglect. 
 
 In dealing with elementary schools, it is most important 
 not to confuse elementary training with advanced training. 
 This confusion is easily and constantly made. Of course, 
 advanced training must be specialized training; it would be 
 faulty if it were not. Elementary training must not be 
 specialized; it is faulty if it is. If you are training an ap- 
 prentice in joinery, you will, doubtless, find it better to use 
 English carpenters' tools, in spite of some of them being, as 
 compared with American tools, somewhat antiquated. If, 
 however, you are not dealing with a joiner's apprentice, you 
 are not limited to common English joiners' tools, and the 
 particular kind of tool which you use depends upon quite 
 other considerations. The knife, no doubt, is not a joiner's 
 tool, but it is the primary tool with which some of the finest 
 work is done. The gardener, for example, does not bud or 
 prune or graft with a chisel or plane, but with a knife. It is 
 worth bearing in mind, by the way, that John Hunter, the 
 famous surgeon, in his youth practised woodwork. 
 
 The aim of all elementary education must be of a general 
 description ; the aim of advanced training is skill in a particu- 
 lar trade. In elementary training various faculties must be
 
 138 Essays and Addresses 
 
 partly trained, and then when mature the scholar will select, 
 as circumstances may determine, some one of them by which 
 he will elect to make his living, and develop it fully and com- 
 pletely and professionally. 
 
 Much that is spoken with truth about specialized and 
 advanced training is wholly out of place and misleading when 
 the subject dealt with is the general education of the child in 
 early years and in the elementary school. 
 
 Attention to these considerations is important, because if 
 they are neglected, the result may be the teaching of the 
 more or less adroit use of a few tools, the structure of 
 materials, and the tricks of construction, and yet in the end 
 disappointment will arise. Instead of an improved general 
 education, there will be only so much more commercialism, 
 and so much more cheap labour. 
 
 The object of education is to awaken spontaneity in the 
 child. How can this be done if the teaching constantly holds 
 before his mind that he is being trained for a particular pur- 
 pose and that his every action as a child has a direct bearing 
 on his future occupation? Rather should the ultimate end or 
 utilitarian value of his handwork be kept out of sight, or at 
 least in the background. Let his childish activities occupy 
 his thoughts wholly for their own sake. 
 
 It does matter what thoughts are running through a 
 child's mind when he is at work. Let him in his manual 
 training make for his mother a penholder or a wooden spoon, 
 or a cardboard portfolio for his father or sister. Let him 
 work for others without reward, and so procure a few precious 
 moments of self-forgetfulness. If the child in the elementary 
 school is allowed to spend all his time in making joints which 
 are laid aside when finished, no account is taken of the child's 
 heart. The past cannot return, and the home has ceased to 
 be a centre of practical training; therefore children must 
 acquire this at school. 
 
 Mr. Worthington was appointed by the Board of Trade 
 as a special commissioner to enquire into and report upon the 
 condition of British trade in South America. He reports a
 
 Address on Manual Training 139 
 
 falling off of English trade, and attributes it to (i) English 
 ignorance of the decimal system, and (2) to inferiority of 
 English packing. " The French cases arrive in good con- 
 dition, whereas the English arrive badly broken." Mr. John- 
 son writes from Brussels that English trade has lost its 
 influence. " We are beaten only in small matters of general 
 neatness." Manual dexterity, which leads to neatness, must 
 be cultivated at school or nowhere. We cannot afford to 
 send the children out into the world with hands untrained in 
 habits of neatness and accuracy. 
 
 Lessons in drawing must be connected with practice in 
 cutting out and constructing models of various kinds: in the 
 lower standards the material may be paper and cardboard ; in 
 the upper standards it may be wood. Handwork may be 
 employed in illustrating lessons in elementary science. If 
 children do not thus learn the use of their hands, either at 
 home or school, the general level of manual dexterity must 
 fall lower and lower; and this depreciation involves, accord- 
 ing to the best authorities, a loss of brain-power and general 
 intelligence. Machinery can replace the human hand, but it 
 cannot act as a substitute for the human brain. 
 
 In conclusion, I will confirm my own opinion by a brief 
 quotation, on the subject of manual training, from William 
 James, the famous American writer on psychology, a pupil 
 of the German Miinsterberg. William James's recent book, 
 Talks with Teachers on Psychology', is a most important one 
 for all teachers to read. In it will be found the following 
 remarks : — 
 
 " Manual training will give us citizens of an entirely 
 different intellectual fibre. Laboratory work and bench work 
 engender a habit of observation, a knowledge of the difference 
 between accuracy and vagueness, and an insight into nature's 
 complexity and into the inadequacy of all abstract verbal 
 accounts of real phenomena, which, once wrought into the 
 mind, remain there as lifelong possessions. They confer pre- 
 cision ; because if you are doing a thing, you must do it 
 definitely, right or wrong. They give honesty; for when you
 
 140 Essays and Addresses 
 
 express yourself by making things and not by using words, it 
 becomes impossible to dissimulate your vagueness or ignor- 
 ance by ambiguity. They beget a habit of self-reliance; they 
 keep the interest and attention always cheerfully engaged, 
 and reduce the teacher's disciplinary functions to a minimum. 
 Of the various systems of manual training, the Swedish Sloyd 
 seems to me by far the best, psychologically considered." 
 
 In the introduction of manual training into this country 
 Bradford has been one of the most active of pioneers. The 
 work has been taken up in the right spirit, and carried for- 
 ward upon right lines. After all, this is only as might be 
 expected. The country owes it to a member for Bradford 
 that a national system of education became an accomplished 
 fact. We naturally look to those who laid the foundation to 
 give us ideas for the completion of the edifice.
 
 SEGUIN 
 
 Henry Taylor says: "The world knows nothing of its 
 greatest men ". At any rate, while the educational world is 
 ringing with the praise of Pestalozzi and Froebel, I am not 
 sure that it is aware that there is another name worthy to be 
 associated with these two master minds, and forming a triad 
 uniting the intellectual forces of Switzerland and Germany 
 with that of France. 
 
 The name which I would associate with the names of 
 Pestalozzi and Froebel is that of Seguin ; and it is of Seguin 
 that I propose to give some account, commencing with a 
 short biography, and afterwards describing his famous experi- 
 ment in training what he calls an Idiot Hand and an Idiot 
 Eye. 
 
 In 1880 Edward Seguin died in New York at the age 
 of sixty-nine. He was one who, on account of his lifelong 
 devotion to the science and art of restoring, or at least elevat- 
 ing in the scale of living beings, children wholly or partially 
 imbecile and children of feeble intellect, well deserves to have 
 his name recorded in the Liber Aureus reserved for the few 
 men whose lives have been of great service to the human 
 race, without being the cause of the least harm to any part 
 of it. 
 
 Seguin was born in Burgundy, in 181 2, and came of a 
 family of physicians of good standing and repute. He had 
 a long line of ancestors who, for many generations, took a 
 leading place as physicians in the Department of La Nievre. 
 After receiving a complete education at the College of Au- 
 xerre, and then in the Lycee St. Louis at Paris, he studied 
 medicine under a famous master of the subject, known 
 as Itard, and also under Esquirol, the psychologist and
 
 142 Essays and Addresses 
 
 alieniste. Both Itard and Esquirol were profoundly interested 
 in psychological studies, and Scguin had an opportunity of 
 watching the apparently unsuccessful efforts of Itard to 
 develop the mental powers of an idiot known as the Sauvage 
 de L'Arveyron. At the early age of twenty-five his genius 
 led him to the profound discovery which perhaps initiated the 
 study of physiological education, and certainly advanced the 
 art of training imbeciles in a most unexpected way and, 
 what is more, the whole science and art of education. For 
 of course other philanthropists had tried to teach idiots before 
 Itard, and notably Vincent de Paul, but with what success is 
 shown by the description of Idiocy in the Dictionary of Medi- 
 cine published in 1837, where it is stated to be "the absence of 
 mental faculties, or the almost complete nullity of the cerebral 
 faculties " ; and farther on, " it is vain to combat idiocy ; in 
 order to restore the intellectual powers it would be necessary 
 to remedy the conformation of cephalic organs which no means 
 have been found hitherto of modifying at all ". This was the 
 traditional theory of idiocy, and until it was superseded little 
 progress could be made in assisting idiots. Seguin was led 
 by his own researches to consider that idiocy was not so much 
 due to the malformation of the brain as to its arrested develop- 
 ment, which was the result of causes often pre-natal. He 
 seems to have been the first to perceive that the nervous 
 system was an organic whole, and that the brain was not 
 the sole organ of intelligence, independent of the peripheral 
 nerves. He believed that the brain could not be properly 
 said to act as a single organ without parts, and that as in any 
 organism the successful working of the whole depends upon 
 the harmonious action, interaction and reciprocal action of all 
 the parts, so defective intellect might be due not to the 
 absence of parts, but to the want of co-ordination of action 
 among existing parts. 
 
 His idea of a remedy for this arrested development was 
 training of a physiological kind. He contended that by a 
 suitable physiological training of all the senses it would be 
 possible to restore the idiot to a place in society, even if
 
 Segiiin 143 
 
 a humble one and to make his spark of reason smoulder, 
 even if it would never burst into a flame. 
 
 While Seguin was working at Bicetre he conducted experi- 
 ments at his own expense, to meet which he earned money by 
 writing for the press and by other literary labours. He wrote 
 articles for one of the principal journals in Paris, of various 
 kinds, including art criticism, and certain others, more filled 
 with feeling and fire, on political and social subjects. 
 
 This brought him into connection with the most brilliant 
 literary circle that existed in Paris during the century. 
 Among them were Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Michel Cheva- 
 lier, and Victor Hugo. All of these were disciples in the 
 school of St. Simon, Pere Enfantine and Olinde Rodrigue, 
 and all alike believed in an approaching revolution when 
 society would be reconstituted on the principle of the greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number. 
 
 Among others, he came to know Louis Napoleon, while in 
 his Republican days, but in 1850, he found it necessary, for 
 political reasons, to exchange France for America somewhat 
 hastily, leaving no address on his departure. He had, how- 
 ever, before quitting Paris, as the result of several years of 
 study, written his epoch-making work on the moral training, 
 the hygiene and the education of idiots and defective chil- 
 dren. This work, which was published in 1846, was crowned 
 by the Academy, and made the text-book on the subject in 
 England and every civilized country. Meanwhile the work- 
 ing of Seguin's method had been demonstrated at the Paris 
 Hospital for Incurables at Bicetre, and had attracted much 
 attention. 
 
 In America, partly by his writings, partly by his influence 
 and partly by direct personal intervention, he founded, or 
 caused the foundation of, various training- places for idiots. 
 Though well qualified in every way as a general practitioner, 
 and easily able to win a good practice and a lucrative one by 
 the charm of his manner and his profound knowledge and 
 skill, he was never able to tear himself from his special line 
 of study, the proper treatment of idiots, to which he was
 
 144 Essays and Addresses 
 
 ready to sacrifice everything; and, not unnaturally, his interest 
 in the education of imbeciles extended itself to education in 
 general. His book on Idiocy and its Treatment by the Physio- 
 logical Method is one which ought to be read by every serious 
 student of educational literature. Seguin pursued his re- 
 searches in various directions, and, among other applications 
 of his scientific method, he devoted much attention to the 
 temperature of the blood, and it is to him we owe the use 
 of the clinical thermometer, without some knowledge of which 
 no intelligent mother would in these days undertake the 
 hygienic supervision of her family, to say nothing of its use 
 by medical men. Much again might be said of his views 
 relating to the kindergarten, but time allows it not. He died 
 too soon to complete his work. Educationalist, philosopher, 
 philanthropist, man of science, he was perfect in all relations 
 of life. Happy in his marriage, he left a son able to carry 
 on the tradition of his family, and a group of friends in many 
 countries on either side of the Atlantic inspired by his 
 enthusiasm in the service of man. He was the honoured 
 recipient of a letter from Pius IX thanking him for his 
 services in the cause of humanity. He was a lover of litera- 
 ture and fine art; he was devoted to plants, animals, and 
 children ; he was a philanthropist in whose philanthropy there 
 was nothing morose or spiteful, and all forms of social life, in 
 what time he could spare for them, came to him as a welcome 
 refreshment. Bold and independent in his views, he was 
 kind and courteous to all, to his opponents as much as any, 
 meeting attacks, however unworthy, with a Gallic shrug of 
 the shoulders. Burning with indignation over social or 
 political injustice, he never condescended to a disposition of 
 intolerance, and not the least remarkable feature in his 
 character was his sympathetic respect for religious creeds 
 in which he himself had no share. He died without wealth, 
 an exile from his country, leaving, however, a heritage far 
 greater than millions of dollars, viz., institutions all over the 
 world which strengthen humanity in its weakest part and 
 ideas and scientific methods which posterity will assimilate
 
 SSguin 145 
 
 and carry out to greater perfection. His name lives not 
 merely an honour to the land of his birth, France, the land 
 of chivalry, but also to America, and indeed it merits the 
 proudest addition — huniani generis decus. 
 
 I have endeavoured to describe the man. I pass on to 
 show the workman in his workshop. Before introducing you 
 to the student in his own retreat, I will exhibit him as a critic 
 of one of our English institutions. He was appointed to 
 make a report for a special commission on the training of 
 imbeciles in all parts of the world for the first exhibition of 
 Vienna. He visits an English Institution among other places 
 in 1867. "The English," he says, "have determined to have 
 the greatest Asylum for Idiots in the world, and so far as 
 money and good-will could avail they have it. But the 
 institution is under a Board of Governors, and the physician 
 is under their control. Hence they have a machine which 
 is driven by men clothed in authority, instead of an organ- 
 ization resting on the tender sympathy and quick perception 
 of a woman who is philosophically directed by some man 
 familiar with the most recent anthropological discoveries. 
 
 " Modus docejidi. Some sixty children formed a class 
 which the teacher had divided into two parts. In front a few 
 infants were being taught to read, while the rest sat behind 
 with slates, under orders to write a copy from a black-board. 
 A glance sufficed to make me put the following questions 
 to myself: — (i) Was it possible for the children to write this 
 letter, (2) at such a distance from their teacher, (3) on a slate 
 resting on their knees, (4) with a pencil that left but a slight 
 mark on a surface polished by long use, (5) with a hand 
 feeble, uncertain in movement, unprepared by preliminary 
 exercises, guided by imperfect comprehension, the difficulty 
 further increased by the feeble powers of reasoning character- 
 istic of such children, who have lived long without instruction 
 and grown accustomed to act automatically? The slates gave 
 me my answers. They were covered with vague, meaningless 
 lines, often scarcely visible, which, signifying nothing to the 
 writers, spoke volumes to me.
 
 146 Essays and Addresses 
 
 " There is another defect which is characteristic of great 
 institutions where children are trained for public inspection. 
 In each large class there were a certain number of those who 
 may be termed false idiots, i.e. children who are hardly- 
 normal, but suffer from the effects of epilepsy, chorea and 
 the like. These children are pushed forward at the expense 
 of the genuine idiots. Of course they can answer all sorts of 
 difficult questions, and their proficiency imposes on the public. 
 Even this concession is not enough for the visitors. Idiots 
 must be served in all sorts of sauce ; there must be musicians, 
 mathematicians, architects and what not. Utilize time and 
 money, which ought to be shared by the whole of a class, 
 in developing among a few children such special faculties 
 as have survived the shipwreck of the rest, and you may 
 astound fools and thus most effectively advertise your insti- 
 tution. Yet it is all useless. The musician, the architect, 
 or the mathematician, having but one faculty developed, 
 remains none the less idiotic, and his possession will by no 
 means give him a place in society. It is useless to develop 
 one faculty at the expense of the rest; if this is true of idiot 
 asylums, it applies equally to ordinary schools and to the 
 Universities. The English have yet to learn the principles 
 of Physiological Instruction." 
 
 This visit took place in 1867, and five years later Seguin 
 gave a far more satisfactory report. 
 
 I will now attempt to show Seguin at work on his own 
 method, as explained to the world in a pamphlet on the 
 Idiot Hand and the Idiot Eye, or the training of an idiot child 
 in New York. The following is the description of the Idiot 
 Hand. The hand was small, the nails were dry and brittle; 
 the fingers were short and badly finished ; there seemed no 
 power of resistance to pressure ; there was no use in the hand 
 whatever; in all respects its conformation exhibited character- 
 istics which are the opposite of those which mark manual 
 dexterity. Movement, however, there was, but it was auto- 
 matic, having for its centre and lever the wrist. Vigorous as 
 this automatic action could be, the child was quite unable to
 
 Siguin 147 
 
 carry out the simplest direction which involved voluntary- 
 action. While, however, the hand was incapable of finer 
 adjustments, the arm could be moved as a whole up or down, 
 although with little precision in the movement, and at times 
 even this action was beyond the child's power. The mistress 
 commenced the process of educating this Idiot Hand by 
 acting first on the shoulder, exercising in order, first the 
 muscles of the shoulder, then those of the fore-arm and then 
 those of the wrist and hand itself Thus voluntary move- 
 ment was gradually extended downwards from the shoulder 
 to the extremity of the fingers. The exercises were done at 
 first through imitation of the teacher, but the child soon learnt 
 to do them for himself as directed. 
 
 Thus the education commenced with purely physical exer- 
 cises. The movements of the hand which ordinary children 
 learn unconsciously and almost imperceptibly may be thus 
 roughly classified, viz.: holding (both passively and inten- 
 tionally), seizing, raising, lifting, dropping, throwing, snatch- 
 ing, squeezing, bending, breaking, beating, striking, modelling, 
 combining, uniting, joining, dividing, parting, severing with 
 knife or scissors or saw, according to the resistance offered by 
 the material. The Idiot Hand was incapable of any of these 
 movements. The first step in education was purely physical, 
 consisting of a suitable series of exercises for the arm, hand, 
 and fingers. The intellectual worth of these exercises depends 
 upon the way they are ultimately done, their precision, their 
 rapidity, their unity, their adjustment, their promptness and 
 their subjection to control and will. The problem of getting 
 the child to imitate his teacher's action in, say, raising his arm, 
 is far from simple. He has to take notice of what his teacher 
 is doing, to form a clear mental image of it, to transmit this 
 image, along with the intention to execute the actions which 
 go to make it up, to the limbs concerned. There is a triple 
 series of acts, involving registration, volition, and execution. 
 The resistance which idiocy, active or passive, opposes to the 
 teacher's efforts is for his or her skill and patience to over- 
 come. The mistress reached the tips of the fingers of the 
 
 16
 
 148 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Idiot Hand by commencing with the shoulder; and subse- 
 quently group after group of nerves and muscles previously 
 given up to automatism was gradually won for voluntary 
 action and a set of apparatus that was merely brute was 
 made subject to the sway of reason. The process of training 
 was from great centres to smaller, and centrifugal. In time 
 the delicate action of the peripheral nerves and muscles reacted 
 on the central, and then improvement and training proceeded 
 centripetally. 
 
 As an example of the difference in the power to act 
 according as the impulse is derived from regions nearer or 
 farther from the central axis, it was noticed that the child 
 could drive a nail with a hammer before it could prick a hole 
 on a given spot on a piece of paper. To use a hammer re- 
 quires no movement below the wrist, it is a shoulder 
 movement ; on the contrary, the use of the pin demands 
 little action on the part of the great flexor and extensor 
 muscles of the arm, but much complicated adjustment of 
 the finer muscles of the fingers. 
 
 What was the result at the end of a year of this daily 
 training of the sense of touch, this development of interaction 
 or reciprocal action between the brain centres and the peri- 
 pheral nerves? The child's hand had learnt to help itself, to 
 occupy itself and to amuse itself; it ceased to be shoved into 
 the child's mouth and bitten, or to strike the child's com- 
 panions, although the automatic movements did not entirely 
 cease. The touch was developed so far that the child would 
 appreciate the ordinary differences of temperature in air, 
 water, and food, and would recognize and name blindfold, 
 by mere sense of touch, some fifty objects. 
 
 The eye also, being exercised in company with the hand, 
 although strictly subsidiary in its use, learnt to distinguish 
 typical forms, first the things themselves, next coloured pic- 
 tures of them and then sketches of outlines, and by simple 
 transition the child was taught to cut out these things in 
 paper. He also learnt to arrange objects of varying size 
 according to their comparative dimensions.
 
 SSguin 149 
 
 As the child had shown a natural taste for flowers, and 
 especially sweetly-scented flowers, he soon learnt in the garden 
 the names of some thirty, to say them correctly, and many 
 more with less certainty. This love of flowers made him wish 
 to plant and tend them ; he also had a vase of flowers on his 
 mantel-piece and renewed the water daily with punctuality, 
 and, though busy with other occupations, he never forgot the 
 right time to attend to this duty. Under these influences the 
 sudden and violent emotions with which he had been afflicted 
 before his training, the sudden flow of blood to the head, and 
 senseless actions of passion and rage, gave way to a calmer 
 and sweeter disposition. These results showed themselves, 
 after a little more than a year, in the following changes in 
 his features. His mouth was no longer seen with hanging 
 lower lip, his head was upright on the axis instead of lolling 
 over to one side, and the curious semicircular depression of 
 the forehead between the eyes had nearly vanished. The 
 whole of this system of training is based upon the principle 
 of physiological decentralization. It would have been im- 
 possible as a system, although flashes of the principle have 
 crossed the vision of educationists from the beginning, if the 
 idea of the sovereignty of the brain had not been profoundly 
 modified by the appreciation of the immensely important 
 part played in the intellectual development by the peripheral 
 nerves and the muscles. 
 
 The first year of training was devoted, in the way de- 
 scribed, to the Idiot Hand ; the second was spent in educating 
 the Idiot Eye, and in an analogous manner. 
 
 The manual training of the first year had been concerned 
 with the muscles of the arm and hand, the joints of these 
 limbs and with the sense of touch. By the sense of touch 
 the child learnt to comprehend many objects, and to express 
 in words the impressions which he derived from his sense of 
 touch. He learnt to recognize many objects, to hold things, 
 to put things down, to grasp, throw, &c., and acquired the 
 command over his hand in many operations either imme- 
 diately useful or indispensable for progress, such as washing
 
 150 Essays and Addresses 
 
 and dressing, or holding a pencil or a knife. It took him a 
 year before his hands, at first as flaccid as in death, could 
 button a button or brush his coat. After this he would 
 strengthen his hands by whittling a stick with a jack-knife, 
 and render his fingers more supple and pliant by tracing lines 
 on a slate; he would also learn to throw or catch a ball, 
 though awkwardly, and to manipulate clay so as to form a 
 few models. 
 
 In commencing with the eye training, the doctors found 
 the state of the eye as imperfect as that of the hand. Both 
 eyes suffered from lateral nystagmus, that is, the eyeballs 
 rolled from side to side with " a short uneasy motion " and 
 the range of their movement was small. The pupils were 
 of unequal size. He also suffered from hypermetrophy. The 
 optic nerves also were atrophied. 
 
 Nystagmus in idiots is of two kinds. It is either the 
 rolling or oscillating movement above described, or else it 
 is a tendency to fix the eyeball with a stare upwards and 
 sideways towards one corner. During Seguin's treatment of 
 this child it was ascertained by oculists that this movement 
 of the eye was akin to the movements known as St. Vitus' 
 dance or chorea, and this discovery led him to seek a remedy 
 in physical training. The eye is educated through the hand. 
 It was Seguin's object to bring the eyeball to repose, to direct 
 it steadily upon an object, and by use of the hand in conjunc- 
 tion with the eye to give intelligence to the act of looking. 
 It is well known of how much use the hand is in guiding the 
 eye, especially in directing and fixing the attention. The 
 hand of an adroit person has almost a language of its own. 
 The Idiot Eye must first be trained through the Idiot Hand. 
 The child must learn to use the index digit for pointing out 
 objects. Special exercises are needed to develop this habit as 
 thoroughly as possible. This exercise is by no means so easy 
 as might appear. The child was taught by use of the index 
 finger to seek and find, to look out for and to look at, to 
 watch and to follow, moving objects and objects at rest. A 
 wide sweep of the hand would fix his eyes on an object, and
 
 SSguin 151 
 
 small movements of the fingers would prevent his attention 
 from wandering off it again. But sometimes his eyes would 
 close when pointing rightly at an object, or else while his 
 finger pointed at the object his eye wandered away from it, 
 while he cried all the same: " Look, look ". On such occa- 
 sions Seguin never lost patience, nor did he resort to short 
 and wicked words, much less blows. He wrote treatises, 
 instead, on the obstinate fixing of the will, due, as he argued, 
 to the inhibitory effect of the nerves upon the muscles when 
 a sort of nerve storm is raging, an effect which he carefully 
 distinguished from wilful opposition. The exercises which 
 were necessary during the first year to overcome the flaccidity 
 of the muscles of the hand were continued during the second 
 year, and while at first the hand helped the eye, after a bit 
 the eye, being improved, helped the hand, and the exercises 
 having for their main object the improvement of either organ, 
 the other being for the time subsidiary, at last met in a region 
 where it is no longer possible to say which of the two is the 
 principal one aimed at. 
 
 One of the ways of training the eye by the hand was to 
 get the child to trace over a pattern supplied to him by the 
 teacher on paper. At first sight this might seem training the 
 hand by the eye, but it is not so. The hand has to follow a 
 line marked out. To do this it calls upon the eye in a sort of 
 reflex way to help it to follow the line correctly. Thus hand 
 and eye are fixed on one point and have to move together in 
 one direction, but the hand sets the eye to work. 
 
 Eye exercises have been systematically devised for en- 
 abling the child to direct its gaze at will and with attention, 
 upwards, downwards, and sideways, and the occupations of 
 tracing patterns, pricking them, and cutting them out with 
 scissors have all been found useful in reducing the disorders 
 of the organs of vision, which have kept them cut off from 
 communication with objects around them and caused the 
 Idiot Eye. 
 
 Modelling has also been found useful. It was soon seen 
 that a hand which had learnt to perform many of the useful
 
 152 Essays and Addresses 
 
 services above described, such as dressing, &c., and also to use 
 dumb-bells and go through athletic exercises, was still much 
 too nerveless to make an impression on soft clay. The first 
 step in overcoming the difficulty was to get the child to 
 squeeze an india-rubber ball and let it go again, until the 
 rhythmical contraction and expansion of the ball communi- 
 cated itself to the hand. 
 
 When the child was thus brought so far that he could act 
 upon his material and impress upon it some shape, he was 
 given some clay to work upon. As he could not use his 
 fingers to much purpose, owing to their weakness, he rolled 
 the clay between his palms. A kindergarten teacher would 
 expect this action to have shaped a ball. It did not. The 
 resulting shape was a sort of cylinder, unequally conical at 
 either end. The reason of this was the imperfection of the 
 touch. To make a ball there must be muscular action com- 
 bined with a sense of touch, which produce together the rotary 
 motion needed to make a spherical shape. If muscular ac- 
 tivity is present alone, the clay becomes irregularly cylindrical. 
 The child, however, as his sense of touch had gone through 
 much preliminary training, soon proved equal to making a 
 ball of clay. To form a cube or a pyramid in clay, besides 
 action of muscle and touch, a third thing is required. The 
 eye must be brought into play. And here at once a trap is 
 set for the unwary teacher. It is hard to make a cube by use 
 of hand and eye. The kindergarten teacher therefore shows 
 her pupil how to flatten one side of a piece of clay and then 
 another on a slate or desk, until six flat sides are produced. 
 No doubt this is an excellent way to make a cube, if it be 
 your object to make a cube; but that is not the intention of 
 the teacher of the idiot. He wants to enable the child to 
 impress an idea of form on matter by an infinite variety of 
 acts of pressure on the part of the nervous-muscular mass 
 concentrated at the ends of the fingers. To instruct a child, 
 whether normal or idiot, for show, let him use the table as a 
 mould, and instead of his two eyes the legs of a pair of com- 
 passes to measure distance. But this is not education. It is
 
 Siguin 153 
 
 to mistake means for ends, and to make the hand and eye 
 dependent upon mechanical aid just when by carefully graded 
 exercises of increasing difficulty they are prepared to act in- 
 dependently of such crutches. The effect of it is to make the 
 Idiot Hand and Eye return to the automatism from which 
 you have been rescuing them so painfully. 
 
 It is not likely that the works of art in the way of drawing 
 and modelling produced by such an artist as the child with 
 hands and eyes as described would reach a high standard 
 absolutely, so as to please others, but here are the results won 
 for himself. He has learnt to express a mental image in clay, 
 which, although imperfect, reveals to him the action of mind 
 and will on matter; he has learnt to act at the instigation of 
 another, to carry out his wish, and to form and carry out a 
 wish of his own. His eye responds infinitely better than 
 before to his hand in the way of directions, presentations, 
 ideas, suggestions and impulse; while the oscillations of his 
 eyeballs have decreased and the fixing of his eyeball at an 
 angle is rarer and less persistent. The child's vision, the "idiot 
 eye ", is more under the control of his own will and that of 
 those around him. The transition from things and acts to 
 speech has been in this manner. His vocabulary is now 
 reasonably correct; things and their names have been pre- 
 sented together and in presenting objects care has been taken 
 to name them along with their qualities, movements, charac- 
 teristics; and, in addition to this, much attention has been 
 paid to contrast, and along with a given quality its opposite 
 had been cited ; similarly analogous ideas had been introduced 
 where appropriate. Thus nothing had been spoken of with- 
 out setting alongside of it some contrast or some analogous 
 conception or object. Pictures, too, and portraits he loved to 
 look at, having learnt to give value to every detail. In this 
 way he knows by their face and actions a number of great 
 men.^ 
 
 " But ", someone will say, " seven or eight years old, and 
 
 ^ See Archives of Medicine, October, 1879.
 
 154 Essays and Addresses 
 
 the child has not been learning to read or write. When will 
 his education really begin?" "When", says Seguin, "his 
 mind shall have been stored by the exercise of his senses 
 with a number of correct impressions of objects. Let him 
 remain in an ' an-alphabetic ' condition until his preliminary 
 stock of ideas gives him some chance of being able to follow 
 what he reads, and then he will not be exposed to the ab- 
 surdity of being set to read by some teacher, really more 
 imbecile than himself, what he does not understand a word 
 of Let him, for some time, at any rate, be set to read what 
 he has himself helped his teacher to compose and what he 
 has himself written." 
 
 If it be asked. How can the study of defective intellect of 
 cretinous children really throw light on the mental growth 
 of healthy and normal children? the answer is to be found 
 in Seguin's discovery, that the normal intellect depends upon 
 the interaction and proper co-ordination of various parts of 
 the nervous system. 
 
 To understand the co-ordination of the parts of a complex 
 machine the first thing is to learn the function of each part 
 separately. 
 
 Now in a normal child the various parts of the nervous 
 organism work so rapidly and promptly that it is almost im- 
 possible to follow the process of co-ordination. It is indeed 
 quick as thought. 
 
 In the cretinous child, owing to want of co-ordination, 
 different movements can be studied before they are combined 
 into a whole. The method of training such children consists 
 in doing for them artificially what in the ordinary child is 
 done naturally. 
 
 With the necessary modifications, what is good for the 
 abnormal child is a basis for dealing with the normal child. 
 The study of the slow movements of the defective intellect 
 is like examining minute structures with a microscope. 
 Analysis is rendered possible. Very minute intervals and 
 distances become apparent under a lens which escape ob- 
 servation without it.
 
 SSguin 155 
 
 Imbecile and defective children — the blighted flowers in 
 th^ kindergarten, — these were the objects of Seguin's life- 
 work. Let the world cherish his memory. Many ladies are 
 following in his steps. Let them find some refreshment in the 
 thought that their act of mercy is not merely as the nurse at 
 the rear of the battle-field of life, attending to the disabled, 
 but that their labours also place them among the pioneers 
 who are preparing the way for the advancement of the know- 
 ledge of the human mind.
 
 THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE AND 
 THE TREE OF LIFE 
 
 TECHNICAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN* 
 
 Last year, on a corresponding occasion, I had an oppor- 
 tunity of laying before you some account of the Institution 
 which has been founded for some years in Berhn, where 
 women of all ranks can learn both the science and the art 
 connected with rearing and teaching children, and the manage- 
 ment of the house. Frau Schrader's work, has, I read, been 
 treated of this week before the Froebel Society. It appears to 
 me that among the many branches of its work which a Parents' 
 National Educational Union should bear constantly in mind, 
 the extension of undertakings of this kind is one of the most 
 important. 
 
 We hear, and some of us experience in our own families, 
 much of the strife of nations in the present day, and it looks 
 as if our country, at the end of this century, might be again, 
 as it was at the end of the last, fighting for its existence as an 
 imperial power. It seems well, therefore, to bear in mind the 
 immense importance of making the most of every living child, 
 both physically and mentally. It was a fine thought of Pesta- 
 lozzi's, that the character of a people could be raised by 
 maternal — that is home — education, which is the base of the 
 work of the Parents' National Educational Union. This con- 
 ception of education, I should like to point out, differs much 
 from the views of Plato, the founder of all educational theory. 
 In Plato's view education is the way in which the national 
 principles and character are realized in the individual member 
 of the nation. It is the nation that must somehow guide the 
 
 1 Address at the Annual Conference of the Parents' National Educational Union, 1898. 
 
 166
 
 Tree of Knotvledge and Tree of Life 157 
 
 development of the child through the mother. The child is 
 thus to be brought up, as at Sparta, largely under influences 
 which are external to the family. There is little left in such 
 a system for the free development of the individual. 
 
 Miss Mason says rightly, education must make for the 
 evolution of the individual. The highest ideal of morality 
 in the ancient view of education was the character of a good 
 citizen in a good state. Such an ideal is no mean one; we all 
 ought to have it ; but while aiming at nothing lower we ought 
 to aim at something higher. For Christianity, building upon 
 and extending the views of the Hebrews, has taught us to 
 look beyond the daily needs of the society into which we are 
 born. Beyond and above the laws of the nation there is the 
 conception of the Laws of God. It would appear that if 
 freedom of development and natural growth under judicious 
 and far-sighted guidance are held the right system of educa- 
 tion, then this can only be worked out effectively through 
 family life. Of course lazy people are apt to confuse such 
 true development on the part of the child with the principle 
 of laissez-faire on the part of the mother and father. But the 
 truth is, that unrestricted growth of the child is impossible 
 without much attention on the part of all those in charge of 
 him. The analogy of the garden is complete. A flower will 
 not bud and bloom in natural perfection unless the gardener 
 defends it from all injurious influences, and this art requires 
 much science. There is no member of the Parents' National 
 Educational Union who does not look on the nation as an 
 aggregate of families and as depending for its welfare upon 
 the successful organization of family life, in which the members 
 of the commonwealth are developed to the utmost in spirit, 
 mind, and body. It is through the family that the character 
 of the nation can be raised, and that character includes the 
 growth of the body as well as of the soul. 
 
 The Parents' Union, then, in endeavouring to direct the 
 attention of parents and all who assist them, whether teachers, 
 doctors, nurses, or others, to the need of a more systematic 
 study of the moral, spiritual, and physical nature of the
 
 158 Essays and Addresses 
 
 child, is working in accordance with the beliefs, and hopes, 
 and recommendations of the wisest and best of men from 
 hoar antiquity to the present hour. It seems to me, therefore, 
 that the Union ought to encourage what, for want of a better 
 description, I will term Technical Education of women, in all 
 matters relating to family life, or, as Mrs. Steinthal has put it, 
 the Utilitarian Education of Girls. It appears to me that in 
 every country and in every large town there should be an 
 institution where girls and women of all classes in society 
 could study the art and theory of all that appertains to home 
 life. In France and Germany and Holland much has been 
 done to supply instruction of this type and, quite apart from 
 all other advantages, I venture to think there is some evidence 
 that these races are growing physically stronger, and that the 
 number of stunted and ill-developed children is decreasing. 
 I am not sure whether, when we read the account of those 
 who devote their lives to assisting the lowest stratum of 
 English society — the stratum which I am afraid is correctly 
 described as the dregs of all the classes rather than a special 
 class, — we can feel sure that the English are keeping up the 
 standard of bone and muscle which existed before the congre- 
 gation of the inhabitants in big towns and manufacturing 
 centres. 
 
 The following is a recent statement of a Medical Officer 
 of Health, made in defence of a parent from the charge of 
 cruel neglect on the score that he is only dirty. The Medical 
 Officer of Health writes, inter alia: " If dirt on children be 
 taken to be neglect, within the meaning of the Acts quoted, 
 there will be no end to these prosecutions. Very poor 
 people are as a rule dirty, and generally verminous. ... It 
 is hopeless to expect that this, or any town, can ever be free 
 of its naturally sluttish people and their dirty homes. It 
 never struck me that such should be looked at in the light 
 of criminals, nor that imprisonment is in the least likely to 
 improve their condition. Under the Public Health Acts we 
 deal with them in a comparatively gentle way, giving notice 
 of requirements, with sufficient time for carrying them
 
 Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life 159 
 
 out. . . . Surely the better way of getting sanitary deficien- 
 cies amended would be to direct the attention of the sanitary 
 authority to them. We are open to receive complaints and 
 give them our attention, and possibly the object of the 
 National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children 
 will be as well served by their inspector bearing this in 
 mind." 
 
 It is clear that civilizing influences must work from above 
 downwards. What can Sanitary Authorities do without deep- 
 seated public support, and the public can only give this 
 support where properly instructed. At present men attribute 
 dirt, disease and death to the visitation of God instead of to 
 their own crass and criminal ignorance. 
 
 Some may say home education ought to be studied at 
 home. The answer to this objection is, that no home is so 
 perfectly organized that everything can be taught in it which 
 is desirable to be learnt. Institutions are needed. One of 
 the most complete of British Institutions of this type known 
 to me is that which exists in Edinburgh for technical training 
 in domestic work, called the Edinburgh School of Cookery 
 and Domestic Economy. Here there are elementary and 
 advanced classes in cookery, dressmaking, millinery, plain 
 needlework, laundry-work, hygiene, home nursing, house- 
 keeping and book - keeping. There are also courses laid 
 out for housewives and lady housekeepers. Besides these 
 courses special provision is made for the training of teachers, 
 including high class, plain class and artisan cookery. Doubt- 
 less in London the Polytechnics are attempting similar work 
 and at the Battersea Polytechnic the courses are perhaps in 
 some respects of a higher type and correspond more nearly 
 to the ideal of such institutions as I will presently endeavour 
 to describe it. Another admirable institution is the Yorkshire 
 Ladies' Council of Education with head-quarters at Leeds. 
 
 It is my opinion that the number of institutions of this 
 kind should be largely extended, and I cannot but believe 
 that those who wish to do their country some service and 
 to help to leave it better than they find it should take every
 
 i6o Essays and Addresses 
 
 opportunity of supporting this movement. Unluckily the 
 amount of wealth accumulated in the country is so enormous 
 that to be called an educated person is perhaps becoming 
 equivalent to having a dilettante knowledge of literature, 
 science, or art and no practical knowledge of the material 
 needs of life and living, which are relegated to other people 
 and paid for as menial service. 
 
 Now it may seem that the drift of my remarks has been 
 to reduce the occupations of women to domestic drudgery, 
 and that it tends to advance the materialization of society, 
 which is already over-materialized. It may also seem that 
 the title of my paper has been selected because I prefer the 
 tree of life to the tree of knowledge. However, I wish to 
 advocate something very different. The tree of knowledge 
 should somehow be grafted into the tree of life. I wish to 
 raise the arts of living and not to cut down the tree of know- 
 ledge. I can see no reason why knowledge should be pursued 
 by ordinary persons for its own sake out of all relation to the 
 needs of daily life. I do not see why knowledge should be 
 degraded because it is studied in relation to practical affairs. 
 It seems to me that some means must be found of reconciling 
 formative and utilitarian purposes in our studies. I cannot 
 help thinking that the technical schools for girls and women 
 on the Continent are so far superior to most of those which 
 have been attempted in England, just because, while in our 
 own country the studies in the technical schools for women 
 are purely utilitarian, and the students pursue nothing but 
 a special course or courses in cookery, or laundry-work, or 
 nursing, omitting all studies of a general nature, abroad the 
 course of practical studies is held incomplete without lessons 
 in language, history, geography, moral conduct and other 
 branches of science. 
 
 In Frau Busch's Women's Industries School, in Leipzig, 
 the object is to give the students a theoretical and practical 
 knowledge of all the duties that belong to the management 
 of family life, and to inspire them with a love of industry and 
 readiness to attend to business. The aim is thus strictly
 
 Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life i6i 
 
 practical. But yet the time-table provides the students with 
 regular exercises in their native language and literature. 
 
 In Munich, a Continuation School has been established 
 consisting of a three-year course, in which girls are taught 
 the care and education of children from the first cry onwards. 
 They learn the most recent contributions of science to the 
 subject of breathing and ventilation, food and digestion, care 
 of teeth, warmth, temperature and clothing, sickness and 
 nursing. Besides the physical development of the children, 
 the instruction deals with their intellectual development. 
 The students learn about the senses and their mode of 
 operation, the presentation of ideas, feeling and instinct. 
 The aid of a sensible medical man, teaching in the light of 
 modern science, thus rescues the young children from mis- 
 taken treatment arising out of prejudice, bad tradition and 
 custom, and neglect. The instruction is practical as well as 
 theoretical, and is treated on broad lines, so that general 
 principles are not obscured in a multiplicity of detail. The 
 students learn the arts of the kindergarten by visiting such 
 institutions in the town and assisting in the occupations of 
 the infants. A doctor shows them how to fill up a nurse's 
 report, take temperature, and select suitable nourishment in 
 sickness. Bishop Fraser once said that the right sort of 
 instruction for a youth was the kind which ended in his 
 knowing where to look for the varied information which he 
 would be constantly requiring when grown up. Many of the 
 Germans now pride themselves on surpassing other nations 
 in versatility. It is no doubt very difficult indeed to combine 
 versatility with stability of character. The pluck and perti- 
 nacity of the British bull-dog are worthy of all admiration, 
 but the expansion of science and the application of it to 
 industry, the growth of new wants and the fresh means of 
 supplying them, all make modern life more and more complex. 
 We may sigh for an Arcadian simplicity and homelier living, 
 but the trend of civilization is not in that direction, and it is 
 useless to find fault with what is not in itself necessarily bad. 
 For it is the abuse of modern opportunities and not the use
 
 1 62 Essays a7id Addresses 
 
 of them that is to be deplored. The hard thing is to live up 
 to all the new advantages that surround us. The increase of 
 opportunity implies increase of educated effort to make a 
 worthy use of it. 
 
 There is no valid reason why practical housewifery and 
 the rearing and training of children should not be intellectual 
 pursuits. Almost every action may be based on science, but 
 there is a tendency in the present time to take little account 
 of literature and philosophy, whether mental or moral, in 
 technical schools. I read a letter from a girl who had passed 
 from a good elementary school to a Polytechnic. She de- 
 scribed her routine and its results, and was justly proud of 
 first-class certificates (beautiful ornaments) in cooking, wash- 
 ing and dressmaking. The acquisition of these arts is worth 
 the effort. They are the sound fruit of the tree of life, but 
 none of them are by themselves stimulating, inspiring, or 
 elevating, apart from the products of the other tree. It is not 
 a question of book versus bench, or knowledge versus action, 
 but of the working of a mind on a mind. There is a valuable 
 paper in Hand and Eye for March, and also printed in the 
 Report of the Sloyd Association of Great Britain and Ireland 
 for 1898, by Mr. Sidney H. Wells, Principal of the Battersea 
 Polytechnic, upon the influence of the technical education 
 movement on the profession of teaching. He shows the 
 danger of substituting a cook or a carpenter for a schoolmaster 
 or schoolmistress, and the effect of separating kitchen practice 
 from the methods of true education. It must not be forgotten 
 that the disciplinary value of athletic training has been vastly 
 enhanced since it has been undertaken by educated men 
 instead of merely professionals. 
 
 One of the chiefest differences is the mind of the teacher. 
 Skilled artisans or cooks, whose early training has been such 
 that they have never exercised their minds upon the great 
 problems of conduct and government, of history, literature, 
 or art, will seldom see beyond the material product of their 
 skill. They can communicate their art and make boys into 
 carpenters or girls into cooks, but they cannot reach the
 
 Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life 163 
 
 spirit. Therefore I earnestly hope that ladies and gentlemen 
 who have enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education may 
 take up, as some {^.w have already done, this new and difficult 
 task of grafting the tree of knowledge on the tree of life. I 
 hope that many local charities which are now devoted to 
 antiquated and useless purposes may be devoted to establish- 
 ing technical schools for girls and women, in which utilitarian 
 training shall not be divorced from formative studies. There 
 is need of men and women who will devote themselves to 
 educational work of this kind. It will be largely a work of 
 self-sacrifice. There is little recompense of reward in it, 
 whether in a pecuniary way or in respect of honour or 
 glory. To follow the beaten track and supply the demand 
 of the current market is far more lucrative to the producer 
 than making fresh experiments, which, like all valuable ex- 
 periments, though they are fruitful whether they succeed or 
 fail, often do fail. Nevertheless, those who apply themselves 
 earnestly to this work may have the satisfaction which Schiller 
 says comes to all great-minded people, that they are living 
 for posterity. 
 
 17
 
 PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION IN RURAL 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 There is a common complaint that all who are born in 
 a country village hasten to leave it as soon as they are old 
 enough to make a living elsewhere. The complaint comes 
 from all parts of the world. It is not in Great Britain only 
 that towns increase while villages dwindle. The same fact is 
 recorded in the leading European countries and America, 
 and even in such recently established colonies as Victoria and 
 New South Wales. 
 
 Various causes are assigned, none of which are of universal 
 application. It is not, for instance, always the case that no 
 money can be made in the country; it is not invariably true 
 that the cottage homes in the country are less attractive than 
 those in the towns; it is not in every village that social life is 
 hopelessly dull. 
 
 Those who know at how early an age the children leave 
 school and how irregular is their attendance (in many cases), 
 will be slow to attribute the migration to " over education ". 
 Perhaps, after all, the reports of the decay of the villages have 
 been exaggerated, and the lamentations over it louder than 
 are warranted by the facts of the case. 
 
 The pedestrian who can cover 20 or 30 miles a day still 
 finds at intervals, clustering round the tower of an old church, 
 or within sound of its bells, the cottage homes of peasants, 
 who live as contentedly as most men. If he meets with a few 
 who long for life in a town, will he not find many in great 
 cities who sigh in vain for the country which they have left? 
 
 Although, however, it is unreasonable to depreciate unduly 
 the condition of our rural population, it does not follow that
 
 Practical Instructtoji in Riwal Schools 165 
 
 it is incapable of improvement, or that the education, which 
 after all has done so much to rescue the people from ignor- 
 ance and boorishness, is therefore perfect. 
 
 The course of study for country school children should, as 
 can now be done under the new Code, be framed with direct 
 reference to the actual conditions that surround village homes, 
 and it should do a little, at any rate, to improve them. 
 Among the most important points to be kept in mind are the 
 following : — 
 
 I. The children are often insufficiently taught how to 
 enjoy the beauty of country scenery, or how to find out the 
 interest of country pursuits. The remedy for this is to 
 encourage the outdoor study of Geography in its broader 
 sense. Kingsley's Madam How and Lady Why is full of 
 suggestions for such a study, and Frew's Object Lessons in 
 Geography (Blackie) has great practical value. Much atten- 
 tion should be paid in early years to the picturesque and 
 natural beauty of the district. Prints of Constable's Cornfield, 
 Crossing the Ford, The Valley Farm, Salisbury from the 
 Meadows and the like, should be hung in schools and the 
 beauty pointed out. Many a lad who could be taught to 
 shoot straight with a rifle could also be taught to " reap the 
 harvest of a quiet eye ", and to enjoy the " incomparable 
 pomp of dawn ", and the eternal peace of sunset, and similar 
 beauties of nature to which some who live on farms are far 
 from being blind. 
 
 II, Children are often insufficiently taught to "learn by 
 doing", which should be the fundamental principle of all 
 modern education. The boys can pass by easy stages from 
 making a diagram of a walk taken in a school expedition to 
 " traversing " a limited tract of country and constructing a 
 plan of it by means of a compass. They can also learn the 
 elements of surveying in the admirable way described by Bert 
 in a book for children called Experii)iental Geometry (Cassell). 
 The geography of foreign lands becomes far more interesting 
 when it is preceded by such a study of the neighbourhood of 
 the school, and, besides, there are an immense number of
 
 1 66 Essays and Addresses 
 
 occasions in life when some power of perceivin<^ the " He of 
 the land " is of the utmost consequence. Another and an 
 easier application of the principle of " learn by doing ", is to 
 make records of Rainfall, Heat or Cold, Wind, Clouds and 
 Moisture of the Air. Such statistics form useful matter for 
 the arithmetic lesson, and throw much meaning and interest 
 into the use of decimals. Some power of understanding a 
 forecast of the weather is useful to all, especially farmers. 
 Collections of grasses which are found in the meadows can 
 easily be made, preserved, and compared with Sutton'.s. 
 pictures of " Grasses for Permanent Pastures ". The wild 
 flowers which form weeds among the grass and spoil it, 
 should also be collected, and modes of elimination experi- 
 mented upon. 
 
 III. The industrial sense of children is often insufficiently 
 cultivated. The remedy for this is twofold. A suitable 
 course of Manual Training through Woodwork should be 
 taken up. For country purposes this should lead up to what 
 the farmers call rough carpentry, such as making troughs, 
 milking-stools, short ladders, hand-gates, hutches and the 
 like. There should also be a set of School Gardens. In their 
 most perfect form these will include the three chief kinds of 
 horticulture, namely, vegetables, fruits, and flowers. In the 
 plots for fruit the boys can learn in the spring season about 
 the fruit-trees, the preparation of the ground, distance for 
 planting, removing trees, shaping the crown of the tree, trim- 
 ming the roots and pruning; also about vegetables, the 
 preparation of the soil by trenching and manuring, laying out 
 garden beds, sowing, hoeing and weeding, and the germina- 
 tion of seeds. In the autumn the lessons in the fruit-tree plot 
 will deal with tending old trees and hollow branches, smearing 
 stems, blight, canker, gums, moss and rotting. The autumn 
 is the time for learning about gathering, packing and stor- 
 ing fruit, besides collecting, cleaning and preserving seed. 
 Lessons in simple book-keeping are of the utmost importance 
 to everyone, and can easily be given in connection with the 
 sales of garden produce.
 
 Practical Instruction in Riwal Schools 167 
 
 Insect pests can be studied, and also various galls, 
 mosses, and lichens which hinder growth, together with the 
 numerous caterpillars, flies, and moths, which are the enemies 
 of flowers, vegetables, and fruits. For this purpose Miss 
 Ormerod's Injurious Insects series is invaluable. In a 
 writing-book can be preserved specimens of an injured leaf, 
 of the insect causing the injury in various stages and a 
 description of the remedy. In the summer-time it is possible 
 to produce varieties of flowers, &c., by crossing. If the boys 
 have learnt the use of the knife in the course of their manual 
 training, they can apply their skill to budding, pruning, and 
 grafting. 
 
 Object lessons given in the school-room will enable boys 
 to find out what elements are present in the milk, meat, and 
 fruit and to trace these back to the soil, and from the soil to 
 the rock from which the soil is made. Such information will 
 assist in the application of manure. The more the children 
 learn to use their hands through manual training the more 
 they will be able to use their heads in performing suggestive 
 experiments and applying them to profitable uses. 
 
 Object lessons can be given upon the effects of moisture 
 and dryness, upon dampness and the value of draining, upon 
 expansion and contraction, upon "sour" milk, "high" meat, 
 sterilization, and disinfection. The principles of ventilation 
 and its value can be illustrated by apparatus which any boy 
 can learn to construct. The treatment of wounds, fractures, 
 and common accidents can also be practised. 
 
 It is obvious that no one school can deal with all the 
 subjects of instruction that have been proposed. Uniformity 
 of procedure is not necessary or desirable. Every school 
 should possess a character of its own. The teachers should, 
 when necessary, receive aid from without, and should welcome 
 the co-operation of others. There are few districts where 
 arrangements would not be made to secure for the village 
 school the help of joiners, smiths, gardeners, farmers, natural- 
 ists, doctors, surveyors and other experts. Where these fail 
 much might be done by the aid of organizing teachers ap-
 
 1 68 Essays and Addresses 
 
 pointed by the County Council. There are many things 
 which cannot be taught by the teacher himself, but which 
 can be introduced into the curriculum by utilizing other local 
 talent. 
 
 The new Day School Code ought to mark a new depar- 
 ture in the methods of teaching in country schools. Under 
 the " block-grant " system full freedom of action will be given 
 to the teacher to adopt his or her own scheme of lessons in 
 geography, history, and "common things" — an inclusive term 
 seemingly equivalent to " natural knowledge " in the Scotch 
 Code. Any reasonable scheme of work which is suitable to 
 the circumstances of the children and the neighbourhood will 
 no doubt be approved by the inspector; and the school 
 managers and teachers will no longer have to consider which 
 subject is likely to earn the highest grant, but only what is 
 likely to be the best for the children. Any small school is 
 sure to earn a better grant under the new system than under 
 the old. 
 
 In conclusion, I would urge that the interest taken in the 
 rising generation might well be extended. Success is attend- 
 ing the efforts of those nations which best prepare their 
 children for the duties of life, and not of those which convert 
 youthful energies at the earliest possible moment into cash; 
 still less of those which think in regard to the learning ac- 
 quired during the first fourteen years of life "the less the 
 better ".
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN SCHOOL 
 GARDENING 
 
 THE SCHOOL GARDENS AT THE BOSCOMBE BRITISH 
 
 SCHOOL 
 
 Starting a School Garden. — There are two ways of setting 
 boys to work at gardening. They may either cultivate a plot 
 in common, or each boy may be provided with a plot of his 
 own. The latter plan is the better, because it offers superior 
 educational advantages. If a boy is one of a group cultivating 
 a garden, he cannot know for certain what is the effect of his 
 share in the work. It is only when a boy is sole master of a 
 plot of his own that he can be sure what the results of his 
 efforts really are — whether meritorious or defective. 
 
 The Objects of School Gardening. — A school garden must 
 not be treated as though it were an allotment. The difference 
 is important, because, if it is ignored, the school garden may 
 prove a pecuniary success but an educational failure. The 
 owner of an allotment naturally seeks to make the greatest 
 commercial profit out of his parcel of land. In the school 
 garden, on the other hand, the boys have partly to receive 
 instruction in the rudiments of the gardener's craft, according 
 to the best methods, and partly to find illustrations for their 
 lessons in natural science and to make practical application 
 of them. In an allotment the owner often finds it pay better 
 to grow only one or two kinds of crops, either for the sake of 
 the demand for them in his market, or because the soil is best 
 suited for them. The school-boy should learn how to raise 
 a variety of crops, and will benefit educationally as much by 
 failure as success. Indeed, where the conditions of soil and 
 
 169
 
 lyo Essays and Addresses 
 
 climate are so favourable that, be the gardening good or bad, 
 the crop is always forthcoming, though the undertaking may 
 prove a greater commercial success, yet as an educational 
 exercise it will have less value than where nature is unkindly 
 and hard to subdue. 
 
 Again, the object of a school garden is certainly not to 
 put boys as apprentices to gardening. Some boys, no doubt, 
 who learn gardening will become gardeners in a professional 
 way when they grow older, but it would be wholly out of 
 place in school unless it served a general purpose as well as 
 having a technical aim. 
 
 School Gardens are a Part of General as well as Technical 
 Education. — A very slight acquaintance with modern text- 
 books and their readers, whether dealing with the farm, or the 
 garden, or the home, is sufficient to show that while many of 
 the plain facts of modern science are assumed by the writers 
 to be matters of general knowledge, most of the readers con- 
 tinue to regard such facts as outside their province and be- 
 longing to the peculiar domain of men of science. 
 
 Now, some knowledge of the nature of a few of the chief 
 gases and other elements is really indispensable for the 
 farmer, the gardener, and housewife and it may be acquired 
 in more ways than one. While a girl may study it in con- 
 nection with cooking and cleaning, a boy may have it 
 brought home to him in connection with a garden plot. The 
 kind of experiments which may be made and studied with 
 advantage in connection with school gardens are described 
 in Laurie's Food of Plants (Macmillan), and in an extremely 
 practical and suggestive paper by the Professor of Botany in 
 the Durham College of Science, Mr. M. C. Potter, which was 
 published in the Record of the Association for Promoting 
 Technical and Secondary Education. Mr. J. H. Crawford 
 published in Natural Science (July, 1892) a plan for making 
 an agricultural museum, which offers valuable suggestions for 
 associating practical garden work with the study of elemen- 
 tary science in the class-room. 
 
 The result of this combined indoor and outdoor instruc-
 
 Afi Experiment in School Gardening 171 
 
 tion will be to spread a much-needed type of general as well 
 as technical knowledge. The rising generation will learn 
 what is the true nature of an experiment, what are the 
 methods of modern science, in what way observations are 
 made and inferences drawn from them, what are the sources 
 of error, and how it comes about that a merely practical man 
 may as easily underrate as overrate the researches of the 
 laboratory. 
 
 Size^ Shape, and Arrangement of the Individual Plots. — 
 Each boy, then, should have a plot to himself, and in the 
 Boscombe School gardens there are plots for twelve boys. 
 The plots must not be too large, because the boys cannot 
 work more than two afternoons a week. The shape, again, 
 is important, because it is desirable that the boys should be 
 able to perform much of their gardening while standing on 
 the paths between the plots, instead of having to step on the 
 border for every operation. The plots, therefore, measure 
 30 feet in length, and are only 10 feet in width. The 
 four corners of each plot are carefully marked by substantial 
 squared pegs firmly driven into the ground. Each plot is 
 numbered, and the numbers are written clearly and boldly on 
 the face of the pegs. 
 
 The longer a.xis of each plot extends in the direction of 
 east to west, and the width is in the direction of north to 
 south. This arrangement facilitates the cropping. The 
 vegetables are planted in rows across the plots, from north 
 to south, because this plan gives them the best chance of 
 thriving. Each particular kind of vegetable is planted in the 
 same line right across all the plots, so that although in the 
 separate plots the rows are short, being only 10 feet long, 
 yet, when the whole set of plots is looked at in one view, the 
 vegetables are seen to be planted in long rows extending 
 right across the garden in regular lines from the north 
 boundary to the south. The comparative success of each 
 boy is thus apparent. 
 
 I will now describe the first cropping of one of the 
 plots. All the others were cropped in the same way. A
 
 172 Essays and Addresses 
 
 succession of late autumn and winter vegetables was arranged 
 to follow. 
 
 Broad beans. 
 
 Hollow crown parsnips. 
 
 White Spanish onions. 
 
 Bedfordshire champion onion. 
 
 Radishes. 
 
 Lettuce (two rows — cos and cabbage). 
 
 Potatoes (three rows — early, medium and late). 
 
 Brussels sprouts. 
 
 Cauliflower. 
 
 James' intermediate carrot. 
 
 Shorthorn carrot. 
 
 Pineapple beet. 
 
 Cabbage (Wheeler). 
 
 Drumhead savoy. 
 
 Autumn cauliflower (Veitch's Autumn Giant). 
 
 Scarlet runners. 
 
 The scarlet runners were planted on the side next the 
 road, and served as a screen against the depredations of 
 roughs and idlers, who, in the absence of the boys, would 
 occasionally steal their best vegetables. 
 
 Other Plots, for Working in Common. — Besides the ground 
 which was taken up by the twelve plots and the paths between 
 them, the enclosure contained space for two other purposes. 
 
 (a) Along the south side there was a border, about 
 100 feet in length and 10 in width, for growing certain 
 vegetables which did not lend themselves readily to separate 
 treatment in the twelve plots, such as asparagus, marrow, and 
 seakale. Here, too, were planted several pot-herbs, such as 
 thyme, sage, marjoram, &c., and also seedlings to be pricked 
 out later in the other plots, such as lettuce, celery, leeks, 
 sprouts and cabbage. 
 
 {b) At the east end of the ground there was space for 
 four plots of the same size as the twelve others — namely, 
 30 feet by 10 — in which certain fruit-trees were planted.
 
 A7t Experiment in School Gardening 173 
 
 including standard apples, pears and plums, and also such 
 bush fruit as currants, gooseberries and raspberries. Room 
 was also found for some tomatoes, a strawberry bed and a 
 few herbaceous flowers, by way of ornament, and some roses. 
 In the north-east corner a small frame, 6 feet by 4 feet, was 
 placed for the purpose of growing seedlings, which might thus 
 be preserved through the winter for early spring planting. 
 In these plots the boys learnt how to bud roses, to train fruit- 
 trees and to make grafts in different ways. 
 
 Care of Tools. — The ground was enclosed by a barbed-wire 
 fencing, which was stretched upon strong posts. Inside this 
 fence was planted a privet hedge, in which were set at inter- 
 vals a few trees, such as poplars, maple, birch, and ash. 
 
 At the gate of the enclosure a wooden hut was built for 
 the accommodation of the tools and seeds. It is made of 
 tarred boards, with a corrugated-iron roof In its dimensions 
 it is 9 feet square, and its height at the back is 9 feet> 
 sloping towards the front to 6 feet, where the entrance is 
 made. The floor is paved with brick and suitable shelves 
 are provided. Each plot has a set of tools assigned to it 
 and each tool is numbered to correspond with the plot to 
 which it belongs. Each set of tools hangs from a peg, which 
 is numbered in correspondence with the tools. The boys are 
 taught to keep their tools scrupulously clean by aid of lin- 
 seed-oil and paraffin and to put them away in an orderly 
 manner after using them. 
 
 List of Tools. — The following is a list of the tools which 
 are provided for each plot. The sizes given are adapted to 
 boys' use: — 
 
 I Dutch hoe (4-inch). 
 
 I Draw hoe (4-inch). 
 
 I Fork (four-prong). 
 
 I Spade (7 inches wide and 11 inches long). 
 
 I Rake (ten-comb). 
 
 Besides these there are other tools for common use. On 
 page 176 there is a list of them.
 
 174 
 
 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Path W. 
 
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 Tl 
 
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 .---PARSNIPS' 
 
 ■=i--BHOAD-BEANS 
 
 •---ONIONS 
 
 -— POTATOES— fea /!/>';- 
 
 ,. usecond earJiiJ- 
 
 ---CARROTS 
 
 BEET 
 
 PEAS 
 
 ---.TURNIPS 
 
 -J-DWARF BEANS 
 
 ■.LETTUCE- 
 
 -^-RUNNER- BEANS 
 
 1FT„ 2". g 2". Z 2"- > 2"- gl' 
 
 10 Ft. 
 
 Path E. 
 
 =-3 Ft;^ 
 
 PLAN OF SINGLE PLOT,
 
 An Experiment hi School Gai^dening 175 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 ENTRANCE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 GENERAL PLAN OF SCHOOL GARDEN.
 
 176 Essays and Addresses 
 
 List of tools to be used in common: — 
 
 I Besom. 
 
 1 Mallet. 
 
 2 Wheelbarrows. 
 
 1 Water-can. 
 
 2 Boat-baskets. 
 
 4 Lines, 60 feet in length. 
 
 The plans on pages 174, 175, show the details of the 
 arrangements which have been described. 
 
 The Effects of Good and Bad Gardening Contrasted — 
 The soil was of the worst possible description, consisting of 
 almost pure gravel. The boys had obviously to overcome 
 natural difficulties. Cultivation was commenced by trenching 
 to a depth of 2 feet, which involves digging out three spits. 
 Stable manure was applied somewhat liberally at the bottom 
 of the trench. The summer of 1896 was very dry, but, owing 
 to this " bastard " trenching, although there was no artificial 
 watering, the fine growth of the crops in these plots as com- 
 pared with the scanty show in neighbouring gardens, where 
 there was far less labour expended, proved the truth of the 
 old saying, " justissima tellus ", for the honest earth well 
 repaid all the toil. The produce of the gardens received 
 certificates of merit at more than one horticultural show. 
 The contrast between the results of good and bad gardening 
 forms a most telling object lesson, and the difference in the 
 crops, according as the boys are more or less skilful, or as 
 they are careful or careless, is well demonstrated by the 
 arrangement of the rows of vegetables which cross the plots 
 in a straight line. 
 
 In the Report of the Woburn Fruit Farm for 1897 
 (Longmans), a method is described of making approximate 
 measurements of the comparative loss of growth which is due 
 to neglect and bad method. The instructor of the Boscombe 
 School gardens, who is himself a nurseryman, is attempting 
 to teach the boys to practise the method of measurement 
 there described.
 
 An Experirnent in School Gardening 177 
 
 The Young Gardener' s Diary and Account-Book. — The 
 boys are taught to make rough notes, on the ground, record- 
 ing the operations of each day, the dates of planting seeds, 
 and the names of the sorts selected. Hints are added as to 
 the distance between the rows of plants and also between 
 the plants in a row, and a record is made of the kind of 
 manure which is used and other matters. A daily record 
 of the weather is kept, and the amount of rainfall observed 
 and noted. The notes are afterwards worked up in a sys- 
 tematic form, and serve as a gardener's diary of great value 
 for future use, when in later life the boys do some gardening 
 of their own. 
 
 A few extracts from one of these diaries are here sub- 
 joined: 
 
 "March 15. — Sowing onion seed. White Spanish and Bedford- 
 shire Champion. One row of each, i foot apart; made drill about 
 3 inches deep; after sowing the seed, raked the soil over them and 
 patted it down with the spade. 
 
 "March 22. — Trenching and manuring. The broad beans and 
 peas are showing above-ground. 
 
 "March 23, 26, 29. — Trenching, manuring, and weeding. 
 
 "April 2. — Finished trenching on all the plots to-day. Edging 
 and weeding paths. 
 
 " May 14. — Sowed one row of cabbage lettuce in the experimental 
 plot. Dressed the cabbage plants with four different kinds of arti- 
 ficial manure, namely — 
 
 Two rows with nitrate of soda. 
 Two rows of nitrate silicate. 
 Two rows with native guano. 
 One row with ichthemic guano." 
 
 Each boy sold the produce of his own plot, and the money 
 so earned was brought to the instructor, who received it and 
 entered the amount in an account-book, reserving a separate 
 page for each plot. Each boy also kept an account-book of 
 his own, so that he might feel sure that he received his proper 
 share. The money is divided and one-half is devoted to the
 
 178 Essays and Addresses 
 
 purchase of seeds for the next season, while the other half is 
 given to the boys in proportion to their earnings. In this 
 way some boys earned as much as eight shillings in the year, 
 while the average was about six shillings. 
 
 In conclusion, I may add that a year's garden work had 
 a strikingly beneficial effect upon the growth and physical 
 development of the boys who had thus done their part to 
 carry out the somewhat neglected instruction to man to go 
 forth " and till the ground from whence he was taken ".
 
 GEOGRAPHY 
 IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ^ 
 
 Defects of Earlier Method 
 
 It cannot be denied that of all the subjects which belong 
 to elementary education there is none which is more attractive 
 than geography. It is almost the only one, except what is 
 called the science of common things, which keeps the teacher 
 and scholar in touch with new discoveries and fresh develop- 
 ments. 
 
 Yet geography remained for a long time one of the dullest 
 of subjects, because it consisted in learning by heart lists of 
 mountains and rivers, with their heights and lengths, often 
 without even the identification of their locality on the map. 
 
 To make a subject interesting, details must be presented 
 in relation to each other. One fact must be dealt with in 
 such a way as to explain another. As Professor Mackinder 
 has said, the teacher's aim should be to show not only 
 " where ", but also " why ". 
 
 The defects of the old methods of teaching geography 
 may be summed up as follows: — 
 
 First, geographical learning was not based upon object 
 teaching, but upon names and numbers, which had little 
 meaning for the child, and no interest. A pitman in the 
 north of England, looking at a poster which advertised a 
 course of University Extension Lectures on the Age of 
 Elizabeth, was heard to remark: "Age of Elizabeth! well, 
 Pm blessed if I care how old she was ". Many a child in 
 former days had the same kind of feeling about the length 
 
 1 A paper read at the British Association meeting, Bradford. 
 
 179 18
 
 i8o Essays and Addi'esses 
 
 of the Yang-tse-kiang. The facts were as dead as a skeleton, 
 and could communicate no vital force to the intellects of the 
 scholars. 
 
 Secondly, whereas the key to the understanding of the 
 rest of the surface of the earth is to be found in the study of 
 that part of it which adjoins the child's home, this fact was 
 quite ignored. Observations made by the child, under guid- 
 ance, will enable him to use the words hill, plam, stream, 
 and the like, with some meaning behind the terms. So, too, 
 by watching the varying height of the sun, the changes of the 
 season, the rainfall, the first appearance of familiar birds and 
 flowers, the rise and fall of the tide, and such matters, the 
 child can lay a sure foundation for the intelligent study of 
 more advanced geography. 
 
 Thirdly, the map was supposed to speak for itself Little 
 attention was paid to the interesting and important art of 
 map reading. The truth is, that to the untrained eye a map 
 is a confused mass of lines and names and colours. As Shake- 
 speare says: " He laughed till there were as many lines in his 
 face as on the Map of the World, with the Indies added ". 
 
 Fourthly, there was not sufficient introduction to the 
 construction and use of the map. Children should be shown 
 how to record on paper the direction and length of short 
 walks. They should be taken to commanding views, and 
 shown how to place, according to the compass, some of the 
 chief features in the landscape. They should learn to pass 
 from observation of nature to modes of representation of 
 nature, and they should feel the need for marks to represent 
 hills and rivers and towns before they study elaborate maps. 
 They should pass, in short, from the object to the symbol or 
 diagram of it. 
 
 Fifthly, the children's studies were almost exclusively con- 
 fined to political geography and too little attention was paid 
 to physical and astronomical geography, which are the basis 
 of the other. Boundaries of states change; the form of the 
 earth abides. 
 
 Sixthly, geographical details were not sufficiently con-
 
 Geography in Eleinentaiy Education i8i 
 
 nected as cause and effect, and they were not regarded 
 from various points of view. Each country which is studied, 
 although no great amount of detail is really needed for the 
 purpose, should, when the study is complete, present to the 
 scholar a connected whole. 
 
 Seventhly, a great many details were learned by heart 
 which really had no value whatever to the beginner — as, for 
 instance, the names of all the rivers that flow off eastwards 
 from the Scandinavian mountains to the Baltic Sea. 
 
 Progressive Course Based on Object Lessons 
 
 The systematic and continuous study of geography should 
 be deferred till the child is eight or nine years of age. Before 
 this stage, coloured or other pictures of England and foreign 
 countries may be shown, and romantic stories of adventures by 
 land and sea may be told or read, and attractive poems, like 
 " Ralph the Rover ", may be recited or read to the children 
 and talked over. Walks may be taken and the geographical 
 features of the country may be pointed out. The sunrise and 
 star-rise may be watched and the beauty of brooks, rivers, 
 and the " innumerable laughter of the sea " may be enjoyed 
 as opportunity permits. When a child is eight or nine years 
 old, however, the study may become more precise. By use of 
 slates or paper ruled in squares, and by taking a side of a 
 square for a foot or a yard, the child may learn to construct 
 a plan of the class-room to scale, and also to make such 
 measurements of the walls as are necessary for the purpose. 
 I think work of this kind on square-ruled paper, although 
 simple, is of very permanent value, and that it is fruitful 
 learning, because it suggests numerous useful applications of 
 itself later on. 
 
 An excellent book on teaching geography through object- 
 lessons, by Mr. Frew (Blackie), shows how children may learn 
 to make graphic records of short walks or even longer expe- 
 ditions. That a plan shows size and shape and direction, and 
 that a line, carefully drawn from point to point as the direc-
 
 1 82 Essays and Addresses 
 
 tion of the walker changes, may record the turns he takes in 
 the course of a long walk, are facts worth mastering, and not 
 really hard for a child to master if taught in a practical wa)-, 
 by doing, and not by reading. 
 
 The next best help to the understanding of the right use of 
 geographical terms is a relief map or model of the locality of 
 the home. Along with the model there should be a photo- 
 graph of it, because this forms an admirable introduction to 
 the idea of a map. The difficulty of the map-maker is to 
 indicate on a flat surface the relief of the land. The difficulty 
 of the child is to think how a flat surface like a map can 
 possibly indicate a mountainous or hilly country. 
 
 The third stage after the use of the model and the photo- 
 graph of it is the pictorial map, or bird's-eye view ; and the 
 last stage is the ordnance map of the same district. For 
 young children, as for newspaper readers, a bird's-eye view 
 is an excellent introduction to a real map. Some may say 
 that this careful gradation of difficulties and this presenting 
 them one at a time, are unnecessary. They are wrong. 
 Clearness of apprehension and clearness of thought are 
 gained in early years by this slow and methodical practice. 
 For want of it great mistakes are often made by men of 
 undoubted ability. 
 
 Children can learn from a model of their country most of 
 the important geographical terms in a concrete form. 
 
 Such a model presents the various types of elevated land, 
 such as the isolated hill, ranges of hills, masses of high land, 
 passes in ranges of hills and valleys, and ways of communica- 
 tion. It enables the beginner to obtain a clear idea of rivers, 
 and not merely rivers, but river-basins. Watersheds also are 
 easily studied, and similar facts. 
 
 By suitable questioning, based upon the model, reasons 
 can be drawn out for the rise of a town in a particular situa- 
 tion. The idea that there is little that is really arbitrary or 
 matter of chance even in the site of a town or village may be 
 well developed and simple ideas of reasoning conveyed in an 
 effective way, even to young children.
 
 Geography in Elementary Education 183 
 
 Geography is the study of the earth as the stage on which 
 the drama of the human race is played out; hence traces of 
 former inhabitants can be noted, with a view to connecting 
 geography with history. The difference in cHmate between 
 different parts of the district may be noted and explained. 
 Where the hills catch the Atlantic winds and condense the 
 moist air into vapour; where the downs form pasture for 
 sheep; where the lower-lying sands and clays bear forests; 
 and where the earliest flowers and fruits appear — such funda- 
 mental facts as these are hard neither to observe nor to 
 understand. 
 
 Map Reading 
 
 This now brings us to the foundation of all real study of 
 geography — namely, the wall-map. 
 
 The scholar, so far, has proceeded after the following 
 method : — first, observation ; second, description ; and third, 
 representation — first the eye, then the lips, and lastly the 
 pencil. He has learned to use his eyes; he has learned to 
 describe what he sees in correct terms and by using complete 
 sentences; and lastly, he has learned how geographical details 
 can be represented on paper. A map should no longer be a 
 dead and mute mass of lines, colours and names, but a living 
 and speaking interpretation of natural facts. 
 
 In studying the wall-map of England, it is a great advan- 
 tage to have a graduated series, in which one set of facts is 
 presented at a time. The first of a series will be purely 
 physical, showing hills and rivers ; the next map may show 
 counties, towns, and railways ; the next industrial or economic 
 facts and easy statistics. It is a great pity that we have not 
 a few boldly-drawn historical maps of England, for use in 
 elementary schools, showing England under the Romans, 
 Anglo-Saxon England and Mediaeval England. 
 
 Of course there comes a time when the scholars must pass 
 from what they themselves can observe and record to what 
 others have observed and recorded. The great difference 
 between mediaeval and modern education lies in this, that
 
 184 Essays and Add7'esses 
 
 whereas in the Middle Ages the teacher omitted all this 
 basis of observation and commenced at once with communi- 
 cating to the child the experience of others, so that all was 
 taken by the learner on trust and an uncritical habit of mind 
 was cultivated, at the present time the best schools attempt 
 to base their teaching on the direction of the child's individual 
 faculties and means of acquiring knowledge. The wall-map 
 is a record of the observations of others, and the child can 
 only properly understand it if he has made and recorded 
 similar observations for himself 
 
 Now there are wall-maps and wall-maps. If the map is 
 to be the interpreter of nature, it must interpret nature 
 correctly: every line must have a meaning. It is not good 
 enough if it gives merely the political divisions, with a {&\^ 
 vague indications of mountain chains, but without delineation 
 of highlands and lowlands, peaks and passes, watersheds and 
 valleys. 
 
 Map reading, which is the proper use of the wall-map, is 
 a kind of reversal of the process of the study of home geo- 
 graphy. In studying home geography the child begins with a 
 natural fact, such as a river or a hill, and learns how to repre- 
 sent its position and character on paper. In reading a wall- 
 map the scholar begins with the symbol or representation of 
 natural facts, such as watersheds and valleys and mountains, 
 and by means of them works his way to the natural fact which 
 such symbols represent. Hence the extreme importance of 
 the right study of home geography. The symbols on the 
 wall-map are vague and meaningless unless a content and 
 significance are given them by the previous study and practice 
 of the building up of local plans and maps. The pupil must 
 learn to translate the symbols of the wall-map back into the 
 forms of nature which they represent. 
 
 The teacher can then, if he have the use of a good wall- 
 map, by judicious questioning, direct the scholar's attention 
 to noteworthy physical and other facts, and lead the scholar 
 first to observe and then to draw inferences from what he 
 observes.
 
 Geography in Eletnentary Education 185 
 
 This kind of analytical study of a map is easy enough if 
 the map is really good. If, for instance, the rivers are marked 
 in their course up to their true source, if passes in mountain- 
 ranges are shown, if river-basins can be made out, then the 
 child need not be told that the Rhine rises in Mount St, 
 Gothard; he can quickly find it out from the wall-map, under 
 the guidance of a developing question. Similarly, the ter- 
 mination of the North and South Downs in two headlands — 
 namely, the South Foreland and Beachy Head respectively — 
 can easily be discovered by the child himself, if aided in the 
 manner described. 
 
 Gradually the child acquires skill in drawing inferences, 
 and thus he continues to proceed by the triple process of 
 observation, description, and representation, much as he did 
 when studying home geography. By observing the map, the 
 child may be helped to infer much about the level and verti- 
 cal forms of land which he has never seen, together with its 
 river systems and its topography. He may also learn to infer 
 the main character of the climate, and the consequent pro- 
 ductions of the soil. 
 
 The first wall-map that the child will study carefully will 
 be that of the country in which he lives; not, of course, that 
 even the younger children should never be shown a wall-map 
 until this stage is reached. On the contrary, even the 
 youngest children may look at a globe and a map of the 
 world showing the British possessions, and a map of Eng- 
 land. Before beginning the systematic study of a subject, 
 it is useful to learn something about it in an informal way; 
 the study of geography may be imperceptibly introduced, 
 and first glimpses may anticipate more thorough inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 Besides the hills, rivers, counties and towns of England, 
 a few striking facts of exports and imports should be intro- 
 duced by aid of Whitaker's Almanack or Sell's Commercial 
 Intelligence, a few contrasts of rainfall east and west, and a 
 few facts of historical geography. In this way a child early 
 learns the existence of the various branches of the subject —
 
 1 86 Essays and Addresses 
 
 namely, physical, political, historical, and commercial geo- 
 graphy, and the kind of differences between them. 
 
 Tables may be made in which the trade of a few towns is 
 set out in a graphic way, and thus curious facts come out — as, 
 for instance, that London imports more than twice as much 
 as Liverpool, but exports only half as much. 
 
 Graphic Exercises 
 
 This leads up to the mention of the value oi graphic zvork 
 in geography. The first branch of graphic work is, of course, 
 drawing maps. Where the teacher requires a more or less 
 interesting exercise in drawing and tinting, the scholar may 
 practise copying on a large scale a map of Europe or of any 
 country as a whole. Such map drawing, however, does less 
 than might be imagined for the study of geography. Map 
 drawing should be a form of object teaching. What is object 
 teaching? It is the employment of all the possible means by 
 which the learner may acquire an exact conception of an 
 object, whether this conception is a mental image, or, in more 
 abstract studies, what may be called a whole of reasoning. 
 The use of map drawing should be much the same as that of 
 making diagrams in other studies. For instance, in studying 
 physiology, a carefully-drawn muscle or nerve or gland in 
 a diagrammatic form is much clearer to understand than the 
 confused mass of flesh from which it has been dissected. The 
 map, then, should not be drawn by the scholar before he has 
 studied the wall-map with the greatest care. 
 
 Secondly, each map which the scholar draws should serve 
 some definite purpose. For instance, his sketch-map may 
 show that he can trace on the map and set down on paper 
 the basin of the Thames or the Ganges; or it may show the 
 directions of a journey from London to Madrid, and the 
 relative positions of the leading towns on the way, which is 
 a kind of elementary traversing; or it may show the disposi- 
 tion and arrangement of the cotton towns around Manchester, 
 and the like. In most cases these sketch-maps are best
 
 Geogj'aphy in Elementary Education 187 
 
 worked out in conjunction with the teacher, but the teacher's 
 sketch-map should never supersede the observation of a good 
 wall-map. It is impossible for sketches to be as accurate 
 as the wall-map, and, apart from wall -maps, sketch-maps 
 encourage vagueness instead of leading to precision. The 
 sketch - maps should proceed from simpler studies to more 
 complex ones. No one should attempt to draw a map of 
 a country as a whole until the leading features have been 
 dealt with separately. Analysis should precede synthesis. 
 
 Then, again, while maps should be as neat as possible, 
 they should emphasize the important features. For instance, 
 in English maps of the Pennine Hills the marked depression 
 between the Aire and the Ribble is seldom indicated, yet this 
 has determined the course of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal 
 and of the Midland Railway; and some maps made in Ger- 
 many show it quite clearly, but not always those made in 
 England. It is only when the sketch-map is thus employed 
 to simplify the real map, and in close connection with it, that 
 it can be considered object teaching. Map drawing, then, 
 should be a constructive exercise and not mere copying. It 
 should be the external presentation of a mental conception. 
 It should not be a part of a process of learning by memory, 
 but rather a means of proving that a right impression has 
 been obtained. 
 
 In drawing sketch-maps, the details should be simplified 
 with consideration, so as to emphasize salient features. For 
 instance, in sketching the Rhine or Danube, only the leading 
 bends need be attended to, and towns or tributaries asso- 
 ciated with them should be emphasized. A good basis for 
 a sketch-map is a cross, consisting of a meridian of longitude 
 crossing a parallel of latitude, both carefully chosen. 
 
 Map drawing is not the only form of graphic geography. 
 Striking statistics of trade and commerce can be made clear 
 by the use of paper ruled in squares, and those who teach 
 commercial geography should proceed some way with exer- 
 cises of this kind. " Graphic illustrations," says Quetelet, 
 " often afford immediate conviction of a point which the most
 
 1 88 Essays and Addresses 
 
 subtle mind would find it difficult to perceive without such 
 aid." 
 
 Connection with History and Other Studies 
 
 The principle of the correlation of studies should not be 
 neglected. Of course the principle should not be pushed too 
 far, but by a judicious application of it one study may rein- 
 force another instead of forming a distraction to it. While, 
 for instance, England is being studied in the geography 
 lessons, and especially the counties, let the early period of 
 English history be read, which explains their formation. 
 Also let some of the pieces for recitation illustrate some of 
 the scenes which are described in the geography lesson. Let, 
 for example, Kingsley's beautiful lyric, " Go, Mary, call the 
 cattle home, across the sands of Dee ", be learned when 
 Cheshire is studied. 
 
 Simple records of rain and temperature and wind and the 
 first appearance of birds and flowers and fish, throw much 
 light on climatology. Object lessons also help the under- 
 standing of the circulation of water, the formation of ice, 
 glaciers, and icebergs. In some places interesting records 
 could be kept of the tides, and the temperature of water at 
 different times of the year, whether in the sea or in rivers or 
 springs, and similar facts which bear on climate. 
 
 Much spirit is awakened in young students of geography 
 by expeditions for practical work. Such expeditions are 
 growing more common in England, but the following account 
 of the organization of school expeditions as they have been 
 made in France is worth attention. 
 
 Description of Geographical Excursions 
 IN French Schools 
 
 The scholars in some French schools carry with them on 
 such expeditions all that is necessary in a handy form, but 
 no more than is necessary, and the cost is reduced as far as 
 possible; and they learn to make themselves at home wher-
 
 Geogi'apJiy in Elernentaiy Education 189 
 
 ever they find themselves. The arrangements described are 
 made for children between the ages of ten and fifteen. 
 
 Each scholar, and of course also each adult, taking part in 
 the expedition carries a canvas bag — if waterproof, so much 
 the better — containing a plate, made of unbreakable material, 
 and a cup, a knife and fork, and spoon, and a small towel or 
 napkin. 
 
 There are three types of expeditions, according to the 
 time devoted to them. 
 
 The first consists of a short day's walk into the hills, 
 forests, or other places where there are no houses or inns to 
 be met with. The scholars take provisions for the day in 
 their bags, along with the other things above mentioned. 
 
 In the second type of expedition, somewhat more com- 
 fort, not to say luxury, is secured by hiring a horse and cart 
 to accompany the expedition. In this way more substantial 
 food can be taken, and also urns and kettles for making tea. 
 Aided by a cart, the expedition can cover more ground. 
 
 The third type of expedition is one which extends over at 
 least one night, and it may be for several nights. 
 
 The details of this kind of expedition have to be carefully 
 thought out and prearranged. The chief conductor places 
 himself in communication with teachers of the schools in the 
 places in which he intends to stop for food or lodging. The 
 principal meal is thus ordered beforehand at a given hour. 
 The payment is made either at so much per head, which is 
 always rather expensive, or the materials are ordered and 
 paid for, and the trouble of preparing them remunerated 
 separately. The party may well dine in a shed or barn, and 
 undertake much of the trouble of arranging the meal, and 
 thus save labour, which means money. 
 
 The cost of sleeping arrangements is reduced by the 
 following means: — 
 
 Each scholar has two sacks — one made of mattress cloth 
 which is open down the side, and capable of being laced up, 
 in order that it may be filled with straw. Straw is not spoiled 
 by being used once for this purpose. The other sack is made
 
 190 Essays and Addresses 
 
 of coarse cotton, into which the sleeper can insert himself in 
 order to lie warmly and comfortably on the other. Sybarites 
 can make a pillow by wrapping up some straw in their towel. 
 
 In the expeditions which extend over one night, the 
 scholars carry in their knapsack, as well as their cup, plate, 
 &c., as before mentioned, some soap, a tooth-brush, and a 
 comb. The morning toilet is made in the open air. Head, 
 neck, and trunk to the waist are rubbed and scrubbed either 
 at the pump, if at hand, or in a river. 
 
 The sleeping-sacks, and in the case of prolonged expedi- 
 tions the necessary change of linen, are either conveyed in 
 a cart accompanying the party, or sent forward by train. 
 
 The excursion is planned beforehand with a certain 
 amount of elasticity, so that any chance occasion of special 
 interest may be taken advantage of, or any breakdown made 
 good, without much confusion or disorganization. 
 
 The map of the route is carefully studied. The best for 
 use is one which shows the contours. Our English ordnance 
 coloured contour maps are the envy of the French. It is 
 a good plan to place a sheet of glass over the map and trace 
 the route upon it. Another way is to make a map of the 
 route, and multiply it by any manifolding process, and pro- 
 vide each member of the party with a copy. The scholars 
 discuss their route beforehand, both under the guidance of 
 their teachers and among themselves. There is first the 
 physical geography of the country to consider, then the 
 natural history, places of interest, industrial facts, and the like. 
 
 During the expedition, time is found for practice in tra- 
 versing with a prismatic compass, for using the barometer, 
 the pedometer, the pocket sextant, and the Abney level. 
 Suitable apparatus is also taken for studying the flowers, and 
 the nature of the soil and rocks and fossils. Of course there 
 is also a small pharmacy and ambulance in case of wounds, 
 indisposition, or similar accidents. 
 
 The speed of progress varies. Sometimes the party 
 saunters along, looking carefully at various objects of interest, 
 scenery, flowers, birds, and cultivation of land, and taking
 
 Geography in Elementaiy Education 191 
 
 notes; sometimes it marches at a steady pace, making- 
 straight for some goal. The way in the latter case is much 
 enlivened by music, either b)- singing school songs or by a 
 small band. 
 
 It only remains to add that, before starting, the party is 
 carefully drilled in packing the knapsacks, in making the 
 straw couches and unmaking them, and putting them away 
 in the assigned place. 
 
 Expeditions like this have been made during the summer 
 holidays, and as many as fifty scholars have spent as much 
 as fifteen days on a tour. On one occasion some sixty 
 scholars made a week's tour in Belgium. Such expeditions 
 strengthen the body as well as the mind and girls as well as 
 boys take part in them. It is to be wished that they should 
 be undertaken in this country as they are abroad. 
 
 Local Geographical Societies 
 
 In conclusion, I will give a brief account of the South- 
 ampton Geographical Society, because I hope to prove by it 
 that for promoting and deepening the interest in the study of 
 geography there is no more excellent way than to establish 
 similar local geographical societies — if possible, in connection 
 with the Royal Geographical Society. Such societies have 
 been formed at Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle. The 
 Ro}-al Scottish Geographical Society is, of course, not ade- 
 quately described as local ; it is imperial. The work of these 
 societies is well known, and the efforts made by the Man- 
 chester Geographical Society to encourage the study of 
 geography in day and evening schools formed the subject 
 of an interesting paper which was read before the British 
 Association in 1 896, under the title of " Practical Geography 
 in Manchester". 
 
 The youngest of these societies is the Southampton 
 Geographical Society, and a brief account of its aims and 
 mode of working will, it is hoped, be of interest to the 
 members of this section.
 
 192 jEssays and Addi'esses 
 
 The Southampton Geographical Society was founded in 
 1897. The aim of the society is chiefly educational; its 
 purpose is to acquire and diffuse geographical knowledge 
 in the town and district by uniting the efforts of all who are 
 interested in the science of geography. In the first place, 
 lectures are held periodically from October to April. These 
 are of two kinds. Those which come before Christmas do 
 not form a continuous course, but are given by travellers who 
 have visited foreign countries and are able to spread infor- 
 mation which the}' have obtained at first hand. The stimu- 
 lating effect of such a lecturer's words influences the minds 
 and hearts of the students as no amount of accumulation of 
 learning by reading books can ever do. The society has 
 enjoyed the privilege of hearing, among many others, Mrs. 
 Bishop on the Yang-tse River, and Miss Kingsley, whose 
 heroic death is still so fresh in our memories, on West Africa. 
 Mr. V. Cornish has shown us how to study the waves of the 
 sea and sand waves. The Chamber of Commerce in South- 
 ampton has also helped to supply lecturers. The second 
 portion of the session, between Christmas and Easter, is 
 devoted to a continuous course on some special branch of 
 geographical study. Dr. Mill has lectured on the principles 
 of geographical instruction in special connection with British 
 colonies. Mr. Dickson has lectured on the physical geography 
 of the oceans, and recently Mr. Herbertson has treated of 
 South Africa. A special feature of the society is the attempt 
 which is being made to carry out the suggestion of Arch- 
 bishop Benson, which he made at a missionary conference at 
 St. James's Hall in London, in 1894. "The scientific study 
 of missions ", he said, " is a thing which is beginning, and 
 could only begin after people in general had got some idea 
 of the philosophy of history. The business of the great 
 missionary societies has been to plant the faith. The scientific 
 study of the results of their work as a great historical subject, 
 revealing a view of the enormous importance of the idea of 
 missions, such as has been thought out by Mr. B. Kidd, is 
 work for thoughtful people who desire to form sound and
 
 Geography hi Elementary Education 193 
 
 philosophical conceptions of what missions really mean in 
 the evolution of human society." 
 
 This is a copious and generous study for those who wish 
 to know something of the place of missions in current history, 
 whereto they are growing and how they may be helped, and, 
 it may be, where they have made mistakes. It is the business 
 of the wisest and most thoughtful, of the most experienced 
 and well read, to develop and propagate this study. In 
 accordance with this suggestion, the society has listened to a 
 paper from the Archdeacon of Trinidad, upon the general 
 geography and the social and industrial condition of the 
 island as it is to-day, with special reference to mission work 
 and its effect on the negroes. The winter session, then, is 
 devoted to lectures. During the summer months expeditions 
 are arranged for the purpose of studying geography in a 
 practical way. 
 
 Day expeditions are made to places in the neighbourhood. 
 The company divides itself into groups, each group being in 
 charge of a competent guide. One group, in charge of a late 
 member of the Ordnance Survey Office, maps out, by aid of 
 a prismatic compass, a track of a small area in the New 
 Forest. Another group devotes itself to the forest trees in 
 the same area, another to the botany, and another to the 
 insect life. At the end of the day the company meet together, 
 and the various guides give a brief report of the results of the 
 day's proceedings. 
 
 In some cases these expeditions take the form of an 
 object lesson in illustration of some part of the spring course 
 of lectures. For example, after the lectures on the ocean by 
 Mr. Dickson, the society hired a steamer and, under the 
 guidance of Mr. Garstang, of the Plymouth Marine Labora- 
 tory, an expedition was made to the Solent, in the course of 
 which a comparison was made and tabulated of the results 
 of investigations in two stations — one in the Solent off Spit- 
 head and the other off Netley, in the brackish tide of the 
 Southampton Water. The temperature and density of the 
 water at varying depths were ascertained by use of the deep-
 
 194 Essays and Addi'esses 
 
 sea thermometer and the water-bottle. The fauna and flora 
 of the surface and the bottom were explored by a fine silk 
 tow-net and a trawl. The results of this expedition, besides 
 profoundly interesting the company, proved of some scientific 
 value to Mr. Garstang. 
 
 The society is also promoting the publication of a set of 
 maps of the county for use in schools, which will show, in 
 bold and not too minute rendering, its (i) physical geography; 
 (2) geology; (3) archaeology; (4) history; (5) industries. It is 
 also collecting a library and sets of lantern slides, &c. 
 
 The inaugural lecture of the Southampton Geographical 
 Society was given by Sir Clements Markham, who, in an 
 address which kindled in the audience something of the 
 enthusiasm with which he is himself inspired, laid down the 
 lines on which it has been attempted to work the society. In 
 wishing it all success, he gave a cordial welcome to the mem- 
 bers, and offered them the privilege of consulting the library 
 and the map-room of the Royal Geographical Society, 
 together with special opportunities of attending lectures and 
 purchasing publications. 
 
 A widely-spread interest in the study of geography seems 
 almost indispensable to the administration of this great 
 empire. The century dies, as it was born, amid the clash of 
 arms. The operations of war are in everybody's thoughts. 
 Is it not an assured fact, that at the commencement of the 
 war in South Africa our maps were sadly inadequate, and 
 that for want of better ones the movements of our troops 
 were seriously hampered? There are two points in connec- 
 tion with this defect which are germane to the subject of geo- 
 graphical instruction. 
 
 In the first place, the early mapping of a country depends 
 largely upon surveys of farms and holdings. If boys learned 
 at school how to measure and map land, the surveys of farms 
 and estates in new countries would be much more useful and 
 reliable. 
 
 Secondly, we are told that the interest in ordnance work 
 in this country is so slight that the nation w^ould not be pre-
 
 Geography in Elenientaiy Education 195 
 
 pared to sanction the expenditure of money on mapping our 
 colonial possessions. If the interest in the study of geography 
 were half as widely disseminated as the interest in sport, the 
 country would be keen to provide good maps of its foreign 
 possessions. The expenditure would not be grudged, and it 
 would not be necessary to wait for calamity in war before the 
 chief details of each part of our vast territories were mapped 
 with sufficient accuracy. 
 
 Similarly, a knowledge of the work which is being done 
 by the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, with its almost sur- 
 prising possibilities of aiding fishery and even meteorology, 
 would secure public approbation and a readiness to devote 
 public funds to its extension. In the same way, exploration 
 of the unknown parts of the Globe, such as the Antarctic 
 Ocean, would command ungrudging financial support, as 
 what people are interested in they are ready to pay for. 
 
 The establishment of similar societies in all large centres 
 would conduce to the progress and welfare of the British 
 Empire. May their number increase and multiply! 
 
 19
 
 ON METHODS OF TEACHING 
 GEOGRAPHY' 
 
 Britain has no need to fear comparison with other nations 
 so far as exploration and commercial enterprise are concerned. 
 In these respects no nation deserves more honour. But it 
 must be admitted that our country falls short in one respect. 
 In answer to the question: "What have the British done to 
 extend the theoretical study of geography?" the answer must 
 be: "Little or nothing". Deeds, however, that give rise to no 
 thought are incomplete. Yet Britain is the chosen home of 
 philosophy. The names of Alcuin, of Duns Scotus, of Roger 
 Bacon, of Lord Bacon, of Locke, of Hume and their followers 
 are sufficient to prove that theory has not been left entirely 
 to other countries. Cavendish, Lyall, Darwin, Joule, and 
 Maxwell have led the world in the application of philosophy 
 to natural science. It remains true, however, that Britain 
 awaits the birth of an epoch-making writer on geography. 
 We have no such series of geographers as Humboldt, Ritter, 
 and Peschel, whose names add so much lustre to the fame of 
 German learning. 
 
 In British schools geography has ever been a dull and 
 uninteresting subject. It has been a dreary recitation of 
 names and statistics, of no interest to the learner, and of little 
 use, except, perhaps, in the sorting department of the post- 
 office. Yet our consular reports are full of reminders that 
 British ignorance of the theory of geography is not bliss. 
 They point out the advantage which better-informed nations 
 possess in the keen struggle for trade. In France almost all 
 
 1 Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Geographical Association, at the 
 College of Preceptors, January, 1901. 
 
 196
 
 On Methods of Teaching Geography 197 
 
 the chief commercial centres possess geographical societies. 
 As an example of the work of one of these valuable associa- 
 tions may be mentioned the Paris Commercial Geography 
 Society. The following are the objects of it according to its 
 report : — 
 
 (i) To place science at the disposal of commerce, and to 
 put theory in practice. 
 
 (2) To aggrandize France by developing industry and 
 commerce abroad. 
 
 (3) To receive and sift information from all parts of the 
 world, and store up facts which may be freely drawn upon by 
 all who can turn such knowledge to good account, whether 
 for commerce or for theoretical study. 
 
 (4) To extend the study of everything which promotes 
 agriculture, manufacture, or trade, both at home and in the 
 colonies. 
 
 (5) To show the mass of the people that they are in- 
 terested in the produce, exports, and imports of their own 
 and other countries, and that knowledge leads to foresight, 
 and foresight leads to power. 
 
 Surely such a society ought to exist in every large town 
 in a commercial country like ours, and be affiliated to the 
 Royal Geographical Society. 
 
 As nothing is so practical as sound theory, my first aim 
 in this paper is to give some idea of the methods of studying 
 geography which have been devised in Germany. 
 
 Since Humboldt the improvement of the study of geo- 
 graphy has been attempted in several different ways. None 
 of these methods is complete in itself, none of them is without 
 value, and all of them ought to be present to the mind in 
 preparing the simplest course of lessons in geography. In 
 briefly reviewing these methods, it must be borne in mind 
 that each of them has been developed in great detail by some 
 school of German writers, and that it is impossible in a short 
 space to do more than open up a glimpse of a wide prospect. 
 
 The first is the Analytic Method. The student starts with 
 the Earth as a whole, and divides it systematically into oceans
 
 198 Essays and Addresses 
 
 and continents and countries. The Globe, as a whole, is 
 analysed into parts, and these are subdivided again. This 
 plan is not suited to beginners, for it presupposes much know- 
 ledge. Moreover, this method of analysing a subject as a 
 whole into its parts implies a finality and completeness which 
 is far from being yet acquired in our geographical learning. 
 Nevertheless, even at an early stage a child may be intro- 
 duced, in a cursory way, to a globe and a map of the world. 
 A preliminary view of the whole forest may with advantage 
 precede a detailed study of the trees, provided it be only a 
 means of marking out the tract that has to be studied, and 
 not the actual method of attacking the study. 
 
 The next is the Synthetic Method. Proceeding on this 
 plan, the student deals with a small part of the Earth's 
 surface, and then adds to this a study of an adjoining part, 
 and so on, by continuously successive additions, until the 
 whole Globe has been mastered. It is the converse of the 
 first method. This method ignores the fact that geography 
 is a living study, and that all parts of the Globe are not 
 equally worth studying. Moreover, it nearly always happens, 
 especially to us in the British Isles, that there is some special 
 region of the Globe on which public attention is riveted and 
 then it is important to learn about this country rather than 
 about one which is not marked out for any special study. 
 Nevertheless, most teachers would deal with England, Scot- 
 land, Ireland, and France in close succession, so that, by 
 successive steps, the scholars may arrive at a comprehensive 
 idea of Western Europe before examining more distant parts. 
 
 The third is the Associative MetJiod. There are some few 
 sciences whose field is so well defined that their subject- 
 matter is but little intermixed with other branches of learning. 
 Such, for instance, is geometry and, to a great extent, chem- 
 istry; but others, like geography, geology, political economy 
 and the like, seem rather to be composed of parts of several 
 sciences. If we think for a moment of sciences as circles, and 
 then of several circles intersecting at a given point, we have 
 the presentment of a fresh science, which differs from any one
 
 On Methods of Teaching Geography 199 
 
 of them taken by itself, and yet is made up of the common 
 ground which is shared by all of them. The study of geo- 
 graphy draws upon the sciences of astronomy, physics, biology, 
 ethnology, statistics, archaeology, history, cartography and 
 many more. 
 
 Because it associates several distinct sciences for a par- 
 ticular purpose, geography is called an Associating Science. 
 It links together many branches of study which are otherwise 
 dissociated. Of course this plan does not consist in amal- 
 gamating history, geology, astronomy and the rest into one 
 science under a new name. This would be absurd. Rather, 
 it consists in showing the bearing of each of these sciences on 
 the other in a certain sphere of study ; how they depend on 
 each other and how they support each other in dealing with 
 a particular range of facts. 
 
 This method seems a matter of common sense, but, like 
 much of this nature, it was only obvious after some deep 
 thinkers had worked it out. For want of observance of this 
 principle, there may still be seen on some time-tables lessons 
 quite disconnected under the heads geography and physical 
 geography. 
 
 For an admirable example of a geographical study on 
 the associative method, reference should be made to Dr. Mill's 
 paper upon two sheets of the Ordnance Survey in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Arundel, recently published in the Journal of the 
 Royal Geographical Society. He dreams of a day when all 
 England may be studied on similar lines; but before this can 
 be done the public interest in the study of geography must 
 be widely extended and especially in local geographical 
 work. 
 
 The fourth is the Grouping Method. This consists in 
 classifying geographical facts of the same kind. On this plan 
 kindred facts and phenomena are dealt with together. One 
 section may treat of the Capitals of the World, showing how 
 their sites have been determined. Another section may 
 deal with the Chief Ports of the World, showing their origin 
 and their growth or decay; another section may deal with
 
 200 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Glaciers; another with Islands; another with Zones of Vege- 
 tation ; another with the position of Fortresses and Delimita- 
 tion of Frontiers; and so forth. This method is clearly not 
 for beginners ; it is only suitable for an advanced class, because 
 it presupposes much knowledge. At the same time it helps 
 to deepen the advanced study of geography, and there is 
 much literature which facilitates its pursuit. Facts already 
 known are placed in a fresh light. It connects distant places 
 together and suggests comparison. It leads the student to 
 search for principles and to comprehend more clearly that 
 there are laws which underlie apparently dissociated facts and 
 phenomena. 
 
 Elisee Reclus, for instance, has shown the curious rhyth- 
 mical distribution of towns along the old highways or coach- 
 roads radiating from the capital of a country. The traveller 
 meets with a larger town about every twenty miles and a 
 smaller one every eight or ten. In other words, the towns 
 are spaced according to the distance a well-loaded coach and 
 horses could cover without stopping for lighter or more sub- 
 stantial refreshment. The growth of railways seems to have 
 tended to increase the town and decrease the village. In the 
 absence of good means of locomotion large towns arise with 
 difficulty, and nowadays, however remote, do not remain long 
 unprovided with a railway approach. It is this method which 
 suggests the study of the position of towns at the foot of 
 mountain passes, at the head of estuaries, at fords, or at 
 places where bridges can be made over rivers. 
 
 The fifth is the Conce?itric Method. This plan consists in 
 teaching even the youngest class a brief outline of all the 
 geography that it is intended the children shall study while 
 they are in the school. The brief outline which is studied 
 in the lowest class is expanded in the next class, and again 
 in the next, like the gradual filling in of a slight sketch to the 
 fulness of a photograph. This method meets the objection 
 that it is absurd for the child to know a plan of his school 
 and the name of the next street and remain ignorant of the 
 main features of the Globe.
 
 On Methods of Teaching Geography 201 
 
 This procedure, the concentric, seems to me the best for 
 studying history, because the fundamental conception of 
 history is continuity, the continuity of a people under chang- 
 ing conditions of government and civilization. Disjointed 
 stories and anecdotes and short periods do not give children 
 that sense of a stream of time, nor the perception of the 
 dramatic unity, which lie at the root of national feeling. 
 
 As regards the elements of geography, however, except to 
 a very limited extent, there is no such systematic whole to be 
 studied that the concentric method can be applied with 
 advantage. 
 
 The sixth is the Comparative Method. This consists in 
 comparing the various leading phenomena of one country 
 with those of another. This plan has done perhaps as much 
 as any to deepen the study of geography. Comparison leads 
 to the appreciation of contrasts; it leads to questioning; for 
 example, it forces on the attention the curious parallel between 
 Australia and South Africa, between the equatorial forests in 
 the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, between the physical 
 features of North and South America, and between the local 
 features of New York and Southampton as seaports. The 
 Basin of the Yorkshire Ouse or Humber certainly makes the 
 geography of the Mississippi much more intelligible. 
 
 This method cannot be left out of account in any course 
 of lessons on geography, however elementary. 
 
 The last method that calls for notice is the Constructive 
 Method (Ritter). This consists in teaching the scholars to 
 draw what they are being taught. It is applicable to most of 
 the other methods. Copying a map may be a useful exercise 
 in drawing, but it does not teach much geography. The 
 better way is for the scholars to study the wall-map or small 
 hand-atlases of their own, such as Phillips' Comparative Atlas 
 of Geography, under the guidance of developing questions, 
 and then for the scholars to give precision to their impressions 
 by making sketch-maps which illustrate special details. By 
 commencing with the hills and river-basins they may after- 
 wards construct the country as a whole. Knowledge so built
 
 202 Essays and Addresses 
 
 up is more likely to be correct than that which depends upon 
 the reproduction of a whole map of a country before it has 
 been dealt with in detail. It is best for the teacher to have 
 a good wall-map and the scholar a hand-atlas, so that the 
 scholar can follow the teacher as he demonstrates. Other 
 interesting studies may be made on this plan. As an intro- 
 duction to this work, children may be taken to a neighbour- 
 ing eminence, and, having in their hands a " graphed " map 
 of the locality, they may mark on it in red chalk all that 
 they can actually see around them. 
 
 Another stage of the same process is for the children to 
 take the bearings of various objects which are in view from 
 some eminence, and construct a sketch-map of the landscape 
 that is visible before them. 
 
 Or, again, children may have in their hands " graphs " of 
 the World on Mercator's Projection, and mark with red chalk 
 all the places noted for this or that product. It is best to use 
 a different " graph " for each product. Thus may be shown 
 the various tea-producing places, the various sugar plantations 
 and so forth; where wool is grown, where cotton. Maps thus 
 constructed may be used for comparison with maps which 
 show the distribution of temperature, rainfall, &c. The reason- 
 ing which connects these phenomena is so easy that a child 
 may follow it. What is simple is not always the less profound. 
 Diagrams can be drawn showing the slope of a country, say 
 from Johannesburg to Durban, or from De Aar to Cape Town, 
 or from the Bernese Oberland to the mouth of the Rhine. 
 
 The road-books prepared for cyclists are most helpful. 
 Figures which mean but little to the reader may, when pre- 
 sented in a graphic form, be most striking and suggestive. 
 By use of paper ruled in squares, comparative tables of area 
 and population may be made most interesting and so, too, 
 the ratio of population to area. Then, again, comparative 
 tables of leading exports and imports may be made interest- 
 ing, if put in a diagrammatic form. To represent varying 
 quantities by comparative areas on squared paper is most 
 instructive. The great advantage of this constructive work
 
 On Methods of Teaching Geography 203 
 
 is that scholars can be taught to work out these diagrams for 
 themselves and, in a class of scholars of ordinary intelligence, 
 some unexpected and interesting observations are sure to be 
 made.
 
 LORD COLLINGWOOD'S THEORY AND 
 PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 
 
 The British Empire has its base upon the water and it is 
 due to the dauntless trio, Jervis, Nelson, and Collingwood, 
 that India, Australia and Canada are under the English 
 instead of the French flag. Jervis made the British fleet, 
 which had dissolved into groups of mutinous ships owing to 
 shameful mismanagement. Jervis had the iron strength of 
 will and intellect which reorganized a corrupt system and 
 provided Nelson with an armament which his genius rendered 
 invincible. " Jervis ", said Dr Busby, " made Nelson ; he made 
 him a greater seaman than himself and then did not envy 
 him." This is a fine remark, and indeed it is hardly possible 
 even to speak of any of these three men without our language 
 and thoughts rising to an elevation above the common and 
 ordinary level of social intercourse. Collingwood was distin- 
 guished by his superior education, his love of study, his 
 contempt for display, and the depth of his religious feeling. 
 While to Nelson fell the lot of the most glorious death that 
 man can die — the death of the hero on the field of victory, 
 Collingwood's fate was to drag out a weary, overworked and 
 overstrained existence, longing for rest and home and wife 
 and children, but determined to cling to active life so long as 
 his country required his services. " What ", he writes to his 
 brother-in-law, Mr. J. E. Blackett, in 1793, May Day, "should 
 I suffer in this convulsion of nations, this general call of 
 Englishmen to the standard of their country, should I be 
 without occupation? a miserable creature! While it is Eng- 
 land, let me keep my place in the front of the battle." And 
 this determination Collingwood carried out. Of fifty years*
 
 Lord Collingivood's Theory mid Practice 205 
 
 service in the navy forty-four were passed in active employ- 
 ment abroad. On one occasion he kept the sea for the 
 almost incredible space of twenty-two months without drop- 
 ping anchor. This was at a time when a three months' 
 absence from port was held to be a severe and unusual strain 
 on the health and perseverance of the crew. It was his 
 character and superior education, and study of education and 
 of its kindred study, occupation in daily life, which made 
 possible to Collingwood such an unparalleled achievement. 
 
 Two years before his death he sends his picture to Lady 
 Collingwood, painted by an artist who was reckoned the most 
 eminent in Sicily. " I am sorry ", he says, " to learn my 
 picture was not an agreeable surprise. You expected to find 
 me a smooth-skinned, clear-complexioned gentleman such as 
 I was when I left home, dressed in the newest taste, and like 
 the fine people who live gay lives ashore. Alas! it is far 
 otherwise with us. The painter was thought to have flattered 
 me much; that lump under my chin was but the loose skin 
 from which the flesh has shrunk away; my face is red, yet not 
 with the effect of wine, but of burning suns and boisterous 
 winds; and my eyes, which were once dark and bright, are 
 now faded and dim. The painter represented me as I am ; 
 not as I once was. It is time and toil that have worked the 
 change, and not his brush." 
 
 For it was not merely his ceaseless military occupation 
 that wore him out. His correspondence was immense, and so 
 highly esteemed was his judgment that he was consulted from 
 all quarters and on all occasions and on a great variety of 
 questions. His counsel was in demand, not only respecting 
 military and naval affairs, but also in matters of general policy 
 and even of trade. His death was due to the effects of long- 
 continued confinement on board ship and constant bending 
 over his desk. I think, before I conclude, my readers will 
 agree with me that his views upon the subject of education 
 are worth pondering over by the thoughtful, even after the 
 interval of a century. 
 
 He was by nature and education a man of cultivated and
 
 2o6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 refined taste, and of great simplicity of character. He united 
 great intellectual power with great amiability, and these 
 two gifts are rarely united in a man. His occupations at 
 home were reading, especially works on history, from which 
 it was his habit to compose well- written abridgments. His 
 recreations were drawing and cultivating his garden at Mor- 
 peth, on the banks of the limpid stream of Wansbeck. A 
 brother admiral, who had sought him through the garden in 
 vain, at last discovered him with his gardener, old Scott, often 
 mentioned in his correspondence, to whom he was much at- 
 tached, in the bottom of a deep trench which they were 
 busily occupied in digging. His affection for his wife and 
 children is expressed in his letters to Lady Collingwood in a 
 most pathetic way, and though long withheld by a sense of 
 public duty from returning home, he endeavoured in the 
 midst of his perpetual contest with the elements, with the 
 enemy and with his own seamen, whose dispositions were as 
 boisterous and untractable as the Atlantic storm, to guide the 
 education of his two little girls by correspondence. In various 
 letters he deals with the training of both boys and girls, and 
 the opinion of so remarkable a man and so successful an ad- 
 ministrator and disciplinarian is of the highest interest and 
 value. He never preached what he did not practise, and if 
 it be asked what was the cause of his success in keeping his 
 crew at sea for such a length of time without sickness, the 
 answer can be readily given. No society in the world of 
 equal extent was so healthy as his flagship. She had usually 
 800 men, and though on one occasion she remained at sea 
 more than a year and a half without going into port, during 
 the whole of that time she never had more than six, and 
 generally only four, on the sick list. Now for the explanation 
 of this phenomenal achievement. " My wits ", he writes, " are 
 ever at work to keep my people employed, both for health's 
 sake and to save them from mischief. We have lately been 
 making musical instruments, and have now a very good band. 
 Every moonlight night the sailors dance, and there seems as 
 much mirth and festivity as if we were in Wapping itself."
 
 Lord Collingwood' s Theory and Practice 207 
 
 Lord Collingwood was a saint, but he was human, and not 
 a Puritan. Occupation of the right kind was the key-note of 
 his educational system, and it seems the safest and most 
 practical for all engaged in education. For himself, he writes, 
 " when wild war's deadly blast is blown and gentle peace " 
 returns, and he can honourably retire from the sea — a fond 
 hope destined never to be fulfilled — " I must endeavour to 
 find some employment, which, having at least the show of 
 business, may keep my mind engaged and prevent that lan- 
 guor to which from constitution I am more subject than other 
 people, but which never intrudes upon my full occupation ". 
 "It has always been my maxim ", he writes, " to engage and 
 occupy my men, and to take such care for them that the)' 
 should have nothing to think of for themselves beyond the 
 current business of the day." 
 
 So, too, he writes to his wife: " I beseech you to keep m}' 
 dearest girls constantly employed, and make them read to 
 you, not trifles, but history, in the manner we used to do in 
 the winter evenings — blessed evenings indeed! The human 
 mind will improve itself in action, but grows dull and torpid 
 when left to slumber. I believe even stupidity itself may be 
 cultivated." 
 
 Another cause of Lord Collingwood's success in main- 
 taining the health of his crew was his attention to detail and 
 a knowledge of sanitary matters beyond his time. He took 
 great care to ventilate his ship and the hammocks of the men, 
 by creating as much circulation of air below as possible and 
 keeping their quarters dry, rarely permitting scrubbing be- 
 tween decks. Thus, in addition to attention to diet and 
 amusement, he kept his crew in spirits, and as they were 
 assured of justice, kindness, and comfort, it is no wonder they 
 knew him under the name of the " Sailors' Friend ", and that 
 many a gallows-bird with which our ships were then manned 
 spoke of him as " father to the men ". 
 
 Lord St. Vincent, in putting down the spirit of mutiny in 
 the Mediterranean fleet, would draft the most ungovernable 
 characters into Collingwood's ship. " Send them to Colling-
 
 2o8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 wood, and he will bring them to order." Yet, while other 
 captains resorted to capital punishment, Collingwood seldom 
 even inflicted corporal punishment. On one occasion a sea- 
 man was sent from the Rouiulus^ a man who had pointed 
 one of the forecastle guns, shotted to the muzzle, at the 
 quarter-deck, and, standing by it with a match, threatened 
 to fire on the officers unless he received a promise that no 
 punishment should be inflicted upon him. On the man's 
 arrival on board the Excellent, Collingwood, in the presence 
 of many of the sailors, said to him with great sternness of 
 manner: " I know your character well, but beware how you 
 attempt to excite insubordination in this ship, for I have 
 such confidence in my men that I am certain I shall hear 
 in an hour of everything you are doing. If you behave 
 well in future I will treat you like the rest, nor notice here 
 what has happened on another ship; but if you endeavour to 
 excite mutiny, mark me well, I will instantly head you up in 
 a cask and throw you into the sea!" Under the treatment 
 which he met in the Excellent this man became a good and 
 obedient sailor and never afterwards gave any cause of com- 
 plaint. 
 
 As his experience in command and his knowledge of the 
 dispositions of men increased, his abhorrence of corporal 
 punishment grew daily stronger, and in the latter part of his 
 life more than a year often passed away without his having 
 resorted to it. He used to tell his ship's company that he 
 was determined the youngest midshipman should be obeyed 
 as implicitly as himself, and that he would punish with 
 severity any instance to the contrary. When a midshipman 
 made a complaint he would order the man for punishment 
 the next day, and in the interval, calling the boy down to 
 him, would say: " In all probability the fault was yours; but 
 whether it were or not, I am sure it would go to your heart 
 to see a man old enough to be your father disgraced and 
 punished on your account, and it will therefore give me a 
 good opinion of your disposition if, when he is brought out, 
 you ask for his pardon ". The punishments which he sub-
 
 Lord Collingwood' s Theory and Practice 209 
 
 stituted for the lash were various, such as watering the grog, 
 or excluding the culprit from mess and employing him on 
 every sort of extra duty. He never used discourteous or 
 violent language. One of the secrets of his success in keep- 
 ing order was the quickness and correctness of his eye, 
 through which he was enabled in an instant to detect any- 
 thing that was out of order. His reproofs on these occasions, 
 though always short, were conveyed in the language of a 
 gentleman and were deeply felt, so that he was considered by 
 all to be a strict disciplinarian. He was extremely careful to 
 avoid giving vexatious and harassing orders. When captain 
 of the Excellent his ship was signalled to approach the ad- 
 miral's ship. Captain Collingwood went on board, and found 
 the order was merely for the Excellent to receive two bags of 
 onions. " Bless me!" he exclaimed. " Is this the service, my 
 Lord St. Vincent? is this the service, Sir Robert Calder? 
 Has the Excellenf s signal been made five or six times for 
 two bags of onions ? Man my boat, sir, and let us go on 
 board again." Nor would he, though repeatedly pressed by 
 Lord St. Vincent to stay dinner, accept the invitation, but 
 refused and retired. 
 
 He complained to the Admiralty that some of the younger 
 captains were in the habit of concealing by great severity their 
 own unskilfulness and want of attention, beating the men into 
 a state of insubordination, and that such vessels, though in- 
 creasing in number, diminished the efficiency of the fleet. He 
 complained that insubordination was due to the folly or the 
 cruelty of those in command as much as to the perverseness 
 of the men. 
 
 I have endeavoured to give some idea of Collingwood's 
 theory and practice of discipline, because this subject is the 
 foundation of all sound education, and ignorance of it is the 
 cause of half the failures. I pass on to his general views. 
 " The education ", he writes to his daughter, " of a lady, and 
 indeed of a gentleman too, may be divided into three parts. 
 The first is the cultivation of the mind, that they may have a 
 knowledge of right and wrong, and acquire a habit of doing
 
 2IO Essays and Addresses 
 
 acts of virtue and honour. By reading history you will per- 
 ceive the high estimation in which the memories of good 
 people are held, and the contempt and disgust which are 
 affixed to the base, whatever their rank in life. The second 
 part of education is to acquire a competent knowledge how 
 to manage your affairs, whatever they may happen to be; to 
 know how to direct the economy of your house, and to keep 
 exact accounts of everything which concerns you. Whoever 
 cannot do this must be dependent on somebody else, and 
 those who are dependent on another cannot be perfectly at 
 their ease. Skill should be attained in arithmetic, which, 
 independently of its great use to everybody in every condi- 
 tion of life, is one of the most curious and entertaining 
 sciences that can be conceived. The third part is to practise 
 those manners and that address which will recommend you 
 to strangers. Boldness and forwardness are disgusting, but 
 shyness and shrinking from conversation with those with 
 whom you ought to associate are also repulsive and unbe- 
 coming. There are many hours in every person's life which 
 are not spent in anything important, but it is necessary 
 that they should not be spent idly. Music and dancing are 
 intended to fill up the hours of leisure. Nothing wearies me 
 more than to see a young lady at home sitting with her 
 arms across or twirling her thumbs for want of something to 
 do. Poor thing! I always pity her; for I am sure her head 
 is empty, and that she has not the sense even to devise the 
 means of pleasing herself." 
 
 It is perhaps hard to find in the English language a more 
 admirable description of a cultivated person than in the follow- 
 ing letter: — 
 
 " Let me, my dearest child, impress upon you the import- 
 ance of temperate conduct and sweetness of manner to all 
 people, on all occasions. It does not follow you are to agree 
 with every ill-judging person, but after showing them your 
 reason for dissenting from their opinion, your argument and 
 opposition to it should not be tinctured with anything offen- 
 sive. Never forget for one moment that you are a gentle-
 
 Lord Collingwood' s Theory and Practice 211 
 
 woman, and all your words and all your actions should mark 
 you gentle. Next for accomplishments. No sportsman ever 
 hits a partridge without aiming at it, and skill is acquired by 
 repeated attempts. It is the same thing in every art; unless 
 you aim at perfection you will never attain it. Never, there- 
 fore, do anything with indifference. Whether it be to mend a 
 rent in your garment, or finish the most delicate piece of art, 
 endeavour to do it as perfectly as possible. When you write 
 a letter, give it your greatest care that it may be perfect in all 
 its parts as you can make it. Let the subject be sense, ex- 
 pressed in the most plain, intelligible, and elegant manner that 
 you are capable of If in a familiar epistle \"ou should be play- 
 ful and jocular, guard carefull)^ that your wit be not sharp so 
 as to give pain to any person, and before you write a sentence 
 examine it, even the words of which it is composed, that there 
 be nothing vulgar or inelegant in them. Remember that your 
 letter is the picture of your brains, and tho.se whose brains are 
 a compound of folly, nonsense, and impertinence are to blame 
 to exhibit them to the contempt of the world and the pity of 
 their friends." 
 
 Looking to the subjects of instruction. Lord Collingwood 
 writes: " I hope my girls will write a French letter every day 
 to me or their mother. I should like them to be taught 
 Spanish, which is the most elegant language in Europe and 
 very easy. I would have them taught geometry ; it expands 
 the mind more to the knowledge of all things in Nature, and 
 better teaches to distinguish between truths and such things 
 as have the appearance of being truths, yet are not, than any 
 other. To inspire them with a love of everything that is 
 honourable and virtuous, though in rags, and with contempt 
 for vanity in embroidery, is the way to make them the darlings 
 of my heart. 
 
 " As to reading, it requires a careful selection of books, nor 
 
 should they ever have access to two at the same time, but 
 
 when a subject is begun it should be finished before anything 
 
 else is undertaken. How would it enlarge their mind if they 
 
 could acquire a sufficient knowledge of mathematics and 
 
 20
 
 212 Essays and Addresses 
 
 astronomy to give them an idea of the beauty and wonders 
 of the creation. I am persuaded that the generahty of people, 
 and particularly fine ladies, only adore God because they are 
 told that it is proper and the fashion to go to church; but I 
 would have my girls gain such knowledge of the works of 
 creation that they may have a fixed idea of the nature of that 
 Being who could be the Author of such a world. Whenever 
 they have that, nothing on this side the moon will give them 
 much uneasiness of mind. I do not mean that they should 
 be Stoics, or want common feelings for the sufferings that 
 flesh is heir to, but they would then have a source of conso- 
 lation for the worst that could happen." 
 
 He laid great stress on the value of keeping a diary, and 
 when his daughters set out for London in order to be pre- 
 sented at court after their father's promotion to the peerage, 
 he writes to his wife : " I wish that in these journeys the 
 education of our children may not stop; but that on the 
 road they may study the geography of that part of England 
 through which they travel, and keep a regular journal, not of 
 what they eat and drink, but of the nature of the country, 
 its appearance, its produce, and some gay description of the 
 manners of the inhabitants. I hope you will take your time 
 in town, and show my girls everything curious. I am sure 
 that you will visit the tomb of my dear friend. Alas the day 
 that he had a tomb! 
 
 " Do not let our girls be made fine ladies ; but give them 
 a knowledge of the world which they have to live in, that they 
 may take care of themselves when you and I are in heaven. 
 They must do everything for themselves, and never read 
 novels, but history, essays, travels, and Shakespeare. What 
 they call books for young persons are nonsense. They should 
 frequently read aloud, and endeavour to preserve the natural 
 tone of voice, as if they were speaking on the subject without 
 a book. Nothing can be more absurd than altering the voice 
 to a disagreeable and monotonous drawl because what they 
 say is taken from a book. The memory should be strength- 
 ened by getting by heart such speeches and noble sentiments
 
 Lord Collzngwood's Theory and Practice 213 
 
 from Shakespeare or Roman history as deserve to be imprinted 
 on the mind." 
 
 Lord Collingwood's objection to novels is thus expressed: 
 " Above all things keep novels out of their reach. They are 
 the corruptors of tender minds, they exercise the imagination 
 instead of the judgment, make them all desire to become 
 Julias and Cecilias of romance, and turn their heads before 
 they are enabled to distinguish truth from fictions merely 
 devised for entertainment. When they have passed their 
 climacteric it will be time enough to begin novels." In 
 another place he urges his daughters to study geography, 
 and whenever there are any particular events happening, to 
 examine the map and see where they took place. " You 
 are " , he tells them, " at a period of life when the foundation 
 of knowledge has to be laid and of those manners and modes 
 of thinking which distinguish gentlewomen from Miss No- 
 things. A good woman has great and important duties to do 
 in the world, and will always be in danger of doing them ill 
 unless she have acquired knowledge. Never do anything that 
 can denote an angry mind; for although everybody is born 
 with a certain degree of passion, and will sometimes, from un- 
 toward circumstances, feel its operation and be what is called 
 out of humour, yet a sensible man or woman will not allow 
 it to be discovered. Check it and restrain it, and never make 
 any determination until you find it has entirely subsided ; and 
 never say anything that you may afterwards wish unsaid." 
 
 Again he writes to his girls: "It is exactly at your age 
 that much pains should be taken; for whatever knowledge 
 you acquire now will last you all your lives. The impression 
 which is made on young minds is so strong that it never 
 wears out; whereas everybody knows how difficult it is to 
 make an old snuff-taking lady comprehend anything beyond 
 pam or spadille. Such persons hang very heavy on society. 
 Remember, gentle manners are the first grace which a lady 
 can possess. Whether she differ in her opinion from others 
 or be of the same sentiment, her expression should be equally 
 mild. A positive contradiction is vulgar and ill-bred."
 
 214 Essays and Addi'esscs 
 
 I have dealt with Lord Collingwood's views of the educa- 
 tion of girls, and I do not think the newest of new High 
 Schools have much to add to his principles. It remains to 
 give his ideas about the education of boys. 
 
 He writes to Mrs. Hall: " You have now three boys, and I 
 hope they will live to make you very happy when you are an 
 old woman. But let me tell you, the chance is very much 
 against you unless you are for ever on your guard. The 
 temper and disposition of most people are formed before 
 they are sev'en years old, and the common cause of badness 
 is the too great indulgence and mistaken fondness which the 
 affection of a parent finds it difficult to veil, though the happi- 
 ness of the child depends upon it. Your measures must be 
 systematic; whenever they do wrong, never omit to reprove 
 them firmly but with gentleness. Always speak to them in 
 a style and language rather superior to their years. Proper 
 words are as easily learned as improper ones. When they 
 do well and deserve commendation, bestow it lavishly. Let 
 the feelings of your heart flow from your eyes and tongue; 
 and they will never forget the effect which their good be- 
 haviour has upon their mother, and this at an earlier time of 
 life than is general!}- thought." 
 
 He objects to too early specialization for the career of an 
 officer. Instead of going too early to sea, he suggests the 
 following plan: — " I would recommend them to send their 
 young son to a good mathematical school, and teach him to 
 be perfect in French and Spanish or Italian; and if he spend 
 two years in hard study he will be better qualified in the end 
 than if he came at once to sea. If parents were to see how 
 many of their chickens go to ruin by being sent too early 
 abroad, they would not be so anxious about it." 
 
 What Lord Collingwood desiderated most of all was that 
 his lieutenants should have learnt to work hard and to be 
 observant. He thus pours contempt on the youth who cannot 
 work. " I am told the boy's want of spirits is owing to the 
 loss of his time when he was in England, which is a subject 
 that need give his mother no concern, for if he takes no more
 
 Lo7'd Collingzvood's Theory and Practice 215 
 
 pains in his profession than he has done he will not be quali- 
 fied for a lieutenant in sixteen years, and I should be sorry to 
 put the safety of a ship and the lives of the men into such 
 hands. He is no more use here as an officer than Bounce 
 [Lord Collingwood's old dog], and not near so entertaining. 
 She writes as if she expected that he is to be a lieutenant as 
 soon as he has served six years, but that is a mistaken fancy, 
 and the loss of his time is while he is at sea. He is living on 
 the Navy and not serving in it. If he goes, he may stay, for 
 I have no notion of people making the service a mere con- 
 venience for themselves, as if it were a public establishment 
 for loungers." 
 
 Of another youth he says : " Young has returned to 
 
 me, but I have little hope of his being a sailor. He does 
 not take notice of anything nor any active part in his busi- 
 ness; and yet I suppose when he has dawdled in a ship for 
 six years he will think himself very ill-used if he is not made 
 a lieutenant. Offices in the Navy are now made the provision 
 for all sorts of idle people." 
 
 Lord Collingwood recommends the following course for 
 young midshipmen. "If his father intended him for the sea 
 he should have been put to a mathematical school when 
 twelve years old. Boys make little progress in a ship without 
 being well practised in navigation, and fifteen is too old to 
 begin, for very few take well to the sea at that age. If, how- 
 ever, Mr. is determined, he should lose no further time, 
 
 but have his son taught trigonometry perfectly before he 
 begins navigation. If the boy has any taste for drawing it 
 will be a great advantage to him and should be encouraged." 
 
 Again he writes of another youth: " I would recommend 
 his father taking him home and putting him to a good mathe- 
 matical school, perfecting him under his own eye in naviga- 
 tion, astronomy, mechanics, and fortifications. He knows 
 enough now of ships to make the application of what he 
 learns easy to him, and when his head is well stocked he will 
 be able to find employment and amusement without having 
 recourse to company which is as often bad as good. He has
 
 2i6 Essays ajid Addresses 
 
 spirit enough to make a good officer and an honourable man, 
 but he must make his studies a business to which he must be 
 entirely devoted. Drawing is the best kind of recreation. If 
 he be sent immediately to sea he may become a good sailor, 
 but not qualified to fill the higher offices of his profession, or 
 to make his way in them." 
 
 Lord Collingwood's views upon education merit the atten- 
 tion of all who are interested in the subject, but they seem to 
 possess a special value at the present time, when the news- 
 papers are full of letters discussing the training of naval 
 officers.
 
 LYONESSE 
 
 EDUCATION AT HOME VERSUS EDUCATION AT 
 A PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 Perhaps my earliest recollection is the name Lyonesse. I 
 was certainly not above three years old when my mother told 
 me that as soon as I was big enough I should leave home and 
 go to a great school of that name. My brother also came to 
 and fro during his holiday, when he seemed to be made much 
 of by everybody at home, and not least by the domestics. 
 There was a kind of frank and open manner, an ease in con- 
 versation, a buoyancy of spirits, which evidently made him 
 good company with everyone; yet his high spirits were 
 always under an imperceptible control, which, without dimin- 
 ishing anything of their charm, deprived them of all their 
 nuisance. How I admired the manly tone of my brother. 
 How winning were its gaiety and confidence, which, however, 
 could never be confused with the pretentious affectation of 
 the dignity of manhood which is not uncommon in big boys, 
 and is so insufferable. In my brother, freedom and self- 
 control were happily united. Then, again, how good-natured 
 he was to me. What stories he told me of his school adven- 
 tures; and last, but not least, those hampers which were sent 
 to him at school, how can I ever forget my envy of them! 
 Years rolled by; my brother was besieging Sebastopol, but I 
 never forgot that I was to have the pleasure of one day taking 
 his place at Lyonesse, and never ceased to regard it as the 
 greatest honour and distinction that could possibly fall to my 
 lot. The day came at length, when I was nearly fourteen 
 years old. From the narrow life of a small private school I 
 was to be promoted to the larger life of one of the greatest 
 public schools in the land. 
 
 217
 
 2i8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 It is important to notice the spirit in which I entered it. 
 First of all, from my earliest recollection I had been en- 
 couraged to believe in the dignity of the school and in the 
 honour that it was to belong to it. I had imbibed with my 
 mother's milk the true spirit of esprit de corps; so much so 
 that I remember, when it yet wanted a year to the time when 
 I could possibly join the school, I created roars of laughter 
 round a table by informing one of the guests who was asking 
 where the boys attended church at Lyonesse that " we had 
 a chapel of our own ". The laughter surprised me at the 
 time; its motive only became clear to me years after. Next 
 it is important to remember what sort of place the school was 
 supposed to be in my imagination. I believed, then, that it 
 was a very wicked place and rather a rough and cruel one, 
 and for the most part a very idle place. I was taught to 
 expect that I should have to persist in doing right when 
 many around would half persuade and half force me to do 
 wrong, that I should be liable to be bullied or tormented by 
 big boys for their amusement, and that I should be laughed 
 at and despised if I stuck to my books. I believed, however, 
 that these were difficulties that it was a real privilege for a 
 boy to be allowed to face, and I had confidence in myself 
 that I should not be overtasked in meeting them. I believed 
 that I should have to work my way up the school from the 
 lowest to the highest forms, in the teeth of obstacles that 
 were worth overcoming and I doubted not that I should 
 overcome them. " Oh," it may be thought, " you had evi- 
 dently read Tom BrownV This is a false supposition. I had 
 not read Tom Brozvn. I will tell you why. While at a small 
 preparatory school, I once got a prize. I applied to my 
 father to recommend me a book to choose, for choice was 
 allowed us. He wrote: "Ask for Tom Brown". I did so. 
 Never shall I forget the effect of my request upon my master. 
 I was surprised to see him stand silent for a moment while 
 wrath gathered on his brow, and then he turned his back on 
 me and walked the length of the room and back again, ex- 
 claiming fiercely: " I will have no Tom Brownery here. Tom
 
 Lyonesse 219 
 
 Brown r and then he muttered something about " brutaHty ", 
 and went off, saying he would choose a book for me; Jesse's 
 Country Walks I think it was. So it came about that I 
 never read Tom Brown at Rugby until I was a university 
 man, and then I understood, what had puzzled my juvenile 
 mind, how a book which my father so confidently recom- 
 mended should be so indignantly scorned by my master. 
 
 The day when I entered Lyonesse has impressed itself 
 indelibly on my mind. I left home— always a happy one — 
 with sorrow, and accompanied my father to the scene of the 
 next few years of my life's history. I had never seen the 
 httle town before, but it did not seem new to me. I had 
 been there in spirit often. We inspected the school buildings, 
 the playgrounds, and the chapel. We called on the head- 
 master. That was a surprise — the only surprise which I 
 experienced that day. I expected to find a stern, pedantic 
 senior, with a reserved, imposing manner, who would look on 
 the little new boy " as an archangel would look on a black- 
 beetle ", or, to put it stronger, as the Dean of Christ Church 
 on an undergraduate outside Tom Quad at Oxford. In place 
 of that I met a warm welcome from a young-looking and 
 most good-natured gentleman, who instantly set me at my 
 ease, and, more than that, conveyed a certain sense of my 
 new responsibilities by asking me personally such questions 
 as have to be answered by all fresh comers and recorded for 
 future reference. I remember that when my father proposed 
 to answer these questions for me the head-master requested 
 that I should be permitted to answer for myself. The day 
 wore away, and the impressive moment came when I must 
 part from my father, as it seemed in a certain sense, for ever. 
 I should never more live at home, I reflected ; I should only 
 spend my holidays there; I was commencing independent 
 life; I was now a part of a great school; I had realized the 
 yearnings of my childhood. 
 
 My father was not the man to improve the occasion. He 
 was one of those who think that decisive events best speak 
 for themselves, and are their own interpreters. At sundown
 
 220 Essays and Addresses 
 
 we were at the entrance of a narrow passage leading to the 
 room which I was to occupy that term, and there we parted, 
 he to catch a train to town, and I, as I turned on my heel 
 and heard his " God bless you ", to run off to my new room 
 with a " lump in my throat " and a firm mentally-expressed 
 resolve neither to disgrace my home nor my school, and to 
 play a man's part in the latter and a son's in the former. I 
 wish to emphasize the fact that my whole state of mind at 
 the time was characterized by an active spirit of resistance. 
 I knew I was to face troubles, and I was prepared to do so. 
 The next day I wrote a letter home, commencing " Dear 
 Mother " instead of " Dear Mama ", much to her amuse- 
 ment. I need not describe at any length my schoolboy 
 experiences. School life proved to be much what I expected ; 
 the evil was great, as I had anticipated; the good was far 
 greater than I had been prepared for. As an example of the 
 way in which school sharpens up a lad, I may mention that 
 the next morning, on leaving a classroom at nine o'clock, I 
 was set a lesson in Latin syntax which was to be said at ten 
 o'clock. In the interval I had to procure the book from the 
 bookseller — which would consume some time, owing to the 
 necessity of completing certain previous formalities — and also 
 get breakfast. Finding that there was no time for the latter, 
 as soon as I got my book I bought a roll, which I ate in my 
 room while I learnt my rules, instead of going down to the 
 breakfast-hall. I was not long in learning to discard the 
 leisurely drawling ways of private instruction, and soon un- 
 learnt the childish habit of making plausible excuses for 
 unfulfilled duties, instead of inventing ways of overcoming 
 difficulties. 
 
 I have said that I found boys that were bad. I found, 
 however, boys that were certainly good. One, I remember, 
 in my room, who was decidedly, it appeared to me, the son of 
 a man of the world, used to read his Bible every evening, 
 a thing the rest of us were not in the habit of doing, but his 
 unostentatious practice produced an effect on us. Cases of 
 outrageous bullying or cruelty occurred. They are difficult
 
 Lyonesse 221 
 
 to explain. I do not think the bulhes were intentionally 
 cruel. They were too thoughtless and stupid to understand 
 the pain which they inflicted. Still harder was it to under- 
 stand why certain boys got thus treated. I learnt to think, as 
 I still do, that when a boy is bullied he is himself partly to 
 blame for it. Perhaps the cause of much of the mischief was 
 the great length of time during the winter evenings in which 
 the boys were left without superintendence. I never remem- 
 ber any bullying in the summer-time, when everyone was out 
 of doors till nearly nine o'clock. As to study, the tone of the 
 boys was steadily against all application to work, but there 
 was no great difficult}-, with the aid of tact and good-temper, 
 in pursuing your own course. Your comrades certainly hin- 
 dered rather than helped your diligent fulfilment of your 
 tasks, but you had the advantage of learning to discharge 
 your duties in the face of hindrance and opposition. It is 
 doubtful how far virtue is virtue if all chance of doing wrong 
 is effectually excluded. Marcet sine adversario virtus (Virtue 
 withers without opposition). [Still] my own belief is that 
 parents, in sending their sons to a great boarding-school, 
 are like ship-owners entrusting a small boat to a stormy 
 sea. 
 
 It took me but a few days to fall into the routine of school 
 life, and to answer with implicit obedience to the monoton- 
 ously recurring signal of the school bell. Lessons I knew 
 were in all schools compulsory, but in this school games were 
 compulsory also. The first wet afternoon I prepared to sit 
 in my room and read, never supposing that it would be my 
 duty to play football in pouring rain. I was supposed to be 
 delicate at home, and therefore I was horrified when one of 
 my companions told me that, come wind, come weather, I 
 must don my flannels and join the game. I remember I 
 asked the head boy of the house, who had a dispensing power, 
 to let me off that day in consideration of the rain. His reply 
 was not encouraging, and I remember something about a 
 kick which came not in front on the shins, where you nobly 
 receive shoe-leather in football, but ignominiously on the
 
 2 22 Essays and Addresses 
 
 other side. It was, however, a deHghtful discovery to find 
 that no harm came of playing out of doors in the rain, and 
 that getting wet through, followed by an immediate change 
 into dry clothing, was invigorating instead of being fatal to 
 life, as I had learnt to believe at home. 
 
 One of the most strongly marked impressions of those 
 early days at school is the good-nature of one of the big boys 
 who knew my people at home. Though I was not in his 
 house he found me out, and told me that if any fellow began 
 to bully me I might come to him. " Then," said he, " I will 
 hck him, or at any rate I will fight him." The kindness of 
 my friend touched me not a little, and the proviso which he 
 appended to his offer: " If I cannot lick him I will fight him ", 
 set me thinking: "What more is this than I can do for my- 
 self.?" The remark led to a determination to fight my own 
 battles. Hard work and vigorous play brought the end of 
 term near at hand, and it became clear that it lay between 
 me and another boy which should be top in the examination. 
 This little rivalry led to chivalrous sentiments, as is indicated 
 in the following fragment of conversation which abides in my 
 memory as a pleasant recollection, not more by reason of the 
 mere words than by reason of the genuine effort which it cost 
 to utter them and the genuine heartiness with which they 
 were uttered: — 
 
 He. Which of us will be first on Saturday? 
 
 /. I am sure I ho^e voti will. 
 
 Ht\ I hopej'c// will. 
 
 We were too young for conventional courtesy. It must be 
 set down to the credit of public-school life that it affords 
 opportunity for the development of what Lord Shaftesbury 
 calls the " courtesy of the heart ", as distinguished from the 
 courtesy of convention. 
 
 Holidays came. I returned home with a prize and the 
 measles, but after recovery I was held to be much improved 
 by my first term. For example, I had learnt to be obliging. 
 Before going to school I remember being very sulky if I was 
 asked to go an errand. A brief experience of fagging had
 
 Lyonesse 223 
 
 taught me to take pleasure in doing small services smartl}-. 
 Three things I had learnt thoroughly my first term — viz., to 
 make my master's toast, to lay a table for tea or breakfast 
 and to black boots. " These arts are worth learning," it ma}- 
 be said, " but did }'OU learn nothing better worth the iJ^200 
 a year which your education was probably costing?" The 
 course of study was undoubtedly limited. History, Science, 
 Mathematics and Modern Languages received scant atten- 
 tion, but I look upon the work which we did as of more \-alue 
 than what we did not. Our studies were directed to this one 
 end — to enable us at the age of eighteen or nineteen to write 
 Greek and Latin composition in prose and verse. Many 
 sneers have been bestowed upon this curriculum, and it is 
 easy to make cheap jokes on its apparent uselessness. I 
 have always felt that Greek and Latin composition fulfilled 
 one purpose in education which at present is hardly served in 
 any other way. The teacher wishes to develop the construc- 
 tive powers of the children. He wishes to render his scholars 
 intellectually independent — that is, able to think for them- 
 selves. He mistrusts the growth of a receptive attitude in his 
 class. He knows the readiness with which a mind may be 
 stored with facts, and the temptation which he is under to 
 take advantage of this facility, and the encouragement that 
 modern education with its commercial value affords to this 
 kind of instruction. The end of school training used not to 
 be to furnish the scholar with the maximum of useful know- 
 ledge. The true end of it was to communicate or strengthen 
 force of mind. The true end of education is a being and not 
 a having. It matters more what you are than what you know 
 when you leave school. Now it is precisely this independent 
 mental activity which is encouraged by composing in Greek 
 or Latin. No amount of mere learning by heart or going 
 over other people's discoveries will enable a boy to turn out 
 a set of Greek iambics or Latin elegiacs. However poor the 
 results, they are the produce of independent efforts. The 
 writer can always say in all humility what Touchstone said 
 of Audrey: " A poor thing, sir, but mine own ". Composition
 
 224 Essays mid Addresses 
 
 being abolished, it appears to me that an effective substitute 
 has yet to be invented. 
 
 I was, however, home for the hoHdays, as I said, and about 
 holidays I have a word to add. Life at a public school is to 
 be compared to the movement of the sea, rather than to the 
 course of a river. It does not resemble a steady continuous 
 flow, so much as the alternation of high and low tides. There 
 come three months of work, increasing in intensity and excite- 
 ment towards the end, when a competitive examination stimu- 
 lates even the lazy to unlooked-for exertions. Then follows a 
 few weeks' holiday, during which animal spirits usually have 
 free play. This tidal life certainly produces a marked influ- 
 ence on the character, and is possessed of advantages and 
 disadvantages. Supposing that a lad, when he leaves school, 
 has to pursue some calling where his work will never be such 
 as to strain him in any way, but which demands exceeding 
 regularity and affords hardly any opportunity for prolonged 
 holiday, he will certainly find that his school life will have 
 given him a distaste for his occupation which it will cost him 
 some trouble to overcome. On the other hand, my experi- 
 ence is that if a boy is brought up at home, where his regular 
 routine of work and play makes his life flow on like a stream 
 of oil, the defect then is that he grows up incapable of making 
 any special effort when circumstances demand it, and is liable 
 to miss golden opportunities of being useful, because he cannot 
 exceed his wonted modicum of toil. I expect that the re- 
 action which follows after a busy man has been idle for a few 
 weeks, enables him to achieve far more in the end than if he 
 had pursued a steady even routine of work in which the effort 
 made was never severe, but always constant and uninterrupted. 
 In fact, I think that in all j-;/^cess there is an element of 
 exc&ss. Anyhow, after some experience of both manners of 
 living, I say: "Commend me to the public-school life, with its 
 ebb and flow, its strain and stress followed by relaxation, 
 rather than the dull, tame, lazy meandering of the placid 
 stream of domestic education ". 
 
 The revolving year had brought round the summer term,
 
 Lyonesse 225 
 
 and with it the temptation to spend all our pocket-money in 
 strawberries and cream, or vanilla ices, and, as in the world, 
 society divided itself into total abstainers, moderate consumers 
 and gluttons, the mean being, according to Aristotle's estimate, 
 of average goodness, I think I was very fond of strawberry 
 ice, and I am glad that I had perfect freedom in respect to 
 over-indulgence. It was good practice in learning to resist 
 temptation, and no one can learn to swim without plunging 
 into the water. 
 
 The chief excitement of the long summer da}'s was cricket. 
 House was matched against house, and during the ties the 
 rival houses were pretended enemies. The sense of union 
 with others was excited in an extraordinary degree. For the 
 honour of his house there was scarcely anything which a 
 member of it would not undergo. But even the strength of 
 this local feeling seemed as weakness when compared with 
 the sentiment aroused by the annual match played between 
 an eleven of the school and an eleven of another school. 
 To anyone who has never felt it, this passionate devotion to 
 the name of his school is incomprehensible, and must ever 
 remain inexplicable. I should venture to take exception to 
 an opinion expressed by Professor James Ward, that "our 
 playgrounds powerfully promote manliness and loyalty, but 
 they do nothing to enlighten, and still less to expand, this 
 youthful zeal to do and suffer for common ends ". The famous 
 battle picture, " Floreat Etona ", by Lady Butler, in which 
 young officers are riding to face death with this cry on their 
 lips, is proof, which is unneeded by public-school boys them- 
 selves, that the lesson of self-devotion for a common cause 
 is indelibly impressed at a public school, and that its origin is 
 consciously present to the mind in after years during supreme 
 moments. 
 
 Well, it will be said, at any rate you enjoyed your school 
 life. Did not this regular round of work and play make you 
 and your companions all as like as peas or as cells in a honey- 
 comb? If you had any special tastes had you any opportunity 
 of cultivating them? If the masters controlled your time in
 
 2 26 Essays and Addresses 
 
 school, and the boys took possession of your leisure, was not 
 your mind enslaved as by a double set of tyrants? My answer 
 is that it needs determination and tact to live in any society 
 and yet remain master of your individual pursuits. In a 
 public school it is no easier, but certainly no harder, to do 
 this than in any other society. For myself, I enjoyed an 
 hereditary taste for the study of flowers, and I experienced 
 no difficulty, although at first some opposition, in pursuing" 
 my bent. In process of time the combination of a few kindred 
 spirits led to the formation of a school scientific association, 
 which has, I believe, continued to this day — about a quarter of 
 a century. 
 
 As to leisure, I unconsciously followed Pope Gregory's 
 advice to his mission in England when they complained that 
 their hard work left them no time to say their prayers. 
 " Surge vianius, ora citiusl' wrote he — " Rise earlier, and pray 
 more betimes ". A tramp in the dewy meadows at six o'clock 
 on a summer morning is no bad preparation for a day's work. 
 I discovered the habitat of almost every flowering plant within 
 two hours' run of the school. So far as I can judge, special 
 faculties are more likely to be discovered and developed in a 
 life at school than in the course of training in a family. Syd- 
 ney Smith condemns parents for exposing their children to the 
 pressure exerted upon them by the comrades surrounding 
 them in a school. " The strongest only survive," he says, 
 " like trees in a forest. It is cruel to submit a growing child 
 to such a vegetable struggle." My own observation leads me 
 to believe that, even in a family, one member is very likely 
 to tread the life out of another, and this the more easily 
 because members of a family cannot find their equals in age 
 or strength. Then, again, very few families are perfect. In 
 most of them there are certain defects which may be called 
 family failings. Home education rather intensifies than cor- 
 rects these weaknesses, whereas, under the direct attack of 
 playmates and the indirect influence of the spirit and tone 
 of a community of boys, they either disappear or at least are 
 subdued.
 
 Lyonesse 227 
 
 There are probably few (in my own experience not any) 
 children who cannot do some thing better than other things. 
 It is often said that a child's peculiarities can most readily be 
 observed at home and the best of them cherished by parental 
 solicitude. " How ", it is said, " can a boy's special aptitudes 
 be discovered at school, where the classes are large and the 
 routine of work stereotyped? Might you not as well expect 
 a drill-sergeant to detect and further a special skill in waltzing 
 as a classical master to discover and extend a taste for Scla- 
 vonic history in an apparently unpromising classical student?" 
 
 This objection is a very plausible one, but I have two 
 answers, one theoretical and the other practical. As a question 
 of theory, is it at all common to find parents possessed of very 
 wide sympathies with studies and pursuits which are not their 
 own? Is it not rather the rule that parents wish their children 
 to grow up as like themselves as possible, only, if it may be, 
 superior? The man of business does not as a rule encourage 
 in his son a taste for literature, as is well shown in the amus- 
 ing scene between Francis Osbaldistone and his father at the 
 commencement of Rob Roy. A barrister looks with regret on 
 the tastes of a son who devotes himself to natural science, and 
 a merchant is hardly likely to approve of his son pursuing a 
 military career. If, then, a child has a taste which differs from 
 those of his parents, there will be much difficulty in its coming 
 to light at all and quiet steady pressure will be exercised to 
 eradicate it when it does appear. It is not often that a number 
 of -boys remain till they are grown up beneath their father's 
 roof-tree, but this often happens with a family of girls. The 
 lives of these last are apt to be dreary in the extreme, because, 
 having differing powers and tastes, only those of the family 
 who have the same tastes as their parents receive effective 
 encouragement. The others will appear to their parents as 
 rather uninteresting and a little stupid. By attending school 
 the growing child comes in contact with many other minds, 
 both those of his companions and those of his numerous 
 teachers. What is missing in the home will be found at 
 
 school, and the merchant's son with a taste for a military 
 
 21
 
 228 Essays and Addresses 
 
 career will find his aspirations honoured instead of being 
 repressed, the son of literary parents will meet with those who 
 sympathize with him in his desire for practical life, whether 
 engineering or a colonial career or what not, while the son of 
 the man of the world will find his hopes for a life as a minister 
 in his Church respected and encouraged. On the whole, so 
 far as I can see, a child stands a better chance of developing 
 himself according to his natural bent if he goes to school than 
 if he is educated at home. 
 
 Theoretically, then, I believe individual talent has a better 
 chance of unconstrained cultivation at school. My recollection 
 of what I saw among my comrades leads me to think that my 
 theory is borne out by experience. In spite of the narrowness 
 of the curriculum which I have described, I recall boys who 
 distinguished themselves afterwards in careers that had no 
 direct support in a classical education, such as History, Science 
 and Art. I do not feel at liberty to mention names, but 
 behind the general description there are in my mind the 
 names of particular boys and men. "Individual men", says 
 Kant, " cannot train children completely ; man must be edu- 
 cated by mankind." That is true. The training in a large 
 family is better than that in a small one, but best of all is the 
 training in a great school, because in such a place there is a 
 greater approximation than in a family to the education of 
 man by mankind. 
 
 Let me now pass on to the period of school life when I 
 became one of the big boys, and as such was invested with 
 a little brief authority; when I made lasting and lifelong 
 friendships; when the various able men whom I listened to, 
 whether as lecturers, preachers, or teachers, began to inspire 
 me with ideas and to stimulate thought; when the time came 
 for me to learn that I was possessed of powers which might 
 be turned to the good of others. A friend of my father's 
 wrote to commend a young boy to my supervision. " As 
 others helped you when you were a ' new boy ', remember, 
 now that you are in the sixth form, you may return their 
 kindness by being serviceable to fresh comers." " Well," it
 
 Lyonesse 229 
 
 may be said, " and will you let us know what you could do 
 by being thus placed at a very early age in loco parentis}" 
 There were two ways in which I learnt to help others — one 
 by protecting, the other by advising. Protection was com- 
 paratively easy. It was no difficult matter to tell heedless 
 boys that it was " hard lines " to amuse themselves at the 
 expense of a delicate boy or cripple, and a few words at the 
 right time and in the right spirit would suffice to make the 
 life of such a boy quite comfortable among his companions. 
 Warning was a much harder matter. I reflected thus: " Boys 
 must lead their own lives, choose their own friends, and by 
 what right should you set yourself up as a judge? Your 
 interference must be an impertinence, and as such rightly 
 resented." In this matter, being strongly influenced by a 
 sermon preached from the school pulpit, in which the preacher 
 earnestly declaimed: "You are your brother's keeper", I re- 
 flected that there was all the difference in the world between 
 taking a pleasure in setting others to rights and finding an 
 opportunity for hinting to an inexperienced new-comer that 
 he was falling into uncommonly bad company. How far my 
 service may have been of any use to others I do not know, 
 but the attempts which I made were of immense importance 
 to myself, because I learnt from them the duty of undertaking 
 responsibilities for the good of others, which is the base of 
 public spirit. 
 
 I think the effect of sermons on boys may easily be under- 
 estimated. It is sometimes said that boys at home can learn 
 just as much from hearing the discourses which are addressed 
 to general congregations as they can from those which are 
 specially addressed to them in a school chapel. My recollec- 
 tion is the opposite. I noticed that even boys supposed to be 
 thoughtless would discuss the Sunday sermon in a manner 
 that showed attention and intelligence. School sermons also 
 are frequently founded upon some incident of school life, and 
 where, as often happens, these are impressive, the words are 
 remembered because they are associated with a memorable 
 event. How can I ever forget my early horror of the sight
 
 230 Essays and Addresses 
 
 of the slums of London which I traversed on my way to 
 school, or the ardent appeal of a famous London missionary 
 in the school pulpit for help to remedy these evils? How 
 deeply impressed I was by the suj:^gestions from the pulpit 
 that there was a wider life than any that I ever heard spoken 
 of in my own home, in which some of us might possibly have 
 important duties to undertake — duties as clergymen among 
 the poor at home, duties as missionaries among the uncivilized 
 nations abroad, duties in India, duties in the Colonies, and in 
 many other positions in life where the first thought must be, 
 not to promote our own interests, but those of others. I 
 think Count Moltke is more than justified in approving the 
 moral training of public schools. " What pleases me most ", 
 says he, " in the English mode of education is that lying is 
 treated not only as an offence but as a disgrace, a habit un- 
 worthy of a gentleman." 
 
 There is one characteristic of the public-school pulpit, so 
 far as I know it, which goes deeper here than appears at first. 
 Much preaching which I have heard elsewhere has been of 
 this type: "Do this because God commands it". Whereas 
 the higher kind of preaching is of this type: " Do this because 
 it is right, and God commands what is right". In the former 
 the preacher speaks of God as a benevolent tyrant or monarch; 
 in the latter as the author and approver of all that is good. 
 It is a higher principle to fear wrong as wrong than to fear 
 it out of respect to a command from a superior. It is more 
 effective in conduct because the wrong which is done as a 
 violation of a principle cannot ever be looked on as right, 
 while wrong-doing which is regarded as the violation of a 
 command may appear not to be wTong in itself, but liable 
 to be condoned by the dictator of the command, and thus 
 cease to be wrong. 
 
 " Think we, like some weak prince, the Eternal Cause 
 Prone, for His favourites, to reverse His laws?" 
 
 I have not said more about preaching than enough to estab- 
 lish the fact that it played an immense part in making up
 
 Lyonesse 231 
 
 the whole which I am trying to present — namely, life in a 
 public school — and that, combined with daily events, the pulpit 
 tended to make boys think more of their duties than their 
 privileges, an important fact, when it is remembered that boys 
 whose parents have wealth or rank are apt to be spoilt in this 
 matter by their mothers and the servants and even by their 
 fathers. 
 
 From taking charge of a few boys, informally entrusted to 
 my care, the transition to undertaking at certain times the 
 discipline and order of a whole house at meal-times or in the 
 evenings, in the absence of the master, is not very great. At 
 any rate this is the duty which most boys entered upon towards 
 the last year or two of their school life. 
 
 Sydney Smith has strongly condemned the kind of char- 
 acter which he says this practice leads to. He says that, in 
 after life, such as have held these places at school are con- 
 ceited, unconciliatory to others and without that anxiety for 
 self-improvement which is the result of modesty in youth. I 
 hardly think, however, that with most boys the duty of con- 
 trolling others is undertaken with feelings of elation. Except 
 to a very few it is far pleasanter to escape responsibility for the 
 behaviour of others. Most know by experience that it is hard 
 to criticize others without incurring an imputation of arrogance. 
 A boy knows what a difficult task he has to find fault with 
 others in such a way that his mode of doing it cannot itself be 
 found fault with. He knows how difficult it is to have to 
 judge when his interference is necessary and when it is imper- 
 tinent. Being in the position of one who is himself under 
 control and yet at the same time obliged to control others, he 
 learns the ideal of citizenship in the ideal republic, ability to 
 govern and to be governed as the State may require. 
 
 Even, however, if the monitor of a public school is made 
 as conceited as Sydney Smith supposes, I think a readiness to 
 undertake responsibility is a most useful disposition to acquire 
 and that the public school system does well in promoting it. 
 I shall never forget, early in my new office, sitting at the head 
 of some sixty boys during the dinner- hour in the absence
 
 232 Essays and Add?' esses 
 
 of the master and having to be responsible for their order. 
 Some of the bigger boys began to create a disturbance. It 
 became my clear duty to dismiss one of them from the room. 
 Was it any pleasure to me to exercise my authority? On 
 the contrary, it cost me a great mental effort. That a stronger 
 boy should, without any feeling of malice, obey one of his 
 comrades duly constituted the master's representative shows 
 how much that is of real civic value could be imparted by 
 the system without the harm arising which S>'dney Smith 
 condemns. For myself, the sense of my own weakness was 
 humiliating; my conquering my aversion to discharging the 
 duties of my position was bracing. The behaviour of my 
 companion was altogether that of a gentleman. He accepted 
 my ruling as part of the system or conditions upon which he 
 was a member of the school, thereby showing that he had 
 learnt — a difficult lesson — to distinguish between authority 
 and the person in authority, and to obey the former through 
 the latter, to retain his sense of manly independence while 
 bowing to the will of the community. The public schools 
 have certainly produced some great statesmen, and if you 
 study so well qualified a critic as Lord Beaconsfield, you will 
 see that he, at any rate, attributes this to the life which is led 
 there, and not to accident of birth or wealth. Experience 
 proves 
 
 " How fit he is to sway, 
 Who can so well obey ". 
 
 I have purposely dwelt on the training of character which 
 the public school affords, because this is much the most im- 
 portant part of life to most men. I have left little space to 
 describe debating societies where crude discussions of the 
 Reform Bill, the American Civil War, the Seven Weeks' War, 
 Darwinism, the Game Laws, and similar themes, stimulated 
 thought; or the scientific society, where, amongst others, 
 papers of boyish learning were read on The Flight of Birds 
 and The Forms of Leaves; or, lastly, Shakespeare reading- 
 clubs, which were not uncommon. Still less have I time to
 
 Lyonesse 233 
 
 estimate what information I had actually acquired. I can 
 only say that the teaching had not been wholly ineffective. 
 It was a real pleasure to me at the time I left to spend leisure 
 time in translating favourite passages from Shakespeare into 
 Greek iambics, and I was possessed of sufficient knowledge 
 of Greek and Latin to pass my first University Examination 
 without the aid of a crammer. 
 
 I will conclude with a few words of advice. I am often 
 asked whether I recommend a boy to be sent to a public 
 boarding-school or not. No one can return an unqualified 
 answer to this question, and I have tried to give my own 
 experience, not as a guide, but as a contribution towards the 
 practical solution of the question. Every person must form 
 his own opinion for himself on such a matter, with the aid of 
 such information as he can acquire. 
 
 If asked, then: "Shall I send my boy to a public school?" 
 I answer: "Is your boy delicate, and considered unable to 
 rough it among stronger companions? Then send him to a 
 public school by all means; it will make a man of him." 
 Again: " Has your boy the slightest capacity above the aver- 
 age? Hesitate not to send him to a public school." If the 
 masters see their way to winning a scholarship through 
 assiduous cultivation of his brains, it will not be their fault if 
 his spark of intelligence is not fanned into a flame. But if 
 your son is a strong healthy lad, with no particular predilec- 
 tion for any study or calling, and destined not perhaps to a 
 life of opulent idleness, which was Sydney Smith's provision 
 for public-school boys, but for a family living, or a place in 
 the family counting-house, then beware how you trust him to 
 the public-school system, or if you do send him, watch his 
 progress narrowly, and test it occasionally by independent 
 examination ; otherwise you may find that at the end of your 
 four uneventful years the head-master may write, when you 
 wish to transfer the boy from school to a university: "Tom- 
 kins is a sweet fellow; he will hardly pass his matriculation 
 examination, but he is simply the best head of the football 
 eleven we have had since Smithson". Athletes are the heroes
 
 234 Essays and Addresses 
 
 of their schools, and often the pets of their masters ; but when 
 it comes to the severe game of life I do not observe that 
 cricket or football helps them to earn their own living; and 
 unless they develop powers of application to work in maturer 
 years they stand at a disadvantage when compared with 
 better-taught contemporaries. 
 
 If I followed my inclination, I should conclude my re- 
 marks with a rhapsody about public school life as resembling 
 an auriferous mine, in which, deep down below the surface, 
 amidst bruising rocks and much stamped up mire, there are 
 to be won particles of gold, pure gold, precious to the finder 
 and the world ; but such enthusiasm is apt to appear the 
 offspring of a fond delusion, and therefore I prefer to finish 
 my remarks in a less lofty tone, in less of the " Ercles vein ". 
 In public-school life as I knew it a quarter of a century ago 
 there were two great advantages, namely, the absence of too 
 much interference on the part of the masters, and consequent 
 opportunity for self-development. I realize vividly the danger 
 of too much method in training, and wholly agree with Dr. 
 Geikie, that it is folly to attempt to straighten a pig's tail by 
 putting it in splints. 
 
 I am wholly of opinion that education must largely be a 
 matter of faith rather than sight, and that some risk is indis- 
 pensable for the highest results in this as in almost every 
 important business, and I do not know that anyone has better 
 summed the matter up than Judge Denman, when he said 
 that " if boys go to school they become sad dogs, but if they 
 stay at home they remain poor devils".
 
 MOTHERS AND SONS 
 THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY 
 
 Many a mother retains the confidence of her schoolboy 
 son on serious subjects long after he has assumed an attitude 
 of reserve towards all the rest of his elders and betters. 
 
 Happy mothers! Happier sons! In dealing with sons it 
 is, as a rule, only mothers who combine love and judgment 
 who succeed well ; and 
 
 "They that have love and judgment too 
 See more than any others do ". 
 
 Of such mothers there are some who are from time to time 
 startled by the remarks to which these confidences give rise, 
 when conversation turns upon the leading points of domestic 
 religious instruction. Ideas which are passed over by fathers 
 with busy indifference, or are suppressed with indignant com- 
 bativeness, may often be better dealt with by a mother's wise 
 and sympathetic thoughtfulness. It is easy to mistake youth 
 and to suppose that it is heedless and frivolous, and merely 
 wishful to cast the old aside in order " to sin the oldest sins 
 the newest kind of way". Youth, on the contrary, is apt to 
 be in earnest — too much so for some older people. Un- 
 questionably the foundation of faith for youth in these days 
 is seriously shaken. The question forces itself on the atten- 
 tion, whether, in the long process of the education of the 
 human race, Christianity has been but an episode which is 
 drawing to an end. Is it a fact that, while the arguments of 
 theologians in support of ordinary domestic religious instruc- 
 tion grow stronger and stronger, effective belief in general
 
 236 Essays and Addresses 
 
 society is continually growing weaker and weaker? Is it a 
 fact, as was stated lately in several letters to the public press, 
 that youths are ceasing to attend church as a rule, and that 
 only those of them are present who make a study of liturgical 
 ceremonies, who are devoted to lay preaching, or in some 
 other way make a specialty of their religious convictions? 
 The history of religious beliefs seems to show that what men 
 accept or reject depends less upon argument than upon 
 fashion. Men believe in the main what the men believe 
 among whom they live. The learned who argue about those 
 beliefs are really following when they appear to be leading. 
 Men do not believe because scholars discuss, but scholars 
 discuss what men happen to believe. Thus if a number of 
 good and learned old men announce to society that they have 
 not changed their opinions since the days of their youth, shall 
 we wonder that many young men, conscious that between 
 such opinions and their own a great gulf lies open, caused by 
 two generations of study and discovery, tacitly ignore the 
 doctrines of their elders and seek fresh light from other 
 sources? If they speak out what is in their mind, shall we 
 condemn them, and not rather approve? When so much is 
 changing, is it not natural and right to ask what is per- 
 manent? 
 
 Christian teaching resembles a growing organism, and not 
 a chain. There is a huge difference. A chain is made up of 
 links, and every link that is broken breaks the chain. In a 
 living organism, on the other hand, growth leaves behind it 
 much matter that is decaying or dead, and a good deal which, 
 after serving its purpose in construction, has henceforth 
 ceased to grow. Thus, while a broken link leaves a chain 
 hanging useless, matter which has ceased to have life may yet 
 support the centre of vitality of an organism, and, in spite of 
 its inanimate condition, may be essential to life, or, at any 
 rate, indispensable to an understanding of the life which it 
 supports. 
 
 Moving in such a sphere of thought, I approach the great 
 question of the day: whether the Cross is to be in the future.
 
 Mothers and Sons 237 
 
 as it has been in the past, the centre of moral teaching in 
 Christendom. That the symbol of the Cross everywhere 
 predominated in the Middle Ages is obvious to every 
 traveller. He sees men and women still buying and selling 
 around the base of Gothic market crosses; he finds a cross 
 on many an ancient bridge provided for him by the muni- 
 ficence of his ancestors; it is embossed or carved on the 
 beams of many a mediaeval dwelling-house in patterns and 
 forms of beauty. The same token is still signed on the brow 
 of the new-born babe, and marks the last resting-place of the 
 dead. Even amid the carnage of modern warfare a cross 
 indicates the army of mercy which attends to the wounded 
 and dying. 
 
 Does this symbol of suffering continue to be the best 
 accompaniment of all we think and say and do, from the 
 cradle to the grave? When many thoughtful men say " No " 
 to this important question, in what light can we answer it 
 with a "Yes"? 
 
 The doctrine of the Cross has for nearly 1900 years 
 formed the single distinct thread that has permeated the 
 motley web of human affairs in Christendom. In all the 
 variety of professions and occupations which absorb each 
 man in his own duties and affairs, the Cross alone has been 
 a bond of union. In all sorts and conditions of men there is 
 only one common element, and that is sacrifice. " Thou must 
 forego" is earth's bitter, if bracing, commandment, and it is 
 the only one that all of us, sooner or later, are obliged to 
 fulfil. Men are separated in action; they are united in suffer- 
 ing. This fact is the basis of the doctrine of the Cross. 
 
 To this inner consciousness of the sadness of the lot of 
 men the Greeks gave voice in the most splendid series of 
 tragedies which exists in the world's literature, but their 
 grandeur overwhelms and paralyses rather than stimulates 
 the mind. Theirs is a revelation of sorrow which leaves us 
 despondent and passive rather than buoyant in spirit and 
 alert to promote the happiness of other people. The develop- 
 ment of man's fortune in that view is independent of his own
 
 238 Essays and Addresses 
 
 will. Far different is the "word of the Cross", which ex- 
 presses for Christians exactly the same sense of sorrow. St. 
 Paul in his " word of the Cross " drew a distinction between 
 man as one of diverse individuals and man as all that is 
 human, the whole of humanity. He conceived of the idea of 
 the union of many separate human elements, namely Jew, 
 Greek, disciples of one preacher, disciples of another, bonds- 
 men, freemen, males, females, in one whole. Out of this 
 manifold, he created, by an effort of thought, a rational unity, 
 including the whole human race, viewed as a Christian com- 
 munity, or one Church. 
 
 Such is his conception of the Perfect Man, and it is 
 unusual, lofty and strangely akin to that of some influential 
 thinkers in recent times who seem, however, to have arrived 
 at the same conception by a different road. Ancient philo- 
 sophy attained to a noble view of the communion of men 
 which is con\eyed in the motto: Orbis terraruni una urbs. 
 That each man, whether Roman, Greek, or of any other 
 nation, should feel himself a citizen of one state, the world, is 
 a lofty generalization, but St. Paul had a vision of the human 
 race, in which every man should live according to the type, or 
 example, of a Perfect Man, such perfection corresponding to 
 the full, rich, and fruitful significance of the name Christ in 
 his own mind, " the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ ". This is the conception of a perfect whole perfected 
 in the perfection of all its parts. 
 
 The difficulties which are produced by life's variety are 
 rendered easier if not removed by this " word of the Cross ". 
 Who that thinks at all is not driven to apparent inconsistency 
 when led to ask : " What am I to do for others, and what for 
 myself?" " What am I to keep for myself, and what am I to 
 give away?" "When distinct duties clash, by what rule shall 
 I act?" The doctrine of the whole and its parts, simple as it 
 seems, is rarely comprehended, just because it is only to be 
 comprehended by a mental effort. Have not some good men 
 endeavoured to avoid such difficulties by extremely simplifying 
 life? They adopted one good principle, and followed it out
 
 Mothers and Sons 239 
 
 in isolation. One saint pursued the principle of self-sacrifice 
 alone, and dwelt on a column in the wilderness, while others 
 would protract a solitary life as hermits, divested of all life's 
 so-called superfluities in a mouldering cavern, forsaking, to 
 save their own souls, the duty of living among men. They 
 sought perfection by eliminating instead of perfecting the 
 varied faculties with which they were endowed from their 
 birth. If there is truth in the " word of the Cross", life is not 
 such a simple affair. No man can separate his own welfare 
 from that of the general, or contribute much to the general 
 good if he carries self-sacrifice to the extreme point of abne- 
 gation. He makes a cheap sacrifice of all he has who has 
 nothing to sacrifice, and before a man gives to others, he 
 must first endow himself with something worth their accept- 
 ance. This is true not merely of worldly substance, but of 
 intellectual endowment. 
 
 We cannot neglect our own interests without detriment to 
 our fellow-creatures, nor can we selfishly put out of sight the 
 wider interests of humanity without impairing our own. 
 
 Life, according to the " word of the Cross ", is no aimless 
 self-abnegation to obtain self-glorification hereafter. Nearer 
 akin to it is the spirit of these fine lines: 
 
 " Help me to need no aid from men, 
 That I may help such men as need ". 
 
 We may often, in helping others, sacrifice a present 
 interest, but we fail not to gratify that larger self, that ex- 
 panded self-will which includes mankind, or all men, summed 
 up in the expression, " the perfect man, the measure of the 
 stature of the fulness of Christ ". 
 
 Religion, science, and philosophy alike point to unity in 
 all creation, and it would seem that we, by our action, may 
 assist to promote a social unity, which is the aim of Chris- 
 tianity. Failure in such a cause can be but partial, for in 
 great undertakings many must fail before one succeeds, and 
 many must hand on hopes to others which they cannot ex-
 
 240 Essays and Addresses 
 
 pect to see fulfilled in their own time. It is part of the gospel 
 of the Cross to see things as they may be, and to be blind to 
 things as they are. " The case was hopeless, yet he hoped." 
 This spirit has been the prudent folly or the insane wisdom 
 of the Christian saint. 
 
 Not to have tried is sorrow indeed, but trial with failure 
 produces the generous elation of St. Paul, when he exclaims: 
 " I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is 
 lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's 
 sake, which is the Church " ; or, in the words of a modern poet: 
 
 " For the power appears to-morrow, 
 That to-day seems wholly lost, 
 And the reproductive sorrow 
 Is a treasure worth the cost ". 
 
 One possible view of the Atonement, then, is the setting 
 at one of all creation in God through the Cross, or, in other 
 words, communion in the cup of sacrifice. Certain learned 
 men have evolved a much simpler account of it. Heaven is 
 a Court of Justice. God is Judge. Man is the defendant 
 cast in a suit. The Judge strikes a balance, setting in one 
 scale all man's sins and in the other all Christ's suffering. 
 Thus Justice is even-handed, and man escapes punishment. 
 
 What is punishment that we should seek to escape it? 
 The most real punishment of sin, according to one of the 
 greatest writers, is that state of mind in which the offender is 
 content with his condition, and ceases to believe in good. 
 
 " No parody of Gospel teaching ", says a living theologian, 
 "can be more unlike the truth than that which represents it as 
 the discharge of the sinner, being sinful still, from the penalty 
 of guilt through the intervention of the guiltless." The fact 
 is, that many philosophical theologians and reformers have 
 spent much time in trying to devise a scheme by which salva- 
 tion shall be placed upon a mechanical basis; but, like the 
 quality of mercy, salvation is not strained, and cannot be 
 defined in the legal phraseology of Jewish or Roman law. 
 According to the word of the Cross, our inspiration is derived
 
 Mothers and Sons 241 
 
 from a living and not from a dead Christ, for St. Paul writes: 
 " I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live: yet not I, but 
 Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I 
 live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave 
 Himself for me ". This " living Christ " precludes passive con- 
 templation of the death and Cross of Christ, and condemns, 
 therefore, the paralysis of any human faculty. The process 
 of redemption can be nothing automatic or mechanical. In 
 every Christian life Christ lives as he lived in St. Paul. 
 
 " And no man asks his fellow any more 
 Where is the promise of His coming? But 
 Was he revealed in any of His lives 
 As Power, as Love, as influencing Soul?" 
 
 We can afford, then, to concern ourselves but little with 
 either the material torments of popular theology, or with its 
 equally material awards. Christ in glory, golden -crowned 
 and clad in purple, distributing gifts to His followers, is not 
 a vision for everyone; but Christ with a crown of thorns, 
 weary with toil for the sake of those who persecuted Him, 
 and worn with suffering and sympathy, is an image open to 
 the gaze of all who are aware of the presence of evil without 
 and within, who enlist all powers of body and mind on the 
 side of good, and who seek in doing good a closer communion 
 with God. We know the cup which all who will may drink, 
 and which the first apostles had to receive in exchange for 
 the expectation of very different gratification. 
 
 What, then, shall we teach children on these matters? It 
 is very easy to instil into their minds false ideas. Christ died 
 that He may live in us. This physical death may be our 
 spiritual life. Good, then, and true is the verse of the child's 
 hymn which runs thus: 
 
 " Thou didst suffer, gentle Jesus, 
 Bitter shame and agony; 
 From sin's bondage to release us, 
 Thou didst hang upon the tree".
 
 242 Essays and Addresses 
 
 But would Christ, who said: "Suffer Httle children to come 
 unto Me ", have allowed that they caused any of His pain and 
 suffering? It is one thing to die on behalf of another, but it 
 is a different thing to lay your death at the door of that other 
 for whom you die. It is, therefore, a misleading way of con- 
 veying a spiritual truth to express it thus: 
 
 " But my sins it was that stung Thee, 
 Not the scourge, the nail, the spear, 
 'T was my sins alone that hung Thee 
 On the Cross, my Saviour dear ", 
 
 Christ, we read, " nailed our sins to the Cross ". This is 
 not the same as saying that the sins w^ere the nails. It is one 
 thing to say that Christ's sorrow for sin gave Him more pain 
 than His physical suffering; it is misleading to say that the 
 sin is the cause of Christ's bodily pain. Christ our Passover 
 is a figure of speech which must not be pressed too far. The 
 Jewish sacrificial victims were not, like Christ, moral victims. 
 The greatness of the Atonement, as preached by St. Paul in 
 his Gospel, is that it was a moral and not a mechanical 
 sacrifice. 
 
 They that are crucified with Christ will not rest content 
 with any ingeniously elaborated scheme of redemption, nor 
 will they confine their gaze to a cross moulded by human art 
 into a form of earthly beauty steeped in rapture and adoration. 
 For them the " word of the Cross " is a source of spiritual 
 force, through which they may eradicate unconscious selfish- 
 ness, and sympathize with the manifold fragmentary efforts 
 of all who mean and do well to men. To be crucified with 
 Christ is to grasp and hold in the mind the death which he 
 died, as an inspiration to act from day to day throughout life. 
 
 Thus the Cross, as a symbol of the sacrifice which is pro- 
 ductive of good to others, is something more than a sign. It 
 is a remembrance of a self-renunciation which has produced 
 countless thousands of imitators, and has formed a bond of 
 union between all who can now, or could in the past, give 
 their lives or their labour for others' good, and who find in
 
 Mothers and Sons 243 
 
 the expansion of their sympathies the same pleasure in work- 
 ing for others which is usually and vainly expected in pursu- 
 ing self-regarding ends. 
 
 Thus too, the Cross, originally the symbol of suffering, 
 becomes a source of comfort and consolation, for the measure 
 of our power to console others is the measure of our own 
 sorrow. " As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so the 
 power of our consolation aboundeth by Christ." In this view 
 the "word of the Cross" is not dependent upon the opinion of 
 current scholarship or ph)'sical science. Accepting such a 
 view of the power of the Gospel unto salvation, our aim in life 
 will not be affected by the varying judgments of commenta- 
 tors. We shall not be troubled, for instance, if we find that 
 some of the Psalms were written in the time of the Macca- 
 bees, and not by David, or that the stories of creation in 
 Genesis are more like hymns than text -books in biolog}-. 
 Shall we expect to find the researches of modern science in 
 the outpourings of the Hebrew prophets? Is the spirit which 
 inspired them a spirit of holiness and goodness, of knowledge 
 of righteousness, a spirit to kindle the fire which alone can 
 drive the moral engine within us; or is it a spirit to determine 
 the age of a fossil or the date of a manuscript? 
 
 Our opinion on the nature of that spirit does matter, 
 because, if we look to it as a source of knowledge on dates 
 and details of biology or physics, we shall, as science ad- 
 vances, be labouring in that slough of despond which consists 
 in reconciling discrepancies; but if we leave the details of 
 science and history to scientific men and historians, and if 
 we adhere to the spirit as a source of inspiration to lead a 
 good life, then the greatness of the Scriptures will remain 
 undisputed, however often scientific opinion may change in 
 respect of pigs or creeping things, or however often things, 
 once thought mysterious and inexplicable, come to be looked 
 upon as common or familiar. 
 
 No change in scientific opinion about the date and value 
 
 of books, about botany or about geology, can ever alter what 
 
 is independent of all such knowledge. All the noblest things 
 
 22
 
 244 Essays and Addi'esses 
 
 that have happened in Christendom, whether we look at the 
 lives of the saints of fame or at the piety of the humblest 
 cottager living and dying in the spirit of Christ, are the real 
 illustration of the eternal, impregnable, and unchanging truths 
 of the Old and New Testaments. It is no proof of the truth 
 of Scripture to show that if you take the words of this or that 
 text in a new sense it will square vvnth a new scientific classi- 
 fication; and they only give the lie to Holy Writ who, for 
 pity, mercy, love, substitute some other principle as the basis 
 of their dealings with their fellow-men. 
 
 Many will disapprove of the views which I have tried to 
 explain, because they appear to want definition and firm out- 
 line. No doubt under them much that has been sharply 
 defined melts again into the indefinite. Many people need 
 something tangible, and here all seems fluctuating. They 
 seek something simple and fixed, that they may seize it at 
 once, and here the object of their pursuit eludes their grasp. 
 They yearn to depend upon the authority of those whom 
 they can respect, and here the responsibility of choosing what 
 they shall think or do is thrown upon their own shoulders. 
 But these very difficulties are recommendations to thinking 
 men. Religious life is no easy thing. It is a struggle to 
 escape from the material to the spiritual, in spite of the fact 
 that the latter cannot be comprehended or attained except 
 through the former. It therefore needs constant, renewed, 
 active, and earnest thought, which cannot be easy. In daily 
 life the new must for ever be modifying the old, and the 
 standard of goodness, like every other ideal, must be modi- 
 fied and improved in the unending labour of reaching forth 
 after what is approachable but never attainable. The spirit 
 remains the same, the matter in which it works keeps chang- 
 ing. It is useless, for instance, to entertain a fixed belief 
 about Creation when our knowledge of created things is 
 constantly growing and enlarging. In the Cross is our 
 Atonement, and through it all difference of opinion should 
 be reconciled between men of good-will. For now as of old 
 "" Christ is our peace ". This view of the Atonement is not a
 
 Mothers and Sons 245 
 
 new theory for the learned, but a pristine fact acted on for 
 ages and ages by the simple. The voluntary death of Christ 
 is not an act without parallel. The blood of many a good 
 man has been shed for the sake of others, both before and 
 since the Crucifixion. Nevertheless, the Cross is the true sign 
 of unselfishness in Christendom, because in it nearly all (I do 
 not say all) voluntary self-sacrifice since the Christian era has 
 been associated with this one sacrifice of himself by Christ. 
 Hence the Crucifixion is not any more one single act of self- 
 sacrifice done once for all a long time ago, but a continuous 
 act, magnified and intensified by untold numbers of self-sacri- 
 ficing actions wrought by countless multitudes of people, who, 
 living for the good of others, have done all in the name of the 
 Cross of Christ, which inspired them to act and think, to live 
 and to die. 
 
 Is it not a great and stimulating reflection that in the far 
 future this conception of the Cross will continue through the 
 lives of good men further to fill and enlarge and intensify 
 itself and that as it grows older it will gather strength, and 
 that though the torrent of pain and wrong will continue to 
 stream forward in history, yet, like a full tide from the ocean, 
 the life of the Cross will appear in increasingly manifold 
 forms, widening, freshening and healing, as it swells onward 
 with silent resistless flow? 
 
 Surely it is a high and generous thought, and worthy of 
 the eager spirit of youth, that his unit of existence may form 
 part of so magnificent a whole. 
 
 I have put forward a layman's theology, and I know how 
 little value that must have, because all unprofessional opinion 
 is subject to one great defect — that it involves no responsi- 
 bility. It may, however, be an aid to professional opinion. 
 My object is to encourage those mothers, who are dis- 
 couraged by the interminable controversies concerning points 
 of Christian faith, and are abandoning religious teaching 
 altogether, to catch beneath the noise of the waves of super- 
 ficial trouble the still clear tones of our heritage in the 
 Church.
 
 246 Essays and Addresses 
 
 In the main our health depends upon the air which we 
 daily breathe. If that be of the freshest and brightest our 
 health is likely to correspond. Can enthusiasm for the 
 highest type of character be more readily and lastingly 
 awakened by any other literature than that of the Bible? If 
 not, then let this be the atmosphere which children of the 
 present breathe daily as has been the custom in the past. 
 The lives of most of us may not do justice to the inspiration 
 which we may have felt from our early study of the Bible; 
 but nearly all people will admit that what is best in their 
 characters can be readily traced to that source, and therefore 
 I repeat with earnestness, do not let us throw away wheat 
 and chaff in a fit of despondency caused by Biblical criticism 
 and the apparent hostility to truth of many pious preachers, 
 but let us continue to cling to the Gospels, and read them 
 daily with the children, as far the most important part of 
 their education.
 
 REVERENCE; OR, THE IDEAL IN 
 EDUCATION 
 
 " In a certain respect there is a correspondence between Faith as a practical 
 consciousness of God and the artist's consciousness of an Ideal." — T. H. Green. 
 
 Considering how much there is in the education of a child 
 which, by reason of the expansion of science during the last 
 hundred years, must needs be new, it is occasionally worth 
 while to dwell upon the still larger and more important 
 portion of the child's training which must needs be old. 
 
 While we are in doubt what sciences or what languages 
 we ought to teach children, whether to develop hand-work 
 more and head-work less, whether to curtail the labour of the 
 pedagogue and to introduce in his place the carpenter, the 
 doctor, and the cook ; while we are puzzled by the multi- 
 plicity of subjects, every one of which ought to be studied 
 if we look to the advantage which the knowledge of it contri- 
 butes to success in life, it may save us from the despair 
 which arises out of the perplexity of the problem to reflect 
 how very little human nature changes after all from one 
 generation to another. Is it not a striking fact that a touch 
 of human nature in Homer, who wrote perhaps 3000 years 
 ago, should be as full of meaning to us who live so long after, 
 as a similar touch of human nature in the works of Byron 
 or Tennyson? This continuity in the character of the human 
 race is a cheering fact to the educationist, because it follows 
 as a consequence from it that there are numerous and weighty 
 branches of education which are not really newer, more doubt- 
 ful, or more perplexing to-day than they were in the days of 
 Plato, or St. Paul, or the mediaeval writers on the subject. 
 
 Now, I propose to leave out of sight the education of the 
 future and ask the reader's attention for a few moments while 
 
 247
 
 248 Essays and Addresses 
 
 I dwell up(Mi those parts of training which are not new, and 
 are scarcely affected by modern changes, whether political, 
 social, or scientific. I speak <jf Reverence as the Ideal in 
 education, because I wish to distinguish it from those very 
 practical questions which, however much vexed and disputed, 
 admit nevertheless of a definite solution. Whether, for in- 
 stance, you are to teach a child Greek or French is doubtless 
 a matter of controversy, but whichever way you finally decide 
 it, there is no difficulty in acting upon the decision. Either 
 language can be taught. When, however, you begin to deal 
 with the elements of that high character which we desire 
 every child to attain, the opposite holds true, for then there 
 is a general agreement as to the virtues which we should try 
 to implant or cherish — the only uncertainty is as to the 
 success of our efforts. The mind, by the right use of the 
 imagination, can create ideals at which to aim, but experience 
 shows that man can only advance a little way in the direction 
 of these ideals, for, strive as he may to attain them, the goal 
 he makes for remains afar off. Indeed, so imperfect is human 
 nature that the attainment of one ideal often seems incon- 
 sistent with the complete possession of another. I ask the 
 reader to join me in contemplating ideals, and not to fear the 
 reproach of being unpractical, for the contemplation of an 
 ideal, even if unattainable, is a help to the humblest action. 
 If you have to cross a strange and intricate country, the best 
 way to keep the right road is to fi.x your eye steadil}^ upon a 
 distant object and to make directly for it, paying no regard to 
 intervening deviations. Such a guide to us are the ideals con- 
 structed long ago by great men and illuminated for us by the 
 experience of many generations. The ideas of such men are 
 very practical things, because without great thoughts there 
 are no great deeds. 
 
 Now the central thought of all that I am going to lay 
 before you is summed up in the word "reverence". In 
 Goethe's masterpiece upon education he takes his reader to 
 a secluded monastery, situated in a romantic country, where 
 a few children are being educated upon an unusual system.
 
 Reverence ; or^ The Ideal in Education 249 
 
 On Hearing the old monastic buildings, which, instead of 
 being in the hands of the clergy, are now occupied by special 
 teachers, the visitor is struck by the peculiar antics w4th 
 which the children greet him as he approaches. He notices 
 three different gestures. Sometimes the children stand, having 
 their arms crossed on their breasts, and looking up to heaven 
 with gladness ; sometimes they turn their eyes to earth, smil- 
 ing and keeping their hands crossed behind their backs as if 
 tied there; while in a third kind of greeting they run to- 
 gether, stand side by side, and look straight before them. 
 
 Naturally, the visitor asks his guide to interpret to him 
 
 the meaning of these strange gestures. " Children ", answers 
 
 the interpreter, " bring with them into the world many gifts 
 
 of Nature. These it is our duty to cherish. Often, however, 
 
 natural gifts develop best when left to themselves. One there 
 
 is that no child brings with him into the world — one habit of 
 
 mind which only comes by training — and yet it is the most 
 
 important of all for the making of a perfect man." " And 
 
 what, pray, is that?" asks the visitor. " Reverence," answers 
 
 the interpreter. The visitor is still puzzled. "Yes, reverence," 
 
 continues the other; "all want that — you yourself, perhaps. 
 
 There are three kinds of reverence which we teach here in 
 
 succession, but which exert their full influence only when 
 
 united in one character, and the three gestures which you 
 
 have seen are outward symbols corresponding to these three 
 
 kinds of reverence. To begin with, the young child crosses 
 
 his arms on his breast and casts a joyous look heavenwards. 
 
 That action indicates reverence for what is above him. Thus 
 
 young children learn that God is above them and reveals 
 
 Himself to them in their parents and others who are set in 
 
 authority over them. Next, the children learn to cross their 
 
 hands behind their backs as if bound, and incline their face 
 
 earthwards. This action indicates reverence for earth, and 
 
 reminds them of two things: first, that earth is the source of 
 
 life and untold happiness; and, secondly, that it is also the 
 
 source of infinite misery, for from the earth arise pain and 
 
 sorrow, and earthly wills are unruly and man is in danger
 
 250 JSssays and Addresses 
 
 of suffering and doing ill all his life long. In these two first 
 stages of our training, the children are taught to stand alone 
 and apart; but in the third stage they join each other side 
 by side as comrades and thus united look straight before 
 them, facing the world with a bold front. Until man has 
 learnt to associate with other men for a common purpose 
 there prevails between him and his fellows nothing but 
 suspicion and mistrust." 
 
 " But," says the visitor, " you say reverence is not inborn, 
 and needs to be implanted. Surely every savage fears the 
 great and evident forces of Nature, and learns through them 
 naturally to fear a Being greater than himself" " True," 
 replies the guide; "but fear is not reverence: the two things 
 are distinct. What a man fears he either seeks to meet and 
 vanquish, if he be strong, or to avoid and shirk, if he be weak; 
 but what a man reverences he seeks to attain or imitate." 
 
 This is Goethe's famous illustration of reverence. Now I 
 hold that, while much remains doubtful and disputable in 
 education, we have in this word reverence, as thus interpreted, 
 one thing fixed and certain, one thing which is not obscure or 
 new, but repeated a hundred times in the world's literature, 
 and proved in practice, as long as history records the doings 
 of the human race, to be a solid and substantial basis for 
 nobility of character. We must implant in children a feeling 
 of reverence. The next point is: What are children to learn 
 to reverence? and I propose to try to answer this question. 
 Following Goethe, I will deal with reverence for things above, 
 reverence for things on earth, and reverence for man in society; 
 but I will take them in the reverse order. I begin with 
 the last — reverence for ]\Ian in Societ}-, — the most important 
 element of which is man's reverence for his native country. 
 
 I know that the word Patriotism is often distrusted and 
 discredited. Like all high conceptions, the spirit of patriotism 
 has been debased and the national strength to which it gives 
 rise may be and has been abused to tyrannise over the weak 
 or to insult the oppressed. But the true spirit of patriotism 
 is not one of false pride and conceit, not of self-laudation and
 
 Reverence ; or, The Ideal in Education 251 
 
 exaltation ; but such an appreciation of his country's greatness 
 as leads a man to be humble, modest and ready to sacrifice 
 himself as an insignificant portion for the good of the whole 
 community. It leads a youth to feel how much others, living 
 and dead, have done for him and to aspire to make that 
 return which lies in his power by keeping himself temperate 
 and well disciplined in mind and body, that he may, when 
 called upon, support the public interest, even if he must 
 sacrifice his own. This spirit leads a man to live for the good 
 of others, and not for himself or his family alone; it supplies 
 a motive for developing his faculties, instead of destroying 
 them either by vice or idleness, or even by a fruitless asceti- 
 cism, like that of some oriental fakir, sitting out his life in 
 dreaming and contemplation ; it leads him to respect his 
 fellow-countrymen, whether rich or poor, and to remember 
 that all of them, however divided in their several aims, must 
 have a common interest as Englishmen. This is the spirit 
 that might replace the prevalent feeling of class hatred, that 
 canker of national life. This is the spirit which w'e may 
 implant in children, partly by making them acquainted with 
 stirring passages in English literature which are inspired by 
 it, and partly by telling them stories of those men and women 
 who have consecrated their lives to their country's good, and 
 have believed that a profitless comfortable life is scarcely 
 better worth living than a life of vice. 
 
 "Oh, gentlemen, the time of life is short; 
 To spend that shortness basely were too long, 
 Though life did ride upon a dial's point, 
 Still ending at the arrival of an hour." 
 
 Connected with .patriotism is reverence for Disciplined 
 Life, and therefore the next ideal in education which I will 
 hold up before you is that of hardihood, strictness and simpli- 
 city of living. Compare the means of comfort within reach 
 of almost all people in these days with the opportunities of 
 avoiding hardship which existed a hundred years ago, and
 
 252 Essays and Addresses 
 
 you will realize the imminent dan<^er of yielding to the 
 temptation of .s(;ft living and then to softness of life. I am 
 not thinking of a frigid discipline which is often a substitute 
 for zeal and which may throw some of the best impulses of 
 a child into an atrophy, or at least freeze up the healthy flow 
 of his animal spirits, but of that discipline which develops the 
 manlier virtues. On this subject I will quote a passage from 
 Jeremy Taylor: "Otherwise," says he, "do fathers and 
 mothers handle their children. These soften them w^ith 
 kisses and imperfect noises, with the pap and the breast- 
 milk of soft endearments; they rescue them from tutors 
 and snatch them from discipline; they desire to keep them 
 fat and warm and their feet dry and their bellies full, and 
 then the children govern and cry and prove fools and trouble- 
 some, so long as the feminine republic does endure. But 
 fathers, because they design to have their children wise and 
 valiant, apt for counsel and for arms, send them to severe 
 governments and tie them to study and hard labour and 
 afflictive contingencies. Softness for slaves and beasts and 
 domestic pets and useless persons, for such as cannot ascend 
 higher than the state of a fair o.x or a servant entertained for 
 vainer offices. Labour," he continues, " obedience and disci- 
 pline, these are the three guides in attendance upon the high 
 way of the cross ; unpleasant are they, but safe." 
 
 There never was a time when the numerous distractions 
 of town life were more insidious, and when, therefore, it was 
 more necessary to dwell upon the virtues of singleness of aim 
 and simplicity in life. No doubt a knowledge of miscellane- 
 ous affairs is most useful to most people, but at what a risk 
 is such knowledge obtained in youth! Let us think of the 
 biographies of men like Bunyan or Wesley and pay heed how- 
 much they were content to forego of that which most people 
 devote all their lives to acquiring or enjoying, and that in 
 order to obtain a large store of spiritual treasure which many 
 of us half despise and most of us are ver>' willing to dispense 
 with. Then we may realize how important an ingredient in 
 the noble nature is simplicity of life.
 
 Reverence ; or, The Ideal in Ediicatio7i 253 
 
 I now come to another form of the reverence for Man in 
 Society which Goethe describes — reverence for civic life. It 
 is not the most important end of education to train a child 
 to become a successful wage-earner, because " making his own 
 living" is not really the most important part of his future life. 
 The real educational problem is not a mere industrial question. 
 We want to know how we can make it possible for all, even 
 the poorest, to lead a life which, however humble, shall not 
 want its share of dignity. The boy grows to be a man, and 
 will become a workman or a professional man, but he will 
 also be a member of a community, and an Englishman. Our 
 problem is how to enable him to play a man's part in that 
 community and in that country. I cannot better explain 
 the meaning of this ideal than by quoting a portion of the 
 oath which )'Oung men took in Athens when they arrived 
 at man's estate. " I will do battle," they swore, " for our 
 altars and our homes, whether aided or unaided. I will 
 leave our countrj' not less, but greater and nobler than she 
 was entrusted to me. I will reverently obey the citizens who 
 shall act as judges. I will obey the laws which have been 
 ordained and which in time to come shall be ordained by 
 the national will." 
 
 This is the spirit that pervaded civic life 2000 years ago. 
 How infinitely grander it is than the spirit which pervades 
 a large part of modern society. It is a common fashion now 
 to despise the past, to belittle great characters and to magnify 
 present opinion and practice by comparison. There are many 
 who believe that if they do not agree with the expressed 
 national will, they are philosophic and scientific in disregard- 
 ing, disobeying, and defying it. For admiration, reverence^ 
 and humility, they substitute a spirit of cynicism, assumption, 
 and self-conceit. Then I turn to a greater work than the 
 pages of Greek History, I mean the Books of the Bible, and 
 read those words of Elijah, when, worn out with the cares of 
 what seemed a hopeless struggle with evil, he cried: "It is 
 enough; now, O Lord, take away my \\i&,for I am not better 
 than 7ny fathers''. How much nobler, truer, and more worthy
 
 2 54 Essays and Addresses 
 
 is such a spirit than the state of mind of those for whom the 
 past has no claim to respect, nor the ancient majesty of long 
 tradition any title to regard, nor the law of the land any 
 sacred sanction. Such a spirit is the highest result of rever- 
 ence for man in society, and the way to implant it in the 
 mind of the child is by encouraging reverence for the heroic 
 character. We are cynically told that it is no reproach to 
 a man that he is not a hero. At any rate, let children be 
 assisted to admire heroism in all its forms, because some 
 elements of the heroic character are necessary to every good 
 man. The contrast between a heroic death and a feeble, 
 discontented, self-indulgent life cannot fail to be a bracing 
 contemplation. Few children who have learnt to admire 
 devotion and self-sacrifice in the life of another will be con- 
 tent with mere ease and enjoyment in their own. 
 
 The next ideal I would bring under your notice is rever- 
 ence for Beaut}-, which is the chief of " things on earth ". I 
 think a good many English people have great doubt about 
 the value of a love for beautiful objects. They look upon 
 all such as toys and trifles, playthings for people with leisure 
 and money to devote to them, as an interest of which the 
 best that can be said is that it is harmless; hence they think 
 that it is, to say the least of it, superfluous to make children 
 acquainted with vanities. Yet Goethe, one of the greatest 
 and most thoughtful of writers, has said boldly: "The beau- 
 tiful is greater than the good". How can we reconcile these 
 conflicting opinions? We know that the study of Art may 
 be made a frivolous pursuit, but this is a perversion of it: 
 
 "Ah I believe me there is more than so, 
 That works such wonders in the minds of men!" 
 
 A painting of the Mother and Child by Raphael ; a landscape 
 by Turner, as seen in the midst of the eternal peace of sunset; 
 a carved marble by a Greek artist, who has fixed for ever in 
 stone the transient grace of muscular movement, or, with 
 intense vividness, the working of the mind showing itself in
 
 Reverence ; or, The Ideal in Education 255 
 
 the fleeting expression of the countenance; an oratorio by 
 Handel; a solemn service by Bach — these and similar works 
 of Art body forth for us in a way that nothing else can the 
 union of whatsoever things are true, beautiful, and good. If 
 this be the lesson that can be learned from Art, it is no mere 
 " crackling of thorns under a pot ", but a sober, serious pursuit 
 that may, if rightly followed, brace and strengthen, as well as 
 enlarge and elevate the mind. But to get real good from this 
 study, it should be begun early in life, and continued long, for 
 a sense of beauty cannot be snatched up in a moment in our 
 later years. This stud\', in Shakespeare's words, 
 
 " is like Heaven's glorious sun, 
 That will not be deep searched by saucy looks ". 
 
 The process is long and slow, and if it begins with a child's 
 delight in a pretty colour, it may end long afterwards with a 
 masculine and severe joy in beautiful scenes and objects, fill- 
 ing the soul with power. Of course I do not expect too much 
 from Art. I do not hope to make children moral merely by 
 teaching them to draw, nor do I suppose that the right remedy 
 for rotten and rat-riddled tenements is a scarlet geranium or 
 an artistic wall-paper, but I do believe that moral beauty 
 is not different from but really one with the beauty which 
 is made manifest by artists, and that if you teach a child to 
 see beauty in a shell or a flower, in a picture or a carving, you 
 are helping him to see the beauty of right conduct, and what 
 is more, the ugliness of the opposite. 
 
 A recent number of the Parent's Review supplies me from 
 its invaluable appendix, which contains actual observations 
 on the minds of children, with two illustrations of the un- 
 expected influence of a sense of beauty upon moral behaviour. 
 In the first case a mother describes the repugnance which 
 grew up in a little child of four years old to saying prayers 
 and explains the difficulty of treating this temper. " One 
 day," she continues, " I took the little girl into a room where 
 several tall lilies were arranged in pots, and asked her would 
 she like to kneel by them and thank God for making such
 
 256 Essays and Addresses 
 
 beautiful things. She at once consented, and her interest, 
 being awakened, has continued ever since, adding a word of 
 praise for the lovely lilies, and thus a good habit has driven 
 out a bad one." Who can fail to see in this description a 
 touching illustration of one of the most exquisite passages 
 in the Sermon on the Mount.^ Another mother states that 
 to quiet a child in a passion at three, four, and five years old, 
 she would take her to look at Holman Hunt's " Light of the 
 World ", which had a calming effect that no words would 
 produce. Often a first sign of regret was asking to be taken 
 to see it. 
 
 The love of Art has often been thought inconsistent with 
 hardihood, the ideal which I dwelt on earlier. If Art is de- 
 voted to providing comforts and luxuries for private use it may 
 be so, but the Art which builds and adorns public buildings, 
 raises monuments to great men and great deeds, or interprets 
 and reveals to men beauty which might escape them, will 
 never lead to selfishness or self-indulgence. There is an 
 ascetic devotion to Art and an ascetic enjoyment of this 
 earth's delights, and it is this truth which Goethe adum- 
 brates when he describes with quaint but telling imagery the 
 gestures of those who look with joy upon the earth, and yet, 
 at the same time, stand with their hands tied behind their 
 backs. The beauty of earth we ought to learn to reverence, 
 but it cannot be enjoyed without restraint, so that parents 
 and guardians must follow that shepherd who said : " And I 
 took unto me two staves, the one I called Beauty and the 
 other I called Bands, and I fed the flock " (^Zech. xi, 7). 
 
 I have dealt with reverence of two kinds, as suggested by 
 Goethe's famous allegory — reverence for things on earth, and 
 reverence for man in society. There remains one more ideal, 
 the greatest of all, one that may change, but will never decay; 
 an ideal that is ancient and yet ever modern, most well known 
 and yet never carried into act without being original ; an ideal 
 that is most worthy of being dwelt upon in a time when so 
 many are inclined to disregard it, because, say they: "Old 
 things are passed away; behold all things are become new".
 
 Reverence ; or^ The Ideal in Education 257 
 
 The chief part of education is reverence for the Christian Hfe. 
 I mean by a Christian life an eternal act of death into life 
 done by Christ, a life in which all may share, a life which 
 Jias been shared by countless numbers of persons calling 
 themselves Christians during the last 1800 years. The evi- 
 dence and the substance of the death of Christ, and of all 
 the varied doctrines that have prevailed in connection with 
 it, are acts of Christian love. Tongues cease, prophets die, 
 science changes; ecclesiastical systems flourish and decay; 
 the act of love that seeketh not its own abideth. Amid fret- 
 fulness, discontent, sophistry, ambition, the roar of the street 
 and the din of the market, we may easily forget or ignore 
 this ancient and simple theology. Yet which of us has not 
 known in the flesh some living example of Christian life? I 
 do not mean a Gordon, or a Nightingale, or an Arnold 
 Toynbee, whose fame resounds as far as the English tongue 
 is heard ; but one whose narrow stage has been the sick-room 
 or a disorderly and teasing household, and who has discharged 
 lowly, painful, and laborious duties with such cheerfulness 
 and perfection as to make us envy the beauty of their spirit, 
 which exhibits in power the crucified and risen life described 
 with burning eloquence b}- St. Paul. It is when we come to 
 know persons like this that we are forced to grasp the fact 
 (which we are slow and loath to credit) that great men do 
 mean what they say. 
 
 Such then are the ideals that we ought to teach children 
 to venerate — patriotism, civic life, beauty, and the Christian 
 life. Great as is the importance of other subjects, " the rudi- 
 ments of the world ", yet, if we bear these in mind, disputes 
 about the rest will dwindle into insignificance. Whether or 
 no we succeed in instructing children exactly in the fashion 
 of the latest and most approved science, yet, projecting this 
 light from the past on the darkness of the future, we shall 
 find it possible to train them to lead a life which is simple, 
 good, and true, and we shall find that, while their human 
 faculties are slowly unfolding and developing, they are con- 
 tinually " increasing the increase of God ".
 
 GAIETY IN EDUCATION 
 
 A STUDY IN AUGUSTINE AND CALVIN 
 
 Few will deny in these days that gaiety has a leading 
 place in education. The belief in gaiety as an important 
 factor in the training of a child has not always prevailed. 
 A joyless childhood has been, and perhaps occasionally is 
 still, the lot of many children. This is apparent in many 
 biographies, and is confirmed by common observation. There 
 have always been some persons who would start children on 
 the voyage of life by reading to them a funeral service. They 
 had better cheer the little craft as it clears the harbour bar, 
 because the heavens will grow black often enough before the 
 other shore is reached and abundance of animal spirit is 
 needed to weather the storms of life in safety. 
 
 Although our mental states are closely dependent upon 
 physical health, brief experience is enough to demonstrate 
 the frequent triumph of a cheerful mind over great bodily 
 infirmity; and among mysteries there is none more unaccount- 
 able than the power possessed by the human spirit of con- 
 tinuing strong, healthy, and creative in an ailing, crazy and 
 rickety frame. The merriest in a group of people is often 
 he who has the least cause for mirth and greatest excuse for 
 depression of spirit. Gaiety of heart is, of course, often an 
 advantage of natural disposition ; but, like most other virtues, 
 it is for average human beings largely a matter of training. 
 
 It has always been the view of some, that children have 
 by nature too much animal spirits, and that, so far from 
 cultivation, what is needed is continuous repression. Dis- 
 interested spectators for the most part disapprove such re- 
 pression, and delinquencies in later life are often justified or 
 
 258
 
 Gaiety in Education 259 
 
 excused by the remark that " as children, the dehnquents 
 were kept in hand very tightly at home ", " fast bind, fast 
 find ", or similar more or less sympathetic comments, A 
 joyless childhood will seldom be followed by a frank and 
 straightforward manhood. Most children are by nature 
 inclined to be gay, and their gaiety approves itself to com- 
 mon sense. What cause, then, leads some parents and 
 guardians to frustrate nature? There are some even who 
 agree with a certain farmer's advice about boys: " Whenever 
 you see a boy, beat him. If he is not naughty, he is going 
 to be." Some grown persons who are not sympathetic be- 
 come easily wearied with the mirth of a child, which bubbles 
 over in froth and clamour and noisy activity. Other people, 
 again, note how quickly in some children mirth becomes 
 over-excitement, and is followed by an inevitable reaction 
 of depression, and they fear this tidal flow of animal spirits 
 as injurious to mind and body. 
 
 Other people again, knowing that in most cases a child's 
 feelings towards his parents must be a mixture of love and 
 fear, find it easier to work on the fears than on the affections 
 of their offspring. Hence they are a little afraid of laughter 
 when he comes " holding both his sides ". Laughter seems 
 to them the mutiny of the flesh against the sovereignty of 
 reason. Yet, if we judge from the effects on the body of 
 a hearty laugh, we must own that there is medicine in it. 
 The biologists tell us that " laughter is a series of short expira- 
 tions, more or less accompanied with noise, depending chiefly 
 on vigorous contractions of the diaphragm and accompanied 
 by involuntary contractions of the facial muscles, especially 
 the zygomatic ". 
 
 Most animals can make a noise of some kind, but only 
 men can laugh. From a physical point of view, doubtless 
 the definition which is given above covers all kinds of 
 laughter; but it is probably impossible to bring within the 
 limits of a definition all its psychological aspects, often as 
 this has been attempted, from the days of Aristotle until 
 now. 
 
 23
 
 26o Essays and Addresses 
 
 It has been said, with some show of truth, that the char- 
 acter of the laugher is apparent in the vowel sound which 
 is audible in his laugh. For instance, laughter in " a " (or 
 " a " sounded as in father), " Ha, ha, ha ", marks a choleric 
 temperament like that of Sir Anthony Absolute, Laughter 
 in " o " is the sign of a generous, hearty and sanguine nature. 
 Then there is the melancholy laugh and the nervous laugh, 
 vocalized respectively with the sound of " a " in late, and " e ". 
 Lastly, there is the laugh of rogues, hypocrites and cynics, 
 where the vowel sound is half smothered, and may be ex- 
 pressed as " u ", spoken like the French diphthong " eu ". 
 
 Some poisons, such as belladonna, were said to cause arti- 
 ficial laughter, by contracting the muscles mechanically, and 
 as these toxic plants grew in Sardinia, men spoke of a forced 
 laugh or grin as Sardonic. This paper deals only with laughter 
 which is an expression of mirth. Children should have only 
 to do with laughter in " o ". The expression of their mirth 
 should be round and complete and full-breathed. No feel- 
 ing of anger or sorrow or hypocrisy should check the full 
 expression of their vocal chords. Then we can say with 
 Rabelais, 
 
 " Oh sweet and heavenly sound to hear thetn laugh ". 
 
 Laughter is really a necessary factor in physical education 
 and is of no less consequence in the other two branches of 
 education described respectively as intellectual and moral 
 training, for physiologists tell us that laughter is conducive 
 to health, because it facilitates digestion, strengthens the 
 frame and is a remedy against feelings of fatigue and weari- 
 ness of spirit Laughter helps both heart and lungs to do 
 their duty better, and tends to improve circulation and diges- 
 tion. Food becomes more nourishing under its influence, and 
 the blood is better purified, for the blood of the laugher has 
 no time to linger in the great organs, as it loves to do in 
 persons of morose temperament, but, as under the spell of 
 Mercury (the god, I mean, and not the drug), dances forward.
 
 Gaiety in Education 261 
 
 *' and runs trickling up and down the veins. Such virtue 
 hath that idiot laughter." 
 
 But laughter playing such a part in physical training, it 
 would be strange if there were nothing corresponding to these 
 benefits in its effect on the child's moral welfare, as though 
 it were only medicine for the body. What sort of a child 
 is it that never laughs? It is either one who has no vital 
 energy to spare and requires all his little stock of vital force 
 to keep body and soul together, or else one who morbidly 
 concentrates all his physical strength upon particular and 
 limited spheres of reflection ; a brooding child, whose book of 
 life is edited without the lighter chapters, which so much 
 enliven the rest of the pages ; an early genius, or perhaps a 
 budding lunatic. A sad child is a sad specimen of childhood, 
 for the child who seldom laughs is apt to brood over small 
 social troubles such as must arise from daily intercourse with 
 his companions, and also over mental perplexities which are 
 suggested to him unwittingly, through remarks which are 
 made in his presence by parents, teachers, and others, or by 
 chance conversation and general reading. The child who 
 never laughs is apt to be morose, sullen, and unforgiving, 
 remembering wrong and planning little schemes of revenge. 
 
 For laughter is the right way to allay the natural irritation 
 arising from small acts of injustice, whether intentional or 
 otherwise, which throw frequent shadows across the path of 
 life, from the font to the lychgate. The worst lesson which 
 a child can learn from the teaching of the world is the laugh 
 of the cynic, because it tends to make trifles of things serious. 
 On the other hand, one of the best of lessons is the mirth of 
 Mark Tapley, which makes trifles of serious troubles, and 
 not merely grins and bears, but bears with lightness of 
 humour. 
 
 I sometimes think English people find it harder to get 
 over small annoyances with levity than French people do. 
 I once saw a party of English people, in holiday attire, 
 approach incautiously too near a llama in the Zoological 
 Gardens. Of course the gentle creature spat at them in his
 
 262 Essays afid Addresses 
 
 peculiar way, and spoilt their smart clothes. They too went 
 away quite spoilt in temper for the rest of the afternoon. 
 Soon after, a still smarter party of French people were treated 
 by the llama with the same attention, and instead of e.xhibit- 
 ing any sign of irritation the ladies laughed till the cause for 
 annoyance was completely forgotten. 
 
 The spirit of fun arises in a child in a different way from 
 that in which it originates in grown-up people. When we 
 cease to be children, what makes us laugh is amusing thoughts. 
 While we are children, what amuses us is amusing sights. Of 
 fun in the child we may sa}- " it is engendered in the eyes ", 
 and is, " by gazing fed ". A )'oung schoolboy may get so far 
 as to enjoy what Sydney Smith allowed to be the lowest kind 
 of wit, claiming for it, in consequence, the right to be called 
 the foundation of all wit, namely, a pun ; but there is a pre- 
 vious stage, where mirth is born only of unexpected turns 
 in things visible. If the wind carries off a man's hat and he 
 has to chase the same down the street, the small boy will 
 have no compassion for the misfortune. He simply laughs 
 without constraint. If a pompous alderman, or policeman in 
 his solemn pacing down the pavement, happens to slip and 
 fall, so that instead of walking onwards he sits on a flag-stone, 
 the small boy will laugh till tears roll down his cheeks, not 
 that he is amused because someone is in trouble, but because 
 the unexpected transition from a position of assured superiority 
 to one of little dignity tickles the boy's fancy. 
 
 We must not be disappointed if young children's jokes 
 seem to us of riper years, no laughing matter; nor if we find, 
 on the other hand, that what amuses us bores them to death. 
 It is wise to look at the outside world as much as possible 
 from their point of view. After all, much good may be learnt, 
 even in riper years, by looking at some things with the eyes 
 of a child. A sense of fun would save many a dignitary from 
 attacks of excessive dignity. Biography shows that the more 
 childlike the man, often the more manlike his conduct. The 
 fact is, a child needs a large reserve of gaiety. His life is 
 apt to appear to him a constant succession of small checks to
 
 Gaiety in Education 263 
 
 his wishes, which he finds opposed either by the constitution 
 of things, as when he cries for the moon, or the will of his 
 elders, as when he is forbidden to sit up till midnight. If he 
 cannot take all these small hindrances to contentment laugh- 
 ing, he will be liable to pass a rather unhappy time in child- 
 hood. How then, once more, has laughter come to be looked 
 upon by some with suspicion? Clemens of Alexandria, for 
 instance, wrote that laughter does not become a Christian; 
 and the second Council of Carthage uttered its anathema on 
 jokes which move laughter ( Verba joculatovia risuiu nioventia). 
 The Preacher, too, deprecated mirth — " Sorrow is better than 
 laughter, for as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the 
 laughter of fools ". 
 
 Of course laughter forms no exception to human endow- 
 ments. It is liable to abuse. Can anything be rational which 
 cannot be used irrationally? Laughter weakens the will for 
 the moment, and therefore in bad company it is well avoided. 
 But because a soldier is prudent who wears his armour in 
 the midst of the enemy, shall he never take it off, even among 
 friends? 
 
 Laughter, again, as a mere expression of coarse sensuality 
 cannot be defended: such laughter is unworthy of a Christian. 
 There is, too, a merriment which loosens moral fibre, as 
 laughter at vice, or laughter at other people's infirmities, or 
 at the suffering of animals. There is, too, a peculiarly hateful 
 laughter arising from a sense of physical or intellectual superi- 
 ority — the " insolens kttitia " or " hubris " of the ancient 
 Romans and Greeks. 
 
 But, after all, though life is a thorn-bush there are roses 
 on it. I suppose the Calvinists have, since the Reformation 
 period, been among those who have brought up youth after 
 the strictest methods. They held mirth in suspicion. There 
 is much in the life of a modern child which to an old Calvinist 
 would have appeared wrong, because he would have thought 
 it distracting and deleterious to concentration and simplicity. 
 
 The Calvinists loved to simplify life. They aimed, as it 
 were, at dignity of outline, such as is seen in a fine building
 
 264 Essays and Addresses 
 
 when viewed at a distance, rather than at the infinite grace of 
 workmanship, in minor details, which crowd on the sight when 
 the spectator approaches nearer. Music, for instance, and 
 dancing and drawing and the love of colour and form and 
 harmonious sound, appeared to them dangerous tastes for 
 children. Such delights seemed to be distracting, and at 
 any rate superfluous. The theatre, the tale and the poem 
 are likely, they thought, to lead the mind away from the 
 main purpose of life and the " chief end of man ". It was 
 different in the Mediaeval Church. This absence of gaiety 
 was no part of the precept or practice of the Church. The 
 impression which many persons receive from a Gothic cathe- 
 dral is one of gloom and sadness. For myself I am more 
 struck by the revelation of sympathy with the varied exuber- 
 ance of life which I find expressed there. It is true that the 
 focus of all the design is centred on the Cross and the solemnity 
 of the Passion, but in minor details there is an evident deter- 
 mination to assimilate the world as a whole and take it as it 
 is, the evil with the good. Every column is covered with 
 fruit or foliage, and the wall spaces are filled with carvings 
 of scenes of harvest or vintage, or other common pursuits of 
 mankind. Quaint birds and animals peep out from among 
 the leaves, and even human frailties receive their share of the 
 artist's attention, while types of laughing faces are frequent 
 enough, not to mention endless grotesques which move to 
 merriment. In the present day we seem to be somewhat 
 over-oppressed by the mystery of pain, while in those days 
 the sense of this unfathomable mystery was tempered by a 
 rich feeling of sympathy with the abundant manifestations 
 of joy in creation. Christendom would then have understood 
 Kant's view, that children must be accustomed to unrestrained 
 laughter, because mirth stamps a merry look on the face, and 
 by degrees stamps itself also on the mind and leads to a dis- 
 position to friendliness, gaiety and benevolence. We seem 
 nowadays so familiar with the sense of effort in creation and 
 the struggle for existence, and the failures in life's struggle, 
 that we forget the other scenes in life's drama. Many seem to
 
 Gaiety in Education 265 
 
 be so depressed as to feel that sorrow is the only fact in the 
 order of things. The only text all seem to take to heart is: 
 " The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in 
 pain ". The fact is, children in many cases require a training 
 in gaiety of spirit as much as in the development of other 
 faculties. " Fast bind, fast find ", to quote Hood's witticism 
 again. The influence of the gloomy genius of Calvin has 
 been the wreck of many a young person, although in those 
 that survived the effect of it, how strong was their character, 
 how determined in purpose, how tenacious in discouragement, 
 and how obstinate in opposition! 
 
 Regarding this type of character everyone must feel some 
 respect for the rigid spirit which would develop the nature 
 of the child by repression, and secure concentration of the 
 light of life by cutting off all the side rays. But in the 
 present day a wholly different conception of training lies at 
 the base of our ideas of education. Our desire now is to 
 train the best faculties which the child possesses, and as many 
 of them as possible, in a harmonious way. No greater mis- 
 fortune, I think, can befall a child who has a gift for music or 
 drawing or sculpture than to miss the chance of cultivating 
 and improving his talent. Yet the influence of Calvin has 
 spread widely and deeply. Now there is no spiritual move- 
 ment of importance which has not some truth in it commen- 
 surate with its success and popular acceptance. There is, so 
 far as I can see, really nothing in Calvin himself which neces- 
 sarily leads to suppression of faculties in children. I will 
 quote what Calvin actually said about intercalating periods 
 of solemn thoughtful repose in the routine of life, his views, 
 namely, on the Sabbath: 
 
 " Does the Fourth Commandment order us to work on six days 
 that we may rest on the seventh? 
 
 " Not exactly, but in handing over to men six days to work, it 
 excepts the seventh that it may be devoted to repose. 
 
 " Does it forbid all labour on the seventh day? 
 
 "This commandment has a special and peculiar bearing. The
 
 266 Essays and Addresses 
 
 observance of a day of rest was part of the Jewish law, and as such 
 was abrogated by Christ's advent. 
 
 " Had then this commandment a special application to the Jews 
 alone, so that it was temporary and transient? 
 
 " Yes, in so far as it related to Jewish ceremonies. 
 
 " Is there then anything in the commandment beyond Jewish 
 ceremony ? 
 
 " It was given for three reasons. 
 
 "Name them. 
 
 " First, to show in a figure spiritual repose. Secondly, to main- 
 tain the constitution of the Church. Thirdly, to lighten the lives of 
 servants. 
 
 "(i) What do you understand by spiritual repose? 
 
 "We keep a holy day that God may work in us. 
 
 " How do we keep holy day? 
 
 " We crucify our flesh. That is, we give up our own will that we 
 may be governed by the Spirit of God. 
 
 " Is it sufficient that we do this on the seventh day only? 
 
 " Nay, rather without ceasing. As we have once begun so we 
 must continue to the end of our lives. 
 
 " Then why is a stated day set apart to show in a figure spiritual 
 repose? 
 
 "It is not necessary that the truth should agree with the figure of 
 it in every particular. It is enough if certain features of the truth are 
 figured forth. 
 
 "Then why is the seventh day prescribed for the purpose rather 
 than any other? 
 
 " The number VII is used in Scripture to denote perfection. It 
 is therefore suited to denote perpetuity. At the same time it denotes 
 that this spiritual rest commences only in this life, and will not be 
 perfect till we migrate from the world. 
 
 " But what is the meaning of this that the Lord urges us to rest 
 after his example? 
 
 " Having made an end of creating the world in six days, He 
 devoted the seventh to the consideration of His work. To stimu- 
 late us to similar meditation He sets His example before us. For 
 nothing is more desirable than that we should form ourselves after 
 His image. 
 
 " (2) But should the meditation of the works of God be continu-
 
 Gaiety in Education 267 
 
 ous, or is it enough that one day in seven should be devoted to that 
 occupation ? 
 
 " No; we should exercise ourselves in it day by day, but by reason 
 of our weakness one day is specially set apart for the purpose. And 
 this is the constitution of which I spoke. 
 
 "What then is the order to be observed on that day? 
 
 " People are to meet together to hear Christ's teaching, to join in 
 public prayers and to make public profession of their faith. 
 
 " (3) Now explain what you said about the Lord wishing to 
 provide for the relief of all who are employed as servants. 
 
 " Some relaxation should be given to those who are not their own 
 masters. 
 
 "This is necessary even for the maintenance of the constitution 
 of the state; for where one day is set apart for rest, people accustom 
 themselves to work during the remainder of the week. 
 
 " Now let us consider how far this commandment refers to us. 
 
 "As regards the ceremonial observance, since the truth and 
 substance of it were in Christ, I say that it is abrogated. 
 
 " How? 
 
 " By virtue of His death the old man is crucified in us, and we 
 are called to newness of life. 
 
 "Then what part of the commandment remains to apply to us? 
 
 " That we should not neglect the institutes which conduce to the 
 spiritual constitution of the Church ; especially that we should attend 
 the holy meetings to hear God's word, to celebrate His mysteries, and 
 to pray to Him, according to the ordinances. 
 
 " But does the figure convey nothing further to us? 
 
 "Yes it does. We must consider the substance of it. As we 
 are grafted in the body of Christ and made members of Him, we 
 should cease from our own ordinary occupations and resign ourselves 
 to the governance of God." 
 
 In these words Calvin endeavours to describe an element 
 of seriousness which he would see included in every healthy 
 life. I read in them nothing austere, much less pedantic. It 
 is on record that on one occasion Calvin played bowls with 
 his friends on Sunday, but the elders in Calvinistic families 
 think it prudent to suppress this record. 
 
 I see nothing in Calvin's description of the Christian
 
 268 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Truth, which he recognized as predigitated by the ceremonial 
 law of the Jewish Sabbath, inconsistent with playing at bowls 
 on Sunday, unless, indeed, playing at bowls were a man's 
 ordinary occupation. He would clearly not divide life into 
 Sundays and week-days, as if, by a convenient division of 
 labour, thoughts might be all secular during the week, and 
 all religious on Sunday. I find in him, again, no sympathy 
 with people who make a cross for themselves and then take a 
 pride in believing that they are nobly bearing one sent by 
 Providence. Calvin would encourage contemplation, and, 
 that time might be found for it, desired rest from manual toil 
 on Sundays. But the train of thought would control action 
 instead of being wholly dependent on it. What people did 
 on Sunday would be in harmony with their meditation, and 
 what there was of constraint in Sunday occupation would 
 follow from the temper natural to meditation. Calvin would 
 hardly have expected that the mere negative conduct of with- 
 holding from this or that pastime would of itself lead to 
 spiritual meditation. 
 
 Let us suppose, for instance, that you want a little girl to 
 feel aware that there is something in the world of greater 
 consequence than dolls, her chief solace and joy. Suppose 
 you begin by depri\'ing her of that joy forcibly. Will that 
 tend to elevate her thoughts? What you need to do is to 
 suggest, by some means or other, ideas which will lead her, 
 of her own accord, to forget her doll, or even put it away. 
 Doubtless this is much more difficult than external constraint. 
 But to empty the mind of one set of ideas is not to fill it with 
 another. The supposition, that if you remove the doll, you 
 will create a vacuum in the mind which can then be filled 
 with what you please, seems to evince ignorance of the way 
 in which the mind works. 
 
 There is a kind of living and organic connection in the 
 succession of thoughts, and it is no easy matter to change 
 at will the current ideas in a child's mind. My own belief 
 is, that if a child's head is full of some train of thought, or 
 some object, and you wish to substitute something different,
 
 Gaiety in Education 269 
 
 so far from suppressing the pre-existing thought or object, 
 you had better commence with it as a base for your efforts. 
 You want, for example, to talk about kind and unkind 
 behaviour. The child plays with her doll. I should not 
 remove the doll. I should deal with it as the child's com- 
 panion, and pass through stories about it to stories of life, 
 real or imaginative, and so to parables, till the lower is 
 absorbed in a higher imagination, and the common world 
 in an ideal world. It is no wise method of training to deprive 
 a child on Sunday of amusements and occupations which 
 please him, unless you can substitute others which please 
 him more. How can instruction be made attractive? 
 Hardly, if the teacher undertakes it as an irksome task. If 
 the lesson is annoying and wearisome to the teacher, it 
 certainly will not be anything different to the learner. 
 
 Even serious subjects cannot be rightly dealt with among 
 children without a certain amount of gaiety, and an exaggera- 
 tion of seriousness in the teacher is instantly detected by the 
 scholar. Children are genuine touchstones of pretence. 
 
 Plato remarks: "No study pursued under compulsion 
 remains rooted in the memory; hence you must train the 
 children to their studies in a playful manner, and without any 
 air of constraint ". 
 
 Through this truth I am brought to St. Augustine. I 
 have always been much impressed by his sympathy with 
 the wrongs of children. 
 
 " I was not incompetent to study," he says, " but I did 
 enjoy my games, and then I was punished by those who did 
 no other than myself" " But," he continues, " the lighter 
 occupations of grown-up people pass with them as business, 
 while children are punished by their elders for similarly amus- 
 ing themselves, and no one pities the children." 
 
 To me there is something remarkably instructive and 
 suggestive in the contrast between St. Augustine and Calvin 
 in their treatment of the significance of the Jewish Sabbath to 
 Christians. The contrast is not due merely to the difference 
 in character and temperament between the two men. I seem
 
 2/0 Essays and Addresses 
 
 to feel a difference due to time and development and experi- 
 ence of many human generations. 
 
 There is in Calvin a certain practical sense. He feels the 
 need of a discipline for the spirit as well as for the under- 
 standing. Even the spirit of pure religion he sees cannot be 
 entirely free from the aid of conventional ordinances. The 
 Jews substituted the letter for the spirit, and observance of 
 conventional ceremonies did duty for justice, mercy, and 
 righteousness. 
 
 The experience of many generations of Christians seemed 
 to lead the most thoughtful men of the Reformation period to 
 look back a little, and lean once again rather more heavily on 
 the staff " Bands ", and rather less on the staff " Beauty ". 
 They were compelled to believe more in the regulation of 
 daily life, and, figuratively speaking, to substitute a fixed and 
 definite tithe in place of committing themselves unreservedly 
 to the precept: " Give alms of all that thou hast ". 
 
 I shall, perhaps, be more clearly understood if I describe 
 St. Augustine's treatment of the Sabbath. He has what 
 seems to modern ideas a curioush' subtle and almost fanci- 
 ful chain of reasoning on its significance. 
 
 " Whatever a man finds to do," he writes, " if he does it in 
 such a spirit that he expects to obtain earthly advantage, then 
 he does it in the spirit of a hired workman, and therefore 
 he does not observe the Sabbath; for the love towards God 
 must be without the expectation of payment, and there is 
 no Sabbath for the soul except in that which God loves. 
 Eternal rest: there is none except in the love of God, who 
 alone is eternal, and this alone is complete holiday and the 
 spiritual Sabbath of sabbaths. God laboured not for six days 
 that he might rest on the seventh — that is a carnal idea. 
 
 " God made all things, and, behold, all was very good. And 
 God rested on the seventh day from all the works which He 
 did. Would you also rest? Then begin by doing works 
 which are very good. Do you do what that holiday means; 
 for holiday is the spiritual quiet of the heart. Quiet of the 
 heart comes from the calm of a good conscience; therefore
 
 Gaiety in Educatio7t 271 
 
 he keeps the true Sabbath who sins not. Let this be the 
 instruction for those who are to observe the Sabbath : ' Thy 
 service shall not be for wages, for those who sin work for the 
 wages of sin '." 
 
 St. Augustine thus draws a paradoxical but bold and ori- 
 ginal conclusion, that there is no rest for a sinner, because he 
 is a hired workman recei\ing pay for his work. It seems to 
 me that fully to realize and appreciate the height and depth 
 of this conception needs the mind of a saint. St. Augustine 
 describes a state of mind in which the desire to avoid error 
 and the aspiration after right conduct will render exact con- 
 ventional regulation of life no help and possibly a hindrance. 
 
 In Calvin we seem to descend from this almost super- 
 human elevation of character to the practical man of religious 
 sentiment who believes that nine people out of ten, apart from 
 conventional arrangements for religious exercise, will neglect 
 it altogether. He would seem to agree with Montalembert : 
 " II n'y a pas de religion sans culte; et il n'y a pas de culte 
 sans Dimanche". 
 
 It was ordered in 1584 that one-half of all the people in 
 every house, above twelve years of age, not being sick or law- 
 fully hindered, be at the beginning of every sermon every 
 Sunday in the morning, and one from every house at the 
 beginning of every sermon in the afternoon, of every Sunday 
 and festival day and likewise on every Wednesday, upon pain 
 of 2od. on Sundays and \2d. on other days, and strictest orders 
 were made for Sunday closure of tradesmen's shops. 
 
 Sunday lessons and occupations! How many people when 
 grown up look back to them with a sense of disgust, as if they 
 were a weekly drug that turns the sickening memory! How 
 many wrecked lives have been caused by irrational Sunday 
 conventionalities! Yet God forbid that the English Sunday 
 should ever be a day either of paid labour or noisy public 
 holiday. There is no sin that I know of in making a noise, 
 but generous youth will not be unwilling on Sunday to sup- 
 press the youthful tendency to noisy behaviour, feeling the 
 greater pleasure of not disturbing other people who desire to
 
 272 Essays and Addresses 
 
 be quiet. Perhaps, in return, people who want to be quiet 
 on week-days will not be unwilling to recognize the sacrifice 
 which youth thus makes to please them on Sundays, and, 
 above all, will avoid the hypocrisy of pretending that their 
 demand for peace is only for the good of youth, when it is 
 really a thing agreeable and salutary chiefly to themselves. 
 For life without gaiety is a cake without sugar, or, rather, 
 it is unleavened bread.
 
 MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA 
 
 A LITERARY OBJECT-STUDY 
 
 In 1570 the Turks took Cyprus. Christendom was alarmed 
 at the encroachment of Mahometan forces, and Spain, Venice, 
 and Rome formed a Holy League against Selim II, laying 
 aside their old dissensions for the purpose of making a united 
 attempt to bridle the Ottomans, and curb the power not only 
 of the Turks, but of the Moors of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. 
 Under Don John of Austria the most formidable fleet ever 
 seen in the Mediterranean attacked and defeated the Turkish 
 Fleet on the 7th October, 1571, in the Gulf of Lepanto. On 
 board one of the galleys, named La Marquesa, lay Cervantes, 
 a boy of fourteen, down in his cabin, sick of a fev-er. On 
 coming into action, the ship was in the van, and he was 
 urged by his captain to remain in his bed; but he refused, 
 asking what would be thought of him if he did not do his 
 duty, and declared he was resolved to die fighting for God 
 and duty, rather than remain in shelter and nurse his health. 
 Accordingly he was at his own wish placed in the post of 
 chief danger, namely, in a boat hanging from the galley's side 
 and much exposed to the enemies' fire. He performed his 
 part in that day's work so valiantly as to attract the notice of 
 his commanders, and even of Don John himself 
 
 The famous battle of Lepanto, which broke the spell of the 
 invincibility of Turkish arms by sea, was among the most 
 glorious feats of Spain at the zenith of her greatness, and re- 
 mained in the memory of Cervantes as the proudest event of 
 his life. During the fight he received two gunshot wounds in 
 the chest and one in the left hand, which was rendered useless 
 for life — " to the greater glory of the right ", as he said in 
 the spirit of Don Quixote, his great creation ; and his country-
 
 274 Essays and Addresses 
 
 men love to dub him " El Manco de Lepanto ", the maimed 
 hero of Lepanto. Cervantes continued in service against the 
 Turks, both by land and sea. He describes in the story of 
 the captain in Don Quixote, which is founded on facts of his 
 own life, the feeble effort of the allied fleet against the Turks 
 anchored in Navarino Bay, and afterwards he was present at 
 the capture of Goletta in Tunis, which is also referred to in 
 the same story. His experience of warfare by land and sea 
 afforded him that knowledge of men and things without 
 which Don Quixote would not have touched the heart of man- 
 kind as it has done. To this war, also, must be attributed 
 the traces of the art and culture of Italy w^hich are manifest 
 throughout his w^orks. 
 
 In 1575, on his way from Naples to Spain, he was captured 
 off Minorca by Algerine pirates. The treatment of their 
 prisoners by these pirates was most cruel, and the captivity of 
 Cervantes was of the hardest. He bore it with a courage and 
 constancy which would alone have entitled him to be ranked 
 as a hero. The books of chivalry contain no episode more 
 romantic. The fabled deeds of Amadis de Gaul and the 
 knights-errant, which had kindled his youthful imagination, 
 did not surpass his real adventures, for the exaggerations of 
 chivalry and romance were even surpassed in the lofty spirit 
 with which he discharged his knightly duty. It was a miser- 
 able five years. Evil seemed to triumph over him. Lost to 
 his friends, lost to all hope of living the high heroic life which 
 he had set before himself to live, subjected to hardships, 
 tyranny, and caprice, he bore all with indomitable spirit, 
 cheering the despondent, sharing what little he had with 
 others, helping the sick, risking danger in the cause of 
 Christian faith, and ever bearing himself as a true soldier 
 of the king and as a noble gentleman. His sweetness, his 
 magnanimity and daring, secured him an extraordinary in- 
 fluence, not only over his fellow-prisoners, but even over his 
 jailer Hassan, a Venetian renegade who was famous as a 
 terror to Christendom. 
 
 Cervantes' life and sorrows are the key to the under-
 
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 275 
 
 standing of Don Quixote. Like the Knight of the Sorrowful 
 Figure, Cervantes started his life's adventures full of glowing 
 visions of chivalry, impatient of wrong-doing, eager to set 
 wrong right, and aid the weak. 
 
 The so-called realities of the world might well have sup- 
 pressed all this faith in the ideal, and dwarfed his soaring 
 spirit. But Cervantes was no commonplace vapouring ad- 
 venturer. His misfortunes ennobled his soul, and he emerged 
 from them sweeter in temper and stronger in mind than ever. 
 
 When thirty-seven years old, Cervantes married. His own 
 family, though not a noble one, was good, and his wife was of 
 equal birth. He wrote a poem called Galatea, criticised by 
 himself among the books in Don Quixote's library, and 
 certain dramatic works, but nothing of first-class merit. At 
 this period of his life he was engaged in providing grain and 
 oil and wine for victualling the Spanish Armada, wandering 
 among Andalusian villages for the purpose, and incidentally 
 enriching his experience of men. 
 
 Cervantes lived in great poverty, and Don Quixote, accord- 
 ing to his own statement, was " born in a jail ", like The 
 Pilgrinis Progress; the cause of his imprisonment not being 
 certainly known. It was in 1604 that Don Quixote was pub- 
 lished, when Cervantes was sixty years old, and it should be 
 noticed that the same year saw the publication of Shake- 
 speare's Hamlet. 
 
 It is needless to speak of its popularity, which caused it to 
 pass through six editions. Since the invention of printing, in 
 1479, no book had had so many readers. The Romance of 
 Aniadis de Gaul had led to much feeble and insipid imitation. 
 Here was a burlesque or satire upon that kind of literature, 
 from which, however, unlike any other satire, the best features 
 were selected for approbation, and while that which was rotten 
 was pruned away, that which was sound was placed in a pure 
 and clear light never to be lost to mankind. Here were 
 humour and fun in its utmost abandon; here was wisdom, 
 simple, deep, homely, with refined philosophy; here were true 
 charity and widest sympathy with humanity in all its strength 
 
 24
 
 276 Essays and Addresses 
 
 and frailty; here was a fresh and Hvely picture of national life, 
 containing all its elements. 
 
 Don Quixote's primary aim was, no doubt, like that of all 
 true artists, to please and amuse. His book was a pastime 
 for melancholy and gloomy spirits, but he also meant to 
 laugh out of current literature the romances of chivalry which 
 were harmful alike to morals and taste. He succeeded in his 
 aim. After Cervantes, false chivalry died, and much false 
 sentiment. 
 
 Those who care more for historical truth than poetry may 
 find in Don Quixote a type of Spanish nobility, and in his 
 servant a type of Spanish peasantry. The rest of Cervantes' 
 literary career, and how his tales suggested to Walter Scott the 
 idea for his novels, and the story of his death in the year that 
 Shakespeare died, 1616, do not concern us now. The next 
 study after the biography is the contents of the famous 
 Romance. It should be noticed that while Cervantes admits 
 in his preface that the ecstasies of Don Quixote may not 
 seem to the reader so novel and unexpected, the character of 
 Sancho Panza is claimed as wholly original. 
 
 The pursuit of knowledge had, in the sixteenth century, led 
 men to seek it, not in old books or traditional learning, but in 
 all that is near and close around in nature and human nature. 
 The student and the poet alike endeavoured in that age to 
 grasp with both hands what was within reach. Truth and 
 purity and justice were not laid up somewhere in the sky, but 
 intelligible realities here on earth. The true remedy for Don 
 Quixote's ecstasy lay in the homely wisdom of his faithful 
 disciple. It was not by abandoning the ideal that relief 
 might be found, but by merely fixing his feet more firmly on 
 God's earth and seeking virtue in all that lay at hand and 
 about him. The Elizabethan dramatists did the same as 
 Cervantes. The ways of men and women, and the loveliness 
 of woods and meads and streams, were their inspiration, and 
 they reached out after what was far without despising what 
 ■was near. 
 
 People have endeavoured to construct lists of the best
 
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 277 
 
 hundred books in the world. So far as purely literary works 
 are concerned, there are not fifty, not a score! There are 
 Homer, the Greek Play-writers, then the Roman Virgil, and, 
 after him, there are none of that rank until Cervantes and 
 Shakespeare. The list is a very short one. 
 
 All things change, but the most stable thing throughout 
 recorded time is human nature. The few great writers of the 
 world have dived so deeply into the springs of human action, 
 and displayed their secrets with such art and charm, that 
 however habits, customs, and countries may vary, man de- 
 lights in the image of himself which these authors mirror for 
 him in their pages. In these few great books man's nature is 
 presented as a whole, and not from any partial view or in any 
 single aspect. The good is of the highest, but the evil is not 
 left out of the picture. 
 
 In commencing D071 Quixote the reader must beware of 
 prepossessions and expectations, otherwise, looking for what 
 is not there, he will be disappointed and overlook what it 
 really contains. It is in the spirit of a little child that all 
 great works of genius must be approached. The mental 
 attitude must be purely receptive and not critical. To de- 
 preciate anything which the verdict of the human race has 
 pronounced upon favourably is the mark of a small mind. 
 
 The reader of Cervantes must not look for a carefully- 
 woven plot such as is ingeniously contrived in a modern 
 novel. He must not, on the other hand, think that in the 
 absence of such a plot there is no unity at all, and that the 
 book consists of a number of mad adventures inartistically 
 thrown together. 
 
 If the structure of the book is not at first apparent, that is 
 a reason for allowing the thoughts to dwell upon it for a long 
 time, and for returning to it again and again. 
 
 One great charm of the book is that the reader is trans- 
 ported into an unfamiliar country and into a novel society. 
 His narrow, insular, and limited sympathies are widened and 
 extended. If D071 Quixote is not composed like a modern 
 novel, it is not, therefore, quite unlike any other literature.
 
 278 Essays and Addresses 
 
 It must be remembered that it was written in Spain, and that 
 Arabian influence is stronger in that country than anywhere 
 else in Europe. Hence for the type of narrative to which 
 Don Quixote belongs it is natural to think of the Arabian 
 Nights Entertainvient. This is possible and probable. The 
 manuscript from which Galland's version of this delightful 
 book was made (in 1704) certainly existed in 1548, that is, at 
 the time Cervantes was born. The long series of stories in 
 the Arabian Nights have no connection with each other. 
 They form a miscellany. At first sight the adventures of Don 
 Quixote appear to be disconnected in the same way. The 
 author's hidden and perhaps subconscious art, it is for the 
 reader to detect. The stories are, however, connected ps\'- 
 chologically. One adventure relieves the next by a sort of 
 contrast; furious combats are followed by love scenes, the 
 extravagant and exuberant fun, the blunders and blows which 
 are so attractive to boys, are relieved by serious disquisitions, 
 and all the time jest and earnest are so interwoven that the 
 reader finds himself half in tears over the jest and making 
 merry at what is earnest. Cervantes, as he says in his pre- 
 face, set himself the task of satirizing extravagant tales of 
 chivalry, but he aimed at preserving what was best in chivalry 
 while sweeping away what was rubbish. Hence in quite an 
 early chapter the reader is introduced to the library of Don 
 Quixote, who only " loses his stirrups " when he is dealing 
 with chivalry. The reader should not skip the " grand 
 scrutiny made by the priest into Don Quixote's Library ". 
 The chapter throws some light on the Spanish Inquisition, 
 and it also shows how large the growth of Romantic literature 
 had become; and it further proves that Cervantes was by 
 no means willing to destroy the first and original books of 
 chivalry, such as Amadis de Gaul, which had some merit, but 
 only the ridiculous imitations, which had none. 
 
 Cervantes helps to maintain the unity of his story by 
 grouping the adventures around an inn, and this device 
 should be compared with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, for he 
 also assembles all his story-tellers at the Taberd inn, in
 
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 279 
 
 Southwark. Of course the advantage of this device is that 
 it enables the writer to introduce into his story all sorts and 
 conditions of men — nobles and peasants, priests and soldiers, 
 court ladies and peasant girls — in the most natural way in 
 the world. How widely spread was the taste for books on 
 chivalry, Cervantes indicates more than once, showing that 
 not only educated people enjoyed them, but that even reapers 
 and other labourers loved to listen to them in the harvest- 
 field or elsewhere. He shows what charms they had for men, 
 for the servant girl, for the young lady; the men enjoying 
 the combats, the servant girls the love scenes, and the young 
 ladies the impassioned complaints of the knights for their 
 absent mistresses. Tales of romance touched some of the 
 many chords of the human heart in no unworthy manner. 
 It was not in Spain alone that this kind of romance was 
 universally popular. It was just the same in our own countr}', 
 and besides the Arthurian Romances, enshrined in the pages 
 of Malory and reproduced for us by Lord Tenn}'son, there 
 are many others, some of which are being published, as, for 
 instance, the tale of The Green Knight and Sir Gawain. The 
 green knight being beheaded lifts up his head and rides away 
 with it. It should be noticed that these mad stories of chi- 
 valry throw some light on the fables told of mediaeval saints. 
 The Church, finding such adventures in possession of men's 
 minds, saw that it was easier to transfer them from a region 
 wholly secular to a religious atmosphere than to eradicate 
 from an ignorant age what was so vastly pleasing to it, and 
 hence fables of St. Denys and the like are but the reflection 
 in religious teaching of similar tales in profane or secular 
 learning. In the amusing discussions between Don Quixote, 
 who defends his belief in all the fables of romance and pins 
 his faith on all that is printed, and the Canon, who regards 
 them as a tissue of lies, it is easy to see the never-ending 
 contest between those who desire to sift what is genuine in 
 history from what is imaginary. 
 
 But if the matter of romance had become wild and foolish, 
 the style of it was not less ridiculous. Cervantes gives a
 
 28o Essays and Addresses 
 
 specimen. " Scarcely had ruddy Phoebus extended over the 
 face of this wide and spacious earth the golden filaments of his 
 beautiful hair, and scarcely had the little painted birds with 
 their forked tongues hailed in soft and mellifluous harmony 
 the approach of the rosy harbinger of morn, who, leaving the 
 soft couch of her jealous consort, had just disclosed herself to 
 mortals through the gates and balconies of the Manchejan 
 horizon, when the renowned knight Don Quixote de la 
 Mancha, quitting the slothful down, mounted Rozinante, his 
 famous steed, and proceeded over the ancient memorable 
 plain of Montiel." Shakespeare, it will be remembered, in 
 Loves Labour 's Lost, makes the fantastical Spaniard Don 
 Adriano de Armado write in this same absurd style: "So 
 it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend 
 the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome of thy 
 health-giving air, and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself for 
 a walk ", &c. From such a style the world was delivered by 
 Cervantes and Shakespeare, until some modern newspapers 
 revived it in this country. 
 
 But along with the deca)' of romance and the dissatisfaction 
 with excessive conventionality which substituted ceremony 
 for heart-felt courtesy, there sprang up a reaction in favour of 
 what was called Nature. Cervantes leads us from town and 
 village to the wild hills in the heart of the Sierra Morena. 
 The story of the shepherd Chrysostom, who kills himself for 
 love of Marcela, who will not marry him, is full of pathos, and 
 leads to profoundly interesting disquisitions which should by 
 no means be skipped as dull and unimportant. Though they 
 interrupt the narrative they are the real substance of the 
 book, and the adventures are in a manner a sugar coating 
 to a pill. What a pretty natural scene is conveyed in the 
 few words which describe the funeral of Chrysostom ! " They 
 discerned through a cleft between two high mountains about 
 twenty shepherds coming down, all clad in jerkins of black 
 wool and crowned with garlands, some of which, as appeared 
 afterwards, were of yew and some of cypress. Six of them 
 carried a bier covered with various flowers and boughs. They
 
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 281 
 
 made haste, therefore, to reach them, which they did just as 
 the bier was set down upon the ground, and four of the 
 shepherds with pickaxes were making the grave in the hard 
 rock under a tree near the fountain." Only more charming 
 than this is Shakespeare's funeral of the fair Imogen in 
 Cyinbeline. 
 
 The danger, however, of passing from excess of conven- 
 tionality to the opposite extreme, the excess of freedom falsely 
 ascribed to nature, is amusingly dwelt on by Cervantes in 
 the scene where Don Quixote's niece, during the Inquisition 
 into the books, urges the burning, not only of the works on 
 chivalry which had made her uncle mad, but also of books 
 of poetry. " These ", said the priest, " do injury to none." 
 " Oh, sir," said the niece, " pray order them to be burnt, for 
 should my uncle be cured of this distemper of chivalry, he 
 may possibly, by reading such books, take it into his head 
 to turn shepherd, and wander through the woods and fields 
 singing and playing on a pipe, and what would be worse still, 
 turn poet, which they say is an incurable and contagious 
 disease." Shakespeare also in The Tempest ridicules this 
 kind of return to nature in the amusing scene where Gonzalo 
 tries to comfort Alonzo after their shipwreck on the enchanted 
 Island of Prospero. 
 
 " Had I plantation of this Isle, my Lord, 
 r the commonwealth, I would by contraries 
 Execute all things : for no kind of traffic 
 Would I admit; no name of magistrate. 
 Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty, 
 And use of service, none; contract, succession, 
 Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; 
 No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil, 
 No occupation; all men idle, all, 
 And women, too, but innocent and pure. 
 No sovereignty " 
 
 "Yet he would be king of it!" says one of the other 
 courtiers; and then the courtiers make fun of the garrulous
 
 282 Essays and Addresses 
 
 old man's " natural " commonwealth. Don Quixote, in a 
 similar manner, apostrophizes the Golden Age, and Cervantes, 
 like Shakespeare, makes merry over the idea of a restoration 
 of that purely fabulous past. " In that blessed age all things 
 were in common," says Don Quixote, contemplating an acorn; 
 " to provide their ordinary sustenance no other labour was 
 needed than to raise their hands and take it from the 
 sturdy oaks which stood liberally inviting them to taste their 
 sweet and relishing fruit. The limpid fountains and running 
 streams offered them in magnificent abundance their delicious 
 and transparent waters. In the clefts of the rocks the indus- 
 trious and provident bees formed their commonwealths, offer- 
 ing to every hand without interest the fertile produce of their 
 delicious toil. All, then, was peace, all amity, all concord." 
 Such ideas have reappeared in Rousseau, Defoe and other 
 writers innumerable, and will forever dangle like forbidden 
 fruit before the eyes of fond enthusiasts. 
 
 But now it is time to dwell a little on the Knight of the 
 Sorrowful Figure himself and his faithful squire, for in these 
 is taught more finely than anywhere else in the world's litera- 
 ture the strange and sad fact that conduct which awakens 
 laughter may not always be ridiculous. The Knight sets out 
 on his mad adventure with high purpose, namely, to redress 
 wrongs and win fame among men. It is impossible to sepa- 
 rate the Knight's high aim from the crazy means he takes to 
 achieve it. Cervantes assists the reader in his effort to grasp 
 poor frail human nature, ever, as Goethe says, leaping up to 
 heaven for a moment and then falling back to earth like 
 grasshoppers, by placing beside the Knight the honest pea- 
 sant, who has no imaginative ideal like his master, but longs 
 only for material prizes, and who, in spite of his belief in 
 what is undoubtedly real and material, is led as far into an 
 unreal world as his master. It is Sancho who reminds the 
 enthusiast that men may " go out into the world to seek 
 better bread than wheaten ", and " that to do good to the 
 vulgar is to throw water into the sea ", but yet he looks to be 
 governor of an island and make his wife a countess. Events
 
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 283 
 
 soon show Don Quixote that his efforts to redress grievances 
 only create them or make them worse. " I do not Hke your 
 way of redressing grievances, I do not understand your way 
 of righting wrongs," said the bachelor master, Alonzo Lopez ; 
 " for from right you have set me wrong, having broken my 
 leg, which will never be right as long as I live, and the griev- 
 ance you have redressed for me is to leave me so aggrieved 
 that I shall never be otherwise, and to me it was a most un- 
 lucky adventure to meet you who are seeking adventures." 
 The Knight tilts with vain bravery at windmills, and trembles 
 with false alarm at the noise of a fulling-mill in the darkness 
 of night. Yet he is ever better than his actions. He has the 
 noble art of self-deception. It is, after all, that art which has 
 redressed the wrongs of mankind. "The case was hopeless; 
 yet he hoped." This is the true spirit of Christian re- 
 formers, from St. Paul to the last missionary. Don Quixote 
 finely retorts on Sancho, who laughs at his misfortune, 
 " Know, Sancho, that one man is no more than another, 
 only inasmuch as he does more than another"; and "if a 
 man should try and fail, at least he has the satisfaction of 
 knowing that if he did not achieve great things he died 
 attempting them ". Sancho, however, makes the far-reaching 
 remark, that sometimes we set out in search of one thing 
 and find another, a proverb that reminds us of Saul, the son 
 of Kish, who set out to seek for his father's asses and found a 
 kingdom. 
 
 Thus it should be noticed that although Don Quixote's 
 adventures end so unfavourably for himself, and though his 
 squire never gets his coveted island, nevertheless their wan- 
 derings lead at last to the good of others; and the happy 
 union of the pairs of lovers Cardenio and Lucinda on the one 
 hand, and Don Fernando and Dorothea on the other, may be 
 set down to the account of Don Quixote all in his favour. 
 This theme of lovers at cross-purposes should, of course, be 
 compared with the plot of Shakespeare's Midsuinmer-Nighf s 
 Dream, where Hermia and Helena are crossed in love with 
 Lysander and Demetrius.
 
 284 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Among the parallels with Shakespeare's plays is one of the 
 most striking dramatic effects in the book where Cervantes 
 brings about an interview between the crazy Don Quixote, 
 whose brain has been turned by too much study and ill- 
 directed imagination, and the tattered knight Cardenio, who, 
 crossed in hopeless love, has fled for refuge to the wilds of 
 the Sierra Morena Mountains. The contrast between the 
 two types of mental derangement, romantic and real, is very 
 remarkably drawn. With this strange meeting might perhaps 
 be compared the interview between Shakespeare's Timon of 
 Athens, the misanthrope whose ingratitude had made him 
 mad, and Apemantus, whose self-abnegation was chiefly pure 
 affectation. It is only a master mind that can bring into 
 juxtaposition two characters, both eccentric and strong, and 
 both outwardly resembling each other, but with a marked 
 inner difference. 
 
 The romantic attachment of knights to fair ladies, in whose 
 name they undertake their most dangerous exploits, is a 
 feature in chivalry which Cervantes evidently treats with re- 
 spect. In one passage he is at pains to show how this zeal 
 for his lady's name may be reconciled with the knight's com- 
 mendation of himself to God; and by way of contrast he 
 presents Sancho as quite unable to understand any such ideal 
 affection, whether for things human or divine. " How dull 
 and simple thou art, Sancho!" said Don Quixote; " knowest 
 thou not that in our style of chivalry it is to the honour of a 
 lady to have many knights-errant who serve her merely for 
 her own sake, without indulging a hope of any other reward 
 for their zeal than the honour of being admitted among the 
 number of her knights?" " I have heard it preached," quoth 
 Sancho, " that God is to be loved with this kind of love, for 
 Himself alone, without our being moved to it by hope of 
 reward or fear of punishment; though for my part I am 
 inclined to love and serve Him for what He is able to do 
 for me." " The Devil take thee for a bumpkin," said Don 
 Quixote, " thou sayest ever and anon such apt things that one 
 would almost think thee a scholar." " And yet, by my faith,"
 
 Miguel dc Cervantes Saavedra 285 
 
 quoth Sancho, " I cannot so much as read," Passages like 
 these help us to understand the veneration paid in the mediaeval 
 church to the Virgin Mary. 
 
 One topic more is worthy of special attention. The greatest 
 of the immortals have included it in their works, Homer in the 
 horses of Achilles, Shakespeare in the scene between Launce 
 and his dog, Cervantes in the passages of the Goatherd and 
 his Nanny-goat, and Sancho and Dapple his ass. " Suddenly 
 they heard a sound of a little bell from a thicket near them, 
 and at the same instant a beautiful she-goat, speckled with 
 black, white, and gray, ran out of the thicket, followed by a 
 goatherd calling to her aloud to stop and come back to the 
 fold. The fugitive animal, trembling and affrighted, ran to 
 the company, claiming as it were their protection. But the 
 goatherd pursued her and, seizing her by the horns, addressed 
 her as a rational creature. 
 
 " ' Ah, wanton and spotted thing, how hast thou strayed 
 of late! What wolves have frightened thee, child? Wilt 
 thou tell me, pretty one, what this means? But what else 
 can it mean but that thou art a female and therefore cannot 
 be quiet. A plague on thy humours and on all theirs whom 
 thou resemblest! Turn back, my love, turn back; for though 
 not content, at least thou wilt be more safe in thine own fold 
 and among thy companions, for if thou who shouldest protect 
 and guide them go astray, what must become of them?' 
 
 " The party were much amused, and the canon told the 
 goatherd that it was useless to oppose a female, who would 
 as such always have her own way. ' Come, do not be angry, 
 but eat and drink with us, and let the wayward creature 
 have her will,' offering him at the same time the hind 
 quarter of a cold rabbit on the point of a fork. The goat- 
 herd thanked him and accepted the offer, and then, being 
 in a better temper, he said: 'Do not think me a fool, gen- 
 tlemen, for talking seriously to this animal, for, in truth, 
 my words are not without meaning, and though I am a 
 rustic I know the difference between conversing with men 
 and beasts.' ' I doubt it not,' said the priest, ' indeed, it is
 
 286 Essays and Addresses 
 
 well known that the mountains breed learned men, and the 
 huts of the shepherds contain philosophers.' 
 
 " * At least, sir,' said the goatherd, ' they contain men who 
 have some knowledge gained from experience.'" 
 
 Later, when Sancho recovered his lost ass which Ginesillo 
 had stolen, seeing the latter riding on the lost friend, he 
 cried: "Ah, rogue, leave me my darling, let go my life, rob 
 me not of my comfort, quit my sweetheart, leave my de- 
 light, fly, rapscallion, fly; get you gone, thief, give up what 
 is not your own." 
 
 So much railing was needless, for at the first words Ginesillo 
 dismounted in a trice, and, taking to his heels, was out of 
 sight in a moment. Sancho ran to his Dapple, and, em- 
 bracing him, said: " How hast thou fared, my dearest Dapple, 
 delight of my eyes, my sweet companion?" Then he kissed 
 and caressed him as if he had been a human creature. The 
 ass held his peace, and suffered himself to be thus kissed 
 and caressed by Sancho without answering one word. This 
 affection for our humble companions and for the animal 
 creation is a special feature of our own day. 
 
 But now I must bid farewell to the Knight of the Sorrowful 
 Figure, conscious that I have but touched the fringe of his 
 robes, and unworthy to do that. His name is the mark of 
 every foolish venture that is bound to fail, but perhaps it 
 should be noticed that not quite every foolish venture is 
 called quixotic, but only those that are for some worthy 
 cause. Therefore, in spite of all that is ridiculous in our 
 associations with this name, there is still something half- 
 sublime which lurks among them. Life may pass away for 
 us mainly in getting and spending, but few people die before 
 they have been brought face to face with action that is not 
 for themselves; it may be at home, it may be on the battle- 
 field. Few will live their lives through without at some time 
 giving, and giving gladly, with no expectation of any return, 
 and where this is done for a worthy end the spirit of 
 chivalry is not far off, and where it is done, as it often is 
 done, for an end which onlookers can see to be out of all
 
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedi'a 287 
 
 proportion to the sacrifice, there appears the very spirit of 
 Don Quixote itself. May it never die! When it does, man- 
 kind will indeed be without hope. " Stud}- well these books," 
 as Don Quixote says, " for, believe me, you will find that they 
 exhilarate and improve your mind. Of myself I can say, 
 that since I have been a knight-errant I am become valiant, 
 polite, liberal, well-bred, generous, courteous, daring, affable, 
 patient, a sufferer of toils, imprisonments and enchantments." 
 This noble recklessness is well summed up by our New Forest 
 poet, with certain of whose verses I will conclude: 
 
 " You will carry the flag, the old torn rag, 
 You will carry the flag to the fore, 
 Mid the press and the strain and the deadly rain, 
 Where our fathers passed of yore. 
 
 " You will stand by the flag when faint hearts fly, 
 And the best that you have you '11 give, 
 For the men who have learnt for a cause to die 
 Are the men who learn to live."
 
 INDEX 
 
 Acland, Rt. Hon. A., Ixii. 
 
 .^sop's Fables, 80. 
 
 Alma Tadema, Sir L., 75, 108. 
 
 Animals, Kindness to, should be part of 
 education, 82-3; love of, in Cer- 
 vantes, 285-6. 
 
 Arithmetic, Teaching of; connection 
 with objects and occupations of daily 
 life, 83-6. (See Object-Teaching.) 
 
 Augustine and Calvin, 270-2. 
 
 Balliol College, R.'s life at, xxii seq.; 
 
 Balliol staff, xxiv. 
 Barlow, Sir Thomas, Ixxxvii. 
 Beauty, Sense of, developed through 
 
 Slojd, \2T,seq.; reverence for, 254-6. 
 Bedford, Hastings Russell, Duke of, 
 
 R.'s relations with, xxxii-xxxiv; con- 
 versations with, ib.; opinions on home 
 
 and school education, ib. 
 Besant, Sir W., 81. 
 Bible, The, in education, 78, 235-6, 
 
 241,246. (S&& Heligion.) 
 Bidder, Rev. G. P., xxiii. 
 Blakiston, Mr. J. R., Impressions of 
 
 R., xliv seq.; letters from R., Ixxxvi, 
 
 Ixxxvii. 
 Bosanquet, Prof. B., xxiii, xxiv, xciii, 
 
 and Preface. 
 Boscombe, Experiment in School 
 
 Gardens at. (See School Gardens.) 
 Bradford, Inspectorship at, xliv seq. 
 Butler, Rev. Dr. H. Montagu, on R. 
 
 at Harrow, xviii seq. 
 
 Calvin and Calvinism ; contrast of 
 Calvinism with medieeval church ; 
 
 Calvin's Catechism on the Sabbath, 
 
 263-272. 
 Cervantes, 278 seq. 
 Classical education, 221 seq. 
 Collingwood, Lord. His theory and 
 
 practice of education, 204 seq. 
 Connected studies, scheme of, 95-6; 
 
 importance of, 80-94. 
 Cowan, Mr. J. C, on R.'s work at 
 
 Southampton, Ixvii-lxx. 
 Crighton-Browne, Sir J., on Manual 
 
 Training, 115-7, 134. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, Rooper a student of, 
 xxvi, XXX. 
 
 Diary, Extracts from, xxxiii-xxxiv, 
 xxxvi-xxxix. 
 
 Drawing in Schools ; its object 
 mental training; to make draughts- 
 men, not artists; suggestions for teach- 
 ing; kindergarten methods; to be 
 founded on geometrical forms, 70-6; 
 sources of error in children's draw- 
 ing; primitive art, ib., 59-70. 
 
 Education, Board of, Testimony of, to 
 
 R.'s services, Ixxxix-xc. 
 Educational Works cited and recom- 
 mended — 
 
 Arithmetic : Brown's Elements of 
 Number, ed. J. R. Blakiston; Turn- 
 bull; Jarrold, S3-5. 
 
 Drawing, Ruskin's Elements of, 
 72; M. Passy in Revtie Pkilo- 
 sophiqtie, 61. 
 
 Object-Teaching, Karl Richter on, 
 57; Friedrich Junge, The Village 
 
 289
 
 290 
 
 Index 
 
 Pond, il). ; La Science A musante, par 
 Tom Tit, 86; Miall's Object Lessons, 
 86; Snelgrove's Object Lessons in 
 Botany, ib. ; Bert's Experimental 
 Geometry, 165; Kiugsley's Madam 
 How and Lady tf^/iy, il». ; Frew's 
 Object L.essons in Geography, ib. 
 
 I'sychology: Hcrl)art'.s I'sychologie, 
 3; Karl Lange's Apperception, ib. ; 
 Romanes' Mental Evolution in Man, 
 ib. ; Prof. W. James' Talks with 
 Teachers on Psycholoi^y, 139 -40; 
 Bernard I'erez' First three years of 
 Childhood, 3; Cliflbrd Allbutl's Paper 
 on Insanity of Children, 27. 
 
 Word-building, various, 87. 
 
 Various. Soloman's Lectures on 
 Slojd, 80; Mrs. Gatty's I'arables from 
 Nature, ib. ; Jean Ingelow's Stories 
 told to a Child, ib. ; Winifred Wilson, 
 Playground and Indoor Games, 92 ; 
 Hand and Eye, 162 et al. (See also 
 List of Books for a Village Library, 
 Ixxxiii seq. ) 
 Empire, The, and the study of geogra- 
 phy, 202. 
 
 Farrar, Rev. Dr. F. W., Assistant- 
 Master at Harrow; friendship with R. ; 
 offers him afterwards Mastership at 
 Marlborough, xvii, xviii. 
 
 Friar, Rev. A. G., Ixiv. 
 
 Froebel, xliii, 19, 127, 141, 156. 
 
 Gaiety in Education, 258 seq. 
 
 Games, 92. 
 
 Gardens. C^eQ School Gardens.) 
 
 Geography: What it is, 1S3; teaching 
 of, 179-203; to be based on object 
 lessons, ib. ; maps, relief, pictorial, 
 ordnance, wall maps, map-draw'ing, 
 179-187, 201 ; connection with other 
 studies, 188; geographical excursions, 
 local societies, 188-94, I97; geography 
 and the Empire, 194-5; different 
 methods of, described, 197-203. 
 (See also Memoir, liv-lvi.) 
 
 German Education, R.'s study of, xxix, 
 xlii, xliii ; Report on School Gardens 
 in Germany for Hoard of Education, 
 Ixxviii. 
 
 Gibson, Mr. J. F., xxiii. 
 
 Goethe on the three kinds of rever- 
 ence, 248 seq. (See Ideals.) 
 
 Gothic cathedrals, 264. 
 
 Grammar condemned as a class subject 
 in elementary schools, 39-40. 
 
 Green, I'rof. T. H., His influence on 
 R., xxiv seq. 
 
 Grimm's Household Tales, 80, 88. 
 
 Hand- work. (See Manual Training.) 
 
 Harrison, Mr. Edwin, xxiii. 
 
 Harrow, R.'s life at, xvii seq., 217 seq.; 
 impressions of public school life, ib. ; 
 course of study at Harrow ; defence 
 of Greek and Latin composition ; of 
 monitorial system and compulsory 
 games; chivalry and school loyalty; 
 training of character, ib. 
 
 Hartley University College, Ixx. 
 
 Heberden, C. B., Principal of Brase- 
 nose College, xxiii. 
 
 Hinton, Miss, on R.'s Pupil-Teacher 
 classes, Ixiv. 
 
 Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. H., M.P., Ixxi, 
 Ixxiv, Ixxxix. 
 
 Humboldt, W. von, 196-7. 
 
 Ideals, xxvi, xxvii, xxxix, 282-4, 286-7; 
 the ideal in education, 247 seq. ; 
 Goethe and the three kinds of rever- 
 ence, 249 seq. 
 Idiots, Education of. (See Sequin.) 
 Infant Schools, Address on, Ivi-lvii. 
 
 Jackman, Dr., Ixxvi. 
 
 James, Prof. W., on Manual Training, 
 
 139- 
 Jowett, Prof., His teaching and in- 
 fluence, xxiv, XXV. 
 
 Kindergarten methods ; should be ex- 
 tended to lower classes of ordinar}' 
 schools, 77 seq.
 
 hidex 
 
 291 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, 165. 
 
 Knowledge, Process of, analysed in 
 The Pot of Green Feathers, 3 seq. ; its 
 two elements — the impression and the 
 interpretation ; the latter depends on 
 tlie previous content of the mind ; 
 growth of the mind by reaction of old 
 and new impressions on each other, 
 5-15 and 33; application of this to 
 education in elementary and advanced 
 stages, 15 seq. (See Memoir, xxvii 
 seq.) 
 
 Lady, Education of a. Lord Collingwood 
 on, 209 seq. 
 
 Language, Place of study of, in acqui- 
 sition of knowledge, 33 seq.; words 
 and things; two aims in education — 
 to cultivate acquisition of facts and 
 expression of facts, ib. ; study of lan- 
 guage to be connected with object- 
 teaching, 86-90; a foreign language 
 shouUl l)e learnt by all children, 40; 
 the word mediates between the mind 
 and the object, aiding in analysis and 
 synthesis, 36 seq., 47 seq. 
 
 Laughter, 259-60. (See Essay on 
 Gaiety in Education.) 
 
 Legard, Mr. A. G., Estimate of R. and 
 his work, xl\-xlvii. 
 
 Leighton, Mr. R. L., xxiii. 
 
 Llandaff, Bishop of, xxiii. 
 
 Loch, Mr. C. S., xxiii, xciii. 
 
 Lyonesse. (See Harrow. ) 
 
 Mackinder, Prof H. T-, on Geography, 
 179. 
 
 Manual Training, Aim and importance 
 of; R.'s views summarized, lii seq., 
 Ixxix ; object not technical or indus- 
 trial, but general, to train the mind 
 through the hand, 94-100, 132-140; 
 value as first-hand knowledge and dy- 
 namic knowledge, 103-6; importance 
 of right method, loi, 109-10 (see 
 Slbjd); indisjiensable yet stdwrdinate 
 to book work and oral teaching, 
 
 1 1 1-4; physical basis of its import- 
 ance, the hand and the brain, 11 5-7, 
 134; importance in view of modern 
 industrial life, 133-4; practical 
 though not technical, 138-9. 
 
 Markham, Sir Clement, Ixvi. 
 
 Mason, Miss Charlotte, lix, Ixv, 
 Ixxxviii. 
 
 Medd, Mr. J. C. His paper on 
 Rooper's relation to rural education, 
 Ixxi-lxxxii. (Summarized in abstract 
 of Memoir, infra. ) 
 
 Mills, Mr. F. C, xxiii, 
 
 Morant, Sir R. L., Ixxxvii. 
 
 Mothers and Sons, xvi, 235 seq. 
 
 Naas, R. attends course of Slojd at, liv. 
 Nature and Human Nature the epitome 
 
 of educational studies, 78 seq. 
 Nature-study, Ixxv seq.\ 
 Nettleship, Mr. R. L., on art and 
 
 national life, 108. 
 Neville, Mr. C. E., liv. 
 Newcastle, Inspectorship at, xl. 
 Newman, Mr. R. L., xxiv. 
 
 Object -Teaching, 31 seq.; study of 
 objects the foundation of all mental 
 development, 40; its purpose accuracy 
 in perception and description ; rarity 
 of this, 32 (cf. Children's Dr. livings 
 62) ; connection with language-teach- 
 ing, "Words and Things", 33 seq. 
 (see Language); its method, 42-5, 
 "A Lesson on the Duck", 47 seq.\ 
 all elementary science should be 
 object-teaching, 56. 
 
 Oral Teaching, Importance of, 78 seq. ; 
 injured by written examinations, 81; 
 reading and talking, 90. 
 
 Oxford, R.'s life at, xxii-xxviii. 
 
 Palmer, \ftry Rev. Edwin, xxiv. 
 
 Parents' Educational Union, Pi'eface, 
 Ixv. 
 
 Passy, M. His experiments in chil- 
 dren's drawing, 61 seq. 
 
 25
 
 292 
 
 Index 
 
 Pennelhorne, IMr. D. E., Impression of 
 R. and his work at Newcastle, xli-xlii. 
 
 Practical Instruction in rural schools, 
 Ixxi seq., 164 seq.\ elementary school 
 education to be practical but not tech- 
 nical or industrial, ib. and cf. lii-liii, 
 Ixiii, 1 12-4, 132 seq. (See Manual 
 Training.) 
 
 Practical Psychology, Value for, of 
 observation of children's drawing, 
 58 scq. 
 
 Purves, Mr. J., xxiv. 
 
 Keclus, Elysee, 200. 
 
 Religion, R.'s views on, xvi, xvii, 
 xxvi-xxviii, xxxvi-xxxix, Ixxix, 235 
 seq. 
 
 Richardson, Dr., of Hartley College, on 
 R.'s influence, Ixx. 
 
 Robertson, Dr. J. W., Canadian Com- 
 missioner of Agriculture, visits R., 
 1890-91, to study work in rural 
 schools ; letter to J. C. Medd after 
 R.'s death, Ixxxi. 
 
 Rooper, Thomas Godolphin, Summary 
 of J\fetnoir on. — 
 
 I. Early years, Harrow and Balliol. 
 Birth and parentage and home in- 
 fluences, XV- xvii; school-days at 
 Harrow, xvii-xxi ; Oxford life, xxii- 
 xxiv; influence of Jowett and T. H. 
 Green, xxv-xxvii ; takes degree, 2nd 
 class classics, 1870, xxviii; decides 
 against taking orders, xxviii-xxix. 
 
 II. Tutorship, 1871-76. Ap- 
 pointed, 1871, tutor to Lord Her- 
 brand Russell (afterwards Duke of 
 Bedford) ; life at Woburn and Ends- 
 leigh, XXX seq.; extracts from letters 
 and diary, xxxiii-xxxix; views on re- 
 ligion, ib. ; tutor to Dr. Butler's chil- 
 dren, xl. 
 
 III. Newcastle, 1877-82. Ap- 
 pointed second Inspector Newcastle 
 District under Mr. D. E. Penne- 
 thorne in 1877 ; Mr. Pennethorne's 
 impression of his work, xli-xlii; visits 
 
 Germany, 1 88 1 and 1882, to study 
 educational methods, xlii-xliii; his 
 mother's death, ib. 
 
 IV. Bradford, 1882-95. Ap- 
 pointed Inspector of Bradford Dis- 
 trict in 1882; estimates of his charac- 
 ter and work by Mr. J. R. Blakislon, 
 Mr. A. G. Legard, and Mr. G. Sedg- 
 wick, xliv-1 ; his work in promoting 
 the education of younger teachers, li. 
 Hi; introduction of manual training 
 and views on this, liii, liv ; improve- 
 ment of methods of geography, liv-lvi; 
 organizes Geographical Exhibition at 
 Bradford, ib. ; views on infant schools, 
 Ivi, Ivii; experiment in school gardens, 
 Iviii; estimate of his influence and the 
 spirit of his work, Iviii-lxi ; publishes 
 Essays and Addresses on Home and 
 School Life, 1896 (see Preface). 
 
 V. Southampton, 1897 -1903. 
 Transferred, .September 1897, to 
 Southampton District; general re- 
 cognition of value of his work and 
 writings, Ixii ; his pioneer work in 
 rural education described by Mr. J. C. 
 Medd, Ixxi seq.; his great energy 
 up to his final breakdown, Ixiii seq.; 
 Pupil Teacher centres at Southamp- 
 ton and Newport, Ixiv-lxv; founds 
 Geographical Society, Ixvi ; his work 
 for technical education and evening 
 continuation schools described by Mr. 
 J. C. Cowan, Ixvii-lxix ; connection 
 with foundation of Hartley University 
 College, Ixx; Educational Studies atid 
 Addresses published in 1901. 
 
 VI. Paper by Mr. J. C. Medd on 
 Rooper's relation to rural education, 
 Ixxi-lxxxii ; Agricultural Education 
 Committee, 1899; its aim; Rooper's 
 support ; influence of its proposals on 
 legislation, Ixxi-lxxiv; movement in 
 favour of nature-study, Rooper the 
 guiding spirit ; his conception of 
 practical education, ib.; Rooper and 
 school gardens, Ixxvii-lxxviii; on
 
 Index 
 
 293 
 
 manual training, Ixxix; his ideal aims 
 in education, ib.; his liberality and 
 readiness to forward new movements, 
 Ixxix, Ixxx; his wide influence, Ixxxi, 
 Ixxxii. List of books for village library, 
 Ixxxiii-lxxxv. 
 
 VII. Illness and Death ; tributes 
 from friends and colleagues, Ixxxvi to 
 end of Memoir. 
 
 Rooper, Rev. W. H., xv. 
 
 Rooper, Mrs. W. H., influence on her 
 son, xv-xvii, xliii. 
 
 Rooper, Capt. \V. Trevor, xvi. 
 
 Rooper, The Misses, Letters to, 
 Ixxxviii seq. 
 
 Rural Education, Rooper's relation to ; 
 paper by J. C. Medd, Ixxi scq., 164 
 seq. 
 
 Ruskin cited, 72. 
 
 Russell, Lord Herbrand, Pupil of R., 
 XXX seq. ; subsequent friendship with 
 R., xxxii; Duke of Bedford, 1893. 
 
 Sadler, Prof. M. E., xcii. 
 
 School and Home Education, compared 
 in Lyonesse, 217 seq. 
 
 School Gardens, Ixxvii-lxxviii, 166-7, 
 169 seq.; experiment at Boscombe, 
 169 seq.; object general education, 
 practical as well as technical, 170-71. 
 
 Scott, Dr. Robert, Master of Balliol, 
 xxiv. 
 
 Sedgwick, Mr. G., R.'s Assistant at 
 Bradford. Impression of R. and his 
 work, xlvii-1. 
 
 Sequin, Essay on, 141 seq., ranks with 
 Froebel and Pestalozzi ; his revolu- 
 tion in education of idiots, ih. ; the 
 first to apprehend nervous system as 
 organic whole, 142 ; application of 
 this to education of idiots ; treatment 
 by physiological method, 143-50; the 
 idiot hand and eye, ib. ; character- 
 istics of defective children throw light 
 on growth of normal, 154. 
 
 Shakespeare, compared with Cervantes, 
 280 et al. 
 
 Slojd, A plea for, 122 seq. ; is educa- 
 tional hand-work ; connected lessons 
 necessary; gives delicacy of manipula- 
 tion and sense of form ; repetition 
 without monotony; teaches accuracy 
 and patience, 129-131; Prof. W.James 
 on Slojd, 139-40; R. attends course 
 in Slojd at Naas, liv. 
 
 Smith, Prof. H.J. S., xxiv. 
 
 Southampton, Inspectorship at, Ixii seq. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, Ix. 
 
 Strachan-Davidson, Mr. J. L. , xxiv. 
 
 Tail, Mr. M., Ivi. 
 
 Tatton, Mr. R. G., Letters to, xxxv. 
 
 Tavistock, Marquis of, R.'s friendship 
 with; Duke of Bedford, 1891; early 
 death, xxxii. 
 
 Technical Education; elementary school 
 education not to be technical (see 
 Practical Instruction) ; in technical 
 education utilitarian studies not to be 
 divorced from formative, 160-3; I^-'s 
 work for technical education at 
 Southampton, Ixvii seq. 
 
 Technical education of Women ; the 
 defects in British compared with 
 Continental institutions; separation 
 from literary studies, 156 seq. 
 
 Tree of Knowledge, The, and the Tree 
 of Life, 156 seq. 
 
 Village Life. (See Rural Schools.) 
 
 Woburn. (See Rooper, T. G., Tutor- 
 ship. ) 
 Woolcombe, Rev. E. C, xxiv. 
 Words and Things. (See Language.) 
 
 Young, Mr. J. W., on R. and Pupil 
 
 Teachers' centres, li-lii.
 
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