LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, . ' Deceived MAY 3 1893 ; ,ty O. . Class No. . IV it I i the Trustees Compliments. REPORT ON EDUCATION ADDRESSED TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE DICK BEQUEST REPORT ON EDUCATION IN THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS OF THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN, BANFF AND MORAY ADDRESSED TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE DICK BEQUEST BY SIMON S. LAUKLE, A.M. VISITOR FOR THE DICK BEQUEST TRUSTEES ; MILNE BEQUEST INSPECTOR ; SECRETARY TO THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. EDINBURGH : PRINTED BY THOMAS CONSTABLE, PRINTER TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY. MDCCCLXV. NOTE BY THE TRUSTEES. IN giving forth the usual decennial Eeport of the administration of Mr. Dick's Bequest, for the informa- tion of the clergy and schoolmasters of the counties which benefit from its funds, the Trustees are pain- fully reminded of the loss which has been sustained since the period when the last Eeport was published. They allude to the death of Professor Menzies, who, from the commencement of the operations of the Bequest in 1832 to the year 1856, when he died, held the combined offices of Clerk to the Trust and Visitor of the Schools. The very important part taken by Mr. Menzies in fixing the principles and maturing the plans for the distribution of the Bequest, is well known to those acquainted with its early history. Those especially can, perhaps, best appreciate his value, who witnessed the deep and never-failing interest which their late Clerk took in all that tended to the elevation of the literary and religious standard of education in the three counties, proving thus, by his zeal and untiring energy, the conscientious feeling he ever had of the vi NOTE BY THE TRUSTEES. onerous and important duties of his office. As it must then be felt, by all connected with the Bequest, that to Mr. Menzies's exertions much of the success which has attended its administration is attributable, the Trustees feel that they cannot allow this oppor- tunity to pass without thus publicly recording their sense of the great value of his services, and the deep and lasting regret with which they must ever look back on the loss of one so esteemed and respected. At the close of other ten years in the history of the Bequest, it affords satisfaction to the Trustees to be- lieve that the influence it has exerted on education within the favoured district, during the period from 1854 to 1864, has proved in all respects as beneficial as in former years. The original intention of the Trustees, when arranging for the preparation of their usual Eeport on the present occasion, was to limit it as far as possible to a narrative of the facts of their administration during the decennial period, with a statement of its results, as shown by the present con- dition of the schools, and a brief notice of the changes which have taken place since the date of the last Eeport on the regulations affecting the distribution of the Fund. Their views in this respect, however, were afterwards altered in consequence of a strongly ex- pressed wish on the part of Mr. Laurie, the Visitor of Schools, that either the " Principles and Theory NOTE BY THE TRUSTEES. vii of Teaching" should be introduced as an additional subject in the examination of new teachers, or that a statement, directing attention to their importance as a subject of careful study, should be prepared and cir- culated among the schoolmasters generally. The first of these alternatives the Trustees were unwilling to adopt, seeing that the two days set apart for the annual examination are already fully occupied, and that, as the time could not be extended without seri- ous inconvenience, it would be difficult to arrange for the introduction of any additional subject, unless at the cost of partially neglecting or wholly setting aside some other of the prescribed branches of study. They felt themselves constrained, however, so far to give effect to the recommendations of the Visitor, as to in- vite him to prepare, for circulation among the school- masters, such a treatise or other paper on the " Theory of Teaching," as his large experience and thoughtful consideration of this important subject might lead him to deem calculated to accomplish the object in view. It was therefore arranged that Mr. Laurie should embody his views and suggestions in a Special Keport, to be printed along with the Eeport of 1864 ; and it will accordingly be found that these form the First Part of the Eeport, while the Second Part brings down the history of the Bequest and its administra- tion for the decennial period, and it is for this vm NOTE BY THE TRUSTEES. Second Part alone that the Trustees hold themselves responsible. In Part First the schoolmasters have the benefit of Mr. Laurie's extensive knowledge and experience on all matters connected with the teaching art ; and the Trustees feel assured that the great talent displayed in its preparation cannot fail to recommend it to their most anxious study, and that its fruits will ere long be exhibited in a more widely diffused knowledge of the principles of the art of teaching and of school management, and a still further improvement in the condition of the schools connected with the Bequest, JAMES HOPE, D.K.S., Chairman of the Trusittx. ; r CONTENTS. PREFATORY NOTE, ...... 1 PART FIRST. THE FUNCTION OF THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOLMASTER, AND THE SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF HIS TEACHING. The Purpose of the School, ..... 5 The ultimate purpose of the parochial school The import- ance of keeping this purpose in mind The consequences of keeping this purpose or practical ideal in view : Moral ; Intellectual ; Personal to the teacher. The First Qualification of the Parochial Teacher, . 14 The knowledge necessary to enable the teacher to conceive the practical ideal Protest against the opinion that there are no principles in education. The General Method of Education, . . . . 17 To attain the ideal we must have method Nature of mind and its growth in relation to methods of instruction and training Philosophic aptitude rather than philosophic knowledge necessary in the teacher Auxiliaries of the teacher, viz. : Natural operation of mind ; Moral accesses to the intellect ; Class- sympathy. The sympathetic teacher may dispense with philosophy Character in the teacher himself. x CONTENTS. PAGE Restrictions of the Parochial Teacher, . . . 27 Shortness of attendance Irregularity of attendance Num- ber of classes Character of pupils' homes Utilities of pupil's future life. The Lessons to be drawn from the Restrictions of the Parochial Teacher, 37 Contraction of teacher's work Principles of selection Subjects in order of importance, primary and secondary. METHODS OF TEACHING. THE CONCURRENCE OF GENERAL METHOD AND PAR- TICULAR METHODS, 51 OBJECTS AND METHOD OF TEACHING BEADING, . . 53 Initiation in the Art of Reading, . . . .53 The Phonic, the " Look and Say," and the Alphabetic methods Spelling. The Juvenile Stage in Teaching Reading, . . 65 Mental progress and Progress in Reading should be concur- rent Intelligent reading To teach to read properly is to educate The imagination and the moral and religious sensibilities of children Intelligible reading. OBJECTS AND METHOD OF TEACHING WRITING, . . 77 The practical purpose, namely, facility and distinctness, to be kept constantly in view Letters to be turned to use as they are learned The power to be applied to copying on slates Writing from dictation. OBJECTS AND METHOD OF TEACHING ARITHMETIC, . 83 Intellectual discipline of Arithmetic School Arithmetic should be practical and economic Method of teaching : the concrete method Moral uses of School Arithmetic. CONTENTS. XI PAUK The Secondary Subjects of the Parochial School, . 93 Education an extensive as well as an intensive process Order of importance of secondary subjects. Mr sic IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL, . . . .97 General effect of Music on the school Sympathy as an educative agent Sympathy and simultaneity contrasted. (The simultaneous system.) Singing a moral and religi- ous agency Effect on the children Method of teaching singing. GEOGRAPHY, AND THE METHOD OF TEACHING IT, . 103 Chief error in teaching Geography Practical purpose of teaching Geography Theoretical purpose The two harmonize Indirect uses of Geography Method of teaching Geography. ON DRAWING, . . . . . . .111 THE HIGHER INTELLECTUAL INSTRUCTION OF THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOL, . . . . .113 Advanced Reading Analysis of Sentences Ad- vanced Writing or Composition Method of teach- ing Grammar and Composition, . . . 113 History, ....... 123 Latin and Greek. (Middle Schools.) Language versus Science, ...... 124 On the Method of teaching Latin and Greek, . 140 Mathematics, . . . . .145 ORGANIZATION, . . . . . . .146 Classification Time-Tables. SCHOOL DISCIPLINE, . . . . .151 Indirect Moral Teaching Rewards and Punishments. Xli CONTENTS. MORAL INSTRUCTION, . . . . .174 Initiatory stage Direct Moral and Suggestive Moral Teach- ing Juvenile stage (Laws of Health, etc.) MINOR MORALS OF THE SCHOOL, . . .186 Courtesy between Boys and Girls Influence of Female Schools Politeness Order Cleanliness, etc. Personal habits of teacher. THE TEACHING OF RELIGION, . 195 PART SECOND. HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN AND AMOUNT OF THE BEQUEST, . . .207 Mr. James Dick Professor Allan Menzies Trustees and Office-Bearers Terms of Bequest from Mr. Dick's Will. CHAPTER II. CHARACTER OF THE BEQUEST AND OF ITS ADMINISTRATION, 215 The Bequest not a Charity Historical sketch of Paro- chial School system Outline of the principles of administration. CHAPTER III. PRINCIPLES OF DICK BEQUEST ADMINISTRATION, . . 224 1. The Teacher, . . 224 2. The Heritors and Minister, and Presbyterial Superin- tendence, ..... 3. Plan of Distributing the Fund, 4. Assistant- Substitutes, CONTENTS. xili CHAPTER IV. [ACT ADMINISTRATIVE AND OTHER CHANGES SINCE 1854, 237 A Distant- Substitutes Temporary Substitutes Music Side-Parochial Schools. CHAPTER V. THE RELATION OF THE BEQUEST TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL, 241 CHAPTER VT. VISITATION OF THE SCHOOLS, . . . .245 CHAPTER VII. NOTES OF VISITATION, . . . . . .251 1. Reading. Examination on the Reading Lessons. Course of Lessons, ..... 251 2. Writing (Dictation Exercises), . 268 3. Arithmetic, 273 4. Music, . ... 276 5. Geography, . .... 277 6. History, ... .280 7. Grammar and Composition, .... 281 8. Organization. Specimen Time-Table, . . 287 9. Discipline and Minor Morals, .... 292 10. Direct Moral Instruction, 296 11. Direct Religious Instruction, .... 298 12. The Higher Instruction of the Parochial Schools : English Composition Latin Greek Mathematics, 304 CHAPTER VIIT. THE CLASS OF PAROCHIAL TEACHERS IN ABERDEEN, BANFF, AND MORAY, . 310 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAGE PRESENT STATE OF THE SCHOOLS SPECIMENS AND CLASSIFICATION CHIEF DEFECTS IN RESPECT OF RESULTS PROGRESS MADE DURING THE LAST TEN YEARS, . .316 CHAPTER X. THE BEARING OF FEES AND DATE OF ENTRY ON ATTEND- ANCE AND ORGANIZATION GRATIS SCHOLARS, 330 CHAPTER XI. SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION FURNITURE APPARATUS- SCHOOL LIBRARIES TEXT-BOOKS USED, 335 CHAPTER XII. GENERAL STATISTICS OF EDUCATION IN THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN, BANFF, AND MORAY, . . . .339 Parochial Schools, 330 Non-Parochial Schools, . . . . .342 CHAPTER XIII. PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS IN CONNEXION WITH THE BEQUEST, 344 CHAPTER XIV. COMPARATIVE STATEMENT, HAVING REFERENCE TO PRE- VIOUS REPORTS STATISTICAL TABLE, . . .347 CONTENTS. XV APPENDIX. PAGE I. RULES OF EXAMINATION AND SPECIMEN OF EXAMINA- TION PAPERS, . . . . .353 II. RESULTS OF EXAMINATION OF SCHOOLMASTERS AND SUBSTITUTES, . . . . . .371 III. SPECIMEN OF PRESBYTERIAL REPORT TO TRUSTEES, . 377 IV. ABSTRACT OF REGULATIONS OF THE DICK BEQUEST TRUSTEES, ....... 380 V. STATEMENT TO PRIVY COUNCIL REGARDING THE EN- DOWMENT CLAUSE OF THE REVISED CODE, . .385 VI. LIST OF PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS, AND OF THE SCHOOL- MASTERS AND ASSISTANT -SUBSTITUTES IN THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN, BANFF, AND MORAY, FROM 1854 TO 1864, 391 UFI7 &SIT7 PREFATORY NOTE. ABOUT two years ago I was asked by the Trustees of the Dick Bequest to put in writing such a statement of the methods of school-work as might be of service to teachers admitted to participation in the Bequest. Anticipating the instructions which I afterwards re- ceived, to lay before the Trustees the usual decennial Eeport on the working of the Trust, and the sta-te of the schools inspected by me, I proposed to embody in that Eeport all that it was necessary to say on the art of teaching. When, however, I began to write the Report, I found that scraps of method and disjointed suggestions, occurring in the midst of details of school work, would not secure the object I had in view. Methods and ex- pedients, I felt, were of no real and permanent value, except in so far as they were referred back to principles. Moreover, every successive year's experience had more deeply impressed me with the belief, that the object of any writing addressed to teachers ought to be, not so much to provide them with weapons which they could turn to immediate use, as to inspire them with a large conception of their task ; to convince them that their business is to educate their pupils while instruct- A PREFATORY NOTE. ing them in a few technical arts ; to show them that every part of their work is instinct with a moral pur- pose ; and, with a view to these ends, to bring into prominence the harmony that subsists between the special methods of teaching and the general method of education. In addition to this, it seemed not out of place to take the opportunity which this my first public Keport afforded me, of stating explicitly the grounds of my annual Keports on individual schools, and the point of view from which I criticise them. Accordingly, I have separated all that has general reference to the function of the teacher from the sur- vey of the operation of the Trust, and of my experi- ence of the schools in the three north-eastern counties. The actual working condition of the schools in these counties is recorded in the second part of the Report. I need scarcely say that the general question of Education is not the subject of the following pages : my business is with education as it ought to be conducted within the walls of a Parochial School. Should my remarks sometimes appear to teachers to be simple and obvious, and indeed anticipated in the practice of a large body of the teachers of the three north-eastern counties, my apology is that I am con- fident that, by young teachers at least, they will be found not superfluous. REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OP THE DICK BEQUEST. PART FIRST. THE FUNCTION OF THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOLMASTER uim SITT PART FIRST. THE FUNCTION OF THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOLMASTER, AND THE SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF HIS TEACHING. The Purpose of the School. The ultimate purpose of the parochial school The importance of keeping this purpose in mind The consequences of keeping this purpose or practical ideal in view : Moral ; Intellectual ; Personal to the teacher. I FIND that the defects of conscientious teachers are for the most part to be traced to the want of a pur- pose, both as regards the general object of the school and the particular result of special studies. "What is it that I propose to myself in School- keeping?" is the first question which a young teacher should put to himself. His first duty is to form a purpose or practical ideal. A clearly defined purpose is not only the indispensable condition, but it is also the measure, of progress. The question is, as it seems to me, best answered thus : The object which the schoolmaster ought to propose to himself is the For- mation of Character. This is the ultimate purpose of the Parochial School, as it is of all education. It is true that the objects of education, and even of such education as the parochial school affects to give, 6 REPORT ON EDUCATION. are, in their details, various, and seem at first sight to be inadequately summed up by the words " For- mation of Character." The child, for example, has to be taught how best to preserve through life a sound mind in a sound body. In teaching him this, we must furnish him with the knowledge necessary for earn- ing a livelihood ; we must provide him with a cer- tain amount of intellectual food ; and, above all, we must instruct him in those moral duties, which it behoves him to know and practise. The moral teaching, again, can have due efficacy and adequate sanction only if we connect it with the will of the Unseen Power which sustains and administers the Universe : it thus becomes religious teaching, and this long before it assumes that more definite form of Christian faith which the school also inculcates. The necessities of the case thus demand that the pupil's mind shall be informed as well as formed. But what is the purpose of all this instruction ? It is to make men lead better lives ; better, intellectu- ally, by giving greater activity, vigour, and precision to the powers by which they know and do ; better, morally and religiously, by causing them to live in obedience to the laws of God as revealed in the nature of man and the visible order around him, and in har- mony with the will of God as communicated in his Word. The bettering of men's wills, and the better- ing of men's intellects, these are the great objects which we have in view. Accordingly, if asked to sum up in a few words THE ITKl'OSE OF THE SCHOOL. V the end of Education, and to do so in words which will indicate its ultimate aim at the same time that they furnish the practical teacher with a criterion by which to measure every detail of his work, I can find no better or more exhaustive answer than that which has been given : " The Formation of Character." But since the invigorating of the understanding, and the training of the will, are operations which can- not be conducted without materials, we are bound, in determining the nature of these materials, to allow ourselves to be controlled by the needs and facts of man's daily life. The materials of parochial school education thus forced on us are at first sight so humble that it may with some show of truth be contended that they do not admit of a treatment in relation to a larger pur- pose outside themselves. If this be so, they arc unsuited for the work they have to do, and the school- master, since no other material is available, inevit- ably sinks into a mere mechanic. This antagonism happily does not exist. The necessities of the pupil's future life and the necessities of sound train- ing can easily be shown to harmonize. For, al- though in such formal matters as arithmetic and grammar the ideal may mean only a certain perfection of acquired knowledge in the pupil, accompanied by a certain amount of mental power developed in the process of acquisition; yet, when even these subjects are ethically taught, that is to say, so handled as to be 8 REPORT ON EDUCATION. brought into close concrete connexion with their ulti mate uses in common life, they pass into a higher category, and contribute their full share to the attain- ment of the ultimate purpose of the school. In the elementary school, if nowhere else, purely formal studies have, when rightly understood, a moral signi- ficance. If the purpose of the parochial school has been cor- rectly stated, something has already been done to wards defining the position and work of the school- master. If it be true that he is set apart by society, in order that he may direct his daily energies to- wards the formation of character in the children of the people, he cannot fail to feel that he is engaged in an elevating, an inspiring, nay, more, a creative task. He is in truth, if he will but be- lieve it, a kind of moral artist. He has a plastic work to do, the work of moulding the rude un- tutored nature of peasant and city boyhood into a shapely form. Nor will any one regard this as an exaggeration of the teacher's office, who has had op- portunities of contrasting the uncombed, untamed young barbarian of civilisation, distinguished for his loose and insolent carriage, his lawless manner, licentious speech, and vagrant eye, with the same child, sitting on the school-bench, well-habited and clean, his man- ner subdued into fitness with the moral order around him, his tongue under a sense of law, his countenance suffused with awakening thought, his very body THE PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL. seeming to be invested with reason. That such trans- formations are effected by the best schoolmasters, all know who have come into direct personal contact with educational agencies. 1 And surely the man who can point to such results as the product of his labour, rightly claims to have in some sense a creative func- tion. Is not his work, in point of fact, creative in a high and peculiar sense ? This at least is certain, that, except in so far as it is felt by him, consciously or unconsciously, to have this character, it may be safely said to be a drudgery the most dreary and soul-tiring in the whole round of human labour an occupation for slaves. I speak exclusively of the elementary teacher ; for the departmental instructor in this or that science or language stands on a lower moral eminence than that which is occupied by the parochial schoolmaster. The former makes only a partial contribution to the final result of character, and he does so at an age when the pupil's unconscious moral tendencies are already declared, and the bent of his intelligence is already given. The latter, on the other hand, has to rear suc- cessive generations of children, during the years in which they are most open to impressions. These chil- dren he has, in the widest sense, to train as well as 1 "From culture tmexclusively bestowed, Expect these mighty issues ; from the pains And faithful care of unambitious schools, Instructing simple childhood's ready ear Thence look for these magnificent results.'' \Vords worth's E.'ciu---><>,i. B. i\. 10 REPORT ON EDUCATION. to instruct. His duty is to operate on their faculties and capacities, to stimulate these into life, and to give them their first direction. The intellect of the child is thus dependent on its earliest instructor more than on any other, on his wise understanding of the manner of its natural operations, the limits of its legitimate exercise, and the objects most readily seized and assimilated at the different stages of its growth. Still more is the moral destiny of the child in his hands ; for the extent to which the sentiments and imagination are to enter into the future char- acter, and give it balance arid harmony, depends more on the way in which they are respected and judiciously fostered in the child's earliest years, than on any future influences whatsoever. If this be the work of the national schoolmaster if his function be to elaborate out of rude, but not un- pliable material, some approximation to a good intel- lectual and moral habit, how indispensable is it that he should be guided as well as sustained by the con- scious possession of this the ideal aim of his profession ! It is only when he has a clear comprehension of the real nature and the large bearings of his work, that the little things of the schoolroom and it is precisely these that require his attention assume their rightful importance. All the details of his arrangements are then felt to promote or retard the realization of the educative purpose of the school, and, in so far as they contribute to the final result, to have a moral value. Small TICK. PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL. 1 J. things are no longer petty. Things which would otherwise be considered trivial such as cleanliness, order, light, ventilation acquire a new significance. Those daily incidents, so apt to be regarded as merely harassing and vexatious, and as traversing the steady on ward progress of his work, are now beheld by him in a new light, and what were formerly only obstruc- tions, become transmuted into auxiliaries of his gene- ral method or into felicitous opportunities for applying it. The teacher, on the other hand, who is ignorant of the true nature of his function, and is unfurnished with a practical ideal, can at best take only a partial and technical view of his duties. His various classes and subjects of instruction do not present themselves to his mind as parts of one whole. The organization is probably loose and disjointed, the subjects taught and the classes operated on seeming to have no in- timate connexion with each other ; for where no ulti- mate unity of general result is conceived, none can exist in the particular details. The multifarious opera- tions of the schoolroom hang in clumsy juxtaposition, instead of being woven together by the power of a common purpose. Such a teacher looks at his work piecemeal, and does it in fragments. A portion of this, that, or the other subject, has to be taught to a certain number of pupils, and the day's work is over. Each lesson seems to terminate in itself, without reference either to the past or the future ; to-day seems to have no necessary issue in to-morrow. K\ begin everything at the wrong place, and prosecute it in the wrong way. They happen to possess a strong will and an earnest desire to instruct and discipline the minds of their pupils. The constant manifestation of their intellectual and moral energy is contagious : it communicates a wholesome shock to the pupil, and his powers are stretched to the utmost, in order to keep pace with a master whose earnestness and strength so conspicuously call forth respect and confidence. Further, the schoolmaster has the potent ally, sym- pathy of numbers, on his side. All help each in the intellectual effort or moral discipline which occupies the passing moment. The perplexity or the kindling of the eye, as the mind of each member of the class works its way to apprehension and utterance, has a subtle power of co-operating with the master. Class-sympathy furnishes that mental stimulus which a common pursuit, supported by generous emulation, always communicates to those who are engaged in it. Such, in outline, ought to be the schoolmaster's mode of operation, and such are some of the natural auxiliaries which never fail the conscientious teacher, aiding his efforts, repairing his blunders, and supply- ing his deficiencies. I can imagine only one case in which some know- ledge of mental processes and a philosophic attitude of mind can be safely dispensed with, the case of the mas- ter who is endowed with sympathetic sensibility. Where this is strong, formal philosophic methods are at once 24 REPORT ON EDUCATION. superseded, and the qualifications for understanding their organic connexion with mind are, if not superflu- ous, at least unnecessary. The sympathetic adaptation of means to ends is the most subtle and successful of all school-methods. There are some teachers to whom the impressions made on the minds of their pupils, or the intellectual efforts they may be mak- ing, communicate themselves instantaneously. The mental processes of others are realized by them, appa- rently without the intervention of any rational pro- cess. They seem to possess an intuitive power of forgetting their own individuality, in order to be- come sharers in that of their pupils. Such men are, even out of school, free from obtrusive self-asser- tion, and from dogmatism and arrogance of character : their simplicity and geniality of disposition are the genuine expression of a soul which has no ulterior "interest" to serve, and which is therefore free to enter, with single-heartedness and with wholeness of mind, into the sentiment or duty which may at the moment be exacting their service. Such a man was Pestalozzi, and such are many men silently emi- nent in school-life at this day, whose powerful instincts justly discard, without contemning, formal methods, because of the secret of success with which a happy mental constitution has already endowed them. That lively sympathy which leads them to live less in them- selves than in the lives of others, furnishes them with a private key with which to unlock the intellects and hearts of their pupils. ' TKACHLNTJ. 2f There is something feminine in the character of mind which I have been describing, and it is in women that we find it most commonly. The sympathetic self-abnegation of the woman, consequently, makes her the best teacher of the young up to a certain age. She has unconsciously what a man for the most part acquires consciously, and what he must therefore, even when he has the best intentions, give out consciously. This implies an effort on his part which the subtle senses of children are so quick to detect, that he cannot, if he would, establish a perfectly harmonious relationship with them. To teachers who apprehend the high purpose of the school, and strive to understand their own operations and to bring their teaching more and more into accordance with philosophic methods, school-keeping may be a labour, but it is not a toil ; while to the teacher of genial and sympathetic power, whose pro- cesses are a continual and unconscious inspiration, it arcely even a labour, but rather the continuing, under special conditions, of his usual habit of life. .But neither philosophic methods nor sympathetic intuition can contravene or supersede the influence of the teacher's own character. The power which a vigorous character has of producing its likeness in another is a fact which requires only to be adverted to. In this, doubtless, lay the secret of the moral and in- tellectual successes of distinguished schoolmasters, who, with clear conceptions of their final aim, went straight at 26 REPORT OX EDUCATION. it without recognising, or perhaps caring to recognise, the fact, that the minds which they were educating lived and grew as independent organisms and accord- ing to certain laws. Such men, it is true, fail to suc- ceed with the mass of their pupils, for they throw on their unripe minds, the burden not merely of learn- ing, but also of analysing and reducing into method, what is taught. The strong intellects of the school come out perhaps the stronger for the difficulties over- come ; but the ordinary intellect is perhaps never fairly reached by discipline to any appreciable extent, though doubtless morally benefited by the dominant will of the master and his irresistible exactions. Character without methods never fails of at least par- tial success ; but the most clearly conceived ideal and the most skilful methods, without the element of per- sonal character, will, however successful in particular directions, invariably fail to attain the great object of the school. An uncontrolled will and an inaccurate and undisciplined intellect can . never contribute a stone to the edifice of intellectual and moral charac- ter in others. An honest understanding, on the other hand, even though limited in capacity and attain- ment, if combined with a habit of will in accordance with the highest sentiments, unwittingly exhibits a reality and earnestness which do not fail to repeat themselves in the pupils. Nay, even where sound methods are in operation, it is character which does more than half of the work, or insidiously undoes it all, producing effects precisely in proportion to the un- RESTRICTIONS OF THE PAROCHIAL TEACHER. 27 consciousness of its operation, and affording a visible exemplar up to which, or down to which, the pupils grow. Limited powers and half-knowledge may, under a love of praise, or some other not unworthy but un- stable motive, strive with a certain measure of success to convey instruction, and through it discipline ; but the lesson which character teaches is apart from all intention, and above the will. What he morally is, that the schoolmaster morally does. Nor will any mere desire should such occasionally visit him to convey a higher moral influence than himself, give him the power to convey it. Restrictions of the Parochial Teacher. Shortness of attendance Irregularity of attendance Number of classes Character of pupils' homes Utilities of pupil's future life. A schoolmaster may have a definite purpose, he may perceive the relation of all the various parts of the work to this purpose, he may grasp method in its fullest sense, or possess that sympathetic power which supersedes method ; yet with all these qualifi- cations he as yet stands only on theoretic ground, fiis most sanguine professional anticipations will be unfulfilled, and he will find that each successive year brings him only blighted hopes and fresh chagrin, if he do not from the first fairly face and measure the inevitable obstructions that strew his path, ren- dering necessary a modification of his route, his school appliances, and his expectations. While main- REPORT ON EDUCATION. taining his ideal, it is his fate to work towards it under the severest limitations, and in the face of constant discomfitures. There is, in truth, no profession or occupation surrounded by so many discouraging and harassing difficulties as that of the primary teacher difficulties, moreover, which have to be daily en- countered, but which, by their very nature, can never be overcome. (l.) The greatest of these is the short period of attendance at school. The average age at which children leave school is about ten years in England, and in Scotland about twelve. Short as this term of attendance is, if we take in view the work to be done, the primary teacher might bravely and hopefully undertake the task imposed on him if the attendance were continuous. So far is this from being the case, that days, weeks, months, and even years of absence intervene, breaking up the school so completely as practically to renew its constituent parts every two or three years. This is an evil for which no efficacious remedy has yet been proposed, except a compulsory law. Until we have some such law a law, that is to say, which makes it penal for any capitalist to employ the labour of children under a certain age who cannot produce a certificate of a certain term of attendance at an elementary school the evil can only be palliated. I am not aware that any very serious efforts have been made in Scotland to remedy the evil as far as it admits of being remedied. With a few exceptions, RESTRICTIONS OF THE PAROCHIAL TEACHER. 1^ ( . neither the teachers nor the school-managers exert their full influence to induce the parents to abstain from withdrawing pupils. It is certainly impossible to imagine a more legitimate domestic subject for the exercise of a little local despotism. The teacher, being pecuniarily interested in steady attendance, may feel some delicacy in openly endeavouring to coerce the children of the parish into the schoolhouse ; but the motives of the school-managers cannot be misin- terpreted. In aid of the exhortations and pressure of the managers, various devices may be resorted to in different parts of the country for reducing the amount of absenteeism. In some districts, for ex- ample, the absentees are kept at home for two or three months in the year, not because the children are hired by large farmers for field-labour, but merely because their parents require a few hours' assistance on their crofts or in herding. It would surely be possible to come to an understanding in such cases with the parents, and by closing the school for the younger and unemployed children at noon, after two or three hours' instruction, and re-opening it towards evening for those who have been occupied in the fields during the day, if only for one hour, to combine atten- tion to the material necessities of the parents with consideration for the mental needs of the children. 1 1 Elementary country schools in Scotland generally open about ten and close about half-past three or four, with an interval varying from half an hour to an hour, usually the latter. It is, of course, presumed that the hour's evening tuition is obtained by diorlening the field-labour to that e&ent. 30 REPORT ON EDUCATION. A daily attendance so short could, it is true, effect nothing more than the maintenance of the know- ledge previously acquired, but every earnest teacher would hail even this small instalment of a full attend- ance as a satisfactory solution of his chief difficulty. For, it is riot the mere fact that the pupils have made no progress during a three or six months' absence that afflicts the master, but that they have visibly retrograded, not only in actual knowledge, but in intellectual facility. They have barely suc- ceeded during the winter months in re-acquiring the latter, with a view to the recovery of the former, when their time of withdrawal for field-labour again approaches. So universal is this custom, that the children, after they have attained a certain age, pro- fessedly come to school only for what is locally called the winter " spate" which means an attendance of from ten to fifteen weeks. It is therefore worth considering whether evening schools for lads above thirteen could not to be held in summer., the teacher being set free from his other duties at an early period of the day, in order to carry forward at a later hour the training of his elder pupils, who are hopelessly lost to him without this supplementary instruction. If the parish will not adapt itself to the school, the school must adapt itself to the parish. 1 1 The above suggestion for mitigating the evil of irregularity, has reference solely to those children who are above a certain age, and are withdrawn for purposes of remunerative labour, in the service either of their parents or of large farmers and other employers of child-labour. To give effect to it requires the co-operation of the leading inhabitants of RESTRICTIONS OF THE PAROCHIAL TEACHER. 3 1 The teacher has also to deal with an evil even more vexatious and more destructive of discipline than labour-caused absenteeism, if not so difficult of cure. 1 mean the habit of irregularity of attendance for trivial reasons, or for no reason at all. The teacher who cnn rely on the attendance of those of his pupils who are under ten years of age for 150 days of the school year, has reason to congratulate himself. I doubt if this amount of attendance is given by one-third of the children on the school register, taking Scotland as a whole, though in the three counties which benefit by the Dick Bequest the irregularity is by no means so great. A little thought might suggest expedients for correcting this evil ; these necessarily varying with the circumstances, social or industrial, of each parish. (2.) The number of classes which a primary school- master has to superintend, and even personally to in- struct, is seldom sufficiently considered by those who criticise his results, and seems frequently to be lost sight of even by himself. If we bear in mind that the average number of classes in an elementary school is six ; that every one of these, if properly taught, is obtaining instruction in three subjects, and two, if not three of them, in six or seven subjects, during a school-day not exceeding five hours ; in other words, that five-and- twenty distinct lessons have to be given daily, and time allowed for assembling, dismissing, and for the the parish with the teacher ; but inasmuch as it fairly admits an existing difficulty, and endeavours to make the best of it, an attempt to give effect to the proposal, would, I think, be met by fewer obstructions than en- compass almost all other expedients for obviating a great evil. 32 KEPOKT ON EDUCATION. formation of classes, the necessity of limiting the range of work, if work is to be effectually done, is suffi- ciently manifest to allow of my passing at once to the next obstruction besetting the teacher's path. (3.) This obstruction is the character of the homes of the mass of his pupils. The uncontrolled will, the coarse language, the want of kindliness and of gentle- ness of demeanour, the dirty, wasteful and therefore demoralizing habits, the almost total disregard of in- tellectual family life, which may be seen in too many of these, counteract the teacher's labours, and seem more than any other difficulty to justify his despair. But it is needless to dwell on a moral obstacle which the teacher must be contented to endure, working in the face of it as hopefully as he can. It is pointed out chiefly because it has afterwards to be used for the enforcement of some of his duties. (4.) The next limitation under which the elemen- tary teacher works requires to be stated, not because of its presenting insuperable difficulties, but rather because he is himself very apt to omit it altogether from his calculations, setting it aside, not deliberately with a view to the better attainment of his own ideal,, but in unthinking slavery to tradition and routine. This limitation is the necessity of selecting the materials of education which is imposed by the requirements of the pupil's future life. Outside the two prime subjects of moral and religious instruction, we are not left free in the elementary school to choose the mate- rials best fitted to promote the formation of a good RESTRICTIONS OF THE PAROCHIAL TEACHER. 33 habit of the intelligence and the will : and for this reason, that Loth the moral and intellectual nature require to be informed, with a view to the actual needs of life. Nor is this to be regretted by the theorist intent on character only, for through informa- tion rightly given the mind gains much of its best dis- cipline. The instruction which is too often omitted is needed for the support and direction of the conscience. We may perchance find among those who have left school a trained habit of the intelligence enabling them to perceive, distinguish, and reason with accu- racy (or rather I should say with a conscious effort after accuracy) ; but if the materials on which the intelligence has been trained have no connexion with the demands of daily duty, the work it has to do will be done painfully and with very doubtful results. We may perchance find a trained habit of the will enabling the pupil to assert himself and his own resolution against and above the tempta- tions which hourly beset him from within and from without ; but if the materials with which the will has been informed have no direct bearing on the questions which have to be daily answered for others as well as for himself, the pupil will be quite abroad in his conclusions if a new thing has to be done ; or, which is more probable, he will at once succumb without resistance to the bad habits which he may have inherited, and which belong to his class. The above remarks have reference specially to the pupils of our Parochial Schools. The traditionary c 34 REPORT ON EDUCATION. motives and inherited customs of the families of those boys who belong to the middle and upper classes of society, modify, if they do not indeed quite alter, the bearing of the whole education question on their training. This distinction is, per- haps, too much lost sight of in discussing questions affecting middle and public schools. Elaborately to impress on boys who come from homes in which baths, daily used, may be found in every bedroom, the physiological necessity of cleanliness, is to carry billets to the wood. Again, with boys from eleven to seventeen, whose characters are determined, by their homes and the class to which they belong, into the groove of honour, moral principle, and respect for religion, the idea of &free discipline ought mani- festly to dominate over all others. Unrestricted mu- tual education in the open air under certain general rules and supervision, but without any vigilance that savours of espionage, the repression of luxurious habits, submission to law, and the development of a vigorous morality, probably do more to give wholesome exer- cise to the intellect as well as the will than any pos- sible combination of literary or scientific pursuits. These must continue to be the main characteristics of the public school for the wealthier classes, in the case of all boys above twelve years of age. The chief blunder committed in the education of children of this class is to be found in their training during their earliest years. At the age of twelve, a . boy of the wealthier classes must be either unusually dull, or have RESTRICTIONS OF THE PAROCHIAL TEACHER. 35 been much neglected, who, with uninterrupted opportu- nities of learning, cannot read well, write a well-spelled and grammatical letter, travel accurately in imagi- nation and without the help of the map, over every part of the world, work any reasonable sum in Simple Proportion, give an intelligible, though perhaps rough account, of the more common natural phenomena, and have his memory stored with some of the finest characters in history and some of the best narrative poems in the language. All this, except the geography and arithmetic, can be easily acquired in the course of rightly learning the art of reading, if the reading- books be well selected. And if the practice of Eng- lish reading be continued in the classical school for an hour or two weekly, this rough elementary know- ledge of nature and its laws will gradually become more accurate and precise, and as much science will be conveyed as a boy can really absorb. After the age of twelve, and when a boy has fairly embarked on the current of a public school, the great object of the school-room should be to counteract the disadvantages and temptations incident to his social position by giving him hard intellectual work something which will cost him a good deal of labour, however carefully it may be taught, and, along with the labour, confer the blessing of intellectual discipline. What will best accomplish these two objects is the main question, if not the only one, to be answered. But if we turn to the Parochial School, we find our- selves on very different ground. The objects of the 36 REPORT ON EDUCATION. teacher's care are dispersed at the age of ten or twelve years, not drawn into an upper school which will carry onward the instruction and training of childhood, but driven into the labour of life. They are already little men and women, alive to the material responsibilities of existence, and called upon at once to exhibit a certain practical capacity and a certain quantity of usable knowledge. Before many years more have passed, they are compelled to take sole direction of their own conduct, unrestrained and unsupported, as the middle and upper classes are, by strong family ties and hereditary obligations. We have already dwelt on the abrupt conclusion to the teacher's labours caused by the early removal of children from school, an evil which he must face by at once contemplating and arranging for the premature termination of his course of instruction and discipline. The limitation last adverted to imposes on him the further obligation of endeavouring to satisfy the ideal purpose of the school by means of such a course of instruction as will fairly meet the inevitable circum- stances and requirements of the future life of his pupil. This naturally leads us to consider next The Lessons to be drawn from the Restrictions of the Parochial Teacher. Contraction of teacher's work Principles of selection Subjects in order of importance, primary and secondary. It was impossible to point out the limitations under which the primary teacher has to do his LESM >NS TO HE DRAWN FROM TEACHER'S RESTRICTIONS. ."> 7 work, without, by implication at least, suggesting the obligations which these limitations impose on him ; and not on him alone, but on all w r ho have to do with the management of elementary schools. In looking more closely at this subject, we shall find that the limitations imposed by the brief period of school life, the irregularity of attendance during that period, the numerous classes demanding the master's constant attention, and the requirements of after life, all combine to teach the same lesson the con- traction of the teachers aim. To maintain this, even in the face of the clamant demand for the admission into the school curriculum of all sorts of sciences and arts which has distinguished the last thirty years, would be more unpopular than difficult. Drawing, Music, the Physiology of Man, Physiology of Plants, Political Economy, Astronomy ; every department of Natural Philosophy, Geology, and Mineralogy ; Military Drill, Agricultural Chemistry, Natural History, Constitu- tional Law, Technology, Phrenology, have been all, or each in its turn, strenuously advocated in addition to the current and almost universal subjects of Eeading, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography Political and Physi- cal, History, Grammar, Writing from Dictation, and Religious Knowledge. The most conclusive answer to such theoretical projectors would be to assemble them in the same committee-room, and allow them to extinguish each other. Any thinking man is com- petent to suggest the subjects to be taught in our primary schools; but there is only one point of 38 REPORT ON EDUCATION. from which all these subjects must be estimated, and that is the school-floor itself. And from this point of view a fair consideration of the limitations to which we have adverted, will force on every one the conviction that the education of the primary school cannot be general education at all, in the large and theoretic sense, but must be rather special and technical education. Given the facts of age, of irregularity of attendance, and of numerous classes, there is no alternative open, save to select, for the purposes of training and discip- line, those subjects a knowledge of which is most essential to the practical and immediate needs of the child's future life. The teacher is not, on this account, for one moment to lose sight of the great aim of his work, the For- mation of Character ; nor does he require to curtail those direct religious and moral instructions which bear immediately on this his final aim. These in- structions must be held sacred. Happily, they are as indispensable to the child here as to his prepara- tion for a hereafter. They are the direct efforts made to form and inform the will of the child, to- wards which all other school-teachings contribute only indirectly. The limitations under which the schoolmaster works, accordingly, do not necessarily affect either his scholastic ideal or his moral teach- ing; they touch only the intellectual materials or implements with which he works. He is not per- mitted to be either discursive, encyclopaedic, or from the theoretic point of view, eclectic ; he is under UOSSONSTO 15K I>KA\VN Fi;<>M TEACHER'S RESTRICTIONS. 39 the stem Jaw of necessity, which points out, with unwavering finger, the path in which he is to walk. I do not mean to say that the idiosyncrasy of a teacher's intellect may not justify occasional devia- tion from the course pointed out to him. A special love and knowledge of botany or of natural history, or of any department of physics, or of poetry or music or drawing, ought to be allowed free play in the work of the school. In such exceptional circum- stances, the subject which the teacher peculiarly affects will be so well taught as to do more to give a health- ful stimulus to the intellects of the children, and a real and lasting interest in objects outside themselves and their daily wants, than any other. Such a result will fully compensate for the loss of what would pro- bably be merely routine instruction in some other department of study. But allowing for an occasional divergence of this kind, the circumstances of which furnish its own best justification, it is from the limited and irregular attendance and future needs of the pupil alone that we must learn the leading subjects of pri- mary-school instruction. And these subjects are the time-honoured branches Reading, Writing, and Arith- metic. But let it not be supposed that in confining intel- lectual school- work, in the first instance, to purely technical instruction in these, the three instruments whereby knowledge may be afterwards attained by the pupil himself, we omit from our consideration two things : 40 REPORT ON EDUCATION. First, the universally admitted fact that, unless the mind of the pupil be interested in attainment for its own sake, as well as qualified to acquire it, the work of the teacher will find its termination on the day on which the pupil leaves the school, and on that day a fatally retrograde process will begin. So far are we from forgetting this, that we shall show that the schoolmaster's craft consists in so teaching the technical subjects as to avoid this too common result, and also to attain certain higher ends. Read- ing, writing, and arithmetic, it is true, must form the groundwork of all purely intellectual primary instruc- tion ; nay, more, every other subject must be sub- ordinated to the paramount claims of these. But precisely at this point education as such insists on being heard in relation to these subjects, and the art of teaching steps in with its suggestions, its aids, and its methods. At first sight, necessity seems to sub- vert the very idea of education in any large sense by compelling almost exclusive attention to certain technical acquirements ; but the art of teaching in- tervening, demonstrates that even these technicalities will fail to be taught with practical effect unless they be taught in such a way, and in so large and compre- hensive a spirit, as will virtually subordinate them in their turn to the idea of education. Thus theory and practice are reconciled. The way and the sense in which these formal subjects are to be taught with a view to the educative result, falls properly to be considered under the head of " Methods." LKSSONS TO BE DRAWN FROM TKA( (HERS RESTRICTIONS. 41 Secondly, we do not omit from our consideration the necessities of the future life of the children of the labouring population, already adverted to, and the nature of their home- training, both of which point to instruction in the duty and the means of preserving the bodily health of themselves and those dependent on them, and in the principles of conduct which should actuate them as members of a complicated social organization. These things fall properly under the moral instruction, which we presume to be sacred from interference. My experience, such as it is, has given me very strong convictions as to the vital neces- sity of insisting on this side of primary-school w r ork. To train a child under a constant admonition to obey the laws of God and man, and to act as a Christian ought to act, and then to leave him to grope his own way to the fulfilment of his duty, is a mockery. A command is a merely formal utterance, and con- tains nothing. It is an outline to be filled up with the details of reasons, motives, and purposes. The inherited habits of the middle and upper classes, and their superior education and intelligence, may possibly enable them to dispense with the details of a manual of morality : they certainly have a ten- dency to blind them as to the need of specific and detailed instruction on these subjects to the less- favoured members of society. The how and the why of moral laws, in their relation to the practical routine of daily life, require to be explicitly enunciated and deliberately and emphatically enforced in the 42 REPORT ON EDUCATION. school. To teach physiology and political economy would be absurd, simply because there is no time for them, and because the teacher, if he abstracted the time from other subjects, would waste himself in the futile effort to build up in an unripe mind a pseudo-scientific knowledge, and in laying founda- tions which the conditions of time, age, and circum- stances under which he worked would prevent ever rising above the level of the ground. But to take up gravely and seriously the three great questions of air, food, and cleanliness, in relation to the three organs, the lungs, the stomach, and the skin ; to show what these organs are, and why they exist, and how they work ; to show that, so far as this natural fabric of ours is concerned, we are these organs, and that to disobey the divine laws under which alone they can healthily operate, is, in the gravity of its conse- quences, a moral offence to do all this is to enter on a kind of instruction which those familiar with the domestic life of the mass of the people of this country know to have a more important bear- ing on every higher question of man's life, as a spiritual and immortal being, than any other, save the direct inculcation of spiritual truths themselves. The laws of health, then, which simply mean the rules of health taught with reference to the principles on which they repose, ought never to be absent from the primary school, and ought to be handled by the teacher with all the earnestness and solemnity of moral teach- ing. Again, although the duties which a man owes LKSSONSTo UK PKAWN FROM TEACH Kll S RESTRICTIONS. 43 to his family, and to the society of which he is a member, defy all attempt at explicit teaching, unless \vr enter on the ground of elementary political eco- nomy, it is not necessary to go beyond truths obvious and trite. The moralities of getting and spending and selling involve a whole series of questions de- manding detailed and impressive treatment and reiter- ation. Frugality, economy, saving, life insurance, the duty of educating children if only from purely pru- dential motives, the social and economic effects of lying and unfair dealing, all fall into the moral cur- riculum of the elementary school as leading sub- jects. The relation of employer and labourer, a clear understanding of what capital is, and of the fact that wages are paid out of capital (and the con- sequent importance of holding sacred the rights of property, of rejoicing in the accumulations of others, and of avoiding strikes), the causes of the rise and fall of wages, the effects of machinery, and the advan- tages, in some cases the duty, of emigration, are all momentous questions for the future operative, and attractive to him, if properly handled by the school- master. 1 The present practice is to inculcate the doing of the right; the kind of instruction which I (following others who have given their thoughts to the objects and working of primary schools) consider to be indis- pensable, will show what the " right" is and how it can be done. Such instruction covers almost the 1 Children leave school so young that the last-named subjects must generally be left to the teachers of the Evening or Continuation schools. now happily increasing in number. 44 REPORT ON EDUCATION. whole field of practical morality. Its relation to religion, and the further and supreme task which special religious instruction has to accomplish, will be considered in its proper place. We are not called upon to introduce the above practical morali- ties pompously, as separate sciences or studies. In acquiring the technical arts of Heading, Writing, and Arithmetic, sufficient opportunities are afforded of instilling all the truths necessary to the future well- being of the pupil. If the reading-books are well constructed, they will suggest at least the text, if they do not supply the detailed evolution, of the moralities of our physical constitution and of our social relations. As soon as the teacher has given such prominence in his school work to Keligious Instruction, to the three technical subjects of Eeading (in its larger sense), Writing, and Arithmetic, and to such teaching as can be % given through these in practical morality in its detailed application to the duties which physiological laws and social life impose, he is then, but only then, at liberty to turn his attention to other subjects. The subjects here specified are indispensable and pri- mary, and if others be introduced, they must be kept in strict subordination to the magistral studies. And here one word may be said on the vexed question of Grammar. To teach English Grammar systematically before the child has reached the age of eleven is, it seems to me, a waste of time. I do not mean to say that LKSSONS TO BK DRAWN FROM TKA< 'HKIl's RESTRICTIONS. 45 it cannot be done, but that the pressure of other sub- jects makes it a waste of time to do it. Nor, perhaps, at any age is the teaching of English grammar in the primary school worth the time expended on it, ex- cept where it is made distinctly, and at every stage of the pupil's progress, to subserve two purposes, namely, first, facilitating the understanding of complex proposi- tions, especially the language of poetry, by bringing into view and enabling the child to bring into view, the rela- tion of the several parts of sentences ; and, secondly, enabling the child to write sentences of his own compo- sition accurately. Thus practically viewed in close rela- tion to its real purpose, Grammar becomes a part of the reacling-lessori, and by far the most useful intellectual discipline, ivlien taught with knowledge, and precision, to which a child can be subjected. Whatever may be said of boys above eleven years of age, it is certain that before they reach this age, they should know nothing of grammar save in the above purely prac- tical sense. So limited, it is properly a part of the instruction in Reading and Writing, and essential to a thorough teaching of these arts, presuming that thorough teaching invariably aims at reaching and cultivating the understanding of the pupil. The secondary subjects that can put forward the best claim for adoption into the school curriculum are Music and Geography. The moral and disciplinary effects of Music are so remarkable, that its judicious introduction is in reality a means of saving time ; 46 REPORT ON EDUCATION. and it is this fact which completes the numerous arguments which rnay be urged in its favour. Geo- graphy, again, occupies time ; but as it is a subject acquired chiefly through the eye, and therefore both attractive and easy, two or three lessons a week draw little on the time or disposable working power of the pupils. Its more solid claims for admission into the school are that, when taught with distinct and constant reference to climate, peoples, and industries, it is the least artificial of all the exercises of mind that can be presented to the young. For not only is it im- portant as a discipline, it is the most fruitful of all possible subjects in facts ; and although an education which turns on absorption of facts is misnamed edu- cation is not even instruction yet the facts involved in a straightforward description of the earth we live on, its climates, peoples, and productions, are so natural an extension of the child's existing stock of knowledge, that they enter into his intellect as if part of his personal experience, insensibly broaden his understanding, and give greater depth and solidity to his future judgments. Moreover, the important relations of geography, when well taught, to the economic lessons already spoken of, by enabling the pupil to realize the nature and extent of industries and the mutual dependence of all mankind, strengthen the argument in favour of putting this subject next to music among the secondary subjects of the elementary school. Here it is necessary to stop ; for beyond these subjects the primary school cannot go during the MASONS TO BE DRAWN FROM TEACHER'S RESTRICTIONS. 47 ordinary school hours, save in a few exceptional cases. It is true that a clever teacher may also give some instruction in the objects of nature by which his pupils are surrounded, and explain the more ordinary machines and physical phenomena which daily come across the pupil's path ; but these he will find treated of in the school reading -books with sufficient fulness, and he cannot thoroughly teach the lessons there given, even as mere reading exercises, without eliciting their full meaning, and working them into the pupil's understanding in such a way as to im- print them firmly on his memory. The same remark applies to the elements of natural history, to geology, and accounts of industrial processes : they are to be treated as entirely subordinate to the technical sub- jects ; that is to say, not treated at all, unless they enter into the reading-books by means of which the art of reading is taught. The elements of Drawing one would fain see enter into the time-table of every primary school where the master is possessed of that organizing skill which con- verts subjects of this kind into time- savers rather than time-occupiers. But on no other condition can it find a place, for the simple reason, that if other more im- portant subjects have their due, there is no place for it. It is necessary, however, to except those initiatory attempts at copying outlines of common objects on slates from the black-board, which are wisely inter- posed in the midst of other work in the case of very 48 REPORT ON EDUCATION. young children. These exercises properly belong to the infant school. They occupy and refresh the jaded mind, while giving facility to the unpractised fingers, and accuracy to the vague and undisciplined infant eye. To this extent Drawing is in reality a time- saver, and therefore constitutes no exception to the general condition of its introduction already specified. History last and least claims attention in the ele- mentary school. So much for the lessons to be drawn by the school- master from the chief of the inevitable limitations under which he works. But I cannot leave the subject with- out again adverting to the most serious limitation of all the habits of life in the homes from which the children daily come, and the lesson which the teacher should draw from them. It will be observed that, next, to religious instruction and the acquisition of a certain facility in the three main technical sub- jects of the school, I have been guided in giving precedence to other topics by their moral relations, because the moral purpose in forming character must always maintain a strict ascendency over the in- tellectual The latter serves man in this life, and can be at best only the basis on which his intellec- tual progress elsewhere can rest ; the former is the man himself, his personality and will, without which he is nothing in this world, and apart from which he can be nothing hereafter. Nor does the will ever fail LESSONS TO UK DKANVN Kltn.M TKA< TIKK's RESTRICTIONS. 10 to justify its claim to supreme attention in the work of education, even in its relation to the understanding. For the most superficial observer must have noticed that a vigorous will sends a stream of clearness, per- spicacity, and force into the operations of even an ordinary intellect, and is thus a constant source of real discipline. The necessity of this supreme regard to the moral aims of the school is, however, mainly forced upon us by the consideration of the domestic influences under which so large a propor- tion of the children live. The frequent wrangling, the ungracious demeanour towards each other, the careless ignoring, or what is even more common, the rude repression, of the gentler sensibilities of the young, are sufficient in themselves to divert the genial current of a young child's life into a hard and stony channel. To these demoralizing influences we have to add the too common disregard of cleanli- ness, decency, and order, the perpetual domestic struggle for mastery, determined ultimately by brute force alone, instead of the considerate command and eager submission which are the fruit of a paternal authority resting on moral superiority, and of a filial obedience prompted by respect and sustained by affection. If this be a fair summary of the coun- teracting agencies limiting, if not overturning, the teacher's work in the mass of the pupils' homes, the lesson which it enforces is the necessity of giving even exaggerated importance in the school to the cultivation of the feelings and imagination of the young, and of D 50 REPORT ON EDUCATION. those ready civilities and mutual courtesies which do so much to confer happiness and dignity on the life of man. Here, again, the reading-books of the school will be found a useful auxiliary to the teacher, if, while furnishing the means of necessary discipline and instruction, they make provision for the starved im- agination and repressed sensibilities of the children of the poorer classes. Enough has been now said, by way of suggestion at least, on the lessons to be drawn from the limita- tions under which the primary teacher does his daily task ; the result of all which is that he must confine his work within very narrow limits, and at the same time overrule it to certain moral and intellectual educative ends. Nor is the result to which we have been led such as to discourage the ardent schoolmaster ; for although he is excluded from such a choice of educational imple- ments as might most efficiently promote the theoretic idea of the school the Formation of Character he is yet supplied with instruments good enough for the attainment of his purpose, if they be rightly used. The right use of these is such a use as will coerce them into submission to the ultimate educative purpose of his work. The consideration of this brings us to Methods of Teaching. For, having pointed out the subjects into which it is imperative that the teacher should throw his main strength, it becomes necessary to show in what way he is to regulate and apply that strength in METHODS OF TKAC.HINC. "' 1 tin- narrow field open to him, with a view to train his pupils to those good habits of the intelligence and tin- will which constitute the sum of his professional ta.sk. METHODS OF TEACHING. THE CONCURRENCE OF GENERAL METHOD AND PAR- TICULAR METHODS. A method is a way towards the attainment of an end. The general method on which all education pro- ceeds we have already spoken of. Our duty now is with the particular methods whereby certain special ends may be best attained. For the schoolmaster, inasmuch as he is precluded, by the circumstances under which he works, from selecting the materials of his craft with sole reference either to the ultimate educative end which he has in view, or to the best conception of general method, is driven to consider the question, whether it be possible to teach the sub- jects to which he is limited in such a way as to make them contribute directly to his ultimate pur- pose, the formation of a good intellectual and moral habit, and to bring the expedients he adopts within the range of philosophic method ; and all this without sacrificing the technical acquirement which it is his .immediate business to communicate. In other words, the schoolmaster is forced to consider the particular method belonging to each particular 52 REPOKT ON EDUCATION. subject of instruction in its relation to general method ; the particular end being the communication to the pupil of a certain power over a specified subject (whether it be reading, writing, or arithmetic) as opposed to the general and ultimate end of education. The particular method which the teacher is in search of is the most sure, sound, effectual, and therefore the most easy and rapid way of communicating the re- quired power. Manifestly, the particular method which has reference to a specific subject, and the general method which has reference to education in the general sense, are not of equal authority in the eyes of the enlightened schoolmaster. Where they conflict, or, I should rather say, seem to conflict, the latter is paramount. But as the general purpose of education can be attained only by the active exercise of the intellectual and moral powers of the pupil in accordance with their natural laws of operation, so it will be found that the particular purpose of in- structing him in some specific subject cannot possibly be attained in any way so sure, sound, easy, and rapid, as by that which is in accordance with the same laws. Thus, happily, the particular method which has reference to each separate subject of instruction, and the general method of education, which, contemplates solely the development and discipline of the mind, will be found to be fundamentally one and the same. The truth of this will appear in the course of ascer- taining and stating the best methods to be employed in teaching the various special technicalities of the primary-school curriculum. INITIATION IN THE ART OF READING. 53 OBJECTS AND METHOD OF TEACHING READING. The particular end proposed in teaching Eeading is, if rightly understood, an end much more comprehen- sive and involving much more than is generally supposed. I have already incidentally adverted to the large view which the schoolmaster ought to take of the three time-honoured foundations of primary- school work, Heading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Reading especially admits of and demands a wide and liberal interpretation. To put it concisely and practically, the teaching of this art is the communi- cating of a power to read works which constitute ordinary literature, easily, intelligently, and intelligibly. To accomplish this object thoroughly is, as we shall find, to give, explicitly or implicitly, so large an amount of instruction and discipline as almost to effect the whole higher purpose of elementary education. We have now to see .how this special end Eeading may be most surely and soundly reached, and to elicit the harmony that subsists between the particular technical end of instruction and the general purpose of education. Initiation in the Art of Reading. The Phonic, the " Look and Say," and the Alphabetic methods Spelling. To initiate a child into the art of Eeading, is to give him the power of recognising the conventional symbols of words, and of uttering them accurately. o4 REPORT ON EDUCATION. All words whatsoever are merely different groupings of a limited number of conventional signs, and the labour of learning to read is thus infinitely less than if every word had a distinct symbol written or drawn. Were we in the latter unhappy predicament, the pri- mary teacher would be almost wholly occupied in teaching the ten or fifteen thousand different symbols necessary for the instruction of a child in the art of reading his Bible or the daily paper, and even after this was accomplished, the pupil would find that an immense number of word-signs were still to him a sealed book. By arresting words in the act of enunciation, and analysing their sounds into their individual parts, we find that the same sounds are continually recurring in different combinations, and that, while words seem infinite in number, the sounds which enter into them are few. In the English language, even including bi- literal sounds, the total number probably does not exceed thirty. To these elementary simple sounds, we have only to attach written symbols, and the art of reading becomes simply the act of recognising these sound-symbols and re-combining them into words. The first step in teaching to read, therefore, mani- festly ought to be to give the child a knowledge of the elementary sounds and their corresponding symbols, I say sounds, not the accidental names of the sounds; the second, to guide him in the attempt to group them into words of the most simple kind, but gradually in- creasing in difficulty. The first step is only a lesson in form, to be taught as lessons in form ought to be INTIMATION IX T1IK ART OF READING. 55 taught, and is purely an act of memory ; the second step is a lesson in the building up of parts into a whole, bringing into play, in an arbitrary way certainly, those powers whereby the child has been acquiring all his knowledge up to the date of his entering school, namely, the powers of attention, comparison, analysis, ami synthesis. This, shortly summarized, is the method which is best adapted for giving a sound and rapid knowledge of reading and spelling ; for, while calling for con- tinual acts of observation and memory, it also sub- serves the intellectual purpose of an easy, because unforced and natural, discipline. I forbear adverting here to the defects which are inseparable from this phonic method, till I have adverted to the two other modes adopted or advocated. And, first, we have the "word and name," or " look and say" system, which teaches that complete words, such as ' I see a goat,' ' The maid milks a cow/ ' Tom is a boy/ are to be taught to the child in the first instance, just as they stand, and until he has acquired a certain facility in reading. This system is advocated on the ground of its affording more interest to the pupil, and so exciting his powers to more rapid acquisition. But the fact that the analysis into their simple elemen- tary parts, of the sounds which enter into each word, is only postponed, and must be achieved sooner or later, is frequently lost sight of by the teacher, in the satis- i'a< -tion which the manifest progress of the child in the knowledge of words yields. 5fi REPORT ON EDUCATION. This system is to be objected to because it reduces written language to a system of pictorial representations of words as wholes, and so compels the child to learn some three or four hundred different pictorial symbols before he begins to suspect that there is a shorter way of getting at the symbols of spoken language a key for each and every word alike. What is the process which, under this system, goes on in the learner's mind ? It is this : after a few months' instruction, in which the memory alone is exercised, he begins to discover that the same simple forms or letters are con- stantly recurring in all words, and unconsciously to attach to each separate form its own specific phonic power. The teacher takes advantage of this dawning analysis, and improves it into a knowledge of all the elementary signs, with their corresponding names or sounds, or both. The teacher and pupil, in point of fact, retrace their steps in order to find the key which lay conspicuously enough at their feet when they started on their journey, in order that, having armed themselves with it, they may push on with fresh vigour to the easier conquest of all future verbal difficulties. The process of analysis and synthesis thus certainly comes at last, bearing with it its intellectual advan- tages, but it comes later than need be, and only after the superfluous difficulty of learning hundreds of different pictorial forms for complete words, has been thrown in the way of the child's early progress. The process of learning must, it seems to me, from the very nature of the case, be ultimately slower according to this method INFTIATION IN THE ART OF READING. than according to those more generally practised, while the disciplinary benefits of learning to read are un- necessarily postponed. That the process of learning- twenty or thirty words is both a pleasanter and more rapid one than that of learning twenty or thirty forms, with their corresponding names or sounds, must be at once admitted, for the simple reason, that symbols which have a meaning must be more cheerfully ac- quired and more easily remembered than symbols that have no meaning. But it is surely absurd to suppose that the learning of two or three hundred symbols for words, even with the suggestive aid of the mean- ings attached to them, is easier than the acquisition of the twenty or thirty elementary symbols which enter into all words. Moreover, it is a mistake to suppose that the learning of the elementary shapes in their unmeaning nakedness is a process insufferably tedious to the pupil. We must not judge children by ourselves. The symbolic forms are novelties to them, and interest them, deeply interest them, as form-lessons, and as such they present no peculiar difficulty. The second method of teaching to read is that almost universally practised, and consists of giving the child a knowledge of the elementary forms (teaching him the alphabet, as it is called), attaching to these forms certain arbitrary names, and then proceeding to combine these forms and names into wholes (that is, into words) having no resemblance in sound, or 58 REPORT ON EDUCATION. a very remote resemblance to the names by which the individual forms making up the word have been designated. For example, the child is taught to say em wi is my ; aitch o yew ess-ee is house; see a tee is cat. But inasmuch as see a tee cannot sound the word cat, but only stand for it, the process of ac- quiring the word is manifestly a pure act of memory. Now this, the " alphabetic" system (though bad), has several distinct advantages over the " look and say " system. It gives the child a quicker knowledge of words (after the alphabet has been learned), because, by directing his attention to the individual parts which make up the wholes, it facilitates his percep- tion and remembrance of the grouping of the forms which make up the complete word. A child who sees a cart for the first time, and has his attention directed first to the wheels and axle, and then to the body and the shafts, and finally to the object as a whole, will afterwards more quickly distinguish a cart from every other sort of vehicle, than if he had looked at the object, first and last, only in its general outline as a unity. So with the written symbol for cart : the naming of see a ar tee, cannot by any possi- bility suggest the sound cart, but it individualizes the pupil's attention on the various constituent ele- ments of the general pictorial outline of the whole word, which consequently is more clearly and vividly depicted on his eye and in his memory. Again, in the act of enunciating the names of the different elements of the symbol, he spells it, and thus acquires a know INITIATION IN THE ART OF READING. 59 ledge of spelling simultaneously with that of reading. Further, this breaking up of the word more quickly suggests to him the conclusion which every mode of teaching elementary reading has ultimately in view, namely, that each separate sign plays a peculiar part in making up the sound of the whole, and has a certain and specific phonic value. Having acquired an unconscious power of attaching to the various signs and sign-names their peculiar phonic values, his enun- ciation of the names of the signs, when he comes to a new word ("spelling it over," as it is called), be- fore he pronounces it, is a real help to him ; and why ? because it suggests the sound of the whole word. Let not the teacher, however, imagine that a child so taught receives any assistance from the naming of the separate signs in making out the word, until he has unconsciously and gradually worked out for him- self a complete phonic system. This he must do. There is thus thrown on the child the labour of find- ing out for himself the sounds or powers of each separate sign which he is daily in the habit of naming, and for a considerable period the facility which this phonic knowledge gives in making out words, has accordingly been wilfully sacrificed ; and, along with this facility, the intellectual exercise which the inde- pendent elaboration of fresh words out of given materials would have yielded to him. We are thus brought back to the method which was introduced at the beginning of this chapter, as the tiO REPORT ON EDUCATION. natural consequence of an analytic system of written language that, namely, which takes the individual parts of the words, and gives them, from the first, the sounds which they actually have when grouped to form words ; shortly, the Phonic Method. Given the power of recognising these sign-elements, and a knowledge of their force in combination (in other words, given a knowledge of the sounds of the letters of the alphabet), it is manifest that the pupil is provided with the means of constructing words for himself. His teaching and learning have thus, from the very first, a significance which they derive from their direct and palpable bearing on the prac- tical application of his knowledge of sounds to the making out of words and sentences. It is a trivial objection to the phonic method that the sounds of the letters when they stand by them- selves are not precisely the same as they are when in combination ; for example, be d te does not, when rapidly pronounced, yield precisely bat, nor does d'e-o-ge quite yield dog, when allowed to flow into a unity of pronunciation. But the answer to this simply is, that it very nearly yields it (especially if an effort is made to sink the vowel element in the sound), and that in a great number of words it quite yields it ; for example, s-u-n yields sun, and so forth. Failing the possibility of getting the precise sound of the constituent elements of words, it is surely the next best thing to get something which approximates to this, instead of at once throwing up the task of INITIATION IN THE ART OF READING. (> 1 sounding in despair, and plunging into an arbitrary naming of the elements, a device which only remotely and indirectly contributes to facilitate the acquisition of the art of reading. According to the phonic system, the diphthongs oi, ou, aw, ai, ae, etc., are of course learned as distinct sounds along with the other letters of the alphabet. The most serious objection to the system is the obstacle which the numerous irregularities of the Eng- lish language oppose, causing words to assume sounds as a whole which cannot by any amount of contortion be shown to be derivable from the sounds of their individual parts. For example, the words are and have the child would naturally expect to find sounded with the a long, while one, two, were, said, and numerous others, present, almost at the outset of the child's career, seeming contradictions to the phonic lessons he is being- taught. In reply, I have to point out the fact that the principle on which the method proceeds affords a key to nineteen-twentieths of the words in the lan- guage, and that the outstanding irregularities can be taught as such, on the " look and say" system, without any attempt to show that they are capable of phonic analysis. According to the present almost universal "alphabetic" system, every vocable is an irregularity, and has to be learnt as if no other words had been learnt before it, for the names of the letters can afford no direct help in finding out the sound of the word which they represent. It is surely a manifest gain to be able to furnish the child with a key to the great 02 REPORT ON EDUCATION. majority of words, and thereby to reduce stumbling- blocks to a minimum ! Moreover, in learning to read according to the phonic method, the child, in addition to possessing all the advantages of the method ordinarily adopted at pre- sent, is furnished with an instrument, namely, the sounds of the letters, which he can himself apply with a view to fresh acquisitions. He thereby has his love of power and discovery gratified, and in the pleasing act of word-elaboration, he finds an exercise of under- standing, humble indeed in its object, but beneficial in its disciplinary effects. The mental act is in truth worthy of all respect and encouragement, as it in no essential respect differs from those higher but similar operations which we admire in the cultivated intellect of the scholar or the man of science. Thus it is that the soundest and easiest way of teaching the technical art of reading, indirectly con- tributes, even in its initiatory stage, to that intel- lectual discipline which is one side of the great object of the primary school (formation of character) ; and further, that it tends to interest the child in his work while facilitating his progress. A question seemingly unimportant thus assumes proportions which make it worthy of the attention of all concerned in education, if it be once admitted that education has any prin- ciples at all. In SPELLING we find further confirmation of the INITIATION IN THE ART OF READlNd. ('*'>> practical superiority as well as the philosophic charac- ter of the phonic method of teaching to read. Ac- cording to the ordinary method, spelling is an act of memory performed by the eye, which carries away an impression, more or less accurate, of the elemen- tary forms entering into a word, and by the ear, which aids the eye by recalling the order in which the