Mr. Bentham in his Chrestomathia has drawn up a programme of what he considered might be fairly taught and easily acquired in the process of a complete education. There is something formidable in this list of studies, it is so vast and various, that it seems almost visionary; the leap from the 'learn nothing,' to the 'learn all,' is too wide and startling. But without going to an extent which would leave no branch of human knowledge excluded, it is perfectly clear that the education of our youth may be conveniently widened to a circle immeasurably more comprehensive than any which has yet been drawn. It is probable that the system of Hamilton may be wrong; probable that there is a certain quackery in the System of Pestalozzi; possible that the Lancasterian System may be overrated; but let any dispassionate man compare the progress of a pupil under an able tutor in any one of these systems with the advances made at an ordinary public school.* What I complain of, and what you, sir, to whom I address these pages, must complain of also, is this: that at these schools-in which our hereditary legislators are brought up-in which those who are born to frame and remodel the mighty Mechanism of Law, and wield the Moral powers of Custom, receive the ineffaceable impressions of youth at these schools, I say, Religion is not taught-Morals are not taughtPhilosophy is not taught the light of the purer and less material Sciences never breaks upon the gaze. The intellect of the men so formed is to guide our world, and that intellect is uncultured! In various parts of the Continent there are admirable schools for teachers, on the principle that those who teach, should themselves be taught. Still more important is it in an aristocratic constitution, that those who are to govern us, should be at least enlightened. Are you who now read these pages, a parent? Come-note the following sentence. Ages have rolled since it was written, but they have not dimmed • The Monitorial System was applied with eminent success by Mr. Pillans, at the High School, Edinburgh, to the teaching of Latin, Greek, and Ancient Geography. He applied it for several years to a class of boys not less in number than 230 (ages varying from 12 to 16), without any assistance in the teaching of the above branches of learning, save what he derived from the boys themselves. Of this most important experiment of applying to the higher branches of learning a principle hitherto limited to the lower, Mr. Pillans speaks thus, in an able letter. with which he was kind enough to honour me: "When I compare the effect of the Monitorial system with my own experience of that class, both when I was a pupil of it myself, under Dr. Adam, and during the first two years after I succeeded him. I have no hesitation in saying, that it multiplied incalculably the means and resources of the teacher, both as regarded the progress of the pupils in good learning. and the forming of their minds, manners, and moral habits." Not long after be became Professor of Humanity, Mr. Pillans adopted the Monitorial System, first in his junior, next in his senior class. He thus speaks of its success: "I believe this is the only instance of the Monitorial principle being acted on within the walls of a college. In the limited application I make of it there, it has succeeded even beyond the expectations I had formed. Of this I may be tempted to say more hereafter.” -"A life according v melet Fate Homer conducts Ulyses air ti It is the erres na ire he our educational endiven attack with no mesta n selves an attack jezgant vi ful, would be set in al England. I dare 1! : 152 desire to see beignet aut sem. ments, though I gærri vil le zis Į exist. You prefer we me a right and cansarde omg Tag knowledge the pule an country to a learning a which does not re u fie The herd must k DM · rewards then fer að umge subordinate 162.2016. Í Le landmark and a sitatlaş • If I have duet op- w for the most part money tutor, viz. the gam versity, is often the te BE HE is they lears wa ka and the physica. SCIPLIN college, and at fe voom. struction is, perzaps, ir lie 527 Mr. Bentham in his Chrestomathia has drawn up a programme of what he considered might be fairly taught and easily acquired in the process of a complete education. There is something formidable in this list of studies, it is so vast and various, that it seems almost visionary; the leap from the 'learn nothing,' to the 'learn all,' is too wide and startling. But without going to an extent which would leave no branch of human knowledge excluded, it is perfectly clear that the education of our youth may be conveniently widened to a circle immeasurably more comprehensive than any which has yet been drawn. It is probable that the system of Hamilton may be wrong; probable that there is a certain quackery in the System of Pestalozzi; possible that the Lancasterian System may be overrated; but let any dispassionate man compare the progress of a pupil under an able tutor in any one of these systems with the advances made at an ordinary public school.* What I complain of, and what you, sir, to whom I address these pages, must complain of also, is this: that at these schools-in which our hereditary legislators are brought up-in which those who are born to frame and remodel the mighty Mechanism of Law, and wield the Moral powers of Custom, receive the ineffaceable impressions of youth at these schools, I say, Religion is not taught-Morals are not taughtPhilosophy is not taught-the light of the purer and less material Sciences never breaks upon the gaze. The intellect of the men so formed is to guide our world, and that intellect is uncultured! In various parts of the Continent there are admirable schools for teachers, on the principle that those who teach, should themselves be taught. Still more important is it in an aristocratic constitution, that those who are to govern us, should be at least enlightened. Are you who now read these pages, a parent? Come-note the following sentence. Ages have rolled since it was written, but they have not dimmed * The Monitorial System was applied with eminent success by Mr. Pillans, at the High School, Edinburgh, to the teaching of Latin, Greek, and Ancient Geography. He applied it for several years to a class of boys not less in number than 230 (ages varying from 12 to 16), without any assistance in the teaching of the above branches of learning, save what he derived from the boys themselves. Of this most important experiment of applying to the higher branches of learning a principle hitherto limited to the lower, Mr. Pillans speaks thus, in an able letter, with which he was kind enough to honour me: "When I compare the effect of the Monitorial system with my own experience of that class, both when I was a pupil of it myself, under Dr. Adam, and during the first two years after I succeeded him, I have no hesitation in saying, that it multiplied incalculably the means and resources of the teacher, both as regarded the progress of the pupils in good learning, and the forming of their minds, manners, and moral habits." Not long after he became Professor of Humanity, Mr. Pillans adopted the Monitorial System, first in his junior, next in his senior class. He thus speaks of its success: "I believe this is the only instance of the Monitorial principle being acted on within the walls of a college. In the limited application I make of it there, it has succeeded even beyond the expectations I had formed. Of this I may be tempted to say more hereafter." the brightness of the maxim: "Intellect is more excellent than science, and a life according to intellect preferable to a life according to science," So said that ancient philosopher, whose spirit approached the nearest to the genius of Christianity. What then is that preparation to life which professes to teach learning and neglects the intellect, which loads the memory, which forgets the soul? Beautifully proceedeth Plato: -"A life according to intellect is alone free from the vulgar errors of ourrace, it is that mystic port of the soul, that sacred Ithaca, into which Homer conducts Ulysses after the education of life." But far different is the Port into which the modern education conducts her votaries, and the Haven of Prejudice is the only receptacle to the Ship of Fools.* It is the errors that have thus grafted themselves on the system of our educational endowments, which have led the recent philosophy to attack with no measured violence, the principle of endowments themselves an attack pregnant with much mischief, and which, if successful, would be nearly fatal to all the loftier and abstruser sciences in England. I desire to see preserved-I desire to see strengthened-I desire to see beloved and regenerated the principle of literary endowments, though I quarrel with the abuses of endowments that at present exist. You yourself, sir, have placed the necessity of endowments in a right and unanswerable point of view. Mankind must be invited to knowledge-the public are not sufficient patrons of the abstruse sciences; there is no appetence in a commercial and bustling country to a learning which does not make money-to a philosophy which does not rise to the Woolsack, or sway the Mansion-house. The herd must be courted to knowledge. You found colleges and professorships, and you place Knowledge before their eyes-then they are allured to it; you clothe it with dignity, you gift it with rewards then they are unconsciously disposed to venerate it. Public opinion follows what is honoured; honour knowledge, and you chain to it that opinion. Endowments at a University beget emulation in subordinate institutions; if they are nobly filled, they produce in the latter the desire of rivalry; if inadequately, the ambition to excel. They present amidst the shifts and caprices of unsettled learning a constant landmark and a steadfast example. The public will not patronize the higher sciences. Lacroix, as stated, sir, in your work, gave lessons in the higher mathematics,-to eight pupils! But the higher sciences ought to be cultivated, hence another necessity for endowments. * If I have dwelt only on Public Schools, it is because the private schools are for the most part modelled on the same plan. Home tuition is rare. The private tutor, viz. the gentleman who takes some five or six pupils to prepare for the University, is often the best teacher our youth receive. Whatever they learn thoroughly they learn with him; but unhappily this knowledge stints itself to the classics and the physical sciences required at college;—the tutor prepares the pupil for college, and not for wisdom. At many of these academies, however, religious instruction is, perhaps, for the first time in the pupil's life, a little insisted upon. Wherever endowments are the most flourishing thither learning is the most attracted. Thus, you have rightly observed, and Adam Smith before you, that in whatever country the colleges are more affluent than the church, colleges exhibit the most brilliant examples of learning. Wherever, on the other hand, the church is more richly endowed than the college, the pulpit absorbs the learning of the chair. Hence in England, the learning of the clergy; and in Scotland that of the professors. Let me add to this, the example of Germany, where there is scarce a professor who does not enjoy a well-earned celebrity -the example of France, where in Voltaire's time, when the church was so wealthy, he could only find one professor of any literary merit (and he but of mediocre claims), and where, in the present time when the church is impoverished, the most remarkable efforts of Christian philosophy have emanated from the chairs of the professional lecturer.† I have said that the public will not so reward the professor of the higher sciences as to sanction the idea that we may safely leave him to their mercy. Let us suppose, however, that the public are more covetous of lofty knowledge than we imagine. Let us suppose that the professor of philosophy can obtain sufficient pupils to maintain him, but that by pupils alone he is maintained, what would be the probable result? Why, that he would natually seek to enlarge the circle of his pupils that in order to enlarge it, he would stoop from the starred and abstruse sphere of his research-that he would dwell on the more familiar and less toilsome elements of science-that he would fear to lose his pupils by soaring beyond the average capacity—that he would be, in one word, a teacher of rudiments of science, not an investigator of its difficult results. Thus we should have, wherever we turned, nothing but elementary knowledge and facts made easy-thus we should contract the eagle wing of philosophy to a circle of male Mrs. Marcets-ever dwelling on the threshold of Knowledge and trembling to penetrate the temple. Endowments raise (as the philosopher should be raised) the lofty and investigating scholar above the necessity of humbling his intellect in order to earn his bread-they give him up to the serene meditation from which he distils the essence of the diviner-nay, even the more useful but hitherto undiscovered-wisdom. If from their shade has emanated the vast philosophy of Kant, which dwarfs into littleness the confined materialism of preceding schools, so also from amidst the "Half the distinguished authorship of Scotland has been professional."Chalmers on Endowments. If in the meditated reform of the church the average revenues of the clergy be more equalized, the Professorships would gain something in learning, while the Church would still be so affluent as to lose nothing. The chair and the pulpit should be tolerably equalized in endowments in order to prevent the one subtracting from the intellectual acquirements of the other. |