tame and well-ordered horse, but wild and unfortunate children; and therefore in the end they find more pleasure in their horse, than comfort in their children." "Commonly young gentlemen in England go unwillingly to school, and run fast to the stable; for in very deed, fond schoolmasters, by fear, do beat into them the hatred of learning, and wise riders, by gentle allurements, do breed up in them the love of riding." "If a father hath four sons, three fair and well formed, both mind and body, the fourth wretched, lame, and deformed, his choice shall be to put the worst to learning, as one good enough to become a scholar." The godly counsels of Solomon, and Jesus the son of Sirach, for sharp keeping in and bridling of youth, are meant rather for fatherly correction than masterly beating, rather for manners than for learning, for other places than for schools." "In youth is the time when some ignorance is as necessary as much knowledge." "If but two or three noblemen in the Court would but begin to shoot, all young gentlemen, the whole Court, all London, the whole realm, would straightway exercise shooting." "The daily use of writing is the only thing that breedeth deep root, both in the wit, for good understanding, and in the memory, for sure keeping of all that is learned." The Second Book is mainly devoted to the more practical subject of "teaching the ready way to the Latin tongue." Even here, however, he cannot resist the temptation to digress; and there is a fine simplicity in the sharpness with which he checks himself for having, in his first book, wandered so far from his purpose-though he consoles himself that it has not been "altogether out of the way"-and yet drops again, within the first six pages of his second book, into three or four fresh digressions, one of them concluding with a lament in rhyme, not very poetical it must be confessed, over a favourite friend and pupil, "mine own John Whitney," then recently dead. The plan which he most strongly advises for the learning of Latin-and which is equally applicable to other languages-is that of Double Translation. He recommends that the pupils should first write out a translation of a passage from Cæsar, or his favourite Tully, and a few days after, re-translate it from English into Latin. He the more strongly insists on the excellence of this method that it was the favourite plan recommended by Cicero himself. This is also his main reason for disapproving of the methods of Paraphrasis and Metaphrasis, which, he says, only teach the "turning of the best into worse. Epitome, he says, is a way of study belonging rather to those who are learned already, than to scholars in grammar-schools. His greatest praises and most elaborate discussion, however, are reserved for the method of Imitatio, by which he means the critical and reverential study of classical models, both for the matter and the manner of their writing. He supports his views by the testimony of Cicero, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Quintilian, Erasmus, Budæus, and others, and is thus brought to consider what authors should be studied as models. This leads him into a deeply interesting review of the chief Roman writers, in which he displays not only vast learning, but acute critical power, and unbounded love for his antique friends, the only fault of all which is the depreciatory tone in which it causes him to speak of everything English or modern. Here, however, the book abruptly stops. He had enumerated four writers whose characters he wished to set forth in this connexion-Varro, Sallust, Cæsar, and Cicero. He gets no farther than Cæsar, which is the more to be regretted that his great acquaintance with Cicero's writings, his high appreciation of them, and his extraordinary affection for the man, would have made this one of the most valuable and instructive portions of his work. It is interesting to know that the plan which Ascham thus recommends to others, he successfully carried out in his own practice. This we have on his own testimony; for he refers, as a notable example of the benefits of Double Translation, to "Our most noble Queen Elizabeth, who never took yet Greek nor Latin Grammar in her hand, after the first declining of a noun and a verb; but only by this double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates daily, without missing every afternoon, and likewise some part of Tully every afternoon for the space of a year or two, hath attained to such a perfect understanding in both the tongues, and to such a ready utterance of the Latin, and that with such a judgment as they be few in number in both the Universities, or elsewhere in England that be in both tongues comparable with her Majesty." The old worthy died, as he had lived, in the service of learning, and praising his royal pupil. He spent his last days in writing a New-year's ode to her Majesty. The exertion was too much for his now shattered frame. An ague ensued, and he died two days before the 1st of January 1569, the day for which his poem was designed. The Queen was overwhelmed with grief, declaring that she "would rather have cast ten thousand pounds into the sea than lost her tutor, Ascham." George Buchanan thus epigrammatically summed up his character: "Aschamum extinctum patriæ, Graiæque Camenæ, Et Latiæ, vera cum pietate, dolent; And Thomas Fuller must be allowed to add his odd stone to the cairn, saying quaintly, "in a word, his Toxophilus' is accounted a good book for young men, his 'Schoolmaster' for old men, his 'Epistles' for all men, set out after his death, which happened anno Domini 1568, December 30, in the 53d year of his age; and he was buried in Saint Sepulchre's in London." W. SCOTT DALGLEISH. III. PRIVY-COUNCIL LEGISLATION. THE subject of National Education was not shelved when, in 1833, Treasury Grants were made for its promotion, and when in 1839 the present Committee of Privy-Council was intrusted with the distribution of the Annual Parliamentary Grant. It was, however, removed somewhat out of the path in which it had long stood, regarded as a stumbling-block by most, and as foolishness by not a few. The attempt was made to attain the ends which statesmen in earnest about popular education had most at heart, by a kind of indirect and side action, and to a great and increasing extent the device was a successful one. Now that the time has come for reconsidering the measures of the Privy-Council Committee, and fresh statutes, abrogating the old, have been issued, it is not surprising that the educational vested interests, which the Privy-Council has been busily constructing during these last twenty-two years should take alarm, and, believing that their pockets will suffer, condemn the imposition of fresh and untried conditions of aid. The vested interests are represented by school-managers and teachers the interest really at stake is the education of the massesthe most efficient and most economical way of attaining this end, with special regard to the two items of the account which press themselves first on the attention of every unprejudiced man-the money paid and the value received. There are other collateral objects of no small moment, but they are all directly affected by these two. We do not propose to lose sight of the many questions that have arisen, but to approach the subject from an outside point of view, and see how the case actually stands. For this purpose we must look at the past history of the question. By so doing we shall bring to light that the Revised Code is no sudden leap, no theoretical contrivance, but the natural and necessary issue of past experience. : We are no admirers of the Privy-Council system. We think that its bureaucratic and intermeddling tendencies contain the seeds that will bear a fruit which, though fair to look on, will be bitter to the taste-dead ashes at the best. It has not been usual for us in this country to feel the Downing Street finger touching us, and pointing out the way in which we should walk in every, even the remotest, parish. But this is what we have been rapidly approaching; and were it the special subject of the present paper, it would be easy to show how our educational system has been working towards a repression of individuality and manly self-reliance, rendering wholesome deviation into wrong nearly impossible. When Parliament, in 1839, first voted £30,000 to be expended by a Privy-Council Committee, with the Lord President as its head, and a permanent secretary (Sir J. P. K. Shuttleworth) as its arm, the only course which suggested itself was to distribute this money in such a manner as to aid the two societies which then represented organized educational effort in England-the National Society, in connexion with the Church of England, and the British and Foreign School Society. This was done in the form of grants towards the erection of Normal Schools, in which teachers might be trained, of contributions to the erection of school buildings where there were local subscriptions, and of small grants towards the maintenance of such schools only as were affiliated to the above-named Societies. At the same time, the right of inspection was in all cases reserved, and the present system of inspection initiated. This was in June and September 1839. But as early as December following, the claims which were made on the Council Office necessitated a more liberal interpretation of its functions. A Minute was issued, in which the admission of schools under special circumstances, even where not connected with the two Societies, was fully recognised, their Lordships only requiring to be informed of the grounds on which objection was made "to connecting the intended school with the National Society, or the British and Foreign School Society." Then at once emerged the religious difficulty, and their Lordships had to steer a course requiring some experience in moral and spiritual navigation. Through deference to the declared will of the country the following half-way position was taken up :— Resolved, "That... their Lordships will limit their aid to those cases in which proof is given of great deficiency of education for the poorer classes in the district, of vigorous efforts having been made by the inhabitants to provide funds, and of the indispensable need of further assistance; and to those cases in which competent provision will be made for the instruction of the children in the school—the daily reading of a portion of the Scriptures forming part of such instruction. "The Committee will further give a preference to schools in which the religions instruction will be of the same character as that given in schools in connexion with one or other of the above-named Societies; and to those in which the School Committee or Trustees, while they provide for the daily reading of the Scriptures in the school, do not enforce any rule by which the children will be compelled to learn a catechism or attend a place of Divine worship to which their parents on religions grounds object." (3d December 1839.) Religious instruction, in so far as Bible reading was concerned, was thus secured, while the liberty of parents to object to the catechetical, without forfeiting the general instruction, was secured. It is necessary to observe, however, that so far as Church of England Schools were concerned, this rule was subject to modification. The managers were simply allowed by the authorities, with consent of the diocesan, to admit children who did not attend the Church of England, and who did not accept the catechetical instruction. Few religious parties would be wholly satisfied with their Lordships' Minute, but none could have solid ground of complaint. Passing over the extension of the grants to the Normal Schools in connexion with the Church of Scotland, we come to the delicate question of inspection. This subject, after some discussion, received settlement in a manner satisfactory to all parties. By the Order in Council, August 1840, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were to be consulted, each for his own province, before the recommendation to Her Majesty of any Inspector of Church of England Schools, and they were empowered to suggest names. Moreover, they were permitted at any time to withdraw their concurrence, and thus to cancel an appointment, and to draw up the instructions to the inspectors having reference to religious teaching, etc. Arrangements of a similar nature were afterwards made with other societies, it being arranged that the Education Committee of the General Assembly of the Established and Free Churches should be consulted before appointing inspectors for Scotland, and that in the case of schools not connected with the Church of England, the British and Foreign and the Wesleyan Committees should have a like privilege. The framework of the system was now constructed, the main difficulties were overcome. Future action consisted in the distribution of money in the most prudent way; and in doing this the recipients at least might be safely calculated on as aiders and abettors of Downing Street; and even hostile fingers might be expected in time to relax, and accept the offered bribe. The expectation was not a vain one. It soon became necessary to facilitate the working of the machine, by constructing those regulations for the erection and maintenance of schools, and those trust-deeds for the conveyance of the school-property for educational purposes, with their managers' clauses, which, combined, have in the course of years attained to a manifoldness and complication which are the horror of the amateur educator, and even defy the patient Representative-forming a kind of palisade and network stockade around the secret legislation of Downing Street. It is necessary to our historical purpose that we expound these conditions in a few words. Grants had hitherto been made for school-buildings, and for the maintenance of schools. By the Minute of November 1843, they were extended to school-furniture, teaching apparatus, and teachers' residences. The Privy-Council, in the same Minute, specially guarded themselves against aiding normal schools, except in the shape of building grants. These, however, were liberal, being at the rate of £50 for every pupil, for whom it was proposed to provide accommodation. The rate and mode of aid, though in all cases made dependent on local effort, have not, up to this point, it will be observed, been definitely fixed, so far as elementary schools are concerned; and already their Lordships began to experience a pressure, proceeding from poor and populous localities, where might be found the worst classes of the population, but in whose behalf no local subscriber could be got to act, because few or no capable subscribers were found to exist. As we shall have to recur to this most important feature of the subject, we may advantageously quote here the Minute of November 1843, issued to meet exceptional cases. "Their Lordships are prepared to give full effect to that portion of the order of the 3d June 1839, which contemplates the making of larger grants towards the erection of schools in poor and populous places than are required elsewhere; and they will in all cases whatever, consider the amount of grant to be made without reference to the plan of any proposed school having been drawn by their architect." No legislation of any importance characterized the next three years of the Privy-Council administration. The only point deserving notice, was the gradual but rapid increase of Parliamentary grants. But, meanwhile, in silence, schools in receipt of aid were multiplying, and the Committee were doing their work of extending, as well as improving, popular education. The first urgent necessities being met, two questions forced themselves into notice: first, the importance of securing a higher class of teachers than those then employed; secondly, the importance of providing, at a small outlay, for schools largely attended, without engaging additional adult assistants. The monitorial system, so much insisted on by Bell |