IV. ON TEACHING ECONOMICS IN SCHOOLS. In the political world it is generally admitted as a subject of rejoicing on the part of some, of regret on that of others, that the bitter strife of parties has, in great measure, died away; that old watchwords and war-cries have lost much of their significance; that men find themselves in unexpected alliances, know not "where they are,” or what names to take; that while "Radicals" have become less destructive, "Tories" have become less stationary or retrospective than of yore; and both have, from opposite sides, long been approximating to each other under the scarcely differing banners of progress more or less conservative, and conservatism more or less progressive. Discord, having fled from the sphere of politics, seems to have found refuge in that of education: long-disguised but deeply-seated differences of opinion are becoming again daily more conspicuous; while, still worse, the want of settled conviction in the minds of the official guardians of public education is painfully apparent in the form of vacillation and even retrogression. What was thought to have been firmly established is more than threatened with serious change at the very hands to which its establishment is due; the alarm of attack has called many to the rescue; and among the defenders of existing arrangements are found some who regarded them but coldly while they seemed free from danger. If, indeed, advance has been made in a wrong direction, a change of course is to be desired, not deprecated. But the new direc tion must be not merely different from the old, it must be clearly better than the old; and the recent Minute of the Committee of Council can scarcely be said to stand this test. It is not within my province here to discuss the bearings of "the New Code," which, however, I may in passing say that, in common with Sir J. K. Shuttleworth and other eminent educationists, I regard as ill-judged and disastrous. I allude to it here only in connexion with my immediate subject. The New Code is understood, if it does not actually profess, to be founded on the recommendations of the recent Education Commission, and to embody their spirit, if it does not follow their letter. One of these recommendations is to the following effect : "We feel bound to state that the omission of one subject from the syllabus, and from the examination papers" (of the training colleges) "has left on our minds a painful impression. Next to religion, the knowledge most important to a labouring man is that of the causes which regulate the amount of his wages, the hours of his work, the regularity of his employment, and the prices of what he consumes. The want of such knowledge leads him constantly into error and violence, destructive to himself and to his family, oppressive to his fellow-workmen, ruinous to his employers, and mischievous to society. Of the elements of such knowledge we see no traces in the syllabus, except the words 'Savings' banks, and the nature of interest,' in the female syllabus. If some of the time now devoted to the geography of Palestine, the succession of the Kings of Israel, the Wars of the Roses, or the heresies in the early Church, were given to political economy, much valuable instruction might be acquired, and little that is worth having would be lost."—(Pp. 127-8.) Again, the Commissioners say : "We also think that the present list of alternative subjects omits some which are so important that the question whether they should not be made compulsory in all cases, at the expense of sacrificing some of what we have described as the elementary subjects, well deserves the attentive consideration of the framers of the syllabus. These are the principles of physiology, in so far as they are necessary to explain the rules which affect the preservation of health; and, as we have already remarked, the principles which regulate employment, wages, and expenditure. Some knowledge of these subjects is already required of female candidates for certificates. . . . There seems to be no reason why the male students also should not be instructed in similar subjects; not only are they of the greatest practical importance, but they are calculated to exercise the mental faculties, and their results may be thrown into shapes readily intelligible to children, and illustrated by practical applications deeply interesting to them."* Along with these passages from the Commissioners' Report, may be well taken the following: "We do not propose any change in the relation of the training colleges to the State. We do not recommend any reduction in the amount of aid at present given to the colleges in various forms. . . . No other institutions stand so much in need of a permanent income, and of a considerable degree of Government supervision, which, of course, can be had only at the expense of Government grants." (Pp. 143-5.) But the recent Minute, by withdrawing from such schools a large part of the grants now in operation, must, if carried into effect, seriously narrow the existing course of instruction, and a fortiori preclude any such extension of it as the Commissioners recommend. The reason assigned for the proposed changes, whether in the Training or in the Primary schools (in addition to that of pecuniary saving, on which I will not touch), is the importance of concentrating attention more entirely on the elementary subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic. These, it is alleged by the Commissioners (though in opposition to ample evidence recently furnished by H. M. Inspectors of Schools), are somewhat neglected in the younger classes of the primary schools. This neglect, it is assumed, arises from the teacher's thoughts being too much occupied with higher subjects. His own instruction must therefore be contracted within the range of the chief work assigned to him; his wings must be clipped to prevent his soaring too much above the level of the youngest children committed to his charge. But this docking process is rendered quite unnecessary by the powers which the Committee of Council now exercise over both primary and training schools, in not only superintending instruction in the latter, but in checking neglect in either the latter or the former by the agency of its inspectors; † while its spirit is opposed to the dictates of * I have reason to believe that the Principal of one of the chief training-schools has intimated to the Committee of Council his conviction of the importance of Economic teaching, and his desire that it should be introduced into the institution over which he presides. A society of teachers, it may be added, was formed last year in London for the very purpose of qualifying themselves for this kind of instruction, and numbered not fewer than three hundred members. Its second session has begun with success undiminished. As a further evidence of the increased attention now given to this subject, it is worthy of note that the University Council, and the University Court of Edinburgh, have recently recommended to the Scottish University Commissioners the institution of a Professorship of Economics in Edinburgh University. "They [the trained teachers] are almost creations of the Committee of Council, and it exercises over them so powerful an influence that it is responsible not only for their errors, but, so far as they are remediable, for their deficiencies."-Report of H. M. Commissioners, p. 166. both theory and experience in schools of either kind. Even the elements of education are best taught, in general, by the master whose own training has given him the highest knowledge and the widest views, and are best learned by the pupil whose general intelligence is most developed by a liberal and comprehensive scheme of teaching. Even penmanship is not purely mechanical; and real proficiency in reading and arithmetic involves no little intellectual exercise and cultivation.* The wish to restrict popular education within the narrow domain of "the three R's" is commonly regarded as a thing of the past rather than of the present, and as excusable only in bygone days of ignorance and darkness. How comes it, we may well ask, that the official patrons of public instruction have suddenly come round, I will not say to, but towards, this almost obsolete state of mind? One reason may, probably, be found in the fact, not that too great additions have hitherto been made to the school programme, but that these additions have not included subjects of the greatest value. A glance at the "higher" branches taught in primary schools will show that all, whether grammar, history, geography, or elementary physical science, belong to the department of mere knowledge (the "lumen siccum" of Bacon), and have no direct bearing on character or conduct, useful, doubtless, in no mean sense, but still having no practical relation to the future life of the pupil, so far as that is to be formed or coloured by his own acts, his own disposition, his own mental and moral condition. Such knowledge is barren of result in the direction most important,-the regulation of deed, of thought, of purpose, in short, of life; and this very barrenness greatly limits even its intellectual efficacy as a means of instruction. It is as yet perceived by only few that even were the moral precepts of religion inculcated in schools more efficiently, because more rationally and less dogmatically, than they commonly are now, there is still a large field in which practical guidance is greatly needed, and little, if at all, supplied at school, or indeed elsewhere: guidance, not apart from knowledge, but conveyed through it, and built upon it, deriving from it its authority, and giving to it a quite special claim on the teacher and the taught. As an illustration of what is meant, take the human bodily structure with application to the conditions of health,—“human phy siology," as it is commonly styled, though that name is at once too narrow and too wide, and is, on other grounds, objectionable. It is commonly admitted, indeed, now-a-days, that some knowledge of natural history is desirable, if there be time for it, in schools; and it is possible, when the elephant, and the whale, and the butterfly, and even the oak and the daisy, are made the subject of lessons, that MAN will not be wholly omitted, though it is probable that less attention will be given to this on account of the familiarity, rather than more on account of the importance, of the subject. But it is not perceived that the human structure, whatever be its scientific relation to that of other animated or organized beings, occupies educationally a quite different position from any or all of them. The conditions of health * Report of H. M. Commissioners, p. 262. and disease in which, at every moment, every human being is virtually interested, are learned only as practical lessons from that structure; and, in order that health may be preserved and disease avoided, it is imperative that every pupil in every school be fairly informed on this subject, the interest and intellectual influence of which, besides, are fully equal to its practical importance in daily and universal life. This subject, then, falls educationally into a quite different category from that of arithmetic, or geometry, or history, or geography, or physics, or even general physiology, and has claims on schools higher, not only in degree, but in kind. Its right to a superior place depends on its direct and powerful bearing on human conduct and wellbeing. So is it with economics, regarding which we have already quoted the words of the Education Commissioners, and to which we shall presently return. This distinction is rendered still more important when viewed in relation to the duty of the State towards education. That the State rightly recognises its duty in this respect may be here assumed. But wherein, we may ask, consists the State's peculiar interest in popular education? It does not charge itself with training competent carpenters, or engineers, or tailors, or lawyers; neither, unless exceptionally, in the case of the Established Church, does it charge itself with imbuing the young with theological creeds of this or that complexion. It aids all religious denominations, but leaves them free in their sectarian teaching; it consigns to private enterprise and judgment the application to the several callings in life of the general knowledge imparted in school. Its interest, as a civil government, lies simply and wholly in the training of the young, positively, to be good citizens; negatively, yet primarily, to avoid those two great plagues and burdens of a nation-pauperism and crime. It is not possible here to trace the common origin of those vast evils, or to illustrate the connexion between them,-a connexion so close that where one is found the other is never far off; each alternately being cause or effect, pauperism engendering crime, crime engendering pauperism, and both eating into the very vitals of a State. Neither is it possible here to show how both are fostered by the neglect and violation of sanitary and economic conditions, especially in the course of succeeding generations. It is abundantly plain that at this point, if anywhere, is to be found the justification of the State's interference with instruction. It seeks to prevent that of which, if unprevented, it must bear the crushing weight; and the preventive power of any branch or method of instruction constitutes its foremost claim on the attention of the State. In this respect it is not easy to underestimate the efficacy of mere reading, writing, and ciphering, which, if acquired, may be used, unused, abused; but it would seem very No passage in the whole Report of the Education Commissioners has a more solemn significance than this: "The following propositions appear to us to be established-1. That pauperism is hereditary, and that the children born and bred as members of that class furnish the great mass of the pauper and criminal population. 2. That the best prospect of a permanent diminution of pauperism and crime is to be found in the proper education of such children."-P. 384. Yes, indeed! "the proper education.' That is the question. easy to over-estimate the efficacy of those more pretentious subjects, |