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he would have been more faithful to his own principles if he had given the first book only.

There are three ways in which the model-book may be studied. 1st. It may be read through rapidly again and again, which was Ratich's plan and Hamilton's; or, 2nd, each lesson may be thoroughly mastered, read in various ways a dozen times at the least, which was Ascham's plan; or, 3rd, the pupil may begin always at the beginning, and advance a little further each time, which was Jacotot's plan. This last could not, of course, be carried very far. The repetitions, when the pupil had got on some way in the book, could not always be from the beginning; still every part was to be repeated so frequently that nothing could be forgotten. Jacotot did not wish his pupils to learn simply in order to forget, but to learn in order to remember for ever. 'We are learned,' said he, not so far as we have learned, but only so far as we remember.' He seems, indeed, almost to ignore the fact that the act of learning serves other purposes than that of making learned, and to assert that to forget is the same as never to have learned, which is a palpable error. We necessarily forget much that passes through our minds, and yet its effect remains. All grown people have arrived at some opinions, convictions, knowledge, but they cannot call to mind every spot they trod on in the road thither. When we have read a great history, say, or travelled through a fresh country, we have gained more than the number of facts we happen to remember. The mind seems to have formed an acquaintance with that history or that country, which

is something different from the mere acquisition of facts. Moreover, our interests, as well as our ideas, may long survive the memory of the facts which originally started them. We are told, that one of the old judges, when a barrister objected to some dictum of his, put him down by the assertion, 'Sir, I have forgotten more law than ever you read.' If he wished to make the amount forgotten a measure of the amount remembered, this was certainly fallacious, as the ratio between the two is not a constant quantity. But he may have meant that this extensive reading had left its result, and that he could see things from more points of view than the less travelled legal vision of his opponent. That power acquired by learning may also last longer than the knowledge of the thing learned is sufficiently obvious.

The advantages derived from having learnt a thing are, then, not entirely lost when the thing itself is forgotten. This leads me to speak, though at the risk of a digression, on the present state of opinion on this matter. In setting about the study of any subject, we may desire (1) the knowledge of that subject; or (2) the mental vigour derivable from learning it; or (3) we may hope to combine these advantages. Now, in spite of the aphorism which connects knowledge and power together, we find that these have become the badges of opposite parties. One party would make knowledge the end of education. Mr. Spencer assumes as a law of nature that the study which conveys useful knowledge must also give mental vigour, so he considers that the object of educa

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tion should be to impart useful knowledge, and teach us in what way to treat the body, to treat the mind, to manage our affairs, to bring up a family, to behave as a citizen, &c., &c. The old school, on the other hand, which I may call the English party, as it derives its strength from some of the peculiar merits and demerits of the English character, heartily despises knowledge, and would make the end of education power only. (Conf. Wiese, infra, p. 318.)

As the most remarkable outcome of this idea of education, we have the Cambridge mathematical tripos.

The typical Cambridge man studies mathematics, not because he likes mathematics, or derives any pleasure from the perception of mathematical truth, still less with the notion of ever using his knowledge; but either because, if he is a good man,' he hopes for a fellowship, or because, if he cannot aspire so high, he considers reading the thing to do, and finds a satisfaction in mental effort just as he does in a constitutional to the Gogmagogs. When such a student takes his degree, he is by no means a highly cultivated man; but he is not the sort of man we can despise for all that. He has in him, to use one of his own metaphors, a considerable amount of force, which may be applied in any direction. He has great power of concentration and sustained mental effort even on subjects which are distasteful to him. In other words, his mind is under the control of his will, and he can bring it to bear promptly and vigorously on anything put before him. He will sometimes be half through a piece of work, while an

average Oxonian (as we Cambridge men conceive of him at least,) is thinking about beginning. But his training has taught him to value mental force without teaching him to care about its application. Perhaps he has been working at the gymnasium, and has at length succeeded in putting up' a hundredweight. In learning to do this, he has been acquiring strength for its own sake. He does not want to put up hundredweights, but simply to be able to put them up, and his reward is the consciousness of power. Now the tripos is a kind of competitive examination in putting up weights. The student who has been training for it, has acquired considerable mental vigour, and when he has put up his weight he falls back on the consciousness of strength which he seldom thinks of using. Having put up the heavier, he despises the lighter weights. He rather prides himself on his ignorance of such things as history, modern languages, and English literature. He can get those up in a few evenings,' whenever he wants them. He reminds me, indeed, of a tradesman who has worked hard to have a large balance athis banker's. This done, he is satisfied. He has neither taste nor desire for the things which make wealth valuable; but when he sees other people in the enjoyment of them, he hugs himself with the consciousness that he can write a cheque for such things whenever he pleases.

I confess that this outcome of the English theory of education does not seem to me altogether satisfactory. But we have, as yet, no means of judging what will be the outcome of the other theory which makes

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knowledge the end of education. Its champions confine themselves at present to advising that a variety of sciences be taught to boys, and maintain a rather perplexing silence as to how to teach them. Mr. Spencer, as we have seen, requires that a boy should be taught how to behave in every relation of manhood, and he also tells us how to teach-elementary geometry. Still these advocates of knowledge are acquiring a considerable amount of influence, and there seems reason to fear lest halting between the two theories, our education, instead of combining knowledge and power, should attain to neither.

Our old-fashioned school-teaching, confined as it was to a grammatical drill in the classical languages, did certainly give something of the power which comes from concentrated effort. The Eton Latin Grammar does not indeed seem to me a well-selected model-book, but many a man has found the value of knowing even that book thoroughly. Now, however, a cry has been raised for useful information. It is shameful, we are told, that a boy leaving school should not know the names of the capitals of Europe, and should never have heard of the Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights, &c., &c. The schoolmaster is beginning to give way. He admits homoeopathic doses of geographical, historical, and scientific epitomes and of modern languages: and perhaps between these stools the unlucky schoolboy will come to the ground; his accurate knowledge of Latin grammar will be exchanged for some notion' of a variety of things, and in the end his condition will be best described by varying a famous sarcasm, and saying,