him twice as many full grown men; so much did they value the loss of their country's education.'

Ordinary teaching, again, gives only the thoughts of others, without requiring the pupil to think for himself. We suffer ourselves to lean and rely so very strongly upon the arm of another, that by doing so we prejudice our own strength and vigour. I have no taste for this relative, mendicant, and precarious understanding; for though we could become learned by other men's reading, I am sure a man. can never be wise but by his own wisdom.' As it is, 'we only toil and labour to stuff the memory, and in the meantime leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void. And, like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain bring it home in their beak without tasting it themselves, to feed their young, so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there out of several authors, and hold it at their tongues' end only to spit it out and distribute it amongst their pupils.' The dancing-master might as well attempt to teach us to cut capers by our listening to his instructions without moving from our seats, as the tutor to inform our understandings without setting them to work. Yet 'tis the custom of schoolmasters to be eternally thundering in their pupils' ears, as they were pouring into a funnel, whilst the pupils' business is only to repeat what the others have said before. Now I would have a tutor to correct this error, and that at the very first: he should, according to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the test, permitting his pupil himself to taste and relish things, and of himself to choose

EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION.

31

and discern them, sometimes opening the way to him, and sometimes making him break the ice himself; that is, I would not have the governor alone to invent and speak, but that he should also hear his pupil speak. Socrates, and since him Arcesilaus, made first their scholars speak, and then spoke to them. Obest plerumque iis qui discere volunt, auctoritas eorum qui docent' (Cic. 'De Nat. Deor.').

6

He also insisted on the importance of physical education. We have not to train up a soul, nor yet a body, but a man; and we cannot divide him.'

THE INNOVATORS.

The Papal system was connected, in the minds of the Reformers, with scholastic subtilties, monkish Latin, and ignorance of Greek; the Reformation itself, with the revival of classical learning. Their opponents, the Jesuits, also fostered Latin as the language of the Church, and taught Greek as necessary for controversy. So, for a time, the effect of the Reformation was to confine instruction more exclusively to the classical languages. The old Trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), and Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), had recognised, at least in name, a course of instruction in what was then the encyclopædia of knowledge. But now all the great schoolmasters-Ascham in England, Sturm in Germany, the Jesuits everywhere -thought of nothing but Latin and Greek. Before long, other voices besides Montaigne's were heard objecting to this bondage to foreign languages, and

demanding more attention for the mother-tongue and for the study of things.* This demand has been kept up by a series of reformers, with whom the classicists, after withstanding a siege of nearly three centuries, seem at length inclined to come to terms.

The chief demands of these reformers, or Innovators as Raumer calls them, have been, 1st, that the study of things should precede, or be united with, the study of words (v. Appendix, p. 303); 2nd, that knowledge should be communicated, where possible, by appeals to the senses; 3rd, that all linguistic study should begin with that of the mother-tongue; 4th, that Latin and Greek should be taught to such boys only as would be likely to complete a learned education; 5th, that physical education should be attended to in all classes of society for the sake of health, not simply with a view to gentlemanly accomplishments; 6th, that a new method of teaching should be adopted, framed according to nature.'

Their notions of method have, of course, been very various; but their systems mostly agree in these particulars :

1. They proceed from the concrete to the abstract, giving some knowledge of the thing itself before the rules which refer to it. 2. They employ the student in analysing matter put before him, rather than in working synthetically according to precept. 3. They require the student to teach himself, under

*The reader will find in the Appendix, p. 301, a singular passage from Mulcaster's Elementarie, which shows how soon the advantage of studying the mother-tongue and rejecting the dominion of Latin was advocated in this country.

the superintendence of the master, rather than be taught by the master and receive anything on the master's authority. 4. They rely on the interest excited in the pupil by the acquisition of knowledge, and renounce coercion. 5. Only that which is understood may be committed to memory (v. Appendix, p. 307).

RATICH.

During the early years of the seventeenth century, there was a man travelling over Europe, to offer to Princes and Universities a wonderful discovery, whereby old or young might with ease, in a very short time, learn Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or any other tongue. This, however, was but a small part of what the discoverer promised. He would also found a school, in which all arts and sciences should be rapidly learnt and advanced; he would introduce, and peaceably maintain throughout the Continent, a uniform speech, a uniform government, and, more wonderful still, a uniform religion. From these modest proposals, we should naturally infer that the promiser was nothing but a quack of more than usual impudence ; but the position which the name of Ratich holds in the history of education is sufficient proof that this is by no means a complete account of the matter.

Ratich was born at Wilster, in Holstein, in 1571. He was educated in the Hamburg Gymnasium, studied theology at Rostock, and being prevented, by some defect of utterance, from taking Holy Orders, he travelled, first to England, and then to Amsterdam,

D

where he elaborated his system, and offered his secret to Prince Maurice of Orange. The Prince wished to stipulate that he should confine himself to teaching Latin; but Ratich was far too much impressed with the importance of his scheme to agree to this. So he went about from Court to Court, from University to University, to find some ruler or learned body who would agree to his terms. In 1612 he memorialised the Electoral Diet, then sitting at Frankfort; and his memorial attracted so much notice, that several Princes appointed learned men to inquire into his system. Helvicus, one of the most celebrated of these, published a Report, in which he declared strongly in favour of Ratich. 'We are,' says he, 'in bondage to Latin. The Greeks and Saracens would never have done so much for posterity, if they had spent their youth in acquiring a foreign tongue. We must study our own language, and then sciences. Ratich has discovered the art of teaching according to nature. By his method, languages will be quickly learned, so that we shall have time for science; and science will be learned even better still, as the natural system suits best with science, which is the study of nature.'

Influenced by this Report, the town of Augsburg in 1614 summoned Ratich to reform their schools. Here the innovator found, to his cost, that he who leaves the high road has rough ground to travel over, and all kinds of obstacles to surmount. Even his best friends, among them Helvicus, were forced to admit that they were disappointed with the result of the experiment. They did not desert him however;