nauseous physick turns his stomach so that nothing will relish well out of it, though the cup be never so clean and well-shaped, and of the richest materials.' From this, Locke would almost seem to agree with Comenius, that no punishment should be connected with learning. The notion may appear utopian, but if boys could once be interested in their work it would not be found so.*

In passing, I may observe that teachers of a kindly disposition are sometimes guilty of great cruelty, from neglecting the truth Locke dwells upon with such emphasis, viz. that the mind will not act during any depression of the animal spirits. A boy fails to say his task, and he is kept in till he does: or he cannot be made to understand some simple matter, and the teacher's patience gets exhausted, when he has explained the thing again and again, and then can get no answer, or only an utterly absurd answer to the easiest question about it. Perhaps the boy is not a stupid boy, so the master accuses him of sullen inattention. The truth is, that the boy is frightened or dejected, and his mind no longer works at the command of the will. As Locke says, 'It is impossible children should learn anything whilst their thoughts are possessed and disturbed with any passion, especially fear, which

* Since I wrote the above, a remark from a schoolboy of more than average industry (or perhaps I ought to say, of less than average laziness), has rather shaken me in this opinion: 'Somehow I can't get up my work for Mr. we never get anything if we don't. Both boys and grown people are apt to shrink from exertion where there is no must in the case, even though the exertion be not in itself distasteful to them. I doubt, therefore, if a wise master would entirely give up compulsion, though he would never apply it to young children, or trust to it exclusively in the case of older pupils.

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makes the strongest impression on their yet tender and weak spirits. Keep the mind in an easy, calm temper, when you would have it receive your instructions, or any increase of knowledge. It is as impossible to draw fair and regular characters on a trembling mind, as on a shaking paper.' We all know, from our own experience, that when the mind is disturbed, or jaded, it no longer obeys the will, and yet in school-work we always consider the lads' mental power a constant quantity. Miss Davies well says: Probably, if the truth were known, it would be found that injustice and unkindness are comparatively seldom caused by harshness of disposition. They are the result of an incapacity for imagining ourselves to be somebody else' ('Higher Education of Women,' p. 137). This I take to be especially true of the unkindness of schoolmasters.

Rewards and punishments are largely employed in Locke's mode of education; but they are to be the rewards and punishments of the mind-esteem and disgrace. The sense of honour should be carefully cultivated. Whatever commendation the child deserved should be bestowed openly; the blame should be in private. Flogging is to be reserved for stubbornness and obstinate disobedience. Locke concludes his advice on discipline by saying, that if the right course be taken with children, there will not be so much need of the application of the common rewards and punishments as usage has established. Children should not be too much checked. 'The gamesome humour, which is wisely adapted by Nature to their age and temper, should rather be encouraged to keep

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up their spirits and to improve their strength and health, than curbed and restrained; and the chief art is to make all that they have to do, sport and play too.'

Locke's observation about manners and affectation have merely an historic interest. The dancingmaster has a higher role allotted him than he plays in our present education. Locke writes: "Since nothing appears to me to give children so much becoming confidence and behaviour, and so to raise them to the conversation of those above their age as dancing, I think they should be taught to dance as soon as they are capable of learning it. For though this consists only in outward gracefulness of motion, yet, I know not how, it gives children manly thoughts and carriage more than anything. But, otherwise,' he adds, "I would not have little children much tormented about punctilios, or niceties of breeding.' Good company will teach them good manners. Children (nay, and men too) do most by example. We are all a sort of cameleons, that still take a tincture from things near us; nor is it to be wondered at in children, who better understand what they see than what they hear.'

When speaking of company, Locke points out the harm done by clownish or vicious servants. To avoid this, the children must be kept as much as possible in the company of their parents; and by being allowed all proper freedom, must be led to take pleasure in it.

Although I would go much further than most зchoolmasters in endeavouring to make the pupil's intellectual exertions pleasurable to him, I cannot go all the way with Locke. His directions, though im

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practicable in a school, might, perhaps, be carried out by a private tutor-with, I should say, by no means satisfactory results. One employment Locke seems to think is, in itself, as pleasurable as another; so, if nothing which has to be learnt is made a burthen, or imposed as a task, the pupil will like work just as well as play. Let a child be but ordered to whip his top at a certain time every day, whether he has, or has not, a mind to it; let this be but required of him as a duty wherein he must spend so many hours morning and afternoon, and see whether he will not be soon weary of any play at this rate.' The tutor should, therefore, be on the watch for seasons of aptitude and inclination,' and so make learning as much a recreation to their play as their play is recreation to their learning.' Locke gives, however, two cautions, which might be found rather to clog the wheels of the chariot-first, the child is not to be allowed to grow idle; and, secondly, the mind must be taught mastery over itself, which will be an advantage of more consequence than Latin or logic, or most of those things children are usually required to learn.' His scheme is no doubt an admirable one, if it can be carried out with these qualifications.

As we have seen, Locke was opposed to any harshness about lessons, though much seems to have been used in schools of that period. Why,' asks Locke, 'does the learning of Latin and Greek need the rod, when French and Italian need it not? Children learn to dance and fence without whipping; nay, arithmetic, drawing, &c., they apply themselves well enough to without beating; which would make me

suspect that there is something strange, unnatural, and disagreeable to that age, in the things required in grammar-schools, or in the methods used there, that children cannot be brought to without the severity of the lash, and hardly with that too; or else it is a mistake that those tongues could not be taught them without beating.'

Instead of this harshness, Locke would use reason, ing with children. "This,' says he, 'they understand as early as they do language; and, if I misobserve not, they love to be treated as rational creatures sooner than is imagined. It is a pride should be cherished in them, and as much as can be made an instrument to turn them by.'

In the necessary qualifications of the tutor, the first and principal, according to Locke, are breeding and knowledge of the world. Courage, in an illbred man, has the air, and escapes not the opinion, of brutality. Learning becomes pedantry; wit, buffoonery; plainness, rusticity; good-nature, fawning; and there cannot be a good quality in him which want of breeding will not warp and disfigure to his disadvantage.' By means of the tutor's knowledge of the world, Locke hoped to protect the pupil against the dangers which beset 'an old boy, at his first appearance, with all the gravity of his ivy-bush about him; but he who is to steer a vessel over a difficult course, will hardly fit himself for the task by taking lessons even of the most skilful pilot, on shore.

Locke's account of the work of a tutor gives so much insight into his notion of education generally, that it seems worth quoting at length :—

The great work of a governor is to fashion the