the open air. This will make his leisure pleasant to him, and will keep him from useless and dangerous pastimes.

From the last part of education-travel-Locke thinks more harm is commonly derived than good: not that travel is bad in itself, but the time usually chosen, viz., from sixteen to twenty-one, is the worst time of all.

This short review of the 'Thoughts on Education' shows us that Locke's aim was to give a boy a robust mind in a robust body. His body was to endure hardness, his reason was to teach him self-denial. But this result was to be brought about by leading, not driving him. He was to be trained, not for the University, but for the world. Good principles, good manners, and discretion were to be cared for first of all; intelligence and intellectual activity next, and actual knowledge last of all. His spirits were to be kept up by kind treatment, and learning was never to be made a drudgery. With regard to the subjects of instruction, those branches of knowledge which concern things were to take precedence of those which consist of abstract ideas. The prevalent drill in the grammar of the classical languages was to be abandoned. The mother-tongue was to be carefully studied, and other languages acquired either by conversation, or by the use of translations. In everything, the part the pupil was to play in life was steadily to be kept in view; and the ideal which Locke proposed was not the finished scholar, but the finished gentleman.

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V.

ROUSSEAU'S ·ÉMILE.'

IN education, as in politics, no school of thinkers has succeeded, or can succeed, in engrossing all truth to itself. No party, no individual even, can take up a central position between the Conservatives and Radicals, and, judging everything on its own merits, try to preserve that only which is worth preserving, and to destroy just that which is worth destroying. Nor do we find that judicial minds often exercise the greatest influence in these matters. The only force which can overcome the vis inertia of use and wont is enthusiasm, and this, springing from the discovery of new truths and hatred of old abuses, can hardly exist with due respect for truth that has become commonplace, and usage which is easily confounded with corruptions that disfigure it. So advances are made somewhat after this manner: the reformer, urged on by his enthusiasm, attacks use and wont with more spirit than discretion. Those who are wedded to things as they are, try to draw attention from the weak points of their system, to the mistakes or extravagances of the reformer. In the end, both sides are benefited by the encounter, and when their successors carry on the contest, they differ as much

ORIGIN OF THE 'ÉMILE.'

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from those whose causes they espouse as from each other.

In this way we have already made great progress. Compare for instance our present teaching of grammar with the ancient method; and our short and broken school-time with the old plan of keeping boys in for five consecutive hours twice a day. Our Conservatives and Reformers are not so much at variance as their predecessors. To convince ourselves of this we have only to consider the state of parties in the second half of the last century. On the one side we find the schoolmasters who turned out the courtiers of Louis XV.; on the other, the most extravagant, the most eloquent, the most reckless of innovatorsJ. J. Rousseau.

Rousseau has told us that he resolved on having fixed principles by the time he was forty years old. Among the principles of which he accordingly laid in a stock, were these: 1st, Man, as he might be, is perfectly good; 2nd, Man, as he is, is utterly bad. To maintain these opinions, Rousseau undertook to show, not only the rotten state of the existing society, which he did with notable success, but also the proper method of rearing children so as to make them all that they ought to be-an attempt at construction which was far more difficult and hazardous than his philippics.

This was the origin of the 'Émile,' perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject of education. The school to which Rousseau belonged may be said, indeed, to have been founded by Montaigne, and to have met with a champion, though not a very

H

enthusiastic champion, in Locke. But it was reserved for Rousseau to give this theory of education its complete development, and to expound it in the clearest and most eloquent language. In the form in which Rousseau left it, the theory greatly influenced Basedow and Pestalozzi, and still influences many educational reformers who differ from Rousseau as much as our schoolmasters differ from those of

Louis XV.

Of course as man was corrupted by ordinary education, the ideal education must differ from it in every respect. Take the road directly opposite to that which is in use, and you will almost always do right.'* This was the fundamental maxim. So thorough a radical was Rousseau, that he scorned the idea of half measures. 'I had rather follow the established practice entirely,' says he, 'than adopt a good one by halves.' +

In the society of that time, everything was artificial; Rousseau therefore demanded a return to Nature. Parents should do their duty in rearing their own offspring. Where there is no mother, there can be no child.' ‡ The father should find time to bring up the child whom the mother has suckled. No duty can be more important than this. But although Rousseau seems conscious that family life is the natural state, he makes his model child an orphan, and hands him over to a governor, to be brought up in the country without companions.

* Prenez le contre-pied de l'usage, et vous ferez presque toujours bien. J'aimerais mieux suivre en tout la pratique établie, que d'en prendre une bonne à demi.

Point de mère, point d'enfant.

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This governor is to devote himself, for some years, entirely to imparting to his pupil these difficult arts -the art of being ignorant and of losing time. Till he is twelve years old, Émile is to have no direct instruction whatever. At that age he shall not know what a book is,' says Rousseau; though elsewhere we are told that he will learn to read of his own accord by the time he is ten, if no attempt is made to teach him. He is to be under no restraint, and is to do nothing but what he sees to be useful.

Freedom from restraint is, however, to be apparent, not real. As in ordinary education the child employs all its faculties in duping the master, so in education 'according to Nature,' the master is to devote himself to duping the child. 'Let him always be his own master in appearance, and do you take care to be so in reality. There is no subjection so complete as that which preserves the appearance of liberty; it is by this means even the will is led captive.'

'The most critical interval of human nature is that between the hour of our birth and twelve years of age. This is the time, wherein vice and error take root without our being possessed of any instrument to destroy them.'

Throughout this season, the governor is to be at work inculcating the art of being ignorant and losing time. This first part of education ought to be purely negative. It consists neither in teaching virtue nor truth, but in guarding the heart from vice and the mind from error. If you could do nothing and let nothing be done; if you could bring up your pupil healthy and robust to the age of twelve years,