I had intended giving some advice, but in reading tastes differ widely, and after all the best advice is Tranio's, "Study what you most affect.' There are three Englishmen who have written so well that, as it seems, they will be read by English-speaking teachers of all time. These are Ascham., Locke, and Herbert Spencer. If a teacher does not know these he is not likely to know or care anything about the literature of education. These authors have attained to the position of classics by writing short books in excellent English. After these, I must know something of the student before I ventured on a recommendation. If he (or more probably she) be a student indeed, nothing will be found more valuable than Henry Barnard's vols. especially those of the English Pedagogy. But the majority of mankind want books that are readable, i.e., can be read easily. I do not know any books on teaching that I have found easier reading than D'Arcy Thompson's Day-Dreams of a Schoolmaster and H. Clay Trumbull's Teaching and Teachers (Eng. edition is Hodder and Stoughton's). But some very valuable books are by no means easy reading. Take e.g. Froebel's Education of Man (trans. by Hailmann, Appletons). This book is a fount of ideas, but Froebel seems to want interpreters, and happily he has found them. The Baroness Marenholtz-Bülow has done good work for him in German, and in English he has had good interpreters as e.g., Miss Shirreff, Mr. H. C. Bowen, and Supt. Hailmann. In the case of Froebel there is certainly a want of literary talent; but even where this talent is clearly shown, a book may be by no means easy reading." It may make great demands on our thinking power, and thought is never easy. This will probably prevent Thring's Theory and Practice of Teaching (Pitt Press, 4s. 6d.) from ever being a popular book, though every teacher who has read it will feel that he is the better for it. Sometimes the size of a book stands in the way of its popularity. This seems to me the case with Joseph Payne's Science and Art of Teaching (Longmans, Ios.); but this book is popular in the United States, and I take this as a proof that the American teachers are more in earnest than we are. All the essentials of popularity are combined in Fitch's Lectures on Teaching (Pitt Press, 5s.), and this is now (and long may it continue !) one of our most read educational works, A. But what about less known books? Cannot you recomm.nd anything as yet unknown to fame? E. Ah! you want me to tell you what books deserve fame, that is, to

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But I have no intention of posing as the representative of the readers of our day, still less of the future. Indeed, far from being able to tell you what other people would like or should like, I can hardly say what I like myself. Perhaps I come across a book and read it with delight. Remembering the very favourable impression made by the first reading I go back to the book some years afterwards and I then in some cases cannot discover what it was that pleased me. A. That reminds me of Wordsworth's similar experience—

I

"I sometimes could be sad

We go back and the things It is like after the night of an E. Not many of our And if we tried to settle

Of my three English

To think of, to read over, many a page, Poems withal of name, which at that time Did never fail to entrance me, and are now Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre Fresh emptied of spectators." (Prelude v.) suppose this has happened to all of us. are the same and yet look so different. illumination looking at the designs by daylight. designs will bear "the light of common day." which, we should probably be quite wrong. Educational Classics one can hardly understand why the peoples who speak English have retained Ascham while Mulcaster, Brinsley, and Hoole are forgotten. Locke had his reputation as a philosopher to keep his Thoughts from neglect, and yet at the beginning of 1880 I found that there was no English edition in print. Perhaps some of the old writers will come into the field of view again. E.g., my friend Dr. Bülbring, of Heidelberg, the editor of De Foe's Compleat Gentleman, talks of reviving the fame of Mary Astell, who at the end of the seventeenth century took up the rights of women and put very vigorously some of the pet ideas of the nineteenth century. A. I will not ask you to "look into the seeds of time," and I will not take you for a representative person in any way. On these conditions perhaps you will give me the names of some of the books that have made such a favourable impression on first reading-at least in cases where that impression has not been effaced by further acquaintance. E. Agreed. I ought to begin with psychology, but I must with sorrow confess that I never read a whole book on the science of mind; so this most important section of the subject must be omitted. French and German books I will also omit unless they exist in an English translation. About the historical and biographical part of the subject I have already named many books such as S. S. Laurie's Comenius and Russell's Guimps's Pestalozzi. F. V. N. Painter's History of Education is

pleasantly written; but no really satisfactory history of education can be held in one small volume. This objection in limine also applies to G. Compayré's History of Pedagogy (trans. by W. H. Payne) which is far too full of matter. In it we find many things, but only a very advanced student can find much. Little has been written about English-speaking educators, but there are good accounts of Bell, Lancaster, Wilderspin, and Stow in J. Leitch's Practical Educationists (Macmillans, 6s.). Turning to books about principles and methods I have found nothing that with reference to the first stage of instruction seems to me better than Colonel F. W. Parker's Talks on Teaching (New York, Kelloggs). Fitch's more complete book I have named already. A. Geikie's Teaching of Geography (Macmillans, 2s. 6d.) is a book I read with great delight. For principles Joseph Payne seems to me one of our best educational writers, and we shall before long have, I hope, the much expected volume of his papers on the history of education. Some of the smaller books that I remember reading with especial gratification are Jacob Abbott's Teacher, Calderwood On Teaching, A. Sidgwick's lectures on Stimulus (Pitt Press) and on Discipline (Rivingtons), and Mrs. Malleson's Notes on Early Training (Sonnenschein). There seemed to me a very fine tone in a book much read in the United States-D. P. Page's Theory and Practice of Teaching. T. Tate's Philosophy of Education I liked very much, and the book has been revived by Colonel Parker (Kelloggs). There are some books that are worth getting "by opportunity," as the Germans say, good books now out of print. Among them I should name Rollin's Method in three volumes, Rousseau's Emilius in four, De Morgan's Arithmetic, Essays on a Liberal Education edited by Farrar. I know or have known all the books here named, but my knowledge and time for reading do not extend as far as my bookshelves, and I see before me some books that I have not mentioned and yet feel sure I ought to mention. Among them are Compayré's Lectures on Pedagogy, translated by W. H. Payne, which seems an admirable compilation (Boston, Heath; London, Sonnenschein); Shaw and Donnell's School Devices (Kelloggs) in which I have seen some good "wrinkles"; and T. J. Morgan's Educational Mosaics (Boston; Silver, Rogers & Co.). J. Landon's School Management (London, K. Paul) I have heard spoken of as an excellent book, and I like what I have seen of it. But I set out with a promise to mention not all our good books, but those which I thought good after reading them. There still remain some that fall under this category and have not been mentioned, e.g., The Action of Examinations,

by H. Latham, Cotterill's Reforms in Public Schools, W. H. Payne's Contributions, and a pamphlet from which I formed a very high estimate of the writer's ability to give us some first-rate books about teaching. I mean A Pot of Green Feathers, by T. G. Rooper.

Professional Knowledge.—A. What a pity it is that in English we have no name for Kernsprüche! When an important truth has been aptly expressed, the very expression may be an important event in the history of thought. Take e.g. Milton's words which I observe you have quoted more than once, about "the understanding founding itself on sensible things" (p. 510). Here we have a "kernel-saying" that might have sprung up and yielded a rich crop of improvements in teaching if it had only taken root in teachers' minds. Why don't you make a collection of such "kernel-sayings"? E. I have had thoughts of doing so, and I have a collection of collections of Kernsprüche in German. A. Well, German is not the language I should choose for the expression of thought. According to Heine, in everything the Germans do there is a thought embodied; and we may add that in everything they say a thought is embedded; but I rather shrink from the labour of digging it out. E. You would find a collection of "kernel-sayings" in any language rather stiff reading. And after all, the sayings which strike us are just those which give utterance to our own thought. This is probably the reason why in reading such a book so few sayings seem to us worthy of selection. I had intended prefacing these essays with some mottoes, as Dr. W. B. Hodgson used to do when he wrote, but finally I have left my readers to collect for themselves. A. I should like to know the sort of thing you intended for your "first course. E. Here is one of them from Professor Stanley Hall, of Worcester, Mass.: "Modern life in all its departments is ruled by experts and by those who have attained the mastery that comes by concentration." (New England J. of Ed., 27th February, 1890.) A. According to you, sayings strike us only when they express our own thought. In that case Professor Hall's saying would not make much impression on the generality of your scholastic friends. Many of the best paid schoolmasters in England would burst out laughing if

anyone spoke of them as "educational experts." Educational experts?

Why they have never even thought of the art of teaching, leave alone the science of education. They are "good scholars" who at one time thought enough of preparing for the Tripos or the Honour Schools; and having got a good degree they thought (and small blame to them!) how to employ their knowledge of classics so as to secure a comfortable

KK

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income for life. Accordingly they took a mastership, and soon settled down into the groove of work. But as for the science of education they have thought of it about as much as they have thought of the sea-serpent, and would probably tell you with Mr. Lowe (now forgotten as Lord Sherbrooke) that "there is no such thing." E. No doubt they feel the force of Dr. Harris's words: "For the most part the teacher who is theoretically inclined is lame in the region of details of work." It would be a pity indeed if their "resolution " to make a good income were "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' A. They had to think how to prepare for the Tripos; and before long they will have to think how to do their work of teaching and educating better than they have done it hitherto. The future will demand something more than a good degree." Professor Hall is right. The day of the experts is coming. But does not even Dr. Harris warn teachers against being "too theoretical"? E. It is rather jumping at conclusions to assume with some of our countrymen that if a man does not think, he does act. Goethe's aphorism which Dr. Harris quotes is this: "Thought expands, but lames; action narrows, but intensifies." Now a good many men who do not expend energy in thought are by no means strong in action. In education they have no desire either to think the best that is thought or to do the best that is done. They won't inquire about either; and they show the most impartial ignorance of both. Like Dr. Ridding they are of opinion that professional knowledge is to be sought only by persons without the advantages of having been at a public school and of "a good degree." As for reading books about teaching they leave that sort of thing to national schoolmasters. And yet if teaching is an art, they might get at least as much good from books as the golf-player gets or the whistplayer. "How marvellous it is when one comes to consider the matter, that a man should decline to receive instruction on a technical subject from those who have eminently distinguished themselves in it and have systematised for the benefit of others the results of the experience of a lifetime!" Mr. James Payn who wrote this (Some Private Views, p. 176) was thinking of books not on teaching but on whist; but his words would come home to teachers if they took as much interest in teaching as he takes in whist. A. I fancy you have spotted the real deficiency; it is want of interest. It is only when a man becomes thoroughly interested in whist that he desires to play better, and when he becomes thoroughly interested in teaching that he desires to teach better. And if only he desires to improve he will