Dr. John Brown. After your see-saw fashion, you have, in a note on p. 365, expressed a fondness for "a notion of the whole." E. I am there thinking of minute instruction about parts. But in most things notions of the parts precede the notion of the whole; and in this matter I think Seneca was wiser than Comenius: "More easily are we led through the parts into a conception of the whole. Facilius per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur." (Ep. 88, 1.) A. May i ask to whom you are indebted for this erudition? E. To Wuesit mann. (Promptuarium. Gotha, 1856.)

Useful Knowledge.-A. I am inclined to think that now and then you do not attach sufficient importance to the possession of knowledge and skill. E. Perhaps I do not. What I wish to cultivate is, not so much knowledge as the desire for knowledge, and further, the activity of mind that will turn knowledge to account. Knowledge driven in from without, so to speak, and skill obtained by enforced practice are, I will not say valueless, but very different in quality from the knowledge and skill that their possessor has sought for. Knowledge is a tool. He who has acquired it without caring for it, will have neither the skill nor the will to use it. A. Does not this apply to the knowledges recommended by Herbert Spencer, knowledge how to bring up children, &c., and to the knowledge of physiological facts and rules of health which you yourself say would be "of great practical value" (p. 444)? E. Certainly it does, and also to the "domestic economy" of our Board schools; still more to the lessons in morality which it seems are, at least in France if not elsewhere, to supersede religion. If you can get the learners to care for such lessons, the lessons are worth giving; if not, not. Care, not for the thing, but for the examination in the thing, is different, and can produce only a very inferior article. I expect there are instances in which care for the examination develops into care for the subject of the examination; but these cases are so rare that they may be neglected. A. I see you would not take a deep interest in the "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge." And yet how terrible are the results of ignorance! Herbert Spencer is great Kowledge for earning a livelihood. It would add, perhaps, three or four shillings a week to the wages of the working man if his wife had learnt to cook. In matters of food the waste from ignorance among the English poor is appalling. E. In this case the school might do much, as girls would be anxious to learn. And though we cannot lay down as a general rule that it is "never too late to learn," this rule might be applied to cooking. I see that in Govan, a suburb of Glasgow, the

widow of the great ship-builder, John Elder, employs a trained teacher of cookery to instruct both by demonstrations, and also by visiting houses to which he (or she?) is invited. The results are said to be excellent. May this good lady find many imitators!

66

Memorizing Poetry.-A. About learning poetry by heart, did you ever hear of the old Winchester plan of "Standing up"? In the ¡egular exams." (" trials as we called them at Harrow), each boy had tc state in how much Homer and Virgil he was ready to "stand up." The master examined into the boy's power of saying this by heart, and of construing all he said. From the very first the boy always gave in the same poetry, only adding to it each time. E. I have heard of it. Why, I wonder, was this plan given up? A. I have asked old Wykamists, but nobody seems to know. Perhaps the quantities learnt became absurdly large. But this method of accretion, if not overdone, would leave something behind it for life. Let me show you a passage from Æschines (Agnst Ktesip. § 135) which I have seen, not in Æschines, but in J. H. Krause's "Education among the Greeks" (Gesch. d. Erziehg bei d. Griechen). It is so simple that even you may construe it. Διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ οἶμαι ἡμᾶς παῖδας ὄντας τὰς τῶν ποιητῶν γνώμας ἔκμανθάνειν ἵν ̓ ἄνδρες ὄντες αὐταῖς χρώμεθα. E. There is very little left of my Littlego Greek, but I will try : "For it is, I suppose, with this object that, when we are boys, we thoroughly commit to memory the sayings of the poets-in order to turn them to account when we are men." I wish the old Greek custom were continued. I believe in learning by heart what is worthy of it (see supra, p. 74, n.). A. But the poetry that appeals to children they grow out of. E. This cannot be said of the best of it; but of this best there is, to be sure, a very small quantity. By "appeals to," I suppose you mean "written on purpose for." But in a sense much melodious poetry appeals to children even when they can get only a vague notion that it has a meaning. I have known children delight in "The splendour falls on castle walls," and Hohen Linden pleases them much better than anything of Jane Taylor's. But here, at all events, there can be no doubt about the wisdom of Tranio's rule: "Study what you most affect." As I have said in an old paper of mine (How to Train the Memory; Kellogg's Teacher's Manuals, No. 9), the teacher may read aloud some selected pieces, and let the children separately "give marks" for each. He can then choose" what they most affect."

Books for Teachers.-A. Don't you think you might give some useful advice to young teachers about the books they should read? E

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 bocks are by no means easy reading. Take .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, 10s.); but this book is popular in the United States, and I take this as a proof that the American teacher: 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 it now (and long may it continue !) one of our most read educational works, A. But what about less known books? Cannot you recommend anything as yet unknown to fame? E. Ah! you want me to tell you what books deserve fame, that is, to

"Look into the seeds of time
" And say which grain will grow, and which will not."

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 sometimes could be sad

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 ▼.)

We go back and the things

Of my three English

I suppose this has happened to all of us.
are the same and yet look so different. It is like after the night of an
illumination looking at the designs by daylight. E. Not many of our
designs will bear "the light of common day." And if we tried to settle
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

1

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 sategory and have not been mentioned, e.g., The Action of Examinations,