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3. Over and over again.

In its crude form this rule could not be carried out. If the attempt were made the results would be no better than from the six months' course of Terence under Ratke. It is "against all Nature" to go on hammering away at one thing day after day without any change; and there is a point beyond which any attempt at thoroughness must end in simple stagnation. The rule then would have two fatal drawbacks: 1st, it would lead to monotony; 2nd, it would require a completeness of learning which to the young would be impossible. But in these days no one follows Ratke. On the other hand, concentration in study is often neglected, and our time-tables afford specimens of the most ingenious mosaic work, in which everything has a place, but in so small a quantity that the learners never find out what each thing really is. School subjects are like the clubs of the eastern tale, which did not give out their medicinal properties till the patient got warm in the use of them.

When a good hold on a subject has once been secured, short study, with considerable intervals between, may suffice to keep up and even increase the knowledge already obtained; but in matters of any difficulty, e.g., in a new language, no start is ever made without allotting to it much more than two or three hours a week. It is perhaps a mistake to suppose that if a good deal of the language may be learnt by giving it ten hours a week, twice that amount might be acquired in twenty hours. It is a much greater mistake if we think that one-fifth of the amount might be acquired in two hours.

§ 13. III. The same thing should be repeated over and over again.

This is like the Jesuits' Repetitio Mater Studiorum; and the same notion was well developed 200 years later by Jacotot.

4. Everything through the mother-tongue.

By Ratke's application of this rule some odd results were produced. The little Koetheners were drilled for German in a book of the Bible (Genesis was selected), and then for Latin in a play of Terence.

Unlike many "theoretical notions" this precept of Ratke's comes more and more into favour as the schoolmaster increases in age and experience. But we must be careful to take our pupils with us; and this repeating the same thing over and over may seem to them what marking time would seem to soldiers who wanted to march. Even more than the last rule this is open to the objections that monotony is deadening, and perfect attainment of anything but words impossible. In keeping to a subject then we must not rely on simple repetition. The rule now accepted is thus stated by Diesterweg:-"Every subject of instruction should be. viewed from as many sides as possible, and as varied exercises as possible should be set on one and the same thing." The art of the master is shown in disguising repetition and bringing known things into new connection, so that they may partially at least retain their freshness.

§ 14. IV. First let the mother-tongue be studied, and teach everything through the mother-tongue, so that the learner's attention may not be diverted to the language.

We saw that Sturm, the leading schoolmaster of Renascence, tried to suppress the mother-tongue and substitute Latin for it. Against this a vigorous protest was made in this country by Mulcaster. And our language was never conquered by a foreign language, as German was conquered first by Latin and then by French. But "the tongues have always had the lion's share of attention in the schoolroom, and though many have seen and Milton has said that " our understanding cannot in this body found itself

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5. Nothing on compulsion.

but on sensible things," this truth is only now making its way into the schoolroom. Hitherto the foundation has hardly been laid before "the schoolmaster has stept in and staid the building by confounding the language."* Ratke's protest against this will always be put to his credit in the history of education.

§ 15. V. Everything without constraint. "The young should not be beaten to make them learn or for not having learnt. It is compulsion and stripes that set young people against studying. Boys are often beaten for not having learnt, but they would have learnt had they been well taught. The human understanding is so formed that it has pleasure in receiving what it should retain: and this pleasure you destroy by your harshness. Where the master is skilful and judicious, the boys will take to him and to their lessons. Folly lurks indeed in the heart of the child and must be driven out with the rod; but not by the teacher."

Here at least there is nothing original in Ratke's precept. A goodly array of authorities have condemned learning "upon compulsion." This array extends at least as far as

Lectures and Essays: English in School, by J. R. Seeley, p. 222. Elsewhere in the same lecture (p. 229) Professor Seeley says: "The schoolmaster might set this right. Every boy that enters the school is a talking creature. He is a performer, in his small degree, upon the same instrument as Milton and Shakespeare. Only do not sacrifice this advantage. Do not try by artificial and laborious processes to give him a new knowledge before you have developed that which he has already. Train and perfect the gift of speech, unfold all that is in it, and you train at the same time the power of thought and the power of intellectual sympathy, you enable your pupil to think the thoughts and to delight in the words of great philosophers and poets." I wish this lecture were published separately.

6. Nothing to be learnt by heart.

from Plato to Bishop Dupanloup. "In the case of the mind, no study pursued under compulsion remains rooted in the memory," says Plato. "Everything depends," says Dupanloup, "on what the teacher induces his pupils to do freely: for authority is not constraint-it ought to be inseparable from respect and devotion. I will respect human liberty in the smallest child." As far as I have observed there is only one class of persons whom the authorities from Plato to Dupanloup have failed to convince, and that is the schoolmasters. This is the class. to which I have belonged, and I should not be prepared to take Plato's counsel: "Bring up your boys in their studies without constraint and in a playful manner." (Ib.) At the same time I see the importance of self-activity, and there is no such thing as self-activity upon compulsion. You can no more hurry thought with the cane than you can hurry a snail with a pin. So without interest there can be no proper learning. Interest must be aroused-even in Latin Grammar. But if they could choose their own occupation, the boys, however interested in their work, would probably find something else more interesting still. We cannot get on, and never shall, without the must.

§ 16. VI. Nothing may be iearnt by heart.

It has always been a common mistake in the schoolroom to confound the power of running along a sequence of sounds with a mastery of the thought with which those sounds should be connected. But, as I have remarked

elsewhere (supra, p. 74, note), the two things, though different, are not opposed. Too much is likely to be made of learning by heart, for of the two things the pupils find it the

• Rep. bk. vii, 536, ad f.; Davies and Vaughan, p. 264.

7. Uniformity. 8. Ne modus rei ante rem.

easier, and the teacher the more easily tested. We may, however, guard against the abuse without giving up the use. § 17. VII.* Uniformity in all things.

Both in the way of learning, and in the books, and the rules, a uniform method should be observed, says Ratke.

The right plan is for the learner to acquire familiar knowledge of one subject or part of a subject, and then use this for comparison when he learns beyond it. If the same method of learning is adopted throughout, this will render comparison more easy and more striking.+

§ 18. VIII. The thing itself should come first, then whatever explains it.

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To those who do not with closed eyes cling to the method of their predecessors, this rule may seem founded on common-sense. Would any one but a teacher," or a writer of school books, ever think of making children who do not know a word of French, learn about the French accents? And yet what Ratke said 250 years ago has not been disproved since: "Accidens rei priusquam rem ipsam quaerere prorsus absonum et absurdum esse videtur," which I take to mean: "Before the learner has a notion of the thing itself, it is folly to worry him about its accidents or even its properties, essential or unessential. Ne modus rei ante rem.‡

In Buisson (Dictionnaire) No. 7 is "The children must have frequent play, and a break after every lesson." Raumer connects this with No. 6, and says: "breaks were rendered necessary by Ratke's plan, which kept the learners far too silent."

+ In the matter of grammar Ratke's advice, so long disregarded, has recently been followed in the "Parallel Grammar Series," published by Messrs. Sonnenschein.

The ordinary teaching of almost every subject offers illustrations of

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