Dury's watch simile.

use of the creatures, and the disorderliness of our natural faculties in using them and reflecting upon them" (p. 41). § 14. "Our natural faculties "-here Dury struck a new note, which has now become the keynote in the science of education. He enforces his point with the following ingenious illustration :-"As in a watch one wheel rightly set doth with its teeth take hold of another and sets that a-work towards a third; and so all move one by another when they are in their right places for the end for which the watch is made; so is it with the faculties of the human nature being rightly ordered to the ends for which God. hath created them. But contrariwise, if the wheels be not rightly set, or the watch not duly wound up, it is useless to him that hath it. And so it is with the faculties of Man; if his wheels be not rightly ordered and wound up by the ends of sciences in their subordination leading him to employ the same according to his capacity to make use of the creatures for that whereunto God hath made them, he becomes not only useless, but even a burthen and hurtful unto himself and others by the misusing of them" (p. 43).

§ 15. "As in Nature sense is the servant of imagination; imagination of memory; memory of reason; so in teaching arts and sciences we must set these faculties a-work in this order towards their proper objects in everything which is to be taught. Whence this will follow, that as the faculties of Man's soul naturally perfect each other by their mutual subordination; so the Arts which perfect those faculties should be gradually suggested: and the objects wherewith the faculties are to be conversant according to the rules of Art should be offered in that order which is answerable to their proper ends and uses and not otherwise."

§ 16. In this and much else that Dury says we see a firm

Senses, Ist; imagination, 2nd; memory, 3rd.

grasp of the principle that the instruction given should be regulated by the gradual development of the learner's faculties. The three sources of our knowledge, says he, are -1. Sense; 2. Tradition; 3. Reason; and Sense comes first. "Art or sciences which may be learnt by mere sense should not be learnt any. other way." "As children's faculties break forth in them by degrees to be vigorous with their years and the growth of their bodies, so they are to be filled with objects whereof they are capable, and plied with arts; whence followeth that while children are not capable of the acts of reasoning, the method of filling their senses and imaginations with outward objects should be plied. Nor is their memory at this time to be charged further with any objects than their imagination rightly ordered and fixed doth of itself impress the same upon them." After speaking of the common abuse of general rules, he says: "So far as those faculties (viz., sense, imagination, and memory) are started with matters of observation, so far rules may be given to direct the mind in the use of the same, and no further." "The arts and sciences which lead us to reflect upon the use of our own faculties are not to be taught till we are fully acquainted with their proper objects, and the direct acts of the faculties about them." So "it is a very absurd and preposterous course to teach Logick and Metaphysicks before or with other Humane Sciences which depend more upon Sense and Imagination than reasoning" (p. 46).

§ 17. In all this it seems to me that the worthy Puritan, of whom nobody but Dr. Barnard and Professor Masson has ever heard, has truly done more to lay a foundation for the art of teaching than his famous contemporaries Milton and Locke.

Petty's battlefield simile.

§ 18. Another writer of that day better known than Dury and with far more power of expression was Sir William Petty. He is the "W.P.," who in an Epistle "to his honoured friend Master Samuel Hartlib," set down his "thoughts concerning the advancement of real learning" (1647). This letter is to be shown only "to those few that are Reall Friends to the Designe of Realities."*

§ 19. Petty sees the need of intercommunication of those who wish to advance any art or science. He complains that "the wits and endeavours of the world are as so many scattered coals or fire-brands, which for want of union are soon quenched, whereas being but laid together they would yield a comfortable light and heat." This is a thought which may well be applied to the bringing up of the young; and the following passage might have been written to secure a training for teachers: "Methinks the present condition of men is like a field where a battle hath been lately fought, where we may see many legs and arms and eyes lying here and there, which for want of a union and a soul to quicken and enliven them are good for nothing but to feed ravens and infect the air. So we see many wits and ingenuities lying scattered up and down the

* It is a sign of the failure of all attempts to establish educational science in England that though the meaning of "real" and "realities" which connected them with res seemed established in the sixteen hundreds, our language soon lost it again. According to a writer in Meyer's Conversations Lexicon (first edition) "reales" in this sense occurs first in Taubmann, 1614. Whether this is correct or not it was certainly about this time that there arose a contest between Humanismus and Realismus, a contest now at its height in the Gymnasien and Realschulen of Germany. For a discussion of it, see M. Arnold's "Literature and Science," referred to above (p. 154).

Petty's realism.

world, whereof some are now labouring to do what is already done, and puzzling themselves to re-invent what is already invented. Others we see quite stuck fast in diffi culties for want of a few directions which some other man (might he be met withal) both could and would most easily give him." I wonder how many young teachers are now wasting their own and their pupils' time in this awkward predicament.

$ 20. "As for education," says Petty, "we cannot but hope that those who make it their trade will supply it and render the idea thereof much more perfect." His own contributions to the more perfect idea consist mainly in making the study of "realities" precede literature, and thus announcing the principle which in later times has led to the introduction of "object lessons.” The Baconians thought that the good time was at hand, and that they had found the right road at last. By experiments they would learn to interpret Nature. After scheming a "Gymnasium, Mechanicum, or College of Tradesmen," Petty says, "What experiments and stuff would all those shops and operations afford to active and philosophical heads, out of which to extract that interpretation of nature whereof there is so little, and that so bad, as yet extant in the world!"* And this study of things was to affect the work of the school-room, and redeem it from the dismal state into which it was fallen. "As for the studies to which children are now. a-days put," says Petty, "they are altogether unfit for want of judgment which is but weak in them, and also for want of will, which is sufficiently seen by the difficulty

* Many of Petty's proposals are now realized in the South Kensingtcu Museum.

Cultivate observation.

of keeping them at schools and the punishment they will endure rather than be altogether debarred from the pleasure which they take in things."

21. The grand reform required is thus set forth; "Since few children have need of reading before they know or can be acquainted with the things they read of; or of writing before their thoughts are worth the recording or they are able to put them into any form (which we call inditing); much less of learning languages when there be books enough for their present use in their own mothertongue; our opinion is that those things being withal somewhat above their capacity (as being to be attained by judgment which is weakest in children) be deferred awhile, and others more needful for them, such as are in the order of Nature before those afore-mentioned, and are attainable by the help of memory which is either most strong or unpreoccupied in children, be studied before them. We wish, therefore, that the educands be taught to observe and remember all sensible objects and actions, whether they be natural or artificial, which the educators must upon all occasions expound unto them.”

§ 22. In proposing this great change Petty was influenced not merely by his own delight in the study of things but by something far more important for education, by observation of the children themselves. This study of things instead of "a rabble of words" would be "more easy and pleasant to the young as the more suitable to the natural propensions we observe in them. For we see children do delight in drums, pipes, fiddles, guns made of elder sticks, and bellows' noses, piped keys, &c., painting flags and ensigns with elderberries and cornpoppy, making ships with paper, and setting even nut-shells a-swimming,