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 .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

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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

seek all the professional knowledge within his reach. "Every one," Bays Matthew Arnold, " every one is aware how those who want to cultivate any sense or endowment in themselves must be habitually conversant with the works of people who have been eminent for that sense, must study them, catch inspiration from them. Only in this way can progress be made." (Quoted by Momerie). Let us hope that you have incited some young teachers to study and catch inspiration from the great thinkers and workers in the educational field. E. This is the object I have aimed at. If I wanted a motto I think I should choose this from Froebel interpreted by Miss Shirreff :

"The duty of each generation is to gather up its inheritance from the past, and thus to serve the present, and prepare better things for the future."

SYLLABUS

OF QUICK'S EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS. From the International Reading Circle Course of

Professional Study.

Pages 1 to 62.

I. THE RENASCENCE.

1. The essential element in literature.

2. Classical literature in education.

3. The educational classes produced by renascence tendencies.

4. How much of the error of the "renascence ideal" still survives?

5. Is this harm overbalanced by the good influences of that ideal?

II. STURM.

(See Painter, pp. 160-162, for Sturm's Course of Study.)

1. What two or more influences of Sturm's school would you mention as most prominently retained in our larger schools of to-day?

2. How far are these influences good, and in what ways are they evil?

3. What value attaches to their provisions for securing thoroughness?

4. What to their instruction in morals?

5. What to their physical training?

Pages 63 to 171.

RABELAIS.

1. His products of education: wisdom, eloquence, and

piety.