ENGLISH VS. GERMAN SCHOOLS.

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Wilhelm von Humboldt once said, when he was Minister, that there was nothing which the State ought so much to encourage amongst its youth, as that which had a tendency to promote energy of action. Under this belief the English reject everything from their system of instruction which may tend to oppress, to over-excite, or to dissipate the mental power of the pupil. Their means and methods of instruction would appear to the teacher of a German gymnasium surprisingly simple, not to say unscientific; and so in many cases they certainly are. The English boy, even when his schooltraining is over, would seem generally to know little enough by the side of a German; and in certain subjects, such as geography, an English scholar is not to be compared with a German who has been taught on rational principles,' and the same may be said of physics and other branches of knowledge. With us it is almost a standing maxim, that the object of the gymnasium is to awaken and develop the scientific mind. An Englishman could not admit this, for he is unable to divest himself of the idea, that not to know, but to do, is the object of man's life; the vigorous independence of each individual man is his own life and calling."-(pp 63 ff.)

"In the Gymnasia, Herder warned them against the luxury of knowledge: and how frequently we hear the reproach, that their lessons are such as become a university rather than a school; and that consequently the boys are conceited, premature critics and phrasemongers. In England they care only for facts: they reject all critical controversy, and desire by the contemplation of facts to sharpen the faculty of observation. We, on the other hand, too often allow reflection and generalities

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that cost but little labor, to stifle that spirit of research which fixes itself upon the object and works toward it with scrupulous impartiality. How many a professor has been vexed at finding schoolboys bringing to college so many cut and dried thoughts and views, and so little well-grounded knowledge of simple matters of fact? Godfrey Hermann complained, 'At school they read authors critically, and we must begin at the university to teach them the elements of grammar.' I do not know whether pride of knowledge is so common now in Germany, as it was when Litchenberg spoke of it as a country in which children learned to turn up their noses before they learned to blow them,' but this I do know, that all pushing of the powers of thought brings its own punishment afterward. If young men are made acquainted before their time, and without pains on their part, with those results of knowledge which are fitted for a more advanced period of life, they are very likely to use up the stock of enthusiasm, which we all need and have received as a kind of dower to carry with us through life, and which we can best increase by overcoming difficulties for ourselves.”—(pp. 66, 67.)

"Thus Dr. Arnold says that the effort a boy makes is a hundred times more valuable to him than the knowledge acquired as the result of the effort; as generally in education the How is more important than the What. The consequence of this being so often forgotten in German schools, of their not sufficiently guarding against the encyclopædic tendency of their system of study is, that a young man loses not only the natural simplicity and coherence of his idea, but yet more his capacity to observe, because he has been over-crammed; his brain

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becomes confused and his ear deafened; and after all he is obliged to bestow his labor rather on account of the extent than the depth of the knowledge to be attained. In English schools they have hitherto avoided this danger by confining themselves to very little; students there do not learn nearly so much as with us, but they learn one thing better, and that is the art of learning. They acquire a greater power of judging for themselves; they know how to take a correct starting-point for other studies; whereas our young men too often only know just what they have learnt, and never cease to be dependent on their school-teaching."-(pp. 68, 69.)

6

"It can not be denied that the maxim, non scholæ sed vita' [not for school but for life], is better understood in England than in Germany. All that a school can teach, beyond imparting a certain small stock of knowledge, is the way to learn. It is a lamentable misconception of that most important maxim, to suppose that a liberal education can have any other end in view, than to impart and exercise power to be used in after-life.”—(p. 76.)

"I am persuaded that we must soon make up our minds once more to simplify our course of study, and the regulations for the last school examination (Arbiturientenexamen)."-(p, 77.)

"Were it possible to combine the German scientific method with the English power of forming the character, we should attain an idea of education not yet realized in Christian times, only once realized perhaps in any time, -in the best days of Greece; but which is just the more difficult to attain now, in proportion as the spirit of Christianity is more exalted than anything which antiquity could propose to itself as the end of education." -(p. 209.)

INDEX.