LOCKE.

theory of education must Locke's authority on this chiefly to his fame as a

AMONG the writers on education and inventors of new methods, there are only two Englishmen who have a European celebrity-Locke and Hamilton. The latter of these did, in fact, little more than carry out a suggestion of the former, so that almost all the influence which England has had on the be attributed to Locke alone. subject has indeed been due philosopher. His "Thoughts on Education," had they proceeded from an unknown author, would probably have never gained him a reputation even in his native country; and yet, when we read them as the work of the great philosopher, we feel that they are not unworthy of him. He was no enthusiast, conscious of a mission to renovate the human race by some grand educational discovery; but as a man of calm good sense, who found himself encharged with the bringing up of a young nobleman, he examined the ordinary education of the day, and when it proved unsatisfactory, he set about such alterations as seemed expedient. His thoughts were written for the advice of a friend, and, as we may infer from the title, are not intended as a complete treatise. The book, however, has placed its author in the first rank of those innovators whose innovations, after a struggle of two

E

hundred years, have not been adopted, and yet seem now more than ever likely to make their way.

Locke's thoughts were concerned exclusively with the training of a young gentleman, at a time when gentlemen were a caste having little in common with “the abhorred rascality." The education of those of inferior station might be of interest and importance to individuals, but the nation was chiefly concerned with the bringing up of its gentlemen. "That most to be taken care of," he writes, "is the gentleman's calling; for if those of that rank are by their education once set right, they will quickly bring all the rest into order."

Locke would have the education of a gentleman intrusted to a tutor. His own experience had made him no friend to grammar-schools, and while he admits the inconveniences of home education, he makes light of them in comparison with the dangers of a system in which the influence of schoolmates is greater than that of schoolmasters. Locke's argument is this: It is the business of the master to train the pupils in virtue and good manners, much more than to communicate learning. This function, however, must of necessity be neglected in schools. "Not that I blame the schoolmaster in this, or think it to be laid to his charge. The difference is great between two or three pupils in the same house and three or fourscore boys lodged up and down; for let the master's industry and skill be never so great, it is impossible that he should have fifty or a hundred scholars under his eye any longer than they are in the school together; nor can it be expected that he should instruct them successfully in anything but their books; the forming of their minds and manners requir

PREFERENCE FOR PRIVATE TEACHING.

83

ing a constant attention and particular application to every single boy, which is impossible in a numerous flock, and would be wholly in vain (could he have time to study and correct every one's particular defects and wrong inclinations), when the lad was to be left to himself, or the prevailing infection of his fellows the greatest part of the four-and-twenty hours." Again he says, "Till you can find a school wherein it is possible for the master to look after the manners of his scholars, and can show as great effects of his care of forming their minds to virtue and their carriage to good-breeding, as of forming their tongues to the learned languages, you must confess that you have a strange value for words when preferring the languages of the ancient Greeks and Romans to that which made them such brave men, you think it worth while to hazard your son's innocence for a little Greek and Latin. For as for that boldness and spirit which lads get among their playfellows at school, it has ordinarily such a mixture of rudeness and illturned confidence that those misbecoming and disingenuous ways of shifting in the world must be unlearned, and all tincture washed out again to make way for better principles and such manners as make a trustworthy man. He that considers how diametrically opposite the skill of living well and managing as a man should do his affairs in the world is to that malapertness, trickery, or violence learnt amongst schoolboys, will think the faults of a privater education infinitely to be preferred to such improvements, and will take care to preserve his child's innocence and modesty at home, as being more of kin and more in the way of those qualities which make a useful and able man."

If we consider how far Locke is undoubtedly right in these remarks, we shall agree with him at least in two things: 1st, that virtue and good manners are more valuable than school learning, or, indeed, any learning; 2d, that the influence of the masters over the boys' characters in a large school (and I may add, in a small school also), is less than the influence of the boys on one another. Moreover, those who know much of schoolboys will probably admit that their average morality is not high. Though not without strong generous impulses, the ordinary schoolboy-character is marked by selfishness-not a premeditated, calculating selfishness, but one which arises from the absence of high motives, and from a tacit understanding among boys that the rule is, "Every one for himself." High motives are no doubt uncommon in adult age, and the same rule is sometimes acted on then also, but custom requires us, except in the case of very near relations, to treat one another with outward respect and consideration-in other words, to behave unselfishly in social intercourse, and no such custom is established among schoolboys. They are, therefore, as a rule unmannerly in their behavior to one another. Vices, moreover, though not so prevalent as bad manners, are well known in all schools. Lying is often found, especially among young boys; bad language, and worse, among younger and elder alike. The natural deduction would seem to be that large schools are the worst possible places in which to train boys to virtue and good manners.

This deduction, however, is very far from the truth. The direct influence of the private tutor is, I believe, less, and the indirect influence of the masters of a school

HIS ARGUMENT EXAMINED.

85

more, than Locke and those who side with him imagine. Indeed, the influence of a really great head-master over the whole school is immense, as was proved by Dr. Arnold. Then, again, the system and the traditions of a great school are very powerful, and almost compel a boy to aim at the established standard of excellence, whereas the boy at home has no such standard before him, and the boy at the small school may possibly have one which is worse than none at all.* As far as our character depends on others, it is formed mainly by our companions at every age. Men have not enough in common with boys to be their companions, even when they are never out of their company. The character of boys must, therefore, be formed chiefly by boys, and where they associate together in large numbers and are allowed as much freedom as is consistent with discipline,

*"At nine or ten the masculine energies of the character are beginning to develop themselves; or, if not, no discipline will better aid in their development than the bracing intercourse of a great English classical school. Even the selfish are there forced into accommodating themselves to a public standard of generosity, and the effeminate into conforming to a rule of manliness. I was myself at two public schools, and I think with gratitude of the benefits which I reaped from both; as also I think with gratitude of that guardian in whose quiet household I learned Latin so effectually. But the small private schools of which I had opportunities for gathering some brief experience-schools containing from thirty to forty boys, were models of ignoble manners, as regarded part of the Juniors, and of favoritsm as regarded the masters. Nowhere is the sublimity of public justice so broadly exemplified as in an English public school on the old Edward VI. or Elizabeth foundation. There is not in the universe such an Areopagus of fair play and abhorrence of all crooked ways as an English mob, or one of the time-honored English 'foundation' schools." (De Quincey's Autobiographic Sketches, Works, i. 150.) Of late years, the age at which boys are mostly sent to the great public schools has advanced from ten or eleven to thirteen or fourteen. I think this a gain where boys can be kept at home, but very much the reverse when they are sent as boarders to private schools. What we stand urgently in need of is good day schools for the younger boys of all classes.