THEORY AND PRACTICE.

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should be the unfolding of the faculties according to the Divine idea; but between this high poetical theory and the dull prose of actual school-teaching, there is a great gulf fixed, and we cannot attend to both at the same time.' I know full well how different theories and plans of education seem to us when we are at leisure and can think of them without reference to particular pupils, and when all our energy is taxed to get through our day's teaching, and our animal spirits jaded by having to keep order and exact attention among veritable schoolboys who do not answer in all respects to the young' of the theorists. But whilst admitting most heartily the difference here, as elsewhere, between the actual and the ideal, I think that the dull prose of schoolteaching would be less dull and less prosaic if our aim was higher, and if we did not contentedly assume that our present performances are as good as the nature of the case will admit of. Many teachers (I think I might say most) are discontented with the greater number of their pupils, but it is not so usual for teachers to be discontented with themselves. And yet even those who are most averse from theoretical views, which they call unpractical, would admit, as practical men, that their methods are probably susceptible of improvement, and that even if their methods are right, they themselves are by no means perfect teachers. Only let the desire of improvement once exist, and the teacher will find a new interest in his work. In part, the treadmill-like monotony so wearing to the spirits will be done away, and he will at times have the encouragement of con

scious progress. To a man thus minded, theorists may be of great assistance. His practical knowledge may, indeed, often show him the absurdity of some pompously enunciated principle, and even where the principles seem sound, he may smile at the applications. But the theorists will show him many aspects of his profession, and will lead him to make many observations in it, which would otherwise have escaped him. They will save him from a danger caused by the difficulty of getting anything done in the school-room, the danger of thinking more of means than ends. They will teach him to examine what his aim really is, and then whether he is using the most suitable methods to accomplish it.

Such a theorist is Pestalozzi. He points to a high ideal, and bids us measure our modes of education by it. Let us not forget that if we are practical men we are Christians, and as such the ideal set before us is the highest of all. Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.'*

* Raumer reckons up the services Pestalozzi did for education as follows: He compelled the scholastic world to revise the whole of their task, to reflect on the nature and destiny of man, and also on the proper way of leading him from his youth toward that destiny.' Those who wish to study Pestalozzi and his work will find a mass of information, thrown together without any apparent attempt at method, in Henry Barnard's Pestalozzi and Pestalozzianism. New York, 1859. This volume contains Tilleard's translation of Raumer's Pestalozzi, excerpted from the Geschichte der Pädagogik, and published in this country. Besides this, Barnard gives us sketches of Pestalozzi's principal assistants, a translation of Lienhard und Gertrud, and long extracts from his other writings. I have used chiefly Barnard and Dr. Biber's Life, also article by Palmer in C. A. Semid's Encyclopädie. An important work (according to Barnard, I have not seen it myself) is R. Christoffel's Pestalozzis Leben und Ansichten in wortgetreuen Auszügen seiner ge

sammten Schriften. Zürich, 1847. The little volume of Letters on Early Education, addressed to Mr. Greaves, was last published in the Phoenix Library. I have made many quotations from these letters above, and will conclude with this striking passage: 'Whenever we find a human being in a state of suffering, and near to the awful moment which is for ever to close the scene of his pains and his enjoyments in this world, we feel ourselves moved by a sympathy which reminds us, that, however low his earthly condition, here too there is one of our race, subject to the same sensations of alternate joy and grief-born with the same faculties-with the same destination, and the same hopes of immortal life. And as we give ourselves up to that idea, we would fain, if we could, alleviate his sufferings, and shed a ray of light on the darkness of his parting moments. This is a feeling which will come home to the heart of every one-even to the young and the thoughtless, and to those little used to the sight of woe. Why, then, we would ask, do we look with a careless indifference on those who enter life? why do we feel so little interest in the condition of those who enter upon that varied scene, of which we might contribute to enhance the enjoyments, and to diminish the sum of suffering, of discontent, and wretchedness? And that education might do this, is the conviction of all those who are competent to speak from experience. That it ought to do as much, is the persuasion, and that it may accomplish it, is the constant endeavour, of those who are truly interested in the welfare of mankind.'

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VIII.

JACOTOT.

Or the inventors of peculiar methods at present known to me, by far the most important, in my judgment, is Jacotot; and if I were not well aware how small an interest English teachers take in Didactics, I should be much surprised that in this country his writings and achievements have received so little attention. It is satisfactory to find, however, that last year some papers on the subject were read at the College of Preceptors by Mr. Joseph Payne, one of the Vice-presidents, and were afterwards published in the Educational Times.* These papers, which will not, I hope, be suffered to lie buried in the pages of a periodical, contain the only good account of Jacotot I have met with, though having long been impressed with the importance of his ideas, I have at different times consulted various foreign books about him.

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In the following summary of Jacotot's system, I am largely indebted to Mr. Payne, and to him I refer the reader for a much more luminous account than my

*For June, July, and September, 1867.

shorter space and inferior knowledge of the subject enable me to offer.

Jacotot was born at Dijon, of humble parentage, in 1770. Even as a boy he showed his preference for 'self-teaching.' We are told that he rejoiced greatly in the acquisition of all kinds of knowledge that could be gained by his own efforts, while he steadily resisted what was imposed on him by authority. He, however, was early distinguished by his acquirements, and at the age of twenty-five was appointed sub-director of the Polytechnic school. Some years afterwards he became Professor of the Method of Sciences' at Dijon, and it was here that his method of instruction first attracted attention. Instead of pouring forth a flood of information on the subject under attention from his own ample stores-explaining everything, and thus too frequently superseding in a great degree the pupil's own investigation of it-Jacotot, after a simple statement of the subject, with its leading divisions, boldly started it as a quarry for the class to hunt down, and invited every member to take part in the chase.** All were free to ask questions, to raise objections, to suggest answers. The Professor himself did little more than by leading questions put them on the right scent. He was afterwards Professor of Ancient and Oriental Languages, of Mathematics, and of Roman Law; and he pursued the same method, we are told, with uniform success. Being compelled to leave France as an enemy of the Bourbons, he was appointed, in 1818,

There is a singular coincidence even in metaphor between Mr. Payne's account of Jacotot's mode of instructing this class and Mr. Wilson's directions for teaching science. (Essays on a Liberal Education.)