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tion should be to impart useful knowledge, and teach us in what way to treat the body, to treat the mind, to manage our affairs, to bring up a family, to behave as a citizen, &c., &c. The old school, on the other hand, which I may call the English party, as it derives its strength from some of the peculiar merits and demerits of the English character, heartily despises knowledge, and would make the end of education power only. (Conf. Wiese, infra, p. 318.)

As the most remarkable outcome of this idea of education, we have the Cambridge mathematical tripos.

The typical Cambridge man studies mathematics, not because he likes mathematics, or derives any pleasure from the perception of mathematical truth, still less with the notion of ever using his knowledge; but either because, if he is a good man,' he hopes for a fellowship, or because, if he cannot aspire so high, he considers reading the thing to do, and finds a satisfaction in mental effort just as he does in a constitutional to the Gogmagogs. When such a student takes his degree, he is by no means a highly cultivated man; but he is not the sort of man we can despise for all that. He has in him, to use one of his own metaphors, a considerable amount of force, which may be applied in any direction. He has great power of concentration and sustained mental effort even on subjects which are distasteful to him. In other words, his mind is under the control of his will, and he can bring it to bear promptly and vigorously on anything put before him. He will sometimes be half through a piece of work, while an

average Oxonian (as we Cambridge men conceive of him at least,) is thinking about beginning. But his training has taught him to value mental force without teaching him to care about its application. Perhaps he has been working at the gymnasium, and has at length succeeded in 'putting up' a hundredweight. In learning to do this, he has been acquiring strength for its own sake. He does not want to put up hundredweights, but simply to be able to put them up, and his reward is the consciousness of power. Now the tripos is a kind of competitive examination in putting up weights. The student who has been training for it, has acquired considerable mental vigour, and when he has put up his weight he falls back on the consciousness of strength which he seldom thinks of using. Having put up the heavier, he despises the lighter weights. He rather prides himself on his ignorance of such things as history, modern languages, and English literature. He can get those up in a few evenings,' whenever he wants them. He reminds me, indeed, of a tradesman who has worked hard to have a large balance at his banker's. This done, he is satisfied. He has neither taste nor desire for the things which make wealth valuable ; but when he sees other people in the enjoyment of them, he hugs himself with the consciousness that he can write a cheque for such things whenever he pleases.

6

I confess that this outcome of the English theory of education does not seem to me altogether satisfactory. But we have, as yet, no means of judging what will be the outcome of the other theory which makes

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knowledge the end of education. Its champions confine themselves at present to advising that a variety of sciences be taught to boys, and maintain a rather perplexing silence as to how to teach them. Mr. Spencer, as we have seen, requires that a boy should be taught how to behave in every relation of manhood, and he also tells us how to teach-elementary geometry. Still these advocates of knowledge are acquiring a considerable amount of influence, and there seems reason to fear lest halting between the two theories, our education, instead of combining knowledge and power, should attain to neither.

Our old-fashioned school-teaching, confined as it was to a grammatical drill in the classical languages, did certainly give something of the power which comes from concentrated effort. The Eton Latin Grammar does not indeed seem to me a well-selected model-book, but many a man has found the value of knowing even that book thoroughly. Now, however, a cry has been raised for useful information. It is shameful, we are told, that a boy leaving school should not know the names of the capitals of Europe, and should never have heard of the Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights, &c., &c. The schoolmaster is beginning to give way. He admits homoeopathic doses of geographical, historical, and scientific epitomes and of modern languages: and perhaps between these stools the unlucky schoolboy will come to the ground; his accurate knowledge of Latin grammar will be exchanged for 'some notion' of a variety of things, and in the end his condition will be best described by varying a famous sarcasm, and saying,

that if he knew a little of good hard work, he would know a little of everything.

The reader will by this time begin to suspect that I am an educational Tory after all, even a reactionary Tory. This I deny, but I am probably not free from those prejudices which beset Englishmen, especially Cambridge men and schoolmasters, and I confess I look with dismay on the effort which is being made to introduce a large number of subjects into our schoolcourse, and set up knowledge rather than power as the goal of education.*

But cannot these be combined? May we not teach such subjects as shall give useful knowledge and power too? On this point the philosopher and the schoolmaster are at issue. The philosopher says, It is desirable that we should have the knowledge of such and such sciences-therefore teach them. The schoolmaster says, It may be desirable to know those sciences, but boys cannot learn them. The knowledge acquired by boys will never be very valuable in itself. We must, therefore, consider it a means rather than an end. We must think first of mental dicipline; for this boys must thoroughly master what they learn, and this thoroughness absolutely requires that the young mind should be

* In this matter the testimony of Lord Stanley is very valuable. 'If teaching is, as I believe, better on the whole in the higher than in the lower classes [of society] it is chiefly on this account-not that more is taught at an early age, but less; that time is taken, that the wall is not run up in haste; that the bricks are set on carefully, and the mortar allowed time to dry. And so the structure, whether high or low, is likely to stand.' (From a Speech reported in the Evening Mail, December 9, 1864.)

applied to very few subjects; and, though we are quite ready to discuss which subjects afford the best mental training, we cannot allow classics to be thrust out till some other subjects have been proved worthy to reign in their stead.

Unless I am mistaken, the true ground of complaint against the established education is, that it fails to give, not knowledge, but the desire of knowledge. A literary education which leaves no love of reading behind, cannot be considered entirely successful.

As I have said elsewhere, I would admit a natural science into the curriculum in order to give the mind some training in scientific processes, and some interest in scientific truth. I would also endeavour to cultivate a fondness for English literature* and the fine arts; but, whatever the subject taught, I consider that, for educational purposes, the power and the desire to acquire knowledge, are to be valued far before knowledge itself.

How does this conclusion bear upon the matter I set out with, the function of memory in education?

Classicists, scientific men, and all others, are agreed about the value of memory, and must therefore desire that its powers should not be squandered on the learning of facts which, for want of repetition, will be soon lost, or facts which will prove of little value if retained. But in estimating facts, we must think rather of their educational value than of their bearing upon after-life. We must make the memory a storehouse

The claims of English literature in education have been urged by Professor Seeley with a force which seems to me irresistible. (See Macmillan's Magazine for November 1867.)