them. On the arrival of every fresh visitor, he would go to the teachers in whom he placed most confidence, and say to them, "This is an important personage, who wants to become acquainted with all we are doing. Take your best pupils and their analysisbooks (copy-books in which the lessons were written out), and show him what we can do, and what we wish to do.' Hundreds and hundreds of times there came to the Institution silly, curious, and often totally uneducated persons, who came because it was the fashion. On their account we usually had to interrupt the class instruction, and hold a kind of examination. In 1814, the aged Prince Esterhazy came. Pestalozzi ran all over the house, calling out, Ramsauer, Ramsauer, where are you? Come directly, with your best pupils, to the Maison Rouge (the hotel at which the Prince had alighted). He is a person of the highest importance and of infinite wealth; he has thousands of serfs in Hungary and Austria. He is certain to build schools and set free his serfs, if he is made to take an interest in the matter.' I took about fifteen pupils to the hotel. Pestalozzi presented me to the Prince with these words, 'This is the teacher of these scholars, a young man who, fifteen years ago, migrated with other poor children from the Canton of Appenzell and came to me. He received an elementary education according to his aptitudes, without let or hindrance. Now he is a teacher himself. Thus you see that there is as much ability in the poor as in the richest, frequently more; but it is seldom developed, and even then not methodically. It is for this reason that the improvement of the popular schools is so highly important. But he will show you everything we do better than I could. I will, therefore, leave him with you for the present.' I now examined the pupils, taught, explained, and bawled, in my zeal, till I was quite hoarse, believing that the Prince was thoroughly convinced about everything. At the end of an hour Pestalozzi returned. The Prince expressed his pleasure at what he had seen. He then took leave, and Pestalozzi, standing on the top of the stairs of the hotel, said, 'He is quite convinced, quite convinced, and will certainly establish schools on his Hungarian estates.' When we had descended the stairs, Pestalozzi said, 'Whatever ails my arm? It is so painful! Why, see, it is quite swollen; I can't bend it!' And in truth his wide sleeve was now too small for his arm. I looked at the key of the house-door of the Maison Rouge, and said to Pestalozzi, 'Look here! you struck yourself against this key when we were going to the Prince an hour ago!' On closer observation, it appeared that Pestalozzi had actually bent the key by hitting his elbow against it. In the first hour afterwards he had not noticed the pain for the excess of his zeal and his joy.*

* For an account of Ramsauer, see Barnard's Pestalozzi.

APPENDIX.

313

HELPS, STEPHEN, &c.

Mr. Helps, in his admirable essay on reading, in 'Friends in Council,' makes some observations which, although they refer to the reading of grown persons, may be applied to early education as well. He would have everyone

Take something for the main stem and trunk of their culture, whence branches might grow out in all directions, seeking light and air for the parent tree, which it is hoped might end in becoming something useful and ornamental, and which, at any rate, all along will have had life and growth in it.

He concludes his remarks on the connection of knowledges as follows:

In short, all things are so connected together that a man who knows one subject well cannot, if he would, have failed to have acquired much besides; and that man will not be likely to keep fewer pearls who has a string to put them on, than he who picks them up and throws them together without method. This, however, is a very poor metaphor to represent the matter; for what I would aim at producing, not merely holds together what is gained, but has vitality in itself is always growing. And anybody will confirm this who, in his own case, has had any branch of study or human affairs to work upon; for he must have observed how all he meets seems to work in with, and assimilate itself to, his own peculiar subject. During his lonely walks, or in society, or in action, it seems as if this one pursuit were something almost independent of himself, always on the watch, and claiming its share in whatever is going on.

Sir James Stephen also made some excellent remarks to the same effect in his lecture on 'Desultory and Systematic Reading,' delivered at Exeter Hall :—

By sound-that is solid—learning (he said), I mean such knowledge as relates to useful and substantial things, and as in itself is compact, coherent, all of a piece-having its several parts fitted into each other, and mutually sustaining and illustrating one another.

We must with a firm hand draw our own meridian line in the world of learning :

For learning is a world, not a chaos. The various accumulations of human knowledge are not so many detached masses.

They are all connected parts of one great system of truth, and though that system be infinitely too comprehensive for any one of us to compass, yet each component member of it bears to every other component member relations which each of us may, in his own department of study, search out and discover for himself. A man is really and soundly learned in exact proportion to the number and to the importance of those relations which he has thus carefully examined and accurately understood.

In discussing the advantage of learning one subject thoroughly, we must not overlook the valuable testimony of Professor De Morgan :—

When the student has occupied his time in learning a moderate portion of many different things, what has he acquired extensive knowledge or useful habits? Even if he can be said to have varied learning, it will not long be true of him, for nothing flies so quickly as half-digested knowledge; and when this is gone, there remains but a slender portion of useful power. A small quantity of learning quickly evaporates from a mind which never held any learning except in small quantities; and the intellectual philosopher can perhaps explain the following phenomenon-that men who have given deep attention to one or more liberal studies, can learn to the end of their lives, and are able to retain and apply very small quantities of other kinds of knowledge; while those who have never learnt much of any one thing, seldom acquire new knowledge after they attain to years of maturity, and frequently lose the greater part of that which they once possessed.

I am indebted for this quotation to Mr. Payne's pamphlet, "The Curriculum of Modern Education, &c.,' 1866. This pamphlet contains a most interesting discussion of the questions-Many subjects or few ? and, Shall language or science have precedence? In considering these matters, Mr. Payne has an advantage possessed at present by very few Englishmen-knowledge derived both from teaching, and from studying the theory of teaching.-Vide his evidence before Middle Schools Commission.

MANGNALL'S QUESTIONS.

The long-continued success of this book is a melancholy proof of the stupidity which is at work, vigorously destroying the intelligence of youthful minds. When I referred

to 'Mangnall,' I did so from what I remember of my own early lessons. On getting the book to see if it was as bad as I thought, I am almost driven to the supposition that it was written as a satire on the instruction generally given to children, and that it has imposed on English teachers as the Epistola Obscurorum Virorum did on some of the Roman clergy. The edition now in use begins as follows:

Name some of the most Ancient Kingdoms.-Chaldea, Babylonia, Assyria, China in Asia, and Egypt in Africa. Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, is supposed to have founded the first of these B.C. 2221, as well as the famous cities of Babylon and Nineveh: his kingdom being within the fertile plains of Chaldea, Chalonitis, and Assyria, was of small extent, compared with the vast empires that afterwards arose from it, but included several large cities. In the district called Babylonia, were the cities of Babylon, Barsīta, Idicarra, and Vologsia, &c. &c.

This is the opening of an historical sketch which in twelve pages brings matters down to A.D. 1849. The information given about Greece is of this kind :—

What progress did the Greeks make in the Arts?—From the time of Cyrus to that of Alexander, they were gradually improving: warriors, statesmen, philosophers, poets, historians, painters, architects, and sculptors form a glorious phalanx in this golden age of literature: and the history of Greece at this period is equally important and instructive.

Name the chief Grecian Poets.-Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Tyrtæus, Alcæus, Sappho, Simonides, Eschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Anacreon, Pindar, and Menander.

Name the chief Philosophers.-Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno.

Name the chief Lawgivers.-Cecrops, of Athens; Cadmus, of Thebes; Caranus, of Macedon; Lycurgus, of Sparta; Draco and Solon, of Athens.

Name the chief Grecian Painters.-Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Timanthes, Apelles, Polygnotus, Protogenes, and Aristides.

Name the chief Historians.-Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.

Name the chief Grecian Architects.-Ctesiphon, Phidias, Myron, Scopas, Lysippus, and Polycletus.

A sketch of the most remarkable events from the Christian era to the close of the eighteenth century,' occupies

seven pages. The abstract of British biography is very complete, and takes eighty-two pages. To prevent the memory from getting assisted by association of ideas as it might if chronological order were adopted, the worthies are given alphabetically. Though the list is tolerably complete, the author adheres pretty closely to her principle, that the only thing which we really ought to know about great men is their names. Take a couple as they stand:

Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, born in Edinburghshire 1643; died in 1715. He is memorable as an historical and political

writer.

Richard Bentley, born at Wakefield 1662; died 1742. His literary character as a critic and divine is known throughout Europe.

In this last case, the reader will observe that children are taught but little, and that little wrong. Another striking feature about these biographical sketches is, that their length does not vary according to the importance of the person treated of. We find, e.g., sixteen and a half lines (space enough in such a work as this for the literary and political history of an empire or two) devoted to Jeremiah Horrox, 'who continues to be regarded with admiration.'

The sketch of general modern biography takes seventythree pages; planetary system, two pages; list of constellations, three pages; abstract of heathen mythology, eight pages, &c. &c. I could not give all the subjects treated of without transcribing a greater portion of the work than courtesy or copyright would allow.

DR. WIESE.

As far as literature is concerned, the Reformers have been as triumphant lately in education as in politics. Indeed, it seems considered almost axiomatic that he who