Meaning of The word education is derived from e, out, and duco, to lead or draw, and is ordinarily employed to express the whole of the process by which we draw forth the powers and capacities of the human mind into free and full activity.

National education signifies the application of this process to any particular country, so that the mass of the people, in their relative stations, may possess the mental development suitable for performing the duties and carrying on the occupations of civilized life.

In treating of the entire subject of national education there are three inquiries which have to be instituted:

1st, What education, individually and nationally considered, is? 2nd, Who is responsible for it? 3rd, How is it to be carried on?

The first of these questions is theoretical, and requires of us to explain what any one must be taught before he can be considered, properly speaking, an educated man. The second and third of the above questions are practical, and have to point out, the one the proper agencies, the other the proper methods of national education.

I. EDUCATION THEORETICALLY CONSIDERED.

The meaning of the word education, as above explained, conveys in the main the correct idea of the thing itself. It indicates the fact, that the educating process is not intended so much to pour a given amount of the material of knowledge into the mind, as to draw forth and develop its powers and capacities, so that they can act vigorously and intelligently upon any kind of intellectual material that may be offered. Man is placed, according to the constitution of Providence, in the midst of an infinite series of natural agencies, which act upon him through all the five senses. The powers of the mind are so framed, and so adapted to the world in which we are placed, that the phenomena presented to it from without are met by a corresponding series of intellectual activities from within, which receive, mould, adapt, and, if we may so say, intellectualize the material thus offered. In this way it is converted into knowledge and experience; the world without having supplied the matter, the mind itself having then impressed upon it the given intellectual form.

The influences of nature, however, and the powers of mind which grasp and interpret them, stand in a very varied relation to each other. In the infantile state of humanity nature has the preponderance over mind. Surrounding circumstances almost wholly mould the man; because the intellectual power which stands opposed to the phenomena presented, and re-acts upon it, is crude and undeveloped. Hence human life rises very little above the direct attempt at supplying physical wants; and those mental developments which go to form the whole complex idea of civilization hardly come into notice, or even existence.

On the other hand, in a more advanced state of humanity the relative preponderance of mind and nature tends more and more towards the supremacy of the former. Nature is gradually combated and subdued; she becomes a servant to human wants instead of a governor; and the arrangements of human life all bear the stamp of a widespread intellectual activity, in place of mere human instinct, seeking to supply the most primitive and most pressing of human necessities.

Now the whole difference between these two conditions of human life is due to education, in the most extended sense of the word. It is in proportion as the inward and originally slumbering powers of the human mind are drawn out, that man rises above the sphere of a mere physical existence, and comes to be guided by his reason, his conscience, and his better feelings.

A large portion of human education, thus viewed, must evidently be purely spontaneous. A tribe of people obtaining a fixed settlement in some favourable quarter of the globe, starts, we will suppose, upon its progress towards civilization. The habit of living by plunder or by the chase is first of all exchanged for some settled kind of industry of a pastoral or an agricultural character. Industry gives rise sooner or later to property, and property requires law and government in some form to assure and protect it. With the establishment of fixed principles of government, giving security to life and property, exchange and commerce soon begin to spring up, wealth is produced, and leisure is in this way afforded to some to cultivate further the arts of But when once the rudiments of human knowledge, science, and literature, are brought into existence, in however elementary a form, they soon become nurtured and stimulated, it may be by the desire of gain, or by the sense of the beautiful, or by the impulse to celebrate in verse the praises of the good or the great. Parallel with these various steps of human progress, the religious feelings also become developed, and rise from the gropings of idolatry to the intelligent worship of a supreme being.

All this indicates the process of what we may term the spontaneous education of a nation,—an education which, under favourable circumstances, will always be going onwards, and to which a very large portion of the progress of every nation must ever be due. History, in fact, is the record of the spontaneous education of nations, together with the outward events which accompany it; and the philosophy of history is simply an attempt to comprehend the universal laws of human development, so far as they may be gathered from the phenomena of past ages.

It is not our object, however, at present to give any disquisition on the spontaneous education of nations, as seen in their history, nor to trace the laws of national growth, as shown in the philosophy of history. By education, in the more restricted sense of the term, we mean that process of instruction purposely and consciously adapted to the individual, by which his faculties are drawn forth into full activity, and his mind duly developed and informed. Education, viewed in this light, will of course be greatly modified by the position which each man holds in the process of human development generally. The answer accordingly to the question, Whether any given individual be educated or not? must depend in a great measure upon the age and the country in which he lives. In other words, his technical education presupposes and must spring out of the kind and amount of spontaneous education to which he is naturally and necessarily subjected in the course of human life.

A glance at the history of education in different periods of the world, and amongst different nations, will make this abundantly evident. Perhaps the earliest historical records which we have of the methods and details of education are those which relate to the ancient Persians. Amongst them the entire education of the youth, from their fifth to their twentieth year, was confined to three things—riding, shooting with the bow, and speaking the truth.1 The two former of these points do not indicate anything but what might exist in a state of barbarism; but the third presents to us the clear indications of an incipient civilization, just beginning to rise beyond the sphere of mere physical activity, and to regard the mental as well as the corporeal qualities of the pupil. Moral education, in this case, is seen to have preceded intellectual, which in fact does not appear to have existed at all amongst the Persians, with the exception of some slight instruction given to the priestly order in the laws and institutions of their religion.

The description which Xenophon gives of the education of Cyrus is not in contradiction to this account, although it is evident that the Cyropædia is rather intended as a type of what the education of such a prince ought to be, than any faithful delineation of what it actually was. How far this model education, as described by Xenophon, would fall short of what we now consider necessary even for the very rudiments of mental culture, it is not necessary for us to insist upon. And yet, no doubt, the ideal Cyrus must have been regarded as exhibiting at that time the highest type of an educated man.

No sooner do we pass from the oriental world into the active scene of Greek civilization, than we feel at once that the whole atmosphere of human existence is changed. The great drama of human history has commenced a new act, and the elements which form the chief interest in it are now of an entirely new character. In the Greek we no longer see humanity under the influence of the senses, nor guided merely by the feelings; the elements of self-consciousness there appear from the very first. The Greek knows that lie has a soul and an intellect within him; he can place himself in bold contrast with nature; he can look within as well as without; detect the secret workings of his own mind; analyze the inward phenomena of his being, and strip away the fleeting impressions of the moment from the permanent elements of his more fixed ideas. In a word, he can not only form within himself ideal representations of nature, but he knows that they are ideal, and is fully conscious of the part which his own mind has had in constructing them.

In the Greek, accordingly, a higher range of mental faculties comes into play than was seen in the early oriental world. The ideas which these faculties create are vivid and exuberant; the memory is inexhaustible; the imagination fertile almost beyond conception; and the power of expression utters itself in a tongue the most harmonious, the most plastic, and the most versatile which mankind has ever produced. This exuberant power of representation, however, not only manifested itself in their life and language,—it not only poured itself forth in poetry and song,—it became, still further, the parent of art. The Greek was not content with forming ideals in his own mind; he felt impelled to express them externally. He must paint them out upon the canvas, hew them into wondrous reality from the solid marble, and erect them aloft in the form of massive temples.

With regard to his mode of life, the Greek was essentially a social being—social not from any sense of authority due to a superior, but social from the desire of realizing the utmost degree of elegance and ideal culture in his political existence. He has no great reverence for humanity as such; he will enslave others if he can, so long as he remains free himself; nay, all the world may remain either slaves or barbarians to him so long as his own joyous Greek life can blossom in all the hues of its native beauty.

The main idea of education, therefore, among the Greeks was to fit men to be brilliant citizens; to develop their physical energies; instruct them in music, poetry, and rhetoric; give them power to impel, to persuade, or to vanquish, and thus turn them out Greek politicians in the highest sense of the word.

"Just as the child," says Cramer,2 "when he has made only a few steps, rejoices in his knowledge, looks down upon all other, even his own former sports, and begins already to fix the measure of culture; so also did the Greek. Culture, in the broadest sense of the word, bodily as well as mental, formed the distinction between himself and the barbarians,—separated the freeman from the slave, distinguished the instructed man from the manual labourer (Barbaros), the rich from the poor, and, finally, the Athenian from the other Greeks." It is in accordance with this whole idea that Plato, in his ideal republic, points out the different classes which must exist in the state—the men of valour, the men of business, and the men of thought; and shows that the state should take up every child, as something belonging to itself, and cultivate him for his future functions, whatever they might be, in the body politic.

This self-conscious power which the Greeks possessed was sure eventually to lead them beyond the mere creations of poetry and art. In the person of Socrates it created Ethics, as the practical science of life; while in Plato

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1 Herod. i. 136; Strabo, xv. 2 Geschichte der Erziehung im Alterthume, Erster Band, p. 148. National and Aristotle the whole of the latent elements of Greek education culture were developed fully out into the form of pure philosophic Idea.

But here the genuine Greek life was already on the wane. As long as they found free scope for their imagination, they presented to the world the most wonderful spectacle of aesthetic life and culture which has ever been realized. Their mission on the great arena of human history had to do primarily with the beautiful, and then (so far as the fancy could picture them as ideals) with the good and the true. But it was not a part of their national character to develop any great and striking manifestation of the practical understanding. Another great nation was already formed, and, as it were, set apart for this mission—a nation which, alike devoid of all high exercise of the imagination on the one hand, and the speculative reason on the other, was already giving a perfect embodiment of a solid practical intelligence, and exhibiting all that strength of purpose, firmness of character, and accumulation of power over mankind, which such a mental temperament naturally and necessarily superinduces. It need hardly be said that the Roman nationality is here referred to.

The practical sense of the Romans gave a character to the education of their youth altogether different from what we see amongst the Greeks. In Greece everything was regarded in reference to the culture of the individual, and estimated according as it tended to realize some ideal of excellence and beauty. In Rome, on the contrary, utility was the main object of all education. The Greek, for example, studied mathematics, but he did so mainly as a means of mental refinement; while the Roman studied mathematics and arithmetic solely for practical purposes in warfare or commerce. Physical education among the Greeks was intended to give elegance to the person; amongst the Romans it was intended to give strength and endurance for labour. In Rome the chief subjects of instruction accordingly were, as with us, reading, writing, and reckoning, to which some knowledge of geography and Roman history was added; for these were the pursuits which fitted men for their actual duties in human life.

Another thing, too, which caused the Roman education to approach nearer our own than the Greek did, was the fact of their having to look for their models of literary excellence to a foreign language and literature. The Romans studied Greek much in the same way as we do Latin, as being the best basis for a high mental cultivation. The necessity of doing this gave rise to the science of grammar, of which the Greeks, being always confined to one language, had no developed idea. The study of grammar in this way became, under the Roman empire, one of the chief pursuits in the schools of learning, and was considered indispensable to a liberal education. Thus, although the aesthetic culture of the Roman was far inferior to that of the Greek, yet in practical vigour of understanding, in the sense of personal right, in all the elements of social morality, and in everything which goes to make up the citizen of a great and a free state, the Roman showed himself far superior. What would have passed for high cultivation amongst the former people would have been regarded as virtually useless amongst the latter; whilst the Greek would have scoffed at the barbarism of the Latin, from his want of elegance, genius, and aesthetic development in general. In answer to the question, therefore, What is to be understood by an educated man? the Greek would have pointed to a man of high physical and mental refinement, while the Roman would have pointed rather to the man of great practical efficiency in all the affairs of human life.

The idea has been widely entertained, that the rise and spread of Christianity throughout Europe made, as it were, a clean sweep of the old-world civilization, and built up another state of society, based altogether upon new ideas. This, however, was in fact far from being the case. That National Christianity introduced a new element into the West, and educated one of surpassing worth and moral grandeur, every Christian man can testify; but there were many other elements which mingled with it before it formed a new state of society, a new civilization, a new world. The Greek intellect was still busily at work in Christian times, as we find abundantly evinced by the controversies of the early church. The Roman practical understanding was at work also, and aided in the reconstruction of society upon the family as the social, and the Roman law as the political basis of the whole. The Christian youth, indeed, we know attended the schools of the grammarians and philosophers, even though many of them were yet heathens; and thus, in their very education, the culture of the old world was blended with the advancing Christian ideas of the new.

If we come down step by step to the middle ages, we find all along precisely the same phenomena. The Greek ideas continued to exist there, for Aristotle reigned almost supreme in the region of the intellect; and the Roman sense of personal right and civil privilege was there also, for absolutism could gain no sure footing in Europe during the whole of the feudal times. And yet, with all this, society sank down into a condition bordering well nigh upon barbarism. This barbarism, however, was more apparent than real; for although the culture of the middle ages fell so immeasurably behind that of the classic periods of human history, yet there were new elements at work within it, which contained the germs of a still higher moral and intellectual life than had ever before existed. The truth is, the whole of the middle ages present to us an immense transition period; the elements of mental refinement, which had cast a radiance upon the old world, were passing away as the basis of a social state, and the sublime spirituality of the Christian life was struggling to realize itself against a thousand opposing difficulties. It was only when both these elements had become fully blended that the light of modern civilization dawned upon us in its full lustre.

Looking, therefore, at the state of education in the middle ages, it is necessary to make a distinction between the spontaneous and the technical education of that period. The spontaneous education, though not marked by a state of any refinement, yet contained in it elements of unspeakable value. To be a true gentleman in the age of chivalry implied valour, honour, gentleness and respect towards the fair sex, truth, humility, and piety; though it implied no scholastic learning whatever, not even the faculty to read or write. The technical education of the middle ages, on the other hand, was poor enough. It was divided into two branches, called respectively the Trivium and the Quadrivium. The Trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics; the Quadrivium comprehended music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. The former was supposed to exhaust the study of language, the latter to exhaust the study of science; and the man who was master of the whole was considered to have fairly earned the title of possessing universal knowledge.

Moreover, poor as was this curriculum, there were very few, in comparison to the whole population, who attempted to master even the Trivium alone; while the man who mastered the Quadrivium also was looked upon as a wonder of the age, as was the case with Albertus Magnus, of whom it is recorded to his undying honour, that he taught the Quadrivium, and knew all that was to be known,—“Quadrivium docuit, et totum scibile sciavit.”

The revival of letters in Europe was due proximately to the influence of classical literature, which was brought into the West by the scholars of Constantinople when that city fell a prey to the conquering power of the Turks. To this were added, in rapid succession, the invention of printing, National Education.

With the Reformation a new era commences in the educational history of Europe. The controversies to which it gave rise brought to light the great principle so long forgotten,—that all human truth must depend ultimately upon the acknowledged validity of the faculties of the human mind, and that the responsibility of every man's faith and practice must rest in the end upon his own individual judgment. Hitherto men had been quietly led by authority,—now they were to be guided by their own convictions; and consequently it was a matter of supreme moment that those convictions should be rightly and wisely formed. With the spread of the Reformation, accordingly, the fact dawned upon the mind, that the universal exercise of private judgment must be accompanied by the universal education of those who were to employ it. Without this it was seen the work of reformation would be wholly incomplete; for of what use would be the appeal to individual convictions so long as the people were too benighted to have any? Of what avail the right of private judgment, so long as the masses of mind around them had no judgment at all? With the Reformation, then, the imperative necessity of educating the whole mass of society, from the highest to the lowest, first grew into a clear conviction. All the great efforts for accomplishing that end date their origin from this period. In Germany, the cradle of the Reformation, Luther proclaimed the education of the people as the crying want of his times, and wrote a circular letter to the councillors of all the towns in the country, pressing the subject upon their attention. In England, private effort set earnestly about the same business; and if all the funds which were left for educational purposes by our forefathers of this era were properly administered and employed, they would even now go far to place the great majority of our population beyond the reach of ignorance and shameful neglect. In Scotland the parochial system of education in the same way dates its rise from the efforts of John Knox and his coadjutors, who determined that every parish in the kingdom should be supplied with a school sufficient for the whole population, as well as with a church for divine worship.

The Reformation, then, we may set down as a great era,—nay, as the great era,—in the history of human education. It was the age in which the necessity of developing the whole of the human faculties became apparent; and of doing this, too, through all classes of the community. The only question was, How was this great end to be accomplished? In what way was human nature to be more and more perfected? What course should the educator follow in order to bring about the highest results? This has been the real problem of modern civilization, and it is a problem not yet fully solved.

For some time great trust, as was natural, was put in ancient methods. All teaching was to be done by words; the old masters were still to be the guides; grammar, logic, and rhetoric were to be the great instruments of human culture; nay, even the practical sciences were to derive their light from the relics of the old world—from Galen, or Celsus, or Aristotle himself. When the Baconian philosophy, however, became once established, a great change was introduced into the whole idea of scientific teaching. Men, it was seen, were no longer to learn from books only, but from things themselves. They were no longer to trust to old-established propositions, but to draw the milk of truth at first hand from the bosom of Nature. Here, accordingly, the old system of logical verbalism began to give way to a system of scientific realism, in which the perceptions and the observing powers were to mingle their results with the generalizations of the understanding.

One of the chief reformers in the department of popular education was John Locke. In a work which he wrote on the principles and methods of education, he condemned the exclusive Latin training of the age, and showed how important it was that a due regard to positive science should be joined to the more direct culture of the understanding, through the medium of language; and how necessary it was, also, that practical efficiency should ever be kept in view, if the future man was to become a really useful member of society.

The work, however, which had perhaps the most extensive Rousseau influence during the last century was Rousseau's Emile. Rousseau's fundamental principle was, that human nature is essentially good, tending alike towards truth and virtue; and that all the evils, sins, and miseries, which afflict it arise from the anomalies and imperfections of human society. He pictures, accordingly, an ideal case, in which an infant is brought up from the very first according to the principles he has laid down; shows how he is to be shielded from the corruptions of society; how he is to be left open to the influences of nature and conscience; how the mind, free from the trammels of conventionalism, is to be allowed to expand; how the faculties thus become enlightened, the will strengthened, the passions repressed, until he grows up a perfect specimen of what a man ought to be in his intellectual, social, and moral relations.

This work of Rousseau, though by no means very deep in its philosophy, nor very profound in its analysis of the human faculties, yet produced a marked effect upon European society. It was written just to meet the spirit of the age. Denouncing, on the one side, the materialistic principles of the French philosophy, which made man merely the creature of habit; but yet, starting from a purely psychological and antithetical basis on the other, it just supplied the wants of those who were looking out for a safe path between the merest naturalism on the one hand and the old-fashioned methods of verbal authority on the other.

Germany especially felt the effects. A number of men, German who received the name of Illuminati, entered into a bond Illuminati of philanthropy to reform the evils of society, and educate its children on rational and moral principles. And much was such a reformation needed. The old grammar-school methods were miserable enough,—mechanical reading, learning by rote, and a half Latin jargon, which went by the name of grammar, were driven into the scholars with all due severity. Everything conspired to make the whole process dull, uninteresting, and repulsive. Against all this, then, the philanthropists protested; and although they ran into some extremes on the other side, yet, by nurturing a kindly spirit towards the young, by studying their wants and aspirations as well as their duties, and by introducing a variety of useful topics hitherto excluded from the very atmosphere of the school-room, they did much to break down old abuses and prepare the way for a better system of things.

The most remarkable results of this whole movement were Pestalozzi, finally concentrated in the life and labours of Pestalozzi. The great merit of Pestalozzi, that for which the world owes him a lasting debt of gratitude, was his clear demonstration of the hollowness and futility of mere verbal teaching, unless it is based upon real mental experiences, previously acquired. Nurtured in the material philosophy of the age, Pestalozzi held that all human knowledge is based upon the senses; that the perceptive powers, therefore, must be cultivated in the first instance; and that whatever is afterwards taught by words must be brought back to the testimony of the senses for its verification. This philosophy led him both into a truth and an error. The truth into which it led him was, as I have said, the hollowness of mere verbal instruction. It showed him that words have no essential force at all; that the knowledge of a proposition, therefore, does not at all involve the knowledge of the thing itself of which it speaks; and that unless the intuitive powers are first National enriched, all your subsequent teaching will be unavailing, because there is as yet nothing in the mind answering to the terms you make use of.

On the other hand, Pestalozzi's philosophy was undoubtedly imperfect; it laid too much stress upon the senses as the foundation of human knowledge, and too little on the intuitions. His method thus became a constant oscillation between sense and reasoning. Every principle in arithmetic was to be proved by an appeal to the hall-frame; every proposition in geometry demonstrated by presenting the fact involved in it to the eye; every mechanical power explained by showing its actual effect in nature. He did not seem to comprehend that you may present all these things to the senses as facts, individually, and yet that the intellect may thoroughly fail to grasp the principles as matters of pure reason. Thus he left the minds of his scholars with a vast multiplicity of isolated facts, verified as facts by the senses, but drew forth very little of that superior power by which the mind comprehends truth in its unity, and groups individual phenomena under the universal conceptions of science.

Since the days of Pestalozzi very little has been done towards developing any well-grounded theory of education. The practical work of popular instruction, indeed, has been going on rapidly in nearly every country in Europe, particularly during the last twenty years; but we are still waiting for some master intellect which shall combine all the scattered elements of pedagogic science, and unite them into one broad generalization. In the meantime, the subject almost naturally divides itself into certain main branches, which are treated often in an isolated manner, but which, nevertheless, have drawn forth a large amount of useful observation and remark on the nature and methods of education generally.

The most obvious classification, perhaps, which can at present be adopted is that which divides the entire subject of education into,—1. Physical; 2. Intellectual; 3. Moral; 4. Political; and 5. Religious Training. We mean by this, that education has to contemplate the future man in all these five different points of view, and must aim at drawing forth and confirming those special capacities and aptitudes which will lead to the efficient performance of the work and duty of life in all these several respects.

1. With regard to physical education, this has hitherto been left far too much to nature and chance; and we owe it mainly to the improved condition of medical science that public attention has been called to the deficiency. It includes, first of all, the essential conditions of health, such as cleanliness, fresh air, exercise, diet, alternate periods of labour and recreation; secondly, the strengthening and proper development of the bodily powers by means of drilling, marching, and gymnastic exercises; thirdly, the formation of certain useful habits, which after a time become almost instinctive. Hand-writing is a habit of this kind, which can be impressed once and for ever on the nervous system; the power of rapid performance on musical instruments is another faculty dependent on the same kind of physical training. Easy and graceful deportment, again, is a trained habit; so also is a clear and correct verbal articulation. In fact, wherever physical action is required, of such a nature that it may be transferred by habit from a voluntary act to a reflex one, there the use of physical education becomes evident; for every good habit which is thus formed and fixed by early training, whether it be a useful accomplishment, or a graceful deportment, or a facility of correct expression, or any kind of manual dexterity, is just so much power actually treasured up in the nervous system, which can be brought forth and applied at any moment, as if it were a kind of living machinery, and that, too, without any trouble or any sense of fatigue to the possessor.

2. With regard to intellectual education, the pathway is longer, and the process more complicated. The following, however, appears to be in the main the order in which the intellectual powers naturally develop, and is consequently the direction which the educator ought to follow in applying the means of intellectual training. The first of the dual faculties which comes into full activity after the senses and physical powers have become duly developed, is that of perception. By perception we mean the instinctive interpretation the mind makes of all the phenomena which come to it directly through the senses. It was once remarked by a man celebrated for his great learning and ability, that he had learned more in the first three years of his existence than in all the rest of his life put together. And when we take a child of three or four years old, and see what it has already attained,—how it has learned all its first lessons in time and space,—how perfect a use of the senses it has arrived,—how accurately it can measure the relations of form, size, and distance,—how it has advanced in the knowledge of men as well as things,—how readily it judges of character, reads the human countenance, sides with the good and gentle, and rejoices in all that is genuine and beautiful,—we feel that there is almost a literal truth in the assertion. This faculty of the child, then, by which it learns all these indispensable elements of human knowledge, without effort, without instruction, without the aid of schools or lessons, without anything but nature and life around it, we call perception. The earliest teaching, accordingly, should be in accordance with the method which nature herself points out,—namely, perceptive teaching. Everything should be done to fructify and enrich the primary intuitions; for it is only when a store of perceptive knowledge is laid up in the mind that verbal lessons can prove of any avail.

The next great step in the unfolding of our intellectual life is the power of reproducing the impressions which have been made by means of perception upon the mind; of representing them to ourselves internally, and of occupying our minds not merely with things themselves, but with those inward representations of them. Every impression made on the mind through the nervous system leaves an indelible trace behind it. Of course these impressions are not for a time consciously reproduced; but there arrives a period in the course of our mental development in which we not only reproduce our primary mental impressions, but become conscious of that reproduction, and are fully able to connect the actual perception of a thing with the after representation of it. When the power of mental reproduction arrives at this stage, it is called memory. Again, if we employ images within the mind merely as images, without any further reference to their external source,—if we combine and expand them, and put them into new forms,—then we term it imagination; and lastly, if we attempt to trace the principles of order and arrangement, by which the constant flow of images through the consciousness is regulated, we term these the laws of association. All this group of phenomena, then, we include under one head, and call it the representative faculty. The triumph of the representative faculty is seen at length in the creation of language; for here not only are our perceptions internally represented and reproduced, but these very inward representations are projected out of ourselves, and embodied in external signs; so that by means of language the mind can place its own work before it, as the object of its own contemplation.

Now, observation shows us, that the period of boyhood is chiefly remarkable for the intense activity of the representative powers. The memory at this time of life is remarkably active; the power of seizing vivid ideas of things, of recalling them again and again, of combining them, associating them, and connecting them with the appropriate words or signs, is in the highest state of intensity. This is seen in the wonderful facility with which languages are acquired through the ear at this early period,—a facility which gradually dies away as the reasoning faculties become more advanced and mature. Nature herself, therefore, again dictates, that in education our principal aim at this time of life should be to furnish nutriment for the growth and expansion of the powers of inward representation; that is, for strengthening the memory, training and regulating the imagination, giving full play to the laws of association, and producing the capacity of expressing ideas in clear, luminous, correct, and copious language. All these habits of mind can generally be acquired with great facility at this time of life; but if neglected now, so difficult does the process of their education afterwards become, that it is a thousand chances to one whether they will ever be acquired to any degree of perfection at all.

The formation of signs for our ideas, and the construction of them into a complete language, paves the way for that higher exercise of mind which we call thought, and which is mainly concerned with abstract and generalized conceptions. This faculty, which deals with the general and the abstract, which separates our knowledge into definite parts, arranges it, classifies it, embodies it in accurate terms, expands it into formal propositions, and draws conclusions from one proposition to another, we term the understanding. The importance of training the mind to accurate logical thinking can hardly be over-estimated; for although the logical faculty is not the highest faculty of our nature, yet it is of all others the most practical, and that which has the closest bearing upon the occupations and duties of life. The illogical mind may be deep, reflective, and suggestive of many new ideas, but its knowledge is held loosely together, the connection between one idea and another is hardly perceived, and there is no system or order in the way in which truth is apprehended and retained. The main portion of our intellectual education, as the mental powers become somewhat mature, should accordingly be directed to the regulation and the development of the understanding; and this, according to universal experience, is best done by means of linguistic studies on the one hand, and mathematical and scientific studies on the other.

The goal and summit of our intellectual life is at length attained in the full and free development of the reason. By reason we mean that power which is concerned in the formation of our last and deepest convictions—it is that image of the Divine thought which descends to the very basis of human truth, calls all earthly authority before its bar, and judges the right and the true, subject to no power, and amenable to no laws, but those of the infinite and eternal reason itself; of which it is an emanation. By means of the reason, knowledge is not only arranged, but traced upwards to its highest and most general conclusions; the laws by which the worlds, both of nature and mind, are governed, are laid bare, and in the midst of the immense and bewildering multiplicity of phenomena around us, a hidden unity is grasped that connects the whole as the work of one great Author, and as conspiring to one beneficent end. To nurture up this power of insight into full vigour is the highest problem of education, intellectually considered, and the result, when attained, is what we term scientific and philosophic genius.

3. We come next to moral education, which all resolves itself into training the will to act firmly in accordance with the dictates of conscience. Just as the intellect, commencing with mere sensation and perception, rises through a series of stages up to the highest exercise of reason, so also the will, commencing with a mere instinctive tendency to action, rises up step by step to perfect freedom and self-control; and just as intellectual training aims at perfecting the powers of reason, so does moral training aim at perfecting the self-control of the will. The child in the perceptive age requires especial care in relation to the regulation of the will. The rise and development of self-consciousness in the child is always accompanied with a sense of inward power in relation to the world without. The meaning of play at this early period is the instinctive exercise of this new-found power in our nature; and its real value lies in the nurturing of our self-consciousness, and the realization of our nascent ability to conquer the material world around us, and bend it to our service. The very same tendency leads to the desire of tyrannizing over others. The young child is naturally a tyrant, and will reduce all around him, if possible, to be the slaves of his desires. The problem of moral education, accordingly, here is to reduce this lawlessness with which self rises up to assert its power into a willing obedience to order and discipline—an obedience which shall not arise from the crushing effects of sternness and severity, but from the feeling, steadily inspired, of the absolute power of a command. Willing obedience to a categorical imperative is the first great lesson in our whole moral life, and unmurmuring deference to the will of a parent or teacher is the natural preparation for our subsequent unwavering deference to the moral law of God.

As the mind grows, the tone of authority in the teacher must gradually relax, and justify itself by an appeal to the intelligence and moral sense of the pupil. In this way the respect for authority is increased by associating it with what is reasonable and just. Moreover, when the understanding becomes mature, even then a great deal must still be inculcated on the authority of the teacher, insomuch as the logical faculty does not give us the power of penetrating into the grounds of human conviction. But respect must now be paid to the personality of the pupil, so far that the self-consistency of truth must always be made apparent, and nothing inculcated that could in any way militate against the moral intuitions. By this process the habit of self-control may be nurtured into a fixed principle; the power of acting according to established maxims of right may be strengthened; so that when the man becomes mature, and is thrown entirely upon his own guidance, the will responds to the moral convictions which have been formed, and expresses in outward action what the conscience inwardly affirms to be good. This self-control of the will becomes, of course, so much the greater in proportion as the convictions of conscience are shown to rest on a Divine and infallible foundation; and it is just here that moral education connects itself with religious training, which is indispensable as giving a firm and immovable basis to the whole. We have now glanced at the three main branches of human education—the physical, intellectual, and moral. There are yet two other branches, which grow out of those already treated of, and which regard the man not so much in relation to the development of his inward powers, as in relation to the circumstances by which he is surrounded and the destiny to which he is tending.

4. The first of these is what we have already noted as political education. Much of the political education of a people is of course spontaneous. It is only gradually, and by the training of long experience, that nations acquire the power of self-government, and that the individual finds his own position, politically speaking, in the community. There are, however, many things of great importance to the citizen of a free country which can and ought to be taught,—the want of which, moreover, is fraught with serious evils both to the individual and the state. These are, the nature and functions of government, the obligation every man is under to yield a portion of his personal liberty to the public good, the duty of obeying all the just laws of the community, the nature and rights of property, the relation of capital to labour and of the employer to the employed, the laws of the production of wealth, and the ethics of commerce. The want of some elementary knowledge on these matters naturally gives rise to sedition, conspiracy, and revolution on the one hand, or to misery, pauperism, an consequent vice and degeneracy, on the other. Every child, therefore, should be trained to know and act upon the fundamental ideas of social economy and the primary duties of citizenship.

5. Lastly, religious education must give the crown and glory to the whole,—its great object being to supply a Divine sanction to all the dictates and requirements of our moral nature. Religious education, properly so called, begins in the development of the sense of the Infinite and the Divine,—deepening the consciousness of an ever-present and almighty Being, who sees, rules, and guides all, and takes cognizance of human actions, whether they be good or evil. It next goes on to explain what means we have of knowing the will of God, whether manifested in nature, or, more directly, in revelation. And, finally, it should sum up the whole of the truths or principles thus elicited into a compendium of religious faith and practice which may serve the purpose of a succinct system of theology. The first of these processes is adapted to the child, the second to the youth, the third to the human mind in its full maturity. To teach the Catechism to a child is beginning at the wrong end, and holding up the truths of theology to him in their most abstract form before the power of abstract thinking is at all consolidated. Religion must be inculcated first in the intuitions and feelings; then it must occupy the memory and imagination; and, lastly, it must live in the understanding and the reason.

Regarding the present state of European society, it can hardly be affirmed that any individual is regarded as an educated man who has not experienced some amount of training in each of the departments above described. Every educated man must at least have gone through so much physical training, either consciously or unconsciously, as to give him a deportment proper to society, and a power of articulation sufficient to express his thoughts with intelligence and propriety. He must have had his perceptive powers so far cultivated as to observe what passes around him intelligently. He must have acquired some strength of memory, some power of conception, and the correct use of his native language, whether in writing or speaking. Further, the understanding must have been so far developed that the mind can generalize to some extent,—see the relation of one truth with another, and draw correct conclusions wherever the data are plain and obvious. With regard to moral training, the will of every educated man must be under some control, so that it can hold in check the lower passions and propensities; for the want of this is one of the chief features of barbarism. Politically speaking, education must enable every man to fill his place honestly and creditably in the station which he occupies in society, whether it be higher or lower. And, finally, it must have made him so far acquainted with the ideals, sanctions, and duties of religion, that he knows and appreciates its obligations as they are held and enforced in that particular community to which he may chance to belong.

This, perhaps, we may regard as the minimum of what is requisite to form an education in the present sense of the word. It may seem, perhaps, to include a great deal, especially when we consider how much actual instruction must be employed in order to bring the mind even into a moderate state of discipline upon all these points; and yet a decided failure in any one would inevitably cause any man among us to sink below the level of what are termed the educated classes of society. No system of national education, accordingly, could possibly contemplate less than we have now stated as essential to the present idea of an educated man. Every citizen, at least, in a free country, should have the means of mental development so far put into his hands. The expansion of the idea of education into its higher aims and purposes belongs, of course, to the higher spheres of instruction, and will always be determined in its amount and its character by the progress of knowledge and civilization through every succeeding era of human history.

We come now to the more practical aspects of the subject, and have to inquire,

II. WHO ARE THE PERSONS AND WHAT THE AGENCIES BY WHICH NATIONAL EDUCATION IS TO BE CARRIED ON?

There are a thousand agencies that really bear upon the education of a people, which cannot be distinctly enumerated or calculated. Human life itself is an educating process, and much more so in some countries than in others. The active life of commercial towns has a more stimulating effect upon the minds of the people at large than the quiet routine of agricultural pursuits. In countries, too, which possess free institutions like those of England or America, the intercourse of daily life presents far more to stimulate the energies and educate the whole man than the monotonous political atmosphere of absolute governments. Hence we sometimes find that a country with very complete educational institutions does not produce nearly as much mental vigour, practical energy, and bold enterprise as another country where the actual institutions are perhaps far less complete, but where the stimulus of daily life is much greater.

(1.) The question which we have now to discuss, however, does not relate at all to this spontaneous education, which of course, in fact, beyond the direct control of human agencies. What we mean by the problem now before our consideration is, who is to frame, superintend, and carry on the actual educational institutions of a country? On this point various theories have been propounded, the principal of which must be now briefly considered.

1. It is urged that education should be left to its own natural development; that the demand for teaching will of itself create a supply; and that the result of this natural supply will, in the end, be superior to any kind of education which is more artificially constructed.

Now, there can of course be no doubt but that, amongst many different peoples, education will make considerable advancement when left to its own natural course of development; but it would be taking a very narrow view of the laws of human progress to elevate this into a principle which could not be deviated from without danger and detriment. In all the different spheres of human activity the impulse afforded from time to time by some great master-mind appears to be one of the most natural and universal agencies by which human progress is secured. And this is not only true respecting the advancement of science, literature, or philosophy; it is equally true in regard to political development and social reformation. Take the case of Alfred the Great in our own country. Here is an enlightened sovereign, with knowledge and foresight far beyond his times, who is called to rule over a people only just emerging from semi-barbarism. Applying his superior abilities to the wants of his people, he not only makes wise laws, and lays the basis of useful institutions, but seeks to promote education by founding colleges and schools of learning similar to those of which he had himself had experience on the continent of Europe. It certainly could not be said that this was of no benefit to the country; that the people should have been left to find their own way out of the surrounding ignorance; and that everything done for them by the legislator, except what related to physical order and security, was an error and a mistake. Or take the case of Peter the Great, when he had the design of raising Russia into the sphere of civilized nations. To have affirmed in this case the principle, that because Peter was emperor, and invested with governmental authority, therefore he should not, on principle, interfere with the ignorance of his people, or move a single step in the pathway of their education, would assuredly be narrowing down the functions of great rulers and great National legislators to a very subordinate degree of importance in the march of human progress—a degree not at all corresponding with their natural and providential position as great reformers. If these and similar instances, then, be admitted as cases in which the interference of legislators in the educational institutions of their country was good, useful, and even necessary, then the principle of supply and demand, as a universal law, breaks down in its application. Many nations, as we see at this moment, left to the working of this principle, have failed to elevate themselves at all out of the ranks of barbarism or semi-barbarism; the demand for education in their case never appears, and thus there is a total lack of the supply. If there be any truth in history, an enlightened governor or government can assuredly do much to bring some useful agency to bear upon people living or vegetating in this unsatisfactory and undeveloped condition.

Suppose, however, that a nation has already been raised into a civilized state, the question is, can we not then safely leave its further educational progress to the principle of supply and demand? The term civilization, it may be replied, is a relative one. It is difficult to say when a nation, viewed as a whole, is really civilized, and consequently difficult to draw the line where educational progress can be safely and properly left, if at all, to self-development. Civilization does not equally pervade all ranks of the community; and we find universally, that even in the bosom of the most advanced countries there is a large class of semi-barbarians who prey upon all the rest. Here, then, we have a case in which the demand for education is least where the want is the greatest. The principle of supply and demand does nothing therefore directly to elevate them; and the question comes, whether society is to wait patiently, and bear all the social ills resulting from these seething beds of ignorance and vice, uncertain whether the desire of reformation will ever manifest itself, or whether a wise form of legislation may not do much for their reformation, and thus aid in preserving others from the moral contamination. Whatever principle be adopted, government cannot hold itself disconnected from these lower strata of society. It is obliged to watch them, to intimidate them, to suppress them, often to imprison, prosecute, and punish them; and the idea naturally suggests itself, whether in such a case it would not be wiser and better, as well as cheaper, to attempt some educational means of reformation, than to be ever engaged in a perpetually renewed struggle of force against force. Of all the countries of Europe and of the world, Great Britain can lay, perhaps, as valid a claim as any to the merit of being in a state of civilization. But no one can deny, that education, so long as it was left to the principle of supply and demand, continued in England to be in a lamentably weak, insufficient, and unsatisfactory state. The first extended efforts to amend this state of things, moreover, did not arise from any outcry or demand from the people themselves, but from the philanthropic efforts of individuals and societies; and these efforts, further, only began to rise into large proportions, or to meet any considerable amount of the acknowledged want, when they were seconded and upheld by governmental agency.

Scotland, again, which has always maintained a superior standing in respect to popular education, owes this superiority mainly to legislative enactments at the time of the Reformation (followed up by the Act of William III.) which provided the means for keeping up one school at least in every parish throughout the country; while Ireland, where no such enactments were made, has remained in a state of ignorance, and almost barbarism, which is only now being broken down by the active co-operation of government in the education of the people. And what is true of the lower is equally true of the higher education of these countries. Universities in these, as in most other countries of Europe, have not sprung up, or if they have done so, have never attained any large proportions, when left to the natural operation of supply and demand. For although many of them rest on private foundations, yet it is only when they attain the character of national institutions that they seem to combine the advantages requisite to produce seats of learning, in which leisure and opportunity are afforded for the due cultivation of the higher walks of literature and science. Individuals of course there will always be, whose genius breaks through every obstacle, and urges them forward to eminence, even from the very lowest ranks of the people. But the higher culture of a country could not be left to depend upon the irrepressible genius of the favoured few. What is wanted to make it tell upon the progress and welfare of the whole community is a steady maintenance of institutions in which learning may be cherished on a large scale, and its influence then diffused throughout the whole community. In this point of view national universities, even though often fraught with abuses, have played the most important part in the history and development of every country in Europe. With these facts before us, we conclude that it can hardly be the course of wisdom and prudence to leave the social evils arising from ignorance untouched, and trust to a mere theory, that at some distant period society will right itself, and education become spontaneous.

2. This leads us to a second theory, namely, that the state should hold the education of the entire community in its own hands, as being the natural guardian of the welfare of the community. This theory may be regarded as the opposite extreme to the former one; and if that is open to objections, this in its turn is no less open to them also. First of all, it may reasonably be objected, that when education is wholly in the hands of the government, it may be employed for state purposes, instead of being adapted solely to the benefit of the community. This objection is not a mere speculation, but is one which may be largely borne out by facts. If we take any of the more despotic countries of Europe as examples, it is hardly to be denied that the public instruction of the people is so arranged, or so limited in its material, as to favour the interests of the monarchy rather than the free development of the mind of the people. The Metternich policy in Austria may be quoted as a well-known and universally-acknowledged example of this. Everything was done during its prevalence to enhance the material comfort of the people, and to nurse them in the lap of physical enjoyment, while the most rigid care was taken to exclude the entrance of progressive ideas, and to prevent the popular mind from ranging beyond the wants and enjoyments of the hour. In countries like Prussia, where the force of public opinion is strong enough to control the acts of the government, education naturally attains more freedom and strength; but even here it is conformed pretty closely to the state policy of the time being, and scarcely attains the elasticity which it would do under a more popular system. This is especially visible in the middle and higher education of the country. In spite of all the admirable organization which the Prussian educational system affords, from the people's schools up to the university, yet the fact of all the places being virtually in the hands of the crown, which thus holds in its keeping the destiny of the entire mass of gymnasiad teachers and university professors, exercises insensibly an influence upon the minds and opinions of the great body of the learned men of the country, and biases them towards the views and the general policy of the government. Even the current systems of philosophy are not a little determined by the direction in which the sunshine of court favour falls upon the processes of human thought.

It might, however, be a question how far this objection against a purely governmental system of national education is obviated by the fact of a government becoming popular, National constitutional, and free. This introduces, no doubt, another phase into the whole aspect of the subject, but does not altogether render it free from the same difficulty. In a country like England society is divided into various large communities, distinguished from each other by their religious peculiarities, or by their social habits, or by their political sympathies. All these will have their own special views respecting the nature and machinery of popular or other education, and will exercise a pressure upon the government upon this as well as upon all other questions. Now, a constitutional government, we well know, can only maintain its position at the head of affairs by enjoying a certain amount of popular sympathy and support. Hence, instead of taking up the question of education simply as a question of national advancement, it is inevitably regarded also as an element in the state policy. To go contrary to the views of this or that large community might endanger the majority at the next election; and so a course must be steered between conflicting objections which shall satisfy the largest number and give the least offence. Thus a question like national education, which ought to rest simply and solely on the higher ground of the good of the people, irrespective of all political tendencies, when once it is centralized in the hands even of a constitutional government, becomes inevitably mixed up more or less with party struggles, and is treated with a view to majorities and minorities like any other question of state policy. Whether, therefore, we regard education as centralized in the power of the crown, as in the case of a despotic country, or as centralized in the bureau of a government, as in the case of a free and constitutional country, in both cases alike there are obstacles which stand in the way of a purely beneficent system, altogether removed from political or party interests. Of course the evils may be greater in one place and less in another; but, theoretically speaking, the centralization of all education in the hands of a government, whether constitutional or not, can hardly be separated from a certain amount of concomitant evil or imperfection.

3. A third theory of national education is that the church should educate the people. This is one of those theories which is rarely taken up upon universal grounds either of right or expediency, but is usually advocated by those whose views and sympathies are confined to some peculiar form of religion or of church polity. Moreover, those who advocate it as regards themselves would very rarely admit the soundness of the principle as applied to countries of a different faith and practice. In some Catholic countries, where there is nearly an entire uniformity of faith amongst the mass of the people, the principle that the church is the proper educator of the community has been oftentimes affirmed, and to a large extent acted upon, under the sanction of the governments. But in other countries where a Protestant church establishment exists, the Catholics are very far from admitting the principle that this said Protestant-established church should be entrusted with the whole work of national education whenever it becomes predominant. Neither do the Protestants, in their turn, who advocate the principle of church education in regard to themselves, show any greater disposition to carry out the principle when it would throw all education into the hands of hostile communities. The idea, therefore, that the dominant church should be the sole educator of the people, however simple it may appear as a theory, yet entirely breaks down in practice. There was no doubt a time in the history of Europe in which this theory might have been actualized—the time, I mean, when there was one complete uniformity of faith, when the church stood virtually on a level with the state, when the whole of society was based as much upon ecclesiastical institutions as upon civil government, when the see of Rome affirmed for itself a universal spiritual sovereignty over the human mind, and the clergy were the only depositaries of knowledge, small as it then was. But these times have long passed away; and it is only the lingering memory of such a state of things in the minds of those who live more in sympathy with the past than in the realities of the present, that could possibly keep up the illusion that this principle is in the slightest degree applicable to the time in which we now live. In the present day learning and science have become quite independent of religion, or at least of religious institutions. Each sphere of human activity, the religious and the secular, pursues its own way and reaches after its own results. Society, too, has at the same time become removed from an ecclesiastical to a secular and politico-economic basis. However faithfully the individual may cultivate his religious life, society as a whole is bound together by civil law and social customs, and can only act as one personality upon these general principles. Hence to speak of society as placing its own education in the hands of the church, would be simply giving up to those who represent the religious principle a function from which that principle is already virtually divorced. The church is not in any way scientific in its basis; it does not represent the learning, the science, the philosophy, the progressive ideas of the age. The general tendency of it in this point of view is frequently retrogressive rather than not; it has to be urged on by the spirit of the age more frequently than to guide and correct it; and whenever it has the control of educational establishments, it is not unfrequently engaged in a struggle to keep them to their ancient forms and spirit; while the age is equally struggling to develop them into new and more progressive institutions.

Hence the church is, in fact, educated by the people far more than the people by the church; so that to affirm the principle of church education uninfluenced, except permissively, by the state, would simply be to put one series of institutions and agencies in constant conflict with another. The church has its own sphere. It represents the religious interests of mankind; it has to keep alive our faith in the spiritual and eternal amidst the hurry and bustle of human life; it has to bring the aids, the motives, the consolations, the impulses of religion to the mind of a people too much immersed in secular concerns; but it can no longer seat itself on the throne of learning, or science, or of popular education; for the whole tendencies of the age are to make the separation of these things, already sufficiently wide, more and more absolute. The term church, however, is indefinite. In no countries where any amount of independent thinking has sprung up, does the religious life assume one uniform aspect. In England, according to the last census, fully one-half of the whole church-going population of the country was found to attend places of worship belonging to the various unestablished religious denominations; and in Scotland and Ireland the established churches are both greatly in the minority. Under such circumstances, of course, the theory that the church should educate the people could only be for a moment entertained in the broader sense, that the education of the country should be left in the hands of the religious bodies, to carry it on by their own voluntary activity. That a certain amount of healthy philanthropic effort may and does develop itself in connection with religious bodies in relation to the education of the people, facts abundantly prove; but it is one thing to allow this activity its free scope, and another to leave to it the entire education of the community. As far as our present experience goes, the voluntary efforts of religious communities, though they have effected much good in their own immediate circle, yet have totally failed, when left to themselves, to assume anything approaching national proportions. The very nature, too, of voluntary effort in matters of this kind is fluctuating and spasmodic. It can do much under sudden excitement; but it always diminishes and grows feeble when excitement dies away. Thus in matters which require one steady unwavering flow of support, quite independent of any kind of public incentive, voluntary effort always shows itself incompetent. Such incompetence may be of little moment in some branches of philanthropy; but when we consider the vastness of the scale on which national education must be carried on in order to be effective; when we consider the immense amount both of money and machinery which is requisite to keep it going steadily forward, reaching all the farthest recesses of the country; when we consider, moreover, the tremendous stake which a country must always run in deciding the manner in which the masses of the people are enlightened and trained in early youth, it cannot assuredly be wise to leave the whole to what have hitherto proved, in every country in the world, uncertain, fluctuating, and wholly incompetent resources.

Moreover, religious bodies are themselves exposed to revolutions. New ideas spring up, new forms of doctrine appear, wide-spread disputes prevail, vast schisms and disruptions disturb from time to time the working even of those bodies which are apparently the most firm and unmovable, and draw away public attention and public effort from all the details of denominational life. In the midst of all this, however, the people, with its wants, its ignorance, its need of proper training, and enlightenment, whether in the populous of the city or the remotest nooks of the country village, is a standing fact, which cannot be abandoned with any security to the mercy of these fluctuations. So far, then, there is an objection to the principle we are now considering in point of fact, but there is also an objection in point of theory. It will hardly be maintained by any one that the rivalry and social separations of contending sects is a benefit to the community. Even when confined to religious differences, it produces ill-will, unhappy feeling, bad neighbourhood, and want of unity amongst citizens in carrying out social changes or much-needed reformations. Should the education of the country, however, be left entirely in the hands of the religious denominations, this separation, which was before confined to acts and forms of public worship, must gradually sink down lower into the core and heart of society. Denominational distinctions would begin with the child in the school; his sympathies would be confined to his sect from his youth up; and the whole country, as far as it was educated at all, would grow up stamped with certain intellectual types, which would add tenfold intensity to the religious ones. To sum up, then, in a few words, the objections to the whole theory, we should say that it must, first of all, fail in reaching the far-spreading wants of what we mean by national education; secondly, that it must prove defective in yielding steady un-fluctuating support; and thirdly, that, so far as it does extend, it has the undesirable effect of perpetuating and intensifying the spirit of sect throughout the country.

4. A fourth theory of national education, which is simply a combination of the second and third, is, that the state should educate with and through the church. In countries where the established church represents the uniform faith of the people, this principle might work in many respects advantageously. The church being here co-extensive with the state, and possessing already a complete territorial system of arrangements, adapted to and sympathized in by the whole population, it seems at first sight to be a matter at once easy, convenient, and economical to employ the church agency through the length and breadth of the land to conduct and superintend the educational agency; though of course under state control. The same objection, however, lies here as we before urged in relation to a purely church education; namely, that the church is not constituted upon a scientific basis, and from its naturally conservative tendencies is apt, in some cases, to come into collision with the advancing educational tendencies of the age. The more the fact becomes realized that the church has a spiritual function of its own, the less will society be disposed to encumber it with social duties which will hinder its own legitimate activity, and only be imperfectly performed after all. This theory, however, can only be entertained at all in countries where the religious faith is uniform; in countries like our own, where this is not the case, the only application of it would be one in which the government co-operated with all the religious bodies, and assisted them equally to carry on the work of popular education. This system, however, has the double disadvantage,—1st, Of investing spiritual bodies with a civil and political function; and 2ndly, Of putting into their hands additional means of maintaining their own denominational peculiarities through the popular school. It is a matter not at all denied or concealed, that religious bodies who take up the cause of popular education do so not simply and solely for the benefit of the community, but equally for the benefit of their own denomination, and to spread its influence more largely throughout the country. Hence the school becomes a kind of appendage to the church; education is viewed with respect to church purposes, and a system of antagonisms which has grown up in the religious life of the people becomes doubled, by having an educational as well as an ecclesiastical arena on which the combat may be carried on. All this is of course much modified and softened by state control, but by no means obviated, as we shall have occasion to observe in the case of our own country.

We are now reduced to a last and fifth theory of education, viz., that the state should undertake it through the people. According to this plan, the government provides that the country shall be divided into certain districts, that in each district a competent board shall be elected to manage the educational affairs; that a sufficient rate shall be raised to support the necessary schools, and that the local authorities shall thus co-operate with the central government in giving vigour and efficiency to all the institutions which may be originated for the instruction of the country. Of course the details of such a system will be very different in different countries. In some, the central government will have a greater preponderance; in others the local board will exercise the principal functions; in others, again, the principle of voluntary effort may come in as a portion of the whole plan; but in each case the fundamental idea is the same—that of the union of the people, in their capacity as free citizens, with government, in the institution and superintendence of popular education. Whatever difficulties this plan may in special cases have to encounter in its course to a practical realization, yet, as a theory, it stands pre-eminently above all the rest. It has none of the partial character about it which is inseparable from the idea of leaving education to fight its own way, but goes directly to the root of the question, and aims at complete measures for meeting the wants of the case. It equally avoids the opposite evil of centralization, and, by creating a local authority, places the educational institutions of a country in a position where they cannot be made part and parcel of the machinery of government. Again, it contemplates the wants of the people, not through the peculiarities of any particular religious system, but by the light of reason and common-sense, as expressed by the spirit of the times; and as it stands apart from religious dissension, it can adapt itself to all the circumstances which the future history of a country may bring into existence. As a theory, moreover, this has already received the stamp of practicability both in America and in some of the British colonies; and in no new country probably, where free institutions exist, would any other system now be ever maintained or even attempted. In old countries like our own, the pathway to such a system is not so clear or so National feasible; but all the changes which are introduced naturally tend to this as the final result.

Looking to the relation which the parent holds to the teacher in the above-mentioned system, this, of course, will be different in each. 1st, In the case of education being a question of supply and demand, the parent stands simply in the position of a purchaser, who gives a certain price in the market for value received on the part of his child. The whole is simply an ordinary commercial transaction. 2dly, When the government provides education and takes any means to enforce it, then the parent stands to the teacher in the relation of a subject of the realm to one who administers and carries on a national institution, and has no power of complaint or appeal so long as he administers it according to principles laid down by superior authority. 3dly, Where the church provides education, the relation of the parent to the teacher is that of a member of a religious community to the government of the church to which he belongs, and his appeal, in case of dissatisfaction, must be simply to the church authorities. Lastly, When the people provide education in their capacity as citizens, the parent stands to the teacher in the relation of a unit in the local community to any municipal officer who carries out the will of the whole. The first relation is a commercial one, the second a civil, the third an ecclesiastical, the fourth a municipal. In the last case the teacher is a citizen who is entrusted by his fellow-citizens with a certain duty, which he is able to perform more satisfactorily than themselves. In other words, a portion of parental duty is given up to one who devotes his whole time to do well what the parents individually would do very imperfectly, or not at all.

(2.) Having gone through the various theories which have been propounded as to the proper agencies to be employed in carrying on the work of national education, let us now view the question as a matter of fact; and inquire who actually do educate the people in the most civilized countries of the world, and what are the agencies which really are employed for this purpose. A clear statement of the actual facts of the case may tend to throw considerable light on the working of the different theories already explained.

The country which has usually been held up as having the most complete and thorough-going system of national education is Prussia. It may be as well, therefore, to begin by giving a brief statement of the principles and some of the details of the Prussian educational system. And, first of all, I should premise that the question of national education has been viewed in Prussia not in relation to one portion, but in relation to the whole extent, of the community; not in relation either to elementary education alone, but in relation to superior and university education as well,—the whole forming one graduated system adapted to all classes of the people. The basis of this system is purely governmental; the centre from which it all emanates being a minister of instruction immediately dependent on the crown.

The entire instruction of the country is divided into three main departments:—1st, The universities; 2d, The high schools or gymnasia; and, 3d, The primary schools, including those adapted to the village, and the somewhat superior ones which are intended for the towns. For conducting and superintending these different classes of educational establishments a considerable machinery is put into operation, of which we must next give some general idea.

The kingdom of Prussia is divided into ten provinces, viz.,—Eastern Prussia, Western Prussia, Posen, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia, Prussian Saxony, Westphalia, Cleves, and Lower Rhine. Each of these provinces again is divided into districts (Regierungs-Bezirke); each district is divided into circles (Kreise); and each circle into communes (Gemeinde). These divisions, which subserve the general purposes of government, are also taken as educational divisions, and form the geographical basis of the whole superintendence.

First, with regard to the provinces. Most of these possess a university. The superior direction of the university is in the hands of a commissioner who belongs strictly and solely to the government, so that the entire administration of the universities is governmental, not being interfered with in any way by local authorities, either civil or ecclesiastic. All the laws and regulations affecting them, as well as all the appointments of professors, emanate directly from the crown.

Next, in regard to the high schools or gymnasia. The direction of these is placed in the hands of the provincial authorities. Each province possesses a consistorium, which is charged with the affairs of the church, the school, and the public health. That portion of the consistorium to which the affairs of public instruction are committed is termed the Schul-collegium, each member of it being appointed and salaried from the crown. The members of the consistory who administer ecclesiastical affairs are all clergymen; those who administer the educational affairs of the province are all laymen, so that the educational and the ecclesiastical elements are kept quite distinct in high quarters, and can there never come into collision. The basis of the Prussian system of education, it will be seen from the above explanations, is wholly civil; its connection with the church being only seen in those minor details to which we shall have soon to refer. Just as the administration of the universities emanates from the central government of the country, so does that of the high schools or gymnasia emanate from the provincial government, which makes all the appointments, and keeps a board of examiners sitting in perpetuity, at once to test the capacity of the teachers, and the proficiency of the students previous to their being drafted off to the universities.

Thirdly, with regard to the primary schools. The direction of these is made over to the smaller divisions of the country; that is, to the departments, the circles, and the communes.

Every commune is bound to have at least one primary in or near it; and every child of that commune within a certain age, whose parents cannot show that he is otherwise efficiently instructed, is bound under certain pains and penalties to attend it. Accordingly, both the means of education and the obligation to use them are carried out strictly throughout the entire length and breadth of the land. In order to maintain these schools, care is taken first of all to manage and properly appropriate all the old school funds and charities, of whatever kind, and put them to their proper use. Next, all the land proprietors and fathers of families in the village form a school constituency (Land-schulverein), upon whom it is incumbent to raise sufficient funds, by means of an equitable tax, for keeping the school in an efficient state after all the school endowments and school fees have been taken into account. If in any case the poverty of the commune renders this impossible, then the additional funds required must be made chargeable upon the whole department. In larger parishes and in towns schools of a higher order (Bürgerschulen) must be maintained, according to the wants of the population, which are supported virtually in the same way as the small country schools.

The management of these institutions is organized in the following manner:—In every village a committee is formed, consisting of the patron of the church (if any), the clergyman, the local magistrate, and some two or three of the principal inhabitants. These are called the school-presidency (Schul-vorstand). In towns or places where there are churches of different communions, the clergyman of A complete system of inspection also exists. The clergyman of the commune (or clergymen of each commune, where more than one exists) is nominated *ex officio* the local visitor. In every circle, however, there is an official inspector appointed by the provincial government, who is generally an ecclesiastic, either Catholic or Protestant, according to the preponderance of the population.

Thus, the two authorities which come nearest into contact with the children are the ministers of religion; and this is considered to be the best guarantee for keeping up the strictly religious character of primary education. After this, however, all clerical influence ceases, and is never admitted in any way into the higher administration.

The next higher authority, after the district inspectors above alluded to, is the Schulrathe, who is, in fact, the minister of instruction for each department (*Bezirke*), and forms the link between the local school committees and the provincial government. Very little of the direction of the schools, and none of the legislation, is left in the hands of the local managers. All they have to do is to carry out the orders of the superior authorities, and find the necessary funds. They retain, however, a voice in the appointment of teachers, but must not interfere with them as to the manner in which they discharge their duties, or the methods of instruction they follow. The government takes care that all the teachers shall have a sufficient normal school training, and obliges them to pass an examination, and hold a certificate of competence, before they can be chosen as teachers at all. When, therefore, their appointment is once made, it is presumed that they understand the details of school organization and method better than those who have not been trained for the purpose. Accordingly, although the Prussian primary teacher is but poorly paid, yet his position is independent, and his superior education always entitles him to hold a respectable rank in the society amongst which he is placed. Every appointment of a teacher, moreover, as well as every dismissal, must be known and ratified by the provincial government.

In the year 1846 the number of educational institutions in Prussia, according to the official tables, was as follows:

- Elementary schools: 23,090 - Bürger schools: 1,292 - Higher town schools: 100

making a total of 24,332 primary schools, with 2,540,775 pupils between the ages of 6 and 14. To these must be added 117 gymnasia, with 29,474 pupils, all enjoying a sound classical training; and 382 infant schools, with 25,000 pupils. The population of Prussia in 1848 was about 16,000,000, comprehending about 3,000,000 children between the ages of 7 and 14. Of these, about 2,600,000 were actually in the governmental schools, leaving only 400,000 to be accounted for by private education, sickness, and other unavoidable causes. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Prussian people are really educated throughout the whole community, and educated, too, according to their relative stations in life, with decided efficiency.

From the above sketch we can easily see that the department of public education in Prussia forms a most complete and all-embracing system, emanating entirely from the government, and responsible to the government for all its acts. All the questions which form stumbling-blocks and difficulties in our own country are summarily disposed of, because the idea of the state dominates over every other, and all private interests or opinions are made to bend to this as the governing principle of society. Much of the burden is borne directly by the government, such as the cost of the universities, and partly also that of the gymnasia and normal schools; but no difficulty is felt in making all property rateable, and imposing it as a duty upon every National parish to see that sufficient education is provided for the children of the commune. The advantage, indeed, of sound education being brought within the reach of all for so trifling a fee, makes any disposition, which there might otherwise be, to complain of the burden wholly unreasonable.

Again, education being provided for all, the law compels it that it should be embraced by all; and thus all the apparatus of motives for inducing attendance is obviated, and the whole question of early removal from school settled by an authority from which there is no appeal.

The religious question is settled with the same ease. Respect is had for differences of faith. The master is usually appointed in accordance with the religion of the majority of the people; and if there be any considerable number of inhabitants of different communions, separate schools for each are rather encouraged than not. Where this cannot be the case, it is usual to appoint the second master from the communion of the minority. No religious instruction is ever given to any of the scholars except by a teacher belonging to their own denomination; and parents have absolute permission to withdraw any of them from religious teaching which is opposed to their professed convictions.

Whether this formal and governmental religious teaching has had much real effect in cherishing the religious faith of the people is much to be doubted, if we may judge by the results; but no one can doubt the vast effect of the system as a whole in encouraging learning, and raising up an immense body of highly-educated men.

We ought, however, here to make a distinction between learned men and men who have the power of applying their learning to practical objects. With all its vast amount of learning, Prussia does not take the lead in enterprise and civilization generally. "It is sometimes asked," says Horace Mann, "why the Prussians, with such a vast and powerful machinery for popular instruction, do not as a nation advance more rapidly in the path of civilization; why the useful and mechanical arts among them are still in a half-barbarous condition; why the people are so little enterprising; and finally, why certain national vices have not yet been eradicated. . . . The chief cause," he concludes, "of the helplessness and incapacity of the Prussians is this. When the children once leave school they have very few opportunities of applying the knowledge, or exercising the capacities, which have been acquired and developed there. Their mental resources are not drawn upon, their capacities are not quickened or strengthened by practice. Phrases such as 'the active duties of life,' 'the responsibility of citizens,' 'the stage or career of action,' 'obligations to posterity,' which are in common use amongst us, would have a foreign sound in the ears of a Prussian. In Prussia the government takes about the same care of the citizen as the citizen takes of his cattle. The citizen does not elect functionaries, is not called upon to inquire into the character or eligibility of candidates for office, has no vote to give. He neither makes nor repeals laws. He is not called upon to discuss or decide questions of peace or war, of finance, customs, taxes, or postal and internal arrangements. He is not asked where a road is to be opened or a bridge to be built, although in the one case he has to furnish the labour, and in the other the materials. His sovereign is born to him. The laws are made for him. If there be question of war, he is not called upon to account for it or to end it; he has merely to fight, to be shot, and to be paid. The tax-gatherer tells him how much he has to pay in taxes; the ecclesiastical authorities draw the plan of a church which he is made to build; and his spiritual guides, who have been appointed by others, prepare a creed to which he has only to subscribe. He is told in the same way how to National Education.

National obey his king, and how to worship God. But although an education, ocean slumbering in the mind of every child that is born, what will prevent its eternally remaining in a state of gloomy stagnation, if no refreshing, quickening breeze be allowed to stir over its surface."

This is probably a correct account of the fundamental weakness of the whole Prussian system. Education does everything for the people that could be expected, but education alone is insufficient to produce practical energy. This can only be done through the influence exerted by political liberty and popular institutions, which open an independent course of action for every citizen of the country.

In giving the above sketch of the state of national education in Prussia, we have in fact before us, with minor modifications, a general idea of what exists throughout all the different states of Germany. German education, therefore, as a whole, may be pronounced purely governmental, complete in its organization, and productive of a vast amount of intellectual culture. It is open, however, to grave doubts whether it produces fruits equally good in relation to the practical energy of the people, to their moral habits, and to their religious faith. These last results appear to depend upon causes operating in the national mind, in the social habits, and in the religious life of the people, quite distinct from anything which can be secured by a governmental system of education, however complete both in theory and practice.

Holland is in many respects different from Germany. It has been more under the influence of popular institutions, and had some apprenticeship to the art of self-government. The general features of the national education of Holland bear the stamp of this. They are less minutely defined and regulated by the central authority than those of Germany, —under the direct influence of the state,—and are thrown more into the hands of local managers. The only officer of the state who has anything directly to do with public education is the minister of the interior, together with a referendaire and one head inspector. This forms, in fact, the whole amount of centralization which exists in the system. All the other functionaries are quite distinct from either the civil or municipal authorities. They consist chiefly of district inspectors, appointed by the government, who have almost the absolute direction of the educational affairs in their hands, each being a kind of educational plenipotentiary in his own district. These inspectors, moreover, hold a convention from time to time, and thus form a kind of educational parliament, in which all the affairs of the country relating to public instruction are duly discussed. In addition to the inspectors, there is a committee of management in each town or school district, who act in concert with them, but are quite distinct from the municipal officers of the country.

All the details of primary education, in fact, are left in the hands of the inspectors; neither is any precise mode of rating imposed upon the townships in support of the schools, except that they must confer with the inspectors, and raise sufficient funds in any way that appears most suitable, in order to keep up the institutions in an efficient state.

Another peculiarity of the Dutch system is the mode in which the religious question is solved. As Holland contains a considerable number of religious sects, it was considered undesirable to provide religious instruction in each school, according to the denomination of the children. Instead of this, it was determined not to introduce any catechism, or distinct dogmatical teaching at all. They reasoned very judiciously, that children are unable to distinguish between different dogmatic systems; that the inculcation of them during their daily lessons is not only unnecessary, but unadvisable; that it is much more suitable, in fact, for children in the day-school to have a good knowledge of holy Scripture given them, together with an earnest inculcation of Christian duty, accompanied with simple devotional exercises, than anymore direct dogmatic teaching.

As other agencies exist in the country for the direct teaching of theology, it was thought that the children might be safely relieved of this during the ordinary hours of daily instruction; so that the difficulties connected with variations of doctrine in connection with the primary school might be avoided ab initio. Hitherto no inconvenience is believed to have resulted from this principle, nor are the children any less inclined to Christian doctrine in after life from its not having formed any part of the daily routine of the primary school. Taking it altogether, the public education of Holland may be regarded as fully equal in efficiency to that of Germany,—in some respects, indeed, superior,—and the number of children actually found in the schools shows that although the attendance is not compulsory, yet almost the entire population is really educated.

We come next to France. Here, as in Germany and French Holland, the plan of public education is threefold, comprehending, 1st, The universities; 2d, The colleges; and 3d, The primary schools. The universities are divided into five faculties—namely, theology, law, medicine, science, and literature. Each of these faculties can exist apart from any of the rest. Thus there are altogether in the whole of France, 7 faculties of theology, 9 of law, 3 of medicine, 9 of science, and 7 of literature. All these are under the direct control of the government, as represented by the minister of instruction. The colleges of France, which answer to the gymnasia of Germany, are twofold,—1st, The royal colleges, which are wholly dependent on the government; and 2d, The communal colleges, which are supported partly by the government and partly by the municipal corporations and departments; but still are under the entire control of the state.

With regard, thirdly, to primary instruction. This has always been, until recent times, in a lamentably defective state. Freedom of instruction existed; the principle of supply and demand had ample scope for operation; the church, too, as well in the Catholic as in the Protestant portions of the country, had the crying deficiency constantly before its eyes, but comparatively little was done to remedy the evil until the subject was taken up warmly by the government. In the year 1831, under the enlightened régime of M. Guizot, M. Cousin was sent on a mission into Holland and Germany, to report on the system of popular education as there organized and carried out. The well-known and elaborate reports which he compiled as the result of this tour of examination, formed the basis for a new law, which was first carried into effect in the year 1833.

This law provides, first of all, for the complete liberty of education; that is, it allows any one, under certain defined conditions, to assume the office of a teacher, and to open a private school. Moreover, it admits of denominational schools being enrolled on the government list of educational institutions, and awards them stipends on the same principle as the rest. The chief object of the law, however, is to provide for the establishment and proper regulation of communal schools throughout the whole country. To give any idea of the principles on which the law is founded, the sources of the pecuniary supplies, and the general mode of superintendence, I subjoin the following excerpts from the text of the law as then brought into operation. After explaining the difference between primary and secondary education, and defining the conditions under which persons are authorized to become public teachers, the law proceeds as follows:

"Art. 8.—The public primary schools are those which are maintained in part or entirely by the communes, the departments, or the state.

"Art. 9.—Every commune is bound, either by itself or united to one or more neighbouring communes, to maintain at least one elementary primary school." In cases where local circumstances permit it, the minister of public instruction may authorize, after having heard the municipal council, under the title of communal school, schools more particularly belonging to one or other of the religious denominations recognised by the state.

Art. 10.—The communes, chief towns of departments, and those whose population exceeds 6000 souls, must have, in addition, one superior primary school.

Art. 11.—Every department is bound to maintain a normal school, either alone or in union with one or several neighbouring departments.

The general councils will deliberate upon the means of securing the support of the normal schools. They will deliberate also upon the union of several departments for the support of a single normal school. This union must be authorized by royal ordinance.

Art. 12.—There will be provided for every communal teacher—

1. A conveniently situated residence, equally to serve him as a habitation as to receive pupils.

2. A fixed salary, which must not be less than 200 francs for a primary elementary school, and 400 francs for a primary superior school.

Art. 13.—In default of endowments, donations, or legacies, which assure a residence and a salary conformable to the preceding article, the municipal council will deliberate on the means of providing for it. In case of any deficiency of the ordinary revenues for the establishment of the primary communal, elementary, and superior schools, they will be provided by means of a special tax, voted by the municipal council; or, in default of the vote of this council, established by royal ordinance. This tax, which must be authorized each year by the financial law, must not exceed three centimes, in addition to the other taxes upon persons or property.

When communes are not able, either alone or in union with several, to procure a locality and to secure a salary by means of this contribution of three centimes, the recognised necessary expenses of primary instruction shall be provided for, if the funds of the department are insufficient, by an especial tax voted by the council-general of the department; or, in default of the vote of this council, it shall be established by royal order. This tax, which must be authorized each year by the financial law, shall not exceed two centimes.

If the centimes thus imposed on the communes and departments are not sufficient for the wants of primary instruction, the minister of public instruction must provide for them by means of a supply, which shall be carried over annually for primary instruction to the budget of the state. Each year there shall be annexed to the proposition of the budget a detailed account of the manner in which the funds were employed which were granted for the preceding year.

Art. 14.—In addition to the fixed salary, the communal teacher shall receive a monthly fee, the rate of which shall be regulated by the municipal council, and which shall be collected in the same form, and according to the same rules, as the direct public contributions. This sum shall be drawn month by month, in accordance with a register of the pupils, certified by the teacher, examined by the mayor, and rendered valid by the under-prefect.

Those pupils of the commune or of the united communes whom the municipal councils have designated as unable to pay any recompense, shall be admitted into the communal elementary school gratuitously.

Art. 17.—There shall be in connection with each communal school a local committee of superintendence, composed of the mayor or his assistant, the president, the rector or minister, and of one or more of the chief inhabitants, nominated by the committee of the district.

Several schools of the same commune can be united under the management of the same committee. When, in consequence of the article 9, several communes are united to maintain a school, the committee of the district must nominate, in each commune, one or more of the chief inhabitants to form a part of the committee.

Art. 18.—In every district of the under-prefecture a committee shall be formed, especially charged with the superintendence and encouragement of primary instruction.

Art. 19.—The following are members of the district committees:

The mayor of the chief town, or the oldest of the mayors of the chief town of the district. The justice of the peace, or the oldest of the justices of the peace of the district. The priest, or the oldest of the priests of the district. A minister of each of the other creeds recognised by the law, who officiate in the district, and who have been nominated according to the second paragraph of article 17. A head-master, principal of a college, professor, rector, head of an institution, or master of a school, nominated by the minister of public instruction, when there are schools, institutions, or colleges in the district of the committee. A primary instructor, residing in the district of the committee, and nominated by the minister of public instruction. Three members of the council of the district, or of the chief inhabitants, nominated by the said council. The members of the general council of the department, whose real place of residence is in the district of the committee. The prefect by right presides over all the committees of the department, and the under-prefect by right presides over all those of the district; the king's procurer by right is a member of all the committees of the district. The committee chooses its vice-president and secretary every year; the latter may be taken from amongst their own number. When a secretary is appointed who is not a member of the committee, he becomes one by his nomination.

Art. 21.—The communal committee inspects the public and private schools of the commune.

It watches over the salubrity of the schools and the maintenance of discipline, without any detriment to the prerogative of the mayor in matters of municipal police.

It finds out if everything has been provided for the gratuitous education of poor children.

It prepares a list of children who do not receive primary instruction, neither at home nor in any private or public schools.

It causes the committees of the district to be made acquainted with the different wants of the corporation, with regard to primary instruction.

Art. 22.—The committee of the district inspects, or causes to be inspected by delegates taken from amongst its members or from its own body, all the primary schools in the district. When the delegates have been chosen out of the committee, they have a right to be present at the meetings, and to have a deliberative voice.

When the committee judges it necessary, it unites several schools of the same commune under the inspection of the same board, as it has been prescribed in article 17.

Every year it sends to the prefect, and to the minister of public instruction, an account of the condition of all the primary schools of the district.

It gives its opinion on the assistance and the encouragements to be granted to primary instruction. It urges necessary reforms and improvements.

It nominates the communal teachers upon the presentation of the municipal council, proceeds to their installation, and receives their oath.

The communal teachers are to be appointed by the minister of public instruction.

Art. 25.—There shall be in each department one or more commissioners of primary instruction, charged to examine all those who are candidates for certificates of capa- National city, whether for elementary primary instruction, or for superior primary instruction; and they shall deliver the said certificates under the authority of the minister. These commissioners shall also be charged to examine pupils of the normal school at their entrance and on their departure from the institution.

"The members of these commissions shall be nominated by the minister of public instruction.

"The examinations shall take place in public at times appointed by the minister of public instruction."

The law, of which the above are some of the principal provisions, was carried into effect in the year 1833. That it did not remain a dead letter, but was applied with vigour and success, may be seen from the fact, that in ten years from its first establishment, i.e., in the year 1843, the following items appear amongst the statistics published by the Board of Education:

| Item | Number | |-------------------------------------------|--------| | Number of communes in France | 37,038 | | Number provided with schools | 34,578 | | Number not yet provided | 2,460 | | Total number of primary schools | 59,828 | | Number of inspectors | 87 | | Number of sub-inspectors | 113 | | Evening classes for labourers | 6,434 | | Total number of children attending primary schools | 3,164,297 | | Number admitted gratuitously | 763,820| | Number of normal schools | 78 | | Number of professors in the same | 495 | | Number of colleges | 358 | | Number of scholars in them | 31,316 |

It could hardly be expected that this vast mass of educational machinery could in ten years be brought into a high state of efficiency; still, there can be no doubt but that a noble effort was made, which, if steadily carried out, in process of time will elevate the peasantry and people of France to the highest rank amongst the educated nations of Europe.

Having now gone through the system of national education followed in some of the principal countries of Europe, we pass over to America, where a totally different kind of political life prevails, and where the school system is based upon more popular principles. In most of the United States (in which a very complete institution for popular education exists) we find a system characterized by the extreme minimum of centralization. The last of the theories we before noticed is here almost perfectly realized,—that, namely, in which the government indeed provides for education, but does so entirely through the people. The question of education is not even mooted in the central Congress of the States; it is left wholly for the authorities of each state to determine whether they will have any system of education or not, and if so, how it shall be carried on. Some of the states, accordingly, have no public education at all; the greater part, however, have established a system of education by law, though the details of the act appear very different as we pass from one state to another.

We turn first to the state of Massachusetts, the original core and centre of the American people. The practice of having schools legally maintained according to the wants of the population is one which, in New England, came down from the time of the first Puritan settlers. As the population advanced, however, as immigration increased from year to year, and the country became involved in various political struggles, popular education fell into the background, so that it became totally insufficient in quantity for the wants of the people. It is only within the last twenty or thirty years, indeed, that any large and well-directed efforts have been made for its improvement; but these efforts have certainly been upon a scale which cannot but excite admiration and approval.

Every township in the state, comprising 150 families, is bound to maintain two schools during nine months of the National year, or three schools during six months. If it contain 500 families it must maintain two schools throughout the year, or three schools during eight months. In these schools reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, and geography, must be taught.

Every township containing 500 families must also maintain a superior kind of school, called an English high-school, in which geometry, algebra, surveying, and history are taught, besides the other usual branches. Townships containing 4000 souls must maintain, in addition, a classical high school; and the whole of these schools must be open to the entire population, within the given age, without any distinction whatever. Each township can divide itself into districts for the better carrying out of the government of the schools. Should any township neglect to provide school accommodation at this rate, it is liable to pay a fine of double the average cost of the schools themselves, out of which the proper schools are provided by the state. Any child unlawfully excluded from such schools may, through the parent or guardian, prefer a claim before the legal tribunals for compensation.

So far the provision of the government extends, but no farther. All the other details are entirely in the hands of the township itself, which holds a yearly meeting for voting in supplies and appointing officers, to whom the management of the school affairs are to be entrusted. Every male inhabitant, twenty-one years of age, is empowered to vote at this meeting. There are two committees usually appointed,—one to manage the business affairs, the other to overlook and inspect the schools. These committees are bound to perform their duties punctually and efficiently, and receive a pecuniary compensation from the township for every day they are employed in the school business.

Of late years some important additions have been made to this system. It was agreed that the monies procured by the sale of the state lands should be consolidated into a permanent fund for the benefit of the education of the people. A board of education was instituted also in 1837, which was not intended, indeed, to exercise any authority over the townships, but to recommend improvements, and to distribute the money from the fund equally through all the townships. A normal school was also founded at the public expense. This small attempt at centralization has been productive of much benefit. To it we owe the labours of Horace Mann and others in the cause of public education, as well as many of the more important improvements which have gradually sprung up.

To give some idea of the kind of differences which exist in the school laws of the several states, I quote the following passage from a little work entitled *A Digest of the Common-School System of the State of New York*, by Mr Randall, the general deputy-superintendent, in which the principal points of the school laws in that state are succinctly laid down:

"The affairs of each district are managed, under the general direction of the inhabitants entitled to vote therein, by three trustees (one of whom is annually elected, and who hold their offices for three years), a district clerk, collector, and librarian. These trustees are required annually, between the 1st and 15th of January, to report to the superintendent the length of time a school has been taught in their district during the preceding year by qualified teachers, the amount of public money received and expended, the number of children taught, the number between five and sixteen residing in the district, together with such other information as may from time to time be required of them by the superintendent of common schools. They have power also, and are required, to call annual and special meetings of the inhabitants to make out tax-lists of all taxes voted for district purposes, and annex their war- National Education.

In Canada we have a country lying, politically speaking, midway between England and the United States, being loyal to the British crown on the one side, but partaking largely of the spirit of American institutions on the other. In Canada, accordingly, a system of national education has been adopted and legalized similar in its main features to that of the state of New York, but containing some peculiar details of its own. Here, as in several of the states of America, the religious question has presented some difficulties; but it has in each case been solved virtually in the same way, namely, by showing that the school is, properly speaking, a national institution—that it must hold an equally impartial position towards all classes of the community who support it; and that, in consequence, only those elements of Christianity which are common to all can be introduced into the plan of public instruction. I cannot give a better view of the grounds on which this point is argued than by quoting the words of Dr Ryerson, the chief superintendent of the Canadian schools. "To require the teacher," he says, "in any common day-school to teach the catechism of any religious persuasion, is not only a work of supererogation, but a direct interference with the disciplinary order of each religious persuasion; and instead of providing by law for the extension of religious instruction, and the promotion of Christian morality, it is providing by law for the neglect of pastoral and parental duty, by transferring to the common-school teacher the duties which their church enjoins upon them, and thus sanctioning immoralities in pastors and parents, which must in a high degree be injurious to the interests of public morals, no less than to the interests of children and of the common schools. The demand to make the teacher do the canonical work of the clergyman is as impolitic as it is selfish. Economy, as well as patriotism, requires that the schools established for all should be open to all upon equal terms, and upon principles common to all, leaving to each religious persuasion the performance of its own recognised and appropriate duties in the teaching of its own catechism to its own children. Surely it is not the province of government to usurp the functions of the religious persuasions of the country; but it should recognise their existence, and therefore not provide for denominational teaching to the pupils in the day-schools, any more than it should provide such pupils with daily food and raiment, or weekly preaching, or places of worship. As the state recognises the existence of parents, and the performance of parental duties, by not providing children with what should be provided by their parents, namely, clothing and food, so should it recognise the existence of the religious persuasions, and the performance of their duties, by not providing for the teaching in the schools of that which each religious persuasion declares should be taught by its own ministers and the parents of its children. But it may be asked, Ought not religious instruction to be given in day-schools, and ought not government to require this in every school? I answer, what may or ought to be done in regard to religious instruction, and what the government ought to require, are two different things. Who doubts that public worship should be attended and family duties performed? But does it therefore follow that government is to compel attendance upon the one or the performance of the other? If our government were a despotism, and if there were no law or no liberty, civil or religious, but the absolute will of the sovereign, then government would of course compel such religious and other instruction as it pleased, as is the case under despotisms in Europe. But as our government is a constitutional and a popular government, it is to com- pel no farther in matters of religious instruction than it is itself the expression of the mind of the country, and than it is authorized by law to do. Therefore, in the General Regulations on the Constitution and Government of Schools respecting Religious Instruction, it is made the duty of every teacher to inculcate those principles and duties of piety and virtue which form the basis of morality and order in a state; while parents and school teachers, or school managers, are left to provide for and give such further religious instruction as they shall desire and deem expedient."

By this it will be seen that in Canada the state does not ignore religious instruction, nay, rather sanctions it; but it says,—“Religion in the denominational sense is not our province. So far as we are concerned with the schools, we can only recognize what is common to all; and whatever religious instruction is demanded over and above this must be left either to the supplementary education of the family and the church, or must be a personal arrangement between the school managers and the parents of the scholars.”

The system of secondary education in Canada is not as yet so far developed as in some of the United States, but the question is in progress, and will no doubt end in the establishment of grammar schools for a higher and classical culture in all the larger towns or parishes. With regard to university education, this, both in Canada and the States, rests at present mainly upon private foundations.

It is time, now, that we come to our own country, which, so far as England at least is concerned, has proved the most backward of any of the more progressive nations in adopting any system of national education. Those who can look back upon the state of education in England some twenty or thirty years ago, can well remember what a blank this whole department of our national life presented. The educational zeal, indeed, which the Reformation called into play provided an extraordinary number of charities and bequests to be appropriated to this purpose. Some of these were devoted to those usually very useless institutions called grammar schools, and some others more directly to clothe and teach a limited number of poor children in the parish. It is believed, indeed, that if the whole of the property accruing from such charities were consolidated and properly applied, it would prove a most important element in carrying forward the entire education of the country. In spite of all this, however, the mass of the people remained in gross ignorance down to the early part of the present century.

About the year 1808 Joseph Lancaster, a member of the Society of Friends, began his labours in London on the site now occupied by the British and Foreign School Society, and not only gathered a vast number of children around him, but imbued a number of young men and women with his principles and methods, who were sent out into various parts of the country to carry on the same work there. This was the germ of the present normal school in the Borough Road, Southwark.

Lancaster, as a teacher, admitted no catechism or form of denominational doctrine into the schools, but gave daily religious instruction from the Bible, avoiding all points of difference or dispute. Nearly at the same time Andrew Bell, who had been previously engaged in the instruction of the Orphan School at Madras, returned to England, and was employed to use his experience in organizing schools very similar to those of Joseph Lancaster, in connection with the National Society of the Church of England. The starting-point of popular education in England, therefore, was the institution of the British and Foreign, and of the National School societies, under whose patronage a number of so-called British and National schools were gradually spread throughout the country. It need not be added, that the quantity of education thus provided could bear no sort of relation to the actual wants of the country. Neither was the quality of the instruction for a time much better.

The funds of the schools were usually small,—the teachers ill educated. No normal schools, in the proper sense of the word, existed, and the monitorial or mutual system of instruction alone prevailed.

This state of things went on till about the year 1833, Privy when the lords of the Privy Council, seeing the great des- Counstitution of the country, began to give small grants from the Treasury in aid of school buildings, through the British and Foreign and the National School Societies respectively. In 1839, when the demands for such grants began to increase, a Committee of Council on Education was formed in order the better to regulate and extend them. Aid was also afforded to normal schools; and the resolution was passed, that every government grant should henceforth carry with it the right of government inspection. With reference to the inspectors, however, the archbishops were to have the right of veto upon their appointment on behalf of the National schools, and the British and Foreign School Committee to have the same right on behalf of the British schools. This state of things continued till the year 1846, when Sir James Shuttleworth, who had been acting from the first as the secretary of the Education Committee, brought forward a series of minutes for apprenticing pupil teachers in schools; for granting augmentation to teachers’ stipends, on their submitting to an examination and receiving a certificate of competency; and for making grants of books, maps, and apparatus.

These minutes of 1846 were only the commencement of a series of developments which have been going on to the present time. The grants have since then been thrown open virtually to all religious denominations, and indeed to all private individuals or commercial companies who choose to take the initiative in providing education for the people; the only stipulation in regard to religious teaching being, that some portion of the authorized version of the Scriptures be daily read in all the Protestant schools receiving grants.

To give some idea of the extent to which popular education, as aided by the state, has now been developed, the following statistical facts, taken from the minutes of the Committee of Council on Education for 1856–57, will be sufficient, without going into minor details. It should be observed, however, that the grants to schools in Scotland are here included:

1. Money expended by Government in England and Scotland for Educational purposes between December 31, 1855, and December 31, 1856.

| Item | Amount (£) | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------| | In building and enlarging elementary schools | 74,470 | | Do. normal schools | 9,885 | | In providing books and maps | 3,199 | | Do. scientific apparatus | 757 | | In aiding the salaries of certificated teachers | 5,988 | | In stipends to assistant teachers | 5,000 | | In stipends to pupil teachers | 158,228 | | In capitation grants | 29,015 | | In grants to training schools | 45,785 | | Reformatory and industrial schools | 8,158 | | Pensions to teachers | 383 | | Inspection | 30,829 | | Expenses of administration in London | 15,004 | | **Total** | **423,633**|

2. The above amount has been divided amongst the different classes of schools as follows:

| Class of schools | Amount (£) | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------| | Church of England schools | 268,290 | | British and foreign schools | 39,474 | | Wesleyan schools | 22,789 | | Roman Catholic schools | 19,185 | | Parochial Union schools | 5,509 | | Church of Scotland schools | 28,534 | | Free Church schools | 23,520 | | Episcopal Church schools | 3,308 | | Administration | 13,080 | | **Total** | **423,633**| It would give a totally false estimate of popular education in England and Scotland to regard this as being any kind of approximation to its whole extent. The government grants are merely offered to those who wish to accept them, under condition of being inspected and reported on. A large number of schools of all denominations still exist, which have made no application for government aid; some because they disagree altogether with the principle of state interference, some because the teachers are unwilling to submit to inspection or examination, and some because the managers are not prepared to fulfil the pecuniary or other conditions on which the grants are awarded. Added to this there is yet a vast number of schools of private adventure, each of which manages to gather together sufficient scholars to yield some kind of maintenance to the teachers. All this put together furnishes a tolerable idea of the nature and amount of primary instruction in the elementary schools of the country. A large portion of the smaller towns and country parishes are now well supplied with the means of instruction, and great efforts have been made to meet the wants of the large and populous towns also; but still, if we are to judge by what presents itself to the eye of an attentive observer, as also by the statistics of the population of the country, placed side by side with those of the primary school, we must come to the conclusion that a very great deficiency of school accommodation yet exists. This conclusion is fully borne out by the education returns of the last census. The total number of scholars returned by the registrar-general as being an average attendance in all kinds of schools in March 1851, was 1,754,814, which is only a centesimal proportion of 43-8 of the whole population of England and Wales between the ages of five and fifteen.

When we consider, moreover, that the children of the middle and upper classes are nearly all included in this aggregate, and that of the rest a large number of children are only in dame schools, or other similar schools of private adventure, where the instruction is hardly worth the name, the result must appear anything but flattering in regard to the amount and character of the education gained by the children of the labouring classes in primary schools.

Let us next compare the agencies by which the elementary education of this country is administered with those which we have already noticed in Europe and America. In the other countries of Europe the initiative and the direction of all popular education lie with the governments. The people, indeed, are called upon to find the funds requisite for supporting the schools, but they have nothing to do with what is taught, nor with the manner of teaching; and very little with the appointment of the teachers or the superintendence of the schools. It is true that liberty of teaching exists under certain conditions, and that there are institutions scattered here and there which have sprung up from private adventure or from religious benevolence; but the great mass of the schools are governmental. In England, on the contrary (if we except the pauper schools, and those belonging to naval, military, and penal establishments), no schools whatever are initiated by the government, neither does it reserve for itself any voice whatever in the management of them. It simply comes to the aid of private efforts, and proffers grants, on certain conditions.

If we turn to America, another and a wholly different principle prevails. Here the government does take the initiative. It says there must be schools of such and such a character in proportion to a given population, and holds itself responsible for seeing that this obligation is carried out. Here, however, the governmental functions end. It is the people, in their capacity as free citizens, who determine all the rest,—the nature of the buildings, the salary of the teacher, the methods of instruction, the plan of supervision, the amount of school fees, and the whole apparatus of instruction.

The English method stands alike apart from both the continental and American schemes. Perhaps the best idea we can give of the system is this,—That the religious denominations undertake to educate the people, but that the government comes to the aid of all alike, so far as they choose to avail themselves of its assistance.

There are some advantages, perhaps, attached to the English system of popular education which could hardly exist in the other cases. The most obvious of these is the amount of local interest which they gather round them. A governmental or municipal institution is ordinarily put under some kind of official management, and is carried forward by the power of authority only. Such authority is no doubt highly useful, and tends to keep the institutions to which it applies in excellent working order. We must remember, however, that in the case of the more ignorant classes something different from a school worked by authority is desirable. The children, and their parents as well, need humanizing and softening. They want to come into contact with those above them in the social scale, and regard them in the light of men desirous to take a personal interest in their welfare. The real value of the voluntary principle, accordingly, lies in the healthy impulses, the daily encouragements, and the moral aids that are afforded both to the teacher and scholar by the presence and personal interest of those who occupy stations of influence in the several localities where the schools are situated. However possible it might be to have schools formally as complete, and education quite as widely extended, by the instrumentality of paid officials only, yet no such instrumentality could wholly supply the loss of that daily personal influence which is exerted so largely on the present system by those who seek to further the education of the poorer classes around them, simply and solely with a desire to promote their welfare. This is certainly an element in our present national education which may be well guarded with some degree of jealousy, and which must not be lightly swept away by the rising tide of any universal national system.

When we have said this, however, we have said nearly all that can be urged in favour of the present system. Its disadvantages are obvious at first sight:—1st, As a system of primary education it entirely fails in completeness. The supply of school accommodation through the country is entirely left to chance. If persons happen to be interested in a given locality they may originate schools in it; but there is no guarantee for any such schools being set on foot. Accordingly, some districts have more school accommodation than is at all necessary; while others, perhaps more populous ones, are entirely destitute. Nay, the more poor and needy a locality is, the less likely is it to be supplied, because there are fewer residents of a class who are able and willing to do anything to supply the want. This is not a mere theoretical objection based on the natural tendencies of the plan, but a fact of actual experience. In most of our large and populous towns we find ample school accommodation in the more favoured localities, but a vast destitution in the densely-populated districts, where it is most of all required. 2d, The plan has nothing national about it. The English people, as such, have nothing to do with schools,—nothing to do, therefore, with their own education. They are left to the all-absorbing interests of commerce, and never called upon to take part in any great plans of popular reformation and improvement. If individuals or religious congregations choose to busy themselves about these matters they can,—and fortunately for the country many do; but the few are really undertaking the work of the many; that which ought to be a matter of national importance, in the burden of which every one ought to take his share—I mean the education of the whole community—is left to the comparatively feeble efforts of a small philanthropic minority, little able to cope with the magnitude of the question, though aided liberally from the public purse.

3d. The plan is by far too sectarian in its whole character. Had the government taken a perfectly uniform attitude towards all classes of schools; had it simply agreed to aid the secular and moral education in which the whole country is equally interested, appointed inspectors to report on all schools alike, and left the religious element to each party to supply for themselves, as in Canada, there would have been at least one central point of unity around which the whole education of the country might eventually have gathered, so as to form some approach to nationality; but in place of this, sectarian trust-deeds, even more stringent than they were before, have been sanctioned; the system of sectarian inspectors has been admitted; the religious element has been included in the government reports in the case of the national schools, thus severing them in their relation to government from the rest; and the denominational system has accordingly been rendered complete. In this way, the government aid and inspection, which might have gradually softened down the sectarian spirit and formed a rallying-point of national unity, has really legalized it and made it permanent; and schools are now seen rising up in rivalry one over against the other, both of which are equally paid for from the national funds.

4th. The present plan is not to be recommended on the score of economy. Were the country divided into districts, and the educational wants of each district taken into account and properly supplied, the school question would assume an economic form. At present the partial distribution of school accommodation, assuming as it does a denominational form, goes directly contrary to all principles of economy. Large sums are spent in districts where schools are not all required. One denomination planting a school in a given locality excites the envy and jealousy of another; and straightway a rival establishment must appear, both of which languish for want of scholars, and perhaps of funds also, just because the neighbourhood is only sufficient to support one good school. Double the school accommodation that is requisite will have to be supplied on the present principles before the wants of the whole country are met.

The same want of economy exists in all the details of the government administration. Instead of the inspectors being purely governmental officers, which they were first intended to be; instead of each having a limited district within which he reports upon all classes of schools; there are no less than seven different classes of inspectors roaming the country, and crossing each other's orbits in every direction, in order to suit some particular denominational type of schools. Thus there are National school inspectors, British school inspectors, poor-law inspectors, Church of Scotland inspectors, Free Church inspectors, and an Episcopal Church of Scotland inspector. All the official documents and books at the office of administration, moreover, have to be kept separately, for each of these different classes of schools, so that the whole work is complicated in every possible way.

The consequence of possessing a system of education so partial in its extent, and incomplete in its scheme of operation, is that a great number of spontaneous institutions have sprung up to supply the deficiency. The number of dame schools, and schools of private adventure held by wholly incompetent persons, is still incredibly great in all the more populous towns of the country.

Again, with regard to middle education, this is thrown almost entirely upon the principle of supply and demand. The grammar-school charities which exist throughout the country are so inconsiderable, as compared to the whole of the middle classes, and those which do exist are for the most part so imperfectly administered, that they can hardly be taken into account as any valid element in the higher education of the country. Nearly the whole of the middle classes in England are virtually shut up to the principle of boarding-schools, in which we find of course every possible variety both of matter and of method. A few well-endowed grammar schools, and a few other proprietary day schools, form the only exceptions to this general statement. This may certainly add somewhat to the individuality of the English people; but as a system of national education for the middle classes it is, as a whole, the least efficient and the most expensive of any that could possibly be devised. A good rating system like that of America, which should supply higher as well as primary schools in every district throughout the country, would be an enormous saving to the whole of the middle classes of the community, and give them as well a guarantee of efficiency such as they cannot now possibly possess.

Another and very important mode in which private effort has sought spontaneously to supply the deficiency of popular education, is by putting the means of improvement into the hands of the adult population. I refer now to the rise of mechanics' institutes, mutual improvement societies, and other institutions of a similar nature.

The rise of these institutes and societies may be traced to the efforts of Dr Birkbeck in Glasgow, in the year 1800, to form a class of mechanics in connection with the Andersonian Institution, to whom he proposed giving instruction in the rudiments of natural and mechanical philosophy. Their further development, however, amongst the larger towns of the country generally dates no earlier than about the year 1823. Their primary intention was to impart instruction to working men in the rules and principles of the various arts with which they were already practically acquainted. Hence, for a considerable time after their first rise the prevailing tone and tendency of their operation was scientific. Lectures were given on the elements of natural philosophy, on chemistry, on mechanics, on geometric drawing, and on a variety of other topics bearing more directly upon the occupations of the artisans. In addition to this, libraries were collected, and the books lent out to the members at a very low rate; evening classes were also formed in some places for regular courses of instruction in the various arts and sciences.

In the course of some years, however, the general features of these institutions began to change. Scientific lectures lost their novelty; the expenses attendant upon the regular engagement of scientific men were found to be too great a drain upon the institutions; a large number of the subscribers preferred to hear something more light and amusing; and thus the scientific element began to make way for music, poetry, and light literature.

The following table gives a fair idea of the process of this change, as seen in the Mechanics' Institution at Manchester:

| Number of Lectures on | 1835 to 1839 | 1840 to 1844 | 1845 to 1849 | |-----------------------|-------------|-------------|-------------| | Science | 235 | 127 | 88 | | Mental Philosophy | 8 | 16 | 2 | | Literature and Education | 53 | 80 | 84 | | Fine Arts and Drama | 99 | 55 | 55 | | Total | 395 | 278 | 229 |

If a similar list were continued down to the present time, the same two results would be still visible,—namely, first At the same time, it is but just to say that many improvements have been introduced. Day and evening classes for boys and girls, as well as adults, have in many instances been added to the ordinary programme; and in some instances, as in Liverpool, a flourishing middle school of a very superior character has been gradually developed.

The statistics of mechanics' institutes for the United Kingdom, in the year 1853, were as follows:

| Number of Institutes | Members | Volts | Issues of Books | Number of Persons Attending Classes | Number of Lectures Delivered | |---------------------|---------|-------|----------------|-----------------------------------|----------------------------| | England | 610 | 692 | 1,200 | 16,020 | 5,804 | | Wales | 17 | 1,472 | 8,555 | 15,600 | 115 | | Scotland | 25 | 4,005 | 57,200 | 18,200 | 481 | | Ireland | 25 | 4,005 | 57,200 | 18,200 | 310 | | Total | 792 | 120,081| 815,516 | 20,260 | 5,240 |

This table shows that there is at least a very large amount of machinery at work, which if not all of the most improving character, yet cannot fail, as a whole, to exert a very considerable influence upon the population of our large towns. The great drawback to their further efficiency lies in the want of early school training amongst the working classes. This want renders it extremely difficult to interest them in useful objects of study, and tends, consequently, to divert the very purposes of the institutions raised for their benefit, from what is solid and useful, to subjects which are harmlessly amusing. We may hope, however, that this is only a passing phase of the question. Education is now advancing amongst the juvenile population; a large amount of mind is being called out by the improvements made in the primary schools; and this will, ere long, produce a corresponding call for mental food amongst adults.

In addition to this, the union now formed amongst mechanics' institutes in the different counties is tending greatly to their improvement and their more complete organization, and it appears likely that they may yet, ere long, become a more powerful engine than ever in the education of the people. Indeed, there are already symptoms of the cooperation of the government with popular institutions of this character, which, if properly carried out, cannot fail to give them a still wider range and more abiding influence.

In the view which has been given of the state of public education in England, it is not intended to include the case either of Scotland or Ireland; in both which countries peculiar institutions exist that greatly modify the whole complexion of the subject.

Scotland started on the pathway of education from the very time of the Reformation. The early Reformers, in adopting the parochial divisions of the country, did not apply them simply to an ecclesiastical, but also to an educational purpose. In every parish they procured the establishment of a school as well as a church, with the right of presbyterial inspection, and endowed it with landed property. These schools were the centres of much unobtrusive educational activity throughout those long years of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when England and Ireland were almost in a state of Egyptian darkness in regard to the education of the masses of the people. The parish schools of Scotland having originated at a time when Latin was the almost universal medium of mental culture, have always retained more or less of a higher and classical element; and by so doing have nurtured the taste for a middle-class day-school education to a much larger extent than what has ever existed in England. The preference of the day to the boarding school, indeed, is one of the educational features in which Scotland differs most obviously from England in relation to the training of the middle classes.

As the population of Scotland increased, it was found that the original parochial endowments proved wholly insufficient to meet the growing wants of the people. This has led to a series of voluntary efforts, for the most part denominational, intended either to supplement the deficiency, or to give its proper weight to each sect in the educational concerns of the country. So early as the year 1701 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was formed with the especial design of supplying the wants of districts where the parochial education was not sufficient.

Early in the present century the Inverness Society for the Education of the Poor, and the Ladies' Gaelic School Association, were formed chiefly to aid the cause of education in the Northern and Western Highlands. About the year 1812 the Sessional School was formed in Edinburgh, which gave a great impetus to education in the right direction, by the adoption of more modern and approved plans. In 1824 the General Assembly education scheme was carried into execution, which has now 180 schools under its jurisdiction; and in 1843 the disruption of the Church of Scotland led to a new series of efforts on the part of the seceding body, which has ended in the establishment of between seven and eight hundred schools throughout the country. All these different bodies have now availed themselves of the aid held out by the Committee of Council on Education; so that the denominational principle has now come into play precisely in the same manner as we have shown it in regard to England, and has attempted to supply its own deficiency by means of the government grants now held out for acceptance.

The net result of all these efforts is, that Scotland is now supplied with schools, numerically considered, perhaps equivalent, or nearly so, to the wants of the whole population. "What is now required?" says one of the government inspectors in the report of 1856, "seems to be not so much any great accession to the number of the schools, as a more real, vital, availing character in the instruction which many of the existing schools afford." This does not at all imply that the defect pointed out attaches to the Scottish primary education generally; for it is in fact quite the reverse; but that a considerable number of the schools are languishing from insufficient funds, which tends to paralyze the efforts of the teacher and render the whole school dull and ineffective.

We must refer, lastly, to Ireland, which contains many Irish peculiar features of its own. Grants of public money began to be voted for Irish education from the commencement of the last century, but they were given almost exclusively for the benefit of the Protestant population. The great mass of the people, who consisted of Roman Catholics, remained wholly uneducated. A number of schools thus sprung up through the country, patronized chiefly by different societies and aided by the state. Amongst these were the Protestant charter schools, the Protestant English schools, schools of the Society for Discountenancing Vice, and the schools of the Kildare Society. In 1806 a crown commission was appointed to inquire into the state of schools on public or charitable foundations in Ireland. In 1824 another commission was appointed, whose object was "to discover a mode in which the combined education of Protestants and Catholics might be carried on, resting on religious instructions but free from the suspicion of proselytism." These efforts ended by the appointment in 1831 of a board of commissioners for national education, whose efforts during the last twenty years in introducing popular education into Ireland have been crowned with the most marked success.

The Irish school plan comes far nearer to the idea of a real system of national education than what we have shown National Education.

It is true there is no educational division of the country, no legal obligation to erect a school in every parish, no public tax for school purposes; but a plan of operation has been laid down which compels the schools aided by government to be open to all, without distinction of religious creed, and which confines the religious instruction to specific periods, in which the children can receive it from their own pastors or teachers.

Under the liberal patronage of government primary schools have been now largely extended, model and normal schools erected, evening schools, industrial schools, agricultural schools, set on foot, and a general stimulus given to social improvement. A vigorous system of inspection is also kept up by the government commissioners. In addition to three head inspectors, there are no less than thirty-four district inspectors, who visit each school at least three times every year, and report its progress or deficiencies to the central office in Dublin.

The following statistical details are taken from the reports of the commissioners for the year 1855:

- Number of schools under inspection: 5124 - Number of children in attendance: 638,246 - Number of teachers in training: 288 - Number of workhouse schools: 139 - Number of model-farm schools: 37 - Total expenditure by government during the year: £212,017, 4s. 9d.

We have now shown, in regard to our own country, who are the educators, what are the principal agencies employed, and to what extent those agencies are operative. The whole subject presents certainly a very heterogeneous aspect. While on the continent of Europe and in America we have systems of primary education, which carry instruction by force of law into every village and every district; while we see this system of primary instruction still further supplemented by high schools adapted to the commercial and middle classes generally, and these, again, crowned by universities, accessible to all at a very moderate rate of expenditure, England presents nothing whatever of the same kind. We have denominational schools, adventure schools, schools supported by individuals and by commercial companies, schools aided by government and schools not aided, endowed schools, subscription schools, with duplicate variations of every class, in Scotland and Ireland. Similar diversities are also to be seen in the character as well as the constitution of the schools. Some are excellent, some miserably bad; some teach religion and theology to the utmost extent, some limit it to a verse or two from the Bible, and some are wholly secular. In relation to method, some are monitorial, some collective, some sectional, and some have no system whatever; while, in relation to locality, some places are overdone with school accommodation, and others have no accommodation at all. The question therefore comes, Whether it is possible to adjust these facts so as to bring out of them a theory and a practice of education that shall be sound in itself, and suited to the wants of the country at large?

This question no doubt presents many difficulties; neither is it possible to say how many unforeseen obstacles may arise before any plan, however simple and unobjectionable, could be realized. First of all, it is not possible in a country like this to begin virtually de nero, as in France and Prussia. The ground is already to a large extent occupied. Charities exist all over the country which have been left expressly for educational purposes. The state church has begun to work the parochial division of the country into an educational as well as an ecclesiastical system, and claims the schools thus originated as an appendage to the church, with which the nation, as such, has no right to interfere. Denominational schools have been planted all over the country in common with almost every sect, who are equally jealous of any foreign interposition.

The Committee of Council on Education have recognised all these classes of schools, have aided all alike, and have pledged themselves to a certain extent to the denominational system. The stimulus given by the government system of aid and inspection has been, it is true, almost incalculable; and the improvement in elementary schools within the last ten years unprecedented. And yet, with all this, the step which the government has taken, when viewed in relation to a future complete system of national education, has been obviously a step in the wrong direction. No truly national system can by any possibility grow out of the present minutes of council, unless they are greatly modified in their whole structure and tendency. This is virtually acknowledged by all practical men; and the very attempts which have been made in the House of Commons within the two or three last sessions of Parliament to introduce an education bill, show that some totally new principle must be introduced before any broad or satisfactory system for the country can be realized. In what way, then, can these improvements be introduced so as to co-operate with the agencies already in existence? This is the great practical question of the present moment in regard to national education. To build up any complete theory would be visionary. We shall merely give a few hints to show the direction which we conceive the development of education must take in order to have any chance of present success.

1. First of all, the country should be divided into educational districts. The present parochial divisions of the country are on many grounds objectionable. Not only are they extremely unequal in population and extent, but it is extremely difficult to dispose of the present functionaries, both ecclesiastical and municipal, of the idea that they have some especial claim to precedence in any matters which assume a parochial character. Such claims applied to education would at once prove fatal to any really national system, as it would set the different parties now engaged in it in direct opposition to each other.

2. Having divided the country into districts, the next thing would be to find out, not by local but by governmental authorities, what is the educational supply, and what are the educational wants of each. To determine this, note must be taken of all the existing schools, of whatever denomination, distinguishing those which are already under the inspection of the Committee of Council from those which are not. Care should be especially taken to look into the amount and the application of all charitable trusts for education, and to report definitely upon them.

3. A third step of great importance would be, to pass an act of Parliament empowering a board of charitable trust commissioners to take these trusts for a time into their own hands, to find out what they will realize by proper management, and to appropriate the amount (according to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the founder's will) to the general education of the district in which the property is situated.

4. The next point would be for a school-rate to be levied on actual property in each district, according to its requirements. This school-rate might take the place of the grants now made to teachers, pupil-teachers, and managers, from the Committee of Council on Education, as well as the voluntary contributions of managers, and would also be employed to plant new schools in the district, wherever the present provisions arising from existing schools and charitable endowments were found to be insufficient.

5. The rate-payers in each district would elect a committee of management totally distinct from any existing parochial authorities, into whose hands the rate funds would be paid, and who would be responsible for its partition to every school, fulfilling certain conditions, according to the number of children in average attendance. They would also carry out the provisions of this act in regard to new schools to be erected in destitute localities. 6. All schools applying for the rate should be examined and reported on by inspectors appointed by government, who should have power to determine whether a school was deserving of support from public funds or not.

7. The local management of existing schools should not be interfered with; only provision should be made that the religious instruction should be given at a specified time (as in the Irish schools), that parents should have the power to withdraw the child from any kind of religious teaching to which they object; and that the day-school should involve no conditions in regard to attendance at any particular place of worship on the Sunday.

8. The government should not interfere with the religious element of the schools beyond the above stipulations, and demand no reports on it, but should leave it in each case to the local managers to provide for as they think best.

This is of course only a rough sketch of the direction in which education might move forward. All the existing machinery on this plan would remain untouched; all the provisions of the Committee of Council on Education respecting normal schools, examinations for certificates of merit, pupil-teachers, inspection, &c., could be still carried out as before; the only new elements would be the education districts, the principle of a rate, and a school committee in each district,—not to manage the institutions, but to apportion the funds according to the details of the measure. All schools, of course, as far as the government is concerned, would lose their denominational character, and be inspected and reported on by one general class of inspectors, simply as elementary schools. In this way, without doing any great violence to the present organized state of things in the country, a system of national education might be gradually consolidated which would combine the advantages of local management and local support with the numerous benefits derived from governmental inspection. Already strong indications have been given that we may look for a union of all political parties in some measure of this kind. For the system of government aid has now gone so far, that it can neither recede nor fully develop itself without certain organic changes.

To make the plan above sketched out complete, of course it must comprehend the establishment of middle or high schools, as well as schools for the working-classes. This might at first sight seem to involve an outlay which would press too heavily to be endured upon the rate-payers of each district. But, in point of fact, the mere circumstance of comprehending a plan of middle-class schools in the general system of national education would be an actual relief to the great majority of the persons upon whom the rate must fall. The middle classes in this country are now educating their children in boarding-schools at a very great expense, and are usually getting a very inferior article for their money. By paying a moderate rate, they might have excellent grammar schools brought to their very doors, and thus secure a superior education for their own families, as well as adequate instruction for the labouring classes, for a sum far less than what they are now usually paying for the very desultory training which they are obliged to put up with in the boarding-schools of the country. There certainly is no valid reason why a series of higher institutions should not flourish under government patronage and inspection in England, as well as the "gymnasia" do in Germany, the "colleges" in France, and the higher English and classical schools in America.

III. HOW A SYSTEM OF NATIONAL EDUCATION SHOULD BE PRACTICALLY ARRANGED AND CARRIED FORWARD.

The first, and perhaps most important point, in a practical system of national education, is to have efficient normal schools for the proper training of teachers. Without these, no effective instruction is likely to be realized throughout the country at large. It is not enough that a teacher be a man of sufficient learning; his learning must be ready for use. He must understand the character of childhood, and know how to interest it; he must be able to exercise strict discipline without severity; he must comprehend the best methods of school organization, and adapt his plans to the precise wants of his scholars; he must be able to anticipate their difficulties, smooth their path, encourage their efforts, chide their indolence, excite their emulation, and lead them on from one step of mental development to another. All this can only be accomplished by a special training for the purpose, and such a training it is the office of the normal school to afford. Study and practice must there go together, so that when the student goes forth to his labour, he may at once know what to teach and understand how to teach it. All the countries where education is successfully carried on have laid the foundation for that success in the normal schools; and the best earnest we now have for continued progress in the department of public instruction in our own country lies in those thirty or more normal schools which are forming the minds of more than 2000 pupils for future efficiency as public teachers throughout the country.

The next thing that claims attention is the organization of the primary school, and the method of instruction. School methods may, by a broad classification, be reduced method. to three principal types,—these are, 1st, The monitorial or mutual system; 2d, The collective or simultaneous system; and 3d, The sectional system. The monitorial system consists in the employment for a certain period every day of some of the elder boys to assist in the instruction of the younger. The method of Lancaster, who chiefly introduced this system, was to form a monitors' class from the more advanced scholars, to give them special instruction, and then to employ them in giving back the lessons they had received to the other children in small groups or drafts. The extravagant expectations which were at first entertained of the efficiency of this method have not been by any means realized. A certain amount of mechanical work can be performed by monitors with good effect, and a large amount of drudgery thus taken out of the hands of the teacher; but here their utility ceases. That which the child most needs (and which is the principal educating element in every good school) is, to come into close contact with some superior mind, who knows how to foster and stimulate the germs of thought, to instil sound principles, to correct false or vicious habits, and to insinuate knowledge into the young mind through every avenue by which he can reach it. The idea of committing the education of children, either wholly or principally, to monitors, could only be entertained where the standard aimed at is extremely low and imperfect, neither can the mutual system itself be ever regarded in any other light than a mere substitute for better teaching, where better teaching cannot be procured.

The collective or simultaneous method errs on the opposite extreme. It collects the whole school together upon a stage or gallery adapted for the purpose, and attempts to construct a system of lessons such that the whole of the scholars may be taught at once by a single master. That this method may serve well for a certain amount of moral training is not to be denied; but as an intellectual instrument it proves extremely defective. Children of different degrees of mental development cannot possibly profit by the same lessons. If those lessons are adapted to the elder scholars, the younger ones are wholly unable to follow them; if they are adapted to the younger scholars, then they are useless to the rest. The simultaneous school is good for making a display, and often surprises those who do not look beneath the surface; but it almost inevitably fosters superficial knowledge, and leaves the child helpless when thrown alone upon his own individual resources. The sectional method is a via media between the two extremes I have just described. It goes on the principle that children ought to be classified according to their age and attainments, and a suitable teacher employed for every section. In Prussia the almost universal plan is to make each school-house consist of a number of class-rooms, each class-room being adapted to a single section under one teacher. The same method is followed in the schools of the Christian Brothers in France. When sufficient, and at the same time efficient teachers can be procured, there can be little doubt that this is the best possible organization for a school, whether primary or secondary. It combines in it every requisite for complete training, whether moral or intellectual. The difficulty of carrying out this system properly, however, becomes great, just in proportion as the number of scholars becomes large. Both in the Prussian schools and those of the Christian Brothers in France, the sections are apt to swell amidst dense populations, to such proportions, that the task becomes too great for a single teacher, and imperfection naturally results.

Various plans have been formed to obviate this difficulty. Amongst others, it was arranged in some of the larger primary schools of Holland that a few of the elder and more advanced scholars should be taken as apprentices in the schools, and employed to teach the lower classes. It was a development of this idea which led to the organization of the pupil-teacher system in England under the Committee of Council on Education.

According to this plan, candidates are examined by the inspectors and reported on to the council-office. If their qualifications are found satisfactory, an indenture is made out, and they are apprenticed to the school for five years; the master being made responsible for their proper training, and their progress being tested by yearly examinations on the ordinary visit of the inspector. The advantages of this plan have proved great. It has enabled every school to adopt a sectional classification; it secures the services continuously, from year to year, of under-teachers, who ordinarily increase every year in intelligence and efficiency; and what is more, it fills the normal schools not, as was previously the case, with crude, unformed material, but with young men and women who have been well disciplined in the art of teaching, and have had already five years' training in those branches which are most necessary for a teacher thoroughly to understand. Thus, by one and the same arrangement, the schools have been re-organized on sounder principles, and provision has been made for a constant succession of well-trained and well-qualified teachers.

A third important point is the proper gradation of public schools. In Prussia there are three principal grades,—viz., 1st, The country school, in which only elementary instruction is given; 2d, The town school, in which some amount of mathematical and scientific teaching, as well as modern languages, are introduced; and 3d, The high school or gymnasium, which is throughout constructed on a classical and professional basis.

In Holland there are five grades,—1st, The poor schools, which are wholly gratuitous; 2d, The intermediate schools, in which a very small fee is paid; 3d, Town schools, in which there is a higher fee and a higher range of instruction; 4th, The French schools, which prepare for active and commercial life; and 5th, The grammar schools, which prepare for the learned professions antecedently to the universities. The subject of the gradation of schools is now becoming one of the prominent questions in the educational system of America, and will have to become so ere long in our own country.

The simplest classification that can be made for a country like England, where the gradations in society are so marked, will probably be found to be a classification into four distinct grades,—First, we want in all the large towns a series of free schools for the lowest strata of society, to occupy thoroughly the whole ground that is now very inadequately taken by the ragged school. Next to this come those schools which are at present being so largely established through the country, in which both the nature of the instruction and the entrance-fee are adapted to the wants and resources of the working-classes. Thirdly, we should require a series of town schools, adapted more peculiarly for the mercantile classes, including, in addition to all that is taught in the primary school, the departments of mathematics, science, and modern languages. Fourthly, we should need a proper number of grammar schools, answering to the gymnasia of Germany and the royal or municipal colleges in France, and united to those who intend to embrace a professional life. If such a plan were carried out, every father of a family upon whom a portion of the rates fell would, whatever his sphere in life, get a return far more than equivalent to what he is required to pay. Lastly, with regard to the teachers themselves, if we expect to keep up an efficient staff, two conditions are necessary:—1st, That they be adequately remunerated; and 2d, That their position be made sufficiently independent. The remuneration of teachers must of course depend upon the average rate of payment for men in a similar position of life throughout the country. It must, at any rate, be such that the teacher can live and bring up his family according to his station, without seeking extraneous help from other sources. Anything less than this will be sure to deteriorate the profession, by presenting too little inducement for the more energetic minds to continue within its ranks.

The teacher, however, must not only have sufficient remuneration, but his position must be secure and independent so long as he labours with zeal and efficiency. For this purpose, his salary should not depend upon voluntary contributions, which are always fluctuating, and likewise place the teacher too much in the power of the donor; neither should it depend mainly on school-fees, which leads him to pander to the prejudices of parents in order to increase the number of the scholars. The teacher is undoubtedly in the best position when his salary depends on public funds, whether local or governmental, and is responsible, not to any individual, but to a regularly-constituted authority. Where this is the case, he can labour alone for the good of his pupils, and be sure of approbation and support so long as he labours earnestly and intelligently in his sphere.

In conclusion, let us not forget that the whole subject we have been discussing is one of supreme importance to every country. There is no part of the surface of our globe but bears traces of nations who were once flourishing and progressive, but who have now disappeared, or nearly so, from the rank of civilized communities. The fortunes of every country lie in the spirit of the citizens. Where this is vigorous, enlightened, and moral, the country must stand,—nay, must even advance on the road towards a still higher and more developed state of society. But where the public mind becomes a prey to ignorance, superstition, and vice, a retrograde movement sets in which leads gradually to disorganization, and finally to absolute dissolution. The history of Germany and of Spain since the time of Charles V. may be taken as an illustration of these two tendencies, presented to us, moreover, in modern times, and in connection with two of the principal nations of Europe. There can be no doubt but that the future of every nation now existing is equally bound up with the cause of popular enlightenment. Whether we regard ourselves, therefore, as philanthropists or as patriots, it is equally incumbent upon us to take a personal interest in the national education of our country; for it is the sum of personal interest which in every free country forms and moulds the character of public opinion; and then it is public opinion which ordains the statutes and shapes the institutions of the realm. (J.D.M.)