thought and experience which is embedded and sometimes entombed in print, and the useful part of which is accessible to all through cheap literature and libraries. But that store of knowledge, valuable as it is to those who seek it for an object, and desirable as it is to those who pursue it for the laudable purpose of mental improvement and intellectual occupation, has no benefit to confer on unwilling or incapable recipients, and I am afraid it must be confessed that its economic value in the ordinary vocations of life which give employment to the multitude is extremely small. But, when I say this, I am met by a chorus of voices exclaiming Look at Germany, and see what great efforts she has made and is still making to promote education of all kinds,' and we are called upon to follow the example of that country or face the alternative of losing our trade. But I look in vain for any proof that our commerce has yet suffered from the high-pressure education of Germany, and until such proof be forthcoming we must be cautious in deciding whether her example is to be regarded as one for guidance or avoidance. The German people are far from unanimous in favour of this educational pressure. I know for a fact that many competent judges in that country are regarding it with disapproval, and are dreading its effects. They say, as I do, that it is thrown away upon the mass of the population, and is at the same time debilitating both mind and body by the overstraining of the faculties. From this they apprehend, not without reason, a degeneracy of race which would far outweigh the advantage to be gained by the spread of knowledge. Let us give heed to these reflections. This forcing system is gaining ground in our popular schools. Examinations are growing more severe and more extended. Mothers complain of their children returning from school with aching heads and puny appetites, while ratepayers groan under educational burdens for which no adequate benefits can yet be shown.

I confess I cannot understand how it is that Sir Lyon Playfair, while urging the claims of such trades as tailors and bricklayers to technical and scientific education, should be silent on the claims of that great industry with which he is himself associated, and which more than almost any other requires an intelligent knowledge of the science and art which lie at its basis.' I mean the great industry of teaching. How is it that tuition is not reduced to a science and its technical processes made to conform to a scientific basis? If it were so, its present crudities and anomalies would vanish, and education would become what its name implies, a drawing out or development of mental faculties with the least possible waste of energy and with concurrent advantage to physical powers. We have already in our infant schools a model to commence upon. In them the faculties of the children are stimulated by exercises suitVOL. XXIV.-No. 141. Ꮓ Ꮓ

able to their age and compatible with health and enjoyment. Why should this principle be abandoned before childhood ends? Why not elaborate the mental and bodily exercises so as to keep pace with the growth of the organisation, without losing sight of the leading principle of development? I admit that the programme for so doing is not an easy one to frame; but there must be a right. answer to the question of what methods would best attain the objects which I have defined in my former paper, i.e. to train the mind in habits of thought and in quickness and accuracy of perception. Also to make the hand, the eye, and the ear more available as instruments of the mind, and finally to improve the physique.' But no answer to this question is forthcoming, and never will be until the matter be taken up in a scientific spirit and investigated by scientific methods which would embrace both physiological and psychological considerations and involve experiments and trials. But nothing of the sort is attempted by our educational experts. We hear of nothing but cram, and are dinned with the cry for higher education,' which in professors' language means more knowledge, although knowledge in itself is already a drug in the market. In the meantime we are violating nature's laws by overstraining the immature faculties of children, and restricting their natural activities, and by so doing we are likely to bring upon us the penalty of deterioration of race. Of course I recognise the need of imparting what may be called necessary knowledge at school, such as reading, writing, and arithmetic; but the word knowledge is hardly applicable to these, which merely afford enabling powers for self-instruction. If drawing and other useful accomplishments can be concurrently acquired, so much the better; nor do I deprecate rudimentary science sufficient to awaken in superior minds a desire for more, but the great object of school education should be development of qualities and character, and also preparation for the practice of self-education. The schoolmaster element is indispensable for children; but after childhood the less we have of it the better. Men should not be carried when they can walk, and independence of mind and freedom of action are essential to vigorous and manly life. Self-education may consist either in the acquisition of ideas which flow from observation, experience, and thought, or in the appropriation of ideas emanating from the minds of others. The latter is a form of education that will be little sought for by the multitude. Facilities, however, should be given for those who need it or seek it, and it is an important question to consider whether the existing facilities are sufficient for the purpose. I need not repeat what I have said in my former article on this subject; but I certainly think that no very ambitious extensions are necessary and that additions should not outrun the demand for them. There is a great tendency in the scholastic world to underrate the value and

potency of self-education, which commences on leaving school and endures all through life. If I may be excused the parody, I would say:

All the world's a school,

And all the men and women merely scholars.

In the foregoing remarks I refer more especially to popular schools where the exigencies of life require that the children should leave school at an early age; but where circumstances admit of lengthened education, knowledge may be more freely imparted, although in allcases the present craze for cram and severe competitive examinations is, in my opinion, very reprehensible. The system has had a fair trial, and no results can be shown to justify its continuance.

I must again protect myself against the charge of looking only to education in the aspect of utility. I have done so, not from indifference to the moral object of education, but because it is no part of my subject. Moral teaching and religious teaching are difficult to separate, and the best school for both is a virtuous home; but unfortunately homes of that character are not of the prevailing type. The difficulty of finding a substitute for beneficent home influence is, I confess, very great, and I do not know that much better can be done than to leave the matter as it stands. One thing I may put forward as a hint emanating from my own experience during my early school-days. The master of the school read every evening to his pupils for one hour from some well-chosen book of history or fiction or travel calculated to excite their interest and also to enlist their sympathies for what was good and their repugnance to what was bad. He read well, which greatly added to the effect, and served to improve our own ability to read. It was our happiest hour, and besides the salutary relaxation it afforded, it contributed in no small degree to the improvement of our moral taste and perceptions. This is one of the practices that might perhaps be adopted in popular schools with a view to moral cultivation, and I doubt not that other methods might be devised that would operate in the same direction; but I must not pursue the subject of moral education further. My subject is useful education, and my object is accomplished if I have succeeded in showing that there is a tendency afloat to overrate the value of knowledge and to underrate that of capacity. In the academic mind the intellect of the people is regarded as lying dead for want of knowledge. I speak as one from the educationally dead in saying that I never had a scrap of instruction bearing on my profession beyond what I imbibed for myself, and that I feel it has done me incomparably more good than if it had been administered to me. I repudiate the imputation of hostility to knowledge or to giving facilities for attaining it to those who desire to

acquire it and have capacity to utilise it; but I deprecate plunging into doubtful and costly schemes of instruction, led on by the ignis fatuus that knowledge is power.' For where natural capacity is would be truer to say that

wasted in attaining knowledge, it 'knowledge is weakness.'

ARMSTRONG.

POSTSCRIPT.

Since writing the above, I have been requested, and have gladly agreed, to sign a protest, which I understand is to appear in another part of this Review, against the mental pressure and misdirection of energies incident to the competitive examinations which pervade our whole educational system.

FREDERICK THE THIRD AND THE

NEW GERMANY.

There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which taken at the flood leads on to Fortune.

IN a manner without parallel and to an unexampled degree, the moving drama of the death of Frederick the Third stirred to their depths the genuine sympathies of civilised nations. The condition of armed suspense in which Europe had stood for two years past, the momentous issues of peace or war, which then seemed to hang upon the crisis of his fate, heightened and intensified the interest. Thoughts of a great career cut short at its full commencement, of beneficent designs crossed in their initiation, of high hopes baffled on the morning of their realisation, of vast opportunities for utility granted only in the seeming, added their touches of peculiar pathos to the sterner features of the tragedy. The hush of silence in which the world watched the slow gradual fall of the curtain expressed more eloquently than speech the esteem, the hopes, the confidence that the dying Emperor had inspired. In the presence of the dead even France forgot her scars to weep upon the grave of an honourable foe; and it is no exaggeration to say that, in spirit at least, the mortal remains of Frederick the Third were followed to their last resting-place by a continent of mourners.

As a scion of the house of Hohenzollern Frederick the Third inherited the personal courage and devotion to duty which are the heirlooms of his family. In other fields these hereditary qualities had been severely tried, and had borne the heaviest strain. Yet under the prolonged tests of protracted illness no one could have felt surprise if, in the midst of physical prostration, one or both had failed. Great as were the victories in which as a soldier he had taken part, none were more remarkable than the triumph which his patience, his resignation, his self-control achieved over the weakness, the depression, and the selfishness of sickness. With the strength of numbers, under the spur of hope, in all the excitement of conflict, it is comparatively easy to face the privations of campaigns or the dangers of battle. All these unser Fritz' had shared with the humblest soldier. But no endurance of hardship, no daring displayed in the battlefields which built up the power of the German