become torpid for want of due excitement and exercise. The passions must be taught to submit to the judgment, and the pupil must learn, that, if he wishes to govern others (and he will wish to govern others, in conformity to the very nature of his existence), his first achievement must be to govern himself. "He that has not a mastery over his inclinations, he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger never to be good for anything. This temper, therefore, so contrary to unguided nature, is to be got betimes; and this habit, as the true foundation of future ability and happiness, is to be wrought into the mind as early as may be, even from the first dawnings of knowledge or apprehension in children, and so to be confirmed in them by all the care and ways imaginable, by those who have the oversight of their education*." In the power of self-control, then, consists the main difference between the virtuous and the vicious man: their desires must often be the same; but the one can resist, the other must always yield.

These are commonplace truths, it may be said, generally admitted, and generally acted upon. But some truths, whether commonplace or not, need to be continually repeated, to be presented under various aspects, to be enforced in various ways. No truths run so much risk of being little regarded as those which are universally admitted; though, for this very reason, that they are universally admitted, they are more important than any other truths, however great, which may be a matter of dispute. Thus, many religious truths, which are

*Locke on Education.

matter of dispute among religious sects, though of the highest importance in one point of view, are, in another point of view, of less importance than other truths, not religious, on which they are agreed. Truths on which all are agreed may influence the practice of all; but truths in dispute, though efficacious in the conduct of those who hold them, lose half their force from the opposition of those who hold them not.

But it is not a fact that these fundamental truths in education are generally acted on. In many schools of high note, there is no object, real or professed, but to teach boys some Latin and Greek, with a few other branches of knowledge, very imperfectly; and even in these schools, it is not unusual for the boys of promising ability to receive the chief attention in preference to those of less ability who require it more. The chief object is to train the cleverest boys to gain the dazzling honours of University prizes and distinctions, and to rest the reputation of the school on this narrow and worthless basis.

When a number of boys, of various ages, are placed under a master to be educated, we may consider them, for the time, as detached from their domestic relations, and as entering into a new social circle. We suppose the boys to board with a master, to live in his house as his family; we suppose them, in fact, under those circumstances which are most favourable for the exercise of all the master's influence; for it is obviously easier for a master to educate boys who live with him altogether, than to educate boys who only come to him during certain hours of the day for instruction. Parents transfer the education of their children to others whose profession it is to educate: parents themselves, who are

not teachers, have generally other occupations, which take up all their time, and those who are rich are seldom able or willing to superintend their children's education. They accordingly send their children to boardingschools; and it is in these establishments that the influence of education is the greatest either for good or for harm.

Now, when a master undertakes to educate boys, he undertakes to govern and instruct a number of individuals, who have been brought up at home in a variety of ways, some with bad habits, some with good, but all with some peculiarities or propensities which require vigilant superintendence and frequent correction. Such an undertaking involves numerous difficulties, which can only be overcome by a man sincerely bent on the discharge of his duty, and well prepared for it by the possession of good sense, self-command, and an adequate amount of experience and knowledge. Were a master at once to take under his charge a hundred boys, total strangers to him and to one another, the difficulty of the task would be much increased: but it generally happens that he begins with a small number, if he forms a private school, and slowly increases it; so that the accession of new comers is gradual, and he has time to study their characters without much impediment to his regular occupation. If he enters on the charge of an endowed school, he at once undertakes the management of a large number of boys strangers to him, but not strangers to one another.

Most people who have been at any large school, especially a boarding-school, will recollect the feelings which they experienced on leaving home, and being thrown into a completely new society. Few events in life leave

a stronger impression, and none are more important for the consequences. From the day that a youth enters this new circle, his thoughts and actions become unavoidably affected by the thoughts and actions of others; it is, in fact, the beginning of his career as a member of society. He has exchanged the narrow circle of his family for a wider circle, which gradually embraces all the relations of social life. On entering the new society, he is like a stranger who enters a foreign country; he cannot do as he pleases, or as he is accustomed to do; but he must conform to that which he finds esta blished. His words, his thoughts, his actions, in a few days, partake of the general tone, and the individual character is lost in that of the mass. And yet each individual, while he appears to be blended with the whole body, communicates to it something of his own; and sometimes, when he is gifted with more than usual vigour of character, or with propensities more vicious than common, the influence of one youth on the society which he enters is soon felt, but not always soon enough discovered.* The character of this new society which the boys enter, and the character of each boy that enters it, are two elements which require constant attention.

Boys, it is said, when they get together in numbers, will form a society of their own, and rules by which it is governed: they will fix a standard of morality, that is, some among them will become the creators of rules and customs, which the rest will follow from choice or com pulsion. Such being admitted to be the case, must we leave them altogether to themselves? or impose abso

This is a subject of great importance, as we know from the evidence of several medical meu.

lute rules for the whole regulation of their conduct towards the master and towards each other? or must we allow them to make regulations for their own internal government under certain limitations? The first of the three plans is the case in some private schools, as we know by experience: schools in which the attention of the master does not go beyond the bare instruction of the boys during school-hours. For these schools there are no terms of reprobation sufficiently strong. A boy who is sent into a prison to mix with rogues and vagabonds of all ages, does not come out of his prison more corrupt and impure than many weak and silly boys do from those boarding-schools, where the master's care is limited to the hours of school instruction. In such schools, if there is an usher whose business it is to keep the boys out of mischief during play-hours, it often happens that this only aggravates the evil. A master, careless of his most important duties, transfers to an ignorant man, whose wages are less than those of a footman, and whom he treats with undisguised contempt, the care of his boys during those hours when they require more than usual superintendence. This wretched state of numerous private boarding-schools of an inferior class requires a separate consideration.

The relationship of a master or masters to pupils refers to three divisions of time, which occupy the twenty-four hours: the hours of instruction, the hours of relaxation and exercise, the hours of sleep. The master's duties extend over all these three divisions, and his su perintendence is not more important in one than in any other. But these three divisions of time point also to divisions of a different kind-a division or classification of pupils mainly according to age. As far as we know,