ries in their triumphs in the dead languages, in the rank they take at College, the scholarships, the fellowships they achieve. Nay, this is not all, the school preposterously claims to itself the credit of the whole future fame and fortune of its quondam pupil, the whole fruits of that education which he subsequently gave himself; and which the time he wasted within its walls only postponed; while his Greek and Latin have not only contributed nothing to his advancement, but have been most probably almost entirely forgotten by him. There is no part of this solemn mockery of intellectual cultivation more tantalizing than the fact, that classical honours are borne away by efforts, not in the direct, but the inverse ratio of the value of the attainments rewarded. Ambition performs feats almost incredible; it furnishes an impulse which makes light and pleasurable tasks which, without it, would be an intolerable grievance. The literary performances are often of great merit, and were they not all, were they an elegant surplusage to practical wisdom and useful knowledge, they would be so much gained, an additional grace well worth possessing. But when they are all the hard earnings of the noonday and the midnight, when the same time, talent, and labour, properly directed, would have rewarded the young student with an extent of knowledge, and accomplishment, and resource, which few by their own efforts subsequently attain, we can only account for the dead languages continuing for another day to occupy so long exclusively the seat of education, by reflecting that the men who suffer its continuance were once boys, whom it at one and the same time cheated of sound knowledge, and intrenched in impregnable prejudice.*

If all this shall appear to be strongly stated, if it shall excite, as it will no doubt do, angry feelings in those attached to the

As these strictures will very probably be objected to, as referring to grammar schools as they were, and written in ignorance of the improvements now introduced into them, it was thought desirable to obtain some of the recent reports and prize lists which are statedly published by the more important of these seminaries, and all that I have seen, indicate as yet paramount the old subjects of study and competition. It is worthy of remark, too, that the improvements claimed, are neither more nor less than partial introductions of the very useful knowledge now advocated; in other words, partial displacements of Greek and Latin. In the two great seminaries of Edinburgh, the High School and Academy, there is considerable improvement in this way; but both establishments, put their scholarship foremost, in their appeal to the public. We find prizes for "best Grecian, best Greek prose, best Greek verses, best Latin verses;" and themes written by boys of fourteen, when the faculties are unfit for the subjects, which it would task the powers of the ablest tacticians, politicians, and philosophers to deal with, such as "Was the attack of Saguntum by Hannibal, and the invasion of Italy, justifiable on the reasons which he alleges?Which was the ablest general, Cæsar or Hannibal?-On the progress and decline of commercial nations-Whether was Livy or Herodotus the most correct historian ?-On the progress of mankind fram

AUTHORITIES AGAINST THEM-MILTON-LOCKE.

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classics by habit and by fame, and angrier still in those linked to them by interest, the writer has two grounds of deprecation; First, he abjures all personal feeling in his strictures on a system of centuries. He knows the talent and the worth of many of its advocates and retainers; to some of them he is closely bound by the ties of friendship and affection. He remembers, with almost filial respect, the venerable men, now no more, who were his kind and sincere instructers; respects the existing generation of classical teachers; and so far is he from wishing to affect their patrimonial status, that he would be the first to compensate them for the loss occasioned to them by the adoption of a system of education more in harmony with the age, and more consistent with the nature and faculties of man.

Secondly, the author claims the shelter from their displeasure of names, which they will certainly join him in venerating.MILTON has these words: "Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learning generally so unpleasant and so unsuccessful. First, we do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable Latin and Greek, as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year;* and that which casts our proficiency so much behind is, our time lost in too oft idle vacancies given both to schools and universities, partly in a preposterous exaction from the empty wits of children, to compose themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts of ripest judgment." In another place, Milton says, "Though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft this world into, yet, if he has not studied the solid things in them, as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother-dialect only."

LOCKE, on Education, says, "Would not a Chinese, who had notice of our way of breeding, be apt to imagine, that all our young gentlemen were designed to be teachers and professors of the dead languages of foreign countries, and not to be men of business in their own?" Again, the same author says (for he reprobates the practice in several passages :) "But though the

barbarism to civilization and refinement.-Whether is aristocracy or democracy ultimately more dangerous to public liberty!-On the manners of the heroic ages," &c. It will astonish a more rationally educated age than our own, that the most enlightened men of the second quarter of the nineteenth century were satisfied with this as the fruit of seven years labours in their sons; well aware, at the same time, from their own experience, that the self-education, which is to fit for active life, has yet to begin after all the prizes for long and laborious scholas tic trifling have been awarded, and all the applauses bestowed.

* On saving time, and other matters, see Letter from Mr. Cunning ham, head master of the Edinburgh Institution for Languages, &. App. No, IV.

qualifications requisite to trade and commerce, and the business of the world, are seldom or never to be got at grammar-schools, yet thither not only gentlemen send their younger sons intended for trades, but even tradesmen and farmers fail not to send their children, though they have neither intention nor ability to make them scholars. If you ask them why they do this? they think it as strange a question as if you should ask them why they go to church? Custom serves for reason, and has, to those that take it for reason, so consecrated this method, that it is almost religiously observed by them; and they stick to it, as if their children had scarce an orthodox education unless they learned Lilly's grammar." A passage follows on the subject of the special oblivion of Greek. "How many are there of a hundred, even among scholars themselves, who retain the Greek they carried from school, or ever improve it to a familiar reading and perfect understanding of Greek authors ?”*

GIBBON observes, that a finished scholar may emerge from the head of Eton or Westminster, in total ignorance of the business and conversation of gentlemen, in the latter end of the eighteenth century."

ADAM SMITH makes the remark, that "it seldom happens that a man, in any part of his life, derives any conveniency or advantage from some of the most laborious and troublesome parts of his education.'

BYRON, on the authority of his biographer MOORE, was a bad Greek and Latin scholar at Harrow; hated the drudgery they imposed upon him, and acquired his copious, flexible and splendid style by extensive English reading.

It is necessary to repeat the qualification of the whole argument, for nothing is more apt to be forgotten by the advocates of classical studies,-that not a word which has been said can even be perverted to mean absolute hostility to Latin and Greek, to the length of banishing them utterly from education as a pursuit. The study of them, but at a more advanced stage of education, and for a moderate portion of time, as advised by Milton, is necessary for the divine-who must add Hebrew-~ the lawyer and the physician. Nay, more; even the higher classics afford an object which will well reward the kind of genius which is fitted for the pursuit. What is contended for is, the rescue of our entire youth from the dead languages,—from the engrossing exclusiveness of that one object, during all the period when real knowledge is most naturally and beneficially attainable. It will at once occur to the reader, that this qualifi

A singularly confirmatory letter from Dr. Christison, present profes sor of Materia Medica in the University of Edinburgh, who obtained the highest honours for Greek, both at school and college, and nevertheless has nearly forgotten that tongue, was lately published in Mr. Combe's "Lectures on Education,"

PHYSICAL SCIENCE-MENTAL.

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cation is precisely that which is likely to be most unwelcome to the teachers of the dead languages, whose emoluments depend upon the numbers of their pupils; but this cannot affect the truth of the distinction.

Our scientific studies are unexceptionably provided for at College. In all the branches of natural history, chymistry, and mechanical philosophy, we have the means offered us of the highest attainments. Suppose us to have completely mastered all these branches of physical science, the question remains, What is our access to the SCIENCE OF MIND, or, more extensively, the science of MAN? To physical man, there exist ample means of being introduced; but anatomy and physiology are never dreamed of by any one not destined to the medical profession; the most highly educated gentleman knows as little about his own bodily frame, or its relations to external nature, as the most uninformed of the manual-labour class, and is nearly as ignorant of the conditions of health, though, practically and by habit more than principle cleaner in his person and dwelling. But it is in the philosophy of mind that our Universities present the grand blank. Yet truth in this science must be arrived at before human affairs can be placed on a sound moral foundation. If it be undeniable, that the true guiding principle of human affairs can only be the accordance of human affairs with human faculties, what must not be the extent of the evils which humanity suffers, when yet in ignorance or uncertainty as to the nature of these faculties? Can we wonder at the confliction in speculation, and the confusion in action, which prevail around us? Above all, what title have we to expect that education, which is essentially the improvement of the human faculties, the guide to their right use, and the guard against that miserable abuse which far and wide imbitters life, can be either theoretically or practically understood, when no two philosophers are agreed as to what the faculties are; and few writers on education have thought of appealing to them, or considered it necessary to take them into account at all in their speculations. But this branch of the subject will be treated more at large in the next chapter; the utmost object of this and the preceding will have been attained, if they shall tend to open our eyes, not only to the desolate state of seven eighths of our countrymen for lack of that knowledge which alone will enable them to co-operate in their own elevation, physical, moral, and intellectual, but not less to the imperfections of our own education, our ignorance of that imperfection, and, the natural result, our unfortunate apathy on the important subject.

* Professor Dugald Stewart's confession on this head has been already referred to.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE FACULTIES OF MAN AND THEIR RELATIVE OBJECTS.

Man the being to be educated-Knowledge of his nature required-Training horses and dogs-Education, its three essentials--Human body, improvement of-The senses--their objects-Faculties of mind disputed-Modes mistaken for faculties-Admitted view of man's nature-Shakspeare's and Scott's-Postulates to be conceded-Physiological evidence not founded on-Experience-Nine animal propensities-Self-Love-Desire of estimation-Fear-Inferior feelings what-Law in the mind--Benevolence-Justice-VenerationEthics-Christianity--Seven other moral sentiments-IntellectKnowing faculties--Reflecting--Language--Tabular view of faculties-Possessed by all, but in different degrees-Innate and permanent--Combination-Degrees of rank in faculties-Supremacy of Sentiments and Intellect illustrated--Mr. Combe's original views.

If the being to be educated is man, some knowledge of his nature would seem to be a requisite preliminary to his actual education. Treatises abound in which we are told that man ought to be trained according to his nature, in harmony with his faculties; but, with a few recent exceptions, no educational writer has made an attempt which deserves the name of systematic, to inquire what that nature is, or those faculties are. The trainers of horses and dogs proceed much more philosophically; they leave nothing to hazard, but study, with the utmost care, the distinguishing qualities of the animals, and apply the best treatment to those qualities. But any kind of training is held good enough for the human animal, and moreover any kind of trainer who professes to undertake the office. When the principles which ought to regulate education are understood, this grievous error will be corrected. It will then be known, and the knowledge acted upon, that education is a process calculated to qualify man to think, feel, and act, in a manner most productive of happiness. It will be known that he has a certain constitution of body and mind, having certain definite relations to beings and things external to itself, and that in these relations are the conditions of his weal or wo. Education will then be seen to have