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THE

EDUCATIONAL MISTAKES.

HE advance of education is the great aim of good men in the present age; a desire for knowledge is beginning to pervade all classes. We cannot, as our ancestors were content to do, sit down and dream away our lives in ignorance, enlivened by the scandal and grossièretés of society at home, and by war and strife abroad.

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"Let education be national," say one party; "let the children of rich and poor meet together in their early days on common ground, with a common instructor." "Let it be appropriate to the various ranks of society, and beware how you destroy the distinctions of classes," says a second. "Give all the knowledge you can," argues a third party, all, but let it conduce to some useful end. Do not attempt to teach the artisan or labourer astronomy or mathematics, for instance ;-not that an acquaintance with these sciences will in themselves do him harm, for all knowledge enlarges and elevates the mind, but because they will occupy the time that ought to be devoted to other subjects more conducive to his real happiness."

The speeches, pamphlets, and works that have been spoken and written on this subject, are innumerable; and yet there is one point, an examination of which would materially assist us in forming a correct judgment, and which does not appear to have received the consideration it deserves —that point being, a study of the history and progress of education in previous ages of the world. By examining this, we should more accurately discover what are the natural results of certain courses of action, and may conclude that if we fall into the same paths, similar results will ensue; and thus may we avoid similar evils and shortcomings. Such an inquiry would indeed be impossible within our present limits; but we may, by touching slightly on a few of the more salient points, induce some abler pen to undertake the work.

The first thing that strikes us in the educational system of the Old World is the spirit of exclusiveness and mystery by which they were pervaded. The secrets of knowledge were confided to the initiated only, while the mass of the people received little or no instruction, and consequently sank gradually lower and lower in ignorance, and its attendants, superstition and slavishness. Thus a wide chasm was established between the common herd and the favoured few, who knew full well the meaning of that axiom of modern days, "Knowledge is power." But now, what were the results of this line of conduct? We must turn to the pages of history for information, and we shall there be struck with the singular difference between the characters of ancient and modern civilization. The modern possesses in itself the seeds of progress and advance,—the ancient the principle of stagnation. Nor could it be otherwise; though the intellectual superiority of the rulers might for a time be sufficient to guide and direct the nation, to lead them on to conquest, and make them powerful amongst surrounding peoples, yet the tools with which those rulers worked, viz. the ignorant masses, were deteriorating generation by generation; for it is a known fact, that the human intellect cannot stand still, it must either advance or retrograde. The history of Egypt is a striking exemplification of this fact. Once the most powerful

and learned nation of the world, it became the basest of kingdoms. Her mental strength was crushed by superstitious ignorance. Can we therefore wonder that her physical energy, left unaided, degenerated in the same ratio, and that conqueror after conqueror imposed his heavy yoke upon her neck, almost without resistance?

But the spirit of exclusiveness is of too fascinating a character for the favoured few, not to have taken a deep hold on the human mind. When Europe emerged from the night of the dark ages, we find the possession of knowledge almost exclusively confined to the cloister. Perhaps this was as much the fault of the laity as of the clergy, but the result was the same,-a preponderating influence possessed by the intellectual class over the minds of the people generally. This undue amount of power was, however, fortunately repressed by a series of events producing an enormous mental revolution in the history of modern Europe. These events were the Crusades, which, though encouraged by the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the middle ages, yet sapped its power by introducing greater freedom of thought, and disseminating amongst the masses the stores of knowledge gleaned so plentifully by the Crusaders in their Eastern wars; and thus Peter the Hermit, in his fanatic zeal, took the first step in the grand movement which terminated in the Reformation.

The spirit of exclusiveness was not, however, yet destroyed. Even at the present day, we find traces of it lurking about in remote corners of our own land; and fifty years ago it was much more openly acknowledged. The landed proprietor, while seated in his luxurious library, did not then blush to say that the poor man needed little education. If he could manage to read and write, that was enough, and better than knowing more. Further education would raise him out of his station; and then, if the gentleman was of a melancholy temperament, he prophesied that the ruin of the country would soon follow such a catastrophe. Happily, this is a mode of reasoning now hurrying on to its destined abyss among the things that have been; but the struggle ere it was subdued was like that of Hercules and the hydra-headed serpent.

Having thus traced the results of one educational error, let us see whether history cannot give us some further lessons on other points which may be applicable to the present day; and for this purpose we will turn to the history of Greece. What was this favoured land in her days of youth? Free, noble, and intellectual. What did she become in those of her old age and decrepitude? Licentious and contemptible. This terrible change arose in a great degree from her children dwelling on what was beautiful to the eye, pleasing to the fancy, or captivating to the love of self, and forgetting to take as a groundwork the sterner realities of truth and goodness. Painting and sculpture, music, poetry, and rhetoric, they loved, and therefore excelled in; but, unsupported by those principles which guide and form the moral well-being of men, these very acquisitions led them into vice and speculative atheism. Their minds became corrupt and enfeebled, until the noble Greek of former days, reduced to the slave of successive masters, sunk lower and lower, is now despised by every civilized nation of Europe. Are all our educational systems perfectly free from the errors into which the Grecians fell? Do we never attempt to rear a goodly fabric without the key-stone, which can alone support it?

They who advocate general secular education, unaided by sound moral teaching, may, like the Greeks of old, produce perfect adepts in the various sciences and accomplishments which they profess to teach; but they will have failed in the real and æsthetical objects for which education was designed, the well-being of man both here and hereafter.

Let it not be supposed, however, that we can trace errors and mistakes in the olden time alone. There is a principle still rife with ourselves, which appears to have pervaded equally both ancient and modern civilization, the habit of laying down dogmatically certain axioms, any departure from which brings on the unhappy delinquent a perfect storm of sarcasm, abuse, persecution, and ridicule. He may weather the storm, for if what he propounds is true, the truth will make itself heard at last; but it is a terrible ordeal to go through, because it too often evokes the angry and darker passions of our nature, and leaves as its legacy behind the seeds of bitterness and ill-will. All this might be avoided if the disputants would not take up as their maxim, “ I have said it, and therefore I will stand to it,"-forgetting how manifold are the old errors which further light has exploded; and which fact alone should teach us diffidence in the assertion of modern opinions. We should think less of victory, and more of testing, as well as maintaining, the truth.

Nearly allied to this error is the habit of teaching formularies the reasonableness of which we have never examined. For example, the ancient philosophers observed that the moment a solid or liquid body was removed, the surrounding air immediately rushed in and filled up the space it had deserted; hence they adopted the physical dogma that nature abhors a vacuum; and with this singular non-explanation, if we may be allowed the term, the world was content for two thousand years. By the same axiom the rising of water in a pump was explained in an equally satisfactory manner! Some Florentine engineers, however, being employed to raise water from an unusually great depth, discovered that it would ascend no higher than about thirty-two feet above the well. Galileo, the most celebrated philosopher of that day, was consulted in this difficulty, and, it is said, his answer was, that "Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum extended only to the height of thirty-two feet, but that beyond this her disinclination did not extend!" Some writers suppose this answer to have been ironical, but it has been more generally taken as a solution seriously intended. In either case it is an exemplification of the folly of attempting to teach that which we do not thoroughly understand, or of hiding our ignorance under the parade of technical formularies.

We will close this paper by pointing to one other mistake into which we, as well as our predecessors, are too apt to fall; namely, that of not attending first and principally to those branches of education which are most likely to be really and permanently useful to us. The folly of so doing has been somewhat remarkably exemplified in the educational system of the Jews of Central Europe, as practised thirty years ago.

Education commenced at a very early age with a Jewish child, but the nature of his studies was of a very limited character. The language and literature of the country in which they dwelt was utterly neglected. The Bible, with some commentary in the Hebrew tongue, and subsequently the Talmud, with its subtle interpretations, being the

only branches of knowledge supposed worthy of the student's attention. In the opinion of the strict Jew, everything that was desirable to be known was contained in the Talmud, and therefore the attention bestowed upon any other acquirement was a pure loss of time, while in its study and exposition they spent the best years of their life, leaving the language of the country to be picked up afterwards anyhow and anywhere.

This habitual study of the Talmud exercised a peculiar influence in the formation of their minds. The ingenuity which its exposition requires; the spirit of subtlety and hairsplitting with which it treats its subjects, the abrupt and enigmatical style in which it is written, and the rhapsodical character which it presents, greatly sharpened the intellect of the student, gave him an uncommon zest for argument and debate, and an extraordinary versatility of mind; but at the same time rendered him averse to discipline, and impatient of detail.

Those of the students who eventually became great proficients in Talmudical lore, and bore a good character, received in due time from their masters the hatarah, or diploma, which made them eligible for the office of rabbi. The mass of the students in their academies, however, were forced to be satisfied with subordinate offices, or turned later in life to temporal pursuits; and the figure which they then cut was often singular. Unacquainted with the practical world, for intercourse with which they had not been trained, they were frequently unfit for any other occupation than that of studying the Talmud. It was, therefore, upon their wives that the obligation devolved of providing for the family, and of discharging the duties generally performed by men ; and ludicrous incidents arising from this strange position are related. Thus, one of these students, being summoned before a magistrate in order to sign a certain document, his wife appeared in his place; and when asked why her husband did not attend, the reply was, My husband is a scholar who can neither read nor write ;"—that is, the language of the country. A little general information would surely, in such a case, have been of more practical utility than an exclusive knowledge of Talmudic Hebrew lore.

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And now let us add, in conclusion, that it is of little avail for us to study, even at far greater length, the errors of those who have gone before us, if we do not do so in a teachable spirit,-willing to receive the lesson those errors would give to us; namely, that their failures should act as beacons to guard us from a similar fate; and that they should warn us, as the light-house does the weary mariner, that dangers and difficulties are at hand, and that, if we would escape safely, we must not slumber on our post.

Notes of New Books.

Greek Syntax, with a Rationale of the Construction. By James Clyde, M.A., &c. Prefatory Notice by John S. Blackie, Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. Pp. 221. Sutherland and Knox.

The object of this very clever book is to examine and expound the principles of Greek syntax. The author justly says that " as cram is to culture, so are rules to principles; and it is only when the rationale of phenomena, whether in language or in nature, is inquired into, that the study of either becomes an instrument of culture; for culture, in so far as it affects the relation of the mind to objects of thought, may be said to consist in the continual elimination of the accidental from the necessary, and to result in the reconciliation of all things by the discovery of a few first principles. Besides, the manifold character of Greek constructions, arising from the preservation of ancient synthesis by an extensive inflection of the declinable parts of speech on the one hand, and from the admission of modern analysis on the other, by an extensive use of the article and of prepositions, renders an investigation of principles peculiarly necessary and peculiarly instructive in Greek."

In fact, this book, unlike most other grammars than Mr. Wright's, steps from rules to reasons. It enters into the philosophy of language. As a school-book, it will therefore be, in the present generation, all but useless, because school-teachers, as a system, do not teach principles. But it is a delightful intellectual exercise, and we heartily commend it to the perusal of the Bishop of St. David's, and to every scholar and philologist downwards. Let it not be thought that we underrate the great grammatical canonists. The other day we praised Madvig, the Copenhagen professor, and we have great respect for the German grammarians, from Hermann to Kühner; but to our judgment no one has probed the genius of the Greek language like the author of this new Syntax. None, like him, have disclosed the numerous distinct ideas expressed or implied by the distinctions of case, voice, mood, tense, and also the subtle analogies which connect Greek with all the living tongues of Europe.

The canonized system of classical education tends to make men write fair imitations-cum longo intervallo―of Homeric or Platonic Greek : Mr. Clyde designs to open a new chapter, and to teach us how to study Greek with a view to learning the philosophy and use of language. The study of language thus becomes, as Dean Trench* has so well shown, part of the study of human history. Mr. Clyde makes etymology useful to the accuracy of thought as well as expression. He makes grammar-and especially Greek grammar, which contains so many of

* We rejoice in the promotion of this truly great English scholar to a post of eminence in London, where his active literary powers will, unimpeded by the labours of office, give scope to his educational energies.

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