music or drawing compulsory. But it might be encouraged, and it is barely permitted, if the time allotted for it is to be subtracted from playhours. Perhaps the proposed choice of music or drawing might be coupled with other less popular alternatives, such as additional summing lessons or writing (we wish it were possible to make the writing lesson a reality at public schools!). Some experiment of this kind might be tried; but without trial it is impossible to decide on the best course. Drawing lessons might give some command of hand and flexibility of muscle to the clumsy fists of healthy boyhood, and might lead to the acquisition of an useful accomplishment, which is seldom cultivated with success except when the elementary difficulties have been overcome early. Some power of drawing is very useful to all professional men, especially to the soldier, and in these church-building days to the clergyman. By 'music,' whether vocal or instrumental is meant the Report does not say, nor in what way it should be taught. No doubt by either music or drawing a most agreeable resource is provided for the pupil's own leisure moments, and perhaps the danger is not great that either will be pursued to the injury of professional occupations; but, nevertheless, the danger does exist. Music, moreover, has drawbacks peculiar to itself, as those who have lived on a musical staircase at the University, or near a persevering flute or horn-player in barracks, can testify.

The Commissioners display a great anxiety to obtain a power of deviation from the usual course of study for those boys who show an invincible repugnance to the established order, or an extraordinary aptitude for some special pursuit. They feel, however, the difficulty of the subject, and fence the proposed alteration with so many cautions and provisoes that it amounts to little. It is most objectionable to hold out to a self-willed idler as a reward, that if he will only be bold enough and obstinate enough in refusing to do his allotted tasks, he shall in time be allowed to cut and carve his lessons for himself. In some schools a system which is called 'bifurcation' has been introduced, and, as far as we can see from the evidence, not without some success. At a certain part near the top the school splits into two branches: in one the same course as before is pursued, in the other various new subjects are introduced for the benefit of the many who have failed in the established studies, or the few, alas, how few! who have saturated themselves with them. But we do not see from anything that appears in the evidence how the objection can be overcome that the prospect of a change will discourage industry in the early part of the school.

Whatever the merits of this plan may prove on farther trial, we cannot recommend its adoption by the older foundations.

When

When a boy has arrived at a certain period of his school career, if it is thought proper, no matter for what reason, to change his studies, there is no hardship in removing him to some place of education where the desired course is pursued. But bifurcation engrafted on so uncongenial a stock would not flourish. The supposed reform would become, what in all such innovations is most to be dreaded, a mere sham.

The proposal to adapt the teaching to the possible tastes of boys who have a natural aptitude for peculiar studies seems to involve an attempt to give more elasticity to the system of public schools than is attainable. As regards both physical and intellectual training, a public school can be regulated only for the masses. Those who send a weakly, delicate, morbidly sensitive boy among the healthy, the robust, and the thick-skinned, have no right to complain if he is not protected from the disagreeable consequences of such a collision. Geniuses with a strongly developed taste for some special study are very rare, and it is not too much to expect their own parents to attend to their idiosyncracies. We should certainly be glad that a careful head-master did what he could to give pliability to the regulations of the school, and we are glad to see by the evidence that many turn their special attention to this point. But we should be sorry to have their course on such occasions prescribed to them by definite rules.

We must call attention to the repeated protest of the Commissioners that they meditate no invasion of the schoolboy's playhours. They would not have the term of work prolonged, but differently arranged; and if by the suggestions we have thrown out, or any other that may be proposed, the method of teaching can be improved, a still further saving of available time will be effected. The Commissioners have also examined witnesses to prove that success in school work does not interfere with proficiency in games, and that, as a matter of fact, some of the best scholars are the best cricketers. We should have hardly thought it necessary to take so much pains to establish this point, if a strange idea had not got abroad, that intellectual progress interferes with physical growth, and yet the most superficial observation would show that mental and bodily activity are closely connected, and the idlest boys are often as indolent in body as listless in mind. No doubt it is pleasant to read of the athletic sports of healthy boyhood, and pleasanter still to witness the stir and life of the merry playground; but the solicitude of parents on the subject of games is quite superfluous, and not always free from mischief. The races, or matches of various kinds in which boys are engaged, are only too apt to lead to over-excitement and overVol. 116.-No. 231. exertion,

P

exertion, even without the stimulus of parental encouragement. We are no enemies to amusements. We quite agree with old Ascham that 'yong jentlemen should use and delite in all courtelie exercises and jentlemanlike pastimes.' But this is not a point likely to be neglected. Several of the witnesses give strong reasons in favour of some sort of work or occupation in the holidays, which in the aggregate amount to nearly one-fourth of the whole year—a space too long to be wholly wasted, and quite long enough to permit the formation of bad habits. The holidays are not well spent in total idleness. Their real enjoyment is much enhanced by the admixture of a certain amount of rational occupation, and they seem to offer the fit occasion for making up any special deficiency, and for pursuing the studiessuch as history and geography, which are promoted by home influences. But to this, strange to say, the boys themselves are in many cases less opposed than their parents, whose dogmatic axiom, 'holidays should be holidays,' effectually stops all discussion of the point. A great part of the confusion in which the question of education is involved, arises from the division of public feeling as to the value of knowledge. It is time we should no longer halt between two opinions. If, indeed, the meagreness of modern instruction is a matter of indifference let us not be harassed with Royal Commissions, Parliamentary discussions, and bootless legislation. If, on the contrary, it is an evil to be removed, let parents observe that the Report again and again lays on them the blame of certain important defects, which they alone have the power of obviating.

Undoubtedly English education as a whole is better than might be inferred from the long catalogue which the Commissioners have drawn up of its shortcomings. Latin, though not well taught, and less well remembered, is valuable as mental discipline, and leaves behind it more knowledge of general grammar and etymology than the study of any modern language can convey. The training of public schools atones in some degree for the defectiveness of the teaching by cultivating powers and habits of mind which facilitate the acquisition and application of knowledge in after-life. In Mr. Laing's 'Observations on the state of the European people in 1848-49,' there is a passage so much to the point, that we regret our limits do not permit us to quote it in full. It is the more remarkable inasmuch as the writer's prepossessions would naturally have led him to a different conclusion. At p. 214 he draws a comparison between a young man brought up at foreign universities and 'an English-bred lad at the moment they have left their respective places of education-the latter with little to show for his time and money, the

former

former full of information and accomplishment. But in ten or twelve years the tables are turned. The foreign university-man is still 'a lad in mind, and a babbler on the surface of every subject.' The Englishman has gone into the business of life with a mind so trained, that he 'grasps at will the necessary knowledge of the subject before him.' To the general merits of English education the Commissioners give the amplest testimony, by approving it in all its leading features, though their duty led them to search out and expose all the faults that could be found in its several parts. Our admiration for it as a whole should only stimulate our zeal to amend the faults of detail; and fortunately these are of a nature which admit of correction without in the least endangering the advantages of the system.

We must defer to some future opportunity our remarks on the remedial measures which require the interference of the Legislature. For the present we have dwelt chiefly on those defects which can be reached only indirectly, if at all, by legislation, and must be corrected by individual effort, and the force of public opinion.

The following is a brief summary of the principal remedies we suggest:-Better teaching at home, and especially at the preparatory schools; a great reform (according to the circumstances of each case) in the method of hearing lessons at the public schools; arrangements for teaching, in the proper sense of the word, the backward and the dull (a boy's dislike to his work is caused not so much by its dryness as by his own sense of failure); and lastly, the establishment of class lectures for the teaching of Composition and certain other subjects. When this preliminary reform is effected, it will be found both easy and advantageous to enlarge the present curriculum; but not till then.

In the mean time we recommend the Report to the careful consideration of the reader: let him not be deterred by the sight of four large folios. These are no common blue books. They present a remarkable survey of the present state of education, which will be most interesting hereafter. What would we now give for similar documents of the days of Elizabeth or James? To foreigners, if any should take the trouble of trying to understand our system, they will be, in spite of their minute details, almost unintelligible. At home they will be read with the deepest interest. Few can fail to be affected by the picture so vividly reproduced to the mind's eye of the 'school-boy spot,' in all its details, with all its tender, all its pleasurable, and all its regretful associations.

ART. VIII.-1. A Walk from London to John O'Groat's. By Elihu Burritt. London, 1864.

2. The Land we live in. By Charles Knight. London, 1850-60. 3. A Londoner's Walk to the Land's End, and a Trip to the Scilly Isles. By Walter White. London, 1860.

4. Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain and Ireland. By William Howitt. Second Series. London, 1864.

5. Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England, from Drawings made principally by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and engraved by W. B. Cooke, George Cooke, and other eminent Engravers. 2 vols. folio. London, 1826.

6. Handbook for Devon and Cornwall. London, 1863. 7. Handbook for Kent and Sussex. London, 1863. 8. Handbook for Surrey, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. London, 1864.

9. Handbook for Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset. London, 1859. 10. Handbook for Bucks, Berks, and Oxfordshire. London, 1860. 11. Handbook for Durham and Northumberland. London, 1864. 12. Handbook to North and South Wales. London, 1860-4. 13. Handbooks to the Cathedrals of England. The Southern— Eastern and Western Divisions. 4 Vols. With Illustrations. London, 1861-4.

14. Handbook for Ireland. London, 1864.

SIR

NIR HILDEBRAND JACOB, author, in the early part of the last century, of some plays and poems long since forgotten, is said to have had a pleasant mode of travelling.' When the spring was somewhat advanced, and the roads had become tolerably passable (MacAdam was as yet unthought of), Sir Hildebrand and his servant

'set off with a portmanteau, and without knowing whither they were going. Towards evening, when they came to a village, they enquired if the great man loved books and had a good library; and if the answer was in the affirmative, Sir Hildebrand sent his compliments, that he was come to see him; and then he used to stay till he was disposed to move farther. In this manner he travelled through the greatest part of England, scarcely ever sleeping at an inn unless when town or village did not afford one person civilised enough to be glad to see a gentleman and a scholar.'

Squires of the latter class, whose bibliothèque, like that of the Spanish Cura, lay for the most part in their cellars, must have been frequently encountered, but there seem to have been 'civilised persons' enough to make the travelling 'very pleasant;"

* Nichols, Literary Anecdotes,' ii. 61 (note).

and,