“Trusting, Sir, that you will pardon the trespass of this letter,
“I am, sincerely yours,
“Frances Power Cobbe.”
Twelve of these Head Masters, including some of the most eminent, e.g., Mr. Welldon, of Harrow; Dr. Haig, of the Charterhouse; and the lamented Mr. Thring, of Uppingham, wrote me most interesting letters in reply expressing approval of my views. I shall here insert that of Mr. Thring as in many respects noteworthy.
“Rev. Edward Thring to Miss F. P. C.
“Pitlochry, Perthshire, N.B.,
“September 6th, 1889.
“My dear Madam,
“I received your little pamphlet on physiology, but I hardly know what you expect me to do. My writings on Education sufficiently show how strongly I feel on the subject of a Literary Education; or rather how confident I am in the judgment that there can be no worthy education which is not based on the study of the highest thoughts of the highest men, in the best shape.
“As for Science (most of it falsely so called) if a few leading minds are excepted, it simply amounts, to the average dull worker, to no more than a kind of upper shopwork, weighing out, and labelling, and learning alphabetical formulæ; a superior Grocery-assistant’s work; and has not a single element of higher mental training in it. Not to mention that it leaves out all knowledge of man and life, and therefore is eminently fitted to train men for life and its struggles! Physiology, in its worser sense adds to this a brutalising of the average practitioner, or rather a devilish combination of intellect-worship and cruelty at the expense of feeling and character. For my part, if it were true that vivisection had wonderfully relieved bodily disease for men, if it were at the cost of lost spirits, then I should say, Let the body perish! And it is at the cost of lost spirits! I do not say that under no circumstances should an experiment take place, but I do say that under no circumstance should an experiment take place for teaching purposes. You will see how decided my judgment is on this matter. I send you three Addresses on Education, which in smaller space than my books, will illustrate the positive side of my experience and beliefs.