[1] When the greater part of this volume was already written, Mr. Parker published his sketch of the history of Classical Education (Essays on a Liberal Education, edited by Farrar). He seems to me to have been very successful in bringing out the most important features of his subject, but his essay necessarily shows marks of over-compression. Two volumes have also lately appeared on Christian Schools and Scholars (Longmans, 1867). Here we have a good deal of information which we want, and also, it seems to me, a good deal which we do not want. The work characteristically opens with a 10th century description of the personal appearance of St. Mark when he landed at Alexandria. The author treats only of the times which preceded the Council of Trent. A very interesting account of early English education has been given by Mr. Furnivall, in the 2nd and 3rd numbers of the Quarterly Journal of Education (1867). [I did not then know of Dr. Barnard’s works.]
[2] This article is omitted in the last edition.
[3] The rest of this chapter was published in the September, 1880 number of Education. Boston, U.S.A.
[4] On the nature of literature see Cardinal Newman’s “Lectures on the Nature of a University. University Subjects. II. Literature.”
[5] I see Carlyle has used a similar metaphor in the same connexion: “Consider the old schoolmen and their pilgrimage towards Truth! the faithfullest endeavour, incessant unwearied motion; often great natural vigour, only no progress; nothing but antic feats of one limb poised against the other; there they balanced, somerseted, and made postures; at best gyrated swiftly with some pleasure like spinning dervishes and ended where they began.”—Characteristics, Misc., vol. iii, 5.
[6] This illustration was suggested by a similar one in Prof. J. R. Seeley’s essay “On the teaching of English” in his Lectures and Essays, 1870.
[7] Miss J. D. Potter, in “Journal of Education.” London, June, 1879
[8] See Erasmus’s Ciceronianus, or account of it, in Henry Barnard’s German Teachers.
[9] “On Abuse of Human Learning,” by Samuel Butler.
[10] Multum ilium profecisse arbitror, qui ante sextum decimum ætatis annum facultatem duarum linguarum mediocrem assecutus est. (Quoted by Parker.)