[95] In 1670 the General of the Jesuits issued a letter to the Society against the Cartesian philosophy. The University in this agreed with its rivals, and petitioned the Parliament to prohibit the Cartesian teaching. This produced the burlesque Arrêt by Boileau (1675). “Whereas it is stated that for some years past a stranger named Reason has endeavoured to make entry by force into the Schools of the University ... where Aristotle has always been acknowledged as judge without appeal and not accountable for his opinions.... Be it known by these presents that this Court has maintained and kept and does maintain and keep the said Aristotle in perfect and peaceable possession of the said schools ... and in order that for the future he may not be interfered with in them, it has banished Reason for ever from the Schools of the said University, and forbids his entry to disturb and disquiet the said Aristotle in the possession and enjoyment of the aforesaid schools, under pain and penalty of being declared a Jansenist and a lover of innovations.” (Quoted by Cadet, p. 34.)
[96] Although so much time is given to the study of words, practice in the use of words is almost entirely neglected, and the English schoolboy remains inarticulate.
[97] Rollin somewhat extends Quintilian’s statement: “The desire of learning rests in the will which you cannot force.” About attempts to coerce the will in the absence of interest, I may quote a passage from a lecture of mine at Birmingham in 1884, when I did not know that I had behind me such high authorities as Quintilian and Rollin: “I should divide the powers of the mind that may be cultivated in the school-room into two classes: in the first I should put all the higher powers—grasp of meaning, perception of analogy, observation, reflection, imagination, intellectual memory; in the other class is one power only, and that is a kind of memory that depends on the association of sounds. How is it then that in most school-rooms far more time is spent in cultivating this last and least-valuable power than all the rest put together? The explanation is easy. All the higher powers can be exercised only when the pupils are interested, or, as Mr. Thring puts it, ‘care for what they are about.’ The memory that depends on associating sounds is independent of interest and can be secured by simple repetition. Now it is very hard to awaken interest, and still harder to maintain it. That magician’s wand, the cane, with which the schoolmasters of olden time worked such wonders, is powerless here or powerful only in the negative direction; and so is every form of punishment. You may tell a boy—‘If you can’t say your lesson you shall stay in and write it out half-a-dozen times!’ and the threat may have effect; but no ‘instans tyrannus’ from Orbilius downwards has ever thought of saying, ‘If you don’t take an interest in your work, I’ll keep you in till you do!’ So teachers very naturally prefer the kind of teaching in which they can make sure of success.”
[98] Here as usual Rollin uses Quintilian without directly quoting him. He gives in a note the passage he had in his mind. “Id imprimis cavere oportebit, ne studia qui amare nondum potest oderit; et amaritudinem semel præceptam etiam ultra rudes annos reformidet (Quint., lib. j, cap. 1.)”
[99] Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel were also in this sense realists, but they held that the educational value of knowledge lay not in itself, but only in so far as it was an instrument for developing the faculties of the mind.
[100] Henry Barnard (English Pedagogy, second series, p. 192), speaks of Hoole as “one of the pioneer educators of his century.” According to Barnard he was born at Wakefield, in 1610, and died in 1666, rector of “Stock Billerica” (perhaps Stock with Billericay), in Essex.
[101] A very interesting suggestion of Cowley’s is that another house be built for poor men’s sons who show ability. These shall be brought up “with the same conveniences that are enjoyed even by rich men’s children (though they maintain the fewer for that cause), there being nothing of eminent and illustrious to be expected from a low, sordid, and hospital-like education.”
[102] It would seem as if these Puritans were more active in body than in mind: even the seniors, like the children at Port-Royal, tombent dans la nonchalance. Dury has to lay it down that “the Governour and Ushers and Steward if they be in health should not go to bed till ten.” (p. 30.)
[103] It is a sign of the failure of all attempts to establish educational science in England that though the meaning of “real” and “realities” which connected them with res seemed established in the sixteen hundreds, our language soon lost it again. According to a writer in Meyer’s Conversations Lexicon (first edition) “reales” in this sense occurs first in Taubmann, 1614. Whether this is correct or not it was certainly about this time that there arose a contest between Humanismus and Realismus, a contest now at its height in the Gymnasien and Realschulen of Germany. For a discussion of it, see M. Arnold’s “Literature and Science,” referred to above (p. 154).
[104] Many of Petty’s proposals are now realized in the South Kensington Museum.