Seneca v. Comenius.—A. I like your quotation on p. 169 from Dr. John Brown. After your see-saw fashion, you have, in a note on p. 365, expressed a fondness for “a notion of the whole.” E. I am there thinking of minute instruction about parts. But in most things notions of the parts precede the notion of the whole; and in this matter I think Seneca was wiser than Comenius: “More easily are we led through the parts into a conception of the whole. Facilius per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur.” (Ep. 88, 1.) A. May I ask to whom you are indebted for this erudition? E. To Wuestemann. (Promptuarium. Gotha, 1856.)
Useful Knowledge.—A. I am inclined to think that now and then you do not attach sufficient importance to the possession of knowledge and skill. E. Perhaps I do not. What I wish to cultivate is, not so much knowledge as the desire for knowledge, and further, the activity of mind that will turn knowledge to account. Knowledge driven in from without, so to speak, and skill obtained by enforced practice are, I will not say valueless, but very different in quality from the knowledge and skill that their possessor has sought for. Knowledge is a tool. He who has acquired it without caring for it, will have neither the skill nor the will to use it. A. Does not this apply to the knowledges recommended by Herbert Spencer, knowledge how to bring up children, &c., and to the knowledge of physiological facts and rules of health which you yourself say would be “of great practical value” (p. 444)? E. Certainly it does, and also to the “domestic economy” of our Board schools; still more to the lessons in morality which it seems are, at least in France if not elsewhere, to supersede religion. If you can get the learners to care for such lessons, the lessons are worth giving; if not, not. Care, not for the thing, but for the examination in the thing, is different, and can produce only a very inferior article. I expect there are instances in which care for the examination develops into care for the subject of the examination; but these cases are so rare that they may be neglected. A. I see you would not take a deep interest in the “Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.” And yet how terrible are the results of ignorance! Herbert Spencer is great on knowledge for earning a livelihood. It would add, perhaps, three or four shillings a week to the wages of the working man if his wife had learnt to cook. In matters of food the waste from ignorance among the English poor is appalling. E. In this case the school might do much, as girls would be anxious to learn. And though we cannot lay down as a general rule that it is “never too late to learn,” this rule might be applied to cooking. I see that in Govan, a suburb of Glasgow, the widow of the great ship-builder, John Elder, employs a trained teacher of cookery to instruct both by demonstrations, and also by visiting houses to which he (or she?) is invited. The results are said to be excellent. May this good lady find many imitators!
Memorizing Poetry.—A. About learning poetry by heart, did you ever hear of the old Winchester plan of “Standing up”? In the regular “exams.” (“trials” as we called them at Harrow), each boy had to state in how much Homer and Virgil he was ready to “stand up.” The master examined into the boy’s power of saying this by heart, and of construing all he said. From the very first the boy always gave in the same poetry, only adding to it each time. E. I have heard of it. Why, I wonder, was this plan given up? A. I have asked old Wykamists, but nobody seems to know. Perhaps the quantities learnt became absurdly large. But this method of accretion, if not overdone, would leave something behind it for life. Let me show you a passage from Æschines (Agnst Ktesip. § 135) which I have seen, not in Æschines, but in J. H. Krause’s “Education among the Greeks” (Gesch. d. Erziehg bei d. Griechen). It is so simple that even you may construe it. Διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ οἶμαι ἠμᾶς παῖδας ὄντας τὰς τῶν ποιητῶν γνώμας ἔκμανθάνειν ἵν’ ἄνδρες ὄντὲς αὐταῖς χρώμεθα. E. There is very little left of my Littlego Greek, but I will try: “For it is, I suppose, with this object that, when we are boys, we thoroughly commit to memory the sayings of the poets—in order to turn them to account when we are men.” I wish the old Greek custom were continued. I believe in learning by heart what is worthy of it ([see supra, p. 74, n.]). A. But the poetry that appeals to children they grow out of. E. This cannot be said of the best of it; but of this best there is, to be sure, a very small quantity. By “appeals to,” I suppose you mean “written on purpose for.” But in a sense much melodious poetry appeals to children even when they can get only a vague notion that it has a meaning. I have known children delight in “The splendour falls on castle walls,” and Hohen Linden pleases them much better than anything of Jane Taylor’s. But here, at all events, there can be no doubt about the wisdom of Tranio’s rule: “Study what you most affect.” As I have said in an old paper of mine (How to Train the Memory; Kellogg’s Teachers Manuals, No. 9), the teacher may read aloud some selected pieces, and let the children separately “give marks” for each. He can then choose “what they most affect.”
Books for Teachers.—A. Don’t you think you might give some useful advice to young teachers about the books they should read? E. I had intended giving some advice, but in reading tastes differ widely, and after all the best advice is Tranio’s, “Study what you most affect.” There are three Englishmen who have written so well that, as it seems, they will be read by English-speaking teachers of all time. These are Ascham, Locke, and Herbert Spencer. If a teacher does not know these he is not likely to know or care anything about the literature of education. These authors have attained to the position of classics by writing short books in excellent English. After these, I must know something of the student before I ventured on a recommendation. If he (or more probably she) be a student indeed, nothing will be found more valuable than Henry Barnard’s vols. especially those of the English Pedagogy. But the majority of mankind want books that are readable, i.e., can be read easily. I do not know any books on teaching that I have found easier reading than D’Arcy Thompson’s Day-Dreams of a Schoolmaster and H. Clay Trumbull’s Teaching and Teachers (Eng. edition is Hodder and Stoughton’s). But some very valuable books are by no means easy reading. Take e.g. Froebel’s Education of Man (trans. by Hailmann, Appletons). This book is a fount of ideas, but Froebel seems to want interpreters, and happily he has found them. The Baroness Marenholtz-Bülow has done good work for him in German, and in English he has had good interpreters as e.g., Miss Shirreff, Mr. H. C. Bowen, and Supt. Hailmann. In the case of Froebel there is certainly a want of literary talent; but even where this talent is clearly shown, a book may be by no means “easy reading.” It may make great demands on our thinking power, and thought is never easy. This will probably prevent Thring’s Theory and Practice of Teaching (Pitt Press, 4s. 6d.) from ever being a popular book, though every teacher who has read it will feel that he is the better for it. Sometimes the size of a book stands in the way of its popularity. This seems to me the case with Joseph Payne’s Science and Art of Teaching (Longmans, 10s.); but this book is popular in the United States, and I take this as a proof that the American teachers are more in earnest than we are. All the essentials of popularity are combined in Fitch’s Lectures on Teaching (Pitt Press, 5s.), and this is now (and long may it continue!) one of our most read educational works. A. But what about less known books? Cannot you recommend anything as yet unknown to fame? E. Ah! you want me to tell you what books deserve fame, that is, to—
“Look into the seeds of time
“And say which grain will grow, and which will not.”
But I have no intention of posing as the representative of the readers of our day, still less of the future. Indeed, far from being able to tell you what other people would like or should like, I can hardly say what I like myself. Perhaps I come across a book and read it with delight. Remembering the very favourable impression made by the first reading I go back to the book some years afterwards and I then in some cases cannot discover what it was that pleased me. A. That reminds me of Wordsworth’s similar experience—
“I sometimes could be sad
To think of, to read over, many a page,