reserve a place for the rod, and we who frankly face the need for
severity on occasion, recommend teachers to use courtesy towards
their pupils whenever it is possible. The difference is that they
seem to make much of courtesy, but are forced by the position
to confess the need for the rod, while we, though accepting the
necessity openly, are yet more inclined to gentleness than those
who make greater professions in their desire to curry favour. I
would rather hazard the reproach of being a severe master in making
a boy learn what may afterwards be of service to him, even though
he be negligent and unwilling at the time, than that he should
lack any advantage when he is older, because I failed to make
him learn, owing to my vain desire to be considered a courteous
teacher. A schoolmaster, if he be really wise, will either prevent
his pupils from committing faults, or when they are committed,
will turn the matter to the best account, but in any case he must
have full discretion given to him to use severity or gentleness as
he thinks best, without any appeal. But I do think gentleness and
courtesy towards children more needful than beating. I have myself
had thousands of pupils passing through my hands whom I never beat,
because they needed it not; but if the rod had not been in sight
to assure them of punishment if they acted amiss, they might have
deserved it. Yet in regard to those who came next to the best, I
found that I would have done better if I had used more correction
and less gentleness, after carelessness had got head in them.
Wherefore, I must needs say that where numbers have to be dealt
with, the rod ought to rule, and even where there are few, it ought
to be seen, however hard this may sound. But the master must always
have a fatherly affection even for the most unsatisfactory boy, and
must look upon the school as a place of amendment, where failures
are bound to occur.
Condition of Teachers.
Where the salary is sufficient, it is well for a schoolmaster to
be married, for affection towards his own children will give him a
more fatherly feeling towards others, and smallness of salary will
make a single man remove sooner, as he has less to carry with him.
An older teacher should be more fit to govern, being more constant
and free from the levity of youth, and owing to the discretion and
learning which years should bring with them.
When all is done, the poor teacher must be subject to as much as
the sun is, in having to shine upon all, and see much more than he
can amend. His life is arduous, and therefore he should be pitied;
it is clearly useful, and therefore he should be cherished; it
wrestles with unthankfulness above all measure, and therefore he
should be comforted with all encouragement. One displeased parent
will do more harm in taking offence at some trifle, than a thousand
of the most grateful will ever do good, though it be never so well
deserved. Such small recompense is given for the greater pains,
the very acquaintance dying out when the child leaves the school,
though with confessed credit and manifest profit. But what calling
is there which has not to combat with discourtesies? Patience must
comfort when difficulty discourageth, and a resolute mind is a
bulwark to itself.
Consultation about Children.
Of all the means devised by policy and reflection to further the
upbringing of children, as regards either learning or good habits,
I see none comparable to these two--conference among all those who
are interested in seeing children well brought up, and systematic
constancy in carrying out what is so planned by general agreement,
so that there shall be no changes except where circumstances demand
it.
The conference of those interested in the upbringing of children
may be of four kinds--between parents and neighbours, between
teachers and neighbours, between parents and teachers, and between
teachers and teachers. Under the term “neighbours” I include all
strangers who are moved either by duty or courtesy to help in the
training of children. Now if parents are willing to take counsel
with such, they may learn by the experience of others how to deal
with their own families. If neighbours are willing to give advice
to parents when they notice anything amiss in their children, is
it not honourable in them to act so honestly? And does it not show
wisdom in parents to take it in a friendly spirit? And are not
these children fortunate who have such solicitous helpers among
their friends, and such considerate listeners at home.
This consultation may be between the neighbour and the teacher.
In this the teacher must act very warily, for he has to consider
what credit he may give to the informer, how far the scholar is
capable of amendment, and how the parents will look at the matter.
When the parent is dealing with his own child, either from his own
knowledge or from accepted report, his judgment is life or death,
without appeal, but when the teacher takes this office on him many
objections may be made. ‘Why did you believe? Why did he meddle?
Why did you act in this way?’ But if such consultation be wisely
handled by all concerned, it will be a great advantage to the child
to be made to feel that, wherever he is and whatever he does, if
anyone sees him, his parent or his master, or both together, will
also see him through the eyes of others.
As for consultation between parents and teachers, I have already
said much on this head, but it is such an important matter that
I can never say too much about it, because their friendly and
faithful co-operation brings about perpetual obedience in the
child, scorn of evil, and desire to do well. Nothing hinders this
so much as credulity and partiality in the parents, when they are
unable to withstand their children’s tears and pleading against
some deserved punishment. Though the parents may at the time gain
their point, they will find in the end that they cannot have their
own will as they would like. Such consultation is of special value
when the child is leaving school to proceed onward to further
learning, and when there is a question of changing masters owing to
some fancied grievance. In the former case, the parent by seeking
the teacher’s advice can be surer of his ground. In the latter
case, it may prevent loss to the child through misunderstanding.
You are offended with the master, but have you conferred with him,
and explained to him openly the cause of your dissatisfaction?
Have you made quite sure that the fault is not in your son, or in
yourself? If the master be wise, and if he hath been advisedly
chosen, though he should chance to have erred, he will know how to
make amends; if he be not wise, then the consultation will help to
show him up, and make it certain how much trust can be put in him.
I must needs say once for all that there is no public or private
means that makes so much for the good upbringing of children as
this conference between parents and teachers.
The last kind of consultation that I recommend is that among the
members of the teaching profession, which has a good influence on
education generally. Can any single person, or even a few, however
skilful they may be, see the truth as clearly as a number can, in
common consultation? Even in matters not concerned with learning
such conference is found profitable, and where it is practised
among teachers for the common good, it may have the advantage of
giving forth a unanimous opinion to the public. In places where
there are a number of schools within a small compass, this kind of
conference can be easily secured and is very desirable.
Systematic Direction.
The next condition of good upbringing is the best offspring of wise
conferences, namely, certainty of direction, indicating what to
do and what to learn, how to do and how to learn, when and where
to do that which refines the behaviour, and to learn that which
advanceth knowledge. For children, being themselves ignorant, must
have system to direct them, and trainers must not devise something
new every day, but should at once make definitely known what they
will require from the children, and what the children may look for
at their hands. This systematic regularity must be laid down and
maintained in schools for learning, in the home for behaviour, and
in churches for religion, because these three places are the chief
resorts that children have.
In schooling it assureth the parents as to what is promised there,
and how far it is likely to be performed, by informing them of the
method and orders that are set down; it directeth the children as
by a well-trodden path, how to come to where their journey lieth;
it relieveth the master’s mind by putting his meaning and wishes
into writing, and giving the results of experience in a form that
can be followed as by habit without constant renewal.
As for regularity at home, I have already urged it, in wishing
that parents would act so in the home that there may be conformity
between their management and that of the school. By this means
neither would schools have cause to complain of infection from
private corruption, nor would they easily send any misdemeanour
home, since the child would be sure to be sharply checked by its
parents for any ill-doing. There should be the utmost regularity
for children in the home, deciding for them when to rise and
when to go to bed, when and how to say their morning and evening
prayers, when and how to greet their parents night and morning, on
leaving and on entering the house, at meat and on other occasions.
Obedience to the prince and to the laws is securely grounded when
private houses are so well ordered; there is little need for
preaching when private training is so carefully carried out.
Regularity and order are equally needful for children when they
attend the churches on holidays and festivals. All the young ones
of the parish should be placed in a particular part of the church,
where they can be properly supervised, none being suffered to range
through the streets on any pretence, and all being in the eye of
the parents and parishioners. They must further be attentive to the
divine service and learn betimes to reverence the rule they will
afterwards have to live by. Regularity brings present pleasure and
much advantage later on, and he that is acquainted with discipline
in his youth will think himself in exile if he find it not in
old age. Whoever perceives and deplores the present variety in
schooling, the disorder in families, and the dissoluteness in the
church, will think I have not said amiss.
Yet this systematic regularity is not to be so rigid that it
will not yield to discretion where a change in the circumstances
demands it. As now our teaching consisteth in tongues, if some
other thing at a future time seems fitter for the State, it must
be adopted and given its proper place. But in making changes it
is well to alter by degrees, and not overturn everything all at
once. Unfortunately human nature is readier to receive a number of
corrupting influences than to take pains to lessen a single evil by
degrees.
Thus bold have I been with you, my good and courteous
fellow-countrymen, in taking up your time with a multitude of
words, whose force I know not, but whose purpose hath been to show
how, in my opinion, the present great variety in teaching may be
reduced to some uniformity. I have given free expression to my
opinions, not because I am greatly dissatisfied with what we have,
but because I often wish for what we have not, as something much
better, and the rather to be wished because it might be so easily
attained. I might have set forth my principles in aphoristic form,
leaving commentary and recommendation to experience and time, but
in the first place I do not deserve so much credit that my bare
word should stand for a warrant, and in the second place I was
unwilling to alienate by precise brevity those whom I might win
over by argument. Wherefore I have written on all the various
points enough, I think, for any reader who will be content with
reason,--too much, I fear, for so evident a matter, as I believe
these principles cannot be substantially contradicted. For I have
grounded them upon reading, and some reasonable experience, and
have applied them to the circumstances of this country, without
attempting to enforce any foreign or strange device. Moreover
I have tried to leaven them with common-sense, in which long
teaching hath left me not entirely deficient. I do not take upon
me, dictator-like, to pronounce peremptorily, but in the way of
counsel to say what I have learned by long teaching, by reading
somewhat, and observing more; and I must pray my fellow-countrymen
so to understand me, for having been urged these many years
by some of my friends to publish something, and never hitherto
having ventured into print, I might seem to have let the reins
of modesty run loose, if at my first attempt I should seem like
a Caesar to offer to make laws. Howbeit, my years beginning to
decline, and certain of my observations seeming to some folks to
crave utterance, I thought it worth the hazard of gaining some
men’s favour. My wishes perhaps may seem sometimes to be novelties.
Novelties perhaps they are, as all amendments to the thing that
needeth redress must be, but at least they are not fantastic,
having their seat in the clouds. I am not the only one who has ever
wished for change. If my wish were impossible of fulfilment, though
it seemed desirable, it would deserve to be denied, but where the
thing is both profitable and possible, why should it not be brought
about, if wishing may procure it? I wish convenient accommodation
for learning and exercise. This does not now exist in every part
of the country,--indeed it scarcely exists anywhere as yet. I
would not have wished it if there had been any real difficulty in
accomplishing it, and it will not come about before the wish is
expressed. There is no heresy nor harm in my wishes, which are all
for the good and happiness of my country.
The Standard of English Spelling.
Because I take upon me to direct those who teach children to read
and write English, and because the reading must needs be such as
writing leads to, therefore I will thoroughly examine the whole
certainty of our English writing, as far as I am able, because it
is a thing both proper to my subject and profitable to my country.
For our natural tongue being as beneficial to us for our needful
expression as any other is to the people who use it, and having
as pretty and fair phrases in it, and being as ready to yield to
any rule of art as any other, why should I not take some pains
to find out the correct writing of ours, as men have done in
other countries with theirs? And so much the rather because it is
asserted that the writing of it is exceedingly uncertain, and can
scarcely be rescued from extreme confusion without some extreme
measure. I mean, therefore, to deal with it in such a way that I
may wipe away the opinion that it is either uncertain and confused
or incapable of direction, so that both native English people
may have some secure place to rest in, and strangers who desire
it may have some certain means of learning the language. For the
performance of this task, and for my own better guidance, I will
first examine the means by which other tongues of most sacred
antiquity have been brought to artistic form and discipline for
their correct writing, to the end that by following their way I may
hit upon their method, and at the least by their example may devise
some means corresponding to theirs, where the custom of our tongue
and the nature of our speech will not admit of the same course
being exactly followed. That being done, I will try all the variety
of our present writing, and reduce the uncertain force of all our
letters to as much certainty as any writing can attain.
I begin at the subject of correct writing, because reading, which
is the first elementary study, must be directed both in precept and
practice according to the way that the thing which is to be read
is written or printed. And considering that the correct writing of
our tongue is still in question, some, who are too far in advance,
esteeming it quite unfit, some, who are too far behind, thinking
it perfect enough, some, who have the soundest opinion, judging it
to be on the whole well appointed, though in certain particulars
requiring to be improved, is it not a very necessary labour to fix
the writing, so that the reading may be sure? Now, in examining the
correct method of our writing, I begin at that which the learned
tongues used, to find out what was right for themselves, when they
were in the same position in which ours now is. For all tongues
keep one and the same rule for their main development, though each
has its special features. In this way I shall be able to answer all
those objections which charge our writing with either insufficiency
or confusion, and also to examine, as by a sure touchstone, all
the other supplements which have been devised heretofore to help
our writing, by either altering the old characters, or devising
some new, or increasing their number. For if the other tongues
that have been so highly esteemed, when they were subject to, and
charged with, these same supposed wants with which our writing
is now burdened, delivered themselves by other means than either
altering, or superseding, or increasing their characters, and
made use of their own material, why should we seek means that are
strange and not in keeping with our language when we have such a
pattern to perfect our writing by so well-warranted a precedent?
That the finest tongue was once quite rude is proved by the very
course of nature, which proceeds from weakness to strength, from
imperfection to perfection, from a low degree to a high dignity.
What means, then, did those languages use, which have won the
opinion of being correctly written, to come by the method that
produced that opinion? There are two considerations in regard to
speech concerning the way that has been followed in its refining.
For if we look into the first degree of refining, before which no
tongue at all had any beauty in the pen, we have to consider how
the very first language proceeded from her first rudeness to her
fullest perfection. Again, we have to consider how other secondary
languages have improved and purified themselves by following the
same method as that used by the primitive tongue.
But I desire to be warranted by them both, that is, to follow
the first refiners and also the second improvers in this course,
which, as far as I know, no man has yet kept in this subject,
though several have written orthographies. And my opinion is, that
it best beseems a scholar to proceed by art to any recovery from
the claws of ignorance. Therefore, I will examine, even from the
very root, how and by what degrees the very first tongue seems to
have come by her perfection in writing, and what means were taken
to continue that perfection, ever since the time that any tongue
was perfected. Consideration, however, must always be had to the
special peculiarities of any particular tongue, as these cannot
be comprised under a general precept along with any other tongue,
but must be treated as exceptions to the common rule. And yet even
these particular features are not omitted in the general method
of the first refining, and thus it is commended to us by means of
translations, which come in the third degree, and refine after
the first, by following the intervening process. Now, in this
long passage from the first condition of extreme rudeness to the
last neatness of finished skill, I will name three stages, each
naturally succeeding the other, where the reader’s understanding
may alight and go on foot, if it be wearied with riding. The
first stage is while the sound alone bore sway in writing. The
second is while consent in use removed authority from sound alone
to the joint rule of reason, custom, and sound. The third, which
is now in progress, is while reason and custom secure their own
joint government with sound by means of art. For as sound, like a
restrained but not banished Tarquinius, desiring to be restored
to his first sole monarchy, and finding supporters only in the
province of sound, sought to make a tumult among the writers, ever
after that reason and custom were joined with him in commission. I
will, therefore, first deal with the government in writing which
was under sound, when everything was written according to the
sound, though that stage came to an end long ago.
I should begin too far back in seeking out the ground of correct
writing, if I should enquire either who devised letters first, or
who wrote first,--a thing as uncertain to be known as it would be
fruitless if it were known. For what certainty can there be of so
old a thing, or what profit can arise from knowing one man’s name,
even if one were the founder, which can scarcely be? For though
he be honoured for the fruit of his invention, yet his authority
would do small good, seeing that the matter in question is to be
confirmed not by the credit of the inventor, who dwells we know
not where, but by the user’s profit, which everyone feels. And
therefore as they who devised the thing first (for it was the
invention of no one man, nor of any one age), did a marvellously
good turn to all their posterity, so we, as their posterity, must
think well of the inventors, and must judge that pure necessity
was the foundress of letters, and of all writing, as it has been
the only general breeder of all things that better our life, need
and want forcing men’s wits to seek for such helps. For as the
tongue conveyed speech no further than to those that were within
hearing, and the necessity of communication often arose between
persons who were further off, a device was made to serve the eye
afar off by the means of letters, as nature satisfied the ear close
at hand by the use of speech. For the handing down of learning
by the pen to posterity was not the first cause of finding out
letters, but an excellent use perceived to be in them to serve for
perpetuity a great while after they had been found by necessity.
The letters being thus found out in order to serve a needful turn,
took the force of expressing every distinct sound in the voice, not
by themselves or any virtue in their form (for what likeness or
affinity has the form of any letter in its own nature to the force
or sound in a man’s voice?) but only by consent of the men who
first invented them, and the happy use of them perceived by those
who first received them.
Hereupon in the first writing the sound alone led the pen, and
every word was written with the letters that the sound commanded,
because the letters were invented to express sounds. Then for the
correct manner of writing, who was sovereign and judge but sound
alone? Who gave sentence of pen, ink, and paper, but sound alone?
Then everyone, however unskilful, was partaker in the authority
of that government by sound. And there was good reason why sound
should rule alone, and all those have a share in the government of
sound, who were able even to make a sound. In those days, all the
arguments that cleave so firmly to the prerogative of sound, and
plead so greatly for his interest, in the setting down of letters,
were esteemed most highly, as being most agreeable to the time,
and most serviceable to the State. But afterwards when sound upon
sufficient cause was deposed from his monarchy, as being no fit
person to rule the pen alone, and had others joined with him in
the same commission, who were of as good countenance as he, though
not meant to act without him, then their credit was not at all
so absolute, though reasonably good still. This any well-advised
supporters of sound may well perceive, and be well content with,
if they will but mark the restriction in the authority of sound,
and its causes. For as great inconveniences followed, and the
writing itself proved more false than true, when the pen set down
the form that the ear suggested to answer a particular sound,
and as the sound itself was too imperious, without mercy or
forgiveness whatever justification the contrary side had, men of
good understanding, who perceived and disliked this imperiousness
of sound, which was maintained with great uncertainty,--nay rather
with confusion than assurance of right,--assembled themselves
together to confer upon a matter of such general interest, and in
the end, after resolute and ripe deliberation, presented themselves
before sound, using the following arguments to modify his humour,
but seeking rather to persuade than compel: