in the teacher which is absolutely indispensable—goodness.
Similarly for the intellectual training, there is an indispensable
qualification—intelligence. This is the qualification required by the
system of Port-Royal, but not required in working the ordinary machinery
of the school-room either in those days or in ours. When Nicole has
described how instruction should be given so as to train the judgment and
cultivate the taste, he continues:
“As this kind of instruction comes without observation, so is the profit
derived from it likely to escape observation also; that is, it will not
announce itself by anything on the surface and palpable to the common
man. And on this account persons of small intelligence are mistaken
about it and think that a boy thus instructed is no better than another,
because he cannot make a better translation from Latin into French, or
beat him in saying his Virgil. Thus judging of the instruction by these
trifles only, they often make less account of a really able teacher than
of one of little science and of a mind without light.” (Nicole in Cadet,
p. 204; Carré, p. 187.)
In these days of marks and percentages we seem agreed that it must be
all right if the children can stand the tests of the examiner or the
inspector. Something may no doubt be got at by these tests; but we cannot
hope for any genuine care for education while everything is estimated
“_par des signes grossiers et extérieurs_.”
§ 39. Whatever was required to adapt the thought of Port-Royal to the
needs of classical schools, especially the schools of the University
of Paris was supplied by Rollin (1661-1741) whose _Traité des Études_
or “Way of teaching and studying Literature,” united the lessons of
Port-Royal with much material drawn from his own experience and from his
acquaintance with the writings of other authors, especially Quintilian
and Seneca. Having been twice Rector of the University (in 1694 and
1695) Rollin had managed to bring into the schools much that was due to
Port-Royal; and in his _Traité_ he has the tact to give the improved
methods as the ordinary practice of his colleagues.
§ 40. Much that Rollin has said applies only to classical or at most
to literary instruction; but some of his advice will be good for all
teachers as long as the human mind needs instruction. I have met with
nothing that seems to me to go more truly to the very foundation of the
art of teaching than the following:
“We should never lose sight of this grand principle that STUDY DEPENDS
ON THE WILL, and the will does not endure constraint: ‘_Studium discendi
voluntate quæ cogi non potest constat._’ (Quint. j, 1, cap. 3.)[97] We
can, to be sure, put constraint on the body and make a pupil, however
unwilling, stick to his desk, can double his toil by punishment, compel
him to finish a task imposed upon him, and with this object we can
deprive him of play and recreation. But is this work of the galley-slave
studying? And what remains to the pupil from this kind of study but a
hatred of books, of learning, and of masters, often till the end of his
days? It is then the will that we must draw on our side, and this we
must do by gentleness, by friendliness, by persuasion, and above all by
the allurement of pleasure.” (_Traité_, 8th Bk. _Du Gouvernement des
Classes_, 1re Partie, Art. x.)
§ 41. The passage I have quoted is from the _Article_ “on giving a taste
for study (_rendre l’étude aimable_);” and if some masters do not agree
that this is “one of the most important points concerning education,”
they will not deny that “it is at the same time one of the most
difficult.” As Rollin truly says, “among a very great number of masters
who in other respects are highly meritorious there will be found very few
who manage to get their pupils to like their work.”
§ 42. One of the great causes of the disinclination for school work is
to be found according to Rollin and Quintilian, in the repulsive form in
which children first become acquainted with the elements of learning. “In
this matter success depends very much on first impressions; and the main
effort of the masters who teach the first rudiments should be so to do
this, that the child who cannot as yet love study should at least not get
an aversion for it from that time forward, for fear lest the bitter taste
once acquired should still be in his mouth when he grows older.”[98]
(Begin. of Art. x, as above.)
§ 43. In this matter Rollin was more truly the disciple of the
Port-Royalists than of Quintilian. They it was who protested against the
dismal “grind” of learning to read first in an unknown tongue, and of
studying the rules of Latin in Latin with no knowledge of Latin, a course
which professed to lead, as Sainte-Beuve puts it, “to the unknown through
the unintelligible.” They directed their highly-trained intellects to
the teaching of the elements, and succeeded in proving that the ordinary
difficulties were due not to the dulness of the learners, but to the
stupidity of the masters. They showed how much might be done to remove
these difficulties by following not routine but the dictates of thought,
and study and love of the little ones.
There is an excellent though condensed account of the
Port-Royalists under “Jansenists” in Sonnenschein’s _Cyclopædia
of Education_. In vol. ij, of Charles Beard’s Port-Royal, (2
vols., 1861) there is a chapter on the Little Schools. The most
pleasing account I have seen in English of the Port-Royalists
(without reference to education) is in Sir Jas. Stephen’s
_Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography_. In French the great work
on the subject is Sainte-Beuve’s _Port-Royal_, 5 vols. (71 ed.,
6 vols.) The account of the Schools is in 4th bk., in vol. iij,
of 1st ed. Very useful for studying the pedagogy of Port-Royal
are _L’Education à Port-Royal_ by Félix Cadet (Hachette, 1887)
and _Les Pédagogues de Port-Royal_, by I. Carré (Delagrave,
1887). These last give extracts from the main writings on
education by Arnauld, Nicole, Lancelot, Coustel, &c. The
article, _Port-Royal_, in Buisson’s _D._, is the “Introduction”
to Carré’s book. A 3-vol. ed. of Rollin’s _Traité_ was
published (Paris, Didot) in 1872. The more interesting parts
of this book are contained in F. Cadet’s _Rollin: Traité
des Études_ (Delagrave, 1882). Rollin’s work was at one time
well-known in the English trans., and copies of it are often
to be found “second-hand.” The best part comes last; which may
account for the neglect into which the book has fallen. The
accounts of Port-Royal and of Rollin in G. Compayré’s _Histoire
Critique_ are very good parts of a very good book. Vérin’s
_Étude sur Lancelot_ I have not seen, and it is only too
probable that I have not given to Lancelot the attention due to
him.
XII.
SOME ENGLISH WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
§ 1. The beginning of the 17th century brought with it a change in
the main direction of thought and interest. As we have seen, the 16th
century adored literature and was thrown back on the remote past. Some
of the great scholars like Sturm had indeed visions of literary works
to be written, that would rival the old models on which they were
fashioned; but whether they hoped or not to bring back the Golden Age
all the scholars of the Renascence thought of it as _having been_. With
the change of century, however, a new conception came into men’s minds.
Might not this worship of the old writers after all be somewhat of a
superstition? The languages in which they wrote were beautiful languages,
no doubt, but they were ill adapted to express the ideas and wants of
the modern world. As for the substance of these old writings, this did
not satisfy the cravings of men’s minds. It left unsolved all the main
problems of existence, and offered for knowledge mere speculations
or poetic fancies or polished rhetoric. Man needed to understand his
position with regard to God and to Nature; but on both of these topics
the classics were either silent or misleading. Revelation had supplied
what the classics could not give concerning man’s relation to God;
but nothing had as yet thrown light on his relation to Nature. And yet
with his material body and animal life he could not but see how close
that relation was, and could not but wish that something about it might
be _known_, not simply guessed or feigned. Hence the demand for _real_
knowledge, that is, a knowledge of the facts of the universe as distinct
from the knowledge of what men have thought and said. We have heard of
the mathematician who put down Paradise Lost with the remark that it
seemed to him a poor book, for it did not prove anything; and it was just
in this spirit that the new school of thinkers, the Realists, looked upon
the classics. They wanted to know Nature’s laws: and words which did not
convey such knowledge seemed to them of little value.
§ 2. Here was a tremendous revolution from the mode of thought prevalent
in the Renascence. No longer was the Golden Age in the past. In science
the Golden Age must always be in the future. Scientific men start with
what has been discovered and add to it. Every discovery passes into the
common stock of knowledge, and becomes the property of everyone who knows
it just as much as of the discoverer. Harvey had no more property in the
circulation of the blood, Newton and Leibnitz no more property in the
Differential Calculus than Columbus in the Continent of America; indeed
not so much, for Columbus gained some exclusive rights in America, but
Harvey gained none over the blood.
So we see that whereas the literary spirit made the dominant minds
reverence the past, the scientific spirit led them to despise the past;
and whereas the literary spirit raised the value of words and led to
the study of celebrated writings, the scientific spirit was totally
careless about words and prized only physical truths which were entirely
independent of words. Again, the literary spirit naturally favoured
the principle of authority, for its oracles had already spoken: the
scientific spirit set aside all authority and accepted nothing that did
not of itself satisfy the reason. (Compare Comenius, _supra_ p. 152.)
§ 3. The first great leader in this revolution was an Englishman, Francis
Bacon. But the school-room felt his influence only through those who
learnt from him; and among educational reformers, the chief advocates of
realism have been found on the Continent, _e.g._, Ratke and Comenius.[99]
But the desire to learn by “things, not words” affected the minds of many
English writers on education, and we find this spirit showing itself even
in Milton and Locke, and far more clearly in some writers less known to
fame.
§ 4. There is a wide distinction in educational writers between those who
were schoolmasters and those who were not. Schoolmasters have to come
to terms with what exists and to make a livelihood by it. So they are
conservatives by position, and rarely get beyond an attempt at showing
how that which is now done badly might be done well. Suggestions of
radical change usually come from those who never belonged to the class of
teachers, or who, not without disgust, have left it.
Among English schoolmasters of the olden times the chief writers I have
met with besides Mulcaster are John Brinsley the elder, and Charles
Hoole.
§ 5. John Brinsley the elder, a Puritan schoolmaster at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, a brother-in-law of Bishop Hall’s, and father of John
Brinsley the younger who became a leading Puritan minister and author,
was a veritable reformer, but only with reference to methods. His most
interesting books are _Ludus Literarius or the Grammar Schoole_, 1612
(written after 20 years’ experience in teaching, as we learn from the
_Consolation_, p. 45), and _A Consolation for our Grammar Schooles: or
a faithfull and most comfortable incouragement for laying of a sure
foundation of all good learning in our schooles and for prosperous
building thereupon_, 1622. The first of these, when reprinted, as it
is sure to be, will always secure for its author the notice and the
gratitude of students of the history of our education; for in this
book he tells us not only what should be done in the school-room, but
also what was done. In a dialogue with the ordinary schoolmaster the
reformer draws to light the usual practice, criticizes it, and suggests
improvements.
§ 6. In Brinsley we get no hint of realism; but by the middle of
the sixteen hundreds we find the realistic spirit is felt even by a
schoolmaster, Charles Hoole,[100] who was a kinsman of Bishop Sanderson,
the Casuist, and was master first of the Grammar School at Rotherham,
then of a private Grammar School in London, published besides a number
of school books, a translation of the _Orbis Pictus_ (date of preface,
January, 1658), and also “A New Discovery of the old art of teaching
schoole ... published for the general profit, especially of young
Schoolemasters” (date of preface, December, 1659). In these books we find
that Hoole succeeded even in the school-room in keeping his mind open.
He complains of the neglect of English, and evidently in theory at least
went a long way with the realistic reformers. “Comenius,” he says, “hath
proceeded (as Nature itself doth) in an orderly way, first to exercise
the senses well by presenting their objects to them, and then to fasten
upon the intellect by impressing the first notions of things upon it and
linking them one to another by a rational discourse; whereas indeed we
generally, missing this way, do teach children as we do parrots to speak
they know not what, nay, which is worse, we taking the way of teaching
little ones by grammar only, at the first do puzzle their imaginations
with abstractive terms and secondary intentions, which, till they be
somewhat acquainted with things, and the words belonging to them in the
language which they learn, they cannot apprehend what they mean. And this
I guess to be the reason why many greater persons do resolve sometimes
not to put a child to school till he be at least eleven or twelve years
of age.... You then, that have the care of little children, do not too
much trouble their thoughts and clog their memories with bare grammar
rudiments, which to them are harsh in getting, and fluid in retaining;
because indeed to them they signifie nothing but a meer swimming notion
of a general term, which they know not what it meaneth till they
comprehend all particulars: but by this [_i.e._, the _Orbis P._] or the
like subsidiarie inform them first with some knowledge of things and
words wherewith to express them; and then their rules of speaking will be
better understood and more firmly kept in mind. Else how should a child
conceive what a rule meaneth when he neither knoweth what the Latine
word importeth, nor what manner of thing it is which is signified to
him in his own native language which is given him thereby to understand
the rule? for rules consisting of generalities are delivered (as I may
say) at a third hand, presuming first the things and then the words to
be already apprehended touching which they are made.” This subject Hoole
wisely commends to the consideration of teachers, “it being _the very
basis of our profession to search into the way of children’s taking
hold by little and little of what we teach them_, that so we may apply
ourselves to their reach.” (Preface to trans. of _Orbis Pictus_.)
§ 7. “Good Lord! how many good and clear wits of children be now-a-days
perished by ignorant schoolmasters!” So said Sir Thomas Elyot in his
_Governor_ in 1531, and the complaint would not have been out of date in
the 17th century, possibly not in the 19th. In the sixteen hundreds we
certainly find little advance in practice, though in theory many bold
projects were advanced, some of which pointed to the study of things, to
the training of the hand, and even to observation of the “educands.”
§ 8. The poet Cowley’s “proposition for the advancement of experimental
philosophy” is a scheme of a college near London to which is to be
attached a school of 200 boys. “And because it is deplorable to consider
the loss which children make of their time at most schools, employing
or rather casting away six or seven years in the learning of words
only, and that too very imperfectly; that a method be here established
for the infusing knowledge and language at the same time, [Is this an
echo of Comenius?] and that this may be their apprenticeship in Natural
Philosophy.”[101]
§ 9. Rarely indeed have those who either theoretically or practically
have made a study of education ever acquired sufficient literary skill
to catch the ear of the public or (what is at least as difficult) the
ear of the teaching body. And among the eminent writers who have spoken
on education, as Rabelais, Montaigne, Milton, Locke, Rousseau, Herbert
Spencer, we cannot find one who has given to it more than passing, if not
accidental, attention. Schoolmasters are, as I said, conservative, at
least in the school-room; and moreover, they seldom find the necessary
time, money, or inclination for publishing on the work of their calling.
The current thought at any period must then be gathered from books only
to be found in our great libraries, books in which writers now long
forgotten give hints of what was wanted out of the school-room and
grumble at what went on in it.
§ 10. One of the most original of these writers that have come in my way
is John Dury, a Puritan, who was at one time Chaplain to the English
Company of Merchants at Elbing, and laboured with Comenius and Hartlib to
promote unity among the various Christian bodies of the reformed faith
(see Masson’s _Life of Milton_, vol. iii). About 1649 Dury published
_The Reformed Schoole_ which gives the scheme of an association for the
purpose of educating a number of boys and girls “in a Christian way.”
§ 11. That Dury was not himself a schoolmaster is plain from the first
of his “rules of education.” “The chief rule of the whole work is that
nothing be made tedious and grievous to the children, but all the
toilsomeness of their business the Governor and Ushers are to take upon
themselves; that by diligence and industry all things may be so prepared,
methodized and ordered for their apprehension, that this work may unto
them be as a delightful recreation by the variety and easiness thereof.”
§ 12. “The things to be looked unto in the care of their education,” he
enumerates in the order of importance: “1. Their advancement in piety;
2. The preservation of their health; 3. The forming of their manners;
4. Their proficiency in learning” (p. 24). “Godliness and bodily health
are absolutely necessary,” says Dury; “the one for spiritual and the
other for their temporal felicitie” (p. 31): so great care is to be taken
in “exercising their bodies in husbandry or manufactures or military
employments.”[102]
§ 13. About instruction we find the usual complaints which like “mother’s
truth keep constant youth.” “Children,” says Dury, “are taught to read
authors and learn words and sentences before they can have any notion
of the things signified by those words and sentences or of the author’s
strain and wit in setting them together; and they are made to learn by
heart the generall rules, sentences and precepts of Arts before they are
furnished with any matter whereunto to apply those rules and precepts”
(p. 38). Dury would entirely sweep away the old routine, and in all
instruction he would keep in view the following end: “the true end of all
human learning is to supply in ourselves and others the defects which
proceed from our ignorance of the nature and use of the creatures, and
the disorderliness of our natural faculties in using them and reflecting
upon them” (p. 41).
§ 14. “Our natural faculties”—here Dury struck a new note, which has now
become the keynote in the science of education. He enforces his point
with the following ingenious illustration:—“As in a watch one wheel
rightly set doth with its teeth take hold of another and sets that a-work
towards a third; and so all move one by another when they are in their
right places for the end for which the watch is made; so is it with the
faculties of the human nature being rightly ordered to the ends for which
God hath created them. But contrariwise, if the wheels be not rightly
set, or the watch not duly wound up, it is useless to him that hath it.
And so it is with the faculties of Man; if his wheels be not rightly
ordered and wound up by the ends of sciences in their subordination
leading him to employ the same according to his capacity to make use of
the creatures for that whereunto God hath made them, he becomes not only
useless, but even a burthen and hurtful unto himself and others by the
misusing of them” (p. 43).
§ 15. “As in Nature sense is the servant of imagination; imagination of
memory; memory of reason; so in teaching arts and sciences we must set
these faculties a-work in this order towards their proper objects in
everything which is to be taught. Whence this will follow, that as the
faculties of Man’s soul naturally perfect each other by their mutual
subordination; so the Arts which perfect those faculties should be
gradually suggested: and the objects wherewith the faculties are to be
conversant according to the rules of Art should be offered in that order
which is answerable to their proper ends and uses and not otherwise.”
§ 16. In this and much else that Dury says we see a firm grasp of
the principle that the instruction given should be regulated by the
gradual development of the learner’s faculties. The three sources of our
knowledge, says he, are—1. Sense; 2. Tradition; 3. Reason; and Sense
comes first. “Art or sciences which may be learnt by mere sense should
not be learnt any other way.” “As children’s faculties break forth in
them by degrees to be vigorous with their years and the growth of their
bodies, so they are to be filled with objects whereof they are capable,
and plied with arts; whence followeth that while children are not
capable of the acts of reasoning, the method of filling their senses and
imaginations with outward objects should be plied. Nor is their memory at
this time to be charged further with any objects than their imagination
rightly ordered and fixed doth of itself impress the same upon them.”
After speaking of the common abuse of general rules, he says: “So far as
those faculties (viz., sense, imagination, and memory) are started with
matters of observation, so far rules may be given to direct the mind in
the use of the same, and no further.” “The arts and sciences which lead
us to reflect upon the use of our own faculties are not to be taught till
we are fully acquainted with their proper objects, and the direct acts
of the faculties about them.” So “it is a very absurd and preposterous
course to teach Logick and Metaphysicks before or with other Humane
Sciences which depend more upon Sense and Imagination than reasoning” (p.
46).
§ 17. In all this it seems to me that the worthy Puritan, of whom
nobody but Dr. Barnard and Professor Masson has ever heard, has truly
done more to lay a foundation for the art of teaching than his famous
contemporaries Milton and Locke.
§ 18. Another writer of that day better known than Dury and with far
more power of expression was Sir William Petty. He is the “W.P.,” who
in an Epistle “to his honoured friend Master Samuel Hartlib,” set down
his “thoughts concerning the advancement of real learning” (1647). This
letter is to be shown only “to those few that are Reall Friends to the
Designe of Realities.”[103]