CHAPTER XVIII

THE PRINCIPLES OF THOROUGHNESS IN TEACHING AND IN LEARNING

1. It is a common complaint that there are few who leave school with a thorough education, and that most men retain nothing but a veneer, a mere shadow of true knowledge. This complaint is corroborated by facts.

2. The cause of this phenomenon appears on investigation to be twofold: either that the schools occupy themselves with insignificant and unimportant studies, to the neglect of those that are more weighty, or that the pupils forget what they have learned, since most of it merely goes through their heads and does not stick fast there. This last fault is so common that there are few who do not lament it. For if everything that we have ever read, heard, and mentally appreciated were always ready to hand in our memories, how learned we should appear! We do, it is true, make practical use of much that we have learned, but the amount that we recollect is unsatisfactory, and the fact remains that we are continually trying to pour water into a sieve.

3. But can no cure be found for this? Certainly there can, if once more we go to the school of nature, and investigate the methods that she adopts to give endurance to the beings which she has created.

I maintain that a method can be found by means of which each person will be enabled to bring into his mental ​consciousness not only what he has learned, but more as well; since he will recall with ease all that he has learned from teachers or from books, and, at the same time, will be able to pass sound judgment on the objective facts to which his information refers.

4. This will be possible:

(i) If only those subjects that are of real use be taken in hand.

(ii) If these be taught without digression or interruption.

(iii) If a thorough grounding precede instruction in detail.

(iv) If this grounding be carefully given.

(v) If all that follows be based on this grounding, and on nothing else.

(vi) If, in every subject that consists of several parts, these parts be linked together as much as possible.

(vii) If all that comes later be based on what has gone before.

(viii) If great stress be laid on the points of resemblance between cognate subjects.

(ix) If all studies be arranged with reference to the intelligence and memory of the pupils, and the nature of language.

(x) If knowledge be fixed in the memory by constant practice.

We will now consider each of these principles in detail.

First Principle

5. Nature produces nothing that is useless.

For example, nature, when commencing to form a bird, does not give it scales, gills, horns, four feet, or any other organs that it cannot use, but supplies a head, a heart, wings, etc. In the same way a tree is not given ears, eyes, down, or hair, but bark, bast, wood, and roots.

6. Imitation in the arts.—In the same way no one who wishes to grow fruit in his fields, orchards, and gardens, ​plants them with weeds, nettles, thistles, and thorns, but with good seeds and plants.

7. The builder, also, who wishes to erect a well-built house, does not collect straw, litter, dirt, or brushwood, but stones, bricks, oak planks, and similar materials of good quality.

8. And in schools.—In schools therefore (i) Nothing should be studied, unless it be of undoubted use in this world and in the world to come,—its use in the world to come being the more important (Jerome reminds us that knowledge, that is to be of service to us in heaven, must be acquired on earth).

(ii) If it be necessary to teach the young much that is of value solely in this world (and this cannot be avoided), care must be taken that while a real advantage is gained for our present life, our heavenly welfare be not hindered thereby.

9. Why then pursue worthless studies? What object is there in learning subjects that are of no use to those who know them and the lack of which is not felt by those who do not know them? subjects, too, which are certain to be forgotten as time passes on and the business of life becomes more engrossing? This short life of ours has more than enough to occupy it, even if we do not waste it on worthless studies. Schools must therefore be organised in such a way that the scholars learn nothing but what is of value (the value and importance of recreation will be treated of in the right place).

Second Principle

10. When bodies are being formed, nature omits nothing that is necessary for their production.

For example in the formation of a bird, nature does not forget the head, the wings, the legs, the claws, the skin, or anything, in short, that is an essential part of a winged being of this kind.

11. Imitation in schools.—In the same way schools, ​when they educate men, must educate them in every way, and suit them not only for the occupations of this life, but for eternity as well. Indeed it is with a view to the future life that all strenuous human effort should be undertaken.

12. Not the sciences alone, therefore, should be taught in schools, but morality and piety as well. Now a training in the sciences improves the understanding, the faculty of speech, and manual dexterity, so that everything that is of use can be suitably considered, discussed, and put into practice. If any one of these elements be omitted, a great gap is left, and, as result, not only is the education defective but the stability of the whole is endangered. Nothing can be stable unless all its parts are in intimate connection with one another.

Third Principle

13. Nature does not operate on anything, unless it possess a foundation or roots.

A plant does not shoot upwards before it has taken root, and would wither and die if it tried to do so. For this reason a clever gardener does not insert a graft unless he sees that the stock has taken root.

In the case of birds and of beasts we find, in the place of roots, the intestines (for in these the vitality is situated), and this part of the body is the first to be formed, being, as it were, the foundation of the rest.

14. Imitation.—In the same way an architect does not build a house without first laying a solid foundation, since otherwise the whole structure would soon fall down. Similarly an artist paints a foundation of colour before he puts in the fine shades; otherwise the colours would easily crack and fade.

15. Deviation.—The laying of such a foundation for their instruction is neglected by those teachers (1) who take no trouble to make their pupils diligent and attentive, and (2) who do not begin by giving a general idea of the whole course of study, so that the pupils may realise how ​much of the scheme projected is actually got through. For if the scholars perform their work without inclination, without attention, and without intelligence, how can any lasting result be expected?

16. Rectification.—Therefore

(i) Every study should be commenced in such a manner as to awaken a real liking for it on the part of the scholars, and this should be done by proving to them how excellent, useful, pleasant, and otherwise desirable it is.

(ii) A general notion of the language or art (consisting of a sketch, as slight as is possible, but yet embracing every branch of the subject in question) should be given to the pupil before the detailed consideration of the subject is proceeded with, in order that he may thus, at the very beginning, realise its aims, limits, and internal structure. For as the skeleton is the foundation of the whole body, so the general sketch of an art is the foundation of the whole art.

Fourth Principle

17. Nature strikes her roots deep.

Thus, the entrails of an animal are buried deep in its body. The deeper a tree strikes its roots, the firmer it will stand; while if the roots only just penetrate beneath the turf it is easily rooted up.

18. Correction of the deviation.—It follows, therefore, that the desire to learn should be thoroughly awakened in the pupils, and that the general conception of the subject should be thoroughly got into their heads. Until this has been carefully done a more detailed exposition of the art or language should not be attempted.

Fifth Principle

19. Nature developes everything from its roots and from no other source.

The wood, bark, leaves, flowers, and fruit of a tree come from the roots and from no other source. For although ​the rain may fall on the tree and the gardener may water it, the moisture must all be taken up through the roots, and then dispersed through the trunk, branches, boughs, leaves, and fruit. On this account the gardener, though he takes his graft from some other source, must let it into the stock in such a way that it may become incorporated with it, absorb moisture from its roots, and, nourished in this way, be capable of development. It is from the roots that a tree derives everything, and there is no necessity to supply leaves and branches from any other source. It is just the same when a bird is to be clothed with feathers. They are not taken from another bird, but grow from the innermost part of the body.

20. Imitation in the arts.—The prudent builder, too, erects a house in such a way that it can stand securely on its own foundations and can be supported by its own beams, without the need of any external props. For, if a building need external support, this is a proof of incompleteness and of a tendency to fall down.

21. When a man lays out a fishpond or a lake he finds a spring, and, by means of canals and pipes, conducts its water to his reservoir; but he does not allow water to flow in from any other source, nor does he use rain-water.

22. From this precept it follows that the proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring from the buds on a tree, while in the following year a fresh bud is again formed and a fresh shoot, with its leaves, flowers, and fruit, grows from it.

23. Terrible deviation in schools.—Hitherto the schools have not taught their pupils to develope their minds like young trees from their own roots, but rather to deck themselves with branches plucked from other trees, and, like Æsop’s crow, to adorn themselves with the feathers of other birds; they have taken no trouble to open the ​fountain of knowledge that is hidden in the scholars, but instead have watered them with water from other sources. That is to say, they have not shown them the objective world as it exists in itself, but only what this, that, or the other author has written or thought about this or that object, so that he is considered the most learned who best knows the contradictory opinions which many men have held about many things. The result is that most men possess no information but the quotations, sentences, and opinions that they have collected by rummaging about in various authors, and thus piece their knowledge together like a patchwork quilt. “Oh you imitators, you slavish pack!” cries Horace. A slavish pack indeed, and accustomed to carry burdens that are not their own.

24. But why, I ask you, do we allow ourselves to be led astray by the opinions of other men, when what is sought is a knowledge of the true nature of things? Have we nothing better to do than to follow others to their cross-roads and down their by-ways, and to study attentively the deviation that each makes from the right path? O brother mortals! let us hasten to the goal and give up this idle wandering. If our goal be firmly set before us, why should we not hasten to it by the shortest road; why should we use the eyes of other men in preference to our own?

25. The methods by which all branches of knowledge are taught show that it really is the schools that are to blame for this; that they really teach us to see by means of the eyes of others, and to become wise by employing their brains. For these methods do not teach us to discover springs and conduct streams of water from them, but place before us the water that has been drawn off from various authors and teach us to return from these to the springs. For the dictionaries (at least so far as I know, though perhaps with the exception of the one by Cnapius,²⁷ but even in this one there are some things left to be desired, as will be shown in chap. xxii.) do not teach how to speak but only how to understand; the grammars do not teach how to construct sentences but only how to ​dissect them; and no vulgary gives any assistance towards joining the phrases skilfully together in conversation, or towards ringing changes on them, but only provides a haphazard collection of sentences. Scarcely any one teaches physics by ocular demonstration and by experiment, but only by quoting the works of Aristotle and of others. No one seeks to form the morals by working on the inward sources of action, but by purely external explanations and analysis of the virtues a superficial veneer of morality is given. This will be more evident when I come to the special methods of the arts and languages, but still more so, please God, when I give the outline of my Pansophia.

26. It is really to be wondered at that the men of former times did not understand this better, or that this error has not long since been rectified by those of the present day; since it is certain that we have here the actual reason why such slow progress has hitherto been made. Does the builder teach his apprentice the art of building by pulling down a house? Oh no; it is during the process of building a house that he shows him how to select his materials, how to fit each stone into its proper place, how to prepare them, raise them, lay them and join them together. For he who understands how to build will not need to be shown how to pull down, and he who can sew a garment together will be able to unrip it without any instruction. But it is not by pulling down houses or by unripping garments that the arts of building or of tailoring can be learned.

27. It is only too evident that the methods which are so faulty in this respect have not been rectified (1) since the education of many, if not of most men, consists of nothing but a string of names; that is to say, they can repeat the technical terms and the rules of the arts, but do not know how to apply them practically; (2) since the education of no man attains the position of universal knowledge that can give itself support, strength, and breadth, but is a heterogeneous compound of which one part is borrowed from one source and another from ​another, whose elements are joined together on no logical principle, and which therefore bears no worthy fruit. For the knowledge that consists of the collected sayings and opinions of various authors resembles the tree which peasants erect when they make holiday, and which, though covered with branches, flowers, fruit, garlands, and crowns, cannot grow or even last, because its ornamentation does not spring from its roots, but is only hung on. Such a tree bears no fruit, and the branches that are attached to it wither and fall off. But a man who is thoroughly educated resembles a tree which grows from its own roots and is nourished by its own sap, and which, on that account, increases in size (and from day to day with more vigour), and puts forth leaves, blossoms, and fruits.

28. Rectification.—We arrive therefore at the following conclusion: men must, as far as is possible, be taught to become wise by studying the heavens, the earth, oaks, and beeches, but not by studying books; that is to say, they must learn to know and investigate the things themselves, and not the observations that other people have made about the things. We shall thus tread in the footsteps of the wise men of old, if each of us obtain his knowledge from the originals, from things themselves, and from no other source. We may therefore lay it down as a law:

(i) That all knowledge should be deduced from the unchanging principles of the subject in question.

(ii) That no information should be imparted on the grounds of bookish authority, but should be authorised by actual demonstration to the senses and to the intellect.

(iii) That in dealing with any subject the analytic method should never be used exclusively; in fact, preponderance should rather be given to the synthetic method.

Sixth Principle

29. The more the uses to which nature applies anything, the more distinct subdivisions that thing will possess.

For instance, the greater the number of joints into ​which the limbs of any animal are divided, the more complex will be its movements, as we can see if we compare a horse with a snake. In the same way a tree stands more firmly and is more picturesque if its branches and roots spread out well and stand away from one another.

30. Imitation.—In the education of the young, care should be taken that everything that is taught be carefully defined and kept in its place, so that not only the teacher, but the pupil as well, may know exactly what progress he has made and what he is actually doing. It will also be of great assistance if all the books that are used in schools follow nature’s example in this respect.

Seventh Principle

31. Nature never remains at rest, but advances continually; never begins anything fresh at the expense of work already in hand, but proceeds with what she has begun, and brings it to completion.

For instance, in the formation of the embryo, it is the feet, the head, and the heart that come first into existence, and these organs are not discarded but are perfected. A tree which is transplanted does not cast the branches that have previously grown upon it, but continues to provide them with sap and vitality, that with each successive year they may put forth more shoots.

32. Imitation.—In schools therefore

(i) All the studies should be so arranged that those which come later may depend on those that have gone before, and that those which come first may be fixed in the mind by those that follow.

(ii) Each subject taught, when it has been thoroughly grasped by the understanding, must be impressed on the memory as well.

33. For since, in this natural method of ours, all that precedes should be the foundation of all that comes after, it is absolutely essential that this foundation be thoroughly laid. For that only which has been thoroughly understood, ​and committed to memory as well, can be called the property of the mind.

Truly does Quintilian say: “The acquisition of knowledge depends on the memory. Instruction is in vain if we forget what we hear or read.” Ludovicus Vives also says: “The memory should be exercised in early youth, since practice developes it, and we should therefore take care to practise it as much as possible. Now, in youth, the labour is not felt, and thus the memory developes without any trouble and becomes very retentive.” And in the Introduction to Philosophy he says: “The memory should not be permitted to rest, for there is no faculty that acts with greater readiness or developes more through action. Commit something to memory daily, for the more you commit to memory the more faithfully it will be retained, and the less, the less faithfully.” The example of nature shows us that this is true. The more sap a tree sucks up, the stronger it grows, and, conversely, the stronger it grows, the more sap it pours through its fibres. An animal also developes in proportion to the strength of its digestion, and, conversely, the larger it grows the more nourishment it requires and the more it digests. This is the characteristic of every natural body that developes. In this respect, therefore, children should not be spared (though of course no over-pressure should be applied), for the foundations of unfailing progress will thus be laid.

Eighth Principle

34. Nature knits everything together in continuous combination.

For instance, when a bird is formed, limb is joined to limb, bone to bone, and sinew to sinew. So too in the case of a tree, the trunk is joined to the roots, the branches to the trunk, the young shoots to the branches, the buds to the shoots, and to these again the leaves, flowers, and fruits; so that, though there may be thousands of each, the whole constitutes one tree. So with a house, if it is to be durable, the walls must rest on the foundations, the ceilings and the ​roof upon the walls, and, in short, all the parts, from the largest to the smallest, must be connected and fitted together, so that they form a single house.

35. Imitation.—From this it follows:

(i) That the studies of a lifetime should be so arranged that they form an encyclopædic whole, in which all the parts spring from a common source and each is in its right place.

(ii) That everything taught should be supported by good reasons, so that no easy entrance may be given either for doubt or for forgetfulness.

Indeed these reasons are the nails, the clasps, and the clamps that hold an object fast in the memory and prevent it from fading away.

36. Now, to strengthen all information by giving reasons is equivalent to explaining things by their causes. That is to say, not only the nature of each object is pointed out but also the reason why it cannot be otherwise. For knowledge is nothing but the acquaintance with an object that we gain by mastering its causes. For instance, if the question arose whether it would be more correct to say totus populus or cunctus populus, and the teacher were merely to say “cunctus populus is the right phrase,” but omitted to give any reason, the pupil would soon forget it. If, on the other hand, he were to say “Cunctus is a contraction for conjunctus,²⁸ and therefore totus should be used when the object denoted is homogeneous, cunctus when the conception is collective, as here,” it is scarcely conceivable that the pupil could forget it, unless his intelligence were very limited. Again, if the grammatical question were to arise why we say mea refert, tua refert, but ejus refert; that is to say, why we use the ablative (as it is supposed to be) in the first and second persons, but the genitive in the third person; if I were to answer, that refert is a contraction for res fert, and that the phrases are therefore mea res fert, tua res fert, ejus res fert (or in their contracted form mea refert, tua refert, ejus refert), and that therefore mea and tua are not the ablative but the nominative, would not the pupil be stimulated to further efforts?

​The scholars, therefore, should learn, and learn thoroughly, the etymology of all words, the reasons for all constructions, and the principles on which the rules for the various subjects of study have been formed (the principles of the sciences should in the first instance be impressed on the mind, not by merely giving the reasons, but by actual demonstration on the objects themselves).

This will prove most congenial to the pupils, and will therefore be of the greatest use in paving the way for the most thorough education possible; for their eyes will be opened to a remarkable extent, and they will acquire the habit of easily and naturally advancing from one thing to another.

37. In schools, therefore, everything should be taught through its causes.

Ninth Principle

38. Nature preserves a due proportion between the roots and the branches, with respect to both quality and quantity.

The development of the branches above the earth is proportionate to that of the roots beneath. This could not be otherwise; for if the tree were only to grow upwards it would be unable to maintain its erect position, since it is the roots that help it to do so. If, on the other hand, it only grew downwards it would be useless, for it is the branches and not the roots that bear the fruit. With animals also there is a close connection between the external and the internal organs, for if the internal organs are healthy the external ones are so also.

39. Imitation.—The same holds good of education. It must first be applied to the inner roots of knowledge, and thus develope and gain strength, while at the same time care must be taken that it afterwards spread out into branches and foliage. That is to say, whenever instruction is given the pupil should be taught to apply his knowledge practically, as in the case of a language by speaking, and not merely to assimilate it mentally.

​40. Therefore (i) With every subject of instruction the question of its practical use must be raised, that nothing useless may be learned.

(ii) Whatever has been learned should be communicated by one pupil to the other, that no knowledge may remain unused. For in this sense only can we understand the saying: “Thy knowledge is of no avail if none other know that thou knowest.” No source of knowledge, therefore, should be opened, unless rivulets, flow from it. But of this will say more the following principle.

Tenth Principle

41. Nature becomes fruitful and strong through constant movement.

Thus, when a bird hatches eggs, it does not only warm them, but, in order that they may be warmed equally on all sides, it turns them round daily (this can be easily observed in the case of geese, hens, and doves, since these hatch their eggs under our very eyes). When the chicken has broken through the shell it exercises itself by moving its beak, its limbs, and its wings, by stretching itself and raising itself from the ground, and by repeated attempts to walk and to fly, until it is sufficiently strong to do so.

The more a tree is buffeted by the winds, the faster it grows and the deeper it drives its roots. Indeed it is healthy for all plants to be stimulated by rain, storms, hail, thunder, and lightning, and for this reason those localities that are greatly exposed to storms of wind and of rain ought to produce harder wood than others.

42. Imitation in the mechanical arts.—In the same way the builder leaves the wind and the sun to make his buildings dry and firm. The smith also, who wishes to harden and temper his iron, places it repeatedly in the fire and in water, and thus, by alternating cold and heat, and by repeatedly softening the metal, ultimately renders it hard and durable.

​43. From this it follows that education cannot attain to thoroughness without frequent and suitable repetitions of and exercises on the subjects taught. We may learn the most suitable mode of procedure by observing the natural movements that underlie the processes of nutrition in living bodies, namely those of collection, digestion, and distribution. For in the case of an animal (and in that of a plant as well) each member seeks for digestion food which may both nurture that member (since this retains and assimilates part of the digested food) and be shared with the other members, that the well-being of the whole organism may be preserved (for each member serves the other). In the same way that teacher will greatly increase the value of his instruction who

(i) Seeks out and obtains intellectual food for himself.

(ii) Assimilates and digests what he has found.

(iii) Distributes what he has digested, and shares it with others.

44. These three elements are to be found in the well-known Latin couplet:—

To ask many questions, retain the answers, and to teach what one retains to others;

These three enable the pupil to surpass his master.

Questioning takes place when a pupil interrogates his teachers, his companions, or his books about some subject that he does not understand. Retention follows when the information that has been obtained is committed to memory, or is written down for greater security (since few are so fortunate as to possess the power of retaining everything in their minds). Teaching takes place when knowledge that has been acquired is communicated to fellow-pupils or other companions.

With the two first of these principles the schools are quite familiar, with the third but little; its introduction, however, is in the highest degree desirable. The saying, ​“He who teaches others, teaches himself,” is very true, not only because constant repetition impresses a fact indelibly on the mind, but because the process of teaching in itself gives a deeper insight into the subject taught. Thus it was that the gifted Joachim Fortius²⁹ used to say that, if he had heard or read anything once, it slipped out of his memory within a month; but that if he taught it to others it became as much a part of himself as his fingers, and that he did not believe that anything short of death could deprive him of it. His advice, therefore, was that, if a student wished to make progress, he should arrange to give lessons daily in the subjects which he was studying, even if he had to hire his pupils. “It is worth your while,” he says, “to sacrifice your bodily comfort to a certain extent for the sake of having some one who will listen while you teach, or, in other words, while you make intellectual progress.”

45. This would certainly be of use to many and could easily be put into practice if the teacher of each class would introduce this excellent system to his pupils. It might be done in the following way: in each lesson, after the teacher has briefly gone through the work that has been prepared, and has explained the meanings of the words, one of the pupils should be allowed to rise from his place and repeat what has just been said in the same order (just as if he were the teacher of the rest), to give his explanations in the same words, and to employ the same examples, and if he make a mistake he should be corrected. Then another can be called up and made go through the same performance while the rest listen. After him a third, a fourth, and as many as are necessary, until it is evident that all have understood the lesson and are in a position to explain it. In carrying this out great care should be taken to call up the clever boys first, in order that, after their example, the stupid ones may find it easier to follow.

46. Exercises of this kind will have a fivefold use.

(i) The teacher is certain to have attentive pupils. For since the scholars may, at any time, be called up and asked to repeat what the teacher has said, each of them ​will be afraid of breaking down and appearing ridiculous before the others, and will therefore attend carefully and allow nothing to escape him. In addition to this, the habit of brisk attention, which becomes second nature if practised for several years, will fit the scholar to acquit himself well in active life.

(ii) The teacher will be able to know with certainty if his pupils have thoroughly grasped everything that he has taught them. If he finds that they have not, he will consult his own interest as well as that of his pupils by repeating his explanation and making it clearer.

(iii) If the same thing be frequently repeated, the dullest intelligences will grasp it at last, and will thus be able to keep pace with the others; while the brighter ones will be pleased at obtaining such a thorough grip of the subject.

(iv) By means of such constant repetition the scholars will gain a better acquaintance with the subject than they could possibly obtain by private study, even with the greatest diligence, and will find that, if they just read the lesson over in the morning and then again in the evening, it will remain in their memories easily and pleasantly. When, by this method of repetition, the pupil has, as it were, been admitted to the office of teacher, he will attain a peculiar keenness of disposition and love of learning; he will also acquire the habit of remaining self-possessed while explaining anything before a number of people, and this will be of the greatest use to him throughout life.

47. Following out this idea, the scholars, when they meet one another after school hours, or when they go for walks together, should compare notes and discuss information that they have recently acquired, or should converse on anything new that attracts their attention. It would be of great assistance, when a certain number of scholars meet for such discussion, if one of them (to be chosen either by lot or by vote) were to take the place of teacher, and control the proceedings. If the scholar thus selected by his companions refuse the position, he should be severely reprimanded. For, far from being rejected, such ​opportunities of teaching and of learning should be sought after and competed for.

Of written exercises (a great help to progress) we will speak in our chapters on the Vernacular-School and on the Latin-School (chaps. xxvii. and xxviii.)

CHAPTER XVII

THE PRINCIPLES OF FACILITY IN TEACHING AND IN LEARNING

1. We have already considered the means by which the educationist may attain his goal with certainty, we will now proceed to see how these means can be suited to the minds of the pupils, so that their use may be easy and pleasant.

2. Following in the footsteps of nature we find that the process of education will be easy

(i) If it begin early, before the mind is corrupted.

(ii) If the mind be duly prepared to receive it.

(iii) If it proceed from the general to the particular.

(iv) And from what is easy to what is more difficult.

(v) If the pupil be not overburdened by too many subjects.

(vi) And if progress be slow in every case.

(vii) If the intellect be forced to nothing to which its natural bent does not incline it, in accordance with its age and with the right method.

(viii) If everything be taught through the medium of the senses.

(ix) And if the use of everything taught be continually kept in view.

(x) If everything be taught according to one and the same method.

These, I say, are the principles to be adopted if education is to be easy and pleasant.​

First Principle

3. Nature begins by a careful selection of materials.

For instance, for hatching a bird she selects fresh eggs and those that contain pure matter. If the formation of the chicken have already begun, it is in vain to expect any result.

4. Imitation.—The architect who wishes to erect a building, needs a clear plot of ground, and, if there be a house already standing there, he must pull it down before he can build the new one.

5. The artist, too, does his best work on a clean canvas. If it have already been painted on, or be dirty or rough, it must be cleaned or smoothed before he can use it.

6. For the preservation of precious ointments, empty jars must be procured, or those that are in use must be carefully cleansed of their contents.

7. The gardener, too, prefers to plant young trees, or, if he take them when too old, cuts off the branches in order that the sap may not be dissipated. For this reason Aristotle placed “privation” among the principles of nature, for he held that it was impossible to impress a new form on any material until the old one had been removed.

8. Deviation.—It follows from this: (1) That it is best to devote the mind to the pursuit of wisdom while it is still fresh, and before it has acquired the habit of dissipating its strength over a variety of occupations; and that the later the education begins, the harder it will be for it to obtain a hold, because the mind is already occupied by other things. (2) That the result must be bad if a boy be instructed by several teachers at once, since it is scarcely possible for them all to use the same method, and, if they do not, the boy’s mind is drawn first in one direction and then in another, and its development is thus hindered. (3) That it shows great lack of judgment if moral instruction be not made the first point when the education of children or of older boys is commenced; since, ​when they have been taught to control their feelings, they will be the more fit to receive other instruction. Horsetamers keep a horse under absolute control with an iron bit, and ensure its obedience before they teach it its paces. Rightly does Seneca say: “First learn virtue, and then wisdom, since without virtue it is difficult to learn wisdom.”

And Cicero says: “Moral philosophy makes the mind fit to receive the seeds of further knowledge.”

9. Rectification.—Therefore

(i) Education should be commenced early.

(ii) The pupil should not have more than one teacher in each subject.

(iii) Before anything else is done, the morals should be rendered harmonious by the master’s influence.

Second Principle

10. Nature prepares its material so that it actually strives to attain the form.

Thus the chicken in the egg, when sufficiently formed, seeks to develope itself still further, moves, and bursts the shell or breaks through it with its beak. After escaping from its prison, it takes pleasure in the warmth and nutriment provided by its mother, opens its beak expectantly and swallows its food greedily. It rejoices to find itself under the open sky, exercises its wings, and, later on, uses them with enjoyment; in a word, it displays a keen desire to fulfil all its natural functions, though throughout the whole process of development it advances step by step.

11. Imitation.—The gardener also must bring it about that the plant, properly provided with moisture and with warmth, take pleasure in its vigorous growth.

12. Deviation.—Therefore, those who drive boys to their studies, do them great harm. For what result can they expect? If a man have no appetite, but yet takes food when urged to do so, the result can only be sickness and vomiting, or at least indigestion and indisposition. On ​the other hand, if a man be hungry, he is eager to take food, digests it readily, and easily converts it into flesh and blood. Thus Isocrates says: “He who is anxious to learn will also be learned.” And Quintilian says: “The acquisition of knowledge depends on the will to learn, and this cannot be forced.”

13. Rectification.—Therefore

(i) The desire to know and to learn should be excited in boys in every possible manner.

(ii) The method of instruction should lighten the drudgery of learning, that there may be nothing to hinder the scholars or deter them from making progress with their studies.

14. The desire to learn is kindled in boys by parents, by masters, by the school, by the subjects of instruction, by the method of teaching, and by the authority of the state.

15. By parents, if they praise learning and the learned in the presence of their children, or if they encourage them to be industrious by promising them nice books and clothes, or some other pretty thing; if they commend the teachers (especially him to whom they entrust their sons) as much for their friendly feeling towards the pupils, as for their skill in teaching (for love and admiration are the feelings most calculated to stimulate a desire for imitation); finally, if, from time to time, they send the child to him with a small present. In this way they will easily bring it about that the children like their lessons and their teachers, and have confidence in them.

16. By the teachers, if they are gentle and persuasive, and do not alienate their pupils from them by roughness, but attract them by fatherly sentiments and words; if they commend the studies that they take in hand on account of their excellence, pleasantness, and ease; if they praise the industrious ones from time to time (to the little ones they may give apples, nuts, sugar, etc.); if they call the children to them, privately or in the class, and show them pictures of the things that they must learn, or explain to them ​optical or geometrical instruments, astronomical globes, and such-like things that are calculated to excite their admiration; or again, if they occasionally give the children some message to carry to their parents. In a word, if they treat their pupils kindly they will easily win their affections, and will bring it about that they prefer going to school to remaining at home.

17. The school itself should be a pleasant place, and attractive to the eye both within and without. Within, the room should be bright and clean, and its walls should be ornamented by pictures. These should be either portraits of celebrated men, geographical maps, historical plans, or other ornaments. Without, there should be an open place to walk and to play in (for this is absolutely necessary for children, as we shall show later), and there should also be a garden attached, into which the scholars may be allowed to go from time to time and where they may feast their eyes on trees, flowers, and plants. If this be done, boys will, in all probability, go to school with as much pleasure as to fairs, where they always hope to see and hear something new.

18. The subjects of instruction themselves prove attractive to the young, if they are suited to the age of the pupil and are clearly explained; especially if the explanation be relieved by a humorous or at any rate by a less serious tone. For thus the pleasant is combined with the useful.

19. If the method is to excite a taste for knowledge, it must, in the first place, be natural. For what is natural takes place without compulsion. Water need not be forced to run down a mountain-side. If the dam, or whatever else holds it back, be removed, it flows down at once. It is not necessary to persuade a bird to fly; it does so as soon as the cage is opened. The eye and the ear need no urging to enjoy a fine painting or a beautiful melody that is presented to them. In all these cases it is more often necessary to restrain than to urge on. The requisites of a natural method are evident from the preceding chapter and from the rules that follow.

​In the second place, if the scholars are to be interested, care must be taken to make the method palatable, so that everything, no matter how serious, may be placed before them in a familiar and attractive manner; in the form of a dialogue, for instance, by pitting the boys against one another to answer and explain riddling questions, comparisons, and fables. But of this more in the proper place.

20. The civil authorities and the managers of schools can kindle the zeal of the scholars by being present at public performances (such as declarations, disputations, examinations, and promotions), and by praising the industrious ones and giving them small presents (without respect of person).

Third Principle

21. Nature developes everything from beginnings which, though insignificant in appearance, possess great potential strength.

For instance, the matter out of which a bird is to be formed consists of a few drops, which are contained in a shell, that they may be easily warmed and hatched. But these few drops contain the whole bird potentially, since, later on, the body of the chicken is formed from the vital principle which is concentrated in them.

22. Imitation.—In the same way a tree, no matter how large it may be, is potentially contained in the kernel of its fruit or in the shoot at the end of one of its branches. If one or the other of these be placed in the earth, a whole tree will be produced by the inner force that it contains.

23. Terrible deviation.—In direct opposition to this principle a terrible mistake is generally made in schools. Most teachers are at pains to place in the earth plants instead of seeds, and trees instead of shoots, since, instead of starting with the fundamental principles, they place before their pupils a chaos of diverse conclusions or the complete texts of authors. And yet it is certain that instruction rests on a very small number of principles, just as the earth is composed of four elements (though in diverse forms); and that from these principles (in accord​ance with the evident limits of their powers of differentiation) an unlimited number of results can be deduced, just as, in the case of a tree, hundreds of branches, and thousands of leaves, blossoms, and fruits are produced from the original shoot. Oh! may God take pity on our age, and open some man’s eyes, that he may see aright the true relations in which things stand to one another, and may impart his knowledge to the rest of mankind. With God’s assistance I hope, in my Synopsis of Christian Wisdom, to give an earnest of my efforts to do so, in the modest hope that it may be of use to others whom God, in due season, may call to carry on the work.

24. Rectification.—In the meantime we may draw three conclusions:

(i) Every art must be contained in the shortest and most practical rules.

(ii) Each rule must be expressed in the shortest and clearest words.

(iii) Each rule must be accompanied by many examples, in order that the use of the rule may be quite clear when fresh cases arise.

Fourth Principle

25. Nature advances from what is easy to what is more difficult.

For example, the formation of an egg does not begin with the hardest part, the shell, but with the contents. These are at first covered by a membrane; it is not till later that the hard shell appears. The bird that learns to fly accustoms itself first to stand on its legs, then to move its wings gently, then to do so with more force until it can raise itself from the ground, and last of all gains sufficient confidence to fly through the air.

26. Imitation.—In the same way a carpenter’s apprentice learns, first to fell trees, then to saw them into planks and fasten them together, and finally to build complete houses of them.

​27. Various Deviations.—It is therefore wrong to teach the unknown through the medium of that which is equally unknown, as is the case: (i) If boys who are beginning Latin are taught the rules in Latin. This is just as if the attempt were made to explain Hebrew by Hebrew rules, or Arabic by Arabic rules.

(ii) If these same beginners are given as assistance a Latin-German instead of a German-Latin dictionary. For they do not want to learn their mother-tongue by the aid of Latin, but to learn Latin through the medium of the language that they already know. (On this error we will say more in chap. xxii.)

(iii) If boys are given a foreign teacher who does not understand their language. For if they have no common medium through which they can hold communication with him, and can only guess at what he is saying, can anything but a Tower of Babel be the result?

(iv) A deviation is made from the right method of teaching, if boys of all nations (i.e. French, German, Bohemian, Polish, or Hungarian boys) are taught in accordance with the same rules of grammar (those of Melanchthon or of Ramus,²⁶ for example), since each of these languages stands in its own particular relation to Latin, and this relation must be well understood if Latin is to be thoroughly taught to boys of these several nationalities.

28. Rectification.—These errors may be avoided

(i) If the teachers and their pupils talk the same language.

(ii) If all explanations are given in the language that the pupils understand.

(iii) If grammars and dictionaries are adapted to the language through the medium of which the new one is to be learned (that is to say, the Latin Grammar to the mother-tongue, and Greek Grammar to the Latin language).

(iv) If the study of a new language be allowed to proceed gradually and in such a way that the scholar learn first to understand (for this is the easiest), then to write ​(for here there is time for consideration), and lastly to speak (which is the hardest, because the process is so rapid).

(v) If, when Latin is combined with German, the German be placed first as the best known, and the Latin follow.

(vi) If the subject-matter be so arranged that the pupils get to know, first, that which lies nearest to their mental vision, then that which lies moderately near, then that which is more remote, and lastly, that which is farthest off. Therefore, if boys are being taught something for the first time (such as logic or rhetoric), the illustrations should not be taken from subjects that cannot be grasped by the scholars, such as theology, politics, or poetry, but should be derived from the events of everyday life. Otherwise the boys will understand neither the rules nor their application.

(vii) If boys be made to exercise, first their senses (for this is the easiest), then the memory, then the comprehension, and finally the judgment. In this way a graded sequence will take place; for all knowledge begins by sensuous perception; then through the medium of the imagination it enters the province of the memory; then, by dwelling on the particulars, comprehension of the universal arises; while finally comes judgment on the facts that have been grasped, and in this way our knowledge is firmly established.

Fifth Principle

29. Nature does not overburden herself, but is content with a little.

For instance, she does not demand two chickens from one egg, but is satisfied if one be produced. The gardener does not insert a number of grafts on one stock, but two at most, if he consider it very strong.

30. Deviation.—The mental energies of the scholar are therefore dissipated if he have to learn many things ​at once, such as grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, poetic, Greek, etc., in one year (cf. the previous chapter, Principle 4).

Sixth Principle

31. Nature does not hurry, but advances slowly.

For example, a bird does not place its eggs in the fire, in order to hatch them quickly, but lets them develope slowly under the influence of natural warmth. Neither, later on, does it cram its chickens with food that they may mature quickly (for this would only choke them), but it selects their food with care and gives it to them gradually in the quantities that their weak digestion can support.

32. Imitation.—The builder, too, does not erect the walls on the foundations with undue haste and then straightway put on the roof; since, unless the foundations were given time to dry and become firm, they would sink under the superincumbent weight, and the whole building would tumble down. Large stone buildings, therefore, cannot be finished within one year, but must have a suitable length of time allotted for their construction.

33. Nor does the gardener expect a plant to grow large in the first month, or to bear fruit at the end of the first year. He does not, therefore, tend and water it every day, nor does he warm it with fire or with quicklime, but is content with the moisture that comes from heaven and with the warmth that the sun provides.

34. Deviation.—For the young, therefore, it is torture

(i) If they are compelled to receive six, seven, or eight hours’ class instruction daily, and private lessons in addition.

(ii) If they are overburdened with dictations, with exercises, and with the lessons that they have to commit to memory, until nausea and, in some cases, insanity is produced.

If we take a jar with a narrow mouth (for to this we may compare a boy’s intellect) and attempt to pour a quantity of water into it violently, instead of allowing it to trickle in drop by drop, what will be the result? Without ​doubt the greater part of the liquid will flow over the side, and ultimately the jar will contain less than if the operation had taken place gradually. Quite as foolish is the action of those who try to teach their pupils, not as much as they can assimilate, but as much as they themselves wish; for the faculties need to be supported and not to be overburdened, and the teacher, like the physician, is the servant and not the master of nature.

35. Rectification.—The ease and the pleasantness of study will therefore be increased:

(i) If the class instruction be curtailed as much as possible, namely to four hours, and if the same length of time be left for private study.

(ii) If the pupils be forced to memorise as little as possible, that is to say, only the most important things; of the rest they need only grasp the general meaning.

(iii) If everything be arranged to suit the capacity of the pupil, which increases naturally with study and age.

Seventh Principle

36. Nature compels nothing to advance that is not driven forward by its own mature strength.

For instance, a chicken is not compelled to quit the egg before its limbs are properly formed and set; is not forced to fly before its feathers have grown; is not thrust from the nest before it is able to fly well, etc.

A tree, too, does not put forth shoots before it is forced to do so by the sap that rises from the roots, nor does it permit fruit to appear before the leaves and blossoms formed by the sap seek further development, nor does it permit the blossoms to fall before the fruit that they contain is protected by a skin, nor the fruit to drop before it is ripe.

37. Deviation.—Now the faculties of the young are forced:

(i) If boys are compelled to learn things for which their age and capacity are not yet suited.

​(ii) If they are made to learn by heart or do things that have not first been thoroughly explained and demonstrated to them.

38. Rectification.—From what has been said, it follows

(i) That nothing should be taught to the young, unless it is not only permitted but actually demanded by their age and mental strength.

(ii) That nothing should be learned by heart that has not been thoroughly grasped by the understanding. Nor should any feat of memory be demanded unless it is absolutely certain that the boy’s strength is equal to it.

(iii) That nothing should be set boys to do until its nature has been thoroughly explained to them, and rules for procedure have been given.

Eighth Principle

39. Nature assists its operations in every possible manner.

For example, an egg possesses its own natural warmth; but this is assisted by the warmth of the sun and by the feathers of the bird that hatches it. God, the father of nature, takes forethought for this. The newly-hatched chicken, also, is warmed by the mother as long as is necessary, and is trained by her in the various functions of life. This we can see in the case of storks, who assist their young by taking them on their backs and bearing them round the nest while they exercise their wings. In the same way nurses help little children. They teach them first to raise their heads and then to sit up; later on, to stand on their legs, and to move their legs preparatory to walking; then by degrees to walk and step out firmly. When they teach them to speak they repeat words to them and point to the objects that the words denote.

40. Deviation.—It is therefore cruelty on the part of a teacher if he set his pupils work to do without first explaining it to them thoroughly, or showing them how it should be done, and if he do not assist them in their first attempts; or if he allow them to toil hard, and ​then loses his temper if they do not succeed in their endeavours.

What is this but to torture the young? it is just as if a nurse were to force a child to walk, while it is still afraid to stand on its legs, and beat it when it failed to do so. Nature’s teaching is very different, and shows that we ought to have patience with the weak as long as their strength is insufficient.

41. Rectification.—From this it follows:

(i) That no blows should be given for lack of readiness to learn (for, if the pupil do not learn readily, this is the fault of no one but the teacher, who either does not know how to make his pupil receptive of knowledge or does not take the trouble to do so).

(ii) That the subjects that have to be learned by the pupils should be so thoroughly explained to them, that they can understand them as well as they understand their five fingers.

(iii) That, as far as is possible, instruction should be given through the senses, that it may be retained in the memory with less effort.

42. For example, the sense of hearing should always be conjoined with that of sight, and the tongue should be trained in combination with the hand. The subjects that are taught should not merely be taught orally, and thus appeal to the ear alone, but should be pictorially illustrated, and thus develope the imagination by the help of the eye. Again, the pupils should learn to speak with their mouths and at the same time to express what they say with their hands, that no study may be proceeded with before what has already been learned is thoroughly impressed on the eyes, the ears, the understanding, and the memory. With this object, it is desirable to represent pictorially, on the walls of the class-room, everything that is treated of in the class, by putting up either precepts and rules or pictures and diagrams illustrative of the subjects taught. If this be done, it is incredible how much it assists a teacher to impress his instruction on the ​pupils’ minds. It is also useful if the scholars learn to write down in their note-books or among their collections of idioms everything that they hear or read, since in this way the imagination is assisted and it is easier to remember them later on.

Ninth Principle

43. Nothing is produced by nature of which the practical application is not soon evident.

For example, when a bird is formed it is soon evident that the wings are intended for flying and the legs for running. In the same way every part of a tree has its use, down to the skin and the bloom that surround the fruit.

Therefore

44. Imitation.—The task of the pupil will be made easier, if the master, when he teaches him anything, show him at the same time its practical application in every-day life. This rule must be carefully observed in teaching languages, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, physics, etc. If it be neglected, the things that you are explaining will seem to be monsters from the new world, and the attitude of the pupil, who is indifferent whether they exist or no, will be one of belief rather than of knowledge. When things are brought under his notice and their use is explained to him, they should be put into his hands that he may assure himself of his knowledge and may derive enjoyment from its application.

Therefore

45. Those things only should be taught whose application can be easily demonstrated.

Tenth Principle

46. Nature is uniform in all its operations.

For instance, the production of all birds, and, indeed, of all living creatures, resembles that of any single bird ​which you may choose. It is only in the minor details that there are differences. So too in the case of plants, the development of one plant from its seed, the planting and the growth of a single tree, serve as illustrations of the way in which all the others, without exception, develope. One leaf on a tree resembles all the others, and in this respect does not change from year to year.

47. Deviation.—Differences of method, therefore, confuse the young, and make their studies distasteful to them, since not only do different teachers use different systems, but even individual teachers vary their method. For example, languages are taught in one way, dialectic in another, though both might be brought under the same method, in accordance with the harmony of the universe, and the universal and intimate relations that exist between objects and words.

48. Rectification.—Henceforth, therefore

(i) The same method of instruction must be used for all the sciences, the same for all the arts, and the same for all languages.

(ii) In each school the same arrangement and treatment should be adopted for all studies.

(iii) The class-books for each subject should, as far as is possible, be of the same edition.

In this way difficulties will be avoided and progress will be made easy.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE UNIVERSAL REQUIREMENTS OF TEACHING AND OF LEARNING; THAT IS TO SAY, A METHOD OF TEACHING AND OF LEARNING WITH SUCH CERTAINTY THAT THE DESIRED RESULT MUST OF NECESSITY FOLLOW.

1. Exceptionally fine is that comparison made by our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel, “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth; and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how. The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come ”(Mark iv. 26).

2. The Saviour here shows that it is God who operates in everything, and that nothing remains for man but to receive the seeds of instruction with a devout heart; the processes of growth and of ripening will then continue of themselves, unperceived by him. The duty of the teachers of the young, therefore, is none other than to skilfully scatter the seeds of instruction in their minds, and to carefully water God’s plants. Increase and growth will come from above.

3. Is there any who denies that sowing and planting need skill and experience? If an unpractised gardener plant an orchard with young trees, the greater number of them die, and the few that prosper do so rather through chance than through skill. But the trained gardener goes to work ​carefully, since he is well instructed, where, when, and how to act and what to leave alone, that he may meet with no failure. It is true that even an experienced man meets with failure occasionally (indeed it is scarcely possible for a man to take such careful forethought that no error can arise); but we are now discussing, not the abstract question of circumspection and chance, but the art of doing away with chance by means of circumspection.

4. Hitherto the method of instruction has been so uncertain that scarcely any one would dare to say: “In so many years I will bring this youth to such and such a point; I will educate him in such and such a way.” We must therefore see if it be possible to place the art of intellectual discipline on such a firm basis that sure and certain progress may be made.

5. Since this basis can be properly laid only by assimilating the processes of art as much as possible to those of nature (as we have seen in the 15th chapter), we will follow the method of nature, taking as our example a bird hatching out its young; and, if we see with what good results gardeners, painters, and builders follow in the track of nature, we shall have to recognise that the educator of the young should follow in the same path.

6. If any think this course of action petty or commonplace, let him consider that from that which is of daily occurrence and universal notoriety and which takes place with good results in nature and in the arts (the teaching art excepted), we are seeking to deduce that which is less known and which is necessary for our present purpose. Indeed, if the facts from which we derive the principles that form the basis for our precepts are known, we can entertain hopes that our conclusions will be the more evident.

First Principle

7. Nature observes a suitable time.

For example: a bird that wishes to multiply its species, does not set about it in winter, when everything is stiff ​with cold, nor in summer, when everything is parched and withered by the heat; nor yet in autumn, when the vital force of all creatures declines with the sun’s declining rays, and a new winter with hostile mien is approaching; but in spring, when the sun brings back life and strength to all. Again, the process consists of several steps. While it is yet cold the bird conceives the eggs and warms them inside its body, where they are protected from the cold; when the air grows warmer it lays them in its nest, but does not hatch them out until the warm season comes, that the tender chicks may grow accustomed to light and warmth by degrees.

8. Imitation.—In the same way the gardener takes care to do nothing out of season. He does not, therefore, plant in the winter (because the sap is then in the roots, preparing to mount and nourish the plant later on); nor in summer (when the sap is already dispersed through the branches); nor in autumn (when the sap is retiring to the roots once more); but in spring, when the moisture is beginning to rise from the roots and the upper part of the plant begins to shoot. Later on, too, it is of great importance to the little tree that the right time be chosen for the various operations that are needful, such as manuring, pruning, and cutting. Even the tree itself has its proper time for putting forth shoots and blossoms, for growing, and for coming to maturity.

In the same manner the careful builder must choose the right time for cutting timber, burning bricks, laying foundations, building, and plastering walls, etc.

9. Deviation.—In direct opposition to this principle, a twofold error is committed in schools.

(i) The right time for mental exercise is not chosen.

(ii) The exercises are not properly divided, so that all advance may be made through the several stages needful, without any omission. As long as the boy is still a child he cannot be taught, because the roots of his understanding are still too deep below the surface. As soon as he becomes old, it is too late to teach him, because the intellect ​and the memory are then failing. In middle age it is difficult, because the forces of the intellect are dissipated over a variety of objects and are not easily concentrated. The season of youth, therefore, must be chosen. Then life and mind are fresh and gathering strength; then everything is vigorous and strikes root deeply.

10. Rectification.—We conclude, therefore, that

(i) The education of men should be commenced in the springtime of life, that is to say, in boyhood (for boyhood is the equivalent of spring, youth of summer, manhood of autumn, and old age of winter).

(ii) The morning hours are the most suitable for study (for here again the morning is the equivalent of spring, midday of summer, the evening of autumn, and the night of winter).

(iii) All the subjects that are to be learned should be arranged so as to suit the age of the students, that nothing which is beyond their comprehension be given them to learn.

Second Principle

11. Nature prepares the material, before she begins to give it form.

For example: the bird that wishes to produce a creature similar to itself first conceives the embryo from a drop of its blood; it then prepares the nest in which it is to lay the eggs, but does not begin to hatch them until the chick is formed and moves within the shell.

12. Imitation.—In the same way the prudent builder, before he begins to erect a building, collects a quantity of wood, lime, stones, iron, and the other things needful, in order that he may not have to stop the work later on from lack of materials, nor find that its solidity has been impaired. In the same way, the painter who wishes to produce a picture, prepares the canvas, stretches it on a frame, lays the ground on it, mixes his colours, places his brushes so that they may be ready to hand, and then at last commences to paint.

​In the same way the gardener, before he commences operations, tries to have the garden, the stocks, the grafts, and the tools in readiness, that he may not have to fetch the necessary appliances while at work, and so spoil the whole operation.

13. Deviation.—Against this principle schools are offenders firstly, because they take no care to prepare beforehand the mechanical aids such as books, maps, pictures, diagrams, etc., and to have them in readiness for general use, but at the moment that they need this or that, they make experiments, aw, dictate, copy, etc., and when this is done by an unskilled or careless teacher (and their number increases daily), the result is deplorable. It is just as if a physician, whenever he wishes to administer a medicine, had to wander through gardens and forests, and collect and distil herbs and roots, though medicaments to suit every case should be ready to his hand.

14. Secondly, because even in school-books the natural order, that the matter come first and the form follow, is not observed. Everywhere the exact opposite is to be found. The classification of objects is unnaturally made to precede a knowledge of the objects themselves, although it is impossible to classify, before the matter to be classified is there. I will demonstrate this by four examples.

15. (1) Languages are learned in schools before the sciences, since the intellect is detained for some years over the study of languages, and only then allowed to proceed to the sciences, mathematics, physics, etc. And yet things are essential, words only accidental; things are the body, words but the garment; things are the kernel, words the shells and husks. Both should therefore be presented to the intellect at the same time, but particularly the things, since they are as much objects of the understanding as are languages.

16. (2) Even in the study of languages the proper order is reversed, since the students commence, not with some author or with a skilfully-compiled phrase-book, but with the grammar; though the authors (and in their own way ​the phrase-books) present the material of speech, namely words, while the grammars, on the other hand, only give the form, that is to say, the laws of the formation, order, and combination of words.

17. (3) In the encyclopædic compilations of human knowledge, the arts are always placed first, while the sciences follow after; though the latter teach of the things themselves, the former how to manipulate the things.

18. (4) Finally: it the abstract rules that are first taught and then illustrated by dragging in a few examples; though it is plain that a light should precede him whom it lights.

19. Rectification.—It follows, therefore, that in order to effect a thorough improvement in schools it is necessary:

(i) That books and the materials necessary for teaching be held in readiness.

(ii) That the understanding be first instructed in things, and then taught to express them in language.

(iii) That no language be learned from a grammar, but from suitable authors.

(iv) That the knowledge of things precede the knowledge of their combinations.

(v) And that examples come before rules.

Third Principle

20. Nature chooses a fit subject to act upon, or first submits one to a suitable treatment in order to make it fit.

For example: a bird does not place any object in the nest in which it sits, but an object of such a kind that a chicken can be hatched from it, that is to say, an egg. If a small stone or anything else falls into the nest, it throws it out as useless. But when the process of hatching takes place, it warms the matter contained in the egg, and looks after it until the chicken makes its way out.

21. Imitation.—In the same way the builder cuts down timber, of as good quality as possible, dries it, squares it, ​and saws it into planks. Then he chooses a spot to build on, clears it, lays a new foundation, or repairs the old one so that he can make use of it.

22. In the same way, if the canvas or the surface do not suit his colours, the painter tries to make them more suitable, and, by rubbing them and polishing them, fits them for his use.

23. The gardener too (1) chooses from a fruit-bearing stock a shoot that possesses as much vitality as possible; (2) transplants it to a garden, and places it carefully in the earth; (3) does not burden it with a new graft unless he sees that it has taken root; (4) before he inserts the new graft, removes the former shoot, and even cuts a piece away round the stock in order that none of the sap may perform any function other than that of vivifying the graft.

24. Deviation.—Against this principle the schools are offenders: not because they include the weak of intellect (for in our opinion all the young should be admitted into the schools) but far more because:

(1) These tender plants are not transplanted into the garden, that is to say, are not entirely entrusted to the schools, so that none, who are to be trained as men, shall be allowed to leave the workshop before their training is complete.

(2) The attempt is generally made to engraft that noblest graft of knowledge, virtue and piety, too early, before the stock itself has taken root; that is to say, before the desire to learn has been excited in those who have no natural bent in that direction.

(3) The side-shoots or root-suckers are not removed before the grafting takes place; that is to say, the minds are not freed from all idle tendencies by being habituated to discipline and order.

25. Rectification.—It is therefore desirable:

(i) That all who enter schools persevere in their studies.

(ii) That, before any special study is introduced, the minds of the students be prepared and made receptive of it. (See the following chapter, Principle 2.)

​(iii) That all obstacles be removed out of the way of schools.

“For it is of no use to give precepts,” says Seneca, “unless the obstacles that stand in the way be removed.” But of this we will treat in the following chapter.

Fourth Principle

26. Nature is not confused in its operations, but in its forward progress advances distinctly from one point to another.

For example: if a bird is being produced, its bones, veins, and nerves are formed at separate and distinct periods; at one time its flesh becomes firm, at another it receives its covering of skin or feathers, and at another it learns how to fly, etc.

27. Imitation.—When a builder lays foundations he does not build the walls at the same time, much less does he put on the roof, but does each of these things at the proper time and in the proper place.

28. In the same way a painter does not work at twenty or thirty pictures at once, but occupies himself with one only. For, though he may from time to time put a few touches to some others or give his attention to something else, it is on one picture and one only that he concentrates his energies.

29. In the same way the gardener does not plant several shoots at once, but plants them one after the other, that he may neither confuse himself nor spoil the operation of nature.

30. Deviation.—Confusion has arisen in the schools through the endeavour to teach the scholars many things at one time. As, for example, Latin and Greek grammar, perhaps rhetoric and poetic as well, and a multitude of other subjects. For it is notorious that in the classical schools the subject-matter for reading and for composition is changed almost every hour throughout the day. If this be not confusion I should like to know what is. It is just as if a shoemaker wished to make six or seven new ​shoes at once, and took them up one by one in turn, only to lay them aside in a few minutes; or as if a baker, who wished to place various kinds of bread in his oven, were to take them out again immediately, removing one kind as he put in another. Who would commit such an act of folly? The shoemaker finishes one shoe before he begins another. The baker places no fresh bread in the oven until that already in it is thoroughly baked.

31. Rectification.—Let us imitate these people and take care not to confuse scholars who are learning grammar by teaching them dialectic, or oducing rhetoric into their studies. We should also put off the study of Greek until Latin is mastered, since it is impossible to concentrate the mind on any one thing, when it has to busy litself with several things at once.

That great man, Joseph Scaliger,²⁵ was well aware of this. It is related of him that (perhaps on the advice of his father) he never occupied himself with more than one branch of knowledge at once, and concentrated all his energies on that one. It was owing to this that he was able to master not only fourteen languages, but also all the arts and sciences that lie within the province of man. He devoted himself to these one after the other with such success that in each subject his learning excelled that of men who had given their whole lives to it. And those who have tried to follow in his footsteps and imitate his method, have done so with considerable success.

32. Schools, therefore, should be organised in such a manner that the scholar shall be occupied with only one object of study at any given time. {{dhr|0.5em{{

Fifth Principle

33. In all the operations of nature development is from within.

For example in the case of a bird it is not the claws, or the feathers, or the skin that are first formed, but the inner parts; the outer parts are formed later, at the proper season.

​34. Imitation.—In the same way the gardener does not insert his graft into the outer bark nor into the outside layer of wood, but making an incision right into the pith, places the graft as far in as it will go. In this way he makes the joint so firm that the sap cannot escape, but is forced right into the shoot, and uses all its strength in vivifying it.

35. So too, a tree, that is nourished by the rain of heaven and the moisture of the earth, assimilates its nutriment, not through its outer bark, but through the pores of its inmost parts. On this account the gardener waters, not the branches, but the roots. Animals also convey their food, not to their outer limbs, but to the stomach, which assimilates it and nourishes the whole body. If, therefore, the educator of the young give special attention to the roots of knowledge, the understanding, these will soon, impart their vitality to the stem, that is, to the memory, and finally blossoms and fruits, that is to say, a facile use of language and practical capacity will be produced.

36. Deviation.—It is on this point that those teachers fall into error who, instead of thoroughly explaining the subjects of study to the boys under their charge, give them endless dictations, and make them learn their lessons off by heart. Even those who wish to explain the subject-matter do not know how to do so, that is to say, do not know how to tend the roots or how to engraft the graft of knowledge. Thus they fatigue their pupils, and resemble a man who uses a club or a mallet, instead of a knife, when he wishes to make an incision in a plant.

37. Rectification.—It therefore follows

(i) That the scholar should be taught first to understand things, and then to remember them, and that no stress should be laid on the use of speech or pen, till after a training on the first two points.

(ii) That the teacher should know all the methods by which the understanding may be sharpened, and should put them into practice skilfully.​

Sixth Principle

38. Nature, in its formative processes, begins with the universal and ends with the particular.

For example: a bird is to be produced from an egg. It is not the head, an eye, a feather, or a claw that is first formed, but the following process takes place. The whole egg is warmed; the warmth produces movement, and this movement, brings into existence a system of veins, which mark in outline the shape of the whole bird (defining the parts that are to become the head, the wings, the feet, etc.) It is not until this outline is complete that the individual parts are brought to perfection.

39. Imitation.—The builder takes this as his model. He first makes a general plan of the building in his head, or on paper, or in wood. Then he lays the foundations, builds the walls, and lays on the roof. It is not until he has done this that he gives his attention to the small details that are necessary to complete a house, such as doors, windows, staircases, etc.; while last of all he adds ornamentation such as paintings, sculptures, and carpets.

40. An artist proceeds in the same way. He does not begin by drawing an ear, an eye, a nose, or a mouth, but first makes a charcoal sketch of the face or of the whole body. If he be satisfied that this sketch resembles the original, he paints it with light strokes of the brush, still omitting all detail. Then, finally, he puts in the light and shade, and, using a variety of colours, finishes the several parts in detail.

41. The procedure of the sculptor is the same. When he wishes to carve a statue, he takes a block of marble and shapes it roughly. Then he sets to work more carefully and outlines the most important features. Finally, he chisels the individual parts with the greatest accuracy and colours them artistically.

42. In the same way the gardener takes the most simple and universal part of a tree, namely, a shoot. ​Later on, this can put forth as many branches as it possesses buds.

43. Deviation.—From this it follows that it is a mistake to teach the several branches of science in detail before a general outline of the whole realm of knowledge has been placed before the student, and that no one should be instructed in such a way as to become proficient in any one branch of knowledge without thoroughly understanding its relation to all the rest.

44. It follows also that arts, sciences, and languages are badly taught unless a general notion of the elements be first given. I remember well that, when we began to learn dialectic, rhetoric, and metaphysics, we were, at the very beginning, overburdened with long-winded rules, with commentaries and notes on commentaries, with comparisons of authors and with knotty questions. Latin grammar was taught us with all the exceptions and irregularities; Greek grammar with all its dialects, and we, poor wretches, were so confused that we scarcely understood what it was all about.

45. Rectification.—The remedy for this want of system is as follows: at the very commencement of their studies, boys should receive instruction in the first principles of general culture, that is to say, the subjects learned should be arranged in such a manner that the studies that come later introduce nothing new, but only expand the elements of knowledge that the boy already mastered. Just as a tree, even if it live for a hundred years, puts forth no new branches, but only suffers those that already exist to develope and to spread.

(i) Each language, science, or art must be first taught in its most simple elements, that the student may obtain a general idea of it. (ii) His knowledge may next be developed further by placing rules and examples before him. (iii) Then he may be allowed to learn the subject systematically with the exceptions and irregularities; and (iv), last of all, may be given a commentary, though only where it is absolutely necessary. For he who has thoroughly mastered a subject ​from the beginning will have little need of a commentary, but will soon be in the position to write one himself.

Seventh Principle

46. Nature makes no leaps, but proceeds step by step.

The development of a chicken consists of certain gradual processes which cannot be omitted or deferred, until finally it breaks its shell and comes forth. When this takes place, the mother does not allow the young bird to fly and seek its food (indeed it is unable to so), but she feeds it herself, and by keeping it warm with her body promotes the growth of its feathers. When the chick’s feathers have grown she does not thrust it forth from the nest immediately and make it fly, but teaches it first to move its wings in the nest itself or perching on its edge, then to try to fly outside the nest, though quite near it, by fluttering from branch to branch, then to fly from tree to tree, and later on from hill to hill, till finally it gains sufficient confidence to fly right out in the open. It is easy to see how necessary it is that each of these processes should take place at the right time; that not only the time should be suitable but that the processes should be graduated; and that there should be not graduation merely, but an immutable graduation.

47. Imitation.—The builder proceeds in the same manner. He does not begin with the gables or with the walls, but with foundations. When the foundations are laid he does not go on with the roof, but builds the walls. In a word, the order in which the several stages are combined depends on the relation that they mutually bear to one another.

48. The gardener likewise has to adopt the principle of graduation. The wild-stock must be found, dug up, transplanted, pruned, and cut; the graft must be inserted and the joint made firm, etc., and none of these processes can be omitted or taken in a different order. But, if these processes are carried out properly and in the right order, ​it is scarcely possible, in fact it is impossible, for the result to be unsuccessful.

49. Deviation.—It is an evident absurdity, therefore, if teachers, for their own sake and that of their pupils, do not graduate the subjects which they teach in such a way that, not only one stage may lead on directly to the next, but also that each shall be completed in a given space of time. For unless goals are set up, means provided for reaching them, and a proper system devised for the use of those means, it is easy for something to be omitted or perverted, and failure is the result.

50. Rectification.—It follows therefore (i) That all studies should be carefully graduated throughout the various classes, in such a way that those that come first may prepare the way for and throw light on those that come after.

(ii) That the time should be carefully divided, so that each year, each month, each day, and each hour may have its appointed task.

(iii) That the division of the time and of the subjects of study should be rigidly adhered to, that nothing may be omitted or perverted.

Eighth Principle

51. If nature commence anything, it does not leave off until the operation is completed.

If a bird, urged by the impulse of nature, begin to sit on eggs, she does not leave off until she has hatched out the chickens. If she sat on them for a few hours only, the embryo in the egg would become cold and die. Even when the chickens are hatched she does not cease to keep them warm, but continues to do so until they have grown strong, are covered with feathers, and can endure the cold air.

52. Imitation.—The painter also, who has begun a picture, will produce his work best if he finish it without any interruption. For in this case the colours blend better and hold faster.

​53. For this reason it is best to finish the erection of a building without any interruption; otherwise the sun, the wind, and the rain spoil the work, the later additions will not be so firm, and on every side there will be cracks, weak spots, and loose joints.

54. The gardener too acts with wisdom, for when once he has begun to work at a graft he does not cease until the operation is completed. Since, if the sap dry in the stock or in the graft, owing to a delay in completing the process, the plant is ruined.

55. Deviation.—It is therefore injurious if boys are sent to school for months or years continuously, but are then withdrawn for considerable periods and employed otherwise; equally so if the teacher commence now one subject, now another, and finish nothing satisfactorily; and lastly, it is equally fatal if he do not fix a certain task for each hour, and complete it, so that in each period his pupil can make an unmistakable advance towards the desired goal. Where such a fire is wanting, everything grows cold. Not without reason does the proverb say “Strike while the iron is hot.”

For if it be allowed to cool it is useless to hammer it, but it must once more be placed in the fire, and thus much time and iron are wasted. Since every time that it is heated, it loses some of its mass.

56. Rectification.—It follows therefore

(i) That he who is sent to school must be kept there until he becomes well informed, virtuous, and pious.

(ii) That the school must be situated in a quiet spot, far from noise and distractions.

(iii) That whatever has to be done, in accordance with the scheme of study, must be done without any shirking.

(iv) That no boys, under any pretext whatever, should be allowed to stay away or to play truant.​

Ninth Principle

57. Nature carefully avoids obstacles and things likely to cause hurt.

For example, when a bird is hatching eggs it does not allow a cold wind, much less rain or hail, to reach them. It also drives away snakes, birds of prey, etc.

58. Imitation.—In the same way the builder, so far as is possible, keeps dry his wood, bricks, and lime, and does not allow what he has built to be destroyed or to fall down.

59. So, too, the painter protects a newly-painted picture from wind, from violent heat, and from dust, and allows no hand but his own to touch it.

60. The gardener also protects a young plant by a railing or by hurdles, that hares or goats may not gnaw it or root it up.

61. Deviation.—It is therefore folly to introduce a student to controversial points when he is just beginning a subject, that is to say, to allow a mind that is mastering something new to assume an attitude of doubt. What is this but to tear up a plant that is just beginning to strike root? (Rightly does Hugo say: “He who starts by investigating doubtful points will never enter into the temple of wisdom.”) But this is exactly what takes place if the young are not protected from incorrect, intricate, and badly written books as well as from evil companions.

62. Rectification.—Care should therefore be taken

(i) That the scholars receive no books but those suitable for their classes.

(ii) That these books be of such a kind that they can rightly be termed sources of wisdom, virtue, and piety.

(iii) That neither in the school nor in its vicinity the scholars be allowed to.mix with bad companions.

63. If all these recommendations are observed, it is scarcely possible that schools should fail to attain their object.

CHAPTER XV

THE BASIS OF THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE

1. Aristotle, as well as Hippocrates, has complained of the shortness of human life, and accuses nature of granting a long term of years to stags, ravens, and other animals, while she hems in by narrow boundaries the lives of men born to great responsibility. Seneca, however, opposes this view, and wisely says: “The life that we receive is not short, unless we make it so. We suffer from no lack of years, but carouse away those that are granted us. Life is long, if we do but know how to use it.” And again: “Our lives are sufficiently long, and, if we order them well, allow us to bring the greatest undertakings to completion” (De Brevitate Vita, cc. i. and ii.)

2. If this be correct, and indeed it is very true, it is grossly culpable on our parts if our lives do not prove sufficiently long to bring great undertakings to completion, since the reason is that we waste our lives, partly by taking no care of them, so that they do not reach the natural limit, and partly by frittering them away on worthless objects.

3. A trustworthy authority (Hippolytus Guarino)²³ asserts, and gives good reasons for his assertion, that a man of the most delicate constitution, if he come into the world without any deformity, possesses enough vitality to carry him on to his sixtieth year; while a very strong man should attain to his hundredth year. If any die before this ​age (it is, of course, well known that most men die as children, as youths, or in middle age), they are themselves to blame, since, by excesses, or by neglect of the natural demands of life, they have undermined their own health and that of their children, and have hastened their death.

4. The examples of men who, before middle age, have reached a point to which others could not attain in the course of a long life, prove that a short lifetime (i.e. one of fifty, forty, or thirty years) is sufficient to realise the highest aims, if only it be properly used. Alexander the Great died when he was thirty-three years old, and he was not only a master of all the sciences, but also conqueror of the world, which he had subdued less by sheer force than by the wisdom of his plans, and the rapidity with which he put them into execution. Giovanni Pico Mirandola,²⁴ who was even younger than Alexander when he died, attained by his philosophical studies such proficiency in all the departments of human knowledge, that he was considered the marvel of his age.

5. To take one more example, Jesus Christ, our Lord, remained only thirty-four years on earth, and in that time completed the task of Redemption. This He undoubtedly did to prove (for with Him every event has a mystic meaning) that whatever length of life a man may enjoy, it is sufficient to serve him as a preparation for eternity.

6. I cannot leave this question without quoting a golden saying of Seneca (out of his ninety-fourth letter): “I have,” he says, “found many men who are just in their dealings with men, but few who are just in their dealings with God. We daily lament our fate; but what does it matter how soon we quit this world, since we must certainly quit it one day or other? Life is long if it be full, and it becomes full if the spirit exert its power on itself; if it learn the secret of self-control.” And again: “I entreat of you, my Lucilius! let us strive that our lives, like earthly jewels, may be, not of great bulk, but of great weight”; and a little farther on: “Let us, therefore, deem that man one of the blest, who has used well the time allotted to him, no matter how ​short it may have been. For he has seen the true light. He has not been one of the common herd; but has lived a full life, and has come to maturity.” And again: “As a perfect man can exist in a small body, so can a perfect life be found in a short term of years. The duration of life is a purely accidental circumstance. Do you ask which is the path of life that reaches farthest? It is the path that leads to wisdom. He who attains wisdom, has reached not only the farthest, but also the highest goal.”

7. Against this shortness of life, which is complained of, there are two remedies for us and for our children (and therefore for schools also). We must take all possible precautions that—

(i) Our bodies may be protected from disease and from death.

(ii) Our minds may be placed in such an environment that they can attain all knowledge.

8. The body must be protected from disease and from accidents, firstly, because it is the dwelling-place of the soul, which must leave this world as soon as ever the body is destroyed. If it fall into bad repair, and suffer damage in any of its parts, the soul, its guest, will have an inhospitable abode. Therefore, if we wish to dwell as long as possible in the palace of this world, into which we have been brought by God’s grace, we must take wise forethought for the fabric of our bodies.

Secondly, this same body is not only intended to be the dwelling-place of the reasoning soul, but also to be its instrument, without which it could hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing, conduct no business, and could not even think. And since nothing exists in the mind that has not previously existed in the senses, the intellect takes the material of all its thoughts from the senses, and performs the operations of thought in a manner that may be termed “inner sensation,” that is to say, by acting on the images of things that are brought before it. It follows, therefore, that, if the brain receive an injury, the imagination will be impaired, and that if an impression be made ​on the body, an impression will be made on the soul also. We may therefore unhesitatingly say that all should pray that they may have a sound mind in a sound body.

9. Our bodies are preserved in health and strength by a regular and moderate life, and on this we will make a few remarks from the medical point of view, taking a tree as illustration. In order to maintain its freshness, a tree needs three things: (1) a continuous supply of moisture; (2) copious transpiration; (3) an alternating period of rest and activity.

Moisture is necessary, because the tree would wither and dry up without it, but it must not be supplied in too great a quantity, as, if it be, it causes the roots to rot away. In the same way the body needs nourishment, because it wastes away from hunger and thirst without it; but it should not obtain a supply so large that the stomach is unable to digest it. The greater the moderation with which men partake of food, the easier they find its digestion.

The generality of men pay but little attention to this law, and by taking too much food diminish their strength and shorten their lives. For death is caused by disease, disease by unwholesome juices, and these, in turn, by insufficient digestion. Insufficient digestion arises from over-nutrition, and takes place when the stomach is so full that it cannot digest, and is compelled to supply the various members of the body with semi-digested juices, and in this case it is impossible that diseases should not arise. As the son of Sirach says: “By surfeiting have many perished, but he that taketh heed prolongeth his life” (Ecclesiasticus xxxvii. 31).

10. In order that good health may be preserved, it is necessary that nourishment be not only moderate in quantity, but also simple in quality. When a tree is young and tender, the gardener does not water it with wine or with milk, but with the liquid that suits trees, namely water. Parents should therefore take care not to spoil their boys, particularly those who study, or ought to study, ​by giving them dainties. Are we not told that Daniel and his companions, the youths of noble birth who had to apply themselves to the pursuit of wisdom, lived on a diet of pulse and water, and that they were found to be more capable and more active, and, what is of greater value, more intelligent, than all the other youths who ate of the king’s meat? (Daniel i. 12 sqq.) But of these particulars we will speak in another place.

11. A tree must also transpire, and needs to be copiously refreshed by wind, rain, and frost; otherwise it easily falls into bad condition, and becomes barren. In the same way the human body needs movement, excitement, and exercise, and in daily life these must be supplied, either artificially or naturally.

12. Finally, a tree needs rest at stated periods, that it may not have to put forth branches, blossoms, and fruit perpetually, but may have some time to fulfil its inner functions, to develope sap, and in this way to strengthen itself. It was for this reason that God ordained that winter should follow summer, namely, to guarantee rest to all things that live on the earth, and even to the earth itself, since he commanded that the fields should lie fallow every seventh year (Lev. xxv.) In the same way He has ordained the night for man, and for other animals, in order that, by sleep and by resting their limbs, they may once more gather together the strength which the exertions of the day have dissipated. Even the smaller periods, such as the hours, are devised with a view to giving the body and the mind some relaxation; otherwise a strained and unnatural condition would set in. It is, therefore, useful to intersperse the labours of the day with recreation, amusements, games, merriment, music, and such-like diversions, and thus to refresh the inner and the outer senses.

13. He who observes these three principles (that is to say, eats moderately, exercises his body, and uses the relaxations supplied by nature) cannot fail to preserve his life and his health as long as possible. We naturally leave ​out of consideration accidents that depend on a dispensation higher than ours.

We see then that a large portion of the good organisation of schools consists of the proper division of work and of rest, and depends on the disposition of studies, intervals to relieve the strain, and recreation.

14. This can be attained by the skilful disposition of the time devoted to study. Thirty years seem insignificant, and are easily dismissed from the tongue. But these years include many months, more days, and countless hours.

In a single period of such duration much progress can be made, no matter how slow the process of advancement may be, provided it be continuous. We can see this in the growth of plants. It is impossible for the sharpest sight to perceive the process, since it takes place too gradually; but every month some increase is visible, and at the end of thirty years every one can see that the sapling has turned into a large and shady tree. The same holds good in the growth of our bodies. We do not see them growing, but only perceive that they have grown. So, too, with the acquisition of knowledge by the mind, as we learn from the well-known Latin couplet:

To a little add a little, and to that little yet a little more,
And in a short time you will pile up a large heap.

15. He who realises the natural strength of progress will easily understand this. From each bud a tree puts forth but one shoot yearly; but in thirty years the same tree will possess thousands of shoots, large and small, and leaves, blossoms, and fruit without number. Why then should it seem impossible to bring the activity of a man to any degree of intensity or fulness, and this in twenty or thirty years? Let us examine the matter more losely.

16. There are twenty-four hours in a day, and if, for the daily uses of life, we divide these into three parts, setting aside eight hours for sleep, and the same number for the external needs of the body (such as care of the health, meals, dressing and undressing, agreeable recrea​tion, friendly converse, etc.), we have eight hours left for the serious work of life. We shall therefore have forty-eight working hours a week (setting aside the seventh day for rest). In one year this will amount to 2945 hours, and in ten, twenty, or thirty years to an immense number.

17. If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb (the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by?

18. Seneca is therefore right when he says: “Life is long, if we know how to use it; it suffices for the completion of the greatest undertakings, if it be properly employed.” It is consequently of importance that we understand the art of making the very best use of our lives, and to this point we will now direct our investigation.

CHAPTER XIV

THE EXACT ORDER OF INSTRUCTION MUST BE BORROWED FROM NATURE, AND MUST BE OF SUCH A KIND THAT NO OBSTACLE CAN HINDER IT.

1. Let us then commence to seek out, in God’s name, the principles on which, as on an immovable rock, the method of teaching and of learning can be grounded. If we wish to find a remedy for the defects of nature, it is in nature herself that we must look for it, since it is certain that art can do nothing unless it imitate nature.

2. A few examples will make this clear. We see a fish swimming in the water; it is its natural mode of progression. If a man wish to imitate it, it is necessary for him to use in a similar manner the limbs that are at his disposal; instead of fins he must employ his arms, and instead of a tail, his feet, moving them as a fish moves its fins. Even ships are constructed on this plan; in the place of fins they must employ oars or sails, and in the place of a tail, the rudder. We see a bird flying through the air; it is its natural mode of progression. When Daedalus wished to imitate it, he had to take wings (large enough to carry such a heavy body) and set them in motion.

3. The organ of sound production in animals is a pipe consisting of muscular rings, provided at the top with the thyroid cartilage, as with a lid, and at the bottom with the lungs, as with a wind-bag.

​On this model flutes, whistles, and other wind instruments are made.

4. It has been discovered that the substance that causes thunder in the clouds, and hurls down fire and stones, is saltpetre ignited in combination with sulphur. In imitation of this, gunpowder is now made out of sulphur and saltpetre. When this is ignited and fired from cannon, a mimic storm, with thunder and lightning, is produced.

5. It has been found that water always tends to preserve a level surface, even in vessels that communicate but are at some distance from one another. The experiment has been made of conducting water through pipes, and it has been found that it will rise from any depth to any height, provided that it originally fall from that height. This is an artificial arrangement, but it is also natural; for the exact mode in which the action takes place is artificial, but the law on which the action depends is natural.

6. The vault of heaven, on observation, has been found to revolve continuously, thus, by the various revolutions of the planets, producing the changes of the seasons which are so pleasant. In imitation of this an instrument has been devised, representing the daily revolution of the vault of heaven. It is composed of wheels arranged so that not only can one be driven by the other, but that all can be put into continuous motion. Now it was necessary to construct this instrument out of movable and immovable parts, as the universe itself is constructed, and consequently we find a solid pedestal, pillars, and circular rings, corresponding to the earth, the immovable element in the universe, while in place of the movable orbits in the heaven we have the various wheels. But because it was impossible to command any one wheel to turn round and to carry others with them (as the Creator gave the heavenly lights the power to move themselves, and others with them), the motive power has to be borrowed from nature, and a weight or a spring is used. ​Either a weight is hung from the axle of the principal wheel, and by its tension causes the axle, the wheel to which it belongs, and the other wheels to turn; or a long strip of steel is forcibly bound round the axle, and by its endeavours to get free and straighten itself, makes the axle and the wheel turn round. In order that the rotation may not be too fast, but slow like that of the vault of heaven, other wheels are added, of which the last, driven by two teeth only, makes a clicking noise and is analogous to the change between the coming and the going light, or to that between day and night. In addition to that part of the mechanism which gives the signal for the hours and the quarters, skilfully-devised triggers are added, which set it in motion at the right time, and then stop it again, just as nature, by the movement of the vault of heaven, allows winter, spring, summer, and autumn to come and to depart again at the right moment.

7. It is now quite clear that that order, which is the dominating principle in the art of teaching all things to all men, should be, and can be, borrowed from no other source but the operations of nature. As soon as this principle is thoroughly secured, the processes of art will proceed as easily and as spontaneously as those of nature. Very aptly does Cicero say: “If we take nature as our guide, she will never lead us astray,” and also: “Under the guidance of nature it is impossible to go astray.” This is our belief, and our advice is to watch the operations of nature carefully and to imitate them.

8. But some one may laugh at our expectations and may cast in our teeth the saying of Hippocrates: “Life is short, and art is long; opportunities are fleeting, experience is deceptive, and judgment is difficult.” Here are five obstacles, the reasons why so few scale the heights of wisdom:—

(i) The shortness of life; through which so many are snatched away in youth before their preparations for life are finished. (ii) The perplexing crowd of objects which ​the mind has to grasp, and which makes the endeavour to include all things within the limits of our knowledge, very weary work. (iii) The lack of opportunities to acquire the arts, or their rapid departure when they occur (for the years of youth, which are the most suitable for mental culture, are spent in playing, and the succeeding years, in the present condition of mankind, bring far more opportunities for worthless than for serious matters); or if a suitable opportunity present itself, it vanishes before we can grasp it. (iv) The weakness of our intellects and the lack of sound judgment. The result of this is that we get no farther than the outside shell, and never attain to the kernel. (v) Finally, the circumstance that, if any wish to grasp the true nature of things by patient observation and experiments repeated as often as possible, the process is too wearisome, and is at the same time deceptive and uncertain (for instance, in such accurate observations the most careful observer may make an error, and as soon as one error creeps in, the whole observation becomes worthless).

9. If all this be true, how can we dare hope for a universal, sure, easy, and thorough road to learning? I answer: Experience teaches us that this is true, but the same experience teaches us also that the proper remedies can be found. These things have been ordained thus by God, the all-wise arranger of the universe, and are for our good. He has given us a short spa of life because, in our present state of corruption, we should be unable to employ a longer one profitably. For if we, who are born and die, and with whom the end of life is but a few years distant from the beginning, give ourselves up to folly: what would we not do if we had hundreds or thousands of years before us? God, therefore, has only wished to grant as much time as He deemed sufficient preparation for a better life. For this purpose life is long enough, if only we know how to use it.

10. The diversity of objects has been equally ordained by God for our advantage, that there might be no ​lack of material to occupy, exercise, and educate our minds.

11. God permits opportunities to be fleeting, and only to be grasped by the fore-lock, that we may learn to seize them the very instant they present themselves.

12. Experience is deceptive in order that our attention may be excited, and that we may feel the necessity of penetrating to the essential nature of things.

13. Finally, judgment is difficult, in order that we may be urged on to eagerness and to continual effort, and that the hidden wisdom of God, which permeates all things, may, to our great satisfaction, become ever more apparent. “If everything could be easily understood,” says St. Augustine, “men would neither seek wisdom with keenness, nor find it with exultation.”

14. We must therefore see in what way those obstacles which God’s foresight has placed in our paths to make us keener and more energetic may, with God’s aid, be set aside. This can only be attained—

(i) By lengthening our lives, that they may be sufficiently long for the scheme proposed.

(ii) By curtailing the subjects taught, that they may be proportionate to the duration of life.

(iv) By seizing opportunities, and not letting them slip away unused.

(iv) By unlocking the intellect, that it may grasp things with ease.

(v) By laying a foundation that is not to be shaken, and that will not deceive us, in the place of a tottering fabric of superficial observation.

15. We will therefore proceed, taking nature as our guide, to seek out the principles:—

(i) Of prolonging life.

(ii) Of curtailing the subjects, that knowledge may be acquired faster.

(iii) Of seizing opportunities, that knowledge may be acquired without fail.

​(iv) Of unlocking the intellect, that knowledge may be easily acquired.

(v) Of sharpening the judgment, that knowledge may be thoroughly acquired.

To each of these points we shall devote a chapter. The question of curtailing the subjects of instruction will be treated of last.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BASIS OF SCHOOL REFORM MUST BE EXACT ORDER IN ALL THINGS

1. We find on investigation that the principle which really holds together the fabric of this world of ours, down to its smallest detail, is none other than order; that is to say, the proper division of what comes before and what comes after, of the superior and the subordinate, of the large and the small, of the similar and dissimilar, according to place, time, number, size, and weight, so that each may fulfil its function well. Order, therefore, has been called the soul of affairs. For everything that is well ordered preserves its position and its strength as long as it maintains its order; it is when it ceases to do so that it grows weak, totters, and falls. This may be seen clearly in instances taken from nature and from art.

2. Through what agency, I ask, does the world maintain its present condition ? what is it that gives it its great stability? It is this, that each creature, obeying the command of nature, restrains its action within the proper limits; and thus, by careful observation of order in small details, the order of the universe is maintained.

3. Through what agency is the flux of time divided so accurately and so continuously into years, months, and days? Through none but the inflexible order of the vault of heaven.

4. What enables bees, ants, and spiders to do work of ​such fineness that the mind of man finds it easier to marvel at than to imitate it? Nothing but their natural talent for harmoniously combining order, number, and mass in their constructions.

5. What is it that constitutes the human body such a marvellous instrument that it can perform almost countless functions, even though it have very few resources at its disposal? I mean, that with the few limbs it possesses, it can produce works whose complexity is so wondrous that nothing remains to be desired? It is without question the harmonious disposition of the limbs, and of their constituent parts, that brings this about.

6. What is it that makes it possible for a single mind to rule the whole body in which it dwells, and to direct so many operations at the same time? Nothing but the harmonious order in which the limbs are connected, and which enables them to obey the slightest hint given by the mind, and to set themselves in motion immediately.

7. How is it that a single man, a king or an emperor, can rule whole nations; that, although there are as many wills as there are individuals, all subordinate themselves to the service of that one man, and that, if his affairs go well, the affairs of each subject also must prosper? Again it is order that brings this about. Through its agency all are held together by the connecting bands of law and of obedience, so that some subjects are directly subordinate to and in immediate contact with the supreme ruler, while others in their turn are subordinate to these, and so on down to the meanest serf. The arrangement thus resembles a chain in which each link is intimately connected so that if the first be moved or remain at rest all the others will follow suit.

8. How was it that Hiero, unaided, could move a weight which hundreds of men had in vain tried to stir? Assuredly it was by means of a cleverly-devised machine, in which the cylinders, wheels, and other parts were arranged in such a way that when one worked on the other the force applied was much increased.

​9. The terrible operations of artillery, by which walls are broken down, towers are shattered, and armies are laid low, depend on nothing but the proper arrangement of materials, so that the active is placed in close connection with the passive element; that is to say, on the proper mixing of saltpetre with sulphur (the coldest substance with the hottest), on the proper construction of the cannon, on its being skilfully loaded with powder and missiles, and, lastly, on its being correctly pointed at the objects to be hit. If one of these conditions be not properly fulfilled, the whole apparatus is useless.

10. How is it that the processes of printing, by which books can be multiplied quickly, neatly, and correctly, are properly carried out? Assuredly by means of order. The type must be cut, moulded, and polished, placed suitably in the type-boxes, and then arranged in the right order, while the paper must be prepared, damped, stretched, and placed under the press.

11. To take another example of mechanism. How is it that a carriage, a construction of wood and iron, can be so easily drawn by the horses that are fastened to it, and can be of such use for the conveyance of men and burdens? This is brought about by nothing but the skilful arrangement of wood and of iron in the wheels, the axle-trees, and the shafts. If one of these parts give way, the whole construction is useless.

12. How is it that men can trust themselves to the stormy sea in a construction made of a few pieces of wood? How is it that they make their way to the antipodes and return safe and sound? It is nothing but the proper combination of keel, mast, rudder, compass, etc., in the ship that enables them to do so. If any one of these fail in its action, they are in great danger of shipwreck or of foundering.

13. Finally, how is it that the machine for measuring time, the clock, which is nothing but a well-arranged and well-devised disposition of iron parts, moves harmoniously and evenly, and marks off minutes, hours, days, months, ​and sometimes years? and this not only for the eyes but for the ears as well, that it may give some sign at night and to those at a distance? How is it that such an instrument can wake a man out of sleep at a given hour, and can strike a light to enable him to see? How is it that it can indicate the quarters of the moon, the positions of the planets, and the eclipses? Is it not a truly marvellous thing that a machine, a soulless thing, can move in such a life-like, continuous, and regular manner? Before clocks were invented would not the existence of such things have seemed as impossible as that trees could walk or stones speak? Yet every one can see that they exist now.

14. What is the hidden power that brings this to pass? Nothing but the all-ruling force of order; that is to say, the force derived from arranging all the parts concerned according to their number, size, and importance, and in such a manner that each one shall perform its own proper function as well as work harmoniously with and assist the other parts whose action is necessary to produce the desired result; that is to say, the size of each part must be carefully regulated to suit that of the rest; each part must fit properly into those which surround it; and the general laws that regulate the equal distribution of force to the several parts must be observed. In such a case all the processes are more exact than in a living body controlled by one mind. But if any part get out of position, crack, break, become loose or bent, though it be the smallest wheel, the most insignificant axle, or the tiniest screw, the whole machine stops still or at least goes wrong, and thus shows us plainly that everything depends on the harmonious working of the parts.

15. The art of teaching, therefore, demands nothing more than the skilful arrangement of time, of the subjects taught, and of the method. As soon as we have succeeded in finding the proper method it will be no harder to teach school-boys, in any number desired, than with the help of the printing-press to cover a thousand sheets daily with ​the neatest writing, or with Archimedes’ machine to move houses, towers, and immense weights, or to cross the ocean in a ship, and journey to the New World. The whole process, too, will be as free from friction as is the movement of a clock whose motive power is supplied by the weights. It will be as pleasant to see education carried out on my plan as to look at an automatic machine of this kind, and the process will be as free from failure as are these mechanical contrivances, when skilfully made.

16. Let us therefore endeavour, in the name of the Almighty, to organise schools in such a way that in these points they may bear the greatest resemblance to a clock which is put together with the greatest skill, and is cunningly chased with the most delicate tools.

CHAPTER XII

IT IS POSSIBLE TO REFORM SCHOOLS

1. To cure deep-seated maladies is difficult and often well-nigh impossible. But if any one offer an efficacious remedy, does the sick man reject his services? Does he not rather wish to obtain aid as quickly as possible, and especially if he think that the physician is guided not by mere opinion but by solid reason? We, at any rate, in this our undertaking, have reached the point at which we must make plain (1) what we actually promise, and (2) on what principles we intend to proceed.

2. We promise, then, such a system of education that

(i) All the young shall be educated (except those to whom God has denied understanding).

(ii) And in all those subjects which are able to make a man wise, virtuous, and pious.

(iii) That the process of education, being a preparation for life, shall be completed before maturity is reached.

(iv) That this education shall be conducted without blows, rigour, or compulsion, as gently and pleasantly as possible, and in the most natural manner (just as a living body increases in size without any straining or forcible extension of the limbs; since if food, care, and exercise are properly supplied, the body grows and becomes strong, gradually, imperceptibly, and of its own accord. In the same way I maintain that nutriment, care, and exercise, ​prudently supplied to the mind, lead it naturally to wisdom, virtue, and piety).

(v) That the education given shall be not false but real, not superficial but thorough; that is to say, that the rational animal, man, shall be guided, not by the intellects of other men, but by his own; shall not merely read the opinions of others and grasp their meaning or commit them to memory and repeat them, but shall himself penetrate to the root of things and acquire the habit of genuinely understanding and making use of what he learns. (vi) That this education shall be not laborious but very easy. The class instruction shall last only four hours each day, and shall be conducted in such a manner that one master may teach hundreds of pupils at the same time, with ten times as little trouble as is now expended on the teaching of one.

3. But who will have faith in these things before he see them? It is a well-known peculiarity of men that before a remarkable discovery is made they wonder how it can be possible, while after its achievement they are surprised that it was not discovered before. When Archimedes undertook for King Hiero to move down to the sea with one hand an immense ship that a hundred men were not able to stir, his proposal was received with laughter; but its accomplishment was viewed with stupefaction.

4. When Columbus suspected that there were new islands in the west, no one, with the exception of the King of Castille, was willing to hear him or give him any assistance towards making the experiment. It is related that his very companions on the voyage, in despair at their frequent disappointments, were within a little of throwing him into the sea and returning with their task unfulfilled. But, in spite of all, that vast new continent was discovered, and now we all wonder how it could have remained so long unknown. That well-known jest of Columbus illustrates the same point. For when, at a banquet, some Spaniards, who were envious that an Italian should have the glory of such a discovery, began to mock him, and ​tauntingly said that the other hemisphere had been discovered not by skill but by chance, and could have been just as easily discovered by anybody else, he proposed an elegant problem. “How,” he asked, “can a hen’s egg, unsupported, be made to stand on its end?” When all had tried in vain to do this, he tapped the shell gentlyupon the table, cracked it, and in this way made it stand. The others laughed, and exclaimed that they could do the same thing. “No doubt you can, now that you have seen how it can be done,” said he, “but how is it that no one could do it before me?”

5. I believe that the same thing would have happened if John Faust, the inventor of printing, had made it known that he possessed a method by which one man, within a week, could copy more books than ten of the fastest copyists could copy in a year in the ordinary way; that the books would be better written; that from beginning to end all the copies would be exactly similar; and that all would be absolutely free from errors provided that one copy had been corrected. Who would have believed him? Who would not have thought it a riddle, or a piece of vain and foolish boasting? And yet every child knows now that this is sober truth.

6. If Berthold Schwartz, the inventor of muskets, had addressed the archers with these words: “Your bows, your catapults, and your slings are of little worth. I will give you a weapon which, without any human force, by the agency of fire alone, will not only hurl forth stones and iron, but will propel them farther and with more certainty, so that they will strike, uproot, or lay low whatever comes in their way.” Which of them would not have received him with laughter? So much is it the custom to consider everything new as marvellous and incredible.

7. Nor could the American Indians comprehend how one man is able to communicate his thoughts to another without the use of speech, without a messenger, but by simply sending a sheet of paper. Yet with us a man of the meanest intelligence can understand this.

​Thus do the perplexities of one age afford amusement to the next.

8. I can easily see that this will happen to my new undertaking; in fact, I have already experienced it. Some people are certain to be indignant that there are men who find imperfections in the schools, books, and methods in use, and who dare to promise something unusual and extraordinary.

9. It would be easy for me to appeal to results as the most trustworthy witnesses (such confidence do I place in my God). But since I am writing this, not for the unlearned crowd, but for men of education, I must give demonstrative proof that it is possible to imbue all the young with knowledge, virtue, and piety, and to do so without that unpleasantness and difficulty continually experienced by the teachers, no less than by the learners, under the old system.

10. The one and sufficient demonstration is this: That each individual creature not only suffers itself to be easily led in the direction which its nature finds congenial, but is actually impelled towards the desired goal, and suffers pain if any obstacle be interposed.

11. A bird learns to fly, a fish to swim, and a beast to run without any compulsion. They do these things of their own accord as soon as they feel that their limbs are sufficiently strong. Water runs downhill of its own accord, and, in the same way, fire burns when fuel and a current of air are supplied; a round stone rolls down hill, while a square stone remains stationary; the eye and a mirror receive the impression of an object when there is sufficient light, and seeds sprout when their surroundings are suitably warm and damp. In fact, each of these things strives to fulfil the function for which it is naturally fitted, and does this more perfectly when assisted, no matter how slight the assistance may be.

12. Since then, as we saw in chap. v., the seeds of knowledge, of virtue, and of piety exist in all men (with the exception of monstrosities), it follows of necessity that ​they need nothing but a gentle impulse and prudent guidance.

13. But, it is objected, it is not out of every piece of wood that a Mercury can be carved. I answer: But out of every human being, if he be not utterly corrupt, a man can be formed.

14. But our inner strength, some one will remark, has been weakened by the Fall. I reply, weakened, yes, but not extinguished. Even our bodily force, if it be in bad condition, can be restored to its natural vigour by walking, running, and artificial forms of exercise. For, although the first created were able to walk, speak, and think as soon as they came into existence, while we cannot do so unless taught by practice, it does not therefore follow that these things cannot be learned without perplexity, labour, and uncertainty. For, if we learn without very great difficulty to perform the functions of the body, such as eating, drinking, walking, and jumping, why should we not learn to perform those of the mind with similar ease, if the proper instruction be given? Again, in a few months a horse-trainer can teach a horse to trot, jump, run in a circle, and perform evolutions to signs given by a whip; a mere circus performer teaches a bear to dance, a hare to beat the drum, and a dog to plough, to wrestle, or to divine; a weak old woman can teach her parrot, her magpie, or her crow to imitate a human voice or a melody; and all these things can be taught in a short time, although they are contrary to nature. And shall not a man be easily taught those things to which nature, I will not say admits him, or leads him, but rather urges and impels him? The trainers of animals would laugh at any one who seriously brought forward this argument.

15. But it is objected that, owing to the difficulty of the subjects to be learned, all men cannot grasp them. I reply: What is that difficulty? Does there exist any body of such a dark colour that I cannot be reflected in a mirror, if placed conveniently in the light? Is there anything that cannot be painted on a canvas, provided that ​the man who paints has learned the art of painting? Is there any seed or root that the earth cannot receive and bring to germination by its warmth, if the gardener understand when, where, and how it should be sown? Moreover, there is in the world no rock or tower of such a height that it cannot be scaled by any man (provided he lack not feet) if ladders are placed in the proper position or steps are cut in the rock, made in the right place, and furnished with railings against the danger of falling over. It is true that very few scale the heights of wisdom, though many start gaily on the journey, and that those who get any distance do so at the cost of toil, loss of breath, weariness, and giddiness; this, however, does not prove that there is anything inaccessible to the human intellect, but only that the steps are not well disposed, or are insufficient, dangerous, and in bad repair in other words, that the method is complicated. It is an undoubted fact that any man can attain any height that he may desire by means of steps that are properly disposed, sufficient in number, solid, and safe.

16. It will be urged, Some men have such weak intellects that it is not possible for them to acquire knowledge. I answer, It is scarcely possible to find a mirror so dulled that it will not reflect images of some kind, or for a tablet to have such a rough surface that nothing can be inscribed on it. Again, if the mirror be soiled by dirt or by spots, it must first be cleaned; if the tablet be rough, it must be polished; both will then perform their functions. In the same way, if teachers take sufficient trouble, men will become polished, and finally all men will understand all things (I stand firmly by my watchword because my fundamental principles prove correct). There is naturally a difference in intellects, and while those who are slow may only be able to attain to one stage of knowledge, the more gifted advance higher and higher, from one object to another, and collect new observations which are of great utility. Finally, though there may be some intellects that do not admit of culture, just as knotty ​wood is unsuitable for carving, even then my assertion will hold good for men of ordinary capacity, of whom, through God’s grace, there is always a sufficiency. Indeed a man quite wanting in intellect is as rare a phenomenon as one who, from his birth, has lacked his full complement of limbs. For, in truth, blindness, deafness, lameness, and weakness seldom accompany a man from his cradle, but are caused by his own negligence; and thus it is with exceptional weakness of intellect.

17. A further objection is brought forward: With many not the capacity to learn but the inclination is lacking, and to compel these against their will is as unpleasant as it is useless. I answer: There is a story told of a philosopher who had two pupils, of whom one was idle and the other industrious. Both were sent away by their master; for one would not learn, though able to do so, while the other could not, though anxious to acquire knowledge. But how does the matter stand if it be shown that the teacher himself is the reason of the pupil’s aversion to learning? Truly did Aristotle say that all men are born anxious to acquire knowledge, and that this is so we have seen in chapters v. and xi. In practice, however, the tender indulgence of parents hinders the natural tendency of children, and later on frivolous society leads them into idle ways, while the various occupations of city and court life, and the external circumstances which surround them, turn them away from their real inclinations. Thus it comes to pass that they show no desire to investigate what is unknown, and cannot concentrate their thoughts with ease. (For just as the tongue, when permeated with one flavour, judges another with difficulty, so the mind, when occupied with one subject, finds it hard to give its attention to another.) In these cases the external distraction must first be removed; nature will then assert itself with its original vigour, and the desire for knowledge will once more be apparent. But how many of those who undertake to educate the young appreciate the necessity of first teaching them how to acquire knowledge? The turner ​shapes a block of wood with his axe before he turns it; the blacksmith heats iron before he hammers it; the clothweaver, before he spins his wool, first cleans, washes, cards, and fulls it; the shoemaker, before he sews the shoe, prepares, shapes, and smooths the leather; but who, I ask, lever thinks it necessary that the teacher, in the same way, should make his pupils anxious for information, capable of education, before he begins to place knowledge before them? Teachers almost invariably take their pupils as they find them; they turn them, beat them, card them, comb them, drill them into certain forms, and expect them to become a finished and polished product; and if the result does not come up to their expectations (and I ask you how could it?) they are indignant, angry, and furious. And yet we are surprised that some men shrink and recoil from such a system. Far more is it matter for surprise that any one can endure it at all.

18. This is a suitable place in which to make a few remarks about differences of character. Some men are sharp, others dull; some soft and yielding, others hard and unbending; some eager after knowledge, others more anxious to acquire mechanical skill. From these three pairs of contradictory characters we get in all six distinct divisions.

19. In the first division must be placed those who are sharp-witted, anxious to learn, and easily influenced. These, more than all others, are suited for instruction. There is no need to provide them with what we may term a nutritive diet of knowledge, for, like goodly trees, they grow in wisdom of themselves. Nothing is needed but foresight; for they should not be allowed to hurry on too fast and thus to tire themselves out and wither away before their time.

20. Others are sharp-witted, but inclined to be slow and lazy. These must be urged on.

21. In the third place we have those who are sharp-witted and anxious to learn, but who at the same time are ​perverse and refractory. These are usually a great source of difficulty in schools, and for the most part are given up in despair. If treated in the right way, however, they frequently develope into the greatest men. A good example of this type is Themistocles, the great Athenian general. As a youth he was very wild, so that his tutor said to him: “My boy, you will not develope into anything mediocre; you will be either of great use or of great harm to your country.” And later on, when people wondered at his strange character, he used to say, “Wild colts make the best horses, if only they are properly trained.” Indeed, this was the case with Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander the Great. For, when Alexander saw that his father Philip was about to give away this unruly animal, which would suffer no rider on his back, he said: “What a magnificent horse these people are spoiling. They are unskilled and do not know how to treat it!” He forthwith took the horse in hand, and with marvellous skill (for he never used blows) he got it into such a condition that not only then but ever afterwards it carried him well, and no horse more noble or more worthy of his great master could be found in the whole world. Plutarch, who tells us this anecdote, remarks: “This story reminds us that many men of good parts are ruined by their teachers, who, in their inability to rule or to guide free men, treat them not as horses but as asses.”

22. In the fourth place we have those who are flexible and anxious to learn, but who at the same time are slow and heavy. These can follow in the footsteps of the last-mentioned. But to render this possible the teacher must meet their weak natures half-way, must lay no heavy burden on them, must not demand anything excessive, but rather have patience, help them, strengthen them, and set them right, that they may not be disheartened. Though such pupils take longer to come to maturity, they will probably last all the better, like fruit that ripens late. And, just as the impression of a seal made in lead lasts a long time, though hard to make, so these men have more stable ​characters than those who are more gifted, and do not easily forget what they have once learned. At school, therefore, they should be given every opportunity.

23. The fifth type are those who are weak-minded and at the same time lazy and idle. With these also a great improvement can be made, provided they are not obstinate. But great skill and patience are necessary.

24. Finally, we have those whose intellects are weak, and whose dispositions are perverse and wicked as well. These seldom come to any good. But, as it is certain that nature always provides some antidote for pernicious things, and that barren trees can be rendered fruitful if properly transplanted, we ought not to give up all hope, but should see if the perverseness, at least, cannot be combated and got rid of. It is only when this proves impossible that the twisted and knotted piece of wood may be cast aside, since it is useless to attempt to carve a Mercury out of it. “Barren land,” says Cato, “should not be cultivated; nor even once ploughed.” But an intellect of this kind, amenable to no treatment, can scarcely be found in a thousand, and this is a great proof of God’s goodness.

25. The substance of these remarks is in harmony with the following saying of Plutarch: “For the characters of young children, no man is responsible; but it is in our power to make them virtuous by a proper training.” Mark this well; he says “in our power.” For the gardener can unfailingly train a struggling shoot into a tree, by using his skill in transplanting.

26. The four following reasons show that all the young, though of such different dispositions, may be instructed and educated by the same method.

27. Firstly: For all men the goal is the same, namely, knowledge, virtue, and piety.

28. Secondly: All men, though their dispositions may differ, possess the same human nature, and are endowed with the same organs of sense and of reason.

29. Thirdly: The differences of character are caused by nothing more than a superfluity or a lack of some of ​the elements in the natural harmony, just as bodily diseases are nothing but abnormal states of wetness or dryness, of heat or cold. For example, what is sharpness of intellect but the fineness and rapid motion of the vital spirit in the brain, which passes through the sensory lobes with very great speed, and rapidly apprehends external objects? But if no obstacle be put in the way of this rapid motion, it dissipates the intellect and leaves the brain either weak or sluggish. Hence it is that so many precocious boys either die young or become stupid.

On the other hand, what is stupidity but a clammy viscosity of the humours of the brain, which can only be set in motion by constant suggestion? What are insolence and intractability but an excess of spirit and stubbornness, which must be tempered by discipline? What is slackness but a great lack of spirit which must be made good? Just as, then, the best remedies for bodily diseases are not those which try to put one extreme to flight by another (for this only makes the struggle greater), but those which seek to moderate all extremes, so that there shall not be too little on one side and too much on the other; so the best remedy against the errors of the human mind is a didactic method of such a kind that by its means excess and defect may be neutralised in the natural disposition, and that all the mental principles may be brought into harmony and into a pleasant agreement. Our method, therefore, is intended for intellects in which no element exists in an extreme form (and indeed these are always the most common), so that neither reins may be wanting to restrain active minds (that they may not wear themselves out before their time) nor spurs and goads to urge on the laggards.

30. Finally: Every excess or defect of disposition can be counteracted as long as it is not of old standing. In warfare, recruits are mixed with old soldiers; the weak and the strong, the sluggish and the active, fight under the same standard and obey the same orders as long as the battle continues. But, when the victory is gained, each pursues ​the enemy as far as he is able, and takes as much booty as he wants. Thus it is in the camp of knowledge; the slow are mixed with the swift, the weak with the quick-witted, the obstinate with the yielding, and are guided by the same precepts and examples as long as guidance is necessary. But, when school-days are over, each one must finish the remainder of his studies with what speed he can.

31. When I talk of admixture of intellects, I refer not so much to the spot where the instruction takes place as to the additional assistance that can be given to the pupil. For instance, if the teacher observe that one boy is cleverer than the rest, he can give him two or three stupid boys to teach; if he perceive one more trustworthy than the others, he may allow him to watch and to control those who have less character. Both will gain great advantage from this, provided that the teacher keep his eye on them, to see that everything is conducted as reason prescribes. But it is now time to have done with preliminaries, and to deal with the real subject of this treatise.

CHAPTER XI

HITHERTO THERE HAVE BEEN NO PERFECT SCHOOLS

1. This confident heading may seem too presumptuous; but I challenge the facts themselves, and, while I constitute the reader as judge, will myself do nothing but summon witnesses. I call a school that fulfils its function perfectly, one which is a true forging-place of men; where the minds of those who learn are illuminated by the light of wisdom, so as to penetrate with ease all that is manifest and all that is secret (comp. Wisdom vii. 21), where the emotions and the desires are brought into harmony with virtue, and where the heart is filled with and permeated by divine love, so that all who are handed over to Christian schools to be imbued with true wisdom may be taught to live a heavenly life on earth; in a word, where all men are taught all things thoroughly.

2. But has any school either existed on this plane of perfection or held this goal in view; not to ask if any has ever reached it? Lest I should seem to chase Platonic ideas and to dream of perfection such as exists nowhere and cannot be hoped for in this life, I will point out by another argument that such schools ought to be and have never yet existed.

3. Dr. Luther, in his exhortation to towns of the empire on behalf of the erection of schools (A.D. 1525), asks for these two things, among others. Firstly, that schools may be founded in all cities, towns, and villages, ​for the instruction of all the young of both sexes (the necessity of which we proved in chap. ix.), so that even peasants and artisans may, for two hours daily, receive instruction in useful knowledge, in morality, and in religion. Secondly, that an easier method of instruction imay be introduced, so that students, instead of developing an antipathy towards learning, may be enticed by irresistible attractions, and that, as he says, boys may gain no less pleasure from study than from spending whole days in playing ball and amusing themselves. These are the views of Dr. Luther.

4. This is indeed a noble counsel, and worthy of such a man! But who does not see that matters have gone no farther than his wish? For where are those universal schools, where is that attractive method?

5. It is evident that nothing has been done, since in the smaller villages and hamlets no schools have been founded.

6. Where schools exist, they are not for the whole community, but only for the rich, since, owing to their cost, the poor cannot gain admission to them, except by some chance, such as pity on the part of some one. Among those excluded there are probably some excellent intellects, which are thus ruined and destroyed, to the great loss of the Church and of the state.

7. Further, the method used in instructing the young has generally been so severe that schools have been looked on as terrors for boys and shambles for their intellects, and the greater number of the students, having contracted a dislike for learning and for books, have hastened away to the workshops of artificers or to some other occupation.

8. On the other hand, those who remained at school (whether compelled to do so by parents and guardians, or influenced by the hope of obtaining some honourable position by means of their attainments, or drawn towards the liberal arts spontaneously and of their own nature) did not receive a serious or comprehensive education, but a preposterous and wretched one. For piety and virtue, ​which form the most important element in education, were neglected more than anything else. In all the schools (and even in the universities, which ought to embody the greatest advances of human culture) these subjects held only a secondary place, so that for the most part, instead of tractable lambs, fiery wild asses and restive mules were produced; and instead of characters moulded to virtue, nothing issued from the schools but a spurious veneer of morality, a fastidious and exotic clothing of culture, and eyes, hands, and feet trained to worldly vanities. How few of these mannikins, who had for so long been polished by such a training in the languages and in the arts, realised that to the rest of the world they ought to be an example of temperance, charity, humility, humanity, gravity, patience, and continence!

The reason of this evidently is that the question of “virtuous living” is never raised in the schools. This is shown by the wretched discipline in nearly all schools, by the dissolute morals of all classes, and by the never-ceasing complaints, sighs, and tears of pious men. Can any one defend the condition in which our schools have been? An hereditary disease, sprung from our first parents, pervades all classes, so that, shut out from the tree of life, we direct our desires inordinately towards the tree of knowledge, and our schools also, permeated by this insatiable appetite, have hitherto pursued nothing but intellectual progress.

9. But with what method or with what success have they done even this? In truth, the only result achieved was the following. For five, ten, or more years they detained the mind over matters that could be mastered in one. What could have been gently instilled into the intellect, was violently impressed upon it, nay rather stuffed and flogged into it. What might have been placed before the mind plainly and lucidly, was treated of obscurely, perplexedly, and intricately, as if it were a complicated riddle.

10. In addition, though for the present we will pass ​this over, the intellect was scarcely ever nourished by the actual facts, but was filled with the husks of words, with a windy and parrot-like loquacity, and with the chaff of opinions.

11. The study of the Latin language alone (to take this subject as an example), good heavens! how intricate, how complicated, and how prolix it was! Camp followers and military attendants, engaged in the kitchen and in other menial occupations, learn a tongue that differs from their own, sometimes two or three, quicker than the children in schools learn Latin only, though children have abundance of time, and devote all their energies to it. And with what unequal progress! The former gabble their languages after a few months, while the latter, after fifteen or twenty years, can only put a few sentences into Latin with the aid of grammars and of dictionaries, and cannot do even this without mistakes and hesitation. Such a disgraceful waste of time and of labour must assuredly arise from a faulty method.

12. On this subject the celebrated Eilhard Lubinus, professor in the University of Rostock, has with justice remarked: “When I consider the ordinary method of teaching boys in schools, it seems to me as if it had been laboriously devised with a view to make it impossible for teachers and pupils alike to lead or to be led to a knowledge of the Latin tongue, without great labour, great tedium, infinite trouble, and the greatest possible consumption of time. A state of things which I cannot think of without shuddering.” And a little farther on: “After frequent consideration of these matters I find myself always led to the conclusion, that the entire system must have been introduced into schools by some evil and envious genius, the enemy of the human race.” So says Lubinus, who is only one out of many authorities whom I could quote in my favour.

13. But what need is there of witnesses? How many of us there are who have left the schools and universities with scarcely a notion of true learning! I, unfortunate ​man that I am, am one of many thousands, who have miserably lost the sweetest spring-time of their whole life, and have wasted the fresh years of youth on scholastic trifles. Ah, how often, since my mind has been enlightened, has the thought of my wasted youth wrung sighs from my breast, drawn tears from my eyes, and filled my heart with sorrow! How often has my grief caused me to exclaim:

Oh that Jupiter could bring back to me the years that are past and gone!

14. But these prayers are in vain. Bygone days will never return. None of us who is advanced in years can grow young again, commence his career anew, and, furnished with a better method, pursue it more successfully. Of this there is no question. One thing alone does remain, and that is to give those who come after us such advice as we can. By showing how it was that our masters led us into error we shall be able to point out the way in which such errors may be avoided.

CHAPTER X

THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN IN SCHOOLS SHOULD BE UNIVERSAL

1. We have already shown that every one ought to receive a universal education, and this at school. But do not, therefore, imagine that we demand from all men a knowledge (that is to say, an exact or deep knowledge) of all the arts and sciences. This would neither be useful of itself, nor, on account of the shortness of life, can it be attained by any man. For we see that each science is so vast and so complicated (as are physics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, or even agriculture and arboriculture) that it would occupy the lifetime of even the strongest intellects if they wished to master it thoroughly by investigation and experiment. Thus did Pythagoras devote himself to arithmetic, Archimedes to mechanics, Agricola to metallurgy,²¹ and Longolius²² (who spent his whole life in endeavouring to acquire a perfect Ciceronian style) to rhetoric. It is the principles, the causes, and the uses of all the most important things in existence that we wish all men to learn; all, that is to say, who are sent into the world to be actors as well as spectators. For we must take strong and vigorous measures that no man, in his journey through life, may encounter anything so unknown to him that he cannot pass sound judgment upon it and turn it to its proper use without serious error.

2. We must, therefore, concentrate our energies on ​obtaining that, throughout our whole lives, in schools and by the aid of schools: (i) our talents may be cultivated by study of the sciences and of the arts; (ii) languages may be learned; (iii) honest morals may be formed; (iv) God may be sincerely worshipped.

3. He spoke wisely who said that schools were the workshops of humanity, since it is undoubtedly through their agency that man really becomes man, that is to say (to refer to our previous analysis): (i) a rational creature; (ii) a creature which is lord over all creatures and also over himself; (iii) a creature which is the delight of his Creator. This will be the case if schools are able to produce men who are wise in mind, prudent in action, and pious in spirit.

4. These three principles, then, must be implanted in all the young in all schools, and this I shall prove, starting from the following fundamental points:―

(i) From the circumstances by which we are surrounded;

(ii) From ourselves;

(iii) From Christ the God-man, the most perfect example of our perfection.

5. Things themselves, as far as they concern us, can be divided into three classes only: (i) objects that we can observe, such as the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them; (ii) objects that we can imitate, such as the marvellous order which pervades all things, and which man ought to imitate in his actions; (iii) objects that we can enjoy, such as the grace of God and His manifold blessing here and for eternity. If man is to acquit himself creditably when brought into contact with this order of nature, he must be trained to know the things that are spread out for his observation in this marvellous amphitheatre, to do the things that it is right for him to do, and, finally, to enjoy those things of which the most benign Creator, treating him as a guest in His house, has, with liberal hand, given him the fruition.

6. If we consider ourselves, we see clearly that learning, virtue, and piety are of importance to all alike; whether we ​look at the essential being of the soul, or at the object of our creation and introduction into the world.

7. The soul in its essential elements consists of three potentialities, which recall the uncreated Trinity, and these are the intellect, the will, and the memory. The province of the intellect is to observe the differences between things, even down to the smallest details. The will concerns itself with choice that is to say, with the choice of things that are advantageous and the rejection of those which are not. The memory stores up for future use all the things with which the intellect and the will have been busied, and reminds the soul of its dependence on God and of its duty; in which aspect it is also called conscience.

In order, then, that these faculties may rightly fulfil their offices, it is necessary that they be furnished with such things as may illumine the intellect, direct the will, and stimulate the conscience, so that the intellect may be acute and penetrating, the will may choose without error, and the conscience may greedily refer all things to God. Therefore, just as these faculties (the intellect, the will, and the conscience) cannot be separated, since they constitute the same soul, so it is impossible to separate those three ornaments of the soul, erudition, virtue, and piety.

8. Now, if we consider why we have been sent into the world, it will be evident from two points of view that the object is threefold, namely, that we may serve God, His creatures, and ourselves, and that we may enjoy the pleasure to be derived from God, from His creatures, and from ourselves.

9. If we wish to serve God, our neighbours, and ourselves, it is necessary for us to possess, with respect to God, piety; with respect to our neighbours, virtue; and with respect to ourselves, knowledge. These principles, however, are intimately connected, and a man, for his own advantage, should be not only learned, but also virtuous and pious; for that of his neighbour, not only virtuous, but also learned and pious; and for the glory of God, not only pious, but also learned and virtuous.

​10. If we consider the happiness to which God has destined mankind, we find that He showed His intention clearly when creating man, since He introduced him into a world furnished with all good things; prepared for him, in addition, a paradise of delights; and, finally, arranged to make him a partner of His eternal happiness.

11. Now, by the term “happiness” we understand not the pleasures of the body (though these, since they consist of the vigour of good health, and of the enjoyment of food and of sleep, can only arise from the virtue of temperance), but those of the soul, which arise either out of the objects around us, or from ourselves, or, finally, from God.

12. The pleasure which arises out of things themselves, is the pleasure that a wise man experiences in speculation. For, wherever he betakes himself, whatever he observes, and whatever he considers, he finds everywhere such attractions, that often, as it were, snatched out of himself, he merges his identity in them. It is to this that the book of Wisdom refers: “The conversation of wisdom hath no bitterness; and to live with her hath no sorrow, but mirth and joy” (viii. 16). And a heathen philosopher says: “There is nothing in life more pleasant than to seek out wisdom.”

13. Pleasure in self is that very sweet delight which arises when a man, who is given over to virtue, rejoices in his own honest disposition, since he sees himself prompt to all things which the order of justice requires. This pleasure is far greater than the former one, according to the proverb “A good conscience is a perpetual feast.”

14. Delight in God is the highest point to which pleasure can attain in this life, and is found when a man, feeling that God is eternally gracious to him, exults in His fatherly and immutable favour to such a degree that his heart melts with the love of God. He desires to know or to do nothing further, but, overwhelmed by God’s mercy, he rests in peace and tastes the joys of eternal life. This is “the peace of God which passeth all understanding” (Phil. iv. 7), than which nothing more sublime can be desired or imagined.

​These three principles, therefore, learning, virtue, and piety, are the three founts from which all the streams of the most perfect pleasures flow.

15. Lastly, God Himself, manifest in the flesh (that He might exhibit in Himself the perfection of all things), has taught by His example that these three elements must exist in each individual. For the Evangelist testifies that He advanced not only in stature, but also in wisdom and favour with God and man (Luke ii. 52). Here can be seen the blessed Trinity that adorns us. For what is wisdom but the knowledge of things as they are? What is it that brings us favour with men, if not amiability of character? What procures us the grace of God, if not the fear of the Lord, that is to say, inward, serious, and fervid piety? Let us, therefore, realise in ourselves that which we have seen in Jesus Christ, the absolute ideal of all perfection, the standard set up for us to imitate.

16. For this reason He said, “Learn of me” (Matt. xi. 29). And since this same Christ has been given to the human race as the most learned teacher, as the most holy priest, and as the most powerful king, it is evident that Christians should be formed on His model and should be enlightened through their intellects, sanctified through their consciences, and made powerful through their deeds (each in his own calling). Our schools, therefore, will then at length be Christian schools when they make us as like to Christ as is possible.

17. It is, therefore, an unhallowed separation if these three elements be not bound together as if by an adamantine chain. How wretched is the teaching that does not lead to virtue and to piety! For what is literary skill without virtue? He who makes progress in knowledge but not in morality (says an old proverb), recedes rather than advances. And thus, what Solomon said of the beautiful but foolish woman, holds good of the learned man who possesses not virtue: “As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion” (Prov. xi. 22). For, just as gems are set not in ​lead but in gold, in which combination both are more beautiful, thus should knowledge be joined not to immorality but to virtue, when each will add adornment to the other. For the fear of the Lord, as it is the beginning and the end of wisdom, is also the coping-stone and crown of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. i. and elsewhere).

18. Since, therefore, a man’s whole life depends on the instruction that he has received during boyhood, every opportunity is lost unless the minds of all are then prepared for every emergency that may arise in life. Just as in his mother’s womb each man receives his full complement of limbs,—hands, feet, tongue, etc.—although all men are not to be artificers, runners, scribes, or orators; so at school all men should be taught whatever concerns man, though in after life some things will be of more use to one man, others to another.

CHAPTER IX

ALL THE YOUNG OF BOTH SEXES SHOULD BE SENT TO SCHOOL

1. The following reasons will establish that not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school.

2. In the first place, all who have been born to man’s estate have been born with the same end in view, namely, that they may be men, that is to say, rational creatures, the lords of other creatures, and the images of their Creator. All, therefore, must be brought on to a point at which, being properly imbued with wisdom, virtue, and piety, they may usefully employ the present life and be worthily prepared for that to come. God Himself has frequently asserted that with Him there is no respect of persons, so that, if, while we admit some to the culture of the intellect, we exclude others, we commit an injury not only against those who share the same nature as ourselves, but against God Himself, who wishes to be acknowledged, to be loved, and to be praised by all upon whom He has impressed His image. In this respect the fervour of all men will increase in proportion to the flame of knowledge that has been kindled. For our love is in direct ratio to our knowledge.

3. Now we do not know to what uses divine providence has destined this or that man; but this is certain, that out ​of the poorest, the most abject, and the most obscure, He has produced instruments for His glory. Let us, therefore, imitate the sun in the heavens, which lights, warms, and vivifies the whole earth, so that whatever is able to live, to flourish, and to blossom, may do so.

4. Nor is it any obstacle that some seem to be naturally dull and stupid, for this renders more imperative the universal culture of such intellects. The slower and the weaker the disposition of any man, the more he needs assistance, that he may throw off his brutish dulness and stupidity as much as possible. Nor can any man be found whose intellect is so weak that it cannot be improved by culture. A sieve, if you continually pour water through it, grows cleaner and cleaner, although it cannot retain the liquid; and, in the same way, the dull and the weak-minded, though they may make no advance in letters, become softer in disposition and learn to obey the civil magistrates and the ministers of the Church. There have, besides, been many instances in which those who are naturally stupid have gained such a grasp of the sciences as to excel those who were more gifted. As the poet truly says: “Industry overcomes all obstacles.” Again, just as some men are strong as children, but afterwards grow sick and ailing, while others, whose bodies are sickly and undersized in youth, develope into robust and tall men; so it is with intellects. Some develope early, but soon wear out and grow dull, while others, originally stupid, become sharp and penetrating. In our orchards we like to have not only trees that bring forth early fruit, but also those that are late-bearing; for each thing, as says the son of Sirach, finds praise in its season, and at length, though late, shows that it has not existed in vain. Why, therefore, should we wish that in the garden of letters only one class of intellects, the forward and active, should be tolerated? Let none be excluded unless God has denied him sense and intelligence.

5. Nor can any sufficient reason be given why the weaker sex (to give a word of advice on this point in particular) should be altogether excluded from the pursuit ​of knowledge (whether in Latin or in their mother-tongue). They also are formed in the image of God, and share in His grace and in the kingdom of the world to come. They are endowed with equal sharpness of mind and capacity for knowledge (often with more than the opposite sex), and they are able to attain the highest positions, since they have often been called by God Himself to rule over nations, to give sound advice to kings and princes, to the study of medicine and of other things which benefit the human race, even to the office of prophesying and of inveighing against priests and bishops. Why, therefore, should we admit them to the alphabet, and afterwards drive them away from books? Do we fear their folly? The more we occupy their thoughts, so much the less will the folly that arises from emptiness of mind find a place.

6. But let not all books be given to them indiscriminately, as they have been given to the young of the other sex (and indeed it is greatly to be deplored that more caution has not been displayed in this matter); but only those from which, by the due observation of God and of His works, true virtue and true piety can be learned.

7. And let none cast in my teeth that saying of the Apostle: “I permit not a woman to teach” (1 Tim. ii. 12), or that of Juvenal in the sixth satire: “See that thy lawful wife be not a chatterbox, that she express not the simplest matter in involved language, nor be deeply versed in history,” or the remark of Hippolytus in Euripides: “I detest a bluestocking. May there never be a woman in my house who knows more than is fitting for a woman to know. For ’tis in the wise especially that Cypris engenders the desire for evil.” These opinions, I opine, stand in no true opposition to our demand. For we are not advising that women be educated in such a way that their tendency to curiosity shall be developed, but so that their sincerity and contentedness may be increased, and this chiefly in those things which it becomes a woman to know and to do; that is to say, all that enables her to look after her household and to promote the welfare of her husband and her family.

​8. If any ask, “What will be the result if artisans, rustics, porters, and even women become lettered?” I answer, If this universal instruction of youth be brought about by the proper means, none of these will lack the material for thinking, choosing, following, and doing good things. All will know how the actions and endeavours of life should be regulated, within what limits we must progress, and how each man can protect his own position. Not only this, but all will regale themselves, even in the midst of their work and toil, by meditation on the words and works of God, and, by the constant reading of the Bible and other good books, will avoid that idleness which is so dangerous to flesh and blood. To sum up, they will learn to see, to praise, and to recognise God everywhere, and, in this way, to go through this life of care with enjoyment, and to look for the life to come with increased desire and hope. Does not such a condition of the Church represent to us the only paradise that it is possible to realise on this earth?