for ourselves, is very characteristic of our time, and often needs to be repressed. Nothing, I believe, would repress it so effectually, because nothing would so much satisfy the true craving which is implied in it, as the calling forth in all, that which is the true root of this faculty, and without which it is worthless-the feeling, I mean, and perception of that order and harmony in things, of which the good poet tries to make us conscious. The hindrances to this perception lie not in poverty; they lie much more in wealth and luxury, and in the narrowness and hardness which they breed. The boy of the upper classes may perhaps have advantages for the cultivation of his mere understanding, which the poor boy does not possess. I am inclined to believe, that the poor boy is actually in better circumstances for the training of his imagination, provided only his teacher gives him fair play. He has less of an artificial, conventional dialect, and fewer artificial habits. The obligation to get his daily bread, does not so check and stifle the power of conversing with nature, as the habits of the counting-house and the debating society. And the best of all is, that if he is rightly trained, he needs know nothing whatever about criticisms; he may have the heart of a poet without knowing what it is, or being complimented upon it; he may read and sing the songs of his country without being told why he is to delight in them.

A thought may cross the mind of some schoolmaster, which is well entitled to a respectful consideration. He may ask, whether we can afford to bring a new kind of study into our schools when the quantity of secular teaching which must be communicated is even now so great, that it leaves little time enough for the religious instruction which we profess to make the basis of all. I shall not evade this question by saying that we may cultivate our children's imaginations with religious poetry or religious story books. I do not think we can. I do not think that the poetry which will serve this end most effectually will be that which is commonly taught under the name of religious poetry. I say so at once, though I cannot enter now upon the proof. But I would have the teacher seriously consider what is the end which we propose to ourselves in making religion, or I would rather say Christianity, the foundation of all which we teach and do. If we merely taught our scholars certain chapters out of the Bible, or if we merely communicated certain vague, general notions respecting spiritual matters, we might well enough look upon all other teaching as something extraneous, and grudge the time which we bestowed upon it. But we begin with the Catechism: we teach the child what it is, in what relation it stands to God in virtue of the covenant which He has made with it in Christ; how through its relation to Him, it is related to all its brethren; what duties these relations involve, what temptations assail every one who is placed in them. By such teaching as this we make our child free of God's universe, and we lay ourselves under an obligation to bring out every power which God has given it, and through which it can more effectually realize and fulfil its position. We dare not call any knowledge secular, when we have thus sanctified it. Its uses and applications may perchance be secular, either in a wrong or in a right sense of the word, but the knowledge itself cannot be so re

garded. It must all proceed from God, and all be referred to Him. And surely this most marvellous gift of the imagination is one which He has most wonderfully redeemed to His service. Every parable which our Lord spoke upon earth is a witness of that connexion between the visible and invisible world of which this faculty is especially meant to take account. Because it has been trained so imperfectly it has broken loose in all fantastic extravagant exercises which have tormented the text of Scripture, made men suppose that the letter meant nothing, and sub. jected poor people especially, to all irregular and fanatical influences. The mere understanding is no proof against such assaults; the mere affections, however spiritualized, are particularly subject to them. It is the imagination itself disciplined to its own proper work of grasping realities and perceiving substances under shadows, which is the true remedy against them. This will be found to be its great negative use. The positive blessing which it may afford the poor man, by enabling him to look at the events and characters of Scripture as living things, and not as words in a book, is quite incalculable. Of Niebuhr (who, be it remembered, is the severest, most pains-taking, most minute, historical critic of modern times), we are told, that when as a boy "he read the ancients, he lived altogether in and with them. He once told a friend who came to him, and found him much moved, that he often could not bear to read more than a few passages in the old tragedians : the persons who were represented in them so lived, talked, acted, suffered before his eyes. He saw Antigone leading her blind father; he saw the grove actually before him, and the old Edipus entering into it; he heard the melody of her voice, and was certain that he perceived the true pronunciation of the Greek, only he could not reproduce the expression with his barbarian tongue.' Now, imagine one-tenth or hundredth part of this realizing faculty applied to the Book of Genesis, or the four Gospels, which are surely in themselves more fresh and living than any play of Sophocles. Recollect the awe and reverence which must necessarily accompany such an act of imagination, and then say, whether religion can have any cause to complain of us for wasting our time in awakening this power.

I alluded at the beginning of my letter to the lightening of the schoolmaster's toils, which would be the consequence, if his scholars acquired that kind of free and living interest in the subjects he brings before them, which an active imagination creates. After the high subject to which I have just referred, I am almost ashamed to touch upon such a topic as this; still, those who know the great worth of the schoolmaster's exertion, and the bitter drudgery which he has sometimes to undergo, cannot think it a slight thing that he should at once have his office made more easy to bear, and should acquire a new sense of its importance. I do not mean, of course, anything so absurd, as that the application of any new method will convert his classes from stupidity to intelligence. What I mean is, that various contrivances, some of them very expensive and cumbrous, are continually offered to us for the purpose of effecting

* Lebensnachrichten über B. G. Niebuhr, 1 B. p. 35.

this transformation: and it seems to me, we might dispense with a great many of such machines, and make those we have more effectual, if we would but reconsider some of our traditional maxims. One of these is, " cultivate the memory and intellect as much as as you can;"" keep down the imagination as much as you can." The second part of the rule has, generally speaking, been acted upon with great success. The former object is much less often accomplished. It is worth while, I think, to inquire, whether our good fortune in the one experiment may not partly explain our failure in the other.

If you will allow me, I shall be glad to continue the subject in a future letter.

Guy's Hospital,

F. D. MAURICE.

SPECIMEN OF A SCHOOL-HOUSE WITH GROUND PLAN

AND ELEVATIONS.

THE following document was presented to the National Society through the kindness of the Rector of Easton, who was his own architect. We have leave to reprint it.

The object of it is to assist the clergy and others engaged in school building, and to save them (as much as may be) from the expense of employing architects, and from carelessness on the part of builders. With this view the Society will be glad, we understand, to be furnished with similar accounts and details of schools actually built and proved

by experience to be satisfactory, each such account, &c., to form, as it were, the representative of a class of schools. The present, for instance, is a beautiful model of an agricultural school in a district where flint

and brick are the building materials, and similar models are desired of schools from districts where stone and slate are employed, and of large schools in towns.

A collection of these, deposited at the National Society's Office, together with working drawings, will be a considerable boon to the clergy coming to London for practical advice before commencing their buildings. And if a selection can ultimately be made, and printed in a cheap volume, it will be more valuable than any plans, the details and estimated expenses of which have not stood the test of actual experience.

We sincerely hope that such of the clergy and others as have been lucky enough to get schools built to their mind, will consider how far they have the means of contributing towards the end proposed; for our own part we shall always be ready to make these pages the medium of suggestions on the subject generally.

ACCOUNT OF THE BUILDING.

THIS School was built in the latter part of 1840. It was not commenced before August, which was much too late; it should have been begun in April. As to its plan and elevation, it was thought better to let the circumstances of the site and the general character of the cottages of the village determine them, than to get a design from an architect. The site is on a rising ground in a valley running east and west; and it was necessary that the entrances, to be obvious and natural, should be somewhere on the east or south of the building; the approach to it from the village being on the south-east. But it would not have done to have placed them on the south, from the exposure thereby incurred to the frequent storms from the south-west. In consequence of these circumstances, and to secure the entrances as much as possible on both sides, the schools were built at right angles, one east and west, the other north and south; and the doors placed under a porch in the southeast corner. In the first instance it was intended to have had the dwelling on the south-west,- -a pleasanter aspect than that which it has now on the north; but, partly from there being less room for it there, and partly to improve the appearance on the north and north-east sides of the school, it was determined to place it where it now is.

The master and mistress do not live in it; we preferred that their household operations should be carried on at some little distance from the school; and fortunately a suitable cottage was found for them quite near enough. Still it might be occupied by them at any time, should they be obliged to leave the present cottage, and unable to obtain another upon reasonable terms. It is at present occupied by a labouring man in the employment of the clergyman, whose presence serves as a protection to the schoolrooms; while, as there is no opening into them, the arrangement has not been found to occasion any inconvenience.

The building is of brick and flint. They are the common materials of the neighbourhood, and this would have been enough to determine their choice if they had not also been the cheapest; for, a school for the children of cottagers should, it was thought, in the main resembles their cottages. Is there not an emblem afforded where such is the case, of sympathy with their feelings, and a token of an intention to give them an education really suited to their capacities and wants?

The bricks are of a dark-red colour; they were brought from a kiln 10 miles off, and cost 43s. per 1000. The flints were mostly picked from the fields close by; but the larger and handsomer, which were used in the facings, were got from a deep cutting that was going on for a railroad in the neighbourhood; their cost was from 3s. to 5s. per ton. The plinth, quoins, and sides of doors and windows are faced

All

with brick; and the rest of the walls with the flint, headed and laid in course. the facing, with the exception of that on the west side, where the offices are, is pointed with mortar darkened with coal-ash, and lampblack. This not only improves the appearance, but makes the mortar stiffer and better.

A School Room. B School Room. C Sitting Room. D Offices. E Coals. F Washing Shed. H Open Courts. I Passage. J Pantry. K Porch, with seats in the outer corners.

The school-rooms, which are 24 by 17 feet, and 30 by 17 feet, the smaller of which has been allotted to the boys, and the larger to the girls and infants, will contain about 150 children. They were made of this size, although the present population of the place cannot supply more than 60 or 70 children, because they are wanted to answer other purposes, as well as that of a school. A place was wanted in which the children and their parents could dine together on certain days, and where the master might teach singing. There has, no doubt, been a sacrifice of some convenient appendages to schools, to secure the rooms being of this extra size; but it is thought that, all things considered, the sacrifice was worth making. A lobby for hats and bonnets, cloaks and umbrellas, is a great convenience; but it could not have been had without altogether altering the plan of the school, for it would have deranged the proportion of the building to have made the porch large enough for such a purpose. There is less difficulty, too, in dispensing with a lobby in the case of this school; for the girls are the parties who most require it, and there is a shed among the offices for them to wash their hands in before sitting down to needlework, and where they can place their umbrellas and cloaks on a rainy day. A classroom is certainly a great addition to a school, and its absence here is more regretted than that of a lobby. However, a place for it has been left on the west side; and it is intended some day to add it.

The front and back doors of each room are placed on either side of the foldingdoors, that the least possible space may be lost, and the comfort of what is left increased by its not being exposed to draft. Had there been no back doors, the rooms might have been snugger; but then there would have been no avoiding the appearance of children constantly going in and out of their school, which is so very objectionable; not to speak of the increased opportunity of idling and playing truant that would have been thereby afforded. For decency-sake, where it can be managed the offices should be out of sight of visitors,-in no visible neighbourhood to the