plain, for the child is only substituting one kind of knowledge for another, and improving in discipline, for which masters deserve most thanks and obtain least. I have never found more than one parent in twenty to whom all remarks about improving the mind and forming the habits did not seem mere words: they hear and say nothing on those points, deeming them metaphysically true, but practically false. Say, "Sir, your son can repeat Alexander Selkirk, and cast up your butcher's bill," and his whole countenance brightens with intelligence. Still, one parent not long since remarked to me, "I do not count by pages of Latin Grammar learned, Sums worked, or Maps drawn ; the master shall choose his own means to my end, which is to find my boy more attentive and thoughtful at the end of the half year than at the beginning." A man may have many pupils before he will hear as much wisdom as these words contain.

Now I am the more earnest on the subject of forming and disciplining the mind because it is a point on which persons commonly say much and do little. It is natural to us to desire to see the effect, and have positive ocular demonstration, of the use of our endeavours, whether in educating or in any other operation. When one parent says, "My boy can draw a Map, write a neat Copy, or repeat a pretty piece of Poetry to me after dinner," few persons can bring themselves to believe that he has not been at a better school than his young friend whose unsophisticated instructor has honestly

said no more than that the boy is more industrious and settled, and generally more willing to work, and will do well in course of time. A very sensible mother (Mrs. W. E.) with whom I was conversing on this topic not long since, allowed that this remark was very true; and said the secret was that a parent's heart is so touched at being presented with some performance done by her own child that she had herself been even so deluded as to think more of these trifling performances than of good mental habits. Yet she readily allowed that all this mechanical cleverness was purchased at the loss of much time, which would be far better employed in adding strength and firmness to the mind than to the fingers. To the same kind of ignorance we must impute the indifference so often manifested to a Classical education; namely, that few consider that good training is of more value than extent of knowledge. How is it that one man surpasses another in literary conversation? Not in the number of facts which he has read, but in the number he can bring to bear on a given subject, and in his power of treating them as data or factors of a new product in an endless series. Attentive observation, and accuracy combined with methodical arrangement and reflection on consequences, will place the man who has read one book on a par with a man of less discipline who has studied ten. And how are these habits to be formed?-by the drill and discipline of a Classical school. But why will not the French language or any other modern language produce the

same effect? I reply, that I for one consider a knowledge of Classical literature and of what we may call the Parent languages, as more useful, considering the present state of society, than any modern language. But, to reply more directly, modern languages will not produce the same effect. They can only be taught by foreigners, who, as all experience shews, are little suited to discipline and not always even to inform an English schoolboy. Training with modern languages, though good in theory, will not do in practice. But why not teach Natural Philosophy, Geography, Modern History, the English Classics, instead of taking up time with Latin and Greek? Because I have seen it tried and fail. All that a boy's mind can digest in these subjects may be imparted as a pleasing variety to relieve the severity of Classical studies, and should any master endeavour to do more with these very popular branches I have no doubt that his experience will coincide with mine; and since the occasion of my being enabled to make the experiment is very remarkable, I will give a detailed account of it.

I once had some pupils who had translated one book of Cæsar and learned to repeat the Latin for the English, as a dialogue, and had considerable facility in turning simple stories from Roman History into Latin, and were nearly perfect in parsing Greek nouns and verbs. The greater part of this they had attained in the space of a year, in which time the general character of the minds of my class had undergone a very sensible

change. Their powers of memory were nearly doubled, and the trying exercise of eagerly listening in case a place might be gained by correcting an error in a single letter, of quoting and applying rules of Grammar, of reading, subject to hasty and momentary correction, of thinking of the meaning, declension and government of words almost at the same time-all this kind of drilling carried on by the half-hour together every school time, had improved the boys not only in memory but in accuracy, attention, quickness, apprehension, and the free use of their thoughts. In comparison with this mental exercise, History and Geography proved a mere pretext for idleness. It was always evident to me that they could do all I required of them without half the industry and application that was gained in preparing a Greek or Latin lesson.

In this state of things an arrangement was made by which parents might remove their sons into a department in which English History, Poetry, Chronology, Orthography, Use of the Globes, Grammar, and in short, everything that as applied to boys sounds great and means little should be exclusively regarded. Into this department my most promising pupils eagerly migrated. Still I did not lose sight of them, because it was my duty to examine them once a week, and the result was this, that at the end of a year their knowledge of these English subjects, which claimed all their attention, was scarcely equal to that of their school-fellows who continued to devote three

fourths of their time to Classical studies.

So

much for the contents of their minds, but now for the habits of them. Not only was it apparent to me that they had become slow, and careless, and inaccurate, but the most intelligent of them volunteered the following (for a boy) extraordinary remark.

"At first you taught us; you gave us double the work we had been used to do under Mr. B., and in a short time we could do it with equal ease, for we grew much sharper and got better memories; when we moved into the English Classes the lessons were not half as hard even as we did under Mr. B., not a quarter (consequently) as hard as with you, yet after a while we found them just as hard as your lessons, because our minds sunk to the level of them."

But it will be asked, Why did not the extra number of lessons produce a proportional accession of knowledge: and why should not the English lessons have been increased according to the facility with which they were learned, and why was not mental discipline thus preserved?

These questions are of so frequent recurrence both in penny pamphlets and even among those who affect to despise them, that I will reply at length.

I will give an account of the different studies of this class separately; first,

In Geography, these boys had been taught while in the Classical department, at the rate of two short lessons a week, the chief divisions and