THIS is the work of a very ingenious man, and records the most original experiment in Education which in this country at least has been attempted since the date of those communicated by the Edgeworths. We say designedly "in this country; because to compare it with some continental schemes which have been only recently made known to the English public (and not fully made known even yet) would impose upon us a minute review of those schemes, which would be, first, disproportionate to our limits-secondly, out of its best situation, because it would be desirable to examine those schemes separately for the direct purpose of determining their own absolute value, and not indirectly and incidentally for the purpose of a comparison. The Madras system, again, is excluded from the comparison-not so much for the reason alleged (p. 123—5), by the author before us- as though that system were essentially different from his own in its purpose and application: the purpose of the Madras system is not exclusively economy of expense, but in combination with that purpose a far greater accuracy (and therefore reality) in the knowledge communicated than could be obtained on the old systems; on this account therefore the possible application of the Madras system is not simply to the education of the poor, though as yet the actual application

of it may have been chiefly to them, but also to the education of the rich; and in fact it is well known that the Madras system (so far from being essentially a system for the poor) has been adopted in some of the great classical schools of the kingdom.t The difference is more logically stated thus-that the Madras system regards singly the quality of the knowledge given, and (with a view to that) the mode of giving it: whereas the system, which we are going to review, does not confine its view to man as a being capable of knowledge but extends it to man as a being capable of action, moral or prudential: it is therefore a much more comprehensive system. The system before us does not exclude the final purpose of the Madras system: on the contrary, it is laudably solicitous for the fullest and most accurate communication of knowledge, and suggests many hints for the attainment of that end as just and as useful as they are enlightened. But it does not stop here: it goes further, and contemplates the whole man with a reference to his total means of usefulness and happiness in life. And hence, by the way, it seems to us essential-that the whole child should on this system be surrendered to the school; i. e. that there should be no day-scholars; and this principle we shall further on endeavour to establish on the evidence of a case re

lated by the author himself. On the whole therefore we have designedly stated our general estimate of the author's system with a reference to that of the Edgeworths; not only because it has the same comprehensiveness of object, and is in some degree a further expansion of their method and their principles; but also because the author himself strikingly resembles the Edgeworths in style and composition of mind; with this single difference perhaps, that the good sense and perception of propriety (of what in French would be called les convenances), which in both is the characteristic merit (and, when it comes into conflict with any higher quality, the characteristic defect),in him is less coloured by sarcastic and contemptuous feelings; which in all cases are unamiable feelings, and argue some defect of wisdom and magnanimity; but, when directed (as in the Edgeworths they sometimes are) against principles in human nature which lie far beyond the field of their limited philosophy, recoil with their whole strength upon those who utter them. It is upon this consideration of his intellectual affinity with the Edgeworths that we are the less disposed to marvel at his estimate of their labours: that, for instance, at p. 192 he styles their work on education "inestimable," and that at p. 122, though he stops short of proposing “divine honours" to Miss Edgeworth, the course of his logic nevertheless binds him to mean that on Grecian principles such honours are "due to her." So much for the general classification and merits of the author, of whom we know nothing more than-that, from his use of the Scotticisms "succumb,"-" compete," and "in place of" for "instead of" he ought to be a Scotchman: now then for his system.

Of this we may judge by two criteria-experimentally by its result, or à priori by its internal aptitude for attaining its ends. Now as to the result, it must be remembered that even if the author of any system could be relied on as an impartial witness to its result-yet,

because the result of a system of education cannot express itself in any one insulated fact, it will demand as much judgment to abstract from any limited experience what really is the result as would have sufficed to determine its merits à priori without waiting for any result. Consequently, as it would be impossible to exonerate ourselves from the necessity of an elaborate act of judgment by any appeal to the practical test of the result-seeing that this result would again require an act of judgment hardly less elaborate for its satisfactory settlement than the à priori examination which it had been meant to supersede, we may as well do that at first which we must do in the end; and, relying upon our own understandings, say boldly that the system is good or bad because on this argument it is evidently calculated to do good or on that argument to do evil, than blindly pronounce-it is good or it is bad, because it has produced-or has failed of producing such and such effects; even if those effects were easy to collect. In fact, for any conclusive purpose of a practical test, the experience is only now beginning to accumulate: and here we may take occasion to mention that we had ourselves been misinformed as to the duration of the experiment; for a period of four years, we were told, a school had existed under the system here developed: but this must be a mistake, founded perhaps on a footnote at p. 83 which says " The plan has now been in operation more than four years:" but the plan there spoken of is not the general system, but a single feature of it-viz. the abolition of corporal punishment: in the text this plan had been represented as an immature experiment, having then "had a trial of nine months" only and therefore, as more than 3 years had elapsed from that time to the publication of the book, a note is properly added declaring that the experiment had succeeded, and that the author could "not imagine any motive strong enough to force him back to the old practice." The system generally

however must have existed now (i. e. November 1823) for nearly eight years at the least: so much is evident from a note at p. 79, where a main regulation of the system is said to have been established "early in 1816." Now a period of seven or eight years must have been sufficient to carry many of the senior pupils into active life, and to carry many of the juniors even into situations where they would be brought into close comparison with the pupils of other systems. Consequently, so much experience as is involved in the fact of the systems outliving such a comparison-and in the continued approbation of its founder who is manifestly a very able and a conscientious man, so much experience, we say, may be premised for the satisfaction of those who demand practical tests. For ourselves, we shall abide rather in our valuation of the system by the internal evidence of its composition as stated and interpreted by its author. An abstract of all that is essential in this statement we shall now lay before our readers.

What is the characteristic difference, in the fewest possible words, of this system as opposed to all others? We no where find this stated in a pointed manner: the author has left it rather to be collected from his general exposition; and therefore we conceive that we shall be entitled to his thanks by placing it in a logical, if possible in an antithetic, shape. In order to this, we ask-what is a school? A school is a body of young persons more or less perfectly organized-which, by means of a certain constitution or system of arrangements (A), aims at attaining a certain object (B). Now in all former schemes of education this A stood to B the positive quantity sought in the relation of a logical negative (i. e. of a negation of quantity=0), or even of a mathematic negative (i. e. of x):-but on this new system of the author before us (whom, for the want of a better name, we shall call the Experimentalist) A for the first time bears to B the relation of a positive quantity. The terms positive and negative are sufficiently opposed to each other to confer upon our contradistinction of this system from all others a very

marked and antithetic shape; and the only question upon it, which arises, is this are these terms justified in their application to this case? That they are, will appear thus:Amongst the positive objects (or B) of every school, even the very worst, we must suppose the culture of morals to be one: a mere day-school may perhaps reasonably confine its pretensions to the disallowance of any thing positively bad; because here the presumption is that the parents undertake the management of their children excepting in what regards their intellectual education: but, wherever the heads of a school step into the full duties of a child's natural guardians, they cannot absolve themselves from a responsibility for his morals. Accordingly, this must be assumed of course to exist amongst the positive objects of every boarding-school. Yet so far are the laws and arrangements of existing schools from at all aiding and promoting this object, that their very utmost pretension is-that they do not injure it. Much injustice and oppression for example take place in the intercourse of all boys with each other; and in most schools "the stern edict against bearing tales,” causes this to go unredressed (p. 78): on the other hand in a school where a system of nursery-like surveillance was adopted, and "every trifling injury was the subject of immediate appeal to the supreme power" (p. 80), the case was still worse. "The indulgence of this querulousness in、 creased it beyond all endurance. Before the master had time to examine the justice of one complaint, his attention was called away to redress another; until, wearied with investigation into offences which were either too trifling or too justly provoked for punishment, he treated all complainants with harshness, heard their accusations with incredulity, and thus tended, by a first example, to the re-establishment of the old system." The issue in any case was-that, apart from what nature and the education of real life did for the child's morals, the school education did nothing at all except by the positive moral instruction which the child might draw from his lessonsi. e. from B. But as to A, i. c. the school arrangements, either at best

great anxiety with us, that the pupil should be led to reason upon all his operations. Economy of time is a matter of importance with us: we look upon all restraint as an evil, and to young persons as a very serious evil we are therefore constantly in search of means for ensuring the effective employ ment of every minute which is spent in the school-room, that the boys may have ample time for exercise in the open air. The middle state between work and play is extremely unfavourable to the habits of the pupil we have succeeded, by great attention to order and regularity, in reducing it almost to nothing. We avoid much confusion by accustoming the boys to march; which they do with great precision, headed by a band of young performers + from their own body.

Such is the outline of the system as sketched by the author himself: to us however it appears an insufficient outline even for "the general reader" to whom it is addressed: without having " any intention of reducing the system to practice," the most general reader, if he asks for any information at all, will ask for more than this. We shall endeavour therefore to draw up an account of the plan somewhat less meagre, by separating the important from the trivial details. For this purpose we shall begin-1. with the GOVERNMENT of the school; i. e. with an account of the legislative, the executive, and the judicial powers, where lodged-held by what tenure-and how administered. The legislative power is vested in a committee of boys elected by the boys themselves. The members are elected monthly; the boy, who ranks highest in the school, electing one member; the two next in rank another; the three next a third; and so on. The headmaster as well as all the under-masters are members by virtue of their office. This arrangement might seem likely to throw a dangerous weight in the deliberations of the "house" into the hands of the executive power, especially as the head-master might pursue Queen Anne's policy under the Tory ministers-and, by introducing the fencing-master-the dancing-master-the riding-master, &c. under the unconstitutional equivocation of the word "teachers," carry a favourite measure in the teeth of the

patriotic party. Hitherto however the reigning sovereign has shown so laudable a desire to strengthen those checks upon his own authority which make him a limited monarch-that habit of attending the committee's "only one teacher has been in the meetings" (p. 5): and, where any teacher himself happens to be interested in the question before the house (e. g. in a case of appeal from any decision of his), "it has lately been the etiquette" for that one who does attend to decline voting. Thus we see that the liberty of the subject is on the growth: which is a sure argument that it has not been abused. In fact, as a fresh proof of the eternal truth-that in proportion as human beings are honourably confided in, they will in the gross become worthy of confidence, it will give pleasure to the reader to be informed that, though this committee " has the formation of all the laws and regulations of the school (excepting such as determine the hours of attendance and the regular amount of exercises to be performed)," yet "the master's assent has never even in a single instance been withheld or even delayed." "I do not remember," says Sir William Temple in 1683 to his son, ever to have refused any thing you have desired of me; which I take to be a greater compliment to you than to myself; since for a young man to make none but reasonable desires is yet more extraordinary than for an old man to think them so." A good arrangement has been adopted for the purpose of combining the benefits of mature deliberation with the vigour and dispatch necessary for sudden emergencies: by a standing order of the committee a week's notice must be given before a new law can be introduced for discussion: in cases of urgency therefore a sort of orders of council are passed by a sub-committee composed of two principal officers for the time being: these may of course be intercepted in limine by the veto of the master; and they may be annulled by the general committee: in any case they expire in a fortnight: and thus not only is a present necessity met, but also an opportunity gained for trying the ef

1