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said. I would have a tutor correct this error, and at the very first he should, according to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the test, permitting his pupil himself to taste and relish things and of himself to choose and discern them, sometimes opening the way to him and sometimes making him break the ice himself; that is to say, I would not have him alone to invent and speak, but also hear his pupil invent and speak in his turn. Socrates, and since him Arcesilaus, made first their scholars speak and then they spoke to them. The authority of those who teach is very often an impediment to those who desire to learn. It is good to make the pupil, like a young horse, trot before the master, that he may judge of his going and how much he, the master, is to abate of his own speed to accommodate himself to the vigour and capacity of his pupil. For want of this due proportion we spoil all: to know how to adjust this and to keep within an exact and due measure is one of the hardest things I know; and it is an effect of a judicious and well-tempered soul to know how to condescend to the boy's puerile movements and to govern and direct them. Those who, according to our common way of teaching, undertake with one and the same lesson and the same measure of direction to instruct several boys of differing and unequal capacities, are infinitely mistaken in their method; and at this rate it is no wonder if, in a multitude of scholars, there are not found above two or three who bring away any good account of their time and discipline.' Here we have the foreshadowing of the organisation of instruction and the classification of pupils. The importance of examination as a part of good method is also insisted on. Let the master,' he says, not only examine him about the grammatical construction of the bare words of the lesson, but of the sense and meaning of them, and let him judge of the profit he has made, not by the testimony of his memory, but of his understanding. Let him make the pupil put what he hath learned into a hundred several forms, and accommodate it to many subjects to see if he yet rightly comprehend it and have made it his own, taking instruction by his progress from the "Institutions of Plato." "Tis a sign of crudity and indigestion,' he says, 'to vomit up what we eat in the same condition it was swallowed down, and the stomach has not performed its office unless it have altered the form and condition of what was committed to it to concoct.' 'What is the good of having the stomach full of meat if it do not nourish us?' Here we have what used to be called the 'Intellectual method' anticipated, the importance of assimilation enforced, and the distinguishing characteristic of cram well exposed. Montaigne further, in opposition to theories of education still current, advises that the pupil be made to sift and examine for himself, and to accept nothing on mere authority. We can say, Cicero says thus: that these were the manners of Plato: that these again are the very words of Aristotle: but what do we say ourselves that is our own? What do we do? What do we judge? A parrot would say as much.'

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So much for the method of intellectual instruction.

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The method

of moral teaching is summed up in the words that it should 'insensibly insinuate' itself in so far as it is direct, as lessons do which are not set and formal, but suggested by time and place.

Of intellectual and moral discipline in the true sense of these terms we find in Montaigne nothing. Nor does religion, in any true sense, enter into his scheme of education. And when we have said this we convict him of having left unwritten the two chief chapters in any educational theory. These grave omissions the character and upbringing of the man would lead us to expect, and we must not quarrel with what we have, because it falls short of our demands.

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With respect to discipline, in the vulgar school sense-that is to say, the means taken to force boys to do what their masters want them to do-Montaigne takes up a position substantially the same as that of the greater number of eminent writers on education. He is persuaded that, by following a good method, instruction will become pleasant, and that it will not be difficult to allure the pupil to both wisdom and virtue. If you do not allure the appetite and affection,' he says, you make nothing but asses laden with books, and, by virtue of the lash, give them their pocket full of learning to keep; whereas, to do well, you should not merely lodge it with them, but make them to espouse it.' Physical punishment fails of its aim, and must fail by the nature of the case. If it be necessary at any time to punish a child, it should be done when we are calm. No one,' he says, 'would hesitate to punish a judge with death who should have condemned a prisoner in a fit of passion. Why is it allowed any more to parents and masters to beat and strike children in their anger? That is not correction: it is revenge. Chastisement stands to children in the place of medicine; and should we endure a physician who was angry and violent with his patient?' Education,' he says elsewhere, should be carried on with a severe sweetness, quite contrary to the practice of our pedants, who, instead of tempting and alluring children to letters by apt and gentle ways, do, in truth, present nothing before them but rods and ferulas, horror, and cruelty. Away with this violence! away with this compulsion! than which nothing, I certainly believe, more dulls and degenerates a welldescended nature. If you would have the pupil alive to shame and chastisement, do not harden him to them. The strict govern

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ment of most of our colleges has even more displeased me; and peradventure they might have erred less perniciously on the indulgent side. The school is the true house of correction of imprisoned youth. ... Do but come in when they are about their lesson, and you shall hear nothing but the outcries of boys under execution, with the thundering noise of their pedagogues, drunk with fury, to make up the concert. A very pretty way this to tempt these tender and timorous souls to love their book-with a furious countenance and a rod in hand! A cursed and pernicious way of proceeding!. How much more decent would it be to see their classes strewn with green leaves and fine flowers, than with the bloody stumps of

birch and willows! Were it left to my ordering, I would paint the school with the pictures of Joy and Gladness, Flora and the Graces, that where the profit of the pupils is, there might their pleasure also be.'

We are all of Montaigne's opinion nowadays; for he did not forbid punishment or coercion, in some form or other, when all other means failed. Extrema in extremis. He merely protested against the scholastic tyranny of his time-a tyranny still existing, and till lately prevalent. Slave-driver and schoolmaster were almost convertible terms. The school and the rod were ideas of inseparable association. Samuel Butler calls whipping'

Virtue's governess,

Tutoress of arts and sciences.

Oh! ye (says Byron) who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, and Spain,

I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,

It mends the morals; never mind the pain.

Thomas Hood, in looking back on his school-days, has before his mind chiefly the place where he was birched; and yet his pleasant humour can call up some regret :—

Ay, though the very birch's smart
Should mark those hours again,
I'd kiss the rod, and be resigned
Beneath the stroke, and even find
Some sugar in the cane.

The subject, however, is too serious for a jest. Before Montaigne's day, and long after it, the brutality of schoolmasters was such as to leave an almost indelible stain on the profession for all time. The whole body should make an annual pilgrimage of penitence for the sins of their predecessors. Schoolmasters are now beginning to understand that it is only by balanced temper and by sound method that they can dispense with physical motives, and out of the more or less contemptible dominie of the past, evolve the educator of the future. In no other way certainly can they make good their claim to that social position which they, often too morbidly, claim.

Montaigne's educational views were defective certainly, though in substance and in their main purpose sound. The defects, as before observed, may be traced to his own upbringing and character. Everything with him is too easy. Wisdom's ways, alas! are not always ways of pleasantness, nor are her paths always those of peace. The charming way of life of Montaigne is for a few fortunate souls only. We have to train our boys to work hard, to will vigorously, to be much in earnest, to have a high sense of duty. Such qualities do not come by wishing. By intellectual and moral discipline, by doing what may be disagreeable, by obedience, by enforcement of law, we have to mould our British savage. For all this kind of work Montaigne has little to teach us; but we can learn much from him, and we part from the wise and kindly Frenchman with gratitude, and even affection. S. S. LAURIE.

MARY ANERLEY: A YORKSHIRE TALE.

CHAPTER XLVI

STUMPED OUT.

I THINK, my dear, that you never should allow mysterious things

to be doing in your parish, and everybody full of curiosity about them; while the only proper person to explain their meaning is allowed to remain without any more knowledge than a man locked up in York Castle might have. In spite of all the weather, and the noise the sea makes, I feel quite certain that important things, which never have any right to happen in our parish, are going on here, and you never interfere; which on the part of the rector, and the magistrate of the neighbourhood, to my mind is not a proper course of action. I am sure that I have not the very smallest curiosity; I feel very often that I should have asked questions, when it has become too late to do so, and when anybody else would have put them at the moment, and not had to be sorry afterwards.'

'I understand that feeling,' Dr. Upround answered, looking at his wife for the third cup of coffee, to wind up his breakfast as usual; 'and without hesitation, I reply that it naturally arises in superior natures. Janetta, you have eaten up that bit of broiled hake, that I was keeping for your dear mother!

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Now really, papa, you are too crafty. You put my mother off with a wretched generality, because you don't choose to tell her anything; and to stop me from coming to the rescue, you attack me with a miserable little personality. I perceive by your face, papa, every trick that rises; and without hesitation I reply, that they naturally arise in inferior natures.'

'Janetta, you never express yourself well'-Mrs. Upround insisted upon filial respect-when I say "well," I mean-well, well, well, you know quite well what I mean, Janetta.'

'To be sure, mamma, I always do. You always mean the very best meaning in the world; but you are not up to half of papa's tricks yet.'

'This is too bad!' cried the father, with a smile. 'A great deal too bad!' said the mother, with a frown. I am sure I would never have asked a word of anything, if I could ever have imagined such behaviour. Go away, Janetta, this very moment; your dear father evidently wants to tell me something. Now, my dear, you were too sleepy last night; but your peace of mind requires you to unburden itself, at once, of all these very mysterious goings on.'

'Well, perhaps I shall have no peace of mind, unless I do,' said

the rector, with a slight sarcasm, which missed her altogether; only it might save trouble, my dear, if you would first specify the points which oppress your-or rather, I should say, perhaps, my mind, so much.'

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In the first place, then,' began Mrs. Upround, drawing nearer to the Doctor, who is that highly distinguished stranger who cannot get away from the Thornwick Inn? What made him come to such a place in dreadful weather; and if he is ill, why not send for Dr. Stirbacks? Dr. Stirbacks will think it most unkind of you, and after all he did for dear Janetta! And then, again, what did the milkman from Sewerby mean by the way he shook his head this morning, about something in the family at Anerley Farm? And what did that most unaccountable man, who calls himself Mr. Mordacks-though I don't believe that is his name at all—'

"Yes, it is, my dear; you never should say such things. He is well known at York, and for miles around, and I entertain very high respect for him.'

So you may, Dr. Upround. You do that too freely; but Janetta quite agrees with me about him. A man with a sword, that goes slashing about, and kills a rat, that was none of his business! A more straightforward creature than himself, I do believe; though he struts like a soldier with a ramrod. And what did he mean, in such horrible weather, by dragging you out to take a deposition in a place even colder than Flamborough itself-that wild rabbit-warren on the other side of Bempton? Deposition of a man who had drunk himself to death-and a Methodist, too, as you could not help saying.'

'I said it, I know; and I am ashamed of saying it. I was miserably cold, and much annoyed about my coat.'

You never say anything to be ashamed of. It is when you do not say things, that you should rather blame yourself. For instance, I feel no curiosity whatever, but a kind-hearted interest in the doings of my neighbours. We very seldom get any sort of excitement, and when exciting things come all together, quite within the hearing of our stable-bell, to be left to guess them out, and perhaps be contradicted, destroys one's finest feelings, and produces downright fidgets.' 'My dear, my dear, you really should endeavour to emancipate yourself from such small ideas.'

Large words shall never divert me from my duty. My path of duty is distinctly traced; and if a thwarting hand withdraws me from it, it must end in a bilious headache.'

This was a terrible menace to the household, which was always thrown out of its course for three days, when the lady became thus afflicted.

My first duty is to my wife,' said the rector. If people come into my parish with secrets which come to my knowledge, without my desire, and without official obligation, and the faithful and admirable partner of my life threatens to be quite unwell'

Ill, dear, very ill-is what would happen to me.'

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