the personality of his teacher. The tone, the quality of the school atmosphere, may be a vague element, difficult to analyse, but it is an immensely powerful agent in the creation of character, and in the last resort its virtue springs from the personal influence and power of the school staff.

The distinctions now made enable us to set out in order the fields of activity which are embraced within the teacher's province; only the last of these concerns us in this book. A complete treatise on The Practice of Education, planned as a sequel to the study of The Aim and The Control of Education, would involve the following:

I. The Physical Training of the child and the Hygienic Conditions of school life.

II. The Training (including Physical Exercises) of Children, including their Government and Guidance both as individuals and in the corporate life of class and school.

III. The Teaching of Children, i.e., the employment of various occupations and branches of instruction as a specific means of attaining the Aim of Education. This last is the proper topic before us; and it has been made clear that while the Teaching of Children is an inquiry which needs to be pursued apart from other functions of the teacher, the connection between the three departments cannot be ignored. While therefore we shall keep within the limits prescribed by the title-page,1 we shall find it necessary to refer incidentally to conditions relating to the physical life and to the Training of the pupil where these affect closely the problems of Teaching.

1 It will be observed that we define the term Teaching to cover both Curriculum (Material) and Method,

SECTION II

THE CURRICULUM IN GENERAL

CHAPTER II

MOTIVES IN THE SELECTION OF MATERIAL

The object of Education should be the production, not of boys of such and such a kind as they display their qualities in their schools, but of men of such and such a kind, as they display their qualities in the world.—COTTERILL, Suggested Reforms in Public Schools, p. 26.

A little child shall lead them.--Isaiah.

They were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon. Mr. Dombey, so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze; his little image, with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed and rapt attention of a sage. Mr. Dombey, stiff with starch and arrogance; the little image by inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike, and yet so monstrously contrasted.--DICKENS, Dombey and Son, chap. viii.

Dass die Seele den Gegenstand des Wissens lieb gewinne, seinen Wert, seine Beziehungen, seinen Zusammenhang verstehe; dass Fertigkeit und Kunst in das Wissen hineinkommen ist gewiss die Hauptsache.-HERBART.

1.-LET us look back for a moment at the conclusions of our last chapter. We notice the child first of all as a self-developing creature, influenced greatly by environment and circumstance, quite

apart from Education; then we observe his physical nature, his body, which is indeed affected by the operations of the teacher, but which in a great measure is cared for apart from the school. When he becomes a school pupil we are struck at once by the paramount influence of the society of his teachers and his companions, both in Government and in Guidance, controlling and suggesting at every turn-an influence which we term "immediate" because it displays the direct action of mind upon mind.

But now we are to introduce a new element into the child's life. As a member of the school society he is indeed subject to direct personal influence, but this is not the ostensible business of the place: he does not become a pupil, a member of a school, simply for the sake of social virtues.

He requires pursuits, occupations, during these hours of school, and the provision and control of these occupations is Teaching; the Teacher derives his professional name from his responsibility therein. But children, healthy children, are very active beings why should they not be left to themselves to find occupation? The child is ready to be interested in almost anything that comes to hand! Why not let him follow his own bent, and exercise his choice? To some the question will appear ridiculous; others, adopting the standpoint of Rousseau, admit the question needs an answer. And the cynics, who see little advantage from our professional labours, who observe how every generation provides a new system of Education, are ready enough to tell us that we had better leave young children at least, as in the Middle Ages, to the care of mothers and nurses. The custom has undoubtedly grown up, in our modern Europe as in

ancient Greece, of taking the child by the hand and forcing him into certain grooves of activity. We do not permit him, like the bee, to gather honey where he will he must submit to Teaching. The psychologist is right in warning us against the dangers of crippling self-activity, of destroying originality, of imposing the dead hand on the fresh young soul:— still there are greater dangers if we leave the child alone. These dangers are obvious enough: (1) The child has no power of selection. He will drink poison as readily as water, when he is thirsty; he will imitate everything that appeals to eyes and ears. (2) He has no method in the pursuit of knowledge. He is eager, open-mouthed, willing, but gropes in the dark. Our function then is a twofold one: we have to select Material which shall occupy our pupil, and we have to supervise the Method by which he will acquire the best material. Under these two heads we may group all the problems which lie before us in the following chapters. Let us embark on them, however, with some diffidence, admitting that our judgment may not always be infallible in respect of either of these inquiries. Assurance is an excellent virtue in a schoolmaster, and the present writer has no intention of renouncing his share of this virtue. Nevertheless, let us not determine the child's destiny in too absolute a fashion. For fear of possible misadventure let us allow a little room for our pupil's individual activity. We will not for a moment admit the possibility of "nine and sixty ways of constructing" 1 a system of Education, but we may generously concede the child's right to some idiosyncrasies, which may lead him to appropriate good Material by remarkable Methods of his own. And, 1 Kipling, The Seven Seas.