rule, Mr. Colt Williams, is to do to school teachers as you would wish, if a school teacher, should be done to you. You are doubtless thankful there is a pension in store for you, while you harshly remark school teachers, who have about a sixth of your stipend, "ought to be able to save enough to make a pension for themselves."

GERMAN LETTERS ON ENGLISH EDUCATION.*
(First Article.)

O see ourselves as others see us is generally considered to be for our profit and instruction; and we have the opportunity afforded us in this volume of observing the impression which an intelligent foreigner has received of our educational institutions. Dr. Schmitz summarises in his preface the two chief defects that Dr. Wiese notices in our English system; the first being that any person having obtained the degree of B.A. or M.A. is supposed to possess the qualifications necessary for the instruction of the young in our public schools; and the second, the existence of "cramming" in connection with our present system of examinations.

The date of the author's preface to this work is November, 1876, and the date of the first letter is August, 1876, so that Dr. Wiese has taken the latest view of us he could, and has examined an educational con dition after the Act of 1870 had been six years in operation. On his first visit to our country, more than twenty years ago, Dr. Wiese was fortunate in obtaining the recommendation of Baron Bunsen, the German ambassador. "This time,” he says, "I owe most to the sympathy of influential gentlemen in England, especially of Mr. W. E. Forster, M.P., formerly Minister of State; of Mr. Matthew Arnold, his brother-in-law ; of the present Dean of Westminster, Arthur P. Stanley, the biographer of Thomas Arnold; further, of our learned countryman Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, in London; and in Scotland of Professor S. S. Laurie."

Dr. Wiese begins with something he admires in our English system of education. The boys and youths in our public schools have, most of them, "the fresh colour of health on their countenances, bright eyes and firm gait.” This he rightly attributes to physical exercises and games, such as cricket; and he goes on to say, "one might perhaps think of transplanting such things into Germany." But he says the attempt has been made in vain, and since it is useless, perhaps it is as well it is so.

The wish that this might be done has been expressed to me also during my present stay in England by Germans, who were able to compare the two countries in regard to

*German Letters on English Education." By Dr. L. Wiese. Translated and edited by Leonhard Schmitz, LL.D. London: W. Collins, Sons, & Co.

the physical training of youth; and in fact German teachers have repeatedly agreed to study these games in England, in order to introduce them amongst ourselves. The attempts have been made in vain. The conditions of life are too different in the two countries, and we shall never be able to make up our minds to devote as much of the time of our school hours as seems requisite for games which, after all, would not be a proper substitute for gymnastic exercises.

Then, again, Dr. Wiese remarks, "English youths acquire a national feeling of independence earlier than ours." He says:

I have never met with a vain or arrogant feeling of self-consciousness at that age; but they know that they are Englishmen a part of a great nation whose position commands respect in all quarters of the globe-they know that they belong to one another, and that, in this national community, the one may rely upon the other, Things are not yet in this state with us, but I believe we are on the right road to it.

Here, then, are two points in which England is ahead of Germany, and they are points which are intimately bound up with our system of national education. Dr. Wiese has yet another admission to make in our favour. "The number of self-taught men in England," he says, "is greater than elsewhere":

Self-taught and self-made men, such as Sir Stamford Raffles was, are still to be met in England. I have there again become acquainted with several men in respected positions, who, without having visited a higher school or a university, have, by selfchosen studies, acquired a very good and general education, and have displayed great taste for intellectual interests, and a sound judgment, for instance, upon literary productions. The libraries also which they had gradually gathered around themselves were a proof of their intellectual aspirations. In Germany publishers complain that philosophical books, and in fact works belonging to the more serious domain of literature, are less and less frequently purchased by private persons. In England this

is not the case.

These admissions are creditable to the frankness and impartiality of Dr. Wiese. A school inspector who used to come back from his autumnal tour constantly repeating, "When I was in Germany, I saw this, that, and the other," has, to some extent, his counterpart in Dr. Wiese. Dr. Wiese says in effect, "When I was in England, I saw the boys in the great public schools, healthy and vigorous, because of their national games and pastimes; I was pleased with the air of independence on their countenances, and the spirit of union which pervaded them, so different from what we see in our country. I was surprised to see so many self-made men, and to observe the habit which prevails among the educated classes of getting well-stocked libraries of books. In England, among the educated classes, a well-stocked library is considered an essential part of the household furniture."

And when we come to the part where Dr. Wiese touches upon our defects the greatest of all our defects, the want of a proper system of secondary schools-we are surprised to find that the same difficulties exist in Germany at the present time. He says:

The question about proper middle schools-i.e., about the manner in which the gap between the elementary and the higher schools can be most appropriately filled up-is engaging the attention of Englishmen no less than our own; they, too, have their question about middle-class schools; they, too, dispute about the advantages of the

classical and the modern school instruction, about the study of Latin in the curriculum, and about the most appropriate point where to begin with the study of the ancient languages in this curriculum, &c.; also the question as to the best arrangement for holidays; even the question about orthography is not wanting among them.

Why, we thought all these points had been long ago settled in Germany, and settled in a manner so perfectly right and reasonable that all we had to do was to copy as faithfully as we could their admirable model. The parrot cry of "When I was in Germany' meant this or meant nothing; but Dr. Wiese, who has spent all his life in the Ministry of Public Instruction in Prussia, tells quite a different tale.

In a sketch of the English and Prussian school systems, Dr. Wiese justly remarks, "The unity of the Prussian school system is the result of the absolute monarchical government, such as it has remained down to recent times; the utter want of unity and of connection among English schools is the consequence of the unlimited freedom allowed to all educational institutions." While Prussia was organising her schools into a compact system, the power of the English Government over education was growing weaker. "James II. was the last to make his authority felt at the universities."

Dr. Wiese does not seem perfectly satisfied with the iron uniformity of the Prussian system. "One of the evils," he says, "which, as it seems, is inseparable from the control of the State, is the increasing external uniformity of the schools, and the repression of private schools, which is the result of the system of granting certain privileges to State schools. The existence of institutions which act with greater freedom, and can set to work in a pedagogic manner, according to individual requirementsmore than is possible in the case of the others—is absolutely to the interest of the public, and of the public schools themselves." But, like a good German, he must feign acknowledge that the good effects of State supervision overbalance the evil. But we think we can see here that his sympathies during the last few years have been with those who are striving to maintain denominational schools by the side of board schools, not with those who would destroy them. He gives the answer of a well-to-do artisan at Berlin to a question he put to him, whether he approved of his son having to learn Latin. "There must be some good in it," the father replied; "my boy likes to learn it. I do not understand anything about it; but we are well governed, and therefore I do not trouble myself about the matter." He rightly remarks that this would be considered in England "a servile state of mind and the surrendering of his own judgment and will as contemptible." We seem coming to such a condition more and more closely in England; and in future years, when our children are congratulated on their improved education, they

may reply with the chief captain, "with a great sum obtained I this freedom," the price of the surrender of will and judgment.

The voluntary efforts of the English people for the spread of education fill Dr. Wiese with admiration. How grand," he says, "have been the undertakings of voluntary exertion for the education of the people is sufficiently attested by the activity of two societies formed at the beginning of this century, the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society, as well as of the Ragged School Union since 1844. The Archbishop of Canterbury was able very recently to declare in the House of Lords that within the last fifty years £27,000,000 had been laid out by members of the Church of England for the education of the poor."

THE LONDON SCHOOL BOARD REPORT ON RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.

HE School Board Chronicle prints the report on the examination in Scripture Knowledge of the scholars of the London School

Board, which has been drawn up by Mr. Williams, one of the board's inspectors. Mr. Williams possesses one kind of faith, very necessary for a person in his position-faith in himself. Last year, six examiners looked over the papers, and it appears there was some amount of discontent at their award. This year the inspectors of the board are directed to examine the papers, and Mr. Williams says it is the best plan, "in that it places the examination beyond the reach and above the suspicion of unfairness or partiality." Nobody, Mr. Williams thinks, will suspect Mr. Williams. He is the board's inspector. Mr. Williams is a very cautious man. He declines to commit himself. He has learnt from Mr. H. W. Longfellow that "things are not what they seem," and he uses his knowledge in rather an offensive manner. On March 2nd he visited eighteen departments, "and in every one I found one or more managers present who were seemingly taking a great interest in the work." Again, "the superintendents seem to have conducted the examination with great care and ability." Mr. Williams gives the syllabus of religious knowledge, for which the board is responsible; and it is indeed a melancholy document. To see the venerable Bible chopped up in such a medley manner! There is "to be studied," the life of Adam; and, again, such select portions are given as "whole of Matthew," "whole of Luke," "whole of John." The Evangelists are ordinarily treated with some respect, but it is wanting here. Mr. Williams writes nonsense in an important manner, and it is amusing to hear him impressively laying down that the work for each standard is

the minimum rather than the maximum of what is required from it.. Fancy, "whole of the Acts of the Apostles" being a minimum! Even Mr. Williams, B.A., does not know the whole of the Acts of the Apostles, we feel sure. Mr. Williams is never so well pleased as when he is giving the head teachers under him sharp raps over the knuckles.:— It is understood by the board that the head teachers will not content themselves with merely superintending the instruction given by the assistants and pupil-teachers, but will themselves participate in the actual teaching of a standard or group of standards.

To "participate in the actual teaching of a standard" is language we should expect from a boy who had tried to learn English, and had learned it execrably. He goes on to try and bolster up the board. memorial by a loud outcry about the abominable spelling which the board scholars are in the habit of displaying. He kindly remarks that "incorrect spelling very often results from hurried and superficial teaching," which is a hint to the teachers. Mr. Williams has his suspicions of the Old Testament characters. They are not altogether what they might have been, and he boldly challenges the concurrence of the teachers in his view "that in dealing with the events in the lives of the personages that figure in the Bible history, the greatest care should be observed that only those events should be brought into the foreground from which the moral lessons can be easily and unerringly deduced by the pupils." This smells very much like what we have read in Dr. Colenso, and we commend the passage to the critical examination of Canon Gregory and Mr. Francis Peek. Mr. Williams vaguely hints that in the life of Elijah "the celebrated incident on Mount Carmel and the massacre which followed it" is an event which should not be brought into the foreground. After this amiable condescension to the scepticism of the day, Mr. Williams proceeds to distribute a fresh supply of the raps over the knuckles. The teachers should give written examinations more frequently; they do not use the black board as often as they might. Had these things been attended to the papers Mr. Williams has had to examine would have been very much better than they are. But we are quite certain we are giving the inspector good advice in urging him to steer clear of theology. "The good traits," he says, "in the characters of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and David are invariably rightly distinguished; and the bad traits are pointed cut with equal correctness." We are almost shocked to think what Mr. Williams can mean by the "bad traits" in the characters of Elijah and Elisha. We are afraid he has been reading German theology heavily. Mr. Williams feels bound, in a passage of this report, to write a defence of the Apostle Peter. The little girls and boys had been hard on him, and the board inspector hastens to his defence. It is an amusing sight.