themselves hoarse without apparent reason, and to whom law means only a policeman. Hence psychology and time concur in limiting the ground which the primary teacher can cover, but of even that ground a double survey is desirable,-the first personal and picturesque, and the second more purely historical. If the second only were attempted it would be too difficult for the younger pupils, and many of the older pupils might leave before it was completed,-would leave knowing least of the times which concerned them most. They would be able to write a clear narrative of the Battle of Hastings, but the Battle of Waterloo would be nothing more than a name to them; Elizabeth would be more real to them than Victoria, Faulkland and Hampden than Disraeli and Gladstone. Oral instruction In primary schools the instruction should throughout be oral. There are on the English market a considerable number of 'Historical Reading Books.' Most of them are well printed and illustrated and some of them well written, but no book can be an efficient substitute for the living teacher. Any book which gave all the explanations necessary for perfect simplicity, and all the little touches that add vividness to a narrative, would be long and expensive, and, if neither length nor cost were an objection, printed words would not appeal to the children with the same force as spoken. The little books of outlines which are so plentiful are useful, if accurate and well compiled, and employed merely to impress the main facts on the memory after they have been taught in the oral lesson. The task of making the past as real as the present to children whose reading and experience of the world are both small is not easy, and it can be accomplished Aids only by contrasting and comparing the past with the present. Pictures, objects, and all other aids to the imagination should be freely utilised, and if there are any historical monuments in the district the teaching should centre around them. A lesson on the ancient Britons, for instance, should centre around a cromlech, on the Romans around a camp, on the Feudal System around a castle, and on the Reformation around a ruined abbey. The judgment of the teacher will be shown as much in what he omits as in what he attempts to teach. The short time at his disposal compels him to omit very Choice of matter much, and while he cannot afford to pass over the picturesque details which make a lesson interesting, he should aim rather at exhibiting a connected view of the history of the people than incidents in the lives of kings and queens. Green in his 'Short History' devoted more space to Chaucer than to Cressy, to Caxton than to the petty strife of Yorkists and Lancastrians, to the Poor Law of Elizabeth than to her victory at Cadiz, to the Methodist Revival than to the escape of the Young Pretender,' and though a teacher of the young would not make the same selection as the writer of a book for adults, the principle of selection should be the same. The sequence of events should be clearly marked, but there is no need to teach many dates, and the few that are taught should be taught as far as Dates possible by contrast or comparison; e.g. 1215. The Great Charter. 1415. Agincourt. 1815. Waterloo. 1314. Bannockburn. 1415. Agincourt. 1588. The Spanish Armada. 1688. The Revolution. THE EDUCATION OF INFANTS Infant schools are modern HISTORY THE veriest savage teaches his offspring hunting, shooting, swimming, or whatever art may be necessary for their preservation. Hence education, in the sense of a preparation for life, is as old as the human race. And education in the sense of school instruction must be as old as the art of writing. Without education the art could not have been transmitted from generation to generation; and without education the records of the past would have become unintelligible. Even in Persia, where the boys were said to be trained only in riding, shooting with the bow, and speaking the truth, the training was given collectively in public buildings provided for the purpose. Schools for older children (or at any rate for older boys) being thus as ancient as civilisation, it is remarkable that schools for infants should be quite a modern innovation. The explanation is probably threefold: Why 1. The belief that the children of the poor need schools of any kind is itself a modern innovation. 2. For other children maternal teaching was probably considered sufficient during the period of infancy. It is sufficient if mothers have the time, the inclination, and the ability to undertake it. If time, inclination, or ability be lacking the director of the Kindergarten is the best substitute for the mother, and in any case the Kindergarten offers a better soil than the home for the growth of the social instincts. 3. Infants are incapable of receiving instruction of the kind usually given to older children. The discovery that education is not synonymous with such instruction is comparatively recent ; consequently, schools for infants are also comparatively recent. The first of which we have any account was established by Jean Frédéric Oberlin, who was for fifty-nine years (1767-1826) pastor of the Ban de la Roche. Like Chaucer's 'Good Man of Religioun 'he was poor in worldly Oberlin wealth, But riche he was in holy thought and werk. He was also a lerned man, a clerk That Cristes gospel truly wolde preche; His parischens devoutly wold he teche. And in adversité ful pacient .. Wyd was his parisch and houses fer asondur. This parish consisted of several narrow gorges lying high in the Vosges and separated from Alsace by the vast plateau The Ban de of the Champ-du-Feu. Its character is indicated la Roche by its German name, Steinthal (stone valley). The devastations of war had added to the misery induced by a rigorous climate and scanty soil; while the entire absence of roads cut the people off from the civilising influence of intercourse with the world. When Oberlin entered upon his duties there were no schools of any kind. In the days of his predecessor there had been what was called a school. A few of the Waldenbach boys and girls assembled daily in the hut of a bedridden old man who could neither read nor write, and who, rendered unfit by the infirmities of age for looking after the village pigs, had been degraded to looking after the village children. Oberlin was wonderfully prolific in schemes for the physical intellectual, moral, and economic amelioration of his flock; but his greatest hope and trust lay in the education of the young. With true insight he saw that if he Schools established could only devise plans for forming the young of one generation there would be no necessity for him to devise plans for reforming the adults of the next, and he therefore made the provision of means of education his first care. Although the manse was so ruinous that rats frolicked in his bedroom, and rain pattered on his bed, he would not hear of a new one till a school had been built in each village, and as the people were afraid of the cost he made himself personally responsible. In the winter of 1769 he heard that Sara Banzet was, on her own initiative, teaching the children of Belmont an art almost unknown in the Ban-the art of knitting. The first teachers of In order to overcome her father's objection that infants she was wasting her time, Oberlin took her into his own service, and she thus became the first of his conductrices de la tendre jeunesse. Her example was followed by others, notably by Louise Schepler, who was for sixty years the most devoted of Oberlin's fellow-workers in the cause of infant education.' Oberlin's Oberlin started with a clear perception of the ends to be attained and of the principles to be applied, but it was only by experience that he found how best to apply the principles to attain the ends. His system when perfected embraced three gradesschools for infants, schools for older children, and schools for adults. The aims of the infant school were :— school system 1. To root out bad habits. In 1829 the Académie française recognised her noble service to humanity by awarding her the Montyon grand prix de vertu. She accepted the prize, but would not accept the honour which Cuvier in his report ascribed to her of originating the idea of infant schools. That, she said, was due to Papa Oberlin alone. |