Till NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



could be learned, Prof. Levi, the eminent statistical and politico- 

 economic writer, stated "that a boy could make the same progress 

 in arithmetic taught according to the metric system in ten months as 

 would, according to the existing method, take him two years and ten 

 months to accomplish." 



The Old and the New Systems of Education. A year or two since 

 a Parliamentary Commission was appointed in England, to inquire 

 into the management of certain leading colleges and schools, and es- 

 pecially in regard to the studies pursued and the instruction given 

 therein. In prosecuting these investigations, the Commission were 

 naturallv led to devote considerable attention to the relations and in- 



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trinsic worth of the two great educational methods of the present day, 

 the linguistic and the scientific, and for the purpose of obtaining 

 the requisite information, they invited the testimony of many of the most 

 prominent educators in the kingdom. The testimony of these gentle- 

 men is given in the Appendix of the Report of the Commission recently 

 published, and from it, we derive the following interesting summary. 

 The grounds taken by the advocates of an extended classical educa- 

 tion, are well represented in the following answer given by the Rev. 

 F. Temple, master of the famous Rugby School, in reply to a question 

 of the Commission : 



Question " As in your judgment the opinion of a first-rate scienti- 

 fic man, who is not a first-rate man in classical attainments, deprecia- 

 tory of the disciplinary value of classical attainments, is not of very 

 high value, so would you think that the opinion of a first-rate classi- 

 cal scholar not having the same rank scientifically and tending to de- 

 preciate the disciplinary value of scientific attainment was also not of 

 very great value ? " 



Answer " No ; I do not think it would be in the same degree at 

 all, because it is essentially a part of the one kind of study to know 

 human nature, and it is not a part of the other. The one is naturally 

 led to the study of man, and to the study, therefore, of what is good 

 for the discipline of the mind; the other has not studied man, but 

 things, and it is not his business to know what is good for the disci- 

 pline of the mind. The study of the philosophy of the question comes 

 properly within the sphere of one man's science, but not properly 

 within the sphere of the other man's science." 



Among the scientists whose testimony was taken, were Profs. 

 Faraday, Owen, Sir Charles Lyell, Dr. Carpenter (the well-known 

 author of several works on anatomy, physiology, and the micro- 

 scope), and others. Their testimony is clear, decided, and very con- 

 vincing. Differing on some minor points, they united in asserting 

 that the sin of the public schools is, that although the great majority 



