396 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



is no use to go on with the enumeration of Schiller's lighter pieces, and the 

 songs of Burger, Herder, and other votaries of the German muse. Suffice it 

 here to say, that this is a very good selection. 



The songs of Germany are really poetry. Can an equal compliment be paid 

 to those of England, France, and Italy ? Surely not. 



We hope that the encouragement with which this elegantly accoutred little 

 volume has met from his many titled friends and true will induce its learned 

 and very amiable compiler to proceed cheerfully in his work. 



Report and Prize- list of the Edinburgh Academy for 1836. Svo. 



pp. 39. BLACK. 



WITHIN the last twenty years, a great improvement has taken place in the 

 system of school- education. In our own school-boy days the public schools 

 of this country, proceeded on mere routine and were properly called grammar- 

 schools ; as grammar, dead formal grammar of dead languages, formed the 

 alpha and omega of the instruction. Happy the youth who after undergoing 

 the wholesome discipline of birch and grammar for eight or nine years, was 

 able to read and understand the beauties of a classic author. Every thing 

 else in these schools was looked on with supreme contempt. The plans of such 

 schools are now altered not before they had become the object of ridicule to 

 all intelligent men : but, never mind, they are altered and for the better. 

 Boys are not stuffed with grammar, like turkeys with meal, and it is not 

 thought necessary to keep a poor wight one or two years poring over his 

 grammar, ere he is called to construe a book in Latin. It is not now the 

 rule to make all boys invariably Latin poets, nor to make them recite Latin 

 poetry without understanding it. Better plans are now adopted : the 

 students' faculties are called into operation, they are no longer treated as ma- 

 chines, but as thinking beings capable of intellectual training. The principles 

 of grammar are now taught as well as its forms, and a mass of illustration is 

 presented by the contemporaneous reading of classical writers under the su- 

 perintendence of an intelligent teacher. Besides this, Latin and Greek do not 

 now monopolize the students' time in our public schools. Eton, Winchester, 

 Charter-house, and St. Paul's, are we believe the only places that retain the 

 old prejudices in favour of exclusive classical instruction. Harrow, Rugby, 

 Shrewsbury, and Westminster, have conceded to the general demand for gene- 

 ral instruction ; and in these and other foundation schools, History, Geogra- 

 phy, Arithmetic, and Mathematics, take their turn with Greek and Latin. In 

 some, even French is taught, and in one or two instances, we have heard of 

 German. This is as it should be. We do not join in the cry of the ultra- 

 reformers, who would sink the classics altogether ; we know that such studies 

 have a tendency to form a correctly-thinking mind and have a great influence 

 in forming a literary taste, and therefore we should not wish to see them 

 abandoned, nor do we wish the higher orders of instructors to succumb to the 

 fancies of radical educationists. Let there be a fair mingling of classical and 

 general instruction : let the dead languages hold an important station ; but at 

 the same time, let a fair allotment of time be devoted to what is usually con- 

 sidered as belonging to general education Geography, History, and the pure 

 and mixed sciences. 



It is because we think that the great requisites of a good curriculum of 

 school-training are combined in the Edinburgh Academy, that we submit the 

 following abstract from the Rector's report to the notice of our readers. At 

 the same time we do not mean to insinuate that this establishment is better 

 conducted than any south of the Tweed, though we fully concede to it the 

 honour of being one of the very best conducted of the three kingdoms. Those 

 of our readers who are parents will be interested by the perusal of the report, 

 which proceeds as follows : 



" I still hold that the intellectual powers are best called into action, and 

 strengthened, by a careful cultivation of the sciences of Number, Geometry, 



