566 Education a National Concern. 



land, all acting under the Minister of Public Instruction here, with large 

 powers over new and old endowments, and with adequate funds, composed 

 fairly, and acting under constant parliamentary and government inspection ; 

 but, above all, under the universal public eye : a wise share of co-operation 

 granted, and required from the people, in parishes, towns, counties, and pro- 

 vinces, through the public bodies most appropriate in each, this, I conceive, 

 to be the first preliminary to all real reform of a general nature in our national 

 education ; the only reform indeed which can give it a national character, 

 or leave us the hope that our posterity will enjoy a sound, universal, and 

 permanent system." 



Passing over Dr. Reid's little paper on Elementary Chemistry as a 

 branch of general instruction, which is not altogether new to us who 

 are well acquainted with his invaluable little manual, we proceed to 

 notice Mr. Baker's excellent article on the Education of the Senses, 

 as exhibited in the instruction of blind, deaf, and dumb persons. It is, 

 as the writer of these remarks thinks, the most useful among the 

 many useful articles that compose the book before him ; and what is 

 more, it indicates its author's possession of an experience and thorough 

 knowledge of sensual education, of which few besides himself can 

 boast. With the recollection of one or two articles in the Journal of 

 Education fresh upon us, and not forgetting two or three original 

 works on the same subject, we do not hesitate to express our opinion 

 most highly in favour of Mr. Baker's talents. 



Professor De Morgan's observations on the value of mathematics in 

 education are witty and satirical; but they are highly useful, inas- 

 much as they point out the real nature of the study and with what 

 views it should be pursued. In point of cleverness and originality 

 this paper bears the palm over every other in the book. It is much 

 to be regretted that we have no room for an extract from this very 

 ingenious and witty paper. The writer must be a good-natured, 

 jocose companion, as well as a mere abstract philosopher. Mr. Wit- 

 tich's paper is a very modest, but extremely satisfactory exposition of 

 the past and present condition of the elementary schools in Prussia. 

 Beginning with 1770, when Frederick the Great took the first steps 

 in improving the then wretched state of the schools throughout his 

 territories, and after showing by what means the improvements in the 

 higher classes of schools were effectuated at an earlier period than 

 the rest, the author proceeds to explain the benefits derived from the 

 benevolent and scientific exertions of Pestalozzi, who may truly be 

 called the founder of the new system of education, inasmuch as he 

 was the first to raise teaching to an art based on the knowledge of 

 human nature. This excellent man, although his principles admitted 

 of universal application, adapted them only to the training of the 

 lower classes ; but fortunately enough of good was seen to flow out 

 of his imperfectly developed plans to induce the Prussian government 

 and several Germanic princes to transplant them into their own elemen- 

 tary schools and to carry out the system to a much greater extent than 

 was practised by Pestalozzi. Since the period at which these plans 

 were introduced into Germany, a progressive improvement has taken 

 place, and although the schools are neither so numerous nor so well 

 supplied with efficient teachers as might be wished, yet the continual 

 exertions of the Prussian crovernment furnish ground for the hope 



