112 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Classical studies are still determinedly 

 urged on the ground that they aiford 

 the best possible training of the mind. 

 It must not be inferred from this 

 that the truth fails to make headway. 

 There are plenty of signs that this old 

 pretense is becoming more and more 

 rated at what it is actually worth. 

 Books on education now treat the sub- 

 ject very differently from what they did 

 twenty years ago, and one of the ob- 

 jects of Mr. Bain in the important work 

 he is now preparing on Education as 

 a Science, is to bring modern psycholo- 

 gy to bear upon this doctrine of disci- 

 pline, to expose its fallacies, and place 

 it upon a more rational basis. The 

 London Times^ that steady-going organ 

 of British conservatism, which never 

 moves forward except as it is moved by 

 the progress of public opinion, is begin- 

 ning to yield on this question. It turns 

 from the English universities to the 

 British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, and eulogizes its edu- 

 cational influence, making, at the same 

 time, the important concession that 

 " Physical science affords an admirable 

 means of mental training in schools." 

 There is certamly nothing new in the 

 proposition, and it is no more true than 

 before because the Times has indorsed 

 it ; but the declaration is a significant 

 index of the progress of educational 

 ideas. 



Another pertinent illustration of the 

 active spread of rational views upon 

 this subject is at hand. Scrihner''s 

 Monthly for September had an excel- 

 lent article on the waste of effort in 

 education, taking the ground of Spencer 

 in his book, that it is still the college 

 rule to sacriiice the useful to the orna- 

 mental in cultivating the minds of youth. 

 The views of the writer are decided, 

 but he seems to be a good deal discour- 

 aged in regard to the hope or prospect 

 of much amendment. He says: "Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer's views of education, 

 as contained in his book on that sub- 

 ject, now for some years before the 



public, ought by this time to have made 

 some impression, and worked out some 

 practical result. We fear, however, 

 that it has accomplished little beyond 

 giving to a wise man, or woman, here 

 or there, a shocking glimpse into the 

 hollowness of our time-honored educa- 

 tional systems." This fear is hardly 

 well grounded. The exposure of the 

 defects of the existing systems of edu- 

 cation is but a small part of the service 

 to society done by Mr. Spencer in the 

 preparation of his work. Its main and 

 eminent value is in the principles it lays 

 down for the shaping of better methods 

 of culture. Its chief value is in point- 

 ing out the way to essentially improve 

 methods of study. This is strikingly 

 shown by the fact that the book has 

 been translated into the different lan- 

 guages of Europe, in nearly all cases 

 either by or at the instance of men who 

 have been officially engaged in the work 

 of forming and carrying out systems of 

 public education. 



There was lately published in Lon- 

 don an expensive, two-volume work, 

 entitled, " Twenty Years' Eesidence 

 among the People of Turkey : Bulga- 

 rians, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, and 

 Armenians, By a Consul's Daughter." 

 The Messrs. Harper have republished 

 this very instructive work at fifteen 

 cents, and so we bought it and read it. 

 Chapter XIX. is devoted to education 

 among the Greeks and Bulgarians, and 

 it is very interesting. After noticing 

 some of the girls' schools, she proceeds 

 to describe an /institution, the marked 

 superiority of which so surprised and 

 interested her that she gives a very 

 full account of it, from which we ex- 

 tract the following : 



" I also visited another Greek school at 

 Salonica, wliich was under the direction of 

 a Greek gentleman educated in Germany, 

 who has designed a new educational system, 

 which, having had a fair trial, will eventu- 

 ally be adopted in all the educational estab- 

 lishments of the Greeks. The origin of the 

 institution does not date further back than 

 two years, and of all the schools I have 



