MANUAL INSTRUCTION. 331 



connected with Elementary Education in Germany, Switzerland, and 

 France," points out that in German elementary schools there is a " fuller 

 programme " and a " higher state of instruction " than in ours. He 

 takes Hamburg, as a good typical case, and he tells us that " the weekly 

 number of hours for a Hamburg child, between the ages of ten and 

 fourteen, is, as I have said, thirty-two ; with us, under the Code, for a 

 child of that age, it is twenty." And then, or I should rather say " but 

 then," " the Hamburg children have, as the obligatory matters of their 

 instruction, religion, German, English, history, geography, natural his- 

 tory, natural philosophy, arithmetic and algebra, geometry, writing, 

 drawing, singing, and gymnastics, thirteen matters in all." In one of 

 our schools under the Code, the obligatory subjects are " three — Eng- 

 lish, writing, and arithmetic. Of the optional matters, they generally 

 take, in fact, four, singing and geography ; . . . and as specific sub- 

 jects, say, algebra and physiology, or French and physiology. This 

 makes in all, for their school-week of twenty hours, seven matters of 

 instruction." As a matter of fact, I have shown that comparatively 

 few children are presented in any specific subject. But even if two are 

 taken, this would only bring up the subjects to half those included in 

 the ordinary German course. Mr. Arnold " often asked himself " why, 

 with such long hours, and so many subjects, the children had "so little 

 look of exhaustion or fatigue, and the answer I could not help making 

 to myself was, that the cause lay in the children being taught less 

 mechanically and more naturally than with us, and being more inter- 

 ested.'''' 



I feel sure there is a great deal in this ; variety in mental food is 

 as important as in bodily food, and our children are often tired simply 

 because they are bored. 



As to expense, it is really ignorance and not education which is ex- 

 pensive. 



But then we hear a great deal about over-education. We need not 

 fear over-education ; but I do think we suffer much from misdirected 

 education. Our schoolmasters too often seem to act as if all children 

 were going to be schoolmasters themselves. 



It is true that more attention is now given to drawing in some 

 schools ; and this is certainly a matter of very great importance, but 

 some changes must be made in the Code before that development can 

 be made which we should all wish to see. Manual work in boys' 

 schools seems to be exactly parallel with, and in every way analogous 

 to, that of needlework in girls' schools, and I am inclined to agree 

 with Sir P. Magnus that the value of the one kind of teaching should 

 be as fully recognized and assisted by the state as that of the other. 

 Why could they not introduce carpentering or something of that sort, 

 which would exercise the hands of the boys as well as their heads ? 

 I have myself tried an experiment in a small way in the matter of 

 cobblery, and although the boys did not make such progress as to be 



