6 Middle-Class Education. 



A good education may be limited in its range, and yet be 

 good of its kind. A good English education should of course 

 include grammar, correct spelling, geography ; also somewhat 

 of ancient and modern history ; some say entirely modern history ; 

 but this is a mistake. History, it is said, repeats itself ; so that 

 an insight into the leading events and causes in times long past 

 may throw some light upon the present, and even the future. 

 But we cannot cast as impartial an eye on modern, as on ancient 

 history ; modern politics would certainly be introduced to some 

 extent ; and it would scarcely do to discuss a living Prime 

 Minister's principles in a boys' school. 



A boy should be able to read a page of a good author without 

 stumbling, sniffling, or singing ; to write a page correctly from 

 dictation ; to state and calculate without hesitation or mistake any 

 ordinary question in arithmetic. He should know the principles 

 of book-keeping, and the changes between the Dr. and Cr. side 

 which so frequently occur in the entries which relate to various 

 articles in a set of books. 



In all pursuits a knowledge of principles is everythinrj ; and 

 the mere unintelligent copying of printed forms is almost value- 

 less. A youth intended to be a farmer should decidedly be kept 

 to his arithmetic and mathematics as a task until he can measure 

 a field, or any other ordinary surface or solid. It may be said 

 that if a knowledge of pure mathematics be obtained, it may 

 be applied when a man pleases. To this I would say, he may 

 probably never please to practise after leaving school unless he 

 practised at it. Moreover, a distinction between theory and 

 practice exists everywhere, and few University men — who have 

 pursued pure mathematics to a mvich greater length than boys 

 could be expected to do — are able to survey land ; nor could 

 they keep the field-book, without practice, where any extent had 

 to be surveyed. 



Drawing might be practised in connexion with mathematics, 

 and the study of machinery. The drawing of a steam-engine, 

 for instance, on a larger or smaller scale than the design given 

 to work from, is a very good exercise. After practice of this 

 kind, a plain examination of an engine when in rest and at work, 

 with a teacher to describe everything, soon makes any one 

 acquainted with the whole construction, working, and use of the 

 various parts. 



It is well for a young farmer to comprehend the simple me- 

 chanical powers, such as the lever, screw, &c., but not to devote 

 much of his time to such subjects as suit the professional 

 engineer — the construction of docks, sea-walls, embankments for 

 rivers, reservoirs, canals, railway levelling, the construction of 

 railways or roads, the building of bridges, c^c. 



With respect to Classics being taught or not at Agricultural 



