1438 
‘“HISTORICAL STUDIES OF EDUCATIONAL OPINION 
FROM THE RENAISSANCE.” 
(Professor S. S. Lawrie.) 
By GEO. A. WOOD, B.A. 
This paper was an atiempt to trace back, by the aid of the 
book under review, some of the springs of educational theory 
which have contributed, or are contributing to the main body of 
our current educational notions. Before the discussion of each 
period in detail, reference was made to the closeness with which 
the changes in thought concerning education are parallelled by 
the great changes in philosophic outlook and temper which 
have, from time to time, taken place over England, and Europe 
in general. 
Professor Lawrie’s estimate of the strength and weakness of 
the educational ideals and practice of the ‘‘ Renaissance’ was 
first presented. Although in general the ‘‘ Renaissance’’ was 
essentially an epoch of humanizing influence, yet its legacy to 
education, apart from the many schools it called into being, and 
the recognition it secured for the desirability of education, was in 
the main the dull mechanical exercise of grammar and construing, 
and this held sole sway in many places, even as late as 1860. 
The fires of ‘‘ Renaissance ’’ enthusiasm for things of the mind, 
as fostered by the literature of Greece and Rome, gradually 
cooled, and in dying, left merely the ashes of grammar, and the 
mechanical rules of verse, as the main theme of education. 
The bookishness, brutality and incapacity, which this state of 
affairs fostered, came in for disparagement in the early critical 
contributious of Elyot, Ascham, and Mulcaster, in England, and 
by Rabelais and Montaigne, on the Continent. Even so tar back, 
Muleaster and Montaigne gave expression to ideas which the 
Nineteenth century but tardily recognised—the need of scientific 
method in instruction, and the fact that the younger the pupil 
the greater need is there of skill in the teacher. 
What Professor Lawrie marks as a second period, dates roughly 
from 1600, and one of the distinctive marks of the work of 
reformers coming under this period, is the demand they make for 
greater width and range ot subject,in short for ‘‘ Encyclopzdism,”’ 
This was the natural reaction against the narrow bookishness 
and ‘scholastic grossness”’ of the previous period. Such 
