EDUCATION, AS IT IS AND A3 IT SHOULD BE. 65 



In following this advice. Phrenology will be a most effectual aid. 

 This science shows us the reason why some teachers succeed while 

 others fail, and it likewise gives us a key by which we may discover 

 the competent and discard the incompetent without any loss of time 

 or money. Philoprogenitiveness is one of the organs indispensable 

 to the teacher. Combe remarks on this organ as follows: — "The 

 natural language of the faculty is soft, tender, and endearing. It 

 is essential to a successful teacher of children. Individuals in whom 

 the organ is deficient have little sympathy with the feelings of the 

 youthful mind, and their tones and manner of communicating in- 

 struction repel, instead of engaging, the affections of the scholar. 

 This is the cause why some persons, whose manner, in intercourse 

 with their equals, is unexceptionable, are nevertheless greatly dis- 

 liked as teachers ; and children are generally in the right in their 

 antipathies, although their parents and guardians, judging by their 

 own feelings, imagine them actuated by caprice." 



Every one who has had the slightest experience in the subject 

 must feel how exquisitely true to nature is the foregoing descrip- 

 tion. Emphatically it may be said — their tones and manner of 

 communicating insti'uction repel, instead of engaging, the affections 

 of the scholar. And yet the parent sees nothing of this^ and the 

 poor pupil is obliged to toil wearily on, like the panting Hart on 

 the parched desert, with not even a patch of green to refresh the 

 aching sight. 



There are other faculties equally indispensable for a successful 

 teacher. Mr. Combe enumerates them as follows : — " Individuality, 

 Eventuality, and Concentrativeness, are indispensable qualities to a 

 good teacher. / have never seen a person capable of interesting chil- 

 dren and exciting their intellects mho was deficient in both thejirst 

 and second. The manner of a teacher thus deficient, is vague, 

 abstract, and dry, and altogether unsuited to their mental condition. 

 These three organs large, combined with large Philoprogenitive- 

 ness, Benevolence, and Conscientiousness, and an active tempera- 

 ment, constitute the leading elements of a good teacher." 



This passage agrees with my own experience. I have known a 

 teacher labouring for years, quite unsuccessfully/ to instruct several 

 pupils of excellent dispositions and good capacities, and at the end 

 they knew little more of the subjects on which so much labour and 

 trouble had been expended than at the beginning. Before I knew 

 Phrenology, I used to suppose, judging from the manner in which 

 the teacher conducted his system, that he did not in reality wish to 

 instruct, but to torment and irritate his pupils, and certainly he suc- 



VOL. VII., NO. XXI. I 



