82 EDUCATION, AS IT IS AND AS IT SHOULD BE. 



fectly, and was astonished that formerly they had been to us words 

 without meaning, which I had been taught to apply mechanically, 

 without knowing how or why." 



This passage is admirably true, and had it been adopted by teach- 

 ers as such, the pupil might then have had a chance of that which, 

 under the present system, is next to impossible — learning a foreign 

 language within a reasonable time, and that, too, with pleasure to 

 teacher and pupil. Locke, Gibbon, and Pestalozzi, have expressed 

 the same idea in language equally forcible ; and yet teachers, like 

 Horses in a mill, cannot quit their old round. Truly they are a 

 stiff-necked generation ! 



From the hasty survey which we have now taken of some of the 

 leading essentials in a sound method of education, two prominent 

 circumstances cannot fail to impress our minds : 1st. That a parti- 

 cular organization is indispensable to a successful teacher ; and 2nd. 

 That all education that is not based on Phrenology must be empiri- 

 cal and unsound. Both these facts seem to me self-evident ; butj 

 for the sake of those with whom " authority serves for reason," as 

 Locke expresses it, or, phrenologically speaking, whose Veneration is 

 unguided by Causality, I shall quote the words of various writers. 

 The master of the English department of the High School of Glas- 

 gow thus expresses himself: — "As education, properly considered, 

 aims at the proper development and regulation of man's nature ; as 

 it is, therefore, absolutely essential to a teacher's success that he 

 should have a guide to the knowledge of that nature ; and as Phre- 

 nology appears to me not only the plainest but the most satisfactory 

 guide yet discovered ; it is my decided opinion that he who teaches 

 and trains upon phrenological principles will experience a constantly 

 increasing attachment to his profession, will invariably secure the 

 affectionate esteem of his pupils, and will, as a necessary conse- 

 quence, succeed in giving them a thorough education, moral, in- 

 tellectual, and physical. I write this not in a theorizing spirit, but 

 ^from several years experience. * * In History the use of Phre- 

 nology is truly valuable. In fact, till I knew something of this 

 beautiful system of mental philosophy, / never taught History pro- 

 perly, or, 1 7nay add, anything else." This testimonial is truly va- 

 luable, and completely conclusive, coming as it does from a teacher 

 of long standing. He had a fit organization for teaching, and only 

 wanted the guide which was furnished by Phrenology. But to 

 others, as I have before mentioned. Phrenology would be of no ser- 

 vice. The telescope is necessary to enable the asti'onomer to prose- 

 cute his studies, but the telescope would be of no service to the blind 



