Apfili"], 1876] 



NATURE 



529 



able obstacle, though it is none to a father who is able to 

 provide for the other wants of his son until the latter 

 reaches the age of seventeen or eighteen years. 



A Dutchman who boasted greatly of the system which j 

 his country has adopted, and to whom I remarked that it ' 

 might be objected that in virtue of the system it was not 

 himself but the taxpayers who paid for the education of 

 his children, replied eagerly : " But am I not myself a ; 

 taxpayer ? Does not the system which we have adopted 

 come simply to this, that instead of my being compelled j 

 to pay for the education of my children in a few years j 

 under the form of very heavy school-fees, the law allows j 

 me thirty or forty years in whic^ to pay it under the form j 

 of a tax ? As for myself personally, it matters very little, j 

 but look at my neighbour, whose three sons are being 

 educated at the Higher School. Change the system ; his 

 taxes would perhaps be lessened by twenty florins, but, on 

 the other hand, the school fees would reach so high a 

 figure that he could not meet them. The case of my 

 neighbour is not an exceptional one ; it is the case of 

 at least one-half of the parents who send their children to 

 the Higher Schools. Of 100 pupils who are now attend- 

 ing these establishments there would remain scarcely 

 one-half, and it would consequently be necessary to raise 

 to 35/. the fees to be paid by each of them ; this figure 

 speaks more than aU the arguments put together." 



If in defence of a new order of things it is only neces- 

 sary to urge the argument of success, it must be confessed 

 that the advocates of the Higher Middle Schools of Hol- 

 land do not require to urge any others. By universal 

 consent the success has surpassed all expectation ; it has 

 been complete. Yet whoever knows human nature will 

 not be astonished to find that these schools, simply because 

 of their success, are still the object of much criticism par- 

 ticularly among the Clergj-men and Scholars of the country. 

 I should have wished to learn from M. Thorbecke, him- 

 self a very distinguished scholar, what he thought of these 

 criticisms. That statesman, however, being dead, I applied 

 to one of his former colleagues in Leyden University, 

 whose advice M. Thorbecke to a large extent followed at 

 the time when he was occupied in drawing up his scheme 

 of superior education, I will give you a summary of our 

 conversation. Having asked if it was not a mistake to 

 found a system of education which had not Greek and 

 Latin as its basis, he replied as follows : — 



"Allow me to observe to you that our Middle Schools 

 are not intended to produce scholars, orators, statesmen. 

 For these there are the Gymnasium and the University. 

 Has it moreover been thoroughly proved that the pro- 

 found study of a modem foreign language cannot, as 

 mental gymnastics, take the place of the study of a 

 dead language ? I could name to you members of our 

 parliament who have never given any attention to Greek 

 and Latin, and yet who, as orators, are on a par with the 

 most eloquent of their colleagues. The Greeks are repre- 

 sented as having left to us in hterature and in philosophy 

 monuments of a perfection such as modem writers can 

 never equal. Yet the Greeks studied no dead language 

 that I know of. Besides what would it serve, in the 

 matter of education, to make a theoretically perfect 

 law, when the mass of the public would condemn 

 it ? If there [is one idea strongly rooted in the mind 

 of our middle classes, it is the conxuction that Greek 

 and Latin are perfectly useless to anyone who has not 

 to pass through the University. It was daring enough to 

 give so large a place in our new schools to the mathe- 

 matical and physical sciences, to v/hich our bourgeoisie 

 had hitherto given so little attention. To go further and 

 compel this class of people to study in addition Greek 

 and Latin, would have been wantonly to court an inevit- 

 able defeat." 



I next ventured to point out that the programme is 

 overloaded. 



" Overloaded ? " rephed he, " From whom have you got 



this accusation ? From men who pass their time in their 

 study ? Speak a little %vith our manufacturers and our 

 merchants, and they will give you quite another version 

 of the matter." 



"It is not said that useless subjects are taught," I went 

 on to add ; " it is urged only that too many things are 

 taught at once, that the mind of the pupil cannot take 

 them in, and that in the end his intellect will be ener- 

 vated," 



" I understand how this objection could have been 

 urged in 1862 and 1863, during the discussion of the law, 

 when experience had not yet pronounced ; but now I — 

 at the present time our merchants, who formerly main- 

 tained that a man of business has nothing to do with 

 science, that it was rather an embarrassment than other- 

 wise, now receive with open arms any young man having 

 no other recommendation than that of having studied in 

 one of our schools ; they will tell you, moreover, that at 

 the end of five or six weeks the new-comer is more useful 

 to them than the majority of their old employes, grown 

 gray in harness. There is more to come ; it happens 

 that some pupils of the Middle Schools, having acquired 

 a taste for the mathematical and physical sciences, wish 

 to complete their education at the University, Well, 

 they almost always surpass those of their companions 

 who come from the Gymnasia, Confess that all this 

 is very difficult to explain if it be true that in the 

 new schools the mind of the pupil is enervated and 

 atrophied," 



Our conversation then went on as follows : — 



" You maintain then, that in your new schools, every- 

 thing is for the best ? " 



" Pardon ! I believe, on the contrary, that there is 

 room for reform. It cannot be denied that the mediocre 

 pupils have great difficulty in learning all that is taught 

 them in the first three forms. Instead of three years, they 

 would require four. The entire course ought to be six 

 years." 



" But why at the first did you not fix the course at six 

 years ? " 



" Because we old-fashioned Dutch, like all the rest 

 of the world, have our characteristic faults. We are 

 a people essentially economical, but unfortunately we are 

 too anxious that our children should begin early to earn 

 money. It was a great point gained, even, to fix the 

 course at five years. What an outcr>' would there have 

 been had we taken a year more. Besides we had not 

 then the experience that we have now." 



"It will then be necessary to modify the law ? " 



" Yes, but gradually. There are some members of our 

 Chambers who think it will suffice to cut out firom the pro- 

 gramme the subjects which are called superfluous, I 

 believe it will be well not to oppose this opinion. Let 

 us commence by setting these members to work. That 

 which will be superfluous in the eyes of some will be 

 quite indispensable in the estimation of others. Moreover, 

 they cannot touch either the mathematical and physical 

 sciences or language, and if they end by cutting out any- 

 thing, a thing which appears to me very problematical, it 

 will be of so little importance as to make scarcely any 

 difference. It will only be when the insufficiency of all 

 these palliatives has been well established that the time will 

 have arrived to apply the remedy that I have indicated to 

 you," 



" You believe, then, that if we should decide in Eng- 

 land to establish schools of a kind similar to your Higher 

 Middle Schools, it would be necessary to have a course 

 of six years ? " 



" I do not venture to assert this. You are under better 

 conditions than we are. Our children must, beside their 

 mother tongue, learn three foreign languages — English, 

 French, and German ; yours have only to learn French 

 and German, This is a very important point," 



" Allow me to ask you one more question. It is urged 



