NA TURE 



549 



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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1879 



EDUCA TION 

 Education, its Principles and Practice, as Developed by 

 George Cornie, Author of " T/ie Constitution of Man." 

 Collated and Edited by William Jolly, H.M. Inspector 

 of Schools. (London : Macmillan and Co., 1879.) 

 HIS book appears at an opportune moment. Inquiries 

 into the philosophy of education are attracting 

 increased attention among teachers, and the universities 

 are taking measures with a view to bring to light the best 

 rules for school teaching, and the principles which 

 I underlie those rules. In these circumstances, the laborious 

 i editor of this vo'ume has done a public service, in placing 

 on permanent record and in a modern form, the principal 

 writings of one of the most original thinkers and earnest 

 workers in the department of educational reform. But 

 for such an enterprise, the speculations of Combe, many 

 of which originally appeared in a fugitive form, or in 

 books which arc now well-nigh forgotten, would have 

 remained unknown to the present generation ; although 

 'jme at least of his teaching is as much needed now as 

 lialf a century ago, when it first appeared. 



George Combe was born in 1788, and the seventy years 

 of his life coincided with the period in which the national 

 conscience became awakened to the necessity for public 

 instruction ; and in which occurred the principal experi- 

 ments and controversies that have slowly shaped our 

 present national system. His attention was very early 

 directed to the defects, both in the supply of means for 

 education and in the character and quality of such educa- 

 tion as was then accessible to the people. A large part 

 of his life was devoted to the exposition and propagation 

 "f his views on these subjects. Those views may be thus 

 riefly summarised: — (i) A true science of education 

 hould be based on a knowledge of physiology and of 

 icntal philosophy. (2) School teaching should be mainly 

 directed to the training of faculties, with special reference 

 to the actual pursuits and duties of life. (3) Hence the 

 "udy of our own physical constitution, of the phenomena 

 : nature, and of the economic and social laws which 

 ovcrn the happiness of communities, ought to supersede 

 iiany of the subjects included in the ordinary school 

 routine, much of which he regarded as mere verbiage and 

 as very sterile of intellectual result. (4) While increased 

 attention ought to be given in schools to ethics and 

 religion, in so far as they are deducible from the laws of 

 our own well-being and that of society, the public school 

 ought not to concern itself with dogmatic theology in any 

 form. (5) Special efforts ought to be made to train girls, 

 nth to a stronger interest in intellectual pursuits, and to 

 I better understanding of the laws of health and the 

 right way of training young children. (6) A true know- 

 ledge of the science of mind for the purposes of education 

 is to be obtained only through phrenology; and the study 

 of this subject is not only indispensable to the teacher 

 and the parent, as the guide to right training ; but should 

 also be introduced into the curriculum of the school 

 itself. 



These cardinal doctrines were set forth by Combe in 

 his larger works on Phrenology, and on the Constitution 

 r Man ; in numerous pamphlets and contributions to 

 VoT,. XX. — No. 519 



periodicals ; as well as in lectures delivered in many 

 places, both in England and America. His writings are 

 characterised by clearness, and by considerable wealth 

 and variety of illustration ; and by the unadorned and 

 forcible style which comes rather from strong conviction 

 and definite purpose than from conscious literary effort. 



To bring together from many books, tracts, and reports 

 of lectures a coherent statement of Combe's teaching was 

 a difficult task. And in one respect his present editor 

 has succeeded. Mr. Jolly is in full sympathy with his 

 author, and has diligently studied his writings. He has 

 acquainted himself with the collateral history of the chief 

 movements in which Combe took part, and has brought 

 down the record both of his achievements and of their 

 results to the latest period. As one of the most energetic 

 and thoughtful of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, 

 and as a careful student both of the history and of the 

 philosophy of the pedagogic art, Mr. Jolly possesses 

 some exxeptional qualifications for the task he has under- 

 taken. 



Yet, although the book is complete and exhaustive, and 

 is logically arranged, it cannot be said to have been skil- 

 fully or artistically edited. Combe's life was spent in a 

 sort of missionary work, in expounding and enforcing to 

 very different audiences, and with varied illustrations, a 

 few principles which he held to be of paramount import- 

 ance. It was inevitable that he should repeat what was 

 substantially the same thing many times. One might 

 have expected that an editor would select from the 

 voluminous material before him the most effective state- 

 ment of each of Combe's doctrines, and present them in 

 a concise form likely to attract a modern reader. But 

 Mr. Jolly has preferred to bring together lengthy extracts, 

 and to produce a huge amorphous volume of 800 pages, 

 with manifold reiteration of the same facts and specula- 

 tions in every variety of form. The book is filled with 

 cross-references, and furnishes quite a curious study of 

 the mode in which a limited number of ideas and facts 

 admit of being stated and restated, combined and recom- 

 bined, looked at from all sides, and made to occupy the 

 maximum of space. All Mr. Jolly's reminiscences and 

 illustrations seem to revolve round the three or four 

 eminent men, who have more or less adopted Combe's 

 views, and the little group of secular schools— of which it 

 seems that very few now survive — in which those views 

 were most fully carried out. And the repeated reference 

 to the same names becomes after a time not a little weari- 

 some even to the most patient and sympathetic reader. 



The book will enable this generation to estimate with 

 tolerable accuracy Combe's true place in the history of 

 education. On the need of scientific instruction, and of 

 training the observant and reasoning powers by the study 

 of natural phenomena, his teaching was much in advance 

 of his own age. His vindication of the importance of 

 some acquaintance with the structure and functions of 

 our own bodies, and with the constitution of man and of 

 society ; and especially his demand that the laws affecting 

 wages and capital, and the conditions of industrial success 

 should be taught to children are sound and far-seeing and 

 even now await fuller public recognition. The scant 

 acceptance these doctrines have received from the pro- 

 moters of pubhc education is largely owing to the use of 

 the word "secular" in connection with Combe and his 



