CIRCULAR 



What shall we teach ? And how shall we teach ? 

 These are the great educational questions of the 

 present century; but during the last few years much 

 progress has been made towards a philosophic and 

 satisfactory answer. The main question to-day 

 seems to be a question of method ; for if the innate 

 energies and activities of the child can be rightly di- 

 rected, not only all the sciences which constitute the 

 real knowledge of the nineteenth century may be well 

 learned, but much may be accomplished in our com- 

 mon schools in such arts as may have the most direct 

 bearing upon human welfare. 



It has been said and often repeated that ' ' there is 

 no royal road to learning." But is it possible that a 

 scheme of culture, empirically adopted in the dark 

 ages, is never to be superseded by a better one ? 

 Human devices are not born perfect ; but they tend 

 towards perfection by natural growth. The earth 

 through cycles of ages, passed from a fiery chaos, 

 first to an abode for hideous monsters, and then to a 

 paradise for man. Simple organisms soon reach ma- 

 turity, but complicated ones require centuries. The 

 law is the same with the devices of men. The 

 puerile nonsense of astrology grew through successive 



