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REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



last degree. Dr. Gray uses the term 

 " rival universities " because, while Ox- 

 ford and Cambridge have a Joint Certi- 

 ficate Board there is no co-operation of 

 the two Universities in worknig the or- 

 dinary locals. It requires but very little 

 thought to see that this takes away much 

 freedom for that individual expression 

 upon \\hich Dr. Gray so strongly insists. 



For a well-thought-out plan, Lord 

 Haldane would apparently advise us to 

 go to Germany as an example ; but our 

 other educationalist, Mr. Cloudesley 

 Brereton, in his " Studies in Foreign 

 Education " (Harrap), would incline us 

 more towards the French methods. Mr. 

 Brereton is a Cambridge man, a Licen- 

 cie-es-Lettres. has passed some years 

 in France and America, and as Divi- 

 sional Inspector for the London County 

 Council, he naturally lays great stress 

 upon vocational education as the prac- 

 tical need of the day. 



In his preface, Mr. Brereton says truly 

 that we cannot go to school w'ith any 

 nation, or, m other words, we cannot 

 blindly adopt the organisation or 

 methods of any of our neighbours, for 

 each nation has its own particular way 

 of dealing with its educational questions 

 as a result of long years of trial and 

 experiment ; but we can try to study and 

 understand the methods, and, above all, 

 the loving care and insight that each 

 nation lavishes on the coming genera- 

 tion. But to do this needs an expert 

 knowledge of the educational systems 

 of other countries, and in default of that 

 personal examination for w^hich so few 

 of us have the capacity and still fewer 

 the necessary time Mr. Cloudesley Brere- 

 ton here places his own expert know- 

 ledge at our service. It is at the in- 

 stance of educational experts in Eng- 

 land, and with the approbation of such 

 Frenchmen as MM. Poincare, Ribot, 

 Gautier, Liard, etc., that these " Studies " 

 have been presented to the public. 



^Mr. Brereton strongly advises us to 

 examine thoroughly the intellectual side 

 of French education, especially the cult 

 of the mother tongue and the enforce- 

 ment of moral education through reach- 

 ing the emotional side by means of the 

 intellect. At the same time he counsels 

 us to go to Germany for an illustration 

 of their methods of preparing the stu- 



dents for their vocation in life, the pre- 

 paration for a livelihood being one of 

 the specialised aims of State education. 



The English methods for the forma- 

 tion of character are approved on all 

 sides, but the system of examinations, 

 leading to over-pressure and hanging 

 like a never-lifting cloud over the Eng- 

 lish school, are too often simply an 

 audit of knowledge or a mere audit of 

 facts, for the examinations on the whole 

 are largely a matter of memory ; origin- 

 ality is too rareh^ souo"ht for or desired. 

 When a French University Professor is 

 shown an English examination paper 

 containing some ten or twelve questions, 

 he is lost in astonishment, and when he 

 is told that full marks can only be ob- 

 tained by answering them all, and that 

 but three hours are allowed for the 

 i")aper, he is dumbfounded. For in a 

 Lycee only one or two questions, would 

 be given for a three hours' composition. 



Mr. Brereton tells us how the Classics 

 are taught in Germany. He describes 

 the later movements in French secon- 

 dary education, such as the work of M. 

 Demolins and those who have followed 

 him, gives some extraordinary valuable 

 information on French rural education ; 

 a most interesting account of French 

 physical education, showing also that 

 the Swedish system, though practised in 

 the primary schools of Paris, has not 

 taken much ground elsewhere, for the 

 Swedish exercises are too often meaning- 

 less as far as ordinary purposeful ac- 

 tions are concerned, whereas the French 

 ideal appears to be that of a living being 

 in movement whose development takes 

 place, not by excessive attention first to 

 this part and then to that, but to a large 

 extent synthetically and harmoniously. 



The concluding chapter gives Mr. 

 Brereton's view of education in America. 

 His is not a book to be lightly taken up 

 'and glanced through, for it is the pro- 

 duct of some thirty years of observation 

 by an expert who here places his infor- 

 mation at the disposal of thoughtful 

 men. 



Both authors write essentially for the 

 patriotic man who desires that his coun- 

 try should have the best of everything 

 going, and for the parent, whose chil- 

 dren's interests are so entirely concerned. 



