LITERARY STRUGGLES. 165 



"to his care, he hopes to merit a share of public 

 " patronage. The School will commence on Wednesday, 

 "the 30th September, 1840. 



" N.B. — Mr. G's residence is at No. 1, Retreat Cottages, 

 " Hackney:* 



The school was not quite a complete failure ; indeed, it 

 enjoyed a mitigated degree of success. Philip Gosse's 

 ideas of education were as free as his science from 

 traditional rule. But in his way of teaching there seems 

 to have been something of the freshness of his natural 

 observation. From a letter written- at this time I extract 

 a passage which is not unworthy of preservation as the 

 contribution of an unbiassed mind to the problem of 

 education : — 



14 1 am a friend to boys' getting their lessons (the 

 " mere words of them) well fixed in the memory ; I 

 " once thought it enough if the sense were secured, but 

 " on considering how little boys in general reflect on the 

 "meaning of what they learn, and how often the 

 " verbatim words stick indelibly to the memoiy in after 

 " years, I attach a great value to the mere learning of 

 '■ words — that is, learning them thoroughly (not hammer- 

 " ing and stammering, and fingering the buttonhole, with 

 " ' Stop a minute, sir ! ' 'I could say it, just now, sir ! ' 

 " and so forth) — to say nothing of the vast increase of 

 "the powers of memory, as of every other intellectual 

 " faculty, by its habitual exercise. Consider, too, how 

 "very much of school learning is a matter of mere 

 " abstract memory — conjugations, declensions, lists of 

 " heteroclites and exceptions, conjunctions, prepositions, 

 u adverbs, in grammar ; names of places, distances, and 

 " bearings, in geography ; dates in history ; tables in 

 " arithmetic ; in all which, and many others, no assist- 



