Fuly 28, 1870] 
NATURE 
251 
bettering the methods and ineans for communicating in- 
struction, and effecting thus an economy of time.* 
The Bavarian chemist and hygienist does not himself 
suggest any ways and means whereby this economy may 
be effected, and presumptuous though it be, we will attempt 
to supplement this deficiency by saying that such an 
economy might be effected in England and English 
schools by applying one or other or all three of the 
following lines of treatment to the classical curriculum, 
even without cutting its Greek adrift. Latin and Greek, 
to put the boldest suggestion first, might be studied 
in certain, and those not a few, cases, as literatures 
and not as philologies ; or, as a second alternative, when 
some training in philology is to be retained at what- 
ever cost, such training might be made more intelligible 
and so less distasteful and wasteful of time, by making the 
study of it comparative, as recommended by Professor 
Max Miller in his evidence before the Commission just 
referred to; or thirdly, synthetical scholarship, in the way 
of verse-making, should be considered as a luxury and 
refinement to be reserved for the delectation and cultiva- 
tion of those few who, in any age, show any aptitude for 
it, and synthetical scholarship in the way even of writing 
Latin prose might, due precautions having been taken, be 
dispensed with in the cases of youths who, whilst wholly 
incapable in that, had shown some capacity in some other 
line. Our “due precautions” should consist in the 
‘multiplying the practice of synthetical scholarship in 
the way of translation from Latin into English. We 
know the horror which these suggestions will cxcite 
in the breasts of schoolmasters of the type repre- 
sented by the gentleman who told the Commissioners 
already referred to, that if he were set to teach History in 
set lessons, he “should not know how to do it.” But we 
believe that by the adoption of any one of the three lines 
of action just glanced at, space and time might be found 
for the introduction of the natural sciences into the curri- 
culum of any public school, and that at once without injury 
to the dignity of either the one or the other of the two 
sets of studies, and without injury to the physical or 
mental health of the learners. 
But it is time, perhaps, that we should let v. Pettenkofer 
speak for himself ; and this he does (at p. 12, 7c.) to the 
following effect :—“I am convinced that philology and 
mathematics furnish precisely the material for teaching 
and intellectual discipline which is essential for our 
gymnasia, and I look upon the material furnished by 
other sciences as mere accessories. I know that in putting 
forward this view, which I do not do now for the first 
time, I put myself into opposition with the tide of opinion 
which is prevalent just at present, and which anticipates 
great advantages from the introduction of additional 
* Tt may be well here to lay an English programme of schovl-work along- 
side of the two above given schedules of German school-work. A scheme 
to the following effect may be found as suggested by the Public School Com- 
missioners, in their report, vol. i., 1264, pp. 34, 35 :— 
In un English public school of 39 hours per week— 
11 hours are to be ass*gned to Classics, History, and Divinity (lessons) 
10 i i ff rp (préparation). 
3 ” " Arithmetic and Mathematies, 7.c., not less. 
2 French and German (lessons). 
” as (preparation). 
natural science (lessons). 
Fp »» (preparation). 
music and drawing. 
composition. 
” ”» 
” ” 
” ” 
” ” 
” " 
” ” 
subjects of instruction, and especially from the introduc- 
tion of instruction in natural science into ‘ Latin schools 
(Lateinschulen) and gymnasia.’” Further on (p. 16) he 
proceeds as follows :—“ The results of actual experience 
appear to me to favour my views. In other parts of 
Germany, experiments have now, for a long while, been 
made with gymnasia and similar institutions, in which 
much natural science is taught. But I cannot as yet dis- 
cover that any remarkable number of persons who have 
subsequently distinguished themselves in natural science 
have come from these schools. In this matter reliable 
statistics of the pupils leaving (der Aditurtenten) a Berlin 
gymnasium, the so-called ‘ Old Cologne Gymnasium,’ in 
which natural science has for a long while formed part of 
the curriculum, would be very instructive. Distinguished 
men come, from time to time, from this gymnasium, but 
certainly not in greater numbers than from any other 
classical (Wumanzstischen) gymnasium where no natural 
science at all is taught. It would long ago have been 
a notorious fact if a disproportionate number of the 
younger professors of natural science in the Prussian 
Universities could have been shown to have been formerly 
students in the Cologne Gymnasium.” 
We imagine that this “ Old Cologne Gymnasium,” thus 
referred to by v. Pettenkofer, is none other than the 
“mixed” (szmzultan) school described by Mr. Matthew 
Arnold under the name of the Frtedrich Withelin’s Gym- 
nasium at Cologne, in his “Schools and Universities of 
the Continent,” pp. 218-221 ; and but that more antago- 
nism and less familiarity subsisted between North and 
South Germany six months ago than, we are happy to 
think, subsists now, we apprehend that more would have 
been made of the history of this institution by the Munich 
Professor. For Dr. Jaeger, the director of this mixed 
school, who, as he had been refused a nomination to 
another school, the Bielefeld Gymnasium, by the Edtica- 
tion Minister, on account of his politics, cannot be sus- 
pected of reactionary leanings, spoke to Mr. Arnold in 
the following sense (see p. 221, Zc.) : “ It was the universal 
conviction with those competent to form an opinion, that 
the ?ealschulen were not at present successful institu- 
tions. He declared that the boys in the corresponding 
forms of the classical school beat the Realschule boys in 
matters which both do alike, such as history, geography, 
the mother tongue, and even French, though to French 
the Realschule boys devote far more time than their com- 
rades of the classical school. The reason for this, Dr. 
Jaeger affirms, is that the classical training strengthens 
a boy’s mind so much more. This is what, as I have 
already said, the chief school authorities everywhere in 
France and Germany testify. In Switzerland you do no 
hear the same story.” 
With regard to Switzerland, we learn from the Owens 
College Report above mentioned that Professor Zeuner 
of the Polytechnic School at Zurich, holds that the estab- 
lishment of ‘ Real Gymnasia,” or High Schools of Science, 
to take equal rank with the old classical gymnasia, and 
to put pure and applied science on the same footing for 
educational purposes as that which the classics enjoy in 
these schools, is a desirable thing, but that he allows that 
by the introduction of a “bifurcation” system into the older 
schools they might be made equal to meeting all modern 
requirements. Helmholtz, on the other hand, may in the 
