NA TURE 



[November 3, i! 



marriages, and of sons who had four or more brothers or sisters, 

 and found that : — 



Children per Sons to loo 



marriage. Daughters. Sterile. 



191 only sons 4"09 ll6sons 8-4 per cent. 



265 sons of ordinary families 3*8 97 sons l8'5 ,, 



500 sons of large families.. 3'8 no sons I2"4 ,, 



These results point rather to the conclusion that could have 

 been surmised : only sons being usually better off, have no 

 reason to restrict the size of their families, as is so often neces- 

 sary where a fortune has to be divided among many, and hence 

 they have larger families. 



Adding the three separate parental classes together, we 

 have : — 



Sons 10 100 

 Sons. D.->ughters. Total. Per marr. Daughters. 

 434 F. and M. only 



children ... ... 912 776 16SS 3S9 117 



265 F. and M. ordi- 



families 514 52S 1042 39 97 



750 F. and M. large 



families 1558 1424 29S2 3-98 109 



5712 

 Which shows that the number of children per marriage is so 

 nearly similar that with a larger number of marriages to deal 

 with they would probably be the .same. Comparing the figures 

 in the last column brings forth the most curious result of the in- 

 vestigation, that the marriages of members of ordinary sized 

 families have a smaller proportion of sons to daughters than in 

 the case of the other marriages. 



The size of the families of the various classes dealt with may 

 prove of interest, although nothing of great importance can ap- 

 parently be drawn from the figures. The table contains the 

 percentage of children per hundred marriages :^ 



Number of family. Sterile. 



o 1,2 3.4 5, 6 7, 8 9&over. 

 Marriages of — 



Only female child ... 11 26 26 24 9 4 



Only male 9 30 25 15 12 9 



Ordinary 18 19 24 18 n 10 



Daughter of large families 14 23 16 19 12 14 



Son of large families ... 12 26 25 18 10 8 



Total 64 123 117 95 54 42 



Average 12-3 102 97 8 45 35 



And, now, what are the final results to be drawn fi-om the 

 foregoing analysis? That, as a matter of fact, there is in no 

 case a difference of sufiicient magnitude to enable us to say that 

 the feitility of either male or female in the human race is in any 

 way correlated to the fertility of their fathers or mothers, and 

 a fortiori correlated to the fertility of their grandparents. 



Churchfield, Edgbaston. F. Howark Collins. 



" A Short History of Scientific Education." 

 In Sir Norman Lockyer's address, under the above title, re- 

 printed in Nati'RE of October 13, he is reported to have said : 

 " Before the Reformation the universities were priestly institu- 

 tions, and derived their authority from the Popes. The uni- 

 versities were for the few ; the education of the people, e.xcept 

 in the various crafts, was unprovided for. The idea of a general 

 education in secular subjects at the e.xpense of the State or of 

 communities is coeval with the Reformation. In Germany, 

 even before the time of Luther, it was undreamt of, or rather, 

 perhaps, one should say, the question was decided in the 

 negative." ..." With the Reformation this idea spread to 

 France." 



The whole p.-is.sage seems to have been taken from that 

 travesty of "The History of Pedagogy" compiled by Dr. 

 Gabriel Compayre (compare pp. 114-115 and 120), and it is 

 unfortunate that Sir Norman Lockyer should have followed so 

 untrustworthy a guide. 



For the statements contained in the above-quoted sentences 

 are in direct opposition to the facts as ascertained by the best 

 authorities in the matter. It is quite true that education owes 

 much to the bishops and monks of the centuries before the 

 Reformation, for it was in the episcopal seminaries, which 

 formed a part of the bishop's own household, and in the great 

 monastic schools, such as those of Cluny, Bee, St. Gall, and 



NO. 1514, VOL. 59] 



numerous others, ihal the torch of learning was kept alight in 

 the troublous times when the laity were mostly fighting to resist 

 the incursions of barbarians, or warring one with the other. 



The priestly influence was therefore an influence for good. 

 More than this, such Popes as Innocent III., llonorius IIL, 

 Benedict XII., Gregory I.\., Urban I\'., to name no others, ' 

 deserve the gratitude of mankind of all ages for their persevering 

 efforts to improve the state of learning in the schools and tmi- 

 versilies of their times. Sir Norman Lockyer tells us that the 

 " universities were for the few." How is this statenwnt to be 

 reconciled with the fact that students flocked to the universities 

 in the days before the Reformation in multitudes so great, that 

 we find it reported, that in the thirteenth century some ten 

 thousand scholars attended the classes of the University of 

 Bologna at one time, with another forty thousand at Paris, and 

 thirty thousand at O.sford, while at Bordeaux a single college 

 boasted of upwards of two thousand scholars. Even allowing 

 that the numbers are exaggerated, it is indisputable that in this 

 century the universities were crowded with students. Nor were 

 these scholars all clerics, nor yet the sons of the nobles and 

 well-to-do citizens, but mostly poor men — a scholar and a poor 

 man being almost synonymous terms. Does not our own Chaucer 

 describe the Clerk of Oxenford as " full hollow and threadbare ? " ■ 

 And this, too, at a period when printed books were either 

 altogether wanting or were a rarity. The number of universities 

 founded in Europe in pre-Reformation days has been reckoned 

 as sixty-six. 



And what is true of universities is true also of elementary and 

 grammar schools. In this connection, the first essay of John Charles 

 Tarver's collection, " Debateable Claims,"' is worth referring to. 

 " Fifty years ago," he writes, " the Reformation was popularly 

 regarded as the very first beginning of enlightenment. Up to 

 that time a crass and brutish ignorance was supposed to have 

 prevailed . . . Since the middle of this century this view of 

 our history has been considerably modified . . . IIow were the 

 middle classes taught before the Reformation ? The p<3pular 

 view is that they were not taught at all till Henry VIII. and 

 his children, especially Edward VI., reserved something from 

 the spoils of the Church endowments for grammar schools. A 

 more enlightened view holds that incidentally the tnonasteries 

 themselves were teaching establishments, and especially that the 

 friars were not only preachers, but teachers . . . we should 

 hardly have expected to find that the period of the Reformation 

 was a period of indifference to schools ; it was more than that, 

 it was a period when schools were suppressed " And further on s 

 " Again, the Reformation in its later .stages was distinctly an 

 upheaval of ignorance : the value of the old methods of teaching 

 was not understood ; ' the baser sort,' armed with the text of 

 the Bible, thought all other learning superfluous •. they regarded 

 it, as classical learning is regarded by the scientific smatterer of 

 to-day, as antiquated and superstitious. In Germany, .according^ 

 to Dr. Scherer, this attitude of mind contributed to the Counter 

 reformation ; for contempt of learning having destroyed the; 

 teachers, when in the fulness of time the want of them was felt, 

 the Jesuits were ready to take their place." In Mr. Leach'i 

 " English Schools at the Reformation," we learn that in England] 

 about the year 1546 there was one grammar .school for every 

 8000 people, instead of one for every 23,000, as was the case in 

 1865; so that, at least in England, it is not correct to state 

 " that the education of the people was unprovided for." 



And what is true of England is true of other countries. As 

 a set-off to the reference made by Sir Nornian Lockyer to 

 Luther's laudable endeavours in the cause of free education for 

 the people, let us take the following quot.-uion from a decree 

 drawn up in the days of the .-Vnglo-Saxons. " Mass-priests 

 shall always have in their houses a school of learners ; and if 

 any good man will trust his little ones to them for lore, they shall 

 right gladly receive and kindly teach them. . . . They shall 

 not, however, for such lore, demand anything t>f the parents, 

 besides that which the latter may give of their own will." This 

 decree first appears in the Council of A'aison, and re-appears in 

 the acts of several Councils of England, France, and Italy : for 

 instance, in the Carlovingian Council of Orleans, and in the 

 Constitutions of Vercelli. The request of the States General of 

 Orleans in 1560 to Francis II., quoted by Sir Nomian Lockyer, 

 is therefore nothing new in the matter of free education. In 

 addition to the Constitutions. >f \'ercelli, those of Dado of Verden, 

 and Heraclius of Liege, .>rdain the establishinent of " little " or 

 parochial schools, wherein poor children of Iwth sexes, about 

 the age of seven years, are to be taught gratis. That free 



