AUGUST 14, 1902] 
IAT O Lge 
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Government or public authorities to the school and its 
teachers, the influence of external examinations, the 
place of science in the curriculum of a school, the pro- 
fessional training of school masters, or any of the 
numerous subjects which form the staple of newspaper 
controversy or Royal Commissioners’ reports in relation 
to school policy and work. His point of view is simply 
that of a classical master, whose work has been done 
only with scholars drawn from the upper ranks of 
society, whose educational ideals have been formed by 
Eton traditions and by the requirements of the universi- 
ties, and who discusses with his readers in an informal 
and conversational fashion the question how, under the 
exceptional conditions of a boarding-house at a great 
public school, the utmost can be done to foster manli- 
ness, good scholarship and the characteristics of a 
Christian gentleman. 
But within this limited range of observation and ex- 
perience Mr. Benson has acquired much valuable 
knowledge, and his book shows him to be distinguished, 
not only by literary skill, but also by a genuine love for 
his profession and by a keen and sympathetic insight 
into the nature and the needs of boyhood. His view of 
the spiritual and mental relationship which should be 
established between a wise teacher and his pupil, his 
large tolerance for differences in the character and tastes, 
the virtues and the faults of boys, his belief in Thring’s 
well-known dictum that there is no such thing in the 
world as a good-for-nothing boy, and his insistence on 
the value of an atmosphere of cheerfulness and intelli- 
gence as distinguished from the mere learning of lessons 
—-all give a special charm to the book and will serve to 
make it peculiarly attractive to young teachers who are 
not pedants, but who seek to achieve the highest and 
truest kind of professional success. 
The discussion on the prospects of the teaching 
profession and its disadvantages is marked by much 
candour : 
“No enthusiasm will ever quite succeed in gilding a 
trade which consists in part of providing food and 
lodging for a large number of people and charging them 
rather more than they cost.” 
On the other hand, to one who is drawn to the pro- 
fession by a sense of personal fitness and by a liking for 
the work, 
“there is a certain attractiveness about the perpetual 
exercise of minute control, there is a sense very strong 
in the British character of pleasure in exercising dis- 
cipline and showing power”; “‘there is no profession 
which is so apt, if exercised faithfully, sympathetically 
and tenderly, to broaden the character and enlarge the 
spirit,” 
and it often happens that the man who begins as the 
careless, sel{-regarding practitioner of a not very dignified 
“trade discovers that he is in the thick of a very real 
and vivid life which stirs all sorts of interests and 
emotions and brings home to him some of the deep 
realities of life.” 
The writer of such passages is under no illusions and 
has no temptation to magnify his office unduly ; but he 
is deeply impressed with its seriousness, and he believes 
that a young teacher will find, as he acquires new power 
and stronger sympathy, increased delight in his work. 
NO. 1711, VOL. 66] 
As to specific training for that work, Mr. Benson is some- 
what sceptical. Apparently he is not speaking from any 
experience of trained as compared with untrained col- 
leagues : but because his own success has been attained 
by other means than formal preparation, he pronounces 
boldly that training can never make a man an effective 
teacher. He thinks that 
“a sensible man may learn more in a week from teach- 
ing a division of his own when he has no one to depend 
on but himself than in months spent in a training 
college.” 
His plan appears to be to treat a class of boys as the 
corpus vile on whom pedagogic experiments may be 
tried, and he adds with charming zazveté, 
“As far as mere methods are concerned, I am sure I 
could tell a young man in half an hour the simple 
dodges which have proved in my own case useful and 
effective.” 
The author fails to see that while a man endowed 
with natural gifts such as insight into character and 
professional enthusiasm may become a valuable teacher 
without training, it is evident that the rank and file of 
the teaching profession will find themselves at least 
helped by some knowledge of the philosophy of the art 
they profess and by some acquaintance with the methods 
and performances of famous teachers, and of the reasons 
for their success or failure. 
The best chapters in the book are those in which the 
author discusses the means by which school lessons may 
be made interesting and attractive to boys. 
“A school lesson,” he says, “should be of the nature of 
a dramatic performance from which some interest and 
amusement may be expected, while at the same time 
there must be solid and business-like work done. 
The aim ought not to be to turn everybody into a 
literary personage. Literature is only one province of the 
intellectual life. . . . An intellectual person is one whose 
mind is alive to ideas, who is interested in politics, re- 
ligion, science, history, literature, who knows enough to 
wish to know more and to listen if he cannot talk.” 
But no man is capable of generating in his pupils a 
real love for knowledge unless he himself cultivates 
some intellectual interests apart from the obvious 
routine of school work. 
“The master, out of school, should live in the 
company of good books and big ideas. Everyone 
cannot be interested in everything, but everyone is 
capable of being interested in something, and I do not 
care very much what the subject is, provided only that 
there is a little glow, a little enthusiasm in it.” 
On the well-worn topics of athletics, on holidays, on 
prizes, on the right use of chapel services and on moral 
teaching, Mr. Benson speaks with strong conviction and 
goodsense. His aims are high, but he is afraid to set up 
impossible ideals or to forget that, while temptation is 
often strong and boys are weak, they 
‘“‘are in their better moments earnestly and pathetically 
desirous to be kept from evil, and that no help which 
the schoolmaster can give them is ever thrown away.” 
The book abounds with obvious truisms, but they are 
rendered attractive by the freshness with which they are 
stated, and by the fact that they are the product of actual 
experience and of .the serious devotion of a life to 
