SCIENCE.-SUPPLEMENT. 



FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1887. 



THE RESPECTIVE FUNCTIONS IN EDUCA- 

 TION, OF PRIMARY, SECONDARY, AND 

 UNIVERSITY SCHOOLS.'— II. 

 I. I HAVE said that the chief aim of the primary 

 school is the nutrition of feeling, inner and outer. 

 The child is receptive, and his will is weak. This 

 receptivity is a wise provision of nature for future 

 growth. To all the primary sentiments which 

 distinguish man, the child is moi-e open than 

 the youth. You may play what tune you please on 

 his sensitive chords. Let us take care that it is al- 

 ways a melody, and not a discord of jarring notes. 

 No educational enthusiast has ever yet exagger- 

 ated the impressionability of the child, his capa- 

 city for the emotions which lie at the basis of all 

 our moral life. Love, tenderness, sympathy, the 

 approbation of others, veneration, nay, even the 

 spirit of sacrifice, and even a certain dim imagina- 

 tion of the harmonious play of all the finer feel- 

 ings, are all ready, nay, anxious, to be stirred 

 into activity. Response is eager. It even antici- 

 pates appeals. What, after all, do our greatest 

 heroes show to the admiring crowd but simply 

 these primary sentiments gathered into a unity of 

 life in them, directed to some great purpose, 

 furnishing the motive forces of their greatest 

 deeds ? You have in these primary feelings the 

 well-spring of all life. Do not distrust them. Be- 

 lieve in them. The child before you is not an in- 

 carnation of depravity. That is an old-world 

 fable. He is nearer God than you are. Heaven 

 lies about him. Christ did not say ' Of such is 

 the kingdom of heaven ' to furnish a text for the 

 glosses and distortions of theologians in their 

 bilious moments. Depend upon it, he meant it. 

 It is by the watchful guidance and gentle admoni- 

 tion of the child that you lead him to the right 

 and good. You do not supply motives for his 

 daily acts, you evoke them out of himself. They 

 are there waiting to be turned to use. It is your 

 privilege to touch him to fine issues. Your busi- 

 ness is to be watchful, but not suspicious. The lov- 

 ing hand pointing the right way, the warning fin- 

 ger (with perchance a smile behind it) blocking the 

 wrong path, the supporting of the weak will with 

 your strength, — these are your methods. To 

 preach is futile. Food so offered will be rejected. 



1 Paper read at the Educational congress, Edinburgh, 

 Dec. 31, 1886. 



It is by the presentation to the open mind of in- 

 dividual instances, the direction and encourage- 

 ment of individual acts, that you give the suste- 

 nance the child needs ; above all, by making your- 

 self a particular instance, always present to him, 

 of kindliness, of justice, of mercy, though not 

 without the occasional anger that ' sins not.' In 

 such teaching, Severit}^ and harshness are surely 

 out of place. I often smile in schools at the sol- 

 emn exaggeration of children's offences when I 

 compare their young untried souls with the tar- 

 nished conscience of their teacher, the aggregation 

 of iniquities which are incarnated in the domi- 

 nating and indignant master. He, forsooth, is 

 virtue : the chUd is vice. Look on this picture 

 and on that ! Does it not ever occur to him how 

 gladly even he — magister, dominus, scholasticus 

 — would change places with those young souls ? 



" Not poppy, nor maudragora, 

 Nor all the drowsy sirups of the world, 

 Shall ever medicine us to that sweet sleep 

 Which we owed yesterday." 



But enough of this : the aim of the primary 

 school, I repeat, is nutrition of inner feeling, of 

 the emotions and sentiments through particular 

 instances. The soil is thereby enriched and pre- 

 pared for the harvest virtue. 



But nutrition of inner feeling is not all : there 

 must be nutrition of outer feeling. The real of 

 nature, as well as the real of emotion, is the ma- 

 terial of primary education. It is life that edu- 

 cates. Outside the school-room the child lives in 

 an ever-changing atmosi)here of emotion chaotic 

 and perplexing : inside the school-room the same 

 life is to be found, but regulated, controlled, ex- 

 plained, enriched, by the teacher. So with the 

 real of outer sense. Outside the school-room the 

 child lives his life under sense conditions. He is 

 feeling his way to the understanding of the ob- 

 jects around him. Nature, and the products of 

 the hand of man working on the crude stuff of 

 nature, press on him. He has to establish rela- 

 tions with all these, that he may use them for 

 life and work and enjoyment. They are, in truth, 

 the raw material which he has to shape to moral 

 and spiritual ends. This outside life is also to be 

 the inside life of the school. The teacher has to 

 help the child to see, and understand, and to 

 organize his impressions. Thus, when he goes out 

 of the school, he goes out, not to a novel world, 

 but to a world already experienced and now par- 



