October 28,' 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



207 



discreetly to frame his manners ; place him in his hands, where 

 you may as much as possible secure his innocence ; cherish and 

 nurse up the good, and, generally, correct and weed out any bad 

 inclinations, and settle in him good habits. This is the main point, 

 and, this being provided for, learning may be had into the bargain, 

 and that, as I think, at a very easy rate. 



The subjects which Locke selects for learning are very 

 characteristic. He begins with reading, writing, and drawing. 

 He then goes on to French and Latin ; the latter to be taught in 

 the same way as French, by conversation and without grammar. 

 He then passes to geography, arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, 

 chronology, and history. Then follows ethics, a certain amount of 

 law. — chiefly civil and constitutional law, — rhetoric and logic, and 

 natural philosophy. Great importance is attached to acquiring a 

 good English style. Greek is omitted ; for Locke says that he is 

 not considering the education of a professed scholar, but of a gen- 

 tleman, to whom Latin and French, as the world now goes, is by 

 every one acknowledged necessary. " When he comes to be a man, 

 he can learn Greek for himself. What a small percentage there is, 

 even among scholars, who retain the Greek they learned at school !" 

 The education thus commenced is completed by dancing, music, 

 riding, and fencing. Every one should learn one trade at least, if 

 not two or three. Gardening and carpentering are especially 

 recommended, but not painting. The pupil is to be well skilled in 

 accounts and book-keeping, and his education is to be completed 

 by foreign travel, which is to be deferred to an age when he can 

 profit by it most completely. 



Locke is a great enemy of those specious and spurious studies 

 which were so much affected by the Jesuits. He is a declared 

 enemy to Latin verses. " Do not," he says, " let your child make 

 verses of any sort ; for, if he has no genius for poetry, it is the 

 most unreasonable thing in the world to torment a child, and 

 waste his time, about that which can never succeed ; and, if he has 

 a poetical vein, it is to me the strangest thing in the world that a 

 father should desire or suffer it to be improved. Poetry and gam- 

 ing, which usually go together, are alike in this too, — that they 

 seldom bring any advantage but to those who have nothing else 

 to live upon. He does not care any more for music, which wastes 

 so much of a young man's time to gain but a moderate skill in it, 

 and engages often in such odd company that many think it better 

 spared." Locke here would differ much from Milton, who gave 

 music a more dignified place in his programme. In conclusion, 

 Locke tells us that what he has written is designed for the breed- 

 ing of a young gentleman, but that he is fully aware that every one 

 cannot be educated in the same mannef ; that each man's mind has 

 some peculiarity, as well as his face, which distinguishes him from 

 all others ; and that there are possibly scarcely two children who 

 can be brought up by exactly the same method. 



Although public schools in England educate their pupils very 

 much according to the precepts of Locke, they probably do so un- 

 consciously, and are very little aware whose example they are 

 following. Many have heard of Locke's treatise on education, but 

 few have read it or tried to understand it. Whatever effect he has 

 had has been confined to his own country, and he cannot be 

 reckoned as a great influence in Europe. Rousseau, on the other 

 hand, burst upon the world with tremendous force. ' Emile,' 

 although its teaching about education is so little precise and syste- 

 matic, has made an epoch in educational systems, and is the parent 

 of Pestalozzi, Froebel, and the most modern educators of the 

 present day. The keynote of Rousseau's system is to educate in 

 accordance with nature : he may therefore be regarded as the chief 

 of the naturalists. It is true that his conception of nature was 

 warped by the principles of his philosophy. He considered that 

 man in his natural state, as he came from the hands of his Maker, 

 was perfect, and that he has been spoilt by civilization. This idea 

 was present to the mind of Rousseau in his very eariiest writings. 

 By what means, he asks, are we to bring back the child of nature ? 

 How are we to form that strange character, natural man ? Our 

 particular care must be to provide that he is not prevented from be- 

 ing natural ; we must not educate him for any particular function, 

 but merely for the art of living. A man must be taught, above every 

 thing, to lead the life of a man, and that must be done not so much 

 by precept as by exercise. In the time of Rousseau children of the 



upper classes were brought up entirely in an artificial atmosphere. 

 This, he says, we must do away with : great social changes maybe 

 before us, and we must prepare our children to meet them. The 

 reformation must date from the very birth : mothers must take to 

 nursing their own children. He says, speaking of the unnatural 

 society of his own time, " Once let women become mothers again, 

 and men will then become fathers and husbands." As the child 

 grows, the advice of Milton corresponds with that of Locke. He is 

 to be brought up in the fresh air of the country, set free from bands 

 and swaddling-clothes, taught to endure pain and hardship and 

 change of temperature, he is to be fed on very simple food. The 

 father has duties as well as the mother. As soon as the child is 

 old enough to be influenced by the father's education, it is wicked 

 of him to hand him over to another. Rousseau passes the strongest 

 condemnation on fathers who neglect their children, whereas he 

 sets them the worst example by depositing all his children, as they 

 were born, in the turning-box of the foundling-hospital. Unfortu- 

 nately many fathers are so occupied that they cannot give their 

 children the minute attention which is necessary for their education, 

 so that there is no remedy but to find a tutor who will as nearly 

 as possible supply the place of the father. The tie between tutor 

 and pupil is to be of the closest character. The second book 

 of ' Emile ' is concerned with the education of a child up to 

 twelve years of age. The principal object of this education is 

 courage. The child must learn to bear suffering, and to put up 

 with tumbles and knocks, without uttering aery. Strength, health, 

 and a good conscience are the objects to be aimed at. Do not 

 reason too much with children at this age : they must be made 

 obedient by authority, and reason will come later. The great 

 object of this early education is to lose time. The child is not old 

 enough for good impressions to be firmly fixed : we must be con- 

 tent with averting bad ones. A child is to learn the elements of 

 property, that some things do and some do not belong to him ; but 

 of erudition he is to learn very little. At twelve years, Emile is 

 scarcely to know what a book is. You have educated his character 

 by strengthening his body : if he has the vigor of a man, he will 

 soon have the reason of a man. During this age the process of 

 hardening is to go on: he is to wear loose clothing, to go with his 

 head uncovered, to lie on the damp grass when hot with exercise, 

 sleep all night, to rise with the dawn, to know nothing but a hard 

 bed, to fear no danger, to be accustomed to toil, unpleasantness, 

 and pain, and to defend the soul with the breastplate of a strong 

 body. Thus armed, he will not even be afraid of death. He is to 

 be as much at home in the water as on dry land. He is to acquire 

 arts which are found in the natural savage, the instinct of finding 

 his way in dark places, of measuring distances with eyes and feet, 

 and of beating all those of his age by swiftness of foot. He is to 

 learn the piano rather than the violin. He is to draw from nature, 

 to learn geometry rather by observation than by definition, to learn 

 singing by the ear rather than by the notes. His appetite is to be 

 the measure of his food. The sense of smell is to be educated 

 with all his other senses. At twelve years old, he ceases to be a 

 child : we are now to prepare him for manhood. We find that he 

 is fresh, lively, open, and simple ; his thoughts are limited but clear ; 

 he knows nothing by heart, but much by experience ; he has read 

 more in the book of nature than in any other book ; his wit is not 

 on his tongue, but in his head ; his judgment is better than his 

 memory ; he only speaks one language, but that sensibly. Others 

 may speak better : Emile will act better. He does not follow for- 

 mulas and authorities, but in every thing which he says and does 

 he is inspired by his own good sense. There is nothing artificial 

 in his manner and bearing, but they are the true expression of his 

 ideas, and the result of his disposition. In this language, and much 

 of the same kind, Rousseau sketches the child of nature. One 

 would think again, that, like Locke, he is depicting the English 

 public-school boy ; but he could not have known any such, and the 

 country gentleman who favors such institutions would rather follow 

 any counsel than that of a dreamy revolutionist. 



The intellectual education which Emile receives between the ages 

 of twelve and fifteen is not less remarkable than his social training. 

 Nothing is learned from books, every thing from observation. The 

 pupil is not asked to understand what he has taught, but to discover 

 things for himself : for instance, as he takes his morning and even- 



