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Originality will not be fostered by merely hearing or learn- 

 ing about what others did, nor will memory be strengthened 

 by over heavy burdens. Self-respect, together with the social 

 qualities, honour, gratitude, sympathy, veneration, can only be 

 cultivated or increased by contact with high minded men such 

 as the masters of every school should be, coupled with a 

 system the reverse of those to which I have already referred. 

 There is also much to be said on the subject of woman's 

 influence in the schools — her intuitive sympathy, her high 

 ideals, and as Thring puts it, " her weakness stronger than 

 force, which ministers to true life." 



Working in the same direction also, and filling up defects 

 in the mechanical and scientific subjects, there is the human- 

 ising effect of an intelligent study of language and literature 

 which makes also for the development of observation, accuracy, 

 and imagination. 



While there can be little doubt of the claims of the classics to 

 some importance as a means of culture, I am inclined to think 

 it is only in conjunction with other studies of a more liberal 

 character that the subject is admissible, and that exclusive 

 attention to the dead languages tends towards narrowness and 

 pedantry. In considering their claims we must remember that 

 the prestige attained in Europe by Latin and Greek (when at 

 the time of the Renaissance they were re-discovered for the 

 world, and were the only known means of culture) is perhaps 

 too great in comparison with that of other means now available ; 

 and for the very reason that the dead languages gained this 

 prestige when there was no other competitor for favour, we 

 should examine all the more closely their claims as against 

 other means now apparent. The study of words is supposed to 

 have, as pointed out by Dr. Mary Jacobi in Physiological 

 Notes on Primary Education, this advantage — that by it the 

 child may be trained in the methods of physical science at a 

 time when the pursuit of most physical sciences is impossible. 

 It seems to me that the study of physical science (knowledge of 

 material bodies) begins with the cradle, and Dr. Jacobi herself 

 shows how a large amount of method may and should be im- 



