HUMANISM AND REALISM. 545 
oneself.” He also believes, like many of his predecessors, that 
for one student who is being led by humanistic studies to vital 
knowledge and intellectual life, there will be ten whose natural 
access to them is through realistic studies. Although scarcely 
necessary, I wish here forcibly to protest against being mis- 
understood. Ido not wish to raise the mode of education by 
observation above that by classical and mathematical studies. 
All I intend to advocate is, that both disciplines go hand in hand, 
and assist each other in the mental training of the understanding. 
There is no doubt that the power of observation, and that 
of reasoning, when properly developed in early years, will pre- 
vent the student from despising afterwards the aspirations of 
the inner life, as very often happens when he begins to devote 
himself to scientific discipline—a fact greatly to be regretted. 
This, unfortunately, is a natural outcome of the present system, 
favouring, as it does by its dogmatism and intolerance, the 
change from one extreme to theother. To avoid this, the great 
aim of all education should be not to make only wiser, but 
better men and women, to elevate their moral and intellectual 
sense, to open their minds to all that is great and noble in 
nature and mankind, to make the heart and intellect, the 
emotional and the reasoning faculties, form a close union. 
In Germany, the evils complained of in pure humanistic 
schools have for more than three hundred years originated 
many attempts to create either purely realistic institutions or 
to re-model some of the existing humanistic schools. And with 
your permission I shall now devote some of the time allotted ta 
me to sketch rapidly to you how far these attempts have been 
successful, Such a review should suggest to us how far the 
experience gained on the European continent might be suc- 
cessfully applied to our own wants. 
Amos Comenius, of Moravia, living in the first half of the 
seventeenth century, may claim to have been a true apostle of 
realism. Although chased and persecuted by the Jesuits and 
their adherents, he never became tired of advocating the newer 
mode of discipline. His “ Didactica Magna” (1639-41), his 
“ Novissima Linguarum Methodus” (1642), and his remarkable 
“ Orbus Pictus” (1657), are the first and most important appli- 
cations of realism. They were an attempt to introduce works 
more suitable for teaching purposes than those in general use 
at that time. At the termination of the Thirty Years’ War, 
numerous attempts were made to bring the higher education 
more into unison with the spirit of free enquiry which had 
resulted from the Reformation, and was in the ascendant in 
England, France, and Holland alike. In many of the higher 
schools the sons of noblemen were allowed to substitute French 
for Greek ; in some of them, Mechanics or Astronomy; and in 
some instances Geography and Modern History were taught. 
It appears, however, that this was always done with a certain 
amount of apology, as if the authorities had been aliowing some 
malpractice. After the death of Louis the XIV, it was agreed 
