1811.] Interrogative System of Tcachmg. 423 
tioned; and I sliall be happy if it afford 
relief to any of your numerous readers, 
being constantly one of the number. 
Joseph Brown. 
QueerCs-head-lane, Islingtonf 
Oct. 18, 1811. 
P. S. In one of my old PharmacopceiaSf 
Vifhich appears to hare belonged to that once 
celebrated preacher, the Reverend Dr. Og¬ 
den, he has made the following memoran¬ 
dum : I knew an inn-keeper in Chester, 
who had been for some time very bad of the 
bloody-flux, and attended by two physicians; 
a passenger who lodged at his house, ordered 
him to drink the decoction of yarrow,” (the 
leaves, I suppose,) “ which in a few days 
perfectly rt^covered him. It was boiled in 
white-wine.” 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
SIR, 
HILE Mr. Lancaster and Dr, 
Bell are dividing the public in 
regard to their claim to the honours of a 
discovery w'hich was made by the Hin¬ 
doos two thousand years ago, practised 
by Jesus Christ himself in several re¬ 
corded instances, and proved by the sa¬ 
cred poets to have been as ancient as 
fine weather and sand, it may be worth 
while to turn our attention to another 
great and decisive improvement in the 
practice of education, which addresses 
itself more peculiarly to the faculties of 
thinking beings. 
I am too anxious to have any degree 
of instruction communicated to the people 
to wrangle with those gentlemen or their 
patrons about the value of their mecha- 
Tiical system. I shrewdly suspect, how¬ 
ever, ti)at the mind itself is little im¬ 
proved by learning to form letters in 
sand, by being able to call letters and 
words at sight, or by the capacity of re¬ 
peating the multiplication and penpe ta¬ 
bles. These acquirements have their 
merit; but, viewing man as a moral «ag«-nt, 
capable of indefinite intellectual improve¬ 
ments, they leave him in the situation of 
the learned pig, or of those sagacious 
horses which excite so much wonder at 
our country fairs. I do not mean, how¬ 
ever, to decry what is now so laudably 
ejecting through the nation, because the 
habit of attending a school is calculated 
to produce a good moral effect, the habit 
of reflection there enforced is likely to 
produce intellectual improvements, and 
w hat is learnt is a basis for something 
further,—but I conceive the system 
might be extended, and the mind itself 
fmglit be irpproved, as well as the me¬ 
mory and the mechanical powers of imL 
tation. 
I therefore respectfully cal! the atten¬ 
tion of the public, and of tutors in parti¬ 
cular, to the recent adaptation of a prin¬ 
ciple which is calculated to give effect to 
learning, and really to teach to young 
persons wliat they are professed to be 
taught. I allude to the system of teach¬ 
ing by INTERROGATO^fES, Or by ques¬ 
tions; by means of which the pupil is 
made to think upon and work at the 
science or branch of knowledge which he 
is studying. The principle is as old as 
our first books of arithmetic, which gave 
cases to be worked at length for the ex¬ 
ercise of the student. We are therefore 
used to this mode of teaching arithmetic ; 
and the absurdity of attempting to 
teach that science without working at it, 
by solving the questions to be found in 
the books, is so evident that it would he 
highly ridiculous to teach arithmetic by 
giving the student dissertations to read 
on the arc, or even to set him to learn 
rules without working examples in each. 
Yet is not this the defective system by 
which all other arts and sciences are 
pretended to be taught.? How few are 
the books on other subjects which intro¬ 
duce examples for practice! How re-^ 
cent has been their publication ! How 
little are they yet adopted in our foun¬ 
dation and most considerable schools! 
How pertinaciously are old and indefen¬ 
sible systems maintained, merely be¬ 
cause they have been adopted—becau.se 
they are ancient—and because it would 
be troublesome to adopt any improve^ 
ment, however self-evident I 
Let it be understood that the interro¬ 
gative system here alluded to, is very 
different, and tlierefore very superior, to 
the gossipping system of question and an¬ 
swer, which is so much less perspicuous 
than the mere indicative form, without 
increasing the habit or force of thinking. 
Nor does it refer to the plan of questions 
to which references for answers are 311 *= 
nexed, or to questions which follow chap¬ 
ters of books, in the order of the subjects 
in the text; both of these are bastard 
ideas, or imperfect and puerile imita¬ 
tions of the genuine system, which is cal¬ 
culated to instruct^ by compelling tlie 
student to think for himself, and to /«- 
hour at the points and objects of his 
study. 
I have seen a French book of questions 
for answers, published about thirty year.s 
^go; but it is rather a boqk of cjuestions 
01 ? 
