It

a study will naturally begin with the works of our own people, and in literature at least we have no lack of the best models in prose and verse. will not take long to see that in substance and in manner Drayton's "Agincourt," for instance, or Tennyson's "Revenge," is poetry, and Mr. Kipling's "Islanders" is not; that Burke's "Letter to a Noble Lord" is of another order than Junius's "Letter to the King"; that "Silas Marner" is a masterpiece, and "The Christian" a monstrosity. It will not, however, be easy to deduce from such a study the true principles of criticism, whose business we are so apt to suppose to be the finding of fault. The critic is a judge whose aim is to see things as they are. Criticism is therefore ideal, while what is called realism sees things not as they are but as they seem. And we must remember that the critic is creative in his own field. If we wish to prove Johnson's claim to be a creator, we point not to Irene," but to the "Life of Dryden."

66

In the arts of design we may build our judgment on the same lines. The literary expert may not be an expert in them, but he must have some love, some knowledge of them. Horace Walpole took Strawberry Hill for true Gothic, and Cambridge allowed itself to be disfigured by Wilkins. Some still admire Gilbert Scott and decry Wren. Criticism sees that in Wilkins and Scott there is no thought, no claim on our admiration, while it admires both the temple at Pesto and Giotto's Tower, both York Minster and St. Paul's, for there the artist was subject to his art and found his life by laying it down. It is the same with sculpture, with painting. We come to know the beautiful by loving and studying beautiful things. We have still much to learn, but at least the Alps are no longer to us the howling wilderness of hideous precipices which they appeared to the contemporaries of Pope and Fielding.

I am tempted to declare that Latin is almost vital to culture. The Romans were not an imaginative people but they produced in Virgil the most consummate of artists. Their speech was for centuries, and still almost is, the language of learning. More than one masterpiece of our own literature is written in it. The ancient world has been interpreted by it, and much of its vocabulary has passed into our own.

In the study of modern languages culture is not at one with commerce. It is well but not vital to have a complete colloquial acqaintance with some of them, but the man of culture may not have had the time or opportunity to get it. But he may have, even without it, enough Italian, for instance, to delight in Dante, or on a lower plane in Goldoni's comedies and Mazzoni's novel. To say truth, the learning of a spoken language is something of a knack. There are men who speak French and German almost as a native, and yet are scarcely reasoning creatures. Macaulay took a tutor to teach him the phrases necessary to pass his luggage through the Customs and take his rooms at an Italian inn, and having learnt them, poured upon his tutor a deluge of literary Tuscan.

Early training should, and in fact does, include some of the exact sciences. The man of culture must also know something of the principles and methods of the sciences which have arrogated to themselves the title of "natural." He cannot hope to become an adept in any one of them. His best course is to get a knowledge, sound if elementary, of at least one of them. This will help him to an intelligent interest in them all. Thus equipped he will not be likely to talk of a conflict between religion and science. There can be no such conflict. If geology proves that the cosmogony of the Pentateuch is wrong, he will not rave against the geologist, but will examine afresh his own view of the Pentateuch. He will be grateful to the geologist for pointing the way to a better understanding of Hebrew literature. This is the spirit of Dr. Perowne's farewell address to his diocese. This was unhappily not the spirit of Mr. Gladstone, whose mind was on one subject hermetically sealed. We can, we must, concede all the just claims of a Lyell or a Huxley, but we must still assert that there is a world beyond their ken. We owe much to natural science, we wish to acknowledge and increase the debt, but we will not become the slaves of the retort and the test-tube. We shall still look for higher learning to the groves of Academus, to

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath.

I return to my starting point that πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ didáσke. I am not concerned to deny the learning even of some of those who imagine that Bacon wrote Hamlet. It is only to be added that he who writes on this theme must be sadly aware how far he falls short of his own ideal.

TH

II.

BY FREDERIC KEEBLE, M.A.
University College, Reading.

HE fact that culture is more easily recognised than described is a sure indication that it connotes something more than amount of intellectuality and that it is not determined solely by extent or depth of learning. The encyclopædic student may lack, the specialist may have this grace of wisdom which is culture. Culture is not a fruit borne on only one branch of the tree of knowledge, but on all; so long as each branch is in organic connection with the trunk.

The elements of time and place enter into a definition of culture, the significance of the word grows with the years. Of old, the force of circumstances determined that culture was a something acquired only through the "classics."

Men, bursting feudal bonds in material things, still clung, in what appertained to intellectual things, to the knees of authority. Diffident of their own knowledge of art and science, whole races of mankind turned eagerly to the brilliant past, seeking guidance in the genius of Greece and Rome. Knowledge was a sort of Græco-Roman revelation: Greek and Latin were the " open-sesames" to culture. Centuries have lived on this intellectual

plunder. Universities became the strong-rooms of the booty. The brightest intellects were appointed to guard and appraise it; lesser, to tell the children of its glories. In short, culture passed into the possession of a cult of literary mandarins, and education was fast becoming in England what it had become long since and has remained till now in China.

But freedom has come. Men have learned to dare to ask authority for its credentials. Bacon, Harvey, Descartes, Shakespeare, Goethe, Newton, Kant, Darwin, Pasteur, have added new provinces to the world of learning, and, in doing so, have shown that the Græco-Roman world is no world, but a province. New grandeurs take place beside the old, not in rivalry but in re-inforcement. Thus the content of the word "culture" has been enlarged.

There are still men who stand where their ancestors of 300 years ago stood, and who still guard the plunder. Let none speak evil of these

persistent types." It were as ill to speak evil of Lingula or Equisetum. Nor need anger be expended on them when they claim to be the sole repositories of culture. The tragic side lies not in the claims of these ancestral forms to have reached perfection, but that they should hold almost exclusive power in higher education.

Yet even here is cause also for thankfulness if we but regard the "classical" people who rule in public schools and universities as regents and not as hereditary monarchs. For they give time for the new learning to devise new methods. The old classical methods are of necessity inadequate ; suited for the perfection of imitativeness. The new learning started with the old methods and fortunately and inevitably was overtaken by disaster. The new wine was put in the old bottles. By their present regency, the pure "classics" give the moderns time to learn new methods and to prepare themselves for a place in the oligarchy of learning. Culture includes, then, the old and the new.

Again, in continuation of the statement of what culture is not, it is necessary at the present time to state the truism that "culture" is in no way directly determined by usefulness or uselessness of knowledge. In truth, the whole discussion of utility is a quarrel about words, and depends for its yea or nay answer on the meaning attached to the word "usefulness." It is true we are a planet of shopkeepers, but it is also true that we still sometimes close our shutters as a sign that we live.

Education is a training; but not, as our legislators used to think-not unnaturally if we consider the nature of their interests-a training of winners of the big money-stakes. Nor should the training be of such a nature that these may not be won. The training should be such as enables men to enjoy the race. Culture is the mark of training. It betokens a mind well grown.

Therefore it is only by investigating the training process that a definite idea of the meaning of "culture" may be gained. When this is done it will

be possible to adjudge the value of this or that department of learning as a culture medium.

To train the average mind, there must be provided, in the first place, an ample, but not overwhelming, raw material of facts. These must be of various natures; primarily, of observation; secondarily, of authority. The former are verifiable by the senses, the latter only more vaguely verifiable when criticism is awakened. The first supply of this raw material must come direct from nature, for the sense of realness of knowledge must not be smothered. Book facts must be provided, but most sparingly, especially at first. For books must come to be the servants and not the masters of the subjects of training. To learn to think, the student must know what people have thought: he must also learn to appeal through observation, and later through experiment to nature. Not only to nature beautiful and smiling, but also to nature hard and inexorable.

In the second place, to proceed along with the first though commencing later, the training must include fact-sifting and fact-packing. The mind. must be loaded in an orderly manner. The mind's eye must learn its perspective. For this, a continuous apprenticeship to the past is fatal. The processes of nature must be shown. Continuity of life and relation of facts must be experienced. The relationship of past and present will thus come to stand out with clearness, and it will be impossible for the training to produce a wholly "past" man or a solely "present" man. Sympathy, the bond which unites individuals into aggregates, and links past and present, will be developed. Another name for this arrangement and appraisal of facts is "scientific method; though unfortunately it is not realised sufficiently. that scientific method is the one and only method of learning, and that its common-sense principles are as true when applied to literature as to biology. The scientific method stands for order and more than order it stands for the fertile union of imagination and reason, the offspring of which is originality.

From an early period, manual training must help the mental training, for eye and hand are the chief adjutants of the mind. There is a genius of the finger tips something of which all should acquire.

In these practices the student has incidentally reached his goal. He has acquired, by the habit of seeking and handling, sifting and placing knowledge, that degree of mental dexterity of which his brain is capable. He has exercised his fancy, balancing it against his reason; so that, waking at least, he is the master of both. He has gained the priceless result of training, resolution: that intellectual courage without which no brain will go far. The facts which, when assimilated and exhibited, are called knowledge may be likened to the muscles. The proper ordering of this knowledge, the due and purposeful co-ordination of the muscles; this is wisdom. The ease and grace of the movement which makes endurance possible and activity beautiful; this is culture.

Assuming that the foregoing contains a true statement of the essentials of the training process, it remains to ask what subjects offer the best material for this training? Several admit of no doubt. Such are Drawing and Mathematics, Modern Languages, including History and Literature, and Natural Science. Drawing-æsthetic shorthand is essential, as essential as writing, as an introduction to both art and science. It trains the hand and eye as nothing else does. enlarges and illuminates the field of vision. In drawing, not only hidden beauty but hidden things are revealed. Drawing is a tool not only of service to the æsthetic sense but also to the brain as a whole.

It

Mathematics is essential, not only because of its every-day utility, but also because without it certainty and generality, two abstracts of the highest importance, cannot be grasped, nor the nature of their limitations discovered. Modern Languages and Literatures are essential. They are the only asylums from provincialism. In them the past is summarised and the present indicated. In many departments of thought, at the present moment, England's imports exceed her exports. Only by knowing the languages, may English amateurism be enlightened by a sympathetic understanding of French precision and German patience. Natural Science is essential. By its light alone may we peer into the illimitable unknown, not aghast but with hope. By it alone may knowledge live. It gives to beauty a wider realm and to truth a more awful meaning. The best constructive thought of modern times is to be found in the work of Natural Science. To take one instance only. The work of Pasteur is epoch-making not only in medicine but in the history of mental progress. To be ignorant of the thought-story of Pasteur is to be ignorant of one of the most stupendous mental efforts ever achieved. Admitting that these subjects have substantiated their respective claims to a part in training, it must be asked whether, if training is confined to these subjects, the highest form of culture may be produced? or, to put the matter more directly, is a training in the classics also an essential?

The answer given to this question must depend on that given to another, namely: how far is the spirit, the genius, of Greece and Rome revealed in modern literature and modern philosophy? If, despite the centuries of opportunity for its representation, it is still necessary to go to the original sources, then Greek and Latin are still as essential to culture as they were in the eighteenth century.

The writer thinks that the ancient spirit may be appreciated by those ignorant of the ancient languages. Indeed, he would go further, hazarding the paradox that many of its aspects can be better appreciated by a student of Natural Science ignorant of Greek than by a student of Greek ignorant of Natural Science.

But it is not enough to appreciate the general worth of ancient thought. The trained man must have acquired that sense of style which the "classic" has so exquisitely. Natural Science will not beget

this. It will give business-like orderliness to the expression of ideas; it cannot impart the charm. which should invest them. This is one of the special tasks of Literature. Side by side with the other subjects, the literatures of at least two countries must not so much be studied as devoured. The modern literatures are competent to beget a sense and power of style.

Thus the conclusion is reached that the subjects mentioned are sufficient for thorough training and may produce the finest form of culture and that, for this, the study of Greek and Latin is no longer essential. Nevertheless, he would be a rarely foolish man who would advocate the utter banishment of Greek and Latin from all training. For he would be overlooking the diversity which exists in the mental apparatuses of man. For the many, that harmonious development of the faculties which results in culture is best arrived at by training in the subjects already mentioned; but, for others, Nature is mute, the literatures of England, France and Germany are pale in glory beside those of Greece and Rome. Gothic appeals to some, classical architecture to others. Wagner has still some worlds to conquer which at present own other sway.

We would not pass from one narrowness to another. For those whose bent is towards literature, training in Natural Science may be subordinated, though in no manner of circumstance omitted. These brighter minds must assume a heavier burden. Their training must be more catholic. In this training the Classics must play a part and that part may well be a large one. For the general, on the other hand, Classics must as the world advances be ever of smaller value as a mode of training. Modern languages have established their, in some respects, superior claims. Modern literatures have their glories, in some respects more glorious than those of the ancient literatures. But whether it is mainly modern or mainly ancient literature which is chosen as one mode of training, neither the one nor the other can lead unaided to the goal of culture. Nor, on the other hand, can Natural Science replace the languages. The mountains terminate in fine peaks, but they rise from broad foundations.

THAT man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations: one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.-Huxley.

NATURAL SCIENCE IN GIRLS' SCHOOLS.

TH

By SARA A. BURSTALL, B.A. Headmistress of the Manchester High School.

HE value of practical, scientific training, and of some knowledge of natural science as part of a liberal education has not been always recognised. In many girls' secondary schools, and in the minds of many parents, classics, modern languages, mathematics and English subjects have received their meed of attention, but it is often tacitly assumed that girls have no business with physics or natural history, unless they are going to specialise in science or take up medicine. There are several reasons for this. Laboratory work and the teaching required for it are expensive, owing to the equipment and the necessarily small number of pupils one teacher can safely manage. Boys must learn physical science at school as a preparation for professional and industrial life; and so parents demand it for them but not for the girls. Indeed, it is not unusual to find even enlightened parents requesting that their daughters be allowed to give up physics and botany, "as it will never be any use to them."

This is, perhaps, the reason why, speaking generally, private boarding-schools for girls have so little science study in their curriculum. There are also two more personal and less obvious causes: first, that girls often dislike practical work, and prefer subjects that can be learnt out of books a fact due, it may be, to their more receptive and less original intellectual character as compared with their brothers; and, second, that the authorities of the schools sometimes distrust the effect of scientific studies, positive and rationalistic as these are, on the minds and hearts of young women. There is, doubtless, a real difficulty and danger behind this latter objection: a curriculum exclusively and narrowly scientific may starve and atrophy some of the most important elements of a woman's nature. But this is true in other directions of other subjects also, and is also true for boys, on intellectual grounds alone. It is now being recognised that the "schools of science have not been altogether advantageous in their effect on knowledge and capacity, owing to the disproportionate amount of time given to one type of studies; specialisation, above all premature specialisation, is bad for most young people in any subject. On the other hand, there are at least two strong arguments for making some amount of natural science compulsory in a girls' education, apart from the general reasons as stated in Herbert Spencer's well-known essay, which are, of course, as true for one sex as for the other. If girls do often dislike practical experimental study, as compared with formal book-knowledge, it is all the more desirable that they should be obliged to get the training laboratory work gives-a peculiar and unique training, such as can be imparted in no other way.

The value of scientific method, of verification and accuracy in observation, is in itself a corrective to the schoolgirl's fatal facility in learning up facts from a text-book, or mechanically reflecting the phrases and ideas of the teacher. It is found, however, that a certain number of girls have a real passion for science, are devoted to it, and often do very well later in college. Further, there is a special value in some knowledge of physics as a preparation for woman's special work in the home; it is a very short-sighted and incomplete view which would consider general elementary science as useless in her education. All the various branches of domestic economy depend on the laws of physics, mechanics and chemistry, from the frying of fish and the washing of flannels to sanitation and the care of children. A girl who has had a simple three-years' course of practical physics, even if only two lessons a week, has learnt how things go in nature, can observe and draw deductions from her observation, can deal with emergencies, scheme and contrive ways round a practical difficulty, has acquired by practical experience some measure of accuracy and resource-no mean possession for the mistress of a household. To some such course of elementary physics may well be added simple outlines of botany and natural history, again largely experimental, and devoid as far as possible of technicalities and elaborate terminology, whether in classification or elsewhere. This can be begun earlier than the physics, as there is less mathematical work in it, and as the experiments do not involve the use of gas jets, balances, mercury and heavy apparatus, all of which mean difficulties for younger pupils. In the junior classes, from the kindergarten upwards, naturestudy, in the form of object-lessons, is generally recognised in all grades of schools. It may well become, as it is in many American schools, the central study, round which all the language work, reading, writing, recitation, &c., is grouped. In the American educational exhibit at the Paris Exposition this method was clearly shown, and the best normal-college courses in the States contain for primary teachers a carefully-planned biological syllabus, often arranged according to the seasons, closely connected with common objects, and serving as the foundation of all their ordinary teaching. It will be noticed, too, in English schools how much better is the composition work done on nature subjects by younger children than is that on the literary side. Germination of a seed, which they have seen and watched for themselves, is a far more real and interesting matter to them than the life of an historical character, just as animals are more interesting to the very young child than human beings are. This simple nature-study passes almost insensibly into botany and zoology, which may be pursued in the second and third forms (ages eleven to thirteen inclusive), provided the teaching is practical. This means observation of the living things, both animal and plants; easy biological experiments on the latter, such as can be carried on in a greenhouse or window garden, if not in the open ground; drawing from museum

In

specimens; elementary classification; and some knowledge of the habits and life history of more important types. (See subjoined syllabus.) the fourth forms the work may be continued on the concentric system, and at fifteen or sixteen, when girls begin to specialise, they will be ready for formal technical study.

Victoria University has lately introduced the subject of natural history (taking animals and plants together) as an optional group in the Preliminary examination, developed somewhat on these lines; and in so doing has given a marked impulse to sound methods in the schools. For girls especially, the kind of biological teaching favoured by the followers of Huxley, including as it did actual dissection, had become sometimes a real stumbling-block in the way of those teachers who wished to encourage the life sciences. The newer scheme, with which the names of Prof. Miall and Prof. Hickson are associated, is an attempt to find a better way, i.e., one more fitted for average school conditions, but equally sound and scholarly.

The other group of natural sciences, physics and chemistry, has been studied from the pedagogic point of view by Dr. Armstrong, whose heuristic method and syllabus of general elementary science are already well known. Measurement, which is its basis, may be begun in the junior school, in connection with concrete arithmetic and handwork, plans of the playground, &c. Some teachers find it advantageous, however, in practice, to depart from the strict heuristic method, and give demonstration lessons in the form in which physics is begun, an Upper II. or Middle IlI. (thirteen years of age). In the Manchester High School we have a compulsory three-years' course in simple physics, for the Upper III., Fourth, and Upper IV. forms, of two lessons a week, one being demonstration and one laboratory practice; some very elementary chemistry is introduced in the third year. An attempt is being now made to correlate the physics work with the arithmetic and geometry teaching. Whenever possible the connection of household science is emphasised, and experiments with milk, tea, the making of soap, heating of oil, and similar illustrations from daily life are employed. The form which specialises on housewifery (sixteen and seventeen years of age) has a complete course of domestic science and hygiene, closely related to the cookery, &c., done in the technical part of their time-table. One valuable and interesting result of this compulsory physics course is that girls who have a real taste for science are discovered in time to develop their faculty, and such girls sometimes have no inclinations or ability in other directions. The case of Martin, in "Tom Brown," has its parallels in girls' schools, and if a girl does care for science she cares for it ardently and often excels. The women's movement is not very old, but already there are cases of women doing research work, and if there were adequate fellowships and other opportunities for them they would do more.

Chemistry for girls should not be compulsory, but should be taken up late in a school course

by those who are specialising; this is the view held by several college authorities, who find the work done in earlier years at school often inadequate and superficial, because the pupils are not developed enough mentally to understand what they are doing, and in consequence work mechani. cally. This error obtains with boys rather than with girls, but it is noticed sometimes with girls who have learnt chemistry in a higher-grade school at too early a stage.

The insertion of natural history and general elementary science into the curriculum, justifiable on the ground of their value alike as training and knowledge, means that the older physical geography and hygiene lessons cannot be given all through the school, as they were in the original high schools a generation ago; there is not room for both kinds of science study if the claims of mathematics and the humanities be considered. Scientific men on the whole discourage the school study of these subjects, as they opine, very justly, that scientifically these depend on physics and chemistry, and should be taught only to students who have some discipline in these basic sciences. But both are valuable as knowledge, and hygiene is obviously most important for girls. The present writer is not prepared with any solution of the problem in this case, except for girls who remain to finish a school course; these can be taught what is necessary in a short course of lessons on laws of health, treated as an information subject, and learnt up like Latin inflections or the provisions of a charter. Physical geography lends itself to demonstration courses, given, say, for a year in the thirds, and then again in the Upper V. Elementary geology can, of course, be taken with those who specialise in science, just as the mathematical girls in the upper part of the school can do astronomy.

Speaking generally, it will be found possible for those who believe in science to give about a third of the school time to it, including, of course, mathematics; with young children constructive handwork, object lessons and elementary arithmetic, will take such a proportion of time; later, three nature-study and five arithmetic periods a week may well be given. When physics is introduced, five to seven periods may be given to this and the correlated mathematical studies, and two to botany or natural history. At fifteen or sixteen years of age, the girl who is to specialise in science must keep up her mathematics, English literature. and history, and at least one language, while she should acquire or possess a reading knowledge both of French and German. She may learn three sciences, and at seventeen or eighteen four (physics, chemistry, botany and zoology), though in this case she will have but the minimum of other studies. Some girls who incline to language, history, or mathematics as their special work often wish to keep up one science, and this should be encouraged for the sake of the general broadening of their intelligence. Botany arouses the enthusiasm of some, chemistry of others, while the would-be wrangler should be always obliged