making an impression by defying "appearances" and saying just the opposite of what is expected, simply distresses it. Hence the "Emile" has long ceased to be read in this country, and the only English translation I have met with was published in the last century, and has not been reprinted. So Rousseau now works upon us only through his disciples, especially Pestalozzi; but the reader will see from the passages I have selected, that we have often listened to Rousseau

unawares.

*

The truths of the "Emile" will survive the fantastic forms which are there forced upon them. Of these truths, one of the most important, to my mind, is the distinction drawn between childhood and youth. I do not, of course, insist with Rousseau, that a child' should be taught nothing till the day on which he is twelve years old, and then that instruction should begin all at once. There is no hard and fast line. that can be drawn between the two stages of development: the change from one to the other is gradual, and in point of time differs greatly with the individual. But as I have elsewhere said, I believe the difference between the child and the youth to be greater than the difference between the youth and the man; and I believe further, that this is far too much overlooked in our ordinary education. Rousseau, by drawing attention to the sleep of reason and to the activity and vigor of the senses in childhood,

*The above quotations are from this translation, but in correcting the proofs, I have discovered that it will not stand the test of being brought into such close contact with the French. I have altered it in many places, and am by no means satisfied with what I have left.

became one of the most important educational reform. ers, and a benefactor of mankind.*

*This teaching of Rousseau's seems especially deserving of our consideration now that it has been proposed to elect boys of thirteen to Christ's Hospital, and to scholarships in other schools, by competitive examination. Whatever advantages may have resulted from such competition in the case of older pupils, we can not fairly assume that the system ought to be extended to children. Examinations can not test the proper development of children, or mark out the cleverest. Indeed, what they would really decide for us would be, not which were the cleverest children, but which had been intrusted to the cleverest " crammers." Thus the master would be stimulated to "ply the memory and load the brain" for their livelihood; and a race of precocious children terminating their intellectual career at the point where it ought to begin, would convince us of the wisdom of Rousseau, and drive us back to the neglected arts of being ignorant and losing time. See Mr. Arnold's vigorous protest against examinations of children.-Schools and Universities of the Continent, chap. v., pp. 60, 61.

VI.

BASEDOW AND THE PHILANTHROPIN.

ONE of the most famous movements ever made in educational reform was started in the last century by John Bernard Basedow. Basedow was born at Hamburg in 1723, the son of a wigmaker. His early years were not spent in the ordinary happiness of childhood. His mother he describes as melancholy, almost to madness, and his father was severe almost to brutality. It was the father's intention to bring up his son to his own business, but the lad ran away, and engaged himself as servant to a gentleman in Holstein. The master soon perceived what had never occurred to the father, viz., that the youth had very extraordinary abilities. Sent home with a letter from his master pointing out this notable discovery, Basedow was allowed to renounce the paternal calling, and to go to the Hamburg Grammar School (Gymnasium), where he was under Reimarus, the author of the "Wolfenbüttel Fragment." In due course his friends managed to send him to the University of Leipzig to prepare himself for the least expensive of the learned professionsthe clerical. Basedow, however, was not a man to follow the beaten tracks. After an irregular life he left the university too unorthodox to think of being ordained, and in 1749 became private tutor to the children of Herr von Quaalen, in Holstein. In this sit

uation his talent for inventing new methods of teaching first showed itself. He knew how to adapt himself to the capacity of the children, and he taught them much by conversation, and in the way of play, connecting his instruction with surrounding objects in the house, garden, or fields. Through Quaalen's influence, he next obtained a professorship at Soroe, in Denmark, where he lectured for eight years, but his unorthodox writings raised a storm of opposition, and the Government finally removed him to the Gymna. sium at Altona. Here he still continued his efforts to change the prevailing opinion in religious matters, and so great a stir was made by the publication of his "Philalethia," and his "Methodical Instruction in both Natural and Biblical Religion," that he and his family were refused the Communion at Altona, and his books were excluded, under a heavy penalty, from Lübeck.

About this time Basedow, incited by Rousseau's Émile," turned his attention to a fresh field of activity, in which he was to make as many friends as in theology he had found enemies. A very general dissatisfaction was then felt with the condition of the schools. Physical education was not attempted in them. The mother-tongue was neglected. Instruction in Latin and Greek, which was the only instruction given, was carried on in a mechanical way, without any thought of improvement. education of the poor and of the middle classes received but little attention. "Youth," says Raumer, "was in those days, for most children, a sadly harassed period. Instruction was hard and heartlessly severe. Grammar was caned into the memory, so were por

The

NEED OF A REVOLUTION.

141

tions of Scripture and poetry. A common school punishment was to learn by heart Psalm cxix. Schoolrooms were dismally dark. No one conceived it possible that the young could find pleasure in any kind of work, or that they had eyes for aught besides read ing and writing. The pernicious age of Louis XIV. had inflicted on the poor children of the upper classes, hair curled by the barber and messed with powder and pomade, braided coats, knee breeches, silk stockings, and a dagger by the side-for active, lively children a perfect torture" (Geschichte der Pädagogik, ii. 297). Kant gave expression to a very widespread feeling when he said that what was wanted in education was no longer a reform but a revolution.

Here, then, was a good scope offered for innovators, and Basedow was a prince of innovators.

Having succeeded in interesting the Danish minister, Bernsdorf, in his plans, he was permitted to devote himself entirely to a work on the subject of education whilst retaining his income from the Altona Gymnasium. The result was, his "Address to the Philanthropists and Men of Property, on Schools and Studies, and their Influence on the Public Weal," in which he announces the plan of his "Elementary. In this address he calls upon princes, governments, towncouncils, dignitaries of the Church, freemasons' lodges, etc., if they loved their fellow-creatures, to come to his assistance in bringing out his book. Nor did h call in vain. When the "Elementary" at length ap peared (in 1774), he had to acknowledge contributions from the emperor Joseph II., from Catherine II. of

*I avail myself of the old substantival use of the word elementary to express its German equivalent Elementarbuch.