develop certain intellectual faculties, to improve the memory, to strengthen the reasoning powers, to cultivate the habit of abstraction, is not all the work that education has to do. Its province is of far wider range, and includes still more exalted aims. Its processes are as much moral as intellectual, embrace within their sphere all the tempers, habits, qualities, tendencies of the man, and are consummated by all possible appliances and influences that can act on every separate element of man's nature.

Now this consideration will enable us more decisively to contend for the educating power of our own English literature. For observe the society into which it introduces us! We are brought by it into contact with minds of the loftiest order. And what does more to form and fashion us than our companionship Insensibly we become assimilated to those with whom we associate. Just as those minute insects which we may discover in the grass wear the livery of that green herbage on which they batten, so virtue is always passing out of great authors into their readers. Not only the sentiments, but the very soul and spirit are transfused. Thus the study of an elevated literature will silently and little by little take effect on the man's nature, and the various elements of character will grow in correspondence with the influences that act on them. "Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis Quem mulcent auræ, firmat sol, educat

imber."

Catholicity of feeling and breadth of views will, in some measure at all events, result from such influences. The student will learn to appreciate the temper with which great minds approach the consideration of great questions; he will discover that truth is many-sided, that it is not identical or merely co-extensive with individual opinion, and that the world is a good deal wider than his own sect, or party, or class. And such a lesson the middle classes of this country greatly need. They are generally honest in their opinions, but in too many cases they are narrow.

Now

It must be remembered that there is a wide distinction between narrowness and definiteness of view. On this point people are apt to mistake. Those who complain of the narrowness of party views are very often regarded as advocating laxity and vagueness in matters of opinion. They are stigmatised as latitudinarian in a bad sense. No charge can be more unfair. The true latitudinarian does not disparage clearness and distinctiveness of opinion, but only one-sided dogmatism and overstrained compression of truth. the tendency of earnest middle-class Englishmen is to compress truth, to square and shape it into formulas and to confine it within party limits. The fact scarcely needs illustrating. Take the case of religion. The whole field of it is divided into petty enclosures, overgrown with an iron crop of shibboleths. Whenever an honest Englishman looks beyond the verge of his own circle and takes a peep into his neighbour's enclosure, he inevitably draws back his head with a grave shake and a subdued muttering, a few words of which, such as "unsound," "dangerous," "heterodox," are alone permitted to reach the ear. The same sort of thing exhibits itself with regard to social and political questions. The majority of fairly intelligent every-day people can only look at them from their own confined point of view. They base their opinions on the contracted foundation of the little sphere in which they move, and apply to the interests of an empire the maxims and rules which they draw from the experiences of the market and the shop. To this the use of English literature in education would, in some measure at least, supply a corrective. It would assist in the formation of deeper and broader views in religion and politics. It would do so, not so much because such views are to be found in the works of our standard writers-though this is necessarily true -but because it would strengthen and enlarge the mind's range of vision, and would breathe a loftier and more catholic spirit into the soul. Another and a

A

kindred result would be increase and extension of the sympathies. Large views help to generate large sympathies ; and, by converse with the thoughts and utterances of those who are intellectual leaders of the race, our heart comes to beat in accord with the feelings of universal humanity. We discover that no differences of class, or party, or creed, can destroy the power of genius to charm and to instruct, and that above the smoke and stir, the din and turmoil of man's lower life of care and business and debate, there is a serene and luminous region of truth where all may meet and expatiate in common. zealous monarchist and Stuart partizan may, while studying the political history of the great Civil War, come bitterly to dislike, and angrily to denounce the Secretary of Cromwell and author of the "Defensio Populi Anglicani ;" but when he makes acquaintance with the rich and luxuriant poetry of "Comus," or when the solemn organ-like melodies of "Paradise Lost" are heard by him, his prejudice is disarmed, he is irresistibly taken captive, and he finds that the great political and ecclesiastical heresiarch and himself have a common heritage, and are citizens of one common city. It is, indeed, a good thing that men should be constrained to admire those with whom, in matters of opinion, they disagree; and high genius joined with high moral tone and purpose can enforce such admiration.

Yet again it may be contended that an education, based on the national literature, would assist in developing a spirit of enlightened patriotism. Englishmen, indeed, are anything but unpatriotic; they love their country, glory in its renown, are willing to die for its safety; but they do not always seem to understand wherein its chief nobility lies. They are fascinated by its historic renown, by its commercial enterprise, by its material resources; they are not sufficiently alive to the measureless importance of an elevated national character. They need to be They need to be taught to appreciate thoroughly those moral qualities traditionally regarded as

distinctively English. Their education should be such as to inspire them with a love for manly sincerity, stainless faith, fearless advocacy of truth. These are doubtless in some sense national traits; the germs of them are latent in the unformed nature of the English boy; but they must be drawn forth, and the high, generous, and manly spirit that breathes in English literature is exactly the agency for educing them. Again, the English character is confessedly deficient in refinement. The natural Englishman is almost always coarse ; his tendencies are somewhat animal, and his tastes incline to the boisterous and material. Now we have all known, ever since we first learnt our Latin syntax, that acquaintance with the liberal arts softens and refines. Assuredly then among the liberal arts that so humanize, standard literature occupies the first place. If anything will take coarseness and vulgarity out of a soul, it must be refined images and elevated sentiments. As a clown will instinctively tread lightly and feel ashamed of his hob-nailed shoes in a lady's boudoir, so a vulgar mind may, by converse with minds of high culture, be brought to see and deplore the contrast between itself and them, and to make an earnest effort to put off its vulgarity.

A reference to taste and refinement suggests the thought that an early introduction to really great writers would have the effect of improving the prevailing literary taste of future generations. A course of standard authors would be found a powerful corrective of any excessive liking for the feeble, shallow, ephemeral literature that is now so much in vogue. There is, however, yet another argument which I must ask leave to advance on behalf of the cause I plead. Thorough and accurate study of the English language and literature would supply what the great body of fairly educated people are grievously deficient in, viz. power of expression. It has never, I imagine, been ascertained, how large a percentage of the middle class of this country can write

and speak their own mother tongue with fluency and correctness.

This is too delicate and subtle an inquiry for the machinery of the census; but, were such an inquiry possible, the results would not afford much gratification. As a matter of fact, the language is degenerating in the hands of professional writers; hybrid words, awkward and conventional phrases, daring anacoloutha, and extraordinary syntactical licences, are continually manifesting themselves in the current literature of

the day. Much more then must we be prepared for maltreatment of the Queen's English among the trading and commercial classes. And we find it plentifully. To be able to tell a plain tale in plain words; to make a statement simply, clearly, concisely; to record the details of business in vigorous business-like terms-is an accomplishment that does not always appear in company with shrewd sense and sound business capacity. Now it would go far to remedy this defect, if the nascent hopes of the commercial classes were carried through a course of the strong nervous racy prose of the seventeenth century. Barrow and South may be voted somewhat dry reading; but the former helped to make Chatham an orator, and the latter can boast of a style, the mixed excellences of which adapt it for the use of the rhetorician on the one hand, and the practical man of business on the other.

It is surely not necessary to seek further arguments in favour of such a reform or modification of existing methods of education as shall more prominently and more effectually enlist in the cause the services of our National Literature. If that literature embody all the excellences for which we give it credit, if it be full of the living power of genius, if it be a rich store-house of thought and argument and imagery, if it breathe a manly, generous, liberal spirit, and be pervaded by a pure and healthy morality, it must, if rightly applied, act powerfully and benignantly on the opening faculties of our English youth.

II. It only remains to consider how it may be rightly applied, or, in other words, effectively taught.

To this end it must, above all things, be thoroughly taught. To run through a standard author in a cursory and superficial way is a mere waste of time and dissipation of mind. And in the study of an English writer there is some danger of being hurried and superficial, because the scholar does not at the outset encounter the same difficulties which he meets with when he enters on the examination of a Greek or Latin book. In the latter case he has, in order to get at the thoughts, to crack the shell of a foreign and unfamiliar language. This compels attention, research, deliberate weighing of words, so that the mind is at once invigorated by necessary effort and trained to habits of thorough and exhaustive inquiry. On the other hand, when the language is vernacular, the mind travels over it so easily and rapidly that the thoughts have scarcely time to imprint themselves on the understanding, and such impression as they do leave is faint and imperfect.

This, then, is the thing to be guarded against. It is an utter mistake to suppose that the study of English Litera ture, be it poetry or prose, belongs in any sense to the department of "light reading." It would be just as rational to consider gold-digging as simply a form of spade-husbandry. It is possible, of course, to content oneself with merely turning up the surface soil, but he who does so will never get possession of the treasure which lies hid beneath.

I contend, then, that, to be of any use for purposes of education, an English author must be studied as carefully and as deeply as a Greek one, and very much in the same way. It will not, I hope, seem pedantic if I venture to prescribe rules for such a study.

1. Take first the department of language.

This should be critically investigated. There is a notion that English cannot be taught scientifically on account of the want of definiteness and system in Eng

lish grammar. We have not indeed in English that structural nicety which the predominance of inflected forms gives a language. Hence there is little scope for applying laws of syntax to our mothertongue. But we have compensation in some other departments. The fact that the English language is composite opens out a very interesting and a very educating line of study in connexion with it the study of words in their origin and in their variety and changes of meaning. Everybody knows how much literature owes to Dean Trench in connexion with this subject; he has indeed, as it seems to me, indicated a course which, rightly used, may be made fruitful of most precious results in education.

The school-boy then should, while learning his Latin grammar, which will help him to appreciate one element of his native speech, be allowed some insight into the more domestic and aboriginal element of that speech, as exhibited in its older and purely Saxon forms. He should be taught how the language has grown, and changed, and developed; how inflections have gradually dropped out; how new words and new idioms have as gradually slipt in; how old words have gotten for themselves new meanings; and how prevailing opinions, and shifting fashions, and national temperament affect the "jus et norma loquendi."

Again, when he comes to study an English author, he should be required to note every striking and important word and phrase; to discriminate the exact shade of meaning proper to the word in that particular connexion; to register such idioms as have become obsolete, or involve note-worthy grammatical peculiarities, and to make a collection of such forms and expressions as deserve to be treasured up for use in composition.

2. From the language we pass to the subject-matter, and here again there is scope for great and varied labour.

In the first place the general drift and tenor of the argument should be mastered. With this view the pupil should, after reading a certain portion of his

author, be required to make an analysis or abstract of the portion read. He must be trained, in doing this, to seize and pick out the leading thoughts, to indicate the steps in the argument, and to bring into full relief the master-truth which the author wishes to exhibit.

Further, he must be made to "get up" a clear and full explanation of all classical, historical, and other allusions, and he must patiently and faithfully disentangle all involutions of language, and all intricacies of thought.

Yet again, in order to call into play his reasoning and reflective powers, he must be required (where the opportunity presents itself) to weigh in his own mind the force and soundness of some particular argument, the truth and falsehood of some particular position, and to form and express his opinion

about them.

So too, according to the character of the work studied, certain points will require special attention. If the pupil is engaged on a historian, he must be led to consider the evidence on which the historical facts are based, and the validity of the inferences drawn from them.

The study of a poem or drama will afford opportunity for another sort of culture. Character must be analysed, the propriety and beauty of the imagery illustrated, poetical forms of expression and figures of speech brought under notice.

3. In the last place, such a study as I am advocating must be accompanied by frequent and varied exercises in composition. A popular and useful exercise of the kind is what is called paraphrasing, which consists in expressing the thoughts of the writer in different but equivalent terms. This approaches in some measure to the practice of written translation from a foreign language, and to a certain extent supplies its place as an instrument of education. Another and still more valuable exercise is writing from memory the substance of a portion of an author after having carefully studied it some little time before. In this case, the original and the imitation should

afterwards be carefully compared. Original themes and essays should also be set on subjects suggested by the work in hand. It may be well sometimes to follow out a proposition barely suggested by the writer, sometimes to controvert one of his statements or positions, and sometimes to compose a critique on his general line of argument and style.

To pursue this subject further would be tedious. What has been said sufficiently indicates the direction that should be taken, and, I hope, also does something to prove what may be called the capabilities of English Literature as an instrument of mental training and discipline. In this hope I commend the subject to the fair and thoughtful consideration of all whom it may concern. And, in good sooth, it concerns every

body. We are all interested in the formation of the national character and the culture of the national mind. The tendencies of education are certainly just now in a purely utilitarian and scientific direction. Some partial reaction is wanted. Let the useful be duly honoured; let science occupy its own, and that a worthy place. But open the way also for moral influences, for the assimilation of high thoughts, and communing with great minds. Let England's immortal dead speak again in the Colleges and Schools of their country, and their voices will not fall vainly on the ears of England's children. Their burning words and breathing thoughts will stimulate and nourish our national manhood, and will help to maintain an exalted national character.

MR. HALLAM, an historian whose accuracy cannot be questioned, has remarked-"I should find it difficult to "resist the conclusion, that, however "the labourer has derived benefit from "the cheapness of manufactured commodities, and from many inventions "of common utility, he is much inferior "in ability to support a family to his "ancestors three or four centuries ago."

In the time of the Tudors, the weekly wages of ordinary labourers would enable them to purchase twice as much wheat and meat as would the wages of a similar class of labourers at the present time. It therefore appears that improvement in the material condition of a large section of the community has not accompanied the great progress in the nation's wealth. For England's commercial progress is unparalleled; she accumulates capital for a great portion of the civilized world; by her aid railways are carried into the far West; her commerce has

been developed by the greatest triumphs of mechanical genius; her exports have advanced in a few years from 50,000,000Z to 130,000,000l. ; and yet no corresponding effect seems to have been produced in the material condition of her poorest classes.

Philanthropic institutions continue to unfold the same tales of dire distress. Needlewomen exhaust their strength and ruin their health for the most beggarly pittances; and labourers frequently cannot be provided with such food as the necessities of nature demand-for by many meat can now never be tasted more than once a week. It appears, therefore, quite evident that increased production does not insure a happier distribution of a nation's wealth. Yet there may be divers opinions as to how a more equable distribution is to be brought about.

I may be thought hard-hearted if I seek a remedy in the lessons which