remarks on Courtship as Probation. 6. References to courtship in Scott, Miss Edgeworth, Richardson, and Shakespeare (Salvini's Othello condemned). 7. References to other passages in Fors on the subject of womanhood. Romeo and Juliet, a play in honour of the beauty of pure youth. 8. "Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love: the solution of all the wonderfulness of sorrow. 9. "For I will raise her statue in pure gold :' can men have their boys' and girls' worth in gold? 10. The loss of souls by helpless, reckless, needless death. ASHESTIEL LETTER 92 (November 1883) " (Abbotsford, September 26.) 1. The barefooted lassies of Scotland. 2. The burial-places of Bruce's heart and Michael Scott, at Melrose. (Whithorn, October 3.) 3. Types of children at Whithorn and Dumfries. (Brantwood, October 10.) 4. Author's recent visit to the Border country. 5. Mungo Park's last days in Scotland: motives for his return to Africa. 6. "Freits follow those who look to them." 7. The supernatural element in Scott's novels. In what sense the Heart of Midlothian is his greatest work. Scott most himself in works in which the sense of the supernatural is most distinct, as in Waverley and the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 8. The inspiration of childhood. 9. The stages between Fancy and Faith. 10. The effect upon Scott of the natural scenery of his native land. His three dominant homes-Rosebank, Ashestiel, and Abbotsford. 11. Rosebank: the glens of Ettrick, Yarrow, and Liddelwater. 12. Ashestiel: the junction of Tweed and Ettrick. Scott's workroom at Ashestiel. 13. A small chamber with a fair world outside the conditions of the greatest work. The best books: books written in the country, and books that have good music in them. Influence of natural scenery on Scott, Burns, and Byron. 14. Scott's stanzas on the sources of the Tweed. 1. State of St. George's Guild: secessions and accessions. 2. Account of its possessions. 3. The author's invocation to other people to join the Guild. 4. The agitation on the Dwellings of the Poor long since anticipated by the author. The author's constant passages on the matter. Instances of such misery given in Fors. 5. The militia of base littérateurs enlisted to maintain the existing system. The age of sham. 6. The pestilential lie that you are not to give alms, but to benefit the poor by your own eating and drinking. 7. Companions of St. George's Guild to be givers, not receivers; and, so far as possible, to work with PAGE 449 466 their own hands. 8. The dignity and peace of labour. 9. Quiet doers of happy service. Holy Taverns. 10. When the meek inherit the world. 11. (Christmas Postscript.) List of members of the Guild. RETROSPECT LETTER 94 (March 1884) 5. (Brantwood, December 13, 1883.) 1. "Retrospect" and "retrospective." 2. Reference to Letter 17, on education. Reasons why the author does not propose to teach the three R's in St. George's Schools. (i.) Parents should teach the rudiments. (ii.) Few people get any good by reading or writing. The waste of time in reading newspapers. The pestilence of popular literature. Abridgments of Scott and Dickens. 3. (iii.) The futility of arithmetic lessons. The author's incursion into Coniston School and his lesson on a sovereign. The arms of England as seen upon it. 4. (iv.) Literature and arithmetic hinder children in the acquisition of ideas, and encumber the memory of them. Plato's parable of Theuth. Memoranda destructive of memory. (v.) Reading and writing cause disdain of manual labour. Summary of the author's plan of schooling, in avoidance of these evils. Schools to have gardens, laboratories, and workshops. Music, geometry, astronomy, botany, and zoology to be general subjects; drawing and history to be taught to some pupils ; laws of honour, habit of truth, virtue of humility, and happiness of love to all. 6. How to teach humility. 6. How to teach humility. 7. What sort of writing is to be taught in St. George's Schools. Character in handwriting. 8. A cottage lesson. How a child died singing. 9. Value of what is learnt by heart. Children should read less, and remember more. 10. Letter from a schoolmistress Companion of St. George. 11, 12. What women's work is, in the opinion of the author, and in the time of Scott. FORS INFANTIÆ LETTER 95 (October 1884) 1. The author's experiments in school education for infants. 2. Summary of the teaching of Fors on the Land Question. Hereditary possession of land assumed. Nonsense of land nationalisation. 3. Possession of land implies the duties of living on it, and making it fruitful and beautiful for others. 4. Public lands to be available as schools of natural history. 5. Schools to be adjusted to local conditions. Things which all must learn, and things which many need not learn. Doubtful value of grammar in education. 6. Exclusion of competition essential. 7. "You cannot make a silk purse of a sow's ear," nor disguise the flap PAGE 478 493 of it by giving it a diamond earring. The wholesome indisposition of the average mind for intellectual labour provides for "stubbing Thornaby Waste." 8. Opportunities of intellectual education to be given to all, but it is not to be enforced on the unfit. Moral education alone to be universal. 9. Importance of a sound system in elementary music. Author's experiments in the construction of a lyre. The bell the most sacred instrument. 10. Elocution. The essentials of fine speaking. 11. Only story-books, poetry or prose, to be used for reading lessons. Shakespeare not to be used as a school-book. 12. The readingroom and the library: how they should be arranged. 13. Narration. Importance of teaching children to give accurate account of what they have done and seen. 14. Arithmetic. Importance commonly attached to this a filthy folly. 15. Geography. Futility of ordinary maps. 16. Physical and historical maps should be substituted. How the study of them should be associated with geology and drawing. 17. Astronomy. How the study should be associated with geometry and writing. 18. Writing and drawing: "Theuth's first lesson;" how clever children teach themselves. 19. Zoology. The author's schemes for plates and explanatory text. 20. Botany. Need for a simple handbook with hand-coloured plates. 21. Needlework. Author's vision of what a needlework-room in St. George's Museum was meant to contain. 22. Mr. Albert Fleming's revival of the old spinningwheel; Miss Stanley's book on useful sewing. 23. Letter from Francesca's mother on education without compulsion. 24. Letter from T. Craig-Brown enclosing letters by Mungo Park and Scott, and giving an anecdote of the former. 25. Letter of Mungo Park to his sister. Letter of Scott, sending help to a brother of Park. Letter of Scott to Park. 26. The author's further remarks on Mungo Park's character. 27. Comments on a letter in the Scotsman about Ashestiel. ROSY VALE LETTER 96 (Terminal) (Christmas 1884) 1. Extract from Dugdale's Monasticon, describing St. David's Monastery in the Rosy Valley. 2. Letter describing the Rosière of Nanterre. 3. Letter from "Francesca" describing her servant's home, "La Rose." 4. Account by Francesca of " a Rosy Vale in Italy, rejoicing round its Living Rose": story of "The Mother of the Orphans." 5. "Go and do thou likewise." 6. "Great shall be the peace of thy children." "The story of Rosy Vale is not ended.' PAGE 517 1. THE series of letters which closed last year were always written, as from the first they were intended to be, on any matter which chanced to interest me, and in any humour which chance threw me into. By the adoption of the title "Fors," I meant (among other meanings) to indicate this desultory and accidental character of the work; and to imply, besides, my feeling, that, since I wrote wholly in the interests of others, it might justifiably be hoped that the chance to which I thus submitted myself would direct me better than any choice or method of my own. So far as regards the subjects of this second series of letters, I shall retain my unfettered method, in reliance on the direction of better wisdom than mine. But in my former letters, I also allowed myself to write on each subject, whatever came into my mind, wishing the reader, like a friend, to know exactly what my mind was. But as no candour will explain this to persons who have no feelings in common with me,-and as I think, by this time, enough has been shown to serve all purposes of such frankness, to 1 [Psalms xc. 17.] |