if not the greatest, which Latin and Greek can put forward to be the magistral subjects of secondary education, is this, that they are a means of giving an unconscious discipline to the reasoning powers. But if we substitute the vagueness of analysis for the precision of isolated facts, or linguistic reasonings for syntactical dogmas, we can do so effectually only by causing the boy to contemplate Language as the articulate expression of mind and its processes. Now, to call on a boy to make any such self-analytic effort, whether the subject matter be Language, Science, Morals, Esthetics, or Religion, is quite to misunderstand the theory of secondary education, and to forestall the university. The governing principle of the middle-school, both in the intellectual and moral sphere, is law, as that of the primary school is sympathy, and that of the university is freedom. Rules and the accurate application of rules, laws and the willing obedience to laws, these must dominate in the management of boys. That rules shall be intelligent and capable of intelligent application, that laws shall be wholesome and promotive of moral discipline, sound method demands. That such obstructions shall be removed as convert labour into a toil for the intelligent, and quite stop the way for the average boy; and further, that work should be made as attractive as possible, either in itself or by connecting it with pleasing associations, is also demanded. But if we do more than this, and allow our fervour rather than our judgment to guide us, hasten

ing to make the pupil see through the master's eyes, and with the master's grasp of principles, we do him a permanent injury. Minds of finer quality respond freely, but only by bringing into premature activity those powers of reflection on mental operations, and of wide generalization, which it is the exclusive business of the university to exercise. Minds, again, of ordinary capacity do not admit the poison into their intellects at all, but learn to repeat and produce on demand reasonings just as they do rules, and with the same amount of benefit. There may be exceptional cases among pupils, just as there are among masters men of original powers and rare sympathetic endowment; but, speaking on a priori grounds as well as from the results of experience, we may, as a general rule, depend on this, that teaching which has constant reference to the ultimate reasons of things, and necessitates self-analysis in the boy-learner, fosters a crude and premature development, which may have the glitter but which has not the substance of gold. In matters that concern the Intellect, such teaching adds to the bulk at the expense of the organic growth; in matters that concern Morals, it manufactures either a morbid sentimentalist or an insufferable prig.

Mathematics.

In the upper department of the parochial schools of Scotland, Mathematics means Mensuration, Algebra

as far as quadratic equations (this only in the most advanced parochial schools), and a few books of Euclid. The discipline in school-mathematics comes from Geometry. The precision of the definitions, the necessity of constantly referring to them, and the purity of the exercise in syllogistic reasoning, are of great benefit to the intellect. But alone, and unsupported by the higher linguistic training, it would be an unsatisfactory discipline in even mere syllogistic logic. The subject-matter of the reasoning is confined within too narrow limits, and the landmarks of the ratiocinative process are too clearly defined to admit of geometry ever affording by itself a liberal culture. Both the subject and the discipline which it gives are alike too monotonous and inflexible.

The method of initiating boys in geometry has engaged the attention of writers on Education; but I think they have frequently lost sight of the fact that although in geometry, as in other subjects, there is a right method and a wrong, the age at which boys begin the study makes them less dependent on the method pursued by their teacher. They have already acquired the power of forming and understanding abstract notions. More thoroughness in the teaching of the elements is required rather than new methods.

K

We return now to the Parochial School in its gene

ral aspects:

ORGANIZATION.

Classification-Time-Tables.

To teach, on the average, four subjects to each of sixty or eighty children, of different ages and of different stages of progress, within five hours, is a task which, at the first glance, seems to be almost impracticable and is always difficult. It is necessary to devise expedients for overcoming the difficulty. To apply these expedients is to organize. It is as a means of getting through his own share of daily school-work that the teacher first finds himself compelled to betake himself to organization ; and all the most serious errors still prevalent in the organizing of schools flow from the pertinacity with which the teacher persists in looking at organi zation from this his first point of view. The true object of organization is to secure that the pupils get through their work, not that the teacher gets through his. The subject in its details must be looked at from first to last in its relation to the pupil's necessity, not the master's. Each child of the sixty has a certain amount of reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., to acquire before the hour of dismissal. In acquiring it he will of course receive the help of the master, who has already determined the nature and extent of the work

1 See Historical and Statistical portion of this Report under Organization, p. 287.

to be done; but it is the pupil who has to acquire it, not the master who has to instil it. The teacher must, it is true, during the day come into direct personal contact with every pupil on each subject of study, test his work, clear up his difficulties, confirm his knowledge, and, above all, open up the way to the next step of his progress. This it is his duty to do it constitutes his direct teaching. But direct teaching is a small part of his work in respect of quantity, though it is presumed to be the highest in respect of quality. The indirect personal teaching which is effected through organization, by means of which he arranges and directs the independent activity of the children in the attainment of the day's task, is a matter of perhaps more importance than the quality of the direct teaching, to the success of the school.

Questions of organization constantly tend to become questions of Discipline, which, however, is a distinct and higher agency. The objects of organization are attained when the arrangements for the working of the whole school as one class or one pupil are completed. The machine being thus finished in all its parts, the discovery and application of the motive power has next to be considered.

The first step in organization is to reduce the number of the individuals to be operated upon, by grouping them into homogeneous masses,-in other words, to classify. The theoretical perfection of clas