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Principles of Elementary Teaching, chiefly in reference to the Parochial Schools of Scotland, in two Letters, to T. F. Kennedy, Esq. M. P. By James Pillars, F. R S. E. &c. Edinburgh. Adam Black, North Bridge, and Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, London, 1828 pp, iv. 146.

Account of the Edinburgh Sessional School, &c. &c. with Strictures on Educrtion in general, by John Wood, Esq. Edinburgh, printed for John Wardlaw, &c. &c. 1828. pp. xii. 262.

The object of these two publications is, in a degree, the same, the improvement of education among the lower ranks of the Scottish people. Although arising from a local interest, they contain much of general applicability; and, as education is a matter of prime importance to a nation, and to Ireland, which needs it much, of vital consequence, no apology can be required for calling the public attention to consider the statements of two able men. The article placed first, was first in order of publication, and presents all the clearness and accuracy, which might be looked for in a man of talent writing on a subject, on which his own experience had qualified him to give an opinion. There is nothing indeed in the book, which must not have occurred to many an intelligent teacher, and been reduced to practice in parts; but Mr. Pillars presents all the points, on which he urges improvement, as a whole, and so clearly, so convincingly, and so well contrasted with the abuses and defects, which have prevailed for many years, that they appear with the force and charm of discoveries.

The professor in the arrangement of his observations has, perhaps, reversed the order which other writers on the subject would have observed: he first gives the directions, which he deems needful for the improvement of the national education, and then furnishes a very ample list of defects and abuses. His first direction is expressed with some quaintness. "A child in being taught to read, should be taught at the same time to understand what he reads." The principle of this direction is so rational and so obvious, that the enforcing of it looks like jesting with one's readers; yet in millions of instances as well as in this, the obvious and the useful and the practicable are not always put in practice. Persons labouring in the instruction of youth are, like men in other pursuits and professions, formed by the opinions and requirements of those who employ them. One man may occasionally appear, who has power to burst the bonds that fetter those of inferior courage or capacity; but such men are rare in this station; they will not remain at the thankless drudgery: they leave the toil to those, who are more or less constrained to conform to the opinions and whims of their employers. The absurdity, or, at least, the impolicy of teaching the child to read what he cannot understand, has been felt by many; and a more reasonable system recommended, in some instances adopted. In one instance, a pupil trained on the recommended system, could not at a certain stage pronounee the printed gibberish as glibly as another taught on the common system: no

time was given for a fair weighing of the merits or demerits of the two systems, but deep displeasure was visited on the man, who would have proceeded on the way pointed out by Mr. Pillars and

common sense.

The extreme rarity, until very late years, of even a moderate degree of excellence in reading aloud, arose from the absurdity, against which Mr. Pillars' precept, would secure the pupil. In early age, when the pupil is taught to read, and facility in pronouncing the words before him in print is taken as the test of his improvement and of the instructor's talent, this proficiency is made without any participation in the task by the mind. The pupil does not understand what he reads, and consequently has no notion whatsoever of those modulations of the voice, which nature would dictate in the expression of sentiment: 30me modulations, however, must be adopted: they of course must be those of his teacher, himself perhaps taught in the same absurd way-but let him have been taught how he may, his pupil implicitly adopts the tones he has been taught, and at that period being without taste or judgment or experience, he can know no modulations but the few which he has heard, and he applies them indiscriminately to every subject, grave or gay, deep or light, prosaic or poetic, and the miserable habit is at last formed beyond all possibility of eradication. The professor's second principle will have the hearty assent of all, who value the preservation of good principle in the mind of the child. Would, that corporal punishment could be entirely laid aside! But human nature is evilly disposed, and the child par taking of the evil dispositions of the parents, has the bad passions roused and confirmed by an injudicious or vicious parent. On this point the good sense and experience of Mr. Wood, come well in aid of the professor's injunction.

The third point recommended is, "that the business of the school should be so conducted, that no child shall be idle," or to use Lancaster's quaint but energetic expression of the rule," that every pupil in school shall at all times have something useful to do, and a motive for doing it." The experimental excellence of this rule will recommend itself.

The remainder of the essay is occupied principally in detailing the defects of the present system of parochial schools and school-masters, and their establishments. The detail is deeply instructive, if men will not harden themselves against instruction, and close their eyes against conviction. It presents much injustice, selfishness, humiliation, and debasement, accumulated in the course of some generations by selfish human nature on an unprotected body of useful men, and furnishes a picture of retribution, visited on the pupils in the form of time wasted, and talents perverted through the operation of a defective system.

In this system, however, notwithstanding the grievous defects, there was a redeeming principle. Good was inculcated injudiciously still it was inculcated, and to its influence are to be ascrib ed the integrity, sobriety, and steadiness, which honourably distin

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guish the Scottish character. Those schools were established by Act of Parliament in the year 1696. The system, which could have wrought such beneficial effects must have been on the whole wisely planned. Efforts have been made in England and Ireland to further the same desirable object. The sums expended, or allocated with that view in the two kingdoms, would outcount, many fold, the expenditure in Scotland; but there was a superiority in the Scottish proceedings which appears to have been chiefly in this, that the effort was a national and simultaneous one, and that maintaining power was wisely provided, by which the efficient and uninterrupted working of the machine was secured. Few, or no instances could have been found under this arrangement of good endowments permitted to lose their way, and finally disappear into the pockets of the unprincipled. The Scottish system has been effective through a long series of years-and, when we consider its defects and abuses, arising partly from original constitution, partly from lapse of time, and the operation of human infirmity, we cannot but think highly of the vigorous principle which gave it impulse, and still continues to impel it.

A machine, that has wrought so well, and after such a length of time exhibits such strength and constitution still, justifies some outlay on repairs and alterations. Those suggested by the professor may be easily adopted, and seem every way well adapted to the end designed.

It will not be necessary to go into a detail of the abuses and defects stated in the essay it would be an unpleasant duty, and we should rather refer to the essay for information. Some of the matters reprehended justly by the professor, it is to be hoped, will be utterly banished on the revision, which, we trust, a liberal and discerning age are meditating, and an Act of Parliament intended for the promotion of liberal feeling, and mental refinement, and passed so lately as the year 1802, it is to be hoped, will not be disgraced by the detectable clause ordaining, that the schoolmaster's dwelling-house shall consist of not more than two apartments." The professor notes, "this was no error of the press, but deliberately inserted, and quite in accordance with the spirit of the Act." Without entering on the unpleasant detail of these things, we will as we have said, pass on after expressing the hope, that among the improvements of modern days, some will live to see a liberal system of national education which shall provide for the rising generation, effectual instruction; for the laborious and useful teacher a fair remuneration for his days of work, and for the days, in which (in the homely, yet expressive northern phrase,) he can neither work nor want,"-" when he cannot dig, and to beg, he is ashamed,”—when too often, after having brought on premature old age by exertion and anxiety, and where attention to his peculiar duties has unfitted him for another sphere of action, he is forgotten, left to totter into a corner and-die-then, we would fondly hope, he may find a peaceful retreat prepared by a grateful country for his last lingering hours.

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There are some particulars noticed in these letters, which can with more convenience be remarked on, when we leave the professor's general and comprehensive view of national education, and proceed to occupy ourselves with the model-view of a single school given by Mr. Wood. "The account is a valuable and clear detail of what is termed the Sessional School in Edinburgh." In 1812, some abominable scenes of depravity and riot, attracted the attention of some worthy individuals in that city. They considered, that education afforded the only security against the recurrence of such desperate scenes, and as Christian clergymen they felt, that no education could effect the object in view well or permanently, that was not founded on religion. "On this scheme, a school was to be opened in each of the parishes of the city for the religious instruction on the Lord's day of the children of the poor,--the whole to be under the superintendance of ten directors, five of whom to be ministers, and five elders. Beside devotional exercises, and general reading of the Holy Scriptures, the masters were especially enjoined to instruct their pupils in the Lord's prayer, the ten commandments, the creed, the shorter catechism, psalms, and paraphrases."

This was the first stone of the interesting edifice, reared with care and judgment to serve as a model and an encouragement to others. The work embraces a great scope; it not only gives the plan of the school, the discipline, the branches of education, and the minutiae of management, but enters largely into discussion on some controverted opinions in which education is concerned. In such a variety of matter there must be many things on which differences of opinion must exist; yet, a careful perusal of Mr. Wood's work will satisfy the reader, that good sense is the striking characteristic of it, and that its leading may be safely followed. His ideas concerning payments to teachers, at p. 39; on education, at p. 111; and on punishments, at p. 131, will give sufficient illustration of this. It might (by the bye) be gently whispered to Mr. Wood, that in his very sensible and judicious discussion of the subject of punishments, while he justly condemns Lancaster and Mrs. Trimmer, he exhibits, at p. 136, 137, a squeamishness more in the Mrs. Trimmer style, than in the usual manly one of Mr. Wood.

This book is worthy of general notice, it will be consulted by all who wish to improve their views of promoting education : much selection from it here, therefore, will not be requisite, nor indeed could it be profitably effected. There is so much of the instructive, and the points calling for the attention, are so many, so important, and so mutually bound together, that no justice could be done to the subject by a selection into this notice of it. for those who may wish to choose for their own perusal, what they may consider as adapted to them, the system of monitors in the management of a school, would pay well the attention bestowed upon it, by those who are desirous of knowing how to instruct a great number of pupils in an easy and effective way, The obser

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vations on the alphabet, and first lesson with words in chapter 12, must be delightful to mothers, who wish to ease to their infants the path commonly so rugged and painful. To instructors in general, chapter 17, on grammars, and indeed the whole work will well repay the studious perusal.

An interesting feature in Mr. Wood's treatise, is the sober, reverential introduction of religious instruction in his course. The specimen of religious sentiment, quoted from Mr. Malau, does not seem suited to our latitude: and the slender notice of religious subjects by professor Pillars, presents itself in an opposite extreme. Mr. Wood, as far as may be judged from this book, forms a judicious mean. This opinion of the professor is given with some hesitation; for it will be freely conceded, that the writer may have composed his essay under the impression that the discussion he designed, did not require a stronger impression of religious sentiment. Still, it is but natural in discussing such subjects as national education in Scotland, the striking and most honorable feature in which was the enforcement of scriptural reading, that there might have been some exhibition of religious feeling, something in unison with the characteristic national feeling on that subject. The recollection of the chilly tone in which religious subjects are discussed in a celebrated northern periodical, does not incline our balance favourably, nor do we feel very favourably impressed with the following passage from the Professor's book, at p. 142; it is an extract from a correspondent, who has been describing some changes which had been effected in some country schools:" I am happy to say, that both it, (the shorter catechism) the Proverbs, and the New Testament, have been within the last year, discontinued as school books." This may admit of a fair explanation, but beyond a doubt, as it is, it must be allowed to appear deserving of remark.

Within the latter half century, a great battle has been fought, and a victory been achieved; it remains for the friends of the human race to follow up the victory, and make it productive of permanent good. There are many living, who can recollect when statesmen, the wise ones of the earth, maintained, that education was injurious to the lower classes. A dawn of better times began,

and a warm contest ensued: those who were anxious for the improvement of society, contended zealously for the general instruction of the lower classes, and they urged well and warmly all the topics then usually advanced. But in their advocacy there was one great defect; they had not seen the importance of a religious education, and consequently did not seek to provide the only remedy against the depravity of our nature, The limited education for which men were contending, was, as it were, a putting of arms into the hands of a lunatic-it was only increasing the power of doing mischief. Such was the first and powerful retort of its adversaries. Ireland was chosen as an illustration; for, let it be remarked, that education of a certain sort was not so little known in this country as has been supposed, but being unaccompanied by proper religious instruction, it sharpened the intellect,

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