EDUCATION—THE FORMS AND THE SPIRIT.
Tim friends of education are apt to lay too much stress on the scaffolding. Not satisfied with schools, they must have schools upon a certain plan. The masters must teach, not in what ex- perience has taught them is the most effective way, but according to Dr. Polyglot's or Dr. Practical's system. The business of the legislator, and of the private patron of education, is to provide able and well-educated teachers, and not embarrass them with too many regulations. Different pupils require different modes of instruction : one teacher can teach best by one method in one way, another by another. In the school, as everywhere else, allowance requires to be made for individual character - and it is well to keep in mind that the tradesman knows best the practical details of his own business.
Again, the promoters of education, public and private, are apt to run riot with the idea of a graduated hierarchy of educational institutions. There are to be elementary schools for working- men, and schools of higher class for burgesses; special schools for civil engineers and professions that rank along with them, and universities for the gentry and the learned. The theory is , fine ; but in practice schools and universities will be quite enough. r The school of a thinly-peopled rural district will be amply manned f with one teacher to impart the simple lore required by the peasantry, —competent, however, to instruct a stray scholarof more ambition in the rudiments of science or the languages. In a wealthy and populous town, a division of employment will be found desirable : one teacher will confine himself to modern languages, another to mathematics' and so forth. The pupils will pass in succession through the hands of all. But both the many-teachered and the - teeno-teachered will be alike elementary schools. These are the institutions for children. One class of institutions will equally serve the purpose of those who have reached the transition age a when men are growing out of boys "—universities, in which science both theoretical and applied is taught. Mr. Wyse ap- pears to desire separate seminaries for instructing civil engineers III the practical applications of science and young gentlemen in i its theory. It will save some expense, and, what s of more im- portance, keep science practical, elevate practice to general prin- ciples, and give a healthier tone to the young competitors for -_academic distinction, if the incipient civil engineer and the young gentleman are instructed in the sa e seminary.
Yet again: teachers as well as 'slators are apt to attribute
great virtues to a curriculum. candidates for university ide-
. grees are required to attend a certain number of classes, and n a certain order. It matters comparatively little at what end of his n# liberal studies a young ma gins, provided he goes industriously
through them. And in ese days of universal reading, a young man may occasion y come to the university, already so deep-read in one department of knowledge as to render attend- ance on the class of its professor, in his case, sheer loss of time. A pretty, frequent origin of curriculums, in those universities where the Senatus Academicus has the power of making by- laws, has been a tacit convention among the professors—" If you vote for attendance on my class being ,made compulsory with all the students I will return the favour." It is good that there be many schools and many "academic institutions " in a land ; but it is also good that there be many libraries. It is easier and more agreeable to learn with the aid of a living teacher, than to puzzle out the path of knowledge, un- aided, through the labyrinth of many books. The greater part of learners will prefer a "regular education," and this insures scholars and fees for teachers and professors. But if a young man of generous ambition and scanty purse contrive to educate himself, by attending a few courses of lectures and eking out omissions through the readings of his leisure-hours, it is unjust as ungenerous to deny him, if able to stand a searching exami- --nation those academic .honours that are the passport to a pro- hIsssica;a1 career.
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