the young, with regard to reading or committing to memory, on the part of the child, or questioning or otherwise instructing, on the part of the teacher, is to teach religion in the spirit of religion; that is, with reverence, and in faith.

"Is it necessary that anything should be said as to the tone and spirit in which the instruction should be carried on? And yet this is the most important point of all. With all my horror of merely word-mongery, or rote-work, much rather would I have my boy taught the Catechism by rote, in a grave serious way, (the voice and look of the instructor teaching him, that, though as yet he is to understand nothing-little or nothing-of the instruction, yet it is something concerning a mysterious soul within him, and a mysterious God above him;) much rather would I have even this, than the most intellectual instruction about spiritual things, if it were nothing but intellectual; if the lesson, though the very words of Scripture, were merely etymologized, and parsed and analyzed in an off-hand and perhaps flippant way. Give me sooner for my child, the day by day impression from the voice and countenance of the holy, though (as some might say) unintellectual teacher by rote, who looks to nothing but that the Catechism be 'said' with due gravity."-Educational Magazine, vol. i. p. 172.

The "Account of a School at Failand Lodge," in East Somerset, which was established about 1840, for the children of the yeomanry, contains some useful observations on the education of the middle classes generally. Whilst the poor have been receiving in our village schools, not such an education as a poor and uneducated class might desire for themselves, but such as the most educated classes in the country desire to give them; the middle classes,-those classes upon whom the stability of the throne and the union of Church and State more than ever depend,-have had to seek for their education in private commercial schools: schools conducted, for the most part, by persons whose object is simply to gain a livelihood. Such persons have no deep sense of official responsibility, no fixed principles with reference to education. They vary as the parents vary. Instead of telling the uneducated parent what and how his child ought to be taught, they allow the uneducated parent to direct them what and how to teach their single aim being to please all parties, in order that they may obtain as many pupils as they can.

Under these circumstances one of the best courses to be pursued by churchmen in this matter appears to be, to establish Diocesan Schools for the middle classes, avowedly upon the principles of the Church of England; where the children of yeomen and tradesmen may receive a thoroughly English education. The subject is far too extensive for us to enter upon it in an article like the present; the object of which is, not to discuss the great educational questions, nor even to express, in any very direct way, our own opinions respecting them; but simply to furnish our readers with the flos et medulla, so to speak, of some recent publications relating to school-education and school matters generally. The following passages contain some valuable hints as to the principles by which those who propose to establish or to direct Diocesan Schools ought to be governed.

"The boys at Failand Lodge are not encouraged to ape the manners and tone of conversation of those far above them in rank and society; they are not taught to feel ashamed of their parents and their homes; but every opportunity is taken to make the child of the English yeoman feel that he only becomes contemptible when he pretends to be something which he is not. Every effort is made, in the school-room, and in the play-ground, to form a manly English spirit; respectful towards those in superior stations, without servility; kind and considerate towards those in inferior stations, without familiarity. The boys are not taught to fancy, that they can know as much as those who are able to spend double or treble the number of years on their education which they can; and great care is taken to inculcate humility in judgment, and deference to the opinion of those who have better means for forming an accurate decision on any point, than they have.

"It is not so much in the superior information which a boy may acquire there, that I consider Failand Lodge School far superior to the majority of our commercial schools; other schools may cram the children's minds with as large a mass of facts; other schools may produce as good walking dictionaries;-but I am not acquainted with any school for the yeomanry, where the mind is so educated.

"The education of the mind is as totally distinct from the giving information, as the general strengthening of the arm of the swordsman differs from teaching him some particular sabre-cut or fencing-thrust. The shorter are a boy's school-days, the more important is it that the master should make the principal object the education of the boy's mind, the strengthening of all his faculties, and teaching him how to control and use them. To attempt to explain to a child the meaning of all he learns, and to make all study mere pleasure, is a very great mistake; the observation is as old as Aristotle, that we must learn the or before we can learn the diori. One of the chief uses of study is to teach restraint, the giving up of present for the sake of future pleasure, and the improvement of the faculties of memory, attention, &c. The child who has had all study made a play, will be little suited for the severer employments of his future life. . . . The child who has been taught application and self-denial, whose powers of memory and thought, of abstraction and generalization, have been cultivated and improved, will be thereby fitted for every situation into which he may be thrown, and will be at all times able to acquire any fresh information which he may need."-Educational Magazine, vol. i. p. 218.

We are glad to find this writer insisting upon the value of mathematical instruction in middle schools.

"It is frequently asked by the parents of the children at Failand Lodge, and by many of the higher classes who should know better,-What can be the use of Euclid and Algebra and such things, to a child who is hereafter to be an English farmer? Can Euclid or Algebra be of any benefit to him in his fields or at the market? Will they make him know better how his land should be cropped, his meadows drained, or his fences made? I answer, I decidedly think they will. I am not so foolish as to expect, that the little elementary knowledge of mathematics which a boy can obtain at Failand Lodge, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, will ever, in the majority of instances, enable him to make any improvements in the instruments of agriculture, or in the construction of his barns and buildings; but I am confident that his mind being, by these studies, enlarged, strengthened, and taught the habits of abstraction, comparison, and correct reasoning, will be able to apply itself more usefully and effectually to any subject whatever." -Educational Magazine, vol. i. p. 219.

In order to secure these results, considerable attention must be

paid to the manner as well as to the matter of elementary mathematical instruction. The Prefaces to two little Pestalozzian manuals, namely, "Lessons on Number," and "Lessons on Form,"* contain some valuable hints on this subject.

“When the true end of intellectual education shall be admitted to be, first, the attainment of mental power, and then the application of it to practical and scientific purposes, that plan of early instruction, which dwells long on first principles, and does not haste to make learned, will be acknowledged as the most economical, because the most effectual. Experience will show, that while superficial teaching may prepare for the mere routine of daily business, whensoever a question, not anticipated in the manual, occurs, none but the pupil whose faculties have been exercised in the investigation of truth, who is the master, not the slave, of rules, will solve the unexpected difficulty, by a novel application of the principles of the science.

"Writers on method have observed, that there is a certain order, in which truths present themselves to minds engaged in the original investigation of a subject; and that when the subject has been investigated, a different arrangement is necessary for the lucid exposition of the truths discovered. These views have been most unhappily applied in the early stages of instruction. For although the artificial order may be best calculated to convey knowledge to a mind already trained for its reception by previous acquaintance with similar subjects, it is by no means suited to the opening faculties of children. A preparatory course of instruction ought to be arranged, having for its object the training of the mind for the study of the science, rather than the communicating the knowledge of it. In this preparatory course, the order is determined by a consideration of the mind of the pupil; it commences with what is already known to him, and proceeds to the proximate truth; the more easy precedes the more difficult, the individual prepares for the general truth, the example for the rule."-Lessons on Number; (Master's Manual.) Pp. ix. xi.

The Preface to the "Lessons on Form," asserts and illustrates the same Pestalozzian principle of teaching. Bacon has made an observation to this effect, "that a man really possesses only that knowledge which he in some sort creates for himself. To apply to intellectual instruction the principle implied in these words was the aim of Pestalozzi."

This principle is peculiarly applicable to the teaching of geometry, in consequence of this being a pure science. No science is less dependent on external nature. Every man is born a geometrician. In teaching geometry, therefore,

"The master must not dogmatize, either in his own person, or

* Published by Taylor and Walton.

through the medium of his book; but he must lead his pupils to observe, to determine, to demonstrate, for themselves.

"Aware that clearness of apprehension can take place only when the idea to be formed is proximate to some idea already clearly formed when the step which the mind is required to take, is really the next in succession to the step already taken; he will commence his instruction exactly at that point where his pupils already are, and in that manner which best accords with the measure of their develop

ment. . . .

"The master's next aim must be to cultivate the power of abstract mathematical reasoning. . . . . He will lead his pupils to deduce the necessary consequences from the facts which they know to be true, and then invite them to examine the object, and see whether their reasoning has led to a correct result."-Lessons on Form, pp. iv.-vi.

This gradual development of the power of abstract reasoning is connected, in these "Lessons," with a direct preparation for the study of Euclid's "Elements." Euclid's "Elements," observes Dr. Mayo, "exhibits a series of mathematical reasonings and deductions, arranged in the most perfect logical order; so that the truths demonstrated rest, in necessary sequence, on the smallest possible number of axioms and postulates. But, admirable as it may be in itself, viewed simply in relation to the science, it is not, viewed pedagogically, an elementary work. It is fitted for the matured, and not for the opening mind."-Lessons on Form, p. vii.

The principle, in short, which Dr. Mayo, as a disciple of Pestalozzi, is anxious to bring out, is, that "Every course of scientific instruction should be preceded by a preparatory course, arranged on psychological principles. First form the mind, then furnish it."-Lessons on Form, p. ix.

Our notice of the "Educational Magazine" has extended so much further than we at first intended, that we shall cut it abruptly short, by giving one or two passages from a kind of reply to the article on "Learning by Heart," which we have quoted above with general commendation, in which the writer urges an objection against the views there maintained. Considered as an objection, this writer's reasoning appears to us to be foreign to the point at issue; but the principle which he lays down is a valuable one, taken simply by itself. It may also serve as a correction to those incautious passages in Mrs. Tuckfield's "Letters to a Clergyman," to which we have already adverted :

"Does not the notion of explaining beforehand go against what I would call a sort of religious instinct, which may be seen in children? There is to them a kind of mystery in the unintelligibleness of scripture; they feed on a little, a few words and sentences here and there, and, as it were, gaze on the rest. They have a kind of faith, that though what they learn is beyond their understanding, it is all very good, and good for them; it is God's word, and it is about God and His doings.. And is it clear, because they cannot explain words, nay, do not understand many, or most of them,

that they have no just notion of the meaning of what they learn? May they not have deeper thoughts than we can measure, or they express? Thoughts with a freshness and instinctive truth about them, beyond a teacher's power to communicate, by giving them just notions of the sense of words; thoughts such as we have ourselves had in our childhood about passages of scripture, of which we may still retain a little of the fragrance, though we cannot recall them. Indeed, what very deep answers children will make; unconscious, indeed, that they are deep, but prompted by something within that they are true!"-Educational Magazine, vol. i. p. 322.

Our next educational article will treat of Infant Schools. In the mean time, we can recommend the "Model Lessons for Infant Schools," as calculated to afford considerable assistance to Infant School teachers and nursery governesses, by furnishing them with materials for instruction; and the "Letters on Infant Schools," as furnishing a very simple account of Pestalozzi's methods of teaching, which may serve as an introduction to treatises of higher pretension.

Narratives illustrative of the Contests in Ireland in 1641 and 1690. Edited by T. CROFTON CROKER, Esq. Printed for the Camden Society. London: Nichols & Son. 1841.

CIRCUMSTANCES have prevented our previously noticing this contribution, under the sanction of the Camden Society, towards the illustration of two most interesting periods in Irish history; periods, even now emphatically spoken of, says Mr. Croker, by the Irish peasant, as "the times of the troubles." The Narratives themselves are valuable, as the views of cotemporaries, who were actively engaged in the events described by them.

The Siege of Ballyally Castle, as the first Narrative is entitled, records the unsuccessful attempt of some followers of the Earl of Thomond, in the winter of 1641, and the spring and summer of the ensuing year, to obtain possession of the castle, which was held by the widow of Maurice Cuffe, a merchant, of English extraction, under lease from Sir Valentine Blake. The demand of the Roman Catholic powers for the surrender of the fortress was treated with disdain by the merchant's widow; nor did her landlord meet with greater respect when he requested his tenant to deliver up Ballyally to the legal authorities. By the help of God," said the lady, "the castle should be to the hazard of life kept possession of for the king's majesty's use against any that should oppose or besiege it;" whilst, at the same time, she coolly asked her landlord for "a help of powder" to assist in the defence thereof, with which counter request Sir Valentine Blake, we are gravely assured, "did not comply."

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For thirty-six days the siege went on with varied success; and though the enemy, as the narrator says, "would daily in their sight drae forth there skenes and swordes, flurishing them, showering many dangeroes othes that ear long thaye would drae us forth and hack