a Language at all, or very little, as is the case with the majority of those that learn Latin and Greek at school and college, is there any other reason for undergoing the labour? This is the question of the day, as to the utility of the Dead Languages. At a later stage I will consider the arguments, on both sides. At present I intimate my view, as regards the learning of Languages, that their main, if not their sole, justification is that we mean to use them as languages, to receive and to impart knowledge by their means. This does not exclude the pleasure that we may take in the poetical compositions of a foreign tongue.

Language is, in the first place, a series of vocables addressed to the ear, and to the eye, and reproduced by the voice and the hand; and these have to be associated with the objects that constitute their meaning: a very extensive exercise of memory. Equally a matter of memory is the customary arrangements of words and sentences; although at this point the practical science of Grammar comes into play, followed up by another science- Rhetoric. These sciences, however, are of value only as aids to the knowledge of the language; and, if employed upon a superfluous language, are themselves superfluous. It is true that Rhetoric is not confined to any one language; nearly the same precepts are applicable to all. Yet that is no reason for connecting it with an unused language; we can always find exercises in the languages that we are to speak or to write.

Science and Language embrace between them the great field of Intellectual Education, including also the higher parts of the education in professions and crafts.

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They do not comprehend, unless incidentally, Mechanical Training, the Training of the Senses, Art Training, or Moral Training. The two last, Art and Morality, will receive separate chapters; some remarks may be offered on the two first at the present stage.

MECHANICAL TRAINING.

Mechanical Training includes the command of the bodily organs for all the ordinary purposes of life, and the special training for special aptitudes. The child's spontaneous education furnishes the commencement; imitation and instruction follow. Mechanical training is implied in writing and in drawing, which are a part of school training; also in the handling of tools, and the performance of operations in the various crafts; in household work; and in active amusements. The hand

receives a special training in playing on a musical instrument. Parallel to the manual training is the vocal training in speaking and in singing; while there is a training in gesture for elegant deportment.

It is a part of the idea of the early training of children in the Kindergarten to push them forward in the manual accomplishments, that is, to give them the early use of their hands. Irrespective of special arts, there is much difference between one person and another in manual facility, as applied to the countless little emergencies of life; and it is a great advantage to have good hands. Nevertheless, this is not a matter for the public teacher to spend time upon, further than is required for other purposes. If children can be interested in any mechanical employment, they will

acquire skill in it; but there is an error in allowing them to be engrossed in the lower energies of the mind to the neglect of the higher.

TRAINING OF THE SENSES.

The Exercise and Training of the SENSES is much insisted on, but is not well defined. Here, too, there is a general training suited to all, and a special training for special arts. To train any one of the Senses is to increase its natural power of discrimination, as in colours, tones, touches, odours, tastes. An artist in colours undergoes a training for colour discrimination; a musician and an elocutionist possess an acquired delicacy of hearing; a cook has a training in the palate. This is the most precise meaning of the Improvement of the Senses. Out of this superior discrimination will grow a better memory for the respective sights and sounds and tastes; so that the conceptive concrete faculty will be strengthened at the same time.

The early training of the Senses, as usually prescribed and practised with Infants, points several different ways. There may be an augmented discrimination of colour; also of visible forms and visible magnitudes, so as to give a finer sense of the magnitudes and properties of objects. This is held to be a preparation for at least three different accomplishments:-first, correct estimates of the colours, forms, and sizes of things at sight; second, the arranging of colours and forms into symmetrical groups, to gratify the art sensibility; thirdly, the understanding of the figures of geometry. The first of these accomplishments

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-namely, the accurate estimate of colour, form, and size by the eye-is of little use generally; it applies to the special arts, and particularly drawing and design, with which it is necessarily bound up. This, too, is the meaning of the second accomplishment, which is carried to marvellous lengths in the Kindergarten; the children being led on to contrive and to execute elegant symmetrical forms, by grouping simpler figures in innumerable ways. This should not be called Sense Training; it is a special education in Drawing and Design. As to the third end-the preparation for Geometry-there is nothing to show that this needs any such training or depends upon it. The sense foundations of Geometry are so few and simple that no one can well escape them; and the science speedily and peremptorily demands that the senses shall give place to the constructive reason. A geometer must not mistake a triangle for a square, or a circle for an ellipse, but he does not need a delicate visible perception of the exact proportions of the ellipse; he never depends upon the eye for a measurement; he need not be able to detect by sight a small deviation from the perpendicular.

The utility of DRAWING as a general accomplishment must not be overrated. It is an additional acquirement of the hand, and for special purposes is valuable or even indispensable. But, as a foundation of intellectual training, its influence is liable to be mistaken. It is supposed to train the observing powers, thus helping to store the mind with the knowledge of visible objects. But this is too vague to be correct. Drawing compels the child to observe just what is necessary to the end and no more: if to copy another

drawing, the lines of that must be carefully noted; if to draw from nature, the form and perspective of the original must be attended to: but this does not imply much; it does not involve an eye for outward things generally in all their important characters. The pupil does not necessarily give any more heed to the things that he does not intend to draw. Observation, in its full meaning, is not a matter of the senses purely; it consists in interpreting indications, by applying previous knowledge, and is a special training within a limited sphere. Such is the observation of the Astronomer, the Geologist, or the Physician.

When Drawing is pursued so as to become a taste and a fascination, it is too engrossing; it disturbs the balance of the mind, and indisposes for other tasks. Worst of all, instead of leading the way to science, by assisting to stamp on the understanding the pre-requisite assemblages of particulars, it resists the farther advance from particulars to generals, and it clothes the particulars with such a degree of concrete interest, that the mind prefers to remain in the concrete. A moderate taste and aptitude for drawing may be helpful in the more concrete sciences; especially, if it goes no farther than drawing. But when the colour interest takes a deep hold of the mind, it imparts a too exclusively pictorial character to the intellect, and breeds an unfitness for the abstract and analytic procedure of science.