The English Schoolroom. By the Rev. A. F. Thomson, B.A.
(Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.)—Men generally choose some subject out- side of their daily occupation on which to dream. Mr. Thomson, however, is a gentleman who takes private pupils, and he has given excellent proofs of his devotion to his duties by dreaming about educa- tion. He supposes a parent to have practically unlimited means, and then asks what will be the best way of educating his family. They are to be educated at home, boys and girls together, by a tutor and governess, and the boys are besides to have a pedagogue or governor to super- intend their amusements. The buildings are planned with the utmost detail, and a whole scheme of education up to the age of puberty deve- loped, but here Mr. Thomson's main innovations are in the importance he attaches to modern languages and music. It is idle to criticize a dream, but the first difficulty would be to find his tutor and governess, such beings not being easily met with, and if you could ever bring them together nothing could prevent their falling in love with each other. In real life probably the two would quarrel, which would be equally a bore. Nor does it follow, even allowing the excellence of Mr. Thomson's dream, that the plan would answer in the case of parents who would be compelled by reasons of economy to pare it of its more costly adjuncts. The gravity, however, with which Mr. Thomson discusses all the minutest details of his system, down to the birch, makes his book very entertaining.
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