WIESE'S GERMAN LETTERS ON ENGLISH EDUCATION. * TILE distinctive meaning of
" instruction " and "education" has been more broadly marked of late years than it was formerly, yet it would be well if the broad difference were still more sepa- rated than it is ; for the great question of " national education "- meaning in reality instruction—is affected by the improper use of a word. If average capacity in boys be assumed, it is evident that they can be instructed in anything or everything. Their mother tongue, caligraphy, arithmetic, mathematics' modern, Oriental, or Classical languages, music, drawing, natural science, can be taught to boys of any creed or any country; and, the capa- city of the respective masters and pupils being equal, the results will be much the same. In education, or the general formation of the character, it is widely different. Perhaps blood has a great deal to do with the difference. It is doubtful whether an Asiatic or a Red Indian could be transformed into an European by any influence of outward circumstances. It is quite evident that school teaching would have little influence on a foreigner. Even school association would not effect any radical change in character, though the influence would be much greater than by mere teach- ing.. A French or Italian boy sent to the fac-simile of some Eng- lish school in his own country would differ from his fellows in what he learned, and but little in anything else. The same boy boarded in an English school or family would be a great deal more acted upon : he would have "English notions" or be "like an Englishman "; but in all essential points his nationality would remain, and develop itself under circumstances of excitement either temporary or permanent. A native boarding-school, no doubt, influences the character of a native boy ; but it is the influence of the scholars rather than the school. The master may greatly affect the progress the com- forts, the temper, and probably the morals of his pupils; but it will rather be indirectly by the effects which his bad management produces on the conduct and public opinion BO to speak, of the scholars, than by any direct influence. In this last sense the in- fluence of the school is great; still, strictly it is a home or social in- fluence. A Quaker's, or Dissenter's, or Romanist's school, will turn out pupils of a different character from those which are produced at Eton or Harrow ; but this difference originates in the home —in the class of society which supports the school. The master generally has, or at least he must affect to have, the same ideas that predominate in the class from which his pupils chiefly come. These pupils bring with them the opinions, whatever they may be, which they have imbibed at home ; and though native dis- position, the accidents of fortune and the number and collision of minds, will modify the home results, they will hardly change them. The wide and various social circles from which pupils are drawn to our public schools, yet nearly all trained in those ideas which are held to constitutethe spirit of a gentleman, render them the most catholic of all schools. Still they differ from each other. The Merchant Tailors' boy is not the same as the Etonian, though the masters are of the same class.
If these facts were steadily borne in mind, and it were also con- sidered of how little worth that religion is which is generally taught at school, there would be less opposition to a general.sys- tem of national instruction. But perhaps religion has less to do with the matter than the personal importance of the individuals. The sentiment of Louis the Fourteenth is held by great numbers on a higher matter than even the state : "lam religion" might be the motto of many.
A clear perception of the great truth that state instruction is not national education, and the application of that truth to the educational systems of England and Prussia, animates these Let- ters of Professor Wiese. The author came to this country to in- stitute an inquiry into the English system of instruction, private as well as public; and the results of his observations he has pub-
• German Letters on English Education. By Dr. L. Wiese, Professor in the Royal Foundation School at Inachimsthal. Translated by W. D. Arnold, Lieutenant 58th Regiment B. N. I. Published by Longman and Co.
lished in letters to a friend, which are translated by Lieutenant Arnold, the worthy son of a noble father.. In the exposition of his survey, Dr. Wiese exhibits none of the dry enumeration, pon- derous statistics and reproduction of school programmes, which dis- tinguish the books of many educational tourists or writers. With- out altogether neglecting formal particulars,—as the arrangement of school-rooms, the mode of teaching, or the subjects taught,—he goes deeper into the question, " plucking out the heart of its mys- tery." He looks less at the syllabus and more at results, less at the knowledge actually acquired than the " idea" of the masters, the character of the pupils, and the causes which produce this cha- racter. His conclusions are on the whole much more favourable to the English systems and less so to his own Prussian sys- tem, than it has been the fashion generally to maintain. In the praise there is some compliment. It is not intentional, but the author has clearly seen the national living principles which pervade our public schools, and which belong to the nation rather than to the school systems—possibly operate in spite of them—while the practical evils which clog or encumber them have escaped him from want of actual experience. His remark on the work of Mr. Kay may in fact be applied to himself and constitute a fair criticism on the Letters. " In his regret at the neglect of national instruction in his own country, Mr. Kay describes the impression made on him by the regular or- ganization of our town and country schools more warmly than a fair critical judgment would warrant; thus it often amounts to an unduly favourable estimate ; he is too hasty in drawing a universal conclusion from a particular case, and his praise refers to an ideal which is far from being realized by us, though doubtless we may lay claim to a better and more extensive -sys- tem of school instruction for the lower classes." There is this dif- ference, however, between the two cases. The English educational tourist drew his conclusions from formal and tangible things—in- stances which he could see, or hear, and test. The opinions of Dr. Wiese are grounded upon less obvious matters,—as (favourite argu- ment) the "working of the system," shown in the character of the pupils, their aptitude for any career when they enter life, and their worldly success. In all which it is possible there lurks the fallacy of "post hoc propter hoc": the results may be as much social or national as educational. Some of his praise is perhaps less satisfactory, as being evidently infused into him, rather than the result of his own observations : such as the defence of so much learning by rote, on the ground of what is learned by rote germi- nating afterwards • a similar defence of constant and enforced at- tendance at worship, the use of Latin verse-making in sharpening the intellect, and so forth. These old friends, however, appear with this advantage, that they have the indorsement of a shrewd and observing foreigner, who, had they not had something in them, would have detected their hollowness at once. Dr. Wiese also does point out what he conceives to be defects or shortcomings. His information as regards private schools is very limited, and his opinion, though not in favour of them, is yet too favourable. He saw more of what are called national schools than of private " establishments "; but his main subject is the public schools.
In this book will be found a view of our existing system of edu- cation for the higher and middle classes, with an exposition of its merits and defects ; the merits greatly predominating, in the au- thor's opinion. A striking feature of the work is its picture of English society in relation to education, and the contrast it sug- gests with the state of Prussia. The freedom allowed to boys was one of the first things that struck Dr. Wiese.
"The liberty which they think they may allow the boys within certain limits, is, judged by our notions, extraordinarily great. They have no idea of a strict, perpetual inspection ; there is no master present to overlook the boys at meal-times, nor sleeping in the same room with them, nor near at band to watch them in play-hours. The young people would regard this as an intolerable encroachment on their rights. Cutting outnames on tables, benches, and other such places, is allowed. Dr. Liddell, of Westminster School, told me that he had only forbidden them to cut their names on the beams of the roof; with this exception there is scarcely an unmarked spot to be Been in the hall. The rules about going out, even in the schools situated in the middle of London, are not very strict. Furthermore, they may read what they like, even political papers of all kinds ; I found several lying on the table. But I also found the school libraries, that for example in Eton, so exemplary in their arrangements and their adaptation for use, that they may well be calculated to divert many from a taste for useless and pernicious literature, or to keep them from contracting it. " Young people in England early occupy themselves with polities; it would be almost impossible to shut them out from an atmosphere which is filled with them ; and if there be any truth in what one occasionally hears said, that the veriest Radical in England would with us in Germany pass for an orthodox Conservative' then perhaps this early interest in politics may be comparatively innocuous to them, though it would not be so with MB. Above all, there is this great point, that every boy brings with him from his father's home a certain string of preconceived opinions, of which the main element, with some few exceptions, is respect for institutions, as for right and law."
To a foreigner fresh from a land of censorship, though in Prussia itself the press is of late somewhat emancipated, juvenile publi- cation was still stranger.
"At first I was rather surprised to find that the 'uppers' of King Ed- ward's School in Birmingham had been allowed, some years before, to print a weekly journal of .short essays, poems, &o., not merely for circulation among their schoolfellows, but for publication. But the public evinced little interest in it, and in a short time material was wanting ; and the consequence was that they were more effectually checked in their foolish undertaking than if it had been forbidden in the first instance. I have learnt since, that this precocious author faculty has shown itself at different times in Eton, where, amongst others, George Canning edited a journal, under the title of 'The Microcosm,' in which there was an article by him on the enslaved condition of Greece ; showing thus early a germ of the subsequent efforts of his man- hood. A small publication of later date, 'The Etonian,' was yet more sue- sinful. Dr. Arnold even allowed his upper boys to associate themselves with him in the editorship of a weekly paper at Rugby." Note by Dr. Wiese's Translator.—" It is hardly necessary to inform the English reader that this is a mistake. It is probable that the author had in his mind two separate facts, Dr. Arnold's editorship of the 'Englishman's Register,' and his sanction of the 'Rugby Magazine, and that the confusion of the two has led to the strange assertion in the text."
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