of civilization, and in the regulation of cotemporary academical arrangements. The most recent improvement in the microscope does not enable them to see the so-called things of mind; the most delicately adjusted scales will not weigh them; their genesis and their modus operandi are invisible and impalpable, and their possible and actual results defy any calculus. It is not only disturbing, but distressing, that such things should be-nay, that such things should, in truth, constitute the great forces which, in all ages, have moved the heart of humanity, and have made the history of man.

If a science be a synthetic and systematic body of truth regarding a department of knowledge, which starts from certain axiomatic statements, and, by help of a few postulates, builds up its fabric of verity so that each part rises out of another by necessary sequence, then it is well to say at once that Education is not a science, nay, that it never will be a science. But are we to measure its right to a place in a University system by such stringent requirements? If so, what department of study belonging to the Litteræ Humaniores will stand the test? Is Metaphysics a science? In one sense 'No,' in another it is the scientia scientiarum—the пpúτn pidocopía. Even in the field of formal Logic do not men still occupy hostile camps? Of Ethics, what shall we say? For 2,400 years men have thought, spoken, and taught, but with what scientific result? With this, that even now the criterion of the right and wrong in conduct, the nature of conscience, the very existence of the sentiment of duty as an inner power, are still matters of debate. And yet there is a philosophy, if not a science, of Ethics. Is History a science? Some vainly imagine that it is at least a possible science. Given certain conditions, they are prepared, by the help of the Registrar-General, to predict the history of a nation. But it is at once evident that the social movements of the whole involve the equally necessary movement of each individual of that whole; and that a science of History demands for its possibility, not only an unbending system of physical laws within which man is to work, but also that man himself shall be an automaton! And yet, though there be no science, there is a philosophy, of History. Is Political Economy a science? Even now the fundamental principles of that department of knowledge are an arena for discussion. The question of Supply and Demand is still debated; the difficulties of the Currency question are still open to further discussion; even the principle of Free Trade versus Protection is still a moot point. Not perhaps in this country; but we must not let our insular self-complacency shut our eyes to the fact that in the United States and our Colonies, and on the Continent of Europe, the principle of Free Trade is not merely set aside in practice, but impugned by argument. The very theory of Rent, which J. S. Mill considers to be the pons asinorum of Political Economy, and the discovery of which is the crowing glory of Ricardo, is still unsettled. Is Jurisprudence a science? No; and yet is there no philosophy of Law? So with Education. I am quite willing to hand over the word 'science' to those

departments of knowledge which have to do with Mathematics, and with things seen and temporal, if only I am allowed to comprehend those other studies which truly constitute the life of man under the term Philosophy As theory, Education allies itself to Psychology, Physiology, and Sociology. The materials of its teaching it draws from these philosophies, from the practice of the school-room, and from the rich domain of History. Minor Objections.

Grant all this, but still those generally well affected to the new study have misgivings. The Chair of Education will be a mere platform for the airing of theoretical views or the enunciation of crotchets. Now, gentlemen, I would allay such fears by pointing out, in the first place, that this Chair does not exist for the purpose of talking at large about Education, but of preparing teachers for their profession, and that this practical aim is inconsistent with windy talk. I have some sympathy with the cynical Love Peacock, who, in describing certain social bores in the shape of men of one idea who hold forth in season and out of season, says :-The worst of all bores was the third. His subject had no beginning, middle, nor end. It was Education. Never was such a journey through the desert of mind, the great Sahara of intellect. The very recollection makes me thirsty.' Such men are not educationists in any sense in which that term is applicable within these walls. They are men of leisure who have restless minds, and if they have not one fixed idea or crotchet, will find another. An educationist has no crotchets. That man has crotchets who, having seized on that particular corner of a large and many sided subject which has some secret affinity with his own mind, or affords the quickest passage to notoriety, pursues it to the death. Now, an educationist is, by virtue of his very name and vocation, inaccessible to all petty fanaticisms. He has to deal with a subject of infinite variety, and so variously related to life, that he is more apt to be lost in hesitations and skepticisms than to be the victim of a fixed idea. If you wish to meet with educational crotchets, you must go to the specialist in this or that department of knowledge, who is unfortunate enough to take up the question of Education, as you see he often in moments of aberration takes up other subjects which are outside his own range of intellectual experience. It is only in such cases that you will find the confidence and selfassurance which is born of limited knowledge, and the pertinacious insistance which flows from these habits of mind. To him whose subject is Education crotchets are prohibited, because his opinions on this or that point are related on the one side to rational and comprehensive theory, and on the other to the daily practice of the school-room and the needs of life.

Educational Agencies.

Having dealt thus far with what may be called the apologetics of my subject, and arrogated for it a place in our Academic system, whether we regard its inherent claims or its relations to the well-being of the country, I have, on the other hand, to avoid the error of magnifying too much its

importance. The more abstract treatment of the theory of Education is doubtless, if true in its philosophy, of universal application. It sweeps the whole field. But this will engage our attention only within carefully prescribed limits, and when we leave this portion of our subject we have to restrict ourselves on all sides. The education of every human being is determined by potent influences which do not properly fall within the range of our consideration here. The breed of men to which the child belongs, the character of his parents, the human society into which he is born, the physical circumstances by which he is surrounded, are silently but irresistibly forming him. The traditions of his country, its popular literature, its very idioms of speech, its laws and customs, its religious life, its family life, constitute an aggregate of influence which chiefly make him what he is. With these things we have to do only by way of a passing reference; we have not to deal with them. By their constant presence they mold the future man, himself unconscious. They are the atmosphere of the humanity of his particular time and place, and in breathing it, he is essentially a passive agent. Our business is rather with the conscious and active elements of moral and intellectual growth. We have to make the passive creature of circumstances a free, self-conscious, rational agent, endowed with purposes and ideals, and we have to find the means of best doing this. The passive activity of our nature is not to be ignored in our educational methods; it is to be turned to use as one of our most potent instruments; but it is mainly the self-conscious forces that we have to educe and direct. Even in doing this we are bound by external conditions, and must take note not only of the almost irresistible forces around us, but of minor conditions of time, place, and circumstance.

Aim and Characteristic of the Educational Process.

Each successive century, and the traditions and circumstances of each country, nay, the genius of each people, present to us the educational problem in ever-changing aspects. Educational systems can not be manufactured in the study. Our theory of the end of all education, and the means by which that end has to be attained, may be, or rather ought to be, always the same; but the application of that theory must vary with varying external conditions. What present defects have we here and now, and to what dangers are we exposed? is the form which the practical question must take with us. Now I would say that one of our chief dangers in these days is the over instruction of willing and ingenuous boys. We are in the very midst of what will afterward be designated the information epoch of Education. We are in danger of confounding the faculty for swallowing with the faculty for digesting. To borrow words from biological science, we sometimes proceed as if the mind of man grew by accretion and not by intus-susception. The system of universal examinations has encouraged this. Now a system whereby the teachers of the country are converted into coaches,' is, by its very nature,

hostile to the true conception of Education. No school which converts itself into a coaching establishment is a place of education in the proper sense of that term. There is a repose, a calm, a stability in the steady march of all sound Education, which is alien to the feverish spirit that animates the ante-chamber of an examination room.

The aim of the educationist is not the giving of information, nay, not even instruction, though this is essential, but mainly discipline; and the aim of discipline is the production of a sound mind in a sound body, the directing and cherishing of the growth of the whole nature, spiritual and physical, so as to make it possible for each man, within the limits of the capacity which God has given him, to realize in and for himself, with more or less success, the type of humanity, and in his relation to others to exhibit a capability for wise and vigorous action. This result will not be attained by pressure. By anticipating the slow but sure growth of nature, we destroy the organism. Many and subtle are the ways in which nature avenges itself on the delicate, complicated machinery of man; but avenge itself somehow it will and must.

It is difficult to say which is the more pernicious, that system which overstrains the active intelligence of the willing and ambitious boy, or that which fills his mind, while it is yet mainly passive, with the results of mature thought, and endows him with a kind of miniature omniscience. Those who survive such methods of training may, doubtless, be very useful agents, very serviceable machines, but they will rarely initiate. With a few exceptions, their minds will be either exhausted or overlaid. That elasticity of mind which enables a man always to rise to the level of the varying requirements of the day and hour in the Family and the State; that free movement of will which is ever ready to encounter more than half-way the vicissitudes and exigencies of life, with a consciousness that its powers and capacities are not itself, but only the instruments of the life of reason, and that they are ever within his power to regulate and adapt his servants, not his masters; that soundness of brain and muscle which reacts on his inner self by giving steadiness to his moral purpose, will assuredly not be promoted by forcing more and more subjects into the school curriculum, and applying the pressure of constant examinations by outside authorities. We want men who will be ready for the crisis of life as well as for its daily routine of duty, and who will, by their mere manner of encountering even their ordinary work, contribute to the advance of the commonwealth in vigor and virtue. Such men alone are fully competent for all the services which their country may demand from them. Such men may be slowly grown; they can not be manufactured under a system of pressure. Great Britain has had many such; Scotland has been prolific of them. The intellect, the will, and the arm of Scotsmen have done, we flatter ourselves, their fair share in creating the British Empire; and they have done it all by virtue mainly of their breed, and by such restricted education as Arithmetic Latin,

and the Shorter Catechism afforded. No superincumbent load of impossible tasks oppressed their minds while yet immature.

Do not draw a hasty inference from what has now been said. The requirements of the time in which we live, the industrial competition of one nation with another, the revolution in the arts of war, all demand that the materials of education should change with changing conditions of life. I am quite alive to this necessity-but the inner Form (if I may here use this term) must remain ever the same. For after all that can be said, the main object of our efforts must, on one side at least, be the growth of Power in the future man. If we would secure this, the pursuit of it must control and regulate the instruction we give, and the method of giving it. Above all, we must not be in a hurry. Having faith in the quiet processes of Nature, we must, as educators, be calm, deliberate, and ever regard the end.

Formal End of Education-Power.

The power which we desire to foster is the product of will and of natural force. It is difficult to separate these two elements in any act, but for purposes of thought they may be regarded as distinct. I shall refer again to the element of natural force; our present concern is with power in its intellectual and moral relations, which is Will. It operates in the region of intelligence and emotion alike. The ground and root of intellectual and moral activity is ultimately, I believe, the same, and the end is the same-the Ethical Life. If this can be shown analytically, we shall reduce to unity the whole idea of Education in its merely formal aspect, and supply a conception which, while helping us to estimate the value of educational instruments and methods, will, at the same time, exalt and guide our conceptions of duty as educators.

Real End of Education-Culture.

Power, however, can not work on nothing; and we have next to consider it in its concrete relations in order that we may discern and exhibit the Content as well as the Form of the Educational Idea. True that our range of discussion is in this place finally limited by the practical object which we have immediately in view-the production of the good citizen; but this, though our primary, is not our ultimate aim. Citizenship is not the end of human life, but only the means to an end. For, in a certain sense, the ultimate reference of all thought and action of man is to himself as a personality. Christianity, which teaches the most thoroughgoing ultraism, also teaches this; and in teaching this, it deepened the foundation of the modern doctrine of Culture which had been laid by the Greeks. Speaking quite generally, Culture may, for want of a better word, be accepted as the end of all exercise of intellectual and moral power, and therefore in its ultimate result the Real end of Education, just as power is the Formal end.

Culture must have a Center.

But in accepting 'Culture' as a fit expression for the real end of Edu