even from their infancy almost, are delighted with pictures. And it will be very well worth the pains to have brought to pass, that scare-crows may be taken away out of Wisdom's gardens." Use of Blackboard.—But little is said on this piece of school apparatus. It is, however, interesting to know that in a description of a school, written two centuries since, this useful adjunct for illustration is noticed. Comenius says: "Some things are writ down before them with chalk on a table. This notice would not have been so satisfactory as it is, but there accompanies the description a "copper cut," and there we see upon the wall a blackboard, as large as a window, with a diagram chalked upon it. On the point of illustration we may add, "The judgment of Mr. Hezekiah Woodward, sometime an eminent schoolmaster in London. Certainly the use of images or representations is great; if we could make our words as legible to children as pictures are, their information therefrom would be quickened and surer. But so we can not do, though we must do what we can." Masters must have Sympathy with the capacities of the children under Instruction. "A schoolmaster had need to bend his wits to come within the compass of a child's capacities of six or seven years of age, and to make that they may learn with as much delight and willingness, as himself would teach with dexterity and ease. And because any good thing is the better, being the more communicated, I have herein imitated a child, who is forward to impart to others what himself has well liked." Phonic Method of Teaching to Read." It will afford a device for learning to read more easily than heretofore, especially having a symbolical alphabet set before it, to wit, the characters of the several letters, with the image of that creature whose voice that letter goeth about to imitate, pictured by it. For the young a b c scholar will easily remember the force of every character by the very looking at the creature, till the imagination being strengthened by use, can readily afford all things." It may be necessary to explain, that what Comenius calls the "force of every character" is obtained from verbs denoting the actions of animals, instead of from nouns as is now the general practice. A series of “copper cuts" is given for this purpose, called "A lively and vocal Alphabet." Tasks and Training.-" Because the first tasks of learners ought to be little and single, we have filled this first book of training one up to see a thing of himself, with nothing but rudiments, that is, with the chief of things and words, or with the grounds of the whole world, and the whole language, and of all our understanding about things." The reader will observe that the word "training" is used in precisely the same sense as by modern educationists. The Uselessness of bare Rules of Grammar.-"You that have the care of little children, do not trouble their thoughts and clog their memories with bare grammar rudiments, which to them are harsh in getting, and fluid in retaining; because, indeed, to them they signify nothing, but a mere swimming notion of a general term, which they know not what it meaneth, till they comprehend particulars. For rules, consisting of generalities, are delivered, as I may say, at the third hand, presuming first the things and then the words to be already apprehended, touching which they are made." Teacher's entire Dependence upon God's Blessing.-" And I pray God, the fountain and giver of all wisdom, that hath bestowed upon us this gift of teaching so to inspire and direct us by his grace, that we may train up children in his fear, and in the knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and then, no doubt, our teaching, and their learning of other things subordinate to these, will by the assistance of His Blessed Spirit make them able and willing to do Him faithful service both in Church and Commonwealth, as long as they live here, that so they may be eternally blessed with Him hereafter. This I beseech you beg for me and mine, as I shall daily do for you and yours, at the throne of God's heavenly grace; and remain while I live ready to serve you, as I truly love and honor you, and labor willingly in the same profession with you. From my school in Lothbury, London, Jan. 25th, 1658. SAMUEL HARTLIB. CHARLES HOOLE." SAMUEL HARTLIB, to whom Milton addressed his "Tractate on Education," and who was thought worthy of an allowance from the treasury of the State by Cromwell, and the Parliament, for his services to practical science, and especially to agriculture, was the son of a Polish merchant at Elbing, in Bohemia. His mother was an English woman from London, rich and well connected, which will account for his appearance in that city as early as 1636; an active promoter of educational and agricultural improvement. According to a memorial by him to Lord Herbert in 1662, and another, a little later, to the House of Commons, in the darkened hour of his fortunes, "he had exerted himself for thirty years in procuring valuable treatises to be written, which he had freely printed and as freely sent to such as were most capable of making use of them; also the best experiments in husbandry and manufactures, to be tried and made known for the benefit of his age and posterity." "He erected a little academy for the education of the gentry of this nation, to advance piety, learning, morality and other exercises of industry not usual then in common schools." "As long as I have lived in England, I have spent yearly out of my own, between three and four hundred pounds sterling, and when I was brought to the public allowances, and had from the parliament and council of state a pension of three hundred pounds sterling, this also I have spent as freely for their service, and the good of many." Among his publications is "The Discourse on Flander's Husbandry," a tract of 24 pages, written by Sir Richard Weston, who was embassador from England to Frederick V., Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia. This little treatise, first printed in 1645, was several times republished by him with additions and annotations by competent hands. The edition of 1652, with the title of his "Legacy, or an Enlargement of the Discourse on Husbandry, &c.,” was revised by Robert Child and Dr. Arnold Beati. For this timely and valuable "Legacy," which, according to a paper published in the "Philosophical Transactions," has enriched England with improved culture adopted therefrom, to the amount of untold millions, Cromwell allowed a yearly pension of £100, which (the truth of history compels us to mention to the additional disgrace, if it is possible to add any thing to the humiliating record of the administration of Charles II.,) the kingly government of England disallowed, and from any thing we have been able to find in English literature, this public benefactor died in want, after having spent his substance “in the advancement of Husbandry-Learning " and of education generally-the great well-springs of a nation's civilization. It is not creditable to the historians of England, and especially to those who profess to see in the country homes and the schools of a people the causes, the evidence, and measure of the well-being of the state, that the name of Samuel Hartlib is not familiar as a household word to the farmers, the teachers, and the people generally of England. Although the fact does not appear of record, it is probable, that John Amos Comenius first visited England on his suggestion, and was the recipient of his open hospitality. We know that other laborers in the field of educational and agricultural improvement were so. Speed composed his work on "Improvements in Husbandry," whilst lodging in Hartlib's house. Wherever Comenius may have resided in London, while negotiations were going on with a committee of Parliament, for his being employed in drawing up a plan of national education, we know that Hartlib caused to be printed, in 1654, an edition of his “Janua Reserata Linguarum," under the title of "A true and ready way to learn the Latin Tongue," and may have assisted Hoole in bringing out his translation of that other work of Comenius, the "Orbis Pictus," the school-book, which, with the other publications of Comenius and his followers, revolutionized the entire method of elementary teaching on the Continent, and which is just now being revived in the popular schools of Great Britain, under the name of Object Teaching. By acting on the suggestions made, or at least, made known by Hartlib, England might not only have improved, as she did, the implements and methods of agriculture, but she might have had in advance of any European nation the first Agricultural College, the first Trade or Polytechnic School, the earliest and fullest development of National Education and popular intelligence founded on the solid basis of science and human nature, of any European nation. In 1643, Hartlib published his plan of an "Office of Public Address,” which he somewhat enlarged in a new edition in 1652-and which "Mr. W. P.," afterwards Sir William Petty, explained in an elaborate paper, as well deserving of parliamentary and associated aid. The idea was that of a sort of "Universal Intelligence Office" under parliamentary organization-for all sorts of wants and supplies and which is finally realized in our day without government aid in the "Times," or any other great metropolitan newspaper. In 1651, he published his "Proposition for the Erecting a College of Husbandry.” CHARLES HOOLE. CHARLES HOOLE, who helped to make known to English teachers the “ Orbus Sensualium Pictus" of Comenius, and what is now known as "Object Teaching," was born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, in 1616, was educated in the Free School there until he was eighteen, and afterwards at Lincoln College, Oxford. He taught school at Rotterham, and in London, where he published several schoolbooks, in which he incorporated the methods set forth it what Milton calls the "Modern Janua and Didactics," the Janua Reserata of Comenius, and the Didactica of Ratichius. He died in 1666. W. P., OR SIR WILLIAM PETTY. W. P., or Sir WILLIAM PETTY, whose name should be associated with the promoters of practical science in the period of the English Commonwealth, was born May 16, 1623, at Rumsey, where his father was a clothier. After mastering the studies preparatory to the university, he resided at Caen, attending the lectures of the college there. At the age of twenty, he visited the principal cities of France and Holland, studying medicine and the mechanical arts. In 1647, he took out a patent for a method of short-hand writing, and was subsequently assistant pro fessor of Anatomy at Oxford, and lecturer in the same department in Gresham College, London. In 1652, he was attached to the Army in Ireland under Lambert, and in 1655, was made Secretary to Henry Cromwell. In 1655, he was elected to Parliament, and on the restoration of the royal government, was elected Surveyor-General of Ireland. His mind was constantly occupied with mechanical inventions, with mathematical studies, and with the problems of political economy, of which he may be regarded as one of the founders in England. We republish his "Plan of a Trade School." ABRAHAM COWLEY. ABRAHAM COWLEY, whose plan of a "Philosophical College," or Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy," was preferred by Dr. Johnson, to that of Milton's Academy, was born in London, in 1618, and died in 1667. His early training was obtained as King's Scholar at Westminster School, whence he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636. In 1643, he left the university, and for many years resided on the continent in some official relation to the Queen, and Lord Falkland. Soon after his return to England in 1656, he published a volume in which his plan of a College was made public. Among the noticeable features of his college are professors resident of "all sorts of Natural, Experimental Philosophy ;" and among the studies, are enumerated" Agriculture, Architecture, Art, Military, Navigation, Gardening; the Mysteries of all Trades, and improvement of them, and briefly all things contained in the Catalogue of Natural Histories annexed to my Lord Bacon's Organon." The instruction was to be free-" that none, though never so rich, shall pay any thing for their teaching." The list of authors to be read closely resembles that of Milton, and such as serve 66 99 66 an apprenticeship in Natural Philosophy," upon Festivals and Play-times, they should exercise themselves in the fields by Riding, Leaping, Fencing, Mustering and Training, after the manner of soldiers, &c." Four of the Professors are to be always traveling beyond seas, leaving a deputy to supply their duties, and one of the four" professors itinerate " is to be assigned "to each of the four great divisions of the globe, to reside there three years, and to give a constant account of all things that belong to the Learning, and especially the Natural Experimental Philosophy of those parts.". They must take solemn oath to communicate what they "fully believe to be true, and to confess and recant it as soon as they find themselves in an error." The institution was to be furnished with suitable buildings and grounds-"Towers for the Observation of the Celestial Bodies "—" Laboratories for Chemical Operations ”—“ Gardens for all manner of experiments concerning Plants-and for the convenient receptacles of all sorts of creatures"—indeed, all the equipments which the great universities of Europe and the great cities of London and Paris now furnish for the illustration and advancement of Natural History, and Practical Science. In his Essay on "Agriculture," Cowley expresses "the wish (but can not in these times much hope to see it,) that one college in each university were erected and appropriated to this study" with "four professors" to teach the four parts; 1. Aration; 2. Pasturage; 3. Gardens, Orchards, Vineyards and Woods; 4. Rural Economy, Bees, Swine, Poultry, Fish, and other Sports of the Field. Their business should not be "to read lectures, but to instruct their pupils in the whole method and course of this study," and "should be chosen for solid and experimental knowledge of the things they teach-so industrious and public spirited, as I conceive Mr. Hartlib to be, if the gentleman be yet alive." |