Of less critical value, and lower in scholarly tone than the work just described, are the lectures lately published by the Rev. W. H. Simcox.* But it is likely to be a popular book. There is a large class of people who want to have religious history put before them in a vivid and picturesque form, without being troubled with controverted questions and without much interference with the old legends which do so much to make a narrative vivid and picturesque. This want Mr. Simcox has set himself to supply, rather unworthily, we think, for he gives evidence of being able to appreciate the higher criticism which cares for the truth above all things. But everything that has been written on the subject during the last forty years is here almost utterly ignored, and the book is, therefore, completely out of line with all modern thought. This makes the very modern language in which it is written, and the occasional introduction into its pages of rather strong colloquialisms, all the more incongruous, not to say amusing, but the character of the book is not determined by its style. The real student, however, will find in it a good deal of interesting reading, and much useful matter handily arranged.

H. S. S.

TE

MR. RHYS DAVIDS' HIBBERT LECTURES.

HE volume containing the last series of the Hibbert Lectures,† delivered by Mr. Rhys Davids seven months ago, has appeared too recently to allow of our giving at present any adequate review of it. We have, however, much satisfaction in promising our readers an article on the subject, in our next number, by Dr. Kern, of Leiden, whose name will be familiar to students of the Indian religions as that of an accomplished scholar and earnest and patient investigator, who, like the Hibbert Lecturer, can speak on the subject of Buddhism with the authority that comes of knowledge and insight. How much light has been thrown on the more obscure and difficult questions connected with the life and teaching of Gotama Buddha is strikingly shown in these deeply interesting Lectures. Mr. Rhys Davids has selected with great skill the main points on which to concentrate the attention of his hearers and readers, suggesting resemblances or contrasts, parallelisms and divergences, which serve in many ways his purpose of illustrating the Origin and Growth of Religion. He is careful to warn his readers against the danger of being misled by merely superficial points of comparison, while he often calls attention to less apparent but more real ones which are much more significant. Beginning with a consideration of the place of Buddhism in the development of religious thought, Mr. Rhys

*The Beginnings of the Christian Church. By the Rev. W. H SIMCOX, London: Rivington. 1881.

Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Some Points in the History of Indian Buddhism. By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. London: Williams and Norgate. 1881.

Davids gives a concise account of the religious and philosophical ideas amongst which it was born. Then we have an interesting description of the writings from which we obtain our chief real knowledge of the Buddha and his teaching. The third Lecture contains an exposition of the doctrine of Karma, the Buddhist analogue of the Brahminical conception of the transmigration of the soul. It is so curiously remote from all our ordinary ideas of existence, its origin and ultimate issue, that the lecturer has accomplished a veritable intellectual feat in bringing fairly within the scope of our apprehension this doctrine of what he calls "transmigration of character, not of soul;" one of the most curious attempts that have been made to solve the ever-recurring problem of the unequal distribution of good and evil in the world. In the fourth Lecture we have an extremely interesting account of the Buddhist lives of the Buddha, with illustrations of the origin and growth of the Buddhist legend, again presenting us with many suggestive parallelisms with what we find in the earliest Christian records. A description of the society or order into which Gotama's followers were formed, and a brief review of the later developments of Buddhism, which conclude the course of lectures, still serve the main purpose of comparison and illus tration.

The Oriental scholars who have found their way through the same intricate mazes of Hindoo thought can alone fully appreciate the diffi culty of the task which Mr. Rhys Davids has undertaken in these Lectures, or rightly estimate the success with which he has accomplished it. Certainly, the treatment of the whole subject of the Indian religions by the latest investigators is marvellously different from that which prevailed till comparatively recent days, and which is still to be met with, taking its tone from the impulses now of hostility to Christianity, now of a narrow and ignorant theological partizanship. The Hibbert Lectures have all been excellent specimens of the right attitude in which to approach the whole subject of the comparative study of religions. Looking forward to Dr. Kern's review of this latest series, we have abstained from attempting any detailed critical notice. They are written in a singularly clear and effective style, and there can be no question of their interest and value as a contribution to the literature of religion.

A

THE EDUCATION LIBRARY.

DEBT of gratitude to the publishers who send forth this Education Library, to Dr. Magnus who gives his excellent judgment and great experience to its editing, and, most of all, to the authors who are devoting their various and special gifts to preparing the different volumes, is due from all members of the Reform party in the Education controversy. The pædagogic Conservative, too, will gather precious spoil. He will say, "The new-fangled notions are all old! They have been tried and have failed." He is right! But the children call to us, "Try again."

66

While called a History of Theories, Mr. Oscar Browning's work is rather a history of Methods recommended, or actually put into practice, and this is most valuable. One day, a work may be given us to be compared in importance with Kant's " Criticism of Pure Reason," which shall examine the philosophical grounds of educational notions in a way to form a true theory. Meanwhile, for the teacher who is disgusted with existing practice, nothing is more instructive than to know what methods were tried, and what maxims laid down, by ancients like Plato, Cicero, Quintilian; by moderns like Montaigne and Verulam; by practical teachers like Comenius, Locke, Pestalozzi.

For pith and brevity the preface is a masterpiece. A note of despair marks the preliminary and the concluding pages, and its pitch may have something to do with Etonian experiences. The Psychology which asserts that "a child is born into the world with its faculties given to it once for all," seems to need as correction a grain of the venerable "pliant wax" and "white paper" theory of the omnipotence of training. At least, we may take the comfort of J. S. Mill's reminder that our ideas of what good methods of teaching might effect, need not be limited by any results as yet produced, for good methods have nowhere yet been consistently put into practice. What little is to tell about Middle Age Teaching is well told. One wishes for more about the "Brethren of the Common Life," one of whom is credited with the "Imitatio Christi," and who certainly bred Erasmus, and for that would have given all the account of Montaigne and Rabelais. Nowadays, with the importunate Democracy pressing on us, we have scant leisure for thinking how best to teach single gentlemen! Perhaps a distrust of the Jesuits' purposes may have led to some undervaluing of their methods. The importance of Rousseau is fully allowed, but not overrated, and the extracts from his "Emile" will be found most instructive. To Pestalozzi, also, justice is done. A little more than justice where it is said, "The Kindergarten of Fröbel is only the particular development of a part of his general scheme." Yet more surprising is this: "We live so completely in the system which Pestalozzi helped to form that it is difficult for us to realise how great a man he was." No schools, known to us, have even begun to take as their raison d'étre that “harmonious development of all the natural powers" which to him was "the end of education." Schoolmasters thun noch mit Worten kramen, "keep on peddling with words," as Faust complained a century ago.

The chapter on Kant, Fichte, and Herbart is, perhaps, for weight of matter, the most valuable of the little book, and contains a treasury of wisdom for the practical teacher. The last chapter on the "English Public School" contains many glimpses of the theory which our author may be supposed to hold. He touches the centre when he asserts (p. 190) "that a simple love of work, and of acquisition of knowledge, is the natural condition for a healthy child;" and "the best means of

(1) An Introduction to the History of Educational Theories. By OSCAR BROWNING, M.A., King's College, Cambridge. London: Kegan Paul and Co. 1881.

effecting this is by day-schools, and no great impulse will be given to the secondary education of England unless a net-work of day-schools is drawn over the country." He disposes of the chosen British argument from results, thus: "If the flower of English youth go habitually to boardingschools it is not strange that the most successful Englishmen come from these establishments."

66

If teachers owe a large debt of gratitude to Mr. Browning for his history of "Educational Theories," much more deeply are they indebted to Professor Laurie for his account of the life and works of John Amos Comenius.* A practical teacher, coming to the study of the "Great Didactic" in the selected, condensed, and yet characteristic form here given, will be apt to think he has found a "Novum Organon" of his own special art and mystery! The teacher will find all his "counsels of perfection" quietly prescribed, with hints to elevate his best maxims, and rules to improve his highest practice. What is usually ascribed to Pestalozzi, the study of words through objects, he will find here; and pressed with special earnestness, what makes one of the supreme distinctions of Fröbel, that learning be always accompanied by doing. His words are "Autopsy" and 'Autopraxy," which may look a little scholastic, but, in their meanings, point to the very millennium of education. For the books (of Aristoteles) he proposes to "lay open the living book of Nature, in which there is much more to contemplate than any one person can ever relate " (p. 37). The portion on Method is full of maxims, which, if truisms, are so only in the sense of truth neglected! "In schools they teach words before things; "-is that error universally amended? "Nothing should be taught except when it can be comprehended." What then would become of our examinations? He would graduate a complete education in four periods, each of six years, occupying the whole period of youth-from birth to manhood. A system worthy, we think, of being adopted-one day! in this " the richest and worst taught country of Europe" (Sartor Resartus). In the Family he shows (p. 140), in a manner quite worthy of Verulam, how the rudiments of every science and every art are learned naturally, by the events and occupations of life: Discipline, good Manners, the elements of Religion and Morality being taught at the mother's knee. The Vernacular School answers to our Primary school; and Comenius maintains that all, whatever their rank and prospects of extended study, should therein be taught, together, "all that will be of use to the whole of life." In the Gymnasium, Latin would be thoroughly learned, and preparation made-certo, facile, solide -for every known subject of study. These the University would, in the case of the choicest heads only, complete. Comenius is no teacher of ones or twos. He maintains that one teacher may teach a hundred pupils, anticipating in a rational form the monitorial plan, which, with us, still persists in a form not rational. His rules for securing attention are excellent: the Socratic mode is his continual questioning, with time given for

*(2) John Amos Comenius: Life and Educational Work. F. S. LAURIE, A.M., F.R.S.E., University of Edinburgh.

By Professor

questions from the pupils also. Space precludes a hundred farther proofs that the "Great Didactic" deserves the name of an Encyclopedia of the Art of Teaching, which no change of circumstances in the two centuries and a-half will be found to have superseded. Comenius is in no sense the founder of a School. He is a Reformer. He is an Apostle ad gentes minutulas, the children! No more impressive picture can be imagined than is here given us of the Moravian Bishop-in worldly position truly Apostolic, in sufferings Paul-like, yet never bating a jot of heart nor hope. "Wandering (says von Raumer), persecuted and homeless, during the terrible and desolating Thirty Years' War, he yet never despaired: but ... laboured unweariedly to prepare youth by a better education for a better future."

Professor Mahaffy's sketch of Old Greek Education * may not contain as much direct instruction for the Reformers of modern education as does Comenius, but it is supremely interesting, and conveys with wit, reminding us whence it comes, hints and corrections which doubtless we Reformers need. No one who begins to read this little book will need our exhortations to finish it. Even the unlearned can detect the wide foundation of knowledge out of which the light and easy structure grows. Delightfully unexpected is the account (p. 51) of early pictorial teaching of children. Our respect for the Greek schoolmaster is enhanced by knowing that he used a pointing wand more constantly than a ferule of punishment. Yet, from the combination of uses still existing in our public elementary schools, perhaps this wand, while first intended to illustrate a lesson or "adorn a tale," may also have served "to point a moral." That the Hellenic athletism was far inferior, in useful effect, to the cricket, football, and boating of Eton and Oxford, may be gladly accepted, with the modest gloss, that Hellenic parents would perhaps not have been so entirely satisfied as British society seems to be, if the supposed pupil of Sophist and Rhetor came forth from his studies, distinguished only as Leaper or Pancratiast.

The Ephebi patrolling the frontiers, as preparation for soldiership, match well with our Rifle Volunteers. Above all interesting is the account of the later Schools of Philosophy, by virtue of which Athens became the university of all Europe. Omitting very many things about Greece as it was, this account (p. 134) of the University of Athens, as it is, must not be left out. "At the present moment the University of Athens provides free education for every Greek. . . This now unique provision brings to Athens an influx of young Greeks from all the Levant, from Turkish countries, from Egypt, nay, even from Italy. They support themselves as best they can, often by menial employments, provided they can keep their lecture hours free. Lodging together in the humblest apartments, they club their scanty earnings for the purchase of a light and a text book, which they use in common, the one sleeping till his fellow has done his work, and wakes him to hand him the fresh-trimmed

(3) Old Greek Education. By the Rev. Professor MAHAFFY, M.A., University of Dublin.