stupidity or dogged sullenness, who is only confused and distracted by the 'plagosus Orbilius' standing over him, and rendering, by his angry tones and threats, mental effort simply impossible.

Locke recognises the necessity of rewards and punishments, but is opposed to rewards that take the form of material pleasures. He would have children treated as rational creatures, and influenced not through their bodies, but through their minds. 'Esteem and disgrace,' he says, 'are, of all others, the most powerful incentives to the mind when once it is brought to relish them. If you can once get into children a love of credit, and an apprehension of shame and disgrace, you have put into them the true principle, which will constantly work and incline them to the right.' (§ 56.) He notices how sensible children are of praise, and how quickly they detect any withholding or diminution of it. But to make the sense

of esteem or disgrace sink the deeper, other agreeable or disagreeable things should constantly accompany these different states; not as particular rewards or punishments arbitrarily attached to these states, but as necessarily belonging to and attending one who by his carriage has brought himself into a state of disgrace or commendation. Rousseau would trust to automatic punishments. He says: 'Never oppose to [a child's] indiscreet desires other than physical obstacles or punishments which grow out of the actions themselves-punishments which he will recall to mind when occasion requires.' Mr. Herbert Spencer has developed this principle still further, and indicated various modes of applying it. He has shown how Nature punishes the violation of her laws by penalties that are not artificial and arbitrary inflictions of pain, but the unavoidable consequences of the deeds which they follow,' 'the inevitable reactions entailed by the child's actions;' he has shown that these penalties are exactly proportionate to the transgressions committed, and that they are constant, direct, and unhesitating. He would have the violations of moral law to be punished, as far as possible, in the same way. parent's duty is to warn against the consequences of offence, and so to shape them, when intervention is requisite, as to make the connexion between cause and effect obvious. The advantages of this course, he says, are that it accustoms chil

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dren to connect actions with their inevitable consequences, and so form definite conceptions of right and wrong based upon their essential differences; it appeals to the sense of justice, for 'whoso suffers nothing more than the evil which in the order of nature results from his own misbehaviour, is much less likely to think himself wrongly treated than if he suffers an artificially inflicted evil;' it avoids the needless exasperation of temper on the side both of parents and children, the impersonal agency of Nature being substituted for the personal agency of parents; and it tends to a more friendly and therefore a more influential relation between parent and child. In dealing with grave moral offences (which, he points out, are far less likely to occur under the régime recommended than under the ordinary régime) Mr. Spencer would attach to the direct natural consequences of the offence indications of parental displeasure. Those indications would, of course, be powerful in proportion to the warmth of the attachment previously existing between the parent and the child. He would avoid the multiplication of laws as far as possible, but he would have the violation of law followed by penalties as inevitable as those inflicted by inanimate Nature.

Locke also is opposed to the multiplication of rules, and would trust rather to the formation of habits, 'which being once established, operate of themselves easily and naturally without the assistance of the memory.' As might be ex pected, he recognises the educative influence, for good or bad, which is exerted on children by those with whom they associate, and warns parents against the bad examples which are often set children by servants. The more young children are confined to the nursery, the more important it is that they should be placed under the charge of intelligent and well-educated nurses or nursery governesses. As they grow up equal care will be needed in controlling the acquaintance they make. A child is always learning, and not unfrequently the lessons learned from servants and companions are directly opposed to those taught by parents and teachers. Unfortunately the example set by parents themselves is often of a most undesirable character. 'If you punish him for what he sees you practise yourself, he will not think that severity to proceed from kindness in you,

careful to amend a fault in him; but he will be apt to interpret it, the peevishness and arbitrary imperiousness of a father, who, without any ground for it, would deny his son the liberty and pleasures he takes himself. Or if you assume to yourself the liberty you have taken, as a privilege belonging to riper years to which a child must not aspire, you do but add new force to your example, and recommend the action more powerfully to him. For you must always remember that children affect to be men earlier than is thought; and they love breeches, not for their cut or ease, but because the having them is a mark or step towards manhood.' It is this 'young-manishness' that explains many precocious vices, such as smoking and drinking, which are at first eminently distasteful to the young. Lads will endure tortures in order to be thought older than they really are.

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Although Locke recommends parents to inspire young children with a certain amount of awe and reverence, he is in favour of treating them as they grow up with an everincreasing familiarity. This, as I have pointed out, was the course pursued by his own father. Many fathers,' he says, though they proportion to them very liberal allowances, according to their age and condition, yet they keep the knowledge of their estates and concerns from them with as much reservedness as if they were guarding a secret of state from a spy or an enemy. Nothing cements and establishes friendship and good will so much as confident communication of concerments and affairs.' Nor is this the only advantage. Confidence begets confidence; and how necessary it is that children should be open and confidential towards parents it is needless to remark. Many an evil consequence might be averted in families, if the children felt encouraged by parental sympathy to seek parental counsel. For similar reasons teachers should not keep their pupils at too great a distance.

Locke's precepts on the practical work of teaching, although characterised by his usual common sense, are not so valuable to the modern teacher as his remarks on the principles of education; but here also he makes many useful suggestions. To start with, he sees clearly the absolute necessity of securing a child's attention in teaching. Without that the amplest knowledge and the most lucid

explanation on the part of the teacher will be in vain. 'Children's minds are narrow and weak, and usually suscep tible but of one thought at once. Whatever is in a child's head fills it for the time, especially if set on with any passion. It should, therefore, be the skill and art of the teacher to clear their heads of all other thoughts, while they are learning of anything, the better to make room for what he would instil into them, that it may be received with attention and application, without which it leaves no impression. The natural temper of children disposes their minds to wander. Novelty alone takes them; whatever that presents they are presently eager to have a taste of, and are as soon satisfied with it. They quickly grow weary of the same thing, and so have almost their whole delight in change and variety. It is a contradiction to the natural state of childhood for them to fix their fleeting thoughts.' (§ 167.) This being the case, it is obviously the teacher's duty to take advantage of the child's love of novelty, and convert it from being a source of distraction into a means of securing attention. He must minister to the instinct of curiosity by bringing before it subjects of interest; he must multiply his illustrations and vary his methods; he must, in short, make his teaching more attractive than the matters which tend to divert the mind from learning. In the case of very young children the attention is only to a slight extent under the control of the will, and the teacher's efforts to counteract their volatility must be proportionately greater. As children get to see the utility of knowledge, and appreciate its remoter advantages, the habits induced by automatic attention will become more and more volitional. In the art of arousing and sustaining attention our trained teachers have certainly made great progress, and I venture to think that teachers in our highest schools might gain many valuable practical hints from observing a teacher in one of our elementary schools give a lesson to sixty or seventy children.

One of Locke's best chapters is that on Curiosity. Curiosity in children,' he says, 'is but an appetite after knowledge; and therefore ought to be encouraged in them, not only as a good sign, but as the great instrument nature has provided to remove that ignorance they were born with; which, without this busy inquisitiveness, will make them dull

and useless creatures.' (§ 118.) To encourage it he advises (1) not to check or discountenance any inquiries a child shall make, nor suffer him to be laughed at, but to answer all his questions and explain the matter he desires to know; (2) to commend in his hearing those who are in possession of superior knowledge; (3) to take great care that he never receives deceitful and eluding answers; (4) to bring strange and new things in his way on purpose to enlarge his inquiry.

To render learning attractive, Locke would make it as easy as simplification and method can make it, and as amusing as the serious business of education will allow. He tells, with approval, a story of a child who was taught his letters and played into spelling' through amusing himself with dice, on the sides of which were pasted the letters of the alphabet. He would have children learn reading out of interesting books, 'wherein the entertainment that he finds might draw him on, and reward his pains in reading.' Such books should be illustrated. He is in no hurry to use reading as a vehicle for the communication of knowledge, and would prefer for beginners such books as Æsop's Fables' and 'Reynard the Fox.' Languages he would teach conversationally, deferring the systematic study of the grammar until the language was fairly mastered. 'If grammar ought to be taught at any time, it must be to one that can speak the language already; how else can he be taught it? I know not why any one should waste his time, and beat his head about the Latin grammar, who does not intend to be a critic, or make speeches and write despatches in it. When any one finds in himself a necessity or disposition to study any foreign language to the bottom, and to be nicely exact in the knowledge of it, it will be time enough to take a grammatical survey of it. If his use of it be only to understand some books writ in it, without a critical knowledge of the tongue itself, reading alone, as I have said, will attain this end, without charging the mind with the multiplied rules and intricacies of grammar.' (§ 168.)

It is sometimes urged that this plan of making everything easy to children misses the main end of education, which is to prepare them for encountering the difficulties of after-life. But in answer to this it may be fairly urged that a gradation