8. But it is just in connection with periodical literature that the dangers of desultory and aimless reading are most obvious. The thoughtless reading of anything and everything, the cramming and gorging with mental foodstuffs will not only contribute nothing of mental strength, but will even unfit the reader for the task of assimilating wholesome mental food. The ancients. were alive to the evils resulting from omnivorous reading. "Lest the reading of many writers and of various books," says Seneca in his second letter, "produce an unsettled and restless habit of mind, we should linger long with certain writers and draw from them the food for our minds, for only in this way can anything be fixed in the soul. He who is everywhere is nowhere. They who spend their lives travelling, may have made acquaintances enough, but they will have no true friends. The same is true of such as never spend time enough with a writer to become intimately acquainted with his spirit, but who pass hurriedly from flower to flower, merely sipping and nipping of the contents of books.... Nothing possesses so little usefulness as could be reaped in passing. The multiplicity of books only distracts the mind, and hence a person should be satisfied with the number of books that he can actually read, since it is impossible for one to read all the books he has. 'But I would like to open now this book then that.' This is the objection of a spoiled stomach that would taste of many different dishes, but whose

of Nordenskjöld and his men, who also taught him how to read. Whenever his leisure permitted, Moller would steal off into a corner of the hut and spell out the words of a book or newspaper. When Nordenskjöld was about to leave for Sweden, Mæller assured him that he had resolved to adopt the profession of newspaper editor. This piece of news raised a laughter among the Swedish explorers. A newspaper editor in Greenland? And even granted that the seemingly impossible were made possible, who would be the readers, since Lars Moeller was the only Eskimo who could read? But Mæller explained that he would at first bring only pictures, which he would first sketch on wood and then make prints of as well as he could. He was sure he had invented a good process for doing such work. By means of the pictures he would then teach his countrymen how to read. Having returned to Sweden, Nordenskjöld sent his Eskimo friend a printing press and types, paper, printer's ink, and all that was needed for publishing a small newspaper. Not long after he had received this shipment, Mæller brought out the first number of his newspaper, which he proudly named Reading, though it contained pictures only. He set out on his snowshoes to circulate the first issue of his newspaper and left a copy in the hut of every one of his friends and acquaintances. He established several classes of the most intelligent members of the different villages, and after having taught them what he knew, they taught others, and thus the knowledge of the new art was spread abroad.

very variety is more harmful than wholesome. Consequently, you should never tire of reading and rereading the classics, and if you are ever tempted to make an excursion into other fields, then return to the classics.'

The school should heed this warning, and should strive to teach the young concentration and depth and to implant into them such strong and true interests that they will be immune ¦ from what is superficial and vacuous in the daily press. The teacher should, therefore, impart to his pupils elements of solid knowledge that will serve as apperception-masses in assimilating what is of value in the newspaper and magazine. But the school will itself be drawn into the vortex of the bustle and flurry of the daily press, unless it cling to what is tried and true, the eternal verities, and imbue all its work with the spirit of religion and morality.'

CHAPTER LIX.

The Sources of Informal Education.

1. With all their differences, instruction and reading have in common the relationship that an imparting agency, the teacher or the book, stands over against a receiving agency, the pupil or the reader. But there are educative processes where the imparting and receiving are not so distributed, but alternate with each other; as is the case, for instance, in social intercourse, whether oral or written. All such educative processes belong entirely to the field of informal education, whereas the book belongs to it only partly, because it is extensively used also in regular and formal education.

Informal education is the first source of knowledge. The intercourse between mother and child gives the child a knowledge of the mother-tongue; and it is through the medium of speech and conversation that experiences, reminiscences, views, and evaluations are transmitted by the old generation to the new, and this is the beginning of the process of mental assimilation. But the mutual intercourse of the children themselves is also a potent force in shaping their mental horizon. The boy

1 See supra, ch. XXXV, on the ethical concentration of the content of

education.

2 Vol. I, Introduction, I, 4.

learns much, good and bad, from his comrades; and the playground teaches him much that the teacher in the school never makes mention of. The school should not impede this process of informal education. It should, on the contrary, make liberal use of it for its own purpose, for the best way to imprint deeply on the mind what has been learned in the school, is to let it enter into the child's play; and that part of the educational content which spontaneously responds to the child's natural interests will most easily become his intellectual possession.' It is consequently advisable that the topics of the school should be the topics also of private and home discussion, for then the chords touched in school will be struck again and again, making, one may hope, an impression for life. What the old school saying, rogare-tenere-docere, considered as the highest step in the assimilation of knowledge, is actually attained, if the pupils, even if only in sport, teach their younger brothers or play

mates.

As conversation and intercourse thus supplement the regular work of the school, so they are, at least to some extent, its models also. Heuristic instruction employs the conversational form, and will prove the more successful the more closely it approaches the stimulating and inspirational nature of the dialogue. Even after the school has completed its work, it is conversation and intellectual intercourse which keep alive the interest in science and culture. In this way we not only learn much, but are also stimulated to increase our store of knowledge. Hence it is not without good reason that the Germans call their encyclopedias Konversationslexika. The polymathy of the 17th century-intent, as it was, upon drawing on all sources of varied knowledge -undertook, in its Ars conversandi or Homiletice erudita, to supply material and give directions for conducting learned and cultured conversations.3

1 Supra, ch. XLVI, 5.

2 Ch. XL, 3.

3 Johann Adam Weber, Augustinian Provost at Salzburg, wrote an Ars Conversandi (Salzburg, 1682), in which the material for conversation is given under these twelve heads: Gnoma, Apophthegmata, Historia selecta, Apologi, Symbola, Emblemata, Sales, Joci, etc., Narrationes rerum mirabilium et memorabilium, Observationes et quæstiones curiosa, Dissertatio de rebus raris, Res eximia et celebres, Apparatus materiæ. There are thirty rules given for conversation, and one of them says that the conversation should be honesta, utilis, et fructuosa, non destituta hilaritate et jucunditate. Morhof, the author of the Polyhistor (Vol. I, ch. XXII, 4) planned a Homiletice erudita, as we see from his Polyhistor litterarius (Lib. I, cap. 15). In his outline he followed

All such books are unavoidably dry and uninteresting. But the subject itself is important, and the history of education. demonstrates that the free intercourse between different minds. has deeply influenced more than once the whole educational system of a country. Among the Greeks the unconscious art of conversation, the dialéyeolau, was the foundation of the διαλέγεσθαι, conscious art developed by the sophists and Socrates. And this in turn is the basis, on the one hand, of two forms of literary expression, the dialogue and the epistolary style, and, on the other hand, of dialectic as the method of research. The nature of dialectic is aptly defined by Schleiermacher as "the continuous comparison of individual acts of perception by means of speech, until an identical knowledge is acquired."1

These three elements, the dialogue, the epistolary style, and dialectic, are the cause of the wonderful development of the Greek language; and this language has furnished the Greeks with an educational instrument that is incomparably elastic and supple. That the Greeks considered social pleasures as closely connected with intellectual enjoyment and activity, is evidenced by their frequently calling a philosophical dialogue a Symposium. In the same spirit Athenæus entitled his chief work, which is a storehouse of miscellaneous information, The Dinner of the Learned (Servoσopiσraí). The ancient practice was revived in the Renaissance, and learned conversations promoted the new learning. J. J. Burckhardt remarks of the Italian practice: "If we are to take the writers of dialogues literally, the loftiest problems of human existence were not excluded from the conversation of thinking men, and the production of noble thoughts was not, as was commonly the case in the North, the work of solitude, but of society.

2

Thus it was that circles and societies were the first home of the new learning, and it was only later that Humanism retired. to the privacy of the schoolroom and the closets of the learned.3

the directions given in Aristotle's Rhetoric (II, 18 ff.), but considered selfknowledge of prime importance for the conversationalist. Morhof's rules. are the following: Honestatem vultu, verbo, facto exprime; Eruditi famam aucupare et esto; Viros magnos venerare, vivos et mortuos; Ostentator modestus esto; Defectus tuos absconde; Arcana tibi serva; Cave contemni; Ne sis molestus; Ut homo es, ita morem geras; Obsequiosus esto; Affabilis esto.

1 Entwurf eines Systems der Sittenlehre, edited by Schweizer, 1835, § 171 d. 2 The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, transl. by S. G. C. Middlemore, London, 1898, p. 383.

3 Vol. I, ch. XXIII, 1 and ch. XXIV, 1.

1

1

Modern methods of publicity began to develop in the 17th century with Theophraste Renaudot as one of the pioneers.' Renaudot had been summoned to the French court by the Capuchin François Leclerc du Tremblay (better known as Père Joseph) to explain his theories on the alleviation of poverty, and in 1617 obtained the privilege of founding an intelligence bureau, where poor people might make known their needs, free of charge, and inquire as to places where work could be had, and where charitable people could learn the names of the deserving poor. In 1640 he began the practice of providing free consultations for the sick (our modern free clinic), by fiften physicians and free visiting physicians. On May 30, 1631, he established a weekly, La Gazette, in which he defended the policy of Richelieu. About 1632 he inaugurated, in his intelligence bureau, weekly conferences, which in time developed into a "public academy of beaux esprits," whose proceedings were published regularly, and where "the young could obtain an education, the old refresh their memory, the savant find satisfaction in being admired, the unlettered be informed, and where all could find honest recreation." An allegorical picture illustrated this tendency: a woman was draped in a garment that was interwoven with tongues and ears, and Truth, standing beside her, was taking off the mask. Cardinal Richelieu co-operated with Renaudot in all his various undertakings; and Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV., granted him the title of Historiographer to her Majesty. Renaudot's conférences were the forerunners of the French salons, which formed the characteristic feature of 18th century society.2

Though the literary societies and libraries and reading clubs of the present age may at times be overestimated and though they are open to abuse, still, if actuated by the right spirit, they are valuable aids to educating the masses. If the labor unions would give, like the "Gesellenvereine" of Germany, more attention to morality, religion, and general education, they might likewise prove of inestimable value in improving the conditions of the laboring classes.

2. The intellectual interchange that takes place in conversation and social intercourse, presupposes a certain community of opinions, knowledge, and experiences, without which intellectual communication is impossible. The matter which may serve to establish a common ground and points of contact is as

1 G. Bonnefort, Un Oublié, Th. Renaudot, Limoges, Ardant, 1900. 2 Vol. I, ch. XXV, 3 and ch. XXVI, 3.