Doctrinal instruction, but no two things can be more distinct. The fundamental truths of Theology are believed by all, and intelligible to all; doctrines, on the other hand, are easily misunderstood and misrepresented, nor could their explanation be entrusted without danger to schoolmasters, even of a higher average than we possess in England.

Having thus sketched the organization of the Dutch system of education, we shall next briefly glance at the form of instruction adopted in the schools, particularly dwelling on those parts which are too generally neglected in England. The first step in the infant schools of Holland is the education of the senses.

The beginners are placed round a table, and entrusted to the care of an under mistress; they are exercised in distinguishing the forms, proportions, and colours of objects; they learn to count them, to arrange them in different manners; they compare, they measure, they execute all combinations necessary to develop at the same time their senses and their intelligence.

The education of the senses is too generally omitted in this country, though the development of the faculty of observation by their means is the great object of all instruction. We begin with the letters of the alphabet, which to a child are utterly destitute of meaning; we teach them, as it were, to conjure with those elements, as if spelling really depended on a spell, and then we complain that children have a natural disinclination to learning. The Dutch first render the children familiar with objects and their relations; they next teach them to represent the forms on their slates; and then at length bring before them the art of representing objects by their names; that is, they do not teach letters until the pupils are able to comprehend the use of letters, and to see that their labour is not purposeless and fruitless.

There is no department of school studies in England more systematically mismanaged than that of arithmetic. We suppose that a child is to acquire the abstract ideas of number by inspiration, and some teachers actually punish those pupils, who, pursuing the dictates of nature, endeavour to facilitate conception of number and its relations by the use of sensible objects. The Dutch, on the other hand, begin with the objects; the pupil learns to count, add, subtract, &c. with counters which he can see and feel, and, to prevent confusion, he is at first exercised with a limited number of objects. On this topic it is not necessary to dwell further, because the advantage of teaching the relations of numbers by objects is so very obvious that the plan need only be mentioned to be appreciated. The use of pictures in a school is similarly self-evident; it is perhaps not saying too much that no object should be named in books for the earlier stages of instruction, which the teacher cannot point out to the child, or at least show in a picture. We believe that this matter is under the consideration of the Central Society of Education, and that a plan is proposed for supplying schools with models and prints of proper

objects at a cheap rate. The great error hitherto has been to give children a mere knowledge of words, which is often worse than useless; the Dutch system always connects words with things; the exact difference between the two is that the former mode of instruction is admirably suited for the teaching of parrots and jackdaws, but the latter alone is applicable to intelligent beings.

Passing from the infant to the primary schools of Holland, the first and most striking peculiarity is that all intended for the instruction of the poor are industrial. Those who must live by labour should early be taught to labour. The amount of profit which the children may gain is of very little moment, when compared with the habits of industry that are formed; but, in another point of view, such an addition to the system is most beneficial. A small but fixed portion of the children's earnings should be reserved to defray school-expences. We hold it to be an error to make education wholly gratuitous; that which is obtained for nothing is too often valued at nothing; the parent and child will finally be more gratified if relieved from the painful sense of receiving charity; and the important lesson of self-dependence will be imprinted from the outset on the youthful mind.

A second and highly valuable rule adopted in the Dutch schools, is, that classes for the adults who have left school are open from seven to nine every evening; and thus means are afforded for preserving and extending the information previously acquired.

Turning from Holland to Belgium, we find a difference which well deserves the attentive consideration of every friend of his country. Since the revolution of 1830, national education has declined in that country; the Dutch system was abandoned in the blind spirit of party zeal, and the liberal party struck a fatal blow by sanctioning the principle of absolute liberty in an institution to which that principle is wholly inapplicable. Teachers were no longer required to prove their competence; the communal councils, whose narrow views were substituted for the enlightened direction of the government, employed the teachers whose services could be obtained at the cheapest rate; good masters, disgusted and humiliated, quitted the profession; and, though the number of schools has been increased, the amount of useful education has been lamentably diminished.

The ground abandoned by the government has been partially occupied by the monastic orders, particularly "the brotherhood of the Christian Doctrine," an institution in many respects deserving very high praise, but which is not fit to have the irresponsible direction of public instruction. We have no confidence in any voluntary association that undertakes to exercise the functions proper only to the government; its intentions may be good and pure, but it is always exposed to the suspicion of ulterior de

signs. This objection applies equally to Catholic and Protestant, to the Christian brotherhood in Belgium, and the Kildare Place Society in Ireland; neither may have sectarian or proselyting objects in view, but neither can show a title to our belief in their disclaimers, or a guarantee against the secret perversion of their published principles. There is but one association possessing sufficient titles to our confidence, and sufficient guarantees against abuse that association is the nation itself, whose organ is the government, and whose words are the law.

In these voluntary associations there can be no responsibility; the first great requisite, a security that they will give the value for the money entrusted to their charge, is wanting. The Dutch system provides that none but qualified masters shall undertake the business of teaching; the voluntary system of Belgium and Britain leaves the qualifications of the masters to chance. It has been asserted that government should not interfere with the course o charity and benevolence, but it is forgotten that there is a blind and mischievous benevolence, as well as an enlightened and advantageous philanthropy; that men with the best intentions, but influenced by false notions of charity, have extended vice and increased mendicity; in the administration of the poor laws, in the direction of prisons, hospitals, and lunatic asylums, the government has been compelled to place restraints on undiscriminating benevolence, and education is more complicated, more easy of perversion, and, when perverted, more mischievous in its results, than any of the institutions in which government has found it necessary to interfere.

The example of Belgium is fraught with many other useful lessons, but with none perhaps more important than the fact that, if the government abandons its proper functions of superintending the education of the country, the charge will devolve on others. It is sheer nonsense to assert that this is a question between education and no education. Every human being is more or less educated, that is, derives habits of thought and action from the instruction and example of others. The poacher, the thief, the pickpocket, are highly educated personages, qualified by the instruction they have received in the schools of vice to take degrees in the college of Newgate. The only question is whether we shall leave them to their present instructors, or authorize government to employ a better class of teachers. In a matter of such importance, a responsible authority is absolutely necessary; many persons seem to think that the arts of cab-driving, farming, and teaching, come by nature; broken necks and broken fortunes have resulted from the first two errors, but the evil wrought by the third baffles calculation. We deem it necessary to impress upon the public mind that it is not enough to build school-houses and provide salaries; to ascertain the competency of the teachers is infinitely more important, and this is the exact point in which

all British systems, including even the Irish Board of National Education, are essentially defective. Let us see the result of the abandonment of this superintendence by the government of Belgium.

The revolution of 1830 proclaimed "Freedom of Teaching," as a first principle; just as if, on this point, it had been previously subjected to a prejudicial despotism. But let us see the use made of the large field thus opened to the beneficence of the public and of the (religious) congregations, which made such efforts to obtain this freedom. Results speak more forcibly than reasonings. The new government, as M. Ducpetieux says, having abdicated its rights to the influence exercised by the fallen authority, every thing which that authority had created felt the effects of such desertion. They began by depriving the provincial commissions of the coercive power with which they had been armed; they ceased to regard the condition of certificates of competency as obligatory; they changed the inspectors, and finally abolished them altogether, reserving to the public authorities a vague right of examining the condition of the schools whenever they thought fit. The disdain with which the best masters of the preceding epoch were treated, compelled them to leave the field open to intruders without capacity or information; young teachers trained in the Normal schools abandoned a career which was no longer attractive; the only Normal school in Belgium was closed; the associations of masters and societies for the encouragement of primary instruction were dissolved; that of Liege alone remains.

Let it be remembered that this description of the change in Belgium is given by a gentleman, who, like the authors of the change, is a liberal in politics, and a Catholic in religion; for it is unfortunately necessary to clear the question of education from the religious and political discussions which have been mixed up with it by party zeal. It is fondly to be hoped that those who have opposed the Belgian liberals in every thing else, will not agree with them in their worst course of conduct opposition to an authoritative superintendence over public instruction.

The course of instruction given in the Normal schools of Holland, in addition to the ordinary routine, includes courses of mathematics and music. The pupils do not reside in the establishment, a rule, which, though it prevents the exercise of strict discipline, has many compensating advantages. In addition to scholastic acquirements, a schoolmaster requires a certain knowledge of the world, a freedom of manners, and an independence of conduct, which could not easily be attained if he were secluded from general society. As in the primary schools, the pupils receive religious instruction only from the pastors of their respective denominations. The actual generation of Holland, a generation remarkable for its probity and piety, has grown up under this law; consequently, the fact of its existence overthrows the objections which have been made to the system. "Principles must be tested by results," says M. Cousin; " if the results are good, the Dutch system is good."

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The materials for instituting a comparison between the state of public education in England and Holland, are almost wholly

wanting; our statistical documents give us only the number of children attending schools, but omit the more important element, the nature of the instructions they receive, which of course must depend on the character of the teachers. The Statistical Society of Manchester has enabled us to supply this deficiency to a limited extent, and we shall endeavour to point out some of the results from the free trade in education, as they are exhibited in the great manufacturing towns of the north of England. At Salford, the report states—

Few of the teachers are fit for the task they have undertaken. One master was found in the act of turning his wife and daughter out of doors, in consequence of their presuming to request him to remain and attend to the school; he then closed the shutters, locked the doors, and marched triumphantly to the beer-shop, where he was found domiciled, when inquiry was made four or five times, during the following fortnight, his family meanwhile having found an asylum with a relative.

At Bury none appear to have undertaken the profession of teaching from a conviction of their fitness for it; only two profess to have been educated for the employment, and six follow other occupations, among which we find enumerated those of a pawnbroker, a hatter, and a dyer..... There is seldom any attempt made to explain to the children the meaning of what they read, or indeed to advance at all beyond the mere mechanical part of education. One master, who professed to instruct his scholars in religion and morals, was asked what method he pursued for the former; when he replied, “ I hear them their catechism once a week."

At Manchester the masters are generally in no way qualified for their occupation, take little interest in it, and show very little disposition to adopt any of the improvements that have been elsewhere made in the system of instruction. One of these masters, who seemed especially conscious of the superior excellence of his establishment, as soon as he was acquainted with the object of the visit, began to dilate upon the various sciences with which he was familiar; among which he enumerated hydraulics, hydrostatics, geography, geology, etymology, and entomology. It was suggested to him that they had better, perhaps, take the list of queries in their order. On coming to the subjects taught in the schools, he was asked Do you teach reading and writing? Yes.-Arithmetic? Yes-Grammar and composition? Certainly. French? Yes.-Latin? Yes.-Greek? Yes.-Geography? Yes; and so on until the list of queries was exhausted, answering every question in the affirmative. As he concluded, one of the visiters remarked- This is multum in parvo indeed!" To which the master immediately replied, “Yes, I teach that; you may put that down too"...... In one of these seminaries of learning, where there were about one hundred and thirty children, the noise and confusion were so great as to render the replies of the master to the inquiries put to him totally inaudible: he made several efforts to obtain silence, bnt without effect! at length, as a last effort, he ascended his desk, and striking it forcibly with a ruler, said, in a strong Hibernian accent, "I'll tell you what it is, boys; the first I hear make a noise, I'll call him up and kill him entirely;" and then, perceiving probably on the countenance of his visiter some expression of dismay at this murderous threat, he added quickly in a more subdued tone, " almost I will." His menace produced no more effect than his previous appeals had done. A dead silence succeeded for a minute or two; then the whispering recommenced, and the talking, shuffling of feet, and general disturbance, were soon as bad as ever. The master gave up the point, saying, as he descended from the desk, "You see the brutes, there's no managing them."