reserve the chronicle of the less notable reigns until afterwards. The times of Egbert, of the Conqueror, of Elizabeth, of the Protectorate, of Anne, and of George III., are turning-points in our history. The person who understands these well is, as far as history is concerned, a well-informed man, even though he is unable to repeat in due order the list of sovereigns, and to tell their relationship to each other. For all the higher purposes contemplated in the study, a thorough acquaintance with the state of England in one or two of the most eventful periods is of far more value than a superficial knowledge of the entire history. The latter may be forgotten. There is no germinating power in it; it will neither grow when the pupil carries it with him into the world of books, and of news, and of conversation; nor furnish material for reflection in solitary hours. But the former serves as a nucleus for future acquirement. A learner who has been led to pay special attention to one period, and to master all its differentiæ, carries away with him from school not only a fund of knowledge which will hold together and retain its place in the mind, but also right notions of what historical investigation really is, and of the manner in which the annals of a period should hereafter be studied. In short, it is by no means necessary that a pupil should take with him into the world all the facts of a school-history, but it is necessary that he should be provided with a taste for historical reading, and with both the power and the disposition to study the subject systematically for himself. And this object is far more likely to be obtained by judiciously selecting and dwelling on the prominent epochs than by the ordinary routine method.

A good deal is often said as to the value of chrono- Chronology. logy, which some have called one of the eyes of History.

Dates to be

Mr Fearon says dates are to History what the multiplication table is to Arithmetic. I am not quite prepared to admit the analogy in this case. The multiplication table has two characteristics: It is constantly wanted in every sum we work; and every fact in it is of equal value. That 7 nines are 63 is just as liable to be wanted in Arithmetic as the fact that 2 sixes are 12. But of dates we may safely say that there are many degrees of usefulness in them, some being very valuable and others very worthless. And if the principle I have tried to lay down is a true one in regard to the study of periods of history, that principle will lead us to discriminate between the dates which we may wisely take some trouble to retain as fixed points in the memory, and those dates which none but a pedant would value, and which even a well-instructed man would not care to remember. I may confess to you though with real deference to the judgment of many who think differently—that I do not see much use in knowing the date of an event, without knowing something about the event itself. If we learn dates as and when we study the events, the two together have a meaning and a value; but the date itself and apart is of little worth. If we examine our own mental history a little we shall find that such chronology as we thoroughly know and has become part of our permanent possessions connects itself with prominent and interesting events and has been added to piecemeal as our knowledge of history increases. We study a fact, become sensible of its importance, and then we remember the date.

For example, in English History the dates of Julius learned as Cæsar, the first Christian mission, Alfred, the Conquest, facts are John and Magna Charta, Edward III. and Chaucer, Henry VIII. and the Reformation, Elizabeth and the Armada, the execution of Charles I., the Restoration, the

known, not independently.

Revolution of 1688, the great year of Minden and Quebec, the loss of America, the French Revolution, Waterloo, are the fixed centres round which a large part of our annals may be said to revolve.

I know an admirable teacher of History who relies Practical most on good oral lessons for teaching this subject; but principle. use of this who has adopted the plan of printing on a card, and placing in the hands of every boy, a list containing in bold type about twenty of these dates. There is thus a sort of carte du pays under the eye of the scholar, and as each fact is named, it is identified with one of the dates. Then for an advanced class, there is a larger card, which contains some 50 dates in all, the original 20 being in somewhat larger type, and the minor or new dates smaller. In the highest class a third card is used with about a hundred dates, or 50 in addition to those already known; the whole being printed in three kinds of type to mark the different degrees of importance in the events. Thus certain fixed landmarks are put before the scholars. As each event is discussed and learned, they associate the date with it; and as they read more of history, they establish fresh halting places, put each new fact into its proper interval, and so these intervals become smaller and smaller. This seems to me to be the rational way learning dates, as adjuncts to our historical knowledge, as helps in systematizing and arranging facts which we already know, not as facts or pieces of knowledge of any value in themselves.

of

chronology.

Observe to what absurd devices we are led when we Mnemonic accept chronology as a thing to be learned per se. One systems of teacher maps out the ceiling of a room, and associates dates with particular portions of a diagram, the form of which is supposed to be printed on the learner's brain. Another invents a memoria technica, in which certain

letters stand for figures. Thus you have the first syllable of a sovereign's name, and then a syllable made up of letters representing the date of his accession. And in some ladies' schools I have met with systems of metrical chronology, short rhymed couplets so formed that the initial letters either of the alternate words or of the nouns shall represent the years in which the facts occurred. e. g.

"The Saxon is doomed, a Duke England obtains

And the second William ascendancy gains,

Tyrrel's arrow attacks and the Sage acquires sway,
Then Adela's offspring the men long obey."

In this doggrel the initial consonants in each line give respectively the dates 1066, 1087, 1100 and 1135. You will observe the extreme difficulty which hampers the poet in the construction of lines like these; and that after all the result is not only almost unintelligible but even the names of the two monarchs Henry and Stephen referred to in the latter lines are not given. It would be easy to multiply examples of these systems of artificial memory, but to me they all seem open to one fatal objection. We are establishing with the names of historical personages a number of associations, some absurd, some unmeaning and all false, and burdening the memory of children with something in itself confessedly useless, for the sake of something useful supposed to be embodied in it. We assume that the mechanical contrivance will keep the date in the mind, and that afterwards the date will remain fixed, and the mere mechanism drop out of sight altogether. Now experience shows that the opposite result happens. Persons who have been taught on these mnemonic systems have often told me in later life that they have remembered the doggrel verses, or the queer syllables, but have forgotten the key. So the end

has not been attained after all. On the whole therefore I have little faith in any device for remembering dates, except becoming interested in the events to which the dates relate.

An obvious inference from the view of historical Biography. study here presented is, that Biography is too much neglected, and its value as an adjunct to history too little regarded among schoolmasters. Yet every one knows how much more attractive is the life of a person than the history of mere events. There is a sympathy and a human interest awakened, when the career of a man is discussed, which can never be excited in any other way. The great charm of the Bible history as we have seen lies in the fact that it is a series of biographies, held together by a thread of narrative, it is true, but deriving its main interest from the circumstance that we see human fortunes in progress, human passions at work, and real human characters, whom we can love, or criticise, or admire. Our knowledge of the Bible history is primarily a knowledge of Moses, or David, or Paul, and only incidentally of the political and social condition. of the people among whom they lived. Yet, though incidental only, this knowledge is very real, and is none the less valuable because it is held in the mind by its association with what we know of the chief personages, and their character and career. A good teacher will therefore do well occasionally, when his scholars are reading the history of a given period, to interrupt the regular course, and to select some representative man of the epoch, gather together from all sources particulars respecting him, and give two or three special lessons on his life. Suppose, for example, that the life of William of Wykeham is taken to illustrate the reign of Edward III. Let the pupils be led by a brief sketch to