Examples of studies in biography.

take an interest in the man, to follow his fortunes, to estimate his character. Let them see pictures of the buildings which he erected, be reminded of Winchester, of Windsor, of New College, Oxford, and of Saint Cross, and so get a glimpse of the educational machinery, the architecture, and the social habits of the period.

Let them be directed to books in the library, in which anecdotes and illustrative matter may be found. Let them investigate the public and political questions with which his life was associated, and then be desired to prepare a sketch as full as possible, and in a narrative form, embodying all they have learned about Wykeham.

The result of such an exercise will be found to justify the interruption of the ordinary historical lessons for one or two weeks. A pupil who, in this way, has been directed successively to the biography of Alfred, of A'Becket, of Chaucer, of the Earl of Warwick, of Cecil, of Bacon, of Cromwell, and of Pitt cannot fail to have an extensive acquaintance with the current history of the times in which these men lived; while the form in which that knowledge is acquired will be found better adapted than any other to retain a permanent hold on his mind. In the selection of the typical man of each age, the teacher will be guided, partly by his own tastes, and partly by the materials at his command and the books to which he has access. It is of more importance that he should choose some one man in whom he is himself interested, and whose biography he has the means of making copious and lifelike in his lessons, than that he should be guided by any selection which another could make for him.

The materials for such biographical lessons are very abundant in our language, and may be found with little trouble. Our literature is rich in admirable mono

graphs, such as Bacon's Henry VII., Lucy Hutchinson's Memoir of her Husband, Johnson's Sir Francis Drake, Earl Russell's Life of his ancestor Lord Russell, Fox's James II., Carlyle's Cromwell, Southey's Nelson, John Forster's Five Members, Leslie Stephen's, or Mrs Oliphant's Sketches of the 18th Century, Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay. In Walton's exquisite book of Lives, in Fuller's Worthies, in Macaulay's Biographies, in Lord Brougham's Statesmen of the Time of George III., in Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens, and in Mignet's Mary Queen of Scots, also, abundant material for pleasing and graphic pictures of life and manners may be found. Very often, too, a diligent teacher will find that by piecing together the facts stated in two or three different books about some one person, he will be able, without difficulty, to prepare a short lecture or oral lesson, the preparation and arrangement of which will be as useful to himself as it will prove beneficial to his pupils. If this practice be occasionally adopted, it will surprise him to find how the facts relating to the history of an age will cluster and organize themselves round a great man's name, and how systematic the knowledge of history will thus become. I have already referred to the use of a library for these purposes and to the way in which after the teacher has given a brief sketch of the life he may set his pupils to fill up that sketch in writing, with all the particulars they can glean from different sources, until they have, in fact, partly produced the biography themselves. He will afterwards require the information thus given to be reproduced by the class in a regular form, with the facts arranged chronologically, or tabulated under various heads, besides an estimate of the character of the person whose life has been selected.

Lessons on great writers.

A very interesting series of lessons might be given on great books; their influence on History, and their value (1) as indicative of the thought and intellectual movement of the age which produced them, and (2) as helping to shape the thought or the policy of the age

which succeeded: e.g.

Addison.

Historical

Burke.

Adam Smith.

Fox.

Gibbon.

De Foe.

Southey.

Johnson.

Brougham.

Algernon Sidney. Swift.

There is not one of these whose life, with a notice of his most important books would not throw much light on the political history and the social life of the time in which he lived. So a series of lessons on great in

ventors as

Roger Bacon,

Newton,

would serve a like purpose.

Stephenson, Boyle, Watt,

As another means of giving life and reality to lessons readings. on this subject, occasional Historical Readings may deserve a prominent place. The teacher may advantageously assemble his class once a week or fortnight, and give to them a half-hour's reading from some book which illustrates the period to which the recent historical lessons refer. Such readings should generally be anecdotal and dramatic in their character, as it is more necessary that they should deepen and intensify the impression of some one characteristic incident of the time, than merely go over the ground which has been covered by the historical lessons. If a teacher in his own private reading keeps his eyes open for passages such as will serve this purpose; if he will systematically mark them, or make a memorandum of the places in

which they occur, it will surprise him to find how they will multiply upon him. Not only in books ostensibly written as histories, but in many others, there will often occur a striking and effective passage, which will, if well read, be sure to excite interest.

It would be an endless task to point out the passages Examples in Palgrave, Hume, Macaulay, Froude, Clarendon, Readings. of historical Carlyle, Freeman, Miss Martineau, Guizot, or Mr Knight, which are characterized by special interest or pictorial beauty, and which, if read to a class that had been recently engaged in accumulating the dry details of a given period, would be sure to help the imagination, and stimulate the intellectual activity, and strengthen the memory of the pupils. A teacher's own taste will generally be a safer guide in the adaptation of his readings to his ordinary teaching, than any formal list which could be set down here. But in making his selection he need on no account confine himself to grave books of history; one of the Paston Letters, a naïf anecdote from Froissart, a gossiping letter of Horace Walpole, a paper from the Spectator, an extract from Evelyn's Diary, a chapter of De Foe's History of the Plague, or even a passage from one of honest Pepys' grotesque confessions, will, if wisely chosen, and read at the right time, be found to play an important part in fastening the record of some great event on the mind. Nor should the stores of our poetical and dramatic literature be overlooked. What a freshness and life will be given to the dry bones of an ordinary narrative of the Wars of the Roses, if the teacher treats the learners at the end of their task with two or three well-selected scenes from Shakespeare's Henry IV. or VI. Who would not understand the whole life, costume, occupation, and morale of Edward III.'s contemporaries all the better for hearing

F. L.

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Chaucer's inimitable description of some of the Canterbury Pilgrims, or even a page of Sir John Mandeville's quaint book of Travels? I cannot expect a mere routine teacher to take all the trouble I am recommending, but to all who desire to give to English history that place in their pupils' affection and interest which it deserves, I would say, Make your own miscellaneous reading tell upon your school lessons. This is a good rule in relation to all subjects. Attention to it serves to widen the range of illustration at command, and to impart vivacity and force to all the teaching of a school. But in history the rule is especially applicable. Let a teacher read one or two of Wordsworth's sonnets about the introduction of Christianity into England after his class has learned the story of Augustine's mission; or Macaulay's poem on the Spanish Armada, when that subject. has been studied; or a pungent passage from Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, or Milton's sonnet on Cromwell, or a ballad from Percy's Reliques, and the advantage of the practice will soon become apparent to him. Within the range of such reading also may fairly be included good extracts from Ivanhoe or Waverley, from the Last of the Barons, from Westward Ho, or Henry Esmond. It may be said, perhaps, that all this is not history; that children come to school to learn facts, not fictions, and that there is danger of relaxing the bonds of intellectual discipline by introducing into the school room material of so unscholastic a character as a play of Shakspeare, or a novel of Sir Walter Scott. But to this it may be easily replied that my recommendation only extends to the contrivances by which school-book work of the ordinary kind is to be supplemented, not to any device for superseding it. We are not to use the imagination as an alternative, but as a help to the memory.