talking, for which an average of 445 boys incurred, in 1844, 4105 separate punishments, (among them 165 whippings,) making an average of above 10 per diem! If the governor is able to state in the last report, that the behavior of the majority generally quiet, orderly, and obedient; he feels obliged to add :—

was

"That while there has been a general observance of outward regularity and attention to the prison rules among the greater portion of the boys, and serious breaches of order have been of comparatively rare occurrence, there has not been that evidence of a general and growing desire to improve in moral conduct and industrial energy, which I anxiously looked for, and the apparent absence of which causes me much disappointment. Prisoners are generally indolent, boys especially."

Those who have accorded in the principles of reformatory action which were laid down in the first chapter, and have been our guide in the consideration of all the schools that have passed before us, will feel no surprise that the governor's hopes are unfulfilled, not, it may, be, through any fault of his own, but through the radical error of the whole system. It attempts to fashion children into machines, instead of self. acting beings, to make them obedient prisoners within certain iron limits, not men who have been taught how to use their liberty without abusing it; without this knowledge, and the power of employing it, we have seen that the best instruction, the Word of God itself, but little avails its possessor. Such a system must fail; for the boy whose heart has never been purified and softened by any good home influences, who has always done "what is right in his own eyes," will never give a willing obedience where his powers can have no free exercise, where there is no softening power of love to subdue him, where he can never hear from woman what should have been the entreating tones of a mother, where he regards with profound suspicion the appointed agents of his reformation. It is utterly vain to look for any real reformation where the heart is not touched, where the inner springs of action are not called into healthful exercise; this can not possibly be done for children under the mechanical and military discipline of Parkhurst.

We have thus endeavored to scrutinize the system adopted in this establishment, and to point out its radical defects, because it is the only reformatory prison for boys existing under government direction, and is regarded by many as a model one. Of the details of its management it is unnecessary to speak; they appear, from the reports to be well planned, and carried out with due attention to the health of the boys, and their instruction in mental and industrial pursuits, while the expense is probably as moderate as is possible under the circumstances. There is only one other point to which we would draw attention. Parkhurst is especially intended for the training of boys, who at the end of two, or at most three years, will be prepared to go out as colonists, and the regulations now laid down, make 14 and upwards, the age of admission The governor has, in his report, stated his opinion

"That the admission of youths of 18 and upwards, or of lads who have pursued a course of crime for several years, till they have become habituated to and hardened in it, is very much to be lamented, as it seriously impedes all efforts made for the reformation of our inmates. Such characters as those above described, having beer, many times imprisoned, have lost all sense of degradation, have no desire to become respectable characters, and have no intention to earn their subsistence by honest means whenever they may regain their liberty. Abject slaves themselves to sensual appetites and propensities, the only voluntary activity they manifest is a continual effort, by persuasion, by threats, by false promises, or by ridicule, to make other prisoners pursue their vicious example in opposing all means which may be tried for their moral improvement." But at the end of the preceding year there were 393 out of 622, 18 years of age and upwards, some of them "convicted of atrocious crimes," which, he justly feared, would "afford subject for eager investigation and debasing discourse among a certain class of the prisoners." When young men have arrived at that degree of audacious depravity, can it be doubted that unless sufficient moral force is in action to neutralize their influence, they must be most unsafe companions for boys? And if youths have been allowed thus to go on in a career of crime until they have been "so many times imprisoned, that they have lost all sense of degradation," surely a school for boys is a most unfit place for them.

III. BIOGRAPHY OF ROGER ASCHAM.

WE shall commence in our next number the publication of Roger Ascham's great work-"The Schoolmaster;" one of the earliest and most valuable contributions to the educational literature of our language. As an appropriate introduction, we give a sketch of the author's life drawn mainly from Hartley Coleridge's "Northern Worthies," and the "Biographical Dictionary" commenced by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

ROGER ASCHAM was the third son of John and Margaret Ascham, and was born in the year 1515, at Kirby Wiske, near Northallerton in Yorkshire, where his father resided as steward to the noble family of Scroope. His parents, who were highly esteemed in their station, after living together for forty-seven years, both died on the same day and nearly at the same hour. Their son Roger displayed from his childhood a taste for learning, and was received into the family of Sir Anthony Wingfield, who caused him to be educated with his own sons, under the care of their tutor, Mr. Robert Bond ;* and in the year 1530, placed him at St. John's College, Cambridge, then the most flourishing in the University. Ascham applied himself particularly to the study of Greek, to which a great impulse had recently been given by the dispersion of the learned Greeks throughout Europe, in consequence of the taking of Constantinople. He made great proficiency in Greek as well as Latin, and he read Greek lectures, while yet a youth, to students still younger than himself. He took the degree of A. B. in February, 1534, and on the 23d of the next month was elected fellow of his college, through the influence of

*To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make schoolmasters careful in their place, that the eminences of their scholars have commended their schoolmasters to posterity, which otherwise in obscurity had been altogether forgotten. Who had ever heard of R. Bond in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned Roger Ascham, his scholar?" Fuller's Holy and Profane States-The Good Schoolmaster.

Dr. Grant in his "Oratio de vita et obitu Rogeri Ascham" thus compliments Sir John's College: Yea, surely, in that one college, which at that season, for number of most learned doctors, for multitude of erudite philosophers, for abundance of elegant orators, all in their kind superlative, might rival or outvie all mansions of literature on earth, were exceedingly many men, most excellent in all politer letters, and in knowledge of languages."

"Dr. Nicholas Medcalf"-writes Ascham later in life," was a man meanly learned him. seif, but not meanly affectioned to set forth learning in others. He was partial to none, but indifferent to all; a master of the whole, a father to every one in that college. There was if he had either will to goodness, or wit to learning, that could lack being there,

none so poor,

the master, Dr. Medcalf, himself a northern man, who privately exerted himself in Ascham's favor, notwithstanding he had exhibited a leaning toward the new doctrines of protestantism, and had even been exposed to public censure for speaking against the pope. He took the degree of A. M. in 1536, at the age of twenty-one, and began to take pupils, in whose instruction he was very successful. He also read Greek publicly in the university, and privately in his own college.

In 1544, on the resignation of Sir John Cheke, he was chosen University Orator,* an office which he filled with general approbation. In the following year, (1545,) appeared his "Toxophilus, or, the Schole of Shootinge," a treatise on archery, which he composed with a double view; in the first place, to exhibit a specimen of English prose composition in a purer taste than then prevailed, and in the second, to attract the attention of King Henry VIII., then on the point of setting out on his Boulogne expedition, and to obtain the means of visiting Italy, which he much desired. He succeeded perfectly in the first object, and partially in the second; for the king was so well pleased, that he settled on the author a pension of 107. per annum-at that time a considerable sum, especially to a poor scholar. Ascham about this time acquired other great patrons. He enjoyed a pension from Archbishop Lee, acted for some time as tutor to Henry and Charles Brandon, the two sons of the Duchess of Suffolk, and attracted the friendly regards of the Chancellor Wriothesly, and other eminent men.

In 1548, on occasion of the death of William Grindal, who had been his pupil at Cambridge, Ascham was appointed instructor in the learned languages to the Lady Elizabeth, afterwards Queen, a situation which he filled for some time with great credit to himself and satisfaction to his pupil.

Of Ascham's own attachments, as well as methods of study and teaching, we have the best record in his letters and the Schoolmaster. He held fast the truth, that it is only by its own free agency that the intellect can either be enriched or invigorated;-that true knowledge is an act, a continuous immanent act, and at the same time an operation of the reflective faculty on its own objects. How he applied

or should depart thence for * need. any * This good man's goodness shall never be out of my remembrance all the days of my life. For next to God's Providence, surely that day was, by that good father's means, dies natalis unto me for the whole foundation of the poor learning I have, and of all furthermore that hitherto elsewhere I have obtained." The human heart is capable of no more generous feeling than the genuine gratitude of a scholar to his instructor. It is twice blessed; honorable alike to the youth and to the elder; and nev er can exist when it is not just.

* Public Orator is Spokesman on public occasions, and corresponding Secretary of the University. It is an office of great honor and high precedency.

this idea to the purposes of education, his "Schoolmaster," written in the maturity of his powers, and out of the fullness of his experience, sufficiently shows. But the idea, though undeveloped, wrought in him from his earliest youth; his favorite maxim was Docendo disces. The affectionate wish and strenuous effort to impart knowledge is the best possible condition for receiving it. The necessity of being intelligible to others brings with it an obligation to understand ourselves; to find words apt to our ideas, and ideas commensurate to our words; to seek out just analogies and happy illustrations. But, above all, by teaching, or more properly by reciprocal intercommunication of instruction, we gain a practical acquaintance with the universal laws of thought, and with the process of perception, abstracted from the actions of the individual constitution: for it is only by a sympathetic intercourse with other minds that we gain any true knowledge of our own. Of course we speak of free and friendly teaching, not of despotic dictation, than which there is no habit more likely to perpetuate presumptuous ignorance.

The study of the Greek language was at that time new in western Europe, and in England a mere novelty. To Ascham it was as "the trouble of a new delight;" every lesson which he gained he was eager to impart; he taught Greek, he wrote Greek, he talked Greek, no wonder if he dreamed in Greek. There might be a little vanity in this but whatever vanity he possessed, (and he certainly loved to talk of himself,) was so tempered by modesty, and blended with such candor, such glad acknowledgment of other's merits, that the sternest judgments could hardly call it a foible. By this industrious communication and daily practice, he acquired, at a very early period, such a command of the Greek vocabulary, and so vernacular a turn of phrase, that his senior, Robert Pember, to whom he had addressed an epistle in that tongue, assures him that his letter might have been written at Athens. But the critical nicety of modern scholarship was then unknown, and it was very unlikely that Pember himself felt or understood that perfect atticism upon which he compliments his young friend. Pember's epistle of course is in Latin, interspersed with Greek, and curious enough to be worthy of translation. It is to this effect:- 66 -- Dearly beloved Roger, I render thee thanks for thy Greek epistle, which might seem to have been indited at ancient Athens, so exactly hast thou attained the propriety of Greek phrase: of exquisite penmanship it is, as are all thine. Use diligence, that thou may'st be perfect, not according to the stoical, but to lyrical perfection, that thou mays't touch the harp aright. Continue to read Greek with the boys, for thou wilt profit more by one little fable of

Æsop, read and explained by thyself, than if thou shouldst hear the whole Iliad expounded in Latin by the learnedest man now living. Peruse Pliny, in which author is the greatest knowledge of things, along with the most florid opulence of Latin speech."

In this letter we may notice, first, the testimonial to the beauty of Ascham's penmanship,† which proved a principal means of his advancement secondly, a proof that he was actually engaged in the tuition of boys thirdly, that in his plans, both for his own improvement, and for that of his pupils, he diverged from the common routine of lectures fourthly, that his friend, well discerning the bent and purpose of his genius, urged him to proceed with those humane and elegant studies, on which some austerer judgments looked with an evil eye. From one passage of this epistle, a biographer has observed that "Mr. Robert Pember advised him to learn instrumental music, which would prove a very agreeable entertainment to him after his severer studies, and was easy to be attained by him, as he was already a great master of vocal music.” It is certainly very possible, that Pember may have given him such advice, but it is nevertheless certain, that he does not give it in the letter in question. There is no allusion at recreation at all. The whole drift of the writer is an exhortation to perseverance in a course of study already commenced.‡

* I wish young scholars paid attention to this recommendation. Pliny is never read at school, and very seldom at college; yet I have the high authority of Southey for saying, that he is the most instructive of all the Roman authors. The extent of his knowledge is almost marvelous; his veracity, where he speaks from personal observation, is daily approved by modern experiment and discovery; and even his credulity adds to his value, by disclosing more fully the actual state of physical science in his age and country. It is surely quite as interesting to know what properties the passions or the imaginations of men have ascribed to a plant or animal, as to count its stamina and petals, or ascertain the number of its vertebræ. Both are very useful. But the highest recommendation of Pliny is his moral wisdom, his almost Christian piety, his intelligent humanity. Of all the Romans he was the least of a Roman, and approximated nearest to the pure idea of man.

↑ The importance of good penmanship is still appreciated by the English government. In 1554, Viscount Palmerston, then Home Secretary, caused a letter to be addressed to the Secretary of the Privy Council on Education, in which he submits "for their Lordships consideration that one great fault in the system of instruction in the schools of the country lies in the want of proper teaching in the art of writing. The great bulk of the middle and lower orders write hands too small and indistinct, and do not form their letters; or they sometimes form them by alternate broad and fine strokes, which makes the words difficult to read. The hand writing which was generally practised in the early part and middle of the last century was far better than that now in common use; and Lord Palmerston would suggest that it would be very desirable that the attention of schoolmasters should be directed to this subject, and that their pupils should be taught rather to imitate broad printing than fine copper-plate engraving."

The words of the original are-" Da operam, ut sis perfectus, non Stoicus, dλà Avρikòs, ut belle pulses lyram." No doubt in the same sense that Socrates was commanded by the Oracle to make music; or, to appeal to a far higher authority, as David "shewed a dark speech on the harp," i. e. opened and exalted the understanding by the aid of the imagination. S. T. Coleridge remarks on this note of his son Hartley,-neither has Hartley caught the true meaning of the words dλλà Avpikos, as opposed to Stoicus. The Stoicus-the sovereignty of the highest by the sacrifice of the inferior; Lyricus, the whole as a beautiful one, by harmonious subordination.