over the fatherless boy, the venerable Bishop White; who may with peculiar propriety be termed his spiritual parent, his apostolic hands having successively baptized, confirmed, ordained, and consecrated him; and who last of all mourned over him as a father mourns over a beloved son.

In this academy his active social spirit soon found materials to work with. He organized, while but in his tenth year, an association among the boys, under the lofty title of "A Society for the Advancement of its Members in Useful Literature," of which Lilliputian club, but two records remain. Of these the following exhibits the care with which their scanty treasury was guarded; it consists of a bill against the society for three quarters of a yard of green baize, used in covering the speaker's desk, together with lock and hinges for the same, amounting in the whole to four shillings and ninepence. This account, after being examined and signed by an auditing committee, as warrant for its accuracy, stands finally endorsed by the president with an order on the treasurer "to pay the same out of moneys not otherwise appropriated, belonging to the society." With so well guarded a treasury, this society escaped one frequent cause of ruin; it could not guard however against a more fatal blow, the early removal of its founder to another and higher school, where the association seems to have reappeared under a new though less imposing title.

From the episcopal academy he was removed in due course of advance to the University of Pennsylvania. The same pre-eminence in his studies here also awaited him, for his academic virtues rested on no sandy foundation. Busy he would have been at any rate, because by nature he hated idleness; but that he was busy in good things, was a matter not so much of nature as of principle, and he used well his opportunities of improvement, because he felt that he must render an account of them. How early such conscientious impressions may become rooted in the mind of a child, it is not easy to say; this at least we know, that it is the smallest of all seeds, and grows up, men know not how; but still it is easy, as here, to recog. nise its fruits, and every such instance becomes a valuable record, in order to encourage parents in the same course of watchful christian guidance. In his fifteenth year, young Hobart gave evidence of his mind being made up on this point, and made a public profession of his religious faith, being confirmed by Bishop White, 31st March, 1790. Aided by good talents and guided by such principles, we are not surprised to learn, that, although the youngest in his class, he was yet considered one of its best and most promising scholars. In study laborious, in all his duties faithful, in affections warm, in action prompt, and in speech sincere and earnest, he showed forth the same ardent and active mind which was so fully developed in subsequent life.

Young Hobart entered the university before he had completed his thirteenth year. Here, also, an association among the students for the purpose of improving themselves in composition and oratory, quickly appeared under the more learned title of the Philomathean Society. Its rules and regulations have come down to us in his boyish hand, whence we may fairly conjecture that he was its founder. One provision strongly marks his character, viz. the necessity of supervision in the case of all who have responsible duties to perform :—" Sect. 13. A committee of three shall be appointed at the meeting previous to the annual election, to examine in what manner the secretary and treasurer have done their duty, and shall make report thereon at the next meeting." In after life he used on all occasions to urge this principle. As a trustee of Columbia College, the question often came up, and to a near friend among its professors, who

sometimes thought such a course of supervision argued a want of confidence in them, he would urge this reply:-" No, Sir, not a want of confidence in you, but in human nature; it is part of a system of duties;-you are to see that the students do their duty-we are to see that the professors do their duty; and it would be well for the college if there were some who could do the same good office by us, and see that we, the trustees, do ours." (To be continued.)

SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS IN GERMANY.

§ 1. Introduction.-Few things are more remarkable in our day than the simultaneous awakening of all parties, political and religious, to the neces sity of education; and it would seem that every change in the relations of society has only the effect of promoting, widening, and deepening the sense of this necessity. No sooner was the great division among the Scotch Presbyterians accomplished, than Dr. Cunningham was straightway dispatched to America, to make himself acquainted with the educational establishments across the Atlantic. About the same time, the late secretary for the home department found himself compelled to relinquish the educational clauses of the Factory Bill; and the instantaneous consequence was, that the National Society raised for the mining and manufacturing districts a special fund, unprecedented in its amount and in the rapidity of its collection. This was immediately followed by a similar movement among the Wesleyans, and energetic measures were taken for the organization of schools in all branches of the Methodist connection. The Congregational Union came next; and Dr. Vaughan followed Dr. Bunting, as Dr. Bunting had followed the Archbishop of Canterbury. On all sides schools are rising round us; the science of education is a topic of popular conversation, and the various systems of teaching are becoming subjects for discussion at the dinner table and tea table; committees and boards have their frequent meetings; inspectors take their rounds; schoolmasters are forming unions among themselves for mutual assistance; and publishers pour out floods of school books. We are all feeling the new impulse which has been given to us by Dr. Hook's pamphlet, and the pamphlets and letters which have followed it; and all looking forward with great anxiety to parliamentary discussions more vehement and important than those which have hitherto occurred. In short, a movement is commenced which will assuredly go on,-and in all probability be accelerated more and more every year, and insinuate itself more and more into every cranny and corner of society.

Such being the state of affairs, it is to be expected that many crude notions will get into circulation, and that theories of unpractical men will too hastily be taken for established principles. It is not to be supposed that our mother England will arise from so long a torpor without some tingling in her old limbs. She will not awake from such heavy sleep without somewhat of excited and disturbed dreaming. And, in literal truth, when a man has been taking a general interest in the educational movement around him, and endeavouring to become acquainted with the various institutions and systems which are so actively at work on all sides,— his mind does suffer a bewilderment not unlike the confusion of a dream; and names, and schemes, and systems flit before him, like the images which people the eye and the brain of a man awaking from sleep. The reports of the National Society, and the British and Foreign School

Society, the Minutes of the Committee of Privy Council,-the Quarterly Journal of Education :-the Training School in Glasgow, the Sessional School in Edinburgh, the Irish National Board :-Battersea and Chelsea, York and Chester:-Kay Shuttleworth, and Derwent Coleridge :-Hullah and Mainzer :-Arnold, and if there be any one else who ought to be mentioned in the same clause-who would not be confused in endeavouring to take under the grasp of his information such a multitude of words and things? This sort of medley, however, is a necessary condition of our present position with regard to education, and indeed a necessary consequence of the present relations of English society. We do not think that much good will be done by complaining of the foolish theories and experiments we see reason to regret; but rather, by adding to this accumulation of opinion and practice, more and more information about the methods and details of teaching and school arrangement, which have been found useful and efficient, not only in our own time and in our own country, but in other times and in other places. We hope that this seething mixture of good and bad theories and experiments will not be made more unwholesome, if we throw in hastily a few morsels which we have stolen from our German brothers across the water. There is much to be learnt from German schools and German schoolmasters, and something to be feared. That which is good may be imitated, and that which is bad may serve as a warning.

Our readers will probably forgive us, if (dropping the plural disguise) I present my remarks to them in the careless and unambitious manner of a traveller's diary. It is not my intention to treat of the subject of German education formally and scientifically, but to give the readers of this Journal some notion of a few characteristics of schools in Germany, and of the life of German schoolmasters. I shall indeed have occasion to call attention to certain general educational principles, which appear to me of the greatest importance; but this I would rather do in the desultory manner in which the topics are suggested, while I am travelling in a tolerably straight course from Trieste to Hamburgh.

§ 2. Austria.—I shall not have reason to detain the reader long in AUSTRIA: but I may take this opportunity of saying, that it is a mistake to suppose that the knowledge of the people in this empire is kept down to the lowest possible ebb. On the contrary, Austria occupies an honourable place among those German governments which have taken up in a comprehensive and energetic manner the education of their subjects. I do not believe that any part of its various provinces is willingly overlooked. No one can marry without a certificate that he can read and write, —a regulation, by the way, more severe than any which exists in Prussia, and one perhaps of questionable wisdom: it is at least sometimes said to lead to great immorality. Nor can any one exercise a trade, unless he can produce a certificate of the school he has studied in and the church he has attended, and also (if I am correctly informed) of having attended school at certain hours of the day during the whole course of his apprenticeship. The following passage, which Mr. Hickson ("Dutch and German Schools," 1840) has extracted from Turnbull's " Austria," gives in a small compass a comprehensive statement of the subject:

"To the reign of the Emperor Francis belongs the principal organization of the existing system, the foundations of which were laid in the earliest years of his reign (perhaps partly in that of his predecessor), and the superstructure raised and moulded by a great variety of subsequent edicts. Its progress has encountered difficulties in various quarters. In

Hungary it is opposed avowedly on principle, by a most influential section of the liberal party in the diet, who fear that popular education would be a source of danger to property, if unaccompanied with a greater extension of civil rights which, however, they themselves have hitherto felt it inexpedient to accord. In Gallicia both the lords and the peasants retain too much of the Polish character to regard with any degree of complacency that extension of instruction of which they have never been taught to estimate the value; and on the feudal properties even of Moravia and Bohemia, if the lords are needy and careless, it is not always easy to urge on them and their agents the expediency of erecting schools, to the expenses of which they must themselves be the main contributors. To surmount these various obstacles, whether arising from indifference in the lower classes or repugnance in the higher, the government adopts, as usual, a gradual and cautious, but most persevering policy; often yielding for a time, but generally triumphant in the end. Abstaining from absolute compulsion, the main inducement it holds out for all classes to accept the boon of instruction is its general enactment, that, without certificates of adequate education proportionate to his station, no one may exercise a trade, or be received as a common workman; no one can be employed by the state, or can ever enter the bands of matrimony,-a species of penalty apparently of very doubtful morality, but which, in fact, like all sweeping enactments of the same character, must, in the nature of things, be incapable of strict enforcement. The enactment operates, perhaps, in the feudal provinces, less on the bulk of the people than on the wealthy but reluctant landlords; as the former receive, where no school exists, a sort of dispensing certificate from the parochial minister, who is, at all events, bound to impart religious instruction; while the manorial lord, besides being ultimately compelled to yield the point, is in the interim generally obliged in practice to contribute to the support of that pauper population, whom he will not consent to educate. Thus every year witnesses a decided progress; and so far has the system already succeeded, that (with the exception of Hungary, whence no returns are received, and where education is very loosely and inadequately attended to) about three-fifths of the juvenile population of the empire do actually receive scholastic education.'

All is

It seems, then, that the despotic government of Austria does not neglect the education of its subjects. There is one feature of the Austrian education, closely connected with the despotic character of the government, — which must tend to simplify the general management of schools, however it may impair their individual efficiency, and which, at all events, facilitates a traveller's inquiries into the methods and details of public instruction. There is an authorized list of books, which must be used in all schools. fixed, not only in Austria and the German-speaking provinces, but in all the wide lands which rest under the Kaiser's sceptre,-Italian, Illyrian, and Polish. In England this would be impossible, and very undesirable. Nevertheless, as our schools are gradually multiplied, it well be very convenient that catalogues of school books, tried, examined, and approved, should be generally adopted,—and some of our societies are already beginning to act on this principle.

This catalogue or Verzeichnitz is easily procured. If I remember rightly, I obtained my copy at the normal school of St. Anna, which is a large and flourishing institution in Vienna,-the chief among the Haupt-schulen in Vienna, and that which is a pattern to the rest. It was founded by Maria Theresa, and is situated in the Anna Gasse, No. 980. These Haupt-schulen are what in other parts of Germany are called Burgher-schulen,—and are dis

tinguished on the one hand from the Trivial-schulen, or lower schools, such as those in the villages, and on the other from the Gymnasia, or grammar schools. Of the Trivial-schulen there are about sixty in Vienna. There are three grammar schools, or K. K. Gymnasia. Everything in Austria has the two magic K's prefixed,-Kaiserlich, Koniglich,-to denote the universal presence of the royal and imperial power. Infant schools did not exist in Vienna till the year 1830, when they were established by a person of the name of Lindner. There are now seven of these Klein-KinderBewahr-Anstalten, where 1,000 children, between the ages of 2 and 6, are kept safe from harm, and prepared for receiving school instruction. There are at present no seminaries or training schools for teachers; but it is necessary that every schoolmaster should have been at some Haupt-schule ; and there is a Methodenbuch, or teacher's guide book, which can be easily procured, published by authority.

(To be continued.)

J. S. H.

DR. HOOK AND THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

MY DEAR SIR,—An able article, entitled "Dr. Hook and the Education Question," has lately appeared in the Christian Remembrancer. The writer begins by showing that education, as treated at the present day, is not a cause only, but a cry. But of this Dr. Hook does not seem to have been aware. "He concedes, postulates, adopts data, and admits without question the legitimacy of trains of reasoning which belong to an alien and hostile school. He seems to have no jealousy of the educational cry' almost to ignore its existence." After expressing his regret at Dr. Hook's abandonment, real or in seeming only, of the position maintained by the great body of sober and enlightened churchmen, the writer briefly reviews the educational controversy from the year 1839.

The year 1839 is memorable as being that in which Lord Melbourne's administration attempted to introduce into England a direct state education. Practically, indeed, the ministerial project amounted to very little. "Still it is asserted the principle of the direct agency of the ministers of state in the education of the people; and it was for that broad reason that it was with, we believe, the very fullest concurrence of public feeling and opinion, virtually rejected by parliament." "The two grounds of the defeat, or rather of the modification of the project, were its supposed tendency to erect a direct state education; and its mode of dealing with religion.'

"Let us look a little further into these reasons. And, first, as to the office of the state in education. We could quote passages without number from the debates of 1839, to show that the assumption, by a body of ministers of state, of any direct office of education in the country, was one of the main features of the new scheme upon which the opposition to it was rested. Thus Lord Stanley objected to any proposition for giving a direct control over the religious or moral education of the people of this country to any board or committee, or to any body, call it by what name they would, so composed and constituted as to be decidedly and exclusively political in its character. If the proposal had been merely to transfer an executive and ministerial office and authority from the treasury to a committee of council, he (Lord Stanley) should not have objected; but there were to be powers conferred on the board,'-powers which Lord Stanley