Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/773

Rh can be no question in Russia of liberty "broadening down" — since it is precisely in the highest regions that the absence of liberty is most observable — yet it may in time "narrow up," as self-government really has done, from the village assemblies of peasants to the district assemblies in which all classes are represented; and from the district assemblies to the most important assemblies of entire provinces.

It is obvious in what manner the unfinished edifice of self-government may some day be crowned. But of the formation of a Central Imperial Assembly, composed of deputies elected by the provincial assemblies, there is as yet neither promise nor direct sign.

 

 From The Saturday Review.

has always supplied reformers with a fruitful theme for discussion. It has been so since the days of Hophni and Phineas. It will be so until the millennium renders education obsolete. On no other subject, except perhaps that of religion, do sensible people disagree so widely. On few do rival doctors differ more completely both as to diagnosis and treatment. One physician asserts that hard intellectual labour is injurious to growing girls, whilst a lady M.D. of much experience writes an able paper to prove that mental work strengthens their constitutions. A gentleman proclaims the merits of the present system of pauper education, because he is acquainted with an estimable clergyman educated in a pauper school, and because the said clergyman has recently been presented to a living worth a thousand a year. On the other hand, a lady denounces the same system and favours boarding-out for young paupers, because the account she receives of the subsequent career of the girls is not edifying. Old-fashioned people often insist that servants have steadily deteriorated ever since they learnt to read and write fluently. Mrs. Crawshay, on the contrary, seeks to demonstrate that knowledge of music makes the housemaid dust the rooms better, and that an acquaintance with modern languages, particularly French, will assist her maid to make becoming bonnets out of apparently useless materials. One mother will begin the education of her baby by whipping it as soon as it has cut its teeth, whilst another mother will spare the rod, and allow her children to run wild until they have changed their milk teeth for a more permanent set. One father will teach his boy to fire off a gun before he can carry it, whilst another will not allow his boy a knife to cut a stick. Some people approve of competition as an incentive to learning, and others think such an element highly immoral. There is, however, one point upon which almost every one seems to be agreed. It is that a knowledge of the three Rs is necessary to those who are obliged to earn their own livelihood, but who wish to do so in other ways than by manual labour. Curious to say it is in a real knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic that our young men are often found most deficient. Ask an average boy of sixteen who has been at a good school to read aloud a leader in the Times, and the chances are you have to stop your ears. Ask him to write a simple note of inquiry, and he looks aghast, although perhaps he has carried off a prize for Latin composition. Give him a house account-book to add up, and request him to make an abstract of the weekly bills of the grocer for a month, and he is absolutely helpless, and yet he may have reached the sixth book of Euclid. Send him to do some shopping, and he can scarcely calculate what he has spent, and what change he ought to bring back. No wonder so many lads get into debt when they are obliged to cater for themselves, and have never learnt the price of anything beyond lollipops and lemonade.

It is from the time when a child need no longer remain in the nursery until he is ready to go to school that a wise mother will claim him as her pupil, and will teach him those lessons which are only to be learnt at home, and which are of considerable importance to him in after-life. It is very nice that a boy should know his Latin grammar well before he goes to school, and even some Greek; but, after all, the dead languages will be pounded into him somehow, and there are other things which he ought to learn while he has the opportunity. The child who can read aloud, modulate his voice, attend to the stops, and enunciate his words distinctly, may be a dunce in other things, but he will find the accomplishment so easily acquired of lifelong advantage to him. Much may be done to simplify the process of learning to 