This eBook was produced by Pat Castevens
and David Widger
When I had reached the age of twelve, I had got to the head of thepreparatory school to which I had been sent. And having thus exhaustedall the oxygen of learning in that little receiver, my parents lookedout for a wider range for my inspirations. During the last two years inwhich I had been at school, my love for study had returned; but it was avigorous, wakeful, undreamy love, stimulated by competition, andanimated by the practical desire to excel.
My father no longer sought to curb my intellectual aspirings. He hadtoo great a reverence for scholarship not to wish me to become a scholarif possible; though he more than once said to me somewhat sadly, "Masterbooks, but do not let them master you. Read to live, not live to read.One slave of the lamp is enough for a household; my servitude must notbe a hereditary bondage."
My father looked round for a suitable academy; and the fame of Dr.
Herman's "Philhellenic Institute" came to his ears.
Now, this Dr. Herman was the son of a German music-master who hadsettled in England. He had completed his own education at theUniversity of Bonn; but finding learning too common a drug in thatmarket to bring the high price at which he valued his own, and havingsome theories as to political freedom which attached him to England, heresolved upon setting up a school, which he designed as an "Era in theHistory of the Human Mind." Dr. Herman was one of the earliest of thosenew-fashioned authorities in education who have, more lately, spreadpretty numerously amongst us, and would have given, perhaps, a dangerousshake to the foundations of our great classical seminaries, if thoselast had not very wisely, though very cautiously, borrowed some of themore sensible principles which lay mixed and adulterated amongst thecrotchets and chimeras of their innovating rivals and assailants.
Dr. Herman had written a great many learned works against every pre-existing method of instruction; that which had made the greatest noisewas upon the infamous fiction of Spelling-Books: "A more lying,roundabout, puzzle-headed delusion than that by which we Confuse theclear instincts of truth in our accursed systems of spelling, was neverconcocted by the father of falsehood." Such was the exordium of thisfamous treatise. "For instance, take the monosyllable Cat. What abrazen forehead you must have when you say to an infant, c, a, t,—spellCat: that is, three sounds, forming a totally opposite compound,—opposite in every detail, opposite in the whole,—compose a poor littlemonosyllable which, if you would but say the simple truth, the childwill learn to spell merely by looking at it! How can three sounds,which run thus to the ear, see-eh-tee, compose the sound cat? Don'tthey rather compose the sound see-eh-te, or ceaty? How can a system ofeducation flourish that begins by so monstrous a falsehood, which thesense of hearing suffices to contradict? No wonder that the horn-bookis the despair of mothers! "From this instance the reader will perceivethat Dr. Herman, in his theory of education, began at the beginning,—hetook the bull fairly by the horns. As for the rest, upon a broadprinciple of eclecticism, he had combined together every new patentinvention for youthful idea-shooting. He had taken his trigger fromHofwyl; he had bought his wadding from Hamilton; he had got his copper-caps from Bell and Lancaster. The youthful idea,—he had rammed ittight! he had rammed it loose! he had rammed it with pictorialillustrations! he had rammed it with the monitorial system