learn every thing is to be told nothing. Other experiments were tried in the same manner and with the same success; the pupils being made to acquaint themselves thoroughly with a model, and then to draw all their materials from it, and fashion all their proceedings with a perpetual reference to it. It was found that they spontaneously observed every rule of orthography and grammar, until they proved themselves capable of writing as well as the author of their model-book, as far as style was concerned. Of the degree of resemblance between the style of each pupil and that of his master or fellow-pupil, we are not informed; but we imagine that a diversity of styles can scarcely exist under this method.

It is plain that the grand characteristic of this system is, that the old method of teaching is directly reversed; that the pupil is taught analytically instead of synthetically. This is an all-important difference, and one which will fully account for the beneficial results of Jacotot's plans, without obliging us to admit the desirableness of all the modes in which the principle is applied.

If it was necessary for every mind to go through all the labour which the discovery of the analytical process caused to those benefactors of the race who first made us acquainted with the true method of philosophizing, all who wished for the accelerated progress of science would exclaim against learners being exercised in any but the synthetical mode It might then be well to accept as articles of belief principles deduced by the labour of others, and to confine the business of instruction to assistance in the application of those principles. But, since the materials may be and are so prepared as to render the analytical process speedy and easy to learners, since the results are certain, and there is no other method of making pupils sure of their principles, it seems the most evident thing possible that they should go through the whole process in its natural order. The whole process cannot indeed be dispensed with; it is accomplished under the old system as well as the new, as often as any science is thoroughly learned; the only difference (and it is a most important one) being, that in the one case the process is reversed, while in the other it is natural. Take the instance of grammar. On the old plan, the pupil was taught the principles of the science and most of its details before he had the slightest notion how to apply them. They remained in his memory, and could not be made his own till he could institute the process of analysis for himself; till he could interpret the grammatical meaning of the language he heard or read or used by his own application of the hitherto senseless rules he had been obliged to lodge in his memory. Then, after all, he had to institute the synthetical process for himself; and when he had done, found that the first attempt to pursue it was just so much extra labour, and the time employed in it just so much time lost.

On the new plan, the pupil hears nothing of the principles and rules of grammar till he is prepared, on a very slight suggestion, to discover and apply them for himself: and as he comes fresh to the subject, and his understanding is interested all the time, he can without delay or disgust proceed to the second part of his task, and compose grammatically immediately after having discovered the principles on which he is to advance. This method, if advantageous in one intellectual process, must be so in all; and as much of the system of Jacotot as is involved in it has our cordial approbation. We say the same for the Hamiltonian or any other system, whatever may be the extraneous errors or peculiarities of each; our business being with their relation to human welfare, and not with the merits of their discoverers or

advocates. Reading and even writing is taught on this principle by Jacotot. We have not made the experiment in either case; but we have seen enough of the success attending the sort of half-way method between the old and the new plan which is proposed by Mrs. Williams's syllabic spelling, to be completely alienated from the alphabetical method, and quite disposed to believe that Jacotot's plan may be even better than hers, inasmuch as it embodies the same principle carried out to a greater length. On Mrs. Williams's plan, (for which she does not claim the merit of discovery,) the pupil is taught the consonants by their real sound, and not by the arbitrary names which serve no earthly purpose that we can divine; then the vowels are taught in conjunction with the consonants: then syllables are learned as pictures. These are easily compounded with each other, and with different consonants, and the pupil can then read, finding out for himself, as it becomes necessary, how the syllables themselves are composed. It will be seen at once that there is a mixture of analysis and synthesis in this. Jacotot allows no such mixture. He teaches all the words of a sentence from the first as pictures, dividing them afterwards into syllables and then into letters. In our young days, it was a hard task to learn the word Constantinople. We lately saw a little girl of four years old, who had not long begun to learn on Mrs. Williams's plan, master the difficulty in a minute. Kuh-on, Con, St-an, Stan, Tin. O, Ple-Constantinople. Jacotot would have made her repeat the word entire, and then divide it, unless (as is most probable) she had previously learned from shorter exercises to take to pieces and put together for herself. Miss Edgeworth long ago to'd us how speedily and easily children might learn to read by a method nearly similar to this, and we have no difficulty in believing that Jacotot's pupils learn to read and write in about a fortnight.

We should not be surprised if the golden days of compositors, editors, and postmasters, are coming; for sure we are that the average goodness of hand-writing must be incalculably increased by the abolition of strokes and pot-hooks. Every one who teaches drawing knows that children always get on best when they begin upon a whole subject, provided it be simple enough. A little pupil who sets out with copying a cottage will draw it well as a whole, or in its separate parts, much sooner than one who begins with a sheet full of perpendicular lines, and goes on to as many horizontal lines, and then to a multitude of doors, and then to chimneys, and then to windows, so that he is heartily tired of all the parts before he is allowed to frame them into a meaning. It is exactly the same with writing, as we had the opportunity of observing long before we heard of Jacotot's system. We knew a little girl who had not begun to learn to write at six years old, which shocked every body but her parents very much. One day she got hold of a slate on which an exercise was neatly written in small hand. She copied a few words for amusement, and being pleased at the feat, did the same every day; and in two months wrote a letter in which the childishness of the thought and expression was curiously contrasted with the beauty of the hand writing.

Having declared our entire approbation of the leading principle of Jacotot's system, (which is not separately insisted on with sufficient earnestness by Mr. Payne,) we pass on to others which are exalted above it in the work before us, as far as italics and large Roman type may be taken as indications of pre-eminence. The truth on which the Professor insists much and successfully, that it is not necessary to explain in order to teach, is clearly involved in what we have announced as the fundamental principle of the sys

tem for, while it is necessary to commence a synthetical course of instruc tion by the inculcation of rules, an analytical course can best be carried on by furnishing the pupil with materials, and merely suggesting by inquiry the way to make use of them, all impediments and foreign admixtures being at the same time carefully removed.

The favourite maxim of the school of Jacotot is, "All is in all:" their all-comprehensive rule, "Learn something thoroughly, and refer every thing else to it." That truth is one, and that therefore by a thorough discernment of any one of its manifestations all others may be penetrated, no philosopher will be disposed to question: but there may be an unlimited licence in the application of this mighty principle; and the justice of the application depends on the advancement of the investigator. An angel may evolve all truth from a butterfly's wing; but can we do it? We will suppose that Jacotot may unfold the principles of mathematical science (though we could not) from Telemaque; but have any of his pupils ever done it ? Granting that Fenelon himself was all-wise in mathematics, it would seem scarcely possible that the best disciplined pupil should be able to separate elements so multifariously compounded, and to arrange them into a perfect science; and if he could, it would be a round-about way of making the attainment, since, with the same powers, he might achieve the work much more easily by contemplating rocks and seas, or the fixed and moving lights of heaven. But when we further consider that Fenelon was not all-wise in mathematics, that whatever scientific truth there is in his work is amalgamated with error, it is plain that though the winged ones who guide the spheres and wield the golden plummet may draw forth truth pure from its defilements wherever it may be, nothing can be more hopeless than the endeavour to urge to such an achievement an intellect which has not yet appropriated the very truth it is desired to evolve. The shepherd boy who measures the stars with a beaded string, and cuts his dial in the turf, is making a rapid progress in mathematical science in comparison with him who is labouring to deduce its principles from Telemaque. The one gathers his knowledge slowly, but directly from the mind of God; the other, if at all, more slowly, indirectly, and deeply tainted with the errors of the intellect through which it has passed. Let it be understood that it is only to the injudicious application of the principle that we object, and that we are ready to admit its practical efficacy as well as substantial truth, under the restrictions which the present conditions of our intellect render necessary. There are examples enough before us of what may be done with small means, of the ample floods which may be poured out after a long accumulation of single drops from the minutest crevice, to authorize us to teach that "all is in all." What we question is, whether there is any occasion to filter, when the element may be had pure; and further, whether the acts of detecting the source and drawing out its contributions do not presuppose that the labour is unnecessary. The prevalence of this presupposition strikes us more than any thing else in Mr. Payne's account of Jacotot's system. He would have us believe that the pupils learn every thing from Telemaque, while it is evident all the while that they must have elsewhere learned to observe, to compare, to judge, to abstract and generalize, and, in short, to philosophize: and when this is done, it matters comparatively little what subjects are placed before the mind. The method by which the intellect is here taught to philosophize is the same as that by which all sound intellects have ever philosophized. We approve it, of course; and respect M. Jacotot for the success with which he has used it; but it has nothing to do with Telemaque or any

other book whatever, and is peculiar to no system of education. The most extraordinary instance of presupposition that we have met with is the following: "Jacotot asserts that the youngest child can comprehend thoroughly the terms representing the most complex abstract notions; that is, if he previously well understands all the simple subordinate notions contained in those that are complex." This is tantamount to a declaration that an infant a year old may compose an oratorio, IF he understands the laws of musical proportion, and their accordance with religious sentiment, together with the practical workings of the orchestra.

These remarks have left us little to say upon the rule, "Learn something thoroughly, and refer every thing else to it," but that, though practically useful when sufficiently restricted, it is pernicious in the extreme when applied without limitation. Since "all is in all," every thing may be learned by a reference to one thing; but whence comes all the prejudice of little minds, all the professional narrowness, all the sectarian bigotry, all the aristocratic exclusiveness, with which the world is cursed, but from the practice of referring all things to one thing? We know that neither M. Jacotot nor Mr. Payne could have contemplated so large an application of their principle as this. They would not recommend a beeman to look for all truth through the glass of his hive; nor a chemist to bring an opera to the test of his crucible; and are doubtless as ready as ourselves to laugh at the philosophers of Laputa riding their hobbies: but why leave to their readers to determine the bounds of their principle? Why needlessly provoke doubt or ridicule ? Furthermore, we doubt the efficacy of the rule as far as they themselves carry it. If the reference was made to a sound principle, there could be no mistake; for there indeed would all be in all : but the reference is to be made to some emanation of the human intellect, (whether Fenelon's or some other,) to something imperfect, impure, and which must therefore be superseded. A necessary consequence is, that exact truth can scarcely be attainable by such means; and there is every danger that the intellect will be cramped, and the moral views distorted, by this subservience to something fallible, if not antiquated. Could Newton have framed his philosophy from the study of the best orrery that was ever made before his time or since? Till there is a divinely-constituted model presented, no exclusive dependence can be safe; no perpetual reference may be ventured on; no calculations founded on such a reference can be accurate; no deductions drawn from it can be pronounced perfect until sanctioned by other authority. Again, Newton might undoubtedly have developed his system by studying one constellation alone; but would this have been his wisest way, the surest, the speediest, the simplest? Certainly not. Neither is it the readiest way to verify the moral dicta of Massillon to recur to the "facts" of the fiction of Fenelon.

"To shew how the principle is verified, the teacher opens any author,Massillon, for instance, and reads,

"Pleasure is the first thing that endangers our innocence. The other passions develop themselves, and ripen (so to speak) only with the advancement of reason."

"The pupil is asked if he can verify the reflections of Massillon by the facts of Fenelon; and he answers in the following manner :-Telemachus yielding to pleasure in the island of Cyprus, shews that pleasure endangers innocence, and it is the first thing; because, on the first occasion in which Telemachus found himself exposed to peril, pleasure was the cause. The other passions, &c.-this is seen by Telemachus in the camp of the allies, by Idomeneus," &c.

We will try another experiment. We open a modern work on Political Economy of high reputation, and read, "The general principle that town and country thrive at the expense of each other, I believe to be quite erroneous." The pupil is desired to verify this opinion (unquestionably sound) by a reference to his model-book. He may, by patient examination, find some truth from whence he can deduce the soundness of the opinion; but the first thing which will strike him is a passage in the most direct contradiction to it; viz. that in which Mentor and Telemachus converse on the altered state of Salentum. Now, what is to be done? Fenelon knew nothing of Political Economy, and was wrong. Is the pupil to believe him or a less antiquated teacher of the science? And what is to be the strength of his faith in his model-book henceforth? For grammar let him refer perpetually to a model, for a perfect model may be found; but not for style, much less for science, and least of all for morals, should he be confined to one production, be the mind whence it emanates what it may-as pious as Fenelon's, as philosophical as Newton's, or as refined as Michael Angelo's. If we were obliged to choose a model-book, it should be one very unlike Telemaque, even in all its original beauty. It should be a very careful selection of Fables, where deep moral and scientific truth should be embodied in the best forms of narrative, and where there might be a union of the beauties of fact, sentiment, and style. But no book could serve the purpose well or permanently but one absolutely divine. We have no fear of any part of the Scriptures being seized upon for the objects of the system; as it is clearly understood from the beginning that the book itself must be sacrificed ;-must, from being anatomized, and in that state kept for ever before the eyes of the student, lose not only its entireness and grace, but become recognized only in its mutilated parts, and be regarded with loathing for ever.

We have now considered all that is peculiar to the system of Jacotot; for the modes of interrogation described by Mr. Payne must vary with the varieties of teachers and pupils, and be, moreover, only such as would be practised under any other system of instruction which has any utility in it at all. We will only remark that there are many modes of suggesting and stimulating to inquiry besides mere interrogation; and, knowing how wearisome and irritating the interrogative practice becomes to children, we cannot but hope that all the examinations of Jacotot's school are not conducted by question and answer only, as is the case with those presented in the pamphlet before us. The merit of this far-famed system appears to us to reside in its extensive substitution of the analytical for the synthetical method. The use made of this method in teaching reading, writing, grammar, and all the sciences, we approve as fully as our observation, reflection, and partial experience, authorize us in pronouncing; and we admire the courage with which M. Jacotot has pushed this principle further than it has ever before been systematically carried in the business of education. Of the subordinate parts of his plan we do not think so well, though it is upon these that he and his followers set the highest value. An exclusive attachment to any model-book whatever we consider highly objectionable, and are too well convinced of the injurious effects of the laborious and irksome repetition required in disgusting the learner, and cramping his intellectual powers, to wish to see it adopted for the sake of any possible advantage it may offer in learning a language.

We much doubt whether there be not already a prevalent sameness of thought and style among the compositions of Jacotot's pupils; and whether