The Journal of Education

explains the use of catalogues, the classification of the books, and exercises in finding books are given. This object lesson is being extended to many other public libraries.

A more important development still is the school library system. In several towns, as at Finsbury, the public library sends selections of books for distribution among the scholars in the upper standards of the schools. The most perfect system of school libraries is that which obtains at Cardiff, Croydon, Bromley, Bournemouth, and other places. Cardiff is the largest of these systems, but, as I have not figures for this town to hand at the time of writing, I may be forgiven for quoting those of Croydon as typical of this form of school libraries. In Croydon the school libraries are financed by the Education Committee, but are administered by the Chief Librarian under the direction of an Advisory Committee composed of representatives of the Education and Library Committees and of the Head Teachers. A special school libraries assistant is employed to devote her whole attention to the working of the system. Each of the sixty elementary schools in the town receives a carefully selected set of books, larger or smaller in proportion to the number of scholars. The books are issued, according to a system laid down by the Chief Librarian, by a school librarian who is at the discretion of the head teacher in each school. Once yearly the libraries are reshuffled throughout the town, are carefully overhauled, and additions are made. The cost of these libraries was in the initial outlay £400, and the annual expenditure on them, including the salary of the special assistant, is £250. The annual issues are considerably over a hundred thousand volumes; Cardiff, I believe, issues more than double this large number. By these means the most efficient possible administration of school libraries is obtained, as it is clear that very few teachers can have the intimate knowledge of books possessed by the public librarian, while the distribution of the books by the teachers themselves secures the proper and necessary supervision of the children's reading. Conferences have been held in connexion with these libraries between the teachers, the Libraries Committee, and the librarians, and a cordial mutual understanding has always existed.

A further link between English school and library is the lecture or talk to children. In nearly every progressive library are held weekly, fortnightly, or monthly lectures to children. Tickets for these are distributed through the head teachers, and teachers often attend to preserve discipline. The lectures are upon general subjects, and are directed as far as possible towards books; they are usually illustrated by lantern slides. The attendance at such lectures at Croydon is more than five thousand yearly.

Again, it is worth mentioning that, at the Bromley (Kent) library, reading circles for children meet weekly during the winter; David Copperfield" and Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford" are examples of books that have been read through by the children. It may also be noted that Cardiff, Croydon, and a number of other libraries are collecting and classifying illustrations, which are lent to teachers for class purposes. Croydon, besides these, has a collection of many hundreds of lantern slides which are lent in the same way. A teacher may borrow five or six books at a time for use in school at the latter library, and even a course of lectures to teachers was held last year. Then, much attention has been paid to the cataloguing of children's books. The finest catalogue of the kind in the world is that of the Pittsburgh Public Library in America, but its cost is one dollar, which places it completely out of reach of the child. But Finsbury has produced an admirably arranged and annotated juvenile catalogue for the sum of 1d., and Stepney has produced juvenile catalogues, as have also Blackpool, York, and other places, at the same price. It is just to add that the Pittsburgh catalogue is for the use of parents and teachers in selecting children's books, while these other are directly for the child.

The only thing done in America for the child which is not done in England on a lesser scale is the story hour, although even this is contemplated in some libraries; and it is worth noting that the story hour in America was the suggestion of

an Englishwoman. The reason for this neglect is an interesting one to discuss in the journal of the teaching profession. It is held by English librarians that the telling of stories is the province of the teachers, and that for the librarian to do this work is for him to encroach upon that province and so bring about a most undesirable friction. Moreover, the librarian recognizes that all library functions should lead to the dissemination of literature, and, as stories are usually told, even in America, to children before they are of reading age, they do not fall into these functions. It seems to the English librarian that the objects of telling stories to young children are almost purely psychological, are an end in themselves, and have no necessary relation to books. It would be interesting to hear the views of teachers upon this matter, as the writer is a dissentient from this orthodox view.

More might be said upon this interesting subject, and the librarian will hail with pleasure any attempt to bring into closer relation the work of library and school. The chief difficulty is the financial one, but there is also the fear of overlapping in the work of the two educational bodies involved. It must be remembered, also, that while the primary aim of the public library is educational, it has other functions, strictly utilitarian, and purely recreative.

W. C. BERWICK SAYERS (Sub-Librarian, Croydon Public Libraries; Editor of the Library Assistant).

POSTSCRIPT BY THE HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.

The facts brought forward in Mr. Sayers's article will perhaps be as new to many readers of The Journal of Education as they evidently are to Mr. Roberts. It is by no means an uncommon experience for a man to have to go abroad to discover what is done in his own country. It is at the same time true that library work with children is on a larger scale and more highly developed in America than in England. The reason is twofold: the very much larger financial resources of the American public library, and the more enlightened attitude of the public towards this institution. In England, however, co-operation between the library and education authorities is in some respects even closer than in America. In America the work is done, I believe, in most, if not all cases, entirely from the library side. In England the two authorities really combine, sharing the administrative and the financial responsibilities involved, as explained by Mr. Sayers. I am not aware that there is anything quite like the Joint Committees, on which serve representatives of the library and education authorities and of the teachers, as is the case at Cardiff and Croydon and elsewhere. It is worth noting in this connexion that a series of conferences between the educational officials of the London County Council, some of the teachers in the Council schools, and several representative members of the Library Association were recently held for the purpose of compiling a list of the best books suitable for libraries in the elementary schools, a work of great value which was successfully carried through.

Collections of books suitable for children's reading have been a feature of English public libraries from the very first, but the later developments of library work with children are American in inception, and English librarians are only too glad to acknowledge the value and fruitfulness of the work done on the other side of the Atlantic, and to imitate it, as far as our less advanced public opinion, much narrower resources, and differing conditions render possible or advisable.-L. STANLEY JAST.

THE annual Conversazione of the Selborne Society will be held on May 7 at the Offices of the Civil Service Commission (old London University). Lectures will be given by Mr. F. W. Headley, science master at Haileybury College, on "How Birds Fly," and by Mr. T. W. K. Clarke on "How Men Fly." Applications for tickets should be made to Mr. Wilfred Mark Webb, the Hon. General Secretary, at 20 Hanover Square.

REVIEWS AND MINOR NOTICES.

The Cambridge History of English Literature. Vol. III. : Renascence and Reformation. (9s. Cambridge University Press.)

The third volume of the "Cambridge History of English Literature" is another valuable instalment of a work of which it is still impossible to judge as a whole. This volume, dealing with the period of the Renascence and Reformation, does not, as a whole, equal in interest either of the preceding volumes. It contains no individual chapter of equal importance with that of Prof. Manly on Piers Plowman " in Vol. II. It conveys a general impression of careful scholarship, condensed matter, and praiseworthy effort at cohesion, but it lacks vitality in its parts and organic unity as a whole.

To some extent this is, no doubt, due to the scheme of the book, which forces each author to deal, within the narrow limits of a single chapter, with a subject of which he has specialized knowledge. His matter must be forcibly condensed. But, if something must be thrown overboard, we should prefer that it should be facts and not ideas. Facts weigh heavier and take up more room; ideas are infinitely expansive as well as compressible, and one idea which will bind together an infinite number of facts is a better commodity than a hundred of the facts themselves. The tendency of the authors who contribute to this volume is to give admirable digests of facts and processes, and to leave the ideas which make the facts interesting merely suggested and not developed. For instance, in chapter i. the Englishmen who were affected by the classical Renascence are treated by Principal Lindsay with a knowledge and latent sympathy which make the reader feel that he would willingly have spared much chronological and biographical detail for the sake of some additional treatment of the manner in which the Renascence actually worked out its influence upon the minds and characters and ultimately upon the literature of the people.

We are far from contending for a more popular and less scholarly treatment than that pursued in this volume. But we believe that a history of literature, supplied as this is with full and scholarly bibliographies, might well afford to follow the main interests in the development of thought and art and eschew the mere cataloguing of facts. We note a tendency in the chapters on individual men to concentrate attention on the biographical aspect. The chapter on Gascoigne, for instance, throws a more interesting light upon his life than upon his literary work. The "Steele Glas," whatever its intrinsic merits may be, is undoubtedly of considerable historical importance in the development of English satire. Yet Mr. Cunliffe dismisses it in two unappreciative sentences, whilst he devotes something like a page to Gascoigne's adventures in Holland.

The chapters on special departments of literature show the faults and the virtues of all specialized work, in their accummulation of interesting detail, unapplied to leading issues. The chapter on the "Progress of Social Literature," for instance, ends with an account of superstition in the sixteenth century and, in particular, of Scott's "Discoverie of Witchcraft"; but not so much as an allusion is made to the way in which superstition affected the treatment of the supernatural in literature, nor to the special interest of Scott's book in connexion with Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

The study of sources, the tracking of influences has of late years opened up a new field of critical inquiry and appraisal. As a means to an end, this line of study is of the highest use and importance. Pursued for its own sake, it is apt to degenerate into a scientific dissection of what must be presumed to be dead.

Chapter iv. of the present work, on "Barclay and Skelton," with the sub-title, Early German Influences on English Literature," illustrates the good and the bad results of this method. It gives a full and accurate historical account of the influence of German literature on particular English

authors, but it leaves Skelton by no means fully appreciated. Justice is not done to the poetic side of his genius, which is shown, for instance, in the lyrics of the "Garland of Laurel," and the only passage quoted as an example of his verse (the opening lines of Colin Clout") is not characteristic of his tumbling variety, his buoyancy, and keen wit.

Perhaps the pursuit of influences and sources makes its fullest achievement in the chapter on "The Elizabethan Sonnet." Mr. Lee's investigations, here admirably summarized, into the debt of English sonneteers to Italian and French predecessors and contemporaries are a valuable contribution to critical study. They have done much to expose the artificiality of a great deal of Elizabethan love-poetry. Yet, when all is said, we cannot help insisting that Spenser and Daniel, as well as Sidney and Shakespeare, lived and loved before ever they wrote, and that, after all, their borrowed imagery and conventional expressions and modes of thought are important primarily as the vehicle of vital thought and feeling-thought and feeling which are only conventional in so far as they are fundamental and universal. Mr. Lee's chapter is temperate and appreciative on the whole, but he tends too much to deny originality and genuine feelingSidney and Spenser are typical cases-and his pre-occupation with the question of foreign influence tends to divert his attention from other important aspects. His treatment of metre throughout the chapter illustrates this. The connexion of Spenser's sonnet-metre with foreign and English forms is described, but its intrinsic significance in relation to content is not touched upon. The complete omission from this chapter of Shakespeare's sonnets is explained by the statement that they will be treated with Shakespeare's poems in a later volume. A chapter on Elizabethan sonnets which does not include Shakespeare is logically much in the same position as "Hamlet" without the Prince of Denmark, and, however confidently and accurately we may forecast what would have been the lines of Mr. Lee's treatment of Shakespeare's sonnets in this chapter, we cannot but regret the system of division which excludes it from its logical position.

Prof. Courthope's chapter on Spenser" gives interesting material somewhat disproportionately arranged. Eleven pages are devoted to "The Shepheard's Calendar" and less than twelve to "The Faery Queen." In his estimate of Spenser's debt to Plato, Prof. Courthope insists almost exclusively on the artistic side, and does not allow sufficiently for Spenser's absorption of Plato's thought. He declares that "in the Hymnes' Spenser merely expounds, without alteration, the theory of beauty which he has derived from the commentary of Ficino on Plato's Symposium'; his sole contribution to the poetry is the beautiful and harmonious form of English verse which he makes the vehicle of the thought." He has proved in detail Spenser's debt to Ficino, but he has failed to reveal the supreme importance to Spenser of the Platonic conception of love and beauty (which he fully absorbed and vitalized) in reconciling the sensuous and the moral elements in his nature. We should have welcomed from Prof. Courthope a fuller account, in his characteristic manner, of the influence of English medieval thought on Spenser, and also of the influence of contemporary life. The amount of allusion to contemporary events and characters in the 'Faery Queen" will never be adequately reckoned. Time has destroyed the significance of topical references, and the allegorical setting and dreamlike movement and atmosphere of the poem cloud the eyes of all but the most determined hunters for allusions. But there is a mass of reference and criticism, very transparently veiled, which reveals Spenser's keen interest in the public life of his time, and which no critic can afford to neglect. We should not have expected Prof. Courthope to assert so roundly that "in the conduct of his story Spenser never seems in direct touch with his times." He ends by complaining, surely somewhat captiously, that the fifth book of the "Faery Queen" contains no allusion to the Spanish Armada.

Prof. Saintsbury has contributed an interesting chapter or Prosody," a chapter which is perhaps more thoroughly alive than any other in the book. His language is lively to the

point of raciness; he shows an invincible optimism and a vital sympathy in his treatment of forms of verse, which, indeed, by an extension of the personal outlook typical of his criticism of authors, he tends to treat as human beings, or, at any rate, as organic living things. His optimism is shown in his readiness to regard all metrical failures or false attempts as a dispensation of Providence. The degeneration and confusion of metrical forms after Chaucer can be shown, he believes, to have been a beneficent chapter in English verse. He has a good word even for doggerel. In his review of the seemingly chaotic state of metre in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, he sees all things working together for good. His tendency to personify well-loved metres leads him to pit a metre against a poet, with more sympathy for the metre. Of blank verse he says that to this great measure Spenser did practically nothing: "and it was as well that he did nothing. . . . What it wanted was experiment and exploration of the most varied kind . . . Spenser, be it repeated, was not the man to do anything of that kind for it; and the two wisely let each other alone." In his treatment of Spenser's prosody, he has more regard for what particular benefits Spenser could confer on metrical forms than for the characteristics of Spenser's own genius for versification.

Of the remaining chapters in the book, perhaps the most interesting are Mr. J. W. H. Atkins's on the "The Language from Chaucer to Spenser," Prof. Woodward's on "English Scholarship in the Sixteenth Century," and Prof. Hume Brown's on The Renascence and Reformation in Scotland." The volume, as a whole, is a mine of interesting information, historical, social, biographical, as well as literary, which will be invaluable to students. Its appeal to the general reader will perhaps be less sure. But the bias in favour of scholarship is certainly a bias in the right direction, and there is no doubt at all that the book will be well and widely used.

Kant's Theory of Knowledge. By H. A. PRICHARD. (324 pp. 7s. 6d. Clarendon Press.) There are two ways in which any examination of a philosophy may be judged. We may ask whether that examination gives us a true account of what the philosopher himself thought, helps us to understand the questions with which he was confronted, and the answers he gave to them. In that case we shall be dealing with what is principally a matter of interpretation. On the other hand, we may regard the examination as primarily an exposition of the writer's own views, set over against or expressed in sympathy with the author whom he examines. From this point of view, it does not matter very much whether the doctrines which the writer examines were actually held by the philosopher or not, though, if the examination is worth making, they must have been held by somebody. The writer's attitude is much rather: "This is a doctrine which has been, or may be, extracted from the philosopher's statements. I am concerned to show that the doctrine is true or false as the case may be." The value of a philosophical work from this second point of view may be quite independent of its value from the first. No one, I think, would go to Green's "Introduction to Hume" to find out what Locke or Hume really meant; that work is, nevertheless, a very valuable exposition and criticism of certain philosophical doctrines which Green was interested to examine.

This distinction is of great importance in regard to Mr. Prichard's book. He says, in his preface, that it is an attempt to think out the nature and tenability of Kant's 'Transcendental Idealism,' an attempt animated by the conviction that even the elucidation of Kant's meaning, apart from any criticism, is impossible without a discussion on their own merits of the main issues which he raises." Actually it is an examination of Kant's transcendental idealism, as it has been interpreted by one school of Kant's exponents, the school which has had most influence on philosophy in this country. It is the school which regarded the thing in itself" as the great mistake in Kant's philosophy and which thought that the proper development of Kantianism was to do away with this "corruption " and make complete the idealism

implicit in Kant's position. Against this interpretation Kant himself protested, and there has always been another interpretation, of which perhaps the most distinguished exponent was Fries, and which is now held by Riehl-an interpretation which is mainly realist. Now any attempt to discover what Kant really meant must face the issue between these two schools. That necessitates an examination not only of the Analytic-which, on either interpretation, is in some respects confused-but also of the Dialectic, and more especially of the other parts of Kant's system-the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgment. Mr. Prichard never notices the realist interpretation: he confines his examination to the Æsthetic and the Analytic, and especially to the former, admittedly the most ambiguous part of the Critique. The numerous passages suggesting the realist interpretation-in particular, the famous Refutation of Idealism "-he notices simply as being "inconsistent with Kant's own theory." That means that, as an interpretation of what Kant meant, the book is hardly worth considering.

But this detracts little from its value; for the idealistic interpretation has not only been widely held, but has had an important influence in the history of philosophy. Mr. Prichard's book is a criticism of that idealism from a realist position, and is valuable not only as criticism, but as an exposition of the standpoint of realism from which it is criticized. This form of philosophy is coming into prominence as the alternative philosophy to pragmatism. An exposition of it in its relation to psychology has been already given in this journal by Prof. Alexander. The portions of this book, therefore, in which Mr. Prichard develops his own views (chapters iv. and vi. and the last part of chapter ix.) are worthy of careful consideration.

The main lines of the criticism of idealism are simple. To the idealistic argument that the mere fact of knowledge implies that the reality known is dependent on the knower, and that therefore reality must be regarded as spiritual, Mr. Prichard opposes the contrary argument that "it is simply impossible to think that any reality depends upon our knowledge of it or upon any knowledge of it," and "it is impossible to reach an idealistic conclusion by taking into account relation by way of knowledge, and. if this be the relation considered, the only conclusion can be that all reality is independent of the mind." Mr. Prichard does not hold this last conclusion; but that is because he takes into consideration other arguments. The most characteristic statement in his criticism is that a theory of knowledge, as such, is impossible, for knowledge, being sui generis, can never be explained in terms of anything which is not knowledge.

How, then, does the new realism, as it is called, regard knowledge? It is viewed as direct and immediate apprehension of reality. There is nothing between knowledge and its object. The distinction between appearance and reality is not a distinction for knowledge. "We can no more think that, in apprehending a reality, we do not apprehend it as it is apart from our knowledge of it than we can think that its existence depends upon our knowledge of it." This view of knowledge as immediate is, in some ways, very like Plato's view; but Plato recognizes certain difficulties in it, for which he has offered solutions, the solutions depending mainly on the differences in the reality of the objects apprehended. As they affect Mr. Prichard's view, the difficulties may be stated thus: If knowledge is apprehension of reality, is all apprehension of reality knowledge? And, in that case, is not all consciousness knowledge? And if all apprehension of reality is knowledge, how is it possible to make mistakes? Mr. Prichard's answer probably is, like Plato's, that knowledge is infallible. Then we have to ask what, then, is that mental process which is fallible, and what is its relation to knowledge? To these questions Mr. Prichard gives no answer, and he makes certain admissions which make the difficulties of his realism rather acute. He acknowledges that perception presupposes a particular point of view, and yet never explains satisfactorily how we can ever get beyond" points of view." Further, in one significant passage, he gives up his realism in regard to secondary qualities, saying that, with respect to colour,

things look what they never are, or, in other words, are wholly different from what they look, and, since it seems impossible to hold that colour is really a property of bodies, this conclusion must, in spite of its difficulty, be admitted to be true." He goes on to say, nevertheless, that "the assertion that the grass looks green implies that it is a reality which looks green, or, in other words, that the object of perception is a reality and not an appearance." That implies a distinction between the object of perception, which is real, and what we judge about it-that it is green, which is how it appears, and that is exactly the distinction made by Kant when he holds that perception reaches its objects immediately, and yet knowledge is concerned with the way in which these objects appear. Prichard, indeed, tries to confine this distinction to secondary qualities; but it is doubtful how far he succeeds in so doing, and it might be argued that the only way out of the difficulties of his position is to be found in an interpretation of Kant which avoids those idealist fallacies which Mr. Prichard so trenchantly exposes.

Mr.

The actual status of an Oxford Chancellor is accurately defined in the Report of the Commission of 1850: “The Chancellor rarely appears in Oxford and seldom takes any part in academic government. Still, his office is one of much dignity and influence." But Lord Curzon is not content to be a figure-head, and, as a justification for descending from his pedestal and entering the arena of academic politics, he quotes the Laudian Statute, in which the main function of the Chancellor is thus defined: Concordias et compositiones quascunque super eisdem [the government and privileges], cum consensu Universitatis, inire ac stabilire." The present Letter, which runs to over two hundred pages, is, in fact, the report of an investigation conducted on the spot during the autumn of last year. Lord Curzon has, indeed, acted as might a representative of the Board of Education appointed to investigate some local dispute and to report to the Board. He has interviewed all the leaders of opinion at Oxford, heard their contending views, received documentary evidence, and in his report he states with candour and impartiality the conflict of opinion, and, without attempting to formulate any definite resolutions, he indicates pretty clearly the conclusions to which he has been led.

The primary object of the Letter is to deprecate a Royal Commission. His main contention is that Oxford has both the power and the will to reform itself, and that self-reform is in every way preferable to reform imposed ab extra.

Even if we allow the premises, some of the arguments adduced appear to us singularly weak and unconvincing. A Commission, we are told, is distracting and arrests the progress of everyday work. In particular, it would stay the flow of contributions to the re-endowment fund, which already, thanks in great part to the Chancellor's energy, amounts to £140,000. Yet, in a later paragraph, we are informed that one gentleman has promised £30,000 on condition that compulsory Greek in Responsions is abolished. This is a reform that Lord Curzon himself urges as imperative, yet recent votes would seem to show that there is little chance of its being carried without external compulsion.

Scholarships is an equally burning question. Various reforms are adumbrated, with most of which we sympathize. Thus it is pointed out that to allot annually seventy-five to Classics and fifty-one to all other subjects is a glaring anomaly. Suggestions are made for diminishing the number awarded to Classics and allocating some to institutions such as Ruskin Hall. But these are merely palliatives, and it is only a Royal Commission that could check the unhealthy competition of college with college, or the still more disastrous specialization that the scholarship system produces in schools.

Lord Curzon believes that but a small proportion of scholarships is held by the sons of rich men, and he thinks

that it would be impolitic to sever honour from emolument. He asserts on good evidence that 83 per cent. are actually held by the sons of poor men, but "poor men" are defined as those who would not send their sons to college without a scholarship. We have heard a Civil servant with an official income of £2,500 a year maintain that he was a poor man and fully justified in accepting scholarships for his sons. We do not think that this view of poverty would commend itself to a Royal Commission. We cannot regard one scholarship of £75, one of £50, and twelve exhibitions of £25 as a sufficient provision for non-collegiate students. We are quite at one with the author in holding that Oxford is as much intended for the rich as for the poor, and in deprecating any reform which would repel our hereditary legislators and statesmen; but the presence of Christ Church noblemen may be purchased too highly if they are allowed to lower the level of examinations and to set a standard of high living and plain thinking. The cost of an Oxford education is justly ascribed in great measure to the shortness of the academic year, and it seems illogical to oppose the lengthening of the academic year on the ground that this would add to the cost.

Lord Curzon sums up well the arguments for the granting of degrees to women, but we doubt whether women will be grateful for his advocacy. He would give them the letters, to prevent them from purchasing the same from the University of Dublin, but he would withhold from them all the privileges that the M.A. carries.

It is not possible in a review to discuss the constitutional changes here proposed. Lord Curzon's attitude may fairly be defined as liberal conservatism. Thus he would reform Convocation, but he strongly deprecates an oligarchy of resident teachers," which appears to us the only logical constitution. Once more we would ask Lord Curzon, what chance is there of carrying even the modest reform of Convocation that he advocates?

On one other reform which is here advocated-the institution of a general school-leaving examination, which shall likewise serve as a University-entrance examination-there is a consensus of opinion among educationists, but it would seem impossible to bring it to pass without direct Government action. It is strange that no reference is made by Lord Curzon to the scheme prepared by the Consultative Committee and rejected by the Board of Education on the plea of insufficient public support.

We may note, in conclusion, that Mr. Runciman's excuse for not establishing a Registry of Teachers, on the ground that it has not and cannot advance the cause of training, is not borne out by the Oxford evidence. Lord Curzon tells us that "the work of training has suffered much in point both of numbers and finances by the uncertain policy of H.M. Government in abolishing the Register of Teachers, the existence of which acted as an incentive to teachers to qualify."

Grammatical English. By F. W. G. FOAT, D.Lit.
(3s. 6d. Edward Arnold.)

This is not a new English grammar, nor is it a treatise on the correct use of English, but something between the two, which might be more accurately entitled "Hints for the Grammar of the Future." Dr. Foat is himself a public examiner, and he also prepares pupils for examination, and the book evidently had its origin in the reformed English paper set in the University of London Matriculation-the attempt to balk the crammers and test a practical working knowledge of English. Though he is preaching to the converted, we welcome the manifesto of a modern teacher against the pedantic superstition which has been handed on to us by the classicists; but we doubt whether Dr. Foat has gone the right way to work to convince any one who was not convinced before or persuade a single teacher to substitute grammatical English for English grammar.

To begin with, the method of composition is not attractive -six hundred and odd consecutively numbered paragraphs of various lengths and quality, theses, essays, disquisitions, criticisms, grammatical paradigms, notes, and jöttings. The

book is ostensibly written for those in statu pupillari, who are told now and again what is a safe" answer, what lines of study they should pursue, where to look for further information. Doubtless a clever pupil will pick up many valuable hints; but so frequent are the excursuses and criticisms addressed, in fact, to masters and examiners that the ordinary pupil will not be able to see the wood for the trees.

There is another and more serious objection that we must take to the treatment. Dr. Foat will have nothing to do with historical grammar: he would have us take English as it is spoken or written to-day, and explain or analyse it as it stands. This, we hold, is an impossibility. Let us, by all means, accept present usage as the jus et norma loquendi; but the only key to this usage is to be found in history. Dr. Foat defends "it is me," and we are with him. That "it wasn't her" is in almost universal use, and therefore defensible, we must strenuously deny. But how can we explain the simple idiom “it is I" except by a reference to Old English? In "these cherries were fourpence a pound,” Dr. Foat tells us that "fourpence" and "pound" have no recognizable relation to the other words in the sentence. Apparently Dr. Foat would leave all such idioms as inexplicable puzzles. Case " is nowhere defined except in a parenthesis-" case or grammatical relation to the sentence." The old-fashioned reference to case-endings which have been dropped is more scientific and intelligible to the pupil. Prosody is barred on the ground that it does not form part of the school syllabus; but surely there should be some reference to the distinctions of the language of poetry and prose.

We will add a few random jottings that occur to us in looking through the book. The categories of nouns as abstract, concrete, &c., seem to us a relic of the old grammar and properly a part of logic. There is nothing pedantic in "the committee abides by its earlier decision,” and whether, in such cases, we use the singular or the plural is purely a matter of taste. The only warning wanted (which Dr. Foat does not give) is not to mix the two constructions. So, again, we should pass as perfectly correct "mankind seek for happiness as their greatest good." Such a heap of trouble" is no more slang than "such a lot," though the first is rejected and the second allowed. The "vulgar interpretation" of "To be or not to be" -Shall I commit suicide or not?-is twice scouted, but for once the vulgar are right. Omission of the relative" is held an unwarrantable explanation, yet how otherwise is the pupil to analyse "the book I want "if historical grammar is barred? The definition, verbs are names of phenomena," does not strike us as an improvement on Mason. Again, to go to Roby's "Latin Grammar " for an exposition of the subjunctive is vieux jeu, and the instances of subjunctive on page 136— e.g., past-perfect, progressive: I might already have been seeing him "—are superfluities of naughtiness. On page 94 it should have been pointed out that "than whom" is unique. The old division of verb-forms as strong and weak is rejected, but nothing is substituted for it except a jingle by which to remember the typical forms of past tenses and participles. We are told that teachers of arithmetic avoid "two twentyfirsts" by a periphrase. We never met with an arithmetic teacher who said anything but "two twenty-oneths." Animalculae is a bête noire of Dr. Foat's to which he recurs. Once it moves him to oratory: How important is the communication of scientific principle and sound knowledge of details, that custom, as it slowly crystallizes, may take on beautiful and perfect forms." Agreed; but the main object of the book is to eliminate from grammar all this lumber of scientific detail, which may be found, when needed, in the dictionary. Dr. Foat offers us, as alternatives, hippopotamuses" and "hippopotami." Is not "hippopotami" as much a monstrosity as the "omnibi" in one of Rhoda Broughton's novels?

"Makers of National History."-Archbishop Parker. By W. M. KENNEDY, B.A. (Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons.) No one probably ever did so much towards imparting to the English Church the special characteristics claimed for it by its adherents as Archbishop Parker. Directing its fortunes in a time of peculiar danger, when its separation from Rome

and the anarchical spirit of Puritanism threatened to reduce its doctrines, ritual, and discipline to a state of chaos, Parker, though not endowed with conspicuous political ability, perceived, in the midst of the strife of contending parties, the position which would give it strength and dignity. While making no compromises, he placed the Church in a via media lying apart from the path of Rome on the one side and Geneva on the other. He held to the principles of the Reformation, but would not let go catholicity. He respected antiquityspecially, of course, when its witness seemed to endorse his own views; believed that the English Church might, to quote Mr. Kennedy's words, resume her Divine mission true to her origin in ministry, creed, and sacrament"; and set his face against new-fangled doctrines and practices. His temper was gentle, though he did not hesitate to carry out severe measures when the Queen demanded them, for toleration was then a long way off. Mr. Kennedy has, on the whole, written a very good account of the man and his work, based on the best authorities, contemporary and modern, and gives references to them at the end of each chapter. Among other matters worthy of note, he points out that, at the beginning of Mary's reign, the country people generally were willing to accept the return to the old religion, and gives due prominence to the consequences of the Queen's marriage. It is, however, inexact to say that Cardinal Pole “restored the religious status quo before the abolition of the Papal jurisdiction." That was not in his power: it was effected by Act of Parliament. He shows how much Parker, though no Lutheran, owed to Bucer; justly declares that the assertion that Elizabeth's first Parliament was packed and subservient is baseless; and has some interesting remarks on the state of the Church in the early years of the primacy of Parker, who courageously struggled with the forces of disorder. The Archbishop needed courage, for, as is well shown here, he could not depend on the Queen's support even when acting in accordance with her policy. She desired him to enforce Conformity, and, against his own will, he obeyed her; and then she left him to bear the unpopularity which naturally followed the performance of the unpleasant task.

Along with much that is praiseworthy in this book there are some defects. The author's satisfaction with the reformed English Church leads him to speak in more than one place as though personal religion did not exist before the Reformation, and religion consisted only "in so much outward ceremonial," and the like—an arrogant assertion too often made in books written on the anti-Roman side. In somewhat the same spirit he describes Bishop Gardiner as untrue "to his Church." To what Church was he untrue? The only act of betrayal of which he can be accused was his surrender of the Papal supremacy, and to this he seems to have referred in the touching words he spoke on his deathbed. This, however, is not what is meant here. In Gardiner's time the English Church was, as it were, in a melting pot, and they who, like Gardiner, preferred its earlier state are no more to be accused of unfaithfulness than the admirers of the progressive changes through which it passed. The notices of Parker's encouragement of historical study and his own share in it are extremely meagre indeed, this subject is better treated in the article on him in the Dictionary of National Biography than it is here. Lastly, the writing, specially in the earlier part of the volume, is so bad that the editor must have taken his duties lightly. For example, what can be made of "Not only did he [Paul IV.] condemn the restoration of the Church lands to the Church as had been done"? That Parker was appointed, reluctantly it is true, chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn " means, we gather from the context, that he reluctantly accepted the appointment. Other strange expressions, such as an ancient shudder," an "unwilling battle," and a fascinating individualism of self-interest," mar a creditable little biography, but do not obscure the author's meaning.

Introduction to English Literature. By HENRY S. PANCOAST. Third Edition, enlarged. (5s. net. G. Bell.) This is virtually a new book, the first half having been

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The Journal of Education, Volume 31; Volume 41