saying that the average boy would learn far more of Greek literature, and would imbibe far more of the Greek spirit, by reading the whole of Herodotus, Thucydides, the Republic of Plato, and some of the plays in good translations, than he now acquires by going through the classical mill at a public school.  The classics, like almost all other literature, must be read in masses to be appreciated.  Boys think them dull mainly because of the absurd way in which they are made to study them.

I shall not make any ambitious attempt to sketch out a scheme of literary studies.  My subject is the training of the reason.  But two principles seem to me to be of primary importance.  The first is that we should study the psychology of the developing reason at different ages, and adapt our method of teaching accordingly.  The memory is at its best from the age of ten to fifteen, or thereabouts.  Facts and dates, and even long pieces of poetry, which have been committed to memory in early boyhood, remain with us as a possession for life.  We would most of us give a great deal in middle age to recover that astonishingly retentive memory which we possessed as little boys.  On the other hand, ratiocination at that age is difficult and irksome.  A young boy would rather learn twenty rules than apply one principle.  Accordingly the first years of boyhood are the time for learning by heart.  Quantities of good poetry, and useful facts of all kinds should be entrusted to the boy’s memory to keep:  will assimilate them readily, and without any mental overstrain.  But eight or ten years later, “cramming” is injurious both to the health and to the intellect.  Years have brought, if not the philosophic mind, yet at any rate a mind which can think and argue.  The memory is weaker and the process of loading it with facts is more unpleasant.  At this stage the whole system of teaching should be different.  One great evil of examinations is that they prolong the stage of mere memorising to an age at which it is not only useless but hurtful.  Another valuable guide is furnished by observing what authors the intelligent boy likes and dislikes.  His taste ought certainly to be consulted, if our main object is to interest him in the things of the mind.  The average intelligent boy likes Homer and does not like Virgil; he is interested by Tacitus and bored by Cicero; he loves Shakespeare and revels in Macaulay, who has a special affinity for the eternal schoolboy.

My other principle is that since we are training young Englishmen, whom we hope to turn into true and loyal citizens, we shall presumably find them most responsive to the language, literature, and history of their own country.  This would be a commonplace, not worth uttering, in any other country; in England it is, unfortunately, far from being generally accepted Nothing sets in a stronger light the inertia and thoughtlessness, not to say stupidity, of the British character in all matters outside the domain of material and moral interests, than our neglect of the magnificent spiritual heritage which we possess in our own history and literature.  Wordsworth, in one of those noble sonnets which are now, we are glad to hear, being read by thousands in the trenches and by myriads at home, proclaims his faith in the victory of his country over Napoleon because he thinks of her glorious past.