The vital importance of the formation of the character of all men during infancy and childhood must also have actuated the framer of the Icarian institutions, for Cabet says:-" Education being considered in Icaria as the foundation of society, the state provides an equal instruction and training for all." And again" The Icarians consider education to be the greatest of all blessings, and they look upon their children as the invaluable treasure and great hope of their country." And also: "We consider education to be the foundation of the whole of our social and political system, and it is on education that the people of Icaria bestow their greatest attention." Babeuf says:" Education ought to be national, in common, and equal." This agrees with the views set forth in a previous chapter, carrying out the sacred principle of equality, which ought to afford to every child all possible means and opportunities of having its aptitudes tested, its talents and faculties developed, and its genius evoked. Fourier urges the attainment of the same elevated aim of equality and superiority of education in saying:-" In the commune all the children receiving an education exactly the same, that is, the education most favourable to the development of their faculties, aptitudes, and vocations, will have cultivated minds and polished manners." Saint Simon is still more emphatic, and exclaims :—“ All my life may be summed up in a single thought-to secure to all men the freest development of their faculties." He says further:-"As society in future will be composed of artists, learned men (savans), and industrials, there will, therefore, be three branches of education, which will have for their object to develop: the one, sympathy, the source of the fine arts; another, the rational faculty, the instrument of science; the third, finally, material activity, the instrument of industry." Lepelletier, one of Babeuf's associates in the conspiracy for equality, proposed that education should be gratuitous, literary, intellectual, physical, moral, and industrial. Cabet states that in Icaria education is of a similar character: "Education in Icaria is divided into several branches, and we distinguish it under its physical, intellectual, moral, industrial and civil aspect. But in all these respects it is equal to all." An exposition of Cabet's views on education is further given. in Voyage en Icarie, where these words occur:-" Education in Icaria is partly domestic and partly common. Elementary, or general education, is the same to all; special education relates to the learning of arts, sciences, and professions. General education includes instruction in the elements and rudiments of all sciences and arts." Cabet makes here an important distinction between general and special education, which is of great importance to the social reformer; but it must also be remarked that the schools for the special training in arts and sciences will always be open to all adults of both sexes,—an arrangement which seems not to be implied in Cabet's suggestion. That enlightened goodness in the direction of education does more good than harsh treatment, we learn from Mr. Sargant, who writes of the results obtained by R. Owen's training system in these words:-" At New Lanark punishment was unknown. There was no reward but the inward satisfaction of well-doing, and the approbation of a teacher who was beloved. It was Owen who first proved to Englishmen that in the training of youth love is a stronger power than fear; that if education is to be beneficial it must first be made attractive; if it is to influence the character for good, it must not excite terror or inflame opposition." In evading compulsion and abstaining from punishment by substituting for them the exclusive application of kindness and persuasion, R. Owen carried out, practically, what Plato had taught theoretically in his "Republic," where these words. occur:-" Everything, then, relating to arithmetics and geometry, and all the previous instruction which they should receive before they learn dialectics, ought to be set before them while they are children, and on such a plan of teaching that they may learn without compulsion; because a free man ought to acquire no learning under slavery; for the labours of the body when endured through compulsion do not at all deteriorate the body;* but as for the soul, it can endure no compulsory disci * Excessively heavy physical labour does though. Plato makes here a vain attempt to justify the institution of slavery, which he held in such veneration that he formed his Ideal Republic for the guardians alone. pline. Do not, then, force boys to their learning, but train them up by amusements, that you may be better able to discern the direction of each one's genius." Great stress has been laid in a former part of this work on the important service that education can render in the discovery of special aptitudes and talents, which by its assistance will surely be found to be much more numerous than has hitherto been admitted to be the case. "Severity of punishments in school discipline is also discommended by Cabet, who says:-"To hate and ill-treat an incapable pupil, or even a lazy one, seems an injustice, a folly,bordering on barbarism, and would render the master a great deal less inexcusable than the pupil." Of the general manner of teaching in the Icarian schools, Cabet says:" One of the chief principles which the Icarians pursue in the instruction given in their schools is to make all learning easy, rapid, and agreeable to the pupils. The beauty of the school buildings,* and the excellent accommodation they afford, the patience and kindness of the masters, and their skilfulness, the simplicity of methods and clearness of demonstration, the mixture of study and play, concur all in attaining the object of making study easy, rapid, and agreeable." That the very same plan was pursued by R. Owen we know from it having been said that "at New Lanark the instruction * Mr. W. Jolly, one of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools in Scotland, in his general report for 1875, pleads for schoolrooms which shall themselves be good teachers. There is, he observes, a passive education of taste carried on by the surroundings of the child in school-by the schoolroom, the furniture, the arrangements, the decorations, the teacher, and the insensible effect of the whole teaching and work; all which influences permeate the child's life, and elevate or depress his nature. Hence the importance of making our schoolrooms sweet and tasteful places, educators of the higher part of the children's nature, and the privileges and duty of using this influence to raise the general taste of the nation. Mr. Jolly states that beautiful and artistic examples of work of high art can be obtained at very small prices for the adornment of schoolrooms; and he expresses his hope that school boards will make the schoolrooms in this way centres of bright and high influence. He maintains that the most effective field of asthetic culture and refinement at our command lies in the common schools; and that no national improvement in manner, learning, and taste will be possible except through the common schools. was conducted in such a way as to be agreeable instead of irksome. In all respects the system succeeded admirably. During the day the parents were relieved from the care and the superintendence of their children.” That punishments are not altogether dispensed with in the schools of Icaria, we learn from Cabet, who says." The punishments allowed in the schools of the Icarians are fixed by the code of the scholars, containing all manner of punishable offences, and the amount of punishments inflicted for it. This code of rules the pupils have to learn by heart in order to better conform to it." An arrangement of this kind would certainly have prevented the gross outrage that was lately committed by Mr. Moss, the headmaster of Shrewsbury School, who inflicted eighty-eight stripes with the birch on a boy named Loxdale. That agriculture is not only to be an object of general education and a mere theoretical study, but that it is also to be practically learned, and that all children are often to be put to agricultural labour not only for learning it, but also for the purpose of partially sharing and reducing the labour of the adult population, is also advised by almost all social reformers. Thus Sir Thomas More says:-" The Utopians are instructed in agriculture from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the town, where they not only see others at work, but are likewise exercised in it themselves." Cabet says:-"In Icaria the elements of agriculture, mechanics, and industry (technical training) form also part of the general education." And again :-" In order to join practice to the theory of agriculture, the children are frequently taken out into the fields, where the fruits of the earth are shown and explained to them, and where they learn to take a share in every kind of labour fitted for their age and strength. The more the children grow up, the stronger and older they get, the more agricultural labour they have to perform." Babeuf says:-"In the national schools there will be room for dining in common; workshops, where each pupil will be trained in the art which was the object of his preference; on the one side extensive grounds, where the youths may be seen at one time engaged in the works of agriculture, and at another lodged in military fashion under tents." Robert Owen also proposed, that "on the new plan of the proposed agricultural villages, all children will have to take part in work. At six years old they would begin to work an hour a day in the open air; at seven years old two hours a day, and so on, until by twelve years old they will have arrived at the maximum of seven hours a day. The participation of all youths in heavy work is advocated by Babeuf, who says:-"The youths who form their country's hope ought to be exercised in the most laborious works of agriculture and the mechanical arts, to become habituated to the most difficult movements, and to live in the strictest frugality." That the art and science of teaching, or educational labour, must likewise be taught and learned, is hinted at by Cabet, who says: "In the schools of the Icarians pupils are also frequently instructed and employed in the art of mutual instruction." Consequently they will be rendered fit to take their due share in the performance of educational labour. Cabet also says:-"In Icaria everyone is accustomed to teach to others that which he himself knows." Scientific instruction and artistic training have ever been a favourite subject with all social theorists, and consequently we meet with frequent passages on this topic in their writings. Plato speaks of the great advantages derived from learning computation (arithmetics and mathematics), geometry and astronomy, saying:-" Observe that branch of science which concerns computation, how refined it is, and in many ways useful to us as respects our wishes, if we will apply ourselves thereto for the sake of getting knowledge, and not with a view of traffic. Persons naturally skilled in computation seem clever in all branches of science, and whereas those naturally slow, if instructed and exercised in this, will yet all of them, if they derive no other advantage, make such progress as to become cleverer than they were before." "It makes an entire difference every way, whether a man be acquainted with geometry (plain and solid) or not." Astronomy leads to acute perceptions respecting the times |