hod, I think, of working out these principles would be to
devote a few lectures in the last term of every complete course, to
the examination of some select works of recent writers, chosen under
the sanction of the Educational Committee. But I must plead for
_whole_ works. "Extracts" and "Select Beauties" are about as
practical as the worthy in the old story, who, wishing to sell his
house, brought one of the bricks to market as a specimen. It is
equally unfair on the author and on the pupil; for it is impossible
to show the merits or demerits of a work of art, even to explain the
truth or falsehood of any particular passage, except by viewing the
book as an organic whole. And as for the fear of raising a desire to
read more of an author than may be proper--when a work has once been
pointed out as really hurtful, the rest must be left to the best
safeguard which I have yet discovered, in man or woman--the pupil's
own honour.

Such a knowledge of English literature would tend no less, I think,
to the spread of healthy historic views among us. The literature of
every nation is its autobiography. Even in its most complex and
artistic forms, it is still a wonderfully artless and unconscious
record of its doubts and its faith, its sorrows and its triumphs, at
each era of its existence. Wonderfully artless and correct--because
all utterances which were not faithful to their time, which did not
touch some sympathetic chord in their heart's souls, are pretty sure
to have been swept out into wholesome oblivion, and only the most
genuine and earnest left behind for posterity. The history of
England indeed is the literature of England--but one very different
from any school history or other now in vogue. You will find it
neither a mere list of acts of parliament and record-office, like
some; nor yet an antiquarian gallery of costumes and armour, like
others; nor a mere war-gazette and report of killed and wounded from
time to time; least of all not a "Debrett's Peerage," and catalogue
of kings and queens (whose names are given, while their souls are
ignored), but a true spiritual history of England--a picture of the
spirits of our old forefathers, who worked, and fought, and sorrowed,
and died for us; on whose accumulated labours we now here stand.
_That_ I call a history--not of one class of offices or events, but
of the living human souls of English men and English women. And
therefore one most adapted to the mind of