Classical studies are still determinedly urged on the ground that they afford the best possible training of the mind. It must not be inferred from this that the truth fails to make headway. There are plenty of signs that this old pretense is becoming more and more rated at what it is actually worth. Books on education now treat the subject very differently from what they did twenty years ago, and one of the objects of Mr. Bain in the important work he is now preparing on Education as a Science, is to bring modern psychology to bear upon this doctrine of discipline, to expose its fallacies, and place it upon a more rational basis. The London Times, that steady-going organ of British conservatism, which never moves forward except as it is moved by the progress of public opinion, is beginning to yield on this question. It turns from the English universities to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and eulogizes its educational influence, making, at the same time, the important concession that "Physical science affords an admirable means of mental training in schools." There is certainly nothing new in the proposition, and it is no more true than before because the Times has indorsed it; but the declaration is a significant index of the progress of educational ideas.
Another pertinent illustration of the active spread of rational views upon this subject is at hand. Scribner's Monthly for September had an excellent article on the waste of effort in education, taking the ground of Spencer in his book, that it is still the college rule to sacrifice the useful to the ornamental in cultivating the minds of youth. The views of the writer are decided, but he seems to be a good deal discouraged in regard to the hope or prospect of much amendment. He says: "Mr. Herbert Spencer's views of education, as contained in his book on that subject, now for some years before the public, ought by this time to have made some impression, and worked out some practical result. We fear, however, that it has accomplished little beyond giving to a wise man, or woman, here or there, a shocking glimpse into the hollowness of our time-honored educational systems." This fear is hardly well grounded. The exposure of the defects of the existing systems of education is but a small part of the service to society done by Mr. Spencer in the preparation of his work. Its main and eminent value is in the principles it lays down for the shaping of better methods of culture. Its chief value is in pointing out the way to essentially improve methods of study. This is strikingly shown by the fact that the book has been translated into the different languages of Europe, in nearly all cases either by or at the instance of men who have been officially engaged in the work of forming and carrying out systems of public education.
There was lately published in London an expensive, two-volume work, entitled, "Twenty Years' Residence among the People of Turkey: Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, and Armenians. By a Consul's Daughter." The Messrs. Harper have republished this very instructive work at fifteen cents, and so we bought it and read it. Chapter XIX. is devoted to education among the Greeks and Bulgarians, and it is very interesting. After noticing some of the girls' schools, she proceeds to describe an institution, the marked superiority of which so surprised and interested her that she gives a very full account of it, from which we extract the following:
