TEACHING COMMON THINGS. [From the Times.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 922, 3 June 1854, Page 4

TEACHING COMMON THINGS. [From the Times.]

Lord Asbbnrton lias benevolently undertaken tt task comparable only with that of the man who is said to have brought philosophy down from Heaven to earth. He proposes to encourage, we had almost said to introduce, u the teaching of common things." For this really new branch of instruction he is founding scholars' and teachers' prizes, and bas explained his views in an admirable address to a large body of candidates, schoolmasters, clergy, and friends of education at Winchester. To their assistance he appealed " to show not only by their lessons in school, but still more powerfully by their example out of school, how the garden could best be cultivated, bow the dwelling might be most efficiently and economically warmed and ventilated, upon what principles food and clothing should be selected, and how chronic ailments might be averted by timely attention to premonitory symptoms and recourse ta4he physician. They could teach the measurement of work, the use of the lever, the pulley, and the windlass. They could, in short, expound those methods, suggested by ever advancing science, by which toil might be lightened and subsistence economized." As this is only a short extract, so is it also a very imperfect sketch of his Lordship's meaning. It will be apt to provoke a smile from those who do not consider how much the comfort, and indeed the highest interests of life, depend on the knowledge of small things. The proverb, indeed, says that it is not good to be ignorant in any matter, great or small; but the truth is, that habits of inconsiderateness, negligence, beedlessness, or whatever else we are to call it, show themselves commonly in all things, great and small ; and the man or woman who is slipshod and thoughtless in the management of a bouse is very likely to be just the same in the most momentous affair ct all. Lord Ashburton begins at the beginning, holding this to--

be a day of small things. -After the abore spe- ( cimens of whnt may be taught, he points to the surprising difference between the aspect of one cottage and that of another, — the physical strength cf one man and another, who bare both atarted together in the race of life. The fact, indeed, is recognized by everybody, but generally dismissed with the remark that one woman ii a good manager aud the other is not. So, again, wo are told that at forty every man is either a fool or a physician, which simply means, that one man can take care of his health, and the other does not think about it, and suffers accordingly. Now, considering how soon people have not only to take care of themselves — no inconsiderable charge — but are also intrusted with the care of others, it is most desirable that the lessons of experience should be early inculcated even in these simple things. People of twenty have not the experience of forty ; so they may as well make up for that inevitable want by lessons drawn from tht experience of others. y .j Nobody can have visited the dwelling* ofcnwe 1 poor, with his eyes about him and his heart fn the work, without being struck by the difference Lord Ashburton describes. The difference is almost universally owing to the use on the one side, the neglect on the other, of tmall considerations and slight materials. As our subject requires, we will take the worst side# You plnngt through a muddy lane* where a few days' work, a few fagots, ajoffl 'a<tfew< barrowloads of stones, would construct a footpath^ dry in all- weathers* Yob approach a cottage, on the walls tf which are neither creeper nor wall frnit, the garden of which is Wasted, trodden down, and sopped with rain, and the fence of which admits all cattle, because, as the tenant tells you sulkily, the landlord will not send a carpenter to make a job of it, and take a quarter's rent. Yo« tnter with your boots in a state which assures you that neither man, woman, nor child can have known the luxury of dry feet in that house for the winter. The house is in confusion, as it alway* is, either because it is Saturday, or washing day, or a day for taking in wood, or no day at all and nobody expected. The children, such ai are l«ft, — for it transpires that they are only a remnant,-— have pale cheeks, blubber lips, red nose*, blear eyes, shaggy locks, thin legs, and blue fingers, with only thin summer clothes in the depth of winter, excepting what they have winter and summer, — « huge lace boots, always wet and hard. A, teakettle and a vessel for boiling potatoes constitute the whole of the culinary apparatus. There is not a comfortable corner in the room, unltss it be comfortable to eit with one's tots in the fir*, one's eyce in the smoke, and one I ** back in a cutting draught fresh from the outer air. Th* woman, holding a squalid child, whose bar* legs hang in the blast, expatiates on her numerous hardships, and on the general indifference of mankind to the sufferings of the poor. On the walls you see a few tawdry picture* of amatory scenes, intermixed with a few others still more tawdry of jibe gospel history. On the shelve* are heaps of Bibles, Prayer-books, and tracts. This woman, thus slovenly and utterly incompetent,, w»s brought up at a National school, and her children, too, go irregulaily to (he National school. Sb* is visited by the clergyman aod several ladies, with' •some of whom she i« a sort of pet, and is permitted to gossip. She belong* to a coal club, a clothing club j has a share in various distribution!^''ttt£eives unreadable books frornja lending library, end enjoys the full light of onr parochial systen£ v except that, for want of proper cl«»es^"sb« does not often go to church, and confines her own religion to strictures upon that of h«r neighbours. This is not a solitary specimen, it is a class; and a class which we humbly conceive admits of being greatly reduced, just as vermin and human pests of all kinds have been reduced ; and we, really do not think that if such a woman, besides learning her catechism, collects, and psalms — besides reading through the Bible right on, from Genesis to Revelations, had been taught a few " common things," and practised in them, as far'Cß possible, she would not have been a savage in a civilized land. There is a jealousy in some minds— narrow minds, we cannot but think— against what they are pleased to set down as a utilitarian style of education. Unquestionably, a man may grovel among mere utilities til) be becomes mechanic and vulgar ; but the Book of Nature proceeds from the same source as the Book of Revelation, and cannot be vulgar : the conditions of healthy physical being are the ordinances of the same Deity as those which concern our spiritual weal, and can be no mean study. Indeed, the one study, the one set of habits, is a training for the other. "Yet," as Lord Ashburton says, '* in this practical country the knowledge of all that gives power over nature is left to be picked up by chance in a man's way through life. In this country the knowledge of God's works forms no part of the education, of the people — no part even of the education of a gentleman." W* all admit poverty to be an evil, and think it by no means irreligious to fly from it by every honourable means in our power. Now, the worst of poverty is the drudgery it imposes, the servile work, the denials, the hardships, the detriments to health, the bad food, house, and clothing, and it appears to us quite as legitimate and quite as religious a study to seek how to be poor with a great mitigation of its hardships as to seek to escape poverty altogether and rise into some higher class. Everybody is striving to rise, and it is the fashion of the day to teach our very peasant boys and peasant girls to rise, and become clerks, shopmen, schoolmistresses, governesses, and whatever else they have the capacity for. Why, then, may we not — nay, is it not much more reasonable, to teach a man still to be a ploughman, if that is his lot, and yet to make more of his garden, to make his house. more comfortable, to choose the most nourishing food, to know just enough of the laws of health to be able to anticipate disease in himself and his children, and to derive some interest and recreation from the changes in earth and sky immediately within his observation ? With Lord Ashburton we lament that so little instruction of this sort enters into the education of our higher classes. The young gentleman is no more taught common things than the young ploughman. If he knows the name of a tree, a shrub, or a flower ; if he knows seedtime and harvest; if he knows the name of a star, or can point out a planet, and has the least inkling of its movements ; if he knows the map of England, or of bis own county; if he knows more lhan ly sensation the chymical qualities of the food that he eats ; if he knows how mysteriously

and wonderfully his own physical frame is made ; if he knows the laws of motion and the application of the mechanical powers, the composition' of a watch, or the nature of any one substance he can put his hands upon, he must have picked it up precariously, irregularly, and almost stealthily out of school, for school teaches him none' of these things, any more than it does English literature or the history of his own country.. The gentleman's sou or daughter has, indeod,. many opportunities of making up for a defective school education — and most defective they allare ; but the child of the peasant can learn but little beyond the few driblets of knowledge that' have dropped into his mind in the village school.. There he reads the Scripture as it comes, and* but little attempt is made to select the most touching parts, and impress them on his heart. - When he has read the Bible to satiety* andlearnt by rote a few dry theological compendiums, he has done all. He has then to go forth, a. Christian, and forget what be has learnt as fast as he can. Rough labour, the rugged strife of the elements, rude play, strong passion,, ill society, and drink, soon obliterate even this scanty trace of knowledge, aud in a very few years be contributes to that unpromising, impracticable class, which so often suggests thedespairing cry, " What is to become of the men when the boys are such as they are 2" Lord Ashbnrton suggests, what cannot be denied, that there is something to be^earnt, and some space for instruction, between manual labour and theology. You may take the former,, and with it all that falls within the immediate sphere of a peasant's or an artisan's observation, and teachhim to reflect upon it, to inrprove on it, to rise upon it, and become interested, thoughtful, improving, and progressive in his own class and. sphere. He who rises must rise for himself, and out of himself, and not by grasping at once at something far above him. That is what is meant by teaching "common things," which,, after all, is no more than teaching everybody, to do his duty, and pursue his best interests in that class of life which God has called him to.