The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-03 00:00:00

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

SKETCH OF THE STATE OF POPULAR
EDUCATION IN HOLLAND, PRUSSIA, BEL-
GIUM, AND FRANCE.
BY THE REV THADDEUS O'MALLEY.
(From the Dublin Evening Post.
[After some introductory observations, which we
are compelled to omit for want of room, the Rev,
Gentleman proceeds thus :—]
The only question with us is, whether it be I,
expedient that Government should charge itself
with the mere primary elementary instruction of the
humbler classes of the people ; and that main
question divides itself into these two—is that pri-
mary instruction better provided for with Govern-
ment controul or without it ? and, may that Go-
vernment controul, in the primary instruction of
childrent of different creeds, be so used as to give a
full assurance to the spiritual teachers of each that
it shall, in no case, be misused to the prejudice of
their spiritual charge ?
" I shall understand these two points the bet-
ter," said I to myself, as I steamed down the
Thames bound for Rotterdam, " when I shall have
compared the state of primary instruction in Hol-
land, where it is in the hands of Government, with
' that of Belgium, where Government has nothing to
do with it ; and when I shall have conversed with
the clergy of Protestant Holland, and with the
clergy of the Catholic provinces of Prussia—the
provinces that border on the ' beautiful Rhine'—
and I shall derive additional lights upon them both
by comparing such notes as I may collect with the
peculiar and anomalous state of France, being, as
she unhappily is to a melancholy extent, neither
Catholic nor Protestant."
With such a programme it would be very easy to
make a book, and evith a few episodes, sanctioned
by high authorities, a pretty bulky book too. But
I have no such intention, and shall be satisfied
with bearing, in as brief a space as possible, the
testimony I have to offer as to the two points here
stated. And I claim for that testimony the full
1 Confidence of my reader, upon these two grounds :
First, that I am not now, and never have been, the
undistinguishing eulogist of the system of primary
instruction conducted by our Education Board ;
for if I have written one or two letters to defend it
from the objections of others, I have written ha.lf-
a-dozen objecting to it myself ; and, secondly, that
I am not only an unprejudiced, but an unpaid wit-
ness—for I have undertaken this task purely pro-
prio mote, for my own pleasure, and at my own
cost. And I say this the more distinctly, because
I find it has been whispered about, and even stated
in the public prints, that I was sent upon a mission
of inquiry as a paid agent of the Government or of
the Board, which is not true of either in any sense
whatsoever.
The organisation by which the system of public
instruction in Holland is carried out, is very simple,
but very complete. The central and chief autho-
rity is the Minister of the Interior (Secretary of the
Home Department), aided only by one inspector-
general, who has his bureau at the Home Office,
and the whole vitality of the system is derived from
a most effective inspection. Each of the ten pro-
vinces is divided into school districts, about five or
six in each. In every district there is a resident
salaried inspector, who is bound to inspect all the
schools of his jurisdiction, at least twice every year.
In every municipality or commune of the district
there is a school commission, of which the inspec-
tor is always a member, consisting of persons ser-
ving gratuitously, and not of persons marked out by
their office merely, but of persons judged most
suited to such a trust by their persona! aptitude and
caracity, and nominated directly by the Minister.
The duties of this commission are—to exercise a
i perpetual local inspection over their school or schools
! —to take care that the local regulations he duly ful-
l. filled, to appoint the teachers and assistants duly
' qualified, fix and provide their salaries, and receive
and examine complaints from them or against them,
&c. &c. Besides these local commissions, which
correspond with the local committee here (by-
the-way, why are not these committees better or-
ganised ?), there is also a school commission in
every province, consisting of the inspectors of the
districts of the province, and the governor for pre-
sident This commission assembles in the chief
town of the province three times every year ; they
k give in, each of then, a report of his district, out
of which reports is concocted the annual report to
be made to the Minister ; they examine and pro-
) nounce upon the various matters referred to them
by the local commissioners ; they take care that
the general regulations, drawn up according to law
( for the management of the schools of the province,
be duly observed ; and they suggest to the Minis-
ter such modifications as they deem to be useful,
i and if there be a vacancy in their body, they pre-
sent also to him the name of the person they deem
I most competent to fill it, and their presentation,
I either backed by the governor or coupled with an-
other from himself, guide, but do not controul, the
Minister in the appointment he has to make.
But, besides this administrative character, these
provincial commissions are vested also with a judi-
cial character of the highest importance. They
ate the ordeal through which the candidates for the
office of schoolmaster must necessarily pass. No
one can be appointed to the poorest village school,
whether as teacher or assistant, without their certi-
ficate of capacity. And even with that certificate
and diploma, before the local commission instal him
in their school, he must pass a special examina-
tion before them and the district inspector, and
stand the brunt of a concursus with whatever com-
petitors may offer—and, if the inspector and the
other members of the commission disagree as to the
person best suited to the locality, the inspector's
appeal to the higher jurisdiction stops any appoint-
ment by them. 'I bus is there secured a complete
unity of action between all the agents of the public
instruction, from the highest to the lowest—from
the Minister of the Crown to the humblest teacher
in the land—as, on the other hand, is secured a
complete harmony of co-operation between the co-
ordinate jurisdictions of the provincial commissions
or re-unions of inspectors by means of the inspec •
tor-general, who is a connecting link or running
knot between them, assisting at the conferences of
each, carrying the wise suggestions of one to guide
the councils of another, and serving as a focus to
collect the scattered lights, derived from the expe-
riences of individual members, for the better en-
liAteement of the general body.
te
Such provincial commissions are not, I think,
necessary here, as in Holland, where there is no
central commission, and where, consequently, the
chief part of the general administration devolves on
them. Neither is there here that marked difference
in provincial usages, which makes such an organ-
isation useful in Holland ; nor would there be in
our system enough of business to be done to war-
rant the instituting such a machinery—our eorn-
mission bell g limited to the care of the primary
instruction only, and of the humbler classes,
.
and in their own public schools—whereas,
the commissions in Holland have a controul
and supervision over all the schools in
their province, both public and private, whether
the mere elementary schools of the lowest rank, or
the French and Latin schools of a higher older.
But, I do believe, that occasional conferences of the
inspectors would be highly useful, whether by pro-
vinces, or smaller districts, and presided over, not
by a governor, or other extraneous ex officio per-
sonage, quite a stranger to their proper duties—an
inconvenience in the Dutch system of which I
have heard the most experienced of their inspectors
complain—but presided over by the elder of them-
selves, or better still, by an inspector-general I
would earnestly suggest to the commissioners the
appointment of such an officer, not in addition to
their present staff, but by substituting for two
secretaries, one secretary and one inspector-
general—(two secretaries, by-the-way, serving
ex cequo, is in itself an inconvenience)—nearly
half the business done in their office would naturally
devolve upon the inspector-general, and the secre-
tary's salary would suffice for him. I see a hundred
ways in which the services of such an officer, if pro-
perly qualified, would be of great value. Bu t as
the topic does not belong strictly to my subject, I
shall be satisfied with barely throwing out this hint
upon it.
The Dutch system of public instruction is not
only thus carefal in providing an efficient inspection
of the masters already placed, and an efficient con-
troul in the appointment of the aspirants seeking
to be masters, but is also solicitous, like
. ours, about the forming and training of those
masters. For this purpose there is a normal school
)
at Haarlem, supported directly out of the na-
tional budget, with the celebrated M. Prinsen
at its head. That normal school, how-
ever, is now just like ours ; and is, perhaps, hr

some respects, inferior to it. You certainly see'
there no well-selected apparatus for scientific lec-
tures ; nor spacious halls fitted to give them
but a small unpretthding sdhool-room in M. Prin-
hotisq, furnished only with a few maps and
globes, and two or three demonstration boards one
with the familiar musical lines for singing lessons,
an appendage invariably found in every Dutch
school, Here M. PrinSen, who has but one as-
ststant, though he is also inspector of the distriet,
gives lessons to his pupils--nearly 40 in number,
who come to him from their different lodgings in
the town, early in the morning, before the ordinary
school hours, or in the evening when all the schools
are closed. These lessons, which are continued,
not for two or three months, but two or three years,
are intended to push the pupils still more forward
in the several branches of information they must
have already acquired—as they must be at least 15
years of age—and which they will have to teach to
others as masters. But infinitely more than to
any or all these ordinary branches of education, in-
cluding linear drawing and singing, M. P. devotes
himself especially to the science of teaching. He
feels that his normal school was destined, in a

more particular manner, for the formation of
masters for the primary schools, for the popular
education ; and he is conscious, that, whilst it is

easy enough to give his pupils as much knowledge
as could ever be found necessary or useful for such,
it is comparatively very hard to instruct them in the
true method of imparting that knowledge. He
labours, therefore, most sedulously in his morning
and evening lessons to imbue them thoroughly
with the soundest theoretic principles of that
noblest science ; and during the day he employs
their, in a practical application of them, as aids
and assistants, under the experienced teachers in the
several schools of the town.

I spent a most interesting afternoon with M.
Prinsen, accompanied by his friend and interpreter,
NI. Deenix, and as he is not only at the head of

the Dutch normal school, but is, as it were, a per•
sonification of the whole Dutch system of educa

tion, I must devote a few more words to him. M.
Prinsen, like every man of true sterling worth, is a
man of great simplicity of manners, there is even a
peculiar brusquerie about him, but it is of a kind
that rather attracts than repels your confidence—
'tis the roughness of a shell that protects the preci-
ous kernal of a mind rich in deep thoughts and
generous affections. He took a great deal of pains
to unveil to me the ruling principles of his method,
and conducted me to the several schools in the

town where his own pupils, the tyro-teachers, were
practising themselves in their application. His
views are substantially the same as those of Pesta-
lozzi, except that, more temperate in his enthu-
siasm than the mercurial Swiss, he does not push
them too far, but restrains them within their

logical and legitimate bounds. In fact, they are
pretty much the views of every writer in our times,
who has thought much about the matter, and are
very nearly those to which I have myself given ex-
pression in the letters I addressed to our Board of
Education. But as this is not the place to go at
any length into this matter, I will here only briefly
observe, that the whole secret of the excellence of
NI. Prinsen's method consists in this—that it keeps
constantly and distinctly in sight the vast difference
there is between instruction and education—that it

acts upon the persuasion that the knowledge that
makes wise cannot be poured into the mind
like water into a vessel, but must be the growth
or florescence of a germ, born with the mind
itself—that, therefore, the true process of educa-
tion k to cultivate and develope that native
germ, whether moral or intellectual, whether of
thought or feeling, by the aliment suited to each,
by the exercise proper to each ; and, finally, that
the ordinary instruction in the sciences of letters
and of numbers should be considered purely as me-

chanical aids in furtherance of that real educational

development ; nay, that the pupils themselves
should be always kept conscious that they are but
mere aids, and that between the forming mind of

the learner and the informing mind of the teacher
there should be a constant sympathy and co-opera-
tion, by the one making the other distinctly under-
stand, as they go along, the meaning and object of
every step they take.*
M. Cousin, in his book on Holland, objects that,
instead of one, there ought to be, at least, three
normal schools in that country. But, it must
have escaped his notice, that in effect there are
so many, or more. For nearly all purposes, seve-
ral of the chief towns constitute normal schools,
in this manner : The aspirants attend the best
schools as subordinate assistants, exercising during
the day, like M. Prinsen's pupils, the practical
duties of schoolmastership, and getting lessons on its
theories, in the mornings and evenings—like his
also, from the several head-masters in the town,
each taking the department in which he is strongest.
When our system is brought more completely into
operation, and our chief towns supplied with good
masters from the parent normal school, and our
reformed Corporations ready to ''',,rant a subsidy
for the purpose, much good may be done in this
way here, too, in diffusing more widely the prin-
ciples of sound teaching.
Besides this controul in the appointment of
teachers, and superintendence in their training, the
Dutch system also secures to the Government a
controul over books. But neither in this, nor, in-
deed, in any part of the system, is there anything
like an attempt at minute legislation. In fact, the
only organic law they have upon the subject—that
of the Republic, enacted 1806—barely constitutes
the superintending authorities, and leaves all the
rest to ordinance and regulation. Nor are these
general regulations either very straight-laced in
their provisions, but leave a wholesome latitude for
every discretion. Amongst them is a long list of
approved books, out of which the provincial, and,
after them, the local commissions, may select at will
what they deem to suit them best. When we come
to legislate upon this matter, I would prefer we
should lean towards this prudent latitude rather
than in the direction of the elaborate codification of
our French neighbours.
But what is the end and aim of all this superin-
tendence and controul and diligent training ? It
is the more effectually to secure that every child in
the land shall be educated in the truest sense " to
the exercise"—to use the words of the lawgiver—
"of all the social and christian virtues." The
Dutch method, however, proposes to attain this
end in a manner peculiar to itself, so far as religion
is concerned. It objects to anything like a cate-
chetical or dogmatic moral or religious instruction
being given in the schools. But yet the very air
of these schools is pregnant with the purest mo-
ral and religious influences. It mixes up a
moral with every lesson it teaches, and not the
moral merely of reasoned ethics, but the holier
moral of revealed religion. Yet, this morality
is of all religions, as this religion is of all
sects. It is general certainly, but it is not, there-
fore, indistinct. The commandments of God in
the old law, the divine precepts of our Redeemer
in the new, constitute together by far the most im-
portant part of the Christian code of morals, and
what difference of opinion is there about these
amongst the Christian sects? Piety towards God,
and a cordial charity towards all our fellow men,
make up no small portion of the religion of those
sects, and by inculcating it thus far upon the chil-
dren of all, you meddle not, surely, with the special
tenets of any. Nor do I see how this general in-
culcation in the school could, in the least, indispose
those children for the more special inculcation of
their respective pastors, in their respective churches,
on the Lord's day. The one seems to me, on the
contrary, the legitimate foundation of the
other. The teaching of the moral and religious
truths, about which all sects agree,
which is what
the Dutch system does by its moral and pious his-
tories of the Old and New Testaments, seems to
some to lead to an indifference as tothe truths about
or
which they differ. This is an opinion, how
rather a delicate apprehension, which I do not at all
understand, and cannot, therefore, in the least par-
ticipate, and which it is enough to barely point to
Holland, to dissipate and refute. But, instead of
leading to an indifference about the truths upon
, which they differ, it leads to a far happier result, a
mutual toleration of the difference itself. The men
who as children have prayed together to their com-
mon Father, and sung together hymns to his praise,
will be slow to denounce each other as heretics or
idolators.
M. Cousin is not satisfied with this general re-
ligious instruction, and would prefer a " closer link
• I promised Messrs. Prinsen and Deenix to present
their respectful compliments and regards to Mr. James
Grattan, who, I found, was reconnoitering that field
some time before me. As these columns are likely to
meet his eye, I beg him to take this note in acquittal of
my commission.