Thomas Dyke Acland

“ Only watch a class of little boys, of seven and eight years old, learning to read music from Hullah's Sheets, under a good master. Mark their eyes; with what intelligence and keenness they are fixed on the tablet, from the time they begin to read the page of music to the end of it. If they once lose their place they are all abroad. ”

“ But I confess that this is not the point upon which I feel much anxiety, I have little doubt that boys will be sufficiently taught all that they require for their particular calling; and scientific knowledge is so generally valued, and confers a power so immediately felt, that I think its diffusion may safely be reckoned on. ... [But] though such knowledge be a very good education, as far as a man's trade or livelihood is concerned, yet, in a political sense, and as a qualification for the exercise of political power, it is no education at all. ”

“ I would restrict the instruction to the teaching of chemical physics, and have a very strong conviction that it is not desirable to teach practical chemistry, or, indeed, chemistry properly so called, in schools.
As an educational means, chemistry is not to be compared with other means of training the mind. The reasons are too obvious to require notice. The direct benefit resulting from the teaching of analytical chemistry in schools is nil.
Chemical science I believe can only be taught by lectures, illustrated by experiments, and by practical instruction in the laboratory. ”

“ If parochial clergymen realized the comfort which a power of reading music among the young men of the parish would, under God's blessing, prove to them, they would not hesitate a day in making the study of music part of the school business. As a bond for keeping the young men together, and attached to their school and clergy, it is invaluable. ”

“ This it is that, while ignorance of a man's special business is instantly detected, ignorance of his great business as a man and a citizen is scarcely noticed, because there are so many who share in it. Thus we see every one ready to give an opinion about politics, or about religion, or about morals, because it is said these are every man's business. And so they are, and if people would learn them as they do their own particular business all would do well; but never was the proverb more fulfilled which says that every man's business is no man's. ”

“ Every man, from the highest to the lowest, has two businesses: the one his own particular profession or calling, be it what it will, whether that of soldier, seaman, farmer, lawyer, mechanic, labourer, &c.; the other his general calling, which he has in common with all his neighbours, namely, the calling of a citizen and a man. The education which fits him for the first of these two businesses is called professional, that which fits him for the second is called liberal. ”

“ Nothing new can be offered them (the pupils) , for they have already tasted everything, and think themselves perfectly acquainted with everything, although they are really acquainted with nothing, or rather with less than nothing, for every sensible teacher knows that he can sooner make something of a pupil who knows nothing of his subject, than of one who comes to him with a superficial and confused knowledge of it. ”

“ They feel this inconvenience themselves, and their pupils feel it also—opportunities for making known their proficiency are wanting alike to both. It has long been the reproach of our law that it has no secondary punishments; it is no less true that we have no regular system of secondary education. ”

“ It is worse indeed than if it were no man's; for now it is every man's business to meddle in, but no man's to learn. And this general ignorance does not make itself felt directly,—if it did, it were more likely to be remedied: but the process is long and roundabout; false notions are entertained and acted upon; prejudices and passions multiply; abuses become manifold ”

“ Whereas, a man who has learnt his other business indifferently, I mean his particular trade or calling, is in some danger of starving outright. People will not employ an indifferent workman when good ones are to be had in plenty; and therefore, if he has learnt his particular business badly, it is likely that he will not be able to practise it at all. ”

“ I grant that two or three boys out of fifty may be benefited by practical instruction in experimental and analytical chemistry, but am also bound to add, that the rest only waste time which may be more usefully employed. ”

“ They can all read music, and one evening every week they meet for the practice of singing. The music they sing is either first-class glees and madrigals, or Handel's and Mendelssohn's oratorios.
"It may readily be conceived that these weekly meetings to practise music of such a class must be a source of great pleasure; they keep together those that have been educated at the same school, and give to their clergy an opportunity of most agreeable intercourse with a very promising portion of their parishioners. ”

“ I ought, however, to say, that the questions to which Professor Voelcker refers are not so much intended for boys as for young men of 16 or 17; and that the particular point aimed at is to give candidates an opportunity of proving that they have handled, and can distinguish some of the substances about which they write, and that they have not acquired their knowledge from books only; in short, that their knowledge is real and not only verbal. ”

“ But because every man must do this second business, whether he does it well or ill, so people are accustomed to think that it is learnt more easily.
"A man who has learnt it indifferently seems, notwithstanding, to get through life with tolerable comfort; he may be thought not to be very wise or very agreeable, yet he manages to get married, and to bring up a family, and to mix in society with his friends and his neighbours. ”

“ Under the pressure of mere secondary matters, the ancient languages, history, and mathematics, the principal foundations of all mental culture, sink down themselves to be mere secondary subjects, and the boy loses the true preparatory training for all higher study. The proper end of the gymnasium, TO LEARN HOW TO LEARN, is lost ”

“ Those who desire to supersede Latin verses, and all that they involve, in the system of the English public schools, with a view to substitute a more modern and miscellaneous course of instruction, may take warning from the results as viewed by thinking men in Germany. ”

“ The whole school may be safely taught; at least all those who enter at the bottom of the school. There is not one boy in ten who has an ear so defective that it cannot be improved. And think only what you are doing for them ”

“ Independently of the result, viz. the power of reading music, 1 know nothing that is more valuable for fixing the attention of children than the study of music. It can be brought to bear on the culture of their minds at a very early age ”

“ This greatly interferes with the maintenance of discipline: the boys are well aware of their parents' power, and complain to them against the exercise of their master's authority. Nor is it always that the parents them-selves can resist the temptation of showing their own importance, and giving the master to understand that he must be careful how he ventures to displease them."—Miscellaneous Works of Dr. ”

“ Give an illustration by figures of the exact nature of chemical analysis in the change which Phosphorus undergoes when used in the analysis of Air.
At what temperature does Mercury take Oxygen from the Air, and name the substance formed? ”