=Children must be Educated on Books.=—A corollary of the principle that education is the science of relations, is, that no education seems to be worth the name which has not made children at home in the world of books, and so related them, mind to mind, with thinkers who have dealt with knowledge. We reject epitomes, compilations, and their like, and put into children’s hands books which, long or short, are _living_. Thus it becomes a large part of the teacher’s work to help children to deal with their books; so that the oral lesson and lecture are but small matters in education, and are used chiefly to summarise or to expand or illustrate. Too much faith is commonly placed in oral lessons and lectures; “to be poured into like a bucket,” as says Carlyle, “is not exhilarating to any soul”; neither is it exhilarating to have every difficulty explained to weariness, or to have the explanation teased out of one by questions. “I will not be put to the _question_. Don’t you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I will not be baited with _what_ and _why_; what is this? what is that? why is a cow’s tail long? why is a fox’s tail bushy?” said Dr Johnson. This is what children think, though they say nothing. Oral lessons have their occasional use, and when they are fitly given it is the children who ask the questions. Perhaps it is not wholesome or quite honest for a teacher to pose as a source of all knowledge and to give ‘lovely’ lessons. Such lessons are titillating for the moment, but they give children the minimum of mental labour, and the result is much the same as that left on older persons by the reading of a magazine. We find, on the other hand, that in working through a considerable book, which may take two or three years to master, the interest of boys and girls is well sustained to the end; they develop an intelligent curiosity as to causes and consequences, and are in fact educating themselves. CHAPTER XXI SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A CURRICULUM (_For Children under Twelve_) PART II.—_SCHOOL-BOOKS_