Such are the chief practices, in the art of tuition, recorded on the books of the Asylum, as differing from the usual mode of teaching; and which will be found greatly useful, by the economy of time and trouble, in every school or family, where they are adopted and duly executed.

CHAP. VII.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SCHEME AND
PRACTICES.

TO enter into the spirit of the Institutes now before the reader, so as to comprehend what was actually achieved by this experiment, and what is left undone; where the experimentalist may rest satisfied with his text-book, and when he may go in quest of new devices and improvements, it is necessary to mark the character of the practices, which have been now detailed, as differing from that of the system before explained.

The System, with its concatenation of Occasional Usher and Sub-Usher, its Teachers and Assistants, Tutors and Pupils, Registers of daily Tasks, Black-book, and Jury of Peers-being a series of consecutive regulations, linked together in the closest union, and forming a digested theory, composed of laws derived from observation, confirmed by experience, and founded on acknowledged principles of humanity, I regard

as completed in all its parts, and requiring no addition. In framing the Scheme, it was studied that no interstices should be left to be filled up, no deficiency to be discovered in its apparatus, but that there should rather be a redundancy of performers, and that the chain should have sometimes double links, where single links may suffice. Such may be thought the Teacher and Assistant to each Class. It is safest, however, to retain both till the School is organized, if not evidently unnecessary, for both are generally more pro-` fitably employed (during the period it is proper to retain them in these posts) than they would be in the ranks of their appropriate Classes. It is time enough to lop off redundancies when the school is reduced to perfect order, and all goes on smoothly and pleasantly. In a word, in the Scheme of the Asylum will be found all that is requisite, under every circumstance, for conducting a school through the agency of the scholars themselves; and it will only be necessary to drop such performers ás, from the state of the School, are no longer wanting; of which an example will be seen in the diagram of the Asylum, Part III.

With the practices it is quite otherwise. These I consider as incomplete, and admitting of much addition. These, combined only as leading to a common end, facility, precision, and despatch, have no chain of union among themselves, no guide in one process to conduct to another, no general law for discovering where a chasm is

left. Indeed, where this system is adopted in the schools for the lower orders of youth, on the large scale for which it is particularly fitted, and the saving of expense becomes an important object, other practices (though of inferior importance) may be pointed out, for the sole purpose of economy. In various seminaries this has already been done. But these do not fall within my notice, who confine my details of facts to those of the Asylum, and only further propose, when this is done, briefly to point out to what the system may lead in this country. The practices differ also from the system, that in them there will be found no redundancy, nothing which can without prejudice be omitted.

I only add, that though the system of the Asylum may be considered as appropriate to schools for the lower orders of youth, it must be allowed that the practices apply equally to schools of every description. But it is not on these,— the practices, or any such, however important in themselves, that the charm, which this system is found to possess, depends. It depends on the scheme of tuition by the scholars themselves. Wherever this general principle is adopted, methodised, and duly (for all turns on this point) executed, there is the system of the Asylum, whether they write in sand, spell without reiteration, read by syllables, &c. as directed in the subsidiary practices of that School, or whatever other improvements are resorted to in preference. Wherever this Tuition by Scholars does not take

place, there is not the system of the Asylum, though all the subsidiary practices of that School be adopted. In every instance, it is by this system, the Tuition by the Scholars themselves, that the success and economy of which it boasts are to be attained: and wherever this system is not adopted, let the processes be what they may, the same success and economy cannot, in a large seminary, be attained.

PART III.

EXTRACTS OF

AN EXPERIMENT IN EDUCATION,

MADE AT THE MALE ASYLUM, MADRAS.

Suggesting a System by which a School or Family may teach itself under the Superintendence of the Mafter or Parent,

Dedicated to the Honourable the Chairman, the Deputy Chairman, and the Directors, of the East India Company; the President in Council of Fort St. George; and to the Directors of the Male Asylum at Madras.

CHAP. I.

EXTRACTS OF REPORT OF MALE ASYLUM, DATED 28 JUNE, 1796, SENT BY THE GOVERNMENT OF MADRAS TO THE HONOURABLE DIRECTORS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, AND ΤΟ THE GOVERNMENTS OF BENGAL AND BOMBAY.

IN compliance with the direction of the committee nominated to take into consideration the remarks I took the liberty to offer in regard to the revision of the code of regulations for the

MALE ASYLUM, I have the honour to submit to your lordship, the vice-presidents, and directors, a short recital of the mode of teaching practised at this school. In following the instructions of the committee, it is my wish to recount, in the plainest terms, the economy of this school, that the scheme of education, which has frequently been honoured with your approbation, may be so marked out, as to enable you, in future, to make such use of it as may be thought most conducive to the well-being of this institution.

It will be noticed, that the most part, if not the whole, of the plan of this school is gradually developed in the several reports entered on your minutes, which I have had the honour to make to this society. In these are to be seen the origin and progress of those measures which, as often as they have been found to succeed on a fair and full trial, have been adopted, and are incorporated into the system, which has some time been established. In these is recorded the manner in which it has been attempted to 'lay a solid foundation for this fabric, to establish such a work as may deserve to be permanent, and to give it that form and consistency, which time and experience can alone produce for any human institution; and which, when attained, can only be secured by wise precautions and salutary checks.' In these are to be traced the gradual and secure steps' by which this object has been prosecuted, according to the capacity, ability, and disposition, of the Masters or Ushers, and