Note 80 — X. COMENIUS. (1592-1671).

In Sermon on Charity Schools, A.D. 1745. The Bishop points out that “training up children is a very different thing from merely teaching them some truths necessary to be known or believed.” He goes into the historical aspect of the subject. As since the days of Elizabeth there has been legal provision for the maintenance of the poor, there has been “need also of some particular legal provision in behalf of poor children for their education; this not being included in what we call maintenance.” “But,” says the Bishop, “it might be necessary that a burden so entirely new as that of a poor-tax was at the time I am speaking of, should be as light as possible. Thus the legal provision for the poor was first settled without any particular consideration of that additional want in the case of children; as it still remains with scarce any alteration in this respect.” And remained for nearly a century longer. Great changes naturally followed and will follow from the extension of the franchise; and another century will probably see us with a Folkschool worthy of its importance. By that time we shall no longer be open to the sarcasm of “the foreign friend:” “It is highly instructive to visit English elementary schools, for there you find everything that should be avoided.” (M. Braun quoted by Mr. A. Sonnenschein. The Old Code was in force.)