Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848

When I had reached the age of twelve, I had got to the head of the preparatory school to which I had been sent. And having thus exhausted all the oxygen of learning in that little receiver, my parents looked out for a wider range for my inspirations. During the last two years in which I had been at school, my love for study had returned; but it was a vigorous, wakeful, undreamy love, stimulated by competition, and animated by the practical desire to excel.

My father no longer sought to curb my intellectual aspirings. He had too great a reverence for scholarship not to wish me to become a scholar if possible; though he more than once said to me somewhat sadly, "Master books, but do not let them master you. Read to live, not live to read. One slave of the lamp is enough for a household; my servitude must not be a hereditary bondage."

My father looked round for a suitable academy; and the fame of Dr Herman's "Philhellenic Institute" came to his ears.

Now, this Dr Herman was the son of a German music-master, who had settled in England. He had completed his own education at the university of Bonn; but, finding learning too common a drug in that market to bring the high price at which he valued his own, and having some theories as to political freedom which attached him to England, he resolved upon setting up a school, which he designed as an "era in the history of the human mind." Dr Herman was one of the earliest of those new-fashioned authorities in education, who have, more lately, spread pretty numerously amongst us, and would have given, perhaps, a dangerous shake to the foundations of our great classical seminaries, if those last had not very wisely, though very cautiously, borrowed some of the more sensible principles which lay mixed and adulterated amongst the crotchets and chimeras of their innovating rivals and assailants.

Dr Herman had written a great many learned works against every pre-existing method of instruction: that which had made the greatest noise was upon the infamous fiction of Spelling-Books: "A more lying, roundabout, puzzle-headed delusion than that by which we CONFUSE the clear instincts of truth in our accursed systems of spelling, was never concocted by the father of falsehood." Such was the exordium of this famous treatise. "For instance, take the monosyllable Cat. What brazen forehead you must have, when you say to an infant C, A, T, – spell CAT: that is, three sounds, forming a totally opposite compound – opposite in every detail, opposite in the whole – compose a poor little monosyllable, which, if you would but say the simple truth, the child will learn to spell merely by looking at it! How can three sounds, which run thus to the ear, see — eh — tee , compose the sound cat ? Don't they rather compose the sound see-eh-té , or ceaty ? How can a system of education flourish that begins by so monstrous a falsehood, which the sense of hearing suffices to contradict? No wonder that the horn-book is the despair of mothers!" From this instance, the reader will perceive that Dr Herman, in his theory of education, began at the beginning! – he took the bull fairly by the horns. As for the rest, upon a broad principle of eclecticism, he had combined together every new patent invention for youthful idea-shooting. He had taken his trigger from Hofwyl; he had bought his wadding from Hamilton; he had got his copper-caps from Bell and Lancaster. The youthful idea! he had rammed it tight! he had rammed it loose! he had rammed it with pictorial illustrations! he had rammed it with the monitorial system! he had rammed in every conceivable way, and with every imaginable ramrod; but I have mournful doubts whether he shot the youthful idea an inch farther than it did under the old mechanism of flint and steel! Nevertheless, as Dr Herman really did teach a great many things too much neglected at schools; as, besides Latin and Greek, he taught a vast variety in that vague complexity now-a-days called "useful knowledge;" as he engaged lecturers on chemistry, engineering, and natural history; as arithmetic and the elements of physical science were enforced with zeal and care; as all sorts of gymnastics were intermingled with the sports of the play-ground; – so the youthful idea, if it did not go farther, spread its shots in a wider direction; and a boy could not stay there five years without learning something , which is more than can be said of all schools! He learned at least to use his eyes, and his ears, and his limbs; order, cleanliness, exercise, grew into habits; and the school pleased the ladies, and satisfied the gentlemen; in a word, it thrived: and Dr Herman, at the time I speak of, numbered more than one hundred pupils. Now, when the worthy man first commenced the task of tuition, he had proclaimed the humanest abhorrence to the barbarous system of corporeal punishment. But, alas! as his school increased in numbers, he had proportionately recanted these honourable and antibirchen ideas. He had, reluctantly, perhaps, – honestly, no doubt, but with full determination, – come to the conclusion, that there are secret springs which can only be discovered by the twigs of the divining-rod; and having discovered with what comparative ease the whole mechanism of his little government, by the admission of the birch-regulator, could be carried on, so, as he grew richer, and lazier, and fatter, the Philhellenic Institute spun along as glibly as a top kept in vivacious movement by the perpetual application of the lash.

I believe that the school did not suffer in reputation from this sad apostacy on the part of the head master; on the contrary, it seemed more natural and English, – less outlandish and heretical. And it was at the zenith of its renown, when, one bright morning, with all my clothes nicely mended, and a large plumcake in my box, I was deposited at its hospitable gates.

Amongst Dr Herman's various whimsicalities, there was one to which he had adhered with more fidelity than to the anti-corporeal punishment articles of his creed; and, in fact, it was upon this that he had caused those imposing words, "Philhellenic Institute," to blaze in gilt capitals in front of his academy. He belonged to that illustrious class of scholars who are now waging war on our popular mythologies, and upsetting all the associations which the Etonians and Harrovians connect with the household names of ancient history. In a word, he sought to restore to scholastic purity the mutilated orthography of Greek appellatives. He was extremely indignant that little boys should be brought up to confound Zeus with Jupiter, Ares with Mars, Artemis with Diana – the Greek deities with the Roman; and so rigidly did he inculcate the doctrine that these two sets of personages were to be kept constantly contradistinguished from each other, that his cross-examinations kept us in eternal confusion.

"Vat," he would exclaim to some new boy fresh from some grammar-school on the Etonian system – "Vat do you mean by dranslating Zeus Jupiter? Is dat amatory, irascible, cloud-compelling god of Olympus, vid his eagle and his ægis, in the smallest degree resembling de grave, formal, moral Jupiter Optimus Maximus of the Roman Capitol? – a god, Master Simpkins, who would have been perfectly shocked at the idea of running after innocent Fraulein dressed up as a swan or a bull! I put dat question to you vonce for all, Master Simpkins." Master Simpkins took care to agree with the Doctor. "And how could you," resumed Dr Herman majestically, turning to some other criminal alumnus – "how could you presume to dranslate de Ares of Homer, sir, by de audacious vulgarism Mars?