VI A MODERN EDUCATOR THOMAS GODOLPHIN ROOPER           I CANNOT better conclude this volume than by adding a grateful if unworthy appreciation of a great Educator, whose sympathy and criticism stimulated, whose life and thought inspired me during about twenty years of educational work. Even so slight a notice of one who served his country with devotion may be stimulating to the reader; but I … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 6

V BETTER-THAN-MY-NEIGHBOUR TWO persons meet in the porch of the King Archon; the one brings a suit, and the other appears to answer to a very serious charge. We know the impeached man and the charge brought against him. Socrates was charged by Meletus, a young man who was little known, with corrupting the youth of the city, and with inventing new gods and denying … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 5

          IV “YOUNG CROSSJAY” A GOLD thread running through a sombre stuff, a streak of sunlight in a lurid sky,—something like these is the fitful appearance of young Crossjay in that rather dreary study wherein a ‘Patterne’ English gentleman is exhibited, resting, fold upon fold, upon himself, every serpentine movement, stealthy, sudden, even vindictive, betraying the wiles and ways of the Egoist. But it is … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 4

IV           Like Goethe, again, Pen was a person of casual education. It is quite open to contention that persons thus educated do a good deal of the work of the world; that, indeed, men and women of great parts and original mind are often persons who have managed to evade the regular routine of the schools. Like Pen, they have got out of working … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 3. IV

III           Pen, was like young Goethe, a mother’s boy; the son of a fonder, sweeter, less humorous mother; but he, too, was the son of parents of unequal age, and was his mother’s companion. We get charming glimpses of this companionship. There was that evening when the two walked on the lawn of Fairoaks, and watched the trees in the opposite park of Clavering … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 3. III

II           Is it ill-natured to suggest, as second amongst the causes which sent Pen astray, the influence of that consummate personage, Major Pendennis? How great he is in his own line, how absurd and how respectable; how one likes him in spite of himself, and how convincing is the neatness and finish of his unworthy code! Is the title of the novel in truth … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 3. II

III PENDENNIS OF BONIFACE “When, like a heavenly sign Compact of many golden stars, the princely child did shine.”— (Illiads, Book Six (Chapman’s Trs.).) I ARTHUR PENDENNIS is as real a person as Wilhelm Meister, and, as a companion study, is not without instruction for us. What an Admirable Crichton he is, to be sure! He carried himself down Main Street with a lordly grace, … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 3. I

XI           As my point is to indicate how the education of the boy told in the life of the man, it is not necessary to follow further these most instructive records Aus Meinem Leben. Nowhere else, so far as I know, have we a minute, almost impersonal consideration of all the influences that went to the making of a man. That this was a … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 2. XI

X.           There is an unfortunate tendency at the present time to depreciate knowledge, which is indeed the chief instrument of education. Bible knowledge especially is discountenanced for several reasons. The utilitarian asks, “What is the use of teaching a child the more or less fabulous ‘history’ of the earlier books and the insignificant later records of one of the least among the nations?” while … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 2. X

IX           “The more I was allowed to work in this way the more I wanted to, and even my leisure hours were spent in all sorts of wonderful occupations. Already, since my earliest days, I had felt a strong impulse towards finding out about natural objects.           “I remember that as a child I often picked flowers to pieces to see how the petals … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 4. Chapter 2. IX