UNIVERSITY PREFACE. OME time after the death of William Ellis I undertook SOME the duty of writing an account of his life from the conviction that a record of his character, work, and educational method would be of public advantage. The chief feature of his character-that which controlled his life and acts-was an overmastering, world-wide, practical benevolence. His strong and vivid realization of the mass of misery and destitution which exist in the world, and his personal feeling that it was his duty, as well as that of every other enlightened human being, to try and alleviate it, led him to study its cause; and he found by conclusive evidence that that cause existed mainly, if not entirely, in the character, habits, and conduct of the destitute creatures themselves or their parents. But the effect on his mind was the precise opposite of that produced on Hamlet's when he said, "The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, Ellis felt compelled by his sense of the amount of misery existing in the world not merely to exert himself to set it right, but even to devote his whole life to that mission. He saw that the mere relief of poverty and destitution, without attacking them at their source, was of little use— that almsgiving, especially when systemized as by the doles and gifts in which so much of the benevolent intentions of testators during the middle ages found its outlet, was worse than useless—that it demoralized the recipients, and sapped the foundation of personal energy and self-reliance. He saw what a difficult and, in many cases, hopeless task it was to re-form the characters of those who had grown up to adult age in ignorance, and in whom habits of indolence, intemperance, and thriftlessness were fixed and established, and that the only method of doing permanent good was to seek to form character during childhood, when the mind is plastic and impressionable. He, therefore, devoted himself to the working out of the method by which the character of children can best be influenced for good or as we have saidformed. His old and life-long friend John Stuart Mill has in his Logic (vol. ii., book vi., chap. 5) pointed out that there may and ought to be a science of the formation of character, and he gave to such a science (which he said was still to be created) the name of Ethology. But he did not proceed to work it out. Ellis, on the other hand, devoted himself to discover how children can best be influenced for good and their characters formed, and he found the solution of the problem in the systematic teaching of right principles of conduct and training in good habits. His method of teaching those principles adapted to and in connection with the phenomena of industrial life as we see it, is the staple of his work-the great improvement which he sought to introduce into all schools, high and low. He looked round at existing systems of education and found them all deficient. Schools for the upper classes were one and all wanting in any attempt to form character or to teach lessons of conduct. They were mainly founded upon the teaching of the Greek and Latin classics: and though physical science has during the last half century been introduced in many of them, the chief science of all-the science of self-guidance—is still not systematically taught in any. Schools for the lower classes were, when he began his work, wretchedly inefficient. Since that time-especially since the Education Act of 1870-they have immensely improved. But even in them the real teaching of rules of conduct is hardly attempted. The thought has certainly entered. the minds of the superintendents and inspectors of Board Schools. They have expressed their desire that "religion "and morality" should be taught in them. But the actual performance falls sadly short of the intention; no systematic method of teaching them has been adopted, and in only very few schools, the masters of which have seen the advantage of Ellis's method, have they been taught in such a manner as really to form character. In the enormous majority of primary schools such teaching has degenerated into lessons in the ancient history of the Jews and the geography of Palestine, or the reading of chapters in the Bible without any attempt to elucidate the lessons of conduct contained in them, and often without note or comment. How utterly this teaching-admittedly well meant, and prompted by the right thought-falls short of real character-forming education, Ellis has shown in many of his works, especially Philo-Socrates, and it was this kind of education, the real and true teaching of self-guidance, which he sought to introduce into all schools as the only effectual method of diminishing destitution, vice, and crime. When I had done the greater part of my work, I became aware that Miss Ethel E. Ellis, his granddaughter, had undertaken to write a sketch of his life, which, during its progress, expanded into a memoir. I felt at first doubtful whether it was desirable that two biographies should be published; but it appeared to me that her memoir—for she has kindly shown me her work, and has seen mine—was so different in its scope and contents from what I had written, that no harm could arise if both were laid before the public; nay, that if a more extended range of readers were obtained, and the knowledge of the beneficent character we both revered were more widely diffused, good would be the result. I have gratefully to acknowledge the assistance rendered me by the family of William Ellis, who have placed in my hands all the papers and manuscripts bearing on his lifework which he left behind him. Those papers have, however, been much curtailed by his own act. His extreme modesty led him, within the last three or four years of his life, to destroy a large quantity of his papers, especially letters from men of note, which might have been of public interest; and the records preserved by him are probably smaller in quantity than were ever left behind by a man who had lived so long, so energetic, and so laborious a life. One series of letters has fortunately been entrusted to me which has proved of the greatest value-those written to the late Professor Hodgson, of Edinburgh, extending from 1846 to June, 1880, and in fact covering the whole period of Ellis's systematic work in the great cause of human improvement. The deep sympathy between the two men and their warm. and cordial co-operation in the same objects and by the same methods produced a friendship which lasted through life; and Ellis's letters to Hodgson contain many of his best thoughts, put in perhaps a more friendly and unconstrained manner than we find them in his published works, the latter of which are written in a closely logical style. For this correspondence I desire to express my warmest acknowledgment to Professor Hodgson's widow, who has an earnest sympathy with the common life-work of Ellis and her husband. My thanks are also due to William Mattieu Williams, Esq., the Honorary Secretary of the original Birkbeck School and the Master of George Combe's Secular School at Edinburgh, who was warmly attached to Ellis, for the loan of the letters to him. I hoped to obtain Ellis's letters to the lateGeorge Combe himself, another staunch friend and ally in the war against destitution and misery. As all Combe's letters to Ellis were lent to his executors at the time when Combe's biography was written under their direction, I thought I had some claim to a similar courtesy. But I am informed that all his papers are finally put away in such a manner as to be practically inaccessible, and those valuable letters are therefore unavailable. I must also acknowledge the kind and cordial assistance |