The College had now been in existence for six years, and during that time had had no less than four Mistresses. The position of the Mistress and her relations to the students and to the Executive Committee had not been clearly established, and the problems involved had become obscured by Miss Davies's tenure of the two offices of Secretary and Mistress. It was urgently necessary that the whole subject should be thoroughly considered and placed on a stable footing. The Committee, after reviewing the situation, defined the position of the Mistress in such a way as to make her of paramount importance as regards the internal management of the College, while herself remaining outside the governing body. She was to be responsible for all educational arrangements, as well as for discipline and domestic administration. The resident lecturers were to be appointed by the Committee on her nomination. The post was one involving a variety of work and much attention to detail. The duties shared to-day among the Directors of Studies, the Junior Bursar, the Librarian, and other officials were then all performed by the Mistress.

These matters having been settled, the post was advertised, and on June 28th, 1875, Miss M. F. Bernard was appointed.

Apart from punctuation, the text here followed is that of vol. iii. in the ten-volume edition of Locke's “Works” 1812.

1. Introduction.—The last resort a man has recourse to, in the conduct of himself, is his understanding: for though we distinguish the faculties of the mind, and give the supreme command to the will, as to an agent, yet the truth is, the man, who is the agent, determines himself to this or that voluntary action, upon some precedent knowledge, or appearance of knowledge, in the understanding. No man ever sets himself about anything but upon some view or other, which serves him for a reason for what he does: and whatsoever faculties he employs, the understanding, with such light as it has, well or ill informed, constantly leads; and by that light, true or false, all his operative powers are directed. The will itself, how absolute and uncontrollable soever it may be thought, never fails in its obedience to the dictates of the understanding. Temples have their sacred images, and we see what influence they have always had over a great part of mankind. But in truth, the ideas and images in men's minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them, and to these they all universally pay a ready submission. It is therefore of the highest concernment that great care should be taken of the understanding, to conduct it right in the search of knowledge, and in the judgments it makes.

The text here followed is that of the first edition, supplemented by passages from later editions which are historically interesting, or of special educational value at the present time: such passages are enclosed in square brackets. Summaries of insertions in later editions are here printed in italic type. Sections 3-28 deal with the care of health; modern medical opinion does not endorse all their recommendations, and they are therefore represented here by Locke's summary, sections 29, 30. The sections are numbered as in the latest editions, for convenience of reference. It has not been thought advisable to retain the original spelling and punctuation.

Locke's original draft, which extends to sections 1 to 166 only, was acquired by the British Museum in 1913 from a descendant of Edward Clarke. It is Additional MS. 38,771, “Some Directions concerning ye Education of his son sent to his worthy Freind, Mr. Edward Clarke of Chipley, 1684.” The manuscript contains one hundred pages, each measuring 4¼ inches by 3¼ inches. Apologizing for the “disjoynted parts” observable in “these papers,” Locke continues, “I began them before my ramble this sommer about these provinces and thinking it convenient you should have them as soon as might be, I writ severall parts of them as stay gave me leasure and oportunity any where in my journey soe yt [that] great distance of place and time intervening between the severall parts often broke the thread of my thoughts and discourse and therefor you must not wonder if yt they be not well put togeather and yis must be my excuse for ye faults in ye method, order and connection.”

The most general charge brought by its contemporaries against the school-room of the seventeenth century was that it failed to adapt its ideals to the profound changes which were becoming manifest in social life. Throughout Europe the school maintained the cosmopolitan type of instruction which was the natural correlative of the medieval Church and Empire. It ignored, or affected to ignore, the spirit of nationalism which was everywhere manifest; consequently, it taught no modern languages, and made no open and avowed use of modern history, literature, or geography. It admitted grudgingly a little commercial arithmetic amongst its studies, as a concession to the same demand which, at a later date, caused schools to offer teaching in shorthand or typewriting; and this was in the age of Descartes and Isaac Newton. Of modern science, then come to the birth, and of the widespread readiness to carry observation and experiment into the realm of “Nature,” the school took no account.

It is true that the “new philosophy” was not yet sufficiently advanced, elaborated, and systematized to be made an agent of education.

The educational writings of an author who died more than two centuries ago may be thought to possess an interest little more than antiquarian at the present day. Unfortunately, the historical study of education, as commonly pursued, serves to confirm rather than to correct such a supposition, since it frequently diverts the student from the development which has taken place in the actual application of educational ideas, and transfers his attention to the biographies, personal opinions, or mere obiter dicta of individual men and women, whose influence upon homes, schools, universities, or administration has been either small or quite negligible.

But there have been men and women whose lives or writings or both combined have exerted great influence upon the course of events; the educational situation of the present is to be understood in its completeness only by reference to the past as embodied in their work. John Locke is of the number. He was profoundly dissatisfied with education as practised in his own day, and his criticisms throw light on the aims and methods of the schools of the late seventeenth century. But his writings also shaped the theory and practice of his immediate successors outside his own country, particularly in France and Germany. His principles and methods still live, as witness some of the most recent changes of scholastic procedure. The present volume attempts to make clear his position amongst the various influences which have shaped the real history of education.