is paid to the _corpus sanum_, the first requisite for the _mens sana_.
The boys at Sá Leone are kept nine hours in school, learning verse by
heart, practising a vocalisation which cannot be heard without pain, and
toiling at the English language, which some missionaries seem to hold a
second revelation. Far better two or three hours of the 'three Rs' and
six of the shop or workyard. Briefly, the system should be that of the
Basle Missionary Society, [Footnote: I deeply regret that _Wanderings in
West Africa_ spoke far less fairly of this establishment than it
deserves. My better judgment had been warped by the prejudiced accounts
of a fellow-traveller.] which combines abstract teaching with practical
instruction in useful handicraft, and which thus suggests the belief
that work is dignified as it is profitable.

The Sá Leonites from their earliest days were greedy to gain knowledge as
the modern Greeks and Bulgarians; but the motive was not exalted. Their
proverb said, 'Read book, and learn to be rogue as well as white man.'
Hence useless, fanciful subjects were in vogue;--algebra, as it were,
before arithmetic;--and the poor made every sacrifice to give their sons a
smattering of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The desire of entering the
'professions' naturally affected the standard of education. What is still
wanted at Sá Leone is to raise the mass by giving to their teaching a more
practical turn, which shall cultivate habits of industry, economy, and
self-respect, and encourage handicrafts and agriculture as well as trade.

I have already noticed the Fourah Bay College. The Church Missionary
Grammar-School, opened in 1845, prepares boarders and day-scholars for
university education; and the curriculum is that of an ordinary English
grammar-school. The establishment, which has already admitted over 1,000
boys, is now self-supporting, and has an invested surplus, with which
tutors are sent to England for higher instruction in 'pædagogia.' The