work. Can the objectors themselves suggest a course of work for this period, which shall materially differ from that now pursued; or can they affirm that the attainments demanded by the certificate examination exceed the limits of what may, without over-work, be acquired within the period of his training, by a man of twenty or twenty-one years of age, of fair intelligence, and of fair industry?" Mr. Norris's contribution to this volume is remarkable for the same earnestness and practical good sense which distinguished his reports in former years. We extract from it some remarks upon female education, which deserve to be attentively considered: "Why is it that where you find three or four good boys' schools, you will find barely one efficient girls' school? Why is it that in pamphlets, and speeches, and schemes of so-called national education, they are almost uniformly ignored? The reasons are two-fold; a very large number of the people who are interested in the progress of education, think of it only in connexion with our national wealth; they mean by education, the extension of skill and knowledge as essential elements of productiveness, and therefore with them girls' schooling is a matter of little or no moment. Another still larger class of persons, who from native illiberality of mind are opposed to all education, though ashamed to confess this generally, do not blush to own it with respect to girls. So that, on either hand, the girls' school is neglected. And what is the result? For want of good schools for girls, three out of four of the girls in my district are sent to miserable private schools, where they have no religious instruction, no discipline, no industrial training; they are humoured in every sort of conceit, are called 'Miss Smith' and 'Miss Brown,' and go into service at fourteen or fifteen, skilled in crochet and worsted work, but unable to darn a hole or cut out a frock, hating household work, and longing to be milliners or ladies' maids. While this is called education, no wonder that people cry out that education is ruining our servants, and doing more harm than good! "But there are other evil results arising from the neglect of girls' education, far more serious than the want of good servants ;-as the girl is, so will the woman be; as the woman is, so will the home be; and as the home is, such for good or for evil will be the character of our population. My belief is that England will never secure the higher benefits expected to result from national education, until more attention is paid to girls' schools. No amount of mere knowledge, religious or secular, given to boys, will secure them from drunkenness and crime in after-life. It may be true that knowledge is power, but knowledge is not virtue. It is in vain for us to multiply the means of instruction, and then to sit down and watch the criminal returns, in daily expectation of seeing in them the results of our schooling. If we wish to arrest the growth of national vice, we must go to its real seminary-the home. Instead of that thriftless, untidy woman, who presides over it, driving her husband to the ginpalace by the discomfort of his own house, and marring for life the temper and health of her child by her own want of sense, we must train up one who will be a cleanly, careful housewife, and a patient skilful mother. Until one or two generations have been improved, we must trust mainly to our schools to effect this change in the daughters of the working classes. We must multiply over the face of the country girls' schools, of a sensible and practicable sort." We are glad to find, in the report of Mr. Kennedy, a vigorous and intelligent protest against the results which have grown up in some schools out of the "Common Things' controversy. This gentleman enters at great length into the discussion so often alluded to in these pages, as to the disciplinal value of certain branches of education, and refutes the prevalent error that the main purpose of teaching is to furnish facts. We commend the whole paper to the serious attention of our readers, as containing a really sound view of the relative value of instruction on the one hand, and mental training on the other. After gleaning, from Dawes's "Suggestive Hints," and other sources, a summary of the information which is supposed to be included under the name "Common Things," he concludes in these terms :"I venture to believe that the holding up this style of things as the proper staple of education for a boy is the most foolish and fatal thing possible. There is little or no developing and strengthening of a boy's faculties in all this. There is no intellectual vigour, no imagination cultivated, no powers of thinking and reasoning exercised and matured, no creative faculty called into play. Why, the acquired power of analysing a compound sentence, even in English grammar, is infinitely superior to the knowledge of any such number of facts. I do pray most earnestly that my countrymen at large may not be permanently deluded into fancying that this 'common things' system, this common sense' system, that the loading the memory with ten millions of such facts,' is education, or even mere intellectual training. If such material is to be the staple of our educational labours, we shall indeed sink into that materialism in which we are said by foreigners to grovel." We extracted on a former occasion the testimony of Mr. Bowstead, who inspects the district of South Wales, to the importance of the British and Foreign School Society's operations in the Principality. Mr. Morell has the oversight of the schools in North Wales, and confirms the statements of his colleague on this point in a remarkable manner. "Looking now to North Wales, we find the proportion of Dissenters considerably greater even than in the South. The population of North Wales in 1851 was 404,328 individuals; the number in actual attendance on the same Sunday was 214, 348; and the number of these in the established churches, 39,729, i.e., less than one-fifth of the whole number of worshippers. "Here, although the Independent and Baptist bodies are still numerous, the Calvinistic Methodist denomination has a very decided predominance; so much so, indeed, as to give the leading tone to dissent, viewed as a political and social element in the community. This denomination never took up the attitude of opposition, or even of indifference, to the Government Minutes. Some of their leading men saw from the first that the country was defectively educated, and that it must devolve upon them, as being the leading community in point of numbers, readily to do their part towards bringing about a better state of things. "To accomplish this end, they thought it best, instead of forming a denominational system of their own, to adopt the principle of the British and Foreign School Society, and to invite the co-operation of all the other communities-an invitation which in many instances has been responded to. The Rev. J. Philips, of Bangor, undertook to be the organ of communication between the Welsh communities and the British and Foreign School Society, and became, in fact, the accredited agent of that Society throughout the northern portion of the Principality. Furnished now with a complete plan of opera tions, Mr. Philips commenced a series of educational tours through North Wales, holding public meetings, explaining the value of popular education, and urging the people to use their money and their energies for advancing it on the principle of religious co-operation. "As the result of his labours, and the general ventilation of the question through the length and breadth of the land consequent upon them, nearly one hundred British Schools have sprung up in the towns and villages of North Wales. About a third of these have already come under Government inspection, and are enjoying various kinds of annual grants, and many of the others are only awaiting a larger supply of certificated teachers to apply for the same advantages. The general success of the movement, the interest it has excited, the large and flourishing schools which now exist where nothing of the kind was heard of a few years ago, all augur well for the future progress of education in this part of the Principality. "Putting together the facts and considerations above enumerated, there can be no doubt, I think, that the British system is the one which best harmonizes with the peculiar condition of the Welsh population, the central regions are almost wholly Welsh, both in character and language: and this native population belongs almost exclusively to different sects of Protestant Dissenters, so that here almost all the interest that is felt in popular education gathers round the British system. Unite the efforts of all parties on some common ground (like that of the British and Foreign School Society), and there is no apparent obstacle left to the rapid and effectual spread of education throughout the whole Principality." We have no room to quote Mr. Brookfield's striking illustrations of the manner in which catechisms are generally taught in schools, and the worthlessness of such teaching. But the whole report is deeply interesting to all those who are engaged in imparting religious instruction; for what he remarks respecting the Church Catechism, is equally true respecting the words of the sacred volume itself, if committed to memory without intelligence, and without laborious explanation of obsolete or unusual phraseology on the part of the teacher. "In a previous report I have acknowledged that 'the repetition of the Church Catechism with verbal accuracy is the most generally diffused of our school accomplishments.' It is now my duty to express the conviction that the understanding of it bears but a scanty proportion to the time spent in committing it to memory. *** My complaint is, not that the Church Catechism is taught, but that, while purporting to be taught, it is not taught competently; not that time and toil, and patience and impatience are spent upon it; but that they are spent so much in vain,-that the sound, or an approximation to the sound, is all that in most instances is attained. *** It is not the fault of the children that the phraseology is of a kind which, though not obsolete, is no longer current. It is not their fault that it demands unwearied explanation, illustration, and adroit incitement, to awaken interest in such subjects, and to sustain it; and that these, in turn, require, not so much intelligence on the part of the teacher, as judicious adaptation of no common order. It is not many days since I was in a school of average quality, consisting of 230 children. The children spent half an hour of each day, excepting Saturdays, in learning the Church Catechism. Three-fourths of them professed to repeat it. But throughout the school not one either would tell or knew (for knowing and being able to tell do not always go together) what was the meaning of 'succour,' 'slander,' 'inheritor,' or 'spiritual pastors."" OUTLINE OF COLLECTIVE LESSON.-CLIMATE. (A). PRIMARY CAUSES. I. Latitude.-Places near equator generally hot-India. Polar regions, coldLapland. II. Elevation. Most heat at surface of earth. Rays of sun there absorbed, felt by radiation, reflection, &c. Very little warmth felt from direct rays of the sun. Illus. Close to the surface of a Dutch oven before the fire the heat is greater than nearer to the fire. Thus we soon feel cold when away from the surface of the earth, as in a balloon. Places, therefore, even near the equator, have cool climate if greatly elevated: Quito. Tops of very high mountains, even in warmest parts of the earth, are covered with perpetual snow. (B). SECONDARY CAUSES. III. Position in regard to the Sea.-Water modifies temperature very considerably. Being a bad conductor of heat, its temperature does not vary much. It does not store up heat from sun's rays, nor readily part with heat as the land does. Coun tries or places, therefore, near the sea, made cooler in summer and warmer in winter by the water: thus Scotland has a much milder climate than the inland parts of Russia, about Moscow, of the same latitude. IV. Situation in regard to Mountains.-Places on the sunny slope of mountains much warmer than those on opposite side. Sun's rays fall nearly perpendicularly and.. with great effect on sunny slopes, but very obliquely and ineffectively on other side. Very considerable difference of climate between warm vale of Cash. mere on the south of Himalayahs and the district on the north. V. Character of prevalent Winds.-Winds differ much in temperature as in moisture and dryness, according to the regions over which they have travelled. Our E. winds, which are so prevalent in spring, and have blown over great plain of Europe from Russia, are notoriously cold, dry, and piercing, while our W. winds, coming from the mild Atlantic, are warm and moist. East coast of England, therefore, much affected by E. winds; and Western counties warmer, and also more subject to rain, from W. winds. VI. Various Local Causes.-Shelter by hills, forests, &c., from cold winds. Cultivation of the soil: temperature thereby much elevated. England much warmer now than Britain with its marshes, moors, forests, swamps, and fens. Density or sparseness of population: district round London much warmer than country places same latitude. Snow seldom lies long or deep on metropolitan roads, while often country roads are impassable. Great number of fires in so many dwelling-houses and factories raise temperature of surrounding air. T. C. Brentford. "Pure intelligence is not an original element of man's nature, nor indeed of any nature. Thought was never designed to be dislocated from feeling, any more than the light of the sun from its heat. Knowledge was given to be the handmaid of virtue. The severance of the mental from the moral process in man was the occasion of his fall. Reasoning without feeling does violence to the mind. To re-unite them is the great business of man. Even mathematical studies may conduce to moral order and beauty. Intelligence without virtue, and virtue without intelligence, produce schism in the mind. There should be no divided interests here. The mental and moral powers originally are one. It is the one mind that thinks and feels. Let knowledge and virtue become re-united. Let not the head be cultivated less, but the heart more. Let light and warmth accompany each other; both of which are needful for the development of a plant, and not less so of mind. To feel aright is to think aright."-From "The Involuntary Acts of Mind."* (A sensible pamphlet, very suggestive of useful thought to teachers.) * J. F. Shaw, Paternoster Row. QUEEN'S SCHOLARSHIPS. SOME recent regulations of the Committee of Council, in reference to the admission of Queen's Scholars into Normal Colleges, are of considerable importance. It will be seen from the subjoined minute that henceforth the examination for Queen's Scholarships will not be restricted to pupil-teachers, but will be open to any candidates who may be presented by the authorities of the Training Institutions as otherwise eligible. We desire to direct the special attention of our readers to the provisions of this minute. There are many young persons, of high character, respectable attainments, and good teaching powers-men and women attached to Christian congregations, and who have acquired in Sunday Schools a love for teaching, and a strong interest in the welfare of children, who have desired to enter the profession of teaching, but have felt themselves debarred from doing so by the arrangements which were in force at the Training Colleges. Not only has it been necessary that they should defray their own expenses during the year or two years of training, but they have feared that their own position would be regarded as inferior to that of the Queen's Scholars. We do not hesitate to express our conviction that among this class of persons are many whose services as teachers will be most valuable, and whom it is on many accounts desirable to invite into the Training Colleges. They are, for the most part, older than the pupil-teachers; they have more fixed religious principles than can be fairly expected in the majority of youths who have just completed their five years' apprenticeship; moreover, having chosen the profession later in life, they have probably been led to it by a stronger desire to engage in the work of instruction. We are glad to find that to such persons an honourable path is now open, leading to the highest ranks in the profession. They are now at liberty to enter with the pupil-teachers into the competition for Queen's Scholarships, and to pursue the extended course of study which is now necessary, side by side with those who have been regularly apprenticed, and in no respect inferior to them in status. We hope that advantage will be taken of this arrangement to the full extent contemplated by the new minute. Meanwhile, it may be well to mention to all those whom it concerns, that the subjects comprised in the Examination for Queen's Scholarships are, with slight modifications, those prescribed for the fifth year's course of instruction for pupil-teachers, and may be easily ascertained from any teacher whose school is under inspection, or who possesses a copy of the broad-sheet of the Committee of Council. Those intending to avail themselves of the permission thus granted, should also take the precaution to communicate their wishes to the authorities of the Training College, a full month before the examination takes place. AT THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, WHITEHALL, The Second Day of June, 1856. BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORDS OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL ON Their Lordships considered, EDUCATION. 1. The extent of accommodation provided in the several training colleges under inspection. 2. The possible number of Queen's Scholars (Minutes, 25 July 1850, 20 August 1853, 14 July 1855), pursuant to the existing regulations. 3. The means of inducing a larger number of the pupil-teachers, who annually complete their apprenticeship, to enter the training colleges as Queen's Scholars. There is accommodation in the normal colleges under inspection for lodging 1927 students.* The number of pupil-teachers who will respectively complete their apprenticeships in each of the next five years is 1018, 1322, 1827, 2208, 2149. Queen's Scholarships may be held (by renewal) for two years. The number of such scholarships annually vacant, therefore, if the system were in complete operation, would be fully 1,000, * Exclusively of those students in Scotland (upwards of 300) who lodge out of college. Their Lordships resolved,→ 1. To extend the provisional measure (Minute 20 August 1853) " whereby pupil-teachers admitted "before 1 January, 1854, may continue to receive the rate of payment for the fifth year during "the period to elapse between the end of that year and the 31st of the following December,"* so far as to allow the period in question to be passed either in the pupil-teacher's own school, or at a training college under inspeclion, provided that the principal of such college (with the consent of the managers of the pupil-teacher's own school) apply to the Committee of Council for the pupil-teacher's admission, and forward a written authority from the parent or guardian of the pupil-teacher to receive, on his or her account, the payment due on 31 December.* The Committee of Council will not further interfere with the terms of admission up to 31 December settled between the principal of the college and the friends of the pupil-teacher. If the pupil-teacher fail in the examination for a Queen's Scholarship, the Committee of Council undertakes no responsibility beyond making good the payment due on 31 December.t Their Lordships further resolved, 2. To make it a rule to extend Queen's Scholarships to a second year's residence, in all cases where the authorities of the college apply for such extension. The examinations for admission, and at the end of the year, will continue to determine the class of the scholarship (Minute 14 July 1855) as at present. Their Lordships further resolved, 3. To modify the system of examination at the end of the first year's residence, so far as to add to the present classes a schedule of students who are to be required to take up the first year's subjects again (viz. at the end of the second year), but without forfeiture of their scholarships, or of the lowest grant to the college, in respect of the past year's training; provided, however, (a) That the grant, and the certificate, at the end of the second year, be at the rate, and of the degree, corresponding to the papers. (b) That students quitting the college with no higher rank than that of the first year's schedule, be regarded in all respects as uncertificated, until they shall have complete another year's residence, and passed the proper examination at the end of it. The principal shall be at liberty, by notice in writing to the Committee of Council before 30 June‡ in each year, to designate any student who may have appeared in the lowest class at the end of the previous (first) year's residence, as proper to be examined again upon the same terms as the students included in the schedule; but such designation on the part of the principal shall not affect the privi leges attached to the student's rank in the previous examination. Their Lordships further resolved, 4. To open the examinations for Queen's Scholarships to all competitors who might be selected and presented by the authorities of the several colleges on their own responsibility, subject to no other condition than that the candidates were more than eighteen years old, and (if pupil-teachers) had not deserted their service. The admission of Queen's Scholars will be regulated as follows: All the candidates who reach the prescribed standard will be arranged (pursuant to section X. of the minute dated 20 August 1853) in the order of merit, irrespectively of their having been pupil-teachers or not. From among the candidates thus declared to be admissible, the authorities of each college will be at liberty to select Queen's Scholars in any proportion that does not allot more than ten per cent. of the total accommodation in each establishment to Queen's Scholars who have not been pupil-teachers. Before their Lordships allow this rate to be exceeded in any college, they will require to have before them nominal Returns of all the candidates selected as Queen's Scholars in the different colleges, and their Lordships will judge, from these Returns, what further admissions may be sanctioned from the same class. 5. In addition to candidates admitted by competition, Queen's Scholarships continue to be offered to the following persons: (a) Assistant teachers of three years' standing. (Minutes 1854–5, vol. i. p. 11, sect. 7.) (c) Teachers in charge of schools, and already certificated, but who have not yet resided more than one year in a training college. (Minutes 1855-6, p. 33, and Workhouse School Reports, 1855-6, p. 10.) (d) Teachers in night schools. (Minutes 1854-5, p. 111.) * In Scotland, 30 June., + In Scotland, 30 June. In Scotland, 31 December. |