into more direct connexion with the system of the National Society; and these Boards have already taken steps towards the establishment of training-schools for masters and mistresses, and the arrangement of a regular system of inspection:

"With a view, thus further to provide for the education of the great body of the people, the Society appointed a Committee of Inquiry and Correspondence, in order to ascertain what measures were best suited to this end, and to communicate with the various individuals and bodies whose co-operation appeared requisite for its attainment.

"It is not necessary to detail the measures adopted in consequence. It is sufficient, perhaps, after acknowledging the great obligations which this committee have, by their exertions during the past year, laid upon the friends of national education, to state, that, with a view to the more effectual promotion of the above-mentioned objects, THIRTEEN DIOCESAN BOARDS have been already established, in connexion with the Society, and under the authority of the respective bishops. These Boards comprise the members of the chapter, the clergy holding office in the diocese, together with the principal laity filling public situations, and many intelligent persons of the middle classes. The establishment of a Board as a centre of union for all Church schools, the president of which is the bishop of the diocese, and, as such, a member of the committee of the National Society, offers the surest prospect of combining local energy with general uniformity of principle. And the exertions which the past year has witnessed bid fair to complete the structure, of which the foundation was laid long since in the grammar-schools endowed by the piety and munificence of royal and private benefactors, and of which modern times have witnessed the expansion by means of our National Schools."

The hopes which the committee entertain are perhaps somewhat disproportioned to the means at their disposal, since the annual subscriptions of last year amounted to no more than 12127.: but the money derived from the queen's letter and spent in the erection of school-houses is really invested for the benefit of the country; and when a more complete system of instruction is engrafted upon the present plan, our descendants will not be unmindful of the zeal which raised those buildings. But what is really required is something more than a judicious use of bricks and mortar, or the report of a district-surveyor; and to meet these wants, the ulterior measures of the Boards have been conceived.

The first part of the plan which appears to meet with approbation from the National Society, proposes to unite the preparatory schools for teachers with such schools as

might afford a sound education suited to the occupations of the middle classes. We quote the following observations from Mr. Hussey's letter to Mr. Acland on the system of education to be established in the diocesan schools for the middle classes :—

"There is no reason why the school should not be established on the same principle as our foundation schools: the commercial part of it would correspond to the oppidani' or independent members, the training part to the foundation; and the latter might be filled up from the former, by taking off the best boys who would be willing to enter on the profession of schoolmasters: and to them might be given such exhibitions or assistance as should be founded in the system, to maintain them during the additional time spent in the training part of education*.

"This scheme supposes, that the course of education given is materially the same for the middle class generally as for those trained to be masters: nor does there seem to be any reason why they should be different, until you come to the later stages of preparation for the duties of teaching, given to the latter of the two. For the best preparation for a master is simply, at first, the best education; right principles, clear perception of duties, moral habits generally, knowledge of various subjects, are no otherwise taught or to be acquired in the case of the future master than in that of any other person. Some necessary qualities are not to be taught at all, but gained by practice in acting upon common principles learnt before, as firmness, patience, good temper in governing. Some cannot be learnt very early, as knowledge of human nature. Those which seem most properly the subjects of a training system may be easily taught after a course of general education in common with other boys, such as knowledge of some other subjects than those taught in common, technical knowledge of all the subjects taught, habits of thinking and speaking with precision and clearness. These are reasons why there is no need of setting up separate training schools, because joint schools would answer your purpose as well or better. Certainly better, if it should ever happen that the training schools were overdone, and tended to breed system-mongers and machinery-men, instead of judicious teachers. For after all, boys are not machines, and the best theory of teaching will fail, unless it be first founded on a just knowledge of human nature, and afterwards applied with a knowledge of human nature.

* "If it be said against this, that it is a slow process, that it would need a long time to breed up efficient masters, whereas we want to do something now, I answer, it would take no more time than any other plan. If you found separate training schools, you must educate there until the persons are of a certain age; if you have but one joint school, you may make them fit by the same age. The only difference is, that in a separate training school they would pass all their time in training professedly for masters; in a joint school they would pass a part of the same space of time under the general system of the school, and only the remainder of it in training professedly as masters. In both cases the same number of years would be needed to produce a breed of masters such as you want.”

"It is not commonly thought that training schools are wanted for the masters of our classical schools, nor training colleges for tutors; the best training here is the best education: the general course of education gives the principles and the knowledge required; and experience of the system under which he has been educated gives each man the means of carrying out that, or other systems afterwards. So it might be with the future masters of the commercial and national schools. Provide them with good general schools to educate them and form their characters aright, and add to these such helps as may enable them to prolong and improve that education to the higher degree required for their profession, and it seems that nothing more would be wanted to produce and preserve a race of such men as the country wants for teachers."

We entertain considerable doubts of the success of this plan; the Commercial School might possibly gain, but the Training School would lose much of the proper spirit which ought to reign there. The school education of a lad intended for trade ends at fourteen or fifteen, and the training for the business of his life commences under very different circumstances: but the apprenticeship of the teacher, as well as his acquired learning and moral culture, is scholastic. The better parts of his training are to be continued in the establishment, at the age at which his comrades have already left it: and though a good general education may be the best qualification for a teacher, yet we could wish him to be brought up with more simplicity and more attention to technical instruction than a general school would afford. Above all, the qualities which fit a man to be a schoolmaster require to be tested with a minuteness rarely applicable to the turbulent and varied characters of a large public school.

It is ever to be remembered that on the character and competency of masters the fate of schools depends-nay, more, the fate of the education of the younger generation in this country, since on their aptitude depends the possibility of improving the existing system. Let us suppose however that the monitorial system, which prevails to a greater or less extent in almost all the schools of this country, shall retain its sway, because it affords an easy means of maintaining the discipline of a school and hastening the acquirement of elementary knowledge among the children; but the monitorial system will do little or nothing to promote the real education of the children, unless it be constantly united to the active

influence of the teacher. The discipline of the school may be excellent, the children may have acquired great readiness in learning, and all the mechanical parts of school-keeping may be accurately and successfully carried on; but the real value of the school will depend less on these merits and attainments than on the direct influence of the master's moral and mental qualities. A monitor may teach his class to spell a word or read a sentence, but in order to interest the children in what they are learning, and to connect the arrangement of letters and words in sentences with something of a higher character which may abide in the mind, the master must complete what the monitor has begun. He must give the children the consciousness of having learned something besides the mere form which they have just committed to memory: that is to say, he must try to touch some association or subject of interest in their minds, which may make them feel that they have connected something new with what they knew before, and prepared themselves for further inquiry. The means to this end are very simple, if the children be taught to connect what they learn in the school with the objects and occupations of their daily life. The great thing is to teach them to see how things stand in their relations to each other, to teach them to compare what they learned yesterday with what they learn today-in a word, to make their minds act, whenever their attention is engaged; otherwise teaching becomes a mere operation in the hands of the monitor, and the children remain passive.

It is difficult, if not impossible, that monitors should be found to trace out the connexion of subjects which may be suggested by the lesson to the class, or to select topics fitted to interest and improve the children. In the Borough Road Lancasterian School this is done to a considerable extent, but the monitors are permanent, acting indeed as assistant teachers, and their style of interrogatories is chiefly traditional. Generally speaking we should very much prefer that this higher but indispensable part of instruction should be performed by the teacher himself. It would be well if he applied some attention in the course of the day to each of the classes in turn from the lowest to the highest: for a few words from the master will do a great deal towards imprinting and applying in the mind the lesson taught by the monitor.

If all this be true of mere mental instruction, and if it be important to combine some knowledge of objects and facts with the knowledge of words and forms of language which the child is acquiring, it is far more true and more important with regard to moral training. There is no doubt much benefit to be derived from the habit of obedience to delegated authority, and from the principles of justice and forbearance which the monitorial system brings into practical operation amongst the children. But, on the other hand, you have to guard against the abuse of the principle of emulation, and it may sometimes happen that the monitor best able to teach what is to be taught, will not always be best able to fulfil the difficult duties of class-government. The remedy for these difficulties is in the teacher. It is his part to be, as it were, present in every part of the system; to be always ready to draw a moral lesson and put into practice a moral precept, not only from the subjects of instruction, but from the incidents happening in the school. We assume that the children have imbibed correct notions of morality and have preserved their hearts pure and their minds simple under the teacher's guidance; for if he has failed here, there is hardly any chance of his making them good or useful. To keep these feelings alive and to make them stronger, the best way is to appeal to them,-to set the conscience at work either by the sympathy of other consciences in the school, or by a direct address to the reflecting conscience of the child,—in a word, by suggesting to the child opportunities for the exercise of the moral judgement, just as you should suggest to it opportunities for the exercise of the reasoning faculties.

ance.

These duties may sound as if they were difficult of performIt is true that the monitor is not placed high enough, or possessed of sufficient experience to perform them: but the teacher will find himself discharging all this and more, if he make a point of drawing the minds and hearts of the children to himself by occasionally addressing to them a few sentences to direct their thoughts, by removing the difficulties which the rudiments of learning are more apt perhaps to multiply than to resolve, and in short by talking to them in the style suited to their age, their circumstances and their occupations.

Above all, it is important to recollect, that whilst we are in