after the ordinary hours of study, if used as a discipline, is generally considered objectionable on account of its tendency to associate the very attendance at school with the notion of punishment. There are, however, other secondary modes of discipline, such as making the offender lose his place in the class, or degrading him to a lower division of the school, which may be resorted to before the actual infliction of bodily pain.

The following remarks by Bishop Short, on the subject of secondary punishments, are well deserving of attention: -"By the term secondary punishment we mean such punishments as derive their whole force from being inflicted as punishments. One child may feel a beating more acutely than another, but the blow is in itself a punishment. Whereas the being placed on a bench, and exposed to the gaze of the other children, may be regarded as a punishment or a reward, according to the manner in which it is done. There must be punishments as well as some species of reward; and as the frequent use of actual punishments will generally injure those on whom they are inflicted, and will gradually destroy their force, it is necessary to establish a scale of secondary punishments, which, by being judiciously varied, shall continue to be esteemed punishments without being injurious to those on whom they are imposed. The least severe class of punishments are those which only arrest the attention of the offender and are immediately discontinued. While these continue to be effectual we shall have no need of proceeding to any further severity. While the eye of the master, or of the monitor, will command respect, it is not necessary even to speak. While the voice is obeyed we need not resort to any secondary punishments. While small secondary punishments are effective we need not have recourse to severe ones. If severe punishments of a secondary sort do not produce their effect we must change them; and when our resources are exhausted, we must ultimately

betake ourselves to actual inflictions; for discipline must be preserved at any expense."

To assist in carrying out the mechanical points of discipline in large schools, it is usual to appoint one of the senior pupil-teachers or monitors to the office of usher.

Among his duties may be mentioned the following:1. To see that the children assemble in the morning and afternoon without noise and confusion.

2. To drill the classes collectively before prayers, and at other times in the day when it may appear necessary. 3. To make up the attendance and absence registers of the whole school.

4. To watch the change of classes from desks to squares, &c. &c.

5. To look after the covering of books, and to see that the boxes are kept tidy. To pay attention also to the general order and neatness of the school-room.

6. To dismiss the school.

When not engaged in any of the foregoing duties, the usher should assist in teaching a class, subject to the direction of the master.

CHAPTER III.

QUALIFICATIONS AND DUTIES OF THE TEACHER. THE requisite qualifications for a teacher may best be estimated by considering the nature of what he has to teach. It is now almost universally acknowledged that something more is required of him than to give instruction in the mere mechanical parts of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The conviction is daily gaining ground that it is the duty of the teacher not so much to supply his pupils with a certain amount of information on subjects of human learn

ing, as to educate them in a higher sense-viz. to develop their mental powers, and to excite in them a desire for future intellectual culture. And, besides this, it is not less his duty to urge upon them such motives of conduct as shall foster habits of honesty, industry, and sobriety; and as shall lead them "to learn and labour truly to get their own living, and to do their duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call them."

In reply to the question, "To what end do we seek to educate the poor man's child?" Mr. Coleridge remarks, "Is it not to give him just views of his moral and religious obligations, his true interests for time and eternity, while at the same time we prepare him for the successful discharge of his civil duties—duties for which, however humble, there is surely some appropriate instruction? Is it not to cultivate good habits in a ground of self-respect -habits of regular industry and self-control; of kindness and forbearance; of personal and domestic cleanliness; of decency and order? Is it not to awaken in him the faculties of attention and memory, of reflection and judgment -not merely to instil knowledge or supply the materials of thought, but to elicit and to exercise the powers of thinking? Is it not to train him in the use of language, the organ of reason and the symbol of his humanity? And while we thus place the child in a condition to look onward and upward-while we teach him his relationship to the eternal and the heavenly, and encourage him to live by his faith-do we not also hope to place him on a vantage-ground with regard to his earthly calling?-to give to labour the interest of intelligence and the elevation of duty, and to disarm those temptations by which the poor man's leisure is so fearfully beset, and to which mental vacuity offers no resistance?"

To qualify a person for the adequate performance of such high and responsible duties as those which have

been mentioned, it has for some time been obvious to those who are interested in the cause of education that a course of previous training is, in ordinary cases, absolutely necessary.

It does not fall within the limits of the present work to enter into a detailed account of the plans pursued in the various training colleges; it is rather its business to state briefly what qualifications may reasonably be expected in the trained master, and to give a few hints as to the best mode of performing the duties of his office, which are of necessity rendered more responsible by the amount of training now generally brought to bear on the character of the teacher.

He must then, first and above all things, possess sound moral and religious principles; he must have a natural aptitude for teaching, and a fondness for children; be ready to exercise patience and forbearance, and to sympathise with the peculiarities of childhood. He must not be deficient in bodily vigour and activity; and must ever be on the look-out to extend the knowledge, both intellectual and mechanical, which he has acquired during his course. of training. And, to descend somewhat more into particulars, he must have ever before him this solemn truth, that it is his business to teach the children under his care their duties towards God and man; to instil into their minds correct principles; to train them in habits of cleanliness, order, and punctuality; and to inspire them with a love for what is good and amiable, and a corresponding hatred for those things which degrade human nature. In doing all this, however, he must depend chiefly on the force of his own example-more than on his positive teaching. He must, therefore, be regular and punctual in his attendance on public worship, and in all other religious observances. He must be reverent in his use of the Sacred Volume, and in conducting the devotions of the

school, if he wishes to see his pupils evince a reverence for holy things; and in the same way his own habits must be the pattern by which the children must be instructed in the due regulation of the affections and the performance of their social duties. His own habits must correspond with those which he wishes to teach. Does he wish to make his pupils regular and punctual? He must himself practise regularity and punctuality. He should be in the school some minutes before the time fixed for prayers. All his arrangements in the school-room, from the most important down to the minutest particular, must be, as it were, so many silent models for imitation, if he desires to make his pupils orderly in their habits. To induce his pupils to be clean and tidy in their persons, he must pay the most scrupulous attention to his own appearance, avoiding all extravagant display, and endeavouring to place before them in this, as well as in all other respects, a pattern which shall be worthy of their closest imitation.

Much more might be said in reference to the influence which the master's example must have upon the general tone and character of his teaching. In the chapter on

Discipline" several points were set forward which may be considered as closely connected with the subject now under consideration, and which it is therefore deemed unnecessary to repeat here. We pass on to say a few words with regard to the qualifications which the teacher should evince in the actual communication of knowledge to his pupils. "He should," to use the words of a good authority, "be the very life and soul of the system. If he be indolent, his monitors and pupils will be alike inactive; if he be enthusiastic, they, to a certain degree, will participate in his energy. Nothing can be a greater mistake than to suppose that under the monitorial system the master may for a single moment be idle without injury to his school. If, during school hours, he be not incessantly actively employed, his