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The National Schoolmaster.

SUMMARY.

M

R. GATHORNE HARDY has been making a speech at Cranbrook in aid of the Canterbury Diocesan Education Society.

The right hon. gentleman made the following remarks on the two systems of schools--board schools and voluntary schools :

During the last few years we have been to a certain extent, I will not say in competition, but in comparison with the board schools of the country, and I think it has been conclusively proved by the inspections that elementary education in secular knowledge is conducted with equal if not greater efficiency in the schools of the Church of England than in the board schools, although more time is devoted in the former to religious instruction. Now, that is a most important fact to bear in mind. I am not going on this occasion to say one word against board schools, or anything that has been set up for the purpose of education in this country, but I am here to speak on behalf of the schools of the Church of England. The Church of England has spent upon these schools probably since 1811 no less than thirty millions of money, voluntarily subscribed. I believe I am understating the amount, but I think there is little doubt that at least that sum has been spent through the liberality of the Church of England. Consider what has followed upon that vast expenditure. You have raised up in this country a perfect army of teachers, numbering, I think, even in 1870, upwards of 20,000. Probably by this time, including assistant teachers and pupil-teachers, you have an army of not less than 30,000, a large proportion of whom are regularly certificated teachers who have been educated in the training colleges of the Church of England.

On Saturday, December 1st, Professor Huxley delivered a lecture on 'Technical Education in the Theatre of the Society of Arts. He defined technical education as the teaching of handicrafts. His own handicraft was anatomy, "a form of practical industry requiring great skill of hand accuracy of eye." One passage of his speech, our readers would do well to ponder :—

and

But above all-and this was the most essential condition-he would earnestly desire that the pupil should have kept in all its bloom the freshness and youthfulness of his mind, all the vigour and elasticity proper to that age, and that this freshness and vigour should not have been washed out of him by the incessant labour and intellectual debauchery often involved in grinding for examinations. Everybody must have noticed that in these days men are often called on to use the callow brain before it is properly set. It had been said by some one that early risers were too often conNo. 86.-January, 1878.

ceited all the morning and stupid all the afternoon. Be that as it may, he had found that the saying was apt to hold good of intellectual early risers. They were too prone to be conceited all the morning and stupid all the evening of their days.

A board teacher sends to the School Board Chronicle a letter on Corporal Punishment, in which the following sensible paragraph occurs :—

As regards myself, I have informed the two boards under whom I have worked that I should be most happy to entirely abolish corporal punishment in their schools if they would provide a substitute for it; and after suggesting putting on the form, keeping in after school, &c., each board came to the conclusion that discipline could not be efficiently maintained without sometimes resorting to corporal punishment. Now, sir, take the following case, which occurred in my own school a short time ago: A girl is told by her teacher to go on writing. She replies, "I shan't for you." She is brought to the mistress, and after being reprimanded, is told to stand on the form. Instead of doing so, she runs out of school. She returns next day, and on being told to remain after school and write "disobedience" 200 times, says she shan't, and then runs home again. Now, sir, I ask you, what can be done with such a girl? She will neither stay in nor stand on the form, so nothing remains but to let her feel the cane. I have had several instances of such conduct in my time, and after trying all I could to do without the stick, have had to resort to it at last. If, then, I was not allowed to use corporal punishment, how could I conquer such insubordinate spirits? Perhaps Mr. Lucraft will be able to inform me.

On Thursday, December 13th, the Home Secretary delivered an address to the successful students of the Metropolitan Drawing Classes. What had been done in declaring that it was the duty of every parent to educate his child was a great step, but those who came after us would say it ought to have been taken years ago. "General art," remarked.

he right hon. gentleman, "has sunk very low in England":

They would admit-although there were brilliant periods, which might be called exceptional-that some time back, and for a long period, general art had sunk very low in England. He did not say that the people had ceased to admire beautiful pictures, but this he did say, that to a great extent the taste of the country had been corrupted. It was said that if you go into a man's house you will be able to form from his furniture a pretty accurate idea of what he is. He feared that if they went into rich people's houses, even now, they would find what he was afraid he must call very vulgar displays in many of them-things which were very costly and very magnificent, but which had very little art feeling, very little of the really beautiful in them. They would see rich hangings and upholstery, but wholly repugnant to cultivated taste and refinement. When he saw these things himself he could not but regret, not only for those who feel reside in those mansions, but for the workmen who prepared the furniture, and whose taste must have been degraded in so doing. He believed that if they elevated the taste of the workmen they would elevate the taste of those who employed them; for that which was beautiful in itself must be of benefit to those who had the privilege of seeing and of studying it. Truth in art was everything. The right hon. gentleman proceeded to lash the senseless follies of fashion in dress and decoration:

Then they had classes for building construction. Well, he regretted to say that in their great city there was a great deal that was not true in that matter. Nothing in his mind could be more beautiful than a building of bricks properly and skilfully constructed. Yet what did they see every day?--buildings pretending to be stone, but which were of brick plastered over. They had pillars of brick (he was sorry to say that he lived in such a house himself); and then the workmen were taught to put plaster over the brick so that the pillar might resemble a stone support. That was not right. It was not true. Again, in wood work they constantly saw painters.

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