cannot help feeling that, had the result justified the inconvenience, the country would have been the gainer, and their patriotism makes them regret its removal.

So far, perhaps, the headmasters had only thought with chagrin of the failure of their efforts to supply an ungrateful Admiralty with naval cadets, but on further reflection they saw that the memorandum deals them a harder blow. The young Marine Officers and Naval Engineers who have passed direct into the Service from public schools add no inconsiderable lustre to the honour lists, and the names of those who have fallen in their country's cause live in the memory of their schools. These officers, too, are now removed from public-school influence, and here, without a word of sympathy, the First Lord ends a chapter of school history. The changes are rightly described as "far-reaching and in some respects sweeping."

The amour propre of public schools is hard hit by the statement now plainly made that the State can train its young naval officers between the ages of thirteen and seventeen better than the general schools of the country. From the broad aspect of secondary education in the country, and the part which public schools are taking in it, this claim demands serious examination.

The old representatives of public schools in the Navy are few and far between; the youngsters who had been a year or perhaps only a term at Eton, and then went straight on board a line-ofbattle ship, with an entry examination which consisted in writing out the Lord's Prayer. These were some of the young cubs "who washed their faces in salt water" and grew into the lions of the Navy, those grand seamen who hand down the traditions of early entry. No wonder the First Lord speaks with appreciation of its success.

But this is not the case for early entry. The entry age of thirteen extends practically to the middle of the Lieuts.' List, with a rise of a year, roughly speaking, in the Lieuts.' and Sub-lieuts.' List, and another still in the Mids.' List. The great fact stands out, among the many things that the Admiralty have learned by experience, that those who joined the Britannia at fourteen or fifteen were, so far as the Service is concerned, then about in the same position as the early entries, with the consequent loss to the young officers of so many years of naval training.

To estimate the true bearing of the changes made it is necessary to appreciate the principle, now stated for the first time, that the Executives, the Engineers, and the Marine Officers must all be ranked alike as the combatant officers of the ship. The beautifully worded historical introduction will serve to make shore-going people accept this postulate. But it will take a long time to make the Wardroom appreciate it. The Wardroom Mess consists of these officers, together with the medical and accountant officers, who have, of course, separate duties, as separate and clearly defined as that of the chaplain, if borne.

History and practice alike have led to the Execu

tive Officers being viewed as the combatant officers of the ship; the Engineers as an intrusion—a late introduction-and there is a tendency for the Marine Officers to be looked on as the fifth wheel of the coach. The position of affairs unquestionably does not make for efficiency, and, in so delicate a piece of machinery as the Wardroom of a fighting ship, any failure in adjusting the bearings leads to friction. No outsider can have spent any time in a Wardroom Mess without feeling that things are a bit awry. It is a master hand which will touch the weak point of an organism and operate with skill to cut off the malignant growth. Lord Selborne's memorandum shows a boldness which, if it had not been framed after a close consultation with naval men of all opinions, would savour of temerity.

The first and absolute requirement for an Executive Officer is that he should be a seaman-one to whom water is a congenial element on which he can rely, and will never fear. It is the watermanship of the old naval officer which gives him his character. Picked up as a youngster and sent straight to sea, he joined the cronies of the old chief boatswain's mate, and learned his ways and his language, to be used with discretion, to cling to a yard in a gale of wind, and keep his head screwed on as they took down the last reef. He knew the look of the sky, was not ashamed to shorten sail on a fair and pleasant afternoon, and had all snug before the snow squall was upon him. All these things, you will say, were the qualities of the past. Not at all! the same is the result of all sea training; the only way to learn to be a seaman is to keep the sea; and a close acquaintance with its moods in early youth, whether it be in sailing cutter, destroyer or submarine, brings power and self-reliance.

It is hardly necessary to labour this point, that the Executive must be a sailor; but it is a fresh and breezy novelty to state the same of the Marine and Engineer officer. It never seems to have struck anyone in authority before that these, too, should be seamen first and specialists afterwards, yet this is clearly the case. These officers must be sailors, and in the end of their course they will be sailors, but it is obviously to everyone's advantage that they should be so first rather than last. Technical training they must and ought to have, and this "will be very carefully determined," but they must be brought up to the sea.

And, what is more to the point, it will make the Engineer himself more efficient. After reaching the rank of sub-lieutenant, between the ages of nineteen and twenty, he will go to Keyham and to engineering shops knowing what he wants and what he does not want. No public-school boy going into an engineering establishment knows what he is looking for; but the sub-lieutenant will have received the preliminary instruction in marine engineering, and will be in a position to profit by everything met with in his special course. A youth spent in contact with that "huge box of engines," a modern man-of-war, will leave an appreciation of what has to be learned, to make it go.

If, however, it be much to the advantage of the Executive and Engineer officers to "wash their faces in salt water" at an early age, the gain is greater in the case of the officer in the Royal Marines. It is now at last appreciated that the combatant naval officer, besides being a seaman, must have a sound fundamental knowledge of physics or natural philosophy, not in a lectureroom form, but as applied to the details of ordinary practice met with every day at sea. Each and all must be familiar with the details and principles of machinery, its construction and adjustment, besides the ordinary problems of navigation.

The memorandum prescribes for the Marine Officer also this naval training; it will fit him to take his part in the general work of the ship; at no time of his career will he be a landlubber, he is to be a seaman first and a soldier afterwards. The knowledge he has acquired of marine engineering, gunnery and general organisation will stand him in good stead in his special training at the headquarters of divisions or the depôt, enabling him to seize on those points which will fit him for his future career. The public-school boy joining the Marine depôt at present begins by imbibing military notions, military tastes, and he takes them to sea to his loss and to the detriment of his usefulness.

Our public schools have had a great interest in this branch of the Service in the past, and it is with great regret that they part company with these officers in the future. Still no public school can train them as seamen; and seamen they must be. It must, in fine, be conceded that, if this sort of education can be classed as "secondary," the State alone possesses the machinery for carrying out such education effectually: hence the scholastic amour propre must reconcile itself to yield gracefully.

The general preparatory schools of the country have, however, an unequalled opportunity now of taking the leading part in the provision of the material. They have the boys, and it must not be forgotten that when the system is fully at work something like two thousand candidates will be required annually. Having the boys, it is now their wisdom at once to accept the new Admiralty syllabus of examination as the staple commodity of instruction.

For example, English taught on the précis method has an educational value which is practically neglected in preparatory schools: this might be adopted with great advantage to the education of English gentlemen and men of the world. Conversational French, the history and geography of the Empire, should form part of the ordinary curriculum: the gain to the community would be great if our boys all learned these thoroughly. It is by seeing that its ordinary teaching meets the Admiralty requirements that parents will be induced to trust the ordinary school and refuse the offers of the crammer. Also the public schools can help towards this wholesome reform of preparatory-school teaching, if they will include these points in their scholarship tests. The trouble in

volved in testing French reading and conversation is no valid excuse for allowing the preparatory departments to neglect the real teaching of French.

The scheme is launched: fifteen years hence, if all be well with it, its course and true bearing may be effectively considered: certainly not before that time.

There are no doubt rocks ahead: they can be seen, little is gained by indicating them. When the Admiralty instructions are "full speed ahead," the foul anchor at the fore is always taken to ensure safe pilotage.

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By J. LEWIS Paton, M.A.
Headmaster of University College School.

HE old London Matriculation served a double purpose: it was to the University a terminus a quo, to the Schools a terminus ad quem. It is possible that as a preliminary or entrance examination from the University's point of view it proved satisfactory. It has certainly not proved satisfactory from the point of view of the Schools. True, it provided a definite objective for the secondrate order of intelligences, but to a boy of real power in any special direction the time which he spent in matriculation classes was as a rule a period of marking time, if not of actual deterioration. The sense of scholarship, a somewhat timid and delicate bloom, was nipped by its atmosphere. Its boasted English never bred in anyone a love of literature or fostered literary power. The General Science paper should have been one of its best features: it insisted on a certain modicum of science as an essential part of liberal education. It was a good idea marred in the execution. The papers were ill-assorted and the syllabus took no account of that form of science, recently dubbed "Nature-study," which is the healthiest form science study can take for junior boys. The examination as a whole, awarding its honours on an aggregate of marks, obtained with a comparatively low examinational standard, was fatal to excellence.

And yet, though designed as a terminus a quo, the examination was more in demand as a terminus ad quem. A comparison of the number of candidates proceeding to degrees with the number entering for matriculation proves that the London Matriculation for many years past has been more an examination for the Schools than for the University. The figures for 1901 are: candidates for degrees, total 911; candidates for matriculation, total 4,198. It is as a ha'porth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack.

The new University has recognised this state of things, and its new" Regulations for the Inspection of Schools and School-leaving Certificate Examination" are well adapted to meet the new situation. Instead of bringing candidates together by the. thousand into great examination centres, the exami

nation is to be held in the schools themselves and to be adapted, without lowering the standard, to the school curriculum, while it still serves the purpose of admitting the successful candidate as a matriculated student of the University. The elasticity-as some of us would be inclined to say, the excessive elasticity-of the new Matriculation regulations makes this adaptation an easy matter.

Let it be said at the outset that it is a good thing in every way that this Leaving examination should be in the hands of the University rather than the Board of Education. It brings the school into direct touch with the University, it frees the University from what is properly school teaching, and it avoids the awkwardness which arises, for instance, in Scotland, where the Leaving Certificates awarded by the Education Department are only partially accepted by the Universities in lieu of their own preliminary examinations.

It may be well to note some of the special features of the new scheme, as compared with the Matriculation which it is intended to supersede in schools. In the first place, any school desiring to present pupils for the School-leaving Certificate will be required to submit a general statement of the complete course of instruction given in the school, as well as the curriculum of study pursued by the candidates presented. The Leaving Certificate, therefore, will mean in future not merely that the candidate has been successful in one isolated examination, but that he has reached a certain stage in an approved course of educational training fitted to develop soundly the intelligence of its pupils and prepare them for the work of life. It will ensure that proper attention has been paid to those elements of curriculum that do not admit of being fully tested by written papers. For instance, the reading of classes preparing for matriculation in French or German (the latter being a sadly diminished number) has hitherto been almost of necessity disconnected. To take some one masterpiece and read it through would not have given candidates a fair chance on the Unseen paper. The "selection" book was inevitably the book adopted for the matriculation class. Under the new regulations its vogue should be a thing of the past. It is also to be hoped that there will be due insistence in language classes on the training of the ear.

Secondly, the standard of the papers will be that fixed by Matriculation, but provision is made for (1) any additional papers of the same standard that may be found necessary in relation to the school curriculum; (2) for an oral examination, and (3) for special advanced papers, as required by any particular school or group of schools. These advanced papers will be most welcome to all schools which have refused to recognise the London Matriculation as the be-all and the end-all of school education. It is not quite clear what relations these papers will bear to the Intermediate examinations of the University. This point needs to be defined.

Thirdly, a pupil will be able to take up more than five subjects, and yet, if he succeeds in five,

he will secure his matriculation. One is pleased to note that the Board has not adopted the pernicious Scottish system of taking the certificate piecemeal, though a candidate who has already obtained his School-leaving Certificate may stay on at school, take the advanced papers in a subsequent exami nation, and, if he obtains his distinction, have the fact duly recorded in an appendix to his certificate. Provision is made for schools which fail to reach matriculation standard by what is called the" school record." Any pupil who has not entered for all of the subjects required, or has not passed the examination in all of them, shall be entitled to have his attainments set on a document to be called a school record, which will state the subjects in which the pupil has reached the approved standard." This is apparently not to be regarded as a solatium to the unsuccessful, but as a regular part of the system. A lower fee of £1 is charged to pupils examined for the school record only. And yet no papers are to be set below matriculation standard. It is difficult to see how the school record is to be what it professes to be, if the papers are beyond the candidate's reach. It will" record" his success in those subjects where he attains matriculation standard, but of the bulk of his work it can give no "record" whatsoever. I confess I do not see how such an arrangement can be satisfactory to the schools which it contemplates, the schools, namely, whose pupils leave at the age of fifteen. If provision is to be made for such second-grade schools, it will have to be made ultimately by a separate Lower Leaving-Certificate with papers testing the education as a whole, only on the lower plane required.

Another novel and experimental feature which will probably provoke much ridicule, but which seems to me to be of real value, is the proposal contained in the eleventh section: "Any pupil who distinguishes himself in (a) any form of manual, artistic or technical skill, or (b) any form of general or special capacity not tested by the examination, may, if desired by the authorities of the school, have a note to this effect added to his Certificate or Record." It is refreshing to find that the Board recognises the educational value of the hobby. The phrasing is delightfully vague, probably it is intended to be so. The Certificate will state that Tommy is an excellent carpenter, can enlarge photographs successfully, or carve a panel, that he has made an excellent model of a twopenny-tube engine, has rifled over a hundred birds' nests, or collected some fifty species of butterflies. Even games are not excluded. The "special capacity" of the pupil in question may be skill on the piano, at chess, spiritrapping, turning cartwheels, hitting sixes, or dropping goals. Let the Board provide an ample area of parchment: the "general and special capacity" of the schoolboy is not infrequently in inverse proportion to his scholastic attainment. The age limit remains the same, viz., sixteen, and this is good. It acts as a check to early leaving. It removes also the temptations to overpressure.

Such are some of the main features of the new Regulations, which will, I have no doubt, be welcomed by all those schools who hitherto have suffered from the London Matriculation. They leave plenty of freedom, I had almost said too much, for they admit of a Leaving Certificate without any other language than English. They give the teacher a say in the examination, and yet avoid the special danger of the Abiturienten Prüfung, where the personal bias of a teacher may ruin unjustly the whole future career of a pupil. And they will be carried out, I do not doubt, with the same first-rate administrative efficiency which has always characterised the London Matriculation.

Personally, I welcome the new examination, because I believe that it will eliminate the necessity of other external examinations, thereby simplifying the business of organisation and giving us what Thring always stood for-" liberty to teach." Of two points Dr. Roberts must assure himself for the complete success of his new venture. In the irst place, he must adjust the date of this examination to the convenience of the schools. The last week of July is clearly better than the second week of June. Secondly, he must get the School Leaving Certificate accepted not only by all professions in lieu of their own preliminary examinations, but also by the august Greekbound Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

TH

PROF. H. L. WITHERS.

'HE death of Prof. Withers, of Owens College, in December last, in his 39th year, has left a gap in the educational world which it will not be easy to fill. That such is the conviction of a wide circle of friends has been made abundantly clear by the tributes paid to him since his death. It is not sought to add to the number of those tributes here, but rather, with the help of some of his recorded utterances, to define the impression which a life devoted to the advancement of education in England and a personality of singular strength and charm left upon one who knew him well.

His contributions to educational literature are interesting, but too slight and fragmentary to give any adequate idea of his intellectual qualities or to Justify the hopes which his friends were led to form of the great career that might be in store for him. They were confined to a small volume of English ballads for schools which he edited for Messrs. Rivington; a school edition of the "Merchant of Venice," in the Warwick Shakespeare; a paper on "The Teaching of Ancient History" in Mr. P. A. Barnett's volume on "Teaching and Organisation;" a paper on the relations of the primary to the secondary school in Dr. Scott's "What is Secondary Education?"; and an article in the Contemporary Review for June, 1900, entitled "New Authorities on English Education."

The last-named essay is most valuable for the light it throws on the convictions at which the writer had arrived after an educational experience

more varied probably than any Englishman of the same age had enjoyed. After taking his degree at Oxford he had taught for a time in an Oxford board-school; he had been an assistant-master at the City of London School, at Manchester Grammar School, and at Clifton College; he had been Principal of the Isleworth Training College for Elementary Teachers for six years; and then, as Professor of Education at Owens College, he was responsible not only for the training of teachers for both primary and secondary schools, but also for the inspection of such secondary schools as voluntarily offered themselves for his criticism. And the conviction which is deepest in his mind— a remarkably open and observant mind-after all this wide experience, is evidently the need of science in English education.

Not, first and chiefly, the need of natural science. In no spirit of antagonism to one important branch of study he protested against such a limitation of the use of the word. Science meant to him "the whole body of systematic knowledge whether in the humanities or in nature-studies." All departments of knowledge and indeed of human life call for the scientific habit of mind; and a man may almost be said to be educated in proportion to the degree in which he has acquired it. "One can tell in five minutes whether a man has this habit of mind or not by the way in which he will address himself to a new book or a strange fact." He had an intense admiration for the type of character, strong, serious and quiet," as he expressed it in a letter from Clifton, produced in the best boys by English public-school life, but he held that the public schools had "not succeeded in communicating to the general body of their pupils a trained intellectual habit, an idea of scientific method, a power of severe and concentrated thinking, a manysided capability." Nor would he have considered that any other of our secondary schools, still less that our technical schools, had succeeded where our public schools had failed. Just because scientific method varies he regarded it as essential that a man of science should have "an all-round liberal training" before he devotes himself to his specialist study. "Otherwise he is likely to be unscientific in every province but his own."

Of the means by which he thought it would be possible to secure the reform in English education that seemed to him so urgent, only the merest hint can be given here. He desired, first, "an adequately manned and equipped Central Department of Secondary Education," and, secondly, the systematic study of Education at the Universities by men with sufficient leisure and opportunity to get at the facts and reflect upon them. "The country has no one to collect the information and do the thinking in matters of Education, as it has had in matters of Law or Medicine." His last official act was to get the Victoria University to recognise "Education" as one of the subjects in its degreeexaminations. From the first he attached immense importance to the teaching of history in primary schools as well as secondary. "Without it," he says, in his "Ancient History" paper, "a mo

mentous aspect of human life is blank to the imagination, and dark to the reason." He had, personally, the same sort of vivid historical imagination as Dr. Arnold: he could have told of himself the story he prefers to tell of Dr. Arnold— that historical sieges and battles entered into his dreams. This essay contains some valuable hints, and at least one characteristic saying: "No time is more grievously and fruitlessly lost in teaching than that which is bestowed upon elaborately explaining to a boy at twelve what, without explanation, will be to him at sixteen as plain as way to parish church." A favourite counsel in his lectures on teaching was, "Begin at the boy's end."

There is a melancholy pleasure in thus gathering up some of the crumbs of wisdom, now that we can no longer enjoy the feast as of old. But when one tries to justify to oneself one's strong conviction of his greatness and value to English education, one feels more and more that both the greatness and the value lay in his deep and strong personality-in the life that was fed by inner springs hidden from the eyes of the world.

A REGISTER OF TEACHERS.1

TH

HE appearance of this work is an indication of the great strides which secondary schoolmasters are making towards professional recognition; and the ignorant layman who on all occasions, public and private, girds at our schoolmasters as culpably effete may find plenty of food for reflection if he peruses the particulars given in this volume of the various bodies-organisations within an organisation-all of which are living witnesses to the interest with which pedagogues follow the various branches of their strenuous calling. Indeed, the work itself will, we feel convinced, contribute in no small degree towards that federation and furtherance of the common interests of secondary teachers which is so much to be desired for the welfare of our national education.

To judge the first appearance of what promises to be an annual book of reference requires a certain amount of leniency. Before passing on, however, to make one or two criticisms and suggestions, we should like to congratulate the editor of the work and its publisher on the handsome volume they have produced. It is at once the "Who's Who," the "Crockford," and the "Year-book" of Pedagogy.

Turning to detail, we should in the first place suggest a division into two and not three parts. There seems no valid reason why Part III., "Articles and Reviews," should not follow Part I., dealing with "Societies, Universities, Training, Events of the Year, &c., &c." The articles and reviews in Part III. are practically a criticism of the educational work of the year, and might well follow Part I. as a necessary corollary. The re

1 The Schoolmaster's Year-book and Directory for 1903. About 800 pp. (Swan Sonnenschein.) 5s. net.

maining portion of the volume would then contain a directory of individual teachers and schools.

The matter contained in Part I. is excellent; in no other volume is it possible to obtain such valuable information on so many important aspects of organisation and higher education. We have noticed only one error of importance. On page 135, University College, Sheffield, is described as belonging to Victoria University. Sheffield, we know, had aspirations for promotion, but hitherto they have not been gratified. We believe, further, that the Principal of the College is Dr. Hicks, not "Hincks."

In Part III. there is some good reading-matter, but we detect one article at least which has been entrusted to a gentleman who to our certain knowledge-has absolutely no first-hand grasp of the subject upon which he discourses: we forbear to mention his name. Again, Mr. Bridge's article on "Tenure," though good in the main, contains a very stupid statement: "He (the headmaster) can dismiss an old and tried master with as little fear of criticism or inquiry as if he were a boot-boy." Such a sentence is a wanton travesty of facts, and is calculated to perpetuate a feeling of mistrust between headmasters and assistants which we would fain see removed.

Part II. is necessarily at present incomplete, and there are a good many omissions. If professors are to be included, we could furnish a list of half-a-dozen who have done far more work, from the schoolmaster's point of view, than some of those who now receive their quarter-column. Again, where are the names of the headmaster of Highgate; of Mr. Kitchener, formerly of Newcastle; of Mr. Kennedy, formerly of Aldenham; of Mr. Marchant, formerly of St. Paul's, &c.?

These are omissions which no doubt will be rectified next year. We would also suggest a more extensive use of abbreviations: e.g., G.A. = Member Geographical Association; A.S.M. = Member Association of Science Masters; M.L.A. Member Modern Language Association; T.G. Member Teachers' Guild. In a few years' time space will become a serious consideration, and it would be well to make use of simple expedients such as those we have indicated.

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PEDAGOGICS AT RECENT CONFERENCES.

So many Conferences are held each year during the Christmas vacation that it is impossible, with the space at our disposal, to attempt to report each of them in detail. Bearing in mind that our chief object is to be of practical assistance to teachers in their teaching, it is proposed only to refer briefly to the papers and discussions concerning methods of teaching and kindred subjects which have been given attention at the numerous meetings of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses during the past month.

The Headmasters, neither at the Conference at Tonbridge nor at the meeting of the Incorporated Association in London, gave much attention to methodology. They were more particularly concerned with administrative matters, the training of teachers, the new scheme of naval education, and military education in