OF THE GENERAL EXAMINATION AT EASTER, 1848, CONDUCTED BY HER MAJESTY'S INSPECTORS OF SCHOOLS WITH APPENDICES, INCLUDING THE EXAMINATION PAPERS OF THE SEVERAL TRAINING INSTITUTIONS. BY TWO CERTIFICATED BATTERSEA MASTERS, J. GOODALL, BLUE COAT SCHOOL, NORTHAMPTON, AND W. HAMMOND, MASTER OF THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS' SCHOOLS. "Pénétrez-vous, Monsieur, de limportance de votre mission; que son utilite vous soit toujours présente dans les travaux assidus qu'elle vous impose."-M. Guizot's Letter to French Schoolmasters. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. PREFACE. THE following solutions have been prepared with a view to afford candidates for certificates of competency for the duties of a schoolmaster, an insight into the nature of the studies with which they must become familiar, in order to pass the ordeal of an examination by her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools. The solutions will not, it is hoped, be without their use to teachers in general, and to others who feel an interest in the development of those plans by which the status of elementary education in this country is destined to acquire a higher level than it has hitherto attained. To the younger members of the scholastic profession, it is hoped the solutions will afford valuable aid in preparing themselves for coping with a similar selection of questions at some future ordeal, like the one at which these were proposed. Candidates for certificates will do well to bear in mind, that the compilers of these pages disclaim any other merit than that of guides; they do not assume the pretension of skilful caterers of those requisite items of knowledge, the acquisition of which would ensure the success of their possessor. A thorough comprehension of every paragraph in this book would not-except in connection with dependent and collateral information-enable a teacher to solve a similar series of questions, drawn from the same sources. There are, nevertheless, we conceive, several advantages to be derived by our brother-labourers, from a perusal of these pages. They may learn the general plan and character of examination papers; may be directed to some valuable repositories of essential information in respect to the object of their studies; and if they make these papers their own-if their interest in some of the processes exhibited in the solutions prompt them to the investigation of truths, which in many of the replies are necessarily assumed, this undertaking will not have been completely futile. Conciseness and precision have been aimed at, and authorities quoted for matters in which such an acknowledgement is due. We do not presume to hope that in carrying our design into execution, we shall have realised the expectations of all our readers. Amongst such a diversity of opinions, and so great a variety of mental aptitudes, habits, and tastes as is possessed by the class of men to whom this performance is specially addressed, we are prepared to be reminded of redundancies in this subject; of omissions in that; here of a departure from old, recognised forms; there a leaning towards new-fangled notions, of mere theoretical weight. But, despite such discouraging anticipations, we do not |