WIDER DISCRETIONARY POWER.

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sciously or unconsciously exercised every day by every inspector in his consideration of the time of visit as favourable or unfavourable, of the character and class of pupils, of locality of school, of irregularity of attendance, &c. Its exercise will be all the healthier if it is distinctly recognised. I have a very strong conviction that it is only by such elasticity in the administration of grants that any approximation can be made to the maximum of usefulness."

These remarks, now nearly thirty years old, probably read by few and forgotten by all, seem fairly to represent the principle and direction of recent changes in the Code.

I did not, of course, go into details. It was too early to attempt that. I was content to enunciate the principle. Changes in an educational system affect so many and such varied interests that they must be made tentatively and with caution. The complex mechanism of the machine must be taken into account. Bit by bit, however, improvements have been made, here a little and there a little, till now after the elaboration of thirty years we have a Code better than any previous one, which by its elasticity permits us to cultivate amply the soil which is

C

best worth cultivating; while at the same time, by insisting that due care be taken that even the poorest soil shall not lie waste and unprofitable, it escapes the most severe, perhaps the only, censure to which the old parish school was open.

A KINDLY JOKE.

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CHAPTER V.

DR JOHN BROWN'S ESTIMATE OF A KINDLY JOKE-ONE of an INSPECTOR'S FIRST DUTIES CASES IN POINT-WHY ONE SHOULD NOT GO TO BERLIN-"GLAD TO SEE YOUR BACK" "HE DISNA KEN THERE'S TWA DEES - A PILGRIM defined—"A GUTSY BRUTE”—“ARE YE THE GOAVERMENT?"-MISTAKEN FOR SOME ONE Else.

I REMEMBER reading many years ago in Dr John Brown's preface to that charming volume of essays, 'Horæ Subsecivæ,' his advice to young medical practitioners: "Moreover, let me tell my young doctor friends that a cheerful face and step, and neckcloth, and buttonhole, and an occasional hearty and kindly joke, a power of executing and setting agoing a good laugh, are stock in our trade not to be despised. The merry heart does good like a medicine. pompous man and your selfish man don't laugh much, or care for laughter; it discomposes the fixed grandeur of the one, and has little room in the heart of the other, who is literally self-contained."

Your

I think the inspector may profitably take the advice. I have often been guilty of deliberately "executing and setting agoing a good laugh" in a school, with no sacrifice of dignity or injury to discipline. On one such occasion a somewhat pompous friend, to whom I mentioned an incident of this kind, asked if it was not a little undignified to do so. I replied that I felt no need of imported dignity, and did not practise it; that the office was sufficiently hedged round with respect, and that any attempt to add to it was not only unnecessary but injurious.

One of the first duties of an inspector is to put teacher and pupils at their ease, if the best results are to be got at. During the first or second year of my service I went to examine a female school in Auchterless, the correspondent for which was the Rev. Dr Gray, himself an old teacher, of a hearty and impulsive nature, the kindliest of men, and one whose career, from the ploughstilts through a phenomenally successful university course to a distinguished position in the Church of Scotland, is one of which any man might be proud. He told me, before entering the school, that the teacher had never been under inspection before, and was exceedingly nervous. He asked me to bear this in mind. I found this account

FIRST DUTY OF AN INSPECTOR.

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correct. Not only was the teacher nervous, but it was evident that, as usual, her nervousness had communicated itself to the children, who were ill at ease. Seeing this, I made some joke -I quite forget what it was-probably a very small one, but it was enough to produce a hearty laugh from both teacher and pupils, and show them that I was not a positive ogre. Dr Gray, whom I had never met till that morning, seeing my object, joined in and increased the laughter by giving me a sounding slap on the shoulder, adding, "Man, you're a fine fellow!" I hope this incident may be considered worthy of mention as having in it an element of humour, and as illustrating the kindly and impulsive character of Dr Gray, rather than a clumsy attempt on my part at performing the difficult operation of gracefully patting one's own back.

I was reminded lately, in a letter from a most successful lady teacher in one of the Edinburgh Merchant Company schools, of the first occasion on which, upwards of twenty years ago, she had, as a little girl, undergone the terror of a first inspection in a country school in Aberdeenshire. She was a pupil in the school, and had been taught by a nervous teacher to regard an inspector as a terribly severe personage, and, when