Mark how the gloomy conception was developed and intensified by every accessory of circumstance and art. Every spark of hope or aspiration which the desparing heart dared whisper was ever answered by the bird croaking "Nevermore," until every gleam of hope was abandoned in the final refrain where his soul from out the shadow shall be lifted "Nevermore." Poe was painfully sensitive to the slightest imperfections in art and composition. He pointed out deformity with unerring finger, while he held up the beautiful with enthusiastic admiration to the applause of time. During all the years of his married life, Poe was the object of constant loving kindness and solicitude from Mrs. Clemm, his wife's mother. This devoted woman was guardian and protectress to the unworldly couple, nursing the poet and his wife when both were ill, then hastening to one editor and another with an essay or a poem wherewith to keep bread in the cupboard and oil in the lamp, and excusing her own appearance in his stead with a dignity and delicacy which stifled all questions. Not long before Poe's death he addressed a little sonnet to this woman, in which he breathed his deep love to her. In 1849 Poe returned to Richmond from Fordham, whither he had taken his ailing wife, and there delivered lectures and contributed to the Messenger and other magazines. Arrangements were at last completed for the publication of the Stylus, a magazine of his own, and the hope of his life. His prospects had never been half so bright as now. He started for the North in the interests of his magazine. The next glimpse got of him was at Philadelphia, where he had spent some happy hours with a devoted wife in a pleasant home and amid a circle of refined admiring friends. Though capable of astonishing sobriety, he was quick, alas, to excess. He reached the house of Mr. Sartin, the artist, in a state of delirium. He was kept within his room and kindly watched until the second night, when he insisted upon going out. Accompanied by his friend, he threaded the streets of the city, walking rapidly until after midnight, talking wildly, in his wonted brilliant style, of imaginary conspirators against his life then pursuing him. The enemy, alas, was already in possession. All the kindly offices which friendship and admiration could suggest were unavailing, and Poe, partially recovered from his attack, returned to Baltimore. Two days later a gentleman in elegant attire was discovered in an election committee-room in a state of unconciousness. He was removed to a hospital, and that same night-a dreary midnight of October-at the early age of forty, the troubled dream of Edgar Allan Poe was over. School Method and Management. (BY THE EDITOR.) INTRODUCTION. The following pages are based on a series of lectures to the Pupil Teachers and Assistants of the Leicester Board Schools, given weekly by the author in his capacity of Inspector. The subject matter is derived from the experience of many years employed as a National School teacher, conductor of 16 Science Classes weekly at the Nottingham Mechanics' Institute, educational writer and publisher, Inspector of nearly 9,000 children under the Leicester School Board, and from the study of the following treatises : Fearon (on Inspection); J. R. Blakiston, Esq., M.A., H.M.I. (The Teacher); Gladman (Method); Prince (School Management); Gill (School Management); Currie (Infant Education); Joyce (School Management); Livesey (Notes of Lessons on Reading); Park (School Method); Meiklejohn (How to teach Reading); Bain (Science and Art of Education, and Mental and Moral Philosophy); Rev. J. A. Picton (How to teach Geography); &c., &c. METHOD AND MANAGEMENT.-Looked at from the teacher's point of view there is a clear distinction, at the same time that there is an intimate connection, between Instruction and Education. By the former, the foundations of knowledge are laid in; fact is piled on fact to build up the structure; and observation and experiment are mainly depended upon to give a knowledge of what was previously unknown. By the latter, judgments are based on the observation and experiments of oneself or of others; and reasoning from the known to the unknown is attempted; theories are enunciated or disproved; and in the process the powers of the mind are specially sought to be trained. From the Government point of view, and as looked at through the Inspector, this distinction is summarized in the two words Examination and Inspection. The former tests the instruction given; the latter (besides testing the methods by means of which this has been imparted) searches into the training of the powers of the mind, which has been brought about by the mere instructive processes. A great outcry is sometimes made by certain teachers that instruction bulks more largely in the eyes of the Inspector than education does; and that too much is made of percentages of passes in the three R's, and in the class and specific subjects. We will frankly state that this outery is very seldom warranted by the facts either of the schools, or of the Inspector's action. In the first place, as a rule, the school which passes high percentages in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and especially in reading and arithmetic, geuerally does well in the class and specific subjects. And secondly, these class and specific subjects are eminently educative in themselves, and by the requirements of the Code are rigidly required to be taught in an educative manner. And lastly, Her Majesty's Inspectors are all men of learning and culture, if they are at first sometimes weak in mechanical routine; and from their wider outlook both of studies and of schools, are more capable, as a rule, of judging the worth of educational methods, than one whose horizon is limited to one or a few schools, and who has not had the benefits of a University training. On the other hand, there are teachers who have prepared themselves by a University course, and who have also had practical experience as school-keepers; these men will modify the education of the future. In order that the teacher may be perfect in his work, he must, if possible, be perfect in method and management. By method we mean modes of teaching and training; the ways of teaching Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, History, Domestic Economy, Literature, Physical Geography, Animal Physiology, especially. This is school work viewed from the side of instructionit is the executive department. By management we mean school-keeping-rule and governance; inculcation of obedience of children and staff, maintenance of order, quietness, discipline and industry; allotting of time to special tasks in drawing up and working out time-tables-this is in some respects the administrative department. The following pages will deal with both sides of a school; the best methods of teaching all the subjects in each Standard, in each department of a school, will be sketched, with very copious model lessons in each; after which school-management will be dealt with. After these two branches the important subject of the Pupil Teacher's studies will be treated; and lastly, the requirements of ex-P.T.'s in the Scholarship and Certificate Examinations. The order will be Infant SchoolsGirls; Boys; Mixed (junior), mixed (ordinary), and mixed (class room principle); and Half-time Schools. NATURE OF A CHILD. A CHILD.-A trainer of dogs, horses, and other domestic animals brought up to habits of obedience, makes himself intimately acquainted with the organization, aptitudes, disposition, and capacity for instruction of the animals he trains; and yet one rarely finds in treatises on education, and its means, methods, and appliances, any preliminary observations on the character of the subject to be operated upon. This cannot arise from the fact that a child's nature is so evident that it needs no discussion; since it is a very complex phenomenon, made up of many factors, and these intricately bound up together. In this treatise we shall consider a child as a moral and intellectual animal, to a great extent the creature of its surroundings, the outcome of past influences, physical and mental; and the founder of a race marked by similar influences to those to which it has been itself subjected. We insist thus early upon the animal side of its being, because it is only through the medium of brain and nerves, and the organs of sense mainly, and through other parts of its animal structure in a less degree, that the child is capable of mental and moral existence. In other words the child = 1. Intellect or Thought) 3. Will MIND AND BODY. acting through, or being acted on, by a physical medium. The intimate connection between the body and the mind is illustrated by the phrase, mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body); and by the recognised fact that unventilated domiciles, workshops, &c., predispose the sufferer to have recourse to alcoholic stimulants as a refuge from nervous exhaustion, weariness of mind, and ennui generally. Moreover, excessive or prolonged excitement or labour of the mind is accompanied by local pain in the head, due to exhaustion of the brain; by congestion of the brain, brain fever, &c. This fact ought to be constantly borne in mind by the teacher. The processes which, through constant repetition, have become easy and almost automatic in the teacher, are laborious processes to the child, especially to a young one. If there is any doubt of this, think of the slow and laboured manner in which one begins to acquire a new language, even when the reasoning powers and memory have been for some time fully developed. Such being the case, the teacher should constantly pull himself up with the remembrance that the children have to make blood, bone, and muscle, as well as brain matter; and that it is possible to be burning the candle of juvenile life at both ends. Whatever managers or codes may require, whatever personal loss of remuneration or reputation may accrue, the duty of the teacher in this direction is as plain as it is difficult. The connection between body and mind is sometimes recognised by the teacher, in punishment, when the "right hand" of an offender "grows burning hot" under the application of the cane, for an offence for which, unlike Cranmer's, the hand is utterly innocent. In other words, the teacher wounds the mind through the body (see Punishment). The same remark applies to other forms of punishment which are not called corporal, though they are really such, affecting either the muscular organs, or the organs of sensation; such as making children stand on one leg; holding their hands above the head; holding up a slate or other article. Here it is sought by the pain of fatigue or constraint, and by the repression of the spontaneity of the child, as well as by the sense of shame and of loss of power in the offender, to punish for an offence in which totally different organs of the body have been concerned; as of the lips in talking, telling lies, using bad language, &c.; of the eyes in looking from the book;-even for doing nothing when something ought to have been done; and for disobedience generally. I. INTELLECT OR THOUGHT. INTELLECT.-Under this name we comprise those faculties or powers which enable the child (1) To perceive the likenesses of things. (2) To perceive the differences of things. (3) To retain, or remember, these perceived likenesses and differences, by the act of what is termed Memory. Broadly, therefore, in the education of the intellect of a child we must teach it (a) To detect likeness where it is not at first sight apparent; as in learning to read, where the eye is trained to recognise instantaneously similar letters, syllables, and words; as in learning to write, where the hand and eye alike are trained to see and imitate similarities of thick and thin strokes, up and down strokes, loops, straight lines and curves; and the size and sequence of these: and in learning to sum, to a much less extent (since memory is more largely exercised), but where similarity of processes is still to be marked by the learner. (b) Side by side with the detection of likeness there must be trained consciousness of unlikeness; of letters, syllables, and words in reading and writing; and of different, sometimes opposite processes (as in addition v. subtraction; multiplication v. division; involution v. evolution, &c.) in arithmetic. (c) Lastly, the likenesses and differences in words and figures must be fixed in the mind by imitation, repetition, stimulation, &c., to strengthen the memory of them. II. EMOTION OR FEELING. EMOTION, or feeling. From the moment of birth to that of death, while the intellectual faculties are being at the same time employed, and even before they seem to be exercised, the child (and man) is conscious of pleasure and of pain; sometimes perceived as bodily sensations of warmth and cold; of hunger and thirst, or of repletion; of fatigue and of rest; of the special senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing (music and discord, or noise); and of light. In addition to these, which are purely physical, are the emotions proper-fear, joy, surprise, terror, &c.; which, though apparently less physical, yet are really dependent for their perception and manifestation on an animal mechanism at first or second hand. A child is like an electric battery in the sense that, whilst awake, it is constantly generating nervous force, and this nervous force unless repressed by fear, or a stronger power than its own, has a tendency to run off (as the electric current does from the poles of the battery) in muscular motion, in jubilant cries, or leaps, or bounds, "And four and twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school." so different from the schoolboy with satchel on his back creeping like a snail unwillingly to school. The teacher should remember this, and after every lesson (which is a period of muscular constraint, especially when the class is kept in desks) he should give two or three minutes of sharp muscular gymnastic exercises, to bring down the blood from the brain to the limbs, to ease the strained muscles, and to let off the nerve currents in a healthy direction. SPECIAL EMOTIONS. Among emotions proper as distinguished from mere sensation are the following: (a) Novelty, Wonder, Surprise, Liberty, and Power. These are powerful adjuncts to fixing the attention of the child, and every effort should be made by the teacher to make the fullest use of these in instructing and educating the child. Thus the first can be pleasurably excited in all Object Lessons by means of objects placed before the sight, and, still better, in the handling, of the children. If, for instance, a lesson is given on a piece of coal, and a little of it in the form of powder be put into the bowl of a pipe and heated in the fire, the head of the bowl being covered with clay, it will not fail to excite novelty, wonder, and surprise, if a light be placed at the end of the stem, to show a simple means of manufacturing coal gas; or if the charred contents of the bowl are produced as |