enough say for a dictation or a writing lesson, and a little break beside.

(6) Let the plans be so arranged as to provide movement and change of position at each pause in the work. One lesson a day may very properly be given to the scholars standing.

(7) Let one short period be reserved in every day for the criticism of the preparatory or other lessons which have been done out of school. We shall see hereafter that some forms of home lessons admit of very effective and expeditious correction in class.

(8) Reserve also a short period, for some purpose not comprehended in the routine of studies, say the last half-hour of the week, for gathering the whole school together, addressing them on some topic of general interest, or reading an extract from some interesting book.

(9) Do not so fill up your own time, if you are the principal teacher, and have assistants, as to be unable to fulfil the duty of general supervision. Provide for your own inspection and examination of the work of the several classes, at least once in every two weeks, and take care that the work of all youthful teachers, and of those who are not fully trained, goes on in your sight.

(10) Punctuality should be the rule at the end as well as the beginning of a lesson; otherwise you do not keep faith with your scholars. The time-table is in the nature of a contract between you and them. Do not break it. The pupils are as much entitled to their prescribed period of leisure, as you are to your prescribed time of lecturing and expounding.

I cannot tell you how much a school gains by possessing a thoroughly well considered time-table, and adhering closely to it. In the elementary school, as you know, the time-table once sanctioned and approved by the Inspector, and duly displayed, becomes the law of the school, and must not in any way be departed from. And I feel sure that you will gain by putting yourselves under a régime just as severe. For the habit of assigning a time for every duty, and punctually performing every

thing in its time, is of great value in the formation of character. And every good school is something more than a place for the acquirement of knowledge. It should serve as a discipline for the orderly performance of work all through life, it should set up a high standard of method and punctuality, should train to habits of organized and steadfast effort, should be an image of the mighty world."

tion.

In separating a school into classes two conditions have to be fulfilled-that the scholars shall be near enough in Classificaability and knowledge to work well together, to help and not hinder one another, and that there shall be a sufficient number of scholars in one class to secure real emulation and mental stimulus. A large school in which the ages range from 10 to 15 may for the former purpose have five classes. Indeed it may be roughly said that there should be as many classes as there are years in the school-life of the scholars. Otherwise, you will be mingling children in the same class whose attainments and powers differ so widely that either some of them will be held back, or others will be urged to progress too rapidly. On the other hand, it is essential that classes should be of a certain size, and I believe that every teacher who understands his business prefers large classes to small ones. There are advantages in the fellowship and sympathy which are generated by numbers, in the self-knowledge which the presence of others gives to each, and especially in the stimulus which a dull or commonplace child receives from hearing the answers and witnessing the performances of the best in the class. And these advantages cannot be gained in a small class. In fact I believe it is as easy to teach 20 together as 10; and that in some respects the work is done with more zest and more brightness. So it will be seen that the two conditions we have laid down cannot both be fulfilled except in schools of a certain size. There is in fact an inevitable waste of resources and of teaching power in any school of less than 100 children; and a very serious waste in small schools of 20 or 30. In all of them you must either sacrifice the uniformity of the teaching, or you

Entrance Examination.

must, at considerable cost, have a teacher for every group of six or seven scholars, and in such classes must sacrifice the intellectual life and spirit which numbers alone can give. For the sake of this intellectual life I should be prepared to make some sacrifices of other considerations, and even to incur the risk in small schools of keeping back one or two elder scholars, or pushing now and then a backward scholar a little farther on than would otherwise be desirable. The most joyless and unsatisfactory of all schools are those in which each child is treated individually, is working few or no exercises in common with others, and comes up to be questioned or to say a lesson alone. In examining a scholar on entrance, before the age of ten it is well to determine his position mainly by his reading and by his arithmetic. Above that age, especially in a school in which language forms the staple of the higher instruction, an elementary examination in Latin, in Arithmetic and in English will suffice to determine his position. These are the best rough tests for choosing the class in which he should be placed. If you are in doubt, it is safer and better to put him low at first rather than too high. It is always easy as well as pleasant to promote him afterwards, if you have at first underestimated his powers; and it is neither easy nor pleasant to degrade him if you begin by making a mistake in the other direction. I do not think it desirable to have separate classification for different subjects, except for special subjects such as drawing or music in which the individual gifts and tastes, of children otherwise alike in age and standing, necessarily differ considerably. But for all the ordinary subjects of class instruction, language, history, reading, writing, and lessons on science, it is well to keep the same scholars together. A little latitude may perhaps be allowed for scholars in the same class who have made different degrees of progress in Arithmetic, and it will not always be possible or desirable that all the scholars in a class should be working exactly the same sums. Yet even here we have to ask ourselves what we mean by progress. It does not mean hurrying on to

an advanced rule; but a fuller mastery over the applications of the lower rules. I would therefore resist the very natural desire of the more intelligent scholars, who may have got on faster, and perhaps finished all the exercises in the text-book under a particular rule, to go on to a new rule before their fellows. It is much better to let them occupy their time either in recapitulation, or in doing exercises you have specially selected from a more difficult book, and in dealing with rather more complex exemplifications of the lower rules. When a new rule is taken the whole class should begin it at once; because as we shall hereafter see the oral exposition of a new rule is an essential part of class-work; and it is one in which you cannot dispense with that kind of intellectual exercise which comes from questioning, cross-questioning, and mutual help. And if this be true of Arithmetic, then certainly it is true of every other subject which is usually taught in schools.

Fees.

A word or two may be properly added on the subject of fees. They will have a necessary tendency to increase, as the value of money alters, and the public estimation of good teaching rises. Already the sums mentioned on p. 55, which were recommended by the Schools' Inquiry Commission in 1867, have often proved to be insufficient for the satisfactory conduct even of schools provided with good buildings for which no interest has to be paid. Much will depend on the size of the schools-for the cost per head is reduced when numbers are large-and much also upon the character of the place and its surroundings, and upon the value, if any, of the endowment the school possesses. But whatever the fees prescribed, they should be inclusive of all the school charges, and of all the subjects taught in it. There is no harm in graduating fees by age, or in imposing a heavier charge on those who come into the school late. But there should be no graduation by subjects-no extras, except perhaps for instru mental music, or other special subject requiring quasi-private instruction. Nothing is more fatal to the right classification of a school, and to its corporate unity, than the necessity of ap

pealing to the parent at each stage of a pupil's career, to know if this or that particular subject can be afforded or sanctioned. A school is not a mart, in which separate purchases may be made for each scholar at discretion of so much French, or Latin or Mathematics, but an organized community for the purposes of common instruction, in which no other distinction should be recognized among the scholars than the fitness of each to enter a particular class or to commence a new study. And of this fitness the principal teacher should be the sole judge. There may be in special circumstances good reasons for reducing the fee to the holders of scholarships or exhibitions; but the fee prescribed by regulation for those who have no special privilege should always be such as shall honestly avow to the parents the true market value of the education imparted, and as shall place within the reach of every scholar who is admitted, without exception, the full advantage of all the instruction which the school can furnish.