the conditions of which have to be settled before rules can be applied, are many. They are practical and of a common sense description. Each part contains Examination Papers." Teachers will find this in every respect a good book.

Companion Exercise Book to Arithmetic Step by Step. By H. Combes and E. Hines. Longmans and Co.-This is a book ruled in faintly marked squares, for arranging and entering sums after they are correctly worked.

The Standard Arithmetical Copy Book. Books I. to VI. By H. Combes and E. Hines. Longmans and Co.- We have drawn attention to these books as they were issued. The set is now complete. It contains in six books a course of well graduated exercises, adapted to the several Standards of the Revised Code. The exercises, for the most part, are not simply to be copied, but to be produced in correct form and expression from questions in words. For their special purpose of aiding method, neatness, and arrangement, we have given them a trial, and are well satisfied with the results. The authors would do well to make their method in "Practice" sums in Book VI. agree with that in "Step by Step", the former being worked on a wrong principle, the latter on the right.

The Complete Arithmetical Copy Book. Books I. to VI. By H. Combes and E. Hines. Longmans and Co.-These are the same as the above, printed on larger and better paper. It is their authors' intention to add other three books for the "higher branches of the science."

English Extracts. By Alexander Bain, M.A. Longmans and Co.-This is intended to be supplementary to the valuable Manual of English Composition and Rhetoric by the same author. The "Extracts" are from Chaucer to the present time. They contain pieces by representative men of each period. Each extract is headed by a short description of its strength or weakness, or of its peculiarities as a piece of Composition or Rhetoric. To which is added, in many cases, a direction for dealing with it as an exercise in one or the other. For facility of reference each sentence is numbered.

Advanced Reading Book Literary and Scientific. 7th Edition. Constable's Educational Series. Thomas Laurie, Edinburgh.-This is a book which well deserves the success it has achieved. It deals with Natural History, Physics, The Human Body, Vegetable Products, Social Economy, Law and Property, Botany, Prose Literature and Poetry. The Scientific portions are by eminent hands, and, as each subject is dealt with by one, there is the advantage of unity. The lessons do not range over a wide area in each subject, but a small portion, distinct in its main features, is taken up and worked out. Many of these lessons are models of what books for intelligent lads should be.

First Lessons in Reading. First Series. By E. T. Stevens and Charles Hole. Longmaus and Co. These Illustrated lessons are printed in clear bold type, on 24 large sheets, each sheet, except two or three, containing four lessons. "These Lessons" say their authors "have been drawn up with great care, to introduce the child systematically and by the easiest gradations to a complete knowledge of English Monosyllables." No one who considers how large a portion of every page is made up of monosyllables, but will approve of such a purpose in a child's first lessons in reading. It has been well carried out in these sheets. They have one or two other noticeable features. The lessons are constructed to admit of a phonic treatment. At the head of each lesson the new words are placed in columns, with the initial letters apart. The vowel sounds are introduced gradually, and each has one or more pictorial illustrations devoted to it. Acting on an idea developed in the Phonic Reading Books, published by the Committee of Council on Education in 1840, they have placed pictures on each sheet, the name of the chief figure in

Papers for the Schoolmaster.

No. XXVII.-NEW SERIES.

MARCH 1ST, 1867.

SCHOLASTIC REGISTRATION.

As this phrase denotes an object, to the attainment of which an organised Association is just now devoting considerable energy, and appealing, by private circular and public advertisement, to Schoolmasters of all classes for their support, it may be well to ascertain clearly what is the object aimed at, and to discuss the merits of the scheme proposed.

The Association to which we refer as having taken up the cause of Scholastic Registration states its practical purpose to be this :-To obtain an Act of Parliament which shall create a General Scholastic Council with power to register, as legally recognised Schoolmasters, all persons possessed of certain qualifications to be named in the Act. Of course degrees granted either by the Universities, or by the Chartered Bodies already empowered to grant Scholastic Certificates, will entitle at once to registration, as will also the Certificates of the Committee of Council on Education. It is also proposed, and the concession is a wise one, to admit to the Register, on the production of satisfactory evidence, any person, certificated or not, who is engaged in the Scholastic Profession at the time of the passing of the Act. At the first Annual General Meeting, however, of the Association, the important resolution was passed:"That while it is not proposed at present that the General Council to be appointed under the Act shall do more than register the Certificates issued by the bodies named, it is hoped that hereafter the Council may act directly or indirectly as an examining Board, especially in the much neglected "Theory and Practice of Education," with a view to ultimately drawing up a list of Schoolmasters and Teachers graduated according to the amount of qualification in each individual case." It is also most important to notice that the Association, though it professedly

be in accordance with your sense of duty, you shall be their instructors or you shall forfeit your grant." In my humble judgment, the proper course for the Education Department would be, not such as I have deprecated, but such as is indicated in the regulations of the revised code, and to whichever party can comply with the stipulations of that code they are in duty bound to make a grant. If the majority can give reasonable proof that their proposed school will be adequately attended and efficiently maintained, they will be entitled to a grant. If the minority (whether it be composed of Dissenters in England or of Churchmen in Wales) cannot show that the school they propose to build will be adequately attended and effectively maintained, they will not be entitled to a grant. They may remain uneducated, but they will remain so by their own act; they decline to avail themselves of the school which is open to them if they accept its rules, and they bear the penalty of their prejudice or conscientiousness, whichever the motive of their objection may be called. They remain untaught; yet they are no worse off, if the majority obtain a grant and build a school, than if there be no school built. The action of educational societies in connection with all the principal religious denominations mitigates the disadvantages under which denominational minorities inevitably labour, and their co-operation often leads to the establishment of a school where purely local efforts would be unavailing. But if a denominational minority in any place is so weak as to be unable, even with the aid of its co-religionists and the measured subvention of the State, to establish and maintain a school, it has no right to call upon the State to educate its children, either by exceeding the accustomed scale of grant, or by intruding them into the school of the majority furnished with a title to demand an education differing from that which the school was founded to administer.

Compulsory Education.

At the opening of the Salford Epiphany Sessions, the chairman, Mr. A. Milne, in charging the grand jury, referred to the Manchester proposal for compulsory education, which he heartily approved. The objections which had been made to it appeared to him extremely weak. The rate would certainly not fall heavily on any but the poorer classes, and if they got cheap education for their children, they would in the long run be decidedly the gainers. Whatever might be the fate of the proposed Bill, it would at all events have the effect of calling the attention of Parliament to the subject. He trusted that it would meet with a favourable reception, because he was quite sure the country had up to this time grossly neglected the education of what might be called the lowest class of the community, and it was impossible to have anything but large calendars and a large amount of crime while children were allowed to learn everything that was bad by the neglect of their parents. Archdeacon Denison, in reply to the above, warns Churchmen not to be misled by these arguments. They are the same, he holds, as were brought forward in 1851. The Archdeacon refuses to adopt the term "education rate," not wishing, he says, to be a party to desecrating the word "education." On the two grounds that "school rate" is the sure way to "secular education," and that it creates a grievance of conscience (to Church Clergymen, that is, who think with the Archdeacon), he trusts that the proposal of 1866 will meet with the same fate as the proposal of 1851. Society, he thinks, is hardly in a condition to bear the strain of a new religious grievance.

barrack-yard until they could keep line, it would be better; but the "military system" of Prussia does not, we know, suit our freer institutions. But seriously we doubt whether any mere sign of degradation, especially one which is simply negative, will warn parents off from entrusting their children to the care of incapable men. It would be something, no doubt, if, as would happen if to register were looked upon as a social duty by all respectable Schoolmasters, the public had a test whereby they could distinguish a qualified man from a charlatan. How ignorant they are at present of what qualification means, is shown by the fact that M.C.P. is accepted as a voucher for some scholastic ability, while in reality it vouches only for the ability to subscribe to a certain public Institution. How careless they often are of distinctions between unqualified and duly qualified, is shown again by the fact that but very few persons are aware of the difference that exists between a chemist who writes himself "pharmaceutical" and one who does not, and that very few care to enquire whether the man who mixes their doses has given any proof upon examination that he has a knowledge of drugs, or no.

Such ignorance and such carelessness, however, is doubtless not wholly irremediable. If a Scholastic Registration Act were to pass, at least a diploma would be created, which would have the highest possible sanction. Those persons engaged in Education at the time of the passing of the Act, who at present have no public credential, would probably at once avail themselves of the opportunity of gaining recognition. In course of time, however, there would exist a certain number, who would be entirely unable to obtain from any public body that Certificate which would entitle them to registration. Here would be the trial-point of the whole scheme. If these men found themselves standing alone without a diploma, they would surely, though it might be very slowly, lose the confidence of the public, and we should have fewer and continually fewer schools opened by men unable to face a public examination. If, however, on the other hand, any considerable number of able men should hold aloof from registration, not only would the intrinsic worth of the diploma be greatly diminished, and Registration run the risk of falling into ridicule, but its value as an endorsement of merit would be reduced to nothing, and the public would know no better than now in which street Ignoramus resided. We believe that the success of the scheme would depend entirely upon the reception which it met with from Schoolmasters of the higher ranks; and we should have little hope of its producing beneficial results, until we saw the names of our leading educators pledged to support it.

66

statistics of the Manchester Aid Society, and said that association was now about to apply to Parliament for compulsory powers. When he avowed himself in favour of some compulsory system of education, he trusted they would believe him when he said he appreciated, and hoped he understood, the arguments which were usually urged against anything like compulsion. It was said, and no doubt with truth, that one of the dearest rights of freedom was interfered with if the liberty of the individual was in the least degree curtailed. That he was free to admit; but he would be indeed sorry if his liberal creed should ever induce him to arrive at the conclusion that it was not the duty of the State to come in and protect a helpless child, if an irreparable injury was being inflicted on him either through the avarice, cupidity, ignorance, or poverty of the parent. A man has a right to do what he likes with his own property," with his own goods and chattels, and that was a right which he would as zealously defend as any man; but he would never admit the principle that a child was to be regarded solely as the property of the parent. If an injury was done to a helpless child he was not a free agent, and had not the power to defend himself, and the State was performing one of its clearest and most important duties if it stepped in and said, "I will prevent that child growing up in a state of such ignorance that he cannot enjoy all the happiness of life-cannot fulfil his mission as a citizen in a free state,'-if, in fact, it prevented him growing up in such a state of ignorance that instead of being a blessing he would probably be a curse to the community.

Now, perhaps, they would ask him in what way he would like this principle of compulsion to be applied. He would answer, first, the very plan which had already been introduced, in a partial degree; for 20 years ago the principle was introduced, that in certain employments no child under the age of 13 should be permitted to work, unless a certificate was produced to the effect that the child attended school so many hours during each week. Objections of two kinds were made at the time that law was passed. In the first place it was said to be an undue interference with industry. This objection would not weigh with him a single moment, for he thought there was something higher and nobler for the nation to consider than the prosperity of a particular branch of industry. What was the use of having a thriving trade if those carrying it on were not in a thriving condition? But there was another objection which was each year growing in force, and had now become unanswerable, and that was, why have partial legislation ? If one kind of employment had Government interference, why not treat all alike? That was a question he would put, and he did not see how it could be answered except by saying, "the day has come when one rule shall be applied to every branch of industry -one rule, with certain modifications, but still based on the principle that no child under 13 be permitted to work unless a certificate be produced, that he or she spends a certain number of hours at school." In this idea he was supported by all the experience of the past. Those who were most opposed to the factory legislation were now the foremost to confess that it had conferred most inestimable blessings on the districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. He had heard manufacturer after manufacturer say, "I opposed the passing of the Factory Acts, and never made a greater mistake in my life, because I now see that this legislation has arrested the physical deterioration of the people, and has developed their minds." Wherever this legislation had been extended, the same results had been immediately achieved. Therefore when they had all these experiences before them, all these arguments in favour of making the legislation uniform and not partial, he could not understand or explain the long continued apathy of the House of Commons on this question. He hoped the matter would be taken up by one of the most influential members of