SIR,-I beg with your permission, to add my humble testimony to the real practical atility of the Dictation Plan, adopted by my brother Teacher, W. P. Warner, which appeared in your last number. The plan I pursue is systematically the same, differing only in one or two particulars. The Teacher, instead of the class, spells, as distinctly as possible, all that has been dictated rightly, remarking, as he proceeds, where capitals should be placed, &c. The pupils meanwhile, mark with one general character (-) any error they may detect. When all has thus been given out correctly, they add the number of mistakes, &c. together, and write the total beneath on their slates which are then returned to their proper owners. Each one is required to tell aloud the No. of his errors, and afterwards to put them down in vertical lines corrected. A final inspection of the slates just as they are returued by the Master or responsible Teacher, is, for many reasons, obviously necessary. I also sometimes vary by giving them a passage to copy verbatim either on their slates, or on paper from their books; and I do so for this reason: viz. that correct orthography is most surely acquired by careful observation while reading. Monk Sherborne School, Basingstoke. GEORGE BIGWOOD. SIR,-I think the method of teaching writing proposed in No. XIII. is a most ineffectual one; a pencil copy at best is a very vitiated one, and for children to mark it over and then imitate that uneven and unsightly scrawl, must tend, in my opinion, to make bad writers. A good plan is to write a number of copy slips, say 150; let them be neatly and carefully written by the person who teaches; let the children copy them in the books; they must not write the second line until the teacher has seen the former one, and minutely pointed out, in a kind manner, the little irregularities which he may observe. A well written copy has this advantage over a printed one; that you can enforce more consistently its minute consideration. To tell a child to imitate a copy which you would not attempt is absurd in the extreme. I have watched the workings of the above plan for the last five years, which has been very successful, and can with great confidence recommend it. Free English School, St. John's Hospital, Exeter. A. H. PAUL. SIR,--One of your correspondents has made inquiry on the subject of Scansion; and I venture to give the results of a little study on this matter in reply. The Romans divided Rythm into as many classes as twenty-eight, each bearing a Greek name. Three-and-twenty of these by us are at once dispensed with for two reasons. 1st. They, in Scansion, had to notice quantity as well accent, we have only the latter. 2ndly. They had feet containing four syllables and less; we have only feet of three and two. This deduction leaves us only five divisions; two of which belong to that foot where the accent falls on the syllables alternately; in the remaining three it falls on the first, second, or third. The former is called either Trochee or Iambic, the latter Dactyle, Amphibrachys, or Anapæst. Though these represented to the Romans quantity as well as accent, there can be no mistake with us if we remember that we have nothing to do with quantity. To say, generally, which of these classes a verse belongs to, and mark the exceptions, is, I presume, the object of Scansion. I. Two-syllabled Feet. That foot where the accent falls on the first syllable is called a Trochee; it is illustrated by the word Troche: That where the accent falls on the second is called an Iambic; it is illustrated by the first two syllables of the word Iambic : "No more he talked; 'twas páin, 'twas shame to speak.” II. Three-syllabled-Feet.-When the accent falls on the first syllable this foot is called a Dactyle; it is illustrated by the word Dac-ty-le; ex,— 66 'Lady-bird! Lady-bird! fly away home." When the accent is on the second syllable it is called an Amphibrachys: it is illustrated by the first three syllables in the word Amphibrachys: ex.— "The lifeboat! the lifeboat! the whirlwind and ráin.” -AGNES STRICKLAND. When the accent is on the third syllable it is called Anapest; it is illustrated by the word Anapæst: ex,We have swept oe'r the cities in sóng renowned, -FELICIA HEMANS. The exceptions require further remarks which my space will not now permit. The words given to illustrate are chosen to assist the memory-as mnemonics. T. BITHELL. SIR,-Will you allow me sufficient space in the next number of the Papers to make enquiry for a good Manual of Drawing, one which is adapted to the use of Pupil Teachers, and may be placed in their hands for the purpose of supplying them with sketches of objects, animals, &c., that can easily be transferred to the black-board for the class to copy? With most of the larger works on Model Drawing and Perspective I am already acquainted; but they are all too diffuse for the purpose as well as too expensive for Pupil Teachers to purchase. A. J. B. A Correspondent asks for the best General History, published at a low cost; and for a History and Account of the Steam-Engine. MORAL EDUCATION. In considering moral education, we must recollect that there are three agents in this matter the child himself, the influence of his grown-up friends, and that of his contemporaries. All that his grown-up friends tell him in the way of experience goes for very little, except in palpable matters. They talk of abstractions which he cannot comprehend: and "the Arabian Nights" is a truer world to him than that they talk of. Still, though they cannot furnish experience, they can give motives. Indeed, in their daily intercourse with the child, they are always doing so. For instance, truth, courage and kindness are the great moral qualities to be instilled. Take courage, in its highest form-moral courage. If a child perpetually hears such phrases (and especially if they are applied to his own conduct), as "what people will say," "how they will look at you," "what they will think," and the like, it tends to destroy all just selfreliance in that child's mind, and to set up instead an exaggerated notion of public opinion, the greatest tyrant of these times. Examination Papers. CHELTENHAM NORMAL COLLEGE. EASTER, 1852. PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 1.—What is meant by an atomicweight? In reference to which of the four laws of combining proportion is an atom called an equivalent? 2.-Explain what is meant by an acid, an alkali, and a neutral salt. Give examples with their proper chemical notations, and interpret the the symbols KO, SO, and Ca O, CO2. 3. What is the symbol of nitric acid? Explain its preparation, and its most striking properties. SECTION III. 1.-Distinguish between elastic and 2. By what experiments can it be shewn-that air has (1) weight, (2) pressure. Prove also that fluids press equally in all directions. 3.-Describe the action of the syphon; and explain the principle of intermitting springs. SECTION IV. 1. Explain the construction of the forcing pump; and give a sectional diagram To what purpose is it applied? 2.-A hydrostatical bellows has a circular surface of 15 inches diameter, and the tube is 1 inch in the bore and 14 inches high; what will be the pressure upwards? Enumerate the principal hydrostatical laws. SECTION V. 1.-Explain the uses of the leaf and root in plants. Which is the largest leaf known? Explain and derive deciduous. 2.-Illustrate the goodness of Proviinelastic fluids-pressure and weight-dence by the variety in the covering of fluid and liquid. animals. EXAMINATION OF PUPIL TEACHERS (WEST CORNWALL.) I. Describe the class of which you commonly have charge; and give the heads of a lesson to it: 1st on some historical or biographical passage of Scripture: 2nd on the physiology of some common plant or animal: 3rd on the physical geography of Cornwall, or of England and Wales; or 4th on the logical structure of a simple sentence. II. Paraphrase, Analyse, and parse the second of the following verses:"O what is man, great Maker of mankind, That Thou to him so great respect dost bear, That Thou adorn'st him with so great a mind; Mak'st hima king, ande'en an angel's peer? Nor hast Thou given these blessings for a day, Nor made them on the body's life depend; The soul, though made for time, survives for aye, And, though it hath beginning, sees no end." III. The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to one another; and if the equal sides be produced, the angles on the other side of the base are also equal. IV. In any right-angled triangle the square of the side subtending the right augle is equal to the squares of the other two sides. V. Name the foreign sea-ports and the principal trade or use of each. naval stations of Great Britain, with VI. Describe the mountain system of Asia. VII. What led to the revolution of 1688 ? Extracts. "We must now extend the range of instruction throughout all our schools, from the highest to the lowest with a constant reference to the present state of knowledge, and to the present state and wants of society among ourselves. Our object must be to teach what it will be of advantage in these days for those whom we educate to know, and what it will be for the advantage of the community should be known. This is the task to which not only the friends of education, but also both those who think it impossible to arrest, or change, the career of modern civilisation, and those who approve of its spirit and tendency, must now direct their attention. It can hardly now be necessary to give a warning against regarding with feelings of satisfied complacency what has been done of late years in the erection of schools. It is doubtless very gratifying, on a comparison of the present with the past, to find, that in almost every neighbourhood a school of some sort or other does now exist, or rather the beginning of a school. The next step, however, and that which at the present moment we are called upon to take, is the attempt to make these schools fulfil the purposes at which schools ought in these days to aim. What ought to be taught is entirely a relative question: the circumstances and wants of the times must be considered. All that it was necessary for a New Zealand savage to learn was how to kill and cook his enemies. In the middle ages the Clergy alone felt that learning was necessary. At the Reformation there was no necessity for giving school instruction to any except the upper classes; and a man then became an accomplished gentleman, and fitted for the work of his age, through an ac quaintance with classical literature, and theological controversies. At the present day to educate, in such a country as Russia, the moral and intellectual capacities of the bulk of the people would be the most revolutionary measure that could be imagined. Sound policy there consists not in elevating and strengthening the moral and intellectual capacities of the people, but in dwarfing, depressing, and perverting them: nothing need be educated except the feelings of superstition and submission. In this country, at the present day, we are obliged by a social necessity, which is every day becoming more strongly felt, to educate the whole people, so as to prepare every man for taking care of himself in the midst of a free, busy, and enlightened community; this cannot be done without moral and intellectual culture; and the more there is of this culture the more effectual will be the preparation. In the education of the lower classes we must aim distinctly and earnestly at this culture, for the simple reasons that those who have to take care of themselves must be enabled to see their way; and that those in whose hands the circumstances of the times and the course of events have placed social and political power, must be taught how to exercise it. Since this is what we have to do, what amount of instruction that our schools are capable of giving can be considered too much, or what amount of moral courage too high? In the present state of things, every step gained in the cultivation of the moral and intellectual capacities of any individual, be he who he may, is just so much gained both for the individual himself, and for the community to which he belongs." — The School of the Future. |