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VIVA VOCE TEST-UNNAMED BOOKS.

which he has been crammed but with an examiner, who himself knows his subject thoroughly, I defy a boy not to be thoroughly sifted and unmasked in half an hour, or may be less, by a judicious viva voce cross ex-amination.

I have heard it said that the scheme cannot be carried out that no examiner will undertake the task, that time cannot be found for it; and the like. My answer is, that it is simply a question of time and money. The examiners must be more highly paid for their extra-work; and longer time must be given for the examinations. It would be a very mistaken economy which would refuse the one or the other.

Another check is to be found in choosing the passages for paraphrasing, from books not named; and if these checks should not succeed, there remains for consideration the institution of an effectual remedy, that of altering the system from examination in books specified, to an examination in authors not named; though such a change would of course require the deepest consideration.

One other matter, it may seem of less importance, I would desire to notice is the re-publication rather than the second edition of Mr. George Norton's Rudimentals. I trust that this most useful book may become a text-book in this and in all schools, and in all examinations, at least in Arts and Laws. It treats of a subject which it behoves every man to know generally; the principles of the constitution and the laws under which he lives. It is dealt with in the most untechnical and the simplest manner, by one who was a thorough master of his subject, and whose sole aim it was to make it intelligible to the Natives. It is a subject scarcely touched upon, even in the most polite and liberal education. But that is no reason why we should not introduce it into our curriculum here: how small a part of that which ought to enter into a liberal course of education,

THE RUDIMENTALS. -ERRONEOUS MODES OF EDUCATING. 187 really is even tabulated in our best programmes of instruction.

I should like, if time permitted it, to have enlarged upon this topic which I handled last year; and to have shown how much time is wasted by our too exclusive attention to the Classics, and by our faulty methods of instruction-by grammar, versification, and repetition-and to have submitted a scheme, showing how much might really be taught by a proper re-organization of our time. These ideas having germinated afresh at home. I say afresh; Mill, Lowe, Farrar, Playfair, and other who are now inveighing against the all but exclusive usurpation by the Classics of the whole dominion of education, may be called reformers, but not innovators. Deeply rooted ideas, habits, and customs, which have grown up from the revival of learning in the middle ages, are not to be eradicated in a day; or even in a century. I should like to have shown you what Wolsey and old Roger Ascham, that most sensible of schoolmasters, and of writers on scholastic method; what Milton and Locke and Montaigue; what Commennins and Rousseau, what Basedew and Pestalozzi have said and taught on the subject; for you would then have seen that all that is being urged now, is but a repetition and a rechauffee of their old arguments; and if the matter is to be urged only by speechifying and writing, another century may yet elapse before a change in public opinion shall be so far advanced, as to eventuate in action. The proper course, if men are in

earnest, is to act, and not to talk. I am of the school of the old woman, who only said 'do it, do it, do it ;' and were I at home, so deeply do I feel the necessity of a change of sytsem, so certain am I of its results, that I would put myself, if not at the head of a movement, at any rate in connexion with those better able than myself to direct such

a movement-to establish a College on the principles we advocate. I am sure multitudes of fathers would be only too glad to avail themselves of it; and theory once reduced to practice, I should have no fear of the results in working a reformation or a revolution in our present miserable system of education.

Here we are not tied down and wedded to, and trammelled by the Classics: though I think we devote too much time to language and mathematics, and that this will have to be altered. I am sure that we could easily find room and time for such a fundamentally important work as that embraced in these Rudimentals.

It makes me angry when I hear it said we have no time to do more than we do at present; this dilatory plea, as Bentham would call it. In the language of the fine old song,

"If a man were secure

That his life would endure

As of old, for a thousand long years,

What things he might know,

What deeds he might do,

And all without trouble or care."

But out of the threescore years and ten now granted to man, how much is thrown away even out of the little space available for general education.

Taking from 8 to 21 as the ordinary time for a liberal education, we have 14 years. Deduct 6 weeks for holidays at midsummer, 4 at Christmas, and 2 at Easter, our year is reduced to 40 weeks. Taking out Sundays and 2 half holidays, our weeks consist but of 5 days. If we give 4 hours for work in school, and 4 for out of school-as much as is good for any boy-be his brains what they may-we have 1,640 hours a year, or 22,860 hours in all, for education-or about 160 hours a month; not counting such parts of educa

TIME USED A PRIZE.

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tion as may be carried on in the holidays and in play-time; such as riding, gymnastics, fencing, music, dancing, and what are commonly called the accomplishments.

Now, if this time were properly allotted and re-arranged, and subjects taught by a proper method, I think it will be apparent that much more might be, and ought to be, taught, both here and at home, than is, or is attempted. I have here a scheme of the subject of human knowledge, which may be tabulated on various logical principles, a glance at which suffices to show how very small, fractional, and indeed infinitesimal a part, out of the whole, is provided for, in what we attempt, or even profess to teach. At all events I am not now asking for any radical change. I crave only one little corner may be found for the Rudimentals.

So important do I consider their study, that if, as I hope, and have long hoped, to be able, before I leave this country, to establish a Prize in this Institution, if I may be permitted by the rules to do so, I should wish it to be given for the best essay on a thesis annually chosen from this Book, on a political, historical, or legal subject.

I beg to thank you for the patience with which you have listened to my somewhat protracted harangue. My duty on this day will be concluded, by my asking you, as is customary, to have a grateful recollection of our founder Patcheappah, to whom all members of the Community owe a debt of gratitude which they never can repay.

ADDRESS on the Twenty-seventh Anniversary of Patcheappah's Institution in the year 1870.

MY LORD, TRUSTEES, AND GENTLEMEN,-The Reports which we have heard are satisfactory, and they contain little on which it is necessary for me to comment. The boys have been regular in their attendance, and attentive to their studies, while the masters have received the thanks of the Trustees for the way in which they have discharged their duties.

In glancing at the educational events of the past year, I would first of all mention that the Proprietary School, of which I spoke at our last anniversary, has become an accomplished fact: it now numbers eighty scholars; and as its advantages become better known to those higher classes for whose benefit the institution was founded, I feel certain that they will avail themselves of it much more largely.

During the past year we held our first anniversary of the girl's schools affiliated with this institution. You, Lady Napier, were kind enough to honour us with your presence, and I know that I am but expressing the sentiments of the Trustees, when I say that as they could have had no more satisfactory sanction of their past labours, so nothing will prove a greater incentive to them to persevere in improving these schools, than the hope of your conferring a similar sanction in the coming year. I will not repeat what I said on that occasion; farther than to remark that the education of a people can only be said to be half complete, till