use of the pupil-teachers' schools, and the grouping together of the upper standards of several schools in poor neighborhoods; but this might have been carried much further, and have included the establishment of such valuable institutions as the central schools which are doing such good work in many of the provincial towns, especially in the north of England. "that all manual instruction should be There are two points on which we given in connection with the scientific should have liked to see some recommenprinciples underlying the work, and with dations of a more vigorous character. suitable drawing and geometry." Draw- The one refers to the teaching of arithing to scale is invaluable for teaching metic, which as laid down by the code is accuracy in work. But drawing does not thoroughly unscientific. The other point give the best idea of form, and there is a is this: there are recommendations in reconventional element about it which puz-gard to evening classes, the more extended zles little children. Hence modelling in clay is also recommended. The Board started a class for the use of tools in carpentry at Beethoven Street School, Kensal, but the outlay was disallowed by the public auditor. Six such classes, however, are being carried on at the expense of the City Guilds Technical Institute. There is little doubt that the present disability will be shortly removed, and that Nevertheless, these recommendations, eventually a work-room or laboratory will if they are all allowed to take effect, will become an essential part of every large mark an era in education. The special Board school. How best to give manual committee are happily able to add: "It instruction is still a matter of discussion is significant that these changes are deand experiment. Good observations about manded alike by educational theorists, it will be found in the evidence of Mr. teachers, men of science, leaders of inHenry Cunynghame, Mr. Davis, of Bir-dustry, and statesmen, and it rests with mingham, and Professors Unwin and the Board to carry them into actual fact." Perry. Mr. Ricks, one of the Board inspectors, has drawn out an elaborate scheme for the development of the Kindergarten system throughout all the standards of a school in the directions spoken of. Girls are more fortunate than boys in the matter of manual instruction. They are taught needlework universally, and very often cookery. The latter may be considerably extended. Domestic economy also in its various branches should be taught, through practical work, and with reference to scientific principles as in washing, laying fires, and ventilating rooms. But how is time to be obtained for the introduction of this perceptive and practical instruction? On that point the committee are very distinct, and there is a singular unanimity among the witnesses that the attention now paid to spelling and grammar is excessive, if not educationally worthless. There is a curious table, too, in the appendex, which gives the results of inquiry as to the subjects of instruction most or least preferred in the various schools. Grammar is so unpopular with both boys and girls that it almost always attains that bad pre-eminence. Spelling or dictation comes second. In fact there is no doubt that the children dislike what they feel does not add either to their pleasure, or their real knowledge. It is proposed "that the time now given to spelling, parsing, and grammar generally, be reduced." The bill of Sir Henry Roscoe, and that on technical education which is promised by the government, must also have an important bearing on the scientific development of elementary instruction. We await the results of the discussions that must ensue with the deepest interest. From The Spectator. THE CASHIERING OF THE TIN SOLDIER. LET no one from henceforth accuse womankind of want of logic. The arguments propounded by the orators at the conference in London convened under the auspices of the Women's Committee of the International Arbitration and Peace Association, prove that if political economy has been relegated to Saturn, logic is safely domiciled in the planet Venus. What could be more relentless and irrefragable than the chain of reasoning which links together the following propositions? The family is the unit of the nation. The child is father to the man, and the man is the head of the family. Argal, the warlike child is the teterrima causa, the root of the whole evil. Could we but remove the baneful influences which familiarize children while yet in the nursery with scenes of bloodshed and cruelty, all might yet be well. Wherefore the first speaker suggested that mothers should "sedulously endeavor to instil peace principles into the minds of their children, and re- | for a child who has been in the habit of frain from giving them warlike toys." In violently compressing the stomach of his this way much might be done towards the toy lamb to produce the desired sound, preservation of peace in the family; and will, on reaching man's estate, be natu"we must never forget that the family is rally inclined to abuse and maltreat all the the unit of the nation." Pacify the units, live stock that comes in his way. Penny and you will pacify the aggregate. The whistles will also be excluded by the cenwhole affair lies in a nutshell. Following sorship of toys, not because of their shrillon the same lines, a subsequent speaker ness, but on account of their affinity to emphasized the necessity of going to the the bellicose fife. Toy railway trains, at children, "the democracy of the future,' first sight, seem unobjectionable; but the and influencing them in favor of peace spectacle of their demolition may have principles. In America, the pacification given rise to that callousness which is of the nursery seems to be a fait accompli, said to reside in the hearts of many directfor an American lady who took part in ors. If the upsetting of a toy locomotive the discussion declared in proof of her were regarded as penal in the nursery, it assertion that peace principles had been is possible that fewer lives would be lost practically adopted there that although on our railways. The increase in jerryshe had lived all her life in the United built villas is similarly attributable to a States, she was quite unable to describe marked deterioration in the solidity of the the uniform of an American soldier, so structure of dolls' houses; while the introrarely had she seen one. We hope we duction of dolls stuffed with sawdust, shall not be accused of an unchivalrous which by their look and feel inevitably curiosity when we say that this ingenious appealed to the disintegrating faculties of declaration furnishes us with a terminus childhood, undoubtedly paved the way for a quo to determine the age of the speaker. the practice of vivisection. The articles It is evident that her personal reminis- hawked in the streets at the present day cences cannot extend as far back as the are of varying value from the educational close of that great civil war in which at point of view. The perambulating porter least a million men were in arms. Miss is admirable. Nothing could inculcate Bowles may have rarely seen a uniform, more eloquently the dignity of labor than but she can hardly have avoided encoun- the spectacle of this alert and vigorous tering amongst her personal acquaintance figure briskly dragging his load without a large number of individuals entitled, by turning to the right or to the left. The courtesy or otherwise, to the appellation waltzers, on the other hand, are deploraof "colonel"-a hateful survival of the ble, the combination -a soldier and a anti-pacific epoch-for it is well known ballet-girl-being typical of brutal militathat in the United States everybody is rism and feminine giddiness. either a judge or a colonel. The mere suppression of warlike_toys, We have strayed, however, somewhat however, is not enough. It is only an from the really important lesson to be episode in the campaign, if the word derived from this debate, to wit, that campaign can be legitimately used in such the destiny of mankind is determined by a connection. An index expurgatorius the character of his playthings in infancy. will have to be drawn up of all the writers If the nefarious tin soldier, the pestilential who have expended their energies in idealpopgun, and the detestable drum, are re-izing this military instinct in children. sponsible for "the greatest of human vil- "Jackanapes," we fear, will be put on the lanies," as one of the other speakers black list, and "The Story of a Short reminded us that war had been aptly de- Life" also. Indeed, Mrs. Ewing's works nominated, it is evident that a judicious are tainted throughout with this heresy, choice of toys, and a resolute elimination and the mischief she has done to "the of all those of an inflammatory character, democracy of the future" by extolling the must exert a most potent influence upon courtesies and charities of military life is the preservation of peace in the family; terrible to contemplate. In "The Peaceand whatever happens, we must never for- Egg" we read of a small boy who used to get that the family is the unit of the distract his nurse by playing at soldiers nation. It becomes obvious, again, that in realistic fashion when he ought to have toy animals and dolls of all sorts are ex- been in bed. He insists on being orderly ceedingly dangerous things to let children officer, and on visiting the outposts play with. Dolls with squeaks, in partic- which consisted of waking up his small ular, should be proscribed by the Society brothers and sisters - and greets her refor the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, | monstrances with the calm rebuke that he would like to be patted by a V.C. He she must not speak to a sentry on duty. | strikes a woman. She trod on my dog's Finally, he locks her into a bedroom, toes. This is my dog. Please pat him; shouting, "You're under arrest," through the keyhole. "Let me out,' shrieked Sarah. I'll send a file of the guard to fetch you to the orderly-room by-and-by,' said Robert, 'for preferring frivolous complaints,' and he departed to the farmyard to look at the ducks." His father, however, proves a match for his insubordination, by condemning him to play at sentry duty all night in his dressing-room, with nothing better than a railway rug to sleep on. In our unregenerate days we laughed over this scene; but that was before our eyes were opened to the immorality of warlike toys, and the dangers of encouraging children to play with or at soldiers. Hans Andersen, again, is another sad offender, and yet we cannot quite eradicate a sneaking satisfaction that the tin soldier was not disestablished, so to speak, before literary immortality was conferred upon him. That justifies, if late Mr. Matthew Arnold, not even the NOT one of the obituary notices of the anything can justify, the affection of course, purely aesthetic and platonic-very full and valuable record of the Times, which we still harbor towards this friend has, so far as I am aware, mentioned his of our childhood. If, in the face of so much stern logic, it were possible to advance any plea in behalf of retaining the tin soldier, we should be inclined to take up the following line of argument. Most children, especially boys, have a certain amount of savagery in them. Mrs. Ewing, at once the most faithful and loving chronicler of their ways and habits, bears testimony to this unwelcome fact. Now, it has always seemed to us that toys constitute an excellent safetyvalve for these torturing and teasing instincts, as well as for that general tendency to snip, and whittle, and pull to pieces everything that comes in their way. Far better is it that they should mutilate their tin soldiers than that they should stone frogs, torture cats, and pull the wings off butterflies. Finally, in extenuation of the military instinct in children, we cannot do better than quote a favorite passage from "The Story of a Short Life," describing Leonard's first interview with the V.C.: "How do you do, V.C.? I am very glad to see you. I wanted to see you more than anything in the world. I hope you don't mind seeing me because I have been a coward, for I mean to be brave now; and that is why I wanted to see you so much, because you are such a very brave man. The reason I was a coward was partly with being so cross when my back hurts, but particularly with hitting Jemima with my crutches, for no one but a coward Such a type as Leonard will doubtless be impossible in the "democracy of the future; " but shall we be the gainers by its elimination? MR. From The Athenæum. MATTHEW ARNOLD'S EARLIEST earliest publication, or has even alluded to its existence. It may, therefore, be of recall its name and nature. In the course some interest at the present moment to of the present winter there came into my possession a pamphlet of verse published anonymously at Rugby in 1840 (“* Alaric at Rome. A Prize Poem, recited in Rug& Crossley, MDCCCXL., 8vo., pp. 11). On by, June xii., MDCCCXL." Rugby: Combe the cover was scrawled, in a schoolboy's hand, "By M. Arnold." As I could hear nothing of this from any bibliographer, and as the existence of such a poem appeared to be quite unknown, it seemed best to settle all doubts by an appeal to the putative author himself, from whose 66 own fair life," alas ! we shall now win no more secrets. When next there happened an occasion to write, then, the question this year the answer came :was asked; and on the 9th of February of Yes!" Alaric at Rome" is my Rugby prizepoem, and I think it is better than my Oxford one, "Cromwell;" only you will see that I had been very much reading " Childe Harold." The little book is certainly one of the greatest rarities of Victorian poetry, and it would be safe to conjecture that very few copies are in existence. There seems to be no example of it even in our national library. The terms in which Mr. Matthew Arnold expressed what I may almost term his confession of authorship are such that I do not think some account of the poem While full and ceaseless as the ocean's roll, Horde after horde streamed up thy frowning Capitol. is unfaithful to his memory. "Alaric at Rome" is not positively valuable, of course; but as the work of a boy of sev enteen it is remarkably accomplished, the The reader will surely admit, with the poet versification is correct and even vigorous, himself, that these are finer lines than any the thoughts are not unworthy of the sub-in the better-known "Cromwell" of three ject, and what we miss is mainly the purity of style, the exquisite felicity of phrase, which did not arrive until five or six years later. It begins: Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead, thou? Why speed'st thou not thy deathlike wave to shed O'er humbled pride and self-reproaching woe; Or time's stern hand, why blots it not away The saddening tale that tells of sorrow and decay? The stanza, as will be observed, is the 66 years later. I am, perhaps, not justified in dwelling much longer on this very interesting little book, but the following stanzas seem to me to contain the germ of so much that is characteristic in the later Matthew Arnold, that I think I shall be pardoned for quoting them : Alas! that fiery spirit little knew The change of life, the nothingness of power, How both were hastening, as they flowered and grew Nearer and hearer to their closing hour; How every birth of time's miraculous womb Swept off the withered leaves that hide the naked tomb. One little year! that restless soul shall rest, And tranquilly, above that troubled breast, all respects, one would have supposed, an-Nor wake the weary soul that slumbers on tipathetic to Matthew Arnold - retained through life upon the younger writer : Thy dead are kings, thy dust are palaces, Fold like a shroud around thy withered And o'er thy towers the wind's half-uttered sigh Whispers, in mournful tones, thy silent elegy. Yes, in such eloquent silence didst thou lie below. DR. JOHNSON AND OATS. - Has it been | oats and base grain, as a disgrace; but he noted that his celebrated definition was suggested to him by Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy"? At p. 100, ed. 1826, we find: Bread that is made of baser grain, as pease, beans, oats, rye, or over-baked, crusty, and black, is often spoken against as causing melancholy juyce and wind. John Mayor, in the first book of his " History of Scotland," contends much for the wholesomeness of oaten bread. It was objected to him then living at Paris in France, that his countrymen fed on doth ingenuously confess, Scotland, Wales, and a third part of England did most part use that kind of bread; and that it was wholesome as any grain and yielded as good nourishment. And yet Wecker (out of Galen), calls it horse meat, and fitter for juments than men to feed on. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Draits, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. |