of not lending itself readily to extension, may afford a handle to the Secularists to carry through Parliament a compulsory method which shall be unsectarian, it has thought wise to endeavour to supply this particular defect, by means which would make the whole system hopelessly deficient, and bad without the possibility of amendment. We must remind the Ecelesiastics composing this society, that to do evil that good may come' is a sentiment they have always vigorously denouneed, and to vitiate irredeemably the whole system of national education in order to maintain the present influence of the clergy, is to produce an unquestioned evil which would overbalance the value of the good retained, inasmuch as it would only retain it for a short time.

In another column of the eircular of this society, we are informed with an air of benign satisfaction, that a deputation is waiting to urge on the committee of couucil the opinions on which we have commented. We trust we may read in the next number that it continues to wait.

Notices of Books.

Mary's Geography. By Frances E. Burbury. Questions on Mary's Geography. By. F. E. Burbury. Longmans and Co.-Books of Travel are eagerly sought after by those who use school libraries. This eagerness is not altogether due to the incident and adventure found in them; much of it is owing to the descriptions they contain of scenery, costume, social customs, and things of a kindred character. Teachers who have observed this, make their lessons in geography attractive to their pupils, by dealing with its matter after a like method. They find their account in doing so. Such lessons have not only a strong interest for children, thereby becoming permanent possessions, but call into vigorous play, faculties, which would otherwise lie dormant, but which, by this culture, are made subservient to the general progress of the child. 'Mary's Geography' has been prepared with this intention, and is fashioned on the method of Mrs. Marcet's 'Mary's Grammar,' and will be found a suitable companion to that well-known book.

National Arithmetic, adapted to the Standards of the Revised Code. National Society. This work is issued in seven parts, five of them containing exercises, and answers, with hints on the working of the more difficult problems. Part I. contains the work of Standards I., II., and III.; Parts II., III., and IV., respectively the work of Standards, IV., V., and VI.; Part V. contains miscellaneous examples. The exercises are very numerous, and on the whole suitable. They are published at a low price, and may be used with great advantage for Home exercises. The plan for publishing the answers separately will meet the wishes of some masters, though we think the preferable plan would have been to append them to each part. In a well managed school the children are trained to the desire and the habit of succesful work and may be trusted with the answers, where they cannot, the atmosphere is scarcely one to be recommended as fit for them to live in.

National Reading Books. Standards V. and VI. National Society.-These are remarkably cheap books. They are also fairly good ones. The matter on the whole is suitable, and is arranged according to subject, so that the pupil may read all relating to one subject in consecutive lessons, if that be preferred. One point in the construction is amusing. The preface informs us that "Those whose stay at school is short should read history backwards; thus their attention will be centered upon the most important part of the subject, namely, the history of the times nearest their own." To this we have no objection. In fact we urged the practice, on the attention of teachers, in these pages many years ago; but we are at a loss to see how it is reading history backwards, when the Sixth Book contains Victoria, the Fifth Book Henry VI., and so on to the earliest volume, unless it is proposed that the Sixth Book shall be read before the Fourth.

The Scholars' Pocket Spelling Book. By Charles Castell. Taylor, Coleford.Besides spelling lessons, arranged to suit the standards, this little book contains the tables of money, weights and measures. It will be found serviceable for home lessons.

Reading Books, First to Fourth. By the West of Scotland School-Book Association. Munro, Glasgow.-This series of Reading Books will find no patronage south of the Solway, unless in Dames' or Adventure schools of wide and remote districts. The Fourth Book presents no difficulty in matter or language which a child of six years would not easily master. If the West of Scotland wants such books as these, it needs the Revised Code to bring its elementary instruction up to the standard of inspected English schools.

Exercises in Elementary Arithmetic. By the West of Scotland School-Book Association. Munro, Glasgow.-This is a book of exercises only. It has nothing special to recommend it, except the number of the exercises.

Stevens and Hall's Examination Cards.-Word Exercises in Arithmetic. In eight sets. Longmans and Co.-These cards are now complete, and embrace an entire course of arithmetic. They have been carefully compiled, and will well repay the teacher who adopts them.

Scholastic Calendar and Diary for 1868. Allman.-This has nothing to recommend it to teachers but its name. The information is exceedingly scanty. To make up for this there are the names and residences of teachers of fencing, dancing, &c., living in London, with other trivial matters.

The Church Catechism. Hatchard and Co.-This Catechism contains to each clause a large selection of passages of Scripture, illustrative of the doctrines taught. The passages are well chosen.

The Church Catechism Explained and Illustrated. By Marigold, revised by the Rev. J. Hopton, M.A. Murby.-We doubt the propriety of putting books like this in the hands of children. It will not for them make plain what is obscure, and will not make unnecessary the living voice of the teacher,-in fact many of the explanations will require explaining-while for the properly equipped schoolmaster, it is needless. To some of the doctrines and statements exceptions will be taken, and no one really caring for purity of thought in children would like them to learn what is found on page 24. So long as such teachings as some of these are found in church schools a "conscience clause" will be deemed essential by all who esteem pure evangelical truth.

Old Jonathan, for January, 1868. Collingridge.-" Old Jonathan " opens the new year with a variety of readable articles well adapted to their purpose of instructing the labouring classes who have little time for heavier work,

Official Notices, &q.

[Extract from Official Letter from Inspector, announcing the Inspection of the School.]

Examination in higher subjects required in Schools, where the extra grant, offered by the Minute of 20th February, 1867, is claimed.

The Time Tables of the School, in use throughout the past year (Article 17), must have provided for one or more specific subjects of secular instruction beyond (Article 48). At least, one-fifth part of the average number of Scholars over six years of age, must pass a satisfactory examination therein. This is interpreted to mean that three-fourths of the minimum fifth must reach the standard of a good first class in the subject or subjects chosen.

A copy of the Time Table must be filed with the Managers' Return (Form IX) for the Inspector. Any subject of secular elementary instruction, for which provision is made in the Time Table, may be chosen, except Drawing, which is already the subject of special grants from the Vote for Science and Art. Managers are free to decide in what direction they will extend the instruction of their Schools beyond Article 48.

If they prefer to do so in direct continuation of that Article, it is open to them to satisfy all that the new Minute requires, by presenting children who can work sums expertly and intelligently, in the higher rules of Arithmetic, or who can write in a good hand with correct spelling and grammar, a plain letter or narrative upon some simple subject of common life, or from their recent reading lesson, to be respectively proposed to them by the Inspector.

This examination is not meant to be confined to the minimum fifth, but to extend to as many of the classes as the Time Table shows to be learning the higher subjects. Nor is it confined to those Scholars who have passed in Standard VI., nor to those who have attended 200 times in the year. Such scholars, however, as pass it after having, in a previous year, passed Standard VI., are exempted (once) from the operation of Article 46. They must have attended 200 times; 8s. may be allowed on each of them who passes, and they must be named individually in the Schedule (see direction No. 2 thereon). They are counted as part of the total number examined in the higher subjects, and they may, at the Inspector's discretion, be examined either with or apart from the rest who are not required to be marked individually.

It is left to the Inspector's discretion to determine whether he will conduct this higher examination orally, on paper, on slates, or by means of the black board. Much must depend on the nature of the subject. It is his especial duty to require proof of intelligence, and not only of memory.

Register of the Month.

Mr. W. E. Forster, M.P., on Education.

On January 7, under the auspices of the Reform League, a lecture was delivered at St. James's-hail, by Mr. W. E. Forster, M.P., on the Education of the People. Mr. Goldwin Smith presided.

Mr. FORSTER, divided his subject into four heads-first, what we ought to have in the way of education; secondly, what we already possess; thirdly, what we may endeavour at once to get; and fourthly; what there is a reasonable chance of soon obtaining. With regard to the first point, he took it as universally agreed that every child, or at least the enormous majority of children, should have a good elementary education, so as to read intelligently and thoughtfully, write legibly and correctly, and practise ciphering usefully, and should also acquire some knowledge of grammar, geography, and history, which might be regarded as the comforts and almost the recessities of education. He hoped also, that some acquaintance with political economy, the rudiments of science, and the most useful language next to our own, French, would soon be deemed indispensable, while attention, industry, obedience, order, and politeness should likewise be taught in every good school. More important than all these was a knowledge of right and wrong, with the motives for doing the one and avoiding the other. Proceeding to the second head, he professed himself weary of statistical comparisons between England and other countries, and of the attempts to show that we were merely not more than one or two per cent. below Prussia or Switzerlard. In Prussia 1 in 6 of the population when to school, being very nearly the full number of children, whereas the average attendance in England was about 1 in 10; besides which, the education given in Prussia was much more generally good than here, half the schools furnishing this insufficient attendance being unassisted by the State, because (though there were exceptions) unable to reach the required standard. He feared there were many sham schools in England, as compared with good schools in Prussia and Switzerland. Mr. Bruce made last Session a fearful statement which had never been disproved, that, as regarded any education worthy of the name, half the children of the working population were uneducated. Mr. Mundella, moreover, in a letter addressed to a Royal commission on education had stated that, though technical education was very desirable for hosiery and lace workers, so many superior artisans in it would be of no service, they being unable to read or write; whereas his manager in Saxony had never met with a workman unable to read or write with fluency and credit, and that the English workman, while possessed of greater natural capacity than any competitors, was gradually losing the race, owing to the superior intelligence which foreign Governments carefully developed in their artisans. Now he, as a tradeɛman, rejoiced at this loss, for he believed it would stimulate employers to obtain for their workmen the education of which they stood in need. Always remembering that it was the duty of the parent to educate his child, how was it that, knowing the necessity of education, he did not, unless much worse than the average of men, provide it? He attributed the default to four reasons. The first was, that in some parishes, aud he believed in some parts of the metropolis, there was no school within reach. The London Diocesan Board of Education had shown that the school accommodation in the metropolis would be deficient by 180,000, or, according to a second estimate, by 200,000, if every child who ought to be at school was sent there. He was aware that they were not all trying to obtain room, and if they did so more room would probably be found; but he thought this reason operated to some extent. The second cause was that very often the school, when found, was a sham, and the parent could not remedy it, for it was a great defect in the Factory Act that it did not provide for the quality of the school which it created. Thirdly, the parent could not in some cases afford the fee, though this he did not believe often happened, or could not dispense with the earnings of the child; and fourthly, he feared that in a vast number of cases the parent did not care to send his child to school. Except as to the last reason, the fault lay with the State, which

now happily consisted of all classes, and be thought nobody would deny that it was the duty of the State to see to the education of its children, the neglect of it being punished in the shape of prison and poor rates and the existence of dangerous classes, who were the greatest enemies of the industrious working man. The State ought to see that the parent could do his duty, and if he did not, ought to strive in every way to induce him, and in the last resort compel him to do it. The parent was immediately, but the State was ultimately responsible, and it had in some measure discharged its responsibility, but, unfortunately, the principle on which it had voted money was that of helping those who were helped by others. If a country parish had an absentee landlord utterly neglectful of his duty, or if a district was abandoned by the rich, who did not remember that they had duties to perform to the people who had made their wealth, the State followed the example, and was also neglectful. This system could not but be inefficient, and the State must fasten upon every parish the responsibility of seeing that its inhabitants were educated, so as to prevent ignorance as well as starvation. The district, he thought, ought to pay for this, but he was not prepared to say it should do so entirely. He feared it would be difficult to levy a local rate which would be a property rate, and not merely a rate on land and houses, as was done in some parts of America, but it was not absolutely fair to throw all local burdens on one kind of property, though there was more to be said for an education rate than for any other, seeing that it would reduce poor and police rates. Under all the circumstances, he thought the fairest mode would be a local rate, assisted, as at present, by grants out of the Consolidated Fund. London was exceptionally situated, and he thought some measure would have to be adopted to equalise rates over the metropolis. A local rate would secure local management, which was most essential, while Government aid would facilitate inspection by a central authority, whereas a purely central system would break down from the oumbrousness of details, or would be more of a bureaucracy than we should submit to, while a purely local system would result in too low a standard in the most backward districts. The mixed system would be similar to the common schools of America, but with more central assistance, and he might be asked, why not introduce the American system at once? His reason was that many districts to which he could point were already fully provided for, and that in others there were many good schools, many hardworking clergymen having stood between the people and ignorance, and having devoted an astonishing amount of labour and money to the work of education; and he did not wish to lose the services of these or of the other earnest friends of the cause. While providing that no child should be without a chance of education, he wished to make the best of the existing machinery, and Mr. Bruce's Bill of last Session proposed, therefore, to leave existing schools and supply the deficiency by rates. He was aware that the rating system, once introduced, would pervade the whole country, but he hoped voluntary subscriptions would not altogether cease, but would be liberally continued for the purpose of supplying what could not be fairly thrown on the rate. The conditions on which public aid should be given were these:-1, the buildings should be suitable and well-ventilated; 2, the master should be reasonably qualified, which would be best secured by taking care of his training; 3, the result should be good, a point, however, which an inspection of two or three hours was not sufficient to determine; and, 4, the schools should be accessible to all. The religious difficulty he would meet by giving freedom to the masters and managers to give such religious teaching as they thought fit, with freedom to the parent to withdraw his child from any teaching which he disapproved. He denied the right of any religious body to demand to control the education of the people, and on the other hand he