appealing to boys in matters of this kind is not practised nearly as much as it ought to be. I am sure that boys appreciate the force of such principles, and are much more likely to help a master who appeals to them, in carrying them out, than those of us who have not been in the habit of bringing such things before boys would credit. We do not, I think, in these and in many other important matters, sufficiently take boys into our confidence.

The great primary principle of mental teaching is that the boys should help themselves, and be helped, to become men of accurate, modest, and fearless habits of thought. And in so far as they are to be helped by their teacher to become such, they must be able to get from him information, examination, correction, elucidation or illumination, encouragement, and inspiration. Speaking generally, while it is of course quite necessary that the teacher should possess knowledge, it is to be there in order that he may be able to display it, conveying at the same time the sense of ease and power, rather than impart it. During the definite hours of work, a boy should be gaining mere knowledge chiefly from his books, rather than from his teacher. The main function of the teacher, as such, during the school hours, is rather to show the boy how to make the best use of the information which he is gaining from his books, than himself to give him information. To that end he must constantly apply the test of questions, whether oral or on paper-in other words, he must examine him. But he must not

merely show him what is wrong, he must also show him what is right—that is, along with examination must go correction. And whatever the subject be, the nearer he can come to showing the boy the touch of a masterhand, the nearer to complete perfection and illumination, the nearer also will he come towards helping the boy to the attainment of intellectual modesty, and dissatisfaction with whatever is not the best workmanship. And no teacher can hope to be really successful who does not know how to use the spur of encouragement, who cannot instil into his boys the great element of hope.

All this, and more than this, may the teacher possess ; but if he has not got something else to give his boys, he will not be a true teacher-if he cannot give them inspiration. And for the manufacture of this article there is no recipe, save that the man must first be inspired himself; and then, if he will let himself free, he cannot but inspire his boys. And to be inspired, and therefore to inspire, is not such a very big business as it sounds. Reduced to plainer language, it means to possess deep and sincere feelings, and to show them. And how soon boys catch this, how soon they are inspired!

And so, adhering to great principles, and often talking to his boys about them, and with depth of sincere feeling within him, which he dares to let shine before them, remembering also how potent is the gentle spur of encouragement, and the sweet balm of sympathy-so there lives and moves among his boys the true teacher.

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CHAPTER VIII.

SELF-HELP-PHYSICAL.

BUT it is not only in brain-work that our present system tends to do for a boy much that he might with advantage do for himself. In other departments of school life there is the same tendency.

Let us take the subject of games.

In cricket, for example, what does the boy do for himself which can by any possibility be done for him? The rolling, mowing, and patching the ground;1 the measuring of the pitch, and marking out the creases; the putting up and taking down the nets,-nothing of this is done by him, everything for him, by the professional and ground-man. Is this education? Surely all

1 It is delightful to read what Lord Bessborough says about Mr Grimston, how "he used to work like a labourer in preparing good wickets" for the "First Fifth" cricket-ground at Harrow. (Memoir of the Hon. Robert Grimston, by Frederick Gale. Longmans-1885: : p. 174.)

Mr Grimston, along with Lord Bessborough, "coached" the Harrow boys at cricket for many years. He died last year (1884).

this ought to be done by the boys themselves. There are some of us whose happiest recollections as boys are connected with, not only cricket, but the actual making and preserving of the cricket-ground. Is a boy doomed never to learn at school how to use his hands and arms, except in inevitable connection with a ball? Our national games are glorious elements in a boy's education; and, in my opinion, we should suffer as a nation if we gave them up in favour of anything needing less skill, strength, self-command, unselfishness, and courage. And not only would the ardour and skill with which they are played be undiminished, but both would, I believe, be increased, if the monotony of these games were relieved by the introduction of some other form of manual exercise, visibly productive and useful, and connected, if possible, with the common life of the people. Once let schoolmasters perceive this, and the suggestions and carrying out of other forms of manual exercise, in all their details, will quickly follow. The smallest percentage of Public School boys know how to use a spade or a scythe. The extraordinary unhandiness of boys in such matters would not be credited by any persons who have not seen them make their awkward attempts at mowing or digging.

Either we schoolmasters have little conception of what the elements are that go to make a real man, or else we do not regard it as one of the duties of a schoolmaster to do his best to see that these elements are introduced

into the life of a boy at school. Otherwise I cannot believe that we should be satisfied to let a boy leave school, ignorant of such manly accomplishments as the turning of a sod or the cutting of a swathe. For if he does not learn such things at school, he is not likely to learn them afterwards. Such things are likely in the future to be done not by him but for him.

And what does the inability to do such things mean? Or, better, what difference would it make to the man if, instead of being utterly ignorant of such things, he could turn his hand to them all?

he could do such things?

What would it not mean if

And no one who has not

First, he would love them. learned as a boy to use his hands in simple crafts, and in primary relations with Nature, knows what this love is. And more he would know what it meant to be a "labouring man"; he would have that peculiar sympathy with manual labourers which comes only from personal experience; he would know what such "work meant, and might then have a better chance than most men have of possessing a just idea of what is " a fair day's pay for a fair day's work" of this kind.

For-and this is to me a point of supreme interest-he would find himself, while in the country, employing his hands in other ways than in playing lawn-tennis with a certain number of people brought together from all the country round-a select circle.1 He would find him

1 I fear there is little doubt that cricket, which, as a game,