inferior men on to the staff as teachers in training colleges. (4.) By discouraging the attendance of children in elementary schools beyond twelve years of age; and (5) by limiting the work of those schools to the routine of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and virtually disallowing all efforts to impart to the children moral and intellectual discipline, or a knowledge of other subjects. I will say a word or two on each of these heads.

(1). At present, when a youth of thirteen or fourteen, who has shown special diligence in study, or aptitude in teaching, is selected for the office of pupil teacher, he is apprenticed to the principal teacher, and the indenture binds the one to assist in the work of teaching during school hours, while it compels the other to devote not less than an hour and a half per day to the special instruction of the apprentice out of school hours. The New Code reduces this period to one hour, and further, permits the instruction to be given to him as one of the pupils of an ordinary evening school. Now it is worth remembering that, for one who is hereafter to become a teacher of others, an hour and a half per day of special study is little enough. Even now, though that time is, no doubt, filled with work, the knowledge given to the pupil, teachers is barely sufficient to enable the majority of them to meet the unambitious and practical examination by which they are tested at the end of each year; they certainly do not always take information enough into the training colleges to enable them to follow a systematic course of study with advantage. To reduce the time devoted to their training is necessarily to accept a lower standard of qualification. Again, the provision which permits them to take their instruction as ordinary scholars in a night school, virtually repudiates all notions of professional preparation; for it is manifest, that the sort of instruction which an intelligent candidate for the teacher's office needs, cannot be gained in this way. Thus it is certain that the pupil teachers under the New Minute are to have fewer opportunities for learning; they are to be far less thoroughly trained; the whole curriculum of their studies, for the five successive years, must of course be reduced into harmony with this plan; and this cannot fail to prove the first and most effectual step towards checking the progress of education generally, and lowering the quality of the teaching given throughout our primary schools.

(2). Under the Old Code, a pupil teacher who completes his apprenticeship, and, after examination, obtains a Queen's Scholarship, which entitles him to board, residence, and instruction in a training college, has a considerable motive to work hard, and to increase his own attainments. The students are classed at the end of the first year's residence; and if they then leave the training college, they are only entitled to third class certificates of merit, the augmentation to their stipend being determined according to the position they hold in the class-list. But if they prefer to remain a second year at the college, they become entitled to go up for another examination, and to obtain cer

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tificates of the second class, in which, as in the third, there are three grades," or degrees of merit. Now the holder of a second class certificate is entitled, so long as he remains in charge of an inspected school, to a higher augmentation, and takes altogether a better rank in his profession. It is known that the average salary of untrained masters is £67, and that of masters holding certificates is £94. The contribution of the Government towards this higher sum varies from £15 to £30, according to the standing at the examination of the certificate holder. It acts, therefore, as a direct premium on proficiency and systematic preparation. It represents, in fact, the difference in value between the good and the bad-the trained and the untrained teacher. Of course it is never paid for the possession of attainments merely the grant is conditional on an annual report, testifying that the teacher is actually engaged in an inspected school, and is doing his work well. To withdraw it would be to inflict the heaviest possible blow upon all the machinery which now exists for the training of teachers. The great object of the most enlightened friends of education, for years past, has been to insist on the importance of sound and methodical preparation on the part of the schoolmaster, and to raise the character of that training. As at present understood in the normal colleges, that training includes not only full and accurate knowledge on the subjects taught in elementary schools, but also some instruction in kindred subjects, in order to widen the range of illustration at the teacher's command;-and what is of still more importance, the systematic study of the methods and the principles of teaching. The importance of these things is obvious; but it must be remembered that, at present, they are directly sanctioned and encouraged by the mode in which the grant is administered. Now, by the New Minute, it is proposed to place all men who can teach reading, writing, and arithmetic on exactly the same level, and to withdraw all special recognition or payment from the well-trained teacher as such. I think this a retrograde step of a most serious nature.

(3). To secure a high standard of efficiency in the training colleges, which form, in fact, the keystone of the whole of the existing system, some special examinations of a very severe kind were instituted a few years ago (I believe, on the suggestion of the Rev. Canon Moseley), and a new office created for the successful candidates, that of lecturer, on some one of the principal subjects of instruction, in the training college. This office of teaching the teachers is a peculiar one, requiring exceptional qualifications, both as regards knowledge and teaching power. The State sought to create this special aptitude, and to attract men of superior powers into the training colleges, by granting an augmentation of £100 per annum to the salaries of one or two officers in each of those institutions, who could afford evidence of the necessary qualifications, and whose work was favourably reported on from year to year. This scheme has already borne admirable fruit, and has fully answered all the expectations which were formed of it. The

New Code suddenly abandons it, and cannot fail, if carried into operation, to drive away some of the best professors and teachers from the training institutions, and to bring inferior officers into their places.

(4). The plan of refusing to recognize a child's attendance, or to examine his attainments, more than once after he has attained his eleventh year, is fraught with great mischief, especially to the best schools. At present, the great aim of most school managers and teachers has been to prolong the time of attendance, and to persuade parents to let their children remain at school as late as possible. The few children who have been thus retained to the ages of thirteen or fourteen, have not only gained great advantages for themselves, but have done much to raise the whole tone of instruction in the schools. The Revised Code causes their presence to be a pecuniary burden on the school, and makes it the interest of both teachers and managers to dismiss them.

(5). But the most serious provision of the whole Code is that which determines the kind of instruction to be imparted in the elementary schools. The schedule proposes to group the children into four classes, and to institute a separate examination of every one who has attended school more than fifty days in the year. The scheme of examination extends, in the very highest classes, only to reading from a newspaper, writing a short narrative, and working a sum in practice. The inspector is to tabulate in a book. the number of attendances, and the results of individual examination in each of the three subjects. He is then to compute the total grant payable to the school funds, by counting one penny for every attendance over 100, and deducting one-third of this amount for every failure in any branch of the examination. Thus the estimate formed of a school is a purely mechanical one. Results are to be

measured by simple arithmetic, and are to be counted, not weighed. If the children have had their eyes opened to the beauties of nature, --if they have gained a taste for inquiry and for reading,-if the master has specially excelled in awakening a love of music or of geography, or if he has been very successful in the moral and religious culture of a neglected population, his work in these respects is not to be tested or admitted. It is obvious that this arrangement is a reactionary one of the most significant kind. It cannot fail to discourage all the higher and more intelligent forms of teaching, and to set up in our National and British Schools the standard of instruction which is characteristic of a dame-school. In the words of one of the numerous protests which have been uttered on this subject,-"The scheme of paying for results, as embodied in the Minute, must limit the school training and instruction to reading, writing, and arithmetic, as mechanical arts. The objects sought to be attained in the present elementary schools, which would, by the operation of this new Minute, be practically withdrawn from the observation of the Queen's Inspectors and from the efforts of the teachers, are, besides the

acquirement of these three arts mechanically,-the cultivation of the intelligence, and the training of the habits and manners of the children; the dissipation of vulgar errors and superstitions; the imparting of such elementary knowledge as may create the desire for more; and that moral and religious discipline, which are confessedly the chief aim of schools, and have been the most successful results of recent efforts."

It is worthy of record here, that the New Minute, which has created so great a stir among the friends of education, is now known to have been concocted by the Vice-President and the Secretary of the Committee of Council, without any previous concert, either with the great educational bodies, or with any one of the Inspectors. So far is it from being a well-considered measure, founded on experience, that it has been framed in direct contradiction to the suggestions of the late Royal Commission; in contemptuous disregard of the advice of the entire staff of Inspectors; and in defiance of the opinion of all the great bodies by whom the work of education is being carried on. It was the great boast of the old scheme that it enlisted the sympathies of all the religious bodies, and taught them to act together, in harmony with the Government, to an extent which at one time would have been considered impossible. But the new proposals have fairly frightened and alienated all these bodies. All the educational societies, and representatives of all the religious communities, and of the active benevolent public throughout the country, have protested earnestly against the new scheme. When it is considered that from this class of people the local and voluntary effort is supplied, and that by their co-operation a sum nearly double the whole amount of the parliamentary grant is annually raised, it becomes at least a very significant fact that on this question the Government has contrived to encounter their unanimous hostility. Outsiders are captivated by certain plausible features in the New Minute; writers in newspapers, and doctrinaire statesmen, occasionally defend it. Dr. Vaughan, who, as the head master of Harrow, has been for years in a singularly unsuitable position for obtaining any acquaintance with the working of schools for the poor, has put forth a half-hearted plea for it. But the fact remains, that among those who are spending money for and doing the work of education all over the country, no single voice has been raised in its favour; but, on the contrary, the measure has been received by them all with grave regret, and denounced, after due deliberation, in the most emphatic terms.

Ω.

CONTROVERSY NOT OBJECTIONABLE.-The number of bigots and knaves in the world is not so small, nor the friends of improvement so numerous, that any portion of the indignation due to the first can with any justice be diverted to the second.-J. S. MILL.

The Essayist.

"SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTON."

SUCCESS is the darling idol of the world. It is often, somewhat justly perhaps, regarded as the sign-manual of right. It is doubtless always pleasant, but it is not always an unmixed good. Early success, especially, is often the worst gift the Fates can bestow upon a man. How many of the men who took prizes in the class-rooms where Scott, Goldsmith, or Shelley were educated, are nameless and fameless now, while these names form among others the boasts of literature! One example is better than a homily on this theme; and there is one not much more than a century old, the details of which may be both instructive and interesting. Among the enigmas of biography, few indeed are more striking than that to which we intend to direct attention. Nowhere is an oratorical success more difficult of achievement than in the British House of Commons. At no time, perhaps, were there speakers more brilliant and potent in Parliament than when Pitt poured forth his impassioned politics in copious and flowing language, aided by the charms of action and person, and Fox united cogent logic with a careless grace of utterance and impetuous feeling; when Grenville was argumentative, subtle, and instructive, and Lyttleton was fluent, impressive, and easy; when Bubb Doddington was clever, witty, and ridicu lous, and Murray keen, animated, profuse, and technical; and when the grand school of parliamentary orators was forming—the softly persuasive Mansfield, the terse Barré, the demagogic Wilkes, homely and easy Townshend, and the astute but informal Cavendish.. Among these a young man, only a year old as a member, flashed into a reputation by a single speech, and by that one success paralyzed his whole future. A nervous yearning after oratoricalTM fame consumed him, but his intense egotism held him back from any endeavour to equal his former by his present self. Continually preparing for an effort to surpass his early promise, he as continually recoiled from tempting the comparison. Others, with less suicidal vanity to hamper them, pressed on and won the highest prizes; he, despite himself, dwindled into a memory and almost a myth, and bore to his grave little more reputation than is implied in his nickname, "Single-speech Hamilton." An attempt to gather together the known particulars of a life-history like this can scarcely fail to be of interest, not intrinsically only, but "to point a moral," -at least, we hope our readers will find it so.

William Gerard Hamilton, the only son of William Hamilton,