in teaching children to sing, is to make them happy and cheerful, and this is best done by letting them sing music which they are fond of:it does not appear to matter much how they learn it, so long as they learn it correctly. To prevent them from singing a song, because they are not able to decipher the characters in which it is written, is not a bit better than it would be to forbid a child to repeat poetry because it cannot read. In fact, it is just as necessary to train the ear first in teaching a child to sing, as in teaching it to talk; and, of course, to hinder it from doing either, because it does it imperfectly, is simply absurd.*

It is quite astonishing that the Model Drawing after the Method of Dupuis, has not been more extensively introduced into our schools, so useful as a knowledge of drawing is on all hands acknowledged to be to the children of the labouring classes, especially in manufacturing districts. This certainly does not arise from any defect in the method itself, for to draw from actual objects is the only sure way of acquiring skill in practical drawing. It appears rather to result from the mistaken idea, on the part of teachers, that the principles of the method are inseparable from Dupuis' actual models, and that to teach the method rightly it is absolutely indispensable to have these. The model drawing is thus made a most expensive study, and we cannot be surprised if managers refuse, on this account, to have it taught in their schools. But it is hard to understand how teachers can imagine that any special virtue resides in the particular models constructed by Dupuis. They are certainly very light and nicely painted; but we cannot see why a common carpenter should not make blocks of deal in all the elementary solid forms, which would answer every purpose quite as well as these, for one-twentieth part of the expense, or why the teachers should not themselves make them with a little cardboard and paste. Models of both these kinds are used in all the Swiss schools, and they each have a stock of wooden bricks for setting up compound forms. Besides these, the various objects in the school-room will always furnish a ready-made stock of models; so that, even if the deal models are unattainable, the method may still be successfully taught. There is no reason either why common black-lead pencils should not be used in schools where the porte-crayons and prepared chalk would be thought too expensive. In fact, we are disposed to recommend the practice of pencil-drawing in all cases as preparatory to

*Singing appears to have been taught with great success in the King's Somborne School, on a plan similar to that recommended above. In his report on the school, Mr. Moseley thus speaks of the attainments of the pupils in this respect ::—" I have no doubt that the singing of the children is among the most pleasurable recollections of those persons who have visited the King's Somborne School. Occasionally the singing classes are assembled in the evening in the class-room, and the singing through of the pieces of music they have learned makes a village concert, to which some of the friends of the school are admitted. . . . . Singing is no task to these children; music has found its way to their hearts; a result which I have never met with in an elementary school, except where, as here, a large portion of the children are allowed to sing by ear, and where all have thus begun. Several of the pieces were certainly executed with remarkable firmness and precision, and all not less to the satisfaction of the farmers and village tradesmen (who, together with Mr. and Mrs. Dawes and myself, formed the audience) than to mine.”—Minutes of Committee of Council on Education, 1847-48, Vol. I. p. 18.

....

the other, in order that the children may learn to draw a good line, which is unattainable with the crayon. For this purpose, too, we see no objection to allowing the children occasionally to draw from copies, so long as this is kept subordinate to the modeldrawing. As is usual upon the introduction of any new system, we have run to the extreme of rejecting the good as well as the bad features of the old copy-drawing. Undiscriminating reforms are sure to lead to frequent changes to and fro between the same systems, without much good being derived from any of them. This has been the case with the Germans in regard to the pencil and crayon drawing. They have now wisely selected the good features of both methods, which are found mutually to assist each other. We are glad to learn that the Board of Trade intend to afford to the masters and pupil-teachers of schools under inspection a free admission to their schools of design, and that the Committee of Council on Education are prepared to make grants of useful treatises on drawing to those schools upon which the Inspector of Schools of Design shall make a favourable report. Under these circumstances, we may hope that this valuable branch of instruction will, ere long, be effectively taught in the best of our elementary schools.

The Phonic Method of Teaching to read, with one or two exceptions, has not yet been introduced into any of our schools. This, we admit, is partly attributable to the crude manner in which the method has been adapted to English use, but more particularly, we think, to the inability of infant-teachers to employ it. The Phonic Reading Books are certainly useless enough in their present form;* but these are not by any means a principal or even a necessary feature of the method, for by the time the children are able to follow a book, they may very well be released from the Phonic leading-strings altogether. The Reading Frame is all that the teacher requires; but considerable skill in the use of this is indispensable to the successful working of the method. We believe that there are only two schools in England in which the method has been employed with real success-the Norwood and Swindon Infant Schools; but the rapid and extraordinary progress which the children in these schools have made in learning to read has fully justified the amount of time and labour bestowed upon their instruction by the energetic and indefatigable teachers, Mr. Gardiner and Mr. M'Leod. It is not to be wondered at, if the method has failed in the hands of teachers who have not brought a similar amount of skill and perseverance to bear upon it. The Reading Frame presents merely the necessary tools for working with, and it is really too much to expect this apparatus to teach of itself. Yet this is precisely what has been done by some persons, who, after finding out their mistake, have set the frame aside as entirely useless, and pronounced the system impracticable. It is all very well to talk about the greater facilities which the German language affords for the application of the Phonic Method, in consequence of the regularity in the

*The Committee of Council have tacitly acknowledged this, for, although published under their Lordships' sanction, the Phonic Reading Books have not been inserted on the Schedule of School Books for which grants are made.

pronunciation of the letters; the success of the method in the two instances above mentioned is sufficient to prove that it may be rendered extremely useful in teaching English children to read, provided only that it be really understood by the teacher. We cannot hope for anything like a good Manual on the subject, until teachers have gained more experience in working it. We believe that a Course of Lessons

has lately been published by Mr. M'Leod, of Swinton.

From all this it appears that methods of teaching are nothing but empty forms into which it remains for the teacher to infuse vitality. They should be looked upon as so many tools requiring skill to use them, and those who are disposed to complain of the tools should inquire whether the fault does not lie with the user. With the most skilful management, however, we are not to expect that everything may be accomplished by means of particular methods; on the contrary, we should look upon no method as the only true one, as exclusively and absolutely perfect, but endeavour to select the good features of all, and thus to construct for ourselves a real eclectic system of elementary instruction. If all the ability and all the good-will of the teacher be brought to his work, he will teach far better from having scope afforded him, in this way, for the free exercise of his judgment; for no man can be a good teacher, unless he thinks for himself and carries out his convictions in his school. Children too require to be acted upon in the most varied manner. They have each different mental wants, and no one of them entirely resembles another in capacity and disposition. What will suit some therefore will not suit others; and it is only by varying our mode of instruction that we can meet the needs of all our scholars.

It is much to be regretted that no good Manual of Method has yet been published for the use of English schoolmasters. We may perhaps be allowed to express the hope, that if any one should undertake the preparation of such a manual, he will not give us just what he may think the best methods of teaching the several subjects of instruction, for it would be impossible for any one man to do this efficiently; but that he will furnish us with an account of all the various methods that have been attended with success in elementary schools. Such a manual would be invaluable to schoolmasters, as it would contain the experience of all the distinguished men of their own profession; and if they had the benefit of this, the rest might with advantage be left to themselves.

THE EDUCATION OF THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. ANY system of education that professes to improve the condition of a poor but very large and important class of the community, and to be at the same time self-supporting, must be admitted to bring with it no slight recommendation to our notice. It is the object of a pamphlet,*

"How to improve the Condition of the Agricultural Labourer." By Thomas Batson, of Colley House, Tedburn, St. Mary, near Exeter (late of Kynastone House, Herefordshire). Pp. 30. Groombridge. London, 1851.

recently published, to prove that such a system has been devised and carried out for the education of agricultural labourers; or, in other words, "to show that the labour of boys in husbandry may be made equivalent to the cost of their maintenance and education during such a period as may be sufficient to enable them to obtain a good plain education, suitable in all respects to that station in life in which by their birth they may have been placed."

Before proceeding to the details of his plan, the author very justly observes that there are few employments which require careful and intelligent workmen more than agriculture, on account of its varied operations, which are dispersed over the whole extent of a farm, and therefore render it impossible that the eye of the overlooker can be constantly upon them, as in manufactories. Hence the necessity that the workmen, to be thus employed, should be educated as well as intelligent, in whom a considerable amount of confidence may be placed; and especially at a period like the present, when the success of the farmer must greatly depend upon the rigid economy of all his resources and the care with which the operations of his farm are performed. And by education the author explains that he does not mean only the teaching to read or write, but the formation of the character to eschew what is evil, and to do what is good, and training the mind to reflect, so that in the place of the dull stupidity which has been almost proverbial in our agricultural labourers, we may have the intelligent and thinking man. The well-known obstacles to the education of our rural population, particularly of boys, are also noticed; such as the general practice of taking children from school at a very early age to employ them in husbandry, that, so soon as they are able to earn anything, they may increase the small income of their parents; and when a child is continued at school until he has obtained a fair education, the complaints of the farmer that, from want of previous instruction in acts of husbandry, such child is unsuited for his work. To remove these obstacles a system is proposed by which, while the mental education is secured, boys are instructed in the general work of a farm, so as to be able, on leaving school, at once to earn their living as farm labourers, with satisfaction to their employers and with credit to themselves as respectable members of society; and during their continuance at school their labour is made to pay for their maintenance, clothing, and education. Nor is the system which is to produce these results a mere theory, but a plan which the author has carried on during a space of five years with much satisfaction, and as to the result of which he can speak with the fullest confidence. His plan, moreover, has not been tried in secret, as is evident from the following extract from the Hereford Times, the local paper of the district in which he then resided, and which the author has republished in his pamphlet, as better suited to show the whole working of the system from its commencement, than any account drawn up at a later period. Writing in 1848, he says:

"It is now nearly three years since I first formed a gang of boys as daily labourers, paying them at the rate of 3s. per week in winter, and 4s. ditto in summer; but finding that there was considerable difficulty in adopting a regular system of discipline, owing to the want of education and bad manage

ment at home, I made the necessary accommodation for the reception of twenty boys on my premises, about fifteen months since, and took them under my own care entirely, for a term of four years, boarding, clothing, and educating them, in lieu of their daily labour on the farm-their ages averaging between nine and fourteen years. The system was this:-Each boy was provided with two suits; one for working, the other for better use, also a complete stock of linen, shoes, &c.; and at the end of four years I send them back with a like equipment. The working hours are from six till six in summer, and during the winter they work while it is light. The meal times are nine for breakfast, one for dinner, and six for supper; the evenings are spent in education until nine o'clock, when prayers are read, and they retire to rest. The food consists of bread and milk, or bread and broth for breakfast; bread, meat, and vegetables for dinner; and bread and cheese for supper, with the addition of coffee and pudding on Sundays. According to the rule universally observed on my farm, no beer or cider is allowed, excepting during harvest. The labour consists of the general farm work, the planting or dibbling of wheat and other crops, and the hand boeing of corn, turnips, &c. The evening education is that of reading and writing, arithmetic, &c., and such religious and other instruction as time and opportunity will admit, in which, as in their daily labour, they are superintended by a young man for the purpose, who was four years at the Woburn National School, and six years at the Duke of Bedford's farm, where he also worked in a gang. My calculations show the cost of clothes, attendance, &c., for twenty boys, for one year, to be 621. 12s. 6d.; being 3l. 2s. 71⁄2d. per boy, per year; or 1s. 24d. per week. This calculation does not include the person who works with the boys. Twenty boys' keep per week, at average market prices, as per amount consumed, 2l. 15s. 7d., or 2s. 9'd. per week per boy. Each boy's clothes, per ditto, 1s. 24d. Total expence of each boy, per week, 3s. 11åd.

"To show some of the advantages derived from the system, their work is much more carefully done than any man can do it working by the piece, at the prices usually given, and as shown by the annexed statement:-Wheat planting, six or seven boys at 8d. per acre, 4s. 8d.-not done in this county by men; wheat hoeing, six boys, at 8d. per acre, 4s.-men per acre, 4s.; turnip hoeing, five boys, at 8d. per acre, 3s. 4d.; ditto, second time, three boys, at 8d., 2s.-men, 6s. 6d. to 7s.; mangold wurzel, six boys and one man plant five acres per day, say 1s. 3d. per acre-men 3s.; cleaning and heaping swedes, six boys, at 8d. per acre, 4s. men, 6s. This statement is very considerably in favour of the boys. In planting corn there is a considerable saving of seed; the seed is all in the ground, and at the required distances apart, to admit of hoeing and weeding, and thus it requires less harrowing. The hoeing is as perfect as it well can be done by hand, and all the surface is moved a system seldom carried out when it is hoed by the piece. In the turnip hoeing the plants are at regular distances, and all the surface is moved, so that no weeds escape. The judges of swede crops for the Herefordshire Agricultural Society, the season before last, mentioned the cultivation of my swede crops as the most perfect they had ever seen; and I believe that in a field of forty acres a man might have crossed it in six places, and not have found six double plants. Of incidental work I need say little more than to remark that in weeding, collecting couch, collecting turnips and potatoes, making hay, turning barley and other crops at harvest, picking stones from the land, &c., the boys are peculiarly adapted, as these operations do not require strength but care, and from their size the boys get so much closer to their work. But these are few of the great advantages to be derived. Whilst my boys are learning to be good and skilful labourers, and to get their living, they are rescued from what are too frequently dens of immorality and vice, and are learning their duty towards God, and their duty towards their neighbour. They are learning habits of cleanliness, a