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never have engaged in her service. In the case of Merton and Magdalen Colleges in Oxford, a peculiar and most beneficial relation was established between the exhibitioners and the Masters of Arts, Fellows of the College, in that, to one or other of them each poor scholar on his first entrance was assigned, sleeping in his room, attending upon him in the college hall, and receiving from him, in return, direction as to his studies, and advice as to his conduct-all of this valuable and systematic according to the character of the individuals, but in no case destitute of more or less moral influence upon the mind of the young students.

Such then was the state of the case up to the middle of the seventeenth century, that such is the case, alas, no longer, it is needless to prove. Mr. Carlisle's pages, and those of the Reports of the Charity Commissioners, present the sad picture, one after another, of Grammar Schools and their dependent Exhibitions falling into desuetude and decay. But except for the purpose of specific redress it is useless and invidious to particularize; nor is there any reason why we should single out any class of men for censure. When the importance of these institutions ceased to be recognized, the colleges, as a natural consequence, ceased to exercise with vigilance their visitatorial power, trustees appointed masters carelessly and partially, masters when appointed neglected their duty. All the tendencies of the last century were towards comfort and respectability, not to selfdenial and humbleness, nor consequently to a poor and devoted order of clergy. The will of a benefactor to the grammar school at Exeter, bearing date 1745, contains the following sentence:-" I admit boys of larger fortune to enjoy this exhibition, that they may have some depth of soil of their own, and grow up and flourish in it, that I may not, by making it a mere charity, increase the number of starved priestlings." What a contrast is here to the direction of the Vicar of Lewisham, just a hundred years earlier, that his free scholars (who were to "take upon them the function of the Ministry") were to be "destitute orphans, the children of mean Tradesmen, painful Husbandmen, or of any other honest and godly poor persons.' As an illustration of the same change of feeling I may mention a fact communicated to me by the Fellow of a College, on which several country schools are dependent, that frequent entries occur in his college books of exhibitioners sent up from these schools, at different periods, till within 100 years ago, but that after that time such entries altogether cease.

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I have now given you my ideas of the ancient mode by which persons not of gentle birth were enlisted in the service of the Church. The consideration of how far the same course of action is within our own immediate power, and if not, what may be the best substitute for it, I hope to be allowed to offer next month, and will now subscribe myself, Dear Sir, faithfully yours,

S. F. W.

my highly-valued friend and brother, the Bishop of New Zealand, to Liverpool, and of there explaining to him upon the the spot, my views as to the fulfilment of the design of good old Mr. Moore, conjointly with those of the SOCIETY, and of other friends to the cause of sound learning and religious education. His Lordship, whose great experience in such matters deservedly adds weight to his decision, expresses himself much in favour of the proposed situation of the college, and quite enters into my opinion that there is an extent of ground provided for the erection of a pile of buildings amply sufficient for the purposes of a collegiate establishment in this colony for probably a century to come. This I will have been rendered manifest to the SOCIETY, I trust, by the ground plan of the property which I caused to be prepared and forwarded to you last year."— Extract of a Letter from the Lord Bishop of Australia, to the S. P. C. K.

Grammar School at Newcastle in Australia." There is another branch of my design for the extension of education, on which I shall, within a very short time, I trust, be enabled to forward to you a communication of a satisfactory nature, namely, concerning the property purchased at Newcastle to be the site of a seminary of a superior character, for the benefit of the Northern division of the colony. Towards that purchase I agreed to advance from the SOCIETY's grant, the sum of 5001.; on the same understanding as in Sydney, that the amount should be gradually repaid, and appropriated finally towards the erection or endowment of a college. The deed of trust for the land is not yet completed, or it should have been forwarded to you by the present conveyance. But I am assured by my respected friend and constant supporter, Mr. Justice Burton, that it is in a forward state of preparation; and with the copy of it, which shall be sent to you, I purpose to transmit a Report which I have obtained on the worth of the land itself; which will prove that the purchase was a highly advantageous one, and may at no distant period supply the means of essentially serving the cause on behalf of which the SOCIETY has made so noble an exertion.-Ibid.

Schoolkeeping in Western Australia."I find it vain to attempt to convey to

the mind of a native any idea of spiritual existence; they have not the slightest notion of a future state, nor is there a word in their entire vocabulary to express a spiritual overruling power. We first endeavour to teach the children the English language, at the same time amusing them with the letters of the alphabet, &c. Their memory is surprisingly quick, but they have not long retention; the knowledge they have acquired must be kept daily before them. Several of the little students spell dissyllables pretty correctly, and repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Evening Hymn; but as yet they do not understand what they learn by heart; but the Lord, who has opened their mouth, will, in His own good time, open their hearts to pray with the spirit and with the understanding also.". "The native school is still in existence; but owing to the want of co-operation on the part of the people, and the inability of the local government to afford further support, we have been obliged to fold our arms around the few we at first received, whilst numbers around us are being brought up in the irreclaimable habits of their wretched fathers. The government have given 251. a year to the schoolmaster and guardian, together with a pound of bread each child a day. We have eleven children receiving instruction, and Mr. Browne assists me in giving the children a fish or a piece of coarse meat occasionally, and sugar to mix with water, as a substitute for white man's tea.'"-Extract of a Letter from the Rev. G. King.

APPOINTMENTS.

Esther, Rev. C., Master of Kirkby Ravensworth School.

Garvey, Rev. Rich., Principal of Proprietary School, Wakefield.

Hill, Rev. Herbert, Head-master of Warwick Free Grammar School.

Watkins, Mr. R., Master of Sir G. Monox's Grammar School, Walthamstow. Whiston, Rev. R., Head-master of the Cathedral School at Rochester.

DEATHS.

Andrews, Rev. G., Head-master of Grantham Grammar School.

Griffith, Rev. Evan, Head-master of Swansea Grammar School.

Sleath, Rev. W. Boultbee, D.D. Headmaster of Repton School.

A FEW WORDS TO SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS.

AMONG the various remarks upon our first number with which we have been favoured by friends and correspondents, the only one that has greatly disappointed or surprised us--and certainly we were not at all prepared to expect such an objection-was, that it contained nothing for Sunday School Teachers. "Strange indeed, if true," was the immediate reply, "for no class of persons has been more in our thoughts in all that we have hitherto had to do with the Journal." The mystery, however, was cleared up the next moment by the rejoinder of our friend, that he had scarcely observed the name of Sunday School Teacher, except upon the title page. Now, as it is by no means improbable that others may have formed the same judgment of us, and upon the same grounds, we take the earliest opportunity (just observing, as we pass on, if we may do so without irreverence, that the same argument would go to prove that the Holy Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity, nor the Book of Esther the being of a God,) of stating, in few words, why we regard Sunday School Teachers with peculiar interest, and how the ENGLISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATION is intended to be of service to them. There is no point upon which we are more anxious, than that education should always be a living thing-the bringing out, or bringing up, of a man; that the formation of character and habits should be regarded as the chief end, in every department of the work; that training, not teaching, should be the grand aim throughout. It is on this account that we object to the substitution of the modern term, “training," not being willing to acknowledge that the thing is new, or to take a part, even the best part, for the whole. The danger perhaps is, that our readers may be wearied by the repetition of these truisms; our principles, as mammas say of little children, “should be seen and not heard." At all events it is not necessary to dwell upon the point in addressing Sunday School Teachers. Their teaching is chiefly meant as training they recognise practically the great principle so happily set forth the other day by Mr. Gladstone in his inaugural address at Liverpool :

-"That, although it is important to supply every man with the means of honourable pursuit of his earthly calling, yet that the paramount purpose of education is not so much to supply a man with tools and instruments whereby he may fashion all things to his pleasure, as to fashion and mould man himself; so to act upon and form his mind, so to cherish the seed of life eternal, that he may be conscious of the utter ruin of his condition, that he may not bind his view to temporary and perishable objects, but that, recognising that which was the state of his first parents before their fall, he may constantly bear in mind, that to recover that state is the great end of his being upon earth; and to make him feel, that, whatever may be his position and his lot, whatever is about him and pertaining to him, constitutes part of the wonderful discipline devised by Divine wisdom for the renovation of human nature."

Such being the very aim of Sunday School Teachers, in volunteering to devote a considerable portion of the weekly festival to the instruction of the children of their poorer neighbours, we cannot but regard them with affectionate interest as fellow-labourers in the good cause to which VOL. I., NO. 2. FEBRUARY, 1843.

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this Journal is devoted; and our strong feeling that the Sunday school would be but a poor substitute for the week-day school, rather increases than diminishes this interest, since in many instances the former is the only chance of education within the poor child's reach. Most happy, therefore, shall we be, if our pages should be found a comfort and a help to them in their important and self-denying exertions; and we are not without hope, that this may be the case, and perhaps to the best purpose where little or no allusion is made to Sunday schools in particular. Certainly, we shall not aim at getting into their good graces by idle flattery, or gossiping news, or doctrinal essays, or controversial excitement, or preaching addresses, or indeed by speaking of them or to them in any way as an isolated class of educators. Nevertheless, we do expect to be of service to them; and, we repeat it, the more so in proportion as we treat them as fellow-labourers with others, and particularly with the Clergy, in the work of "sound learning and religious education." And this we hope to do in a manner that will at the same time supply the greatest, though not perhaps the most strongly felt defect in their whole system.

There can be no doubt, that they generally bring to their work a considerable portion of religious feeling; and their zeal is sufficiently proved by their disinterestedness. And though they often complain themselves of their want of knowledge, yet, if we may judge of the teacher's information from the progress of the pupils, (for it is surprising how much the children often learn, considering the shortness of the time they are actually under instruction, and that only one day in the week,) Sunday School Teachers are not much hindered in their work by any defect of this sort; indeed the amount of information required is but small. The only considerable drawback to their success, humanly speaking, (how far they look up in faith to Him who alone can prosper their undertaking, must be left to each man's conscience to determine,) seems to arise from their small acquaintance with the general principles of education; with the practical art of governing children in classes; with the most effectual methods of keeping up the attention of numbers, and of teaching as applicable to all subjects; with the art of rapid and varied questioning: and, in short, with what we may term the professional part of schoolkeeping. It is lamentable to see what liberties, so to speak, many a little urchin takes with his teacher, even in Church, and how much trouble and annoyance he gives him in a hundred ways, not one of which would he ever think of with a well-trained master. The latter, too, finds far less difficulty in keeping up the most lively attention in a class of fifty, than the former often does with a tenth of the number. Now it is in these ways, especially, that we hope to make this Journal of service to those lay-helpers to the Clergy in our populous parishes, but for whose diligence and self-denial many a poor child would grow up in utter ignorance of Him whom to know is life eternal. There is in the world a vast fund of what we have ventured to term professional knowledge in educational matters, which has never yet, to any extent worth mentioning, been brought to bear upon our Sunday schools. Our readers will not misunderstand us, as if we were about to propose any new system: nothing is farther from our thoughts. We

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