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Allowances to Teachers in Union Schools.

The following circular, by J. C. Symons, Esq., her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, contains recent regulations affecting Teachers in Union Schools:

Committee of Council on Education,

Privy Council Office, London, July 14th, 1856.

I am happy to be able to inform you, that the Lords of the Committee of Council, and the Poor Law Board, have determined, "with a view to promote improvement among the Teachers in Workhouse Schools, and to afford further encouragement to good school-keeping, that the allowance to the teachers in respect of each scholar shall in future be made in accordance with the scale set forth in the following table."

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You will observe that by this arrangement the aggregate amount of the salaries is raised, and also that promotion from one division to a higher one, under the same class of certificate, will be attended by an increase of the capitation fee. This will attach a money value to such advancement.

I am to call your attention to the fact, that though promotion from one class of certificate to another (for instance, from probation, first division, to competency, third division) can be effected only on re-examination, promotion from one division to another may be made without it. This minor step will henceforth depend entirely on two things: first, on success in school-keeping; and secondly, on industrial training. I am expressly instructed to have regard to all that is most practical in recommending that teachers should be promoted or reduced from one grade to another; so that such instruction as may specially fit children for service may have its due reward. This cannot be done unless in addition to "reading, writing, arithmetic, and the principles of the Christian religion, such other instruction be imparted to the children as may fit them for service, and train them to habits of usefulness, industry, and virtue."

These are the words in which your duties are described in 114th sec. of the Order of the Poor-Law Board; and I must scrupulously see to their due performance by teachers, as the necessary condition of any increase of salary.

It may therefore be useful to you that I should repeat the suggestions I have often made to many of you for effecting the improvements which I think are chiefly required in the workhouse-schools in my district.

1. Reading.-Bad reading may be easily corrected by making the child repeat after you aloud what he has read badly, and without looking at the book himself; this should be done until he can correctly imitate your own pronunciation, stops, emphasis, and expression.

Spelling is a part of reading; but is best tested by writing from dictation on slates, which might beneficially be practised by a larger number of children than heretofore. 2. Writing. This should be taught earlier than it usually is, and along with reading. Watch the children while they write; and as soon as they can write large hand with sufficient freedom and accuracy, abandon it for running hand, which is the only practically useful hand in after-life. You must, however, continue to watch that all

the letters are correctly formed. Good handwriting is defined in the rules of examinations for admission into the public service as "consisting in the clear formation of the letters of the alphabet; the stroke being rapid, neat, and even." A boy who can write a good hand, and who also spells correctly, can almost always find employment. You are not to aim at fine penmanship, but at good plain writing, such as the First Minister of the Crown has thought of sufficient importance to make the subject of the following letter:

Whitehall, May 24, 1854.

"SIK, I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to request that you will submit to the Committee of Council on Education for their consideration, that one great fault in the system of instruction in the schools of the country lies in the want of proper teaching in the art of writing. The great bulk of the lower and middle orders write hands too small and indistinct, and do not form their letters, or they sometimes form them by alternate broad and fine strokes, which makes the words difficult to read. The handwriting which was generally practised in the early part and middle of the last century was far better than that now in common use; and Lord Palmerston would suggest that it would be very desirable that the attention of schoolmasters should be directed to this subject, and that their pupils should be taught rather to imitate broad printing than fine copperplate engraving. I am, &c. (Signed) H. WADDINGTON.

The Secretary to the Committee of Council on Education."

3. Arithmetic.-As workhouse children are always liable to be taken out suddenly, strive to teach what is most useful first. Postpone teaching simple multiplication and simple division until they can work both simple and compound addition and subtraction sums. They will need the power of adding money very much oftener than that of multiplying or dividing. Do not write down sums for them; let them do it from your dictation, so as to practise them in numeration. They should be also early taught the most useful tables. Above all, practise them in simple mental arithmetic, such as the price of different quantities of the shop-goods they are likely to use, rates and amounts of wages, and the like. This tends to create future habits of economy, and to prevent the recurrence of pauperism, which I beg of you to bear in mind as the great object of your work.

4. Religious Knowledge.-On this all-important subject you will seek the constant advice of the chaplain. Where you are not fortunate enough to have one, remember that the requirement of you is, that you should teach" the principles of the Christian religion," both doctrinal and practical; and that this is not satisfied merely by what the children can repeat from memory, or by a knowledge of bits of Scripture history, generally confined to the Old Testament.

I have found that a knowledge how to apply the commandments, the parables, and the practical examples of our Saviour's life, though essential, is often very defectively imparted.

5. Industrial Knowledge.—This is highly important. It should comprise all knowledge useful to every-day working life. It should bear especially on the trades, occupations, and kind of employment prevalent in the union. Both boys and girls should learn the respective duties of domestic and farm-servants in each kind of service; the uses of metals, of different kinds of timber; the qualities, prices, and uses of the chief articles of clothing; the various rates of wages in different employment; the reasons of the variation; the different employments in different parts of the country; emigration, its means and prospects, and the peculiarities of each colony; savings' banks, and interest on deposits; simple sanitary rules as to ventilation, drainage, personal cleanliness, and temperance; lastly, whatever knowledge will afford to a labouring man the best insight into his own position, dangers, and opportunities. Much of this may be done in the course of the reading-lesson of the day.

6. Geography.-Begin with home. Make the children thoroughly acquainted with the chief features and towns of their own county, and then proceed further; taking especial pains to interest and inform them about the great industrial characteristics of each district, and afterwards of the British colonies and foreign countries. You will readily see how to make this subject of instruction (geography) help the last (industry).

7. How to impart Knowledge.-Remember that you have to inform minds, and not merely to charge memories; you must therefore give the children information in the simplest language, using short words, such as they use, and in such a way as to interest them in what you teach. I advise you never to omit close questioning on what you have taught a class, to see if they all understand it. The best method of doing this is to make each child silently hold his hand out who thinks he can answer; then point to the youngest, or least likely to be right, to answer you. If the others think the answer right, teach them to drop their hands; if not, to keep them up; in which. case, take their answers successively till the question is well and fully answered This has been found to be the quietest and most effectual way of testing a whole class,

and of avoiding the delusion caused by a number of children echoing a correct answer, which is really given by one or two only of the most forward scholars. I strongly recommend you to adopt this plan systematically. Do not attempt any high flights; but aim at grounding the great body of the children in homely practical knowledge and acquirements, thus diffusing instruction generally among all. Take great pains to give each class a fair share of your own personal attention. I judge of the teacher greatly by the justice done to the lower classes, and I object strongly to their being instructed chiefly by other children.

8. Moral Training.-This should pervade the whole of your work. Recollect that this may be the only opportunity that these poor children may have of acquiring habits of truthfulness, cleanliness, modesty, obedience, diligence, and industry Every hour in the day will give you occasions of inculcating these virtues, both by practice, precept, and your own example. Pray do not incur the heavy responsibility of neglecting this.

Watch the children during their play, and make them observe common things when they walk out with you, which they should do more frequently. These are capital opportunities for moral training.

Let no punishment be given whilst in anger; let two hours always elapse, as the law requires, before corporal punishment is administered to boys, and resort to it only as a last resource, and in the master's presence. I need not dwell on the vast power which gentleness will give you over the hearts and temper of the children, and how warmly they will respond to kindness in their present hapless condition.

Avail yourself of all means the guardians may be good enough to give you of affording rewards for good conduct. I shall be always willing to co-operate with you in obtaining them. Encourage the children in innocent tastes, in healthful exercise and recreation.

9. Labour. The kind of training given will depend on the guardians. It will be my duty to see that it is properly taught, and that the children are not only made to work, but are instructed in the best mode of working, and in the reasons for what they do and the principle on which it is done. You should, whenever you are charged with this branch of instruction, be and work as much as possible with the children; whether the work be gardening or carpentering for boys, or needlework or household work for girls.

In this, and in all the instructions you give, think and teach what will be most practically useful to the children in their probable course of life.

I hope you will employ some of your leisure time in your own improvement; so as to obtain higher certificates on re-examination, remembering that a full head is essential to effective teaching.

Write to me whenever you think my advice may be useful to you.-I am, &c.,
J. C. SYMONS, H. M. Inspector of Union Schools.

Papers read before Schoolmasters' Associations.

TEACHING CHURCH-MUSIC IN SCHOOLS.

A Paper read before the Oswestry Church Schoolmasters' Association, by the Rev. William Walsham
How, Rector of Whittington.
PART I.

After some prefatory remarks upon the value of music as an instrument of education, and upon the great assistance which good music in our schools would afford towards the attainment of good music in our churches, the lecture proceeded as follows:

The first thing is your material. This you must pick from your schools. You will test the children's voices by making them sing the scale, or a verse of some familiar tune; and care more for the correctness of ear than for the quality of voice at first. The latter can be improved to almost any extent afterwards. On this point, and indeed on the whole subject, consult a very admirable little treatise called Hints on the Formation and Improvement of a Church Choir, being No. I. of a series of "Parochial Papers," published by J. H. Parker in 1851, price 1s. This treatise contains most sensible and useful hints on the subject, and a short and excellent outline of a course of instruction exactly suited to country schools. Well, we will suppose twelve or fourteen children chosen. Besides these, you should have a reserve of six or eight to practise with them, and to fill up vacancies as they arise. It is much better not to teach the whole school at once. Now if you intend this class to form a choir in church, I would give two hints as to the selection: 1. Take boys

rather than girls; for though it is of less consequence when they are quite young, yet, as they grow older, it is plainly better not to retain girls in your choir if you can help it; and boys' voices are the better of the two, if properly trained. 2. If possible, choose some of your singers from a class above the very poor, both for the sake of greater refinement of accent and pronunciation, and also because such children are likely to remain with you longer than others. It is a great advantage to get others besides the scholars in your schools to attend to practise singing; and this may often be done by an evening lesson in the winter, when you may probably be able to fill up all the parts.

As to methods of teaching: Hullah's is now very widely adopted, and answers every purpose. Whatever system you adopt must be taught thoroughly. The groundwork must be mastered. The simple elements must be both perfectly familiar at first, and constantly recalled to mind afterwards, the merest matters of practice (as beating time, scales, &c.) being repeated very frequently. To relieve the tediousness, let a part of each lesson consist of singing something; and, if the children have got into a bad way of singing, let this little practice consist of such tunes, &c., as you intend to drop altogether when you have taught them better ones. Do not disgust yourself, the children, and other people, with a really good chant or tune, by allowing it to be sung till it can be sung fairly well. It is much recommended to introduce at a very early period some secular music at the end of the lesson, such as some simple rounds and catches, and afterwards glees; and this for the following reasons: (1) because it prevents flagging and weariness; and (2) because in secular music one can freely point out absurdities or peculiarities of manner or pronunciation, teach the opening of the mouth, and other such things, which may at times be difficult to do without causing more merriment than one would like in dealing with sacred music and words. But always be very careful to draw a line between the two parts, by putting aside books, and making a pause, so as in no way to blend the two together. It is very important that children should always remember what they are doing when singing sacred words, even in practice.

The following rules should be observed in practising:

1. Practise the children singly, two at a time, and antiphonally, i. e. divided into two parts, teaching verse by verse. At first there will be some hesitation about singing alone before others; but after singing in twos or threes, this will soon pass off. You can do far more in the same time in this way to improve the tone and quality of the voice, the pronunciation, and all the requisites of singing, than by practising all together. You must, of course, observe carefully each voice, and not let defects pass unchecked.

2. Perhaps a still more important rule is to make the children always sing softly. Loud singing is almost always bad singing. A child, with taste uncultivated, is not offended at the harsh crash of sound which is raised by many a school under the name of singing; and each child, wishing his own voice to be heard, sings out his loudest. This is the ruin of singing. Every child must learn that no one wants to hear his voice, but that it must be wholly subservient to the general harmony. Also, singing loud spoils the voice, destroys its sweetness and tone, and entirely prevents the power of swelling and diminishing the volume of sound in particular parts, in which lies so much of musical expression. There must be perfectly well understood signals for louder and softer; and the children must learn from the first to watch the smallest indications of the teacher's hand, the mere uplifting of which should at once soften the careless tones, which will, if not very well trained, turn music into mere noise, and spoil all the effect of the harmony.

3. Teach children to read music. From the very first let them see every note they sing. Stop short in practising, and ask the children to point out the note last sung. Take them from note to note backwards and forwards, as you would teach them to read words, till they know the sound they utter by sight. Practise them in various intervals. It is wonderful how soon a class can thus be taught to read music correctly, and sing a succession of notes at sight.

[To be continued.]

THE INFLUENCE OF THE TEACHER'S WORK ON HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER. Delivered before the Carlisle Diocesan Schoolmasters' Association, by William Bell, of Crosbyon-Eden.

It is with unaffected diffidence that I venture to accede to the request of those who were present at the last meeting of this Association, that I should address to you on this day a few remarks on some subject connected with the great and glorious work

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in which we are engaged. It becomes me to feel with him of the olden time that 'days should speak, and multitude of years understand wisdom." Yet, being thus honoured by your request, I trust to have at least your kind forbearance, and feel sure of sympathy from you,-you who know so well what are the trials and difficulties, the labours and responsibility, as well as the peculiar encouragements, which fall to the lot of the Christian teacher.

The subject which I have selected as one which may, I hope, profitably engage our attention for a short time is, "The influence of the teacher's work on his personal character."

"The teacher"-short words, and soon spoken; but how much do they suggest! It is the sweetest, most unassuming title of him who lives to impart knowledge and "train up the young in the way they should go." It is a name which has acquired a peculiar softness, and yet dignity, from its association with Him who was the Great Teacher, who taught as never man taught, spake as never man spake, whose every gesture, as well as His words and actions, were pregnant with the deepest meaning, and told with marvellous effect on His astonished followers. When we view the Lord Jesus surrounded by His disciples, and think of the meek and lowly One instructing them to learn of Him, we have then the most perfect example of what the true teacher is, what he does, and to what all his actions tend.

I have said that the word "teacher" seems to me our sweetest title. Connected as it is with the Latin doceo and our own docile, it seems to picture to my mind the teacher as a being surrounded by pupils full of eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge children feeling a pleasure in being taught, and a teacher more willing to lead than to drive

"Whose kind and gentle sway
Persuades them day by day
To live in peace and love.'

But our other titles are also eminently suggestive, though not so attractive as this. We are sometimes called masters and schoolmasters. The name conjures up before me my boyhood, with the master of the old school stalking in majesty, monarch of all he surveys, wielding from his chair of state the fathomable osier to sound every corner of his domain, and the little urchins much more anxious to avoid the touch of the sceptre than to con the mysteries of the A B C. This is a literal description of the spot in which I first got initiated into the wondrous power of a certain number of odd-looking characters, the most trustworthy of whom seemed to me to be the well-proportioned O. He who ruled us was a master,—for he displayed his might, and a schoolmaster, and no more; for out of school we shrank from him, fearful to rise above the horizon which bounded his highness' vision. It is but justice, however, to the worthy individuals to whom this description may apply, that now in a great measure "a change has come o'er the spirit of my dream."

Another of our titles, with a very spirited meaning, is that of “inculcator"—one who has to use his heel and kick in knowledge. The name expresses thus in its connotation the difficulty of our work. In the most favourable construction which we can put upon it, it may remind us of the words of Holy Writ: "Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little;" still inculcating truth, kicking it into the mind, and by repeated blows securing it there. But let it be well understood that the implements here are not carnal, but yet mighty, and have no connection whatever with the too common and long-established method of enforcing the teacher's words-the bastinado.

Somewhat more pleasing is the term " instructor"- -one who builds up in the mind the temple of knowledge, one whose "delightful task" it is to rear the glorious palace of wisdom where before there was nothing but the waste of ignorance. If the architect feels that his work is noble, and if he is proud of his position as he sees the glorious fabric which his fancy conceived becoming a reality, then too may not the teacher feel his heart swell in his bosom as he sees his work succeed, and may he not well cry, paradoxical though the words seem, "Delightful task?"

But better than any of these is the name "educator"-one who draws out the latent powers of the intellect; who seeks not to pull the bud to pieces, but quietly to bring it to maturity, until it unfolds its beauties in due time and under the proper influences. This is, if I may so speak, the exegesis of childhood; and if the exegesis of a word requires so much skill in order that its true meaning may be drawn out of it, how much skill should he possess who has to draw out the young mind of the future man! To educate, in the true sense of the term, calls into exercise all the passions, and proves the principles which rule in the educator's breast; and thus, while he is teaching others, his very work exerts a reflex influence on his own heart and life. It

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