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light apparatus for the purpose of illustrating the various lectures, intend to spare no pains to make the course attractive and instructive to young and old." The issue of this announcement was to be seen in the six lectures of the course which were duly delivered: three by the Rev. Mr. Rexford, who took for his subjects, "Heavenly Bodies," "Our Planets," and "Great Events in English History;" and three by Dr. Harper, who took for his subjects, "The Lady of the Lake," " Our World as it Is and Was," and "Fossils, Fauna and Flora." So far were these successful that it is proposed to inaugurate a second course to be given during the remaining part of the winter.

-We are glad to note that the Public School Board of Toronto has resolved to petition the Provincial Government and Legislature in favor of an amendment to the School Act, empowering School Boards in towns and cities to impose a rate for the purpose of supplying free text-books for the use of pupils. No doubt the required permission will be granted. We wish the supplying of free text-books could be made compulsory. It would be a great boon to teachers, parents and children in rural as well as in city schools. Not only are many children kept from school for want of books, but much time in school is often lost through delay in procuring suitable textbooks, stationery, etc.-Educational Journal.

-We endorse every word in the following taken from the Educational Review, of New Brunswick, and we do so all the more heartily from the fact that the RECORD was the first to suggest the formation of an Association of Teachers for the Dominion: "The National Education Association of the United States has accepted the invitation of the Ontario Educational Department to hold its next meeting in Toronto. A note to the Review, just received from Mr. Ray Greene Huling, President of the American Institute of Instruction, states that this association has received a formal invitation to meet at Toronto with the National Association, July 13 and 17, 1891. There is no doubt but that the Ontario department will extend invitations to the different Provincial Institutes throughout the Dominion to be present at this notable meeting. Instead of three great educational gatherings, as outlined in the September Review, there bids fair to be only one-that at Toronto. Canada should be represented at the gathering, and in such a way as will allow our educationists to meet and, if deemed advisable, form a Canadian Educational Association."

-Messrs. Kendal & Dent, the well-known watch makers of 106 Cheapside, have issued a time chart of the world, showing

at a glance the difference between Greenwich mean time and the local time at the principal towns throughout the world at either noon or midnight. For other hours the time after twelve must be added to the local time. They offer to send a copy of this chart, gratis and post free, to every one wishing to possess

a copy.

-Even the Emperor of Germany has been inoculated with the very fast notions of the present educational period. One point that the Emperor especially emphasizes is the time lost in the higher public schools in cramming youths with Latin and Greek instead of the German language and German history. Modern history, he declared, if rightly taught, would become infinitely more valuable than the chronicles of antiquity. The higher schools must mend their methods. The present system tended toward an over-production of highly educated people. He approved a saying of Prince Bismarck's anent the abituriente proletariat, whom he called "hunger candidates," and from whom the ranks of journalism were largely recruited, forming a class dangerous to society. Journalists, he said, were high school products run to seed. There are very few true educationists who will pin their faith to what the young Emperor says on such a subject, and even those who do not make a study of educational theories or systems will be little inclined to follow a man who speaks of the journalists of his own country in terms of reproach. It need hardly be said that the newspapers of Germany generally resent the Emperor's reference to editors.

-The movement in favour of teaching the pupils of the Board Schools of Great Britain the art of swimming is still engaging public attention. It is suggested that the youthful frequenters of the London School Board Schools should be taught that useful art; but here a difficulty arises, one cannot well swim without water, and the water is non-existent. Some say, however, that if water is not to be found it must be provided, and the building of extensive and expensive swimming baths is on the tapis. Mr. White, who introduced the subject, wished the Board to instruct the Works Committee to provide swimming bath accommodation in all the schools hereafter to be built, but in the end the Board passed a resolution asking the Education Department to sanction loans for the purpose of providing swimming baths in suitable schools. The second proposal is likely in the end to be more expensive than the first.

-Apropos to the above, it is frequently amusing, to others than the candidates themselves, to notice the questions often put to teachers when they appear before managers with a view

to appointment. It is only of late, however, that they have been examined with respect to their ability to swim. Mr. Bickley, at the last meeting of the Cardiff School Board, questioned each candidate as he appeared on this point. One candidate, we are informed, gave himself away by confessing that he could swim" only about ten yards." Another obtained Mr. Bickley's favour by stating that he had taught children attending a school at Battersea to swim. "They teach boys to swim there?" asked Mr. Bickley. "Yes," said the candidate. "And the girls?" continued Mr. Bickley. "Oh, I know nothing about girls" was the reply, at which the Board laughed hugely.

-Dr. Clouston, says The East Cumberland News, is delivering a course of lectures in Edinburgh on questions which bear upon mental development. . Dr. Clouston doubts the sanity of what are called prodigies, and he plainly asserts that whoever shows any marked and special talent before the age of 25, ought to be the object of considerable medical suspicion. This view of one of the most celebrated of living experts will somewhat console the great body of mediocre people.

-The appointment of Mr. James MacAllister, Superintendent of Schools, Philadelphia, to the presidency of what promises to be one of the largest institutions in that city, will be greeted with congratulations on all sides, while his advice as a past administrator of city school affairs may be still in part retained. Mr. MacAllister's success as an educationist is worthy of the confidence which has been placed in him wherever he has been, and we have no doubt that, if he is spared in health and strength, the success of this new undertaking of his will crown the success of a lifetime spent in school-work.

-A meeting has recently been held in Nottingham to discuss means for improving the attendance at the evening schools in Nottingham. Among other things it was decided to print 50,000 neat tickets or circulars, to be issued at once to every child in attendance at the day schools in the town, to take home, announcing in as brief terms as possible the existence of the evening schools. It was also decided "That this meeting, finding that a great number of the scholars attending at the evening school classes are seriously interfered with by the fact of their having to work late in the evening at the various places of business, agrees that it be a request to the Inspector of Factories to attend the next meeting with a view of having placed before him some facts relating to the subject." There is no such interference in our country. So far the free night schools have been well attended.

-The following has been taken from an old country paper, and we feel assured that many of our readers are in a position to verify the report of Mr. Rossall: "Importance is given by recent cases of reported ill-treatment of pauper children sent out to Canada, to the first reports submitted to the Manchester and Salford Guardians by the Salford Catholic Protection and Rescue Society, as to the condition of children who have been sent out to the French-Canadian province of Quebec. Fifty children were sent from the Manchester and Salford District by the Society in May, 1889, of whom 18 were union children. In September, 1889, and April, 1890, 144 children were sent, 80 being union children. The Rev. Robt. Rossall, Chancellor of the Diocese of Salford, has twice visited the children in their new homes, and in addition to two general reports, he gives in extenso the journal kept by him during his last visitation. On the whole the reports are excellent. A few of the children have turned out badly, which is not surprising considering their early life in Manchester and Salford, and their former surroundings. Again, two or three of the children are dissatisfied with their Canadian masters or mistresses, and a case of ill-treatment is reported by Mr. Rossall; but in the vast majority of cases the children have found excellent homes, have been adopted by their employers, and utterly refuse to return to England. Some of them have almost forgotten how to speak English. Mr. Rossall will visit the young emigrants twice a year in future."

Literature, Historical Notes, etc.

THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER

CHAPTER VI.

There is a secret in the soul of life,

Which, seek it as we may, eludes our grasp;

Though, in our search, we gather flowers of truth-
Rare blossoms scented with the balm of heaven.

The borderland between England and Scotland, so famous for its cruel feuds, has produced no more bitter strife than has been waged in the borderland between the physical and the metaphysical. Even to the present day the philosopher is all but sure to find an animated opponent somewhere within its mystifications. And when I took upon myself the task of finding for the student-teachers of my acquaintance some pathological example in whose developing consciousness and power of acquiring knowledge the memory could be seen as the groundwork of

the mental activities or the base of their operations, I was not wholly unaware of the danger of conducting an investigation of this kind in such a way. The case which I have selected is an instructive one, whatever may be the inference some may draw from it, while the authenticity of the narrative describing it is vouched for by the Lancet, in which it originally appeared.

The subject of the case was a young woman of robust constitution and good health, who accidentally fell into a river and was nearly drowned. She remained insensible for six hours after the immersion, but recovered so far as to be able to give some account of the accident and of her subsequent feelings, though she continued far from well. Ten days subsequently, however, she was seized with a fit of complete stupor, which lasted for four hours; at the end of which time she opened her eyes, but did not seem to recognize any of her friends around her, and she appeared to be utterly deprived of the senses of hearing, taste and smell, as well as the power of speech. Her mental faculties seemed to be entirely suspended; her only medium of communication with the external world being through the senses of Sight and Touch, neither of which appeared to arouse ideas in her mind, though respondent movements of various kinds were excited through them. Her vision at short distances was quick; and so great was the exaltation of the general sensibility upon the surface of the body, that the slightest touch would startle her; still, unless she was touched or an object or a person was so placed that she could not help seeing the one or the other, she appeared to be quite lost to everything that was passing around her. She had no notion that she was at home, nor the least knowledge of anything about her; she did not even know her own mother, who attended upon her with the most unwearied assiduity and kindness. Wherever she was placed, there she remained during the day.

Her appetite was good; but having neither taste nor smell, she ate alike indifferently whatever she was fed with, and took nauseous medicines as readily as delicious viands. All the auto

matic movements unconnected with sensation, of which the Spinal Cord is the instrument, seemed to go on without interference, as did also those dependent upon the sensations of sight and touch; whilst the functions of the other sensory ganglia, together with those of the cerebral hemispheres, appeared to be in complete abeyance. The analysis of the facts stated regarding her ingestion of food seems to make this clear. She swallowed food when it was put into her mouth; this was a purely automatic action, the reception by the lips being excited by tac

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