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next issue, we will try to trace the history of our present system of examination, in order that the people may see where the proper remedy is required.

-The School Journal of New York, one of our most welcome exchanges, has in its Christmas number referred to the question of what the school ought to be. "The turning round of the wheels of time brings curious changes. It is marvelous now to look back fifteen years, or even ten, and mark the changes that have been initiated in educational thought. The aspect of things is a good deal different. Go to school and learn your lessons,' was the educational maxim for fifty years, as pertained to the pupil. It is now, Go to school and be everything that is manly and upright, and strive to understand your surroundings.' Herbart's immense influence in Germany has been felt here and reinforced that of Pestalozzi in demanding that character be the object of the teacher and that no lesson be given in which a real ministry to the growth of the child was not apparent. This has led to searching enquiries and the arithmetic fetich,' as Prof. Francis Walker calls it, must follow the grammar fetich' which once was enthroned on high in the school-room. The pupil's highest good must stand paramount; that is the new maxim. What is the highest good? Jesus said, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God'; Pestalozzi and Herbart both repeat this in a different form. Cause growth into character by means of the school-room exercises." And again," Pestalozzi says, 'I believe that the first development of thought in the child is very much disturbed by a wordy system which is not adapted to his faculties or to the circumstances of his life.' This statement, plain as it may seem, and consented to as it is by all thinking educators at this time, has demanded one hundred years of debate by school-masters. The book has been over-valued, not only as a means of education, but it has caused us to define education wrongly; so much learned from the book and you are educated. There is progress because a study of Pestalozzi has been begun by teachers. And it is all the more pity that those who seek the perversion of the school in their moods of public declamation should not go to the same source to find for themselves what the true function of the school is.

Current Events.

-The library of McGill College has recently been enriched by the gift from Mr. W. C. McDonald of two hundred and

ninety-five volumes, comprising leading works upon electrical science, as applied to industrial uses, by English, French and German authorities. The gifts to the library of this university during the last quarter have numbered in all five hundred volumes, exclusive of pamphlets. Prominent amongst the many donations may be noticed one from Mr. Peter Redpath of one hundred and twenty-nine volumes. The library is fast becoming of great value and use to the many students. Baron Ferdinand Von Muller, of Melbourne, has given a collection of Australian plants.

-About three hundred gentlemen sat down to the last annual dinner of the Medical Faculty of McGill in the St. Lawrence Hall. It was one night in the year for the students, and they made the most of it. They were nothing if not loyal to old McGill, and enthusiastic in the reception of their favorite professors and friends. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and resembled a happy family gathering at Christmastide. The majority of the speeches were of a happy nature and principally of a technical character, but everybody present seemed to pass an enjoyable and profitable evening around the festive board.

-Bishop's College, Lennoxville, is having prsoperous times. It is gratifying to know that subscriptions sufficient to complete the Divinity House by finishing the ten students' rooms in the space left vacant on the third floor have been forthcoming during the recent vacation, and friends of the College are earnestly urged to make known the large proportionate increase in accommodation thus to be afforded for residents in the university, in both the faculties of arts and divinity. Steps are being taken to provide for the loss of the chapel at the time of the disastrous fire last year. Subscriptions are coming in for the re-building of this most necessary adjunct to the College.

-Morrin College, Quebec, is enjoying one of its most prosperous years. The number of undergraduates is larger than at any previous time in its history. The staff has been re-organized, and we hear that the prospect of further endowment is all but assured. The students held their annual Conversazione on the evening of the 10th of December, and the proceedings were of the most enjoyable character.

Of our schools we have to report that the Academy of Cote St. Antoine has been closed for a week or two on account of diphtheria, which, we regret exceedingly to say, carried off two

of the little ones in the primary department. The classes have been resumed, though they are still deficient in numbers. We trust all will be well again after the Christmas holidays. The Berthier Grammar School has increased its numbers this year and is in an improved condition in nearly every respect.

Lachine Model School is also well attended.

Literature, Historical Notes, etc.

University Extension, as a mode of popular culture, has entered on a new phase within the past few weeks. The "Canadian Association for the Extension of University Teaching," which was organized just a fortnight ago, bids fair to become an active and important educational force in the Dominion. Sir Donald Smith has promptly accepted the presidency of the association, and L'Abbé Laflamme has with equal promptitude and cordiality accepted a vice-presidency. This gives the Province of Quebec a fair degree of prominence in the executive direction of the society's affairs. No doubt when the Council of the Association meets in January next, both McGill and Laval Universities will be found represented by able educationists, some of whom will be chosen members of the Executive Committee. By a cautions stipulation inserted in the constitution, the Council must place only University men on the Committee, and as the membership of the latter body is not fixed as to maximum, each of the great universities, if not each university, is sure to be represented on the Committee as well as on the Council. The feeling at the late Conference was strongly in favor of maintaining as high a standard of teaching and examination as possible, so that the working of the scheme may not tend to bring any discredit on the term "university," which has been conventionally appropriated to it. Any such result would be as fatal as it is uncalled for. While the majority of those who attend extension lectures must, for a time at least, be contented with the lectures alone, there will always be a few who desire to take the class work, write the prescribed exercises, and pass the final examinations. The certificate, which is based on the class work and examinations jointly, should from the beginning mean something in the public view, and with passing years it should come to mean more and more in the way of work done and standing secured. Those who take a despondent view of the future of the "extension" movement should remember that extension work has for some years past been done in different parts of this province.

and elsewhere in Canada without formal recognition, and that such recognition as the Association will soon be able to extend to it will undoubtedly give it a stimulus. In Ontario alone, and within our own knowledge, extension work of a very genuine kind is now a progress in Ottawa and Hamilton as well as in Toronto. Here it is carried on by at least five different local organizations this winter, and no doubt this number will be increased after New Year. It is not at all improbable that half a dozen or more written examinations may be asked for in Toronto alone before spring. One of the courses in this city is given in the history of English literature in Association Hall under the auspices of Trinity University. Another is given in the same "local centre" in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association, and as part of its regular educational work. A third is given in economic science in the Canadian Institute building, with the consent, though not otherwise under the auspices of the Scientific Society, which owns it. A fourth is given on Saturday afternoons to public school teachers in one of the Normal School lecture rooms, the subjects being Shakespeare's “Merchant of Venice" and prose essays by Mr. Lowell and Mr. Gladstone. The fifth of the courses referred to is in Tennyson's Arthurian poems, including the "Idylls of the King," the "Lady of Shalott," "Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere," and "Sir Galahad," and it is given as the regular weekly work of a literary society in one of our churches. There are two courses going on in Ottawa, one in Literature and one in Political Economy, under the auspices of Queen's University. The one that I know of in Hamilton is in Shakespeare's "King Lear," and it is given by the Young People's Christian Association. These are for the most part free, or nearly so, to those who take advantage of them, and therefore their success does not prove that it would be possible to make extension classes anything like self-sustaining. It proves, however, that many people can be drawn into taking an interest in such subjects, and with a large proportion of those who take advantage of these courses the fees is a matter of comparatively little importance. For the present year not much may be possible outside of large cities, but a good beginning may, and probably will, be made in them. It has taken the movement twenty years to reach its present proportions in England, but it will now go on and increase. It has been introduced under very favorable conditions into the United States. Canada cannot afford to ignore it, or decline to give it a trial, and a fair trial it will probably have.-Witness.

THE STOIC'S (CHRISTMAS) CHEER.
(Horace, Book I. Car. 9.)

See yonder stands the mountains white
With snow-wreaths deep; the tottering trees
Can ill sustain their heavy weight

With biting frosts the rivers freeze.
Drive out the cold beyond the hearth
By freely heaping faggots on,
More bounteously the wine bring forth
That's lain four years in demijohn;
And leave the rest the fates to mind,
Since hoary oak nor cypress shakes
Whene'er they pacify the wind

That with the sea hot quarrel makes.

REPORT OF SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRI

BUTION OF GRANTS.

To the President and Members of the Provincial Association of Protestant Teachers:

We, the undersigned, members of the Sub-Committee appointed to consider the question of the Distribution of Grants, beg leave to submit the following scheme for the consideration of the Teachers in Convention assembled.

UNIVERSITIES.

A sum, not exceeding one-third of the total amount annually distributed by the Protestant Committee for superior education, may each year be divided between the Universities of McGill College, Montreal, and Bishop's College, Lennoxville, in the same proportion as at present.

AFFILIATED COLLEGES.

The total sum annually granted Affiliated Colleges shall not exceed one-third of the amount granted to the Universities, and shall be distributed to the Affiliated College, subject to the following conditions:

(1.) No Affiliated College competing with the schools under the control of the Protestant Committee shall receive a grant greater than that paid to any individual academy. The amount of such grant to be determined in the same way as that made to Academies.

(2.) Each Affiliated College, not competing with the Academies and fulfilling the requirements of affiliation, may receive an annual grant of ($400) four hundred dollars, and in addition

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