The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-08-02 00:00:00

MR. FORSTER ON EDUCATION.

The prizes and certificates awarded to pupils in
schools at the midsummer examinations held by the
College of Preceptors were presented to the winners
on Saturday in the Memorial Hall, Farringdon•street,
London, by the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, M.P.
Mr. Forster, in addressing the audience on the sub-
ject of secondary education, said that no one who had
considered the subject could be entirely satisfied with
it as it stood at present in England and Wales. He
had no doubt that he was addressing many masters
and mistresses whe had had a difficulty in getting
competent teachers, while they in their: turn had often
to compete with ignorant and pretentious ones. The
latter were often, from the ignorance of parents,
enabled to sell their spurious wares to the disadvan-
tage of thwe who had acquired their ability to teach
by fair means.
The speaker then referred to the inquiry made by
the Endowed Schools Commission as to the state of
intermediate education, and went through a quantity
of statistics with regard to it. He then spoke in answer
to an article written by Mr. Matthew Arnold, his
brother-in-law, who, he said, had proposed a very heroic
remedy for the deficiencies of intermediate education
in England. The writer had averred that the French
middle-classes were very much better educated than
oars, but there were influances in their country which
counterbalanced any want of education in ours
if such existed. The schoolmasters over there must
be at least twenty-five years old, and have had five
years' experience in teaching before they were allowed
to take a situation in any of the public schools in which
secondary education was afforded. Mr. Arnold pro-
posed to do in England for secondary education what
was done in 1870 for elementary education, and if the
endowments of the schools would not supply the defi-
ciency in that respect, that it should be made com-
pulsory upon the locality in which they were placed to
fill it up. He did not think that the English people
would ever assent to that, as it would be too costly.
Besides this it would bring about too much interfer-
ence between the parents and the children, and would
result in a too centralised and uniform system of edu-
cation. (Hear, hear.) Another gentleman, for whom
he had the highest respect, had suggested another kind
of State interference, and that was to train teachers,
giving time for this to be done, and then to allow no-
body to teach who could not pass the necessary
examination. He did not think Englishmen would
go so far as that, for although that system
would do away with educational quacks, of
those who under such a rule would be called quacks,
yet the parents would say that many of the latter were
jast as well able to give their children a proper educa-
tion as those who had gone through the prescribed
training. What could they do? For his own part,
alter nine years of thinking over the matter, he had
come back very much to what he had ventured to intro-
duce in the form of the Endowed Schools Bill of 1869,
under which the State was to give information to the
parents and to give them guidance in the matter of
education. His Bill had, therefore, provided for
a register ot good schools and competent teachers
(hear, hear)—and an established ystem of inspection
over endowed schools; but as th y had no right to
compel this in private schools, it a as simply offered to
them. A Council of Education was also proposed to
be formed from members of the Universities, nominees
of the Crown, and representatives of the teaching pro-
fession. After a few words to the boys and girls who
had obtained prizes in which he especially enjoined
them to study geography, political ecJtion-y, history,
and the French language, the right hon. gentleman
resumed his seat amid cheers.

TITE TußquoniE.—This beautiful gem known as the
turquoise is so celebrated for its peculiar tint of blue
that it has given a descriptive name to that soft, rich
colour known as turquoise blue. Yet, though so
lovely, the colour is not permanent, but changes and
fades out by age and exposure ta the light. It is said
that the colour can be restored by keeping the gem for
a long time in the dark. There are two kinds of the
turquoise stone, known as the oriental -end the occi-
dental zarquolse. The former is the beet and has the
most permanent colour. It is found in Turkey and
Persia, also in Siberia, and has a different chymical
composition from the latter. The occidental turquoise
is found in Lower Languedoc, in the south•east of
France, and is a fossil ivory, coloured with the phos-
nhate of iron. The other is a triphosphate of alumina,
and derives its colour from the oxides of iron and
copper,