The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1874-09-01 00:00:00

nowt &mufti Exprem.

TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER 1, 11.

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

When Her Majesty made her journey to the
North it will be remembered the platforms and
stations were as exclusively as possible preserved
for the Royal Party, and there was so much
annoyance and disappointment felt on the part
of the public that it was thought necessary
shortly afterwards for the Court Newsman to
send to the principal papers an explanatory
rooseesiiqué. Bearing these facts in mind, we
cannot help remarking the difference in regard
to the Royal residence in Scotland. At the
Brwiear gathering, for instance, the public were
' freely admitted, and Her Majesty witnessed the
sports without any restrictions. Her Majesty
had a seat in front of the Castle, and, the report
goes on,
" Shortly after the arrival of the Queen rain began to
fall, and it gradually grew heavier until it fell in
perfect torrents. Her Majesty, however, remained
seated, watching the games as long as they were kept
up. The rain grew so heavy that the sports had
ultimately to be suspended, but still the Queen kept
her seat, protected only by an umbrella, although re-
peatedly requested to take shelter in the wooden
erection attached to the Cantle used as a hall-room.
At last seeing that there were no signs of the rain
ceasing, Her Majesty took advantage of the friendly
shelter and watched the games, which had been
resnined, from the open door. After a stay of about
an hour the Royal party left amid cheering, and the
assembly, which had remained intact during the
presence of the Queen, immediately broke up."
It is now reported that instead of an applica-
tion to Parliament for an additional allowance
to the Prince of Wales, Her Majesty intends to
pay the debts of the Heir-Apparent; also that
the Duke of Cambridge intends to resign the
post of Conunander-in-Chief of the Army; and
that the Duke of Connaught will succeed him.
That the tirst-named Royal Duke will sooner or
later resign his position is probable enough;
the gout has seized upon him, and will not let
go its hold, and this consideration may induce
him to resign earlier than he otherwise would ;
but as to the Duke of Connaught assuming the
position it is simply absurd. In the likelihood
of the other rumour we have no belief.

Turning from British Royalty to Foreign
Royalty, we note that on Friday the Prince of
Asturias and suite reviewed a cavalry brigade at
Mdershot. This is not very important in itself;
but when we lind ex-Queen Isabella's son treate
as a Royal Prince, while Don Carlos is regarded
as an insurrectionary leader, and again when we
see the ex-Empress of the French and the Prince
Imperial receiving Imperial and Royal courtesies,
while the Comte de Chambord is ignored, it is
pretty clear that Legitimism in France and
Spain is not favoured by the Courts of Europe,
and nothing, we think, could speak more plainly
for the hopelessness of the prospects of the
Bourbons in both countries. This great family,
branches of which once reigned in a half-a-dozen
European States, seems to have become effete,
at all events in its legitimate branches.
It is rumoured that a Royal residence in
Ireland has been determined upon, and that the
object of Mr. Disraeli's visit in October is to
inspect two or three places that have been
recommended as sites.

The threshing of the new wheat has justified
the early reports of an abundant harvest, which
later writers discredited, and the prospects of
the country are correspondingly buoyant. The
cheap loaf and the millions to be spent in this
country instead oof being sent for foreign supplies
are tieing already discounted. An astonishing
supply of money is a corresponding feature;
the glut in Lombard-street being quite as
remarkable as in Mark Lane. Again, the Bank
of England, in order to secure any part of the
discounting business of the time has had to
lower its minimum. Thu only mau in the
country who is supposed to be in danger of
financial embarrassment is the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, for the revenue is nearly half-a-
million less than at this time last year. But at
the worst, in contrast with the Budget anxieties
of France, Italy, Russia, or of India, the Eng-
lish Chancellor of the Exchequer rests on a bed
of roses. The United States Minister sees his
way pretty clearly, no doubt, and Prussian
finance is only temporarily weighted by a revul-
sion in commercial intermits ; but the troubles
of finance in Span, Turkey, Egypt, and half-a-
dozen South American States, baffle description,
and tend to bring Finance Ministers as a body
into bad repute. There should be a Bankruptcy
Court for Nations, with powers to compel pay-
ment of at least ten shillings in the pound on
all foreign debts. We commend this thought
to Prince Oortschakoff. He might be more
successful in establishing a code of laws for
International borrowers than he has been in
conducting through the Brussels Congress a
set of rules for war. Lord Granville has
attempted to use a little moral force with Spain,
to get her to acknowledge her financial obliga-
tions, but to suutll purpose. tom European
Gould should buy up the debt of Spain at its
present nominal quotation, and reinstate the
loom in public favour by paying arrears of divi-
dend, and making provision for a few years to
come. The stocks would soon rise sufficiently
for the speculator to reimburse himself and make
a fortune out of what is rapidly becoming
Spanish waste paper.
Mrs. Grey's paper on education was one of the
most noteworthy during the sittings of the
British Association. Amongst all our great
attempts at education, we have not yet given
ourselves the trouble to consider whether there
is an art in teaching and whether the persons we
employ in this capacity are tit or not for the work
they undertake; although, as Mr. Grey remarks,
"We should hold him a fool who trusted his
farm, his garden, or his racing stud to persons
ignorant of the first principles of their manage-
ment." But this error is committed in the case
of schoolmasters, from the peer who entrusts the
hope of his family to tutors, to the tradesman
and mechanic who have to depend in a kind of
speculative way on the capabilities of persons
whose business it is to teach. It is often sup-
posed that the faculty of teaching is a natural
gift, and we see no reason for denying the fact.
But, if it be so, there is all the more reason for
discovering who possesses it, and discarding
those who have it not. No system of National
Education will ever be perfect which is not based
on this most important principle. When we
reflect what true education is, what an infinitude
of nnuirements it embraces, how much husk
must be got rid of before we can hope to find
the kernel, how wide the field and yet how
narrow the power of vision, the conviction is
irresistible that the means we at present possess
are altogether inadequate. We have teachers
produced as if by machinery, and scholars who
learn after the style of parrots—the one being
the necessary result of the other. There is a
fund of wisdom in the old desideratum "to rear
the tender thought and teach the young idea
how to shoot "—a requirement as much needed
now as over it was. It is obvious that to rear
the tender thought is to do something more than
cram the mind with dates and facts and fine
phrases. Teaching the young idea how to shoot
is by no means done when we have prepared a
pupil for a showy examination. To teach effec-
tually is difficult enough—how much more
difficult to qualify oneself for teaching. Doubt-
less the latter is an art if not a science of the
highest order, and one the importance of which
will be more and more recognised as the shams
of our present system are revealed.
It is, perhaps premature to speak of the
failure of the Brussels Congress. The repre-
sentatives have adjourned, being unable to
agree. Our Foreign Office was sufficiently
sagacious to see from the first little promise in
the consultation.