The Express.
London, England, 1864-01-08 00:00:00

HIGH WATIlat AT LONDON Barnox

TESS DAY Marnhos, AIL .Allorapoa, lb. 10m.
To. OSILOW Naming. lh. 2h. 3a.

LONDON, FRIDAY, lANCIARX S.

IN his address at Manchester on the system of
Local Examination, Lord STANLEY took a wider
view of the general subject of Middle Class Edu-
cation than is common even with distinguished
speakers on such occasions. Instead of indulging
in a few useful but commonplace remarks on the
advantages of knowledge, or the progress of edu-
cation in England as compared with other coun-
tries, he considered the middle-class teaching of
the day in relation to the true end of all educa-
tion—that of training a youth to the active and
independent exercise of his faculties, and thus
fitting him to become a good citizen and a useful
man. The chief means to the accomplishment of
this end—so far, that is, as it can be attained at
school—are undoubtedly, as Lord STANLEY
pointed out, minute accuracy and thoroughness of
instruction. Whether a boy learns much or little,
if it is to ho of any real use to him, either as
knowledge or training, it is absolutely essential
that he should learn it well, and in nine cases
out of ten the quality of the learning will largely
depend on the quality of tho teaching. If the
teaching is vague and superficial, the master slur-
ring over minute points on which the real know-
ledge of the subjects taught depends, his pupils
will at beat gain a mere smattering of these sub-
jects, without having received any education at all
in the true aense of the term. The confused and
ill-ordered information acquired under such a loose
and slovenly system cannot in the nature of things
be long retained, much less applied to any useful
purposeouid while the pupil's memory may have been
heavily taxed, the higher powers of the mind,
which is the very business of an efficient education
to develop, have been wholly dormant. Educa-
tion, as the term imports, is the calling out and
exercising the mental faculties on some branch of
human knowledge, their appropriate object.
Loose memoriter teaching exercises only one
faculty of the mind, the lowest, and imparts no
knowledge worthy of the name. In order to un-
derstand any subject, however simple or elementary
—grammar, geography, or arithmetic—it must be
known in its details, and any subject so understood
calls into play other powers of the mind (comparison
and judrinent, for instance), besides the memory.
The first step, therefore, in sound education is to
make a boy acquire a thorough mastery over what
he is taught, so as to be able not only to explain
but apply his knowledge ; and to accomplish this
demands, on the part of the teacher, patient in-
dustry and conscientious zeal, as well as compe-
tent knowledge and ability for the work. This
habit of mental accuracy once acquired is, how-
ever, iuvaluabie in its influence and results. It is
not like so much of the knowledge usually acquired
there, left behind as soon as the youth leaves
school, bat goes with him iuto the after business of
;ire, and naturally feuds to produce a lova of
accuracy in ordinary affairs, and in the region of
opinion stimulates a healthy appetite for facts,
and the judgments founded on them, in place of
fostering, as the " Young Gentlemen's Academy "
system of tuition often does, that false taste for
fine writing and rhetorical exaggeration which be-
longs to the ignorant and the vulgar.
It is precisely in these sterling and essential
qualities of accuracy and thoroughness that our.
prevailing systems of middle-class education have
long been, and to a great extent still are, so I
lamentably deficient. In the higher education of
the country exactness and finish are the charac-
teristic qualities of the teaching as well as the
essential conditions of academic success on the
part of those who are taught ; while popular or
elementary education, under a growingly vigilant
system of Government inspection, is in its lower
sphere of teaching actively cultivating the same
qualities. But the loose, superficial, and utterly
unsatisfactory character of the education given in
the great majority of middle-class schools, long
complained of almost in vain by those actively
interested in educational reform, is now suffi-
ciently notorious. The reasons of this lie on the
surface, and are well stated by Lord STANLEY :
" With the exception of a few grammar schools
" here and there, the business has been left to
" private euterprise ; and there could be
" nothing better, if only the buyer were
"always qualified to judge of the article
"in which he invests. But that is not the case.
" Many fathers have not the leisure or the will to
"investigate very carefully the qualifications of the
" schoolmaster. Those who have made their own
" way in the world—and happily there area large

Loadon Snbarbe—lowest teoperaiart 22 avow
Plasma.
011 KORTIMIN

SAITRDAT.

R IAI.

N.W. to NE, and?. L, —CoAeM B.E. to W., fresh, some
light to fresh saw.
E. to S. and g W.. mo• Wizimaa. 15.1 i to S.W. and N, W.,
derMe to Moog, fresh, some tall.
now in place:.
As next above. MIME/ As next shore.
N.E. to SA. and S.W.. tom. E. MS. and W., fresh,
t-esh to strorg, some snow in places.
=ow.
M. W. to N. E. and S.E., NA/1132. An next above.
laodeTUO to fifth.

Noethern=Seo•land. Irastern=lreland. Ittidle=Wales,
opposite and adjacent. cOnations=Ensilsh Channel and Raw
Bay. Eastern.Eaatward England and Haligokad.

A CCIDINT TO TIIi How. AND Riv. Roam
Irootu..—W• learn that this gentleman met with a sevens
fall on Use Me in Battersea-park ee Tuesday last, by which
his left arm was rendered totally powerless. It was feared
at first that the point of the shoulder was fractured, but Mr.
Hewitt, who was called in on the following morning, wee
of a different opioioe, though from the extensive swelling
round the shoulder it is very difficult at present to ascer-
tain the exact amount of the injury. We bear that Mr.
Liddell paned a good night on Wednesday, and is going on
an favourably as possible.
LIVENING OF TEM CONSIRVATORT ON TIAN
Q01.12e1l lawn, BiLFMIT.-1111.7•13T, THIMIDAT.—This
merinos. at half-mat 4 o'clock, the harbour consteble in
charge of the Queen's Island observed smoke issuing from
the tower of the conservatory. He at once gave the
alarm, and the engines ware aeon after on the spot. Before
the fire bad ben overcome, the tower, and the portion of
the building immediately adjoining it were ent:rely con-
sumed. The metre aed two wings are, however, US.
touched. Two men who bad been sleeping in the tower had
just time to amain with their lives. fl. fire is supposed
to have been clamed by a stout—Dublin Brewing Nair.