, 1875-11-17

will have to be filed, for it will never do TO
let children sit at the desk doing nothing at all.
AS it is, the ordinary village school groans
under continual reiteration. The teacher Is
only too glad to let the class read through the
same book over and over again. 1t can be
done easily, not, indeed, we'll, but without
supervision. The INDECENT teacher likes to
keep the children at the same rule in arithme-
tic. the same bit of d~iotation, or one Just of the
same sort, the same "objact lesson" as it is
called, the same map to bs traced and for
thls purpose he will let the clever lads anxious
to get forward drag the same chain as the
stupid or Idle. But if it is laid down that the
school is not to go beyond a certain point, il will
as certainly fall short of it. AS we are left in
the dark as to the branches of knowledge
which the Dean thinks superhuous in an Ele-
mentary School, perhaps we are wrong 10 sup
posing that Geography, or History, or AstrOno.
my is intended. But We will ask how even the
ordinary contents of a reading-book for the
Fourth Standard can be understood without
some aid from those sciences. Lord SANDEN him.
self, after much consideration, has compromised
the question SO far as it regards children EN-.
plOyed in agriculture by requiring that they
should at least have passed in Standard Nv.
Here, then, are the contents of the National
Society's Standard w. THE End of the
Middle Ages the Wars of the Roses the
Battle of Towton the Maid of Orleans Eng.
land in the 18th Century the Crusades, &C.;
Geographical Discoveries, Norway, Spitzber-
gen, Iceland, Austria, the Catacombs of Rome,
the Arabian Desert, the Central Plain of Eu.
rope, Alexandria, Bombay, SO. Physical
Geography. Church Architecture, the Solar
System Sec 1t is to be observed that the alb.
senoe of dead languages, grammar, v~ersifcs-
tion and other composition from our Elemen.
tary Schools compels a good deal of reading.
This reading must be progressive, and musl
require more and more illustration and ~explana.
ton. 1t is even more 80 with the pupil. teach
ers. They are d~rudging all the day at the
elements with little children, and they natu.
rally look to be compensated by a freer and
larger range in their own lessons. They must
read, and they must also understand.
The Dean only brings US to the door of q
difficulty which he and a good many others
are content to look at, and have no mind for Q
closer acquaintance with. 1t is too true, and
for the present is unavoidable, that by far
the greater part of the work in our Elementary
Schools is done by pupil-teachers, who can
seldom be anything more than very young
pedagOgues, in the most contracted sense Of
that term Entirely without social advan-
tages, without experience of any kind. without
the least knowledge of men or things. without
the ideas and sentiments acquired by inter-
COuIso viii SOn0 fragment or Phase or the
world, they can only teach what they find La
the book, without a ray of light from their own
minds. Our former correspondent. an " Elk
"PUPIL-TEACHER," who returns to the charge
to-day, has already explained very clearly
what Is their natural status in the educational
hierarchy. The letter. the dead letter, the
letter that killeth is all they can possibly i'm
part, for it is all they have themselves. The
masters and mistresses of the previous age
were often original, and sometimes marked.
characters. They might not be good teachers
so lar as the lessons were concerned, and
might not even be good people. They often
taught because they could do nothing else.
But there was often a humour or quiet flow
OF some sentiment from them, and some know
ledge of the world If not Gifts best aspects. But
the pupil teacher is a creation Of the school, and
has generally spent most of his brief and monoto-
nous existence within its four walls. After school
hours. instead ofplaying, instead of charging his
acquaintance and his knowledge of the world.
he is at bis own lessons, which generally are
more than enough for him. None but the
lower class, or at best the lower middle class,
will go through this painful aud very long
ordeal and it is found year by year that, in
stead of the great increase of masters salaries
drawing a greater number into the employment,
the supply only diminishes as the demand in.
creases. 1t is become a commo complaint,
and no doubt a just one, that the working class.
es are now teaching their employers, for. while'
the bulk of the pupil. teachers ara certainlv'