Graut for apparatus.

for a box of colours, having resulted in the production of instruments and colours excellently adapted to their use, and at a cost so low as to place them within the attainment of the humblest schools,* the society has offered prizes for a school microscope, and for a teacher's or student's microscope;† the cost of the former being limited to 10s. 6d., and of the latter to 31. 3s.

Your Lordships having placed at my disposal the sum of 100l. to procure specimens of apparatus and diagrams for adoption in training schools, I have expended of that sum 401. 16s. 2d :

1st. In printed diagrams in ink from large wooden blocks, and coloured afterwards in water colours.

2nd. In a portion of the map of Asia, printed from wooden blocks and rollers in distemper colours, according to the process used in printing paper-hangings by machinery.

3rd. In a school telescope.

The cost of the box of instruments is 2s. 6d., and of the box of colours, 1s. The makers of the former are Messrs. J. M. & H. Cronmire, of the Commercial Road East; and of the colours, Mr. J. Rogers, 133, Bunhill-row, and Mrs. Miller, 56, Long Acre.

:

The following are the conditions on which the prizes are offered :For a school microscope, to be sold to the public at a price not exceeding 10s. 6d., the Society's medal. To be a simple microscope, furnished with powers as low as those of a pocket-magnifier, for the purpose of observing flowers, insects, &c., without dissection. The lenses should range from two inches to one-eighth of an inch; the focal adjustment to be by rack-work, extending sufficiently above the stage to allow a thick object to be brought under the lowest power. It should be furnished with plyers, a concave mirror, and an illuminated lens, also a live box, or, instead of it, two or three glass cells of different depths, a few slips of common glass, and a few pieces of thin glass for covers. Makers are requested to state at what additional price they will undertake to supply a doublet of one sixteenth or one twentieth of an inch, applicable to any instrument as above described. For a teacher's or student's microscope, to be sold to the public at a price not exceeding 31. 3s., the Society's medal. To be a compound achromatic microscope, with two eye-pieces and two object-glasses; one magnifying 120 diameters with the lower eye piece, the other magnifying 25 diameters with the lower eye-piece. It should be furnished with a diaphragm, having various sized openings, mirror, side illuminator, live box, forceps stage, and case.

In the event of the medal being awarded, the Council is prepared to take 100 of the smaller, and 50 of the larger microscopes, at the trade discount.

The instruments for which the medals shall be awarded will be retained by the Society as standards, and the successful competitors must enter into a guarantee to supply their microscopes at the foregoing prices, and of equal quality with those retained, and to change them if not found satisfactory.

The experiment of printing maps by the process used in the printing of paper-hangings by machinery has, in my opinion, succeeded. The advantages of this method, as compared with the ordinary one, lie, first, in the brightness and distinctness. of the distempered colours used, as compared with the ordinary method of printing the black lines with plates, and colouring afterwards with water colours by hand; and, secondly, in the extreme cheapness with which, when the rollers are once made, the maps can be produced.* The disadvantage lies in the prime cost of the rollers, of which one must be used for every different colour. A great improvement has been introduced of late years in chart drawing, by the use of what are called "contour lines," which represent to the eye very accurately the differences of surface level. Each line follows upon the map a given level above that of the sea, and the successive lines represent levels equi-distant above one another. Thus, seeking for the line which corresponds to the sea level, and counting the lines which intervene between it and the line passing through any given point, we can tell the elevation above the sea level of that point. "Contour lines" would be much more easily produced by the rollers used for distemper painting than the lines by which mountain ranges are represented in ordinary maps; and it would be an advantage that the line representing the sea level might be coloured differently from the rest.

+

The preparation of educational diagrams has been taken up Diagrams with great success by a society, supported by voluntary con- tion in practributions, called the "Working Man's Educational Institute."+tical science. Their diagrams, which are of a very large size, are printed on cloth from zinc plates, and coloured by the hand. The large sale which they command has enabled the society to procure the services of skilful draughtsmen, and nothing can be more excellent for their object than some of the geographical and historical series which they have produced. The Department of Science and Art has, moreover, undertaken the production of diagrams for teaching practical science in schools; and, when their series is completed, nothing more in respect to such diagrams will probably remain to be done.

Maps of twice the linear dimensions or four times the area of the Irish maps might, for instance, be printed in sheets (allowing for the expense of paper and printing only) for 2s. each.

An example of a map of this kind, copied from a French chart of the country about Sebastopol will be found in the number of the Quarterly Review for December 1854.

The offices of the society are in King William Street, Strand.

Appropri

ation of

of grant.

Under these circumstances it has occurred to me that what remainder remains of your Lordships' grant would be well applied for the objects contemplated by you in making it, if it were offered, through the medium of the Society of Arts, as a prize for some kind of scientific apparatus useful in schools; and, as the school telescope which I have caused to be constructed, although in some respects a good instrument, does not satisfy the conditions of economy, strength, steadiness, and durability, so far as to adapt it for use in elementary schools, perhaps I may be allowed to suggest that 401. might be set apart as a prize for the best school telescope, to be sold with its stand complete for such a sum, not exceeding 51., as the committee to whom the Society of Arts will probably refer the awarding of this prize may determine. A second prize of 201. may, I think, be offered with advantage for a school air-pump, which should be of cast iron.

I have the honor to be, &c.

To the Right Honorable

HENRY MOSELEY.

The Lords of the Committee of Council on Education.

*It was made by Mr. Cooke, of York.

Report, for the Year 1854, on the Church of England Training Schools for Schoolmistresses; by Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, the Rev. F. C. COOK, M.A., &c.

MY LORDS,

December 1854.

DURING the months of April, May, June, and September this year I was engaged in the inspection of the following institutions for training female teachers :-Brighton, Cheltenham, Derby, Gloucester and Bristol Training School at Fishponds, near Bristol; the Home and Colonial in Gray's Inn Road, London; Norwich, Rochester, Diocesan Training school at Hockeril, Salisbury, Warrington, Whitelands, and York. these institutions have been previously visited, and described in former reports, with the exception of the Gloucester and Bristol Training school, which was opened in the beginning of this year for the reception of students. In examining these schools I was assisted by Her Majesty's Inspectors of the districts in which they are situate, and the special reports on them are based upon our joint observations. As in former years, we met the committees of management in every institution, and conferred with them, as also with the principals and teachers, on a great variety of points connected with the actual condition and future prospects of female training.

The steady and continuous increase of these institutions is most remarkable. Before the year 1838 there was not a single institution in this country for the special training of schoolmistresses. There are now eleven, not including the school at Truro, in Cornwall; five of these have been established since the year 1851, viz., Cheltenham, Derby, Rochester, Norwich, and Gloucester and Bristol. At Brighton and Salisbury, the establishments have been transferred from small and inconvenient premises, to new buildings of considerable extent, and remarkable for the completeness of their arrangements. The buildings at Whitelands, Warrington, and the Home and Colonial have also been greatly enlarged. At present there is accommodation for 680 students in these institutions; I found 538 in residence. Brighton,* Derby, Cheltenham, the Home and Colonial, and Whitelands had their full number; York,

* The students were in the old premises at the time of the inspection.

X

Salisbury, and Rochester about two thirds of the number they could accommodate; at Warrington rather less than half the dormitories were occupied, but the applications for admission were increasing; at Norwich, and Gloucester and Bristol, which supply accommodation for 100 students, only 22 were in residence. There is every reason to believe that most of these institutions will be filled in the course of another year.

From this statement it appears that allowing two years for training, the actual supply of trained schoolmistresses amounts to 269, and that the possible supply, supposing all the institutions to be filled, cannot exceed 340 annually. There are not sufficient data to enable any man to say, what number of schoolmistresses are actually required every year in this country; but there are facts which prove that the demand far exceeds this supply. I have stated in former reports, and have the authority of the principals of all these institutions to repeat the statement, that the applications for teachers are continually increasing, and are far more numerous than they can meet. There is reason to believe that no less than 8,000 female teachers are employed in girls', infants', and mixed schools connected with the Church of England, and although many of these may be situate in poor districts, and offer an inadequate remuneration for a trained schoolmistress, yet a large proportion are only kept in an imperfect state, by the impossibility of procuring more efficient teachers. The girls' schools actually inspected last year amounted to 1,079. The infants' and mixed schools, of which by far the larger number are under mistresses, to 2,122. In these it may be fairly assumed, that trained teachers would be generally employed if they could

be had.

These facts make it certain that too many institutions have not yet been established, and they make it probable that more may be required within a few years.

The following Tables show the income and expenditure of ten institutions during the present year.*

*These accounts were made up and forwarded in January 1855. They did not reach me until this report was in the printers' hands, and I have therefore not been able to use them in this report. The accounts of Cheltenham cannot be separated from those of the male training school. Those from Salisbury have not yet been received. The income does not include grants from the Coinmittee of Council