ment of Louis Philippe; and Captain Boscawen Ibbetson, F.R.S. In Section C, by the Rev. J. P. Norris, her Majesty's Inspector of Schools; the Rev. W. J. Kennedy, her Majesty's Inspector of Schools; Rev. N. Stephenson; Mr. S. Tremenheere, Inspector of Mines; and Mr. T. Hare, Charity Commissioner. In Section D), by the Rev. C. H. Bromby, of Cheltenham; the Rev. P. Marshall, of Hulme; Mr. J. T. Bunce, and Mr. J. F. Winfield, both of the Birmingham Education Committee. In Section E, by Miss Carpenter, Mr. Jelinger Symons, her Majesty's Inspector of Schools; Rev. Canon Girdlestone, Mr. W. L. Sargent, and the Rev. H. G. Robinson, of the York Training College.

There was a very full attendance in the various rooms of the sections, throughout the day, some being crowded to the doors. Among those who manifested great interest in the discussions on the several papers, were observed the Bishops of Durham, Sodor and Man; Lord Kinnaird, Sir Harry Verney, M.P.; Mr. Hadfield, M.P.; Mr. E. Miall, Sir J. Pakington, Rev. Canon Melville, Mr. Akroyd, M.P.; Mr. E. Chadwick, the Hon. and Rev. Grantham Yorke, the Rev. Dr. Bull, Rev. Dr. Miller, Rev. Dr. Bayley; Mr. S. Morley, Mr. E. Baines, Mr. Robert Owen, Mr. C. H. Bracebridge, Mr. John Cassell, &c.

On the third and final day of the conference, the meeting took place in Willis's Rooms (the Sections on the previous day having been held in the Thatched-House Tavern), when the reports and resolutions of the sections were brought up. The Earl Granville presided; and, in addition to those already mentioned in this notice of the previous days, there were present the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Nelson, Sir Archibald Alison, Bart.; the Bishop of Salisbury, Archdeacon Allen, the Rev. Prebendary Hawkins, Rev. J. Unwin, &c. The meeting was very numerously attended, and great anxiety was shown to hear the results of the discussions of the preceding day. The staff of reporters of the press was larger than usual. Speeches were delivered by Earl Granville, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Bishop of Oxford, Sir J. Pakington, the Right Hon. W. Cowper, M.P.; Mr. Akroyd, M.P.; Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth, Mr. E. Baines, the Rev. Canon Girdlestone, the Deans of Salisbury and Bristol, Mr. S. Morley, Mr. Jelinger Symons, the Hon. and Rev. Grantham Yorke, the Rev. Dr. Bayley, and the Rev. Dr. Bull. The Bishop of Sodor and Man proposed the following resolution, which was carried:

"That this conference be now adjourned; and that it be referred to the general committee to prepare and publish a public report of the proceedings, with a selection of the papers, and determine as to the time and place of its next meeting."

Thanks were then voted to the Earl Granville and the Right Hon. W. Cowper, M.P., for presiding.

This notice gives but an imperfect sketch of the proceedings of the Conference; but it is hoped to furnish in a future Number of the Monthly Paper copies of the resolutions passed, extracts from some of the papers read in the various sections, and from the speeches which were delivered, as well as an account of the conversazione held on the evening of June 23d in the Museum of Science and Art, Cromwell Gardens, Kensington.

Correspondence.

[The Committee of the National Sociely are thankful for any communication likely to assist SchoolManagers and Teachers, or otherwise promote the work of Church Education; but they do not necessarily hold themselves responsible for the opinions of the Editor's correspondents.]

To the Editor of the National Society's Monthly Paper.

THE HISTORY OF A CHURCH-TEACHER IN HIS DIFFICULTIES, STRUGGLES,
AND SUCCESS.

(This series of chapters was commenced in the Number for August.)

CHAPTER XVII.

On the Saturday after the conversation which took place between Sydney and his friend, described in our last chapter, there was a meeting of schoolmasters in the neighbouring town of Elsworth, which was about five miles from Sinkabbot. Sydney himself was present, and took an active part in the formation of a teachers' association, which is still in existence, though few of the members who originally composed it are now resident in that part of the country. A feature in the constitution of what was, in other respects, an insignificant society deserves to be mentioned at this stage of our narrative. It assembled monthly; but twice a-year the male and female teachers who belonged to it met at some one school, fixed upon beforehand, and spent the whole day in observing the manner in which its routine was conducted. Little,

if any, change was made on that day in its proceedings: its teacher, as usual, was supreme; the order of its time-table was strictly observed; the monitors continued to be responsible for the management of the classes; and by a rule of the association, the visitors were simply required to be quiet observers, and to take notes of what they considered to be the merits or defects of the school-arrangements. At three o'clock, the classes were dismissed; the members then dined together, and started for home, after the conclusion of a very social meal. At the next monthly meeting, each one was expected to state his or her views on what had passed on this day; the private notes which had been taken serving, of course, as memoranda for carrying on the criticism. The advantage of this plan was conceived to be by no means incon siderable. It enabled the associated teachers to witness the process of school-management as a whole, to acquire a knowledge of new, and in many cases improved methods; results not so easily attainable if they had met to hear merely one class examined.

On the Saturday which ushered in the existence of the association, Sydney's friend from the neighbouring town walked back part of the way to Sinkabbot with him, to hear the remainder of his description of the plans which he pursued in the Sinkabbot school.

"As to Holy Scripture," said Sydney, in reply to a question proposed by his friend, "I endeavour to render it the best and most agreeable part of my instruction. In studying the New Testament with my classes, I select one of the Gospels,-say St. Luke's, and make this the groundwork or basis of my lessons; and as I always have the Harmony of the Four Gospels in my hand, I am enabled to make the children turn to other chapters of the Testament and study, in their due order, any facts or spiritual discourses of our Lord's which I find omitted by St. Luke.”

"A very good plan indeed," said his friend. "I suppose you do not always read a whole chapter for one lesson-do you?"

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Certainly not," said Sydney, "especially a long one. I try to be as simple and homely as possible; and make frequent allusions to what my children will experience when they go out into the world, for the purpose of leading them to furnish answers to such questions as, What must you do when you are ridiculed for going regularly to church? What should you say if a person said to you, that it was quite enough to attend church once on the Sunday? If you are thrown into the company of those who are in the habit of swearing frequently, tell me all the things you might do under the circumstances.' And so forth."

"And how do you give your children a knowledge of the Old Testament?”

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Partly by letting them read portions of its books, and partly by oral lessons. In all Scriptural instruction, my first and second classes are united at one time in the day, and my third and fourth at another. Frequently I give lessons on what I term, Graces and failings;' that is to say, I select from the Bible examples of humility, and classify them; then of pride, afterwards of patience; then of discontent, of obedience to parents; then of disobedience; and so on. Texts of Scripture the children are beginning to learn at home."

"Well," said his friend, "what do you think of the plan of reading tales to boys founded on sacred subjects-the Commandments, for example."

"I am not disposed to approve of it," said Sydney; "it is a combination of facts and fiction, which is not desirable; besides, if you have observed, they always ask you whether it is a true tale."

“Yes,” replied his friend; "but don't you think our Lord's hearers might have objected to His parables on the very same ground?"

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Ah, very true," said Sydney; "that idea has never suggested itself to me; but I perceive its force now; I must reconsider the question, I see."

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"It is worth a thought," replied his friend. But here we are at Bentley turnpike. I shall not trouble you to describe your arithmetical teaching; but I confess my anxiety to know how you proceed in your geographical lessons.”

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I believe," answered Sydney, "I cannot furnish you with any very original ideas on this point. I endeavour to observe an order in my lectures. In giving instruction on the map of the world, I begin at the North Pole, considering the zones in succession, and point out the continents, islands, bays, capes, mountains, and rivers in each; describing at the same time the people, animals, and vegetation peculiar to it. When instructing a class in the geography of a single country, I first speak of its mountains, then of its rivers, taking these in relation to the coastswhether eastern, western, &c.-from which they run into the sea. The mouths of the largest rivers suggest lists of the ports; and the iron and coal districts, lists of the chief manufacturing towns. Speaking to the boys the other day about China, I

told them that some of the people of that country ate birds' nests; a piece of information which has by no means increased my reputation among the colliers for veracity, if I may judge by the fact, that whenever I come near them, I hear them growling among each other under their teeth, Here cooms Maister birds' neeses.' Only two days since, I was looking down into a black-hole, when a big butty,' as they call him, suddenly turned his black face upwards to stare at me, and called out, I say, maister, I coomd oop to level lawst Friday loike, and heerd all aboot. Yow, mun, stick to trooth, mun; I'll swaller my shoovel if t'other fellers swaller birds' neeses, wool, hair, feethers, an' all. Wunt b'liev't, mun.' That is what one gets," said Sydney, "for teaching geography: it is like casting pearls before swine."

"Of course," replied his friend; "you had touched a delicate point. Any thing marvellous or extraordinary connected with their tommy' brings on a fit of indigestion and unbelief among the colliers. That big cloud yonder threatens rain, and the wind is beginning to whine mournfully. I must get back while it is fine."

The association which Sydney and his friends were instrumental in establishing was in many ways a source of comfort to them amid the trials and troubles incident to their positions. Those who know what it is to labour in secluded nooks and corners, without a friend to whom they may communicate the thought which struggles to find utterance, who wear out the long half-holiday, and still longer winter evening, when the hail and the rain come clattering against the window-pane, or the snow drifts in a heavy mass against the threshold outside, while the infrequent footfall of the passenger has a sort of half-muffled sound, making the road near the house seem to be a mile away, those and those only know the burden of excessive isolation, and the pleasure afforded by an occasional meeting of old friends. At the dreary close of a wintry day, when the shutters have been made fast, and the teacher has shut out the world, and shut himself in with his own thoughts, and all his perplexities and failures seem to start from every corner of the room, and dart towards his brain as a common centre, he weaves a net-work of schemes to be cast at hazard into the deep waters of his difficulties. The fire blazes up and flickers for an instant, and his eye follows the ray which falls upon his few volumes on the corner-shelf. They are silent guides, and want voices, and are as still as many a hand which wrote them. It is to such a teacher that the association is so great a reality. Sydney had lodged about a year with Mrs. Timms, who kept, as we have said, a chandler's shop, and at the end of that time he found it absolutely necessary to his comfort to quit her establishment, and for several reasons. Not only was his private reading for his certificate frequently interrupted by her loud remonstrances in the shop with the customers, but that lady took a dislike to him because his attention was absorbed by his studies, and not sufficiently given to one of her youngest children, who required, in her frequent absences from the room, to be kept from the fire. She had objected to his inviting three of his monitors to take tea with him once a quarter; and on Sundays showed a reckless disregard of all the means of grace by no means creditable to herself, or grateful to Sydney's feelings of what was right and proper. The difficulty was, to find the means of furnishing the house which had been taken care of by one of the communicants in the parish, a very respectable widow. He did not like to apply to the clergyman at Elmton, his native village, for a loan; his mother he knew could not help him, and he had always avoided adding to her anxiety on his own account. There was Boyd, it is truc, but his means were straitened; and besides, the Elmton school was in charge of a temporary master; for Boyd himself, as soon as he had slightly recovered, had been ordered by his medical attendant to Ilfracombe for the benefit of the sea-air. He made up his mind to apply to Mr. Poinlow, of Sinkabbot; but after walking by the parsonage half-a-dozen times, was ashamed to go in, and at length gave up the idea. At last he wrote to Job, the blacksmith at Elmton, stating his difficulty, with a request that he would mention his wants to no one. In a few days the post brought a remittance and a kind note in Edith's handwriting, which Sydney knew by the peculiarly pointed characters he had frequently seen when at home. The Sinkabbot schoolhouse was soon furnished in a plain way; and for nine months afterwards he worked hard at his books; and his only companion, a cat, the gift of one of his boys, a pupil-teacher in perspective, worked equally hard purring in the long evenings on the hearth-rug. And spring had come, with its verdure and primroses and saffron-crocuses, and other sights, dimmed by Sinkabbot smoke; but a new life seemed to be dawning upon Sydney. With many misgivings and a few gleams of hope, he walked off one bright morning to the station at the nearest town to attend the Easter examination for his certificate.

CHAPTER XVIII.

It is a psychological fact, that no one ever yet entered an examination-room who did not feel, when he came out of it, that there were many things which he might have done or done better than he really did. Like the candidate for a vacant situation (who had been asked twelve questions in succession, to none of which he could give an answer, until, feeling that the fault must be in the examiner, he exclaimed, "You don't ask me any thing that I know; why don't you question me on what I have learnt"), one begins to think that the fault is in the room, the atmosphere, the examiner.-in short, in any thing rather than in oneself. Sydney fancied that the pen was bad, the paper bad, the questions were bad, at last, that his head was rather bad. He felt, however, that some things he had done very well indeed; and that, in many particulars, the papers had run into the vein of his studies. He came home dispirited, because he recollected that a considerable space of time must elapse before he could obtain certain information as to the result. The degree of success which he might possibly have attained was uppermost in his mind for two or three weeks. His was a nervous anxious temperament; and to struggle against it, was in every respect, to struggle with his nature, his whole mental constitution. Persons possessing his peculiar organisation are often induced to envy the ease and unconcern with which others of a more phlegmatic disposition throw off care and responsibility. The advantages, however, of their idiosyncrasy more than counterbalance its disadvantages. If their nerves are somewhat too highly strung for the rude shocks and stern realities of every-day life, the very sensitiveness of their nature renders them keenly susceptible of many exquisitely delicate pleasures and sensations which those of a more forcible and less anxious character lose. The two types of temperament may be considered to represent the two departments of literature, poetry and prose; or they remind one of two opposite styles in architecture, florid Gothic and early Norman. Like Schiller's Song of the Bell, it is perhaps this mixture of the rough and the smooth in the world which constitutes its healthy working. The contending influences, distributed through society, keep up a proper balance

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"The Rev. John Poinlow, on her Majesty's service," said the postman of Sinkabbot one morning to the housemaid at the door of the parsonage. 'I hope the parson has not been complaining of me to Muster Rowland Hill."

The letter was from the office of the Privy Council on Education, and had one or two illegible signatures in one corner of the envelope, which were evidently not intended to be deciphered.

"Parson Poinlow," as he was called by the boys, walked up to the school at half-past nine, looking very important, but regarding Sydney with his usual kindness. 'Well, Mowbray," said he, “be prepared for the blow. What should you say if I told you you had failed ?"

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"O, I hope not, sir," said Sydney.

my heart.

"Well, Mowbray, give me your hand, and allow me to congratulate you with all Give the boys a holiday; no more school to-day; you have gained the third division of the first class, and long may you live to enjoy the reward of your toil. You must come down in the evening, and talk about your success with me and Mrs. Poinlow."

(To be continued.)

ON THE FORFEITING OF GOVERNMENT-MONEY BY TEACHERS.

SIR, I can sympathise deeply with "D. K.," in your last month's Paper; his being a case similar to my own, only my case seems to wear a more oppressive aspect than even "D. K.'s" case. Nearly four years since, I took a school in a most wretched condition, only about 80 poor ignorant children attending it. Two pupil-teachers had been apprenticed about nine months before my coming to it, but her Majesty's Inspector threatened to discontinue them if the school did not improve before his next visit. Meantime I and my wife took the school, and, by the help of Providence, raised it to above 300 in ordinary attendance, reared six pupil-teachers in it, and through four successive inspections improved every report (the last published contains "GOOD" six times); and one not yet published, I have every reason to believe, is still more creditable than the last. The managers sent me a very polite note to signify that "a change of masters was unanimously voted at a meeting held that day." This was intended as a hint for me to resign; but I did not resign, so a regular legal notice was sent me. No reason for this proceeding was assigned, nor even hinted; nay, not only so, but a testimonial, signed by all the managers, expressly states the above creditable evidence of diligence and success, speaks highly of moral and religious character, and distinctly

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declares that there is "no reproach." Now this very transaction landed me in a loss of at least 201. in the first instance, and gives me the odds of 20 against 1 of losing 261. more. I have not "forfeited" my Government money, not having voluntarily" quitted my charge; but if the school which I left be found unworthy at the next inspection, if the pupil-teachers there fail, where is my Government money then? Will the managers pay it? And the board and lodging of one of the pupil-teachers, whom I always trusted till his money came,-where is it to come from if he fails? At all events, it has caused me and my wife, not only pecuniary loss of a very serious amount, but such a mental shock as we are not likely soon to get over; and tempts one to say, that verily the poor schoolmaster is the outcast of society, the football of every one. I have been in the office twenty-four years, taught, more or less, 3000 children. If I had enlisted as a private soldier, and done half the service I have done in the scholastic line, I had been a general ere now. I am now promoted to a villageschool of about 50 children.-I am, &c. A BROTHER TO "D. K."

SIR,-It is with great pleasure that I see the Government Minutes with regard to teachers and their allowances are likely to be discussed in your Paper, and I hope it may result in teachers being dealt with a little more fairly.

"D. K.'s" case appears to be a peculiarly hard one, in that he leaves his situation against his will. But why is a schoolmaster to be debarred from leaving his situation "voluntarily," on pain of losing whatever Government money may be due to him? It will not, I think, very often happen that a suitable school and the expiration of the school-year will appear together, and yet in any other case the teacher is mulcted of what he has fairly earned. The reason given for this is, I believe, that pupil-teachers may not be neglected; but if they, the pupil-teachers, pass the following examination, one would fancy that would be sufficient, and that the ex-teacher's share of the allowance might then be paid without much danger of the grant being misapplied. As the regulation now stands, great hardship and injustice is put upon the schoolmaster. Perhaps, if this regulation were rescinded, teachers might change their schools more frequently; but why should they not be allowed to do so, if they see occasion? Our salaries are not so liberal that we are likely to put moving from one school to another on our catalogue of "luxuries to be often indulged in."

I was glad to see in the Times of May 4, that a deputation from the Metropolitan Church-of-England Schoolmasters' Association has waited upon the Right Hon. W. Cowper, at the Privy-Council Office, praying that this and four other obnoxious regulations might be rescinded; and I do hope that the country schoolmasters, in their several associations, will follow so good an example, and then, I think, we might hope for more generous treatment.-Hoping that you may find a corner in your Paper for this, I am, &c. E. REYNOLDS.

TEACHERS AND SITUATIONS.

SIR,-Your correspondent of last month's Paper, in a long answer to B, endeavours to set forth the great difficulty of efficient masters obtaining situations, and that of procuring pupil-teachers.

The following reasons may account for the defect noticed concerning the latternamed class: Few working people can maintain their offspring as pupil-teachers; those who can are afraid of them failing to obtain Queen's scholarships. Teaching children requires a tact and patience, which young people generally have not. Some fail during their pupil-teachership. Many at the completion of their apprenticeship turn to some other occupation, perhaps more lucrative.

Those pupil-teachers who answer the expectation of Government, by a residence at a training school as Queen's scholars, feel bound to obtain certificates of merit before they complete their residence, or seek a situation as schoolmaster. This necessarily makes Christmas their time of engagement. Again, the great majority of students are only twenty-one years of age, an age almost universally considered too young for the office.

With regard to schoolmasters, permit me to call attention to the following facts: (1) That there are many schools in England adapted for certificated masters which are not supplied with them. Many schools are in the course of erection. These will doubtless fall into their hands. (2) Our countrymen in the colonies desire a good education for their children. The Government could encourage teachers to emigrate, and thus place the colonies under a scheme of instruction like ours.

Unquestionably the Government scheme, like all human institutions, has its imperfections. It cannot be denied that the country, through the Privy Council, has received great benefit, and that a mighty stimulus has been given towards facilitating the acquisition of knowledge of a beneficial and useful kind.