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The leisure-hour employments with which I have dealt are in themselves the finest prophylactics for fickleness. A collection begun and discontinued is a perpetual reproach. The Annual Show with its displays, its judging and prizes haunts the fickle boy until persistence becomes habit."

II. TEACHERS.

E. Headmistress. 1a & b. "There is no attempt consciously to correlate these pursuits with school lessons with one exception: members of the Archæology Society are encouraged to keep diaries illustrative of their lessons in history and literature The pursuit of one or more of these occupations is supposed to foster industry, patience, observation, independence and individuality Manual occupations we value extremely for girls as giving them mastery over some other tool than the needle, as fostering ingenuity, independence and self-help . . . .

"Perhaps they may bear directly in one particular. It is usual to get the girls to give from time to time short lectures of from fifteen to thirty minutes in length on some subject connected with the Societies' work."

2. "No correlation. With us the spontaneity is more likely to be interfered with from another cause. To work a society satisfactorily it is found best to have a teacher on the committee. for the girls to look too much to the teachers, and so lose the power of The tendency perhaps is initiative. To avoid this the teachers try as much as possible to work on the same platform as the girls, and to put as much responsibility on the rest of the committee as they can. Our school magazine, I may say,

is run entirely by the girls, the staff contributing articles and criticism, but taking no part in the management."

За. "The raison d'être of these out-of-school pursuits is to give rational interests and supply food for intelligent thought and legitimate channels for activity. As such, they are invaluable in a girls' school in preventing aimless wandering about, silly gossip, and above all, sentimentalities and other inanities,"

3b. "Steady encouragement from teachers and some amount of help and guidance often prevent a girl giving up some pursuit she has begun."

F. Headmistress. la. 66 Correlation with school work is most effective when secured by passing suggestions rather than by direct exhortation. Leisure-hour pursuits are sometimes made too much like 'school' either from over-organisation or from too much supervision, or from too strict correlation with schoolwork. If such pursuits are regulated by societies they are best left largely in the hands of the children, for they learn more by their own mistakes than by our wisdom."

1b. "Hobby-horse riding is grand exercise, healthful for mind and body, a valuable relief from the tension of life, and excellent for developing individuality.... I would try to start each child in life with about four hobbies, e.g., winter indoor, carving, art-needlework or bookbinding; winter outdoor, geology, mosses, meteorology; summer indoor, designing from natural forms; summer outdoor, some branch of natural history

Good training in unselfishness and philanthropy may be combined with many of the manual occupations if the objects made are destined for Christmas distribution to the poor, sold by auction or bazaar for some charitable fund."

3a. "Tenacity, perseverance, neatness, steady industry, ingenuity, these are tender plants in the case of beginners and need to be brought on by artificial heat; later, the plants should be strong enough to need no shelter or prop . . . . I have always found the lower middle school most difficult to tackle (ages 11-13). I believe we sometimes leave them too much to themselves in our desire not to cramp their ideas and stifle originality at that age they are far from resenting supervision and criticism -on the contrary they long for it at every turn, and a great deal of personal help and supervision is needed for starting the younger ones in useful pursuits and hobbies. Take care of the Shell, and the Sixth will take care of itself."

G. Headmaster. 1b. "The full employment of the leisure of boys especially in a boarding school, is one of vital importance for their mora

and intellectual welfare. A boy who begins a pursuit of this character has taken a step. . . in a course of self-education. When school days are ended studies begun in the class-room are to a large extent abandoned; but the instances are many in my experience in which an interesting pursuit or hobby has been a lifelong means of self-culture. Into the intellectual life of many dull boys a new awakening has been infused by the gradual acquirement of an absorbing interest in some pursuit. And this intellectual awakening is often accompanied by a marked moral improvement. A boy who is dull in school may be restless and troublesome if not worse; but if thoroughly interested he becomes contented and a loyal member of the community, and a gradual development and improvement of character ensue. And the influence of an interesting and informing hobby is most helpful in the years that ensue after school life, helping to keep a young fellow straight.

.. A good hobby, especially one connected with the study of nature is also a matter of great advantage in middle and later life, a great interest in travel, and a solace and resource amid business and other worries. The proper management of these pursuits (as well as of Essay and Literary Societies) gives ample scope for the training of boys in management and self-government. The master will always be in the background but not too obvious. The immediate working of these societies may often be imperfect and crude: but I am persuaded that many of the most important results of education, moral and intellectual, are assisted by the careful fostering of the employment of boys' leisure-time."

2. "It is quite needful that these pursuits should be spontaneous, and the connection between them and schoolwork should be a loose and flexible one, suggestive only. Masters should look out for a boy's bent, and if he shows any interest he should foster this, even if the particular bent be not what he considers the best work."

3a. "The simple remedy against loafing is compulsory games. But do they accomplish it without a sacrifice of what is still more important, the learning how to fill up leisure-time in a right and useful way! There must always be a few boys (most valuable as are the school games) to whom these are distasteful, and for some of these manual work, photography, the study of nature and the country walks required, form a most valuable aid against the perils of loafing. It is as important that a boarding school should be equipped with a good workshop, rooms for natural history, museum, dark-room, observatory as with studies and laboratories and class-rooms."

H. Assistant Master. "I am no theorist in matters educational: I would much rather employ (in leisure-hour pursuits) 100 unruly boys on the most miserable half-holiday than rack my brains on the why and wherefore of my actions."

la. "I have noticed increased interest in actual School work when subject taught has had any bearing on a boy's special hobby.

1b. "All leisure pursuits are more or less character-forming, as they must tend to carry out Archdeacon Wilson's great principle, the importance of what a boy does by himself for himself."

"This is bred of enthusiasm.

2. Spontaneity. A stimulating talk will do much to arouse interest . . . . . It is our business to see that the germ of enthusiasm does not die a premature death . . . . . .... Personal influence is the strongest lever I know."

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The following is taken from life :-"A. was set to make an ordinary dovetail-joint in a School lesson. Walking along the shed soon after he noticed a playbox with the same kind of joint. Happy thought, I'll make a playbox. When he had matriculated in this way he passed his 'intermediate' by means of a coalscuttle and his final by a davenport."

3a. "Insist on every boy having something to do . . . . Make your net large enough to catch all kinds of fish. . When the loafer has once taken up a hobby, see that he is not starved for want of encouragement. Daily, nay hourly, assistance is often necessary. It may not be more than a word or look . . But a boy must have time to vegetate. He is a wise master who knows when to let a boy ruminate and vegetate."

I. Assistant Master. 1b. "The great value lies in bringing out boys who appear dull at ordinary lessons .. Very seldom the keenness for such pursuits renders the boy too engrossed for attention in class.

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386 The Employment of Leisure Hours in Boys' Boarding Schools.

Should any fact be named in the lesson which happens to bear on his branch his attention is very marked."

K. Assistant Master. la. "The main principle is one of contrast between natural history and language teaching, literary pursuits and science teaching: also between hobby and probable future occupation.

1b. "The main value lies in the spontaneous effort after knowledge (prizes taking the place of authority), widening the view of life, developing powers of observation and experiment, etc., developing tastes (beyond making of a livelihood)."

L. Headmaster, not connected with any of the Friends' Schools.

2. "In Natural History it is not so much collections (which may be very worthless) as intelligent observation that we try to encourage; and, once a boy's interest is aroused, we leave him to follow his own line. And although their activity is not, in the first instance, spontaneous, there is, I believe, every bit as much keenness in the end, or even more, as interests are often in this way forced to wake that would otherwise have lain dormant. Few, I think, would seriously maintain, that the interest in games is weakened or destroyed by their being made compulsory for all; and I believe the same to be true of these other interests.'

3a. "And in this way by obliging every child to take up some indoor interest or interests in the winter, and one or more outdoor in the summer, loafing on any large scale becomes almost impossible. It is not of course enough to put one's name down for this or that; many, the beginners especially, want a good deal of looking after and encouragement. But this has its good side; for keenness depends chiefly on the personal influence and example of the teachers and elder children."

3b. "This and the growing tradition of a school must discourage mere fickleness of aim; but I believe that in most cases not only a wide range of choice is good, but a certain amount of experiment-the taking up of different branches in different years until a lasting interest is found. For we do not want to turn out naturalists after all, but to teach all to use their eyes and hands and to care for the world of nature and of thought."

PREPARATORY SCHOOL LIBRARIES.

A taste for reading is probably acknowledged by all who think to be one of the surest and most enduring sources of happiness; and if this is so, it evidently must be one of the main aims of education to rightly develop this taste. While, however, there is a general agreement as to the end to be sought, there seems to be a considerable divergence of opinion as to the means most suitable for its attainment. Roughly, there appear to be two extreme schools of thinkers on this question. There are those who advocate strongly the principle of non-interference, whose dictum is "Lege, lege, aliquid hærebit," who tell us that, just as with the body a child's natural tastes indicate what is wholesome for it, so also it is with the mind. On the other hand, there are those who appear to go to the other extreme, who are inclined to dictate unduly to a boy's mental appetite, and not content with trying to keep poisons and too strong stimulants out of his way, even discourage the consumption of perfectly harmless and wholesome food, because it appears insipid to a more mature taste. Between these two extreme systems of non-interference on the one hand, and an unwise interference on the other, is that adopted apparently by the great majority of preparatory schoolmasters-a wise and sympathetic interference, or rather guidance, which recognises the necessity for development, which never attempts to force unduly such development, and which is quick to perceive and encourage half-developed tastes and nascent predilections.

Before discussing further the measure and method of such guidance, it would be well, perhaps, to consider some of those influences, which at the present day seem to many of us likely to militate against the development of this taste for reading. In the forefront we should probably place the multiplicity of books, now constantly coming out. At first thought we might be inclined to believe that the gain here far outweighs the loss; and possibly, if we compare the present superfluity with the absolute scarcity of a hundred years ago, we are right in congratulating the present generation. But still there is little doubt that this very wealth of books does lead to an utterly haphazard method of reading, which runs counter to any true progress in the choice of books. Newness rather than intrinsic merit is apt to be considered the chief desideratum. In the next place, the character of the books most popular among boys at the present time is by many of us considered detrimental. A boy, for instance, who is reared on extreme sensationalism, loses his appetite for less exciting fare; and even the rapidity with which incidents succeed one another in the books of a less sensational order weakens a 2 B 2

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boy's power of taking an interest in a more sustained plot. But above all else, we believe that the great number of magazines now issued is a very serious danger, and that the constant perusal of such magazines exercises a most dissipating effect on the mind, making their readers intellectually impatient and undisciplined. That such a fear is well grounded is evidenced by the deteriorating effect of such magazines on the intellectual life even of adults. It is a sad but common sight to see tables, on which till lately books of real worth were always to be found, now covered by a multitude of periodicals of no literary merit. On the other hand, we are reminded that the supply of intellectual food is in a great measure equalised to the demand, and that there are boys to whom the short story, magazine article, or even the details of a cricket match, supply a mental stimulus, which otherwise they would lack altogether; and it is certainly true that amid the variety of subjects treated of by some of these periodicals, a boy does gain a good deal of general information, and may even find in them just that particular interest, which in his case is to develop into a valuable and abiding taste.

Having spoken shortly of some of the special conditions characteristic of the present time, which must either favourably or adversely affect the growth of a right taste for reading, it would be well for us perhaps to consider next the methods commonly adopted in preparatory schools for making the best use of such favourable conditions, and for mitigating the evils of such adverse ones. In the first place, there is almost an invariable custom to have a school library. We feel that too much trouble cannot be taken in the selection of books, and at the same time it is recognised as important, if the library is to be a popular institution, that the boys should regard it as their own library and not their master's, so that they shall have some part themselves in the work of selection. It has been found a satisfactory plan in some schools for a small joint committee of boys and masters to be formed for this purpose. To take one instance the committee comprises the head master, the librarian master, and the captain of the school as ex officio members, and two other members of the school elected by the boys. Before a meeting for the choice of books is held, a paper is posted, on which member of the school can enter the names of books which he wishes to recommend, and after discussion of these or other books the committee make their selection, the masters guiding us apavέorara the decision. The main principles to be recognised are the necessity for books suitable for the different ages and individual tastes of the boys, and the limitation of books depending for their interest entirely on sensational incident.

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At this point it may be interesting to notice what books are most commonly read by preparatory school boys at the present time. For this purpose a return has been made by the masters of a large number of such schools, stating what books are most pular among their boys. From these returns it is clear that to short stories of the Sherlock Holmes and Brigadier

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