I am not suggesting that the contingents of a battalion should habitually parade together. This would not work well in practice, for, putting difficulties of place out of the question, school jealousies are as real as they are inexplicable. My suggestion is concerned only with administration. I suggested above that it should be one of the duties of O.T.C. adjutants to supervise the staff sergeants of their battalions. I should have added to this suggestion the proviso "if staff sergeants are still appointed when the War is over." This proviso I add because I am strongly against the further appointment of such sergeants. For this reason. In a certain contingent which I have in mind, the staff sergeant went back to the active Army at the outbreak of hostilities. He was an excellent man and knew his work thoroughly. But when he went, many of his duties (some fell to the officers) were carried out by boy sergeants, with the result that the new sense of responsibility, the new habit of commanding others, has worked wonders with them, made them sure of themselves on parade-has become, in short, a most valuable factor in the training of future officers. In any case, by the abolition of staff sergeants, all corps would make a considerable financial saving.

DEPUTATION FROM THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION.

A

DEPUTATION from the Classical Association waited on the President of the Board of Education on Friday, April 27, and presented a memorial prepared for the purpose and also a memorandum containing their suggestions. The President was accompanied by Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge, Prof. Gilbert Murray, the Hon. W. N. Bruce, Dr. J. W. Mackail, Mr. J. W. Headlam, and Mrs. Withiel.

Lord BRYCE, who introduced the deputation, said the object was to make certain representations as to the position of classical studies in regard to questions that had recently engaged the President's attention in practical form. They had with them besides the speakers, Sir Archibald Geikie, a former President of the Royal Society, Dr. Walter Leaf, and representatives of the higher secondary schools for girls. One specific object of the deputation he would venture to emphasize: the obligation to provide an opportunity for the acquisition of classical knowledge by promising pupils in places where such instruction is not now within the reach of the pupil's residence. As a point of departure, he would lay down three propositions upon which most who have studied higher education are practically agreed :—

1. There were some studies that offered no sufficient practical prospect to induce the average parent to desire that his children should enter on them, yet in their opinion these studies were so essential to the complete fitting out of a man for his duties in the world as a citizen and a Christian, for the higher intellectual and moral life of the nation as a whole, that it was of the highest importance that they should be retained, and that due provision for them should be made in whatever curricula of instruction are finally accepted as fit to be generally adopted in schools.

2. These studies are only fit for boys and girls of special intellectual gifts, and they are studies in which a little knowledge profits little or nothing-for instance, a knowledge that does not go beyond Greek accidence.

3. It is not to be expected that all schools should make provision for an adequate study of Latin and Greek, and we must recognize at starting two classes of secondary schools.

Hence arises the practical problem: how are we at starting to discover the boys and girls of special gifts and aptitudes, and, being found, how are we to secure for them the means for carrying on and completing this study? This is a question of organization, and he must leave it to others with more intimate knowledge than himself to offer suggestions. But, in conclusion, he would call attention to the third section of the memorial, which deplored the existing tendency by which the cleverer children from elementary schools bear a different stamp from that given to children of the professional classes, being directed more narrowly to material and industrial wellbeing and less to the effective study of literature and history. Their purpose was to turn to better and fuller account all the intellectual reserve of the nation. So only could they hope to maintain for England that position both in the prac

tical and the intellectual world which this country had held, and aspired still to hold.

Sir FREDERIC KENYON, as Chairman of the Council, formally laid before the President the proposals that had been already sent to him. He desired to emphasize the fact that these proposals were no selfish attempt on the part of the advocates of Greek and Latin, but part of a larger scheme of educational reform in which the Classical Association was associated with other bodies, representing not only the humanities, but also natural science. By means of conferences and discussions during the past year, a remarkable amount of unanimity had been achieved, and harmony secured between the different interests which had so often wasted their time in attacking one another. They were not asking for any privileged position on behalf of the classics, and they recognized that the classics had held such a positon in the public schools of the older type, formed in days when scientific education, as we now know it, did not exist. They desired as far as in them lay to receive other branches of the humanities sympathetically, and to see that more time was allotted to them and that they were given fair play.

All they asked in return was that, in schools where there was no provision for classical training, provision should be made for bringing the study of Greek and Latin within the reach of all boys and girls who have sufficient aptitude to benefit by the study. They maintained that beyond those classes of society that frequent the public schools there was a large proportion of boys and girls who could profit by a first-hand acquaintance with Greek and Latin language and literature, and they desired to secure for these the opportunity of receiving it. For those who could go to the original, translations were but a poor substitute, but he need not now labour that point. They were not asking that classics should be compulsory upon anyone: only that ignorance of the classics should be compulsory upon none.

It was admitted that a knowledge of human nature was at least as essential for the future citizen as a knowledge of the material world, and for the former a knowledge of the thoughts and purposes of man in the past, of "the fundamental interests of life and society," as the Workers' Educational Association had expressed it, was essential. This must necessarily include a knowledge at first-hand of the way in which these problems were dealt with in ancient Greece and Rome. The principle of the proposals for which he had contended had recently been confirmed by a conference between the Council for Humanistic Studies and the Joint Board of Scientific Societies, at which a resolution was unanimously passed: "That in every area provision should be made for adequate instruction both in Latin and Greek for every boy and girl who is qualified to profit from them."

Mr. EDWARDS, Head Master of the Bradford Grammar School, said that his school, a thoroughly democratic school, largely recruited from scholars sent from the elementary schools, went far to establish the contention of previous speakers that boys of the working classes showed at least an equal ability to profit by the classics as those of a higher social class. In the last ten years

the school had won 102 scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge: 14 for modern history, 25 for mathematics, 30 for science, and 33 for classics; and of these 33 classical scholarships, 23 were gained by free-placers." Bradford is singularly fortunate, but he believed he was justified in stating that, in the whole of the West Riding area of Yorkshire, outside the county boroughs, there are at most one or two schools giving classical education. All they demanded was that in every area of accessibility there should be a school giving adequate instruction in Latin and Greek; and, secondly, that maintenance scholarships should be provided in sufficient numbers out of public funds.

Mr. MANSBRIDGE, late Secretary of the Workers' Educational Association, gave as his experience of twelve years that working people are showing an increased interest in such subjects as Plato Greek democracy and Greek moral and political thought.

in translations was read and studied by the University Tutorial Class. Opportunities for the study of Greek have not increased with the growth of the population. In the county of Lancashire, he was told that there were only eight schools, two of them Roman Catholic, that taught Greek. He desired a redistribution of the opportunities for the study of Latin and Greek, so as to free University men from compulsion and open the way to those who would use them for the development of joyous and powerful scholarship in the world. No man can become a successful missionary unless he feels the joy of his Gospel, and this joy, he could testify, had been felt by working men who had learnt to read the Greek masterpieces in the original.

Miss LIMEBEER, Principal of the Pendleton High School for Girls, urged that the two professions for women after the War which will outweigh all others were teaching and secretarial work, and that, as a preparation for these, nothing could be better than

Latin. She was not seeking to narrow the curriculum, but to keep a place for Latin, and to make it really good Latin. For teachers of English literature a knowledge of the classics was all important. Many mistresses desired to have some chance of two years of classics, and then one or two years of English literature on the top of it.

Prof. CONWAY bore testimony to the zeal and generosity with which Local Education Authorities have worked for higher education. If incidentally it can be pointed out that such reforms for which they were pleading would bring more distinction to one Local Authority than to its neighbours, this would clinch the case. But in his experience none was afraid of higher standards.

The President's Reply.

Lord Bryce, Ladies and Gentlemen,-You have come here on behalf of the Council of the Classical Association to represent to me the just place of the study of classical antiquity in our scheme of national education. You do not claim any special privilege for classical studies. You expressly realize the importance of an education in science and in the modern humanities, and you realize also that in the past the classical studies have enjoyed a position of prerogative which you no longer desire to defend.

Your point is that, in our ancient public schools, classical studies are forced upon many boys who are unfit to profit by them; but that, on the other hand, in the municipal and county schools, the facilities for becoming acquainted with the literature, the language, and the history of Greece and Rome are at present deplorably insufficient; and you desire the Board to use its in

perhaps more successful in securing the first object than the second; but progress has been made in both directions, and the deputation may be assured that neither of these two important objects will escape our consideration.

One final observation. I notice that the Classical Association speaks of the municipal and county schools as being directed more narrowly to material and industrial wellbeing and less to the effective study of literature and history. I think that the Board would not accept such a statement without some qualification. It is true, of course, that the provision for the humane studies has not hitherto been so effective in some of these newer schools as it has been made by long and established tradition in many of the older schools; still, there is a steady progress towards a better general education in the county schools and in the municipal schools: the level is being steadily raised, and I hope very much that one of the results of the new grants to secondary education will be to enable us to raise it still further. After all, success in secondary school education depends upon the quality of the teacher, and the quality of the teacher has some relation to the scale of his remuneration.

ARTHUR JOHN BUTLER.*

of Latin and Greek in every local area as will place those studies everywhere within reach of pupils from all classes of the nation. Now I am cordially in agreement with the members of this deputation as to everything which has been said with respect to the great value of classical studies as an instrument of humane education. A study of classical antiquity not only introduces us to some of the most beautiful literature in the world, but it has been a very living and progressive branch of intellectual activity in the past generation. I remember very well that when I took my degree I came to the deliberate conclusion that there was no further room for fruitful research in Greek history, and in token of that precipitate and erroneous opinion I parted with my copy of Müller's Fragments of Greek Historians to my friend, Prof. Gilbert Murray. Immediately afterwards Sir Frederic Kenyon discovered, among the papyri of the British Museum, Aristotle's long-lost Constitution of Athens, and from that moment onwards there has been a succession of discoveries in the field of Greek antiquity more thrilling and fruitful than any which the world has known since the days of Aldus and Poggio.

I feel myself that the complete disappearance of Greek education from this country would be a great and irredeemable loss, and that the study of classical antiquity stands on an entirely different footing from any specialized pursuit such as Hebrew.

I have already outlined to the House of Commons a scheme for the development of our secondary schools, and I think that the new regulations for our secondary schools, coupled with the new grants which it is proposed to attach to advanced courses, will go some way to meet the desires expressed by this deputation.

We propose to encourage advanced courses in all the main subjects of secondary education, in science, in mathematics, in the modern humanities, and in classics, and we hope that the schools offering these advanced classes will be so co-ordinated that every great subject of secondary education may be accessible to every student in a given area of accessibility.

We also contemplate a system of transfers. There will be a great number of practical obstacles to overcome before such a system can be brought into smooth and continuous operation. My feeling is that the plan can only really succeed when the secondary schools in any 66 area of accessibility" shall have established special reputations for themselves in special branches of study; and, of course, a system of transfers, to be successful, would have to be accompanied by a system of scholarships and maintenance allowances.

We can,

I ought, perhaps, here to interpolate a warning. The Board is not in a position to impose curricula upon schools. of course, through our system of grants, bring influence to bear upon schools, but, as George Washington said, influence is not government.

I notice the deputation laid stress upon the transfer of all able pupils from primary to secondary schools at an age early enough to enable them to profit duly by a secondary course, and on their remaining at school long enough to complete it. Well, the policy of the Board has for long been directed towards these two objects. The Board has tried to induce children to leave the elementary school for the secondary school at a sufficiently early age, and has attempted to stimulate the length of school life. We have been

The Preface, which tells how the memoir came to be written at the request of a common friend, the late lamented Mr. Reginald Smith, goes some way to remove our doubts, which a perusal of the book itself completely dispels.

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It was only during the last stage of Butler's life that he made the acquaintance of his future biographer at a chance business meeting that quickly ripened into an intimate friend. ship that endured to the end. Butler's earlier life, his home at Wantage, his career at Eton and at Cambridge, are wisely left to his sisters and his school and college contemporaries, with shrewd comments and explanations interspersed. Thus, in place of an elaborate genealogy, with Galtonian elucidation, it is pointed out how in Arthur were mingled by a runaway match the blood of the Irish Cannings and the Pembrokeshire Butlers. His paternal great-grandfather and maternal greatgrandmother were brother and sister." Even his infant years -as, when a child of six, he watches alone by his sister lying in her shroud, or when, at eight, he wins a scholarship at Bradfield-display the dominant note of his character: a resolute independence, never aggressive, but persistent in pursuing its own way, regardless not only of worldly prospects, but also of the far stronger influence of a self-willed father whom he loved and honoured to the end, but whose religion and politics he could not share; and never once was he tempted, even with his most intimate friends, as greater men than Butler have done, to "peep and botanize" upon his father's grave.

Eton, to which, after five years at Bradfield, he was transferred by his grandfather, the banker's, request, is very briefly treated. The school, with its unchartered freedom, exactly suited him; he made lifelong friends and won distinctions, being twice a proxime for the "Newcastle."

Of his Cambridge life as an undergraduate Prof. Henry Jackson gives us the bare facts. He notes that fifty years ago Trinity men were roughly classified as reading or rowing (to rime with "plowing "), and that Butler belonged to the first class, but with a difference. He went to the great classical and mathematical coaches of the day, Shillito and Rouse, but he did not grind for eight hours daily, or read only what would pay in the tripos.

College tutors in those times were of little account, and it

* Memoir of Arthur John Butler. By Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. 7s. 6d. net. Smith, Elder.

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was only after his degree, when Butler was staying up to read for his Fellowship, that their friendship began. Both belonged to the famous "Cambridge Apostles," here discreetly called "a little essay society," and we have a characteristic sample of Butler's essay on the question, Is a little knowledge a dangerous thing?" It is a spirited apology for the all-round man against the narrow specialism which is (or was) the besetting sin of the Cambridge curriculum. An extract from Butler's diary will show his bias:

October 1, 1886.-W. H. Thompson, Master of Trinity, died. A typical Cambridge man: fastidious, accurate, intolerant of slovenly word, thought, or work: a Greek Professor who published nothing but one dialogue of Plato: critical rather than constructive. A few such men are indispensable, but one cannot live on salt.

We will give one more extract from the diary (we wish there were more of them) to show how good both in talk and with his pen Butler was at these thumb-nail sketches.

April 5, 1891.-Went with D. L. F. [Douglas Freshfield] to Farringford. Found the great man about to start, and walked for nearly two hours with him (Wilfred Ward of the party). He was very friendly. Why did Hutton quote Mr. Arnold's version of the camp-fire scene? It is not good. Now mine is beautiful. Quoted Catullus at length, &c.

In 1876 Butler reluctantly left Cambridge, where he had spent seven serene and happy years, for London, his headquarters for another decade. For seventeen years he served as Examiner in the Education Department. He did his work as a Civil Servant thoroughly and conscientiously, never absent for one day; but the work under Sir F. Sandford was mechanical and deadly dull, and, like his colleagues, Francis Palgrave, W. J. Courthope, and Sidney Joyce, he found all his interests outside the Office in literature, journalism, and mountaineering. Happier than the Clifton poet, he escaped from the mill which for twice nine weary years his feet had trodden, and, regretting only the friends he left behind him, found for himself a new occupation. His task had been lightened by a supremely happy marriage, in 1875, with the daughter of the Rev. W. G. Humphry, like himself and his father, an old Trinity Fellow. His good fortune, too, followed him, for his aunt, Miss Barnett, played the fairy godmother, made over to the young couple her house in Onslow Square for the remainder of the lease, and then enabled him to settle at Weybridge in the house so familiar to his many friends, where his son and daughters were all born-the Wood End where his tastes as architect and gardener found full scope, though he never rested from travel.

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His Alpine travels well deserve a separate chapter. In no métier did he show greater independence than as a climber. For four years he served as editor of the Alpine Journal, yet the greater part of the Alps was to him a terra incognita, and most of his first ascents were made almost accidentally. His paper on Solitary Climbing," here printed in full, explains how it was that the mountains haunted him like a passion, partly from his innate love of adventure and partly from the love of Nature that he shared with Obermann. But he was no solitary like Obermann or Wordsworth, nor content to record his joys and sorrows in the semi-privacy of a journal. He made friends wherever he went, and was no less at home with his faithful guide and his simple Tyrolese hosts than with Oxford and Cambridge dons and London publishers and editors.

It is as the translator and interpreter of Dante that Butler is known to the public, and to his services as such full justice is done by Mr. Paget Toynbee, the first of living English Danteists. He was still at the Education Department when he set himself seriously to the task, and the first volume of the translation, the Purgatorio, the work of four years, appeared in 1880. The Paradiso appeared four years later, and the Hell completed the work in 1892. Dante and the Renaissance," his inaugural lecture as Barlow Professor of Dante Studies in University College, delivered a few months before his death, aptly concludes the volume. Butler, with his usual eipoveía, spoke of his translation as a crib pure and

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simple," and elsewhere he states the theory that he there carried out:

A translation ought to be written in grammatical and fairly fluent English, so rendered that any good scholar would be able to retranslate it verbatim with the original. There are as many moulds of thought as there are languages, and inevitably the thought is influenced by the vehicle.

And he gives as instances French, briefer and more logical than English because its vocabulary is more limited, and German, more prolix (why he does not state), a sentence of which language, sixteen lines long, he translated at length, and pleaded in defence that "it gives you the author rather than Butler."

Fortunately Butler did not adhere to this theory, and followed rather the practice of Prof. Huxley, who, when asked how he learnt his admirable style, answered: "By trying to boil down bad German into respectable English." This is what Butler did with the five volumes of Hetzel's History of Mankind, but young scholars have more reason to be grateful for his crib" to Dante, which, with the notes, smooths their way no less than does H. A. J. Munro's translation of Lucretius.

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We must hurry to the end, and leave untold the outspoken and to many readers the most attractive chapter on Publishers, whereof Sir Arthur can speak from first-hand experience. The "discreet word or two" on Cassell & Co., as the firm was named a quarter of a century ago, is a masterpiece worthy of Dickens, and well might Butler have exclaimed, as he left "the Yard," "Multum incola fuit anima mea."

Butler was a character of many apparent contradictions not easy to discern and reconcile. Ingenuous and outspoken almost to a fault, he yet maintained through good report and evil his own inner convictions. Deeply religious, he never bowed in the house of Rimmon. He performed the work that fell to his hands with scrupulous exactitude, but never affected an enthusiasm which he did not feel; but when at last he found a congenial task he devoted to it all his energies, so that one whose ideal of scholarship was cultured versatility will survive in memory as the editor of Dante. On his gravestone at Wantage," where the larks sing," is inscribed the greeting of Beatrice to her poet, "Luce, Amore, Letizia," and no fitter epitaph could be found for one who, in spite of all failings, exemplified the gospel of Light, Love, and Joy.

CORRESPONDENCE.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND THE SWEDISH SYSTEM. To the Editor of The Journal of Education.

SIR, An article in the Journal of Education for April calls attention to the adoption by the Board of Education of the Swedish system of gymnastics as the recognized system of training in the schools under its control. The writer of this article objects to the Swedish system being adopted exclusively on several grounds-one being that a wider and more varied set of exercises is better-and advocates the claims of the "British system as supplying the variety. It may be pointed out that all gymnastic work in England is derived from two sources, viz. from the German and from the Swedish systems, and no conjunction of them can be called "British." It is quite un-British and un-sporting to do so. Let credit be honestly given where credit is due.

The German system was introduced into England before the Swedish was taught in men's evening classes, especially in the Y.M.C.A. gymnasia; was introduced into many schools, boys' and girls' alike; and practically had the whole field to itself. In spite of this, after considerable investigation, the London School Board of 1878, under the Chairmanship of Mr. John Rodgers, and with the co-operation of Mrs. Westlake, the Rev. Mark Wilkes, and others, introduced the Swedish system into the London schools. This was the beginning of a definitely scientific system, however inadequate the time given to it, and however insufficiently trained the teachers.

A small college for training women teachers was started in 1885

by Mme Bergman Osterberg, and, as it supplied a need for educated women in this subject in secondary schools, was successful, and grew rapidly in numbers and efficiency. This and other similar colleges which were established later, with no outside help of any kind, and no blare of trumpets, have supplied nearly every secondary school for girls-public or private-with a trained gymnastic teacher. These are schools in the majority of which the Board of Education has had no control or direction whatever. The improvement in the physique of girls is undeniable. The system has not only been introduced into many boys' schools, but is also adopted in training men for the Army and Navy.

The Swedish system has certain underlying principles which do not change. They are:

1. That gymnastic movements may not be taken to music, as music interferes with full muscular contraction, and its rhythm is not the rhythm of movement (unless of such purely rhythmical exercises as dancing).

2. No apparatus is held in the hands. Hand apparatus, such as dumb-bells, clubs, &c., are useful only to increase muscular work by adding weight to the part moved. This is undesirable, as introducing a new element of risk to delicate children.

3. No movement may be introduced as a gymnastic exercise unless its physiological or anatomical value can be clearly demonstrated.

4. There is a definite order for every lesson. This is not an order of set movements, but the lesson is so arranged as to exercise each main group of muscles, and at the same time to produce the best functional effects.

Within these limits there has always been the widest liberty of choice, and the combinations of movements are endless, being limited only by the power of the individuals under instruction. As music and hand apparatus are essential in the German system, it is easy to see why a combination of the two is impossible. Another objection brought forward is the alleged dullness of the Swedish system, and the statement is made that any subject should be inherently interesting to children, however badly taught. This can be challenged, of course. A poor, dull teacher can make the most fascinating subject tiresome in the extreme, whilst all subjects can be made interesting by a good teacher. The writer of the article refers almost exclusively to the system as taught in elementary schools, where it certainly labours under many disadvantages. The free-standing movements are divorced from the work on fixed apparatus, and the two are not properly separable, but are interdependent. The exercises are taught by the ordinary class teacher, who may have no special liking for the work, who is not fully trained, and is sometimes physically incapable of teaching such work successfully. In spite of these defects, which are all remediable, the gymnastic lesson is one of the most popular in the day's work. In secondary schools also, where the system is taught in its entirety by experts, gymnastics is usually the most popular subject, and the opinion is often expressed that the physical work is even too popular." The " British' system which is advocated is said to have "arisen almost out of the ground "-surely a poor claim to make for any system of gymnastics which, undertaking to deal with the plastic, susceptible bodies of children, should have absorbed the best thought and attention that could be devoted to it. This, its exponents claim, has been done in the Swedish system, which, based by its founder (in 1814) on anatomy and physiology as then understood, has kept pace with the advance in these subjects, altering its methods of procedure and dropping some of its pretensions as these became untenable in the face of recent knowledge.

It is a matter of opinion whether the British group which took part in the Olympic games in England was a subject for national pride, their over-muscular bodies contrasting unfavourably in many people's eyes with the alert, active, symmetrical bodies of the Danes and Swedes.-I am, &c.,

MARY HANKINSON,
Hon. Secretary of the Ling Association of Trained
Teachers of Swedish Gymnastics.

To the Editor of The Journal of Education. SIR, Your contributor, in his article on "Physical Training' in the April issue of your journal, omits to record that the Royal Commission on Physical Training expressed the opinion that the Swedish System was "admirable in theory and nearly perfect in its adaptation of certain exercises to attain certain results." The Commissioners said, further, that it "is stated to be defective, inasmuch as it is exhausting," &c., and the form of words used indicates that they were not convinced of the truth of this statement.

Your contributor quotes only that part of the paragraph in which

an adverse opinion of the system is cited, and the "impartial and accurate judgment" which he applauds is certainly not the judgment of the Commission. The subsequent extracts from the reports of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education which the article contains suggest partiality in their selection, and several of the phrases used indicate ill humour. Clearly the article cannot be accepted as a well balanced contribution to educational literature.

In the narrower field of physical education, which we may designate Education through bodily exercises or muscular activity," we have to recognize two divisions. One of these is mainly formal-the domain of gymnastics, expressly giving to our pupils alertness, good carriage, and precision of movement, and providing appropriate stimulation of the large muscle groups, the heart, and the lungs. In this domain the principles underlying the Swedish System are those on which all such educational exercises must be based, and the school conditions which compel the teacher of physical exercises to teach children in large classes in a very limited time, and to exercise every important part of the neuro-muscular system of each child appropriately in that time, can best be met by further development in harmony with these principles. The word system suggests rigidity of method, but there is no rigidity in the physical training lessons based upon the Swedish System as I know them in the work of this College. The system is not dull nor lacking in interest and variety to the pupils. On the contrary, the reports of former students confirm me in the opinion that the elementary-school child enjoys his gymnastic lesson.

The other of the two divisions referred to is mainly informalthe domain of play, games, athletics, dancing, and swimming. It is complemental to the formal exercises, infinitely more varied, and affecting character in subtle ways which are beyond the scope of gymnastics. It is ostensibly recreational and essentially educative. It may be provided for during school hours at periods different from those devoted to formal exercises, but it should also be provided for during recess and after school hours. The further advance of bodily exercises as part of educational work requires the harmonious association of these two divisions. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, ALISTER MACKENZIE.

"

Dunfermline College of Hygiene

and Physical Education.

April 23, 1917.

To the Editor of The Journal of Education. SIR, May I be allowed to enter an emphatic protest against some of the statements made by the contributor of the article on Physical Training "in your April number? My long experience, both as assistant and head mistress, in schools where the Swedish system has been in use, gives me some right to form an opinion as to its popularity amongst girls, and I can say confidently that no part of their school work gives the girls more pleasure. Taken all round, gymnastics is about the most popular subject in the school. Well do I remember the restive impatience of a class detained a minute or two past the time when it was due in the gymnasium ! And the number of girls whose desire is to be trained as gymnastics mistresses-only their parents cannot afford it-is large enough to make one feel the need for more scholarships in aid of a course of physical training. But no system is likely to be a success under the conditions obtaining in our elementary schools. Huge classes, necessitating massed drill as the only possibility, ill-ventilated buildings, lack of a properly equipped gymnasium, imperfectly trained teachers. It is not the system which is at fault, but the misuse of it.

Your contributor complains that "the administration and teaching of physical training are controlled by a narrow and privileged class." Why "narrow and privileged "? It is, surely, essential to guard against any lowering of standard and to maintain a very high level of efficiency. The pioneers in this movement have had to hold a strong front against slipshod, showy, meretricious, acrobatic work, and to insist upon thoroughness and upon the intelligent application of principles. They have been strict and careful in the granting of their diplomas, and, from the first, they have been courageous and firm in turning away unpromising students who would only fail as teachers. In this sense their narrowness has been all to the good, and their "privilege "' is well-earned public confidence.

Again, your contributor refers to the Royal Commission of about thirteen years ago. It was expressly said that the Swedish system had been " stated to be defective Nevertheless, selected exercises from it should form part of a wider and more varied course. Now, much water has flowed under the bridge" in all departments of education since those days, and that the system

"was stated to be" defective in certain directions was not a very serious indictment. The leaders in the work have not stood still. New and varied exercises have been introduced, and dancing and outdoor games have taken a more important place in the course of training.

We want teachers who have been not only trained but inspired, and, if sought in the right quarters, they can be found. To such teachers a system is a servant and not a master.-I am, Sir, yours faithfully, MARGARET E. ROBERTS.

The Girls' Grammar School, Bradford.

THE RUSSIAN SUB-COMMITTEE OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.

To the Editor of The Journal of Education. SIR,-Your criticism of the fact that this Committee, while inscribing on its Register the names of persons whose educational attainments and standing would appear to fit them to be teachers of Russian, yet declines to guarantee their teaching capacity, seems on the surface quite fair. Actually, however, it is just the reverse, for the following reasons.

First, then, although the Russian Sub-Committee is an integral part of the Modern Language Association (see Memorandum, pages 31-34), the parent body has very carefully limited its financial liability with regard thereto. The Modern Language Association is an educational association pure and simple, and in no sense a commercial scholastic agency. Acting under distinguished legal advice, therefore, the qualification to which you object had to be inserted for their protection.

Next, it had to be put in for the sake of the professional and financial protection of the Sub-Committee itself. Realizing as we do that, in view of the growing demand for Russian teachers, it is quite possible that, despite every care on the part of our Selection Committee, some few persons might conceivably find their way into positions for which they might turn out to be unsuited, we deemed it wise to do no more than guarantee their general educational standing and position.

It must be obvious to every one that testimony from Russia or elsewhere as to any given individual's power to teach private pupils constitutes no guarantee whatever as to his or her capacity to deal satisfactorily with large classes of English boys and girls. Now, the majority of teachers will be required to teach under these public conditions, while any testimony we may be able to secure will, in the case of many of them, refer to their capacity to instruct private pupils.

Our reservation, therefore, was legally, financially, and professionally necessary, and I feel sure that you will retract your criticism when you realize that we are doing our best under the difficult circumstances in which we are at present placed.-I am, &c.,

W. STUART MACGOWAN, Chairman Russian Sub-Committee. [Dr. Macgowan seems to have adduced some strong arguments in favour of our contention that the registration of teachers had better be left to the Teachers Registration Council.-ED.]

In

DALCROZE EURHYTHMICS.-The students of the London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmics gave a varied and altogether delightful demonstration of rhythmic movement and the plastic expression of music at Prince's Theatre on May 18. Many interesting developments of rhythm and form were conceived and executed by students, under the direction of Miss Ethel Driver, L.R.A.M. the plastic conducting by single pupils, remarkable insight was shown in the character and feeling of the music, crescendo and decrescendo, accellerando and ritardando; and other effects being treated with a fineness of perception which betokened a quickening and arousing of the aesthetic sense, and that at an age when most children are wrestling with the purely mechanical. The second part of the program, consisting as it did of plastic expressions of such music as "Three Nursery Rhymes," by Dr. Walford Davies ; Fugue in G Major (Bach), Humoresque (Tchaikowsky), Prelude (Scriabine), &c., served to demonstrate the method when the strict technique is abandoned and free movements are employed. The performance of the " Humoresque was specially charming in its sympathetic interpretation of the music, and shared, with "T'other little tune,' some of the heartiest applause from the audience.

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TRURO DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE FOR SCHOOLMISTRESSES.Miss Gee, Vice-Principal of the College, has been appointed Principal, in succession to the Bishop of St. Germans, who has held the Principalship for forty-four years.

COLONIAL AND FOREIGN NOTES.

FRANCE.

War still, to tell the truth tritely, pervades the atmosphere. There is much amusement over the new German Enters U.S.A. notion to accept an indemnity in the form of raw produce! In the school world an event of moment has been the publication (Bulletin Administratif du Ministère de l'Instruction publique, No. 2,270) of the Minister, M. Steeg's, Circular to Recteurs and Inspecteurs d'académie on the Intervention of the United States. It is a spirited address. We are told in it how America-remote, heterogeneous in population, and with complex economic interests-seemed for a time to hesitate; then gave with calm resolve her adhesion to a cause that her heart and conscience had long espoused; for Frame, in far times, even before the hour of her own liberation, had gone to the support of Freedom in America. "L'idéal qui faisait palpiter les drapeaux de La Fayette et de Rochambeau ne s'était pas évanoui dans les fumées de leur victoire; dans ce nouveau monde ouvert à une humanité rajeunie il avait trouvé sa patrie naturelle. Il se dresse aujourd'hui, dans son immortelle verdeur, contre la sombre brutalité d'un militarisme atroce, contre les gouvernements de despotismes qui ont engendré ce militarisme et l'ont sciemment déchaîné.' Our Board of Education should take quick steps to circulate these French documents in English schools. They would be more inspiring to-day than any speech of Pericles at Athens or of Quintus Fabius at Rome.

The Masters' Meeting.

No war trumpet can silence in France the voice of Levana. The journals are busy just now with many of the humbler pedagogic themes-among them the Masters' Meeting (Conseil des maîtres). The institution is in England seldom profitable to any, still more seldom popular with assistant teachers; and, indeed, a Masters' Meeting must needs be a failure when it is only the occasion on which an arbitrary chief communicates his mandates. A French ministerial circular, dated January 15, 1908, was designed to make the Conseil des maîtres a valuable element in pedagogy. That circular has remained, for the most part, a dead letter, and only in a few schools has sincere and efficacious co-operation been established. The following system has been found useful notebooks (cahiers 'd'initiative") are put at the disposal of the teachers, and in them each records his trouvailles pédagogiques, his pedagogic discoveries and successes, to be discussed afterwards at the Masters' Meeting. The method is truly pedagogic in conception. Unhappily there are many schools in England where the teachers would listen unwillingly to the trouvailles pédagogiques of another! Yet a sympathetic exchange of experience should have much value.

The teacher who has "never had any trouble with discipline" is, in general, either of small experience or of About Discipline. doubtful veracity. We could tell some strange tales in this connexion, were it decent to tell them. The Revue Universitaire (XXVI, 4) publishes an "Essai de catéchisme pédagogique," for the service of those who would fight disorder in the school. We commend the Essai, not altogether without trepidation, to the notice of beginners in disciplinary regimen. Here, by way of a sample, is the procedure to be observed at the rentrée, the day when, as the prospectuses say, the school 're-opens.' Let the teacher be careful in his get-upnothing extravagant, nothing incorrect. He enters the classroom, following this advice. 'Au moment où vous arriverez devant vos nouveaux élèves, enveloppez-les tous d'un coup d'œil. Qu'ils sentent dans vos regards l'énergie dominatrice. Une classe, surtout dans l'enseignement secondaire actuel, est comme une cage de fauves; vous êtes le dompteur. Vous devez fasciner dès l'abord. Tous les yeux vont se fixer sur les vôtres; et vos yeux devront planter dans ceux de vos élèves votre résolution de les gouverner absolument pour leur bien. Dès la première seconde ils devront le comprendre. S'ils sont en classe quand vous prenez possession de votre poste, et que votre venue ne les empêche pas de causer, restez silencieux. Attendez, s'il le faut, dix minutes, un quart d'heure, jusqu'à ce que le silence le plus complet se soit établi. Ne parlez jamais avant que vos auditeurs n'aient prouvé tous par leur attitude qu'ils désirent vous entendre. Le silence est une des plus grandes forces pédagogiques." Alas! there are lion-tamers who fail because the lion does not understand their methods.

Many of our readers are deeply interested in Continuation and the education of adults. They will have learned Édouard Petit. with regret of the death of Édouard Petit, champion of our hopes in France. As a young (Continued on page 376.)