examinations. It is, therefore, an examination which, if passed, sets the seal of success on the education so far followed, and opens the gate to specialized or to professional study. Since the standard required is, after all, not very high, and since it is not desirable that all secondary pupils, boys and girls, should leave school before they are 17, a further system of examinations, known as Higher School Certificates, has been organized, and these are intended to test progress in special studies undertaken at school for two years following the passing of the School Certificate. This system involves number of problems peculiar to itself, which may for the moment be deferred. It is mentioned here for the sake of completeness, for, on the basis of these two examinations, the whole work of practically all boys' and girls' schools of a secondary type in this country is now organized. a It is obvious that so extensive a system, responsibility for which is shared by eight examining authorities, cannot work successfully unless they are whole-hearted in their co-operation, and unless there is some central body or council, on which they are all represented, which can suggest common action, consider in common new problems and new requirements, and secure and guarantee equivalence of standard. Such a body was established during the war by the Board of Education, and is known as the Secondary Schools' Examination Council. All examining bodies are represented thereon, and there is adequate representation besides of men and women teachers, and of the directors and the local authorities who are interested in education. This Council meets in London at regular intervals. As this article is intended to be merely general and introductory, it must be sufficient to indicate some of the things which the Examinations Council has attempted to do, and the nature of some of the difficulties with which it has to deal. It is easy for reformers to say, like the Single Taxers of old, that there should be one examination and that it should do for all purposes; it is to be feared that, if they could succeed in organizing it, they would soon begin to grumble at the monstrosities of their own creation. There are in the field seven autonomous universities, who are apt to be obliging enough so long as the examination is a School Certificate, but who are jealous and, to a degree, quite rightly jealous, as soon as the School Certificate is considered as an equivalent for their own matriculation. It is not likely that the universities will ever accept dictation from the schools, or any other quarter, as to the subjects to be offered, or the standards to be required, from those who propose to become undergraduates. There are also in the field what it would scarcely be an exaggeration to count as seven times seven professional bodies, who all have their own ideas as to the standards and the types of education to be demanded from would-be aspirants to their number. It is going a long way to assert that these professional bodies have no right to have any ideas at all on this subject; and yet as soon as their right is admitted, as soon as they exercise it, they introduce difficulties and complicate the work of the schools. The Examinations Council at any rate decided that the first thing to be done was to find out whether all the first examinations were, as a matter of fact, not only organized on equivalent lines, but also regulated by an equivalent standard. At the end of 1918 and 1919 it conducted an investigation of the methods and the standards of award of the whole examination as it was worked in July, 1918. It employed the services of a body of men and women who, as teachers or as examiners or as inspectors, had acquired much experience; these visited the universities concerned, inspected the worked scripts, and conferred with the examining bodies. As a result of their recommendations all the examinations were brought to an approximate level, and at the present moment these are again being subjected to a similar investigation. It is obvious that this method is complicated and expensive, but there is no other method by which the object aimed at can be attained. Every one will have his private opinions as to the comparative easiness or difficulty of the different tests, but it can hardly be disputed that we have in this country now existent eight forms of the examination which are as approximately equal as human organization can make them. Protracted negotiations have brought it about that all the universities recognize their own, and others', school certificates, on certain terms, for purposes of matriculation, and that all the professional bodies recognize them also, though with certain reservations and special requirements. Those who study the apparently bewildering maze of all these varying conditions are certain to find some absurdities among them, and are apt to say in their haste that no progress has been made towards necessary simplification. They assert that when a pupil has followed the ordinary course of his school, and has gained a certificate, he has no certainty that it will, as a matter of fact, be of use to him in more than one or two directions. But this is an exaggeration. So long as a certificate is gained at the credit" standard, and has the main subjects of the first three groups represented upon it, it is gratifying to see how many entrance-gates it unlocks. There is, no doubt, room for further improvement; for some of the demands made by some of the professional bodies are not marked by the sweet reasonableness that is to be hoped for, and in the past there has been colour for accusing one university of requiring from extraneous candidates performances which they do not exact to anything like the same standard from the children of their own bosom. But all this tends to die away; it represents a spirit which is obsolescent. It has been proposed, and it is at first sight a tempting proposal, that there should be one common matriculation for all the universities of England and Wales and that the school certificates should be related to this. The probable purpose of the promoters of the change is that the examination should be uniform and identical, but it is very doubtful whether the universities, with their different traditions, would consent to this. It is very doubtful whether the schools, with their need for variety of type, ought to consent to this from their own side. On the other hand, if the universities should continue to exact different requirements within the scope of a single examination, it is not clear how the task of the schools would be simplified. Still the burden would not be made any heavier, and the change would have the advantage of abolishing the bargaining as to mutual recognition which now goes on between various universities. It is a proposal which it is well worth while to explore further. Now that the School Certificate is established, there are certain problems which are beginning to press. There is, first, the question of standard. Is the standard, as drawn at present, too high for some boys' schools, and for more girls' schools? Does the requirement that whole forms should be sent in mean in effect that some pupils are kept down who ought normally to be promoted and would benefit by the work, even though they were weak at it? Or does it mean that there is overpressure by ambitious teachers and that weak candidates are overdriven, not without physical detriment? Such suggestions need to be carefully considered, but just as it would be folly to place the standard so high that only the pupils of the very best schools could reach it, so it would be greater folly to place it so low that it would be well within the compass of the weaker candidates from the weakest schools. It will be better in the long run for the education of this country, if the schools are levelled up, rather than that the examination should be levelled down. It is not probable that any one who has really looked into border-line papers at this stage would argue that they represent a standard which an ordinary pupil, with ordinary ability, teaching, and industry, would find it hard to reach. The examination is now on such a scale, and so wide in its " ramifications, that any attempt to lower its standard should be reviewed with the most thorough care. It is certainly not too hard for good schools, and a reduction of standard cannot but re-act all round; the universities and professional bodies may well withdraw concessions, which they have only made because they have been assured that a certain standard is guaranteed and will be maintained. Whether it is fair and wise to require the same standard, at approximately the same age, from girls as from boys, may well be doubted. It is not a problem which can be more than mentioned here. But it will not be a happy solution if boys are let off too easily in future, because girls are too hard-pressed at present. There is another danger which needs to be watched, and this arises from the very success of the School Certificate Examination and the enormous size to which it has grown. In July, 1918, 20,488 sat as candidates; in July, 1923, 46,667. In five years the numbers more than doubled ; they are for next year probably over 50,000. The strain thrown on examining authorities is very great. It is hard to find enough qualified examiners who are free to do the work, and harder still to correlate their marking, all under the pressure of a very narrow time-limit. It is human to err, and the most perfect theoretical organization may well break down under a burden of such magnitude. Education in the schools does not remain the same; new methods and new subjects are continually making their appearance. But a strongly-organized system, under of a reform of the curriculum, it is not thinkable that it will for long be resisted by the examining authorities. It is not reactionary to urge that reforms of a great examination system should not be too rapid or too frequent, and there are abundant means, if teachers will use them, of bringing their views under full consideration and of securing that the examination, as a whole, shall not dictate, but shall follow the best educational practice. Space does not permit more than a mention of the Higher Certificate. This, too, is founded on a group system, but the groups are very liberally interpreted. It is matter for debate whether the examination should not frankly be based on subjects taken individually at a high level rather than on groups of subjects, which represent courses of study imposed upon schools from without. It can be fairly argued that heads of schools, and those responsible for the teaching of sixth forms, ought to be able to direct the studies of their pupils with wisdom, and that no system of grouped subjects, however intricately drawn, can really meet the need of all individual cases. Two other problems can be briefly referred to. Is the standard of existing higher certificates, as a matter of fact, really high enough, and does it represent two years' definite work beyond the stage of the school certificate ? A confident answer in the affirmative can hardly be given by any one who knows of the number of schools in which a certain measure of success is attained after only one year of preparation. And, secondly, has the Examination a sufficient external value ? In some universities it can be passed in such a manner as to be held equivalent to the has at present no value at all. There is a great deal to be done still in organizing and fitting this examination into the educational system. But which the certificates issued pass current at a certain value | Intermediate Examination for a degree, but in others it with different universities and different extraneous authorities, is not easily susceptible of change. It may be, for instance, that geography is as good as physics, if taught in the right way; it may be that music or art should be accepted in place of any group of subjects, especially in the case of girls. But the exponents of these views have to persuade not one authority, but eight, that they represent educational advance; it is not possible for a single authority to concede what is asked for without destroying the interchangeability of some of its own certificates. The way of the reformer is not easy, and his task is long. But there is this to be said: There is no examining authority on which teachers, both men and women, are not directly or indirectly represented; they are, in most cases, directly represented, but in all they can make their voice heard. They are further represented directly on the Examinations Council, though not by election. When there is anything like agreement throughout the profession on the wisdom W There can be little doubt as to the progress that has been made. Those who decry all examinations are not few, though they are frequently irresponsible. it is generally conceded that the School Certificate Examination, in particular, has made a very great difference to the rank and file of the boys and girls of our secondary schools, has given them an aim to which they can attain, and put a different spirit into their work. It has provided a centre round which methods of teaching can be valued, standards compared, and educational practice improved. Those who remember the fifth forms on the modern sides of the schools of twenty years ago, and the state of the ladders which led up to them, will not be the first to deny the merits of the present examination system. A Psychological Aspect of the Teaching of Music in Day-Schools By W. WALTON, London. HEN Keats sought to portray a scene of exceeding desolation, he used these words: Looking back from a distance of more than a hundred years, we get a picture of the peasant-class in France, prior to the Revolution, a people oppressed, servile under oppression-a voiceless people, mute and desolate ! Generation had succeeded generation, grievance grievance, burden had been piled on burden, and still the soul was pent-no relief, no outlet, no gateway of utterance ! Then came Rouget de Lisle and put into their mouths a new song, and as they poured forth their very souls in the phrases of the 'Marseillaise' they gained also the vision of a wider liberty. shed; but through that welter they came to a nearer realization of their ideals of liberty and brotherhood. Everything that has life finds expression through some channel, of the life that is in it, from the instinctive acts of self-preservation in plants to the complex and diverse manifestations of emotional life in Man. It is a natural and essential phase of man's life to express his response to the call of the world about him. Even the weather is observed and discussed; acts of bravery or cowardice are approved or condemned: but beyond all this there is man's expression of his inner consciousness, the utterance of his joys, his sorrows, his response to the appeal of the Good, the Beautiful, the True. From these responses have arisen the Arts-Music, Literature, the Plastic Arts, and the Dance. Confining our attention to Music, it is obvious that we cannot all be great musicians, all compose or even perform; but we can all listen: and to become an intelligent listener and went forth, unfortunately, at first, to an orgy of blood-' is no mean achievement. Whichever be our rôle, composer, performer, listener, we may find in music a twofold blessing, firstly, a gate of expression for our inner consciousness, and secondly, a gauge of the standard of our lives as compared with the highest that is yet manifested. To invent an inspired composition, nobly to perform such a composition, here are truly gateways through which the soul may wing its flight; but to listen only-where is here the utterance of the self? How often, in reading a good book, we find our own difficulties crystallized, our problems solved, philosophy brought to bear on joys and sorrows akin to our own; and our way is lightened thereby, our nervous tension resolved. So, too, in listening to a masterpiece of music, we are, (apart from the pleasurable aspect of it), subjected, however unwittingly, to a rigorous mental discipline; we are borne from one crest to another of emotion, until we are finally returned to charted and familiar seas-but our souls have had an adventure, gained an utterance, and we are become more truly men. " Who is there who, on hearing Handel's "Comfort ye from the "Messiah," has not felt himself lifted up, as it were, in an atmosphere of benediction, where was stretched forth the Bruisèd Hand, whose touch was for the healing of our grief? Such may music mean to those whose hearts are tuned to understand. And this is what we want it to mean to our children. Our purpose is not to turn out professional musicians, any more than that of the art-master is to turn out artists, but rather to provide the child with a channel of expression, an avenue towards the highest in life, a gateway to the Good, the Beautiful, the True. It has been truly said that a child who has once learned to love the highest will never again be content with only the lowest: but he must be taught where and how to find the highest, and his judgment must be formed that he may unerringly recognize the highest. A generation of children so taught, given such an introduction to an understanding of the Beautiful, the Good, the True, would go far towards eliminating the slums of our towns, and many another evil of our present-day life. And this is but one aspect of the uplifting of a nation that would result from an enlightened childhood. Now, how are we to achieve all this ? For too long the teaching of music in our day-schools has been part of the ordinary curriculum of the class-teacher, and where, as is often the case, he knows very little of music, (and this is not to his discredit-he is excellent in many other things), the teaching has been both useless and irksome, alike to teacher and taught. system of music-teaching as mechanical as the-rule-ofthree cannot develop artistic appreciation. A mastery of time-and-tune tests does not provide a gate of expression for the soul's yearnings. A Truly technical drill is as essential to a musician as, to a workman, facility in the use of his tools, but only as a means to an end, not as an end in itself and yet the achievement of a specified standard of facility in modulator gymnastics (as per regulations set out for each standard) with a more or less passable rendering of two or three songs during each school year, is all that has been looked for, in the past, in the musical education of our children. Certainly, many education authorities are now looking at these matters more broad-mindedly, but how many schools, even to-day, that possess an art-room, can also boast a music-room ? To repeat, technique is essential, but the song's the thing ! For musical appreciation can only begin where technique finishes. The children must have songs, good songs and lots of them: and what better than our national folk-songs, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, supplemented with such admirable works as Dr. Arne's Shakespearian settings ? Children should learn to love the music of their songs, to cherish the words of them, to be eager and able to express the meaning of the words as they sing them, and then we shall cease to complain of faulty enunciation, harsh tone, and the like. The children should learn to recite the words of their songs, giving every word its proper emphasis, every phrase its proper significance; and then they must sing them as they say them, using the music to enhance the significance of the words. For too long the words have been ancillary to the music. They are equally important and should be equally good, and then will they set germinating a love of the highest which will broaden and ennoble the child's life, not only during his schooldays, but for a lifetime. If we glance at a half-dozen folk-songs, chosen at random from the hundreds at our disposal, as, for example, " John Peel," Bonnie Dundee," "Tom Bowling," Caller Herrin'," "“ The Minstrel Boy," and "The Gentle Dove," we shall find the words and the music alike excellent, while their range of appeal is very considerable. Add to our folk-lore the best compositions of modern writers and the range of choice becomes almost boundless. Let us examine one song only-" The Gentle Dove." Suffice it to say that the melody is of the very highest order. Here is the second verse of an English translation of the Welsh words: O little bird, I would I were For ever flying, singing, soaring, And should the heav'ns invite me yonder, To wrap the world in wonder." A child who has studied and grasped the significance of these words, and has recited them thoughtfully, giving its fullest value to every phrase, will need only a very little more instruction, as to expression, in singing them. The words will compel a beautiful rendering. All this, however, demands a teacher who loves and understands not only the music, but the poetry to which it is set, and loves it so much that he is able to infect his pupils with a like enthusiasm to his own, so that, like Oliver Twist, they will ask for more." If the teacher can sing effectively, he will be able to achieve much by illustrative patterning of phrases. Finally, the lessons should be so arranged that a piano is always available for illustration and accompaniment, and either the teacher himself should be able to play accompaniments well, or he should have some one present who can do so. This will help the children to realize the appropriateness of the accompaniment to the thought in the song, to realize how it helps the whole effect and how it amplifies the meaning. They will, at the same time, gain an introduction to instrumental music, which can be continued further, by devoting part of a lesson from time to time to the hearing by the children of good pianoforte music by the best composers, and, if opportunity affords, of hearing trio and quartet works for the strings. When the importance of music in character-building is once fully realized, and every school has its specialist, we may leave our case with confidence to the psychologists, to investigate the good that will result, not only in musical appreciation, but also in the advancement of our boys and girls in true manliness and womanliness. Anatole France as Educator. FRANCE Foreign and Dominion Notes " The weekly l'Ecole et la Vie consecrates a whole issue (October 25) to the life and work of Anatole France especially emphasizing his indirect contributions to education. "The problem of the cultivation of the young mind (concludes a short prefatory note) could not fail to appeal to an intelligence so alert and universal as his. no man could devote, as he did, a long life to study and meditation without forming his own conclusions as to how the bread of spiritual life is best to be assured." "Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard" abounds in wise suggestion, and his books about (not for) children-" Abeille," "Nos Enfants," " Garçons et Filles, Le Livre de mon ami, Pierre Nozière," "Petit Pierre," and "La vie en fleur" (the four last autobiographical), should be on every teacher's favourite bookshelf. Abeille" is one of the most exquisite fairy-stories in the whole realm of literature, but in the Paris edition it is unfortunately incorporated in a volume ("Balthasar'") which few school-censors would pass. The publisher who first issues it in a cheap separate form in French for English readers, will deserve well of many generations. RUSSIA News, good or bad, from Russia is generally nowadays suspect. But documents that have reached us seem to show that the Soviet Government is taking Child a Protection. definite measures against all exploitation of juvenile labour, and seeking to make the young workers not only good craftsmen, but educated men and women. Factory schools are increasing, in which boys and girls receive theoretical and practical education side by side with their actual technical work. For those under 15 the working day has been reduced to four hours. And, most characteristically, the Government, while fully maintaining the existing protective laws, is endeavouring to enforce a minimum number of juvenile employees in every enterprise, and at the same time organizing classes for such as are still unemployed. However imperfect the letter, the spirit of all this seems sound. Teaching as a Profession, Personality, and the Education of the Future. INDIA The Indian Bureau of Education sends us the Official Report of the first Conference of Indian Universities, held at Simla last May. The University of Calcutta was founded in 1857. By 1916 four others had come into existence. To-day there Remarkable Growth of Universities. are fifteen. That the Conference is a direct consequence of this phenomenal growth was made plain by the Viceroy in his inaugural address. "We are living (he said) in an era of university reform affecting the external structure and the internal composition of each edifice. At such a time it is essential to ensure the preservation of the highest standards of university education and to safeguard against any falling away from the ideals of the best class of university training. With a multiplication of institutions, with alterations in type, with changes in internal systems, and with financial stringency affecting the complete execution of projects, there is no small risk of some deviation from the right road to educational efficiency. It is a time for conserving and strengthening resources and for using them to the best advantage. It is a time when the newer may lean to some extent on the garnered experience of the older foundations and when the latter may in turn derive some assistance from newer methods under trial in the former. It is a time for mutual help and for co-operation between universities. There must be joint effort to develop higher education in India to the highest standard. There must be combination to meet reasonable criticism and to remedy defects. Some uniformity in the internal organization seems desirable if there are to be no weak spots in the general system. The work of re-organization and development lies primarily in the hands of each individual university with the help and control of the local Government, but the Government of India will always take a profound interest in the progress of the universities, and it is with the hope of strengthen-ing the structure as a whole and of adding solidarity to the general system that they have initiated this Conference." Military Training and Degrees. Of the fifty resolutions passed by the Conference, we note two only: (1) A unanimous request that Oxford would follow the lead of Cambridge in accepting from Indian students a vernacular language in lieu of Latin, Greek, French, or German, and (2) a majority recommendation to strengthen the existing University Training Corps by the recognition of military training as part of the Degree course." Here opinion was sharply divided, the military representative himself admitting that the U.T.C. "had no military value, however desirable on educational grounds! In constitution and tone the Conference was, of course, exclusively masculine. Of women we have found no other mention than this: "Their higher education is still in its infancy." Extracts from a Diary BY OLD FOGEY. November 14. By hereditary training, experience, and personality, the Duchess of Atholl is admirably qualified to discharge with distinction and success the duties of Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education. The Prime Minister is, I think, to be congratualted on the discrimination of his choice. November 16. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that the first unsettled question confronting the new President is concerned with salaries of teachers. As I have already recorded, I am entirely in sympathy with the maintenance of the improved material conditions now enjoyed by teachers. The pre-war association of pedagogy and penury was a scandal. At the same time, living under rural conditions, I am obliged to realize the point of view of the man in the village street. Our school is conducted by a master and his wife -both excellent people. They have been with us for a good many years, and the other day I asked one of the managers to find out for me the amount of their joint salaries ten years ago and to-day. The figures are £199 and £570 respectively. The man in the village street cannot be expected to understand that this considerable increment is not so much concerned with individuals, or with present conditions, as with the profession of teaching, and the future. He would readily agree, I imagine, that our schoolmaster and his wife were not well paid for their services in 1913-14; but I doubt whether any argument would convince him that they are not overpaid now. The farmer, haunted by the spectre of rates, and the vicar strugglingpoor man-on a parochial stipend of £300 a year, are equally critical. Consequently my friend on the County Council has a very definite mandate from his constituents. But the mandate, as far as I can gather, is not in harmony with the pledge extracted by teachers from would-be members of Parliament, including the representative of this division. November 20. That more than 25 per cent of the visitors to the British Empire Exhibition were children, accounts perhaps, for the fact that some people found them very much in the way. They were eager and energetic, and got on the nerves, or on extremities not less sensitive, of bewildered adults. Politically and educationally, however, article appearing in St. James's Chronicle in May, 1825. The writer said "a scheme more completely adapted for it may be well that five million children from all parts of the country were brought into contact with the resources of the British Empire. That so large a number had this ❘ the destruction of the Empire could not have been invented sex opportunity was partly due to the enterprise of the MiddleEducation Committee in making itself responsible for a camp hostel at Park Royal. For large parties from distant places it was necessary for accommodation to be provided wholesale. This being so, some discontent was inevitable, but on the whole the arrangements seem to have been satisfactory, although it is disturbing to read of the entire absence of a sense of tidiness and order on the part of a large proportion of the children. November 23. If the Church Assembly has discovered a method of terminating the dual system of schools that will be approved by Denominationalists and accepted by Nonconformists, it will have succeeded where more than one eminent politician has failed. I have not seen details of the proposal, but if the surrender of voluntary schools is to be counterbalanced by right of entry to council schools, there will be nothing doing. The school building in this village serves its purpose, but it is out of date and in constant need of improvement and repair. I pay heavy education rates and also subscribe towards the school fund, yet half the pupils in the school are the children of Free Churchmen. November 28. At the meeting of an Education Committee to-day I notice a representative of Labour made some interesting observations. "The feeling has got abroad," he said, "that boys and girls who have had a secondary education should not be allowed to soil their hands." The impression was that they should find employment in an office or bank as they were too superior for manual work. He knew of a girl who was offered domestic service at the Labour Exchange, and her reply was, "I cannot think of domestic service, I have had a secondary education." I feel gratified that a Labour Member of an Education Committee desires a system of further education, not, in his graphic phrase, in order that young persons may spend their lives" toying with pens," but to fit them to be useful citizens in all spheres of life. November 29. The utterances of the Prime Minister and the President of the Board of Education at the Dinner of the London Teachers' Association last night are reassuring. It is clear that even if reforms and improvements do not proceed at the pace desired by Mr. Trevelyan, there is no intention of adopting a retrogressive policy. November 30. A neighbour who sometimes breaks the monotony of my leisure has been discussing Lord Eustace Percy's gospel of secondary education for the "salt" of every occupation, whether it be in the factory or workshop, or highly skilled profession. We agreed that it was a commendable ideal, but concluded that if it was to be pursued, the present narrow conception of secondary education must be abandoned. The term will have to stand for various types of further training designed to meet the requirements of all classes in the community. The enterprise of attempting to adapt all pupils to the system must be abandoned and an endeavour made to adapt the system to the needs of the pupils. December 2. The Centenary Celebration of the establishment of a Mechanics Institution at a county town in which the Duke of Northumberland and Viscount Grey, I see, took an active part, reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago with the principal of the Birkbeck Institution. The proposal for the establishment of a Mechanics Institution in London was first made in 1823, and was heartily supported by Dr. Birkbeck. When he was Professor of Natural Philosophy in Glasgow he needed scientific instruments, but was unable to find any one competent to make them. He could only get what he required by personally superintending the construction. Coming into contact with workmen, he realized their desire for scientific knowledge, and he became a pioneer for the establishment of Mechanics Institutions. The attitude of certain people towards the movement is indicated in an by the author of evil himself than that which the depraved ambition of some men, the vanity of others, and the supineness of a third and more important class has so nearly perfected." December 7. The explanation given to a representative of the Observer by Sir Frederick Holiday, a member of the Commission appointed by the Church Assembly to investigate the future of Church schools will reassure Churchmen and, I think, dissipate the hopes of those who imagined that the Church Assembly had discovered a way to terminate the dual system. Sir Frederick points out that the Assembly only committed itself to the principle of " unity of administration with variety of type." It is for the Commission to show how these contradictory proposals can be associated. Unity of administration means, if it is to be a reality, that the difference between the management of provided and non-provided schools will disappear and the School Trust Deed cease to influence the appointment of teachers; that the Local Education Authority will be responsible for the repair and improvement, not only of provided but of non-provided school buildings. Variety of type," from the point of view of the Church Assembly, can only mean variety of denominational type. It will tax the ingenuity of the Commission to show how the denominational character of a school can be preserved if the denomination discontinues to control its management and to choose the teacher. December 8. Nobody will desire to deprive Lord Burnham of the difficult and probably thankless task of arbitrating between teachers and authorities on the tiresome question of salary scales, and no one, it will be admitted, is better fitted to consider the matter with wisdom and understanding. It is to be regretted, perhaps, that the Burnham Committee was not able to find a way to a compromise or to agree to settle its differences by the casting vote of the Chairman. In effect, however, this is what the arbitration means. December 12. The year on a bed of leaves dead is lying, and it is memorable as far as education is concerned, for a definite change in outlook. This change is to be credited entirely to the Labour Party. They found developments in the business of education suspended; they leave the business restored to something like animation. It is an achievement for which the brief administration of the Labour Party should be remembered and Mr. C. P. Trevelyan should be congratulated. With a sympathetic chief, and a complacent Chancellor of the Exchequer, he might have embarked upon wild-cat schemes-alluring but impracticable that his successor would have been obliged to disown. As it is, the late President and his colleagues released education from unreasonable financial limitations and initiated reforms to which no unprejudiced person can take exception. Mr. Trevelyan hardly had time to do more than plan the main lines of progress. It will take some years of steady effort to carry them into effect. The Autumn List received from MESSRS. G. BELL & SONS, LTD., York House, Portugal Street, W.C. 2, contains the titles of a number of important educational and scientific works. Science books include Sir William Bragg's Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution Concerning the Nature of Things," and a new edition of the Braggs' work on crystal structure. There are also a number of historical works. * The next annual spring festival of the LONDON SUNDAY SCHOOL CHOIR will be held on Saturday, February 14, at the Royal Albert Hall, South Kensington, at 6.30 p.m. The choir and orchestra will consist of 1,000 adult performers, and Miss Florence Austral, Mr. Walter Hyde, and Mr. Allan Brown are the soloists. A most interesting programme will include selections from Mendelssohn's " Elijah," Handel's "L'Allegro," Wagner's march from "Tannhäuser," &c. |