Carlyle.-"We should draw quite a different conclusion to Paul's." (To for from. We agree with, object to, but differ from.)

Franklin-"The favourable reception of their writings with the public," instead of by the public.

Channing."To ingraft himself to an old imperial tree." (We ingraft on, not to a tree.)

Lindley Murray.-"We shall enumerate the principal features of speech, and give them some explanation." (This is not all what he intends to do. He is not going to explain anything to the features of speech, as he calls them: but to give his readers some explanation of them: but he expresses the former and not the latter object, by that which he has so carelessly written.

Alison, who affords endless examples of every kind of blunder that can be perpetrated, writes thus-" Of various natural and acquired excellence, it is hard to say whether the British or French soldiers were the most admirable." (For of read for. But this sentence is altogether bad, and affords another example of one turned upside down. Is not this shorter, and better? "It is hard to say whether French or British soldiers excelled the most, either in natural or acquired qualities."

"Neither" is to be followed by "nor," yet many writers forget it. Southey.-"Neither by them or me.

"But" and "that" are each great stumbling blocks.

Southey." There can be no question but that both the language and the characters must be Hebrew." "But" and "both" are each redundant. But is also incorrect; nevertheless Dean Trench says "He never doubts but he knows." Now what does "but" mean in these sentences? Can the writer, who put it in, tell us? "There can be no question that the language," &c. is surely enough to express what Southey meant to say; and the conjunction "and" expresses all that "both" expresses. The use of "but" is a pure impertinence in each of these sentences. We may just as well insert "peradventure;" indeed it would have more meaning.

I have in this paper striven to show how very great is the need of reformation, even in the chief requirements of style, beginning with grammar itself. In my next I shall deal with the prevalent defects in modes of expression-the jus et norma loquendi.

MIDDLE CLASS SCHOOLS.

UT little has yet been effected for the improvement of the education of that large class of children who belong to the order of society between the journeyman labourer and the gentry. The old fashioned grammar school was designed in some measure for this intermediate class and there was a hope that that particularly useless Board which slumbers under the title of a 66 Charity Commission," somewhere in the purlieus of St. James's Square, would have restored these schools to a state of usefulness. That being, however, a hopeless hope, it is refreshing to find country gentlemen, aided by good schoolmasters, supplying the defect in at least some of our old grammar schools, by their own individual energies.

We have just received a report of the Painswick Grammar School, in which W. H. Hyett, Esq. takes an unremitting interest; and we hasten to lay before our readers such facts from it as may serve to show how much may be done by individual gentlemen, not only to restore grammar schools to their original objects, but to make them the means of leavening the middle classes with an order of intelligence and an amount and quality of education of which they are as a class very scantily possessed.

The first class in this Painswick school receives a much better education than many a boy obtains in the lower forms of our public schools. Now the whole character of a town or village will be entirely changed by such a school: just as we have known a whole community demoralised by the example of a single profligate in some elevated position.*

After stating that the average attendance has increased and is now 139.6 out of 191.6 on the books, some pages are devoted to a lament over the number of children in the place who are still without schooling, and unemployed, and which the writer of the report seems to imagine strangely enough is very large. It is 23 per cent of boys and 33 of girls, which for a small agricultural town is remarkably small. In the whole kingdom, the proportions returned by the census were 38 per cent. of the boys and 51.5 of the girls. The real truth however is, that the per centage is much greater throughout the kingdom. Mr. Horace Mann's returns and calculations are, as we have already demonstrated in past volumes of this Journal, no approximation whatever to the facts, and are on the face of them obviously fallacious. Let Painswick take heart. It is far in advance of the rest of England, and especially so of similar localities. Mr. Hyett and his excellent master are entitled to the highest praise for what they have done and are doing.

Rome was not built in a day; and the education of a country town community goes as rapidly forward as can reasonably be expected, which turns out ten or a dozen well educated lads a year, where fifty years ago it was a marvel, we will be sworn, if as many were half as well educated in a generation!

The report says :

"In this parish alone, 329 out of 746 children, or 44 per cent. (by the table in the foregoing note for all England, 57 per cent.) of all between 3 and 15, who might be, but are not at school. Some of them, it is true, may have been, and have left it; and a few may attend Sunday schools. Still there can be no doubt, that after making a full de

*There was once a town in a midland county thus debased for years by a drunken rector.

duction for those at work, or who may be kept at home in household services, a very large proportion are loitering about the streets and fields, in idleness and mischief, destined to live lives of destitution, drunkenness, and crime, to which a youth of idleness is the door of entrance. To learn the remedy, we must know the cause. What is the cause? "Clearly the indifference of parents to the education of their children. Not so much that they are tempted by the wages their children may earn to send them to work rather than to school; for we see that there are 209 children, neither earning wages nor at school; while there are only 120 kept from school by work; the parents of the latter being also more or less influenced by the same indifference.

"That the wages earned by children are the chief cause of the empty schools of which we hear so much, was the universal opinion, till the educational returns of the census, published in 1854, threw an unexpected light upon the subject. (?) They show that far the largest proportion of children, who ought to be, but are not, at school, are actually not at work. Still the opinion that work is the main cause of absence from school continues to hold its ground. That to a certain extent it is the symptom of the evil, is no doubt true; but that it is the cause is a fatal misconception; for it leads zealous educationalists to look to remedies of difficult application and of doubtful benefit, while they pass by the true cause, and neglect the best treatment."

*

*

“How can we work education, so that the people will value and seek after it ? "1st. By making it more practical. While we are really preparing the young for the struggle of life, let us bring it home to the hearts of parents that this is what we are doing; that our schools really teach that, without which better wages and social advancement cannot be expected.

"2ndly. By making schools the actual immediate and direct step to the better places of employment-places open to advance-advance, for which the school has already qualified. Let the affection of the parent once feel that this is so-that the school is the door to a life of successful industry, comfort, and happiness, and 'parallel desks and benches' will no longer be as empty as they have been.

"How, practically, can we effect this? In our boys' and girls' school we are making both these efforts.

"As to the first point, you know that we have, for some time past, striven to impart such manual dexterity and technical knowledge as assists active industry in any avocation, such has makes men better workmen, and more able to provide for their families, and women better housewives and mothers. Whether it be to this that we owe the increase of scholars and school fees, and the greater regularity of attendance noticed above, it is perhaps too early to venture an opinion, but we believe that our retaining children to a more advanced age can be distinctly traced to it.

"For the second point, that of making the school a direct stepping stone to good employment, we reprint two short addresses to our richer neighbours, respectfully pointing out that when they want to employ the young they may do better to select from those who, having conducted themselves well at school, will be recommended by the teachers, than by engaging comparative strangers at mops or statute fairs. These addresses are intended also to be circulated among parents, that they may feel, if they wish their children to begin life well, that the school is the best starting point.

"Our attempts thus to render education amongst us more popular, by making it more practical, have hitherto been chiefly directed to the boys. With the same view we have lately turned our attention to the girls The postponement of the education of the softer to that of the rougher sex seems common to other places besides that of Painswick. In reflecting on parental apathy, as the cause of persistent ignorance, the question suggests itself, whether it would not be well to attend more than we do to the education of future mothers. If we did, and taught them in their own persons the value of a good practical education, the influence which it would give them with their husbands, and the mother's affection for her child, would go far to secure education to the next generation. It is thus, slowly it may be, but surely, that we shall best combat this general neglect of schooling. To wipe out national ignorance and prejudice is not the work of a day, nor of an act of Parliament.

"Let us recollect too, that in thus educating the mothers of future generations, while through their instrumentality we shall eventually clear our streets and bye-ways of the idle and the ignorant, and transfer them to our schools as industrious and intelligent

* This is a false deduction. It by no means follows that children neither at work or at school are uneducated. Numbers are educated at home or at private tutors.

scholars, we shall at the same time probably do more for the great and highest aim of all education, than any of our schools seem yet to have effected. The complaint that with all our modern appliances, we have as yet made but little impression on the religious habits of the people, is almost universal, and, it is to be feared, too true. May it not be traced to the neglected education of the girls? We all know the inestimable blessing of the little prayer taught by a loving mother, lisped it may be on the lips of infancy only for a short year or two, but never forgotten--the seed of many an earnest thought and action in manhood and old age-thoughts and actions which, it is to be feared, mere school teaching too often fails to call forth. If you would supply the great object of all teaching, EDUCATE MOTHERS."

Reports such as these do a world of good. They deserve a large circulation. This one is so designed, and sold at sixpence. The promoters say-"The objects proposed in printing a local school report for general circulation are these:-To show, by the practical details of a single instance, how private subscriptions, liberally advanced, lead to public grants; how, acting and reacting on each other, they raise funds, by which a competent staff of teachers may be obtained; and how these, under Government regulations and inspection, infuse into their schools improved modes of instruction, and adapt to local exigency schemes of industrial training, calculated to modify the prejudices of the middle classes against the education of the poor, and to render it more popular with the poor themselves; and thus, BY POINTING TO THE CHIEF CAUSE OF NATIONAL IGNORANCE, to sug

GEST REMEDIES FOR A GREAT NATIONAL EVIL.

SIR,

CHURCH SERVICES FOR CHILDREN.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

It would be doing School Managers no small kindness if you or any of your correspondents would suggest a good mode of bringing Public Worship to bear upon School-children. This might be effected either by some modification of existing services, or by forming some religious exercise on purpose. All are agreed that the great majority of children taken to church cannot be expected to enter into the service, or to relish the mere attendance-but what better course to provide is the difficulty. Simply not to take them to church, but to dismiss them to their homes at the hour of service, would be practically a license for them to rove about the streets and do mischief to their clothes, (a consideration of which their parents will quickly remind you) even if they fall into no worse practices. It may be said, keep them at the school and have a service there: to this the objection is, that the school room has none of the associations of a place of worship. The special service would be very like a gallery lesson, especially if the School Teacher (and no curate or sunday school teacher would probably be so efficient) is selected to deliver it. The parents also will not relish this detention of their children; they couple Sunday and church attendance in strict union, where a profession of religion is made. The whole subject, in short, is beset with difficulties, and imperatively calls for discussion. I should rejoice at an amiable controversy about it.

My own idea of the best plan, (if not too Utopian), would be to encourage some gifted clergymen to lay themselves out for a ministry to children; that one such person should be appointed chaplain for all the schools in a town, and that some one church should be used (in a city, the Cathedral would be the very building) as the children's church, and that there he should assemble them and preach in any mode he deemed best. Hoping for more light on the subject, I remain, Sir, &c.

Saint James', Gloucester, April 15th, 1857.

JOHN EMERIS.

NATURAL HISTORY.-MARVELS FROM PLINY.

ET any one who wishes to feast his appetite for the marvellous, and at the same time to be studying a grave and philosophising writer, open that part of "Pliny's Natural History" (Books viii to xi) in which he treats of the history of animals.

In the preceding book (vii), which professes to treat of mankind, he would find sufficient matter for many Othellos to tell, and many wondering Desdemonas to hear; Anthropophagi in plenty; and if not "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," at all events he could find Astomi, having no mouths at all, but living altogether upon scents; and if these be not enough, there are Sciapodes, with feet so large that on hot days they lie on their backs and put them up as a natural umbrella.

But it is upon animals that Pliny has concentrated his powers: for with the book in our hands we can put down wonders at every step, as we go through his list. He begins with the elephant, probably thus honouring it on account of its size. We learn that it worships the sun and moon; by a kind of worship novel perhaps, consisting in blowing water through its trunk; also, that when it throws grass and leaves into the air it is performing a religious ceremony of its own. Moreover that it is a very truthful animal itself, and will not embark in a ship until the captain has bound himself by a solemn oath to attend to its safety.

Among various instances of ingenuity, it is mentioned that when tormented by flies it has a way of first making its skin smooth, so as to induce the flies to settle, and then suddenly contracting it into wrinkles, it squeezes its unsuspecting victims to death in the creases. It cannot endure the grunt of swine or the sight of mice. It keeps one of its tusks always sharp for fighting, the other it uses for ordinary purposes. The Rhinoceros one of the elephant's chief enemies; and to make sure of him always sharpens his horn against a stone before attacking him. A good deal is said about the contests of the elephant with the serpent; which would seem always to take place after a prescribed form (and as our author says) because nature takes pleasure in such matches. The serpent drops from a tree upon the elephant, and encircles him in its folds; the elephant endeavours to rub himself against a rock or large tree: this the serpent prevents by entangling his tail in his feet: the elephant, with his trunk, endeavours to untie the knots: the serpent then inserts his head in the elephant's eyes, nostrils, and ears, which last mentioned the elephant cannot reach with his trunk; he sucks the elephant's blood with peculiar pleasure, as we are told, because of its coolness; till at last the elephant falls, and in his fall crushes his enemy: the whole forming a tableau worthy of Astley's Amphitheatre.

The mention of this leads Pliny to speak of serpents, which he must have considered to be adventurous as well as ingenious animals, for he says that when they want to remove from one country to another and cannot pass by land, they intrust themselves to the water; three or four of them plaiting or weaving themselves together so as to form a water-tight boat of living basket-work, and lifting their heads high to serve as masts and sails.

Next comes a wonderful animal, the Achlis; an inhabitant of the "island of Scandinavia," not unlike a horse in shape, but with no joints to its legs. On this account it cannot lie down, but takes its rest leaning against a tree;