SCHOOL SAVINGS. NLESS children in common schools are taught to be frugal and provident, a moral lesson of a most practical kind is among the number of those omissions in moral training so generally lamented in our school system. The following correspondence, between one of Her Majesty's School Inspectors and James Francillon, Esq. a County Court Judge eminent for his legal experience, will tend to facilitate a scheme hitherto rather imperfectly organised : "DEAR FRANCILLON, "Somerset House, Gloucester, May 11th, 1857. "Some benevolent promoters of schools have adopted the plan of receiving the savings of the children, and repaying them at stated periods or on notice, with five per cent. interest. "It has been objected to me, that as the receivers are not properly trustees, the money is part of their personal estate, and would vest at their deaths in their executors. "This being so, and as it would be impracticable to have a trust deed, will you kindly suggest some easier and simpler mode, whereby this excellent scheme may be carried out inexpensively, and without subjecting clergymen and gentlemen, who are willing to adopt it, to the undesirable position I have pointed out? No one can do so better than yourself; and if you will allow me to make your suggestion known, it will give it effect and sanction. "J. Francillon, Esq. "Judge of County Courts, &c." "Yours very truly, "J. C. SYMONS. "DEAR SYMONS, "Ryeworth House, near Cheltenham, 14th May, 1857. "There is commonly great delay in the administration of the estates of persons deceased, and in the event of the death of a person in the possession of the savings of school children, any delay on the part of his executors in producing the money (and delay might in the case of the most solvent estate be unavoidable), there might, besides other possible inconveniences, be a panic among the children and their parents, and great consequent injury to the school, and serious impediment to the encouragement of provident habits. I think you might well advise any gentleman who has possession of the savings of school children, to lodge it in a safe bank, in the joint names of himself and some friend. There would be then two trustees of the fund, and in the event of the death of either, the fund would vest in the survivor. Thus would be avoided any inconvenience from the money being mixed with the personal estate of one person, or from its being, as it might in law, regarded as a mere debt chargeable on his estate, and to be dealt with in the same manner only as his other debts. An arrangement might doubtless be made with a bank to allow three or four per cent. interest; and this would diminish the burthen on the charitable holder of the money, by reason of his making himself responsible to the children for five per cent. or any greater interest. "Jelinger C. Symons, Esq. "Very sincerely yours, "JAMES FRANCILLON. DEAR SIR, THE PAINSWICK SCHOOL. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATION. In the notice, in the last Journal, of the Painswick Schools, which I fear is quite as favourable as we deserve, there is a mistake, which, as it confers a character on our school to which it is not entitled, I am sure you will permit me to correct. You speak of the school as the Painswick Grammar School, under the head of middle class schools. Now in fact it is in no way one which comes under the usual designation of a grammar school, but is simply a National School, united to a very small endowment for educating 26 poor boys in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Thus, being open to the very poorest, it can scarcely be called a middle class school, except inasmuch as we strive to infuse into our scheme some instruction in the elements of those practical arts and sciences, which seem best calculated to advance the social position not only of the poor, but also of the middle classes, if they choose to avail themselves of it. There is also what seems to me a misapprehension of the argument in our school report which I dare say you will allow me at the same time to notice. Our report, speaking of the figures in a table deduced from Mr. Horace Mann's tables in the Census Educational Report says they show that far the largest proportion of children, who ought to be, but are not, at school, are actually not at work. To which you append the following note :-"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." You do not seem to have observed a previous note to our report which states that the numbers calculated as educated at home are actually transferred to the columns of scholars, and treated as educated in the figures alluded to. Nor do I see that the deduction generally is a false one. those not at school are actually not at work, and no more. The text literally states that It by no means implies that children neither at work or school are all uneducated-an interpretation which the context on the next page of the report especially guards against, where, speaking of those not at school, it says that, "Some of them, it is true, may have been, but have left it, and a few may attend Sunday Schools; but there can be no doubt that after making a full deduction 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 lives of destitution, drunkenness, and crime, to which a youth of idleness is the door of entrance." Torquay, May 16, 1857. Yours very truly, W. H. HYETT. VENTILATION.-AIR POISON.-People have often said that no difference can be detected in the analysation of pure and impure air. This is one of the vulgar errors difficult to dislodge from the public brain. The fact is, that the condensed air of a crowded room gives a deposit which, if allowed to remain for a few days, forms a solid, thick glutinous mass, having a strong odour of animal matter. If examined by a microscope, it is seen to undergo a remarkable change. First of all, it is converted into a vegetable growth, and this is followed by the production of animalcules; a decisive proof that it must contain organic matter, otherwise it could not nourish organic beings. This was the result arrived at by Dr. Angus Smith, in his beautiful experiments on the air and water of towns; wherein he showed how the lungs and skin gave out organic matter, which is in itself a deadly poison, producing headache, sickness, disease, or epidemic, according to its strength. Why, if "a few drops of the liquid matter, obtained by a condensation of the air of a foul locality, introduced into the veins of a dog, can produce death with_the usual phenomena of typhus fever," what incalculable evil must it not produce on those human beings who breathe it again and again, rendered fouler and less capable of sustaining life with each breath drawn! Such contamination of the air, and consequent hot-bed of fever and epidemic, it is in the power of man easily to remove. Ventilation and cleanliness will do all, so far as the abolition of this evil goes, and ventilation and cleanliness are not miracles to be prayed for, but certain results of common obedience to the laws of God.-Dickens. Notes of Books. A System of Practical Mathematics; to which are added accurate Tables of Logarithms, &c. By John Davidson, A.M. Seventh Edition. Pp. 509 and 137. Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh, 1857. EW works better exemplify the benefit of an extended treatment of a branch of study over the epitomes with which education is so greatly damaged and smattering furthered. Curt books on great topics, especially if they relate to demonstrative sciences, do one of two things-either by rendering them intensely abstract, they divest them of their tendrils, whereby they may be attached to the things of life and derive from them attractiveness and manifest utility,—or they substitute for steps of reasoning vague and often trashy generalisations, which replace proofs by dogmas. This excellent work entirely avoids these evils. Without prolixity it develops all essential steps in the rationale of figures. It is full of rules, examples and exercises in Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Mensuration, Conic Sections, Land Measuring, Gauging, Gunnery, Navigation, &c. In all of these branches the teaching is sound, simple and intelligible. It is however, right to state that this work will be found to consist much more of rules than reasons, and of examples and exercises than of processes of demonstration. It is invaluable as a working hand book, and as such we cordially attest its great superiority and well established usefulness. General Map of Australia and Tasmania. A. & C. Black, Edinburgh, 1857. THIS noble map is on a very large scale. From Dick Hartog's Island on the left to Sandy Island on the western extremity of the great continent, measures just a yard across the map. The counties are all clearly defined. The general aspect is of course that of an immense central and somewhat circular blank, nearly the whole margin of the shore, except on the north, and Flinder's land, a portion of the southern coast, being well filled with the usual delineations of a populous country. The colony of Victoria is the most thickly insterspersed with names, which show the ample and minute care which has been taken to render this the fullest and most accu rate map extant. So justly important is this particular colony held, that it forms the chief of the several small inner maps, on a still larger scale, which fill up some of the blank spaces and greatly enhance the practical value of the work. Those who are acquainted with the neighbourhood of Cape Howe, south of Sydney, will be surprised to find places so small as Black Head, Boston Point, Wingan Inlet, Bomballa, Tyers Inlet, Boroncoma, &c. all laid down. To emigrants this map must be most useful. It will also be indispensable to all government functionaries. It folds into a portable green cover of folio size. The rivers are fully and correctly delineated. We suggest, however, that in future editions arrows should indicate the direction of the current. There is a separate plan of the town of Sydney, the gold region of Mount Alexander, New Ulster and New Munster (alias New Zealand.) The execution of the map is in all respects excellent, and does high credit to the artists employed on it, and to the worthy and spirited publishers. The Higher Arithmetic. By Edward Sang, F.R.S.E. Wm. Blackwood and Sons. Edinburgh and London, 1857. THIS is a work of very great value, exhibiting powers of the highest order. We have never yet seen the recondite value of logarithms and properties of numbers so well and simply exhibited. This is done by the aid of simple notation without artificial symbols. Mr. Sang adopts a new and easy method of extracting all roots. In his process of the solution of algebraic fractions Mr. Sang avails himself avowedly of Lord Brouncker's continued fractions. The application of logarithms to ordinary branches of calculation is admirably done. The student and indeed every calculator will benefit vastly from a candid study of this little book. He must approach it, however, with a mind free from prejudices in favour of preconceived bias and stereotyped theorems and modes of calculation. This is a book which makes great advance as an arithmetical reformer, and must expect to have opponents among those who are wedded to the old ways and have published or learned the old books. The Grammar of English Grammars. By Goold Brown. Second edition. Pp. 1070, 8vo. Samuel and William Wood, New York, and Sampson, Low, and Son, London, 1857. TO do anything like adequate justice to so leviathan a book as this, containing above one thousand large pages in small type on a subject so replete with artificial complexity as grammar, is impossible within the limits of our pages. We must, however, make the attempt and will do so next month. We can, however, at once pay homage to the vigorous industry and remarkable acumen of the learned author. Modern English Literature, its Blemishes and Defects. By Henry H. Breen, Esq. F.S.A. Pp. 307. Longmans, London, 1857. IN the papers now being written in the Journal, notice was taken at some length of this very useful criticism (for such it is) of all the faults of modern writers of our very much defiled English. The streams from the pure well are indeed becoming alarmingly muddy, and are doing but little honour to their source. The grammatical blunders which Mr. Breen has noted, and those selected from many of our best writers, are quite alarming. The fact is that scarcely a book is free from them, Mr. Breen's itself being no exception. So many instances were quoted in our last Journal that we shall confine our present review to the other parts of this able work. very large crop of misapplied terms and words follow (categoried not quite correctly under the genus "Blunder.") Ex. gr. Sir Walter Scott used esteem instead of deem so frequently that this is not properly a blunder, but a new sense established now by his authority and by subsequent custom. He writes-"The king was esteemed the enemy whom the people had most Α to dread." This is certainly a sad perversion of the original meaning of the verb "esteem," for it ought never to be applied except as expressing a sense of the worthiness of its object. Samuel Johnson sanctions the solecism, however, of using it as a synonym of "deem." The fourth sense he attributes to it is "to hold in opinion" though he inconsistently (as he often did) cites a passage from St. Paul (Romans xiv. 5.) in which it is used in no such sense, the word being in the original xgive meaning the judgment as to relative value in which one day is regarded over another. Spencer gives the word its exact application in these lines : "The worth of all men by their end esteem And then due praise or due reproach them yield." The chapters on Mannerism and Criticism, are less useful and of more doubtful correctness. Mr. Breen runs a tilt at hyphens far too indiscriminately, and quotes a passage as absurd from Sir L. Bulwer Lytton (p. 152) where they are properly and effectively introduced. It begins thus. "Wounded pride-disappointment-the schemes of an existence laid in the dust-the insulting pity of friends"-and so forth. Now each of these calamities are so distinct and require so long a pause that a comma would not suffice to separate them, whilst a semicolon would be incorrect, for the sense runs on without the least break till we arrive at the verb and climax, "all rushing," which is the predicate to which they point in common. Mr. Breen here is hypercritical and wrong. He is also too fond of dwelling on trifles. He indorses the vulgar error that Sir Philip Francis was Junius, on the ground that he and Junius alike used "so" in this manner, "I have now done my duty by you, so farewell." So did most writers of the time, and both before and after it. There is more utility, sense, and evidence of extensive reading in the chapter on Plagiarisms, which we strongly commend to a certain genus of scribes who are become sadly thievish. The salient fault of Mr. Breen is that of dealing in extremes. He somewhat exaggerates all faults, and makes none of that allowance for haste, precedent, and inadvertence, of which, in many parts of his work, he stands so much in need himself. His book is however too good to be lost sight of: and he may render a second edition, with due revision, a most valuable beacon to English writers, and a serviceable restorative of a purer style. LITTLE BOOKS AND SERIALS. Fraser's Magazine for May is a particularly good one. Nearly all the articles are well written, well chosen, and very interesting. Women and Work, by Miss Leigh Smith, is an able little thesis, evincing a sensible insight into the powers, intellectual and moral, of women. Journal de l' Instruction Publique. (Montreal.) A useful and well written periodical in French. Journal of Education (Upper Canada.) An excellent number. This work never contains a vestige of the egotistical rubbish and self vaunting rhapsodies which occasionally disfigure transatlantic journals, and have recently out-Heroded Herod in one instance at home. A Letter on Pauper Education, addressed to Mr. Tufnell, is sensible and well worth reading. |