SATURDAY, MARCH 1.

Paper by Mr. E. SIMPSON, on the Schoolmaster's Relations with the Government. SATURDAY, APRIL 5.

Paper by Mr. T. MURBY, on the Method of Teaching Singing.

SATURDAY, MAY 3.

Paper by the Rev. C. R. ALFORD, on the Character of the Teaching of our Lord. SATURDAY, JUNE 7.

Paper by Mr. F. R. CRAMPTON, on the Government of Pupil-Teachers.

The Chair is taken at Six o'clock in the Evening precisely. The Acting Committee meets at Eight o'clock on the same Evenings.

J. TILLEARD, Corresponding Secretary. Teachers desirous of being enrolled among the members should forward the subscription for the current year to the Corresponding Secretary. The amount of the annual subscription is five shillings for schoolmasters, half a crown for Schoolmistresses.

Notices.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

** Notes of Books and Questions and Answers are unavoidably postponed by press of Advertisements.

"J. E. W." is declined with thanks; the subject had better be left to "J. S. G." and "M. E. C.”—“ F. A. P." and others in our next.

Mr. McLeod's Lecture in our next.

Papers not reaching us by the 20th are generally too late.

HUNDREDS OF TEACHERS AND THOUSANDS OF PUPILS Have found their work lightened and expedited, and the study of the once dreary "words and meanings " made interesting, delightful, and effective, by using

CHRISTIE'S

CONSTRUCTIVE ETYMOLOGICAL SPELLING-BOOK,

Which is now adopted in several Training Colleges and Model Institutions, and is making its way extensively into Schools from which the old-fashioned rote SpellingBooks have been deservedly and definitively banished.

Specimen pages may be obtained through any Bookseller, or will be sent, post-free, and a specimen copy, for 18 stamps, on applying to the Author, Mr. J. A. CHRISTIE, Duke of Bedford's School, Milton Abbot, Tavistock.

Liberal allowance to the Trade.

London: ARTHur Hall, VirTUE, & Co., Paternoster Row; and may be had of all Booksellers.

SCHOOLMASTERS' AND GENERAL MUTUAL ASSURANCE SOCIETY. ESTABLISHED 11TH MAY, 1849.

OFFICE, 25, BRIDGE STREET, WESTMINSTER. Rev. C. B. DALTON, M.A.; PHILIP CAZENOVE, Esq., Treasurers. NOTICE.-By a recent alteration in the Rules, the NAME of the Society is changed from the CHURCH OF ENGLAND SCHOOLMASTERS' AND SCHOOL MISTRESSES' MUTUAL ASSURANCE SOCIETY to the SCHOOLMASTERS' AND GENERAL MUTUAL ASSURANCE SOCIETY, and is now open to other Teachers besides those engaged in Church of England Schools; and to the public generally Assurances may now be effected to the extent of £200, and among others, where the policy is made payable on the Assured attaining fifty-five or sixty years of age, or at death, if that event should happen previously.

Prospectuses, Forms of Proposal, &c., may be had on application, or by letter, addressed to SAMUEL J. I. HIND, Secretary.

EDUCATIONAL GRANTS BY THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL.

Just published, cloth, price ls., post-free,
CLASSIFIED ABRIDGMENT

OF THE

MINUTES OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION, With all information requisite for School Managers, Teachers, and Proprietors about to erect Schools.

BY SIMON S. LAURIE,

Secretary to the Education Committee of the Church of Scotland.
*** Members of Parliament will find this Analysis useful.

Edinburgh: THOMAS CONSTABLE & Co. London: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & Co.

A

In the Press, price Threepence, crown 8vo.,

ON THE PRESENT ASPECT OF EDUCATION;

n Address, delivered, by Request of the Members, at the Annual Meeting of the Associated School-teachers of the Dioceses of Gloucester and Bristol, on the 16th December, 1855, in the Cathedral Library at Gloucester; the Venerable ARCHDEACON THORP, B.D., in the Chair.

By JELINGER SYMONS, Esq., B.A., H.M. Inspector of Schools, &c.

Published at the Request of the Meeting.

London: GROOMBRIDGE & SONS.

of the graduated Series of Catechetical Help to Latin Grammar, works which the Author is preparing for the schools and youth under his direction, and of which the following are already published:

'

CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATION PAPERS.

"I. Read the subjoined documents, observing carefully the difficulties referred to in the despatch, and the justification which they were considered to afford for the course pursued by the Governor of the Colony. 2. Give a short analysis of the Colonial Act.

3. Write a letter from the Secretary of State for the Colonies approving or disapproving of the course pursued. In either case give your reasons at length.

"EXTRACT of a DESPATCH from the Lieut.-Governor of the Colony of VICTORIA to Sir JOHN S. PAKINGTON, dated Melbourne, December 2, 1852.

The enclosed Act to facilitate the apprehension of offenders is so novel in its character, and so stringent in its provisions, as to demand some preliminary explanation of the circumstances under which it was introduced.

Her Majesty's Government will have been fully made aware, through one channel or another, of the extent to which the discovery of gold in Victoria has affected the population of the neighbouring colonies. It must be evident that the transported convict has fully felt this influence; and it is undeniable that, from the outset, not all the vigilance exercised by the authorities availed to prevent a very considerable influx of all classes into this colony.

Having once eluded the vigilance of the authorities in Van Diemen's Land, our own laws and regulations opposed no sufficient obstacle to their introduction; and it was soon seen that numbers of persons under sentence of transportation were intermingled with the crowds in the towns, and thronging to the gold fields. Many of the class of ticket-ofleave holders are known to have come to the colony, to have amassed wealth, and returned to Van Diemen's Land. But numbers of other classes who thus effected their escape, suddenly released from the coercive discipline to which they had been subjected, and in full liberty under circumstances so favourable to their views, engaged at once in the perpetration of the most daring outrages.

The certainty that such was actually the case, and the feeling that, beyond the damage and injury resulting to individuals and to the community, the population of the colony became open to an imputation of a degree of lawlessness and criminality with which it was not fairly chargeable, justly roused the public indignation. It not only strengthened the hands and the cause of that section of the community which had long come prominently forward to advocate the cessation of transportation upon the broad grounds of its inexpediency and of the injury which, even under ordinary circumstances, that system must entail upon these colonies, but it made every individual in the community alive to the evils which that system might involve and bring to his own door.

A bill, seeking in some degree to cope with this difficulty, and to which allusion had been made by me in my opening address to the Council, was in course of preparation, and was about to be introduced, when the intentions of the Government were anticipated by an elective member obtaining leave to bring in a "Bill for the apprehension of VOL. X. NO. 111, N.S.

P

offenders illegally at large, and their ready transmission to the countries from which they escaped." The zeal and haste of the framers of this bill had induced them to overlook many salient principles of constitutional liberty; but as the evils sought to be redressed were of no ordinary magnitude, compromising to an alarming extent the maintenance of public order and the security of property, at the same time that they threatened to necessitate an expenditure for police protection, and the administration of criminal justice tantamount to one third of the whole revenue as then collected, it was considered highly desirable on the part of the Government to show every disposition to co-operate heartily with the colonists; at the same time that it performed its duty in seeking to mitigate the severity of the proposed enactments, and in giving a more constitutional impress to the measure thus introduced, and received with a degree of popular enthusiasm. The result is the bill which I now submit for consideration, but to which I have felt it my duty, under the extraordinary circumstances of the times, to yield the royal assent. It has been called for by the peculiar exigencies of the period, and therefore limited in its duration to two years. It professes to deal with a class, and with that class only, which has not already violated positive enactments, but abused the indulgence extended to them.

It is impossible to exaggerate the evils with which this Act seeks to grapple; and I would direct attention to the criminal returns which I have appended, from which it will be seen to what extent the amount of crime is influenced by the introduction of those illegally at large into this commnnity, and the circumstances in which they find themselves placed.

The clauses subsidiary to the chief object, although objectionable as tending to fetter inter-colonial trade and trench on private rights, were necessarily introduced to render the Act operative.

It need scarcely be observed that on various occasions of local or agrarian disturbance, Her Majesty's Government have been compelled to pass measures more penal than the present, extending even to the temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; and the statute book of New South Wales still contains several Acts as coercive in many of their provisions.

Persons to whom Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to grant a remission of sentence have been protected, and the royal prerogative of mercy has been saved.

The surrounding circumstances and unparalleled features of the case being considered, and the main object of the Act kept steadily in view, it will, I trust, be considered that the measure is not more rigorous than was imperatively demanded.

I am enabled to state that, since the Act came into force, the mere fact of its existence has been undeniably favourable to the state of the colony. It is seen not only to deter many from running the hazard of an infringement of its provisions, but, taken into connection with the course adopted by the Lieut.-Governor, Sir William Denison, in stationing in Victoria certain active agents for the detection and apprehension of offenders transported to Van Diemen's Land and illegally at large, has had the effect of driving a very considerable number of the worst characters out of the colony.