296 



NATURE 



[July 28, 1887 



Nowhere is the importance of high-class teachers 

 better understood than among the Japanese. A short 

 address given here by their Commissioner describes 

 their eager search after European knowledge for several 

 generations before the present reformed Government 

 came into power, and now the rule is that all em- 

 ployed in instruction— normal teachers at the end of 

 seven years, ordinary teachers at the end of five — must 

 be re-examined to ascertain whether they are keeping up 

 with the progress of the age. But great efforts are made 

 to render the profession in every way attractive. Teachers 

 areexe npt from military conscription. Titles, quasi-offices, 

 and ran'cs are given to them, so that the profession may not 

 be treated as a low or unimportant one. For a similar 

 encouragement of learning, University men are also freed 

 from military service ; and even the students of the 

 middle-class schools are exempt from conscription for 

 six years. One speaker, who had been resident in Japan, 

 but had travelled through Europe, claimed for Tokio also 

 ^.h.^ best Froebel kindergarten that he had ever seen. It 

 would not be surprising if the great experiment referred 

 to above were really tried in Japan — such a system 

 of school work as that described by Prof. Hailmann, com- 

 petent to supersede home tea;hing altogether. He rather 

 naively remarks that his mother was a natural kinder- 

 gartner. The kindergarten work is a system of tech- 

 nical instruction in which the scientific teacher undertakes 

 to inculcate systematically what parents have hitherto 

 taught as amateurs. Little science and little system are 

 shown in most homes ; in fact the kindergartners com- 

 plain of home influences thwarting their teaching, and 

 urge that young women should attend their schools to learn 

 how to bring up their own families ; and one cannot read 

 the principles laid down for a kindergarten school 

 without feeling how appropriate they are for home 

 rule.. In the case therefore of those who can afford 

 such a training, this seems the most efficient and desir- 

 able way of carrying the work out ; where, on the other 

 hand, a mother has been debarred from such a training, 

 the school may really supersede her home work with 

 advantage. Kindergarten schools accordingly, from 

 every State, were represented at the New Orleans Ex- 

 position. The system can hardly, however, become uni- 

 versal, for each child is to be taught in some different 

 way, according to its character, and it is urged by Mrs. 

 Ogden, "if we must crowd, let us crowd the big children, 

 and not the little ones." 



As illustrating the principles of kindergarten schools, 

 Prof Spring, of the Chautauqua School of Sculpture and 

 Modelling, showed, in an experimental address, how much 

 of science could be illustrated by moulding a lump of 

 clay ; affirming that a young child caught at the character 

 of various shapes as quickly as an adult. The Commis- 

 sioner in his Report remarks a large increase in these 

 schools in 1884-85 — 28 in Pennsylvania alone, 33 in the 

 south and west. Few are supported at public expense, 

 yet the system has had a marked effect in improving the 

 methods of teaching employed. 



Prof. W. Hudson, of Texas, lays it down that the 

 interest which a lad can be induced to take in his lessons 

 is a measure of the extent to which his perception, reason, 

 and judgment will be drawn out. More life and reality 

 can be put into a lesson in natural history or botany, and 

 they are therefore more valuable school subjects, and far 

 more useful, than classics. Such pursuits are interesting 

 in leisure hours also, and will keep him out of the mis- 

 chief to which unemployed energy is so prone. Many 

 experiments in different schools are reported by General 

 Eaton, but so far the only exercises of this kind that it 

 has been found practicable to bring within the reach of 

 the entire school populations are drawing, clay-modelling, 

 and sewing. 



A paper was read by Mr. E. M. Hance, Clerk to the 

 Liverpool School Board, on the experimental science 



instruction first introduced into English elementary 

 schools by that Board. Colonel W. P. Johnston tried to 

 show that technical education is the most beneficial that 

 can be given to the black population. In, we fear, a rather 

 too hopeful simile he compares these latter to the chosen 

 people educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians before 

 their return to independence. He trusts that one of their 

 great destinies is to re-people with a civilised race their 

 old continent of Africa. Prof. W. J. Thorn also urges a 

 technical education for the Negro — not a high-school 

 education, but a farm-labourer's and domestic servant's 

 training. " Unless they know how to work and how to 

 do work, their destruction seems a natural consequence." 

 He, however, looks forward to the black population reach- 

 ing ten times its actual number, and its present far more 

 rapid increase than that of the white race renders this 

 probable enough. Presidents Fairchild and Long, on the 

 other hand, think that uniform education will heal the 

 breach between the races : the former predicting that 

 twenty-five years of mixed schools would set coloured 

 men on a full equality with the most eminent whites, and 

 hardly leave a vestige of the present " constitutional 

 ineradicable antipathy," which latter epithet we are in- 

 clined to judge from the past history of races gives the 

 truer view. He thinks it is a relic of slavery, and asserts 

 that the objection to mixed schools is, not that the anti- 

 pathy will injure the schools, but that the schools will 

 annihilate the antipathy and bring about an undesired 

 social equality. Strongly pointing against the above 

 hopeful opinions is General Eaton's reference to a tendency 

 among some trade-unions to exclude coloured citizens 

 from industrial training and employment. He accord- 

 ingly urges that all parties should promote this industrial 

 training by every means, both on the above account and 

 also as the best preparation of Negroes for new and re- 

 munerative occupations which must spring up round 

 them. The religious education of the Negro is becoming 

 a special difficulty, and Prof Thom fears the spread of 

 Mormonism among a race which has neither tradition, 

 habits and customs, nor reverence for law and religion. 

 One matter to which he calls attention may perhaps be a 

 sign that there are influences telling against the blending 

 of the races, viz. that already there is a divergence of 

 Negro dialect from the standard of the vernacular so 

 great as partially to " destroy the uplifting idealism con- 

 tained in the English tongue." 



A most interesting paper, to an English reader espe- 

 cially, bearing on this matter is an account of the present 

 condition of the Negroes in Jamaica after fifty years of 

 freedom. They have nearly doubled their number in the 

 time, and are in more comfortable circumstances. Their 

 dwellings compare favourably with those of Ireland or 

 Scotland. Improvements are recorded of the island 

 generally, exactly answering to the improvements in an 

 English town during the same time, and all done volun- 

 tarily and with far less labour than in the old slave times. 

 If they do not love work, still as much voluntary labour was 

 forthcoming as was required to make a railway, without 

 any difficulty on the part of the contractors. Cambridge] 

 Local Examinations are held in the island, and some high! 

 honours have been taken. Such a sketch must be set 

 against the dark pictures usually drawn. General Eaton, ' 

 too, in his Report, we are glad to see, thoroughly endorses : 

 the accounts of energetic improvement in education still - 

 taking place. 



A striking feature of the wide views of their duties and 

 responsibilities which are now making their way among 

 educationalists is well brought out in this compilation. 

 There are careful and interesting papers upon all the 

 physical aspects of education ; and much is laid down 

 about bodily exercises and training which, though excel- 

 lent in itself, seems hardly yet to belong to the depart- 

 ment of the schoolmaster. The Commissioner urges 

 in his Report that a gymnasium should be attached to 



