July 3, 1884] 



NA TURE 



19 



and civil war of 1870. In 1S82-S3 there were 5,432,151 

 pupils, and 129,657 public teachers (of whom only 21,781 

 were uncertificated) in the elementary primary schools 

 of France, and the general outlay of the State for primary 

 education amounted in the same year to 94,881, 942 francs, 

 or about 3,825,000/. 



While cordially recognising the very great trouble that 

 the Ministers of Public Instruction in France and 

 Belgium have taken to illustrate their respective systems, 

 we must not forget that our Education Department occu- 

 pies a different and wholly unique position, and hence 

 that the English Government, as a Government, is unable 

 to make a similar display. Our Education Department 

 ■scrupulously abstains from enforcing particular methods 

 •and processes, simply requiring that by some local means, 

 voluntary or otherwise, efficient schools shall be provided, 

 and it then confines itself to the estimation of results and 

 to the distribution of funds provided by Parliament in 

 aid of the local efforts ; in a word, its control is indirect 

 rather than authoritative. The intelligent foreigner there- 

 fore has to search through the collective exhibits of the 

 great voluntary societies which have so long and so 

 largely influenced English primary education, and also of 

 several of the municipal bodies called into existence by 

 the Education Act of 1870, in order to become conversant 

 with the methods and results of English schools. In the 

 special catalogue for education, each of these bodies which 

 exhibits has taken the opportunity to place on record an 

 account of its aims and history, and of the scope and 

 character of its present work. Such additions to this 

 catalogue, occupying many closely printed pages, render 

 it a very admirable hand-book to the whole subject of 

 education, and add immensely to its value. Among the 

 most interesting and valuable statements of this kind 

 are those issued by (to use the shorter titles) the National 

 Society, the British and Foreign School Society, the 

 Wesleyan Education Committee, the Sunday School and 

 the Ragged School Unions, and the School Boards of 

 London, Birmingham. < Glasgow, and Edinburgh. 



There is one Society, however, which merits more than 

 a passing notice, since its collective exhibit is not merely- 

 one of the most remarkable and interesting in the whole 

 Educational Exhibition, but is also one from which a 

 great deal is to be learnt. It is cosmopolitan in its aims, 

 and exhibits the results of its schools in Belgium, France, 

 England, the United States, Canada, Egypt, and India, 

 although its head-quarters are in Paris. The Institute of 

 the Brothers of the Christian Schools was founded in 

 1680 by the Venerable Dr. J. B. De La Salle, who was 

 the first to establish primary education in France, and also 

 training colleges for teachers. At present the Institute 

 has nearly 12,000 Brothers, distributed over thirteen 

 countries, directing 1200 schools, with an attendance of 

 about 350,000 pupils, who, we regret to say, are all boys, 

 the Brothers not concerning themselves in any way with 

 the education of girls. The Brothers everywhere follow 

 the same general methods of teaching, while they modify 

 the details according to the custom of the country in 

 which they are, varying their programmes also to meet 

 local requirements and the wants of the times ; for ex- 

 ample, in their United States schools, where all the boys 

 stay till about sixteen, every boy in the first class learns 

 (1) shorthand writing, (2) the use of the type-writer, (3: 

 the Morse alphabet, since without these acquirements 

 the Brothers are unable to get situations for their pupils. 

 The rooms in the Technical Institute, as well as the space 

 in the Belgian and French Courts devoted to the results 

 of their work, will well repay very careful examination, 

 since only their most leading features can be here indi- 

 cated. Foremost among these, and bearing distinctly 

 upon a subject recently discussed both in this journal and 

 in the Spectator, is their system of models, maps, and 

 atlases for the scientific teaching of geography, which are 

 exhibited by Brother Alexis. These maps were the first 



hypsometrical maps published in French, and, we believe 

 the first of the kind published anywhere for school use, 

 and are intended to give, by a suitable arrangement of 

 colours, clear notions of the real configuration of the 

 earth's surface. An introduction to their study is afforded 

 by a glass tank, with a very uneven bottom, upon which 

 contour lines are marked ; when this is filled to various 

 depths with water, the effects of changes in the relative 

 level of land and sea are clearly and effectively demon- 

 strated. This demonstrative or objective method is the 

 keynote to the system of instruction adopted by the 

 Brothers, and its effect is seen in many instances, notably 

 in the splendid school museums of Annecy (Savoy), 

 Beam , lis, Rome, and Marseilles, in which the specimens 

 are all collected by the pupils, and classified by (be 

 masters ; in the apparatus employed in scientific and 

 handiwork teaching ; and in their system of teaching 

 drawing, the results of which, as illustrated by an 

 enormous series of designs, entirely the work of pupils, 

 are almost incredible. The lithographed notes of science 

 lessons distributed to the pupils, and the extensive series 

 of science and other text-books, written in various lan- 

 guages by the Brothers, all deserve close inspection. 



The Ministry of Public Instruction in Brussels illus- 

 trates most fully the Belgian educational methods, and 

 here again one of the most prominent points is the teach- 

 ing of geography, which is most completely systematised 

 and thoroughly scientific ; the minutely detailed maps of 

 the War Department form the basis of much of this, 

 dealing thoroughly with the physical and geological con- 

 ditions of the country, which are gradually shown, one 

 thing at a time, in a progressive series of maps. The 

 technological and other school museums (notably that at 

 Verviers) collected by the pupils, deserve special notice, 

 as does the whole apparatus for handicraft teaching, such, 

 for example, as the pasteboard models made by the 

 pupils for the demonstration of problems in solid geo- 

 metry, and of algebraical formula; treated geometrically. 

 The city of Antwerp furnishes a very interesting collective 

 exhibit, further illustrating these points, and in this con- 

 nection may also be mentioned the single exhibitors, D. 

 Windels, whose zoological models of animal's to scale are 

 admirable, and J. B. Gochet. who shows a complete 

 course of geography. 



In the French Section the method and good gradation 

 of all the school work and the way in which these points 

 are illustrated in the exhibit are very remarkable. Here 

 again we find great prominence given to the objective 

 method of teaching in almost every subject; the results 

 of the handicraft teaching of children from ten to thirteen 

 in the Departement du Nord are almost incredibly good, 

 while the method of it in the Prevot Orphanage is excel- 

 lent. The excellent choice of books for school libraries, 

 the system of instruction in rhetoric and in the duties of 

 citizenship, the results of the Ecole Normale de Travail 

 Manuel, and the programme of instruction for 1882, are 

 particularly noticeable. 



Of the English system, as illustrated by the Societies 

 and the School Boards, the exigencies of space allow us 

 to say but little. The publications of several of those 

 enumerated above are well known, as are also their school 

 appliances. For the methods and results of school 

 work, the exhibits of the School Boards must be con- 

 sulted. Here we are at once struck with the comparative 

 absence of the apparatus for, and the results of. that 

 objective system of teaching which stands out so pro- 

 minently in the Continental systems. A praiseworthy 

 exception to this, however, is to be found in the room 

 devoted to the Birmingham School Board, where Mr. 

 Jerome Harrison exhibits the apparatus and results of the 

 itinerant system of teaching science to every child above 

 Standard IV. in the Board schools of that town. The 

 systematic arrangement of every subject of instruction, 

 and especially of the needle-work, is particularly notice- 



