364 



NA TURE 



\Augitst 14, 1S84 



authorities whose names are associated with the improved 

 teaching of science or of art in this country, were enabled 

 to compare notes with professors of similar subjects from 

 France and the United States, and some useful results 

 were arrived at. In one special department of this Sec- 

 tion, the agriculturists, under the presidency of Lord 

 Fortescue and Sir Thomas Acland, held several long and 

 animated discussions on the better teaching of agricul- 

 tural science, on farm schools, and on the right education 

 of boys intended to be farmers. In another department 

 the subject of school museums was brought forward in an 

 interesting paper by Dr. Jex-Blake of Rugby, and divers 

 subsidiary aids to school instruction, such as field excur- 

 sions, organised visits to factories, museums, and other 

 places of interest, were suggested or described. Some of 

 the more skilled and earnest of the elementary teachers, 

 who, by their own personal influence, have secured the 

 co-operation of their scholars in the formation of school 

 museums illustrative of the flora, fauna, history, or 

 industry of particular districts, gave interesting accounts 

 of their plans and of the practical results which attended 

 them ; and from France and Belgium, and particularly 

 from Liverpool, remarkable testimony was produced as 

 to the success which had attended school savings' banks, 

 and the influence they had exercised on the children and 

 their parents. 



The third section was mainly concerned with Uni- 

 versities and their relation to secondary instruction on 

 the one hand, and to the liberal professions on the other. 

 Profs. Morley, Flecming Jenkin, and Seeley discoursed 

 severally on those parts of the L'niversity curriculum 

 with which their own names are most prominently 

 associated, while the legal and theological aspects of the 

 University question were discussed by Sir C. Bowen and 

 Prof. Lorimer, by Cardinal Manning and Dr. Wace. The 

 chief interest of this section, however, lay in that depart- 

 ment in which the proper relation between the teaching 

 and the examining functions of a University were ex- 

 amined by Sir George Young and others. The status of 

 the present University of London was regarded by many 

 speakers as unsatisfactory, notwithstanding the searching 

 and effective character of its examinations, and the stimu- 

 lating influence which its regulations have had upon the 

 education of students in all parts of the country. A 

 strong wish was expressed by many speakers, that the 

 greatest city in the world should possess a teaching Uni- 

 versity, rather than a mere examining Board ; and that 

 some means should be found of co-ordinating all the 

 higher agencies now at work in the metropolis in such a 

 way as to constitute a London University of a new and 

 nobler type. The duties of the Universities to our Indian 

 Empire were well urged upon the Conference by Prof. 

 Monier Williams ; and the whole subject of the relations 

 of the L'niversities to the education of women was debated 

 in a crowded room and with great animation and interest, 

 apropos of a paper by Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, whose own 

 valuable services at Newnham have given her a special 

 claim to speak with authority on such a topic. 



The fourth section had a somewhat miscellaneous 

 programme, but may be briefly described as concerned 

 with problems connected with secondary and interme- 

 diate education. The first of these problems was the 

 training of teachers, and the best means of securing for 

 secondary schools a supply of teachers, qualified in 

 respect to their knowledge of the theory and practice of 

 their art, not less satisfactorily than the trained and 

 certificated teachers of the elementary schools are, rela- 

 tively to the humbler work which they have to do. Mr. 

 Quick, Mr. Storr, Professors Laurie and Meiklejohn, and 

 others who have made this a special subject of investiga- 

 tion, were enabled to throw much light on the recent 

 efforts of the L'niversities to provide instruction in the art 

 and philosophy of teaching, and to give professional 

 certificates to persons qualified to receive them. It was 



manifest, however, from this discussion, that the one great 

 hindrance in the way of such progress was the practical 

 disbelief among the head-masters in the value of special 

 professional training. Were it once understood that over 

 and above the possession of a good L'niversity degree a 

 head-master in search of an assistant would require, or 

 would even cicteris paribus prefer that the candidate should 

 show a knowledge of the principles of teaching or the 

 literature of his profession, the arrangements of the 

 Universities for imparting such knowledge would soon 

 produce good fruit. At present, however, the teacher's 

 diplomas issued by the Universities of Cambridge and 

 London appear to possess but little market value in the 

 public schools. It was shown, however, that in girls* 

 schools of the highest class the work of professional train- 

 ing was much more keenly appreciated ; and that among 

 the foremost women engaged in the teaching profession, 

 the strongest interest had been taken not only in the pro- 

 posals of the Universities, but aho in the Bishopsgate 

 Training College, the Lectures of the College of Preceptors, 

 and other public measures for ensuring specific instruction 

 in the art and mystery of their craft for the skilled teachers 

 of the future. One of the warmest, and at the same time 

 one of the ablest debates in the Conference concerned the 

 possible future relations of the State to secondary and 

 higher education. Mr. Lyulph Stanley contended strongly 

 for some public provision for the establishment of good 

 secondary schools where they are deficient, and sketched 

 out a plan which had evidently been thought out with 

 some care, for the creation of such schools by means of 

 rates, and for the supervision of such schools by local 

 bodies having the public confidence. Canon Daniel, on 

 the other hand, contended with much ability in favour of 

 absolute freedom for local and religious bodies in the 

 matter of secondary instruction, and against any attempt 

 on the part of the State to initiate or control it. He 

 pointed out, with considerable force, the remarkable suc- 

 cess of the Girls' Public Day Schools Company, and re- 

 marked on the rapid growth of other agencies of a similar 

 kind for supplying good middle-class schools, and for 

 adapting the supply to the religious, social, and educa- 

 tional wants of different classes of the community. 



Perhaps, on the whole, the most striking feature of the 

 Conference, in the eyes of the numerous foreigners who 

 were present and took part in the proceedings, was the 

 remarkable interest evinced in the improved education of 

 women ; the variety of new fields now opening to their in- 

 telligence, activity, and public usefulness, and the number 

 of ladies who took an active and effective share in 

 the various discussions. Another point of special in- 

 terest was the international character of the whole Con- 

 ference, and the warm welcome with which the experience 

 of experts from F ranee, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, 

 and the L'nited States, was received in all the sections. 

 There has probably never been in the history of educa- 

 tion in this country a gathering which afforded such an 

 excellent opportunity for the interchange of opinions and 

 suggestions between English and foreign teachers. And 

 the executive of the Exhibition may well be congratulated 

 on having added to their other successes the completion 

 of a work of pre-eminent and far-reaching usefulness — a 

 Conference which, for the ability of those who took part 

 in it, for the high tone and courtesy of its discussions, 

 and for the fruitfulness of its practical suggestions, has 

 left an enduring and most pleasing impression on all who 

 took part in it. 



Among the subsidiary features of the Conference not 

 the least useful were the visits organised by the Com- 

 mittee to some of the more characteristic and important 

 of English schools. The most successful of these visits 

 was that paid to the new buildings of St. Paul's School at 

 West Kensington, which, though not yet occupied by the 

 scholars, is now nearly complete in all its appointments. 

 The party, nearly fifty in number, consisted largely of 



