564 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
is needed for a given lesson is carefully packed in neatly 
partitioned boxes (in a way with which those of us who, like 
myself, travel about the country with experimentally illus- 
trated lectures on Physics, are very familiar), and is taken from 
school to school in a hand-cart, drawn by a boy employed for 
the purpose. In this way the Birmingham demonstrator, 
Mr W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S., is able to give four lessons 
per day, of about 45 minutes each, in as many different 
schools ; and at present 28 schools are thus receiving such in- 
struction, which is given to about 1500 boys and 1000 girls. 
Mr Harrison has (or is about to have) two assistants; and it 
occasionally happens, as was the case at the time of my “sur- 
prise” visit, that he may be teaching Mechanics to boys, and 
one of his assistants expounding Domestic Economy to girls, 
in different rooms of the same school at the same time. Car- 
riage of apparatus is thus saved. In Liverpool “the number 
of children under this instruction last year was 5008, of whom 
3407 were examined by H.M. Inspector ; more than one-half 
of these were in Standard IV.—a standard which for the 
future,” writes to me Mr Hance, the clerk to the Liverpool 
Board ,“will be excluded from examination.” 
In Birmingham the lessons are given fortnightly; one of 
the regular staff of the school is always present, and it is his 
duty in the intervening week to go over the lesson again to the 
class, and drive ithome. After this, each child writes out notes 
of the lesson, often in reply to questions set, and these notes are 
revised by the demonstrator himself before he next visits the 
school. I looked over several of these notes selected at hazard, 
and was much surprised at the ability displayed in some of the 
answers. I also conversed on the subject with my friend Mr. 
Poynting, Professor of Physics, &c., in the Mason College, Bir- 
mingham, who at the request of the Board had examined a 
number of boy candidates for a Scholarship offered in connec- 
tion with the system, and he spoke in very strong terms to me 
of the excellent results noticeable throughout the examination, 
as well as of the individual excellence of the successful candi- 
dates. Two lads were so exactly equal, that, to borrow an illus- 
tration from Wimbledon, quite a large number of ties had to be 
shot-off before a decision could be arrived at.. Some of the 
answers at this examination I lay on the table. 
In his official report to the Board, he says :— 
“ Hardly any of the questions in my paper could have been 
answered without independent thought on the part of the candi- 
dates, and I had but very few answers showing a want of such 
thought. The boys showed that they had seen and understood 
the experiments which they described,—and that they were not 
merely using forms of words which they had learnt without 
attaching physical ideas to them.” 
The practice of having one or more of the ordinary teachers 
present at the demonstration is fraught with more important 
consequences than at first sight appears. Their attention is thus 
