THE 



MUSEUM GAZETTE. 



No. 5. SEPTEMBER, 1906. Vol. i. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



The Board of Education has just received the Report of 

 its Consultative Committee upon Higher Elementary Schools. 

 This report is ably analysed in the Times for August 21, and 

 is well worthy of attention. To ourselves it is a matter of 

 great regret that the Committee has taken no cognisance of 

 Museum Education. From a Committee on which Miss 

 Manley, Mrs. Bryant, Sir Michael Foster, Mr. Hobhouse 

 and Dr. Norman Moore sat, better things might have been 

 expected. The time has surely arrived when the superiority 

 of the objective teaching afforded by well-arranged Museums 

 over merely verbal instruction ought to be well recognised. 

 Instead of that, we are still told that everything must depend 

 upon the skill of the schoolmaster, who is thus left to make 

 his bricks without a supply of proper straw. 



" The Committee recognise that the successful attainment of the 

 aim in view will be due far more to the teacher and the character of 

 the teaching than to the subjects taught." 



This somewhat helpless dependence on heaven-sent teachers 

 is not hopeful. Let the Education Board see to it that those 

 whom they employ are well provided with the means of teach- 

 ing. We are commenting on the Times summary alone. It 

 may be that in the Report itself, which we have not yet seen, 

 there are some eloquent passages in advocacy of objective 

 teaching as carried out in Museums. We hope there are. 

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