44 
MATURE NOTES 
to the taste of the class of tourists sought by the United Devon 
Association. The course pursued last year by some well-known 
“smart” people, who being anxious to make themselves com- 
fortable in Cape Town, sent over a Swiss hotel manager to 
establish there a second Schweizerhof, may be taken as a proot 
of my assertion. 
“ The Book of Fair Devon ” has been much improved by 
the introduction of some good photographs, but some of the 
process block sketches should be replaced, when funds permit, 
by others of more decision and clearness. 
The Association includes the Lord Lieutenant of the county, 
Lord Clinton, as President, Lord Clifford, who is so distinguished 
for his varied attainments and wide sympathies, as its Chair- 
man, and all the principal noblemen and landowners in the 
county, as well as the Mayors of the chief towns and many of 
the inhabitants interested in natural history, art and archaeology. 
I venture to bring this short notice of the United Devon 
Association before the Selborne Society, in the hope that there 
may be a hearty co-operation between the two Associations. I 
should like to lay great stress on securing some sort of instruc- 
tion in our elementary schools, calculated to make our children 
observant, thoughtful and sympathetic, and to implant in them 
a strong sense of duty to God and their neighbour and a will to 
do it. I am perfectly well aware that the elementary teachers 
are very anxious to do their utmost in this direction ; but to my 
mind they are overweighted and overpaced, and have no time 
for acquiring that wide general knowledge of persons, places and 
things, so essential to successful teaching. As matters stand, 
children earn the grant, and unless they attend exceptionally 
good evening schools, forget nearly all the knowledge they dis- 
played at examinations, and by the time they arrive at twenty 
have a perfect jumble of ideas. I received five letters last week 
from persons educated in National or Board Schools, all con- 
taining most curious blunders. In one, the writer, in an 
excellent civil service hand, stated that she had “ lefted Reading 
and Basingstoke.” Not long ago a very intelligent boy of 
sixteen told me that he was leaving his place in a factory be- 
cause the industry was a “ declining one ” and that his father 
was afraid of his going into a consumption. 
As far as my experience goes there is none of this muddle- 
headedness in Switzerland, where the teachers, having thoroughly 
grounded their pupils, proceed to expand their minds by active 
intellectual recreation, instead of dragging them off by early 
trains for aimless wanderings in popular health resorts, and 
returning them, at a late hour of the night, worn out by “ our 
annual excursion.” The Swiss children probably start by 
steamer, visit some spot of historical interest, ascend to an 
Alpine wood, have their dinner at noon and then sing part songs. 
In the cool of the day they climb to the foot of some mountain, 
and after wandering fancy free in search of flowers, listen with 
