SYNOPTICAL CHARTS. 
483 
deal of time, and I do not say it is perfect, but I hope it is something 
in the right direction. And later on when I had the privilege of de¬ 
livering a lecture on that very subject at one of our public schools the 
form-master was good enough to let the boys write what he called a 
theme upon the subject, and to send me their essays. After I had 
read some twenty out of the whole number I was perfectly convinced 
that the object I had in mind was in great measure gained, because 
“ the boys,” as they say in the States, “ had caught on.” I think that 
very often we are apt to attribute too great an importance to the opinion 
of the teachers and not enough importance to the opinion of the taught. 
I know in the case of my own children, who have up to the present been 
educated on the other side of the Atlantic, when they came home and I 
asked their opinion as to the qualification of a certain teacher, I never 
found that they made a mistake; they knew in one day whether the 
teacher could teach or whether he could not. 
Everybody, of course, is not in favour of a. diagrammatic form of 
imparting knowledge, and I never shall forget an experience that I 
had with an old gentleman with whom I had taken infinite painls to 
describe the system and had given, as I thought, an extremely interes¬ 
ting lecture on the subject of English history for several hundred years 
in 10 minutes. He said “ Yes, lots of people might think well of that 
system but in my young days we never wanted anything of the kind, 
we used to have a little system of rhymes whereby we always remem¬ 
bered dates, the consequence is I never forget a date.” I said “ That 
is excellent; could you give me an example ?” “ Why, certainly ” he 
replied, “ William the Conqueror’s date we fix at,” then he paused—“ at” 
“Yes,” I said, “Yes”—“at 1476.” I said, “That, of course, is an ad¬ 
mirable plan, but it does not quite agree with the generally accepted 
theory. The chart, for instance, says “William the Conqueror, 1066.” 
“ Well, anyhow I knew it was six,” he said, (laughter). 
Lieutenant H. CHAMBERLAIN, late Royal Navy, made a few remarks 
in support of the Scaife system, and, being himself in the educational 
line, he employed a kindred system of diagrams in teaching, based on 
the same root idea, viz., that you must teach by the eye and not merely 
by the ear 
Reply. 
Captain B. R. WARD :—With regard to Major Murdoch’s remark as 
to the introduction of the bastion trace being brought down from 15 5 ° 
to 1500, I see no objection at all to that. As regards the earliest 
adoption of this trace it is very difficult to discover exactly who was 
the first man who constructed a work on the bastion system. The 
authority I went by was the “ Traite Historique de Fortification” of 
Villenoisy. 
He states that Paciotto in 1550 or within a few years of that time, 
constructed the citadel of Antwerp on that system. Bastions had been 
constructed for some time before, but no complete bastioned front had, 
according to Villenoisy, ever been constructed before. I think it might 
