children the geography of the county in which they live, and of the neighbouring counties, the teacher should try to have access to a county history. Even if he cannot procure a good county history, he can probably extort from his managing committee the purchase of a Murray's guide-book to the county, or, at the worst, get the gift of a cast-off Post Office Directory. Anything that will help him and his staff to avoid mere statistics in their geography lessons, to disentangle the important from the unimportant details, and to throw a colour of human interest over the whole work, should be caught at and utilized. Some day, perhaps, we may have a good series of school books of reference, and every school will have its teachers' library of such books. Meantime it is the teacher's duty to search eagerly for such materials as he can get, and to use them with ingenuity; and it is the inspector's duty to encourage such resource, to help the less ingenious or baffled teacher, by suggesting to him new ways and means to utilize the third best, where the first and second best cannot be attained. Both inspector and teacher should make the most of their materials, remembering always that it is the bad workman who blames his tools. Meantime as a small but practical suggestion, let me recommend every teacher, who has not already got it, to get Hughes's Geography of British History, and see whether the use of such a book as that does not throw a new life into the geography lessons, both for teachers and scholars.

50. Summary of Points in a Geography Lesson. To sum up. The following are briefly the kind of points which the inspector will bear in mind when inspecting a lesson in geography ;

(1.) Is it a lesson on physical or political geography, or both? If both, in what respective proportions?

(2.) What preparation has been made for it by the scholars? Are they supplied with the means of home preparation for their collective lessons, and required to use them?

(3.) What preparation has been made for it by the teacher? If it is a lesson on political geography, what has he sought out or read for the purpose of illustrating his lesson?

(4.) Does he use the black board and a blank map ? 51. Inspection of Singing.—I have now followed the inspector in the course of his inspection of the boys' school to the close of morning school, when the time has arrived for him to hear the singing of the school and watch the dismissal (see § 20). If the inspector is not musical, that is to say, if he has not been so endowed by nature and so trained as to be able to judge whether children sing in time and in tune, taking breath and delivering the voice properly, giving the right value to notes, and the right musical pronunciation to words, and keeping their parts honestly and yet concordantly in harmonies; unless, in short, he is at least so much of a musician, as to have a true ear, and to have learnt singing, he will not propose to inspect the singing of the school. A teacher who is musical will find out very speedily whether the inspector has or has not the requisite musical endowments. The older children will perceive it, and the effect will be injurious. To sit and listen to school singing and to make no remark upon it, or remarks which show want of musical discrimination, is worse than useless; it is a waste of the inspector's time, and a lessening of his authority. No inspector ought to inspect in a subject in which

he has not thought more, and does not know and feel more than those whom he inspects. An inspector, therefore, who is not qualified to judge of the school singing will not waste his valuable time by listening to it. But every inspector can, if he chooses, do something for the cultivation of music in our schools, which will be much more valuable than "hearing school singing." He can, if he does not already possess the requisite knowledge, learn a grammar of music, the rudiments of the science; and when he is asked by a teacher to listen to the singing of the scholars, he can reply, "No. But I will ask a few questions in music.' In nine schools out of ten, I fear, in England (though not perhaps in Wales), this reply will cause dismay. The teacher will answer that his scholars sing only by ear. And if an unmusical inspector can use his influence to stop this unsatisfactory practice, and to introduce the proper and only really satisfactory way of teaching singing into a school, he will, in my opinion, however naturally unmusical, have done almost as much to advance the knowledge and culture of music in England, as he could have done under present circumstances if he were himself a musician. What we want at present in our elementaryschools is not so much singing by ear, as the power of reading music and some acquaintance with musical science. And this every inspector who will take a little trouble can qualify himself to encourage and

enforce.

52. Close of the Morning School.-If the inspector has not had an opportunity of watching a change during the course of the morning's inspection, he will make a point of carefully watching the dismissal at the close of the morning's

school. And, when that is over, if he has any reason to think that he will be hurried at the close of the day's inspection, he will take that opportunity of speaking to the pupil-teachers and principal teacher, on the work which the pupilteachers have done in the examination, on their teaching, and on the impressions which his inspection has, so far, made on his mind. But it will be much better, of course, that he should do this at the close of the day, when his knowledge will be more complete; and I will therefore defer treating of this part of the subject, till I come to the close of the day. An interval of at the very least an hour is desirable after such a morning's work as that I have described, both for the inspector and the school. And the inspector who intends to do a good afternoon's work, will not, if he can help it, allow it to be shortened.

53. Inspection of a History Lesson. Importance of Home Work.-On the re-assembling of the school at two o'clock, the inspector proceeds to hear the history lesson of the assistant-master (see § 20). This lesson will probably be designed to last from forty-five to sixty minutes. But it will be sufficient if the inspector gives about thirty minutes to it. I have already, in considering the inspection of the geography lesson (see § 47), spoken of the importance of making the children prepare such lessons beforehand. Some teachers, not only in elementary schools, but also, I am sorry to say, training colleges, give their history lessons as mere lectures, without requiring any preparation for them on the part of their hearers. This is a great mistake. A history lesson should be largely catechetical. The class should be required to prepare beforehand a

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certain portion of an ordinary text-book. Then the teacher, having himself carefully read this portion of the book, and having also read in other books, and gone to any other available sources which will throw light upon that portion, and having made careful notes of such researches for the purpose of his lesson, will begin his lesson by questioning the class on what they ought to have prepared. Far from contenting himself with delivering to children, who have given no previous thought or trouble to the matter, a mere cut-and-dried narrative, such as may be found better given in any ordinary school history, he will use every means in his power to draw this ordinary narrative out of the children. By a rapid fire of questions distributed throughout the class, and passed down to be answered; by making the children take places as they answer successfully, and so creating a keen emulation among all the better members of the class; by marking the successful answerers on the results of those places, or on some other method, so that the school prizes and rewards may depend in a measure on the pains they have taken with such lessons during the school term; by encouraging every genuine effort to improve on the part of the backward members of his class, or those whose home circumstances are unfavourable to the preparation of home lessons; by praising diligence, and, if necessary, punishing idleness and confirmed indifference, he will endeavour to make the children work and think for the lesson beforehand as much as possible. It is impossible to overrate the importance of this effort on the teacher's part to makę his class prepare for him out of school. And if I have dwelt somewhat persistently upon this matter,