are several masters, the destination of the pupil should have been regulated by the rector of the school, or an independent examiner. Much might be done also for the general improvement of the pupil by introducing a greater variety in the subjects of study. Drawing, singing, elementary science, natural history, the modern languages, would form a grateful relief for a dead weight just relieved from a harassing Latin examination. And of late such combinations of study are being adopted, there being a modern side in many schools where, but recently, classical studies were exclusively pursued. Better days are in store for the dead weight; and the success which many of them have achieved in those gymnastic exercises which are now so prominent in education, has given them an importance and confidence which will preserve them from falling into despondency. These exercises may also be the means of removing that constitutional lethargy which induces mental indolence, and of thus promoting a sound mind in a sound body.

ENGLISH LITERATURE IN SCHOOLS.

THE multiplicity of studies in modern education is frequently so distracting, that, within the period of the school course, there is little time to turn to profitable account the sum of instruction-to direct into useful channels the collection of acquired knowledge. Great proficiency and exactness may, for instance, be attained in the knowledge of foreign languages, and yet little information be obtained by the pupil of those authors, an acquaintance with whose works might seem to be the principal inducement to undergo the labour incurred in learning these languages. True-with the power of conversing with facility in these tongues, a person may travel with more convenience on the Continent, or figure with more effect in the correct accentuation of trifles in a fashionable drawing-room; but, in most cases, the literature contained in these languages is almost unknown to him.

It is to be especially regretted that so many of our youth should leave school without a sprinkling of the literature of our own country. In the higher classes of many of our academies, there is no systematic instruction in English literature. That such a deficiency is regretted, is evident from the strong efforts which have of late been made in some quarters to give in a regular form the history of our literature. So far as we are aware, the credit of the first publication to aid this attempt in schools is due to our townsman, Mr Robert Chambers. The necessity of a well-arranged treatise to ensure success in such a course

is obvious whatever the fluency and adapting power of the teacher, there must be a tangible lesson to arrest the flightiness of the young. There must be a rallying point to recal the scattered, wandering thoughts of a class, and that point must be the stated lesson, with its attendant examination. We admit that, without such prescribed tasks, an ingenious teacher may, by a well-timed comment on pieces in a common collection, impart to a few of the more susceptible of his pupils a tincture of his own taste and enthusiasm, which may in after times evolve in strong and glowing colours; but, with the generality of his pupils, a distinct lesson to be prepared and examined on is necessary. This must, no doubt, be in itself a rather dry and uninteresting task, for the selections can never be so ample and numerous, in a long course of literature, as to illustrate the poet's character as defined by the critic and compiler. The teacher here, then, has much to do; he must have the power of quoting and selecting, and, in the elucidation of poetry, his pronunciation should be the means of concentrating the attention and engaging the sympathy. To do all this, however, requires an amount of time which by the common arrangements of our schools cannot be spared. It were well, then, to consider whether, especially towards the close of a course of study, the subject of English literature should not be made a more permanent and an imperative branch in our higher schools. An acquaintance with our own authors enlarges the mind, supplies it with an inexhaustible fund of enjoyment, and gives a man a dignity and lustre in society. It promotes and gives variety to conversation, breaks down the assumptions of pedantry, and enables us to arbitrate with judgment on the claims of modern authors. It modifies that rage for works of fiction and fashionable novelties, which are the staple of the reading and conversation of a great part of

what are termed the middle classes. Their acquaintance with the old authors is frequently confined to Shakespeare, whose works are the subject of daily portraiture on the stage. Among the most sober part of the community, there has of late arisen an admiration of Shakespeare, which is principally to be attributed to the influence of a few leading spirits. Fashion, too, may occasionally turn round on its wheel one or two of the old authors, as the popularity of Thackeray attracts many curious persons to listen to his lectures on the Humorists of the last century. In lower walks, crowds, drawn together by the novelty of an aristocrat condescending to teach, listen to the almost forgotten rhymes of Pope and Dryden. These movements are meritorious, and, no doubt, they will have the effect of pointing out a new path in reading to many; but we maintain that the true foundation of a taste for our great authors must, with the generality, be laid in youth, and that, without such a training, acquaintance with our classical authors will not be general. Hitherto, that occasional taste has not been the result of education at school; it has more frequently arisen from accident or homeeducation. The circumstance of an accessible library has sometimes kindled it, and sometimes it has been imbibed during the leisure of delicate health. In a family where there is a father or mother imbued with literary taste, there is often enjoined a course of reading which gives to all its members an intellectual character. The same sort of family-reading is enforced in several well-conducted boarding-schools, and the power of enforcing this is one of the great advantages of a boarding-school education. In the course of one session at such an establishment, the advanced pupils might, in addition to their sacred reading, have a curriculum of English reading, embracing a great part of Shakespeare, Paradise Lost, and Cowper, with selections

from other authors. When it is practicable, the reading of an entire work is preferable to selections, for in the last, the interest of plot is wanting, and time is not afforded for a thorough appreciation of the author's style. Now, in our general schools, there might be given with the lesson on literature such a course of reading as might familiarise the pupils with the subject and style of our principal writers: without this, the text-book on literature is often little better than a catalogue raisonné. Such a course involves the employment of a considerable portion of time, but such a sacrifice should in the last stages of a school course be made. An hour a-day should be set apart for such reading, varied and relieved at times by the explanations and elucidations of the master. This course would have an elevating effect on the teacher himself he is generally too much confined within the bounds of formal lessons-and in the preparation which would be necessary for the conducting of such a course, he would feel a refreshment which would enable him to enter on the severer part of his work with renewed energy.

Such a system of instruction in our higher schools, in the latter period of their course, might be easily carried out, if the element of time were once admitted. If due time, however, is not given, the teacher must be contented with a passing criticism, or an occasional quotation, which will be fleeting and unimpressive. The pupils, then, whether they betake themselves, at the termination of their course, to mercantile pursuits, or pursue their studies at the university, are equally unfinished and unprovided. they enter into business, they have not acquired that predominance of taste which will induce them at the hour of leisure to break through the indolence of relaxation; if they enter the university, they are not prepared to profit by the instructions of the Professor of Rhetoric. His call

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