frequently dines with them, and occasionally a few of the elder students are invited to the upper table. On account of the hall not being sufficiently large, the younger yeomen pupils dine with the housekeeper.

I extract the following from the rules of the Institution :—

Pupils are either ordinary, being such as in order to become National schoolmasters desire to submit themselves to the appointed course of training; or extraordinary, being such as, already having charge, or being engaged to take charge, of a school in union with the Diocesan Society, desire to obtain acquaintance with the system pursued in the Diocesan Training School.

Ordinary Pupils.-In general no one shall commence residence before the completion of his 17th year, or after that of his 25th year; nor be recommended to a school before the age of 20. Each candidate is to bring with him a certificate from the clergyman of his parish that he is baptised, is a member of the Church of England, and is qualified by character and attainments for admission; a certificate of recommendation from a Diocesan or District Board; and a certificate from a medical man as to general health.

Candidates shall be examined by the Principal; and, being found of sufficient attainments, shall be received by him into the training school as probationers. The appointed reception days are one for each quarter. When any probationer shall have resided in the house for three months, the Principal approving of his conduct and abilities, he is enrolled at a quarterly meeting of the Committee as a registered pupil, when he makes a declaration of his intention to submit to the discipline of the school.

The vacations are four weeks at Christmas, and five weeks at Midsummer.

Expulsion cannot take place except by order of the Committee. The full course of training extends over three

years.

Exhibitions are tenable for three years; they are in general open to all registered pupils. The relative merit of the candidates for them is determined by observations upon their general character and qualification, as well as by an examination into their respective attainments.

Exhibitioners give security for refunding a sum not greater than the whole amount of the exhibition received by them, in case of their voluntarily leaving the school before the expiration of three years, or of their quitting the office of schoolmaster, in the diocese to which they have been appointed, within three years after they have entered upon it.

Holders of exhibitions, granted by either Diocesan or District Boards, are to be in general appointed to schools within the diocese to which that Board belongs. Exhibitioners on the grant of individual benefactors may be employed in either diocese. The exhibitions connected with the school are

2 given by the Archbishop of York

221031

York Diocesan Board
Bishop of Ripon

Ripon, Diocesan Board of

Rev. W. E. Bentinck, Canon of
Westminster

of £10 each.

Each pupil shall pay quarterly, in advance, at the rate of 207.

per annum.

No testimonial is granted except after residence for at least nine months from the time of registration.

Pupils Extraordinary.-They are admitted by the Principal for the four weeks of the harvest holidays, or at one of the ordinary reception days, for a term of one or more months.

If resident, they pay 10s. 6d. per week; if non-resident, there is no charge. They are not to receive any testimonial.

There are usually several masters who take advantage of permission to become extraordinary pupils at every harvest vacation.

A medical man attends the Institution; but it has been found necessary to pay for medical attendance only in undoubted cases of real illness.

The health of the students seemed, and was reported to be, in general, good.

There is not much opportunity of employing the pupils in manual labour, the garden and grounds being in a rough state, and no workshops having as yet been erected. The Principal informed me that they are willing enough to work, and are too apt to prefer this to study. Under proper regulations, however, manual labour would be simply their refreshment from head-work, and their preparation for its renewal. It might be made, too, a not

unimportant part of their training as instructors of children destined to live by manual labour.

No gymnastic poles have yet been erected, but the pupils are regularly, and well, drilled by a sergeant.

The staff of the college is as follows:

The Principal is the Rev. William Reed, M.A., of Oxford, who has laboured for the Institution from its commencement, and brought it to its present state.

The Vice-principal is the Rev. John Chubb Ford; he is usually occupied in the middle school.

The master of the middle school is Mr. John Field.

Mr. Want has charge of the yeoman boys out of school-hours; he usually teaches in the upper school.

The Music-master is Mr. John Young, who also assists in other parts of the instruction.

Mr. Hardcastle, one of the best-instructed students, has been made an assistant-master since iny visit.

This is manifestly a very small staff for an institution in which I found 56 students under training for schoolmasters, and a middle school of 137 boys, out of whom 86 were boarders.

If, amongst the observations which I have to offer to their Lordships upon the Institution and its working, there be some of an unfavourable character, I would ever have them connected with a consideration of the agency that has been at work. Valuable results have been produced; and when the scantiness of the agency is considered, it is manifest that great industry, perseverance, and skill must have been employed in producing them. From the Principal and his colleagues I received every possible assistance in my work; every inquiry was candidly and carefully answered; and I have left them with a strong impression of the zeal and earnestness with which they have laboured in their honorable vocation.

I may add here, that their remuneration is on the most moderate scale.

In the upper school are taught the students and some of the more advanced scholars from the middle school. They are arranged in classes in different parts of the spacious schoolroom. The Principal spends most of his time in teaching the first class; but in the course of each week he gives a lesson in some subject to every class of pupils under training.

From this account it will be seen that much oral teaching is scarcely possible; the establishment is not calculated for it. The lessons are mostly prepared beforehand, and the instruction is almost entirely catechetical. That these arrangements are the very best for the purpose of a training college can scarcely be maintained. They enable the Principal to see, and to control, all that goes on; and if the mere acquisition of knowledge were the sole end, it might be to a great degree answered. But in all education,

and especially in training persons to become teachers, the amount of knowledge communicated is subordinate to the mental discipline to which the persons taught are subjected; and though to this end the habit of solitary and unaided study is essential, yet contact with the mind of a superior teacher, and the spirit which is communicated by such a teacher, not only testing knowledge attained, but constantly imparting it, are of great moment. Moreover, in schools for the common people, much of the most important instruction must be conveyed orally; and, therefore, it is dsirable that the future teachers should have constantly before them a good example of that which they will have constantly to do themselves. If they are to teach well orally, it must surely be beneficial for them to learn from a good oral teacher.

The catechetical teaching in this Institution is particularly good : still, I look upon the exclusive prevalence of such teaching to be a great defect in it.

Assuming, however, that my opinion is correct, it attaches no reproach upon the college, or upon the able teachers who conduct it. It is plain that, without additional teachers and very different arrangements, an efficient system of oral instruction throughout would scarcely be possible.

Mr. Mitchell was requested to assist me in ascertaining the acquirements of the pupils and masters in the art of teaching, and our joint Report will be found in an Appendix.

My own further observations during my visit enable me to add some remarks upon the opportunities afforded for making this most important part of a schoolmaster's attainments. The practice of the pupils in teaching is principally in the middle school, where the students of the third year teach by turns, each for a fortnight. Each pupil teacher gives instruction in all the subjects required for the class over which he is placed. I did not learn that any special preparation of the lessons to be given had been required of the pupil teachers, or that there had been much systematic superintendence.

Now teaching is an art; one to be learned by practice, and only with difficulty. And, as in other like things, no practice will much advance the learner which is not done on system and principle, with constant pains, and with constant opportunities for detecting and correcting every defect.

The attention which has been long paid to such practice in German training schools deserves to be imitated, much more than it seems to have been in any of our like institutions. I may perhaps be permitted to mention one exercise which they employ with great effect, and to which we have nothing, that I know of, at all corresponding-A class of children is introduced into a room in which the Principal, or the Master of Method, has assembled some students. One of the students gives to the class a lesson which he has previously prepared. Upon the dismissal of the class the

Principal invites the students, separately, to criticise the lesson that has been given. The student who has given the lesson explains, and frequently defends, his exercise. The Principal meanwhile moderates, and concludes by remarking upon, and supplying a complement to, the criticisms that have been offered. Such an exercise has advantages beyond those connected with the end directly proposed.

19

I should moreover consider it a great advantage for the training college to have attached to it schools of the same class as those in which the National schoolmaster has to labour. Something more might then perhaps be effected towards fitting the pupil not only to give suitable lessons, but to conduct the sort of school that he is one day to have under his charge. The fullytrained pupil should, when he goes forth, be able to do every part of his work with a facility resulting from principles thoroughly mastered, and, to some extent, practised in each important branch of their application. He should feel a confidence in his ability to meet with success every probable emergency. He should be at no loss for forms in which to put everything he may have to do. must be left to his own native, or acquired, powers to give life to these forms, and make them effectually subservient to the ends proposed.

It

I may now proceed to the results of my examination, which was conducted entirely by printed papers of questions, to which written answers were given. The object of the examination was not merely to furnish a report upon the attainments of the students, but also to enable my Lords to decide for which of those with more than one year's training they would think fit to allow to the Institution the gratuities held out by the late minutes, and also to award certificates of merit to well-instructed schoolmasters who had had at least one year's training in it. Twenty-six masters attended the examination, and the same questions were proposed to them as to the students.

The subjects of the examination included all those now taught in the college, and the following remarks include masters and students, and thus fairly characterize the results afforded by the college. They are supplemental to the annexed table.-(See p. 541.)

In Table A are noted, under each subject, the number of students, and also that of masters, whose answers were respectively excellent, good, fair, and moderate.

In order to convey an idea of the extent of the attainments of well-qualified masters, and of the more advanced students, I have formed a Table (B-see p. 541) in which are recorded the results of the examination for three of the candidates for certificates of merit. One of the best has been selected, and two others of inferior merit.