technical and professional training of women in various trades, such as artificial flower-making, dress-making, embroidery, &c. This appears to be a new departure, which might be advantageously followed in our own country. In reviewing the recent progress of educational legislation in France, we find that in March, 1882, laws were passed which rendered obligatory (1) the teaching of the elementary physical sciences in primary schools, and (2) the performance therein of a certain amount of manual work. Accordingly, under the first of these heads we find exhibited by the Minister of Public Instruction the authorised collections of objects and apparatus used in this teaching, as well as models of simple and cheap instruments such as could be fabricated by the pupils themselves. The second law alluded to has called into existence the " École normale de travail manuel," a school probably unique of its kind, whose whole course of instruction is well illustrated by a series of photographs and specimens, and by a detailed programme. It comprises the systematic teaching of carpentry, the use of the lathe, the chemical and physical laboratory, the smith's forge, and the "fitting" shop. The whole instruction is gratuitous, and admission is obtained after a competitive examination in the lower grade schools. Fuller details about this school, as well as about the present system of education in France as a whole, will be found in the ten pages of the special educational catalogue devoted to an introduction to the French exhibits. Closely associated with this is a capital collection of work from the École des Arts et Métiers of Aix (Bouches-du-Rhone), which, together with the results of various apprenticeship and art schools, is exhibited by the Ministry of Commerce, Paris. The handicraft work of the primary schools of Vierzon and of Voiron (Isère), as well as of the technical schools at Evreux and Nantes, deserves careful examination; while in the department of agricultural industry, the work of a school at Lille is much to be commended and worthy of imitation. Among the private exhibits in the French section the most noticeable features are:-the admirable collection of objects of natural history and of science diagrams, all for school use, shown by M. Émile Deyrolle, and the wonderful collection of botanical and physiological models shown by Mme. Veuve Auzoux and M. Montaudon. Part of this is a series of anatomical models (probably the best of their kind) composed of solid pieces, which can be easily adjusted or separated, and removed piece by piece as in actual dissection. Somewhat similar models are shown by Mme. Lemercier. It is greatly to be regretted that the very high price of these excellent models is an effectual bar to anything beyond a very limited use of them. The collection of educational appliances as used in Norway, and shown by Mr. Mallings in the gallery of the Albert Hall, deserves warm commendation. It is characterised by the same importance as attached to objective and practical teaching (as distinguished from book-information) which we noticed in the French and Belgian schools. This publishing house is one of the sights of Christiania. Prominent among the illustrations of technical education in England, the preparations for which, as we have before stated, have not yet reached down to our primary schools to any appreciable extent, are the three rooms devoted to illustrations of the work at the Finsbury Technical School. These are specially remarkable, as showing the admirable methods which characterise the whole of the work there, and which, we venture to think, deserve careful study. A room is devoted to the mechanical laboratory and appliances, and a large amount of space to the department of electrical engineering, while a special feature in the display is the explanatory printed paper of notes attached to each piece of apparatus. Another good example of English technical education is the collection of drawings and models relating to coach and carriage building, to which three organisations contribute, illustrating the alterations that occur in the conditions of locomotion. There is a very good collection of excellent specimens of school work done in the Allan Glen's Institution of Glasgow, in which the object of a two years' technical course is to prepare boys to learn trades whose mastery implies a considerable amount of scientific knowledge. University College, Nottingham, exhibits some work done in the recently established technical school attached to it, and the Engineering Department of University College, London, illustrates its work mainly by photographs and plans. The nearest approach to the handicraft school teaching as practised on the Continent, is to be found in the admirable technical work of the Central Higher School of the Sheffield School Board, in which an attempt is made to provide the proper connection between the theoretical instruction in the class-room and the practical instruction in the workshop. The Manchester Technical School, the Oldham School of Science and Art, the Clerkenwell Technical Drawing School, and the School of Art Wood-carving, all show praiseworthy results of technical training. Attention may here be called too to the admirable specimens of work done in the four trades-departments of the National Industrial Home for Crippled Boys; the pupils vary in age from twelve to eighteen, and having chosen a trade on entering the school, follow it for three years. Among the results of the work of individual exhibitors, the exhibit of Mr. Robins calls for special notice, consisting as it does of a series of drawings illustrative of the general arrange ments and fittings required for applied science educational buildings; these are so placed that comparisons are readily made between the arrangements adopted in various noted colleges, &c. Mr. Millis shows some excellent results of instruction in trades classes, specially models in wood and metal-plate work. Mr. James Rigg exhibits more than a hundred mechanical models specially arranged for instruction in four or five of the subjects in which the Science and Art Department examines pupils, and a smaller collection of the same kind is shown by Messrs. Gilkes and Co. Lathes of different patterns, and other mechanical tools and apparatus, are exhibited by Messrs. Holtzapffel and Co., Messrs. Melhuish and Sons, Mr. Syer, Mr. Evans and others. In neither of these articles has any reference been made to the appliances for elementary art instruction, nor to the special methods and apparatus used in educating the blind, and the deaf and dumb, all of which, however, are very fully illustrated. The seven classes of exhibits which come under "Group IV.-The School" (to quote the official phraseology) are also unnoticed. These comprise such important subjects as everything relating to the structural arrangements of school buildings, school kitchens, sanatoria, and infirmaries, and lastly, though by no means least in importance, the gymnastic and other apparatus for physical training in schools. Enough however has, we hope, been said to give some idea of the vast scope of this exhibition of educational appliances, and to justify the assertion made at the beginning of the first article, that probably no such extensive and valuable a collection of school appliances, methods, and results has ever been brought together before. Such an opportunity for study is not likely to occur again for some years, and we conclude by reiterating an earnest hope that it will not be lost by those most vitally interested in it. WM. LANT CARPENTER. REVIEWS. COLEBROOKE'S LIFE OF THE HONOURABLE The following letter was written to Strachey a few weeks after Trimbukjee had contrived to escape: "You need not admonish me to come home. It is already the subject of my thoughts and dreams, and I have more than Life of the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone. By Sir T. E. Colebrooke, Bart., M.P. In two vols., with portraits and map. London: John Murray. 1884. once been on the point of going for a time; but the thoughts of being three or four years an omeedwar* and of staying out here till fifty deterred me. I am, however, persuaded that by continuing here for the five years that are necessary to give me £1,500 a year, I give up a great part of my chance even of happiness in this world. As to action or distinction, that is gone long ago. I shall be fifty-two by the time I get hometoo old to set up a wife and family, and likewise too old to mix in society so as to be able to do without them. I doubt also whether I shall be able to get on without some employment. I might, if I could, go heartily into society, and this I should like well enough to do; ἀλλὰ μάλ' αἰνῶς Αἰδέομαι Τρῶας καὶ Τρῶαδας ἑλκεσιπέπλους, an unfortunate epithet, in this age of short petticoats, and I doubt whether I shall ever be at ease among them. Are you ever shy nowadays? . . . By-the-bye, you have never mentioned what are your thoughts of Lord Byron, though all the rest of the world seems to have been talking of him for these last three or four years. I like Childe Harold very much; it is exquisite bluedevilage. If you have read it but once, I dare say you do not like it. I was so disappointed in the expectation I had formed from its title, and so disgusted with the badness of the old English, and the affectation of using the old English at all, that I did not admire it at first; but on reading it again I did extremely. One merit it has; it is the first practical exhibition of real bluedevils-causeless, cureless dejection, with gloom enough to be interesting, and not so dark as to be really distressing. A Claude Lorraine picture of the world, that sometimes shows things under a tint more pleasing than their natural colours. Then, Lord Byron's poetry (Childe Harold, at least) is always written in good faith. Topics are not brought forward because they are capable of embellishment, nor sentiments introduced because they appear to be required. The poet seems to pour forth whatever strikes his own mind, because it strikes him, and to employ the language that will express his thoughts with most force, and without much considering how either the ideas or the diction are to affect his readers. I do not like his tales half so well. I am sick of their monotony or mannerism; and besides, his heroes, with all their dark energies, are too much akin to the captains of robbers and proprietors of castles in the Apennines, that have figured so much in plays and romances, German and English, for the last fifty years. The finest lines in Lord Byron, "Expectant (of office)." + "But I very much fear the Trojans and the long-robed Trojan women." I think, are the seventh, eighth and ninth stanzas of the second canto of Childe Harold, which read, I beg of you. You may even read from the beginning of the canto if you have time. "You used to say, speaking of Forlorn,* that it was the sign of an ignorant man to talk much of the book he happened to be reading; and you must have discovered before now that I am reading Childe Harold, and have had the blue-devils. I have so, though it is of rare occurrence with me now. "Dick has started his plan of going to Constantinople again. I entered on it at once, though rather coldly; but I have since thought over it till I am in a flame for Greece: 66 'And thou, Parnassus, whom I now survey, Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye, Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,' &c., &c. Imagine exploring Thermopyla for the tomb of the three hundred Spartans, or actually finding their epitaphs: 'Stranger, tell the Lacedæmonians That here we lie in obedience to their commands. '† "My plan is to pass through Asia Minor, stay three months in Greece, and come back by Egypt. It might take you eight months, but I should only ask for six months' leave. If there is anything to do in India, of course I shall not go. I might go home too, if I thought I would get any appointment there; but Malcolm looks to Bombay, and Adam to Council. I mention Bombay, because you alluded to it. I never even thought of it, not because I think I could not get on where Jonathan had governed and Charles Ricketts been talked of; but because I have no claims, and no particular interest. I should like nothing in it but the pay. A Governor of Bombay must always be hated. His great duty is to economise and buy cotton. I should not even like the patronage. I am pretty clear of being plagued with recommendations, and of being obliged to promote the undeserving, to pass over the good, and to displease the presumptuous, and have no wish to mingle in the filthy fray.'' The following entry in the journal, dated the 14th February, 1817, is very characteristic of the writer, from the way in which hunting, poetry and day-dreams, Thucydides and Trimbukjee, are all jumbled up together : "The hunt was out yesterday at Waronda. the previous night, and arrived at half-past one. I rode there on On the way we repeated, with great delight, the Country Churchyard, the Sir Barry Close. + Herodotus vii. 228. |