lady students was originated by me, in my letter of the 6th April, 1872, while Mr. (now Sir) Alexander Arbuthnot was acting Governor, and my proposals were finally sanctioned on the 26th October, 1874, during Lord Hobart's tenure of office. In the intervening period there were several changes in the Council; the members may have minuted on my proposal, but of this I have no cognizance; for, as you know, minutes can only be shown to outsiders by the members who write them, and all correspondence on this subject was strictly official. Neither Lord Hobart nor Mr. Sim ever once spoke to me about it, and it was only in subsequently carrying out the details of the sanction that Dr. Furnell's knowledge was availed of. When sanctioning my proposals, in October, 1874, Government left the subsidiary arrangements to be carried out by me, in communication with Surgeon-Major Furnell, then Acting Principal of the Medical College; and in my letter of 1883 to the Journal, it was with very much pleasure that I reiterated that "Dr. (now Surgeon - General) Furnell's helping mind was ever ready to suggest plans for the medical education of lady students."

There are six institutions flourishing which I originated, and the medical education of women at the Madras College was the last of them; the others are, the Madras Muhammadan Library; the Madrassa-i-Azam School; the Government Central Museum at Madras; the Zoological Collection which Sir Charles Trevelyan transferred to his People's Park; and the Mysore Museum at Bangalore.

2 Oxford Square, Hyde Park, London, 14th April, 1885.

EDWARD BALFOUR.

MAHOMEDAN EDUCATION AT HYDERABAD.

The Bombay Gazette gave lately an interesting account of the prize distribution at the Madrassa, in a letter from their Correspondent at Hyderabad. It took place in a newly-built schoolroom, and H. H. the Nizam presided on the occasion. The Correspondent's letter begins as follows:-"In matters educational Hyderabad may be said to be in a somewhat backward state. Education has not kept pace with the other reforms that have been effected during the past thirty years in the country. But in saying this I must not be understood to mean that education has not advanced at all. It has made a certain progress, slow though it may have been, and Mr. Syed

Hossain Bilgrami, whose new title is Motamun Jung, and who until lately held the position of Secretary to Government in the Miscellaneous Department, has done excellent work in the cause of education. Of late years the nobility and gentry of Hyderabad have evinced a laudable anxiety to give their sons the benefit of a liberal education. And the present Minister, who himself is an educated and travelled noble, has during his short term of office done much to encourage education among all classes."

At the prize distribution the Report, which was satisfactory in regard to the work of the year, was read by Mr. Picton Hodson, M.A. Cambridge, the head master; and afterwards Nawab Salar Jung spoke as follows:

Ladies and gentlemen,-I am commanded by His Highness to express to the head master, masters, and pupils of the Madrassai-i-Alya the great satisfaction it gave His Highness to read the progress report which Mr. Hodson submitted to him, and which we have now heard him read. No one who has once assisted at the prize distribution of the Madrassa, or witnessed the craving for learning things useful, can accuse the people of Hyderabad of being behind other provinces in the matter of education. Indeed, I am not aware of another town or city in India where Mahomedan children of the better classes flock to English schools in such numbers as here. The proof of it is that out of the materials thus provided this Madrassa, to which I myself once belonged, has contributed more than any other school. I have at last been able to redeem the promise held out by my late father to train the natives of Hyderabad for a share in the administration. I understand from Motamun Jung Bahadoor, who has charge of the special class, that some forty applicants have appeared for the Civil Service, and most of these have offered to enter without any assistance from the Government, provided they are allowed to avail themselves of the training. Some four or five years ago hardly four or five young men would have competed for such appointments on the terms on which they are now offered. I may here mention that these youths are to be trained in practical mathematics, rudiments of engineering, such as drawing, surveying, etc., one of the vernaculars, office work, and such other details as will best fit them for the public service. They are to be under discipline for two years, after which they will be sent into the districts to learn their actual work, and will receive permanent appointments as vacancies occur. It has given me great pleasure to find that Mr. Hodson has found it possible to take charge of

this special class at the suggestion of Motamun Jung Bahadoor. I am sure the work will be well done. Motamun Jung Bahadoor has selected the best youths available for this class, and the selection has my fullest approval. It must, however, be understood that in such matters the Government cannot allow mere brain-work to carry the day; birth and position in life have to be weighed, and allowances have to be made for the services tendered to the State by the candidate's father or family. Once, however, the appointments have been made, diligence and intellect will be given full play, and those will carry the prizes who work best. I will now say a few words regarding the general work of the Madrassa. The progress in English seems to be most satisfactory, and the Madrassa boys, I understand, show a better practical knowledge of English than the pupils of any other school. From the results of my own examination in Persian, and from the report just read by Motamun Jung Bahadoor, I find that there is a considerable improvement of late in Arabic and Persian. Hyderabad youths cannot dispense with their own classics, if they wish to make themselves useful in after-life. In conclusion, I must thank the head master and his assistants, both in the English and Oriental departments, for the manner in which they have done their work; and to you, young men, I wish only to say that Providence helps those who help themselves, and that there is hardly a prize in life that is not within your reach if you begin life with determination to succeed; and the secret of success is hard and conscientious work. If you do not work in the schools well, you can never hope to work well in after-life; the work that makes bread or wins fame. Finally, I have to thank the members of the Board of Governors for the services they have rendered to the Madrassa, and for the assistance that I have always received from them in its administration.

"The Minister's speech was very well delivered, and was received with prolonged applause. In training the youths of Hyderabad for the public service the Nizam's Government have taken a step in the right direction, and in a few years' time we hope to have some members of the nobility and gentry of Hyderabad in the trained Civil Service. The forty candidates now undergoing instruction have been selected with great care, and do credit to the judgment of Mr. Syed Hossein Bilgrami, to whom alone is mainly due the progress that has been made of latter years in matters educational. Mr. Picton Hodson, the head master, is a very able and conscientious teacher, and is very popular with his pupils, who look upon him with affection and respect."

EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE WEST.

V.-THE TRAINING COLLEGE OF THE TEACHERS' TRAINING AND REGISTRATION SOCIETY, SKINNER STREET, BISHOPSgate.

As an introduction to a short account of the useful Training College for Teachers founded a few years ago in Bishopsgate, we will quote from a recent address of J. G. Fitch, Esq., one of H.M. Chief Inspectors of Schools, on the occasion of the opening of an Institution with a somewhat similar aim at Liverpool. After pointing out the great difference between a skilled and an unskilled workman in all departments of human industry, Mr. Fitch expressed himself as follows, in regard to the enormous advantages of training for those who devote themselves to the occupation of teaching: "There is no human employment which seems so like drudgery, and which is so wearisome, as teaching, to those who do not like it and who are conscious that they cannot do it well; and there is no human employment which is so delightful and so animating, which brings with it such rich satisfaction, as teaching, to him or her who likes it and is well qualified for it. We always enjoy doing what we do well. It is the sense of failure, the secret consciousness that we are not equal to our work, which dispirits teachers and makes them complain of overstrain. And this is more common among untrained and half-trained teachers than others. For consider what it is that a Training College does. In the first place, of course, it seeks to give an ample supply of accurate knowledge on the subjects which the candidate has to teach. Nobody can teach a thing who does not first know it. But if this were all, you would not need special Normal Colleges for teaching. There are many other ways by which knowledge may be gained and students prepared to pass Examinations. And I believe there are still many people who think that, provided a person knows his subject well, he will find by the light of nature some way of imparting it. This is the accepted theory in many of our great public schools. The head-master looks out for a young man who has taken a brilliant degree, and is satisfied. But he often finds, and all those who are concerned in elementary schools have long ago found out, that it is possible for a man to have a good deal of knowledge and yet to be utterly deficient in the power of imparting it. The art of

school-keeping is a fine art. It has its rules and its principles. There are right ways and wrong ways of communicating truth, of classifying and disciplining scholars, of putting questions, of

distributing time; and what is more, there are good reasons to be given why some are right and others are wrong. Every subject you teach has its own special difficulties, and requires to be dealt with in a special and characteristic way. He who attempts to teach without knowing anything about these is a mechanic, not a skilled artist. He tries experiments; he makes mistake after mistake; and perhaps half his life passes before he finds out the most effective methods-methods which, with a little guidance and preparation, such as you propose to supply in this Training College, he might easily have learned before he entered on his work."

A few friends of education, strongly convinced of such truths as the above in regard to the art of teaching, and feeling that a scheme was needed which should secure adequate knowledge as a basis for technical training, founded in 1878 a Society which had for its main object the professional training of women who desire to devote themselves to teaching in Middle and Higher Girls' Schools. It was at once resolved to carry out this aim by establishing a College; and a Practising School having been committed to the care of the Council, through the kind co-operation of the Rev. W. Rogers, the College was opened, with two Divisions, in the autumn of the same year. In the first term, only four students presented themselves, but ten more joined in the second term, and in the third term the number had reached twenty. At Easter, 1879, three students in the Upper Division, having completed their course, received certificates after an Examination, and immediately obtained good appointments. Fortunately for the College, in that year the University of Cambridge organised a Theoretical and Practical Examination for Teachers, the course of study prescribed being similar in its main features to the scheme of the College Council. The work of the College has since then been conducted in accordance with the Cambridge course, and thus a more permanent basis has been secured. After the experiment had been carried out for three years, the Council held a special meeting to consider whether they would be justified in continuing it. It was unanimously resolved to do so, and the later progress of the College seems fully to have justified the decision.

From the last published Report-for the year ending June, 1884 we find that the number of students at the College had reached forty. Those of the Lower Division went up for the Cambridge Higher Local Examination. Twenty-four students completed the full course of training, seventeen obtaining the Cambridge Teachers' Certificate, and six the Certificate of the Froebel Society. The latter belonged to the Kindergarten Department, which had been added in the previous year,