reasonable amount of good nature, only the bad teachers in his district will be nervous. Ignorant, eye-serving, and incompetent teachers will always be nervous, because they fear detection. But teachers who know their business, and are on those good terms with their scholars and their subordinates which can only be established by thoroughness and competency, are not nervous.

I will, for the sake of illustrating how the work of inspection should proceed, suppose that the infant school is worked by a principal teacher, with the assistance of three pupil-teachers, of whom one is at the end of the fifth, one of the third, and one of the first year of apprenticeship; and that there are three candidates for pupil-teachership. In inspecting this, as in the case of every other school, the inspector will have two main things to which he must look. First, he must look to the order of the school, under which term are included the discipline, the drill, the musical and other exercises, and the means taken for economising time, and for avoiding confusion in giving lessons, and in changing from one lesson to another. He must also look to the method of the school, under which term are included the system and practice of delivering lessons, the various modes of working the different subjects of instruction in groups or classes, and the means taken to train the pupil-teachers, and to make the scholars learn.

7. How Order is to be Tested.-Having, as I have supposed, exchanged a few words with the principal teacher, and seen that his materials, logbook, registers, &c., are all at hand, so as to be available without again interrupting the school, the inspector will proceed to apply himself to the first

part of inspection, viz., order. If his assistant is with him, he will set him to test the registers, and examine into other matters of technical detail at the table or desk. Meantime, he will place himself in some place, where he can, without unduly attracting the observation of the teachers and their classes, quietly watch what goes on; and thus he will proceed to note the school at work. In less than five minutes, if the teachers are prepared for his mode of procedure, the scholars will have forgotten his presence, and will be at work as cheerily and naturally as possible under their teachers. How long he will find it to be necessary to watch this ordinary life of the school depends on circumstances; but if the timetable shows that a change is at hand within a reasonable period, it is well that he should continue so to watch till the change is completed. There is no such tell-tale of the discipline, order, tone, and common sense of a school as the change. Is it made quickly and quietly? Does everyone seem to know her business, and do it in a simple but self-reliant manner? Are books and slates distributed or collected and put away without noise and confusion ? Do the scholars leave the desks for the floor, or the floor for the desks, and are they grouped in the gallery for collective lessons, or broken up into classes for reading or arithmetic, without any misunderstanding? And through it all, does the principal teacher keep her place and control the school by a look, a gesture, or a quiet word? If so, there cannot be much amiss with the order of that school.

8. How Method is to be Tested.—If, on looking

at the time-table, the inspector sees that a change is not to take place for something like a quarter of an hour, he will leave his post of observation after a few minutes, and proceed to look into the second part of inspection, viz., method; taking care to return to his post in time to watch the change. What, then, is his duty in proceeding to test method in the case of the infant school which I have supposed? If the principal teacher is unknown to him, or a probationer, it will be necessary to see her take a class, and hear her give a gallery lesson. And in an infant school, where gallery lessons form so large and important a part of the work, this last will be almost always desirable.

9. Mistakes in Teaching Infant Classes.-In inspecting the class teaching of an infant school the inspector will bear in mind what are the errors most frequently committed by unskilled teachers, and will look to see whether the principal teacher herself avoids those errors, and trains her pupilteachers to avoid them. Such errors are, for example,

(1). Not Keeping a Class in Good Order.—When infants are called out in drafts on the floor, as, for instance, for the purpose of a reading lesson, a chalk line should be drawn on the floor, and they should be made to stand carefully and steadily to that line. All fidgeting and ugly little habits, all lounging, slovenly ways of standing and sitting at lessons, should be checked with the most scrupulous care in an infant school, while such habits are yet unsettled, and are therefore more easily eradicated than they will be found to be in the upper schools. The utmost attention should be paid to the mode

of holding books, slates, and pencils-to the manner of rising up and sitting down, and to all the postures and movements of the children in class, and when changing from one lesson to another.

(2). Not Making the Children Speak out. This is a common but a most easily cured fault in infant schools. If the inspector, or his assistant, when he comes to examine the infants in reading, calls them up one by one to a table, as is sometimes done, he will, by such a practice, greatly encourage the fault of not making the children speak out. But if he insists on making the children, who are presented to him for individual examination in reading, read in their classes at a reasonable distance from him, and requires them to follow on, and to find and keep their place in a reading book, he will soon check this fault. All individual examination should, as far as possible, be done as part of class examination.

(3). Moving to the Children and Touching them, instead of taking up a well-chosen Position and Controlling them from that Position by the Voice and Eye. This is a most common fault in young teachers. And a good way for the principal teacher to correct it in her pupil-teachers and candidates is to make them, when taking a class, or giving collective lessons, stand behind a small desk. If a small reading desk is placed in front of any young teacher who has the fault, and she is required not to leave it, she will soon break herself of this bad habit. Every school ought to be furnished with one of these desks, capable of being raised and lowered, to suit the various teachers' height, for every teacher in the school. But, failing such a desk, a chair may serve the purpose, if turned

round, so that its back may form a barrier to the young teacher, and give her something to grasp with her hands.

(4). Allowing the Children to Recite, or Read, Simultaneously, or Individually, in a Monotonous, or as it is sometimes called, a Sing-song, Voice.-Exercise in simultaneous reading is of the greatest importance in an infant school, if properly used ; but it is a mode of teaching which is liable to great abuse, and when abused it is worse than useless, and positively injurious. If in the simultaneous part of the reading lesson the children do not imitate the voice and accent of the teacher, but repeat after her in a monotonous tone; or if part of the class is lazy, and catches up the words repeated by the diligent children in a perfunctory manner, such simultaneous teaching is positively harmful. But I defer the suggestions which I wish to make on the teaching of reading till I come to treat of this subject as part of the inspection of the upper schools.

All such faults as these the inspector will of course expect the principal teacher to avoid; and, if she is a probationer, he will not issue her certificate until they are amended. When once the training colleges come to see that teachers do not get their certificates if they have these faults, they will pay more attention to the work of their students in the practising schools. By similar tests, graduated in severity, the inspector will test the class teaching of the pupil-teachers and candidates. A fifth year pupil-teacher should have thoroughly, and a fourth year pupil-teacher very nearly, mastered all these rudimentary points in class teaching. And no certificate of fitness to conduct a small rural school