Method. There is no school subject in which the end so clearly points out the way and means as it does in the case of Geography. The knowledge to be acquired is real as opposed to formal, and from the first step to the last of the process of acquisition, reality is the principal consideration. The first notions of Geography must not be given from a map, which is only the representation of a reality, and, from the necessity of the case, a singularly bad one, but from the solid earth itself. The schoolroom and the parish constitute the microcosm in which all geography is visible, and are for the child the measure of the world. In this, above all subjects, the teacher ought to start conversationally from the point which the child has himself unconsciously attained and from his circumscribed point of view. Indeed, this is one essential fact in the art of educating,--that a child or man can know a thing only in so far as the knowledge is a living growth out of what is already known. A learner may stock his memory to any extent with propositions disjointed, or even logically connected, but they can be to him nothing save a memory exercise, unless they have been successfully grafted into the main stock; for education is an organic, not a mechanical process. The first lesson in Geography accordingly ought to be an analysis of the general and vague notion which the child has of his own parish. Its plains, hills, streams, its arable and pastoral soil, its mines, quarries, manufactures, if it have them, furnish an epitome of the whole round of industrial geography.

It would be melancholy, were it not amusing, to see a teacher labouring, with the help of a text-book and a map, to convey to the child the notion of a lake, a river, a gulf, and an island, when these are all to be seen outside the school-door, if not in good weather, at least in bad just as I have seen a teacher striving drowsily to make a class of fifteen understand the morphology of a plant as explained by some unskilful hand in the reading-lesson, careless and unconscious of the convolvulus and fuchsia bending through the open window into the room.

An analysis of the parish and instruction in the cardinal points, the children making their own observations at noon, leads to the drawing of a rude map of the parish on the black-board, to be afterwards delightedly copied on the slates.

This done, the neighbouring parishes and the county lead by easy steps to the general (quite general) industrial geography of Britain.

The pupil is now to be told that big as Britain is to him, it is a mere corner of the earth. His imagination will expand until he begins to have some notion of the magnitude of the earth in which he lives, and of the multitude of its people.

A globe should then be set before him, the roundness of the planet taught, if not explained, and the ten great divisions of land and water, and their relative positions thoroughly acquired.

A wall-map of the world may then for the first time. be unfolded, and the leading countries in the different quarters of the globe, a few of the principal mountain

ranges and towns, and the staple industry of each country, with the name of the inhabitants, taught.

Then should follow an inquiry into the causes which determine the localization of the different industries, an exposition of the interdependence of nations, and much time should be spent over imaginary travelling with merchant-ships from one port to another. If Geography be not pushed into undue prominence in the school-work, I see in what I have sketched at least two and a half years' work.

Lastly should follow a more minute account of Britain and its industrial relation to other nations, especially to its own Colonies. The practice of occasional map-drawing on the slate, however rude (for it is the attempt not the success that teaches), should accompany these instructions as an auxiliary to the general method. Thus every step of the process towards the limited and practical end of geographical teaching is itself thoroughly practical, and the map does not divert too much the attention of the pupil from that which it badly represents, or subvert the sense of the reality and substance of the things and places about which he learns.2

To sum up, with reference to much of the ground traversed in this Report, I would succinctly say,-The

1 The particular geography of Palestine should be taught in connexion with Bible reading.

2 The best way of testing the practical, and therefore the educative character of geographical teaching, is to take the Times' advertisements of sailings, and make the pupils follow the vessels to their destination, and explain why it is that they go to these places.

purpose of teaching Reading is to give the pupil the power of reading intelligently and intelligibly, and the right method may be signalized as the Educative method: the purpose of school Arithmetic is Economic, and the method the Natural or Concrete method: the purpose of Geographical teaching is Industrial Geography, and the method is the Real method.

ON DRAWING.

Drawing, in the elementary school, means, or ought to mean, the art of representing, from the round, common objects in outline. If the subject be kept in proper subordination, more than this is unattainable, save by the few pupils who, having a natural talent for form, prosecute the art for their own pleasure as well as possible profit. All such exhibitions of special inborn talent it is the teacher's duty to encourage, taking care, however, that he does not allow his satisfaction in the few to moderate his anxiety for the many. There is no artistic training in school-drawing, as above defined. That is possible only through the imitation of beautiful forms, which, moreover, are imitated because they are beautiful. To this a few may, in peculiarly favourable circumstances, almost reach; but all attempts to introduce drawing into elementary schools, on the æsthetic footing, have been and will be futile, except under peculiarly favourable circumstances. The limitations under which the teacher

works, and the exigencies of the time-table, settle this point beyond all question. Art, as such, can find a place only by superseding some more important subject; and even then, it will generally cease to be art-training before it finds its way out of the fingers of the pupils. To draw on the slate mathematical figures, cups and saucers, then maps, and chairs and tables, and finally, and above all, leaves and flowers,-this sums up all that can be accomplished in the elementary school. This amount of instruction in drawing may always be attempted by a teacher possessing such rare powers of organization as to extract out of the lighter subjects of instruction relaxation for the pupil, thereby ultimately saving time, while bringing into play a new disciplinary agent. And a disciplinary agent of no mean significance Drawing is. For all our observation from infancy upwards is a continual process of outlining an object or part of an object from other objects or parts. The greater or less success with which this is done, indicates the greater or less accuracy of the observing powers, though not necessarily their activity. To bring these powers out into a more conscious exercise by encouraging attempts to reproduce external forms as outlined by the eye, is manifestly an exercise tending powerfully to cultivate clearness, precision, and truth of intellect.

The nature of the discipline which drawing affords fixes the time of its introduction into the school-work. It belongs to the infant and initiatory classes mainly, and only partially to the more advanced classes. Self-evident as this is, masters continually invert