TO VISITORS OF SCHOOLS. A CORRESPONDENT, who, as a member of a British School committee, has had great experience in visiting schools, sends the following hints: The visitation of schools is a duty of managers, because,-1. It is the only means of obtaining an adequate knowledge of the state of the school; 2. It is the means either of encouraging the teachers in their work, or of promptly remedying evils hitherto undetected, which may be of serious nature. It is certain that by systematic visitation schools would be improved, and the general interest felt in them much increased. The object of visitation is not to teach (although, owing to local circumstances, very important aid may be rendered in teaching by members of committees), but to observe. It is obvious that there should be no interference with the plans of the teachers,- —nor should any thing be done which would in any way tend to lessen their authority in the school. Visitation should be intelligent and courteous. It should have a definite object, and be conducted in a friendly spirit. The design of this paper is to name a few points to which attention should be directed. Comprehensive views of school conduct and of the duties of committees are given in the "Hand-Book of British Schools," and in the "Manual for Teachers," by Henry Dunn. The following questions are intended to aid visitors. STATE OF PREMISES.-Are the premises clean? Are they in good repair? ATTENDANCE.-What are the numbers on the books? What were the numbers at the date of your visit? Are the children generally early? What are the causes of absence? DISCIPLINE AND ORDER.-Are the children clean and generally well-behaved? Is the discipline firm yet mild? Have the monitors command over their classes? Are the writing exercises conducted quietly? Have the children at all times some. thing to do and a motive for doing it? INSTRUCTION.-Reading.-Do the children read with fluency and with expression? Do the children know the meaning of what they read, and of the long words? Writing. Are there marks of improvement or otherwise? Are the copy-books neatly kept? Arithmetic.-Do the children know well the elementary branches? Do the lower classes perfectly understand numeration? Geometry. Is geometry taught, and to what extent ? Grammar.-Do the children understand the distinction between the parts of speech? Can the upper classes parse a difficult sentence well? Is the grammatical teaching made to tell upon the correction of the habitual speech of the children? Dictation. Are dictation exercises well executed? Is dictation practised throughout the school? Geography.-Are the great divisions of the world known by the lower classes? Are the great physical features well understood? Does the knowledge of geography consist of a knowledge of physical features, of political divisions, and of historical events? Home Lessons.-What is the character of the home exercises? How are they generally performed? By what proportion of the children are they done? History. Are the principal events well understood in the order of time? Are the principal features of English history known? Scripture.-Are the events of Scripture history known in the order of time? Are the lessons to be taught by Scripture events and characters understood by the children? Drawing.-Is drawing in its elementary forms taught throughout the whole school? Is drawing from design taught in the school? Music.-Is singing taught throughout the school? Is singing from notes understood? Needle Work (for Girls).—Is plain sewing practised throughout the school? Is knitting generally practised? Is crochet or other ornamental needle-work practised? Of course it is impossible that in any school the same visitor should institute minute inquiries on all these points. But all duties, which are worth discharging at all, require method and system, and cannot be satisfactorily met by forming vague impressions, or by that merely superficial glance which despises details, or at least overlooks them. These specific inquiries are therefore suggested in order that a visitor, who may feel interested in any particular department of the school work, may have a plan of investigation, and may know in what respects he can profitably institute inquiries, and offer sympathy and help to the teachers. ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF PARAPHRASE. WHAT is the use of paraphrasing? Much, if properly done. But, unfortunately, its abuse is more common than its use. The chief mode under which human thought is expressed is by words spoken or written, articulate sounds or their figured symbols. Now the expression of the thought may lie in the word itself, or in the relation existing between two or more words. Commonly the thought is compound, and its proper expression depends partly upon the words used, and partly upon their collocation. Two things, then, are required for the proper expression of thought,—a right choice of words, and an apt construction of sentences. This being premised, let us see what is the use of paraphrasing. It serves as a test, and it is valuable as a training. As a test, it shows whether the paraphraser apprehends and comprehends the thoughts of his author. As a training, it teaches him how fitly, clearly, and fully to express his own thoughts. The object is the reproduction of the thought of the author under, if that be possible, a different form. For the most part, the person to whom such exercises are given does not understand any tongue but his own, if, indeed, he be fortunate enough to understand that. Otherwise the practice of "translation" would afford him, in something like perfection, that exercise for which paraphrasing is but the imperfect substitute. He would have exactly to conceive the thought expressed by Milton, and then re-clothe it in a German form. He would master one of M. de Montalembert's paragraphs, and then render it into his own English phrase. His would be, as to language, the task which the artist undertakes as to æsthetics. The conception of thought or feeling which the artist gathers from the objects of his perception he meditates upon in his own mind as a subject; and then, on his canvas, in his building, or in his musical composition, as an object clearly expresses. Now it is very hard (perhaps for the most part impossible) exactly to transfer into the forms of one language the thought which has been originally expressed in another. So hard is it, that a good translation of a good writer is most rare. I say, "of a good writer." A bad writer will express his no particular thought in his no particular language, and will lose nothing by translation. Nay, perhaps, like some other people, he may be a gainer by the process. But it is plain that great though the difficulty of translation be, that of paraphrasing must be much greater; for it is the attempt to express, under a certain form of English words, the thought which its author expressed under another form. Now this can only be done by filling out, to use a metaphor, the parts of the picture which he left in mere outline. The paraphraser who understands his art will grasp the thought conveyed by the sketch, and from it he will produce the finished picture. The unskilful paraphraser, or rather, the man who fancies himself a paraphraser, will go to work differently; alteration, not filling out-difference, rather than completion, will be his aim. He sees in the sketch a few marks which indicate an oak. He does not in his picture give you a finished oak, but instead of it draws an outline which is something like an ash. Suppose a paraphraser has a piece of Milton before him. He knows that there are no-or, at all events, very few-such things in the English language as synonymes, properly so called, in the strictest sense of the word; and that Milton intended by each word he used that very precise meaning which no other word would give. But as he realizes the thoughts which the poet meant to express, he sees that certain of them, or more commonly the connecting links between some of them, were only partially expressed in words by Milton. His duty, then, is to supply in speech those links which existed in the thought of the poet. From the suggestive sketch he paints the finished picture. He developes what he finds suggested, and the implied thought of the author becomes the expressed thought of the paraphraser. But is the process which I have described that which is commonly understood by the word paraphrasing? Is not paraphrase more commonly taken to be very much the substitution of words supposed to be synonymes, the addition or subtraction of epithets, and the twisting about of sentences? All this is bad, thoroughly bad, as such a process tends to the confusion of language, and that is at once the sure token and the certain fosterer of confusion of thought. A good thinker, who is also a good writer, and a master of his language, uses such words in such collocation as may exactly express his thought: alter the words, or by disturbing their collocation alter the relation between them, and the thought intended is no longer expressed. I shall illustrate these remarks by comments on a paraphrase with which an intelligent schoolmaster has been good enough to furnish me, and which, with still greater kindness, he allows me now to find fault with. The passage paraphrased has often been set in examination papers. EVENING IN PARADISE. 1 Now came still evening on, and twilight gray 2 Had, in her sober livery, all things clad. 4 They to their grassy couch, these to their nests 5 Were slunk: all, but the wakeful nightingale ; 7 Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament 9 The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon, 18 That mock our scant manuring, and require 19 More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth: MILTON, Par. Lost, Book IV. PARAPHRASE. "At that time the quietness attendant upon the close of the day came over all things around, and the gray hues which appear after the sun has set seemed to clothe them all alike in a quiet robe. No souad was to be heard; because the animals had crept away to their beds of grass, and the birds had flown to their nests; with the exception of the nightingale, which sung her lovely song all through the night, without seeming to interfere with the universal silence. The skies were now becoming bright with the twinkling stars, which appeared one by one as the darkness increased. The evening star, because of its superior brightness, appeared to lead the others out, and was the brightest object in view till the moon arose; which, rising from behind a cloud, presently showed her unrivalled beauty, and cast a silvery light upon all the objects which before were dark. We must rise to-morrow before the sun, and begin that which is at once our duty and our delight; for there, in the place of our noon-day walks, are beds of flowers and verdant paths requiring our tending to remove the boughs which have grown in the way. The small amount of manure and the little labour we can bestow upon this place, only show how much more there is to be done. And for our comfort in walking we ought to remove the flowers which are lying scattered over our path, making it rough and looking badly: but we will first take the hint from the darkness, and obey the voice of nature by going to rest." 4 COMMENT. Line 1. "At that time," does not represent "now." It would better represent then. But the leading thought in the word now or then is that of succession or sequence, which is entirely lost in the paraphrase. The paraphraser has not grasped the personification intended by Milton. He fails to express the thought of the stately advance of the queen, ushered by twilight and accompanied by silence. The thought of the words "sober livery," is not expressed in the paraphrase. 4. "Grassy couch" and "bed of grass' are not synonymous. The poet's thought is of the beasts reposing on the grass as their couch; the paraphraser imagines them in a sort of lair or nest made up of grass. 5. The word "slunk" suggests the unexpressed thought of the poet, which, by the paraphrase, should have been put into words. "All but" is best translated as "except." "Wakeful" is not rendered at all. 6. "Lovely song" is not the equivalent for " amorous descant." Love-lorn would be better than lovely. But in it there is rather the thought of melancholy than of ardour. "Amorous" is an ardent word. 7. "Silence was pleased" is not even remotely rendered in the paraphrase. 8. "Twinkling as it were with life," would give something of the poet's thought, as conveyed by the word "living." "Sapphires" might properly have been paraphrased by topaz. The Englishman's sapphire is a blue stone. Milton was thinking of the Greek designation under which were comprehended two precious stones, one blue and one yellow. "Led out," exemplifies the proper use of paraphrase. The addition of the word "out expresses the thought which the poet implies. 9. The thought of the poet, that of the dynasties (so to speak) of night succeeding each other, is not at all expressed in the paraphrase. 11. The connexion between " apparent queen '' and “clouded majesty "should, in a good paraphrase, be fully expressed. READING.-Much stress is now generally laid upon reading as a matter of fundamental importance, but more upon its fluency than its expression. It is not uncommon to find at least three-fourths of the children, in our northern primary schools, reading books of general information with very decided fluency; but it is by no means so common to find even the highest class reading with much delicacy of expression. I do not mean that we have now ever to complain of that monotonous unwearied style of reading, without any attempt at inflexion of voice, which used to be almost a general feature of elementary schools some years ago. A certain rough, and not ineffective power of emphasis has been everywhere secured; but with a few exceptions, and those generally in girls' schools, the power of expressing sentiment, or feeling, or poetic imagery, with any degree of refinement, is certainly wanting. As a means of true education, i.e., of infusing noble sentiments into the mind, and of cultivating a taste for the good, the beautiful, and the true, expressive reading, I think, might fairly demand somewhat more attention than in ordinary cases it is now receiving.-Mr. Morell's Report. EDUCATION AND CRIME. SOME returns which have been lately published, embodying the judicial and criminal statistics of the year 1858, are remarkably interesting, and afford material for much encouragement and hope to all who are interested in the moral advancement of our people. We direct the attention of our readers to some of the facts disclosed in these returns, in the hope that their real significance may be recognised, and their bearing upon our educational status and prospects duly appreciated. It appears that in the year 1857 the number of persons committed for trial in England and Wales was 20,269, of whom 15,970 were males and 4,299 females. In the year 1858 the total number of committals was 17,855, of whom 13,865 were males and 3,990 were females. On comparing the two years, we find an actual decrease of 2,105, or 13.1 per cent., in the number of male criminals; a decrease of 309, or 7.2 per cent. in the number of women; and an aggregate decrease in the number of committals of 2,414, or 11.9 per cent. There is also a very considerable decline in the proportion of young criminals, the number under fifteen years of age being relatively less than in any one of the few preceding years. When it is considered that the population of England increases at the rate of 769 per day, or 280,000 per annum, and that at our present rate of progress the population will double itself in less than seventy years, it will be seen that the figures we have given fail to represent the real extent of the improvement. A large positive increase in the population has coincided with a great diminution in the number of criminals, instead of the increase which might reasonably have been expected to show itself, had the moral condition of the people remained unimproved. Moreover, this fact is especially illustrated in the large towns. The returns show that the decrease in the number of criminals has been relatively far more striking in the great centres of manufacturing industry than in England and Wales taken as a whole. In Lancashire, for example, the actual decrease in the number of committals is only 7 per cent.; but when it is considered that the population of that county has increased in a far higher ratio than that of the country generally, the position occupied in the returns by the great manufacturing districts is, on the whole, above the average. So far, therefore, the recently published statistics present very hopeful results. It is right to notice, however, that, side by side with the diminution in number of those grave offences which justify a magistrate in committing a prisoner for trial, there has been a slight increase in the number of the minor offences. The following table will show the number of summary convictions by magistrates in the two years, 1857 and 1858. It is possible that the difference here indicated may be partly attributed to the more systematic vigilance of the police, and partly to the greater completeness of the police returns; but the fact nevertheless deserves to be seriously noticed, that the total number of persons apprehended for indictable offences, and summarily convicted by the magistrates, has increased in the year. We are not justified in drawing any hasty inferences as to the cause of that change for the better which is apparent on the face of these returns. The increasing wealth of the nation, the remarkable abundance of employment, and the general prosperity of our mercantile enterprises during the year, must be fairly taken as a partial expla |