TEACHING.*
THIS book is described in the sub-title as "A Manual of Method, General and Special." The " General" part is furnished by the editor, who applies to his subject the scientific treatment which, in this country at least, is an addition to the educational system as new as it is valuable. Scarcely a generation ago Dr. Adamson's title of "Professor of Education " would have seemed an absurdity. Teaching was the one art which it was not necessary to learn. Part II. eonsists of eight " sections," the work of as many authors, of whom the editor is one. We will pass over Dr. Headlam's paper on "Religious Instruction" with two comments. The first is that his treatment of the "critical" difficulty is eminently reasonable; the second that he is scarcely fair to the Education Department when he says that the "red tape of officialdom" has been the chief difficulty. That the difficulty was practically non-existent in the actual world of education we are convinced. It has had much to do with purely political issues ; and the conflict of religious extremists, Sacerdotalists on the one side and Liberationists on the other, has greatly aggravated it. In the region of "Mathematics" we notice the dethronement of Euclid. Dr. T. Percy Nunn, writing on " Natural Science," makes sug- gestions which might help to reduce the very great practical difficulty of the subject,—the apparatus demanded by the science teacher as compared with the simple requirements of his literary colleagues. Possibly most readers will turn by preference to what Dr. Rouse and Mr. Jones have to say about "Latin and Greek" and Mr. W. Mansfield Poole about " Modern Languages." The authors are determined advocates of oral teaching. Boys and girls are to learn how to talk Latin. It is an attractive scheme, and we are inclined to be hopeful, though it is somewhat discouraging to be told, as we have been elsewhere, by one who speaks from experience, that a Loy may express himself viva voce with absolute correctness and make the most deplorable mistakes when he puts his thoughts upon paper. There is much else in the paper that is of great practical value. Mr. Poole takes a similar line. We • The Practice of Instruction. Edited by John William Adamson, B.A. London : National Society. [!s. 6d.] `doubt whether "quite recently" classical masters' have been, requested by Head-Masters to teach French and German to their forms, and have been told when they pleaded ignorance that "they could always keep one lesson ahead of their pupils." One difficulty has been the personnel of the teachers. If we could have a permanent and sufficient supply of English gentlemen'of mixed parentage who could talk both languages with equal ease and correctness of accent, there would be' no reason to complain. As to accent, Mr. Poole recommends,. we see, the study of phonetics. We must be content walk enumerating the three sections not noticed,—" The 'Mother- Tongue," by the editor; " Geography," by Mr. A. J. Herbert- son ; and " History," by Mr. A. Howard.
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