Of the different duties which devolve upon her Majesty's In-
spectors of Schools, there is none for which they have so little previous training as the examination of needlework. A young man who has left Oxford or Cambridge but a few years, and has mastered the higher mathematics, or the history of philo- sophy iu all ages, is called upon, on his appointment to an inspectorship, to criticise the stitching of a button-hole or the hemming of a pinafore. His feelings, when the needle-work of the girls in elementary schools is first submitted to him, must as a rule be those of blank helplessness ; and this deficiency in the training of the inspectors has been brought under public notice in a letter in the Times of Wednesday last, bear- ing the somewhat alarming heading, " Serious Ignorance of School inspectors." Of course it is highly desirable, as the Government grants depend upon the inspectors' reports,, that needlework, perhaps the most valuable portion of the work done by girls in elementary schools, should be intelligently criticised and reported on with discrimination. To effect this satisfactorily, a certain number of lady-inspectors would, have to be appointed, to devote all their attention to this special branch of work, unless the inspectors on their appointment be put through a practical examination in " hemming," "back. stitching," " seaming," " whipping," and " herring-boning,'* which is one of the suggestions .made by the correspondent of the Times. Fancy a future Matthew Arnold being plucked, in herring-boning !
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