Yesterday week was opened a Teachers' Conference, in the- theatre
of the Merchant Taylors' School, Charterhouse Square, and the conference was addressed on the first day by Dr. Lyme Playfair, who exhorted the teachers to organise their class,—the foundation of all professions—into a regular profession, and to make it as soon as possible all but impossible for a teacher to stand in high esteem and be much sought after who had not got from some college of teachers a diploma indicating his capacity to teach. Dr. Playfair would make a University degree accom- panied by honours in special subjects a sufficient basis for smile, diploma, so far as regards those special subjects, though even then not without evidence of the candidate's having been trained in right "pedagogic methods." And doubtless, when the first-rate teachers of secondary schools are more numerous, such diplomas certifying a man's capacity to teach will be given, and will be eagerly coveted. But for the present, we hope, the degrees of the Universities will be regarded as more than an equivalent for any such diploma. The highest class of secondary schoolmasters are hardly as yet numerous enough to attempt to set up a gad which would not do more harm than good.
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