Educational Intelligenre. [We believe that the following Minute has been widely circulated. Its importance, however, is too great to refuse it a place in our pages.] COMMITTEE OF PRIVY COUNCIL ON EDUCATION. ART DIVISION.-ELEMENTARY DRAWING. At Cromwell Gardens, South Kensington, 5th March, 1857. The Lords of the Committee of Privy Council on Education having resolved by their Minute of 24th February, 1857 (a copy of which is appended), that all teachers who hold Certificates of Merit, and are under inspection, and who pass satisfactory examinations in the following branches of drawing, viz. : a, Freehand, b. Linear geometry. £1 c. Linear perspective. d. Modern and object drawing. 1 shall receive annually the sums attached to such subjects, on condition of teaching drawing satisfactorily in their schools. Resolved further, That the same advantages shall be extended to other schoolmasters and mistresses of schools for the poor, not under inspection of the Committee of Council on Education; and that the Department of Science and Art shall make similar payments to all those schoolmasters and mistresses who take certificates of the second grade, and who send their students for examination in drawing to the annual examinations held in the several schools of art throughout the country. At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 24th day of February, 1857. By the Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on Education. Read, A minute by their Lordships, dated 26th January, 1854, for the encouragement of elementary drawing. Resolved,-To cancel that Minute; and, in lieu thereof, to provide as follows: APPENDIX A (Pupil-teachers). 1. Pupil-teachers will be admitted to study and practice at any drawingschool in connection with the Department of Science and Art, at a cost to them. selves of only half the ordinary fees payable for instruction. 2. Pupil-teachers, if attending such drawing-schools, will not be required to perform an exercise in drawing at the annual examinations of pupil-teachers before Her Majesty's Inspector, but will have another opportunity of being examined in connection with the Drawing-school itself, so as to obtain the prizes hereinafter mentioned. 3. Pupil-teachers, if not attending such drawing-schools, will have an oppor tunity of performing an exercise in drawing at the annual examination of pupil teachers before Her Majesty's Inspector; such exercise to be forwarded to the Committee of Council on Education as part of the Inspectors's report, and after revision in the Department of Science and Art, to be of the same effect in obtaining prizes as if it had been performed in connection with the drawingschool pursuant to the last preceding paragraph. 4. Pupil-teachers, if not attending such drawing-schools, but permitted (by arrangements between the managers of the schools in which they are apprenticed and the master of any such drawing-school (to be annually examined there instead of at the annual examination of pupil-teachers before Her Majesty's Inspector), may obtain the same prizes as are offered in the two preceding paragraphs. APPENDIX B (Students in training, Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses.) 5. A memorandum of full competency to give instruction in drawing will be recorded in favour of those candidates only who have successfully performed each of the five exercises enumerated in the Schedule No. 1. 6. Drawing exercises will continue to form part of the general examinations in December of candidates for certificates of merit. 7. Teachers already holding certificates of merit may either attend the December examinations at the training schools before her Majesty's Inspectors, in order to perform the exercises in drawing; or they may make any arrangement which may be in their power for attendance at a drawing school in connection with the Department of Science and Art, in order to be examined there. Their exercises, whether worked at the December examinations or in connection with the drawing-school, pass equally for revision to the Department of Science and Art; and it is matter of indifference whether the notice of success reaches the Committee of Council as part of the report upon the December examinations, or at any other time. The payments mentioned in the following paragraphs are confined to certificated or registered teachers, and are independent of the prizes mentioned in Schedule No. 2. 8. Teachers conditionally entitled, as the holders of certificates of merit, to augmentation of salary, will receive, in addition to such augmentation, the folowing annual payments, according to the exercises (see Schedule No. 1) which hey may be registered as having passed in drawing. incident to the Augmen These several annual payments will be made only as tation Grant, and will be subject, therefore, to all its conditions. Registered teachers in charge of apprentices will receive the same payments as incident (when allowed) to their gratuity for the special instruction of such apprentices. If it should be reported to the Committee of Council on Education, that undue preference were given to drawing over other necessary branches of elementary instruction, or that drawing were not made conducive to good writing, or that drawing itself were not properly taught, throughout the school, these payments would be liable to be withdrawn. 9. If a certificated or registered teacher with apprentices hold a memorandum of full competency in drawing, such teacher may (in addition to the sums mentioned in the last paragraph, and also in addition to the ordinary augmentation and gratuity) receive the sum of £1 for every apprentice up to a maximum of £3 who has been entirely instructed by such teacher in drawing, and who satis 1 fies the Department of Science and art with his, or her, annual progress in exercises graduated according to the scale in Schedule No. 1. As to the time and place of examination in such cases, see paragraphs 2 and 3, supra. 10. No student in training, and no acting teacher, in those cases where they are respectively required to pass the general examination before her Majesty's Inspector as for the end of the first year, may obtain a memorandum of competency in more than two of the branches enumerated in Schedule No. 1. at the same time. Candidates (whether students or teachers) of the second year are not subject to the last preceding limitation. 11. Candidates (whether apprentices, students, or teachers) will not be required to pass again any of the exercises for which they may already have obtained prizes; but each exercise as it is passed successfully, at whatever stage of their scholastic career, will be duly registered as so much gained towards the memorandum of full competency mentioned in paragraph 8, and in the mean time will bear the corresponding value as soon as the candidate has become a certificated or registered teacher. APPENDIX C (EXERCISES). Schedule No. 1. First Year.-Drawing freehand from flat examples. Second Year.-Linear geometry by means of instruments. Third Year.-Linear perspective, by means of instruments, applied to geometrical figures, plane and solid. Fourth Year.-Freehand drawing and shading, from solid models. Fifth Year.-Freehand drawing and shading of natural forms and objects, from memory. Schedule No. 2. The prizes will consist of books, materials, and instruments calculated to be of use to the successful candidates in their further progress. A certain liberty of choice will be accorded to the candidates themselves, who, with the exercises, will be furnished with a list of the prizes, from among which they may mark upon their own exercise the particular prize they would prefer to obtain for it, if successful. NOTICES OF BOOKS. The Philosophy of Education. Second Edition. By T. Tate. Longman and Co. We spoke favourably of the former edition of this work. The present issue is more valuable, a part of it being re-written, and the remainder revised and considerably enlarged. To those of our readers who desire to know what a thoughtful and experienced teacher has to say on the " Principles and Practice of Teaching," we recommend Mr. Tate's book. A Graduated Series of Exercises in Elementary Algebra. By Rev. G. F. Wright, W.A. Bell and Dalby. This is really a book for "Home Lessons," consisting of questions on principles and book-work, to be done out of school In Scotland, June. The exercises are arranged in sections, in the order of the rules, and followed by an Appendix of Miscellaneous Examples, taken from Cambridge and other examination papers. One distinguisaing feature of this work is indicated in the following sentence:-"It is most importaut that a habit of self-reliance should be cultivated as much as possible: and therefore answers have not been given, even when purely numerical, or when from the advancement made, a boy might otherwise be safely trusted with solutions." For elementary purposes under the circumstances named, we think these "Exercises" likely to prove generally acceptable. Journal of Education, No. 1, Journal de l'Instruction Publique, No. 1. Education Office, Montreal, Lower Canada. Both these educational serials are edited by gentlemen connected with the Department of Education in Canada, and from the number of official circulars and statistics contained in them, may be supposed to be partly, if not altogether, official in character. These journals are published monthly, that in French about the middle, that in English about the end of the month. With the exception of the official documents, they will differ the one from the other. We commend them to the notice of the Schoolmasters' Associations. In the French Journal they will find some interesting particulars respecting Canadian Normal Training, and in the English Journal, how an English dependency can be in advance of the mother country. We refer now to the question of pensions for school-masters. Whilst in England; the government has merely talked of retiring pensions, and schoolmasters have squabbled about the mode of it, the Canadians have done it. From the official letter to teachers, on this subject, we make the following extract:-" In institutions of this kind, the pleasure of doing good, is united with the hope of alleviating our own distress at some future period. While the heart expands with the thought of the succour which we extend to veterans in our own profession, the mind is fortified by the assurance we feel of a provision for our future and when we later take our share out of the common fund, we receive it, not with the sense of humiliation always accompanying almsgiving, but with the noble pride felt by those who feel conscious of having in happier days, performed a duty at the expense of a few transient pleasures. It is thus that charity when guided by the hand of prudence, smooths down the inequalities of fortune; and if it intrenches a little, upon our gains during our years of manly vigor and activity, it is only to restore it by contributing more largely for our comfort and support when overtaken by a sorrowful and decrepit old age." The plan adopted, requires each teacher to pay into the fund, a yearly premium of one pound, and to these payments is added an annual grant from the legislature. The maximum amount of any pension will be one pound ten shillings per annum, for every year during which the applicant shall have been a teacher. : Register of Progress. By T. Wilkinson. Martin, Lisson Grove, London. The object of this "Register" is to provide a simple apparatus for recording the precise standing of a child in the several branches of instruction proper to an elementary school. This record is to be made quarterly, and provision is made for four such entries to appear in one page, so that a glance will show the progress made, in any or all of the subjects, in a given time. This arrangement moreover is such, that a slip of paper may be tacked on to each quarterly tabular report, to show the pupil's writing, spelling and arithmetic. There can be no doubt about the excellence of this mode of writing up a pupil's standing once a quarter, nor of the facilities which Mr. Wilkinson's Register affords for doing it well.. 2112 |