This reminds me of my opponent's jeers as to the "finer details of grammar." I may or may not have as complete a mastery of English composition as he, but I recognize that the question "How many schools are there in Shanghai which can boast of a wall thermometer or barometer?" is entirely different from the statement (which I did aot make) "not @ single school in Shanghai has wall thermometer or barometer." I am asked if I have made " tour of inspection round all the schools. Has he not himself been limited to six hours of five school days a week to his own school for years? My readers must know that there is probably not a man in Shanghai except the Chief of Police who would have the right to do such a thing—possibly the Health Officer buf am sorry for either if he made the attempt. At the same time, Imay say that if I condescended to personalities, I should satisfy my readers, and possibly rather disconcert my interrogator.
His remark that schoolmasters are not nurses is very just—exactly because they are not, all State Schools have instituted both school doctors, school nurses, and school dentists. "Children are not invalids." An instance was given by the medical reader of the paper on School Hygiene at the recent Conference of teachers, which showed that 99 per cent. of the children ata certain Chinese Mission boarding-schoo] were invalids and from causes preventible by the school authori (The details can relly be given in a nonprofes I think I should be if I said that 50 per cent. of children in Shanghai schools during May, June and September were invalids. Yet they, and the hers subjected to the same trying climatic condition (many if not most of them women), are undertaking an examination held in one of the healthiest climates in the world. May I in my turn ask how many children drink from the same his school, and whether each child has a cheap destructible paper towel or merrily infects his eyes and hands and mouth from a common towel?
Some Recommendations, I repeat, clusions, didactically, my con-children, especially girls, who in view of thei probable future functions should be pecially exempt from unnecessary a Wocal examination "For all Chinn bbe feasible. Such a local examination is held in Tndia, and needless to say in each State or Province in America and Aue tralia, regulation might be enforced Ue child von Till this could be at, some
would not be presented for the Oxford and Cambridge examination, until they had examination, held meanwhile by their own school authorities, in the go more gently, it might be intimated to employers of labour here that a certificate was issued thy the school in practical subjects and that viva vote was at least ar important mere paper work. I would suggest 2 The coinage in use in the country and conversion of the same into English French, German and American currency.
3. Practical weighing and measuring.
4. Tu any language taken, conver. sation, dictation, recitation, and reading aloud. this part of the examination to be held in the presence of a native of the country whose language la in qu 5. One science at least with practical work in the same, involving field work as well as classroom or laboratory work.
6 One handicraft at least.
7. A colloquial knowledge of the Chinese dialect in use in their locality.
No doubt school teachers would find it a great nuisance to change their routine to a course for which they could not prepare candidates "in their sleep," and for which such cram books (to be found in Shanghai) as "Oxford and Cambridge Hi: tory" and "Preliminary Arithmetic" and "Preliminary French" would be no use.
Qui 8'Excnse, 8'Accuse, No pillory of the Municipal schools (or any other) or their teachers, was intended by me—at the same time "qui s'excuse s'accuse."" School masters are so used to di r themselves to an audience beneath them in mental power, that they are proverbially impatient of criticism and seem to claim much more personal infallibility than the most papal of Popes has ever done. After all, he that pays the piper calls the tune. Municipal school teachers like all Municipal officers are in the end responsible to the ratepayers, And all the school teachers are responsible to the parent. If the child's health suffers from school methods, or his education fits him badly for after life, the grief, the loss and the expense fall on the child and his parent. Even were I not a member of a University, of a learned profession which has the aim of fostering montem senam in corpora sano, I should have the right of a parent, a ratepayer and a Briton to criticize even so august a personage as a Municipal school teacher, more especially when he practises rather the Reply Churlish than the Retort Courteous,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.