have nevertheless obtained valuable practical experience as pupil teachers or assistants under trained and capable teachers; but the fact remains that more than half of the certificated teachers in elementary schools have picked up their training as best they could, and have prepared themselves for their examinations in the scanty leisure which their work in the school allowed.

His Majesty's Inspector of Training Colleges attributes this result to several causes. One is a continuance of the belief that teaching is a natural gift, that the power to teach is not to be learned by any scientific process of education. Another is the paucity of training colleges and the denominational character of the greater number. A third is the expense which attends a course of training, expense which to the students is not represented merely by outlay, but by postponement of the time for the profitable exercise of their profession.

The difference in the effect of study at a training college and preparation for examination while engaged in the hard and practical work of teaching, is made very clear in the same report. The acting teacher is at a serious disadvantage as compared with the student at a residential college, when brought to the test of examination.

'Their success in our examinations is far from brilliant. One comparison will bring out clearly how they stand in relation to students from training colleges. Last year 3,510 acting teachers took papers for the second part of the second year examination. Of these 439 failed outright, 262 passed in the first division, 777 in the second, and 2,032 in the third. In the same year (1899) out of 1,868 students in residential colleges who took the same part of a similar examination none failed, 1,195 passed in the first division, 572 in the second, and 91 in the third. As the third division does not qualify to take charge of pupil teachers, the difference means a great deal.*

Such being the value of training, and such the advantage which the trained student has over the untrained, it is unsatisfactory to learn that, comparing the number of children in the schools and of certificated teachers who have gone through a course of training, there is but one trained teacher for every 128 children. The statistics of the training colleges, day and residential, show that their yearly supply will not overtake the demand for many years

* Report of the Board of Education 1900-1901, vol. ii. p. 186. Pt. I. Division ii. Mr. Rankine's Report on Training Colleges.

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to come, even if that demand is put as low as one trained teacher for every 100 children, and if we assume no increase in the number attending school.

But the dearth of trained teachers does not arise only from the causes which deter the student from undertaking a course of instruction at a training college. The residential colleges themselves are deficient in number, in means, and in freedom of character. In other words, they are too few, they are too poor, and, with two exceptions, they are denominational.

At present the Government assists residential training colleges to the extent of three-fourths of the certified expenditure, the remaining fourth comes from contributions of individuals and societies, and from fees paid by the students. Building and supervision must come from private sources. Then, too, the denominational character of so many of these colleges is a serious drawback to their general usefulness. The two difficulties are summed up in a paragraph of the report.

'The number of our training colleges is insufficient. Many teachers would gladly avail themselves of the advantages of college life, but there is no room for them. Nonconformists especially are at a disadvantage, as there are many cases of King's scholars high in the first class who cannot get a place.'

A King's scholarship, it may be mentioned, is nothing more than a right to a place in a training college, if a place can be obtained.

The training of teachers for secondary schools is not a matter of local interest, nor one to be dealt with by a local authority. But the training of the elementary teacher in elementary schools seems to grow naturally out of the elementary education of the area, and to be a matter for which some provision should be made. How far such provision is possible out of the moderate resources which will be at the disposal of the local authority may well be regarded as uncertain. But if these resources should be sufficient, the Bill, in clause 18, extends the power of supplying education other than elementary so as to enable the local authority to make provision for the purpose outside their area 'where they consider it expedient to do so in the interests of their area. This is important for the purpose of training colleges. It may often be convenient to assist the teachers of one locality to enter a training college at another; or to combine the resources of two educational areas. And it is

always desirable that the course of training should give as large a variety of experience as possible. A narrow range of vision and monotony of ideas are common failings of the teachers, and they react upon the pupils.

The Bill will not affect the higher secondary schools, nor can it be expected to do anything for the higher secondary education. The local authority has no jurisdiction over any schools other than elementary, except where it creates schools of its own. It may obtain an influence by subsidies of money, or a definite voice in the management by requiring representation on the governing body in return for an annual grant; it may, by judicious provision of scholarships, enable clever boys to make their way from the higher grade schools to the universities. The many problems which our higher education presents are left untouched, nor can they be dealt with easily by legislation.

But the Education Bill of 1902, in spite of its many options, its apologetic and half-hearted character, does offer a possible solution of the religious difficulty, while at the same time it brings under one authority our system of elementary education, and those various studies by which youth is prepared for the practical work of life, which may be conveniently, if somewhat vaguely, described as 'education 'other than elementary.' Through the agency of this authority we may hope that our system of elementary education will be simplified, consolidated, and strengthened, while the higher education will be more readily adapted to the various purposes which it has to serve, and more readily available to the classes which require it.

ART. XII.-Agreement as to Terms of Surrender of the Boer Forces in the Field. (Parliamentary Papers, South Africa, June 1902.)

THE

HE month of June 1902 will long live in the memory of Englishmen all over the world. One common feeling was animating us all. The great solemnity of the Coronation fixed for June 26 was looked forward to as a unique ceremonial which was to bring together for a great constitutional function British citizens of many races and every clime. Our new King was to be crowned, and his Coronation was to be the best demonstration that the Empire could give of the Imperial unity, of which the Crown and the Flag are the symbols.

Peace had come at last. London and the country had finished their preparations to celebrate in worthy and joyful fashion the crowning of the King. Foreign princes, Colonial statesmen, Indian potentates, envoys from every nation of the earth had arrived. Suddenly, only some forty hours or so before Westminster Abbey was to throw open its doors for the great function, the announcement came that the King was dangerously ill, and that the Coronation could not take place. Never was there a more sudden transition from happy anticipations and popular rejoicing to disappointment, to be succeeded by feelings of the gravest anxiety as the nature of his Majesty's illness became known. The week following the operation was necessarily a most anxious one; but a strong constitution, and the science and skill of the most eminent surgical and medical men of the day, have brought the King through his worst perils, and his subjects may now reasonably indulge a confident hope of his ultimate restoration to health.

Deep had been the feeling of thankfulness amongst Englishmen everywhere when in the first days of June the news came that peace with our Boer foes had actually been signed, and that the Boer leaders, having abandoned their claim to independence, were showing a genuine desire to co-operate with the British generals in bringing about popular reconciliation with the new state of things.

The war at last is over! The Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State, in such constitutional fashion as the circumstances rendered possible, have fully admitted their conquest by the superior power of the British Empire-of which Empire they will henceforward form a part. Con

vinced of the uselessness of further resistance, and anxious to prevent further sacrifice of life, the Boer commanders strongly advised the burghers of the two States still left in the field to yield fully on the essential question of independence, and for the rest to make the best terms they could with the victors. The terms granted by Lord Milner and Lord Kitchener were wise and generous; they were approved by the Home Government, and upon these terms the whole of the Boer forces have surrendered, and have fully accepted for themselves and for the two States the sovereignty of His Majesty King Edward VII.

No wonder that Englishmen rejoiced. Neither the British Government nor people have ever had the slightest wish to humiliate their gallant foes. Before the war, and during the war, there was, indeed, the most lamentable misunderstanding on each side of the ends and objects of the other. Ever since the demonstrations at Johannesburg, on the occasion of Sir Henry Loch's visit, and much more since the Jameson Raid, planned by Mr. Rhodes, the Prime Minister of Cape Colony, it became almost impossible to disabuse the minds of the Boers of the notion that the conquest of their country was a supreme end of British policy. And Boer fears were kept alive by the constant reiteration by irresponsible persons of an English intention 'to paint the map red.' On the other side it was not till the war began that the mass of Englishmen discovered that the quarrel, instead of being a mere dispute with President Kruger and a corrupt gang of officials in Pretoria, whom at the worst a few weeks' fighting would overthrow, was one which raised, as truly as any struggle known to history, the national spirit of an independent and freedom-loving people. Whether from the beginning the British meant to conquer the Boers, or the Boers, aided by a grand Dutch conspiracy in Cape Colony, meant to conquer the British in South Africa, history will some day decide. Hitherto the question has been debated mainly by advocates who regard it as a patriotic duty to dismiss or disbelieve any evidence that tells against their own preconceptions!

There have been two views as to whether a better understanding by Englishmen in recent years of the South African problem might not have saved South Africa from the terrible calamity of racial war and the intensity of racial bitterness that it must leave behind it; but there has, for practical purposes, been only one view as to what the necessities of the case imperatively demanded after once the struggle