The ordinary inspector soon acquired the habit of framing his endorsement on the general principles of his craft. It was not thought fair to speak ill of a teacher on his certificate, unless there were special grounds. Therefore one proceeded by judicious omission. If one read that Mr. A. “taught the elementary subjects with fair success” one drew two inferences; (1) that he could _not_ teach anything else; (2) that his discipline was weak, because it was not mentioned. But if it was stated that Mrs. B. “maintained good order, and was particularly successful in teaching handwriting,” it became obvious that her arithmetic was a deplorable failure. So that to the trained eye the _suppressio veri_ was not a _suggestio falsi_. But useful as the system was, it was open to two strong objections. Firstly, it was often hard on a teacher, for the inspector might err, and the endorsement was permanent. Secondly, and this was the last straw, it became an intolerable nuisance to the inspector. In a school of 100 children it was easy to be terse, innocuous, and fairly truthful. But I open a recent notebook, and find a school of 600 boys with 21 teachers. Supposing that ten of these teachers want certificate reports; conceive the strain on the imagination, or the commonplace book! Therefore a cynical and eccentric colleague adopted the startling method of applying the same treatment to all. If this school of 600 boys passed a good examination on the whole, but had two weak classes out of the twenty, then the correct summary would be--“The school has on the whole passed a good examination. Standards II.(b) and III.(c) are not equal to the rest.” _And he wrote this on the certificates of all the ten men._ Eight at least would say, “What have I to do with the two black sheep? Mine are white.” But the inspector replied, like Mrs. Prig, “Who do you think’s to wash one feater, and miss another, and wear out one’s eyes with all manner of fine work of that description, for half-a-crown a day?” Or words to that effect. It was recorded of another inspector, whose massive intellect had partly given way under the strain of compiling reports, that in a certain school he wrote: “The master’s wife has lately died: the school has been painted pea-green. “J. Tearem, H.M.I.”