Things to be Remembered in Daily Life: With Personal Experiences and RecollectionsTimbs, John
Philosophy
Things to be Remembered in Daily Life: With Personal Experiences and Recollections
Timbs, John
Encyclopedias and dictionaries
vociferation, wrong emphasis, undue stress on enclitics, and many other
faults. Good sermons are the exception rather than the rule; for if
sound in doctrine and full of zeal, the style is often obscure or
pedantic or inflated, and the delivery monotonous and soporific. In the
Senate, though most of the Members are University men, there are but few
really effective speakers. Were our senators trained to speak well—that
is, to the point—much time would be saved, and public business
despatched more rapidly.”
The remedies suggested by the Rev. Dr. D’Orsey are:
1. Training-schools for nursery governesses, who, without knowing or
pretending to know French and Italian, should speak English without
vulgarisms. 2. Greater attention in our present training colleges
for schoolmasters to due instruction in English, especially in
correct and fluent speaking. 3. More encouragement to men of talent
and education to become and to remain schoolmasters, by holding out
the prospect of honourable offices to distinguished teachers. Why
should Inspectorships of Schools be always given to clergymen and
barristers, to the exclusion of the schoolmaster? 4. The appointment
of a thoroughly accomplished scholar as English Master in every
great public school, of equal rank with the other masters. 5. The
endowment of at least one Professorship in every University. 6. The
recognition of English as a subject in every examination not
strictly scientific, and rewarding distinction in composition or
oratory in the same substantial manner as eminence in classics or
mathematics.
Sir John Coleridge relates the following inefficient examples of
school-teaching which have come under his observation: “An Examiner was
about, and he had a class before him—the first class in arithmetic. They
were able to answer questions; they had gone through all the higher
branches of arithmetic, and were prepared to answer any thing. But he
said, ‘I will give you a sum in simple addition.’ He accordingly
dictated a sum, and cautiously interspersed a good many ciphers.
Suppose, for instance, he said, ‘a thousand and forty-nine.’ He found
there was not one in the class who was able to put down that sum in
simple addition; they could not make count of the ciphers. That showed
him the boys had been suffered to pass over far too quickly the
elementary parts of arithmetic. The examiner took them in grammar, and
quoted a few lines from Cowper—
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.
‘What governs right?’ There was not a boy could say, till it was put to
them, ‘none to dispute my right.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account