A new arrangement of school business is necessary every half year. The first and second class receive most of their lessons together, though the childen are of a different standing in the institution. This is done to economize teachers. By the term language used in the tabular views, is meant classes of words and particular forms of expression, from the ordinary noun to abstract ideas. Perhaps grammar would be better understood, but the teaching is carried on without the use of grammatical rules. The lessons are illustrations of grammar, rather than grammar itself; and, therefore, more properly called language. The word physics means lessons on the properties of natural bodies, such as were before adverted to in The Little Philosopher.' The scripture history used by the third class, which consists of pupils who have been a year and a half in the institution, is written in a style suited to their confined knowledge of language. It is almost without particles, and very free from elliptical expression. As these lessons are unpublished, an example is given below. Would not books for children be better understood if a similar style were used in their composition? In talking to children, we invariably endeavour to omit expressions which might embarrass them, and at the risk of much repetition, we use language, such as we think adapted to the infantine mind.

"THE PLAIN OF SHINAR.

'After many years, men were very numerous on the earth. Men lived near to each other. They spoke the same language. They liked to live in the same place. It was a pleasant country where men lived. It was a plain. They wished to live there always. The plain was called Shinar. It was very wide and extensive. There (on the plain) people had their houses, tents, fields, and cattle. The people said;-We are numerous and strong-we will build a city and a towerthe tower shall be very high-its top shall reach the cloudslet us now make bricks and burn them, and let us make mortar-we will stay here always-we will not go to distant countries-we will not be scattered abroad on the earth.' God saw the city and the tower which men were building. God was not pleased,' &c.

It will be borne in mind that these lessons are almost the first complete sentences on a connected subject which are communicated to the pupils, and this is done as soon as they begin to have a tolerably correct idea of the structure of sentences. If the readers of the Journal will refer to the article on 'An Im

proved Method of teaching Modern Languages' in the 8th Number, they will find a precisely similar course recommended; and indeed a German tale is there broken into sentences quite similar to the above example. Deaf and dumb pupils are learners of the English language, and their case is parallel to that of other learners of languages in one respect, though they have to learn through a more intricate medium. The deaf have to ascend from their very meagre language of natural signs, to one very rich and full in its artificial expressions for thoughts which have never entered into their untaught minds, thus establishing a wide difference between them and other language learners. We who hear and speak have clear ideas of all conventional signs in our mothertongue. The operation with us is only to transfer an idea which we already possess into the conventional sign for that idea in the language we desire to acquire. The deaf and dumb have to master the idea as well as the sign for it.

Next to a series of reading books on nature, science, and art, too much stress cannot be laid on providing a museum of natural and artificial objects, minerals, metals, woods, shells, models, instruments, pictures, foreign curiosities, illustrative of the productions and manners of distant countries, &c. &c. These are the most efficient of all helps to the instruction of the deaf and dumb; they are better than any descriptions, because they present ideas to the mind with more force than words can do, even with all the assistance of signs. A collection of this kind has been commenced in that institution to whose history and prospects we have now devoted our pages, and we would gladly do it some service by recommending its friends to send contributions to the museum. Many specimens have been procured from shopkeepers and mechanics; some have been kindly presented, and others have been collected by the pupils. The more complete such a collection can be made, the clearer will be the conceptions formed by the pupils of the nature and properties of things, an incalculable advantage to all young people, whether endowed with all their senses or unfortunately deaf and dumb.

Much of the earlier instruction of deaf-mutes might be accomplished before they are admitted into institutions; they might be taught to write, to learn their letters, to spell the names of objects, to learn many of the qualities of objects and actions, either at ordinary schools or at home. It is hoped that some of the teachers in England will publish a series of graduated exercises in language to aid this desirable work, and that the mystery which has so long shrouded the

different methods of instruction in the British dominions will be removed. Already on the Continent we behold the dawning of a brighter day. In some countries the instruction is commenced in the primary schools, and in others, books have appeared to assist parents and ordinary school-masters. The institutions for the deaf and dumb at Berlin, Königsberg, Munster, Munich, and Gmünd have been formed into normal schools to train teachers for their respective countries. In Denmark all the deaf and dumb are gratuitously educated at the two schools of that kingdom.

The continental labours in behalf of the deaf and dumb are exhibited in the last circular of the Royal Institution at Paris, from which our few preceding remarks respecting them are drawn. This work appears biennially, or triennially, as the information transmitted to the directors of that institution accumulates. It is printed by the government, and though at a considerable expense, it is sent gratuitously to all known establishments for the deaf and dumb. Its circulation, we venture to say, must effect valuable changes in the education of that unfortunate class of persons to whose interest it is devoted. The mass of intelligence which it contains on the practical parts of instruction, can only be appreciated by those teachers who have directed their hearts and their minds to this work of beneficence. This circular, together with the details of de Gerando, the practical work of Bèbian, and various publications which have appeared in Germany, have done more for the improvement of the deaf and dumb, than had been effected in the whole period which elapsed after the discovery was made that they were not incapable of instruction.

The institutions for the deaf and dumb in England are as follows:

There are also institutions for the deaf and dumb at Edinburgh, Paisley, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, and one at Dublin: there are none in Wales.

RUGBY SCHOOL*.

THIS school was originally a simple grammar-school, designed for the benefit of the town of Rugby and its neighbourhood. Any person who has resided for the space of two years in the town of Rugby, or at any place in the county of Warwick within ten miles of it, or even in the adjacent counties of Leicester and Northampton to the distance of five miles from it, may send his sons to be educated at the school without paying anything whatever for their instruction. But if a parent lives out of the town of Rugby, his son must then lodge at one of the regular boarding-houses of the school; in which case the expenses of his board are the same as those incurred by a boy not on the foundation.

Boys placed at the school in this manner are called foundationers, and their number is not limited. In addition to these, there are 260 boys, not on the foundation; and this number is not allowed to be exceeded.

The number of masters is ten, consisting of a head master and nine assistants. The boys are divided into nine, or practically into ten classes, succeeding each other in the following order, beginning from the lowest first form, second form, third form, lower remove; fourth form, upper remove, lower fifth, fifth, and sixth. It should be observed, to account for the anomalies of this nomenclature, that the name of sixth form has been long associated with the idea of the highest class in all the great public schools of England; and, therefore, when more than six forms are wanted they are designated by other names, in order to secure the magic name of sixth to the highest form in the school. In this the practice of our schools is not without a very famous precedent: for the Roman augurs, we are told, would not allow Tarquinius Priscus to exceed the ancient and sacred number of three, in the centuries of Equites; but there was no objection made to his doubling the number of them in each century, and making in each an upper and a lower division, which were practically as distinct as two centuries. There is no more wisdom in disturbing an old association for no real benefit, than in sparing it when it stands in the way of any substantial advantage.

Into these ten classes the boys are distributed in a three

*We are enabled to present our readers with an accurate account of the course of instruction in Rugby School, conformably to the plan already commenced in this Journal, Nos. V. and IX. See remark at the head of the article on Harrow School in No. V.