Newspapers In Schools

One oí' the Queen's inspectora of Schools, Rev. G. Steele, reporting this year on Lancashire, England, states that in regard to reading it is his custom to examine the first class in the newspaper of the day. The children stand in a semi-cirele, and pass the newspaper round, and he requires them to read in such a manner that he and all present can both hear and understand, and then he asks questions. - He does not generally enter muoh into politics, but contents himsc-lf with the ohildren's understanding who such persons as Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Forster, and M. ïhiers, are. Accidents, tires, and suicides excite the keenest interest, but ne oftcn gets very fair answerB to such questions as these :-- What is a telegram, a locomotive, an ironclad, a telescope 'i What do you mean by Prime Minister, Judge, Coroner, M. P., M. D? Once to his question, What do yuu mean by P. M.? u. little boy sharply answered, " Past morning," which was not bad. It showed iar better teaching and learning than that mere mechanical system of which inspectors so often complain as only an exercise in sound and not in seuse. One Inspector notices how very rare it is to tind Dictionaries among the stock of elementary school books. Another, Mr. Renouf, mentions that in a paper written by a sixth standard girl, it was stated that one of the provisions o) Magna Charta was that the rights of the Church should he preserved " in violet.' He is afraid that many even of those who wrote " inviolate" did not know what they were writing about. It was a word for explanation in an exarnination. Mr. Steele observes that henever gives a first-vate report unless the children show general intelligence as well as accurate knowledge.