our last, from expectancy than real tranquillity having been restored. -An interesting ceremony, would that there were many such, took place in St. Andrew's Church, Ireland, on the 2nd of February, when Lord Galmoy, his brother, Mr. Butler, and two others, were admitted into the communion of the Church of England; and on the same day, at St. Michael's Chapel, Burleigh Street, Strand, the Rev. S. Ramsay renounced the errors of popery.

MISCELLANEOUS.-There are few things among natural phenomena more calculated to make the seriously disposed mind unwrap itself from that narrowness of feeling which we all exhibit, and consider the necessities of others, than a hurricane of wind. We almost instinctively revert to the perils of the great deep, and the imminent dangers which seafaring men are exposed to then. If our mind is rightly attuned, we offer up a silent prayer for the safety of the sailor and the sea-passenger. Such a storm occurred on the last Sunday in January. We had occasion to go that morning to a neighbouring village, and melancholy forebodings possessed our breasts of the destruction it would cause. Even where we were, inland, it was sweeping along with its giant might, over field and woodland, wrestling with the sturdiest trees of the forest, and tossing about their gnarled and leafless branches, as a son of Anak would a new-born infant. Oh! it was a grand but awful thing! to hear it come growling in the distance, like the far-off booming of a hundred cannon, increasing every moment in intensity, until it raved and roared around one hoarser than the dash of billows in their fury, and more frantic than a troop of maddened wolves, the mightiest and the weakest alike feeling its fury. Not a leaf, not a straw, not a broken thing, but what was rent, and driven, and scattered in its course. And how, we thought, must the gallant vessels of the sea quail before this mighty power of God: "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish through the east wind." What we foreboded became a melancholy fact. Off Yarmouth, that morning, three brigs were wrecked, and some of the crews drowned; and on the west coast another met the same fate. Sailors and their families, to those who live in seaport towns, should be especially the objects of religious instruction.—We have to correct a slight error which appeared in our last., Bishop Onderdonk was suspended, not deposed, from his episcopate, as we erroneously stated.

FOSTER, PRINTER, KIRKBY LONSDale.

MY DEAR SIR,-Having just received a copy of the Rev. J. Allen's Report to the Committee of Council on Education for the year 1844, you will perhaps allow me to send you a few extracts, which may tend to illustrate the very important question suggested by' your Correspondent in the last "Teacher's Visitor". "Why

we have not better schoolmasters."

Mr. Allen says, page 19-"The great want is properly trained Teachers; and to secure these, we must not only extend and improve the efficiency of training schools, but we must also with earnestness supplicate the landowners to make sacrifices for the payment of proper salaries to Teachers."

Mr. A. then gives a table, shewing the comparative amount of salaries given in more than 200 schools, visited by him, as follows—

It will be seen at once that the average in this calculation is much lower than it ought to be, and this is felt by Mr. A., who adds

"The scanty salaries that are offered to Masters and Mistresses meet one at every turn in the endeavour to

put things on a better footing; but as soon as it is felt by the owners of property in this country, that the wages of one who is fit to teach the children of the poor ought not to fall below those paid to a humble mechanic, this blot on the face of our social condition will be got rid of."

Thus Mr. Allen complains of untrained Teachers on the one hand, and apathetic landowners on the other, which may be expressed in other words, viz: religious education has not been systematically supported, and the duties of a Schoolmaster have not been followed as a profession. But this result, painful and true as it is, notwithstanding the great exertions which have been made during the last ten or fifteen years, admits of further explanation. For we must remember, that until after the commencement of this century, there was a deep rooted prejudice against educating the lower classes at all; and the means by which that prejudice has been met, have tended to keep the standard of schoolmasters miserably low indeed. The one object of our National and Lancasterian systems, has been to meet this indifference and prejudice of the public mind half-way-by offering a cheap and easy way of giving a nominal education to the poor. It is almost impossible to estimate the evils which the cause of real education has suffered from the attempt to educate by mere mechanism. Thus in the early days of the Bell and Lancasterian schools, the Teacher was little more than an exhibitor of teaching-made-easy-pulling his strings, and setting a number of little figures in motion, who sat, or stood, and spoke, or wrote, counted, sang, and performed their stated evolutions until the clock struck, and school was up. Under such a state of things, any one who had learned the Bell's system, was fit for a National School; and any one trained at the Borough Road school, was fit for a British and Foreign school. The result has been just what might have been expected. Any one can be a schoolmaster; and so it has passed into a proverb; "If a decayed tradesman or a disabled servant wanted a provision for life, he went for a few weeks to the Central, or Borough Road school, and forthwith commenced as a

regularly trained schoolmaster." Now one would not say that many of these persons have not turned out excellent and deserving individuals, and some of them perhaps good Teachers; but they were not brought up to the profession of a schoolmaster, and we must not be surprised if the question is asked, and asked with justice, Why have we not more good schoolmasters? But it is to be hoped the time is come, when, by the establishment of proper seminaries, and training schools for young men whose talents and qualifications have led them to choose the profession of a schoolmaster, we shall have a more efficient class of teachers than at present. In an enlightened and enterprising country like England, people soon find their level; and if once an opening is given in any new direction, there will be abundance of talent and energy to pursue it. Thus when a new impetus was given to engineering and farming, by the late interesting movements throughout the kingdom, colleges for civil engineers and farmers were established, and young men now begin life by a regular course of study and training for their respective professions.

Your correspondent may rest assured, that if schoolmasters will learn their business, and raise the character of their profession by their diligence and ability, there is enough of right and true-religious feeling to appreciate it; and they will not be left to starve or waste their energy "in an employment that offers to the worldly mind no earthly inducement; and to the Christian mind, nothing more than the happiness of being employed in a good work." The observation of a shrewd London tradesman forces itself upon my mind, as I offer this advice to "a schoolmaster." In reply to some allusions to the difficulties which persons of character and ability have often to meet with upon commencing a career in London, he said, "You must have patience; we have the best of every thing here, and the cream must come to the surface in time." Let schoolmasters exert themselves in improving the moral and mental condition of their pupils, and they may be assured, that however ignorant committees may be, and however miserable school-houses may be, the time is not far distant when

the schoolmaster will occupy a position proportioned to his real worth.

The following passage in Mr. Allen's report deserves the fullest attention. "The question is repeatedly asked, How may we provide for right moral training in a school? And to such a question the most obvious answer is, By setting before the children a good example. This affords incessantly the most effective teaching, teaching that will be found in some cases to have life and soul, after a long interval of seeming torpor. If a teacher be himself habitually under the influence of the highest motives, seeking first and above all things to do His Master's work in the station wherein he is placed, with a hope grounded upon His Master's promises as the chief incentive to diligence; such a teacher will, in numberless ways and in a way wholly inappreciable by outside observers, exert a most healthful influence upon his scholars. The tones of his voice, his general bearing, his justice and consistency, his silence oftentimes, will have effects that will be looked for in vain from the operation of any code of rules, however perfect, that are not animated by a living spirit. I need not repeat what I have previously urged, as to the propriety of distinctly recognizing the teaching of Scripture as the law of the school, an appeal being made with reverence habitually thereto whenever the occasion may arise for correction or rebuke. The instruction of Scripture was intended to be continually before our eyes as the rule of our conduct, and it is our own fault if we are not led thereby to perceive when the necessary help is to be sought for under our moral difficulties, and what are the great remedies for the ills of our social condition. I have also previously remarked upon the special necessity for gentleness in the teacher of the poor, the duty laid upon him to strive to exercise a compensating progress, so as that he may be the means of doing most for those in whose behalf their previous training has done least—the most stubborn and untowardly being regarded by him as needing the largest measures of his forbearance and affectionate zeal-as a physician in a hospital would look upon the saddest cases as those which especially called for his patience and skill.”

Yours very faithfully, W. R. F.