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Weekly Dispatch.

The House of Lords.

(Air: "The Vicar of Bray.")

When bluff King Hal grew tired of Kate,
And sued for his divorce, sir,
He cast about, and found in us
His willing tools, of course, sir.
What for her grief? We laughed at that,
And left her in the lurch, sir,
While every one of us grew fat
By plunder of the Church, sir.
To hold a candle to Old Nick
Has ever been our way, sir,
And still we'll play the self-same trick,
So long as it will pay, sir.

Two other queens that underwent
"The long divorce of steel," sir—
Do you suppose that e'er we wept,
Or for their fate did feel, sir?
We only sought to please the King,
And his worst wishes further;
And gaily did our order join
In each judicial murther.
For us no trick was e'er too base,
No crime too foul to shock, sir,
Nor innocence availed to save
E'en women from the block, sir.

When Mary came with fire and stake
Poor pious folks to kill, sir,
No single protest did we make,
But let her work her will, sir;
But when the Church reclaimed her lands,
And looked for smooth compliance,
We quickly raised our armed bands
And gave her bold defiance.
Thus did the Queen her error learn,
To think (how gross the blunder!)
That, though we let her rack and burn,
We'd e'er restore our plunder,

Elizabeth, the mighty Queen,
We quailed beneath her frown, sir,
With nought but fear and hate for one
So worthy of the crown, sir.
As abject traitors round her throne
We fulsome homage paid her,
Though more than half of us were known
To plot with the invader.
To her for ducal coronets
We never were beholden;
To us the days of "Good Queen Bess"
Were anything but "golden."

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When slobbering James of coin was short
He baronets invented,
And to creating lords for gold
Right gladly he consented;
A handsome "tip" was all he asked
To make you duke or lord, sir—
No question ever of your worthy
'Twas what you could afford, sir.
To be a peer, "your grace," "my lord,"
O, Lord! how fine it sounded!
And thus, by shelling out of cash,
Were noblest houses founded.

When Charles the First, the public right
To crush but now applies him,
And willing help he gets from us;
As friends we stand beside him.
His acts of tyranny and fraud
Scarce one of us opposes—
The fine, the prison, or the whip,
Or slitting people's noses.
To curb the tyrant of his will
Was no way in our line, sir,
All human rights were forfeited,
And merged in "Right Divine," sir,

The Second Charles just suited us,
We joined his lewd carouses,
And concubines became the source
Of many ducal houses.
And, as reward of services
That history rarely mentions,
You still enjoy the privilege
Of paying us the pensions!
And this wo swear, by all that's blue,
Despite that prudes cry "Hush, sir !
That whatsoever we may do
You'll never find us blush, sir,

In James's Court we flourished still;
Like sycophants we vied, sir;
To be a royal mistress formed
Our daughters' highest pride, sir;
For Whigs though tortures were devisee?,
Their legs with wedges broke, sir,
We ate and drank, and laughed and played,
But ne'er a word we spoke, sir.
For mingled cruelty and wrong
We never did upbraid him;
But whan a paying chance came round
Right quickly we betrayed him.

When William came, with righteous rule,
We proved but glum consenters;
The King we deemed was but a fool
To tolerate Dissenters;
Whilst on his part his Majesty
Distrusted us with reason,
For 'gainst our chosen lord and king
We still kept plotting treason.
And so against all righteous things
We've struggled from the first, sir,
To vex and thwart the better kings,
And sided with the worst, sir.

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In reign of Anne, 'twas one of us
Gave notice to the foe, sir,
Against his port and arsenal
We aimed a warlike blow, sir;
And thus were lost, in dire defeat,
Eight hundred sailors bold, sir—
But what of that, when France's bribe
Our "noble duke" consoled, sir?
Betrayal of the State's designs
By this colossal traitor—
What wonder now the lordlings praise
His humble imitator!,

With George the Third it was essayed
To purge our code from blood, sir,
But we the arm of mercy stayed,
Its efforts all withstood, sir;
To hang for e'en a paltry theft—
Though tempted sore by hunger—
Was God's own justice, so it seemed
To every boroughmonger.
And so poor wretches, one or more,
At every fair and wake, sir,
Performed " the dance without a floor,"
Our thirst for blood to slake, sir.

Yet had the self-same laws been tried
On us without distinction,
Their action surely had implied
The peerage's extinction.
But while the gallows we upheld,
"Offence's gilded hand," sir,
Had all our lordly acres swelled
With thefts of common land, sir.
While wicked prizes thus we claw,
And justice shove aside, sir,
"Not 'gainst the law, but by the law,"
Has ever been our guide, sir.

When Pitt the Irish Parliament
Resolved to bring to London,
He had to buy their peers' consent,
Or else his scheme was undone.
So English coronets galore
Were scattered through their tribe, sir,
Besides a million pounds or more—
Their stipulated bribe, sir.
And by this opportunity
They drove their dirty trade, sir—
To show to all posterity
How lords and dukes are made, sir,

When Wesleyans and Baptists, too,
For right of education
At public universities
Did press their application,
'Twas we their just demand refused—
Denied their common right, sir,
And all our special powers abused
To gratify our spite, sir.
When Jews to sit in Parliament
Had duly been elected,
'Twas we kept shut the Commons' door,
Their right to vote rejected.

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On Railway Bills our conduct calls
For no detailed narration;
No line could pass our lands without
Outrageous compensation.
Like gorging vultures at the feast,
Our greed surpassed all bounds, sir,
Our blackmail figured, at the least,
One hundred million pounds, sir.
Of pay-triotism we'll ne'er tire,
For it we'll live and die, sir,
And, if the reason you inquire,
We spell it with a y, sir.

In reason's name or righteousness'
You vainly may reprove us,
For scorn, contempt, and threats possess
The only power to move us.
To mutilate, reject, delay,
Obstruct whene'er we dare it,
We'll persevere in our old way
So long as you will bear it.
Of this be sure, until that day
Such things shall ne'er be mended
Till million voices join to say,
"The House of Lords is ended !"

C. [unclear: F.]

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Though the statement may sound strange, it is nevertheless true, that the capital of Spain is the scene of the most interesting educational experiment now being tried in Europe. A political crisis, which occurred in Madrid nine years ago, displaced the then dominant party of progress and liberal reform. A period of bitter reactionary rigour followed, during which test acts of great severity were forced upon the Spanish Universities and high schools. The consequence was, that many of the professors were ejected from their chairs, and that some of the most eminent of them were compelled to submit even to the indignity of imprisonment. In this latter class was Senor Giner De Los Rios, professor of the Philosophy of Law in the University of Madrid. He was a man who had abstained from taking any active part in politics, but the weight and dignity of whose character had given him a commanding influence in the councils of the republican reformers. Released from prison in 1876, after a detention of nine months, he lost no time in gathering round him a small band of kindred spirits, and in founding the Institucion Libre de Ensenanza. This is a free institute, established as a protest against state and clerical control of education. According to its statutes, it is "a private association held entirely aloof from the spirit and interests of any special religions communion, philosophic school, or political party." It receives no sub-sidy from the state, or from any public body; and its funds, which hitherto have been quite inadequate to supply a suitable school building, have been derived from shares subscribed at a very low rate of interest. In its original shape, it was simply a private university college. Soon, however, it was found necessary to add preparatory classes; and as the scope of the venture extended, its moving spirits became convinced that they must apply all their available forces to the improvement of elementary education. Thus the original Institution has been transformed into a complete day school, which at present numbers rather over 200 boys. Moreover, " the reforms of which it is the practical embodiment are so fundamental and so logically carried out, as not only to make it a new departure in Spanish educational history, but also to give the experiment" a world-wide significance.

These fundamental reforms are both in the curriculum of the Institution and in the methods of instruction. As to the former, it is simply a progressive course of general education. Senor Giner entirely sets aside the rigid distinction which is usually drawn between the three grades of the infant school, the elementary and the secondary. With the exception of Latin and modern languages, which boys do not begin till their ninth or tenth year, the programme is identical for thè whole period of their school life. Hence the boys in the lowest class study the very same subjects as the boys in the highest. The difference is that the range widens as they grow older. At first everything is dealt with in its barest outlines, and the younger boys grasp a few definite ideas. Then, in each successive grade, they study each subject more and more fully. It is claimed for this "concentric" system of teaching that it is the right way to destroy "cramming," and to insure thorough- page break ness of knowledge; and, further, that it is really more expeditious than any other method of mental training. The pupil is being continuously grounded without the need of set and formal revisions of his studies. His education is not only systematic, consistent, and harmonious, but is also always complete up to the point at which he has arrived. Thus he is in no danger of forgetting anything which he has once grasped. Moreover, several studies are included in the programme which rarely form parts even of a secondary education. Among these may be named the elements of sociology and of law, music, and the history of the fine arts, drawing, modelling, carpentry, lathe turning, and other manual work. The Institution is the first school in Europe in which such a programme as this has been made compulsory throughout the pupils' school lives. Thus, in brief, the aim which Senor Giner has set before himself is to grapple with the wide-extended range of subjects demanded by the scientific advances of the nineteenth century.

It is a truism to say that all the world accepts Froebel's principles as guides in arranging the work of infant schools. But Senor Giner recognises Froebel's "intuitive" methods as universally true, and seeks to apply them to all teaching. Whole courses of study, such as the history of painting or of sculpture, are followed exclusively in the Madrid galleries. The class meets at the museum instead of in the school, and is taught by the master in the presence of the pictures and the statues. For text-books, which are used sparingly, if at all, the substitute is the pupils' notes. These, how-ever, are required to be conscientiously and thoroughly well done, and they are examined by the masters with the most scrupulous care. They are the only form of home work recognised by the authorities of the Institution. Formal examinations, again, are entirely abolished, Senor Giner and his colleagues, having the most utter contempt for them as tests of real education. Reforms in the same independent spirit are exhibited in the most minute details. Thus, for example, in teaching history the ordinary process is reversed. The pupils begin by acquiring some knowledge of contemporaneous events, and then work backwards, thus travelling up instead of down the stream of time.

It is, however, in the idea of utilising school holidays that Senor Giner has made his most important innovation. School expeditions are carried out on a greater scale than in any other educational institution in Europe. For the longer holidays, a series of excursions is arranged beforehand, some of which are planned to extend over several days, and some to occupy but a single afternoon. Special facilities afforded by the various railway companies, and thrifty management on the part of the school authorities, enable these expeditions to be very cheaply made, and bring them within the reach of even the poorer of the pupils. In the summer time some of the walking tours even cross the Pyrenees. The idea may be to visit a series of mining centres, and then special classes are held beforehand, so as to prepare the boys for comprehending what they are going to see. Or the object of the trip may be to inspect and to study the most celebrated of the Spanish buildings, and it is stated that "in this "way boys of 12 at the Institution" have acquired a knowledge of architectural styles which many an architect might envy. It may be added that the studies of the Institution are not allowed to be interrupted by saints' days. For these' a weekly half-holiday has been substituted, and this is frequently utilised in visiting manufactories or in making short excursions to places of interest in the vicinity of Madrid.

But the Institution aims at something higher than reform of methods of educational procedure. Senor Giner believes that for the Spanish schoolboy "the most perfect education must combine the completeness of the German programme with the broad and humanising spirit of the English." In page break the case of the German student, the intellectual side is developed at the cost of everything else—at the cost, in short, of sacrificing the man to the head. On the other hand, the aim of English education, in theory at all events, is to develope cultivated yet manly gentlemen, who are at once healthy in body and robust in mind. Senor Giner's institution is perhaps the only school on the Continent of Europe which makes open-air games the complement of mental labour, and which strives to accustom the boy to self-government throughout his school days. Hence in the maintenance of discipline, there is an absolute revolt against the French system of spies and surveillants.