An Inspired Teacher.

The lecturer next explained by way of illustration how long ago. As a student he had been set to learn what was called "mechanics" for examination purposes. The text book was the dullest imaginable. Students who voluntarily chose this subject did so because the memorising of certain definitions, formulae, etc., printed in italics, sufficed to satisfy the examiners. Speaking for himself, he must confess that such was his own attitude, until by chance he fell in with a singularly brilliant and enthusiastic young teacher', who in two short hours made the subject "live" for him. This man denounced the book as the degradation of a great theme. It was a bare skeleton, without flesh and blood. It was one thing to learn to repeat unthinkingly that the natural state of a body was "a state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line." etc., and it was quite another thing to find that definition suddenly made a central focus of intense and glowing thought embracing the universe. The teacher strode up and down, now seizing the poker, which he used as a cricket bat. So as to make you see the motion of the ball and feel the different forces that impelled it and brought it to a standstill. Next he had you in imagination on the loch among the curlers. It was mid-winter, and with voice and gesture you were made to feel the cold and see "and hear the curling-stones and the players in their excitement brushing aside every particle of loose ice that could add to the friction. The man's enthusiasm was contagious. Every available sense that could aid in producing a vivid and lasting impression on the brain centres was called into action. Imagination was aroused. It was like a general concentrating his forces. You saw and heard and felt the inevitable convergence on one point—viz., that motion rather than rest would seem to be the natural 6tate of a body. But he did not stop with the earth; he swept on to the stars, making the whole universe a part of a lesson which carried him away. One learned much of astronomy as a mere side issue, and it did not stop even there. A question [unclear: as] to the parts of a stone being relatively [unclear: a] rest brought out the speculations of physicists and chemists as to molecular and [unclear: atomic] motion. Speaking for himself, the doctor said he felt eternally grateful to the man who had thus lighted up the threshold of science and taught him to know these things once for all—to feel and see them—and who had made it unnecessary to learn definitions which he could henceforth evolve for himself. Mental training of this kind was a keen stimulus, and would tend to promote growth and extension of the porcesses of cells as much as dry barren creaming would depress it. Concentration was the basis of all good teaching, and we could never have proper concentration so long as pupils were made to keep too many subjects going at once. Nothing was worng for the brain than constantly chopping and changing from one subject to another. It would be much better to teach fewer subjects at a time, and get through with them then others could be taken up. It would be much better not to attempt the teaching of so many subjects during each term. If observation concentration, reflect, thought, and imagination were encouraged and cultivated, knowledge once would be more or less permanently available, and its possessor would have something to build on in after life. As it teachers were afraid to abandon a subject and trust the mind to retain essentails. Working under the present system were quite right in this, because nothing hastily and superficially crammed for examination purposes can be retained. He would say emphatically: Teach fewer subjects at once, give space and time and rest for teaching thoroughly and interestingly what was attempted, and aim at quality rather than quantity.