Harry consented to wait for him, but, at the end of two hours, as Tommy did not return, he retired to his own room, and soon fell asleep.
THE FOURTH R IN MERTHYR.
In an article which appeared the other day our orthodox contemporary, the Western Mail, criticised certain late proceedings of the Merthyr School Board relative to the Fourth R difficulty in Education. Those proceedings, says that respectable journal, "were saved from being utterly ludicrous only by the gravity of the subjects which were under discussion." But for that consideration, the Western Mail is of opinion that it would have been good fun "to watch the efforts that were being made to realise that most delusive of all theoretical ideas—unsectarian as opposed to secular education." Perhaps most persons will think that those efforts were, as far as they went, not altogether unsuccessful, seeing that, after some discussion bearing on theology, the Board concluded, on the motion of one of its principal Members—a lady interested in the welfare of her species, Mrs. Crawshay of Cyfartha—that the sole form of devotion, public or private, dictated by the Founder of Christianity, "should be the sole form of public devotion employed in the schools." The Rev. John Griffiths, the Rector, "intimated that he would be quite contented with the proposed limitation of the form of prayer, provided that a doxology were added, recognising" a doctrine which Unitarians do not recognise. The suggestion certainly was creditable to a clergyman of the Church of England who keeps a conscience. It was professional; but the doxology is one of those special matters in the Fourth R on which professors, and doctors too, differ. The orthodoxology of one denomination is the heterodoxology of another.
There are forms of public devotion in common use as the prologue to public dinners. They are invocations in which all present can join, whatever their belief may be as to the Fourth R—if they have any belief at all—and if they have none, what then? It would be conscientious of a Church of England Clergyman to propose the superaddition of a Doxology to a Grace; but would it be wise? Would it not probably set a company of mixed denominations quarrelling over their soup?
In relation to food for the mind, Mrs. Crawshay proposed to deal with the Fourth R in a way analogous to that which experience has proved the most convenient method of adjoining it to food for the body. Herein she has acted on principles which many persons, besides a writer in the Western Mail, may call "illogical and unsafe," but no thinking man, or woman either, would call those persons philosophers. If every School Board were to legislate as to the Fourth R simply on the principle of teaching just so much of it as children can be expected to understand, would not their practical arrangement be of necessity about the same as that recommended by Mrs. Crawshay?
SUCH A BOOK!
ig books are big evils, says some old Greek, not of the vigorous type here depicted. Mr. Punch seldom agrees with anybody, and he distinctly disagrees with the Ancient in question. One big book, for instance, which is no evil, but a good, is Kelly's Post-Office Directory, with which he has been favoured, and which he has been perusing with avidity ever since it arrived. It was remarked to a clownish servant, who was eating away at a vast Cheshire cheese, that he was a long time at supper, and his triumphant answer was that a cheese of that size was not got through in a hurry. The remark, but not the clownishness, is adopted by Mr. Punch in regard to the Kelly Book. He has, as yet, read only the first thousand pages or so, but he intends to complete his labour. The volume contains the name and address of everybody, in London or the suburbs, whose name and address anybody can possibly want. Mr. Punch's own grand and brilliant idea is, to do with Kelly something like what Bayle did for Moreri. He meditates issuing a Kelly with vast notes of his own, in which he proposes to give a biography and anecdotes of everybody mentioned in the original book. As there will be several thousand volumes, the work must be published by subscriptions, which perhaps Mr. Kelly will be good enough to canvass and collect for Mr. Punch. The Kelly-Punch Biography will be a production worthy the gigantic genius of the age, and Mr. Punch admits that his collaborateur has admirably done his part of the work.