should have high knowledge and principle, with a desire and a skill to impart knowledge to his young charge. He was anxious to wish them from his heart "God speed."

Mr. Fox said,-Seeing the seats so well filled takes me back to the time when I sat as scholar in similar seats, and drank in the lore as it came from the learned lips of the professors. It takes me back, I can assure you, to pleasing memories. But I found when I left those collegebenches and took my stand in the world, I had a great deal to learn in the great school-house of life. You, doubtless, will have similar experience.

Thus we come upon the great subject of education, which, to the wisest, has been a life problem. You come here to be armed for the battle against ignorance, and you come to an armoury where you may get the

best of weapons. The weapons, which this examination has proved you

are so well furnished with, give you a power and force, and you will find an ample sphere for the use of them. But these are not the only weapons. There are weapons which we cannot place in each other's hands, and which are intended to sharpen and keep in order those which we can place in each other's hands. You are going forth, each in his own direction. When this enemy of ignorance lies before you, you will have a book to read each page of which I may call a scholar, and a book, I hope, composed of many pages. I trust you will have the power of grace to read those pages aright. I have been perusing the history of one of our fellow-countryman-I may call him such, he was a Scotchman-Hugh Miller. Perhaps few men read the book of nature and of experience with greater power of mind than he did. It is interesting to read what he says about his "schools and schoolmasters." Each layer of sand or gravel, each fresh discovery of fossil or organic remains, taught him a lesson. Among his fellow-workmen-for he was a working mason—each page of their history taught him a lesson, so that his schoolmasters were very many and his schools numerous. When the book of actual life is placed before us we must read it aright and draw our experience from it.

Having gained this insight, the question arises-how to use it. We all have influence influence on each other, influence on those around us. Not one of us but can point to important influences which some one has exerted over us. We may be able to look back to a kind word spoken long years ago-perhaps in a quiet and solitary interview. How those few words or that consistent example, it may be, has influenced us. We owe debts to these which eternity only can tell. Let us see to it that we use this influence aright. The influence you shall have for good or evil upon those young plants committed to your care, and which you will have to cultivate in your own special garden, is a most important one! Some of you, perhaps, come from a mountainous country -you have Welshmen, I believe it is a lovely country. There may be a hill, having upon one side a desolate region, and on the other a fertile district. At its summit is a spring. Place your foot upon it at the source, and you may turn it to the right or left; and upon that turn may depend whether that brook shall flow, gather strength, and meander through fertile fields, or be borne upon a desolate region where it will come to an unhappy end. This is influence. Every one of the children in your care will be, as it were, a little stream. And what a responsible

You may never

post it is to have the power of influencing that stream. see the stream come to maturity, perhaps, but the influence will be there, giving rise to events which centuries may tell of! He is likely to influence for good who draws his own inner life from one above his own. They, and only they, will have the best influence on those around, who learn to know of their Saviour. And assuredly it is only as we know how to realize that higher life in the gospel that we know how to employ our power to the highest advantage. Those who have faith that their strength is given from above-given through the mercy of God in Jesus Christ-they only will be the most likely to fulfil the duties of their onerous post.

As you have learned the lessons-the results of which have just been shown-I desire that they should be sanctified and used for the best of objects; and whilst training the intellects of those in your charge, may your influence not only upon them, but upon society, be for the promotion of that glorious cause which I hope we all have at heart.

The Rev. WICKHAM TOZER said, I am not experienced in school work, but I have had some experience with school teachers. For years I have had to do with teachers in connection with my congregation; and have found that out of every half dozen not more than one has succeeded. This is the result of observation, and if I say why they have not been successful as teachers, some suggestions may be thrown out useful to you.

I have found young men eminently qualified intellectually for their work, but who are destitute of discretion-an especial qualification. They no sooner enter a small town or village in which they have to labour, than they become the objects of observation. Now, in every village and small town there are a number of marriageable young ladies! You may laugh, but by and by you will find yourselves just in that position. It will be a fiery ordeal. I have found not a few who have borne the marks of passing through it. "You may be forearmed by being forewarned," and I hope you will act with discretion in that important matter. No doubt you leave with high anticipations, and I would be the last to deprive you of pleasure thus derived; my desire is that your life should be a pleasure and not a pain, and that you do not by indiscretion bring trouble to the ministers connected with your school, and above all that you don't bring disparagement upon yourselves. There is another matter in which indiscretion is shown by young teachers, in not sufficiently concentrating their time and energies upon the one thing they have to do. There are frequently ministers connected with the school;-if the school belong to no church, still the ministers nave some influence. As ministers are credited with a vast amount of selfishness they look all around for force

to carry on their work. They seize, sometimes very greedily, upon the schoolmaster, and endeavour to divert him from his work. Sometimes the ministers are indiscreet enough to think the schoolmaster unkind and disinterested in the great work of people's good, should he refuse so to dilute his energies as utterly to fail in his special work. If you really wish to succeed, as to parsons, ministers, &c., don't undertake Bible classes, or secretaryships to this or that institution. You are a school

master, and let this be your motto,-" This one thing I do." Commence your work with earnestness. I have found geniuses-of

course all are that—but they have been miserably wanting in devotion to their work. Now, I hold, no man can succeed who is not intensely earnest in the prosecution of his labours. It is useless to suppose that you can get scholars or keep them when got if you are not in thorough earnest. You must be intensely in earnest in your work. This makes up many other deficiencies. Geniuses come and are entirely useless, where the young man of moderate ability and devoted to his work succeeds most admirably. Whatever your attainments be, add thorough earnestness in your work, and you will have a prospect of success.

In reference to many teachers I have had to do with during the past ten years, I have found them profoundly ignorant of mental philosophy. Suppose, for one moment, a farmer ignorant of the soil, how can he be a successful agriculturist? and how is a teacher of mind to succeed who is ignorant of mental philosophy-for it is mind upon which you are to operate? You may be skilled in science, but that is merely the implement, the tool, the seed; and a farmer ever so well skilled in seed, but ignorant of the soil, his success-where is it? So with a large number of teachers, they seem to be in this essential matter profoundly ignorant. But I hope this is not the case with you who are leaving this institution, where, you have been under the guidance of the able gentlemen around me. No doubt you will not only be well prepared in the highest thoughts but amply prepared with a full knowledge of the mind a knowledge in which you are cultivating the higher nature, knowledge not that which links us to the materials of earth, but that which links us to Deity-to the Eternal. A man that comprehends that has the highest inspiration to urge him on and stimulate him in his duty.

to me.

The CHAIRMAN said, I do not approve of the principle of chairmen vilifying themselves when in the position I now occupy. However, the confession which I have to make will explain to you the happiness and thankfulness I feel at being here now. I can say the evening has not been one of pleasure only but of profit. It has been a new experience The confession I have to make will show more clearly why it should be so. I consider I am the most unsuitable gentleman on the committee to have been in the chair this evening. It is purely accidental that I have been there. I had no intention of taking such a position when I came. But as a member of the committee I think it my duty to come whenever I can, and look after the interests of the institution. The gentlemen upon it no doubt intended being here, but they are mostly engaged during the day, and four o'clock was named, when most are at business or professional engagements. And with commendable punctuality, exactly at four o'clock, your secretary said it was time to begin, and I was the only member of the committee here. Now I have to show you a special reason why I am unfitted for the post and why my thanks are due for the profitable evening. I have been distributing books as prizes, also a good number of certificates offered by the Society itself. A large proportion present have received one or other or both. never received a prize or certificate of honour in my life, and it is the first time I have had the opportunity of delivering any to students. The first is a serious confession! perhaps the last is accidental. I happened to be educated in quite a different way from that in which you are. I have laboured under certain disadvantages, too. I have never

I

been at school or college in my life, so that the operations of school and college life are new, interesting, and instructive to me. I was fortunately, as I think, educated at home. Instead of having to go to school and college, and hear learned professors, and submit to competitive examination, my masters used to come to me, and I think I did as much as if at school. Many think home education is a lazy one. But I had at seven in the morning a German master, and another master who remained with me for some hours. After tea I had many things to do for the next day. When I had the privilege of going abroad, if I remained at a place a few weeks, I had a master for the language of the place. But I never had the advantage of competition, which, I know, is a great stimulus, not only to boys but also to men. At your age you do not require it so much. But still, in competing for the prizes and certificates, you have experienced this stimulus and have acted under the great and noble principle of endeavouring to do the best.

At the examination for certificates, which lasted from Tuesday, Dec. 14th, to Friday, Dec. 17th, and was held simultaneously at the Borough Road and Stockwell, 241 young men and young women were presented to Her Majesty's Inspectors, of whom 55 were acting teachers, who, having served in schools under Government inspection, and obtained permission from the Committee of Council to take the examination, received permission to sit with the students of the College. The result of the examination has not yet transpired.

At the “examination for admission," which fell this year in the Christmas week, and was commenced on the 21st, 148 candidates received permission to compete for Queen's scholarships. Of this number, 67 seek admission to the Borough Road College, 70 desire to study at Stockwell, and 8 sit as a matter of convenience, being candidates for admission to other Training Colleges.

CERTIFICATES.

The following teachers have announced the receipt of their certificates during the quarter:

SCHOOLS TEMPORARILY SUPPLIED.

Thirty-seven of the forty-one Borough Road students in their second year have been called upon to go out to supply schools which must otherwise have been closed, or have suffered serious inconvenience by failing to comply with the requirements on which aid towards their maintenance is granted by the Committee of Council on Education. Twenty-seven of the students at Stockwell

This absence from

have had their studies interfered with in a similar way. college must to some extent prejudice the students at the Certificate Examination, and place the colleges at a disadvantage as compared with others where like care for the interests of local schools is not shown. During the last quarter the supplies have been as follows:

HOME DISTRICT.-HEROLD'S SCHOOL, DRUMMOND ROAD, BERMONDSEY.-On Monday evening last this examination was held by Robert Saunders, Esq., of the British and Foreign School Society. The chair was occupied by B. Cook, Esq., who is the only survivor of the trustees of the school at the time Mr. Wallbridge was first appointed master, which was upwards of twenty-five years ago. There were also present J.B. Perks, Esq., the treasurer, and Dr. Tilley, another of the trustees. Mr. Saunders, for the last ten or twelve years, has annually examined this school, and always with the most gratifying results. On this occasion he examined the boys with great strictness in geography, reading, Scripture and English history, grammar, and mental arithmetic, in all of which the boys showed great proficiency, but more especially in geography, English history, and mental arithmetic. Songs and recitations were interspersed between the various subjects of examination. The singing was good. The drawing of many of the boys displayed great talent carefully cultivated. At the close of the examination prizes for attention to studies and good conduct, consisting of desks, cases of instruments, and books, were distributed to forty-two of the pupils. Mr. Cook