On this page

• Text (3)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    This is a work of sterling utility . It opens to us a new page in the practice , if not in the theory , of education ; and we predict that its author will , in future times , occupy a distinguished place among the improvers of elementary teaching . We know nothing of Mr . Wood beyond what we gather from his book ; but this convinces us that he is a sensible and

    wellinformed man , full of practical wisdom , and untainted by bigotry . Above all , he is perfectly free from that arrogance and vanity by which systemmakers are commonly distinguished : indeed , there is nothing more remarkable in his book , than the absence of any thing like an attempt to puff off the system which he describes . Mr . Wood is eminently a modest man ; and it is on this very account that we consider his system to be deserving of the more attention . We shall therefore proceed , without farther preface , to detail its origin , and to describe its peculiarities .

    The disgraceful scenes which took place at Edinburgh on the 1 st of Jan . 1812 , having disclosed the extent of youthful depravity in that city , the established clergy stood forward to oppose to the violence of the torrent the education , and particularly the religious education , of the poor . A scheme was suggested , by which a school was to be opened in each of the parishes of the city for the religious instruction , on the Lord ' s-day , of the children of the poor , under a teacher to be specially appointed for that purpose by the

    Kirk Session of the parish , who was also to accompany his pupils to the parish church during the hours of divine service , at least in those parishes where the church contained sufficient accommodation for their reception , the expense to be defrayed by an annual contribution from the inhabitants , and the whole to be under the superintendence of ten directors , five of whom to be ministers , and five elders , being a minister or elder from each Kirk Session . This scheme was adopted , and very speedily carried into effect :

    but it was soon , found that so large a number of the pupils admitted did not know how to read , that it was necessary to have a daily school as well , and accordingly one was opened on the 29 fch of April , 1813 , under the name of the Edinburgh Sessional SohooL The monitorial system was adopted from the first , and chiefly that modification of it which was introduced by Mr . Lancaster . Some alterations were afterwards made on the suggestion of Dr . Bell ; but it was from Mr . Wood himself , whose first connexion with

    the school appears to have been quite accidental , that it derived those improvements which may be regarded as peculiar to itself , and which therefore demand our particular notice . This most sensible person had not long given his attention to the institution , before he began to entertain very serious doubts whether it was effecting all the good which it might . He was convinced that the children took but little interest in what they read , and that consequently it made but a slight impression upon them .

    ** This evil , " he observes , " called loudly for a remedy , which the meagre explanations , introduced along with the other practices of the Madras system , ( however useful to a certain limited extent , ) did not supply . We therefore felt an extremely strong anxiety to give the Bchool more of am intellectual

    Untitled Article

    ( 376 )

    Untitled Article

    EDINBURGH SESSIONAL SCHOOL . *

    * Account of the Edinburgh Sessional School and the other Parochial Institutions for Education established in that City in the year 1812 ; with Strictures on Education in General . By John Wood , Esq . Edinburgh , Wardlaw ; London , Howell and Stewart . 1828 . 12 ino , pp . 262 ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 378, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/10/