The educational record of the province of Quebec, 1 avril 1916, Avril - Juin

[" Che Educational Record of the Province of Quebec + ~ je No.4-5-6 April -May-June Vol.XXXVI EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS: A NEW SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.On Thursday the 13th of April the Government of the Province announced the appointment of Hon.Cyrille F.Delage as Superintendent of Public Instruction, in succession to the Hon.Boucher de la Bruere, who had retired owing to ill-health.The Hon.Mr.Delage has been for some years the local member for Quebec county and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.He is an able and accomplished gentleman, and will undoubtedly fill the important position to which he has been called, with dignity and thoroughness.The retirement of the Hon.Boucher de la Bruere from ill-health was much regretted by the officers of the Department.Appointed in 1894 he had long been the esteemed NOTE TO TEACHERS \u2014 To interest the senior pupils and provide them with profitable reading a few pages of interesting selections and original items will appear in each issue of the RECORD.Please call the pupils\u2019 attention to these pages and ask them to read such parts as they prefer.\u2014EDITORS. 90 The Educational Record.and ever-courteous Head of the Department, and much progressive work in the educational development of the Province was accomplished under his direction.He warmly adviccated and supported the cause of rural education, and constantly urged the need of making it more and more agricultural in its character.To that end he advanced with all his energy the various movements in this direction sanctioned by the Roman Catholic and Protestant Commitiees of the Council of Public Instruction.In the school gardens, which are much more numerous in the Roman Catholic than in the Protestant municipalities, he took a special interest.The first Superintendent in the Province was Dr.Mol- leur (1842), the next Hon.P.J.O.Chauveau (1859), the next Hon.Gedeon Ouiment (1876)\u2014these being the three predecessors of the Hon.Boucher de la Bruere, appointed, as stated above, in 1894.\u2019 BIRD PROTECTION.A useful application of nature study is that of making it the means of conveying the lesson of bird protection.The Dominion Commission of Conservation has issued a number of \u201cConservation\u201d in which an offer is extended to Canadian school children and teachers in this behalf from the National Association of Audobon Societies New York.Copies of \u2018\u201c\u201cConservation\u2019\u2019 have been mailed to a number of our schools.Any teacher who has not received a copy, and is interested in the question, would doubtless receive one by writing to the Commission of Conservation, Ottawa, and asking for the March number.They are supplied free.LIMITATION OF GRADES.An important circular was sent out in March to the Protestant school boards of the Province, embodying a resolution of the Protestant Cimmittee, which reads: \u2014 \u201cThat in schools now known as elementary schools.grades I-VII may be taken; in schools now known as model Che The Shakespeare Tercentenary.o1 schools, grades I-IX may be taken; under no circumstances may these schools take up the work of higher grades than those above indicated, ON PAIN OF LOSING THE WHOLE OF THEIR GRANTS, unless permission to do so has been asked for and granted annually at the May meeting preceding the scholastic year for which such permission is asked.This shall come into effect June 1st, 1916.That notice of this shall be sent to all Protestant school boards and school inspectors at once.\u201d The circular further stated that boards making application must do so each year not later than May 10th, and the application should contain a succinct statement of the reason why the permission is asked for.Teachers who are undertaking more grades than they are entitled to should consult their boards on this subject.THE SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARY.It is much to be regretted that the three hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death should have been marred to some extent by a recrudescence of the silly theory that Lord Bacon was the real author of Shakespeare's plays.The advocates of the theory have been busy writing to the newspapers on the subject, and on the eve of the anniversary a Chicago judge (a Daniel come to judgment) handed down a decision in its favor.There is not one tittle of real evidence for the idea, and the long controversy only proves how weak are the reasoning powers of many people in things literary.There is just as much evidence for the Baconian theory (and no more) as there is for the assumption that Mr.Asquith wrote the poems and stories of Kipling.We examined the \u201ccipher\u201d theory of Mrs.Gallup some years ago, and our greatest astonishment was that any sensible person should have been taken in by it.In this connection we \u2018think there was much sense in the remark of a guide when, a few years ago.we visited Shakespeare's church at Stratford-on-Avon.He pointed to the many aristocratic memorials on the walls and said, \u201cNow, knowing The Educational Record.what we do of the conservatism of these old families, is it to be believed for a moment that the words \u201cWilliam Shakespeare, Gentleman\u201d would have been allowed to be put on this tomb if Shakespeare was the cad that some people would try to make out that he was?\u201d In this period of world-war, and of war for those glor- ous principles of Freedom which Shakespeare voiced for all time, we may well cherish the memory of the great poet.He was a living reality to one at least of his friends, Ben Jonson, whose commemorative verses follow :\u2014 To The Memory Of My Beloved Beloved Master, William Shakespeare, And What He Hath Left Us.I therefore will begin: Soul of the Age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise:\u2019] will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room: Thou art a monument, without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live, And we have wits to read, and praise to give .Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.- He was not of an age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When like Apollo he came forth to warm Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm! Nature herself was proud of his designs, And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines! Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit .Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage, Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage: Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn\u2019d like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume\u2019s light.BEN JONSON. The Shakespeare Tercentenary.Then there is John Milton\u2019s sonnet :\u2014 What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labour of an age in piled stones ?Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid 2 Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame, What need\u2019st thou such weak witness of thy name?Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a life-long monument.For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavouring art Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish te die.JoHN MILTON.But most of all we may recall that burst of patriotism in Shakespeare\u2019s \u2018Richard IT\u201d :\u2014 \u201cThis royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise; This fortress, built by nature for herself, Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world; This precious stone set in the silver sea, That serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.\u201d 94 The Educational Record, OUR SCHOOL STATISTICS.The annual report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (1915) was issued in February of this year.Each year it is first presented to the members of the Legislature during the session.The volume contains the inspectors reports for the school year 1914-15 and the general statistics for the school year 1913-14.The general statistics are drawn both from the bulletins of the inspectors and from the annual reports of the secretary-treasurers.In the following paragraphs we offer some of the salient points which an analysis of the statistics, compared with those of the previous year and of 1903-04, bring out with regard to Protestant education in the Province.The advantage of using both the two-year and the ten-year periods will be seen, we think, in the sequel.The most obvious fact that the analysis brings out is that the Protestant school population is increasing for the Province as a whole, but that it is increasing in the cities and decreasing in the country, or rural municipalities.This we have known in a general way from other sources, but the statistics m'ake it doubly clear.Number of Schools \u2014In 1913-14 there were 786 Protestant elementary schools.This was 14 less than in 1912- 13 and 112 less than in 1903-04.But these figures taken by themselves would lead to a wrong deduction.For example, 10 of the 14 elementary schools less in 1913-14 had become model schools.In 1913-14 the number of model schools was increased from 43 to 53, and the number of academies from 33 to 38.These latter had been model schools, so that more than 10 elementary schools had been raised to model rank.The right comparison is to be found, therefore, in the united figures for the three kinds of school.Here they are: \u2014 1003\u201404 1912\u201413 1913\u201414 Elementary Schools .898 800 786 Model Schools .:.44 43 53 Academies .28 33 38 \u2014_\u2014 \u2014 \u2014_\u2014 Totals .970 876 877 PO PO RER POSER RCE PERD PPT I RCS HIT HH Our Schooi Statistics.\u2018 95 In the ten-year period, therefore, the total reduciion was 93, and in the two-year period there was an increase of one.But the interpretation of the facts will come out bet- \u201cter in the next paragraph.Number of Pupils:\u2014In spite of the reduced number of schools the number of pupils in the Protestant schools has steadily increased, as the following figures show :\u2014 In Elementary schools.27,467 37,117 39,341 In Model schools 3,451 4,603 In Academies 8,282 10,623 Totals 48,850 54,567 The increase, of course, has been in the towns and cities.In Montreal alone in the ten-year period the pupils increased from 8,995 to 22,953.Maisonneuve, West- mount, Outremont and other municipalities on the Island account for many of the extra pupils.Sherbrooke county increased from 1330 to 1512, due to increases in the City of Sherbrooke.The principal rural gains were in the counties of Gaspé and Bonaventure, the former advancing from 550 pupils in 1903-04 to 773 in 1913-14, and the latter from 998 to 1315.Stanstead county registers a slight increase in the ten years from 2058 to 2093.Ar- genteuil had only a slight fall from 1