this there are many obstacles arising from our own defects in earnestness and in knowledge. But I have dwelt upon two that are due rather to our virtues than our vices-the love of imparting knowledge, and the ambition to see the details of every subject thoroughly learnt-the "love of information," the "fear of examination." I do not wish to be understood as condemning either of these. They preserve us from being dull and from being slipshod. Each in its own way and in its own place is good. But that place is not the first; and when we find ourselves flooding our Forms with information, or encouraging them in mere acquisition, then is the time to remember the paramount duty of "teaching to think."

IX

ENGINEERING.

BY THE REV. F. STEPHENSON.

CRITICISM is playing its part manfully to-day, and there are few bodies that it has not dared to face. Of late it has devoted much attention to our Public Schools, and those ancient institutions are finding the rest and peaee of many years noisily disturbed. There is profit in the disturbance, and houses as a consequence are being set in order, not in readiness. to depart, but in preparation for more useful work in the future. But the critics are pulling in different directions. As soon as the schoolmaster proceeds to teach Divinity, there are spectacled dons and examiners ready to shake their heads at his perverse conservatism, and, on the other hand, single-hearted mothers at home who decry his license. When he struggles with Latin, a general writes from abroad demanding in its stead subjects that score marks in the Army examinations, and retired Indian civilians at the club deplore the inability of their sons to quote Horace in their home letters. If he try modern languages, Professors abuse him for touching so lightly on derivations and ancient literature, and city men bewail the absence of proper instruction in modern commercial correspondence.

It is the same with engineering. A few years back parents demanded quick returns for the money they spent in education, and would be content with