Volume 156 — A NEW SCHOOL.
Reading edition
An evening newspaper informs its readers that arrangements are being made for "a school for M.P.'s"—"a weekly meeting of Unionist M.P.'s new to Parliamentary life, who will receive instruction in the forms of the House. They will be taught how to address the SPEAKER, how to frame a question," and so forth.
This intelligence is of particular interest in that it conveys an admission that our new M.P.'s do not know everything.
Interviewed by a correspondent, Mr. Raleigh Quawe, the able young educationist, who, it is understood, is watching the experiment with some concern, said, "While I do not wish to seem to be giving away too much to the gloom of youth, I cannot help feeling that the school may be run on wrong lines unless the greatest care is exercised. Will the opportunity be taken for testing methods which have been so disastrously absent hitherto from our public school system? I would urge those in authority to put away the old formulæ, and to ensure the introduction of a right spirit in the school by the appointment of young masters endowed with vision and enthusiasm.
"I hope that the worship of sport will not be encouraged. I was never one who believed that our battles have been won on the playing-fields of Westminster. I am confident that I am not alone in the hope that the old games at Westminster will be abandoned.
"It is most important that there should be no suppression of the emotional nature. Rob politics of emotion and the newspapers are not worth reading; and it must not be forgotten that what Westminster does to-day is read of by the British Empire to-morrow. No effort should be spared to awaken the artistic sense of the pupils. If the pictures and sculptures in and about the corridors of the Houses of Parliament are not enough, let others be prepared. No expense should be spared. For my part I see no reason why a little music should not be introduced occasionally.
"Freedom of opinion should also be encouraged. One fault of our educational system has been its tendency to produce mass-thinking. This will never do among our Unionist Members of Parliament. Yes, I would even advocate that some of the seniors should be allowed to read The Herald if they wished to do so, and I question whether The Nation would do any of them any harm."
Commercial Candour.
Notice in a watchmaker's window:—
"No repairs except to watches recently purchased."
Advertisement in Provincial Paper:—
"WALK IN,
But you will be happier when you go out."
"An extraordinary plague of rats prevails on the Sheffield Corporation rubbish tips at Killamarsh. The rodents have constructed beaten tracks eight inches wide, extending to corn stacks on a local farm, where they have wrought munch havoc."—Local Paper.
Quite the right epithet, we feel sure.
"We make a speciality of gorillas and chimpanzees. They are wonderfully intelligent and can be trained right up to the human standard in all except speech. One of our directors, Mr. ——, and his wife are both able to only be tamed to live in captivity."—Irish Paper.
A perusal of the above paragraph is said to have stimulated Mr. ——'s gift of speech in a startling degree.
IF THE POETS STRUCK WOULD THE MILITARY BE CALLED IN TO DO THEIR WORK?
