aughed as if she thought he was playing with her. But the silence was so long and so deep that she grew frightened, and called his name loudly and frequently. For almost the first time in her life she called him in vain, and Bess wrung her hands dumbly, as the poor creature became nearly frantic in her effort to make her brother hear. She was soothed at last by Bess, and when the dawn came in at which she shuddered, Nance was sleeping soundly. There was no sleep for Bess. She sat with her fixed gaze, and her thoughts, whirling as it were, in a painful circle.

"Patsy! an' that's all there is of Patsy. "Tis him an' 'tis not him. O my God! what a pain there is in my heart; an' I was happy a while ago! Never was a girl so happy! But Patsy is gone from me, gone to the God that made him so kind an' so pitiful; but the pain in my heart will never, never lave me.'

To the end she kept near him, and before the coffin lid was put on, she slipped the unfinished scarf under his head, and her lips were the last that touched his brow.

The night after the funeral Bess spent, only God knows how, with Patsy's mother and Nance. In the morning, when she had given them breakfast, and helped to make the place tidy, she got a needle and thread and beads for Nance.

"Now, Nance, ye'll stay here an' string them beads till I come back, won't ye?"

Yes," said Nance. "An' when 'll we go to meet Patsy ?" "In good time, plaze God, alanna!"

Then Bess went to her mother's cabin, where she was forced to drink some tea and eat a little bread. When she turned to get her shawl again and a big basket, her mother asked testily,

"Where are ye off to now?"

"I'm goin' for cockles, mother; there's great sale for 'em these times."

"But ye needn't do it, me girl, yer father is earnin' enough to support ye."

"I must go, mother. They'll want all I can earn for 'em over there; an', if I stayed within the walls of a house to-day, I'd stifle."

It seemed to Bess that the only place where she could breathe, was the lonely back strand, with its dreary expanse of sand and seaweed, and the long, monotonous line of sand hills. She felt

mutely what Burns has expressed in one of his songs, when he bids the merry mavis "give over for pity," and says of the sweet dewwet violets and primroses

'They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw.”

And the mother, seeing her mood, urged her no more.

Bess could have kept to the road, but she went down to the sands instead. She tried not to see or to think as she passed down the jetty, and she walked rapidly on till she came to the rock where Patsy and she had paused two mornings ago. There she stood still, her eyes on the spot where their hands had met. For a moment he seemed to stand beside her in all his young, manly beauty, and her heart thrilled once more at the remembrance of his tender gaze. But only for a moment; and then she looked wildly round at sea and shore. Never again, oh! never again would she look at them with happy eyes! The full sense of her loss and loneliness came upon her. She quivered from head to foot, and sinking on the sand, she placed her forehead against the stone, made sacred to her by the touch of Patsey's hand, and her whole frame shook with sobs. It was some time before a rush of tears brought relief, but then she grew calmer. She arose and wiped her tear-stained face with her apron, took her basket on her arm, and drew her shawl closely around her. As she turned to leave the spot, she lifted her clouded eyes heavenward, murmuring, ""Tis for Nance I'm goin', Patsy asthore! and 'twill always be for Nance."

JESSIE TULLOCH.

And fits our powers renewed new parts to play.

I know the force within can never cease,

That He from whom it came,

From earthly fetters can release

The imprisoned flame,

And, after trial, give his perfect peace

That like white bird, whose tireless wings descend

From far beyond the sky,

Skim the dull earth, then backward bend

Their flight on high,

The soul to life stoops from eternity.

Yet would I leave, ere comes the final hour,

A worthier work behind

Impress with print of keener power

The human mind

A little longer labour for mankind.

VOL. XXV. No. 286

ROBERT BLAKE.

14

CAMBRIDGE TRAINING COLLEGE AND THE

THE

CATHOLIC REVIVAL.

HE question of education is one that has interested me ever since I was emancipated from the schoolroom, and began to test by actual experience how the theories there imparted to me worked out in real life. It was when studying the latest developments in the methods of instruction that I came across some interesting facts as to the revival of Catholicity at Cambridge, which may be novel to the readers of THE IRISH MONTHLY as they were to me.

Only of late years have people come to see that knowing anything thoroughly, does not necessarily include the power to teach it efficiently. True, in every school this had long been discovered by practical demonstration. It was found that some masters and mistresses, possessed of a natural knack of teaching, achieved better results with a comparatively small stock of knowledge than others with a great store of learning. Though this was admitted on all sides, no one studied the reason. The body of teachers simply accepted the fact without analysing it, or inquiring into the means whereby one of their number succeeded where another failed,

The advance in this matter, as in so many which involve profound thought, came from Germany, Pestalozzi may be looked on as the father of systematised modern education. Froebel, again, by the introduction of "Kindergarten" entirely reformed the mode of training young children, who now-a-days, where the system is rightly practised-an important condition-learn as much, while amusing themselves, as they formerly did in double the time and with many tears. France, Sweden and Norway, Holland, and indeed, European countries generally, adopted the new methods before England, but the last-named is now trying to make up for lost time. She has found that the superior skill of other nations, as draughtsmen, their superior deftness with their fingers, the neatness of touch and love of order insensibly acquired in early life. in a Kindergarten, resulted with maturity in a skill that threatened English commercial supremacy. This was a practical result of training that many had scoffed at as "faddy" or "foreign," a result that could be appreciated by the man in the street.

Naturally it was in the education of the people, the great working class, that a need for reform was first felt, but it did not take long to spread to those socially their superiors, who recognise the advantage of new methods over old. They soon esteemed it a hardship that, while the children of the artizan could be taught only by a trained man or woman who had learned something of pedagogy, and knew the best and quickest systems of imparting knowledge, the children of the fairly well-to-do were handed over to any incompetent person who chose to set up a school, and could persuade parents to send their little ones to it. This was more especially the case with girls, since the necessity for men earning their living at all times encouraged a more practical, a sounder and more thorough form of instruction, so far as boys were considered. I must not be taken as saying that in the past schoolmistresses, as a class, were not excellent and well-meaning women, but the tendency of female training hitherto, as most grown up people can testify from experience, was to fit girls to live in any other world than that in which they actually found themselves.

The most ardent advocate of reform cannot contend that modern methods are absolutely perfect, or modern developments in any way final. Those interested only claim that they are paving the way to a better state of things, are bringing modern education into line with modern needs, that they are more elastic, more open to conviction, than their predecessors, and that, at any rate, they have done away with the terrible system of learning pages of dry facts by heart. The teaching profession is eminently conservative, and even in England, where such importance is attached, and rightly attached, to up-to-date and sound education, it is only by degrees that new methods are being adopted.

Early in the current year, through the kindness of Miss E. P. Hughes, Principal of the Training College for Teachers, I was invited down to Cambridge to see for myself the workings of the admirable institution over which she presides. As I whirled through the snow-clad country in the Midland Express from St. Pancras, my notion of what was before me was vague. Of Miss Hughes's educational ideals I had heard much, and knew her to be in the forefront of the great educational movement that has done so much to develop and improve the women of England; but as to her methods I could only speculate.

Meantime, as the white fields and powdered hedgerows sped