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In addition to giving the scholars a good impression of the Thames, I was thus enabled- to reduce the number of lectures on scenery and historic centres to one each. My lectures were therefore grouped thus:-
1. Hongkong to Egypt.
2. Egypt to London.
3. London.
4. London.
5. Thames.
6. Scenery.
7. Historic centres.
8. Country, town and village life.
9. Agriculture.
10. Mining and manufactures.
11. Navy.
12. Army.
13. Resumé.
As a means of Recapitulation and of adding vividness to the Lectures, I found it an excellent practice to direct the pupils to write letters, addressed from the stopping place of the previous lecture, describing to me their infaginary travels. I thus received letters addressed from Shepherds' Hotel, Cairo, Hotel Cecil, Cock Inn, Chipping, Campden, etc. In working the lantern special note should be taken that the cells are not more than half filled with Carbide to allow for its swelling, and that there is not a speck of dust in the Burners.
III. REPORT BY MRS. TUTCHER ON THE COURSE GIVEN TO THE
VICTORIA AND BELILIOS SCHOOLS.
The Course comprised some 11 or 12 lectures. Fortunately the weather was fine, except on one occasion when in consequence of combined rain and thunder the cars stopped run- ning, and everyone had to get out and walk the last mile of the journey. But so interested were the children, that they preferred to go on rather than return, when given the choice.
For this method of teaching, especially for girls who have few, if any, facilities for travelling, I have nothing but praise. It is as much superior to mere picture lessons, as they again are to ordinary reading lessons. Not only are the lantern pictures larger and clearer than anything the scholars have seen before, but the. very act of throwing them on the screen arrests the attention, and stimulates the imagination; so that the subject matter read in connection with each picture has a much better chance of being remembered. I made it a rule to revise the lectures in Class, and in most cases the answers given were surprisingly accurate, especially from Class I girls, whose wider reading and study had better fitted them to profit, when the subject matter was history or geography. I find there is quite a new zest when anything crops up in the ordinary class work of the school which has any bearing on what the pupils have seen illustrated. And this applies not only to history and geography, but to natural history as well, as also to industries, commerce, and manner of living in different parts of the world.
But there were drawbacks,
The time at our disposal was so limited that the reading matter arranged for each picture had, in most cases, to suffice, even when, as was often the case, the picture supplied material for quite a long and interesting lecture when taken by itself. It made me quite sorry to lose so many golden opportunities of leading from the seen to the unseen, and of drawing attention to details which had a bearing on something the pupils had already learned. Also it would have been a very great improvement if each of the pupils could have had the use of a text book for revisal or preparation. This would have formed at