The hearing of lessons is a subject that deserves a great deal of consideration.  It is an old formal name for what has been often an antiquated mechanical exercise.  A great deal more trouble is expended now on the manner of questioning and “hearing” the lessons; but even yet it may be done too formally, as a mere function, or in a way that kills the interest, or in a manner that alarms—­with a mysterious face as if setting traps, or with questions that are easy and obvious to ask, but for children almost impossible to answer.  Children do not usually give direct answers to simple questions.  Experience seems to have taught them that appearances are deceptive in this matter, and they look about for the spring by which the trap works before they will touch the bait.  It is a pity to set traps, because it destroys confidence, and children’s confidence in such matters as lessons is hard to win.

The question of aids to study by stimulants is a difficult one.  On the one hand it seems to some educators a fundamental law that reward should follow right-doing and effort, and so no doubt it is; but the reward within one’s own mind and soul is one thing and the calf-bound book is another—­scarcely even a symbol of the first, because they are not always obtained by the same students.  This is a fruitful subject for discourse or reflection at distributions of prizes.  Those who are behind the scenes know that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, and the children know it themselves, and prize-winners often become the object of the “word in season,” pointing out how rarely they will be found to distinguish themselves in after life; while the steady advance of the plodding and slow mind is dwelt upon, and those who have failed through idleness drink up the encouragement which was not intended for them, and feel that they are the hope of the future because they have won no prizes.  It is difficult on those occasions to make the conflicting conclusions clear to everybody.

Yet the system of prize distributions is time honoured and traditional, and every country is not yet so disinterested in study as to be able to do without it; under its sway a great deal of honest effort is put out, and the taste of success which is the great stimulant of youth is first experienced.

There is also the system of certificates, which has the advantage of being open to many instead of to one.  It is likewise a less material testimonial, approaching more nearly to the merited word of approval which is in itself the highest human reward, and the one nearest to the heart of things, because it is the one which belongs to home.  For if the home authorities interest themselves in lessons at all, their grown-up standard and the paramount weight of their opinion gives to one word of their praise a dignity and worth which goes beyond all prizes.  Beyond this there is no natural satisfaction to equal the inner consciousness of having done one’s