the extension of turnpike roads into the remoter parts of the country. Those remoter counties, it was pretended, from the cheapness of labour, would be able to sell their corn at a lower rate in the London market than themselves, and would thereby reduce their rents and ruin their cultivation. In spite of these remonstrances, the turnpike-roads were extended into the remoter counties, and, as might have been expected, so far from injuring the neighbourhood of the metropolis, they greatly increased its value, the interchange of commodities being, as it would be amongst all the nations of the earth, mutually beneficial. | which accounts for the "dunghill on the left being As Goldsmith "surveyed the curiosities of the fair and beautiful town" of Islington, its past history In the year 1716, the roads from London to High- may have recurred to him. He speaks of "a small gate, through Islington and Kentish Town, are de- lake or pond in the midst." He may have recalled to scribed as being "very ruinous and almost impass- mind Fitz-Stephen's description in the twelfth cenable for the space of five months in the year; and tury of the fields and pleasant open meadows through an Act was passed (3 Geo. 1, c. 4) for repairing the which flowed numerous brooks, by the side of which highways from several places in the said Act men- were water-wheels for the grinding of the produce of tioned, leading towards Highgate Gatehouse and the cornfields at Barnsbury. Or he may have Hampstead. thought of the days of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when archery was extensively practised by the citizens at the butts erected there. He may have rejoiced in the comparatively greater security ho enjoyed than that which existed in 1674, when Ogleby described the road by Islington as the sceno of frequent robberies and murders. But he would be more familiar with the descriptions of this suburb given by Addison in the days of Queen Anne, when Islington was a great place for country excursions. Especially would he have in his mind George Colman's description in a farce, written in 1756, of a citizen's wife packing up neats' tongues and cold chickens, preparatory to visiting her husband's country box in the coach-and-three from the end of Cheapside. A bequest had been made more than 130 years before, by William Heron, a citizen and woolmonger, of London, by will, dated 12th July, 1580, by which he gave yearly for ever the rent of £8 for and towards repairing the highways from time to time, in most needful places, between the Spittal House, at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the west side of the road leading from Islington, the site of which is now called Lazaret or Lazarat Field, and the common highway leading from Highgate through Kentish Town to Battle Bridge. The property conveyed to the Clothworkers' Company, and now chargeable with this and other bequests, consists of eight houses in West Smithfield and Cow Lane, in the parish of St. Sepulchre, London. When, in 1825, the Charity Commissioners made inquiry as to this bequest, it was ascertained that no application had been made to the Cloth workers' Company since 1817. The arrears were ultimately paid, but a considerable sum had been retained by the Company which had arisen from surplus rents of the property which they had withheld for above two centuries and a half for their own use. These surplus rents, and the dividends on the stock, as well as the fines received on the granting and renewal of leases, amounted to a very considerable sum. Litigation ensued in 1831, which concluded on a decree of the Lord Chancellor in favour of the various charitable purposes named in the will, and the Cloth workers' Company had to bear the costs of the litigation. The £8 for the repair of the highways" was thus augmented threefold, but a permanent and sufficient highway-rate could alone meet the case. It may prove interesting to trace the progress of the "journey" which Goldsmith made through the district which he passed from the City to the then rural village of Kentish Town, more than a hundred years since. Doghouse Bar, from whence Goldsmith set out, was in Old Street, a district once famous for its nursery grounds. The almshouses here were built when it was an open healthy suburb. The City hounds were once kept here, and here the City huntsman formerly lived, from which circumstance arose the name of the turnpike-gate. The "fine level road" was the City Road. It was projected by Mr. Dingley, in the year 1760, just before Goldsmith wrote his description of it, and Canonbury Tower would cause him to remember his enforced residence there, at various times, when writing some of his inimitable works, under pressing necessities, to satisfy his creditors. He would necessarily be acquainted with the fact that some wellknown writers had also occupied lodgings here. There were in the tower seven stories, in which were twenty-three rooms. It was nearly sixty feet in height and seventeen feet square. Newbury the bookseller lodged here, and Goldsmith occupied the same apartments. same apartments. Ephraim Chambers, the originator of modern cyclopædias, lodged here till his death on May 18, 1740, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Goldsmith occasionally visited Islington, to enjoy what he called "a shoemaker's holiday." After breakfasting with three or four of his familiar friends at his chambers in the Temple, they would walk to Highbury Barn, then a public-house and farm, and they would dine at the ordinary, consisting of two courses and pastry, for the very moderate sum of tenpence a head, including the fee of one penny for the waiter. They would then afterwards walk to White Conduit House to take tea. Perhaps these were amongst the most rational and happy days which poor Goldsmith spent, for he obtained fresh air, exercise, and agreeable companionship. The solemnity of eating hot rolls and butter at White Conduit House has long since fallen into neglect; and the modern house, like many others in the suburbs, retains the name, without conveying any idea of its former character. One of the numerous conduits which formerly supplied London with water, stood in a field opposite the "Round House" in 1831. It was made of white stone. The gardens belonging to the house were elegantly laid out, and at the upper end of the middle walk was a painting of ruins, which was so well executed that strangers who saw it from a distance supposed it to be a reality. The walks were then considered extremely fine, and in the centre was a large basin of water, around which were boxes for the accommodation of company. There were in the house two large rooms; and, in the summer, particularly on Sundays, great numbers of people resorted there to regale themselves with tea and coffee, and to enjoy the pleasure of walking in the gardens. con year. It is certain that every age has had its predominant vices; but we cannot help thinking that the prudence and modesty in women, during former times, and the manly assurance in men, was much superior to the practice of the present age. As Pope says 'Time was, a sober Englishman would knock And send his wife to church, his son to school; And all to theatres and rehearsals throng, Had Goldsmith written his description of the parish of St. Pancras in these days, it would have been received as severe banter to speak of its "sanctity; but the application of the terms, the "church and its fine bells," is not warranted now. It is said to have been the last church in England whose bells tolled for mass. To the south of this house was another place of a similar character, Daubeney's, formerly called Dobney's, upon the site of Dobney Place. In 1767 a Mr. Johnson, "of London," laid out a siderable sum to make it attractive. Besides planting trees of various kinds, he ornamented certain parts of the grounds with paintings, at full length, of some of the most distinguished characters in Shakespeare's plays. There was also a large bowling-green, on one side of which was a handsome tea-room. The number of people who frequented this and houses of a similar kind on Sundays was said by Harrison, in 1777, to be "truly astonishing; and a stranger would rather suppose them to be distinguished fairs than places of common entertainment." But of all the public places of amusement near Islington, that which, according to the same authority, deserved the most particular notice was Sadler's Wells. "This is a spacious building, situated near the New River, and was licensed by Act of Parliament in 1753. In this place, during the summer season, a variety of public entertainments are exhibited, to which great numbers of people resort." Sadler's Wells was named from a mineral spring superstitiously dispensed by the monks of the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, from the time of Stephen till the Reformation, when with the Priory it was suppressed. In the reign of Charles II. a Mr. Sadler built the "Music House," and in 1683 he re-discovered in the garden the well of "excellent steel waters," which in the following year were drunk by hundreds of persons every morning. On June 11, 1686, Evelyn visited "the New Spa Well, Our forefathers did not appear even to suspect that near Middleton's receptacle of water at the New an open ditch was a source of contagion, for in many River." In time the waters ceased to attract; and parts the Fleet River, as it aforetime was, ditch as it in 1769, eleven years after the date of Harrison's became, was open, carrying along in its course much description, the "Music House" was taken down," muddy impurity;" it was, in fact, an open sewer, and the present theatre was built. Charles Dibdin containing nameless and numberless kinds of refuse. and his sons were at one time the proprietors. In By degrees the River Fleet has at last disappeared 1804 real water was introduced on to the stage, but from sight. was ultimately discontinued from its ill effects upon the actors. Harrison was tempted to moralise on the evil tendency of tea-gardens. He wrote in his "History of London:"-" We cannot help thinking that places of public entertainment have become too numerous in the present age, and that unless the legislative power shall think proper to lay them under greater restrictions, an universal neglect of business and profligacy of manners will certainly take place among all ranks of the people. Formerly, places of public diversion were confined to the City, and for the most part to the two theatres; nor were they resorted to by any but such whose circumstances would permit them to spend a few evenings in the season, nor by those who came from the country above once in the Instead of the present vestry-hall and the immense establishment behind it, which is kept up at the expense of the parishioners, it appeared to Goldsmith, as he proceeded along the King's Road, as a "fine champaign country," through which he passed a distance of a mile and a quarter. This road is said to have derived its royal designation from being the approach to a king's palace. If there is any foundation for the assertion that King John had a palace in Kentish Town, it would justify the supposition that the application of the name arose from that circumstance. A very short time since it was a pleasant rural highway, with hedgerows and forest trees; and some few inhabitants speak with enthusiasm of the excellent contiguous farms, with fertile meadows and abundant hay-crops. The sweet-scented hay could be sniffed even as far off as Holborn. The beautiful drains Goldsmith refers to were originally springs, flowing from the hills of Hampstead and Highgate into the River Fleet. From this cause, in the winter season, the roads were often impassable through the floods. 66 The Elephant and Castle" deserves some notice, as it is supposed to be one of the oldest houses in St. Pancras. It is the first building at the south end of the King's Road, immediately opposite St. Pancras workhouse. It is said to have derived its name from the discovery by Mr. Conyers, an apothecary of Fleet Street, and an enthusiastic antiquary, of the remains of an elephant in a field which was being excavated near the Fleet Brook, at Battle Bridge, about the year 1714. Mr. Conyers imagined this elephant to have been one of those which were known to have been brought into Britain by the Romans and made serviceable in their wars with the natives, as was not unusual. Near the same spot an ancient British spear was also found-a flint fastened to a long shaft. The scene of the battle Within the last twenty years the River Fleet was open in what was then waste ground, adjoining this house. Fifty years since it passed under a bridge in Camden Street, and more recently it was to be seen at Kentish Town, at the corner of what is now Clarence Road. between the Romans and the Britons under Boadicea, | As several inquiries have been made on the subject. when the Britons were slaughtered and their queen and as the system is about to be grafted on some of captured, was vividly pictured by Mr. Conyers, and our Board schools, we give a few more words of exas many visitors were attracted to the scene, Boni-planation by one of the earliest pupils of Fröbel, who face, it is said, appropriated the name. is generally reckoned the founder of the system. Physical education or bodily culture must always be at the basis of every proper system of training. Taking physical education as the first step or foundation on which to build, Fröbel invented a number of games which should exercise, in the form of play, all the limbs and muscles of the body. These games have been borrowed from Germany, but since the wide spread of the system many others have been invented on the same principle, and with the same object; and as English children naturally prefer English games in thought and feeling, as well as language, we can indulge them in this respect. While affording healthy and cheerful exercise to the muscles, all the games have songs set to music, which the little ones sing as they play, and great care must be taken by the teachers to observe that every movement should be in order, and in exact time to the music. suc Passing the present substantial buildings in the King's Road devoted to the storing of ale, etc., and reaching the bridge over the Regent's Canal, a small house attracts attention, having on its side inscribed in raised letters "Cantlers Cottage." The following story is connected with it, illustrative of the folly of overreaching and attempted extortion. The Regent's Canal was projected in 1813, and while it was being cut interested persons put every obstruction in its way; sometimes they were cessful, not only in obtaining compensation, but also in securing deviations of the intended course of the canal. A Welshman named Morgan built a house in its contemplated course in the King's Road. The directors, seeing this obstruction, turned on one side, and rendered this house useless, as the bridge required the raising of the road. Mr. Morgan accordingly built his house still higher, leaving two stories of it buried; he then entered an action for damages against the Canal Company. But the judges decided in this case in favour of the Company. The scheming Welshman had therefore to swallow the leek, to his cost, for it occasioned his bankruptcy and ruin. The loneliness of the road to Kentish Town when night set in was a frequent occasion of robbery, and sometimes violence. Old newspapers and magazines contain many notices of such outrages. In 1756 the inhabitants of Kentish Town and other places between there and London entered into a voluntary subscription for the support of a guard or patrol to protect foot-passengers to and from each place during the winter season. "That is to say, from to-morrow, being Old Michaelmas Day, to Old Lady Day next, in the following manner, viz.: That a guard of two men, well armed, will set out tomorrow, at six o'clock in the evening, from Mr. Lander's, the Bull, in Kentish Town, and go from thence to Mr. Gould's, the Coach and Horses, facing the Foundling Hospital gate, in Red Lion Street, London; and at seven will return from thence back to the Bull; at eight will set out again from the Bull to the Coach and Horses, and at nine will return from thence to the Bull again; and will so continue to do every evening during the said winter season, from which places, at the above hours, all passengers will be conducted without fee or reward." THE KINDER GARTEN. THE HE system of home and school education, known as the Kinder Garten (children's garden), has been formerly described in the "Leisure Hour." We are indebted for this paper to Mr. F. Miller, one of the "oldest inhabitants" of Kentish Town, who has lately published (A. Heywood & Son, Catherine Street, Strand) a little volume, "Saint Pancras Past and Present," which contains much curions matter about places and people associated with that region of London. Perceiving that even babies, as soon as they begin to notice the things around, require some plaything in their little hands, Fröbel began his system of education at the very foundation, and gave the infant toys which he should be induced to think about as he grew older. The first toy used in the schoolroom for children above three years of age, is a cube divided into eight smaller cubes, contained in a box which it closely fits. With this the little ones receive their first definite lesson in form, number, order, and construction. They learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division by having the actual objects before them. They learn to distinguish the cube from other forms around, to notice the lines and angles on its faces, to distinguish the perpendicular and horizontal lines, to build a vast variety of forms of use and beauty with their eight small cubes, and also to embody their own ideas in some definite form, instead of following the teacher word by word and without thinking for themselves. For after directing them for some time, the teacher should allow her pupils to build as they like, merely pointing out any defects in the order of construction, or want of accuracy in form, which may strike her experienced eye in the wonderful things she will be called upon to admire. Another plaything is then given, a cube divided into eight oblongs. The same lessons can be imparted with it, and it also affords many more facilities for making numerous forms and figures. The next toy is a much larger cube, divided into twenty-seven smaller cubes, three of this number being divided across from corner to corner, each into two triangular pieces, and three more being divided in the same manner into four triangular pieces. This toy enables the pupil to extend his lessons and building operations, and construct his houses, churches, and other objects of use and beauty, in a more perfect form. A still more advanced toy is a box containing a cube divided into twenty-seven oblongs instead of cubes. Of the twenty-seven oblongs in this box, three are divided lengthways, each into two parallelopipeds, and three others cut each into two squares, being half of the oblong. It will be perceived that these gifts bring the child step by step from the first rule in arithmetic gradually on to the extraction of the square and cube root, and decimal fractions. In geometry, from the simple ball, cube, and cylinder, he learns to make and become accustomed to the most intricate and complicated geometrical forms; and that, too, without any forcing or undue strain or pressure on his memory, but by constantly using and becoming accustomed to them in his daily work. In construction, also, he goes step by step, from the effort of placing one brick to stand upon another, till he builds his houses, monuments, churches, and embodies with facility his ideas on any mechanical subject. I now turn to the Kinder Garten employments, which, I would have the reader bear in mind, are purely educational; and although the child of tender years does not perceive this-and, indeed, knows nothing about it, but simply, under the stimulus of an awakening energy which impels it to action, is perpetually doing something, still it is the duty of the teacher to comprehend everything, and, above all, to get some insight into the meaning of the child's play, and to give it useful direction. Fröbel maintained as one of the principles on which his system was based, "Play is the work of the child; and those who have sat down calmly to study the plays and occupations of children, with the conviction that there is some deep meaning in their little games, which they extemporise themselves, will have been struck by the fact that all their conceptions are ideal, and that they always play at what they are not, and not what they are. Sometimes they act as though they were men or women; one will be mamma, another papa, another grandmamma; at other times they pretend to follow various trades and professions, and every occupation, from the minister to the costermonger, will be personified. Again, they are horses, dogs, sheep, bullocks, as the whim of the moment inspires them. Then look at what they are attempting to do-they will keep a school, build a house, attempt every variety of cookery, and practise any or every trade; but all this time they are labouring under the same ideal impression, and are attempting to be what they are not. What, then, is it that the child is doing in all this? He is exercising at the same time the body and the mind, and is educating himself in life's essential lessons. I have already spoken of the purpose of physical exercise, but in play the child is receiving a mental training scarcely inferior. The Kinder Garten simply gives a fixed and definite purpose to this restless and wandering action. We give full vent to the child's ideality or imagination; but with us he learns the value of mathematical accuracy, and acquires what we may call ability. Size, form, order, proportion, and relation, are ideas which he insensibly acquires in some of the employments which I will briefly enumerate. The first employment we will glance at, more from the fact of its being the most simple, and a sort of introduction to what will follow it, than from the interest attached, is stick-laying. This is exceed ingly easy. A number of pieces of stick, three or four inches in length, like the round lucifer matches before being dipped, are given to each child, and the mother or teacher with them can direct the little ones to make the various kinds of geometrical lines-the angles, triangles, squares, and all the straight letters of the alphabet. In addition to this, very pretty stars, and the outline of figures and patterns, can be laid out on the table with a number of these sticks, but it must never be forgotten that as soon as the children have learnt how to use their new toy or employment, they should be allowed free use of it if only for five or ten minutes at a time, the teacher simply giving a word of advice when she considers it necessary. Pea-work, to which stick-laying is an introduction, is likewise made with the round undipped lucifermatch sticks. They can be obtained at almost any German toy warehouse, about a yard in length, and can then be broken, and the ends pointed, any size required. In addition to the sticks, some common yellow peas, soaked in cold water twelve hours, so that they may be softened and swell, must be ready, and slightly rubbed in a soft dry cloth before commencing work. With these simple materials all sorts of objects can be constructed, and they afford more varied and lasting, as well as cheaper amusement than purchased toys. Ready-made toys are usually in favour only for a very short time, and are often broken just to find out how they are made, if not out of sheer destructiveness. Fröbel advised that children should make their own toys, and in constructing them exercise their invention and skill. What they make themselves they are more likely to protect and preserve than to destroy. The best Lessons in modelling come next. material for the purpose is common modelling clay, two or three pounds of which can be obtained for sixpence at any modeller's shop; besides this, a modelling knife of hard polished wood is wanted, about the size of a lead pencil, flattened at one end and the edges sharpened, and the other end rounded down to a point. A small piece of oilcloth and a nursery pinafore are quite sufficient to protect the rest of the dress from the white dust, which, however, will readily brush off from any material on which it may happen to fall or come in contact. Having the plastic clay before her, the teacher should give a lump to each of her pupils, telling them to roll it into a round ball. This should always be the first step, as anything can be made from the ball more readily than any other definite form, and a starting-point, especially with children, is always necessary. Modelling supplies what the pea-work lacked. With the latter employment the outline or skeleton of a building or anything of the kind could be made, but in modelling there is more substance and reality, and it enables the pupil, as soon as proficient, to model birds, vases, or imitate any solid form. Our next employment is mat-making, or paperplaiting, a most interesting and favourite occupation. especially with little girls. The mat is a piece of coloured satin paper, perpendicular cuts being made in it at equal distances, but leaving a margin of nearly an inch on all sides of the square, so that a frame is let which holds it together. Strips of the same kind of paper, but of a different and suitable colour, are passed in the slit at one end of a long thin piece of wood called the mat needle, and the needle is worked through the mat, taking one strip up and going over the next, till half are over, and the other half under it. The needle is then taken through on the opposite side of the mat from which it entered, and the coloured strip drawn after it, until it crosses the mat, when the strip is retained, and the needle drawn away. This row. is repeated until the mat is full of strips, the second | One can scarcely turn over a more wonderful page row always taking up what was passed over, and in the volume of nature, and there are "lines begoing over what was taken up in the preceding tween the lines," the significance of which we have When full, the ends are pasted down at the only begun to discover. Though our British entomoback of the mat, and it is complete. This is the first logists, generally, have not as yet devoted much and most simple form. But an endless variety of time to the study of galls and their insect tenants, patterns can be invented, and any crochet pattern the labours of Continental naturalists, amongst copied, from the fact of the mat being formed of whom Dr. Mayr might be singled out for honoursquares. able mention, have brought most interesting facts to light. Several of these have been confirmed, and additional observations made, by Mr. Francis Walker, one of our English entomologists, remarkable for his patience and accuracy. In addition to the above, we have paper-cutting, paper-folding, and paper-plaiting in other forms, but as this system of education must be seen in practice to be fully appreciated and understood, I will simply observe that we teach writing and reading on the same principle as we instruct our pupils in other branches of education. In learning to read, the little ones have first of all coloured pieces of cardboard of various sizes, some of them half circles, given to them; with these they learn to make their letters, and so master the alphabet, and begin to spell the first simple words. As an advanced step, they have ready-made letters, with which they receive spelling lessons; after this they read in books. In writing and drawing, a child proceeds in the same manner. One side of his slate is engraved with squares of about a quarter an inch. Over these he learns to draw his pencil over one, two, three, or more squares, and gradually acquiring the use of the pencil and pen, learns to write and draw. It will be observed that the same principle pervades everything in this system of training, developed from a very simple, but purely mathematical basis. The child is gradually induced to develop his faculties, not forced to do so. The principle is, to turn to systematic and progressive use the otherwise random and wayward activity of childish play. The system will be found equally practicable in the nursery or public schoolroom; and all mothers who have the welfare of their little ones at heart would do well to become more fully acquainted with it, if they have not already tested its value, whether for bodily exercise or mental discipline. I need scarcely add, that even in regard to higher moral training the system can be turned to good account. The hymns, which form so important an agent in early religious training, are more readily and pleasantly impressed on the memory when sung to cheery music in genial companionship than when painfully learned in silent and solitary study. But this was familiarly known in infant and juvenile English schools, before the German Kinder Garten was heard of. OAK-GALLS AND THEIR OCCUPANTS. THE HE ordinary compilers of dictionaries, who do not happen to have any particular knowledge of natural history, have been accustomed to explain what galls are, as seen on plants and trees, somewhat in these terms: "A gall is an excrescence produced on the leaf or stem of a plant by the puncture of an insect, in which an egg is deposited, and the grub, when hatched, feeds on the juices of the plant until it arrives at maturity." Something like this, longer or briefer, we have found copied again and again in print, but we are now discovering that the history of a gall is a great deal more complicated than such a statement would lead us to suppose. The circumstance has now been known for many years, that scarcely an insect is without its parasite, which, either singly or in numbers, attacks it in some stage of its development, and tends to check its increase. The parasite, again, may have, perhaps always has, its parasite, and so on, as far as we can trace its economy, in accordance with a popular rhyme, which it is not needful to quote in full, about "great fleas and little fleas." So we should not very much have wondered at the statement that gall-making insects, like others of their brethren, had their foes, which sought them out even in the concealment of the gall. But we are less prepared to find that in many cases a gall has a succession of inmates; that, in some instances, two of a different species occupy a gall in seeming harmony; that the first tenant, and therefore the producer of a gall, has occasionally several distinct parasites; that certain insects pass a part of their lives in a gall of one sort, and then finish off their career in a gall of another type, the latter section of their existence being usually the longer. More than this, the whole history of a gall is not comprised in the doings of the gall-maker or producer, its companions, if such it has, and parasites. These having lived and died as grubs, or developed in due course into flies, other insects follow, and the greenhouse (as it might be called) does not remain empty through lack of a tenant as long as it holds together, and is at last devoured by its occupants, or decays away through the influences of the weather. Some galls are attacked by rather singular enemies from without; caterpillars of a family of moths called geometers or loopers have been caught in the act of eating holes in oak-galls; and squirrels, possibly mistaking them for acorns, have been seen to pull galls from the twigs and bite into them. Though galls have been detected on a largo. number of trees and plants, and in situations very varied, sometimes on the root or stem, at other times on the bud, leaf, or flower, the oak, the proud "lord of the forest," has been noticed to be so preeminently a mark for these insect foes, for such indeed they are to be deemed, that we must call it a greatly afflicted tree in this respect. Dr. Mayr counts up at least ninety-six species of galls known to him as occurring on the oak, a statement which leads us to venture on the guess that there are a hundred or more, since it is not to be supposed he has found out all as yet. Some of these gulls actually have scores nay, hundreds of occupants, so that it is no wonder that people have called them "insect nurseries." The round nut-gall, so frequently to be seen on pollard oaks in autumn by those who stroll through the woods at the time of the fall of the leaf, seems dissimilar, certainly, to the acorn, which is the natural produce of the tree, yet it has the projecting style, |