NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 376
correct estimate, we communicated with him on the subject. In his reply
(dated October 16th) Mr. Kimber writes :—In my estimation of the e::tent of
floods in this district I calculated all that land from which the water has
during this month somewhat receded, and which lies on both sides of the
railway, and within a ten miles radius of Fambridge. I think that you will
find I am considerably below the mark. Many people put the figures far
above mine. I note that in your letter you refer to the land by the words
'gone to sea.' Accepting that term as synonymous with 'almost irrecover-
able land, ' probably the Rev. Mr. McLeod is correct." It will be noticed
that the two estimates are by no means discordant ; Mr. McLeod's 500 acres
referred to land in North Fambridge parish alone. Mr. Kimber argues very
forcibly that it is the duty of the County Council or the State to repair the
sea-walls and reclaim the land, but this is a very difficult legal and political
question, quite outside our province.—Ed]
The Countess of Warwick's Village Science School.—Those who
were present at the delightful meeting of the Club at Easton Lodge, on
July 21st, 1897, will recollect the visit made to the School at Bigods, near
Dunmow (ante p. 185), which was then in process of formation. Since that
date the School has been completely organised by Lady Warwick, acting on
the advice of Prof. Medola, and chemical and physical laboratories well
arranged for practical elementary instruction have been added thereto. Mr.
E. E. Hennesey, B.A., B.Sc, has been appointed Principal and her ladyship
intends the institution to be not only highly efficient for secondary education,
but also a " School of Science " in accordance with the curriculum of the
Science and Art Department. A small sum of £50 per annum has been
granted in aid by the County Council. The School was inaugurated on
July 29th last, at a meeting held at Bigods, which was attended by a numerous
and distinguished company. The chair was taken by the Countess,
supported by the Earl of Warwick. Full details of the idea and mode of
working the School were given, and Prof. Meldola delivered an address on
"Scientific Education in Rural Districts." He protested against the continu-
ance of the system hitherto adopted by most County Technical Instruction
Committees—that of endeavouring to teach adults "by sporadic courses of
heterogeneous information "—and argued forcibly in favour of a well-con-
sidered system of secondary education in rural districts. The object that
Lady Warwick had in view, he said, was to stem the tide of townward
immigration, and to turn the youth and energy of the coming generation once
again towards the country. The address has been published in pamphlet
form, and we understand that copies may be had from the Principal. It is
an admirable sketch of the ideas on the subject which are now permeating the
the minds of all thoughtful educationists. Sir John Gorst wrote thus to Lady
Warwick . —"Your School is a most interesting experiment, of which I should
have liked to see and hear more personally. I hope it may encourage other
County Councils to devote some of the public funds which they administer to
the establishment of Central Higher Schools in the rural districts. Technical
and scientific education in the rural districts of England is far behind Scot-
land and Wales, and still further behind most European countries. You are
pursuing the right way of raising it, and I heartily wish you success." The
progress of Lady Warwick's village school will he watched hopefully by all
having the diffusion of sound elementary scientific knowledge in the county at
heart, and who may have viewed with some dismay the mistaken and mis-
directed educational attempts made of late years in some rural districts.—Ed.