OUR FERNERY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 45, 9 November 1899, Page 15

OUR FERNERY.

A NEW ZEALAND SCHOOL ANNUAL. We are in receipt of the current issue of Our Fernery — the school annual published at St. Mary's Convent of Mercy, Wellington. The Fernery is an ever welcome visitor to our book-table, and it comes to us this year with several literary and mechanical improvements which serve to enhance its value and increase the interest which it is calculated to arouse among its readers. Our Fernery is frankly a school-annual, and to our mind it is working along the lines which bid fair to make it an ideal publication of its kind. In the first )lace, as far as we can judge, it is manifestly, through and through, the product of the children and their teachers ; in the second place it is largely a record of school interests and incidents ; and in the third place it contains stories, sketches, etc., that enormously enHance its educational value for the children, and at the same time give it an element of human (as opposed to purely local) interest which makes it acceptable not merely to the parents and relatives of the children, bat even to the general reader. We refer here especially to the tale, ' Leone's Sacrifice,' which occupies about half of the annual, which is admirably told by the editor (we don't like the word ' editress '), and which, though modestly set in the last place, will be found by many, as by us, to be the sweetest morsel as weli as the biggest dish in a feast of good things. The editor has shown a considerable knowledge of Indian and Australian life — and of the Australian life of the late fifties, too ; the dialogue is bright and crisp, even where a snap of controversy comes in ; and she has drawn the characsers of Father Geoghegan, Adeline, Leone, Harold, and the rest with very considerable skill and power. Of the sketches, etc., referred to above, the story of the adventures of the pioneer Sisters of Mercy in WesterrfAustralia is told in a breezy, chatty, sweet-tempered style that is exceedingly attractive. The article on ' Human Life ' is a well-written one. and 'A walk into Bismarck's world '_ is a cleverly written sketch of a visit to a German convent at the time when Bismarck was in the height of his Kulturkampf war against the Church in th^ Fatherland. A brief space is also devoted to a debcription of Mother Mary Joseph Aubert's noble work of charity among the poor of Wellington. Of the poetry, 'Human Life' shows much both of poetic fancy and expression. ' Mourn not, sad Heart ' (by H. L. MoN.) discloses a decidedly sweet poetic conception, whioh even a limping metre can scarcely mar. A. M. 08. contributes a very nicely-written piece, ' Voices of the Past' ; atd in ' Our Pictures ' Nettie (Roe) Falconer gives a metrical sketch cf the Fchoolroom, between the tender openijg and closing stanzas of which are sandwiched three others that are marked throughout with a quaint and catchy humour all thfir own. Miss Falcontr also contributes a nicely-written little poem entitled ' Sweet-brier.' The Schoolroom Contributions form a useful and important part of Our Fernery. They include a description of the burning of St. Mary's Cathedral, a story illustrative of presence of mind, Archbishop Redwood's Silver Jubileb, an article on the laying of the foundation-stone of the Thorndon Basiliga, St. Elizabeth's Society, and three poems which have been noticed above. A host of school happenings of all sorts are pleasantly chronicled, and occupy some eight pages of the annual. It is illustrated with process-blocks of St. Joseph's Orphanage, of Francis John Callanan, the heroic young life-saver of the Palmerston North School, and of Miss Theodora Sbapter, Dresden Gold Medallist for Senior Playing (pianoforte) in 1898. The printers have improved upon the mechanical work that appeared in last year's issue, but have overloaded the pages with an exuberance of ornament aud a variety of heading-type which are out of place in book or magazine work.