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It is now twenty years since Matthew Arnold died, twenty-two since he retired from his post as inspector of schools. No other period covers so large a development of our system of public education, or of our expenditure upon it. It contains the grant of free education, the abolition of the system of payment by results, the constitution of the Board of Education, the formation of local authorities in touch with all grades of education, the organisation of secondary schools, the transformation of the pupil teacher system. If we turn to public grants from the Exchequer as a measure of the growth, we notice that in 1886 - the last year of Matthew Arnold's service - the total vote for education (other than University education) was about three millions and three-quarters; in 1907 it was thirteen and a half. And if we look inside the schools, the national effort to deepen and improve the work is no less obvious than the extension of the system without. To mention two or three points only, the development of the kindergarten, the general teaching of drawing, the increased attention to physical training - with its recent corollaries of school meals and medical inspection - are mostly subsequent to Matthew Arnold's time and find but little place in these reports.

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But in spite of this, how little strikes the reader as invalidated or out of date! The book is in the main as fresh and true as when it was first written, while several causes have contributed to enhance its permanent value as a piece of our national literature on education.

We have here from the hand of one of the clearest and most delightful writers of modern English a contemporary record of the earliest stages of our primary school system, as it appeared to one who was himself concerned both in working and in modifying it. For Matthew Arnold's career dates almost from the very beginning of the system. He was appointed in 1851, when the whole staff of inspectors was about twenty, and they were engaged in inspecting some four thousand schools. The inspection was denominational, i.e., clergymen appointed with the approval of the Archbishops inspected Church of England schools, and Roman Catholics inspected Catholic schools. Matthew Arnold, as a lay inspector, went at first only to the schools not connected with these two Churches, mainly the British and Wesleyan Schools. The Minutes of 1846 were still in force. These minutes, the work of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, embody the first conscious effort of the Government to attain an educational end by public grants. Before this date the money annually voted since 1833 had been allotted to the two great school societies, the British and the National, to aid them in building

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schools: now grants were given for pupil-teachers and to the head teachers for training them. This new policy had Matthew Arnold's strong support, and he gives his reasons in several passages in the reports. From this starting-point his service extended over thirty-five years, chiefly marked in elementary education by the crisis of 1861 which gave rise to the "Revised Code" of the next year, with its grants based largely on an annual examination of individual scholars in prescribed "standards" of reading, writing and arithmetic. This Revised Code Arnold strongly disapproved of; he fought it at its inception by every means in his power; he criticised it steadily in his reports, gaining some slight modifications, which seemed to him then of greater promise than they proved afterwards in practice to be. He did not live to see the complete official endorsement of his view, the abolition of the system, which followed in the nineties.

This long struggle and disappointment, only lightly tempered towards the end, give the reports their personal interest and pathos. The man of all others among inspectors best fitted to move in a free system and to inspire intelligent ideals, was condemned for the greater part of his career to administer a system the most alien possible to his temper and convictions, a system which aimed at securing a uniform minimum of attainments by means which, as he thought then and we

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all think now, were certain to encourage and even necessitate mechanical teaching. "More tree play for the inspector and more free play, in consequence, for the teacher, is what is wanted," he says in 1867, after several years' experience of the examination system. It was an ideal which he was never to see realised. Now, when as far as official regulations can provide, it is within the reach of all who deal with popular education, and is dependent only on mutual agreement and common sense, the voice of its first great prophet among us should meet with the readiest hearing. With the main point gained and far ampler resources at our command, the impressions and the advice of a highly-trained intelligence and a distinguished common sense may be considered fairly and with good hope of profit.

Of the particular opinions and suggestions in the book, some are no doubt debatable, and it will do the reader good to debate them with the fuller light and experience which he should have gained since Arnold wrote. A few, such as the insistence on some formal grammar in the lowest classes, the qualified approval of drawing, the recommendation that scholars should be retained in the same divisions for all parts of their work, would find little, if any, acceptance at the present day. But the whole is stimulating, and the greater part unquestionable in theory and full of ideas, rather of the large and governing, than of the

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strictly pedagogical, order, but quite appropriate to our present conditions. It may be useful to note a few of these, grouping them roughly as they occur in the Reports.

1. The view suggested as to the right spirit and function of the inspector is noteworthy, and shows how true Arnold remains to the English tradition of local freedom and limited control from headquarters. He earnestly desired, indeed, the state organisation of secondary schools, and sometimes advocates regulations in detail - such as the prescription of uniform grammar-books - which seem to us to savour too much of authority and interference. But on the broad question of the position of the inspector in the school he adheres throughout to the spirit in which he was first sent, the spirit of advice and stimulus to those engaged in a common work and wishing to receive the proffered help.

He foresees the time under a "national system of education", when, conditions being more uniform and well-established, the inspector's judgment in reporting could take a wider sweep. We are now assuredly much nearer to this state, but for the teacher's work the need and the advantages of full and faithful reports seem still as great as Matthew Arnold describes them, when he says (p. 34), that the inspector should not "drown alike success and failure, the able and the inefficient, in a common flood of vague approbation".

The power of free inspection to stimulate the

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work of a school is well brought out in a passage on p. 91 in which he compares the methods of the earlier days with those necessitated by the "Revised Code".

2. He deals in a similar spirit with managers. From his earliest days, when ministers of religion connected with British schools sometimes abstained on principle from association with state authority, down to the last general Report of all, in which he is comparing the moral tone and general effect of Board Schools and Voluntary Schools, he dwells strongly on the advantage to the schools of having friends in their managers. "The more experience I get, the higher I value this source of strength. In a town like London especially many a man must feel that while others, as Solomon says, 'have many friends', he himself 'is separated from his neighbour'; and the feeling that in their manager they have really a 'neighbour' who knows them and to the best of his power will help them, is an influence which tends to keep both teacher and scholar faithful to Voluntary Schools."

3. On the training of teachers there are several passages, besides the special reports on the Training Colleges at the end of the volume. They are all in the direction of securing for the teacher a training and a general culture "far superior to that of his scholars". This will not be secured, either by attracting better men and women into the profession or by hard work during the period of training,

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though Arnold defends both these methods of attacking the problem. The difficulties lie deeper, he thinks, in a general want of taste and culture in the English public as compared with the French, the Swiss or the Scotch, and this is a weakness which calls for a patient cure. Among the teachers themselves he was struck by a readiness to seek the means of better culture within their reach, and he applauds the eagerness of the younger men in London to take a London degree, as a recognition that the teacher's certificate alone was no guarantee of real culture and as setting a stamp on a serious effort at self-improvement. That permanent self-improvement is something which neither certificate nor degree can in any circumstances fitly mark, he does not leave for a moment in doubt. In reading his encouragement to teachers to seek the London degree by private study, we should do well to remind ourselves how greatly, since his time, the opportunities for higher education have been increased, so that in our own day, when there is scarcely a town of any size in the country, in which advanced instruction at low fees cannot be obtained, the incentive of external examination is no longer needed.

His most definite suggestion for quickening the intellectual life in Training Colleges - or indeed anywhere - is the recommendation of universal history. "Perhaps there is nothing so animating, nothing so likely to awaken a man's interest and to

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stimulate him to active research on definite points, as the broad views over the history of our race and its general course and connection which universal history gives." We seem to hear the voice of Arnold of Rugby, speaking through the mouth of his son.

"Through thee I believe
In the noble and great who are gone."

(Rugby Chapel, 1857).

4. With regard to the teacher's work - the curriculum, the organisation and the general aim of the school - the hints to be gained from these reports relate less to any details of teaching method than to the main principles which should limit and direct the whole. Nothing will be found here as to 'correlation', or 'phonetic' reading, or 'the heuristic method'. But a great deal is said as to the nature of the teacher's problem and how he may simplify it to his own mind. The passage on p. 180 gives the keynote to his thought, and though we may feel that it needs some qualification, it is, if rightly understood, one of the most valuable maxims in the book:

"Our system may be highly complicated, and the educationists, as they call themselves, who take an interest in it, may be highly ingenious; but the matter in hand is after all, the instruction of children between the ages of four and thirteen, and this is a plain and simple affair, and the more we compel ourselves to conceive and treat it as such, the better."

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Much of this has already borne its fruit and in the sketch which Matthew Arnold gives us, even under the stress of the examination system, of what a liberal curriculum for the primary school should be - reduced to its simplest terms - we find, with one important proviso, the outline of our own. The proviso is, that we remember that the curriculum suggested is always thought of as a course of mental training, and that "the other matters" such as physical training, drawing, manual work, which we tend more and more to incorporate in the general curriculum, though recognised and often encouraged by Arnold, are "resolutely kept separate" in his plan.

All the passages on the curriculum deserve careful study, and several guiding thoughts will emerge which may, take us some way further than the immediate circumstances of the book.

We note how the poet, who never tires of preaching the value of the "recitation" exercise, the "formative effect of good poetry", is also most insistent on the importance of 'Natur-Kunde' - an elementary knowledge of the facts and laws of nature. Those who know his "Letters" will remember how far this was from being a mere empty exhortation, how regularly and eagerly he reported to his mother, his sister, and his wife the new flowers, the trees, all interesting natural objects that he met with in his travels. His quarrel with the scientists was on other grounds than the import-

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ance of science in the abstract. As part of his plan for simplification, he desired to rule out the bits of special sciences allowed in the schedule of "specific subjects" and substitute for them 'Natur-Kunde' as a general class-subject: and in this both our theory and our practice have steadily inclined in his direction. He also claimed that, in moralising and formative value poetry and 'letters' stand on a higher plane than natural science. "To have the power of using, which is the thing wished, these data of natural science, a man must, in general, have first been in some measure moralised, and for moralising him it will be found not easy, I think to dispense with those old agents, letters, poetry, religion ... The fruitful use of natural science itself depends, in a very great degree, on having effected in the whole man, by means of letters, a rise in what the political economists call the standard of life" (p. 178).

Here we have one of those great root questions which make the book so stimulating. No doubt the author, by his whole training, his environment and genius, was biassed strongly in the direction of seeking the formative elements in education from literature and history, and human influence; no doubt be did not appraise at its true value the training to be gained from the exact sciences, from the habit of inquiry and verification, from the study of nature, and the discovery of scientific laws. But if we carry the discussion a stage further and

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interpret in their fullest significance history and 'letters', we may yet find cause to agree with Arnold that it is only in history or the record of human life and thought, and poetry, as the finest expression of the truest and deepest thoughts, that all the other 'matters' of education can be reconciled and explained.*

When we turn from curriculum to organisation it is worth noting, in view of our present freedom from the necessity of a 'standard' classification, how frequently and strongly Arnold advocate the breaking up of the rigid classes in the upper part of the school. He has constantly in view a picked class of the older children doing more advanced work in the ordinary subjects and adding to it some new matter of a kindred nature. Sometimes he mentions a more detailed study of one branch of the 'Natur-Kunde ' which has been studied

*See, for an eloquent defence of the moralising and formative value of poetry in the history of the world, Shelley's "Defence of Poetry", especially the passage:

"It exceeds all imagination to conceive what would have been the moral condition of the world if neither Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Calderon, Bacon nor Milton, had ever existed; if Raphael and Michael Angelo had never been born; if the Hebrew poetry had never been translated; if a revival of the study of Greek literature had never taken place; if no monuments of ancient sculpture had been handed down to us; and if the poetry of the religion of the ancient world had been extinguished together with its belief."

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in a simpler way before, sometimes the rudiments of another language, always history and geometry. The problem is one to which we are only now beginning to give any general attention, and our backwardness in it well illustrates both the renewed usefulness of the book and the setback we have suffered from the examination system.

Of all the questions relating to the teacher's work on which Matthew Arnold's remarks will be found specially suggestive and inspiring, we have left to the last the most general and the most important - the aim of the work as a whole. It is significant that on this subject his own best sayings are to be found in the last of the General Reports, that for 1882.

Here, speaking with the sense of his approaching retirement, and after twenty years of the examination system, he dwells on the value of creation and pleasurable activity in education. The annual examination, with its appendages of "class subjects" and "specific subjects", had inevitably laid stress on the acquirement by the child of certain "information" ready on demand, and "of education", says Arnold, quoting Butler, "information itself is really the least part". These are the last words of his last General Report.

What then, we ask ourselves, makes up the greater part? Foremost, perhaps, that power and pleasurable eagerness of which he speaks, which are given by a training in suitable and worthy

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matters, calling forth at every stage the activity and lively interest of the scholars.

Such seems to be the main conclusion, matured by thirty years' experience and reflection. Adverse conditions at home had helped to form it, as well as instructive contrasts abroad. To us it is one of the great commonplaces of educational theory, like other commonplaces arduous enough in detail and in daily life. It is cheering to find it inscribed in a bold, clear hand on the last page of the first literary document of English primary education

F.S.M.

August, 1908.

[page 1]

I HAVE the honour of presenting to your Lordship my general report upon the British, Wesleyan and other denominational schools* which have come under my inspection during the past year.

It will be obvious that an account of 104 schools scattered over this wide extent of country† can have no pretensions to be considered an adequate account of the state of education within its limits; besides omitting altogether all schools connected with the Church of England, such an account fails also to embrace many Wesleyan and still more British schools situated within the limits of the district to which it relates, but not receiving aid under the Minutes of 1846. With the general state of education in my district, therefore, I cannot profess myself from personal observation familiar; and even with respect to the 104 institutions which

*Before the Act of 1870 was passed, every school, to which public grants were made, was required to be: (a) in connection with some religious denomination; or (b) if undenominational, one in which the Scriptures were dally read. Matthew Arnold visited all schools not being Church, or Roman Catholic, Schools.

†The Midland Counties and most of Wales.

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I have seen, and my observations on which supply the materials for this report, I feel that I am far from possessing that intimate acquaintance with them which I could desire; the great majority of them I have as yet visited but once: and I therefore wish to be understood in this report as calling the attention of managers and teachers to those facts connected with their schools which have principally struck me, and which I shall chiefly notice on my future visits, rather than as confidently criticising what I have seen in their schools.

By a circular letter dated 14th October, 1851, the attention of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools was particularly called to several subjects, among which that of school fees occupied the first place. With this subject I will begin, for the treatment of it will involve the mention of other matters on which I am anxious to make some remarks.

Of the institutions which I have visited during the past year forty-seven come under the general designation of British schools, though not all of them immediately connected with the British and Foreign School Society; thirty-five are Wesleyan schools; twenty-two are quite independent.

The total income of 112 schools, representing little more than the total income of the institutions inspected, is stated by the managers at £12,774 1s. Of this sum £6,192 17s. is stated to have proceeded from the school pence, that is, in round numbers, one half of the total cost of these schools has been

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collected from the scholars themselves. This is a large proportion; and it would be still larger if the number of Wesleyan schools, among the 112 whose aggregate income is stated, were greater. The Wesleyan schools have established, generally speaking, a rate of payment on the part of their scholars higher than that which is made in the other elementary schools that I have seen. This rate of payment varies from 2d. to 8d. per week for each scholar; in some schools a majority of the scholars pay 3d., in others 4d.; but in none less than 2d. It is obvious that these rates of payment must generally exclude the children of the very poor; and although these are not altogether excluded (for arrangements are sometimes made in Wesleyan schools by which poor children are admitted at a reduced rate of payment, either by subscribers' tickets, or on the recommendation of members of the school committee) yet on the whole, the Wesleyan schools which I have seen must be considered as existing for the sake of the children of tradesmen, of farmers, and of mechanics of the higher class, rather than for the sake of the children of the poor. In fact, these schools are sometimes nothing else than private schools, in which the salaries of the teachers, the school furniture, and the books are provided out of the school pence, the managers supplying little more than the building in which the school is held. It is evident that schools of this kind have not the first claim to assistance from public funds, which are

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designed to promote the education of the poor. And I think it may well be a question for the managers of Wesleyan schools to consider whether it is not desirable for them to extend the basis of their educational operations, and to confer on a wide circle the benefits of their excellent schools. A lower rate of payments would in my opinion greatly extend their sphere of usefulness, while their present high character for respectability need in no degree be impaired.

But apart from this question of the exclusion of the poorest class of scholars, and taking the Wesleyan schools as they now stand, I wish to notice the conveniences and the inconveniences which I conceive to result from the present system of high payments.

The conveniences are - the better and more instructed class of children frequenting these schools as compared with that frequenting cheaper ones; the greater intelligence of their parents, and greater sense of the advantage of having their children educated, with consequently greater disposition, as well as greater means, to keep them longer at school.

The inconveniences are the inconveniences of private schools in general - the disposition of parents to interfere, and the diminished independence of the teacher. Parents who pay 6d. a week for the instruction of their children are apt to criticise nicely, though not always judiciously, the institution where that instruction is given. They desire this and that for their child, and they object to this and that,

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and, being often not very reasonable persons, they greatly embarrass a teacher. They are exceedingly apt, for instance, to object to the employment of their children as monitors; on the ground that teaching takes them away from learning; yet, so long as the allowance of pupil-teachers to a school is not greater than at present,* the employment of a certain number of monitors is almost indispensable; and, in my opinion, to be employed as a monitor during a part of his time is most useful to the advanced scholar himself as well as to the school. To the less advanced scholar it is no doubt injurious; but it is in the case of the advanced scholar, where the payment is high, that the complaint arises.

The teacher's independence is diminished, because, when his salary is principally or entirely derived from the school pence, the favour of the parents becomes of the greatest importance to him; hence it arises that the children of these schools, though disciplinable, are often not well disciplined, owing to the master's fear of offending parents by a strictness which may appear to them excessive. This is a most important matter. I am convinced there is no class of children so indulged, so generally brought up (at home at least) without discipline, that is, without habits of respect, exact obedience, and self-control, as the children of the lower middle class in this country. The children

*At this date one pupil-teacher was allowed for every forty or fifty scholars in average attendance.

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of very poor parents receive a kind of rude discipline from circumstances, if not from their parents; the children of the upper classes are generally brought up in habits of regular obedience, because these classes are sufficiently enlightened to know of what benefit such a training is to the children themselves; but children of the class I am alluding to receive no discipline from circumstances, for they are brought up amidst comparative abundance; they receive none from their parents, who are only half educated themselves, and can understand no kindness except complete indulgence; and, in consequence, nowhere have I seen such insubordination, such wilfulness, and such a total want of respect for their parents and teachers as among these children. The teacher's hands cannot be too much strengthened in the schools which this class frequents; for, if they are not disciplined at school, they will, while young, be disciplined nowhere; and a scale of fees is peculiarly undesirable, which makes the teacher dependent on the favour of their parents, and unwilling to risk that favour by introducing strict habits of discipline.

There is another inconvenience arising out of the system of payments in these schools; that is - the instruction is disordered by it. This happens in the following way. Some children are admitted at a lower rate of payment than others; those who pay least are to be taught least; consequently, scholars perfectly capable of taking their place with the

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highest class, but unable to make the highest payment, are thrown back into the lower classes, and comparatively neglected. Again, those who pay most are to learn most; accordingly, those children who make the highest payments are put into the highest class, whether fit for it or no. They are often new-comers, very ill-taught, and wholly incapable of profiting by lessons such as those given in the highest class ought to be. A plan more calculated to derange and dislocate the instruction of a school it would be difficult to imagine; and the teacher who is responsible for that instruction ought in my opinion, always to decline to adopt it.

I shall not mention by name the particular Wesleyan schools in which I have found the highest rates of payment existing. I do not think it necessary to do so, for I hope at my next visit to find the rates lowered; nor do I mean to deny that the Wesleyan schools in general are, even at present, very useful. I am most glad to see them in the receipt of Government aid. There are many cases, indeed, in which the burden thrown on the local promoters of these schools is as heavy as that thrown on the local promoters of British or National schools; but at any rate, the advantages obtained from the employment, through Government aid, of apprentices and certificated teachers,* are such as the

*The maintenance grant was by the Minutes of 1846 (which see in Appendix C) paid for pupil-teachers, and in augmentation of the salaries of the certificated teachers who were to train them.

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Wesleyan schools could hardly hope to obtain through any private pecuniary outlay; and it is no doubt desirable that the funds at your Lordships' disposal should, if possible, after assisting to provide the means of education for the really poor, be used to improve the quality of education for a class in somewhat better circumstance.

What I have said above applies equally, of course, to those British schools in which the fees are on the same high scale as they are in most Wesleyan schools. Generally, however, they are on a lower scale in British schools, and these schools do certainly bear a large part in the elementary education of the poor strictly so called. Still it may be doubted whether even these thoroughly reach the lowest strata of society. In country places it is no doubt true that the resources of Dissenting as compared with those of Church schools are so inferior as almost to compel a higher rate of payment in the former; but in large towns this is by no means invariably the case; here the British schools often have a large and wealthy body of contributors, and here it is that the unsectarian and neutral character of these schools peculiarly fits them to be common centres, in which the children of a population divided into innumerable sects may be harmoniously educated together. Since, however, this unsectarian character of the British schools often practically operates to their disadvantage in point of support, one is the more

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anxious that schools based on an admirable principle should at least do nothing to render themselves difficult of access by the establishment of rates of payment higher than those in competing schools in the same locality.

Before quitting the subject of school fees, I wish to mention a plan pursued in one of the schools under my inspection, and which, though not available for elementary schools in general, I should be glad to see adopted in more schools of its own class. It is a school established for the children of the workpeople employed by an iron company* in a very remote part of the country. This school is not maintained by the company, nor by the payments of the children who frequent it; but a weekly deduction is made from the wages of every person employed in the works, whether married or single, to form a fund to defray the expenses of the school, of a library, and of medical attendance. Those who have families pay no more than those who have none, and any number of his children may be sent to the school by the head of a family without his having to pay any additional subscription. The school is regarded as existing for the common benefit of all, directly or indirectly, now or at a future time. The deduction, I was assured, is submitted to without reluctance. In other places, masters and agents have informed me that they should be afraid to attempt such a plan, dreading the discontent it

*Llynvi Iron Company, Maesteg, South Wales.

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would produce; but as it was an experience of its advantages, and not any superior enlightenment on the part of the workpeople, which made it succeed in the case I have mentioned, I am inclined to think it might be made to succeed elsewhere also, with a little management and patience at first introducing it. By such a plan, in localities where masters and companies cannot support schools at their sole expense, and where a rude population have little sense of the advantages of education to their children, and little disposition to make sacrifices for it, ample funds are raised for the support of a school, and it becomes the direct interest of the population to avail themselves of an institution to which they are in any case forced to contribute.

The Welsh schools that I have seen are generally on the British system. Those connected with mining and manufacturing establishments stand on a peculiar footing of their own; those not so connected generally charge low fees, are well attended, and may be considered as really receiving the children of the poor. Indeed, the poor population of Wales is so entirely a dissenting population, that the British schools acquire a peculiar importance there, and they are filled with the same class of children that one sees in the National schools in England. The children in them are generally docile and quick in apprehension, to a greater degree than English children; their drawback, of course, is that they have to acquire the medium of information,

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as well as the information itself, while the English children possess the medium at the outset. There can, I think, be no question but that the acquirement of the English language should be more and more insisted upon by your Lordships in your relations with these schools as the one main object for which your aid is granted. Whatever encouragement individuals may think it desirable to give to the preservation of the Welsh language on grounds of philological or antiquarian interest, it must always be the desire of a Government to render its dominions, as far as possible, homogeneous, and to break down barriers to the freest intercourse between the different parts of them. Sooner or later, the difference of language between Wales and England will probably be effaced, as has happened with the difference of language between Cornwall and the rest of England; as is now happening with the difference of language between Brittany and the rest of France; and they are not the true friends of the Welsh people, who, from a romantic interest in their manners and traditions, would impede an event which is socially and politically so desirable for them.

With a view to enable pupil-teachers in Welsh schools the better to acquire a knowledge of English, the late Mr. Fletcher* proposed that they should be sent for six months in the middle or latter part of their apprenticeship to perform their duties in

*H.M. Inspector of Schools, Matthew Arnold's predecessor in his district.

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English schools. The great objection to such an arrangement is that English schools might not be very willing to accept teachers imperfectly acquainted with the language in which they would have to teach. Difficulty, I think, would also often arise on the part of the parents of the pupil-teachers and the managers of the schools employing them, when arrangements came to be made for meeting the expense of their six months' residence in England, I myself cannot but think that it is from the masters of Welsh schools that the promotion of the use of English in their schools must come, and that at present the masters themselves of these schools, not knowing English thoroughly well, do not employ it in their intercourse with their apprentices and scholars by any means so much as they should. If it were possible for Welsh students to be sent invariably to English training schools, and on leaving the training schools to be employed for two or three years in English schools, before returning into Wales, that I think would be the plan most likely to bring about an increased use of English in the Welsh schools. Such students, possessing, it may be presumed, at least a fair acquaintance with English at the end of their apprenticeship, would increase it to a complete familiarity while residing at an English training school, and associating with English students; they would thus be perfectly serviceable in English schools; and a year or two's habit of teaching in English in these schools would

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give them that thorough mastery of the language which alone will induce them to speak it without reluctance and of their own accord.

With respect to the organisation both of British and of Wesleyan schools, I regard it as being at present in a state of transition. It tends, I think, to become eventually very much alike in both, as the original masses in Wesleyan schools are broken up, and the original fractions in British schools are massed together. The vice of the strict Glasgow* system is that numbers of children do not really come under teaching at all; of the strict British† system, that numbers of children come under teaching so inadequate as to be hardly better than none. The problem is to discover an organisation which shall maintain a just proportion between the teaching power in a school and the numbers taught in it.

When this problem has been solved - when the children are finally arranged in divisions, neither too large nor too small - I hope that the plan of retaining them in the same divisions for all parts of their work will be more extensively tried than it has been hitherto.‡ At present there are few schools in which

*The system of collective lessons on large galleries, varied by exercises in the playground, which was practised by David Stow in the Glasgow Normal Seminary, and advocated by him in "The Training System of Education", Longman, Green & Co., 1859.

†The monitorial system of Joseph Lancaster.

‡The "standard" system, the result cf the Code of 1862, has produced what is generally considered too great rigidity in this direction.

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a child is not put into one division for reading, into another for writing, into another for arithmetic; and masters seem to have no notion of the increased regularity and steadiness of attention that a child gains by going through his whole day's work with the same associates, and under the same teacher. I am convinced that the benefit to the children themselves and to the discipline of the school, which would result from retaining them in the same divisions, would more than compensate any additional trouble which the necessity of varying the instruction in particular subjects, such as arithmetic, to children equal in most subjects, and therefore classed together, might impose upon the teacher.

In the institutions which I have visited during the past year, I have continually felt the want of infant schools. It seems to me that more good schools are clogged and impeded in their operations by a mass of children under eight years of age, at the bottom of them, than from any other cause. Yet the parents will not send the older children without sending these also. The only remedy for the inconvenience, where the expense of two but not of three schools in the same institution can be supported, is to adopt the plan of having mixed schools. The older children of both sexes are then in one school, the infants of both sexes in another. The Wesleyan schools which follow this plan appear to me to gain thereby a great advantage, and one which the British schools often lose by their anxiety to separate the

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boys from the girls. I must say that I have never yet seen any inconvenience arise from bringing together boys and girls in the same school, if their playgrounds are kept distinct. Indeed, the education of girls, when they learn with boys and from a master, appears to me to gain that very correctness and stringency which female education generally wants; while a female teacher is no doubt the person best qualified to instruct infants of both sexes.

The circular of 1851, before alluded to, called attention to the subject of industrial schools, besides that of school fees, and also to the state and prospects of female pupil-teachers. A subsequent circular directed attention to the subject of elementary drawing. Industrial schools and drawing I hope to speak of in my next report.

With respect to female pupil-teachers, I think it right to remark on the serious amount of ill-health, especially in the later years of their apprenticeship, which I have found amongst them. Managers of schools cannot be too strongly reminded that the physical qualifications of girls presented as candidates for apprenticeship require to be most carefully observed, and that the duties of pupil-teachers are such that delicacy of constitution alone, without any positive infirmity, unfits a girl for discharging them without great risk. I am sure your Lordships cannot be too strict in guarding against the admission to apprenticeship of sickly children, boys as well, as girls; intelligent

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as they often are they always want many qualities which a teacher should never be without. It may be a question, perhaps, whether an affliction like lameness or the loss of a limb, where the general health is good, need always be considered as a disqualification for the office of pupil-teachers; but where the general health is decidedly feeble (and the managers ought always to ascertain this) a child should never be presented as a candidate.

On one other topic, in connection with the subject of pupil-teachers, I am anxious to touch in conclusion. In the general opinion of the advantages which have resulted from the employment of them, I most fully concur; and of the acquirements and general behaviour of the greater number of those of them whom I have examined I wish to speak favourably. But I have been much struck in examining them towards the close of their apprenticeship, when they are generally at least eighteen years old, with the utter disproportion between the great amount of positive information and the low degree of mental culture and intelligence which they exhibit. Young men, whose knowledge of grammar, of the minutest details of geographical and historical facts, and above all of mathematics, is surprising, often cannot paraphrase a plain passage of prose or poetry without totally misapprehending it, or write half a page of composition on any subject without falling into gross blunders of taste and expression. I cannot but think that, with a body of

[page 17]

young men so highly instructed, too little attention has hitherto been paid to this side of education; the side through which it chiefly forms the character; the side which has perhaps been too exclusively attended to in schools for the higher classes, and to the development of which it is the boast of what is called classical education to be mainly directed. I attach little importance to the study of languages, ancient or modern, by pupil-teachers, for they can seldom have the time to study them to much purpose without neglecting other branches of instruction which it is necessary that they should follow; but I am sure that the study of portions of the best English authors, and composition, might with advantage be made a part of their regular course of instruction to a much greater degree than it is at present. Such a training would tend to elevate and humanise a number of young men, who at present, notwithstanding the vast amount of raw information which they have amassed, are wholly uncultivated; and it would have the great social advantage of tending to bring them into intellectual sympathy with the educated of the upper classes.

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My estimate of the efficiency of the British and Wesleyan schools generally has certainly risen. While the abundance of work and the demand for labour have had during the past year an unfavourable effect upon the regularity of the attendance in them, I have still been more and more convinced of the thorough way in which, in the majority of cases, the elements of instruction are taught to the children frequenting them, and more and more struck with the acquaintance shown by the upper classes of these schools with grammar, geography, and English history.

With regard also to the desire of the authorities of the central institutions to make the sphere of usefulness of the schools connected with them as wide as possible, and fairly to devote their main efforts to advancing the education of the actual poor, I believe that it is most sincere. As to Wesleyan schools particularly, of the failure of which to reach the lowest classes of society I spoke last year, I have received from the authorities of the Wesleyan Institution at Westminster the strongest assurances in this respect.

Nevertheless, while more and more convinced that the present elementary schools sufficiently educate

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the children who frequent them, and while more and more convinced that the central institutions sincerely desire to promote the education of the poor, I remain in the opinion which I last year expressed, that in the schools which I visit, and above all, in the Wesleyan schools which I visit, the children of the actually lowest, poorest classes in this country, of what are called the masses, are not, to speak generally, educated; that the children who are educated in them belong to a different class from these; and that, consequently, of the education of the masses, I, in the course of my official duty, see, strictly speaking, little or nothing.

I mention this, not for the purpose of casting blame upon any one, but simply as a fact which arises under the present state of things. The present schools supply, and on the whole efficiently supply, a demand which, no doubt, exists; they are not to be blamed if they do no more than supply that demand. Small farmers, small tradesmen. skilled mechanics, desire to have their children educated; they are willing to pay a considerable school fee; they often object as much as the classes above them to the contact, with their children, of children of the lowest class, of the class found in ragged schools; their wants create a peculiar kind of demand, and that demand is answered by the present schools, and on the whole efficiently answered. Under the present system it is not to be expected that a committee which can fill its school with

[page 20]

children paying 4d. or 6d. a week, will refuse to do so in order that it may admit children paying half, or less than half, that sum. It is not to be expected that a committee or a teacher should object to see their school grow more and more "respectable"; should object, as their success increases, to seeing that portion of it which is poorest, least profitable, most irregular in attendance, gradually eliminated to make room for a more desirable body of scholars. A school is established, under the present system, at the pecuniary risk of its promoters; this risk is, in many cases, very considerable; it is natural that they should be glad to see, at the same time that their school is efficient, the risk disappear.

I have no intention, therefore, as I have said, of blaming any one for the result mentioned; still, as it is often said that this result has little or no connection with the rate of school fees established in a school, I am anxious to say a few words on this point. It is urged, and by persons for whose authority on matters of education I entertain a sincere respect, that it is not the high rate of payments which deters parents from sending their children to a school, but their suspicion that the education they get there is not much worth having; that they would be willing, did they think more highly of that education, to make great sacrifices to secure it for their children, and that these sacrifices need not generally be greater in proportion than those which are made by many a family of small means in the middle classes, in order

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to send a son to school and college. And they add, that so far from poor parents objecting to a high school fee, the very suspicion they feel arises generally from the school fee being too low a one; they cannot believe that anything can be worth much for which they are required to pay little or nothing. What is cheap, it is said, is always supposed by these poor people to be bad. And instances are brought forward, such as that of the King's Somborne school, in which the reputation of the school induced the labourers of the whole neighbourhood gladly to pay a high fee for the sake of sending their children to so excellent a school.

I answer, that there is no doubt that all people will make great sacrifices to secure what is eminently desirable, or what is generally thought so; and that if there existed in every parish in England a school possessing the high reputation of that at King's Somborne, a school much known and talked of, and at which it was a distinction to have been educated, then in every parish in England the poor would willingly make sacrifices to send their children to such a school. But to bring this about, we must also suppose in every parish in England a man like the present Dean of Hereford,* with an energy in promoting education, and a genius for organising schools, quite rare and exceptional. We must suppose that what is now the exception, and has of course attracted the greater interest on that

*The Very Rev. Richard Dawes.

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account, will become the rule. But this will never happen. The real practical question to consider is, whether in ordinary cases, such as form the vast majority - whether in cases when the managers are of fair average energy, the teachers of fair average merit, and the school of fair average reputation, a high school fee operates on the poor as an attraction.

I feel quite convinced from all which I have seen and heard, that it does not operate as an attraction; that, on the contrary, there are numberless cases in which the poor are deterred by a high school fee from sending their children to school. It is not the high school fee which is the attraction, but it is the high reputation of the school which makes the poor willing to pay a high school fee; in ordinary cases, where this high reputation cannot be expected, it is vain to imagine that a high school fee will have any effect but a deterring one; the parents will feel clearly the inconvenience of having to make a high payment, while they will not perceive any corresponding advantage to compensate it.

At the same time, of course, it is to be remembered, that what is a high school payment in one part of the country is a low one in another; that 4d. a week is a moderate school fee in South Staffordshire, for instance, while in Dorsetshire it is a high one; the school fee may fairly differ in different parts of the country, precisely in the same proportion in which the rate of wages differs. This is very

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necessary to bear in mind; and I am far from imagining that a lower school fee, or even a free admission, would induce the poor universally to send their children to school. It is not the high payments alone which deter them; all I say is, as to the general question of the education of the masses, that they deter them in many cases. But it is my firm conviction, that education will never, any more than vaccination, become universal in this country, until it is made compulsory.

I should be glad to see the subject of school books receiving increased attention. The diversities of these are at present truly embarrassing. Almost every educational society has its own school books; these are by no means universally adopted by the schools in connection with it, and a recognised textbook on any subject is nowhere to be found. To this state of things your Lordships alone can supply a remedy. The inconvenience now arising from it is extreme, and in subjects where classification and arrangement are of peculiar importance, as in grammar, the multitude of text-books, all following a different system, is of serious prejudice to the learner. I really think that it matters little, comparatively, what the text-book is, so that it be uniformly adopted. Some of the books now in use are, no doubt, more perfect than others, but almost any one of those with which I am acquainted is adequate for its purpose. In grammar, for instance, the system of almost all of them has its rationale,

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capable of being comprehended by the mind, if the mind is steadily kept to it, and of serving as a clue to the facts; but, under the present system, the same person often uses one grammar as a scholar, another as a pupil teacher, another as a student at a training school, another as a schoolmaster. Every one of these grammars following a different system, he masters the rationale of none of them; and, in consequence, after all his labour, he often ends by possessing of the science of grammar nothing but a heap of terms jumbled together in inextricable confusion.

I spoke last year of the want of infant schools. More and more I become convinced of the necessity of them, both for the sake of the infants themselves, so much neglected and mismanaged in their homes, and still more for the sake of the efficiency of the older schools. I retain my strong opinion, that when two schools only are possible, they should be not a boys' school and a girls' school, but an infants' school and an older mixed school. I think it is generally allowed by those who dislike mixed schools, that no actual harm arises to girls from attending them; but it is said that those feminine qualities which are seldom developed in these girls in their homes, are not developed in a mixed school: I answer that this is true, but neither are they developed in a girls' school. When the infant school is sacrificed to the desire to keep the boys and girls in separate schools, it seems to me that the in-

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truction of all suffers, without any compensating advantage.

It is important however, that in the older mixed school, the needlework of the girls should be carefully attended to. I hear indeed great complaints of the inefficient teaching of needlework, not in mixed schools only, but in girls' schools also, and even in the female training schools. But, be this as it may with regard to the training schools, there is no doubt that the needlework of the girls in elementary schools is not at present in a satisfactory state. At the inspection of a school the main stress is necessarily laid on other branches of the school-work; thus, the teacher is perpetually tempted to direct her chief efforts towards bringing forward her pupils in these. The parents also, in general, seldom have much value for plain needlework, nor do the mothers teach it at home to their daughters; the only kind of needlework which the parents admire, and which the children are anxious to practice, is crochet-work and ornamental needlework; this is comparatively useless, and managers and teachers should, in my opinion, utterly prohibit it in school. The importance to a poor family that the daughters should be skilful in plain needlework is obvious to all; yet their ignorance of it is something incredible. I heard the other day in a Lincolnshire village of a pauper family, in which were several daughters living at home; the family were actually in receipt of parochial relief; their debts were collected, and

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among them was found a considerable one to a dressmaker, who, it appeared, made all the clothes of the female part of the family. And Miss Martineau, in an admirable paper in Household Words, has well shown what discomfort of all kind is produced by the ignorance, in the female part of a family, of needlework and other matters of domestic economy, even in homes of a comparatively comfortable class in towns.

Of industrial schools and of drawing, subjects which I barely noticed in my last year's report, I have this year also little to say. No industrial school has come under my inspection during the past year, and in the study of drawing no considerable progress has yet been made in the greater part of the schools which I visit. The establishment of drawing schools is, however, likely rapidly to promote it; and of the advantages which they offer many schools in my district, those in the potteries especially, are anxious to avail themselves. This study is one which at present finds great favour among the most influential promoters of education.*

*A central school of design was established in 1837, following a Select Committee of the House of Commons of 1835, on the "Best Means of Extending a Knowledge of the Arts and of the Principles of Design among the People". It was at first connected with the Board of Trade. In 1852, a Department of Practical Art arising from this school, was installed in Marlborough House, Pall Mall. From this the South Kensington Department of Science and Art was developed. In July, 1852, a letter [footnote continues on next page]

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It is one which it is most important that those children in elementary schools who show any aptitude for it should have the means of pursuing; but I will venture to remark that it is possible, by insisting upon it too much, to cause time to be wasted in it, by those who have no such aptitude. I have already found instances in which the time so spent had clearly been wasted: and, when it is remembered how short is the time which the children in elementary schools have to pass there; how ignorant they generally are at their first coming to school; how irregular is their attendance afterwards; and how many subjects they have to gain some knowledge of; that any of their school time should be unprofitably employed must be a matter of deep regret. It is the opinion of many persons at the present day, that every child should be taught to draw, as every child should be taught to read and write. It may be so: but I will venture to express my hope that they may, at any rate, be taught to read and write first.

Your Lordships have done much to better the quality of education in this country, by improving the instruction in the existing elementary schools; what is now perhaps most urgent, is to make this improved instruction universally available; to widen the sphere of the elementary schools, and to extend the benefits of them to the masses.

[continued from previous page] passed from the new Department at Marlborough House to the Committee of Council on Education, asking them to co-operate in making "elementary drawing a systematic part of the education of all classes".

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THERE is an advantage in the same Inspector, where it is possible, continuing to see the same school year after year; he acquires in this way a knowledge of it which he can never gain from a single visit, and he becomes acquainted not with the instruction and discipline only of the school, but also with its local circumstances and difficulties.

These local circumstances and difficulties, it is of advantage, no doubt, that the Inspector should know: it is a most important question, and one the necessity of a clear resolution of which becomes daily more and more apparent to me, in what manner and to what extent this knowledge should affect his report on a school to your Lordships. I constantly hear it urged that consideration for local difficulties and peculiar circumstances should induce him to withhold the notice in his report of shortcomings and failures, because these may have been caused by circumstances for which neither managers nor teacher were to blame, and because the statement of them may unfavourably affect a struggling school. There is some plausibility in this plea for silence; but it is based, I feel sure, on a misconception of what the peculiar province and duty of an Inspector is. His first duty is that of a simple and

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faithful reporter to your Lordships; the knowledge that imperfections in a school have been occasioned wholly or in part by peculiar local difficulties, may very properly restrain him from recommending the refusal of grants to .that school; but it ought not to restrain him from recording the imperfections. It is for your Lordships to decide how far such imperfections shall subsequently be made public; but that they should be plainly stated to you by the Inspector whom you employ there can be, I think, no doubt at all. It is said that the Inspector is sent into his district to encourage and promote education in it; that often, if he blames a school, he discourages what may be, from local difficulties, a struggling effort, and an effort whose inferiority is owing to no fault of its promoters. I answer, that it is true that the Inspector is sent into his district to encourage education in it: but in what manner to encourage education? By promoting the efficiency, through the offer of advice and of pecuniary and other helps, to the individual schools which he visits in it; not by seeking to maintain by undeserved praise, or to shelter by the suppression of blame, the system, the state of things under which it is in the power of this or that local hindrance to render a school inefficient, and under which many schools are found inefficient accordingly.

A certain system may exist, and your Lordships may offer assistance to schools established under it; but you have not, surely, on that account committed yourselves to a faith in its perfect excellence; you

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have not pledged yourselves to its ultimate success. The business of your Inspector is not to make out a case for that system, but to report on the condition of public education as it evolves itself under it, and to supply your Lordships and the nation at large with data for determining how far the system is successful. If, for fear of discouraging voluntary efforts, Inspectors are silent respecting the deficiencies of schools - respecting the feeble support given to this school, the imperfect accommodation in another, the faulty discipline or instruction in a third, and the failure of all alike to embrace the poorest class of children - if everything is represented as hopeful and prosperous, lest a manager should be disappointed or a subscriber estranged - then a delusion is prolonged in the public mind as to the real character of the present state of things, a delusion which it is the very object of a system of public inspection, exercised by agents of the Government on behalf of the country at large, to dispel and remove. Inspection exists for the sake of finding out and reporting the truth, and for this above all.

But it is most important that all Inspectors should proceed on the same principle in this respect - that one should not conceal defects as an advocate for the schools, while another exposes them as an agent for the Government. If this happens, besides that the general picture of the state of education will be unfaithful, there is also a positive hardship inflicted

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on the schools which are frankly reported on; they will appear at a disadvantage compared with other schools, not because these are really in a better state, but because the statement of their defects is softened gown or altogether suppressed.

It is an ungrateful task to seem to deprecate, under any circumstances, consideration and indulgence. But consideration and indulgence, the virtues of the private man, may easily become the vices of the public servant; and I have ventured to submit the foregoing remarks to your Lordships because I think that in the inspection of schools there is a peculiar temptation to exercise these qualities unduly. A factory or a workhouse is, to most people, a less interesting and attaching object than a school; it has less power of making a friend of its visitor, and of leading him, often half insensibly, to become its advocate rather than its reporting Inspector. The character of school inspection, too, is, it appears to me, at present such as to render difficult the adoption of a uniform principle in reporting by all the Inspectors. The inspection of a school is now, upon a plan founded when a far smaller number of schools were under your Lordships' supervision than at present, carried out into such detail as to afford every, facility to an Inspector, desirous to give a favourable report upon a school, for doing so, by enabling him to call attention to special points of detail in which the school may be strong, rather than to others where it may

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be weak, or to its general efficiency, which may be small. At present, for instance, an Inspector finding an advanced upper class in a school, a class working sums in fractions, decimals, and higher rules, and answering well in grammar and history, constructs, half insensibly whether so inclined or not, but with the greatest ease if so inclined, a most favourable report on a school, whatever may be the character of the other classes which help to compose it. But it is evident that the attention of your Lordships is especially concentrated on those other classes, and that an elementary school excites your interest principally as it deals with these; as it deals with the mass of children who, remaining but a short time at school, and having few or no advantages at home, can acquire little but rudimentary instruction; not as it deals with the much smaller number, whose parents can enable them to remain long at school, to pursue their studies at home, to carry on their education, in short, under favourable circumstances, and who therefore less need the care and assistance of your Lordships.

The difficulty of obtaining an exact report on a school is still further complicated, if the Inspector is to think himself bound to ascertain (in a single morning) what is called the moral tone of a school, and to make the condition in which he imagines himself to have found this tell considerably upon the character of his report.

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Should a state of things ever arise which placed a very greatly increased number of schools under your Lordships' supervision; should your Inspectors ever have to work under a really national system of education; the range of details to which their attention in inspecting each particular school is now addressed would no doubt be necessarily narrowed. Variety of judgment would then be less probable, when that which had to be judged of was less various. They would then, perhaps, have to look only to certain broad and ascertainable things: on the one hand, the commodiousness of the school buildings, the convenience of the school fittings, the fulfilment of the necessary sanitary conditions; on the other the competence of the teacher, the efficiency of the discipline, the soundness of the elementary secular, and (in certain cases) of the elementary religious instruction. But they would not occupy themselves in inquiring with what success the three or four head boys (sons, probably, of tradesmen in good circumstances) out of a school of 100 or 150 children, could work an equation, or refer words to their Greek or Latin constituents.

Until this time arrives (if it ever should arrive} the true duty of an Inspector towards your Lordships, the truest kindness towards the managers and teachers of schools, seems to me to be this - that the Inspector, keeping his eye above all upon the most tangible and cognisable among those details into which he is directed to inquire, and omitting, as

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much as possible, the consideration of what is not positive and palpable, should construct a plain matter-of-fact report upon each school which he visits, and should place it, without suppression, before your Lordships. But, although I thus press for the most unvarnished and literal report on their schools, I can assure the teachers of them that it is from no harshness or want of sympathy towards them that I do so. No one feels more than I do how laborious is their work, how trying at times to the health and spirits, how full of difficulty even for the best: how much fuller for those, whom I too often see attempting the work of a schoolmaster - men of weak health and purely studious habits, who betake themselves to this profession, as affording the means to continue their favourite pursuits: not knowing, alas, that for all but men of the most singular and exceptional vigour and energy, there are no pursuits more irreconcilable than those of the student and of the schoolmaster. Still, the quantity of work actually done at present by teachers is immense: the sincerity and devotedness of much of it is even affecting. They themselves will be the greatest gainers by a system of reporting which clearly states what they do and what they fail to do; not one which drowns alike success and failure, the able and the inefficient; in a common flood of vague approbation.

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THE schools in the most important part of my district, in London, I have now inspected three times; and the present appears to me a good opportunity for making one or two remarks upon their condition. I am more and more impressed with the idea that they are not in so satisfactory a state as they should be; that not only do they not as a whole surpass country schools, but that they do not even, as a whole, rise to their level. Excellent schools there are, no doubt, among those under my inspection in London, as elsewhere; but excellent schools everywhere are few in number, and pretty much on a level in excellence one with another: it is of schools neither excellent nor very bad, of schools of average character, neither the highest nor the lowest, of the great majority, therefore, that I speak. In London these schools seem to me not to reach so high a standard as school of the same class in many parts of the country.

Yet this is at first surprising. It appears, at first sight, as if the schools of a metropolis had advantages over schools in the country, which ought to ensure to the former the superiority. They exist in a great centre of wealth and intelligence, where their promoters have remarkable facilities for com-

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bination of effort; the teacher, often cheerlessly isolated in the country, has in London the best opportunity for self-improvement, and for help and stimulus from others of his profession; the school children - always quick-witted in large towns, where the daily spectacle of a varied and powerful life passing before their eyes sharpens their intelligence - particularly alert and quick-witted in London, have besides in London this special advantage, that their reading, in spite of some faults of pronunciation, has a purity and delicacy of tone and accent which is quite remarkable. And of the work produced in elementary schools, how great a part consists in the reading; and what an advantage for making a favourable impression on the spectator have those elementary schools in which the tone and accent of the reading are agreeable. Yet, notwithstanding this advantage, an ordinary London school does not, I repeat, make a favourable impression upon the spectator when he contrasts its instruction and discipline with those of an ordinary school in the country.

Manchester is but the metropolis of a province; and in Manchester schools, certainly, the schoolchildren do not start with any advantage in point of their reading accent: yet the recent examination for Queen's scholarships seems to show, that the life and intelligence of even this provincial metropolis communicate themselves to the schools within it in a manner which ensures to them a superiority over

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others excluded from like benefits. The schools of London do not show the same relative superiority.

Is it that the excitement and intensity of London life are too powerful; that they operate on those connected with elementary schools not as stimulants, but as distractions; that, in London, managers are so overwhelmed with the pressure of business, with the calls of other pursuits, that they find it peculiarly difficult to bestow on their schools more than a hurried and intermittent attention; that teachers have so many sources of interest offered to them outside their schools, so little encouragement and supervision from their managers within them, that they, too, find it harder here than elsewhere to bend themselves to the hearty performance of a uniform, unpretending, and laborious duty; that schoolchildren, in their turn, are here particularly inaccessible to prolonged influence and regular discipline? Is it, in short, that the activity of all kinds, which in other large towns exerts a favourable effect on the development of elementary schools, exists in london in an overpowering degree, and becomes prejudicial to them?

This question I will not now discuss. I pass on to name two special points in which, apart from all consideration of the general influence of London and London life, the schools under my inspection in this metropolis, as compared with those elsewhere, appear to me to stand at a real disadvantage.

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The first point is, the want of supervision by ministers of religion. It is well known what an advantage the National schools enjoy in the constant visits of the parish clergyman, of whose pastoral duties the care of his schools is now almost universally considered to form a main part. He is the member of the school committee generally the best qualified in all respects, always the best qualified in point of leisure, to attend at the school; for that attendance, which with lay members of the committee is an interruption of their ordinary day's business, is with him a part of his ordinary day's business. And the advantage of this supervision to the teacher, not merely in keeping him at work and vigilant, but in the cheerfulness and encouragement conferred by the presence of one who presents himself (as, to the honour of the clergy be it said, is generally, I believe, the case), as a fellow-labourer, rather than as an overlooker, is so evident that I need not enlarge upon it. But this supervision, far too often wanting in the British and Wesleyan schools which I inspect in the country, is, I regret to say, almost wholly wanting in those which I inspect in London.

I believe, indeed, that with Dissenters the personal care of schools is not so universally considered one of the first and indispensable functions of the minister, as it now is with members of the Church of England. And I am aware, too, that with regard to many of the British schools which I inspect, there exists a

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special reason for that absence of the ministers of religion of which I complain, namely, that in these schools the minister has adhered to the voluntary principle when the lay members of his committee have abandoned it; that they have connected their school with the Committee of Council against his will, and that he therefore has relinquished all participation in the management of it. This may, in many cases, account for the absence of the minister of religion in British schools; but that absence is not, because it may thus be accounted for, less unfavourable to the welfare of the schools. With Wesleyan schools the case is different. The Wesleyan body, as represented by their educational committee, have accepted the principle of connection with the Committee of Council: there is not among them, I believe, any important body of malcontents on this point; indeed, it would be hard to discover in the tenets of the Wesleyans, who are very different in this respect from the Independents and others, any ground for opposition to this principle. Consequently, in the committees of Wesleyan schools under inspection the lay and clerical members of the Wesleyan body are united; and there is no reason why I should not meet in the schools which I inspect Wesleyan ministers as well as Wesleyan laymen. Indeed, the attendance of ministers in Wesleyan schools is, I know, strongly encouraged and inculcated by their general education committee, and by the authorities of their central

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institution at Westminster, And in Wesleyan schools in the country, accordingly, it is becoming, I am glad to say, a more and more frequent occurrence for me to meet the minister in the school; and more than this, to find that he habitually visits it, and attends to it. But at Wesleyan schools in London it seldom happens that I meet a Wesleyan minister; it seldom happens that I hear of his visits and personal attention being bestowed upon the schools throughout the year.

The second point in which I find the majority of London schools at a disadvantage is the want of good school accommodation. In no school premises anywhere, so far as my observation goes, is want of space, want of cleanliness, want of ventilation, want of playgrounds, so much felt as in school-premises in London. One would have hoped that the difficulty of obtaining extensive school-premises in London, arising out of the great value of space, would have been counterbalanced by the facility of obtaining in London a more numerous and a more wealthy body of subscribers: one would have hoped at any rate that cleanliness and ventilation might be provided for, even though the school-premises were inconvenient and insufficient. But this does not prove to be the case. Yet nowhere are good school-buildings, and, above all, a good playground, such a potent means of attraction to scholars as in London; for nowhere are the benefits of air, light, space, and free means of exercise, so scantily possessed by them in

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their homes. The spacious playgrounds attached to the Wesleyan practising schools in Westminster, in the midst of a densely crowded and poverty-stricken locality, form, in my opinion, one of the most delightful features of that institution; and form also one of its best agents in the work of humanising and civilising the neighbourhood in which it is placed.

If in respect of school buildings the country parts of my district are more fortunate than London, yet in London no less than in the country I begin to find, I am glad to say, a more satisfactory state of things than formerly with regard to school-fittings and school organisation. Increasing experience leads me more and more to prefer the Battersea plan of school organisation* - the plan now usually adopted in National schools - with some modifications, to any other. The new model of organisation proposed by the Wesleyan education committee for their schools, follows this plan in its main features; so far as it departs from it by introducing a large gallery, and diminishing in consequence in school-rooms of ordinary size the number of the rows of desks, it is, in my opinion, inferior to it. But this large gallery is a point by which the Wesleyan body hold fast: they declare it an indispensable agent in their system of conveying religious and moral instruction; and as with this part of the instruction in their school

*See Report for 1856, p. 52, The plan was to divide the scholars into approximately equal groups of twenty-five to thirty, with a pupil-teacher and a set of desks for each.

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your Lordships have bound yourselves not to interfere, before this declaration I have only to incline myself and be silent.

The plan of organisation followed in the model schools of the British and Foreign School Society in the Borough Road, and adopted by many British schools, is altogether different from that followed in National and Wesleyan schools. It was recommended by the late Mr. Fletcher, and a full account of it by him was published in your Lordships' Minutes; but he died before he had had much experience of the mode in which it worked. I will frankly avow, that I find several inconveniences in it. It appears to me to provide too little desk accommodation, to occasion too much moving about, too many changes of place; and to cause a distribution of the school in which the main divisions are too large, and the subdivisions too small. To illustrate my objections, I will take the case of a school of 150 children organised on this plan. Of these, fifty will be on the gallery, fifty in the desks, and fifty on the floor. The better a school is, the more of the work done in it is work which is best done at the desk - by the scholar in a permanent station, with the means of writing conveniently: in a good school of 150 children, there will be more than fifty scholars whose work is advanced enough to make it desirable that they should have this advantage. Then, in order that each body of fifty may have the benefit

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of the desks in its turn, it is obvious that several changes of place will be necessary during the day; these repeated changes of place must occasion noise, wear and tear of floors, temporary interruption of studies; all avoided when the organisation is such as to permit the scholar to have his fixed place at a desk. Again, the school is divided into three bodies of fifty; each of these is too large to be adequately handled by one teacher; accordingly, they are, in fact, broken up into small divisions, not always sufficiently differing either in respect of their numbers, or of the inadequate teaching power necessarily assigned to them, from the drafts under monitors on the old monitorial system.

The general rule on which I insist is this: the scholar, to get on, should have a fixed place, and that place at a desk. This rule I have gathered from all the experience which I have had; and I find, indeed, that the teachers of schools organised on the new British plan practically acknowledge its force, by giving to the highest and most advanced division of their school the greatest number of hours at the desks. But what I say is, that in a good school there is a greater number of the children than one-third who are capable of profiting by this advantage; and the result of the present plan often is, that while one-third of the school, the highest division, having this advantage, is very well brought on, the other two-thirds, the middle and the lowest division, are handled too much like divisions of infants, and

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exhibit, in proportion to the rest, too low a rate of attainments accordingly.

I have no hesitation in enlarging upon this matter of school organisation, because experience impresses me more and more with a sense of its importance. Next after the character of the master (long after it, certainly, but next after it), that which acts most powerfully to determine the condition of a school is, I think, its organisation. It is hardly possible adequately to describe to those who have not experienced it the sense of relief and satisfaction felt on entering a school, which one has formerly known ill-arranged and ill-organised, for the first time after it has been re-arranged on a good plan. What was formerly intricate, confused, difficult to discipline, difficult to inspect, now lies before you simple, clearly divided, comprehensible: to every one his labour is lightened; the teacher himself can hardly comprehend how what seemed a mere mechanical alteration can have led to so great a moral effect. I appeal to the teachers of those schools in my district where a new plan of organisation has been introduced with eminent success, whether they themselves were prepared for the extent to which they have reaped benefits from the organisation of their schools. Experience alone has convinced them of it, as it has convinced me also.

This is a matter, too, in which it is hard to conceive that party spirit should operate. No one can have any desire but that the best plan of organisation

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should prevail: all the old plans have been found inadequate: of these old plans, the original British plan was, in my opinion, eminently the best, and the old National plan eminently the most inefficient; but all have failed to answer the present requirements of elementary schools, and a new plan has gradually evolved itself, which has been the slow fruit of experience, which is even yet not fully matured, which is the especial property of no sect or society, although by National schools it has now, I believe, very generally been adopted.

The standard of attainment in the schools under my inspection continues generally at much the same level as in the year 1854, and is satisfactory. The needlework in girls' schools has, I am glad to think, been more attended to, and has improved.

I hear many complaints that too high a standard of attainment is now required in elementary schools; that the exact point up to which it is desirable to instruct the children attending them has been considerably outpassed; that the children are more and more instructed in subjects injudiciously chosen, and in a manner to unfit them for their future station and business in life.

These complaints have in them, I think, something true and something false.

It is not true, I think, that the course of instruction in elementary schools generally embraces too many subjects, or is carried on in any of these sub-

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jects too far. Certainly it is not true with regard to those elementary schools which I inspect. These are not attended, as I have repeatedly said, by the lowest and poorest class of children: they are attended often by children who might well lay claim to an instruction of a more comprehensive and advanced kind than that which they obtain in them: they are attended universally by children who may well lay claim on the score of social position and future prospects in life, to be instructed not only in reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, but also in the higher rules of arithmetic - in geography, in English grammar, and in English history. I do not mean to affirm it as my opinion, that there are degrees of instruction exactly proportioned to the degrees in society; but I place myself in the point of view of the complainants themselves, and I say, that the children in those schools which I inspect belong to a class for which the complainants themselves would allow that such an instruction as they receive was neither improper nor over-ambitious.

But it is true, that where schools profess to teach industrial work, or to train children for a certain occupation, and do not teach that work, or teach it inadequately, do not train the children for that occupation, or train them inadequately, then there is ground for complaint. In industrial and reformatory schools, for instance, instruction in a certain industrial work is the main object of the institution:

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there is cause for complaint if that main object is missed, whether it is missed because the special instruction has been in itself bad, or because it has been thrust out by the teaching of other subjects. In girls' schools, again, there is, there must always be, a branch of industrial instruction indispensably professed - instruction in needlework: if this is given ill, if the girls cannot do plain work well, there is cause for complaint: it is no excuse that time has been occupied in teaching other branches of instruction well, if one indispensable branch has been neglected. In all these cases it is necessary to define clearly what the aim of the school is, or should be, and to judge the school accordingly as it attains or misses that aim.

Much of the exaggeration respecting the over-teaching in elementary schools arises, I think, in the following way. People read the examination papers, which are printed from year to year in your Lordships' Minutes, and exclaim at the rate of attainment demanded; as if the rate of attainment demanded by those examination papers was the rate of attainment demanded in elementary schools. They forget that these examination papers are for teachers, not for scholars.

Yes; but, they say, why demand so much learning from those who will have to impart so little? Why impose on those who will have to teach the rudiments only of knowledge to the children of the poor, an examination so wide in its range, so searching in its details?

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The answer to this involves the whole question as to the training of the teachers of elementary schools. It is sufficient to say, that the plan which these objectors recommend, the plan of employing teachers whose attainments do not rise far above the level of the attainments of their scholars, has already been tried. It has been tried, and it has failed. Its fruits were to be seen in the condition of elementary education throughout England, until a very recent period. It is now sufficiently clear, that the teacher to whom you give only a drudge's training, will do only a drudge's work, and will do it in a drudge's spirit: that in order to ensure good instruction even within narrow limits in a school, you must provide it with a master far superior to his scholars, with a master whose own attainments reach beyond the limits within which those of his scholars may be bounded. To form a good teacher for the simplest elementary school, a period of regular training is requisite: this period must be filled with work: can the objectors themselves suggest a course of work for this period, which shall materially differ from that now pursued; or can they affirm that the attainments demanded by the certificate-examination exceed the limits of what may without overwork be acquired within the period of his training, by a man of twenty or twenty-one years of age, of fair intelligence, and of fair industry?

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THE chief result of my experience as to the growth of schools, and the fluctuations in their condition, has been to establish the conviction that the general rules which one so often hears others lay down, and which one is so often tempted oneself to lay down, respecting the elements of growth and decay, of efficiency and inefficiency in this or that class of schools, are unsound, or at least that they admit of so many exceptions as to be practically of little value. The hasty generalisations to which the observer is led by the first contemplation of the present system of elementary schools in England are perpetually being corrected; life appears at isolated points where one least expected to find it; decay takes place where one entertained least apprehension of it.

I have sometimes thought, for instance, that schools not especially connected with any religious body whose fortunes it might partake and in whose permanence it might share, had a natural tendency, when the first impulse which led to their establishment had died away, to be neglected and to decline. With a constant enemy to contend with in the sectarian tendencies of the English people, with the constant danger, while they had no perpetual

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official promoter like the clergyman, of losing their original promoters by death, removal, decay of zeal in what was from the first a purely voluntary labour, or from other causes, these schools seemed likely to run a certain course, and when they had exhausted the special impulse which set them in motion, gradually to slacken speed and at last to stop. But I have seen schools of this kind, which appeared to be approaching the last stage of their course, recover themselves suddenly and start afresh.

I have sometimes thought, again, that in schools where the bulk of the children were half-timers, the school-work was necessarily inferior in neatness, finish, and accuracy, to that of the children in schools where the half-time system is not in operation, and where the scholars had the benefit of a longer daily practice in their work. But in the British school at Milford, in Derbyshire, I found a school of half-timers where the school-work is eminent for these very qualities of neatness and finish, and may vie in these respects with that of the best schools, of whatever class, under my inspection.

The fact is that at the present moment all is so undetermined in England with respect to public education - one system, one body of persons is so little in possession of the entire field - that everything depends, in each locality, on special local circumstances, which are continually changing, and

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on individual agencies, which cannot be calculated beforehand. Public education is perhaps too vast a matter to be advantageously left to these individual agencies, but, where it is left to them, it is absolutely necessary to take into account their inherently fortuitous and independent character. It is necessary to leave each of them to produce freely its natural fruits, without attempting to prejudge its character and chance of success.

Amongst the local efforts for the promotion of public education which I have witnessed in my district during the last five years, none, perhaps, is so remarkable as that which the Wesleyan Methodists have been making during that period in South Staffordshire. In no part of my district, except in London, are the schools under my inspection so thickly scattered; in none are they so well attended; in none have they multiplied so fast and improved so rapidly in efficiency. Mr. Tremenheere's reports on the state of the mining population have sufficiently made known the moral and social condition of the working-classes in South Staffordshire; and, while that condition is such as it is there described, the elementary schools in that part of the country will not, as a body, be equal to the best elementary schools in other parts of the country. The home education of the children must make itself felt. But that these South Staffordshire schools have attained, as a whole, the thoroughly respectable and satisfactory condition in which I now

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find them, a condition of efficiency quite out of all proportion with the barbarism of the district in which they are found, does infinite credit to the zeal of their promoters and to the labour of their teachers, and cannot fail in the end to tell powerfully upon the civilisation of the neighbourhood. When first these schools came under my inspection in 1851, the rate of attainment which I found in them was far lower (with one or two striking exceptions) than that which I found in any other part of my district; it was so low that, in order to obtain pupil-teachers here at all, I was in many cases forced to recommend the admission of candidates whose deficiencies would elsewhere have ensured their instant rejection. The rate of attainment in these schools generally is now, as I have said, equal to that of respectable schools in the best parts of my district; I am enabled to demand the same proficiency of candidates for apprenticeship here as elsewhere; the actual apprentices perform, with credit, the same examination as others. And the new aspect of the school buildings (often, with the neighbouring Wesleyan chapel, the only considerable edifices, except the furnaces, in their locality) sufficiently indicates how recent is the effort which has produced these results.

In nearly all these schools the fittings adopted are more or less in conformity with the Battersea plan, which, as I have stated in former reports, appears to me, of those at present in use, by far the most convenient. In some cases they are entirely

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in accordance with this plan; in others they approach more nearly to the plan followed in the model school of the Wesleyan institution at Westminster, a plan which is a modification of the Battersea system, designed to meet the requirements of Wesleyan schools in respect of large galleries and collective instruction. But I constantly observe that, although a sound plan of fittings may have been adopted, the teacher has not organised his scholars in accordance with that plan, and that the organisation, therefore, of the school remains imperfect, although its fittings may have been made all that can be wished. In these cases the managers have done their part, but the teacher has not yet adequately performed his. It is, indeed, a matter of some difficulty at once to organise a body of children in accordance with a plan which was not in use at the institution where the teacher was trained, and it is a very venial shortcoming to have failed in at once doing this perfectly; but the excellence of this plan of fittings is that it is so simple and so precise that, in a school where it has been adopted, the mode of arranging the scholars in conformity with it suggest s itself at once to the eye, and it seems as if a school so fitted would almost organise itself, if the teacher would allow it. The failure is generally in the following particular: the divisions do not correspond with the groups of desks; one division considerably overlaps its own group of desks and invades the next group, another division does not half fill its own

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group. In fact, the scholars have not been re-organised to meet the requirements of the new plan, but the same division of them is continued which was in use before the improved plan of fittings was introduced. Teachers must not forget that the excellence of the Battersea plan consists in this - that it facilitates the establishment of a system of uniform clearly defined classes; and, if the facilities which it offers for doing this are not taken advantage of, the mere introduction of a number of new desks and benches into a school is of no great benefit. The reasons generally alleged by teachers for not making their divisions correspond with the groups of desks may be reduced to two main points: one, that the scholars are of such different degrees of attainment that they cannot be classed in bodies of uniform number; the other, that the want of a sufficient supply of pupil-teachers compels them to enlarge, beyond measure, certain divisions, that they may have the benefit of the superior instruction of the pupil-teachers, and to contract beyond measure other divisions, that as small a body of scholars as possible may be subjected to the inferior handling of monitors. With regard to this second point, it is true that a group of desks will not properly accommodate more than from twenty-five to thirty scholars, and that, in schools where the allowance of pupil-teachers does not exceed one to every forty scholars, the allowance is inadequate to meet the requirements of the Battersea plan of fittings.

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But in schools not enjoying this allowance, it is far better, in my opinion, to divide regularly all but the youngest and least advanced children into classes corresponding with the groups of desks, and to throw together the youngest children into one large body, capable of being chiefly taught on the gallery by collective methods and under one teacher, rather than to divide the whole school from top to bottom in an unsystematic manner, which generally leaves the largest bodies at the top of the school, and the smallest at the bottom. With regard to the first-mentioned point, namely, the different degrees of attainment of the scholars alleged as a bar against combining them in equal bodies, the answer to this is the same as the answer to the objection urged against the plan of retaining the scholar in the same class for all parts of his work. In both cases the answer is, that, uniform bodies can be formed of scholars having a sufficient degree of correspondence in their attainments to render their working together perfectly practicable, and that far greater advantages result to the discipline and training of the scholar from placing him in a system of uniform, clearly defined classes, than result to his instruction from placing him in a system where the different shades of proficiency are made the basis of the organisation of the scholars and where the classification is as various and as little uniform as are the attainments of individuals.

The improvement in fittings and accommodation

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in the schools under my inspection in Birmingham has not been less great, during the last five years, than in those of the neighbouring district of South Staffordshire. With regard to some of the Birmingham schools, also, the remarks apply which I have made as to the failure of teachers to take full advantage of the improved system of fittings introduced into their schools.

But much, I believe, of what is accomplished in Birmingham for the elementary education of the poor is accomplished by those who are opposed to Government inspection, and has not fallen under my notice. I am unable, therefore, to speak with so much knowledge of what has been done in Birmingham as of what has been done in South Staffordshire, where nearly the whole of the schools for the poor lately established, except those established in connection with the Church of England have been established by Wesleyan Methodists, where such schools bear a far larger proportion to the number of Church of England schools than in any other part of my district, and where they have, with hardly an exception, been established and carried on in cordial co-operation with the Committee of Council.

I cannot conclude this report without recording my satisfaction at what has been accomplished in the repair, refitment, and re-organisation of the schools under my inspection in London, during the past year. In my last report I spoke unfavourably

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of the London schools in these respects. Some of them continue to deserve that unfavourable mention; but I am bound to say that the great number of them merit it no longer. As I visited one of them after another in the course of last summer, I had perpetually the pleasure of finding a school which I had known dirty, ill-furnished with fittings, and in bad repair, now wearing a totally new face. Some, too, even of those which were best provided before, had actually transformed themselves by additions and improvements; and amongst these last it is but just to mention the great Jews' free school in Bell Lane, in the improvement of which no cost and no pains have been spared, and which has been now reconstituted on a scale worthy of its great resources and of its wide sphere of usefulness.

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THE schools receiving annual grants, to the inspection of which, the payment of these grants depending on the Inspector's visit, it is always necessary to give the preference, have hitherto occupied the whole of my official year. But there are many other schools in my district liable to inspection, in virtue of aid afforded at some former time by the Committee of Council. Of such schools there are two classes: one, in which the managers are averse to connection with Government, either because the views of the original managers have, on this subject, undergone a change, or because a new composition of the school committee has placed the original managers in a minority; another, in which the managers are uninformed with respect to the aid now offered by the Committee of Council, and are too indifferent, or, as often happens, too busy, to seek information on this point for themselves.

Of these two classes of schools, the latter may evidently be reached, since it is want of information, and not want of confidence, which separates the managers from the Committee of Council. With the former class it is different. Where it has been ascertained that it is positive hostility to what they

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call the principle of State-connection, which keeps managers aloof from your Lordships, I am of opinion that no advantage is gained by the inspection of their schools, exercised as a right and in opposition to their wishes.

The right arises, they think, out of a consent on their parts, either originally not fully intended by them, or at first fully intended and freely given, but now regretted; and the exercise of it awakens in them irritation.

However devoid of a rational basis their hostility may be, inspection depends, for the advantage to be derived from it, so entirely on a friendly and cordial co-operation between the managers and the Inspector, that it is vain to expect any benefit, where its exercise awakens feelings which make hearty co-operation impossible.

To the other and more accessible class belong especially schools in the country and in somewhat remote situations.

My experience has hitherto lain chiefly among schools in towns; on this account, I look forward with pleasure to the opportunity of becoming better acquainted with another class of schools in the country, and in somewhat remote situations, the state of which must always form a most important element in our calculations, when we attempt to estimate the general condition of elementary education. From what I have thus far seen of them, it strikes me that in the circumstances of this class

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of schools lies the main obstacle to the success, either of a purely voluntary system of education, or of a system like the present, combining State-aid with voluntary local contribution. The promoters of these country schools are often both few in number and far from wealthy; the fund which they can raise, therefore, even though they may tax themselves severely, are far from considerable; and the more inconsiderable are their own means, the more inconsiderable becomes the assistance which they receive from the State. For their poverty renders them unable to perform the all-important first step, to engage a well-trained teacher; the indispensable requisite to enable them to obtain an efficient school; the indispensable requisite, also, to enable them to obtain Government aid. Here, then, may be seen the real pressure, the real financial difficulty, which is comparatively absent in the schools under my inspection in towns; for the town schools have not only in general a wealthier body of supporters to appeal to, but this body can at any time be considerably enlarged by a resolute and persevering exertion. But in country districts the body of contributors is in all cases necessarily limited; it is generally - in the case of schools not connected with the Church of England, and deprived, therefore, of the aid of the clergyman and the squire - a body far from wealthy. Such a body of school-managers often invite inspection in the hope of obtaining a preliminary aid towards the payment of an efficient

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teacher's salary, which no form of aid at present sanctioned by the Minutes of the Committee of Council can supply; and in their extreme difficulty, and in their vexation at finding no provision whereby assistance from Government can reach them, their language is often that of bitter disappointment, "We have overcome," they say, "for the sake of the wants of our ill-provided neighbourhood, the prejudices against State-connection in which we were reared, and after we have made this sacrifice of feeling, and have admitted Government interference, we find the Government refusing to help us, and reserving all its help for those who, far more than we, can help themselves."

They forget, nor would it much console them to remember, that it is in great measure to their own jealousy, to their own past and now confessed prejudices, that their difficulty is attributable. Such an assistance as they demand amounts, in fact, very nearly to the maintenance and support of their school at the expense of the State. The State would contribute the bulk of the funds, and they would contribute the management. The principle of a school system reposing on voluntary local effort is thus abandoned. But what has hitherto made it impossible for the Government in this country to found a national system of education? The loudly-avowed preference for a system of voluntary local effort. And had the Government been inclined to offer an entire support to those schools which

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should demand it, what would have rendered such a course difficult or impossible? The outcry that voluntary effort on the part of self-supporting and independent schools was to be swamped by the competition of schools maintained by the State. Only one way, therefore, was left open by which the State might, in part, remedy the shortcomings of voluntary effort, and that was by affording its aid only in correspondence with voluntary contribution. Thus schools were to depend for their existence upon themselves, and only for a higher development of their efficiency were they to depend upon the Government. Even this arrangement has been accused of injustice to independent schools, by unfairly placing them in competition with schools improved and highly developed through Government aid. What would have been said of an arrangement which not only improved and developed such competing schools, but actually founded them and maintained them in existence?

It is, however, certain, that the present arrangement, imposed as it has been on the Government by the necessity of circumstances, and rendering as it has rendered all the benefit possible under those circumstances, fails to assist certain schools which stand greatly in need of assistance. Professing as it does to improve the quality rather than to increase the quantity of elementary schools, it is most sufficient and successful in large towns and populous neighbourhoods. In these principally I had, until lately,

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witnessed its operation, and by its success in these I had been profoundly impressed; for here it is, above all, the quality of elementary education which needs improvement. On becoming more acquainted with its operation in poorer and more thinly peopled districts, I cannot but be impressed with the conviction that its adequacy is here no longer the same; for here it is the increase in the quantity of education, it is the very establishment and maintenance of schools which is in many cases the thing required.

The high rate of payment which the services of a trained teacher now command forms the obstacle in the case of schools of the poor class just mentioned, to their acquisition of such a teacher, and, therefore, to their participation in your Lordships' grants. To improve the position of the teacher in respect of his salary as well as in other respects, has been a constant endeavour of your Lordships, and that this endeavour has been crowned with success is a public benefit. The formation of a class of principal teachers paid at a low rate is by no means to be desired; and, therefore, while I lament the difficulty in which their inability to pay a high salary to a teacher places the managers of certain poor schools, I should be sorry to see that difficulty removed by any change which lowered the present standard of principal teachers' salaries.

For the wants of these schools, therefore, it is not easy, under the present system, to suggest a provision; there is, however, in the higher class of schools

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under my inspection, a want which is at this moment strongly felt, and to which it lies, I think, in your Lordships' power in some degree to afford relief. In this higher class of schools there is a great and growing demand for regularly trained secondary or assistant teachers, which is at present most inadequately supplied. Such teachers would be employed under the supervision of the principal teacher whose salary would remain at the present rate; but the richest body of school-managers is generally unable, even were it desirous, to pay the assistant at the same rate as the principal. But the increase in the number of schools aided by your Lordships, and requiring trained teachers is at present so rapid, that it still fully keeps pace with, or even outstrips, the supply of such teachers; a student in a training school, therefore, after he has finished the shortest period of training which is permitted, finds no difficulty in at once obtaining his appointment to an elementary school at a principal teacher's salary. There is not at present left, after the existing elementary schools have been provided with principal teachers, any class of students unprovided for, and willing, therefore to accept a less remunerative, although, for them, more instructive and more improving employment.

For not merely is the teacher of a large and important school greatly benefited by the service of a highly trained student, infinitely superior in training, information, and authority, not alone

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to the class of pupil-teachers, but also to the class of assistants established by your Lordships' Minute of July, 1852, but the student, too, on his side, may be greatly benefited by such service. Under the successful and experienced teacher of a large and thriving school he may learn what the training school cannot teach him, what his own experience can only teach him slowly, and after many mistakes - the practical methods by which great schools are made and kept thriving. It is well worth his while for the sake of such knowledge, for the sake of learning, in a good practical school, how to manage children, how to deal with parents and managers-it is well worth his while, in consideration of such advantages, to content himself for a year or two with a somewhat lower salary.

The time will no doubt arrive when the present extension of the pupil-teacher system will bear its natural fruits, and when, after all the principal teacherships of elementary schools are occupied, there will yet remain year by year a considerable class of students not posted as principals, and willing, therefore, as in Holland and Prussia, to begin their career as assistants; but this period has not yet arrived. Its arrival will greatly benefit elementary schools, and will benefit in a scarcely less important degree the trained students also. Even under the present circumstances, I have been greatly struck with the keen and just sense which I have found existing among the students themselves of the advan-

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tage to be derived from serving for a certain period under an experienced master in a formed and successful school; more than one student has expressed to me his readiness to forego the higher rate of salary which he might obtain as a principal teacher, for the sake of obtaining this invaluable experience a an assistant. At present, however, it is only in a school of the very first order, and offering, therefore, to the student the most extraordinary advantages as a place of practical training, that I feel warranted in urging him to accept an engagement as assistant, to the temporary detriment of his condition as respects salary. Indeed the authorities of the training schools would at present be opposed to any extensive employment of their trained students as assistants; for not only are they naturally unwilling to allow them to forfeit the tangible benefit of the best-paid situations offered, but they cannot leave the schools in connection with them without principal teachers, which they would do if they now diverted to other employment any considerable portion of their yearly supply of students.

It is desirable, however, and I am sure your Lordships will feel it to be desirable, to encourage as much as possible among the managers of schools their growing wish for this highly trained and efficient class of assistants; this only aid which can considerably lighten the labours of a chief teacher, or enable him to feel really at ease with respect to the management of those parts of his school which

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are not for the moment under his own personal tuition and superintendence.

Perhaps it might be possible for your Lordships to promote this useful disposition on the part of managers by relaxing your regulations with respect to augmentation grants, so far as not to require, as a condition of payment of the assistant's augmentation grant, that corresponding amount of voluntary contribution on the part of the managers which is required for the payment of the augmentation grant of the chief teacher. If your Lordships could accept in each single school one fulfilment of your condition - its fulfilment in respect of the principal teacher - as sufficient to carry the payment of all augmentation grants in that school, a step would be gained towards the desirable object of rendering easier, and in due time more general, the employment of certificated assistants.

It is impossible that the place of such assistants can ever be adequately supplied by pupil-teachers; yet in these, as far as regards, the general rate of their instruction and efficiency, I can observe a marked and most satisfactory improvement. There are now never presented to me such candidates as those who were some years ago, not only presented, but in default of better, necessarily admitted. I have now never, or very rarely, in reviewing year by year the examination papers of actual apprentices, to exercise that indulgence in order to let them pass, as entitling their writers to the receipt of their

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stipend, which I had often to exercise at my first appointment. But I find it increasingly difficult in the schools under my inspection in London to obtain boys in sufficient number as candidates for apprenticeship. Those who are obtained are generally well qualified; but the difficulty is to obtain them at all. There is not the same difficulty with respect to girls; their labour being less valuable, and the field of employment open to them less wide, it is easy to obtain girls in sufficient number as apprentices. But in London, the class of boys from whom apprentices for the schools which I inspect are usually taken, can earn so much, and can earn it so young, and in so many ways, that I find their parents unwilling to permit their engagement as pupil-teachers at the present rates of remuneration. In some schools the liberality of the managers has provided the means of meeting this difficulty. By devoting a certain portion of the capitation grant to the augmentation of the stipends of male apprentices, they are enabled to offer a remuneration quite equal to the market value of a boy's services, and quite sufficient to overcome the disinclination of his parents to his engagement. But the schools in which the liberality or the wealth of the managers is so great as to render such an application of the capitation grant possible, are not numerous, and, in all but these few, the difficulty of which I have spoken is severely felt. It is no doubt often true, that a boy by accepting

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the situation of pupil-teacher gains a training which enables him to occupy at the age of twenty-one a higher and more lucrative position than that to which other employment would have conducted him; that by taking less money now, he is, in fact, enabling himself to obtain more money hereafter; but to look forward in this manner is seldom, in the class of society from which apprentices are taken, the habit or the inclination either of boys or parents.

I find, I am glad to say, the committees of British schools becoming more and more alive to the importance of the establishment of infant schools; more and more disposed to admit the undoubted truth, that the admission to their institutions of the older children of a family makes it incumbent upon them to make some provision for the education of the younger; to admit, further, that this education needs a separate methodised system of its own, and that the presence of a large body of infants in an ill-taught and ill-trained mass, at the bottom of their older schools, inflicts injury on the whole school, and not merely on the infants themselves. The Wesleyans continue and extend their activity in the establishment of infant schools; that department of elementary education in which they have already done so much, and with such happy results.

With the organisation of their older schools, of which subject I spoke in my last report, I cannot say that I am yet quite satisfied; they seem to me by no means to have yet perfectly adapted to their

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new system of fittings their mode of arranging their scholars. With groups of desks of the best kind, and arranged in the best order, Wesleyan schoolrooms still too frequently present the spectacle of bodies of children arranged in no correspondence whatever with their groups of desks. Desks, floor and gallery seem to be all irregularly used, and the result is, an entire want of symmetry in the aspect of the schoolroom arrangements. The higher divisions are often very large, while the lower divisions are very small; whereas the right method is rather, if there must be inequality in the division to make the higher divisions small and the lower divisions large; since the collective methods which large divisions necessitate, can be more advantageously applied to the instruction of a very young than to that of older children. As it is, the Wesleyan schools, with a far better system of fittings than British schools, often present examples of far inferior organisation. Yet the school-rooms of the senior and junior practising schools at Westminster, and of the girls' school, offer models of school arrangement, and suggest models of school organisation, of which I should be glad to see every large Wesleyan school in the country take advantage.

The improvement and renovation of the schools under my inspection in London and its neighbourhood - an improvement which in my last report to your Lordships I stated to be commenced - has been unremittingly carried forward during the past year.

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WITH the progress of the body of schools under my inspection I have abundant cause to be satisfied. If the superintendence afforded to British and Wesleyan schools by their managers is in some respects not so active as that which National schools enjoy, the condition of comparative independence in which the teachers are thus left is not without its advantages, when the teachers are of such a class as those generally found in the best British and Wesleyan schools. They form and pursue their own plans with entire security and consecutiveness; and occupy in the eyes of their scholars, and of the parents of their scholars, a position of undivided dignity and authority. There are some teachers who cannot safely be trusted with entire independence; some institutions which cannot thrive without the constant intervention and fostering care of their managers. I have in a former report observed that the usual course of management followed in British and Wesleyan schools is not perfectly adapted to teachers and institutions of this kind. But there are also some teachers who can be safely trusted to walk alone; there are some institutions so securely fixed, so efficient, and so popular, that the best thing which their managers can do for

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them is to leave them to themselves. Of this latter kind are now many of the teachers and many of the institutions under my inspection in London; and for such the operation of the ordinary British and Wesleyan system of management is decidedly beneficial.

It has now become a common practice, throughout my district, for the scholars to buy their own school-books. The advantages of the practice are obvious; the children are found to take more care of books which are their own; above all, books which are the property of the scholar can be taken home by him in the evening, and the study of them continued out of school. But I have remarked in some schools where this practice was followed that several children, even in the higher classes, were without books altogether. They and their parents could not or would not buy them, and there was no public stock of which they could have the use in school; but such a state of things as this should in no case be suffered. If the children are of a class rich enough to be fairly expected to buy their own books, either they should buy them, if such is the rule of the school, or their attendance at the school should not be permitted. But I know scarcely one British or Wesleyan school in which there are not some children on whom it might be a hardship to make the purchase of books imperative. I think that in all schools there should be a public stock of books, from which those who cannot beyond

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a doubt afford to buy for themselves should be supplied. It might safely be left to the teachers and managers to discriminate what children had a fair claim to be supplied from this source. Of all other scholars, the purchase of the necessary books might then be strictly required.

Almost every teacher under my inspection is now certificated. Great interest is created among this able and active body of persons by the arrival of the period fixed by your Lordships for the first revision of certificates. A promotion of even one division is of great importance to a teacher. How powerfully, therefore, is his position affected by regulations which render possible, in some cases, a promotion of no less than three divisions! I believe that this periodical revision of certificates may prove a most powerful means to promote the efficiency of teachers. I propose to reserve, in revising certificates, the highest promotion for the very best teachers in my district; to award the promotion of three divisions, only when the teacher has given proof of distinguished excellence of some sort; whether of distinguished fidelity in adhering to the same school, or of distinguished success in conducting it. There are many cases in which a teacher's merit in adhering for five years to the same school cannot be considered sufficient, although joined to a fair degree of merit in the conduct of his school, to entitle him to the highest reward at your Lordships' disposal. In endowed schools, for instance, the certainty

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of his stipend, the fixed number of his scholars, often render it so directly the teacher's interest to keep his situation, that continuance in it for five years can hardly be accepted as a proof of merit. In such cases, distinguished merit in the conduct of his school may fairly be demanded, in addition to his five years' service in it, of a teacher who seeks the highest promotion. On the other hand, where a teacher has continued in his school for his school's sake, when inclination or profit might have suggested a wish for change, such continuance is clearly in itself meritorious, and deserving of the highest encouragement and reward.

The attendance of the scholars in the schools under my inspection is, on the whole, surprisingly good. This regularity of attendance is, no doubt, in part, owing to the fact that many of my best schools are mainly recruited from a class of society in which parents exercise much the same supervision over their children's proceedings as that which is generally exercised in the richer classes. The children have thus a much better home-training than the children of the classes below them, and their general conduct is comparatively regular. I am more and more convinced that benefit arises from the admission of schools containing children of this middle class to a participation in grants, and from their consequent liability to inspection. I must notice at the same time that teachers do not always show perfect judiciousness in dealing with children

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of this description. I have heard such children addressed by their teachers with the title of "miss" and "master", an absurdity which would not for a moment be tolerated in English schools for the highest classes: but, on the other hand, I have observed that truly able teachers in dealing with children of this class, find it possible to inspire them with a genuine interest in their work, a good taste and a self-respect, which it is the highest office of education to inspire, and which I had never before witnessed, except as the result of the more prolonged and systematic training of the richer classes.

I am glad to remark a steady improvement in the needlework of girls' schools. The importance which recent regulations have given to the careful instruction in needlework of female pupil-teachers has much contributed to its general improvement in the schools where they are employed. I was informed, on remarking the excellence of the needlework in the girls' Lancasterian school at Loughborough, which I inspected the other day, that the girls in that school now often bring to school with them work done by their mothers, in order to pick it out and to do it better, and that this takes place with the full approbation of their mothers, who are delighted with their daughters' progress, and no longer remain satisfied with the clumsy needlework which would a few years ago have perfectly contented them. For, until lately, in the homes of these girls little care was felt for excellence in plain useful needlework; their

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daughters' proficiency in ornamental needlework alone excited the pride and interest of the mothers.

There is a prospect, I am glad to say, that the desk accommodation in ordinary Wesleyan schools, which I have more than once noticed as deficient, will be somewhat increased. The infant school system of the Wesleyans continues to bear the most excellent fruits; and the attention of the managers of British schools is increasingly directed to the establishment of separate departments for children of this age. In all the infant schools which I visit, there is, however, a tendency to allow the admission of children too young even for an infant school. The mothers put, no doubt, a great pressure upon infant school managers in this respect, but the pressure should be resisted. Children under three years of age should certainly not be admitted to an infant school, unless it is provided with a baby-room or creche, such as is attached to infant schools in France. Two attempts at the establishment of this appendage I have witnessed in infant schools in England; neither attempt was fully successful; but in neither case was there, I think, an adequate provision of attendants and fittings.

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HAVING with your Lordships' permission been employed on the Continent during a great part of the rear 1859 as an Assistant Commissioner under the Royal Commission for inquiring into the State of Popular Education, I last year presented no general report on the schools under my inspection in this country.

My experience of foreign schools impressed me with nothing more strongly than with a sense of the advantage which our primary schools enjoy from the institution of pupil-teachers. The contrast between our classes of thirty and the French classes of 100, and often far more than 100, struck me more than any other single feature of difference in comparing the primary schools of Paris with those of London. It is not, I am bound to say, that this inferiority in the number of teachers is in Paris accompanied by a corresponding inferiority in the quality of instruction; but in order that this may not be the case, a strain is put upon the principal teachers greater than they can properly bear.

On my return to England I found the teachers of my district greatly disturbed by your Lordships' Minute of the 4th of May, 1859,* restricting the

*See Appendix J.

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allowance of pupil-teachers hitherto under certain conditions enjoyed. It was particularly represented to me by the teachers of practising schools in connection with normal colleges, that this restriction told upon them with especial severity, as they have to devote so much time and attention to the supervision of students employed in their schools, that the assistance of a strong staff of pupil-teachers to conduct the regular business of the school is peculiarly necessary. I regard the service of pupil-teachers as so useful, both to the school and to the apprentice himself, that it is with regret that I see any reductions made in it. Still the teaching power in our primary schools is, even at present, numerically much superior to that in the best and most favoured schools which I have seen on the Continent; superior even to that in the schools of Holland, where the institution of pupil-teachers took its beginning. In Holland, however, the employment of certificated adult assistants is much more general than with us; but it may, perhaps, be doubted whether the English schoolmaster shows the same aptitude for the management and use of these adult assistants, which he shows for that of pupil-teachers. Still, even were the employment of adult assistants (certainly susceptible of a development in our schools beyond that which it has yet received) carried with us as far as it is carried in Holland, our schools would find themselves,

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supposing their allowance of pupil-teachers to be at the same time reduced to the Dutch standard, with a force of assistance considerably less than that which they enjoy at present.

In former reports I have spoken of the improvement which has gradually taken place in the school-buildings of my district; and, so far as their buildings are concerned, the elementary schools under my inspection in London have, perhaps, no reason to envy those of Paris. I wish I could say the same as to the state of cleanliness and good repair in which they are kept. The English, who pride themselves on their personal cleanliness, appear not to take the same pride in the cleanliness of their public institutions; in France the solicitude for the cleanliness and neatness of these is exemplary. Poverty and remoteness may in France as in England occasion in rural schools neglect and untidiness: I have seen very ill-kept schoolrooms in distant French villages; and never shall I forget the state of dirt and disorder in which I once found the master, scholars, and schoolroom of a village school in Anglesey, which I entered on a day when I was not expected. But in Paris the public primary schools are in general excellently kept: while there are few, indeed, of the schools under my inspection in London which I could show to a Parisian inspector without apologising for their want of cleanliness. Paint and whitewash are doled out with a very sparing hand, and walls and wood-work show this; yet

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it is especially in the poorer and crowded districts of London, with their want of good light and good air, that paint and whitewash, the latter especially, are real blessings. In the poorer quarters of Paris the establishment of manufactures and the use of coal more and more crowds the population and thickens the air as in London; yet I remember no fresher, cleaner, and wholesome school interiors than those which I saw in the Faubourg St. Antoine. The truth is, voluntary managers are apt to be satisfied with a standard of cleanliness for school premises which would by no means satisfy a Government or an efficient municipal body; a municipal body like that of Paris, for instance, which spends on its primary schools nearly £100,000 a year. Voluntary managers in London will repeat with complacency that they paint the inside of their school premises once in seven years, and that leases engage the tenants of private houses to do no more; forgetting that the interior o£ a house occupied by a single private family, and the interior of a school occupied by some hundreds of poor children, many of them by no means clean, are not precisely in the same condition and have not precisely the same requirements. Then they plead that they lay out as much money on these public schools as private persons, helped by a certain limited rate of public aid, can be expected to spend on them. This may be true, and may excuse individual managers for the dirty and unhealthy state of their schoolrooms; yet, perhaps, if

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Fleet Street were ill-lighted, the citizens of London would hardly rest satisfied with such a defect, because they were told that private benevolence, assisted by a small public subsidy, could not afford to light it any better.

The candour with which school inspectors in France avowed to me their dissatisfaction with the school-books in use there, led me to reflect on the great imperfection exhibited by our school-books also. I found in the French schools good manuals for teaching special subjects - a good manual for teaching arithmetic, a good manual for teaching grammar, a good manual for teaching geography; what was wanting there, as it is wanting with, us, was a good reading-book, or course of reading-books. It is not enough remembered in how many cases his reading-book forms the whole literature, except his Bible, of the child attending a primary school. If then, instead of literature, his reading-book, as is too often the case, presents him with a jejune encyclopædia of positive information, the result is that he has, except his Bible, no literature; no humanising instruction at all. if, again, his reading-book, as is also too often the case, presents him with bad literature instead of good - with the writing of second or third-rate authors, feeble; incorrect, and colourless - he has not, as the rich have, the corrective of an abundance of good literature to counteract the bad effect of trivial and ill-written school-books; the second or third-rate

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literature of his school-book remains for him his sole, or, at feast, his principal literary standard. Dry scientific disquisitions, and literary compositions of an inferior order, are indeed the worst possible instruments for teaching children to read well. But besides the fault of not fulfilling this, their essential function, the ill-compiled reading-books I speak of have, I say, for the poor scholar, the graver fault of actually doing what they can to spoil his taste, when they are nearly his only means for forming it. I have seen school-books belonging to the cheapest, and therefore most popular series in use in our primary schools, in which far more than half of the poetical extracts were the composition either of the anonymous compilers themselves, or of American writers of the second and third order; and these books were to be some poor child's Anthology of a literature so varied and so powerful as the English! To this defectiveness of our reading-books I attribute much of that grave and discouraging deficiency in anything like literary taste and feeling, which even well-instructed pupil-teachers of four or five years' training, which even the ablest students in our training schools, still continue almost invariably to exhibit; a deficiency, to remedy which, the progressive development of our school system, and the very considerable increase of information among the people, appear to avail little or nothing. I believe that nothing would so much contribute to remedy

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it as the diffusion in our elementary schools of reading-books of which the contents were really well selected and interesting. Such lessons would be far better adapted than a treatise on the atmosphere, the steam-engine, or the pump, to attain the proper end of a reading-book, that of teaching scholars to read well; they would also afford the best chance of inspiring quick scholars with a real love for reading and literature in the only way in which such a love is ever really inspired, by animating and moving them; and if they succeeded in doing this, they would have this further advantage, that the literature for which they inspired a taste would be a good, a sound, and a truly refining literature; not a literature such as that of most of the few attractive pieces in our current reading-books, a literature over which no cultivated person would dream of wasting his time.

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IN my last report I complained of the dirty condition in which school premises in London were too often permitted to remain, and I contrasted them unfavourably in this respect with the school premises which I had seen in Paris. In the course of the year just ended, the managers of several London schools under my inspection have exerted themselves to remove the stigma thus cast upon them, and I can now report a somewhat improved state of things. There is still, however, a great disposition on the part of managers to consider sufficient for public school premises a degree of cleanliness which is really not sufficient; to think that all which is necessary is something far less, at any rate, than what is proper. And I venture to predict that the greater the "liberty of action" given to managers in fixing the standard of needful school cleanliness, the dirtier will our public schools become.

In my examinations of pupil teachers during the last year, I have been struck with the commonness of the failure in grammar. This failure has been yet more evident to me in the papers (which I have just been revising) of the candidates for Queen's scholarships at the recent Christmas examination. In general the pupil-teachers seem to me to do worse in

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this branch of their instruction than they used to do. Many objections have been raised against the teaching of grammar in our elementary schools, and I believe that there are even inspectors who somewhat discourage it. But I confess that I should be very sorry if this study should be discontinued, or should be suffered to decline. With the tendency to verbiage and to general and inexact answering to which all persons of imperfect knowledge are, when examined, so prone, it is a great thing to find for their examinations a subject-matter which is exact; every answer on which must be right or wrong, and no answer on which can have any value if it keeps to vague generalities. Arithmetic as well as grammar has the merit of being an examination subject of this kind. But grammar has an advantage even over arithmetic, in that it is not only exact - it not only compels the pupil examined in it to show himself clearly right or wrong, as knowing the rule or as ignorant of it - but it also compels him, even more than arithmetic, to give the measure of his common sense by his mode of selecting and applying, in particular instances, the rule when he knows it. And the common sense of pupil-teachers cannot be too much exercised.

I am inclined to think that for the ordinary pupil teacher the text books of grammar which he uses are much too elaborate. These aim at showing the rationale of grammar and of the terms and laws of grammar; but this is a stage of doctrine for which

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the pupil is, in this case, seldom ripe; he has memory to master the rules of grammar, but seldom understanding to master its metaphysics. What he has understanding for is the application of the rule when he has learnt it; and it is within these limits that we should address ourselves to exercise his understanding. Therefore it is to be lamented that here is not one uniform text-book for pupil-teachers studying grammar, even if that text-book treated grammar less philosophically than some of the existing text-books, not more philosophically than the old Eton grammar; for what the pupil-teacher wants is the rule as a positive fact before him, and no rules acquire this force so well as those of a universally employed text-book. It matters less that the rule should be intelligently stated to him, than that it should be intelligibly and briefly stated; for he wants it as a law, not a theorem. The metaphysics of grammar may come later for him, at the training school.

Perhaps our examinations, too, extend them over too wide a field, ask questions too numerous, and regard the rationale of grammar in a way for which the pupil-teacher is hardly ripe. Perhaps they should limit him more, make him concentrate himself more on that for which he is ripe. He will hardly write a good essay on the nature of the preposition or the adverb. He will hardly analyse an intricate passage correctly according to the metaphysical principles of Dr. Morrell's Analysis.

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But he may be brought if his teaching takes in somewhat less and keeps him to this more steadily to parse a sentence a great deal better than he does now. And the true aim of a boy's mental education - to give him the power of doing a thing right - will in this way best be followed. The best intelligence of the rationale of grammar is that which gradually comes of itself, after such a discipline, in minds with a special aptitude for this science. Such minds are few; but the minds with some aptitude or other for which the discipline of learning to do a thing right will be most beneficial, are numerous. And to the young, grammar gives this discipline best when it limits itself most.

Rhetoric and grammar are allied, and what may be called the rhetorical exercise of paraphrasing a passage of prose or poetry often finds a place in our grammar examinations. In general a pupil-teacher paraphrases a passage even worse than he analyses it, and in the examination for Queen's scholarships this year no exercise in paraphrasing was given. We all complain of the want of taste and general culture which the pupil-teachers, after so much care spent upon them, continue to exhibit; and in their almost universal failure to paraphrase ten lines of prose or poetry, without doing some grievous violence to good sense or good taste, they exhibit this want most conspicuously. Here, too, perhaps, the remedy will be found to lie, not in attempting to teach the rules of taste directly -

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a lesson which we shall never get learnt - but in introducing a lesson which we can get learnt, which has a value in itself whether it leads to something more or not, and which, in happy natures, will probably lead to this something more. The learning by heart extracts from good authors is such a lesson. I have often thought of it as a lesson offering an excellent discipline for our pupil-teachers, and I rejoiced to see it instituted by one of the regulations of the much attacked Revised Code. This regulation at any rate, I think, no one will be found to attack. Nay, it is strange that a lesson of such old standing and such high credit in our schools for the rich, should not sooner have been introduced in our schools for the poor. In this lesson you have, first of all, the excellent discipline of a lesson which must be learnt right, or it has no value; a lesson of which the subject matter is not talked about, as in too many of the lessons of our elementary schools, but learnt. Here, as in the case of the grammar lesson, this positive character of the result is a first great advantage. Then, in all but the rudest natures, out of the mass of treasures thus gained (and the mere process of gaining which will have afforded a useful discipline for all natures), a second and a more precious fruit will in time grow; they will be insensibly nourished by that which is stored in them, and their taste will be formed by it, as the learning of thousands of lines of Homer and Virgil has insensibly created a good

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literary taste in so many persons, who would never have got this by studying the rules of taste. Pupil-teachers will then be found to paraphrase well, whom no rules supplied by their teachers will ever teach to paraphrase well at present.

Although I am, on the whole, by no means dissatisfied with the work done, during the past year, in the schools under my inspection, yet I cannot say that the year has been a favourable one for them. There have been too many causes of excitement and distraction at work; school managers and school teachers have naturally had their attention much engaged, at first in speculating as to what changes might follow the Report of the Royal Commission*, afterwards in discussing these changes when they had been announced.

The year, therefore, has been one of anxious looking to something which was to come, rather than of undistracted prosecution of the work which was in hand.

*The Duke of Newcastle's Commission.

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THE great school event of the year has, of course, been the introduction, in the latter half of it, of the new system of examinations prescribed by the Revised Code. I have not hitherto applied to your Lordships for any help in conducting these examinations in my district, but have, so far, accomplished them all myself, because I was anxious fully to observe their working. I have not to make any remarks upon their financial working, its effect upon schools, and its acceptability to managers. I confine myself entirely to their practical working as a system of school examinations, and to points in which they make the inspection of a school now a different matter from what it used to be formerly.

It might have been wished and intended, perhaps, that the old inspection should take place just as before, and that the examination should be merely a new thing super-added to it. Practically this is not so, and I think, without a very large increase in the body of Inspectors, and a strict discrimination of their separate kinds of function, it cannot be so; practically the old inspection tends, and I think will tend more and

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more, to disappear. I am speaking of the old inspection considered as an agency for testing and promoting the intellectual force of schools, not as an agency for testing and promoting their discipline and their good building, fitting, and so on. For their discipline and for their material suitability, the new system furnishes the same or nearly the same means of care as the old one. For their intellectual force it furnishes no longer the same means of care, but a different one; I do not say a means of care less valuable or not more valuable than that furnished by the old inspection, but a different one. It is important to point out this difference, in order that one undoubtedly useful sort of care which inspection used to provide for the intellectual progress of schools, but which it provides no longer, or in a much lesser degree than formerly, the managers may take measures to provide in some other way.

Inspection under the old system meant something like the following. The Inspector took a school class by class. He seldom heard each child in a class read, but he called out a certain number to read, picked at random as specimens of the rest; and when this was done he questioned the class with freedom, and in his own way, on the subjects of their instruction. As you got near the top of a good school these subjects became more numerous; they embraced English grammar, geography, and history, for each of which

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the Inspector's report contained a special entry, and the examination then often acquired much variety and interest. The whole life and power of a class, the fitness of its composition, its handling by the teacher, were well tested; the Inspector became well acquainted with them, and was enabled to make his remarks on them to the head teacher; and a powerful means of correcting, improving, and stimulating them was thus given. In the hand of an able Inspector - an Inspector like Dr. Temple, for instance (one may particularize Dr. Temple without invidiousness, for he has ceased to be an Inspector*) - this means was an instrument of great force and value.

The new examination groups the children by its standards, not by their classes; and however much we may strive to make the standards correspond with the classes, we cannot make them correspond at all exactly. The examiner, therefore, does not take the children in their own classes. The life and power of each class as a whole, the fitness of its composition, its handling by the teacher, he therefore does not test. He hears every child in the group before him read, and so far his examination is more complete than the old inspection. But he does not question them; he does not, as an examiner under the rule of the

*He had recently been appointed Head Master of Rugby and afterwards became Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury.

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six standards, go beyond the three matters, reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the amount of these three matters which the standards themselves prescribe; and, indeed, the entries for grammar, geography, and history, have now altogether disappeared from the forms of report furnished to the inspector. The nearer, therefore, he gets to the top of the school the more does his examination, in itself, become an inadequate means of testing the real attainments and intellectual life of the scholars before him. Boys who have mastered vulgar fractions and decimals, who know something of physical science and geometry, a good deal of English grammar, of geography, and history, he hears read a paragraph, he sees write a paragraph, and work a couple of easy sums in the compound rules or practice. As a stimulus to the intellectual life of the school - and the intellectual life of a school is, the intellectual life of its higher classes - this is as inefficient as, if Dr. Temple (to recur to him again for illustration), when he goes to inspect his fifth form, were just to hear each boy construe a sentence of delectus, conjugate one Latin verb, and decline two Greek substantives.

I know that the aid and object of the new system of examination is not to develop the higher intellectual life of an elementary school, but to spread and fortify, in its middle and lower portions, the instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, supposed to be suffering. I am not

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contesting the importance of this subject, or the adequacy of the means offered by the new examination for attaining it. I am only pointing out the real value of a certain mode of operation on schools which the old inspection undoubtedly supplied and which the new examination does not and by its nature cannot supply.

It will be said that we must conjoin the old inspection with the new examination; undoubtedly we must so far as we can. But I think no one who is much acquainted with schools and examinations will imagine that we can do this at all completely. The whole school felt, under the old system, that the prime aim and object of the Inspector's visit was, after insuring the fulfilment of certain sanitary and disciplinary conditions, to test and quicken the intellectual life of the school. The scholars' thoughts were directed to this object, the teacher's thoughts were directed to it, the Inspector's thoughts were directed to it. The scholars and teacher co-operated therefore with the Inspector in doing their best to reach it: they were anxious for his judgment on their highest progress, anxious to profit by this judgment after he was gone. At present the centre of interest for the school when the inspector visits it is changed. Scholars and teacher have their thoughts directed straight upon the new examination, which will bring, they know, such important benefit to the school if it goes well, and bring it such important loss

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if it goes ill. On the examination day they have not minds for anything else. If it were possible for the Inspector to make the old inspection, unaltered so far as he was concerned, precede the new examination, it would no longer be the same inspection, for he would no longer have the children's spirit in it, and without this he could no longer make the same test of their intellectual life; he would no longer have the master's whole interest and attention in it, and without these he would no longer criticize and counsel with profit, and so be able to stimulate the school's intellectual life for the future. I think, if the peculiar valuable effect of the old inspection is to be retained, this inspection ought, on the grounds, to be disjoined from the new examination.

But on other, and purely material grounds, it must be disjoined from it. The new examination is in itself a less exhausting business than the old inspection to the person conducting it; it does not make a call as that did upon his spirit and inventiveness; but it takes up much more time, it throws upon him a mass of minute detail, and severely tasks hand and eye to avoid mistakes. Few can know till they have tried what a business it is to enter in a close-ruled schedule, as an examination goes on, three marks for three different things against the names of 200 children whom one does not know one from the other, without putting the wrong child's mark in the wrong place. Few can know how much delay and fatigue is

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unavoidably caused before one can get one's 600 communications fairly accomplished; by difficulty of access to children's places, difficulty in seeing clearly in the obscurer parts of the schoolroom, difficulty of getting children to speak out - sometimes of getting them to speak at all - difficulty of resisting, without feeling oneself inhuman, the appealing looks of master or scholars for a more prolonged trial of a doubtful scholar. Then there are inquiries and returns to be made by the Inspector about log-book, portfolio, accounts, pupil-teachers' engagement and stipends, which had not to be made formerly. An inquiry has just been added respecting the means and position in life of school children's parents, to discover whether they are proper objects of State aid. All this makes the new examination a business of so much time and labour, as to deprive the Inspector of the needful freshness and spirit (to conduct the old inspection properly needed a good deal of spirit) for joining with it, on the same occasion, the old inspection. If I insist on this, it is that I may exhort managers themselves to supply, in case of need, a mode of stimulus to their schools, which was very useful to them, The clergy, who are the usual manager of National schools, could probably supply what is wanted without difficulty; and I think the managers of British and Wesleyan schools, with a little exertion and good-will, might find means to supply it to their schools also.

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I have been struck by one result of the practical working of the new examinations which I am sure your Lordships never intended. I mean the peculiar severity with which they tell upon the younger classes in a school owing to the timidity natural to this age. When a boy of eleven or twelve years of age is so shy that he cannot open his mouth before a stranger, one may without harshness say that he ought to have been taught better and refuse him his grant; but when a child of seven is in this predicament one can hardly, without harshness, say the same thing, and, to refuse him his grant for a timidity which is not, in his case, a school fault, seems to be going beyond the intention of your Lordships, who designed the refusal of your grants to be a punishment for school faults.

The attention which has been drawn by the Revised Code to the elementary subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic has already had the happiest effect in improving the quality of school reading books. At last the compilers of these works seem beginning to understand that the right way of teaching a little boy to read is not by setting him to read such sentences as these (I quote from school works till lately much in vogue): "the crocodile is viviparous", "quicksilver, antimony, calamine, zinc, etc., are metals", "the slope of a desk is oblique, the corners of the door are angles"; or the right way of teaching a big boy to read better, to set him to read: "some

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time after one meal is digested we feel again the sensation of hunger, which is gratified by again taking food"; "most towns are supplied with water and lighted by gas, their streets are paved and kept clean, and guarded by policemen"; "summer ornaments for grates are made of wood shavings and of different coloured papers". Reading books are now published which reject all such trash as the above, and contain nothing but what has really some fitness for reaching the end which reading books were meant to reach. Some of them even go a little too far in the effort to a void dryness and pedantry and to be natural and interesting; they contain rather too many abbreviations, too many words meant to imitate the noises of animals, and too much of that part of human utterance which may be called the interjectional. The little children, for whom the books are designed, are apt to be rather puzzled by words of this kind, and, even if they were not, it is a fault in a short reading lesson to contain too much of them. But this fault, which certainly some of the best of the new reading books do not quite avoid, has at least the merit of being a fault on the right side.

No more useful change has in my opinion ever been introduced into the programme of the pupil-teachers' studies than that which has lately added to it the learning by heart of passages from some standard author. How difficult it seems to do anything for their taste and culture I have often

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said. I have said how much easier it seems to get entrance to their minds and to awaken them by means of music or of physical science than by means of literature; still if it can be done by literature at ail, it has the best chance of being done by the way now proposed. The culture both of the pupil-teacher and of the elementary schoolmaster with us seems to me to resist the efforts made to improve it and to remain unprogressive, more than that of the corresponding class on the Continent. Ignorance is nothing; such a blunder as this of an English student, "Pope lived a little prior to the Christian era", a French or Swiss student might also commit; but the hopeless want of tact and apprehensiveness shown by such a sentence as this, "I should consider Newton as a great author; firstly, on account of the style and value of his works; secondly, on account of his most valuable and wonderful discoveries, coupled with the pains he took to diffuse his self-acquired knowledge among the people", no French or Swiss student, who had read the books and heard the lectures which the English student who wrote that sentence had heard and read, would, in my opinion, ever equal. It is true that if you take the bulk of the scholars, even in schools for the richer classes, the rate of culture is very low; but then it is to be remembered that our pupil-teachers and students are a select body, not the bulk of a class, and have gone through a careful training and schooling.

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This is not the place to speculate on the causes of this inferiority, but I will make one observation. These shortcomings in taste and culture naturally show themselves more manifestly in the student's grammar and composition papers than in any other. I have just looked over nearly a thousand of these papers, and the Scotch students, especially, perhaps, those of the training schools of the Scotch Established Church, seem to me to have in general both more of positive culture and more of capacity for culture than their English fellows. It is not that they give one the impression of having worked harder or done more to get information; their papers are often worked in rather a slovenly style, in all externals they have by no means the neatness and smartness which the papers of students from the best English training schools exhibit (I take this opportunity of saying that the handwriting of the Scotch students as a body greatly needs improvement), but they certainly have more culture. I attribute this to the effect insensibly produced on all classes in the country by the long establishment of education for all, as a matter of public institution and national importance, in Scotland.

In England it is among the teachers that the desire for a better culture, and the attainment of it, most shows itself. It shows itself in those in my district by more and more numerous efforts to pass the examinations which the London University,

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with a wise liberality, makes accessible to so large and various a class of candidates. I gladly seize every opportunity to express the satisfaction which the sight of these efforts gives me. To the able, the ardent, and the aspiring among the young teachers of schools under my inspection, I say: "Your true way of advancing yourselves, of raising your position, of keeping yourselves alive and alert amidst your trying labours, is there." And the more the Government certificate comes to be regarded as a mere indispensable guarantee of competency, not as a literary distinction, the better; literary distinction should be sought for from other and larger sources.

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SEVERAL years have elapsed since last I made a general report. During those years I have a second time visited officially the schools of the Continent, having been employed for this purpose by the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1865, as I was previously employed for it by the Commission on Popular Education in 1859.* The object of the more recent visit was not, as in 1859, the primary school; it was the school for the middle and upper classes. Still it was natural that I should not pursue my inquiries respecting secondary and superior instruction abroad without in some degree renewing my acquaintance with primary instruction, its legislation, and its actual condition.

It was natural, too, that in returning to the inspection of primary schools in England, I should have in mind both my former return to them after a similar visit to the Continent, and the experience which each of my visits to the Continent had afforded me.

I cannot say that the impression made upon me by the English schools at this second return to them has been a hopeful one. I find in them, in general, if I compare them with their former selves, a deadness. a slackness, and a discouragement

*This refers to the Duke of Newcastle's Commission, which reported in 1861.

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which are not the signs and accompaniments of progress. If I compare them with the school of the Continent I find in them a lack of intelligent life much more striking now than it was when I returned from the Continent in 1859.

This change is certainly to be attributed to the school legislation of 1862. That legislation has reduced the rate of public expenditure upon schools, has introduced the mode of aid which is commonly called payment by results, and has withdrawn from teachers all character of salaried public servants. These changes gratify respectively one or other of several great forces of public opinion which are potent in this country, and a legislation which gratifies these ought, perhaps, to be pronounced successful. But in my report to the Royal Commission of 1859 I said, after seeing the foreign schools, that our pupil-teachers were, in my opinion, "the sinews of English public instruction"; and such, in my opinion, they, with the ardent and animated body of schoolmasters who taught and trained them, undoubtedly were. These pupil-teachers and that body of schoolmasters were called into existence by the school legislation of 1846; the school legislation of 1862 struck the heaviest possible blow at them; and the present slack and languid condition of our elementary schools is the inevitable consequence.

The rate of pupil-teachers to scholars in our elementary schools was, in 1861, one pupil-teacher

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for every thirty-six scholars; in 1866 it was only one pupil-teacher for every fifty-four scholars. Throughout all the training colleges only 1,478 candidates presented themselves for admission last Christmas, whereas 2,513 candidates presented themselves in 1862. Yet the number of schools recruiting their teachers from this source had risen from 6,25 in 1861 to 8,303 in 1866, and the average population of such schools from 919,935 to 1,082,055.

The performance of the reduced number of candidates is weaker and more inaccurate than was the performance of the larger number six years ago, and for the last year or two has been becoming weaker and weaker. No Inspector can be surprised at this who compares the present acquirements of the vast majority of the pupil-teachers of his district in the yearly examinations which they have to pass before him with those which he remembers ten years ago. Nor, again, can this difference in their acquirements surprise him when he compares the slackness, indifference, and loose hold upon their profession which is to be remarked in the pupil-teachers now, and contrasts it with what he remembers ten years ago. The service of the pupil-teacher was then given under an indenture which he was accustomed to regard as absolutely binding him for five years; now it is given under an agreement which expressly declares itself to be always terminable by notice or payment. He then had seven and a half hours of instruction every week

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from the principal teacher, out of school hours and when all the attention of the principal teacher could be given to him; now he has only five hours of instruction, and these may be given in the night school, when the principal teacher's attention is divided. The work of teaching in school is less interesting and more purely mechanical than it used to be. But, above all, the pupil-teacher has continually before him, he continually sees and hears, a master who ten years ago was rewarded for teaching him, was proud of his own profession, was hopeful, and tried to communicate this pride and hope to his apprentice. Ten years ago the schoolmaster was under the impulse given by the celebrated letter of instructions of the Secretary to the Committee of Council in 1848, which, in establishing the certificate examination, said: "For the first time in this country schoolmasters will be assembled by the invitation of the Government, as candidates for the formal recognition of their capacity to instruct the humbler classes of Her Majesty's subjects, and, as a consequence of such recognition, to receive immediately from the State an annual stipend proportioned to their merits and exertions. It is important that the assembled candidates should be impressed with a conviction of the anxiety of Government, by means of a higher description of moral and religious education, to improve the condition of the poor, and of their determination, as an indispensable means to this end, to elevate

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the position of the elementary teacher, by qualifying him to occupy a higher station, and by rewarding his more efficient services by superior endowments. They ought to receive from the Inspectors the impression that they are called upon to co-operate with them and with the Committee of Council on Education for the attainment of great national objects."

To the trainer thus rewarded, thus animated, thus encouraged to value his profession, thus proclaimed a fellow-worker with the national Government, has succeeded a trainer no longer paid or rewarded, a trainer told that he has greatly over-rated his importance and that of his function, that it is most inexpedient to make a public servant of him, and that the Government is determined henceforth to know no one in connection with his school but the managers. Is it wonderful that such a trainer should be slack in seeking pupil-teachers whom he has to instruct without reward; that he should communicate to what pupil-teachers he has his own sense of the change in the schoolmaster's, position, his own slackness, his own discouragement; and that under these influences the pupil-teacher's heart should no longer be in his work, that his mind should be always ready to turn to the hope of bettering himself in some more thriving line, and his acquirements meanwhile weak and scanty?

At a moment when popular education is at last becoming a question of immediate public interest,

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and when the numbers, spirit, and qualifications of our teaching staff will have a great call made upon them, it is important to take precise note of their actual condition and prospects. Undoubtedly the present educational movement finds us ill-prepared for it, in so far as our teaching staff is less vigorous in spirit, is more slackly recruited, and with weaker recruits, than it was a few years ago. Complaints and recriminations as to the measures which have led to this falling-off are now vain; let it be conceded that these measures may have had grounds which made them, in spite of this falling-off, politic and sound. But it is still most desirable to see if this falling-off cannot be stopped and what are the means which afford the best hope of stopping it.

My colleague, Mr. Cowie, says in his last report: "In cases where the managers have, with a wise foresight, continued to the masters of their schools the allowances formerly made by the Government, and paid them so much for teaching the boys, so much for teaching the pupil-teachers, and so much for the result of the Inspector's examination, I think the system works well." If managers were universally or even frequently to be found who could and would take the best means for the creation and preservation of a good teaching staff, there would be no necessity for a Committee of Council on Education. It is just because it is of the first importance for a system of popular educa-

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tion to have and to maintain an abundant and a well-trained supply of teachers, and precisely in ensuring this supply the voluntary and undirected efforts of private bodies of managers come short, that the plan of appropriated grants - augmentation grants to certificated teachers, stipends to pupil-teachers, and gratuities to the principal teacher for instructing them - was resorted to. The diminution in the amount of Government aid puts it out of the power of many school managers to continue, of their own motion, the plan of appropriated grants, which, I agree with Mr. Cowie, is a plan that acts with the happiest possible stimulus upon the teacher. Even if they have the means of meeting the expenses of such a plan, they have not always the knowledge and school experience, nor can they always give the time, thought, and attention requisite for originating and regulating it. Particularly is this the case with British and Wesleyan school managers, who are in general business men, perfectly to be relied on for carrying into effect the direct requirements of the Education Department and their own undertakings with it and for the most part liberally enough disposed but hardly capable of supplementing the action of the Department where it falls short, and of remedying by their own efforts and inventiveness any weakness against which the Department does not directly provide. In general, with the minimum of teaching power fixed by the Department they

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will be satisfied; and if their principal teachers represent to them that it is impossible or very difficult to find pupil-teachers, they will acquiesce. At the same time, the rate of payment for pupil-teachers having formerly been indicated to them by the Department, they are very apt, having no wish at all to screw their teachers closely, to maintain this rate unabated for the pupil-teachers whom they are bound to employ. But their action in respect of the teaching staff cannot, in general, be relied on for much more than this.

Some schools in my district have adopted what seems to me the judicious plan of paying a pupil-teacher the same sum, in all, which the Committee of Council formerly paid him, but distributing it differently over the years of apprenticeship; paying a sum considerably below the old rate in the first year or two of apprenticeship, and a sum considerably above it in the later years. For a boy of thirteen who would very likely stay on in the first class any way, a stipend of £6 or £7 is sufficient, and if he abandons his engagement at the end of a year or two there is not so much money thrown away. On the other hand, at the age when his services are getting valuable, and openings in other lines begin to present themselves to him, there is the higher rate of stipend to tempt him to stay. This arrangement, if more generally adopted, might tend somewhat to fix pupil-teachers; and the great interest which is now directed to popular education will also

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again create in this country, and on a far wider scale than formerly, a sense of the importance of the teacher and his function, and will tend to make his function an object of ambition rather than of avoidance. This, with time, will undoubtedly attract a better supply of pupil-teachers to the profession. Still, however, the main obstacle to their steady recruiting and good training remains unaffected - the indifference of the principal teacher to seeking them out, taking pains with them, and inspiring them with a zeal for their calling. To meet this it would be very desirable, in my opinion, to stipulate that whenever the managers have to provide a pupil-teacher they should also have to provide a gratuity to the principal teacher for instructing him. The rate of gratuity to the principal teacher, like the rate of stipend to the pupil-teacher, might be left, as at present, to be settled by the managers. In my district, the Committee of Council having fixed that the teacher should have a gratuity, managers would very generally follow for this the old rate established by the Committee of Council, just as they follow the old rate established for pupil-teacher stipends. It would be well worth while, by a small increase in the rate of the Government grant, and not attaching to the increase such elaborate conditions as those which surround the grant offered by the Minute of February, to facilitate the acceptance by managers of this new rule. In return, the

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principal teacher should be bound to furnish at least six hours a week of instruction to his pupil-teacher, and this should be, as formerly, instruction given with his attention undivided, and not amid the distractions of a night school.

To pass from the teachers to the schools. I cannot, with the recollection of the Continental schools, and of what the schools of my district formerly were, fresh in my mind, say that the operation of the Revised Code has been in my opinion good for the schools if not for the teachers. My colleague, Mr. Bowstead, says in his last report that on his best schools the Revised Code has produced little or no effect; on the great majority of his schools, which were neither very good nor very bad, it has produced an unfavourable effect; on his worst schools it has produced a good effect. In the best schools in my district the decay and discouragement of the teaching staff has not been without some bad effect on the school. I agree, however, with Mr. Bowstead that the instruction in these schools is in great measure independent of Government action, and is maintained at a high standard by the demands of the parents, in general of a class quite removed from poverty and fairly intelligent. I agree with him that in the majority of schools, neither very good nor very bad, the instruction has sensibly deteriorated. I hesitate to agree with him that even in the worst it has improved. In these schools the children's irregular

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attendance and premature leaving are and were the great causes of the school's badness, and not the insufficient attention paid to the younger children by the teacher. Children brought back for examination after a two months' absence fail, and children who have attended very irregularly fail, whatever care the teacher may have bestowed on teaching them; and meanwhile the better instructed top class, composed of children who stayed long enough to profit by careful teaching, who received this teaching, and who became, when they left school, a little nucleus of instruction and intelligence in their locality, has for the most part disappeared. The truth is, what really needed to be dealt with, in 1862 as at present, was the irregular attendance and premature withdrawal of scholars, not the imperfect performance of their duties by the teachers; but it was far easier to change the course of school instruction and inspection, and to levy forfeitures for imperfect school results upon managers and teachers, than to make scholars come to school regularly and stay there a sufficient time.

The mode of teaching in the primary schools has certainly fallen off in intelligence, spirit, and inventiveness during the four or five years which have elapsed since my last report. It could not well be otherwise. In a country where everyone is prone to rely too much on mechanical processes, and too little on intelligence, a change in the Education

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Department's regulations, which by making two-thirds of the Government grant depend upon a mechanical examination, inevitably gives a mechanical turn to the school teaching, a mechanical turn to the inspection, is and must be trying to the intellectual life of a school. In the inspection, the mechanical examination of individual scholars in reading a short passage, writing a short passage, and working two or three sums, cannot but take the lion's share of room and importance, inasmuch as two-thirds of the Government grant depend upon it; yet I find, that of this examination, into which, in schools like British and Wesleyan schools where the religious instruction of the children is withdrawn from inspection, the whole inspection tends to resolve itself, more than 49 per cent of the children in average attendance in the schools inspected by me this last year had no share. More than 14 per cent of the children in average attendance were under six years of age, and therefore not examined for the grant; more than 27 per cent of them did not appear on the capitation schedule at all, not having attended school often enough; there are left, therefore, as subjects of examination, not more than about 58 per cent of the scholars. The inspection, therefore, is not now that stimulus to the whole school which it was when a proportion of each class, picked at random by the inspector, were freely examined by him.

In the school teaching the decline of intellectual

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life caused by a more mechanical method of instruction shows itself in increasing weakness in even those very matters which our changes were designed to revive and foster. In my district the proportion of children presented in the three higher standards and doing their work, therefore, on paper, and that presented in the three lower standards, and doing their work on slates, were as nearly as possible the same last year as the year before. Just 27 per cent last year were in paper-work, and 73 per cent in slate-work; the year before, 26.7 per cent were in paper-work, and in slate-work 73.3 per cent. The proportion, therefore, remained as nearly as possible the same; but I find that whereas of the children presented in paper-work only 14.9 per cent failed the year before last, 18 per cent failed last year. Among the children presented in slate-work the increase in the rate of failure is smaller, but an increase there is; 10.8 per cent failed the year before last, 11.2 per cent last year. The total rate of failure, which the year before last was 11.9 per cent, rose last year to 13 per cent.

Meanwhile, the matters of language, geography, and history, by which, in general, instruction first gets hold of a child's mind and becomes stimulating and interesting to him, have in the great majority of schools fallen into disuse and neglect. The Minute of last February, which makes them subjects of a grant-bringing examination has, by recalling attention to them, made manifest into what decay they

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had sunk. That Minute is, in my opinion, chiefly valuable as an indication to school managers and school teachers that the Education Department thinks these matters of importance. The grant is so trifling, and is saddled with such conditions, that many of the schools in my district, decline, as I have said, to avail themselves of it. But even if they availed themselves of it, I doubt whether a decline of intellectual life, itself due chiefly to the mechanical mode of examination the Revised Code has introduced, can be well cured by a palliative, which, while it extends the examination beyond the elementary matters, yet arranges it, for the higher matter as for the elementary ones, in such a way as to give it the character of an intricate and mechanical routine. More free play for the Inspector, and more free play, in consequence, for the teacher, is what is wanted; and the Minute of February with its elaborate mechanism of the one-fifth and the three-fourths makes the new examination as formal and lifeless as the old one. In the game of mechanical contrivances the teachers will in the end beat us; and as it is now found possible, by ingenious preparation, to get children through the Revised Code examination in reading, writing, and ciphering, without their really knowing how to read, write, or cipher, so it will with practice, no doubt, be found possible to get the three-fourths of the one-fifth of the children over six through the examination in grammar, geography, and

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history, without their really knowing any one of these three matters.

I observe one or two of my colleagues say in their reports that school managers get pleased with the new mode of examination, and with the idea of payment by results, as they become familiarized with it. I think this is very true; the idea of payment by results was just the idea to be caught up by the ordinary public opinion of this country and to find favour with it; no doubt the idea has found favour with it, and is likely perhaps, to be pressed by it to further application. But the question is, not whether this idea, or this or that application of it suits ordinary public opinion and school managers; the question is whether it really suits the interests of schools and of their instruction. In this country we are somewhat unduly liable to regard the latter suitableness too little, and the former too much. I feel sure, from my experience of foreign schools as well as of our own, that our present system of grants does harm to schools and their instruction by resting its grants too exclusively, at any rate, upon an individual examination, prescribed in all its details beforehand by the Central Office, and necessarily mechanical; and that we have to relax this exclusive stress rather than to go on adding to it. The growing interest and concern in education will of itself tend to raise and swell the instruction in the primary schools; if we wish fruitfully to co-operate with this happy

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natural movement we shall, in my opinion, best do so by some such relaxation as that which I have indicated.

Throughout my district I find the idea of compulsory education becoming a familiar idea with those who are interested in schools. I imagine that with the newly awakened sense of our shortcoming in popular education - a sense which is just, the statistics brought forward to dispel it being, as every one acquainted with the subject knows, entirely fallacious - the difficult thing would not be to pass a law making education compulsory; the difficult thing would be to work such a law after we had got it. In Prussia, which is so often quoted, education is not flourishing because it is compulsory, it is compulsory because it is flourishing. Because people there really prize instruction and culture, and prefer them to other things, therefore they have no difficulty in imposing on themselves the rule to get instruction and culture. In this country people prefer to them politics, station, business, moneymaking, pleasure, and many other things; and till we cease to prefer these things, a law which gives instruction the power to interfere with them, though a sudden impulse may make us establish it, cannot be relied on to hold its ground and to work effectively. When instruction is valued in this country as it is in Germany it may be made obligatory here; meanwhile the best thing the friends of instruction can do is to foment as much as they can the national

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sense of its value. The persevering extension of provisions for the schooling of all children employed in any kind of labour is probably the best and most practicable way of making education obligatory that we can at present take. But the task of seeing these provisions carried into effect should not be committed to the municipal authorities, less trustworthy with us than in France, Germany, or Switzerland, because worse chosen and constituted.

I think high school fees in elementary schools a check to popular education, and steadily to be discouraged. In Prussia the average fee for a scholar in these schools is about 1d. a week. In France the average fee is higher, I believe, than in any other country - as high as 4d. a week. But a large number of children receive free schooling by virtue of having their names entered on a list of indigent children which the authorities of every commune have to make. It is found that many parents strongly object both to the high rate of school fee and to having their children placed on the indigent list, and they do not send them to school at all. The French Minister favours the plan of making the schooling free for all, not as paupers, but as taxpayers. The Prussian plan, however, of exacting a small school fee seems to me preferable, but it should be a small one. The foreign plan of making school fees payable in advance, either monthly or quarterly, has unquestionable advan-

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tages; it is far too little followed in this country, and the Education Department would do well, I am sure, to promote it by all the means in its power. The system of weekly payments joined to the touting of rival schools for scholars, and joined also, I must say, to the pernicious notion fostered among parents by our present mode of making our grants, that a child confers a favour on the school managers by earning money for them; all these combine to create an insecurity in our elementary schools, a slightness of hold upon the school children, and an inversion of the proper relations between them and their teachers, which has no parallel anywhere else. It has occurred to me that it would be well if the Education Department were to make a stand against this baneful state of things by refusing to pay grants to an aided school which admits children removed on frivolous pretexts from another aided school in the same place; the inspectors being directed to receive complaints of such improper admission, and to forward them, with their own comments, to the Council Office.

With the increase of schools, the supply of books designed to meet the requirements of the examination instituted by the Education Department increases, and becomes a lucrative and important business. These books are very often compiled by persons quite incompetent for the undertaking. It seems to me very desirable that the Education Department should here, as in other countries,

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exercise some control over school books in aided schools; and all the more so because, with our present system of grants, these books profess to be in immediate correspondence with our requirements. It is very usual for the scholar to have to purchase his reading book, which is often the only book of secular literature in his possession; it is important to do what we can to ensure its being a good one. Perhaps it may be permitted to an ex-professor of poetry to remark that in general the choice of poetry in these books is especially bad; I print in a note* a specimen of popular poetry from the Fifth Standard book of a series much in vogue. In the

*MY NATIVE LAND.

She is a rich and rare land,
Oh I she is a fresh and fair land,
She is a dear and rare land,
This native land of mine.

No men than hers are braver,
The women's hearts ne'er waver;
I'd freely die to save her,
And think my lot divine.

She's not a dull or cold land,
No, she's a warm and bold land.
Oh! she's a true and old land,
This native land of mine.

Oh! she's a fresh and fair land,
Oh! she's a true and rare land.
Yes, she's a rare and fair land,
This native land of mine.

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Fifth Standard the scholars have, as is well known, to read poetry aloud for an examination. When one thinks how noble and admirable a thing genuine popular poetry is, it is provoking to think that such rubbish as this should be palmed off on a poor child for it with any apparent sanction from the Education Department and its grants.

In this country, where little importance is attached to the science of public administration, a public department is apt first to attempt to exercise a critical function with insufficient means, and then, when the result appears unsatisfactory, hastily to retreat altogether from exercising it. The better way, perhaps, would be to exercise it properly. Nothing is more remarkable in the school administration of Germany than the care with which every branch is confided to experts, and experts of recognized expertness. The control of school books and school examinations in literature is there strictly given to persons of proved qualifications in letters; the control of school books and school examinations in the mathematical and natural sciences to persons of proved qualifications in those sciences; and so on. It would surely be well if we followed this example, instead of either exercising this control with imperfect instruments or abandoning it altogether, and suffering private speculation to have unchecked play.

The stamp of plainness and the freedom from charlatanism given to the instruction of our primary

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schools, through the public character which in the last thirty years it has received, and through it having been thus rescued, in great measure, from the influences of private speculation, is perhaps the best thing about them. It is in this respect that our primary schools compare so favourably with the private adventure schools of the middle class, that class which, Mr. Bright says, is perfectly competent to manage its own schools and education. The work in the one is appraised by impartial educated persons; in the other, by the common run of middle-class parents. To show the difference in the result, I will conclude by placing in juxtaposition a letter written in school by an ordinary scholar in a public elementary school in my district, a girl of eleven years old, with one written by a boy in a private middle-class school, and furnished to one of the Assistant Commissioners of the School Inquiry Commission. The girl's letter I give first:

DEAR FANNY, I am afraid I shall not pass in my examination; Miss C---- says she thinks I shall. I shall be glad when the Serpentine is frozen over for we shall have such fun; I wish you did not live so far away, then you could come and share in the game. Father cannot spare Willie, so I have as much as I can do to teach him to cipher nicely. I am now sitting by the school fire, so I assure you I am very warm. Father and mother are very well.

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I hope to see you on Christmas Day. Winter is coming; don't it make you shiver to think of? Shall you ever come to smoky old London again? It is not so bad, after all, with its bustle and business and noise. If you see Ellen T---- will you kindly get her address for me. I must now conclude, as I am soon going to my reading class; so good-bye.

From your affectionate friend,
M----

MY DEAR PARENTs, The anticipation of our Christmas vacation abounds in peculiar delights. Not only that its "festivities," its social gatherings, and its lively amusements crown the old year with happiness and mirth, but that I come a guest commended to your hospitable love by the performance of all you bade me remember when I left you in the glad season of sun and flowers.

And time has sped fleetly since reluctant my departing step crossed the threshold of that home whose indulgences and endearments their temporary loss has taught me to value more and more. Yet that restraint is salutary, and that self-reliance is a easily learnt as it is laudable, the propriety of my conduct and the readiness of my services shall ere long aptly illustrate. It is with confidence I promise that the close of every year shall find me advancing in your regard by constantly observing the precept

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of my excellent tutors and the example of my excellent parents.

We break up on Thursday the 11th of December instant, and my impatience of the short delay will assure my dear parents of the filial sentiments of

Theirs very sincerely,
N----

P.S. We shall re-assemble on the 10th of January. Mr. and Mrs. P. present their respectful compliments.

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DURING the school year more than 25,000 children passed under my inspection; of these, about 13,000 were presented for examination grants.

The total rate of failure which in 1866-7 was 13 per cent, rose in 1867-8 to 14.56 per cent, but declined in 1868-9 to 11.3 per cent. Of last year's failures 20 per cent were in arithmetic, 7.7 per cent in writing, and 6 per cent in reading.

This gradation not ill represents the degrees of difficulty in teaching by rote the three matters of arithmetic, writing and reading. I have repeatedly said that it seems to me the great fault of the Revised Code, and of the famous plan of payment by results, that it fosters teaching by rote; I am of that opinion still. I think the great task for friends of education is, not to praise payment by results, which is just the sort of notion to catch of itself popular favour, but to devise remedies for the evils which are found to follow the applications of this popular notion. The school examinations in view of payment by results are, as I have said, a game of mechanical contrivance in which the teachers will and must more and more learn how to beat us. It is found possible, by ingenious preparation, to get children

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through the Revised Code examination in reading, writing, and ciphering, without their really knowing how to read, write, and cipher.

To take the commonest instance: a book is selected at the beginning of the year for the children of a certain standard; all the year the children read this book over and over again, and no other. When the Inspector comes they are presented to read in this book; they can read their sentence or two fluently enough, but they cannot read any other book fluently. Yet the letter of the law is satisfied, and the more we undertake to lay down to the very letter the requirements which shall be satisfied in order to earn grants, the more do managers and teachers conceive themselves to have the right to hold us to this letter. Suppose the inspector were to produce another book out of his pocket, and to refuse grants for all the children who could not read fluently from it. The managers and teacher would appeal to the Code, which says that the scholar shall be required to read "a paragraph from a reading book used in the school", and would the Department sustain an Inspector in enforcing such an additional test as that which has been mentioned?

The circle of the children's reading has thus been narrowed and impoverished all the year for the sake of a result at the end of it, and the result is an illusion.

The reading test affords the greatest facilities for

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baffling those who imposed it, and therefore in reading we find fewest failures, but the writing test is managed almost as easily. Let us take the middle of a school, generally the weakest part, and the part which requires most careful teaching - the scholars in the Third Standard. There are books of the Third Standard which, what with verse, pages of words for spelling, exercises for dictation, and sums, contain for the prose reading-lesson less than fifty pages of good sized print. The writing test for scholars of the Third Standard is to write from dictation a sentence from that same lesson of their reading book in which they have just previously been set to read. Verse is not commonly used for the reading of the Third Standard; an examiner would hardly choose to set the very dictation exercises given in the lesson book; there remain the fifty prose pages which the scholar has been reading and re-reading all the year. His eye and memory have become familiar with them; he has just refreshed his acquaintance with one of them by reading it; from this page he is now set to write a sentence slowly dictated to him by a few words at a time. Can it be said that because a child can spell this sentence tolerably and thus produce the required result, he may therefore be set down as able to write easy sentences from dictation? and must we not own that this result also is in great measure an illusion? We see accordingly, that though the rate of failure in writing does exceed

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that in reading, yet it exceeds it very slightly, and both are quite inconsiderable.

In arithmetic, the rate of failure is much more considerable. To teach children to bring right two sums out of three without really knowing arithmetic seems hard. Yet even here, what can be done to effect this (and it is not so very little) is done, and our examination in view of payment by results cannot but encourage its being done. The object being to ensure that on a given day a child shall be able to turn out, worked right, two out of three sums of a certain sort, he is taught the mechanical rule by which sums of this sort are worked, and sedulously practised all the year round in working them; arithmetical principles he is not taught, or introduced into the science of arithmetic. The rate of failure in this branch also will thus, in all probability, be gradually reduced, but, meanwhile, the most notable result attained will be that which has been happily described by my colleague, Mr. Alderson, when he says: "Unless a rigorous effort is made to infuse more intelligence into its teaching, Government arithmetic will soon be known as a modification of the science peculiar to inspected schools, and remarkable chiefly for it meagreness and sterility."

Those who know the German schools know the extreme care taken there to teach elementary matters in such a way as to develop as much as possible the intelligence of the children, and to give them some

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real mental power. M. Baudouin's report to the French Government on the primary and secondary schools of Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium, a work which is, I believe, in the library of the Department, exhibits in full detail illustrations of this prominent feature in German teaching. In my opinion, the want of it in English schools is, and long has been, at least as real a shortcoming in them as their imputed neglect of the lower and more backward children. Not less than this neglect it needs, and has long needed, on the part of the Education Department, some action to correct it.

The Minute of February 20th, 1867, was meant to correct that impoverishment of the instruction, which was due to the mechanical routine brought in by the Revised Code examination.

But it proceeds just in the same course as that examination proceeds. It attempts to lay down, to the very letter, the requirements which shall be satisfied in order to earn grants. The teacher, in consequence, is led to think, not about teaching his subject, but about managing to hit these requirements. He limits his subject as much as he can, and within these limits tries to cram his pupils with details enough to enable him to say, when they produce them, that they have fulfilled the Departmental requirements, and fairly earned their grant. The ridiculous results obtained by teaching geography, for instance, under these conditions, may

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be imagined. A child who has never heard of Paris or Edinburgh, will tell you measurements of England in length and breadth, and square mileages, till his tongue is tired. I have known a class, presented in English history, to take the period from Caesar's landing to the Norman Conquest, and to be acquainted in much detail with the Roman invasion of Anglesey; but Carnarvon, on the coast opposite Anglesey, being mentioned, they neither knew what Prince of Wales was born there, nor to whom the title of Prince of Wales belonged. Another class took the period from Cæsar's landing to the reign of Egbert, and knew the history of this period, or what passes for its history, minutely, but only one of them had heard of the Battle of Waterloo. It is true, for this sort of unsound performance Inspectors pluck candidates for the supplementary grants much more freely than they pluck candidates for the main grants. But this is only because these supplementary grants are so insignificant that managers and teacher care comparatively little whether they are obtained or not, and meanwhile, the object of the Department, to counteract the narrow, unintelligent mode of instruction encouraged by the Revised Code, is not attained.

Great stress has been laid on the declaration of the Duke of Newcastle's Commission, that "the object is to find some constant and stringent motive to induce teachers to do that part of their duty which is at

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once most unpleasant and most important." This unpleasant and important part of their duty, according to the same Commission, is, "to see that all the children under their charge really learn to read, write, and cipher thoroughly well." And some of my colleagues speak as if this undoubtedly important and desirable object were certainly attained by giving to our examinations their present character, and as if whoever wished to modify that present character, contested the importance and desirability of that object. "If children are not well taught and trained in the lower classes," says Mr. Duport, "they will never be taught at all." And again, "First, let a school be thoroughly in working order from top to bottom as regards accuracy of elementary grounding." Undoubtedly; but is a child's elementary grounding in thorough working order, because he can read fluently a sentence in a short book which he has been reading and re-reading all the year? But perhaps it is only meant that the elementary grounding is in thorough working order comparatively with what it was formerly, before the legislation of 1862. This is a hard comparison to make with accuracy, so as to be sure that the improvement in question has actually taken place. To say with confidence yes, one ought to have known well a district of schools, and the same district, for at least five or six years before the legislation of 1862 as well as after it; whereas some of those who say yes with most confidence, seem but, before 1862, to have been

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well acquainted with one school. However, no one questions the advantage of an individual grant-rewarded examination, or that the Newcastle Commissioners did well in suggesting it, or that the Education Department did well in giving effect to this suggestion; the real question is, and it is eminently a question for educationists, since the general public has neither care nor skill for it, and is sure to be perfectly satisfied as soon as it hears of paying by results - the real question is, whether we have not somewhat overdone this sort of examination by attaching to it so overwhelming a share of our grants, and consequently so overwhelming an importance; and whether some improved mode of combining it with the old inspection might not be hit on.

It is urged, indeed, that the remedy is in the inspector's hands, because "it can only be by the express recommendation of an inspector that any school obtains its full grant while it produces nothing better than mechanical results, and if, after due warning, any school continues to do so, the reason must lie in the inspector's acting on only half of his instructions." So it is the inspector's neglect of duty which appears to be in fault. But I ask again - Suppose the Inspector were to produce a book out of his pocket, and to pluck all the children who could not read fluently from it, would the Department sustain him? The managers would appeal to the Code, which says, that the scholar

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shall be required to read "a paragraph from a reading book used in the school". It is just the weakness of a system which attempts to prescribe exactly the minimum which shall be done, and which makes it highly penal to fall short of this minimum, that when the minimum is somehow produced, there seems a good deal of hardship in still exacting a penalty. If the Inspector inflicted deductions to any such extent as really to grapple with the evil of mechanical teaching, I cannot but think that he would find himself in collision with that very necessary official notification concerning the power of inflicting deductions, which he received at the outset - My Lords do not wish this power to be exercised in any but serious cases.

Again, it is urged that an Inspector is not forbidden by the Revised Code to retain "a liberal and intelligent inspection" along with the new examination, and that an inspector who has an assistant has ample time for such inspection. But the question is, not whether an Inspector can make such an inspection, but whether the school will care much for it when it is the new examination which brings the grant, and whether it will do as much good as it formerly did when it is no longer much cared for.

All test examinations, it is said again, may be said to narrow reading upon a certain given point, and to make it mechanical. If a man wants a certificate or diploma of you, you say you will give it him if he

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learns this and that, which you prescribe; and you may be said to cramp his studies by thus limiting them. Certainly, if a man wants a certificate, or a diploma, or honours, of you, you must fix just what he shall get them for, which is by no means of the same extent as a liberal education. But this is a reason against making an excessive use of such test examinations, of turning too much of a man's reading into reading for certificates, diplomas, or honours. That is why our University system of examinations, competitions, and honours, is so little favoured in Germany.* But, at any rate, to make a narrowing system of test examinations govern the whole inspection of our primary schools, when we have before us, not individuals wanting a diploma from us, but organisations wanting to be guided by us into the best ways of learning and teaching, seems like saddling ourselves with a confessed cause of imperfection unnecessarily.

Admitting the stimulus of the test examination to be salutary, we may therefore yet say that when it is over-employed it has two faults: it tends to make the instruction mechanical, and to set a bar to duly extending it. School grants earned in the way fixed by the Revised Code - by the scholar performing a

*The least studious of German countries, Austria, is the one most abounding in university examinations like our own. "Le pays à examens, I'Autriche, est précisément celui dans lequel on ne travaille pas", says M. Laboulaye. (M.A.)

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certain minimum: expressly laid down beforehand - must inevitably concentrate the teacher's attention on the means for producing this minimum, and not simply on the good instruction of his school. The danger to be guarded against is the mistake of treating these two - the producing this minimum successfully and the good instruction of a school - as if they were identical. The safeguard seems to be in reducing the overwhelming preponderance of this examination and its results, at the same time that we retain all its useful stimulus.

In my report two years ago I said: "More free play for the Inspector, and, in consequence, more free play for the teacher." As long as the whole grant-earning examination turns on results precisely and literally specified by the Department beforehand, so long the inspection will be mechanical and unintelligent, and it will inevitably draw the teaching after it.

It will be remembered that the Duke of Newcastle's Commission attached great importance to leaving inspection just as it was, the new capitation grant examination being, therefore, kept subordinate to it, and committed to a subordinate functionary; for when, practically, the substantive result of the Inspector's proceedings in a school is the grant for this examination, it will, whatever the Department may say, efface everything else.

The Newcastle Commission proposed 15s. per head as the maximum: grant to be earned per scholar.

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Our actual maximum is 12s. per head, the grant under the Minute of February being so insignificant (about £13,000, I think, last year for the whole of England), that it is not worth taking into account. Of this 12s. 4d. is maintenance grant, paid on average attendance; 8s. is capitation grant on examination in reading, writing, and ciphering.

Some such plan as the following seems to me calculated to temper what is excessive and retain what is useful in the system now in force: Suppose, the 4s. grant on attendance being left as it is, the examination grant were reduced from 8s. to 6s.; 2s. on reading, 2s. on writing, 2s. on arithmetic, instead of 2s. 8d. on each of these branches as at present. To the 2s. thus saved let there be added a third shilling, making a 3s. grant on average attendance, to be paid if the Inspector finds the school taught with intelligence, if he finds proper extent given to the instruction, if he finds the work done in good form and style, and if, finally, the staff of pupil-teachers is not less than one for every forty scholars after the first twenty-five. The Inspector to have the power to recommend the reduction of this higher instruction grant by thirds for failure in any one of the three first points specified. The fourth point to be a condition of the grant being paid at all.

The stipulation in point the third (that as to form and style of work) would give the Department an opportunity of checking the Inspector's recommendations and verifying their accuracy, because

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the paper work of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth standards, in which this merit of form and style would chiefly appear, is sent up to the Department. But some confidence must be reposed in the Inspector if the inspection is to have any life at all.

Thus there would be three grants, an attendance grant of 4s., an elementary examination grant of 6s., a higher instruction grant of 3s.; total grant to be earned, 13s. The need for grants under the Minute of February, and for that Minute itself, would cease. The reduced grant for elementary examination might, perhaps, be made earnable by schools not under certificated teachers, if they were reported healthy, properly fitted, and conducted with due order.

The Department might with advantage recommend managers to pay out of the higher instruction grant a sum to the principal teacher not less than the sum he would formerly have received as gratuity for instructing his pupil-teachers. The recommendation would be sufficient in general without an absolute appropriation of the grant or a part of it; but the Department might also reserve the power of withholding the grant altogether in cases where it appeared from the Inspector's report that the recommendation was disregarded without fully sufficient cause. Some encouragement of this kind to make teachers seek diligently for pupil-teachers, and cordially instruct them, I look upon as almost indispensable if our pupil-teacher system is again to

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become what it once was, and what our coming wants require. The institution also of a system of superannuation grants for teachers cannot be much longer delayed.

Several of my colleagues have said how acceptable and useful the yearly volume of minutes and reports issued by the Committee of Council would be to the teachers of schools under inspection. Blue-books are often reproached with being costly to produce and unread when produced; it seems a pity not to convey the Education Blue-book to quarters where it would be read with keen interest and turned to practical use.

The questions of compulsory schooling, gratuitous schooling, secular schooling, are rapidly passing out of the sphere of abstract discussion, and entering into the sphere of practical politics. In that sphere however they may be settled, it will not and cannot be on their merits; and it seems vain to repeat the considerations proper to one sphere when the matter is about to be settled in another. As to compulsory schooling, I will only say that in no country is the text "The bread of the needy is their life: he that depriveth them thereof is a man of blood", felt with so much force as here; that a law of direct compulsion on the parent and child would therefore, probably, be every day violated in practice; and that, so long as this is the case, to a law levelled at the parent and child, a law levelled at the employer is preferable. As to gratuitous schooling, which is supposed to

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follow necessarily upon compulsory schooling, I will only remark that in Prussia, where schooling is compulsory, and really compulsory, there is no primary school which does not levy a school fee, though a low one.

There remains the question of secular schooling, and this is a question of which the solution is above all likely to be governed by politics, lay or religious, and, by being so governed, may do serious harm to education. I address myself on this point to the managers of British schools, with many of whom I have an acquaintance of now nearly twenty years. One of the main objects for which their schools were instituted was to promote the knowledge of the Bible. That this or any other branch of instruction will be really provided for by the Sunday school no serious educationist believes; but neither is it really provided for if it is withdrawn from inspection. My own observation, my inquiries, and the entries of the teachers in their log-books, all convince me that the knowledge of the Bible in British schools is not what their managers would wish it to be. The other day, in a school where the managers were so solicitous for this instruction that they begged me to hear and take part in an examination in it, the question was asked in the boys' school, "Of whom was it said, 'Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile,' and who said it?" Not a boy could tell. The same question was asked in the girls' school in the afternoon with the same result. This does not surprise

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me, for it follows naturally from the Bible knowledge of the children being wholly excluded from the matters which appear in the school's inspection. Let the managers of British schools set an example which other managers also, if they are wise, may follow. Let them make the main outlines of Bible history, and the getting by heart a selection of the finest Psalms, the most interesting passages from the historical and prophetical books of the Old Testament, and the chief parables, discourses, and exhortations of the New, a part of the regular school work, to be submitted to inspection and to be seen in its strength or weakness like any other. This could raise no jealousies; or, if it still raises some, let a sacrifice be made of them for the sake of the end in view. Some will say that what we propose is but a small use to put the Bible to; yet it is that on which all higher use of the Bible is to be built, and its adoption is the only chance for saving the one elevating and inspiring element in the scanty instruction of our primary schools from being sacrificed to a politico-religious difficulty. There was no Greek school in which Homer was not read; cannot our popular schools, with their narrow range and their jejune alimentation in secular literature, do as much for the Bible as the Greek schools did for Homer?

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By instructions dated 14th of October last, I am told to report on the working of the Code* of 1871 in my new district, between 1st of May and 31st of August, 1871.

The New Code of course deranged a good deal, at first, the calculations of teachers, whom it compelled to present children, at short notice, in standards for which they had not intended them. In every standard the rate of failure was higher than in 1869; and the total rate of failure was 18.81 per cent, against 11.3 per cent in 1869. The rate of failure was highest in arithmetic still, as it always has been; the failure in this branch of study being five times as great as the failure in reading, and twice as great as the failure in writing and spelling.

In the extra subjects† fixed by the fourth schedule

*The New Code which followed the Act of 1870. Denominational inspection was now abolished, and Matthew Arnold henceforth visited all Public Elementary Schools in his district, which comprised the Metropolitan Division of Westminster and three outlying census divisions.

†The "specific subjects", which in the earlier Codes after the Act of 1870 included geography, history, algebra, geometry, as well as various sciences, and English grammar, and foreign languages.

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of the New Code, all the examinees, except those presented in recitation, were examined on paper. The rate of failure in the paper-work was nearly 40 per cent; 902 papers were examined, and 358 of them were marked failure.

This schedule of extra subjects is very valuable; by it, and by it alone, does the Department extend its care beyond the providing the mere instrument of knowledge to the providing knowledge itself. The order and plan by which this is provided is of the very highest importance. The schedule cannot at present be regarded as furnishing more than an inchoate plan; it will require to have all its part developed and co-ordered, and better text-books than those now in use will have to be created. I showed to a distinguished physiologist the papers in physiology which had been worked under the present schedule; he told me that every one was quite worthless, and that apparently the method and text-books by which the subject had been taught were quite worthless too.

If this is the case with branches of knowledge so distinctly marked off and so clearly conceived as the natural sciences, how much more is it the case with that immense indeterminate field called literature. Here, above all, neither plan nor order of study exists, nor any well-conceived choice of books; yet here, above all, these are necessary. What is comprised under the word literature is in itself the greatest power available in education; of this power

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it is not too much to say that in our elementary schools at present no use is made at all. The reading books and the absence of plan being what they are, the whole use that the Government, now that its connection with religious instruction is abandoned, makes of the mighty engine of literature in the education of the working classes, amounts to little more, even when most successful, than the giving them the power to read the newspapers.

On the schedule of extra subjects, as we call them, but which everywhere in the well-educated countries of the Continent form part of the regular programme of elementary schools, the attention of educationists should be fixed as the most important matter, in conjunction with the pupil-teacher broadsheet and the syllabus for the training school examination, of all that is done or attempted by the Government for elementary education. I have never concealed from our Lordships my opinion that our mode of payment by results, as it is called, puts in the way of the good teaching and the good learning of these subjects, almost insuperable difficulties. I am not going to enlarge on that point now, and I know how convenient the plan of payment by results is found for many purposes to be. What I wish to insist on is, that studies and books are among the matters of first importance to engage your Lordships' attention in dealing with elementary schools; more important than those political, ecclesiastical, and administrative questions, which from the necessity of the case

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do occupy your Lordships' attention so much more. For consulting, for collecting information, and for advising upon this matter of studies and books, the class of Senior Inspectors* which your Lordships have lately created might, perhaps, in conjunction with the Inspectors of training schools, be employed with advantage. They might also, perhaps, be found useful, and might relieve the Central Office, if they were placed in direct communication with the school boards of their division, as the Schul-Rath, or representative of the Education Department, is a member of all school boards in Germany. I do not say that the divisional Inspector should in this country be an ex officio member of the school boards of his division, at any rate he should not, I think, be a voting member; but he might with advantage be put in close connection with them, and take part in many of their deliberations. The school boards will have to deal with this matter of books and studies, and some of the principal school boards are so composed as to be singularly well qualified for dealing with it. I am sure they would wish to act in concert with the Education Department, which has long and wide experience at any rate. The limited and local action of school boards will exempt them in dealing with the question of school books, from the weight of pressure and of odium which the central department, if it attempt to deal with it, must bear; this may make the school

*Matthew Arnold was one of them.

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boards better principals in the matter than the Department. On the other hand there is an inconvenience either in the Department merely following the lead of the school boards, or in its allowing books which the school boards have rejected as worthless; and both these alternatives might be avoided by a concert such as I have suggested between the school boards and the Department. I feel sure the school boards, on their side, would welcome it.

The growing concern for popular education, and the growing sense of the magnitude of the interests which depend upon it, of themselves do much to direct notice to the profession of teacher, to invite aspirants to it, and to free it from the disfavour which in these last years it had incurred. There is no doubt that it is becoming easier to obtain pupil-teachers, and this return of the tide has probably by no means yet reached its highest point. No policy could more judiciously further this happy movement than the policy which the school board of London is announcing its intention to follow. By offering to the teacher, in addition to his fixed salary, a moiety of the examination grant, it proposes to restore his augmentation; by offering to him special payments for the instruction of pupil-teachers, it proposes to restore his pupil-teacher gratuity. It is well known how heavy a discouragement the withdrawal by the Revised Code of the augmentation grant to teachers was felt by them to be; it is well known how the withdrawal of the gratuity for instructing pupil-

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teachers diminished the zeal in finding them. It may well be urged that local boards can employ with advantage a system of appropriated grants which, when it reached a great scale, became inconvenient for the central government to employ, and the force of this plea for the Revised Code I by no means under-rate; but still it may be permitted us, who remember the Minutes of 1846, to see with satisfaction that a body of men like those who make up the London school board; desiring to attain that primary and essential requisite for popular education, a supply of good teachers, revert to the Minute of 1846 and to the policy of their author.*

*Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth.

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I HAVE now had under my inspection for an entire year my new district, comprising schools of all denominations. It has been very interesting to me, after an acquaintance of so many years with one division only of public elementary schools, to make acquaintance with the others. In no quarters, so far as I have been able to observe, has the change to a common system of inspection been received with hostility, and personally I feel that I owe thanks to the managers of my new schools for the frankness, kindness, and cordiality with which they have accepted the visits and the observations of a stranger.

"Recitation" is the special subject which produces at present, so far as I can observe, most good. The great fault of the instruction in our elementary schools (of the secular part of it, at any rate), is, that it at most gives to a child the mechanical possession of the instruments of knowledge, but does nothing to form him, to put him in a way of making the best possible use of them. As things now are, the time is not ripe for laying down a theory of how this is to be thoroughly done and following it; all that can be said is, that what practically will be found to contribute most towards forming a pupil is familiarity with masterpieces; familiarity with

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them, for the less advanced pupil, in a very limited number and with each object of his study standing singly; for the more advanced pupil, in a series arranged according to some well-planned order. If the "recitation" is carefully watched, as to the authors and pieces selected, it does give us something, though only a commencement, of that which for the less advanced pupil is needed. I can already see the good effects of it, and they may be extended much further. Music, now that instruction in it is made universal, ought to lay the foundation in the children of our elementary schools of a cultivated power of perception; "recitation", in the present absence of any attempt even to raise their reading into something of a literary study, must be relied upon for carrying the power of perception onward.

It may seem over-sanguine, but I hope to see Latin, also, much more used as a special subject, and even adopted, finally, as part of the regular instruction in the upper classes of all elementary schools. Of course, I mean Latin studied in a very simple way; but I am more and more struck with the stimulating and instructing effect upon a child's mind of possessing a second language, in however limited a degree, as an object of reference and comparison. Latin is the foundation of so much in the written and spoken language of modern Europe, that it is the best language to take as a second language; in our own written and book language, above all, it fills so large a part that we, perhaps, hardly know

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how much of their reading falls meaningless upon the eye and ear of children in our elementary schools, from their total ignorance of either Latin or a modern language derived from it. For the little of languages that can be taught in our elementary schools, it is far better to go to the root at once; and Latin, besides, is the best of all languages to learn grammar by. But it should by no means be taught as in our classical schools; far less time should be spent on the grammatical framework, and classical literature should be left quite out of view. A second language, and a language coming very largely into the vocabulary of modern nations, is what Latin should stand for to the teacher of an elementary school. I am convinced that for his purpose the best way would be to disregard classical Latin entirely, to use neither Cornelius Nepos, nor Eutropius, nor Cæsar; nor any delectus from them, but to use the Latin Bible, the Vulgate. A chapter or two from the story of Joseph, a chapter or two from Deuteronomy, and the first two chapters of St. Luke's Gospel would be the sort of delectus we want; add to them a vocabulary and a simple grammar of the main forms of the Latin language, and you have a perfectly compact and cheap school book, and yet all that you need. In the extracts the child would be at home, instead of, as in extracts from classical Latin, in an utterly strange land; and the Latin of the Vulgate, while it is real and living Latin, is yet, like the Greek of the New Testament, much nearer

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to modern idiom, and therefore much easier for a modern learner than classical idiom can be. True, a child whose delectus is taken from Cornelius Nepos or Cæsar will be better prepared, perhaps, for going on to Virgil and Cicero than a child whose delectus is taken from the Vulgate. But we do not want to carry our elementary schools into Virgil or Cicero; one child in 5,000, with a special talent, may go on to higher schools and to Virgil, and he will go on to them all the better for the little we have at any rate given him. But what we want to give to our elementary schools in general is the vocabulary, to some extent, of a second language, and that language one which is at the bottom of a great deal of modern life and modem language. This, I am convinced, we may give in some such method as the method I have above suggested, but in no other. I strongly urge the teachers of our leading elementary schools, and all who are interested in raising the instruction in these schools, to reflect on what I have here said.

I have naturally been led to compare the new classes of elementary schools brought now under my inspection with that class with which I have been for so many years familiar. British and Wesleyan schools are generally supposed to draw their children from the lower middle class much more than National schools, and to have on that account some advantage in the quality and home-training of their scholars. As regards London schools, at any rate, I find this to be less the case than I had been led to expect.

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In the quality and home condition of the children there is not very much difference, I think, between a good National school in the west of London and a good British or Wesleyan school. In the Roman Catholic schools the children do much more decidedly belong to the poor, and very many of them to the Irish poor, who are a class by themselves. Ragged schools, I think, rather than National schools, take the really poor of London who are not Roman Catholics.

In British and Wesleyan schools there is in general more of self-government, and of the life and vigour that go with self-government, than in National schools. They are more created by the class that uses them, and managed by that class, than are the National schools, which are, in general, created for the class that is to use them by people above it. But I find that in really good schools belonging to the Church of England success does practically establish for the teacher an independence much the same as that which is enjoyed by the successful teacher of a British or Wesleyan school; the teacher is not over-meddled with, and is free to put forth all the vigour and initiative he can find in himself. As specimens of elementary schools, I am particularly pleased with some of the large National schools for girls which have come under my inspection in London.

As to school organization, two things strike me in National schools. The first is, that they do

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not use the gallery: enough, and do not, in infant schools, make it large enough. The Methodists use it, perhaps, too much, and make it too large, to the inconvenience, often, of their schoolrooms for older children. But their use of it for infants is excellent, and may be profitably studied by the managers of National schools. And even for older children the use of the gallery has its advantage for many school purposes.

The other matter of school organization which I notice in National schools is connected with this insufficient use of the gallery. It is the retention of what I must call dame-school methods, in the use of loose benches put in squares on the floor for classes that are neither in desks nor on the gallery. Now, in general, when the floor is not occupied either by gallery or by desk-group it should be clear; and the class which is neither in gallery nor in desk-group should stand. It is often well to have a class standing; but a class sitting on loose benches has neither the smartness of a class standing nor has it the rest and the conveniences for work of a class seated at desks. Inattentiveness and lounging on the one hand, and on the other hand bad habits in writing, come from the use of benches without desks attached to them.

I am glad to say that I find drill more and more taught. I think it would be well to allow a certain time taken for drill or calisthenics, whenever these are regularly and properly taught, to count as part

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of the school time for girls' schools as well as for boys' schools.

The supply of pupil-teachers is improving, and so also, I hope, are the prospects of the elementary teacher in general. I should like to see school boards make it a rule to pay, in all cases where they employ pupil-teachers in their schools, the old gratuity to the head teacher for instructing them. No part of his money was better earned, and I am sure that the managers who restore it to him will receive the fruit of it both in the better supply of pupil-teachers and in their better instruction.

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OF the children present at my inspections during the past year only 62.73 per cent had their names in the schedule, either for examination in one of the standards, or as infants.

This points to that slightness of hold upon the body of the children attending them, which is the weak side of our schools, and constitutes the great difficulty of our teachers. No manipulation of the Code will diminish this difficulty or cure this weakness. An increased sense of the general necessity of instruction, leading to a general enforcement of school attendance, is the only remedy for them. Public opinion is advancing in this sense, and in my opinion the desirable thing, even still, is to promote in every possible way its advance, rather than to risk outrunning and checking it by stringent legal enactments.

To recognize the real cause of weakness in our schools is of the highest importance, because mistaking it may lead, and I think, has led, to grave errors in dealing with them

The Bishop of Manchester,* whose voice in these matters has great and deserved weight, was at the beginning inclined, I think, to view the Revised

*Dr. Fraser.

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Code of 1862 with favour. He thought that the backwardness observed in the instruction of children in the lower part of an elementary school arose from the teacher's neglect of them, and that it would be cured and the schools benefited by the Revised Code. He now thinks, as I understand him, that the Revised Code has acted injuriously on the instruction in elementary schools, and that before the Code came this instruction was better. Such has always been my opinion.

The weakness is in the unawakened and uninformed minds of the majority of our school children, even of those who can pass the examination in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and sometimes in an extra subject or two besides. This exceeds, so far as my observation goes, anything of the kind to be found in the schools of other countries. In a school of seventy children which I visited last year, a school with annual grants and pupil-teachers, there was not one single child who knew the meaning of the word feeble. The longer my experience, the more I discover how prevalent among our school children is the condition of mind which this sort of ignorance indicates. The composite character of our language may go for something towards explaining it, the past life and circumstances of our poorer classes may go for something. But it exists, it is an obstacle of the most fatal kind to instruction, and so far as it is due to the mixed character of our language, it is quite conquerable.

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Children of the classes that are better off get over it readily here; in America, so far as one can hear, it has been got over universally. So far as it is due to the life and circumstances, past or actual, of our poorer classes, it should be the school's great business to grapple with it, to get over it; and it should be the great business of an Education Department to help the school in doing so.

The animation of mind, the multiplying of ideas, the promptness to connect, in the thoughts, one thing with another, and to illustrate one thing by another, are what are wanted; just what letters, as they are called, are supposed to communicate. For this purpose I always look with special interest at the grammar papers of candidates for admission at the training schools. These candidates have been in general picked scholars of our elementary schools; they have been retained under instruction till the age of eighteen or nineteen; they have taught in our elementary schools as assistants, and they are destined to teach there as principals. The grammar paper is that paper in their examination which most directly deals with letters, properly so called, and which best shows us, therefore, the amount of the candidate's hold upon letters, and the chance of his communicating the power of letters to others.

The candidate has to paraphrase a passage of English poetry, and no exercise can better show his range of ideas and quickness of apprehension. He has to parse and analyse sentences, and no

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exercise can better show his clearness of understanding and his power of reasoning. He has to answer a few questions about our own language or literature. Altogether, the paper is one which tests his information, judgment, and taste more thoroughly than any other of his papers tests them.

The grammar paper, then, is eminently a test of mental activity and resource, and hence its importance. To work successfully a sum in stocks requires, comparatively, but a narrow division of the whole extent of our faculties to be called into play; to work a grammar or literature paper successfully requires a much larger one. If this is so, the grammar papers of candidates for admission at the recent examination are most disappointing. I have looked over several hundreds of them; at no time since I have been a school Inspector have I known them worse. It seems as if during the last four and twenty years there had been effected no progress at all towards giving to our elementary schools what they most want, the mental apprehensiveness and resource which letters impart. The number and hopes of those destined for the profession of teacher may have now revived, but with this revival mental quickening has not come; it seems, even, as if the picked scholars of our elementary schools were further off from it now than they were twelve years ago.

The candidates were told to paraphrase that

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stanza of Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming which begins:

"Far differently the mute Oneyda took
His calumet of peace and cup of joy;
As monumental bronze unchanged his look."

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is precisely observation, the tact acquired by observation, which tells us that the scientific equivalent for bronze is here out of place and ludicrous. And one may study the natural sciences and not have the observation to feel this; but anyone with what is called a tincture of letters will feel it.

It really seems to me that to paraphrase passably a few lines such as those from Campbell is as good a proof of general intelligence as any that could be required or given. To paraphrase them eminently well may be a proof of a special faculty, and not necessarily indicative of a general intelligence of an eminent order. But to paraphrase them passably is at least a good negative proof, a proof that one's mind is not so poorly furnished and so dull of movement that one must be pronounced wanting in general intelligence. It must be remembered, no doubt, that the lines in question are taken at hazard, and not from a poem which the candidates have been beforehand told to study. It would be extremely interesting to make a raid among the youth of the wealthier classes, whether at their schools and universities, or at their scenes of amusement, to catch 500 or 600 of them from the age of eighteen to that of twenty-five, and to subject them to the same test of their general intelligence to which, by this passage of poetry to be paraphrased the general intelligence of the candidates from elementary schools is subjected. It would be most interesting, and opinions may differ as to the

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results which such an application of the test would show. All I say is, that the test seems to be in itself as good a test as can be found of a young person's general intelligence, and that when tried by it, the candidates for admission into the training schools, the picked scholars of the elementary schools, fail most lamentably.

The whole of the grammar paper was ill-done; the parsing and the questions where memory and information were tried, gave no better result than the paraphrasing. The ignorance or the mistakes sometimes showed originality, or were monstrous enough to be amusing. The candidates were asked to distinguish between adverbs and conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions, adverbs and adjectives. One of them answered: "If a word is used to connect sentences, to govern nouns and pronouns, to point out any quality or circumstance respecting the noun, it is clearly not an adverb; there is, however, a rule which says that if a word is not wanted in a sentence for any of the above ways, it shall be thrown into the common sink, which is adverbs." Thrown into the common sink, which is adverbs, has really a kind of merit. The candidates were asked to account historically for the presence of so many words of foreign origin in the English language. To this one of them answered: "In the early times Anglo-Saxon was the language introduced here; as time rolled on, Greek prevailed, and a few Greek words are now used which have been retained since

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the Greeks left, as physics, metaphorphosis (sic), etc." This is comical enough to give one at least some sensation beyond the mere tedium which is all that the mass of bad answers has to offer. But bad the answers for the most part are; bad, both in the cases where memory and information are chiefly tested, and also in the more important cases where general intelligence is tested.

The grammar paper in question suggests remarks of which some concern the Education Department and others the schools. To begin with what concerns the Education Department. The stanza from Campbell is too much for candidates for admission, coming to them as a passage they have never seen before. The stanza is a good one, but the poem from which it comes has no great merit and is by no means universally read, even by educated people. Probably, therefore, the candidates have not read it, and the stanza from it is in that case too hard for them, although an educated person, from the greater range of his general reading, might paraphrase it quite well at sight. Why should not the yearly syllabus which gives notice to the students in training colleges of the matters in which they will be examined, name some short classical work of English poetry to be read by candidates for admission, and from which the passage for paraphrase, and one or two questions, will be taken? Then the grammar paper has too many of those questions which are answered by producing extracts of a

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grammar learnt by heart; questions about the classification of pronouns, for example, or about the nature of adverbs or conjunctions. We have no English grammar of such a standard value that it is worth learning by heart; to learn their actual grammars by heart does the candidates no real good and tells nothing about their real proficiency. Questions of this sort might well be reduced to two for the whole paper. Then as to the distribution of marks. It is highly undesirable that for repeating a page of grammar learnt by heart about the classification of pronouns, a candidate should be able to get as many marks as for a good paraphrase, which tests his general intelligence, or for the parsing exercise, which tests his practical power of applying all the grammar he has learnt. There should be a graduated scale of marks for the questions, the parsing exercise and the paraphrase receiving at least twice as many marks as any other question; and the candidate should have notice how the marks are allotted, that he may not spend too much time and pains over the less-important questions.

Now for what concerns the schools. Whatever develops the general intelligence of the pupil-teachers, and of the higher classes in the school, should be studied. I have remarked in a former report how well fitted is the study of a second language to do this. French is beginning to appear as an extra subject; but I hope to see the time when Latin, sensibly taught, will be a part of the regular

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instruction of all pupil-teachers and of all top classes. To begin, however, with the instruments we have at present at our disposal. The great majority of my schools now take, I am glad to say, recitation as an extra subject. It is, in my view, that part of the work in elementary schools which does most, under our existing circumstances, to promote general intelligence. But the passages to be learnt are by no means chosen with sufficient care, and the learner is still, although there is improvement in this respect, very insufficiently taught the sense and allusions of what he recites. More and more the recitation should be turned into a literature lesson. None but classical poetry should be taken; we are far too much afraid of restriction and uniformity. The young ought in school to be as much as possible restricted to good models; the merit of the old classical education was that it kept the pupil in continual contact with a few first-rate models. We laugh at the French Minister who took out his watch and said with satisfaction that in all French lycées the boys were at that moment doing the same thing. But really, is it so lamentable to think that all schoolboys should at a given moment be reading the fourth eclogue of Virgil; or is it so delightful to think that at a given moment all schoolboys may be reading different pieces of rubbish; out of innumerable and equally accepted collections of it?

If the Education Department would yearly name in its syllabus a short work of classical English poetry

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for the candidates for admission, this work might with great advantage be adopted for the recitation and literature-lesson in the school. Thus carefully studied it would have a good chance of being appropriated and assimilated by both pupils and pupil-teachers, and only thus can such a work produce its due effect. Its due effect, when produced, is invaluable, and is precisely that of which our elementary schools stand most in need.

These are details; but it is attention to these details of study, and not to details of mere administration, which we so much need. I limit myself even as to these details of study, because it is easy to attempt too much, difficult to get teachers to attend to more than one thing at a time.

One other point, however, I must touch upon in conclusion. The rate of general intelligence in schools and pupil-teachers depends mainly, of course, upon the rate of general intelligence in the headteachers. This will depend upon their continuing and extending the cultivation with which they have started. In no way can they so well do this as by working for a definite object, which will give them matters of study definite and on the whole well chosen. The schoolmasters of my district know how I have always encouraged them to try the matriculation examination at the London University. The Greek in that examination was, as Greek is studied, terrifying to those who had learnt no Greek as boys; it was a great obstacle. The obstacle is now

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removed, and I believe that the languages now required for matriculation are Latin and French, with a third language, which may be either German or Greek. Latin, French, and German are an excellent and by no means over-difficult study for our young schoolmasters, and the rest of the examination will present nothing but what is comparatively easy to them. It is my strong hope that it will soon become the rule for every young schoolmaster in my district to matriculate at the London University.

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THE new grant for needlework requires female help for the proper award of it. No one will seriously maintain that a set of men are the fit judges either of plans on which to teach needlework or of results of examination in it. All an Inspector can fitly do in regard to this branch of instruction is to insist on its importance, and to see that in regulating and rewarding it the judgment of experts of the other sex, whose province it is, decides. In former reports I have spoken of the jealous care with which, in Germany, the regulation of the several matters of instruction is reserved to persons of known expertness in them. On the Continent there are Inspectresses; but even without Inspectresses it is possible to give seriousness to the needlework grant by placing it under the direction of its proper judges. We shall now have, it may be hoped, a public school authority for every locality. Every such authority should have its female superintendent of needlework, and she, or competent persons delegated by her, should hold the examinations for the needlework grant, and should decide on the scholar's success in them. On the certificate of these experts the Inspector should recommend the payment of the needlework grant. Scholars and schoolmistress will otherwise soon

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come to regard the examination for this grant as in general a mere formality, and the payment of it as a matter of course. The same experts should approve the plan for teaching needlework which a schoolmistress adopts. I myself am so strongly averse to make-believe examinations and matter-of-course certificates that I follow even now, so far as I am able a plan of the kind above-mentioned. I refer the approval of the needlework programme, and the certificate of creditably passing the needlework examination, to the award of experts of the other sex.

I inspect several girls' schools, however, where needlework, though well taught, is not taken as a class subject for earning the 4s. grant. I hope that more and more girls' schools will follow this good example. Taking needlework as a class subject for girls means dropping as a class subject for girls either grammar or geography. They certainly ought to learn both, and needlework besides, and if they do not take needlework as a class subject, they still learn it; whereas if geography or grammar is not taken by them as a class subject, it is in most cases, I fear, not learnt by them at all. And this brings me to the topic of the class subjects in general.

The introduction of the class subjects has been of great benefit. It has done away the notion that the work of a primary school consisted of certain minima of reading, writing, and arithmetic; that everything else was extra subject: The spread of

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interest in education was already doing much to re-awaken and re-invigorate our schools, bound in a narrow routine and dispirited as many of them certainly were. The introduction of the class subjects of grammar, geography, and history, has also done much in the same direction, and will do more. Grammar and geography should be the first of the class subjects chosen, and in the schools under my inspection they generally are so. I cannot understand the doubts of some of my colleagues as to the use of teaching grammar. The programme of a French elementary school is notoriously scanty, but it always includes the elements of French grammar. Grammar is an exercise of the children's wits; all the rest of their work is in general but an exercise of their memory. To learn the definitions and rules of grammar is, indeed, but an exercise of memory. But, after learning the definition of a noun, to recognise nouns when one meets with them, and to refer them to their definition, that is an exercise of intelligence. I observe that it animates the children, even amuses them. Indeed, all that relates to language, that familiar but wonderful phenomenon, is naturally interesting if it is not spoiled by being treated pedantically. In teaching grammar, not to attempt too much, and to be thoroughly simple, orderly, and clear, is most important. The teacher, I have often said, should be fettered as little as possible, and our Codes tend to fetter him too much. But the prescription

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of what is to be taken, in the way of grammar as a class subject by Standard II, the lowest Standard where grammar is taken at all, has worked well. I have watched its working closely, making it my habit to examine this Standard, whenever I can, myself; and the prescription has worked well, because what it prescribes is so small in amount, so definite, and such a good beginning of things. Left to themselves, the teachers would have probably attempted something a good deal less simple, more extensive, and more vague. The same may be said of the grammar prescribed for Standard III; its prescription has worked well, and for the same reasons. Above Standard III the system of precisely fixed requirements from each Standard, does not, in my opinion, work well. Class teaching should prevail, and should be as free as possible, without any pressure upon the teacher to break up his scholars into three divisions with a fixed modicum of knowledge in every branch for every division. I should like to see all mention of analysis dropped, and all division of geography and history into three portions, for three Standards, dropped also. That the scholars above the Third Standard should be properly taught grammar, geography, and English history, and that at least half of them should pass creditably in two subjects selected, is what I would require. I should like to see what the Germans call Natur-kunde - knowledge of the facts and laws of nature - added as a class subject to grammar,

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geography, and English history, and I would require the teaching of all four as class subjects in every elementary school to all scholars above the Third Standard, girls as well as boys. For the Second and Third Standards I would have grammar as at present, and, in addition to grammar, the elements of Natur-kunde. For the scholars above the Third Standard, the Inspector's examination for the 4s. grant should test in alternate years their knowledge of their four class subjects, taking two of the subjects in one year and the other two in the next.

If this were done the fourth schedule might with advantage be greatly simplified. It is really a schedule of extra subjects. In the instruction of a child under thirteen the number of extra subjects ought to be very small; the excuse for making it large was that our range of obligatory subjects was so miserably narrow. But when grammar, geography, English history, and Natur-kunde are added, as they ought to be, to reading, writing, and arithmetic, as part of the regular school course, little more can with advantage be asked for from the school children whom we have to deal with. If we have Natur-kunde as a part of the school course, we do not require for such children animal physiology, physical geography; and botany, as extra or specific subjects. If we have good and free class teaching of arithmetic, the teacher giving to this branch what extension he likes and can, we do not require, for our children

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under thirteen years of age, mathematics and mechanics as extra or specific subjects.

As extra subjects in the fourth schedule I would have four only: a second language, learning by heart, health, and domestic economy. None of them can well, I think, be made part of the regular course in our existing schools. A second language will at present very rarely be taken, but it is important to place in view the value of such an acquisition. To learn by heart first-rate pieces of poetry and of prose must surely do a child good, and he ought to be encouraged in it. The great practical importance of some knowledge of the rules of health and of domestic economy, above all to the children whom our elementary schools educate, no one will gainsay. It is now required that every girl taking extra subjects shall take domestic economy as one of them. As to health there is an admirable little text-book, On the Personal Care of Health, written expressly for the young by an admirable man whose loss science deplores, Dr. Parkes of Netley. It has been recently published by the Christian Knowledge Society. I should like every boy who goes through a school under my inspection to read that text-book and to pass an examination in it.*

So far as to the practical working of the New Code and as to the points where further improvement of

*The pages on vaccination and on the opposition to it are particularly practical and valuable. (M.A.)

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the Code seems attainable. The introduction of the class subjects was an excellent measure, but we must not suppose that it can by itself remedy all the mischiefs caused by the Revised Code. So long as Standards IV, V, and VI remain as at present, those mischiefs will still be felt. Above the Third Standard, free class-teaching, depending on the circumstances of the school and the judgment of the teacher, but tested, of course, by inspection, is what is wanted, It is by no means the case that in all schools the children above the Third Standard are with advantage to be distributed into three divisions as indicated by the Code, and that their instruction, particularly in arithmetic, is, with advantage, to be organized as there laid down. Every experienced teacher feels this. Scholars who in their scanty term of school years might make much more progress are kept back in order that they may not miss a standard and the grant for passing in it. The whole teaching is governed by preparation for passing the standards. And after the first six months of the school year a teacher, as a very experienced schoolmaster, whose school was many years ago under my inspection, has lately pointed out to me, can form a pretty good estimate what scholars are likely to make the attendances required for a pass, and upon those scholars, for the last six months of the year, the power of the teaching staff is concentrated. This is a great evil in the present system of payment. Undoubtedly it leads to the neglect of scholars who

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enter when the school year is somewhat advanced, or who cannot attend regularly. It tells very severely upon those older scholars who are, perhaps, attending school for their last year, who cannot make 250 attendances, but who have already learned a good deal and are of an age, if carefully taught, to secure and extend what they have learned. They are neglected for those who may pass the standards; and in their last school year, instead of improving, they rather go back.

I look forward to the time when it may be possible to abolish all standards beyond the first three, and to substitute for the last three standards classes and class-teaching without tying the teacher's hands. I attach no importance to the objection that the examination for Standard IV, or for any other standard, is required for the purposes of Labour Acts. A test examination for the purposes of those Acts, identical, if necessary, with the examination now fixed for Standard IV, may quite well be required without saddling all the schools in the country with it. The schools will be found, however, to have taught what the test requires without having had their instruction bounded and hampered in subservience to it.

I have at present no sufficient experience to enable me to compare board schools with others. My district has hardly any board schools. Whatever the future may have in store for us, I feel certain that a good many years must elapse before, by any

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natural process, in districts such as mine, the old type of schools will have expended all the life which is in it, and will perish on that account.

A school authority in every locality is, of course, most desirable. This the new Act* will, I hope, give us. And I hope that one of the first acts of such a school authority will everywhere be, if possible to impose a penalty on parents withholding their children from school without good cause on the day of examination. At present they are frequently withheld, sometimes from vindictiveness, oftener from mere caprice, and nothing can well be more vexatious or more unfair to teachers and managers.

The attention of teachers is being much called to a proposed reform in spelling. No doubt, English spelling has great irregularities. Its acquisition is exceptionally difficult to an adult foreigner on that account. It is not clear to me that it can thence be inferred, or that experience proves, that it is also, therefore, exceptionally difficult to an English child. At any rate, even if it were, the English nation will not be induced, in the hope of making it easier, to take to writing Leed uz not into temtaishon. What changes are made will certainly not be made in view of making spelling easier to children. They will be made because certain things in our present spelling are irrational. At present the printers in great measure fix our spelling according to their sense of what is symmetrical. The practical advice I would

*The Act of 1876.

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give to teachers, as to spelling, is to take every opportunity for remarking when our present spelling is erroneous through blunder. Both they and their scholars will learn a great deal by doing so. For instance, we find almost universally connection, reflection, instead of connexion, reflexion. This the printers give us from the analogy of words like affection, collection, and for the sake of symmetry. But collection comes from a Latin participle in ectus, and reflection from a Latin participle in exus, and to give the two nouns the same termination is a pure blunder in grammar. We shall never find these terminations confounded in French. Again, it is almost impossible to induce a printer to print "a forgone advantage"; he insists on making it foregone, because we speak of "a foregone conclusion". But a forgone advantage means an advantage gone without; a foregone conclusion means a conclusion anticipated. In forgone we have the German ver, the Latin sine; in foregone the German vor, the Latin ante. I merely indicate two cases out of many which occur to me, where the teacher may remonstrate against our present spelling in a way really fruitful to himself and his scholars.

Our absence of any authority with such a function as the reviewing our spelling and the making it rational is well known. Englishmen generally profess to be proud of it. I am myself disposed to think that a Royal Commission might with advantage be charged, not indeed with the absurd task of

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inventing a brand-new spelling, but with the task of reviewing our present spelling, of pointing out evident anomalies in it, of suggesting feasible amendments of it. But such a Commission should be permanent, with the function of watching our language, by no means of stereotyping it; and, though appointed by Government in the first instance, it should recruit itself, as vacancies arose, by cooptation.

A stir of life is certainly more and more visible again in our schools. Scholars and teachers alike show it, and I have good hopes for the future. In what is properly to be called culture, in feeling, taste, and perception, the advance is least; and this is, perhaps, inevitable. Even second year students still show, in this respect, an astonishing crudeness. "Doctor, can you fulfil the duties of your profession in curing a woman who is distracted?" or again, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" - these are paraphrases of Shakespeare's Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, from which I am even now fresh. "The witches who are under the control of Hecate, and who love the darkness because their designs are best accomplished then, have assembled at their meeting place with no other protection than a wolf for their sentinel, and by whose roar they know when their enemy Tarquin is coming near them." It seems almost incredible that a youth who has been two years in a training college, and for the last of the two years has studied Macbeth, should, at his

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examination, produce such a travesty of the well-known passage in that play beginning, Now witchcraft celebrates. Yet such travesties are far too common, and all signs of positive feeling and taste for what is poetically true and beautiful are far too rare. At last year's meeting of the British Association the President of the Section for Mechanical Science told his hearers that, "in such communities as ours, the spread of natural science is of far more immediate urgency than any other secondary study. Whatever else he may know, viewed in the light of modem necessities, a man who is not fairly versed in exact science is only a half-educated man, and if he has substituted literature and history for natural science, he has chosen the less useful alternative." And more and more pressure there will be, especially in the instruction of the children of the working classes, whose time for schooling is short, to substitute natural science for literature and history as the more useful alternative. And what a curious state of things it would be if every scholar who had passed through the course of our primary schools knew that, when a taper burns, the wax is converted into carbonic acid and water, and thought, at the same time, that a good paraphrase for Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, was, Can you not wait upon the lunatic! The problem to be solved is a great deal more complicated than many of the friends of natural science suppose. They see clearly enough, for instance, how the working

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classes are, in their ignorance, constantly violating the laws of health, and suffering accordingly; and they look to a spread of sound natural science as the remedy. What they do not see is that to know the laws of health ever so exactly, as a mere piece of positive knowledge, will carry a man in general no great way. To have the power of using, which is the thing wished, these data of natural science, a man must, in general, have first been in some measure moralised; and for moralising him it will be found not easy, I think, to dispense with those old agents, letters, poetry, religion. So let not our teachers be led to imagine, whatever they may hear and see of the call for natural science, that their literary cultivation is unimportant. The fruitful use of natural science itself depends, in a very great degree, on having effected in the whole man, by means of letters, a rise in what the political economists call the standard of life.

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THE number of scholars who make at least 250 attendances is on the increase. The average attendance, however, is but 75.87 per cent of the numbers on the school register. Some of the absent scholars have no doubt left the school and may be attending another; but the absentees may safely be said to be as many as one-fifth of the children on the register. As the number present on the day of inspection exceeds by 12.3 per cent the number in average attendance, a good many absences from school must still be put down to causes which are avoidable.

The proportion of scholars presented in the four higher standards is increasing, though very slightly. It is not satisfactory, certainly, that more than half of the scholars over seven years old should be in Standards I and II. However, the great number of raw children whom the board school are obliged to present in the lowest standards, must for some time to come keep these standards disproportionately full. Perhaps enough care is not always taken to ascertain whether the raw new-comers in a board school have not actually passed, in some other school, the low standard in which it is proposed to present them.

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The number of raw new-comers now brought into school and the consequent fulness of Standard I, where reading is always weakest, may probably account for the somewhat increased failure in reading last year. The handwriting has improved. The spelling has gone back in almost every standard. In arithmetic there is a slight improvement, except in Standard IV, the standard which has to work sums in the common weights and measures. Our system of weights and measures is indeed such an absurdity, that one is disposed to say reform it altogether, rather than to suggest means for working sums in it with more facility. But I am assured, and I believe it, that if the scholar had actually before his eyes the weights and measures with which his sums deal - an ounce, a pound, a pint, a quart, a foot, a yard - he could work his sums in weight and measures more intelligently and more successfully.

"Our schools deal with children of from four to thirteen years of age." We should constantly have this thought present to our minds, and the more so, the more our system of primary schools becomes a great and complicated affair and attracts the attention of a number of ingenious and active-minded persons. Our system may be highly complicated, and the educationists, as they call themselves, who take an interest in it, may be highly ingenious; but the matter in hand is, after all, the instruction of children between the ages of four and thirteen, and

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this is a plain and simple affair, and the more we compel ourselves to conceive and treat it as such, the better. The one word which I feel disposed at present, as an Inspector of primary schools, to keep perpetually repeating, for my own benefit and for that of others, is this: simplicity!

Simplicity, first, as to the instruction of the children, and for the sake of making this as effective as possible. Turgot used to say that if one taught children nothing but what was true, and if one talked to them of nothing but what they could comprehend, there would be hardly any minds with unsound judgment. We shall not arrive just yet at such a consummation; but to simplify our teaching, to present to our children's minds what they can comprehend, to abstain from pressing upon them what they cannot, is the right way towards it.

In my last report I proposed that what the Germans call Natur-kunde - some knowledge of the facts and laws of nature - should be taught as a class subject in addition to grammar, geography, and English history. This has been treated as a proposal to amplify our present programme; it was really a proposal to simplify it. Natur-kunde - an elementary knowledge of nature - was to be admitted, but its admission was to be accompanied by a revision of our ambitious fourth schedule, and by the exclusion from it of mathematics, German, mechanics, animal physiology, physical geography, and botany. Mathematics, German, mechanics, animal

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physiology, physical geography and botany, for children under thirteen, and children moreover, who from the circumstances of their bringing-up have an especially narrow mental range! I have mentioned in a former report the surprise it gave me to find a school in which not one single child could tell the meaning of the word feeble. I have ceased to feel surprise at any failure of that kind; so thoroughly has experience convinced me of the excessive scantiness of vocabulary which is the rule amongst our school children. It is the signal feature of their mental condition, and constitute their real inferiority to the children of the cultivated classes. The ignorance of what we are accustomed to consider things universally known is on a par with this want of words and of the ideas which go along with the words. I found the other day a school not at all ill-instructed in the positive matters of examination, but it chanced that a mention of the Stuarts in the reading lesson led to a question who they were, and it appeared that not one child in the upper class had ever heard of the Stuarts, had ever heard of Charles the First, had ever heard that a king of England had had his head cut off. It was a girls' school: the girls in the head class were from eleven to thirteen years old, well-dressed, well-behaved, paying a high school fee. This, I say, could not happen with a class of girls of that age in a higher social sphere, however defective their instruction might in many respects be.

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It is with children under thirteen that we have to deal, and with children of whom, in general, the mental condition is such as has been above indicated. Evidently such children are not subjects for what is commonly meant by mathematics, German, mechanics, animal physiology, physical geography, and botany. The excuse for putting most of these matters into our programme is that we are all coming to be agreed that an entire ignorance of the system of nature is as gross a defect in our children's education as not to know that there ever was such a person as Charles the First. Now our ordinary class-programme provides, or at any rate suggests, some remedy against the second kind of ignorance, for history is one of our class-subjects; it provides none against the first. This is a blot; we ought surely to provide that some knowledge of the system of nature should form part of the regular class course. Some fragments of such knowledge do in practice form part of the class course at present. Children in learning geography are taught something about the form and motion of the earth, about the causes of night and day and the seasons. But why are they taught nothing of the causes, for instance, of rain and dew, which are at least as easy to explain to them, and not less interesting? And this is what the teaching of Natur-kunde or natural philosophy (to use the formerly received, somewhat over-ambitious, English name for the kind of thing) should aim at; it should aim at

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systematising for the use of our schools a body of simple instruction in the facts and laws of nature, so as to omit nothing which is requisite, and to give all in right proportion. Of course the best agency for effecting this would be a gifted teacher; but as gifted teachers are rare, what we have most to wish for is the guidance of a good text-book. Such a text-book does not at present, so far as I know, exist; some man of science, who is also a master of clear and orderly exposition, should do us the benefit of providing one. But meanwhile there is no reason for delaying the attempt to teach in a systematic way an elementary knowledge of nature. Text-books abound from which a teacher may obtain in separate portions what he requires; there can be no better discipline for him than to combine out of what he finds in them the kind of whole suited to the simple requirements of his classes. Some teachers will do this a great deal better than others, but all will gain something by attempting it; and their classes too, however imperfectly it is at first often effected, will gain by its being attempted.

For school children under thirteen as much of mechanics, animal physiology, physical geography, and botany as they need, may surely be comprised in their class-lessons in elementary Natur-kunde. The right place for mechanics, animal physiology, physical geography, and botany is not, it seems to me, in the programme of the elementary school, but in the programme of the evening classes which the scholar

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should attend after he is past thirteen and has left the elementary school. The right place for German, also, is surely in the programme of such evening classes. Latin and French stand, I think, on a different footing. Everyone is agreed as to the exceptional position of Latin among the languages for our study. Our school boy of thirteen will do little with his rudiments of Latin unless he carries on his education beyond the scope of our elementary schools and their programmes. But if he does carry it on beyond that scope, Latin is almost a necessity for him. By allowing Latin as a special subject for a certain number of scholars in our elementary schools, we are but recognizing that necessity, and recognizing as surely we very properly may, that for some of the better scholars in our schools the necessity will arise.

French, too, has a special claim. To know the rudiments of French has a commercial value. A boy who is possessed of them has an advantage in getting a place. He knows this himself, and his parents know it; a little French, in addition to good attainments in reading, writing and arithmetic, is a recommendation for a place. A little Latin is not, a little German is not, a little botany is not; a little French is. Here is a reason for admitting French to our list of extra subjects, closely limited though this list ought to be. French has the educational value for our school children of being a second language; it has also an educational value

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for us from its precision and lucidity, qualities in which the expression of us English people is often deficient; and it is, besides, a matter of instruction which has the advantage of much commending itself to the minds of our scholars themselves and of their parents, as a help to a boy's start in life.

Learning by heart is often called, disparagingly, learning by rote, and is treated as an old-fashioned, unintelligent exercise, and a waste of time. It is an exercise to which I attach great value, and it tends, I am glad to say, to become general in the schools of my district, partly, perhaps, because the teachers know that I am strongly in favour of it. Poetry is almost always taken for this exercise, not prose; and when so little is done in the way of learning by heart, poetry should certainly have the preference. The pass in reading might, I think, with advantage be relieved of that condition requiring the scholar to have also learnt passages by heart, which at present in the two highest standards complicates it. Then recitation would probably be almost universally taken up in our schools. That is to say, in almost all inspected schools, in my district at any rate, the whole upper part of the school would each year learn by heart from one to three hundred lines of good poetry.

The advantage of this seems to me indisputable. If we consider it, the bulk of the secular instruction given in our elementary schools has nothing of that formative character which in education is demanded.

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As regards sewing, calculating, writing, spelling, this is evident. They are necessary, they have utility, but they are not formative. To have the power of reading is not in itself formative. It is necessary to have it, and here is the defence of our promiscuous reading books and of allowing them all to be used freely; the power of reading has to be acquired by the pupil, and for acquiring the power of reacting it must be owned that our reading books, with the promiscuous variety of their contents, serve well enough. But for a higher purpose, to serve in any way to form the pupil in addition to giving him the mere power of reading, no serious person would maintain that our reading books are at present fitted. But good poetry is formative; it has, too, the precious power of acting by itself and in a way managed by nature, not through the instrumentality of that somewhat terrible character, the scientific educator. I believe that even the rhythm and diction of good poetry are capable of exercising some formative effect, even though the sense be imperfectly understood. But, of course the good of poetry is not really got unless the sense of the words is known. And more and more I find it learnt and known; more and more it will be easy to refuse to let the recitation count for anything unless the meaning of what is recited is thoroughly learnt and known. It will be observed that thus we are remedying what I have noticed as the signal mental defect of our school children - their almost

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incredible scantiness of vocabulary. We enlarge their vocabulary, and with their vocabulary their circle of ideas. At the same time we bring them under the formative influence of really good literature, really good poetry. We must not, of course, be so rigid as to exclude all poetry, but the very best. Poetry like that of Scott or Mrs. Hemans for instance, is no doubt of texture different from that of the best poetry, yet it has excellent qualities, and qualities to which our school children are very sensible; we may be glad to have them learning it. Still an effort should be made, for this one exercise, to fix the standard high. Gray's Elegy and extracts from Shakespeare should be chosen in preference to the poetry of Scott and Mrs. Hemans, and very much of the poetry in our present school reading books should be entirely rejected.

Everyone is agreed that "efforts should be made to cultivate the intelligence of the scholars, and to strengthen their powers of observation, reflexion and comparison." The question is how this may really be best done. Complaint is made that efforts of the kind "meet with scant recognition or reward from the present Code". I am no ardent partisan of the Code, and indeed I am glad of any opportunity of repeating that I hope some day to see abolished all standards above the three lowest, and to see substituted for the three upper standards classes and class-teaching, without tying the teacher's hands. But the question is, how is a sensible teacher likely to

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effect most practical good. Is it by betaking himself to the scientific teachers of pedagogy, by feeding on generalities such as I have just above quoted, by learning that we are to "disuse rule-teaching, and adopt teaching by principles", that we are to teach things "in the concrete instead of in the abstract", that we are to walk worthy of the doctrine long ago enunciated by Pestalozzi, that "alike in its order and its methods education must conform to the natural process of mental evolution"?

The worst of such doctrines is that everything depends upon the practical application given to them, and it seems so easy to give a practical application which is erroneous. The doctrine of Pestalozzi for instance, may be excellent, and no one can say that it has not found ardent friends to accept it and employ it; and the result is that one sees a teacher holding up an apple to a gallery of little children, and saying: "An apple has a stalk, peel, pulp, core, pips, and juice; it is odorous and opaque, and is used for making a pleasant drink called cider."

In virtue of like "doctrines," new methods of spelling, new methods of learning to read, new methods of learning arithmetic are called for. Some of them are ingenious. We must always remember, however, that their apparent conformity to some general doctrine apparently true is no guarantee of their soundness. The practical application alone tests this, and often and often a method thus tested

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reveals unsuspected weakness. Then there is, besides, the difficulty of getting new methods which are unfamiliar substituted for old methods which are familiar.

The best thing for a teacher to do is surely to put before himself in the utmost simplicity the problem he has to solve. He has to instruct children between the ages of four and thirteen, children, too, who have for the most part a singularly narrow range of words and thoughts. He has, so far as secular instruction goes, to give to those children the power of reading, of writing and (according to the good old phrase) of casting accounts. He has to give them some knowledge of the world in which they find themselves, and of what happens and has happened in it; some knowledge, that is, of the great facts and laws of nature, some knowledge of geography and of history, above all of the history of their own country. He has to do as much towards opening their mind, and opening their soul and imagination, as is possible to be done with a number of children of their age and in their state of preparation and home surroundings.

There is the problem for him. He will find that in seeking to solve it he can quite well work on the old lines without busying himself with new and (so-called) scientific theories of education. It is not true that he must of necessity begin geography, for instance, with the geography of a child's own parish if he is to interest the child in geography. He will find he can interest him in it quite well by beginning

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with the old-fashioned four quarters of the globe, and coming round to the child's own parish by way of Africa and Zululand. But the great thing is to give the power of reading. It may be doubted whether this is not given more seldom than the power of writing and of casting accounts, although more children fail in the examination in these than in the examination in reading. The power of reading, as has been already said, is not in itself formative. Nevertheless, a power of reading, well trained and well guided, is perhaps the best among the gifts which it is the business of our elementary schools to bestow; it is in their power to bestow it, yet it is bestowed in much fewer cases than we imagine. Time is much better spent on enlarging and securing, by copious, well-chosen and systematic readings, our school children's power to read, than in giving to them, at their age, the rudiments of this or that new science over and above the simple instruction in Natur-kunde on which I have already insisted. The reading lessons should be used not only to secure the bare power of reading - a most valuable power, yet capable, no doubt, like other good things, of being employed amiss later on in the pupil's life as well as of being employed for his good. Nor should they be used only to increase a child's stock of what is called information. They should be treated as in connexion with the good and sterling poetry learned for recitation, and should be made to contribute to the opening of the soul

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and imagination, for which the central purchase should be found in that poetry. The more the teacher extends his own culture the better he will be able to do this, and here is an additional reason for extending his own culture.

Lastly, the teacher should use grammar as a very simple logic, affording him the means of opening a child's understanding a little, and of planting the beginnings of clear and accurate thinking. I have never been able to understand the contempt with which what is even now effected in grammar in our schools, is regarded. The grammar required for the lower standards is spoken of as quite ridiculously insufficient. Yet is it so insignificant a mental exercise to distinguish between the use of shelter in these two phrases: "to shelter under an umbrella", and "to take shelter under an umbrella"? I do not think so; and this is the sort of elementary logic which the grammar for the Second Standard demands, which the children attain to, and which does them, in my opinion, a great deal of good. But, of course, as the teacher will open the children's soul and imagination the better the more he has opened his own, so he will also clear their understanding the better, the more he has cleared his own.

My word for all teachers of elementary schools who will listen to me is therefore this: simplify. Put before yourselves as simply as possible the problem which you have to solve: simplify, as much

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as you are at present allowed to simplify them, your means for solving it, and seek to be allowed to simplify them yet more.

But it is not only to the teachers that I would address this exhortation to simplify. I would address it to the school boards throughout the country, and, above all, to the London School Board, the operations of which begin now to come under my notice in Westminster. I would even venture to address it to your Lordships also.

I have before me a very interesting volume just issued, giving the statistics of elementary education in France at the present time. It is impossible not to be led to one or two comparisons.

The population of France at the last census was in round numbers 37 millions, that of England and Wales was 24½ millions. The last report issued by your Lordships states that we have in England and Wales 3,154,973 scholars on the school registers, and that the whole number of scholars for whom school places are required may be estimated at not less than 4½ millions. It is very curious that the French report just issued estimates the total of children of school age in France at this very same number: 4½ millions. And this with a population of 37 millions as against a population in England and Wales of only 24 millions. The number of children actually on the school registers in France is 3,823,000. It is true that the limits within which school age is reckoned are wider with us

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than with the French reporters. School age with them does not begin until the child is six years old; school age goes from six to thirteen. Nevertheless, the proportion of children to population is really much larger in England than in France. Taking the French school age of from six to thirteen, we find that while there are in England 160 children of such age for every 1,000 of population, in France there are but 122 of them; and the proportion of children to population was larger in England at the last census than at the census before. The number of children between six and thirteen, which in 1871 was 160 for every 1,000 of population, was in 1861 only 155.

Some people may think that this very large proportion of children to population is an advantage to us, and that it is to be hoped it will be continued and even increased. I by no means think so. This great production of children may be, like our overproduction in other kinds, a sign of vigour indeed, but of vigour put forth blindly and recklessly, without forethought and foresight; and a lower rate of production may come with a higher standard of life. But, meanwhile, the proportional expense of elementary education must of necessity be greater in England than in France, the proportion of subjects for it being greater.

All the more is economy requisite for us in dealing with this expense. In England the State grant to elementary schools was in round numbers a

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million and a half sterling for the last school year, in France it was £420,000. The cost of maintenance of our elementary schools, with their 3,154,973 children on the register, was altogether nearly four millions sterling (£3,915,450). The cost of maintenance of the French elementary schools, with their 3,823,000 children on the register, was under two millions and three quarters sterling (£2,726,000). With us the State contributes 39.41 per cent of the total expense; school fees contribute 29.07; voluntary subscriptions 20.08, rates 11.43. In France school fees contribute 27.68 per cent of the total cost of maintenance - a proportion much the same as that which school fees contribute with us. The State contributes 15.41 per cent; the departments, or counties, contribute 10.04 per cent; voluntary subscriptions, 1.40 per cent only. All the rest is provided by the communes out of the communal resources and a school rate. Our voluntary local subscriptions, however, may perhaps be considered as in great part a parochial or communal school-rate under a voluntary form.

But the difference between us and France in the cost for each child educated is what will most strike everyone. The cost in France is 18s. 1d. per child. And this is the cost, after including all charges whatever for elementary education; not only the grants paid by the State and by the department for the direct maintenance of schools, but the whole

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outlay of all kinds upon elementary education - building grants, normal schools, pensions, the cost of administration and inspection. In England the cost per child for the whole country is 35s. 3½d. But in board schools in London the cost per child rises as high as 53s. 5d. In board schools in the country the cost is 41s. 4¼d. per child. In these calculations the State expenditure on building grants, normal schools, pensions, administration and inspection, is not counted in. If this is counted in, the cost per child will be increased by about 2s. 6d., and we shall have the astounding figures of 55s. 11d. as the cost of education for each child in board schools in London; 43s. 10¼d. for each child in board schools in the country; 37s. 9½d. per child as the rate for the whole of England and Wales. That is to say, we spend, on the whole, for each child more than France spends for two children, and the London School Board spends for each child more than France spends for three children.

This comparison speaks for itself. Let us allow for great difference of circumstances between France and England. Still there is really no great difference between the state of instruction of an average boy of thirteen who leaves a communal school in Paris, and that of an average boy of thirteen who leaves a board school in London. It cannot be right, it is extravagant and absurd, that the London boy's education should be so managed as to cost three times as much as that of the Paris one.

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It is only during the last year that the operations of the London School Board have come much under my immediate notice in Westminster. I am quite sure that the board needs the advice, simplify. I am quite sure that they ought to conceive in simpler way the problem before them, and the means of working it out. I am quite sure that their conception of what is requisite in the way of accommodation, studies, salaries, administration, is pitched too high. Both in London and elsewhere, school boards are apt to conceive what is requisite in these respects rather as benevolent, intelligent, and scientific educationists in Utopia, than as practical school managers. A member of the Birmingham School Board proposes seriously to send up every sum worked for examination by all the four millions and a half of children for whom school-places have, it is said, to be found in this country, to the Education Department in Whitehall to be looked over. Such a proposal shows just the defect to which our great school boards - valuable as they are and grateful as we ought to be to them for their gratuitous services - are, it seems to me, prone; it shows a defective sense of scale and proportion.

Elsewhere this sense of scale and proportion is practically taught by the conjunction of secondary and superior instruction, as public services, with elementary instruction. The three have to be in some measure co-ordered, and this teaches scale and

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proportion. It is evident that secondary and superior instruction must come to be on an insupportable scale of expense, if the expense of even elementary instruction is to be 55s. 11d. a year for every scholar. In England secondary and superior instruction are not public services. They are left to be what they can, and to cost whatever they may happen to cost. But really this is a reason not for throwing a heavier burden upon the middle-class ratepayer, but for throwing a lighter one. If rates and State grants do nothing for his children's education, and are at the same time employed with prodigality for the education of the children of the working class, he is the more a sufferer. I am desirous of seeing secondary instruction made a public service. But the prodigality of our present outlay on elementary instruction interposes an obstacle. Public elementary instruction costs so much, that people are alarmed at the notion of making any other instruction a public charge too.

Elsewhere, moreover, the sense of scale and proportion is also supplied in another way. Public elementary education is properly a municipal charge, and abroad it is treated as such. It is co-ordered with the other branches of municipal expenditure. A measure and a check are thus obtained. In Paris, for instance, the communal schools are under the municipality of Paris, and are managed by a committee of that municipality. Such a committee is responsible not only to universal suffrage, from which

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the whole municipality springs, but also to the municipality itself. Our school boards spring directly from household suffrage. Household suffrage can elect them or reject them, but it cannot properly revise their operations, and to municipal revision they are not liable. True, it was not practicable to give to the school boards a municipal constitution, because in England we have no proper or complete municipal system. But here is only another reason for getting a proper and complete municipal system; our school boards are "in the air" without it. They have not, and cannot well have, a due sense of scale and proportion; they proceed as if they were educationists in Utopia.

I am convinced that our rate of cost per scholar ought not to exceed 35s. at the outside, and that it may be brought within that limit without loss of efficiency. But to bring it within that limit we must simplify. Popular education has had its moment of high favour in this country, and nobody has asked questions about its cost, so long as the prosperity of the country was increasing by leaps and bounds. I confess I am afraid of the cold fit following the hot one, in a season of less prosperity. I am afraid of a storm of discontent and obloquy raised against our very expensive system of elementary schools, and of the outlay upon them being as much over-shrunk as it is now, I think, over-swollen.

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I FIND that of the specific subjects English literature, as it is too ambitiously called - in plain truth the learning by heart and reciting of a hundred lines or two of standard English poetry - continues to be by far the most popular. I rejoice to find it so; there is no fact coming under my observation in the working of our elementary schools which gives me so much satisfaction. The acquisition of good poetry is a discipline which works deeper than any other discipline in the range of work of our schools; more than any other, too, it works of itself, is independent of the school teacher, and cannot be spoiled by pedantry and injudiciousness on his part. Some people regard this my high estimate of the value of poetry in education with suspicion and displeasure. Perhaps they may accept the testimony of Wordsworth with less suspicion than mine. Wordsworth says, "To be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to be without love of human nature and reverence for God." And it is only through acquaintance with poetry, and with good poetry, that this "feeling of poetry" can be given.

Good poetry does undoubtedly tend to form the soul and character; it tends to beget a love of

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beauty and of truth in alliance together, it suggests, however indirectly, high and noble principles of action, and it inspires the emotion so helpful in making principles operative. Hence its extreme importance to all of us; but in our elementary schools its importance seems to me to be at present quite extraordinary. I hope that, instead of its being confined to children in the Fifth and Sixth Standards, this excellent discipline of poetry will be retained for the children of the Fourth Standard, and brought into use universally for at least these three standards.

Happily, the poetry exercise has, as I have said already, become popular in schools, and it will, I am confident, become more and more so. Sir John Lubbock says that in some board schools in Lambeth he asked the children which they preferred of four of their subjects of instruction - grammar, history, geography, and elementary science - and that a very large majority were in favour of elementary science. I do not quite understand how he took his comparison; he does not mention whether the children whose votes he took were all of them learning all these four subjects or not. But, at any rate, if he will come into Westminster and will ask the children in the schools there who are taking two class subjects and two specific subjects, poetry being one of these latter, which of the four they prefer, I think I can assure him that he will find a most decisive majority for poetry.

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The choice of passages to be learnt is of the utmost importance, and requires close and intelligent observing of the children. Some years ago it was the fashion to make them learn Goldsmith's Deserted Village, at the recommendation, I believe, of the late Lord Lyndhurst; or rather, he had given high praise to this poem, and recommended it as a poem to be got by heart, and so it was supposed that the children in our elementary schools might with advantage learn it. Nothing could be more completely unsuitable for them, and this being soon proved by the event, the use of the poem for the purpose in question has happily almost ceased. That the poetry chosen should have real beauties of expression and feeling, that these beauties should be such as the children's hearts and minds can lay hold of, and that a distinct point or centre of beauty and interest should occur within the limits of the passage learnt, all these are conditions to be insisted upon. Some of the short pieces by Mrs. Hemans, such as The Graves of a Household, The Homes of England, The Better Land, are to be recommended, because they fulfil all three conditions; they have real merits of expression and sentiment, the merits are such as the children can feel, and the centre of interest, these pieces being so short, necessarily occurs within the limits of what is learnt. On the other hand, in extracts taken from Scott and Shakespeare, the point of interest is often not reached within the hundred lines which is all that

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children in the Fourth Standard learn. The judgment scene in the Merchant of Venice affords me a good example of what I mean. Taken as a whole, this famous scene has, I need not say, great power; it is dramatic poetry of the first order, it is also well within our school children's comprehension, and very interesting to them. Teachers are fond of selecting it to be learnt by heart, and they are quite right. But what happens is this. The children in the Fourth Standard begin at the beginning, and stop at the end of 100 lines; now, the children in the Fourth Standard are often a majority of the children learning poetry, and this is all their poetry for the year. But within these hundred lines the real interest of the situation is not reached, neither do they contain any poetry of signal beauty and effectiveness, How little, therefore, has the poetry exercise been made to do for these children, many of whom will leave school at once, and learn no more poetry! The conclusion I wish to draw is, that the teacher should always take care that the year's poetry of a class shall contain the best poetry in the piece chosen for them, and the central point of interest in it; not be mere prelude and introduction to this centre of interest. To secure this, the teacher may without scruple plunge into the middle of a scene or a passage, and make his children take their 100 lines there explaining to them, of course, the situation at the point where they begin. If they remain another year, they

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can take a new passage or scene under the same conditions. This is a far better course than to throw a year away, as is frequently done now, upon comparatively ineffective poetry, with the intention that the child, if he remains at school, may next year continue the same passage and reach the point of interest.

I insist at such length upon this poetry exercise, because of the increasing use of it, and because of its extreme importance. Stress is laid upon the necessity of the children knowing thoroughly the meaning of what they recite; and it is assumed that to secure their knowing this is the simplest matter in the world, and that not to secure it proves inexcusable negligence in the teacher. I am more and more refusing to pass children who do not know the meaning of words which occur in what they recite, but I proceed gradually and with caution. If I had begun by rigidly rejecting every child ignorant of the meaning of every word in what he recited, I should never have got the poetry exercise established in my schools at all. The scanty vocabulary of our school children, and their correspondent narrow range of ideas, must be known and allowed for if one is to guide their instruction usefully. I have found in London schools children of twelve years old, able to pass well in reading, writing, and arithmetic, who yet did not know what "a steed" was. I found in a good school the other day a head class of some thirty, only one of whom knew what "a ford" was.

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"Steed" is a literary word, "ford" is a word of country life, not of town life; still they are words, one is apt to think, universally understood by every one above five years old. But even common words of this kind are not universally understood by the children with whom we deal. Very many words are in their reading lessons passed over as certainly known to them, to which they attach no meaning at all, or a wrong one. The poetry exercise is invaluable by causing words to be dwelt upon and canvassed, by leading the children to grasp the meaning of new words, and by thus extending the range of their ideas. But the slowness and difficulty of the process, which are as incontestable as its high value, must be borne in mind, and we must have patience with that slowness and difficulty.

I should like, above all, to see this poetry exercise made no longer an extra subject, but a part of the regular work of the school, which would then consist of the three elementary matters, of the class subjects, and of this. And I repeat what I said in my last report, that I see no good reason at all for keeping the fourth schedule, or schedule of extra subjects, on its present footing. Provision is now made in the Code for teaching elementary science as a class subject; grammar, geography, physical geography, history and domestic economy are also class subjects. Others may be added at pleasure; and the fourth schedule is really, therefore, superfluous in respect of many of its subjects, since why should physical

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geography, domestic economy and certain branches of natural science do double duty, both as class subjects and as extra subjects? Extra subjects ought properly, as the name implies, to be subjects not for whole classes and sections of a school, but for certain forward scholars who may with advantage go on to a higher school, and need some previous preparation for it. I think the Manchester Grammar School requires, from boys admitted to it from elementary schools, besides the matters of elementary school instruction, some knowledge also of geometry, French, and Latin. And this, in my opinion, suggests just what our fourth schedule should be; it should be designed to meet the case of the few picked scholars who win a passage up into higher schools, and it should include only these matters of geometry, French, and Latin, without which the higher schools will not admit them. Algebra, mechanics, mensuration, and German are not required for a boy's admission to a higher school. But they are not class subjects, it will be answered, and unless you put them into the fourth schedule, there will be no provision for teaching them at all. I answer that for the children in our elementary schools, children under thirteen, there is no need or use of a provision for teaching them at all.

But Sir J. Lubbock says that we wish our own children to study a variety of subjects, and why not the children in elementary schools? And an earnest

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and widely lamented friend of popular education said once, I remember, that he should like to have Greek and Sanscrit taught to the children in board schools, if it were possible. Aspirations safeguarded by an if it were possible cannot, it may be thought, do much harm; nevertheless such aspirations do tend to make us lose sight of the actual present conditions of our problem in popular education, and so far they do harm. Sir John Lubbock talks of the variety of subjects which we make our own children study, and I am not at all sure that we do not make them study too great a variety. But at any rate, there is this difference: take thirty of our own children between the ages of ten and thirteen, and you will not find one of them who does not know what a steed is or what a ford is. You have, therefore, a totally different material to work upon. And even to talk of lessons in Greek and Sanscrit for such scholars as those whom in our elementary schools we have to deal with, is dangerous trifling, because it tends to make us forget the pressing reality.

Not that the ideal which we should propose to ourselves for the school-course in these schools is not a high or a large one. It is the ideal admirably fixed long ago by Comenius, an early and wise school reformer, who is now too much forgotten. "The aim is", says Comenius, "to train generally all who are born men to all which is human." Without pedantry and without platitudes, we should all seek to reach this aim in the most practical manner.

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It may be said that there are at present but three obligatory subjects in our schools, fewer, by much, than in the schools anywhere else. Our only obligatory matters of instruction are reading, writing, and arithmetic. An aided school is not required to teach anything besides these. But additional grants are offered for teaching as class subjects any two of the following: geography, natural history, physical geography, natural philosophy, history, social economy, grammar, and, in the case of girls, needlework. To this list additions may be made. Grants are further offered for teaching as extra, or specific, subjects any two of the following: English literature, mathematics, Latin, French, German, mechanics, animal physiology, physical geography, botany, and, in the case of girls, domestic economy. Finally, a grant is offered for teaching music. Evidently there is here a very complicated arrangement; but I will not touch upon that now. The point for notice is that we have three matters of instruction which are obligatory, and nineteen or more which are optional, or, as our French neighbours say, facultative, but encouraged by grants. However, for only five of these facultative matters can grants be claimed in one and the same year by a school: for two class subjects, two extra or specific subjects, and music. Apparently, it is thought by many people that, except religious instruction, no instruction whatever will be given for which a grant cannot be claimed. And Sir John

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Lubbock is afraid that if the fourth schedule is swept away, a child will get no secular instruction except in the three obligatory matters, in two of the facultative matters assigned as class subjects, and in music. And this is plainly insufficient. A girl of twelve ought not to be learning too many things, but she ought to be learning more than reading, writing, and arithmetic, a little English grammar, needlework, and singing. A boy of twelve ought to be learning more than the matters here enumerated, even though geography or elementary natural science be in his case added in lieu of needlework.

It is not my province to discuss our present mode of making grants, which leads to such difficulties in forming a proper programme of school instruction. I will only remark, in passing, that of our forms of payment for results by far the best form is the grant for class subjects, which turns upon the performance not of each individual child, but of the class. Only there should be provision for withholding this grant in respect of a class which decidedly fails to earn it, while paying it to the classes which do earn it. At present there is no such provision; the grant has to be paid for the whole body of classes claiming it, or refused for the whole body. But what I wish now to do is to suggest to teachers the sort of programme they should strive to establish for the instruction in their schools, leaving the Government grants to adjust themselves to that programme as they may.

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Besides the obligatory matters laid down in the Code, and leaving out of view religious instruction, needlework for girls, domestic economy, cookery, technical instruction of whatever kind, and drill and gymnastics, a teacher should in general endeavour to teach to all children of the Second and Third Standards something of poetry or poetic literature, grammar, geography, Natur-kunde or elementary natural science, and music. For the standards above he should add to these history. So that, in general, our school children, of from eight years of age to ten, should all be receiving instruction in these eight matters, reading, writing, arithmetic, poetry, or poetic literature, grammar, geography, Natur-kunde, and music. Our school children of from ten years of age to thirteen should all be receiving more advanced instruction in these eight matters, with history as a ninth matter, added. And a picked few of these older children should be taught, further, the rudiments of French and Latin, and elementary geometry.

Religious instruction stands by itself, and will be regulated in each school according to circumstances. The other matters which I have left out of view - needlework, domestic economy, cookery, technical instruction, gymnastics and drill - have all of them their importance as things to be taught, some of them their necessity. But parts of mental training they none of them directly are; and, however the Code may mix them up with such, they should

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resolutely, in the teacher's view, be kept separate from them.

A school earns the bulk of its grant on passes in the three obligatory matters, and on the attendance. The attraction of the smaller grants for class subjects and extra subjects should not be allowed to waste the teaching of a school, and to make it intricate and confused. A rational programme, simply carried out, should be the great object: five or six matters added, as a part of the regular school course to the three elementary matters, and taught to the children in their classes. A teacher may say: "Oh, but the Code tells me to prepare a class of children to pass, say, in physical geography as a class subject, arid then to prepare, again, the same children to pass individually in physical geography as a specific subject. I must find time for both, and the kind of preparation required for earning the two grants is not the same." Or a teacher may say: "You advise me to make poetry a part of the regular school course, but the Code will not let a girl bring us a grant for poetry unless she first gets up a handbook of domestic economy, a subject not in your programme, and for which I have not time." I answer: "The Code does not compel you to do as you say; it offers you a few shillings for doing so. If in this respect the intricate arrangements of the Code conflict with the due following out of a good programme, disregard them, and sacrifice the few shillings of grant." School boards, which have other

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public resources than the parliamentary grant, should certainly adopt this course as regards the grants for class subjects and specific subjects. Their first object should be a sound programme of instruction simply followed out; if our over-complicated machinery for grants on class subjects and on specific subjects is found to interfere with the due following out of a sound programme, that machinery is likely in process of time to be amended, and meantime, the programme should not be sacrificed to it. The remarks on school studies which come from the Inspectors of the London School Board seem to me to be in general full of good sense. These Inspectors should do their utmost to get good programmes established, not dependent on the Code's regulation of its minor grants; and the board should assist their action. In some directions I cannot but think the board's outlay excessive, but I should welcome some outlay for a purpose like this.

I see it urged by the National Union of elementary teachers that to require parsing from children of the Fourth Standard, who are examined in grammar, is too much, and that it is enough if these children learn the parts of speech. I watch with great interest the representations with regard to school instruction which come from teachers, and on several important points in which the teachers desire; a change, I am, as I have often declared, in agreement with them. As to this particular point of the

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grammar to be required in the Fourth Standard, I notice it because I attach such great importance to grammar as leading the children to reflect and reason, as a very simple sort of logic, more effective than arithmetic as a logical training, because it operates with concretes, or words, instead of with abstracts or figures. In general, I am not at all averse to a proposal that we should require less from the learner and that what he learns should be learned better; and I think that some of what we now require in grammar is over-subtle and unprofitable.

But parsing is the very best of the discipline of grammar, and it is not too hard for Fourth Standard children, if it is taught judiciously. The analytic character of our language enables a teacher to bring its grammar more easily within a child's reach; and advantage should be taken of this analytic character, instead of teaching English grammar as was the old plan, with a machinery borrowed from the grammar of synthetic languages. I am glad to observe that in the instruction of pupil-teachers the analytic method of parsing is coming into use more and more. The metaphysics of mood and tense are what puzzle children; now, the real characters of mood and tense are remarkably absent from our language, and of what remains of them an important part, the subjunctive mood, is more and more passing out of actual use. In the expressions, " If he live", "If he be dead", live and be are real

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subjunctives; but we are more and more ceasing to use them, and we say, "If he lives", "If he is dead". To call "He may love", or "He might love," subjunctives or potentials because "amet" or "amaret " are subjunctives or potentials in Latin, is as absurd as it would be to call μελλετε αποθνησκειν in the relaxed Greek of the New Testament (If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die), a future tense because the future would have been used in classical Greek. Teachers will find that by following the analytic method in English grammar they save the children's minds from much puzzle, enable them to understand more readily the employment of case, mood, and tense, where they do occur, and beget in them an interest in what is one of the most naturally interesting of things - language. And at the same time they are teaching English grammar in the true philosophical way.

The teachers object, again, to the rule that class subjects shall be taught through reading lessons and according to schemes previously approved by the Inspectors. They would prefer to have a scheme laid down in the Code for graduated examination in them. Sir John Lubbock, who speaks with great authority upon such a matter, observes that, at any rate, "to teach scientific subjects through reading lessons is the worst way in which they could be taught". He says, that on these subjects "it is much better that the instruction should be given orally and with the aid of the black-

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board". I have myself the greatest respect for oral teaching with the aid of the blackboard, and am inclined to limit its freedom neither by reading lessons to serve as texts, nor by schemes of my own devising, nor even by any schemes laid down in the Code. I shall show the utmost readiness in accepting practical endeavours to teach class subjects according to the wants and capacities of the classes to be taught. But as elementary science is new as a class subject, I should be glad if the teachers of my district would bear in mind, in making their plans for teaching it, that here is a line where our proceedings must at first be tentative, and where we have great need to keep our eyes and minds open.

Tentative, indeed, should very much more of our school proceedings be considered than the lessons in elementary science only. It is impossible to see an institution like the district school at Norwood, which I had lately the pleasure of visiting with Mr. Chadwick, without feeling that the case of the advocates for short-time schooling, balanced by an equal or nearly equal time of industrial training and of well planned bodily exercise, deserves, at any rate, serious attention. Industrial training, domestic economy and cookery should not be mixed up with the school work proper, but they have a very high value when well arranged as a whole by themselves, to alternate with it and balance it. Bodily exercise, also, and recreation, deserve far more care

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in our schools than they receive. We take too little thought for the bodies of our school children, we are too intent on forcing more and still more into their minds, unregardful how easily the attention, at their age, may be over-tired. True, the children in our elementary schools are not like the boys whom I saw exercising to the sound of music at Norwood - boys, very many of whom have to be weaned by judicious physical training from a native preference for sitting still in corners telling one another Jack Sheppard stories. But neither are they like the boys in the schools where we ourselves were brought up, boys living under such favourable conditions that their physical development may in general be trusted to take care of itself. In London at all events, and in our great towns generally, the children frequenting elementary schools are by no means living under such favourable conditions. Short-time schooling, organized as in large towns it is easy to organize it, and balanced by industrial training and bodily exercises, is actually more effective, so its advocates maintain, than our present long-time schooling, besides its evident advantages in giving health and hardiness, and besides its great saving of expense. A large urban school with two sides to it, a school side and an industrial and gymnastical side, built for a thousand children, becomes available for twice that number if one-half of the children use each side for one-half of the day, and the other half for the other.

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The question of expense, as I said in my last report, is a very serious one and becomes more and more serious. The cost on each child in average attendance in the London board schools is now very nearly £3 for London in general, and above £3 for my own district, Westminster. But on the grave topic of the board's expenditure I shall not now enlarge. Meanwhile the teachers must not take an old friend for their enemy, because he says that the impossible cannot last, and that in attempting to put the immense, ever-extending service of popular education on such a footing of expense as the board does, it attempts the impossible. I hope for and I foresee a good future for our teachers, but not by those means.

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WHAT distinguishes the district of Westminster from other divisions of London is that the voluntary schools, instead of suffering and sinking under the competition with board schools, hold their own, and in cases where they at first suffered from the competition seem now to be recovering. They have in general raised their fees, but they obtain the higher fees without difficulty, and the numbers attending them increase. I have been used to voluntary schools now for so many years, and have seen so much good done by them, that I cannot but be glad that they should thus bid fair to last my time, in my own district, at any rate. Westminster has of course, in the wealth of its inhabitants, exceptional advantages for enabling the clergy to maintain their schools in spite of the check given by the levy of school rates to the flow of voluntary contributions. But the prosperity of the voluntary schools in Westminster gives me pleasure, not because it is a gratification to the clergy and to great people to retain them, but because they serve real needs and do good.

One might expect that the class of people for whose children these schools are required would prefer public rate-supported schools to others, as

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being schools which they support (so far as they pay rates) themselves, and which in no way make them dependent on private charity. One might expect that teachers would prefer schools where they both get, in general, higher salaries than in voluntary schools, and are free, besides, from the control of private and clerical managers. In a report written many years ago by me after seeing the elementary schools abroad, I said that for parents and teacher to prefer really public schools seemed the natural thing, and that they would with time come in this country also to prefer them. And so, in fact, perhaps, it is the natural thing, and they will in the end come to prefer it.

Yet experience shows that where funds are forthcoming for the support of voluntary schools, they at present hold their own and are sought after. Parents send their children to them, although the fees are higher than at other schools within reach. Teachers continue in them at lower salaries than they could earn in board schools.

That this should be so, proves the moderation of the English character, proves the absence, in general, of arbitrariness and meddlesomeness on the part of managers, the absence of irritable vanity on the part of parents and teachers. A strong element of irritable vanity on the one side, or of arbitrariness on the other, would be fatal to voluntary schools. But the moderation, the English moderation, on both sides, keeps those elements of ruin out; and

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so long as they are kept out, and the voluntary schools prosper, these schools serve, I think, several important ends, of which I shall here mention two only.

One is economic, the other moral. It has so often been said that people value more highly, and use more respectfully, what they pay a price for, that one is almost ashamed to repeat it. But the advocates of free education seem never to have heard or at least considered it. In a country where there is public support for the education of one class only, as in our country, to defend a very high expenditure upon it by the very high expenditure on publicly supported education abroad, where it is for all classes, is, of course, a mere blunder. To have an expensive public education for one class of the community only, and to make it gratuitous, is practically to fall in with the ideas of Jack Cade. But suppose that public schools are provided for the whole community, and that schooling without fee is then defended on the plea that parents have sufficiently paid for their children's schooling by paying rates and taxes. Even then, unless the payment is so made by a direct school tax that both in form and in amount it comes to much the same thing as the payment of a school fee, I doubt whether its effect upon the payers is so wholesome as the payment of a school fee. In our board schools fees are paid, but they are in general much lower than in voluntary schools, and there is pressure constantly being

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applied to make them lower still, or even to get rid of them altogether. A certain number of free schools and a certain number of free places in paying schools there ought to be; but I hope that school boards will not discontinue the school fee generally, and that where it is now too low, and less than parents can fairly pay, they will raise it. The high character of voluntary schools in Westminster is certainly very much due to the value set upon a schooling for which what is felt to be a real and adequate price has to be paid. I do not say that the price paid in board schools ought to be so high as in those voluntary schools, it ought not; but it ought to be as high relatively to the means of the parents to pay, and I do not think it is at present. I visited the other day a voluntary school with a 6d. fee, where 1d. had just been added to this for school stationery, which the boys had hitherto provided as they could. They got it much better for the extra 1d., they felt themselves to be paying for it, and they were greatly pleased with it. I could not help reflecting how wholesome this kind of pleasure is, and how it is quite lost in board schools where the gratuitous distribution of stationery is the rule. And as with stationery, so with the rest of what is furnished at school.

Another source of strength to voluntary schools is the natural and intimate connexion between the schools and their managers, and the influences thence arising. The more experience I get, the

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higher I value this source of strength. In a town like London especially, many a man must feel that while others, as Solomon says, "have many friends", he himself "is separated from his neighbour"; and the feeling that in their manager they have really a "neighbour" who knows them, and to the best of his power will help them, is an influence which tends to keep both teacher and scholar faithful to voluntary schools. It is an influence of a very valuable kind. Of course it is not exercised in every case where it might be, but, on the whole, it is exercised to an extent and with a power beyond one's expectations. Teachers will remain at salaries below the board school rate, and scholars will pay fees above the common board school fee, while they feel this influence. I have schools in my district where every teacher and every child in the school feel that in their manager they have a friend, and this is no little thing in London.

TIns kind of influence counts in a child's school-life, as well as instruction. Those who value such influence complain much of the rule which sets a boy of ten years free to go to work if he has passed the Fourth Standard. Whatever byelaws there may be, they say, for obliging him still to pass a part of his day in school, they are not, as a matter of fact, enforced, not in Westminster at least. A boy of ten years who has passed the Fourth Standard finds himself free to bring his schooling to an end altogether, and his school sees him no more. He

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escapes at ten years old from any further tuition by his pastors and masters, and he escapes from their influence as well. But no one will say, that, even if passing the Fourth Standard proves that a boy has knowledge enough to be safely set free from further tuition, it can prove also that he may safely be set free from further training. The training for the three years after ten, the hold then acquired upon the boy by his pastors and masters, was, it is said, one of the best things in his school-life, and it is now much more often lost than formerly. The conclusion is that some authority should see that a boy of tell who goes to work does really, up to the age of thirteen, continue to pass a part of each day at school. If he does this, his going to work is nothing but good for him.

A valuable agency for retaining influence over the learner, even after the age of thirteen, is the evening school. Great alterations are made in respect to grants for these schools in the New Code, and I therefore take the present opportunity for saying a few words as to the work hitherto accomplished by them in my district, and as to their prospects for the future.

The evening schools examined and aided in my district have been of two kinds. First there are the schools of which the chief function is to teach youths whose education has been neglected. Of such schools I have had several in the neighbourhood of London, while my district extended to other

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parts of Middlesex besides Westminster - at Enfield, Southgate, Winchmore Hill, Highgate; and several in Westminster itself, chiefly in and about Soho. These schools formerly presented for examination a good many youths in the lowest standards, but they are in general small, of late years they have been getting smaller, and as school attendance becomes more and more enforced the need for them will gradually disappear. Much more important is the second class of evening schools, the schools which have been instituted to enable youths to carry on further the education begun in the elementary school. In Westminster, there is one very good specimen of this class, the St. Stephen's Evening School. This is the only school known to me which will be able to meet fairly the new rules, and to profit by them. In the past it has done much good work which the Education Department could not recognize and recompense. Now it will get its reward.

This winter session the school has enrolled 397 pupils, of whom 100 attend French classes, 60 attend classes in shorthand; 30, classes in book-keeping; and 20, classes to prepare candidates for the Civil Service examinations. There are also small classes in Latin, Greek, and German, and all this irrespective of the large classes in the elementary subjects, where the work of the day school is revised and perfected.

Now if all the schoolmasters in that part of

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Westminster insisted on having evening schools of their own, the result would be a number of small struggling, partially efficient schools with little success and no reputation. But instead of this, St. Stephen's draws the teachers for its evening classes from all the schools round, all uniting to make one central school flourishing and distinguished.

Unless a like course is followed by the London School Board, I fear that the numerous schools set up by them this winter, in the hope of profiting by the enlarged grants for evening schools will not succeed.

To succeed, an evening school must win a reputation. It should have an ample staff, not one teacher struggling with as many grades as there are pupils. Let some central school of the board be chosen for the experiment, let the teachers be selected from all the schools available within a certain area - all the schools, moreover, having to advertise by printed notice the evening classes, and to direct applicants to the place where they are held. In this way the evening school will become efficient and well known, and will succeed. An energetic schoolmaster should be at the head, but to organize and direct rather than to teach classes himself. If some sympathetic supervision and influence can be added, the good work will be complete.

Unless, I say, the promoters of evening classes follow a course of this kind, it seems to me likely that many of the new evening schools will disappear as rapidly as they have sprung up.

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The New Code will cause changes not in evening classes only, but along the whole line of elementary school instruction. We shall gradually adapt ourselves to it, both teachers and Inspectors; and I wish the teachers of my district to be guided by their own experience as to the best methods for working it, rather than by instructions, given beforehand and without positive experience, from me. I am not afraid of finding the teachers of my district too little disposed to follow what wishes I may express as to the course to be taken by them in their schools. On the contrary, they follow them so willingly, that I feel the more bound to recollect how in these matters we are all learners together, and how their daily practical experience gives them at many points means for forming a judgment which I have not. I will, however, take the opportunity of the promulgation of a New Code for saying briefly again that which I have at various time said before: at what the teacher of a public elementary school should, in, my opinion chiefly aim, and where it behoves him to have firm and clear principles, and to resist pressure.

Fresh matters of instruction are continually being added to our school programmes; but it is well to remember that the recipient for this instruction, the child, remains as to age, capacity, and school time, what he was before, and that his age, capacity, and school time, must in the end govern our proceedings. Undoubtedly there is danger at present of his being

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over-urged and over-worked, of his being taught too many things, and not the best things for him. I am very glad that the New Code confines the grant for specific subjects to the standards above the fourth. This is a defence against the danger of teaching too much, and for children in the Fourth Standard the specific subjects are in general too much. Teachers know very well, however, that the strain upon a learner's mind arises not only from the quantity of what is put into it, but also from the quality and character; and that the strain may be relieved not only by diminishing the quantity, but also by altering that quality and character. This is an extremely important matter.

Attention has lately been called to the break down, in India, of a number of young men who had won their appointments after severe study and severe examination. No doubt the quantity of mental exertion required for examinations is often excessive, but the strain is much the more severe, because the quality and character of mental exertion required are so often injudicious. The mind is less strained the more it reacts on what it deals with, and has a native play of its own, and is creative. It is more strained the more it has to receive a number of "knowledges" passively, and to store them up to be reproduced in an examination. But to acquire a number of "knowledges", store them, and reproduce them, was what in general those candidates for Indian employment had had to do. By their suc-

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cess in doing this they were tested, and the examination turned on it. In old days examinations mainly turned upon Latin and Greek composition. Composition in the dead languages is now wholly out of favour, and I by no means say that it is a sufficient test for candidates for Indian employment. But I will say that the character and quality of mental exertion required for it is more healthy than the character and quality of exertion required for receiving and storing a number of "knowledges". And the candidate whom the former test brings to the front is likely to be a healthier man in body and mind, both then and afterwards, than the man whom the latter test brings to the front.

Of such high importance, in relieving the strain of mental effort, is the sense of pleasurable activity and of creation. Of course a great deal of the work in elementary schools must necessarily be of a mechanical kind. But whatever introduces any sort of creative activity to relieve the passive reception of knowledge is valuable. The kindergarten exercises are useful for this reason, the management of tools is useful, drawing is useful, singing is useful. The poetry exercise, if properly managed, is of very great use, and this is why I have always been in favour of it and am glad to see further development given to it by the New Code. People talk contemptuously of "learning lines by heart"; but if a child is brought, as he easily can be brought, to throw himself into a piece of poetry, an exercise of creative

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activity has been set up in him quite different from the effort of learning a list of words to spell, or a list of flesh-making and heat-giving foods, or a list of capes and bays, or a list of reigns and battles, and capable of greatly relieving the strain from learning these and of affording a lively pleasure. It is true, language, and geography, and history, and the elements of natural science are all capable of being taught in a less mechanical and more interesting manner than that in which they are commonly taught now; they may be so taught as to call forth pleasurable activity in the pupil. But those disciplines are especially valuable which call this activity forth most surely and directly.

As to "knowledges", a teacher should, in my opinion, aim at having every child who passes through an elementary school not only taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, but furnished in addition with some knowledge of the English language and of grammar, and also with some instruction in natural science, geography, and history. A select class capable of being carried further with profit should be formed for specific subjects. But governing the teacher's whole design of instruction in these knowledges should be the aim of calling forth, by some means or other, in every pupil a sense of pleasurable activity and of creation; he should resist being made a mere ladder with "information".

There is an admirable sermon of Butler's, preached in 1745 on behalf of the charity schools of

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London and Westminster, which every one concerned with popular education ought to read.* It is far too little known; the Christian Knowledge Society would do well to reprint it, as they have reprinted Bishop Wilson's manual. Every point is taken in it which most needs to be taken: the change in the world which makes "knowledges" of universal necessity now which were not so formerly, the hardship of exclusion from them, the absurdity and selfishness of those who are "so extremely apprehensive of the danger that poor persons will make a perverse use of even the least advantage, whilst they do not appear at all apprehensive of the like danger for themselves or their own children, in respect of riches or power, how much soever; though the danger of perverting these advantages is surely as great, and the perversion itself of much greater and worse consequence." But there is, perhaps, no sentence in the sermon which more deserves to be pondered by us than this: "Of education," says Butler, "information itself is really the least part."

*A sermon preached in the Parish Church of Christchurch, London, on Thursday, May the 9th, 1745, being the time of the Yearly Meeting of the children educated in the Charity schools, in and about the Cities of London and Westminster. By the Right Rev. Joseph, Lord Bishop of Bristol. ... To which is annexed an account of The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Printed by J. Oliver, printer to the said Society, in Bartholomew Close; and sold by B. Dod, bookseller, at the Bible and Key in Ave-Maria Lane. MDCCXLV.

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THERE can be no question as to the advantage which the students enjoy in the lectures of their head-master, or as to the zeal and ability with which the other officers of the institution discharge their duties. Neither can there be any question as to the acquaintance with all subjects of ordinary secular instruction shown by most of the students, both when examined themselves, and when giving lessons in the practising schools. The secular instruction here is no doubt well and adequately given; those who conduct the institution are anxious to perfect their students in it, and are of opinion that the attention which is paid to religious teaching will not affect their success in doing so. And the institution has been so recently established, that it cannot, perhaps, yet be determined what that success will be. But the whole spirit of the proceedings in this institution, the language held by its promoters, the subjects constantly preferred by the students on

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which to give their lessons, the tenor of these lesson themselves, the very arrangement and organization of the practising schools, remind the observer that this is not the sole, nor even the chief thing aimed at. The Wesleyan Education Committee, and the connexion on behalf of which they act, put it forth as their first principle, "that the week-day schools should secure the means of religious as well as secular instruction, in such a manner as to make the latter strictly subordinate to the former." And again, "religious teaching is the leading and paramount object in the system of week-day schools, which it is the business of the committee to promote." And, therefore, as "religious character is the primary consideration in the selection of the students, it is also the main end regarded in their discipline and training." The daily attendance at morning and evening worship required of every student, their weekly conversations with the principal on religious subjects, their meetings for prayer among themselves, the supplementary examination paper on Scripture doctrines and Scripture history, set by the Wesleyan committee to all candidates examined at their institution for Government certificates, are all of them so many endeavours towards securing this end. For this end, too, the committee placed the institution where it is, rather than in a less miserable and necessitous neighbourhood, because, to use the principal's own words, "they did not wish their students to be spoiled in training; and by a

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lengthened residence away from the dwellings of the poor, and amongst the attractions of superior life, disinclined and rendered unfit to undertake the arduous and self-denying duties of school teachers. They hoped that, surrounded as their students are at Westminster by the families of the poor, their want of education, with its attendant degradation and misery would excite their best feeling." A moral end, then, a moral effect to be produced upon the student, was in view, even in planting the institution where it now stands.

It is right to remember these things when one notices, perhaps, points in the proceedings of the training college or of the practising schools which seem unfavourable to the perfection of secular instruction; when a spectator, attending exclusively to this, remarks that the galleries are too large, the number of children collected in them too great, the lessons on religious subjects or which are made to take a religious turn too frequent, the method of the teacher too often one of exhortation and lecture, rather than one of searching question and answer; it is right to remember that much of this is done with special aims, in the view to produce a special result both in the teachers and in the children; that it was because they had these special aims that the Wesleyan connexion, like the Church of England, for the most part withheld their assent from the principle of British schools, to establish schools of a strictly connexional character.

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And, perhaps, considering how far more important to the young is the personal influence of the teacher than the things taught; considering, too, how narrow is the range of subjects in which it can be expected that the children of the poor shall really acquire instruction in school, it is no matter of regret that a training college should be established with these aims, even though the pursuit of them should cause it to send forth somewhat less finished scholars, if the same pursuit enables it to send forth more formed and serious men.

But, however, this may be, by no member of the Methodist body will it be esteemed a reproach to have sacrificed something of intellectual smartness and showy acquirement in the paramount endeavour to train a band of serious and religious men to send among the poor; of that body, which already in other ways has laboured so long and so well in this cause; of that body, which from the first has devoted itself above all to matters of religious concernment, just as, even in its separation from the Established Church, it was actuated by spiritual, and not by political, grounds.

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IN 1855 was instituted a meeting, to be held annually in London in the month of May, on behalf of Wesleyan education; and I am glad to see that in the resolutions of this meeting great stress is laid on the establishment of day schools. This is, indeed, in strict conformity with the desire manifested of the plan of education sanctioned by the Wesleyan Conference in 1841, that "all possible care and effort should be used in each district to promote the formation and success of week-day and infant schools"; but still the number of 45,000 scholars in attendance in Wesleyan day schools bears far too small a proportion to the number of 400,000 scholars in attendance in Wesleyan Sunday schools. But the Wesleyan Education Committee have shown that they are alive to the urgent need of reducing this grave disproportion - a disproportion, be it remarked, which does not exist in the school operations of their missions. I cordially unite with them in the hope that the extinction of their debt, and a growing sense, among the members of their connexion, of

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the necessity of promoting the day school no less zealously than the Sunday school, may enable them to extend their operations in the establishment of schools. So long as the present denominational system of schools shall continue in force, there is no school system to which I wish success more sincerely than to theirs. They have made and are making the greatest efforts for the promotion of a system of infant school education; they desire that the time may come when every scholar received into the older school should have previously received a training in the infant school. With those efforts and with that desire, I heartily sympathise. They have, in my opinion, most sensible views as to the management of infants; what I have sometimes heard made a matter of reproach against their infant schools that they are play schools, is really, in my opinion, the highest praise; it means that "they do not seek to develop prematurely and forcibly the faculties of the mind not developed in the young child, but employ their attention mainly in the direction of faculties which nature teaches the child vigorously to put forth, perception, observation, and curiosity."* Their infant school system, accordingly, is in my opinion a healthier and a more successful one than that of any other educational body. But, besides this, their school system has,

*From an "Address to the Students of the Wesleyan Training Institution at the commencement of the Session of 1856," by the Rev. John Scott, the principal. (M.A.)

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in my judgment; as at present conducted, another signal merit, of especial value under present circumstances, where the work of elementary education is carried on, not by the regulation of a central authority, but by a process of co-operation and mutual effort between the Committee of Council and the different educational bodies. Those at the head of the Wesleyan school system appear to me, I am bound to say, to conduct its operations in a spirit singularly free, so far as their dealings with the Committee of Council are concerned, from all jealously and hostile mistrust; in a spirit which may truly be called peaceable and easily entreated; in a spirit which proves, I hope, the consciousness in them that they have been fairly dealt with by the Committee of Council, and which certainly renders it a matter of pleasure, rather than of difficulty, to deal with them. I find, also, this spirit eminently present in the great body of Wesleyan teachers with whom I have to deal; I believe that it is a spirit fostered in them by their training, nay, by the principles and tendencies of Wesleyanism itself. Their training is studiously addressed to "form in them habits of right feeling and of good conduct, as well as of correct thinking"; to develop in them a spirit of peaceableness and affectionateness; "the spirit of teaching for the good of others as well as for their own livelihood."* They are exhorted to labour, "not only that they may

*From the "Address" quoted on preceding page.

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have their schools in a creditable state at the visit of the Inspector, but that their scholars, when they come to be men and women, may remember their school days with pleasure, may think of their teacher with affection and mention him with honour, when Blue-books are shelved and forgotten."* This is the spirit which, I truly believe, those who conduct the Wesleyan training institution do their best to develop and to promote; it is with sincere pleasure, therefore, that I report to your Lordships the improved efficiency of its secular instruction and the continued growth of its prosperity.

*From the same.

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ONE advantage the general class has had above the other classes; the advantage of a more constant attendance in the model schools. As practice in teaching is not less requisite than lectures are for the training of a schoolmaster, it is to be desired that the first and second year students should have a greater share in this advantage; and provision has, I am informed, been made for ensuring it to them during the coming year.

When I pass from these matters to consider the work actually done in the existing classes of this training college, it is difficult to express myself in too strong terms of praise. The distinctive spirit of the place seems to me to be one of active-mindedness. What one finds most accurate, most clear, most thorough in the work of the best elementary schools of this country, one finds, I think, in the work of the students here, in a high degree of concentration and perfection. The discipline and demeanour of the students are also quite satisfactory; but, I repeat, that what strikes me most in

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this training college is its spirit of active-mindedness; the extent of work performed, and performed with industry, with accuracy, and with spirit.

Industry and accuracy are perhaps eminently the qualities of men; but they are strongly apparent in the female department of this institution as well as in the male. With respect, however, to the course of instruction there, much of which must necessarily coincide with that in the male department, I cannot forbear to express my opinion that the female students might, with the greatest advantage, attend some of the lectures given to the classes of male students. The female department here has a very able staff of teachers; but there are certain branches of instruction, such, for instance, as grammar and arithmetic, which seem particularly to belong to the domain of the masculine intellect; and in these branches, I think, that the instructors of the male students would also be the best instructors of the female.

The attainments of the student are the best testimony to the merits of the teacher, and it is superfluous for me, therefore, after what I have said of the students, to mention separately every teacher with eulogy. Some of the teachers at this institution, indeed, such as Dr. Cornwell and Mrs. Macrae, are so well and so honourably known to the public, their merits in the service of education have so long been recognised, that to bear testimony now to their admirable qualities is wholly unnecessary.

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But I may be allowed to express my sense of the rare endowments as a lecturer which Mr. Fitch, the Vice-Principal, appears to me to possess; he has in lecturing the gifts of animation of manner, of exactness, and at the same time fluency of expression, of coherence in his method of treating his subject, to a degree, in my opinion, quite eminent; and these are the most desirable gifts for a lecturer. He is also fully alive to the necessity of infusing into the students something of that general culture, the want of which is perhaps the greatest defect of the present teachers of elementary schools, and the defect hardest to remedy.

Towards the beginning of my report I stated that no change had taken place in the staff of teachers in this institution during the year 1855. But at the end of the year a most serious change has taken place. Dr. Cornwell, for twenty years connected with this institution, has resigned the office of Principal, and at the moment at which I now write that office is filled by his successor, Mr. Fitch. It is hard to conceive this training college without Dr. Cornwell, who has impressed upon it so much of what constitutes its peculiar character.

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HAVING in a previous report remarked how desirable it was that those subjects which man almost always teach best should be taught, whether the learners are male or female, by men, I have great satisfaction in recording an arrangement which extends to students of both sexes in the Borough Road Training College, the advantage of the able and accurate teaching of the Principal, Vice-Principal, and Tutor.

At my recent inspection I was certainly not less struck than formerly with the ability shown in the lectures which I heard; but I was above all struck with the evident pains taken by the lecturer, not only to inform his hearers, but also to fit them to reproduce in their future school lessons the information which they had gained. Increased attention was evidently paid to the inculcation of correct methods of teaching; faults of exposition, faults in questioning, into which inexperienced teachers are liable to fall, were brought into clear light, and sedulously examined. I observed this in lectures both in the male and in the female department.

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For example, I heard Mr. Fitch,* the principal, say to the female students in the course of a lecture on grammar: "Never consider your lesson prepared, unless, besides getting the rules by heart, which I see you have all done, you have also provided yourselves with an example of your own for each rule." This is just the sort of admonition which these girls want. In his remarks to the male students upon a criticism lesson, I heard him again and again caution the students to avoid vagueness in their comments upon the lesson under discussion. "Do not", he said, "accustom yourselves to say that such and such a thing in the lesson was good or bad, without alleging precise grounds for your opinion." And in his own resumé of the lesson, Mr. Fitch illustrated his meaning by giving instances of faults in the lesson just delivered, in every one of which he fortified, by clear, definite reasons, the censure which he passed. Again, in a lecture on school management, I heard him insisting, with great good sense and clearness, on certain signal faults in teaching, on the want of arrangement in lessons, and the attempt to crowd too much matter into single lessons; on the want of management by which scholars are allowed to answer by a single technical word, without paraphrase or explanation, or by which the willing are allowed to give all the answers, and the unwilling left without notice; on the faulty habit of

*Sir Joshua Fitch, appointed 1863 one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools.

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questioning, by which the teacher, adopting in his questions an incomplete elliptical form of expression, encourages the pupil to adopt the same in his answer; on the want of consecutiveness in lessons; - "Every teacher", he said, "should arrange a two or three months' course beforehand on a definite plan"; - finally, on the injudicious use of the gallery for lessons for which it is quite unsuited. I remarked how Mr. Smith, the mathematical tutor, practically exemplified in his own teaching the best methods of giving instruction in arithmetic, by his clear explanation of the principles of the rules of decimal arithmetic, on which he was lecturing; by the way in which he continually tested them by the rules of vulgar fractions; and then, when he had been through two or three sums on the blackboard, set a sum for the students to work by themselves, and went round to examine their slates. I noticed how Miss Scott, in a lecture on infant school management, instead of dealing in generalities about the faculties of children and their development, interested her hearers, and practically showed them how to interest others, by a natural lively account of Pestalozzi's early proceedings, and by practical suggestions about object lessons and the formation of cabinets of objects. Lecturers, in order to select and pursue such a line of remark as this, must previously have made the theory and practice of teaching the object of their close observation.

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I must mention with particular praise the reading of the female students. I was quite surprised at the good taste, natural feeling, correct expression, and purity of pronunciation with which student after student performed her part in the reading lesson.

This lesson, generally so trying an ordeal both for reader and hearer to go through, passed off so agreeably that I was sorry when it came to an end. The reacting of two or three of the students was really of a high order of excellence, but what especially pleased me was that the performance of the entire body was so good. In the teaching of reading great care has been bestowed upon the male students as well as the female; I cannot say with equal result; the material is far more intractable.

A letter and memorandum were addressed by your Lordships' Secretary in February, 1858, to the managers of schools under inspection, on the subject of needlework and domestic economy. That letter and memorandum related to the instruction of female apprentices and candidates for Queen's scholarships. They assigned to the examination in these branches a wider range than formerly, and a greater stringency. They were followed, in December last, by a communication to the managers of training colleges for females upon the same subject. In this was announced the desire of your Lordships to give a more searching and practical character to the examination of female students in the details of domestic economy. The examination, with

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this new character, would necessitate the devotion by the female students of more time to the study of domestic economy; the provision, by the training school authorities, of increased appliances for teaching it. At present, there do not exist in this training college the means for teaching the practical details of industrial work in the way indicated by your Lordships, although lectures on the theory of domestic economy form a part of the regular course of instruction.

The managers are disinclined to establish the laundry, bakehouse, etc., requisite for carrying into operation a practical system of industrial training. The female students would be disinclined, were such a system established, to sacrifice for its sake a portion of their intellectual instruction. The majority of them pass but one year in the training college; they have a severe examination to undergo at the end of that year; many of them begin their year's course with inadequate preparation, and have to make up for lost time. Intellectual instruction is what above all they come to obtain; their practice in the model schools, and the present amount of their instruction in needlework and domestic economy take already as much time away from their intellectual instruction as they are willing to spare.

Still, were these students about to undertake the charge of rural schools, or of urban schools for the poorest class of children, so great would be the benefit of good methods of domestic economy in

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the families of the poor, so grievous is at present the want of them, that it might be advisable to take any measures requisite for the formation of a body of instructors qualified to teach such methods, even at the risk of doing some violence to the inclinations of the managers and students of training schools.

But students from this institution do not, in general, find themselves placed in charge of schools of this kind. They find themselves in charge of schools frequented by a class of children who come to school for an intellectual, not for an industrial, training. The parents of these children would not willingly consent that their daughters' school time should be taken up with learning the details of practical housekeeping. In this middling class of society girls grow up, no doubt, with a lamentable ignorance of these details. So they do in the richer classes; and, in the richer classes, one hears people sometimes lament that girls are not taught to bake, to cook, and wash. But these very people would be indignant if they found that their daughters' school time was actually occupied with learning cookery or clear starching, instead of languages or music. So it is with the middling class of society from which British schools are mainly recruited. Doubtless, girls in this class are ignorant of domestic economy; but this is not the ignorance which their parents send them to school to remove; rightly or wrongly, they think that their position in life may enable

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them to dispense with a practical knowledge of any branch of industrial work, except needlework, and to find others who will perform such work for them. What they want for their daughters, what they send them to school to acquire, is what is called a liberal education.

I think, therefore, that the indisposition of the authorities of the Borough Road Training College to undertake the teaching of industrial work, and the indisposition of the female students to spend time in acquiring a knowledge of it, would be at least equalled by the indisposition of parents sending their children to British schools, to permit their daughters to reap the benefit of such knowledge, when acquired.

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EXCELLENT provision has been made at Stockwell for teaching domestic economy. The arrangements of the laundry are really beautiful, and I inspected with a pleasure which the objects of inspection do not always awaken, the wash-room, the ironing-room, the drying closet, the wringing-ground, the large and enclosed drying-ground of this department. Here too, the students are employed by batches of six. All the ironing and starching are done by them.

A practising kitchen has been provided, but it is not yet in operation.

Perhaps all lectures tend to be somewhat too much of lectures, and too little of examinations of the pupil in a matter prepared by him. Lectures to young men may be allowed far more liberty in this respect than lessons to boys; but when the hearers of the lectures are young men whose business it will be to give lessons to boys, perhaps this liberty should be exercised more sparingly than in general it is. Both Mr. Alderson and I remarked that the students who taught classes in our presence were perpetually falling into the error of lecturing

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too much. The evil of this habit in teaching boys is that you do not ensure the pupil's learning anything at all; for he listens, or not, as he feels inclined. We had good evidence, in the notebooks of the students which we examined, that this evil does not exist in their case; still, were it but as a model for the student to follow in the primary school hereafter, we both think that the training college lecture might with advantage be made somewhat more of an examination. It seemed to me that the principal* examined considerably more than either of the lecturers.

The students receive one lesson in the theory, one in the practice, of singing from notes; they are formed for each lesson into two classes. We heard a singing lesson; and here, as in a chemistry lesson which I heard given, I had occasion to remark what I have remarked so often, how musical and physical science seem each of them to awaken young men of the class to which these students belong; to be capable of "striking the electric chain" in them, in a way in which no other part of their instruction can. No doubt it is because of this capacity that the civilising power of music has always been famed so highly; for instruction civilises a raw nature only so far as it delights and enkindles it. Perhaps it will be found that physical science has, for such natures, something of a similar power, and that we may well make more use of

*Sir Joshua Fitch.

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both agents than we do at present. Undoubtedly no refining influence is more powerful than that of literary culture; but this influence seems to need in the recipient a certain refinement of nature at the outset in order to make itself felt; and with this previous refinement music and physical science appear able to dispense.

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THIS practical character and this method of close question and answer, are too much absent from an important exercise which the second year students have to perform before the Inspector - the exercise in teaching. I call this exercise important because the student's power of teaching is in itself, no doubt, very important, and because this exercise counts for a good deal in his examination; but as a means of enabling the Inspector really to test the student's power of teaching, it more and more, every year that I witness it, seems to me unsatisfactory. The fault of our elementary schools in general is that the teacher tells the pupil too much, instead of forcing him to learn, and simply ascertaining whether he has learnt; this fault the exercise in teaching, as now performed by the students, seems to me just calculated to perpetuate. To a class of some thirty children, with whom they have very little acquaintance, they have to give a set public lesson on some subject or other for twenty minutes; a sketch of this lesson is prepared beforehand, and given to the Inspector. I have several such sketches now

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before me: a sketch of a lesson on the "Hand", a sketch of a lesson on the "Isle of Wight", a sketch of a lesson on the "Crocodile", on the "Honey Bee", on the "Cause of Day and Night"; inevitably the lesson becomes a means of showing the student's own knowledge of his subject and power of arranging it, rather than his faculty of teaching; of this, with a class of children before him who do not profess to have learnt the lesson beforehand, who cannot therefore be examined in it, who cannot, certainly, be taught it in twenty minutes, and who are wearied and bewildered by being made the apparent object of a number of these performances one after another, it is really scarcely any test at all. The Inspector would learn far more of a student's power of teaching by seeing him give to a single pupil a reading lesson of five minutes, or by watching him hear half a dozen pupils say a lesson which they had learnt than by witnessing this much more pretentious performance. It is well, no doubt, that their Lordships should in every possible way mark their sense of the great importance of the student's learning to teach; and perhaps the teaching lesson is even now important as marking this; but as enabling the Inspector to judge what it professes to enable him to judge, it seems to me very unsatisfactory, and I never witness it without wishing for some change.

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I AM bound to record my opinion, founded on my experience of the foreign training schools, that with our mode of conducting these examinations and of marking the papers, uniformity of standard and trustworthy unity of impression are very hard to attain, and that these results are much better attained when the whole examination is conducted and the papers marked, as abroad, by an examining commission.

The Stockwell students have regular lessons in callisthenics, to their great advantage. At the Borough Road College gymnastics are not taught, and there are neither room nor appliances for teaching them. To one who has recently seen the training schools of Germany and Switzerland, and who knows the value there attached to cultivating through gymnastics and outdoor exercises, the physical development of the future schoolmaster - above all, of the future primary schoolmaster - this omission cannot but be a matter of regret. No public normal school for primary teachers would in

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Germany or Switzerland be allowed to exist without adequate provision for teaching gymnastics to the students. The buildings of Küssnacht, the primary normal school for Canton Zurich, would make a poor show besides those of the Borough Road College, but attached to them is a good gymnasium and a good garden for the students. The students there have one hour's instruction in gymnastics every week, and two hour's military exercising; all through the fine time of the year they have three hours a week of gardening. In great towns in Germany, where there can be no garden and gardening, the time given to gymnastics is proportionably augmented.

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THE course of events, to which no wise man will obstinately refuse to adapt his own course, led to the resolution of last spring, by which the Board* and its constituency determined to refuse no longer the aid of the State to their schools - an aid which involves no interference of any kind whatever with the religious instruction given in them. All provisions as to the rejection of State aid have now, therefore, disappeared from the rules. What remains, and what the Committee of Council has to do with, is a system of schools with a conscience clause, and with a denominational character; their denomination being properly Evangelical. They are unlike the Church of England schools, or the Wesleyan schools, in that they are not merely for Anglicans, or for Wesleyans, but for those who hold

*The "Congregational Board of Education" formed in 1843, "to promote popular education partaking of a religious character", and under no circumstances receiving aid from public money administered by Government.

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"Evangelical views of religion". They are unlike the schools of the British and Foreign School Society, because, being for those who hold "Evangelical views of religion", they exclude Socinians and Roman Catholics. The distinction is remarkable, because the denomination thus in fact adopted is identical with the denomination common to all the State-aided Protestant Schools of Germany, and under which all bodies of Protestant Christians in that country unite. State-aided schools in Germany are divided into Evangelical schools and Catholic schools; and, in my opinion, this is the very best division which can be adopted, recognizing essential differences and effacing non-essential; and it is, I think, one which, though it might be distasteful to certain parties and individuals, would on the whole recommend itself if it could be followed, to the feelings and judgment of the people of this country. It is true, Germany has in Luther's Short Catechism a formulary which all Evangelical bodies agree to unite in using, and this is a great advantage. For want of some formulary of this kind the religious teaching of Congregational schools has to depend on the Bible gallery lesson; and it may well be thought that too much is thus left to the individual teacher. Still in seizing this notion of Evangelical Protestantism as the basis of the religious character of their schools, and in guarding this, so far as they could, from being a mere unreal colourless thing, made

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up of vague generalities,* the Congregational Board have had the merit of conceiving a type of popular school better suited, probably, to be the public school of the bulk of the people of this country than either the so-called National school or the Wesleyan school on the one hand, or than the British school, or, still more, than the Secular school, on the other; and their conception has in it, in my opinion, elements of utility which may well bear fruit in the future.

*"The character of the teaching ought not to be so general as not to involve the distinctive truths of revelation. No satisfaction can be afforded by vague generalities. To practise reserve as to what is vital in Christianity is to give the children a stone when they ask for bread." Inaugural Discourse by the Rev. Dr. Unwin, Principal of Homerton College.

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I HAVE often remarked how the great failure in both our elementary and our normal school teaching is the failure to awaken in those who are taught any real intellectual life and interest by means of the instruction they receive; and yet to awaken this is the really humanizing and civilizing part of the work of instruction. I cannot but think that this lack of life and interest is in part due to the over-mechanical character of our training school instruction, and that there are two points in which training schools for British and Wesleyan teachers might with advantage study the example set them by training schools in Germany. One point is the teaching of universal history; the other point is the religious teaching, so far as this is historical rather than dogmatical. The apprehension of what is called "the religious difficulty", and the desire to exclude from this instruction all that might give rise to it, has needlessly, in my opinion, limited and impoverished our training school course. Perhaps there is nothing so animating, nothing so likely to

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awaken a man's interest and to stimulate him to active research on definite points, as the broad views over the history of our race and its general course and connexion which universal history gives. With all its faults, and though it is written, of course, from a Roman Catholic point of view, I know few books more stimulating than Bossuet's Universal History; there are in use in Germany other manuals of universal history by Protestants, some of which have great merit, and one of them, Weber's, is, I think, translated into English. The use of some text-book of universal history, in connexion with the detailed teaching of certain parts of history, prevails everywhere in German places of instruction; in places of instruction for adults it is above all insisted on. This is because the Germans conceive instruction so much more systematically than we do; and they make instruction so much more penetrating and interesting than we do, just because they conceive it more systematically.

None of our training schools, I believe, teach universal history. Religious instruction, in so far as it connects itself with universal history and shares the significance and interest proper to this study, is almost equally neglected by them. I speak of it as a regular part of the training school course, tested by the Christmas examination. The papers set for the Church of England training schools sufficiently show that these schools have little conception of a general and historical religious

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instruction of this kind, as distinguished from particular and dogmatic religious instruction. In training schools for British and Wesleyan teachers, no religious instruction at all comes into our Christmas examination; and though I know that the Wesleyan Education Committee examine their students in religious knowledge, yet this by no means gives what is wanted, a view of religion in its historical aspect and connexion, and a systematic acquaintance with its documents. In German training schools, whether Catholic or Evangelical, to give this view and acquaintance is always attempted. At Küssnacht, the training school of the Protestant Canton of Zurich, students of the first year have, as a part of their regular course, three hours a week occupied with the history of the Hebrew people and the reading of the Old Testament; second year students, three hours a week occupied with the life of Christ and the reading of the New Testament; third year students, the same time with the study of the relation between the Old and New Testament, the rise and development of Christianity, and Church history. In training schools in Germany this course is sometimes carried yet further, and embraces the history of all the leading systems of religion and philosophy which have appeared in the world. No doubt, this is much to attempt; but we do not enough consider how the mind is stimulated by having a great design of this sort even presented to it, and what it gains

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by being lifted out of the dullness which attaches to all mere cramming with what is called "useful knowledge". The same is to be said on behalf of giving to religious instruction a substantive place in the work-plan of elementary schools; chords of power are touched by this instruction which no other part of the instruction in a popular school reaches, and chords several and various, not the single religious chord only. In all German schools, a catechism, either Protestant or Catholic, is learnt. The enemies of catechisms have perhaps never considered how a catechism is for the child in an elementary school his only contact with metaphysics; it is possible to have too much metaphysics, but some contact with them is to every active mind suggestive and valuable. The Bible, again, is for the child in an elementary school almost his only contact with poetry and philosophy. In British and Wesleyan schools the Bible teaching does not come under inspection; what there is of it, the Wesleyan gallery lessons, for instance, on Ananias and Sapphira and the Prodigal Son, has a directly moral and religions design; but neither in these schools nor, I believe, in Church of England schools, is anything like the use made of the Bible, considered simply as an instrument of education, which might be made of it, and which is made of it in Germany. What I saw in Germany struck me the more because it exactly corresponds with the sort of use of the Bible in education which was

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approved and followed by my father. Even in the lowest classes the children in a German Protestant school begin learning verses of the Psalms by heart, and by the time a scholar reaches the top of the school he knows by heart a number of the finest passages from the Psalms and from the prophetical and historical books of the Old Testament, and nearly all the principal Gospel discourses and parables of the New. These have become a part of the stock of his mind, and he has them for life. What a course of eloquence and poetry (to call it by that name alone) is this in a school which has and can have but little eloquence and poetry! and how much do our elementary schools lose by not having such a course as part of their school programme! This at least, one would think, might be effected and inspected in all Protestant schools without occasioning any "religious difficulty"; and all who value the Bible may rest convinced that thus to know and possess the Bible is a most sure way to extend the power and efficacy of the Bible.

The denomination of Evangelical, which I have mentioned in my report on the Homerton Training College, is a real wide bond of union just so far as it implies a belief in this permanent value of the Bible itself, and of the knowledge of the Bible. Evangelisch in Germany means simply the man who goes to the New Testament, and to the Old Testament as seen and applied from the point of view under which the New Testament teaches us to see

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and apply it, for his religion, in contradistinction to the man who goes to any other authority for it - the authority of the Church, of tradition, of the Pope. Undoubtedly it is in this sense that schools, not Roman Catholic or Jewish, should adopt the denomination Evangelical, and it is in this sense alone that the State in its relations with schools should consent to employ the term. It happens that an important and, in many respects admirable, section of the English Church, believing that a certain scheme of doctrine which it has gathered from the Bible represents the essence of the Bible, has taken to itself this denomination of Evangelical, and hence arises a misunderstanding, as if to denominate a set of schools Evangelical was to denominate them as belonging to this body and professing its doctrine. This is not so. A body in Germany with similar doctrine has in like manner claimed for itself the special title of Evangelical, but the claim has not been conceded and ought not to be conceded. This noble and attractive name of Evangelical belongs not to the adherent of any doctrinal, essence of Christianity supposed to be already extracted from the Bible, but to the adherent of the Bible and Christianity themselves, in the unexhausted significance which the progressive development of the world more and more brings to light in the Bible and Christianity. Therefore it is that the thorough study and appropriation of the Bible, both in itself and in all the course of its relations.

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with human history, is of so great fruitfulness and importance. In my opinion, they are the best friends of popular education, as well as the best construers of the word Evangelical, who, however attached to their own particular Church or confession, yet can recognize this fruitfulness and importance most fully, and who show the greatest largeness of mind in giving effect to their sense of it.

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AT my last visit in 1867, I remarked on the absence of all instruction and practice in gymnastics at the Borough Road Training School, and contrasted this state of things with what I had lately seen in Germany and Switzerland. A recreation room, fitted with apparatus for gymnastics, has since been provided, and I saw the students exercising there.

In 1867, the Stockwell students had instruction in callisthenics; this has since been much developed, and I saw their exercises with much pleasure. It should be borne in mind that on the Continent gymnastics are not suffered to be a mere amusement, proceeding at the student's own will, or under the guidance of extemporised teachers; on the contrary, the teachers and methods for gymnastics are as carefully chosen and as rigorously imposed as those for any branch of intellectual study.

In these reports I have more than once commented on the grammar and composition paper for

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the Christmas examination, and I am glad to see by the syllabus of the present year that there has been a revision of the scale of marks, and that grammar now receives a larger proportion. To the judicious setting and marking of this paper, I attach the greatest importance.

It is that paper in the examination which represents letters and literary culture. The friends of the physical sciences are all for the increased teaching of their own matters, and they have the public with them; judicious observers know well that the real difficulty and deficiency, with students such as those of our training schools, lies not in the direction of physics, but in the direction of humane letters. It is so great, that one might be tempted to pronounce it irremediable, at least, for one or two generations, if one had not before one the development of spirit and feeling brought about in a few years by the establishment of one well conceived exercise - the recitation exercise. I have seldom been more struck by the results of any agency in education than by observing last winter, when I heard the Borough Road students recite, the progress which had been achieved within my own experience through this exercise alone.

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Treasury Minute, August, 1833.

My Lords read the Act of the last session by which a sum of £20,000 is granted to His Majesty, to be issued in aid of private subscriptions for the erection of schools for the education of the children of the poorer classes in Great Britain.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, feeling it absolutely necessary that certain fixed rules should be laid down by the Treasury for their guidance in this matter, so as to render this sum most generally useful for the purposes contemplated by the grant, submits the following arrangements for the consideration of the Board:-

(1) That no portion of this sum be applied to any purpose whatever except for the erection of new school-houses, and that in the definition of a schoolhouse the residence for masters or attendants be not included.

(2) That no application be entertained unless a sum be raised by private contribution equal at least to one-half of the total estimated expenditure.

(3) That the amount of private subscription be received, expended, and accounted for before any issue of public money for such school be directed.

(4) That no application be complied with unless upon the consideration of such a report either from the National School Society, or the British and

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Foreign School Society, as shall satisfy this Board that the case is one deserving of attention, and there is a reasonable expectation that the school may be permanently supported.

(5) That the applicants whose cases are favourably entertained be required to bind themselves to submit to any audit of their accounts which this Board may direct, as well as to such periodical reports respecting the state of their schools, and the number of scholars educated, as may be called for.

(6) That in considering all applications made to the Board a preference be given to such applications as come from large cities and towns in which the necessity of assisting in the erection of schools is most pressing, and that due inquiries should also be made before any such application be acceded to, whether there may not be charitable funds or public and private endowments, that might render any further grants inexpedient or unnecessary.

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It is this day ordered by Her Majesty in Council that the Most Honourable Henry, Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council; the Right Honourable John William, Viscount Duncannot, Lord Privy Seal; the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State; and the Right Honourable Thomas Spring Rice, Chancellor of Her Majesty's Exchequer, be, and they are hereby appointed, a Committee to superintend the application of any sums voted by Parliament for the purpose of promoting public education.

(Signed) C.C. GREVILLE.

Whereas there was this day read at the Board a Report from the Committee of Council appointed to superintend the application of any sums voted by Parliament for the purpose of promoting public education; which Report, dated 1st June, was in the words following, viz.:-

"Your Majesty having been pleased, by your Order in Council of 10th April, 1839, to appoint us a Committee of Council to superintend the application of any sums

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voted by Parliament for the purpose of promoting Public Education; we the Lords of the said Committee, have this day met, and agreed humbly to present to your Majesty the following Report:-

"The Lords of the Committee recommend that the sum of Ten Thousand Pounds, granted by Parliament in 1835 towards the erection of normal or model schools, be given in equal proportions to the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society. That the remainder of the subsequent grants of the years 1837 and 1838, yet unappropriated and any grant that may be voted in the present year, be chiefly applied in aid of subscriptions for building, and, in particular cases, for the support of Schools connected with those societies; but that the rule hitherto adopted of making a grant to those places where the largest proportion is subscribed be not invariably adhered to, should application be made from very poor and populous districts, where subscriptions to a sufficient amount cannot be obtained.

"The Committee do not feel themselves precluded from making grants in particular cases which shall appear to them to call for the aid of the Government, although the applications may not come from either of the two mentioned societies.

"The Committee are of opinion that the most useful application of any sums voted by Parliament would consist in the employment of those moneys in the establishment of a normal school, under the direction of the State, and not placed under the management of a voluntary society. The Committee, however, experience so much difficulty in reconciling conflicting views respecting the provisions which they are desirous to make in furtherance of your Majesty's wish that the children and teachers instructed in this

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school should be duly trained in the principles of the Christian religion, while the rights of conscience should be respected, that it is not in the power of the Committee to mature a plan for the accomplishment of this desire without further consideration; and they therefore postpone taking any steps for this purpose until greater concurrence of opinion is found to prevail.

"The Committee recommend that no further grant be made now or hereafter, for the establishment or support of normal schools, or of any other schools, unless the right of inspection be retained, in order to secure a conformity to the regulations and discipline established in the several schools, with such improvements as may from time to time be suggested by the Committee.

"A part of any grant voted in the present year may be usefully applied to the purposes of inspection and to the means of acquiring a complete knowledge of the present state of education in England and Wales."

Her Majesty, having taken the said Report into consideration, was pleased, by and with the advice of Her Privy Council to approve thereof.

(Signed) C.C. GREVILLE.

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Read, An account of the application for pecuniary aid to schools in Great Britain, not including applications for endowment under 1 & 2 Vict., c. 87.

The Lords of the Committee deliberate as to the best manner of effecting the objects contemplated in the vote of the last session; the sum voted is £30,000; the number

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of applications is already 307; the number of scholars to be educated in the proposed schools is 58,302; and the amount applied for is £48,590.

The Lords of the Committee observe, that in a large proportion of the applications now before them, the memorialists have commenced or undertaken the erection of school-houses, in the expectation of receiving pecuniary assistance from Her Majesty's Government, upon conditions similar to those which were required by the Lords of the Treasury; and the Lords of the Committee resolve to be guided by the Regulations contained in the Treasury Minutes, in so far as will be consistent with the terms of Her Majesty's Order in Council of 3rd June, 1839.

The following Regulations will therefore govern the appropriation of the sum intrusted to the superintendence of the Committee for the present year:-

1. Every application for a grant to be made in the form of a Memorial, addressed "To the Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education."

2. The Committee will consider the Memorials in order, according to the dates at which they have been or shall be received.

3. The right of inspection will be required by the Committee in all cases; Inspectors, authorised by Her Majesty in Council, will be appointed from time to time to visit schools to be henceforth aided by public money: the Inspectors will not interfere with the religious instruction, or discipline, or management of the school, it being their object to collect facts and information and to report the result of their inspections to the Committee of Council.

4. Before any application for aid shall be entertained, the Committee will require to be satisfied, by reference either to the Inspectors, or to the National or British and

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Foreign School Society, or, if the school be in Scotland, to some competent authority there:-

(1) That the case is deserving of assistance.

(2) That there are no charitable or other funds or endowments which might supersede the necessity of a grant.

(3) That the site of the school-house has been obtained with a good legal tenure; and that, by conveyance to trustees, it has been duly secured for the education of the children of the poor.

(4) That it is reasonable to expect that the school will be efficiently and permanently supported.

6. All recipients of grants will be required to bind themselves to submit to any audit of their building account, and to furnish any reports of their schools which the Committee of Council may require.

7. The Committee will require that the certificate hereto annexed shall be signed by the applicants, and presented to the Committee, before their Lordships will authorise the payment of any grant which may be made to a school.

8. In all ordinary cases the grants will be made in aid of the erection of school-houses (exclusive of residence for master or assistant) upon the following further conditions:-

(1) That for every 10s. to be granted by the Committee the means of educating one child (at least) shall be provided.

(2) That the amount of private subscription shall be received, expended and accounted for, before their Lordships will authorise the payment of the grant.

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9. In every application for aid to the erection of a school-house in England or Wales, it must be stated whether the school is in connection with the National Society or British and Foreign School Society; and if the said school be not in connection with either of these societies, the Committee will not entertain the case, unless some special circumstances be exhibited to induce their Lordships to treat the case as special.

Committee of Council on Education,
Council Office, Whitehall,
September, 1839.

With reference to the application for a grant of £___ in aid of _________ the Lords of the Committee of Council On Education have directed me to transmit to you the enclosed copy of a certificate, which contains the conditions upon which their Lordships will appropriate the sum intrusted to their superintendence for the present year.

I am further directed to state to you that, adverting to the number of scholars for whom accommodation will be provided in the proposed school and to the Regulations of the Lords of the Treasury, dated 11th July, 1834, their Lordships will be prepared to direct the appropriation of £___ for the school at _________ upon receiving from the promoters of the said school a communication that they will accept the conditions contained in the enclosed certificate, and upon the understanding that the school be completed according to the plan and estimates by further subscription, which their Lordships trust may be raised by additional exertions.

Their Lordships desire to receive an answer to this proposal on or before 1st November next, as, in case it should not be accepted, their Lordships are anxious to make a proposal, upon the same conditions, to other parties who have made similar applications.

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My Lords request that the certificate may be retained for the present.

If this offer should be accepted, their Lordships will give the necessary directions that the sum offered shall be set apart for the school, and that the Paymaster of Civil Services shall pay the amount upon the conditions being fulfilled, and upon the certificates being properly signed and presented to their Lordships.

I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant.

We, the undersigned, being the majority of the School Committee or Trustees representing the promoters of the erection of the school-house at _________ hereby certify, for the information of the Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education:-

(1) That the new school-house, in aid of which your Lordships were pleased to grant £___ is completed in a satisfactory and workmanlike manner, being built of the proper dimensions, and in all respects according to the plan and specification proposed to and approved by your Lordships.

(2) That the amount of private subscriptions specified in our Memorials to your Lordships has been received, expended, and accounted for; and there does not remain any debt, charge, or claim of any kind on account of the building, except what will be liquidated by your Lordships' grant, the payment of which is now prayed for.

(3) That the site of the school-house has been obtained with a good legal tenure, and has been duly

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conveyed to trustees, so as to secure the building for the purpose of educating the children of the poor.

(4) That we are ready to submit to any audit of our accounts for building which your Lordships may direct, to make such periodical reports respecting the state of our schools as your Lordships may call for, and to admit your Lordships' Inspectors, according to the annexed Regulation, Marked (A).

(5) That the deed of trust, a copy of which is lodged at the Council Office has been duly enrolled in Chancery (or in Scotland, duly registered) according to law.

In testimony whereof we affix our signatures, and request the payment of the sum appropriated to the school at aforesaid.

Signed and dated

The right of inspection will be required by the Committee in all cases. Inspectors authorised by Her Majesty in Council will be appointed from time to time to visit schools to be henceforth aided by public money.

The Inspectors will not interfere with the religious instruction, or discipline, or management of the school, it being their object to collect facts and information, and to report the result of their inspections to the Committee of Council.

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Their Lordships had under their consideration the sufficiency of the present numbers of Inspectors of Schools for the duties they have to perform, and

Resolved, That it would be highly expedient that all the schools which are under the inspection of the Privy Council should be visited at least once in each year: that the existing number of Inspectors appears to be insufficient, as, notwithstanding their constant assiduity in the discharge of the duties entrusted to them it is found impossible to make arrangements for the inspection of schools oftener than once in two years.

Their Lordships are, however, unwilling to make so considerable an addition at once to the number of Inspectors as would be necessary for an annual visit to each school, but will recommend the appointment of three new Inspectors this year, reserving for consideration hereafter any further appointments which may be required.

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Their Lordships had further under their consideration the Report of the Inspectors of Schools, memorials from certain Boards of Education, and letters from the clergy and others, representing the very early age at which the children acting as assistants to schoolmasters are withdrawn from school to manual labour, and the advantages which would arise if such scholars as might be distinguished by proficiency and good conduct were apprenticed to skilful masters, to be instructed and trained, so as to be prepared to complete their education as schoolmasters in a normal school.

Resolved, That the Lord President cause Regulations to be framed, defining the qualifications of the schoolmaster, the condition of instruction in the school, and the local contributions to be required as conditions on which annual grants of money may be made towards the stipends of apprentices in elementary schools; and further, cause indentures of apprenticeship to be prepared, declaring the duties of the apprentice and the nature of the instruction he is to receive; the periods of examination by the Inspectors of schools, and the circumstances under which the indenture may be dissolved, in order that stipends, increasing in each year of the apprenticeship, may be granted in aid of local contribution.

It was further Resolved, That as the masters having charge of the instruction and training of school apprentices will be selected for their character and skill, and as the education of the apprentices will increase the labour and responsibilities of such masters, it is expedient that the successful performance of these duties be rewarded by annual grants in aid of their stipends, according to the number of apprentices trained by each master.

It was further Resolved, That it is expedient to make provision in certain cases, by a retiring pension, for schoolmasters and mistresses who, after a certain length of service, may appear entitled to such provision.

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That the Lord President cause Regulations to be framed respecting the grants of such retiring pensions.

That it is expedient, for the further encouragement of deserving schoolmasters, that small gratuities be annually distributed, under the authority of the Lord President, to schoolmasters whose zeal and success in teaching may, on the Report of the Inspector, appear to entitle them to such encouragement; and that Regulations be framed with reference to the distribution of such gratuities.

Council Chamber, Whitehall, 21st December, 1846.

The Lord President communicated to their Lordships the Regulations which he had caused to be framed to carry in to execution the Minute of the Committee of Council on Education of 25th day of August, 1846, respecting the Apprenticeship of Pupil Teachers.

Upon application being made to their Lordships from the trustees or managers of any school under inspection, requesting that one or more of the most proficient scholars be selected to be apprenticed to the master or mistress, the application will be referred to the Inspector, and will be entertained, if he report:-

That the master or mistress of the school is competent to conduct the apprentice through the course of instruction to be required.

That the school is well furnished and well supplied with books and apparatus.

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That it is divided into classes; and that the instruction is skilful, and is graduated according to the age of the children and the time they have been at school, so as to show that equal care has been bestowed on each class.

That the discipline is mild and firm, and conducive to good order.

That there is a fair prospect that the salary of the master and mistress, and the ordinary expenses of the school, will be provided for during the period of apprenticeship.

General Rule. The qualifications to be required of candidates and of pupil teachers in each year of their apprenticeship will be regulated by the following rules, in which the minimum of proficiency to be attained is precisely defined, in order to prevent partiality; but their Lordships reserve to themselves the power to reward superior merit by shortening the term of the apprenticeship; or by awarding the higher stipends of the later years of the apprenticeship to pupil teachers whose attainments enable them to pass the examination of one of the later years at an earlier period.

The following qualifications will be required from candidates for apprenticeship:-

They must be at least thirteen, years of age, and must not be subject to any bodily infirmity likely to impair their usefulness as pupil teachers.

In schools connected with the Church of England, the clergyman and managers, and, in other schools, the managers must certify that the moral character of the candidates and of their families justify an expectation that the instruction and training of the school will be seconded by their own efforts and by

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the example of their parents. If this cannot be certified of the family, the apprentice will be required to board in some approved household.

(1) To read with fluency, ease, and expression.

(2) To write in a neat hand, with correct spelling and punctuation, a simple prose narrative slowly read to them.

(3) To write from dictation sums in the first four rules of arithmetic, simple and compound; to work them correctly, and to know the tables of weights and measures.

(4) To point out the parts of speech in a simple sentence.

(5) To have an elementary knowledge of geography.

(6) In schools connected with the Church of England they will be required to repeat the Catechism, and to show that they understand its meaning, and are acquainted with the outline of Scripture history. The parochial clergyman will assist in this part of the examination.

In other schools the state of the religious knowledge will be certified by the managers.

(7) To teach a junior class to the satisfaction of the Inspector.

(8) Girls should also be able to sew neatly and to knit.

At the end of the first year, pupil teachers will be examined by the Inspector:-

(1) In writing from memory the substance of a more difficult narrative.

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(2) In arithmetic, the rules of "Practice" and "Simple Proportion,"* and in the first rules* of mental arithmetic.

(3) In grammar, in the construction of sentences, and in syntax.

(4) In the geography o.f Great Britain and Palestine.

(5) In the Holy Scriptures and in the Catechism, with illustrations by passages from Holy Writ, in Church of England schools, the parochial clergyman assisting in the examination.

The managers will, in other schools, certify in this and in the succeeding years of the apprenticeship, that they are satisfied with the state of the religious knowledge of the pupil teachers.

(6) In their ability to give a class a reading lesson, and to examine it on the meaning of what has been read.

(7) In the elements of vocal music, in this and in succeeding years, when taught from notes.

(8) In their ability to drill* a class in marching and exercises; and to conduct it through the class movements required for preserving order.

(9) Girls should also be able to instruct the younger scholars in sewing and knitting.

At the end of the second year, pupil teachers will be examined by the Inspector:-

(1) In composition, by writing the *abstract of a lesson, or a school report.

(2) In decimal arithmetic,* and the higher rules of mental arithmetic. Girls will not be required to proceed beyond the rule of "Compound Proportion" in this year.

(3) In syntax and etymology.*

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(4) In the geography of Great Britain, of Europe, the British empire,* and Palestine.

(5) In the Holy Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism in Church of England schools, more fully than in the preceding year, the parochial clergyman assisting in the examination.

(6) In their ability to examine a class in reading, in the rudiments of grammar and arithmetic; and, during the examination, to keep the class attentive, in order and in activity without undue noise.

(1) In the composition of the notes of a lesson on a subject selected by the Inspector.

(2) In the elements of mechanics,* or in bookkeeping.

(3) In syntax, etymology, and prosody.*

(4) In the geography of the four* quarters of the globe. Girls in the geography of the British Empire.

(5) In the outlines of English history.

(6) More fully in the Holy Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism, in Church of England schools, the parochial clergyman assisting in the examination.

(7) In their skill in managing and examining the second class in grammar, geography and mental arithmetic.

(8) The girls should have acquired greater skill as teachers of sewing, knitting, etc.

(1) In the composition of an account of the organisation of the school, and of the methods of instruction used.

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(2) In the first steps in mensuration,* with practical illustrations; and in the elements of land surveying* and levelling.*

(3) In syntax, etymology, and prosody.*

(4) In the *geography of Great Britain as connected with the outlines of English history. Girls in the geography of the four quarters of the globe.

(5) More fully in the Holy Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism, in Church of England schools, the parochial clergyman assisting in the examination.

(6) In their skill in managing and examining the first class in grammar, geography, and mental arithmetic, and in giving *a lesson to two or three classes grouped together.

(1) In the composition of an essay on some subject connected with the art of teaching.

(2) In the rudiments of algebra,* or the practice of land surveying* and levelling.*

(3) In syntax, etymology, and prosody.

(4.) In the use *of the globes, or in the geography of the British empire* and Europe,* as connected with the outlines of English history. In this year girls may be examined in the historical geography of Great Britain.

(5) More completely in the Holy Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism, in Church of England schools, the parochial clergyman assisting in the examination.

(6) In their ability to give a gallery lesson, and to conduct the instruction of the first class in any subject selected by the Inspector.

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be expected to show increased skill as sempstresses, and teachers of sewing, knitting, etc.

In the examinations the Inspectors will, in each year, observe the degree of attention paid by the pupil teachers to a perfect articulation in reading, and to a right modulation of the voice in teaching a class. A knowledge of vocal music and of drawing (especially from models), though not absolutely required, because the means of teaching it may not exist in every school, will be much encouraged. Every pupil teacher will be required to be clean in person and dress.

The number of pupil teachers apprenticed in any school will not exceed one to every twenty-five scholars ordinarily attending.

Certificate. Every pupil teacher who has passed all the foregoing examinations, and has presented the required testimonials in each year, will be entitled to a certificate declaring that he has successfully completed his apprenticeship.

Stipendiary Monitors. The Inspectors may, for some time, find in the rural districts schools, in which all the general conditions required for the apprenticeship of a pupil teacher may be satisfied, but the master or mistress, of which may be unable to conduct an apprentice even through the foregoing course of instruction. Their Lordships being desirous so to adapt their regulations to the condition of such schools, as by their improvement to enable them hereafter to provide for the training of pupil teachers, are disposed for a few years to encourage the managers to retain their monitors, by small stipends, to the age of seventeen, without apprenticeship, but under a form of agreement with the parents, on condition that the master give each monitor extra daily instruction.

For such an arrangement all the general rules and preliminary conditions previously enumerated will be required,

[page 288]

and the following qualifications for candidates for such stipends:-

The candidates must be thirteen years of age, and they will be required:-

(1) To read with fluency.
(2) To write a neat hand.
(3) To write from dictation sums in the first four simple rules of arithmetic, and to work them correctly.
(4) To point out the parts of speech in a simple sentence.
(5) In Church of England schools, to repeat the Catechism, and show a knowledge of its meaning, the parochial clergyman assisting in the religious examination.
In other schools the managers will certify that they are satisfied with the state of their religious knowledge.
(6) Girls to sew neatly and to knit.

The stipendiary monitors will be examined at the end of each year of service, and will be required:-

At the end of the first year:-

(1) To read with fluency, ease and expression.
(2) To write in a neat hand, with correct spelling and punctuation, a simple prose narrative, slowly read to them.
(3) To write from dictation sums in the first four compound rules of arithmetic, to work them correctly, and to know the tables of weights and measures.
(4) To point out the parts of speech in a simple sentence, and to give the rules of its construction.

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(5) To have an elementary knowledge of geography.
(6) In Church of England schools, to show a general acquaintance with the Scriptures; the parochial clergyman, in this and the succeeding years, assisting in the religious examination.
In other schools, the managers will certify, in this and succeeding years that the religious knowledge of the stipendiary monitors is satisfactory to them.
(7) In schools where vocal music is taught, he should have commenced instruction from notes, and should give proof of improvement in each succeeding year.
(8) Girls to teach sewing and knitting in this and succeeding years.

(1) To write from memory, with correct spelling and punctuation, the substance of a simple prose narrative, read carefully to them two or three times.
(2) In arithmetic; to write from dictation sums in Practice, and to work them correctly.
(3) In grammar, to parse more difficult sentences, and give the rules of their construction.
(4) To know the geography of Great Britain and Palestine.
(5) In Church of England schools, to give illustrations of the Catechism from the Bible, and to show a more complete acquaintance with the Scriptures.
(6) To give a class reading-lesson, and examine it on the meaning of what has been read.
(7) Girls to be able to cut out clothes.

(1) To write from memory the substance of a longer and more difficult prose narrative, and to show greater skill in composition.

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(2) In arithmetic, to write from dictation sums in Simple Proportion and Simple Interest, and to work them correctly.
(3) In grammar, to be able to parse sentences, with a thorough knowledge of the rules of syntax.
(4) To know the geography of Great Britain, Europe, and Palestine, and that of the outlines of the four quarters of the globe,
(5) In Church of England schools, to possess a more extensive knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and of the Liturgy and Catechism.
(6) To examine a class in the rudiments of grammar, geography, and arithmetic.

(1) To prepare the notes of an oral lesson on a subject selected by the Inspector.
(2) To work correctly sums in decimal arithmetic, and to show an acquaintance with the simple rules of mental arithmetic.
(3) In grammar, to be examined in etymology.
(4) To know the geography of the four quarters of the world, and especially of the British Empire.
(5) To have a general knowledge of the outlines of English history.
(6) In Church of England schools, to show a more perfect knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, Catechism, and Liturgy.
(7) To examine the first or second class in grammar, geography, and arithmetic, and to give it an oral lesson, keeping the class attentive, in order, and in activity without undue noise.

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At the close of each year, pupil teachers or stipendiary monitors will be required to present certificates of good conduct from the managers of the school, and of punctuality, diligence, obedience, and attention to their duties from the master or mistress.

In Church of England schools, the parochial clergyman, and in other schools, the managers, will also certify that the pupil teachers or stipendiary monitors have been attentive to their religious duties.

If these certificates be presented, and if the Inspector certify, at the close of each year, that he is satisfied with the oral examination and the examination papers of the pupil teachers or stipendiary monitors, and if those papers be satisfactory to their Lordships, the following stipends will be paid, irrespectively of any sum that may be received from the school or from any other source:-

At the close of each of these years, if the pupil teachers have received a certificate of good character and of satisfactory progress, the master or mistress by whom they have been instructed and trained shall be paid the sum of £5 for one, of £9 for two, of £12 for three pupil teachers, and £3 per annum more for every additional apprentice; and, on the like conditions, £2 10s. for one stipendiary monitor, £4 for two: £6 for three, and £1 10s. in addition in each year for every additional stipendiary monitor.

[page 292]

In addition to the foregoing subjects of instruction if the pupil teachers be skilfully trained by the master in the culture of a garden, or in some mechanical arts suitable to a school of industry, or the female pupil teachers be instructed by the mistress in cutting out clothes, and in cooking, baking, or washing, as well as in the more usual arts of sewing and knitting, and the Inspector certify that the pupil teachers are thereby in a satisfactory course of training for the management of a school of industry, the master or mistress will receive an additional gratuity, proportioned to the degree of skill and care displayed.

In consideration of the foregoing gratuity, and of the assistance obtained from the pupil teachers and stipendiary monitors in the instruction and management of the school, the master will give them instruction in the prescribed subjects, during one hour and a half at least, during five days in the week, either before or after the usual hours of school-keeping.

The stipends will be liable to be withdrawn by their Lordships on the report of their Inspector, on proof of the continued ill-health of the pupil teachers or stipendiary monitors, or of misconduct, want of punctuality, diligence or skill, or failure in their examination, or in default of the required certificates.

The Committee of Council on Education had under their consideration their Lordships' Minutes as to the apprenticeship of pupil teachers in elementary schools.

[page 293]

It appeared further expedient to their Lordships, that the Lord President should authorize one or more of Her Majesty's Inspectors, together with the Principal of a normal school under inspection, to submit to his Lordship, from among the pupil teachers who had successfully terminated their apprenticeship, a certain number of those who, upon competition in a public examination, to be annually held by such Inspectors and Principal in each Inspector's district, might be found most proficient in their studies and skilful in the art of teaching, and concerning whose character and zeal for the office of teachers the Inspector of the district could give the most favourable report.

That the Committee of Council on Education, on comparison of the testimonials and examination papers of these apprentices, should award for as many as they might think fit, an exhibition of £20 or £25 to one of the normal schools under the inspection of Her Majesty's Inspectors.

That the pupil teachers to whom such exhibitions should be awarded should be thenceforth denominated "Queen's Scholars."

That the exhibition should be liable to be withdrawn if the Principal of the training school should be dissatisfied with the conduct, attainments, or skill of the "Queen's Scholar."

Their Lordships were also of opinion that it might be useful to offer further incentives to exertion and good conduct among the pupil teachers, by opening to such of them as might not display the highest qualifications for the office of schoolmaster, but whose conduct and attainments were satisfactory, an opportunity of obtaining employment in the public service, under such regulations as may be hereafter adopted.

Their Lordships hope that the grant of an exhibition of £20 or £25 to the most proficient pupil teachers, to enable them to enter a normal school, may diminish the

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difficulty experienced by the trustees and managers of such institutions of maintaining them in efficiency. In order still further to reduce the burden of such establishments, their Lordships will award to every normal school subject to inspection a grant for every student trained therein concerning whose character and conduct the Principal shall give a favourable report, and concerning whose attainments, skill in teaching, and general aptitude for the vocation of a schoolmaster, it shall appear to the Lord President, at the close of each of three years of training, from the report of one or more of Her Majesty's Inspectors and from the examination papers, that a certain standard of merit has been attained. Such grants shall be £20 at the close of the first year, £25 at the close of the second; and £30 at the close of the third year's course of instruction. This standard of acquirement shall not be so ordered as to interfere with the studies pursued in any normal school, but shall be adapted to those studies, so, however, as to apply impartially to all such normal schools an equal incentive to exertion, by requiring efficiency in a sufficient number of the studies pursued in them.

Their Lordships will further grant, in aid of the salary of every schoolmaster appointed to a school under their inspection, and who has had one year's training in a normal school under their inspection, £15 or £20 per annum; and in aid of tho salary of every such schoolmaster who has had two years of such training, £20 or £25 per annum; and of every such schoolmaster who has had three years of such training, £25 or £30 per annum; provided he has upon examination obtained the proper certificate of merit in each year on the following conditions:-

(1) That the trustees and managers of the school provide the master with a house rent free, and a further salary, equal at least to twice the amount of this grant.

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(2) That the trustees and managers annually certify that his character, conduct, and attention to his duties are satisfactory.

(3) That the Inspector report that his school is efficient in its organization, discipline, and instruction.

That a retiring pension may be granted by the Committee of Council to any schoolmaster or schoolmistress who shall be rendered incapable by age or infirmity of continuing to teach a school efficiently.

Provided that no such pension shall be granted to any schoolmaster or schoolmistress who shall not have conducted a normal or elementary school for fifteen years, during seven at least of which such school shall have been under inspection.

That in all cases of application for pensions a report shall be required from the Inspector, and from the Trustees and Managers of the schools, as to the character and conduct of the applicants, and the manner in which the education of the pupils under their charge has been carried on.

The amount of the pension shall be determined according to such report, but shall in no case exceed two-thirds of the average amount of the salary and emoluments annually received by the applicant during the period that the school has been under inspection.

A minute of the grant of every such pension, and of the grounds on which it has been awarded, shall be published in their Lordships' Minutes.

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Read, Recommendations by the Rev. Professor Moseley, and the Rev. F. C. Cook, Her Majesty's Inspectors of schools in their General Reports upon training schools for the year 1850, to the effect that the grants now made to certificated teachers in Elementary Schools under inspection be extended to Training schools.

Resolved, That, in training schools under a principal and vice-principal or matron and head governess, their Lordships will, on the recommendation of one or more of Her Majesty's Inspectors, as they may in each case see fit to require, grant augmentation of salary to resident assistant teachers, holding respectively one of their Lordships' certificates of merit not lower than the third division of the first class, on the following conditions:-

(1) Their Lordships to be satisfied with the branches of instruction committed to the assistant teacher.

(2) The augmentation to be the same, and to depend on the same conditions of salary and emoluments, as in elementary schools.

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(3) An annual certificate from the Inspector or Inspectors that they are satisfied with the general management of the school.

(4) A similar certificate that they are satisfied with the skill of the assistant teacher. This certificate to be verified by reference to the written exercises of the students.

(5) An annual certificate from the principal that he has been satisfied with the assistant teacher's moral character and attention to duty during the past year.

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Minute by the Lords of the Committee on Education by Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.

Read, Minutes dated 10th December, 1851, and 12th May, 1852, regarding pupil-teachers who have completed their apprenticeship pursuant to the Minutes of 1846.

Resolved, In the case of such pupil-teachers, to recognize their employment as assistants in schools liable to inspection, under the following conditions, viz:-

(1) That in each year of their apprenticeship they shall have acquitted themselves creditably upon examination before Her Majesty's Inspector, and shall have produced unqualified testimonials from the managers and teachers of their schools.

(2) That the master or mistress of the school in which the assistant is employed hold a certificate of merit.

(3) That the school be well furnished, and well supplied with books and apparatus.

(4) That every such assistant shall be taken to be equivalent to two apprenticed pupil-teachers, in reckoning the number of such apprentices to be maintained at the public expense in any school.

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(5) That every assistant produce the same annual certificates as are required of apprentices, from the managers and principal teacher of the school, and be favourably reported of by Her Majesty's Inspector as to attainments and practical skill.

Assistant teachers of three years standing and upwards may be examined for certificates of merit, but will not be admissible to receive pecuniary augmentation on account of them, except on fulfilment of the conditions at present in force for such grants.

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By the Lords of the Committee on Education of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.

Resolved, That any school now admissible, or which shall hereafter be admitted, to grants under the minutes of August and December, 1846, may receive a grant towards the expenses of the preceding year, at the rate per scholar set forth in the following table:-

Provided that the rate shall not diminish on account of any increase in the number of scholars, until the increase is such as to make the reduced rate for the higher number balance the unreduced rate for the smaller number, e.g., 100 scholars at 5s. per scholar is equal to £25, but 101

*This Minute was presented to both Houses of Parliament on the 26th of April, 1853.

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scholars at 4s. is equal to £20 4s.; the sum of £25 is therefore to be continued until the number of scholars reaches 126, which at 4s. per scholar is equal to £25 4s., and so on to other quantities.

Provided that no such grant shall be claimable in respect of any year preceding the date at which the visit of one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools shall, according to the regulations now in force, be due to the school in question.

Conditions on which foregoing assistance is offered:-

(1) That the income of the school in the preceding year from endowments, subscriptions, collections, and school-pence shall have amounted to 14s. per scholar in schools for boys, and 12s. per scholar in schools for girls, without including the annual value of the teacher's house or other school-buildings.

(2) That every scholar who has attended, on the average, 4 days per week during 48 weeks, or 192 days in the year, shall be reckoned in the attendance by which the amount of the income and the grant are determined.

(3) That 1d. per week, at least, shall be paid for the education of every scholar by his or her parents, guardians, or friends, and that in no case in which the attendance or school-pence of any scholar are reckoned, shall the charge exceed 4d. per week.

(4) That the school shall be kept by a master or mistress holding a certificate of merit under the Minutes of 1846, and that at least seven-tenths of the whole income, including the grant, shall be applied to the salary of the teacher and assistant teacher. That in schools containing more than 120 children, the managers shall avail themselves of the Minutes of this Committee, to provide from the seven-tenths of the school income, such pupil teachers exceeding the rate

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of one for every forty scholars, or such assistant teachers as this Committee may require.

(5) That the grant applied in aid of the stipend of the master or mistress may be accepted by this Committee, in lieu of the voluntary contributions required in fulfilment of the pecuniary conditions of the grants in augmentation of teachers' salaries, under the Minutes of August and December, 1846.

(6) That the children employed in factories and printworks, who attend school under any statute, shall be counted as scholars in ascertaining the average attendance, if they fulfil the provisions of the Act, and the school-pence paid on their behalf shall be reckoned in the income of the school.

(7) That such forms of account of the income and expenditure, and such registers of school-attendance and of the payment of school-fees be kept, as this Committee may direct, in a separate minute of details.

(8) That three-fourths of the scholars above seven and under nine years of age; three-fourths of those above nine and under eleven; and three-fourths of those above eleven and under thirteen respectively pass such an examination before Her Majesty's Inspector or Assistant Inspector as shall be set forth in a separate Minute of details.

Committee of Council on Education,
Council Office,
20th August, 1853.

SIR,

I am directed to request your attention to the explanations which my Lords have this day authorized me to issue in regard to the foregoing Minute.

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With regard to schools already in receipt of annual grants, the Minute will be put in force from 1st January next, without further application on the part of the managers, i.e., as each Report by Her Majesty's Inspector on such a school is received, the Committee of Council will decide, not only upon the stipends, gratuity, or augmentation, but also on the capitation grant to be allowed in respect of the year ending at the date fixed for the annual inspection.

Thus, one Report by the Inspector in each year will suffice; the school will still come only once before my Lords in each year for the whole of its annual payments, and no change will need to be made in the time fixed for visiting the several parts of the districts.

The schools now in receipt of annual grants will form the centres round which the new applications must be grouped.

The new applications will proceed from schools not at present receiving annual grants, and these schools may either be already liable to inspection or may be brought under the notice of my Lords for the first time. In the latter case, my Lords will ascertain by correspondence from this Office (through forms now in use) whether the school in question be prima facie admissible to grants under the Minutes of August and December, 1846.

The cases found to be admissible will be referred to you in the Form No. V., in order that you may fix the date of your visit, and on receipt of your reply a form analogous to No. XII. will be sent to the managers. The first grants will be paid on receipt of your Report for the year ending at the date fixed for your visit in 1854.

It is the peculiar object of the Minute now in question to improve that class of schools which has hitherto failed to obtain a share in the benefits offered by the Minutes of 1846. In reporting upon them you will carefully bear in mind the instructions dated 13th June and 4th October, 1851 (Minutes of 1851-2, pp. 101, 103). It might be their

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Lordships' duty to refuse assistance under the Minute of and April, 1853, no less than under the Minutes of 1846, to a school until it had been placed in more suitable premises, and better supplied with furniture, apparatus, and books. In all cases, however, where defects of this description are not either injurious to the health of the scholars, or necessarily fatal to all improvement and progress, my Lords will be disposed to look for amelioration from the grant of assistance, and from the influence of your inspection, rather than as a condition precedent to such aid. It will be your duty, in reporting for the first time upon a school which, in its material appointments, is below the standard, to consider whether it is in the hands of persons who lack neither the intelligence nor the wish, but only the means, gradually to improve it. The interests of third parties are not compromised as in the case of apprenticing pupil-teachers, by acting at once on the promise of better things.

The duty imposed upon you is not easy to discharge without great attention and judgment. You are required, without permanently lowering the standard at present maintained, to reach a class of schools hitherto unable to fulfil the conditions of public assistance. With these preliminary remarks I have to request your attention to the following directions respecting the conditions on which assistance is offered, taking them in order as they stand in the Minute:-

(1) My Lords have been asked in respect of what boys and girls the required annual income is to be calculated; whether, for instance, in respect of the whole number on the books, or in average attendance, or in respect of those only for whom the capitation grant is claimable?

My Lords have determined to require the condition to be fulfilled in the case of those scholars only for whom the capitation grant is claimable.

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It has not escaped the observation of my Lords, that this interpretation will at first render the condition almost nugatory. On the other hand, it is undeniable that to require such an income to be raised in respect to the whole number of scholars would exclude the greater part of the schools which it is the object of the Minute to reach. Their Lordships contemplate that the number for whom the grant is allowed will, at first, bear comparatively a small proportion to the whole number, but that it will gradually increase. As the grant increases, so must the income of the school be proved to keep pace.

In mixed schools the boys and girls will be separately reckoned. My Lords will refuse to make grants to a mixed school under a mistress only, if it is the only school in a village. Such a school is not fit for boys over eight or nine years of age, and my Lords could not, in any public measure, recognize such an age for leaving school.

My Lords will require that in cases where the teacher is not provided with a house, or suitable lodgings, rent-free, the school income shall amount not only to the stipulated sum per scholar, but, over and above that minimum, shall include £10 if the school be under a master, and £6 if it be under a mistress.

(2) Various remonstrances have been addressed to my Lords on the subject of the amount of attendance required; and it has been urged that the condition, as it stands, will confine the aid afforded within limits too narrow to admit of any practical effect.

In this, as in all other Minutes, my Lords aim at improvement. The mere substitution of public for local money is an evil if it does not stimulate improvement in a greater degree than could otherwise be realized. The attendance required to fulfil the conditions of the grant ought to be fixed at a point beyond the common practice. In order, however, not to discourage effort by the means

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taken to provoke it, my Lords will add a column in the prescribed register for absence on certain specified grounds (for the bona fide entry of which the managers will be responsible), and sixteen days per annum may be taken from this column in making up the total number of 192 days,

As a minimum of attendance is essential to the scheme, and as no such limit can be maintained except by rigid adherence to one number, it will follow that no approximation to the minimum can be regarded. This is a point which you will do well to note yourself, and to impress upon others. A grant would be refused for a child who made up 175 days of attendance. The morning and afternoon school constitute respectively half a day's attendance.

3. This condition requires no comment.

4. My Lords trust, that by the operation of the supplementary Minute adopted this day, coupled with the next clause (5) in the Minute now under consideration, there may soon be no difficulty in obtaining certificated teachers. For the present, my Lords will be satisfied if the school be under a registered teacher.

Their Lordships will not insist upon having a registered or certificated teacher as a condition precedent to the first payment of a grant, but to the second and to all following payments. More than twelve months, therefore, will be allowed for teachers to get themselves registered, and for the managers of schools to obtain such teachers.

At the first inspection, if the teacher were not already registered, you would satisfy yourself of his not being prima facie incompetent; and my Lords would accept this assurance until the next annual payment became due, by which time, the teacher in charge, if not certificated, must at least be registered.

My Lords reserve to themselves discretion in regard to the duration of the period within which they will dispense with a certificated teacher in each school receiving aid.

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The financial part of this clause will work as follows in respect to the grants made under the Minutes of 1846 for augmenting salaries. At present the schools where such grants are paid must be supported by voluntary subscriptions (independently of other sources of income) to the same amount as the grant. In future, seven tenths of the annual sum received for capitation fees under the Minute of 2nd April, 1853, may be taken to stand in lieu of so much voluntary subscription. Thus, suppose a certificated master of the lowest class; his augmentation grant is £15, and he cannot at present obtain it in a school where a sum less than £15 is subscribed. In future, however, if a deserving school obtained £10 for capitation fees under the Minute of 2nd April, 1853, the managers might obtain an augmentation grant for their teacher (the other conditions being fulfilled) on subscribing £8.

You will observe that the words of this clause are enabling, not obligatory. My Lords would not be disposed to put it in force without satisfactory evidence that the amount subscribed in each given case was reasonably liberal under the circumstances.

6, 7. The Returns of income and expenditure now made by the managers of schools in the forms with which they are furnished by Her Majesty's Inspectors will suffice for ascertaining the total amount per scholar required to meet a capitation grant. So far as the school fees and the attendance require to be specially considered, a form of school register is hereunto appended. So long, however, as the particulars which my Lords require to have before them are collected, my Lords do not desire to tie every school down to the same register.

The forms appended hereto will require (beyond a doubt) to be from time to time revised; and, in different part of the country, it may be desirable to provide for the collection of different facts. It is well to allow scope for a

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variety of trials, and to approximate to a common register through the results of such experience. In the meantime my Lords wish the attention of Her Majesty's Inspectors to be directed to the subject.

Their Lordships will not overlook the state of the school registers in deciding upon the augmentation grants of certificated teachers.

8. Age is not the principle on which children are classified in a school, nor (unless coupled with the time that they have been under instruction) does it measure the merits of their teachers in regard to their proficiency; but, although this is true, as regards individual schools and individual teachers, nevertheless, it is plain that, in proportion as those scholars who are approaching the age of labour do not become also the most proficient in a school, its influence in producing a well-educated generation is not to be measured by the number of children in average attendance upon it, nor by the standard of its highest class.

It is therefore of great social importance to bring increased attention to bear upon those children in each school who are approaching the age at which their labour becomes valuable, and to make the measure of public assistance depend in some degree upon the connection between such age and proficiency.

It is, of course, out of the question for Her Majesty's Inspectors, in the time that they are able to give to the examination of a school, to break it up from its classification according to proficiency into another according to age, and a third according to length of attendance. All these, however, are aspects under which a good teacher should habituate himself to analyze his school.

For the present, and until the results of further experience can be collected, it is proposed that the master should

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take measures to enable him at any time to call out from the ordinary classes all the children in school above nine years of age, in two divisions, viz., of those under, and those over, eleven years of age respectively. This he may very readily do by keeping a separate list of such children, and habituating them to stand out at some such call as "boys above nine, first [or second] division." When this practice has once been set on foot, it will only be requisite to give notice to each child as he reaches the prescribed age. On the day of your visit, after making the usual call, the master would put back all those boys on whose account no capitation grant is claimed. Having the rest before you, you would record:-

1. In the first division how many were able:-

(a) To read simple narratives with intelligence.
(b) To work from dictation a sum in simple subtraction, multiplication, or division correctly.
(c) To write on a slate from dictation, with correct spelling, a simple sentence twice read to them, first consecutively, and then by one word at a time.

2. In the second division how many were able to:-

(a) Read books of general information fluently.
(b) Work from dictation a sum in one of the four first compound rules of arithmetic correctly.
(c) Write on paper from dictation, in a neat hand and with correct spelling, two or three simple sentences twice read to them, first consecutively, and then by a few words at a time.
(d) Point out the parts of speech in the same sentence (orally).
(e) Answer questions in the tables of weights and measures (orally).
(f) Answer a few elementary questions in geography (orally), and on other subjects of useful information.

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You should be careful to adapt this part of the examination to the particular course of study pursued in the school.

I have the honour to be, etc.
(Signed) R.R.W. LINGEN.

To Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, etc.

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By the Lords of the Committee on Education of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council

Their Lordships had under consideration so much of the Minute dated 21st December, 1846, as relates to the support of normal schools.

Their Lordships also considered the Minutes and instructions in force for awarding Queen's Scholarships, for issuing certificates of merit, and for augmenting the salaries of the students and other candidates so certified when employed as teachers in schools under inspection.

Their Lordships, having these particulars before them, proceeded to consider certain complaints alleged against the present system, to the effect that:-

(1) Certificates are granted without sufficient guarantees for practical ability in teaching, and such ability is not sufficiently rewarded or encouraged.

(2) The training schools are maintained inadequately, with difficulty; are not fully occupied, nor always with the class of students best adapted for training.

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(3) A large proportion of the pupil-teachers who have completed their term of service do not enter the training schools.

(4) The standard of instruction in the training schools might be raised advantageously with especial reference to the subjects of elementary instruction.

(5) No adequate encouragement is offered to prolong the continuance of students under training beyond a single year.

2. To renew Queen's Scholarships for a second year to all Queen's Scholars of one year's standing who pass a satisfactory examination at the end of it.

3. To allow such a further number of Queen's Scholarships to duly qualified candidates as, with the number reserved for the existing Queen's Scholars, shall occupy the whole of the accommodation in each college under inspection reported by the principal to be unoccupied by other students after the following Christmas. Such a Report would be called for about the beginning of November in each year.

Their Lordships will require to be satisfied with the provision made for lodging and training the entire number of students.

4. To promote in training schools the study of the subjects proper to elementary instruction, their Lordships will grant augmentations of salary of £100 annually to such resident lecturers as shall receive, independently of those augmentations, salaries of not less than £150 annually

*Total number of students capable of being accommodated in training schools under inspection: males, 1,143; females, 788.
Total number of Queen's Scholars for year to end Christmas, 1853: males, 204: females, 118.

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(this sum may include an allowance of £50 for board and lodging), provided that each lecturer in respect to whom such an augmentation of salary is granted shall afford evidence satisfactory to their Lordships of his attainments in one, or at the most two, of the branches of knowledge enumerated below, and of skill in adapting them to the purposes of elementary instruction.

(1) In History.
(2) English Literature.
(3) Geography.
(4) Physical Science.
(5) Applied Mathematics.

Their Lordships will not grant more than one such augmentation of salary in any training school, when the number of students in residence does not exceed thirty, nor more than two where the number does not exceed sixty, nor more than three such augmentations in any case.

5. An exercise in drawing will in future form part of each examination of the students. Their Lordships will seek the assistance of the department of science and art in settling and testing this exercise. In determining certificates considerable weight will be attached to proficiency in this art.

6. The indentures of all pupil-teachers apprenticed after 1st January, 1854, will be made to end at Christmas; if the examinations fall in the first half of the year, then at the fifth Christmas thence ensuing; but if the examinations fall in the second half of the year, then at the sixth Christmas thence ensuing. Thus the indentures of all pupil-teachers admitted in January-June, 1854, will expire at Christmas, 1858, and of all pupil-teachers admitted in JuJy-December, 1854, at Christmas, 1859.

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The annual payments will by this arrangement be continued up to the date fixed for the end of the apprenticeship, so as in all cases to comprehend the time of examination for Queen's scholarships.

As a provisional measure, to meet the case of apprentices admitted before 1st January, 1854, their Lordships will consider recommendations by Her Majesty's Inspectors to continue the rate of payment for the fifth year during the period to elapse between the end of that year and 31st of the following December; such payments to be made as soon as the apprentice shall have presented himself as a candidate for a Queen's scholarship.

In consideration of this provision their Lordships will, after 1st January, 1854, cancel so much of the Minute dated 25th July, 1850, as allows apprentices to compete for Queen's scholarships in the course of the filth year' service.

In schools where the examination falls in the first half of the year, the office of pupil-teacher will be vacant during the period between Christmas and the date fixed for the examination. In such cases the duties may be discharged by the candidate or candidates for the vacancy; and my Lords will allow a sum proportionate to the time and to the number of vacancies for remunerating the services rendered; such sum to be distributed at the discretion of the managers.

In schools where the examination falls in the second half of the year, new pupil-teachers may be appointed, on the Report of Her Majesty's Inspectors, prospectively, to replace those whose apprenticeship will expire at the following Christmas.

7. Their Lordships will allow, without further examination, a Queen's scholarship of £25, to all assistants who shall for three years have acquitted themselves satisfactorily, pursuant to the Minute of 23rd July, 1852.

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Applications for such scholarships must be transmitted to their Lordships' secretary, through the principal of some training school under inspection, who is willing to receive the applicant, from the 1st of the following January, as one of the Queen's scholars then to be allowed.

8. In schools where the average attendance exceeds 100, their Lordships will apply the Minute of 23rd July, 1852, without requiring that an assistant shall be taken to be in lieu of two pupil-teachers. In such schools their Lordships will allow one assistant-teacher, in addition to one pupil-teacher, for every 100 children.

9. In schools under certificated teachers, where apprentices have obtained Queen's scholarships, their Lordships will, on the recommendation of Her Majesty's Inspector, consider the propriety of allowing a larger number of pupil-teachers than in other schools.

10. The examinations of the candidates for Queen's scholarships will be separated from that of the students, being held for three days in the week following that in which the students' examination is to begin. As many qualified students will be nominated (in the order of merit) as answer to the total number of vacancies in all the training schools. The whole number will be comprised in a single list, and each Queen's scholar so nominated will be at liberty to go to any of the training schools under inspection, the authorities of which may consent to receive him. The principal of each training school will be called upon to make a return to their Lordships of the names of his Queen's scholars for the ensuing year within twenty-one days after the date of publishing the list.

11. The students in residence will be classed at the end of each year according to the result of the examinations passed by them, but will not be certificated. No certificate of merit as a teacher will, after the examinations in

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December, 1853, be granted to the student of a training school until he shall have been for two years in charge of the same elementary school, and shall have been twice reported on as the teacher of it by Her Majesty's Inspector. Whether he is to be entitled to a certificate or not, and of what class, is to be determined by the tenor of those Reports, and by the result of his examination previous to quitting the training school. If the first Report be favourable, he will be paid for the first year on the scale of the lowest class. If the second Report be favourable, his augmentation and class of certificate will be fixed for the next five years. After which interval, and so on from time to time, the certificate and augmentation will be open to revision, according to the character of the intermediate Reports. The value of the certificate will not be fixed in the first instance higher than the first division of the third class for any student who shall have resided less than one year and a half (see following section) at a training school under inspection.

12. The grants of £20, £25, and £30, now made to each training school, according to the class obtained by the students in the examination, will, after Christmas, 1B53, be made on account of those students only who shall have completed a second year's residence.

In order, however, to meet the case of those training schools which may not immediately be able to adapt their system to a course of two years, and in which Her Majesty's Inspectors shall report that the theory and practice of teaching are efficiently imparted, according to tile most approved methods, and with all the requisite appliances, their Lordships will, as a provisional measure, grant £10 to the college for every student who, having resided one full year, and being classed in the examination at the end of it, shall continue in residence for six months longer, and during that time shall attend exclusively to such theory

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and practice, provided that Her Majesty's Inspector report favourably of each such student's powers as a teacher.

13. Their Lordships rely upon the foregoing provisions, in extension of the Minutes of 1846, to fill a constantly increasing number of elementary schools with certificated teachers. There must, however, for a considerable period remain a number of teachers disqualified by age for passing the examination for certificates, as well as a number of schools not in a position to obtain certificated teachers, in those parts of the country more particularly which it is the object of the Minute of 2nd April, 1853, to reach. Their Lordships will institute, therefore, a class of registered as distinguished from certificated teachers. An examination will be held (on the same plan as the late Easter examinations for certificates of merit) by Her Majesty's Inspectors, at convenient places throughout the country, at some time to be fixed, in 1854 and in each following year. The examination will last only three days. The candidates will not be classed, but only passed or rejected. The examination will be confined to simple questions in the following subjects:-

(1) The Holy Scriptures, the Catechism, and the Liturgy of the Church of England (in schools connected with the Church of England).
(2) English history.
(3) Geography.
(4) Arithmetic (including vulgar and decimal fractions).
(5) English grammar and composition.
(6) The theory and practice of teaching.

No teacher will be admitted to this examination who has not completed his or her thirty-fifth year.

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Their Lordships will require all uncertificated teachers in schools, taking advantage of the Minute of 2nd April, 1853, or having pupil-teachers apprenticed to them, to attend these examinations.

Committee of Council on Education,
Council Office, Downing Street,
26th November, 1853.

SIR,

With reference to the Supplementary Minute of 20th August, 1853, I am directed to inform you that my Lords have received various representations from the authorities of the training schools under inspection.

These representations embrace many particulars, which will require separate answers, but as all the memorialists, in one form or other, advert to the 12th section of the Minute, it will be the more convenient course to deal with the memorials to this extent collectively.

There are very few who maintain the sufficiency of a single year's training in a normal college, and those who do so dwell chiefly on the effect which the necessity of remaining for a second year will have in diminishing the supply of teachers.

My Lords consider that this objection is over-ruled by other considerations. The Minutes of 1846 contemplate three years as the period of training, and their Lordships do not now regard such a term as excessive. In proportion as the pupil-teachers come to form the body from which the class of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses is to be recruited, it becomes of increased importance to give effect to normal training. These young persons are drawn for the most part from very humble homes; they have learnt the routine of teaching, and a few elementary

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subjects, in the day-schools where they have served their apprenticeship; but the first, and very often the last, point in their career at which they are brought into intimate and domestic contact with persons of superior cultivation, and are obliged to conform to a higher standard of manners and habits, is in the normal college. My Lords, therefore, have fully determined to place some encouragement (both as regards the college and the student) on the side of training, except in the cases herein-after mentioned, for more than a single year.

It is, however, and with tolerable unanimity, contended that the proviso for this purpose in the Minute will entail a pecuniary loss upon the training colleges, in comparison with estimates formed pursuant to the Minutes of 1846 and 1850.

The amount of the Queen's scholarships (it is argued) comes in lieu of the fee which the student must otherwise pay. If the Queen's scholarship were all that the Government offered, a college which had a sufficient number of applications for admittance from paying students would have no pecuniary motive to receive Queen's scholars.

In reply to this argument it must be stated that, as a matter of fact, the full fee is not received from the whole number of paying students. Mr. Moseley, in his last printed Report (Minutes of 1852-3, vol. I, pp. 257-9) states that he found 433 such students resident in thirteen colleges, and the amount received in school fees for the then past year £6,753 13s. 9d. Now this latter sum, when divided among 433 students, gives less than £15 7s. 3d. per student. A Queen's scholar, therefore, who brings £20 or £25 does more than replace such a student. If there be any colleges in which the room not now occupied by Queen's scholars is filled by other students (equally qualified to pass the examination at the end of the year) who pay the nominal fee, such cases may indeed form

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exceptions to the last statement; but they also prove how far the average sum of £15 7s. 3d. is above the actual receipt per student in the majority of normal institutions.

Again, it is urged, that the fee, even if paid in full, do not cover more than half the expense (Minutes of 1850-1, vol. I, p. 33) of training each student; and that to the extent of the other moiety [half], the several training colleges under inspection, are eleemosynary [charitable] institutions. The public grants at the end of each year for the students passing the prescribed examination came in aid of this moiety, and if such grants be henceforth withdrawn from the first year, the colleges will get so much the less aid in defraying that part of the expenditure which is not covered by the fees.

Now, in meeting this objection, it is necessary to lay down that, if the training colleges are in any fair sense to maintain the character of independent institutions, the Government cannot both fill them with Queen's scholars, and also offer a grant (equal in amount to a Queen's scholarship) at the end of each year for every student who passes the prescribed examination. Such a position, taking into account the Minutes of 6th August and 10th December, 1851, as well as the fourth paragraph in the Minute now under consideration, would be tantamount to incurring responsibility for the entire charge of maintaining the normal colleges under inspection.

At one end or the other, therefore, of the scale, some limitation must be imposed. Either the number of Queen' scholars, or the ratio of the grants made at the end of the year must be kept down. Hitherto the limitation has been applied to the number of Queen's scholarships (by the Minute of 25th July, 1850). In relaxing it, my Lords conceived, from the information before them, that they were meeting the wishes of the authorities of the several training schools under inspection, no less than the wants of the pupil-teachers.

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It was certainly far from their Lordships' intention (as declared in the preamble) to diminish the funds available for the purposes of normal training. At the same time, the extension made by the Supplementary Minute, from five-eighths (Minutes of 1850-1, vol. i., p. 83) to three-fourths, as the possible share of the State in the total expenditure, appeared to be as great an augmentation as was warrantable.

With a view to prevent any loss (so far as is consistent with the objects of the Supplementary Minute and with the considerations stated in this letter), the Lord President proposes to allow the usual grants at the end of one year's training for all Students, whether Queen's scholars or not, who, on passing the prescribed examination are: (a) More than twenty-four years of age; (b) more than twenty-two years of age, and in the second class of merit; (c) ex-assistants, pursuant to Sec. 7 in the Supplementary Minute.

His Lordship will further allow twice the ordinary grant at the end of the third year's training, for all students who are in the second class of merit; provided, however, that the Committee of Council be satisfied by the Report of Her Majesty's Inspector, that the course of training in the given college is fairly commensurate with so long a period, and that the establishment is in all respects equal to impart it.

If, with these modifications, the Minute should still appear to the authorities of any college under inspection to be such as they cannot accept without pecuniary loss, the Lord President will allow any such college (notice being given of the wish of the managers to that effect before 1st January, 1854) to abide by the Minute of 25th July, 1850.

I have the honour to be, etc.
(Signed) R.R.W. LINGEN.

To Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools.

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By the Lords of the Committee on Education, of Her Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council.

Their Lordships considered:-

(1) The extent of accommodation provided in the several training colleges under inspection.

(2) The possible number of Queen's scholars (Minutes of 25th July, 1850, 20th August, 1853, 14th July, 1855), pursuant to the existing regulations.

(3) The means of inducing a larger number of the pupil-teachers, who annually complete their apprenticeship, to enter the training colleges as Queen's scholars.

Queen's scholarships may be held (by renewal) for two years. The number of such scholarships annually vacant, therefore, if the system were in complete operation, would be fully 1,000.

*Exclusively of those students in Scotland (upwards of 300) who lodge out of college.

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Their Lordships resolved:-

(1) To extend the provisional measure (Minute of 20th August, 1853), "whereby pupil-teachers admitted before 1st January, 1854, may continue to receive the rate of payment for the fifth year during the period to elapse between the end of that year and the 31st of the following December", so far as to allow the period in question to be passed either in the pupil-teacher's own school, or at a training college under inspection, provided that the principal of the college (with the consent of the managers of the pupil-teacher's own school) apply to the Committee of Council for the pupil-teacher's admission, and forward a written authority from the parent or guardian of the pupil-teacher to receive, on his or her account, the payment due on 31st December.*

If the pupil-teacher fail in the examination for a Queen's scholarship, the Committee of Council undertake no responsibility beyond making good the payment due on 31st December.*

Their Lordships further resolved:-

(2) To make it a rule to extend Queen's scholarships to a second year's residence, in all cases where the authorities of the college apply for such extension.

The examinations for admission, and at the end of the year, will continue to determine the class of the scholarship (Minute of 14th July, 1855), as at present.

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Their Lordships further resolved:-

(3) To modify the system of examination at the end of the first year's residence, so far as to add to the present classes a schedule of students who are to be required to take up the first year's subjects again (viz., at the end of the second year), but without forfeiture of their scholarships, or of the lowest grant to the college in respect of tile past year's training; provided, however:-

(a) That the grant and certificate at the end of the second year be at the rate and of the degree corresponding to the papers.

(b) That students quitting the college, with no higher rank than that of the first year's schedule be regarded in all respects as uncertificated, until they shall have completed another year's residence, and passed the proper examination at the end of it.

Their Lordships further resolved:-

(4) To open the examination for Queen's scholarships to all competitors who might be selected and presented by the authorities of the several colleges on their own responsibility, subject to no other condition than that the candidates be more than eighteen years old, and (if pupil-teachers) have not deserted their service.

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The admission of Queen's scholars will be regulated as follows:-

All the candidates who reach the prescribed standard will be arranged (pursuant to Section X. of the Minute dated 20th August, 1853) in the order of merit, irrespectively of their having been pupil-teachers or not.

From among the candidates thus declared to be admissible, the authorities of each college will be at liberty to select Queen's scholars in any proportion that does not allot more than 10 per cent. of the total accommodation in each establishment to Queen's scholars who have not been pupil-teachers. Before their Lordships allow this rate to be exceeded in any college, they will require to have before them nominal returns of all the candidates selected as Queen's scholars in the different colleges, and their Lordships will judge from these returns what further admissions may be sanctioned from the same class.

(5) In addition to the candidates admitted by competition, Queen's scholarships will continue to be offered to the following persons:-

(a) Assistant teachers of three years' standing. (Minutes of 1854-5, Vol. I., p. 11, Sect. 7.)

(b) Resident students in normal colleges (not having been pupil-teachers) who are more than 20 years old, and who have succeeded in passing the examination (including the schedule) at the end of their first year's residence. (Ibid., p. 32.)

(c) Teachers in charge of schools, and already certificated, but who have not yet resided more than one year in a training college. (Minutes of 1855-6, p. 33, and Parochial Union School Reports of 1855-6, p. 10.)

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(d) Teachers in night schools. (Minutes of 1854-5, p. III.)

(6) Their Lordships considering the increased number of pupil-teachers who will be available as candidates in December 1858,* and thenceforward, reserve to themselves discretion to continue the examination in December 1858* to the class of candidates at present admissible, should their Lordships in the meantime judge it to be advisable to do so, but, in any such event, notice will be given before December 1857.†

Education Department,
3rd June, 1856.

SIR,

IN forwarding the enclosed copy of a recent Minute‡ by the Committee of Council, for your information, I am directed by the Lord President to add the following account of its provisions and object:-

1. A considerable number of the pupil-teachers are lost to the training colleges at the end of their apprenticeship, because, during the interval which now occurs between that epoch in their career and the examination for Queen's scholarships, they are easily induced to accept offers of immediate employment. Their Lordships propose to afford to the most promising among them the means of going into immediate residence at a training college. The period which pupil-teachers pass at the college, between

*In Scotland, June 1859.

†In Scotland, June 1858.

‡Minute dated 2nd June, 1856, suprà.

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the end of their apprenticeship and the examination for Queen's scholarships in December, will reckon simply as supernumerary time, and will not be counted in their period of training,

After mature deliberation, their Lordships have determined that it would not be expedient to abandon the present plan of one uniform competitive examination for Queen's scholarships. The prospect of such an examination braces the whole system of apprenticeship; and it is hoped that, by allowing the candidates to come into provisional residence, they may be removed from the temptation, to which they are now exposed, of passing into employment instead of into training.

The principals of normal colleges have not been able to reckon with certainty whether a Queen's scholar of the first year would be continued in the same character for the second year, and this period of doubt has covered nearly the first quarter of each year, i.e., until the revision of the exercises worked at the examination in the preceding December has been completed. By the new Minute, every Queen's scholar of the first year will henceforth become a Queen's scholar of the second year, by the simple fact that his name bas been returned by the principal for continuance.

3. The training colleges have suffered in two ways, by the failure of students to pass the first year's examination satisfactorily. If the student has been rejected, the college has lost the grant for his first year's training; if, being doubtfully qualified, he has nevertheless managed to pass, such a candidate has often been simply a burden and hindrance to the second year's course of study. Henceforth, there will be an intermediate class, at the end of the first year, for those students who, without loss to the college in respect of the past year, may be required to repeat that year's course of study. It will still be possible

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for students to fail altogether in the examination, i.e. not to reach the intermediate class or "schedule." No grant will be allowed on the examination passed by such students; but, if they are already Queen's scholars, and have been recommended by the principal for continuance their scholarships will not be withdrawn by the Committee of Council.

4. As the admission of the pupil-teachers into provisional residence during the current year of training, in the normal colleges, will act soonest upon those colleges which are comparatively empty, and may so far tend to cut off a portion of the supply of pupil-teachers who would otherwise have resorted to colleges now full, their Lordships have thrown open the examination for Queen's scholarships to a new class of competitors, and they anticipate that a considerable supply of candidates may be found among young persons who are now assistants in private schools, among untrained schoolmasters and schoolmistresses desirous of improving their attainments, among Sunday school teachers, and, generally, among all those individuals with a natural aptitude for the work of instruction who become known from time to time to the clergy and other promoters of education, and who, with a little preparatory assistance in their private studies, may readily be made to reach the standard of examination.

By the joint operation of these measures, my Lords confidently anticipate that the vacancies now remaining unfilled (about 300 out of 1,900) in the several normal colleges will find well-qualified occupants.

As the vacancies are far from being equally distributed among the several colleges, my Lords take this opportunity to record their opinion that the emptiness of certain institutions, in comparison with others, is not due to circumstances which imply inferiority; and it may be important to add that, as the examinations are absolutely the same

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everywhere, so, when a student has once passed those examinations, and has entered upon charge of a school the question of the college in which he may have been trained is never again mooted by my Lords in determining his rank or estimation as a certificated master.

I have the honour to be, &c.
(Signed) R.R.W. LINGEN.

To Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools.

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THEIR Lordships resolved

5. To cancel Sec. 9 in the Minute of 20th August, 1853, and in no school to allow pupil-teachers to be hereafter apprenticed at the expense of the Parliamentary fund: (a) in a greater proportion than one pupil-teacher for every forty scholars in average attendance during the year preceding the date of inspection nor (b) in a greater proportion than four pupil-teachers to the same master or mistress.

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1. A sum of money is annually granted by Parliament for public education in Great Britain.

2. This sum is administered by an establishment called the Education Department.

3. The head of the Education Department is the Lord President of the Council, assisted by a member of the Privy Council, who is called the Vice-President of the Committee on Education, and who acts under the direction of the Lord President, and for him in his absence (Order in Council, 25th February, 1856, Act 19 & 20 Vict., c. 116).

4. The object of the grant is to promote the education of children belonging to the classes who support themselves by manual labour.

5. The means consist in aiding voluntary local exertion, under certain conditions, to establish or maintain schools, which are either:-

(a) For the instruction of children (elementary); or

(b) For training schoolmasters and schoolmistresses (normal).

7. In normal schools, entire charge is taken of the students.

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8. Every school assisted from the grant must be either:

(a) A school in connection with some recognised religious denomination; or

(b) A school in which, besides secular instruction, the Scriptures are read daily from the authorised version.

Aid is not given to establish normal schools.

10. Aid to maintain schools is given by grants to the managers conditional upon the attendance and proficiency of the scholars, the qualifications of the teachers, and the state of the schools.

11. The aid given to maintain schools is known as "Annual Grants," being annually payable, at a fixed time to each school allowed to receive them.

12. No grants are made to schools which are not open to inspection by inspectors appointed by Her Majesty in Council on the representation of the Committee of Council on Education.

13. The Committee of Council consults the religious or educational bodies which are mentioned in Article 30 before making representations to Her Majesty for the appointment of inspectors to visit schools in connection with those several bodies.

14. The inspectors do not interfere with the religious instruction, discipline, or management of schools, but are employed to verify the fulfilment of the conditions on which grants are made, to collect information, and to report the results to the Committee of Council.

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15. No annual grant is paid, except on a report from the inspector, after a periodical visit, showing that the conditions of the grant have been fulfilled.

16. The Committee of Council, at the time of agreeing to make annual grants to a school, informs the managers in what month to look for the inspector's annual visit. The inspector gives notice of the day of his visit beforehand to the managers.

17. Annual grants are issued to each school only once per annum. The year for this purpose is reckoned as ending with the last day (inclusive) of the month preceding that fixed for the inspector's annual visit.

18. Schools which have received aid for building, but are not receiving annual grants, are inspected as often as the periodical inspection of the schools receiving annual grants permits.

19. The managers of schools, fulfilling the conditions of Articles 4, 6, and 8, may apply for the benefit of Article 18, without having received, or applying for, any grant.

20. The duration of the period over which the right of inspection extends depends upon the degree of permanency of the object for which the grant is made.

(a) If the grant is made for erecting, enlarging, or improving a school, the right of inspection is secured by a clause inserted in, or endorsed upon, the school deed, and is co-extensive with the interest conveyed by that deed.

(b) If the grant is annual only, the inspector's visit may at any time be declined by the managers. on forfeiting the grant depending upon it.

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must, in the first instance, be addressed to the Secretary, Committee on Education, Council Office, London, S.W.

Full instructions are thereupon issued according to the particulars of the application.

The promoters, or managers, must appoint one of their own body to act as correspondent with the Education Department. Teachers cannot act as correspondents for the schools in which they are employed.

22. Aid is not granted to build new elementary schools unless their Lordships are satisfied:-

(a) That there is a sufficient population of the labouring class which requires a school in the vicinity.

(b) That the religious denomination of the new school is suitable to the families relied upon for supplying scholars.

(c) That the school is likely to be maintained in efficiency.

(d) That the buildings, at the time of application, have not been begun nor contracted for, and that no trust deed has been executed.

1st Limit The total amount voluntarily contributed by proprietors, residents, or employers of labour in the parish where the school is situated, or

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within a radius of four miles from the school. Such contributions may be in the form of -

(a) Individual subscriptions;

(b) Collections in churches or chapels in the same parish, or within the distance of four miles from the school.

(c) Materials, at the price allowed for them by the contractor, or at which sold off.

(d) Sites given without valuable consideration (the value to be certified by two professional surveyors).

(e) Cartage (the value to be certified by the parochial surveyor of roads).

2nd Limit 2s. 6d. per square foot of internal area in new school-rooms and class-rooms.

3rd Limit £65 for each teacher's residence.

25. The balance of expenditure which is not covered by the voluntary local contributions and by the public grant, taken together, may be made up from any other sources that are available, such as the proceeds of endowment, or subscriptions which are not local.

26. Grants are not made for rooms intended to be used on Sundays only; nor for rooms under places of worship; nor to pay off debts for building; nor in consideration of former expenditure for building; nor for maintenance of buildings; nor for improving or fitting up schools which have already received the maximum amount allowable under Article 23.

27. The extension of the area of existing school-rooms to receive more scholars, and the addition of teachers' dwellings, to existing school-rooms, are treated pro tanto as new cases under Article 23.

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28. No application can be entertained if the approved estimate (Article 24) falls below £20 in small rural schools (Article 133), or £50 in other schools.

29. The site must be:-

(a) In extent Not less than 1,200 square yards.

(b) In situation (1) Not unhealthy, nor noisy. (2) Within convenient distance from the homes of the scholars.

(c) In tenure Fee simple (Acts 4 & 5 Vict., c. 38., and 12 &. 13 Vict., c. 49).

(a) Without incumbrance, or rights reserved over the surface.

(b) If with reservation of minerals, the party in whom the fee simple of them is vested must covenant to make compensation in the event of damage, and the grant made by the Committee of Council must be the first charge upon such compensation; the whole of which is to be applied as the Secretary of State for the Home Department may direct in furtherance of the trust for a school.

(c) If subjected to powers of leasing, sale, or re-entry, the lease or sale must not be without the written consent of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, nor the re-entry without first repaying any grant which may have been paid in respect of the premises.

(d) Leaseholds are not admissible, if fee simple can be obtained. The term must not be less than ninety-nine years, and there must be no onerous covenants, nor more than nominal rent.

(e) Copyholds must be enfranchised (Act 12 & 13 Vict., c. 49. s. 6.)

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30. The trust deed must declare the premises to be granted in trust for the education of the poor, and for no other purpose whatever. It must also provide for the legal ownership of the premises, and for the inspection and management of the school, according to one or other of the precedents settled for: Church of England Schools, British Schools, Established Church of Scotland Schools, Wesleyan Schools, Free Church (Scotland) Schools, Roman Catholic Schools, Jewish Schools, Episcopal Church (Scotland) Schools, Undenominational Schools (belonging to none of the previous classes, but in which the Bible is read daily from the authorised version).

31. When the trust deed has been executed according to a draft approved and sealed by the Committee of Council, and (when necessary) enrolled or registered, a copy of it, including all signatures, attestations, and endorsements must be made on plain unstamped parchment and lodged in the Education Office.

32. When the application is for a grant to enlarge, improve, or fit up, an existing elementary school already conveyed in trust, the deed must be a legal conveyance of the land, and not at variance with any of the principles which determine the approval of new deeds. The right of inspection must be permanently secured (Act 7 & 8 Vict., c. 37, sections 1 and 2), and there must be no powers or reservations to which the Act 18 & 19 Vict., c. 131 cannot be applied, and which might become prejudicial to the school.

33. The plans (with specification and estimate), when approved and sealed, may be returned to the promoters for use, but must be lodged in the Education Office before a grant is paid.

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34. The amount of the grant is not announced until after the draft trust deed and plans have been sealed.

35. The grant must be accepted or declined within fourteen days.

36. The grant is paid on presentation of a certificate (with balance sheet annexed), by the Building and Managing Committees of the school, setting forth that the building and conveyance are completed, and that the money in hand, raised by absolute donations, will, when added to the grant, meet all claims, and finally close the account.

37. Grants under £50 are treated as lapsed, if unpaid at the end of nine months, and grants above £50 at the end of eighteen months, from the date of announcing them.

38. Schools may meet three times daily; viz., in the morning, afternoon, and evening.

39. Schools which do not meet more than once daily cannot receive grants.

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40. The managers of schools may claim at the end of each year, defined by Article 17:-

(a) The sum of 4s. per scholar according to the average number in attendance throughout the year at the morning and afternoon meetings of their school, and 2s. 6d. per scholar according to the average number in attendance throughout the year at the evening meetings of their school.

(b) For every scholar who has attended more than 200 morning or afternoon meetings of their school:-

(1) If more than six years of age 8s., subject to examination (Article 48).

(2) If under six years or age 6s. 6d., subject to a report by the inspector that such children are instructed suitably to their age, and in a manner not to interfere with the instruction of the older children. (c) For every scholar who has attended more than 24 evening meetings of their school 5s. subject to examination (Article 48).

42. Evening attendances may not be reckoned with morning or afternoon attendances in making up the prescribed minimum of 200 or 24 attendances.

43. Evening attendances may not be reckoned for any scholar under twelve years of age.

44. Every scholar attending more than 200 times in the morning or afternoon, for whom 8s. is claimed, forfeits

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2s. 8d. for failure to satisfy the inspector in reading, 2s. 8d. in writing, and 2s. 8d. in arithmetic (Article 48).

45. Every scholar attending more than twenty-four times in the evening for whom 5s. is claimed forfeits 1s. 8d. for failure to satisfy the inspector in reading, 1s. 8d. in writing, and 1s. 8d. in arithmetic (Article 48).

46. Every scholar for whom the grants dependent upon examination are claimed must be examined according to one of the following standards, and must not be presented for examination a second time according to the same or a lower standard.

47. Under any Half Time Act, 100 attendances qualify scholars for the grant:-

(a) Upon examination.

(b) Without examination, after they have passed according to the highest standard, but continue to attend school under the Act.

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49. The grant may either be withheld altogether or reduced for causes arising out of the state of the school.

50. The inspector does not proceed to examine scholars in reading, writing, and arithmetic for the grant, until he has first ascertained that the state of the school does not require it to be withheld.

51. The grant is withheld altogether:-

(a) If the school be not held in a building certified by the inspector to be healthy, properly lighted, drained, and ventilated, supplied with offices, and containing in the principal school-room at least 80 cubical feet of internal space for each child in average attendance.

(b) If the principal teacher be not duly certificated (Article 67), and duly paid. Teachers certificated before 31st March, 1864, and who have not otherwise agreed with their employers, are duly paid if they receive not less than three times the grant allowable upon their certificates in Articles 64-5 of the Code of

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1860, and they have a first charge to the extent of this grant, being one-third of such due payment, upon the money received by the managers, under Article 40.

(c) If the girls in the school be not taught plain needlework as part of the ordinary course of instruction.

(d) If the registers be not kept with sufficient accuracy to warrant confidence in the returns.

(e) If, on the inspector's report, there appears to be any primà facie objection* of a gross kind. A second inspection, wherein another inspector or inspectors takes part, is made in every such instance, and if the grant be finally withheld, a special minute is made and recorded of the case.

(f) If three persons at least be not designated to sign the receipt for the grant on behalf of the school.

52. The grant is reduced:-

(a) By not less than one-tenth nor more than one-half in the whole, upon the inspector's report, for faults of instruction* or discipline on the part of the teacher, or (after one year's notice) for failure on the part of the managers to remedy any such defect in the premises as seriously interferes with the efficiency of the school, or to provide proper furniture, books, maps, and other apparatus of elementary instruction.

(b) By the sum of £10 if after the first fifty scholars in average attendance there be not either one pupil-teacher fulfilling the conditions of Articles 81-9 for every forty scholars, or one certificated or assistant teacher fulfilling the conditions of Articles 67 and 91-3 respectively for every 80 scholars in average

*In Church of England Schools the Order in Council of 10th August, 1840, and the instructions to inspectors relative to examination in religion, which are founded upon it, are included under this paragraph.

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attendance. The forfeiture is reduced from £10 to £5 if the failure to comply with these Articles be confined to the examination of a pupil-teacher (Article 88); but this reduction is made only once for the same pupil-teacher, and not in successive years for the same school.

(c) By its excess above -

(1) The amount of school fees and subscriptions; or,
(2) The rate of 15s. per scholar according to the average number in attendance

in the year defined by Article 17.

54. Pupil-teachers admitted before 30th June, 1862, and the masters or mistresses by whom they are instructed, have a second charge for their several stipends and gratuities so long as their service fulfils the conditions prescribed by the Code of 1860, upon the money received by the managers under Article 40; and in case the money so received shall not be sufficient to meet the second charge upon it, the Committee of Council will add the sum requisite to make up the deficiency.

55. In every school receiving annual grants is to be kept, besides the ordinary registers of attendance -

(a) A diary or log-book.

(b) A portfolio wherein may be laid all official letters, which should be numbered (1, 2, 3, &c.) in the order of their receipt.

56. The diary or log-book must be stoutly bound and contain not less than 500 ruled pages.

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57. The principal teacher must daily make in the log-book the briefest entry which will suffice to specify either ordinary progress, or whatever other fact concerning the school or its teachers, such as the dates of withdrawals, commencements of duty, cautions, illness, etc., may require to be referred to at a future time, or may otherwise deserve to be recorded.

58. No reflections or opinions of a general character are to be entered in the log-book.

59. No entry once made in the log-book may be removed nor altered otherwise than by a subsequent entry.

60. The inspector will call for the log-book at his annual visit, and will report whether it appears to have been properly kept throughout the year.

61. The inspector will not write any report on the good or bad state of the school in the log-book at the time of his visit, but will enter therein with his own hand the full name and standing (certificated teacher of the ---- class, or pupil-teacher of the ---- year, or assistant-teacher) of each member of the school establishment. The inspector will not enter the names of pupil-teachers respecting whose admission the Committee of Council has not yet pronounced a decision.

62. The summary of the inspector's report when communicated by the Committee of Council to the manager must be copied into the log-book by the secretary of the latter, who must also enter the names and description of all teachers to be added to, or withdrawn from, those entered by the inspector, according to the decision of the Committee of Council upon the inspector's report. The secretary of the managers must sign this entry.

63. The inspector before making his entry of the school establishment in the following year will refer to his own entry made in the preceding year, and also to the entry which is required to be made by the secretary of the school

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pursuant to Article 62, and he will require to see entries in the log-book accounting for any subsequent change of the school establishment.

64. The recognised classes of teachers are -

(a) Certificated teachers.
(b) Pupil-teachers.
(c) Assistant teachers.

66. Teachers in order to obtain certificates, must be examined (Article 130), and must undergo probation by actual service in school (Articles 73, 74).

67. Certificates are of four classes. The fourth (lowest) class consists of an upper and a lower grade (Article 131), and includes special certificates for teachers of infants (Articles 122, 127-8). No certificate is issued above the fourth class. Certificates are raised to the higher classes by good service only (Article 78).

68. Teachers are examined for certificates as means of distributing the Parliamentary grant to schools. The examination is not open to candidates for professional diplomas only.

69. Examinations are held in December of each year at the several training schools under inspection (Articles 119 and 128). The relative proficiency of the candidate according to examination is recorded upon their certificates, but does not affect the class of them (Article 67).

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70. A syllabus, for male and female candidates respectively, of the course of study, may be had on application to the Committee of Council.

71. The names of teachers desiring to be examined must be notified by the managers of their schools to the Committee of Council before the 1st day of November preceding the examination.

72. Candidates admissible to be examined for certificates, must (in addition to Articles 68 and 71) fulfil one of the following conditions, viz.:-

(a) They must have resided for one or more years as students in normal schools under inspection (Articles 94, 119, and, 120-1); or,

(b) Must be upwards of twenty-two years of age, and either,

(1) Have completed an engagement as pupil-teacher satisfactorily; or,

(2) Have obtained at least two favourable reports with an interval of one year between them upon the school in which they are still employed.

73. Candidates for certificates, besides successfully passing their examination, must as teachers continuously engaged in the same schools, obtain two favourable reports from the inspector, with an interval of one year between them; and, if the first of these reports be not preceded by service of three months (at the least) since the examination, a third report, at an interval of one year after the second report, is required.

74. One favourable report is sufficient after the examination, if the candidate, being continuously engaged in the same school, has obtained two favourable reports in consecutive years immediately preceding the examination.

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75. Teachers under probation satisfy the conditions which require that schools be kept by certificated teachers.

76. If the second (or third) report is favourable, a certificate of the fourth class is issued, and remains in force (unless recalled under Articles 79, 80) for the next five years; after which interval it is open to revision, according to the intermediate annual reports; and so on after each further period of five years until the first class is reached.

77. No teacher who has changed more than once from one school to another during the five years preceding revision can be advanced to a higher class.

78. Re-examination is not permitted to candidates once passed, unless they fall under Article 131.

79. The managers must annually state whether the teacher's character, conduct, and attention to duty have been satisfactory.

80. The Inspector must annually report whether the teacher's school is efficient in organisation, discipline, and instruction.

81. Pupil-teachers are boys or girls employed to serve in a school under inspection on the following conditions, namely:-

(a) That the school is reported by Her Majesty's Inspector to be -

(1) Under a duly certificated master or mistress (Articles 67 and 13 I).
(2) Held in suitable premises.
(3) Well-furnished and well-supplied with books and apparatus.
(4) Divided into classes, and skilfully instructed.

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(5) Under good discipline.
(6) Likely to be maintained during the period of engagement.

(b) That the pupil-teachers be not less than thirteen years (completed) of age at the date of their engagement.

(c) Be of the same sex as the principal teacher of tile school, or department of a school, in which they are employed; but in mixed schools, or departments of schools, under a master and mistress, female pupil-teachers may receive instruction out of school hours from the master, on condition that the mistress be invariably present during the whole time that the lessons are being given by the master, who must be husband, father, son, or brother of the mistress, and not both young and unmarried.

(d) Be presented to the inspector for examination at the time and place fixed by his notice (Article 16).

(e) Pass the examinations and produce the certificates specified in Article 88.

(f) That the managers enter into an agreement In the following terms:-

To be stamped with a stamp of 2s. 6d.

MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT between* ---- herein-after called the managers, on behalf of the Managers of the ---- School and † ----, herein-after called the surety the ‡ ----

*Names, etc., in full of a quorum of the Managers.

† Names, etc., in full of father or other surety of the assistant.

‡Father, or as the case may be.

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of * ---- herein-after called the pupil-teacher.

The said managers for themselves, their executors, administrators, and assigns, agree with the said surety h† ---- executors, administrators, and assigns, as follows:- (1) To engage the said pupil-teacher to serve under a certificated teacher during the usual school hours in keeping and teaching the said school, but so that the said pupil-teacher shall not be obliged to serve there more than six hours upon any one day, nor more than thirty hours in any one week.

(2) This engagement shall begin on the first day of ‡ ---- 186-, and shall end on the last day of § ---- 18 || --, but if the said pupil-teacher shall, with the consent of the other parties hereto, attend one of the examinations held by Her Majesty's inspectors of schools for Queen's Scholarships in December next preceding the last-mentioned date, this engagement may end on the 31st day of the said month of December.

(3) The said pupil-teacher shall be paid as wages ¶ ---- per ** in the first year, and this sum shall be increased by ¶ per ** in each subsequent year of the engagement, but such

*Name in full of the pupil-teacher.

†His or her.

‡Article 17.

§Preceding month.

|| Five full years, but if this falls beyond the candidate's 19th year (completed), any less number of years, not under two, may be inserted if the parties wish it and if the candidate has passed for admission the examination fixed for a later year in proportion to the reduced term of service.

¶The sum to be inserted must be fixed at the discretion of the parties having in view the local rate of wages, and the advantages of the school as a place wherein to learn the business of a teacher.

**Week, or as the parties may agree.

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increase may be stopped at the discretion of the managers of the said school for the time being for the unexpired remainder of any year after receipt of notice from the Committee of Council that the said pupil-teacher has failed to pass the examination, or to fulfil the other conditions, of a pupil-teacher according to the standard of the preceding year as prescribed in the Articles of the Code of the said Committee applicable to the case.

(4) The said pupil-teacher either while the school is not being held, or as one of the scholars (if any) attending the school for instruction in the evening, shall receive, without charge, from the certificated teacher of the said school for the time being, special instruction during five hours per week, of which hours not more than two shall be part of the same day. Such special instruction shall be in the subjects in which the said pupil-teacher is next to be examined pursuant to the said Articles.

(5) The said pupil-teacher shall be liable to dismissal without notice for idleness, disobedience, or immoral conduct, of a gross kind respectively; and this engagement shall be terminable on either side by a written notice of six months, or, in lieu of such notice, by the payment on either side of £3 in the first year, £4 in the second, and an additional £1 in each succeeding year of the engagement, but never exceeding £6 in the whole; such payment to be recoverable as a debt by the party entitled to receive it, and to be over and above the settlement of all other accounts between the parties.

(6) The said pupil-teacher enters into this engagement freely and voluntarily on h* --- own part, and with the privity and consent of the said surety.

*His or her.

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(7) The said surety agrees with the said managers, their executors, administrators, and assigns, to clothe, feed, lodge, and watch over the said pupil-teacher during the continuance of this engagement in a manner befitting the same.

Signed this ---- day of ---- 18---

------------- Witness.

82. The Committee of Council is not a party to the engagement and confines itself to ascertaining on the admission of the apprentice and at the end of each year of the service -

(a) Whether the prescribed examination is passed before the Inspector.
(b) Whether the prescribed certificates are produced from the managers.

84. Vacancies in the office of pupil-teacher, however occasioned, which occur in the course of any year (Article 17), must not be filled up until after the next examination by the inspector. In the meantime, the candidate or candidates must be engaged by the week as only monitors, and the memorandum of agreement, Article 81(f), must not be executed until after notice from the Committee of

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Council (Article 62) to the managers that the conditions of admission to pupil-teachership are fulfilled in each case.

85. Temporary monitors engaged by the week, pursuant to Article 84, for the supply of vacant pupil-teacherships during a current year (Article 17), satisfy Article 52(b), provided that -

(a) A sufficient number of candidates to complete the requisite proportion of teachers to scholars pass the inspector's next examination for admission (Article 88) to permanent engagements; and,

(b) The vacancies have not been occasioned by voluntary causes before the fourth year's examination has been passed.

87. The qualifications and certificates required of candidates for admission and of pupil-teachers in each year of their service are regulated by the following Table.

88.

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Committee of Council on Education.
Council Office,
September, 1862.

Sir,

1. You will gather from the last Report presented by their Lordships to Parliament what are their views of the Revised Code, in its present form. The object of the following instructions is to arrange the immediate details of execution and to define your own part in them.

2. It is not the intention of their Lordships to begin by appointing any new class of officers. The inspection and examination prescribed by the Revised Code will, at least in the first instance, be conducted wholly by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools.

3. Their Lordships have considered it advisable to abolish the office of assistant inspectors, and to subdivide the districts in which they are employed. The necessary communications to the inspectors and assistant inspectors concerned in this change will be made in a short time. The economy of time, money, and personal fatigue in travelling over a smaller area are obvious advantages. So far as the office of assistant inspector has served for probation, that object admits of being otherwise provided for. The office has never been introduced in any districts of inspection except those of schools connected with the Church of England. The area of the other districts has always been so large as to make subdivision the primary object so soon as the

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schools became numerous enough to justify it. This object will now be pursued without exception throughout every district as occasion occurs.

4. The assistant inspectors do not make general reports to the Committee of Council, and in order that the subdivision now resolved upon may not multiply unduly the number of inspectors annually withdrawn for 14 days from inspection, their Lordships will call for such reports (after the present year) in alternate years only. One half of the inspectors will report in each year, and the districts will be so grouped for this purpose as that each year's volume may present a specimen of the state of education in the various classes of the labouring population throughout the country.

5. Assuming these changes to be in course of completion, but without waiting for them to be fully completed, my Lords direct me to request your attention to the following instruction for the inspection and examination of any school that you may find named in a Form XIX, as admitted to aid under the Revised Code.

6. You will observe, in the first place, that it is an object of importance to pass from one system of making grants to another with as little administrative shock as possible. Various simplifications and changes may follow in the course of time, but the administration of grants from a single centre to such a number of independent schools could not proceed for a day unless the greater part of those concerned both in distributing and receiving grants were familiar with the forms of procedure. You will observe therefore, that the new forms,

VIII. (Inspector's notice),
IX. (Managers' return),
X. (Inspectors report),

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You will do well to read these forms carefully and minutely over. They are the summary of your instructions.

7. The grant to be made to each school depends, as it has ever done, upon the school's whole character and work. The grant is offered for attendance in a school with which the inspector is satisfied. If he is wholly dissatisfied (Article 50), and if the reasons of such dissatisfaction are confirmed (Article 51e) no grant is made. You will judge every school by the same standard that you have hitherto used, as regards its religious, moral, and intellectual merits. The examination under Article 48 does not supersede this judgment, but presupposes it. That article does not prescribe that, if thus much is done, a grant shall be paid, but, unless thus much is done, no grant shall be paid. It does not exclude the inspection of each school by a highly educated public officer, but it fortifies this general test by individual examination. If you keep these distinctions steadily in view you will see how little the scope of your duties is changed.

8. In pursuance of this principle, the staff of each school is ascertained and recorded (Article 52b) from year to year. Inspection occupies but a few hours out of twelve months, at a time known beforehand; the examination of individual children according to a standard must always be, to a considerable extent, mechanical; the managers of the schools visited are voluntary, irresponsible, and fluctuating; under such circumstances no person of reflection and experience will doubt that, before distributing thousands of payment throughout every corner of the kingdom, it is an additional security of a very solid character to know, in each instance, that the principal teacher (Article 72) has either been trained in a normal school, or has served an apprenticeship as a pupil teacher, or has obtained two favourable Reports upon his present school, as well as passed an examination (Article 66), and that a certain proportionate number of

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the assistant teachers and pupil-teachers (Article 52b) have satisfied (Article 91), or are annually satisfying (Article 81), similar tests. It is not contended that there may not be equally good schools under other agency, but it may be reasonably averred that inspection and examination alone do not afford equally good means of knowing such to be the fact.

9. You will observe, in pursuance of what has just been said, that cases may arise (under Article 72b2) in which two visits of inspection must precede the examination of the teacher. No grants will follow such visits; they are preliminary to grants, and are part of the means of acquiring that knowledge of a school, without which grants are not paid. Cases of this kind will be specially indicated to you; the earliest time at which the teacher can be examined will be in the December between your second and third visits. Irrespectively, therefore, of the month that may be permanently fixed (Article 16) for visiting the school you will in all such cases be careful to make, if possible, your first visit before the month of December next following the receipt of notice of the case from the Council Office.

My Lords express themselves as follows to the managers of schools in which the teachers are not yet certificated:-

"The enclosed syllabus, which is sent for your information, shows the extent of the examination, but acting teachers may obtain certificates (Article 69) who can answer plain and simple questions confined to the following subjects. They will find special sections of such questions in the examination papers, with directions that they need not attempt more.

1. Scripture, Catechism and Liturgy (in schools connected with the Church of England).
2. English history (leading facts).
3. Geography (elements of, and British).

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4. Arithmetic (as far as practice, inclusive; neat and without failure).
5. English composition, spelling, and parsing.
6. The management of a school.
All candidates must pass reasonably well in reading and handwriting; and females in needlework."

In those small* rural schools which have hitherto experienced most difficulty in fulfilling the conditions of grants, the managers are not required to maintain pupil-teachers (Article 52b), and therefore principal teachers certificated in the lower grade (Articles 131-2) suffice for them.

10. Article 50 applies, as an imperative direction, only to schools which have not yet been inspected. In other instances you may use your own discretion in the order of combining inspection with the examination prescribed by Article 48. Inspection and examination are not to be sharply distinguished from each other, but inspection is the larger term, and includes a judgment founded upon an examination under Article 48, and upon other particulars also.

11. In those schools where the inspectors' duty extends to an inquiry into the religious knowledge of the children, this subject affords the best matter whereby to test what general effect their teaching has had upon their minds. Considering the age of the children in elementary schools, it may be taken as evidence of good general culture if they show an intelligent acquaintance with those parts of the Bible which are suitable to their years, and which an experienced and thoughtful examiner knows how to select and present to them. Complete failure in this part of the examination would cause the grant to be withheld altogether under Article 51(e). But short of this complete forfeiture,

*With less than ninety scholars in average attendance. See § 38, infra.

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in order that your judgment of the general character of a school may carry due weight, power is given to you under Article 52(a) to reduce the grant allowable for attendance and examination. My Lords do not wish this power to be exercised in any but serious cases. You are not permitted, therefore, to recommend a reduction of less than one-tenth part of the whole. You have five such tenths at your disposal, and may apportion one or more of them upon such faults as defective furniture, books, and apparatus; confused and unskilful organisation, consisting in insufficient, or badly kept registers and accounts, ill-adjusted time tables, classes left wholly to monitors, or neglected in certain subjects; preventable dirt, disorder, and untidiness in the children; dull and unintelligent or shallow and pretentious, teaching; evidence of packing the school for examination, instead of fair correspondence between its ordinary classes and the number presented under each standard. Gross instances of this kind are to be referred to Article 51(e).

You will observe that your form of Report (X) conforms to this outline of your duties. It is framed to exhibit the staff, the organisation, and the action of each school.

12. You will be good enough to read the following directions for the examination of children under Article 48, with the examination schedule before you.

My Lords await the result of experience before attempting to determine the exact mode in which this examination may best be held. You will not regard the following method as obligatory, nor as intended to prevent you from trying other methods and it is evident that part only of the process may apply to particular schools.

13. It is assumed that you have before you the examination schedule filled up by the managers as far as column VIII. inclusive, and that the school is placed before you in the order of its usual classes. It may be well to test this

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by asking for the class registers, and calling over by it the names of two of the classes taken at a venture. It is also assumed that you have a paper before you containing the dictation which you mean to give for writing and arithmetic under each standard.

14. All the children will remain in their places throughout the examination.

15. You will begin with writing and arithmetic, and you will direct the teachers to see that all who are to be examined under Standard I, have before them a slate and pencil, under Standards II and III a slate, a pencil, and a reading book; all under Standards IV-VI, a half sheet of folio paper, a pen, ink, and the appropriate reading book.

16. You will then call "Standard I, stand up throughout the school." The children answering to this description will stand up in their usual places without quitting them. The object of the movement is to ascertain those who are to act on your next order without destroying the daily arrangement of the school. When this has been correctly effected by the assistance of the teachers, you will call "Standard I, sit down, and write on your slates as I dictate."

17. You will then dictate the letters and figures which they are to write down.

You will pursue the same course with Standard II, directing them to write their names and standard on their slates, and announcing to them out of their book the line they are to copy, and their sums.

You will pursue the same course, mutatis mutandis, with Standards III (slates), and IV-VI (paper).

18. The whole school having thus had their dictation given to them, and being at work on their arithmetic (except oral arithmetic remaining to be given under Standard I), you will allow time enough to elapse for the completion of their exercises, say three quarters of an hour.

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19. You will then call them name by name from the examination schedule to read, which you will hear each do, and, immediately afterwards, mark each in column ix of the schedule for writing and arithmetic also, as far as time will permit. If this fails before you can go through the whole of them, you will mark the reading only of all, and the slate work of those who do not write on paper, and you will bring the rest of the papers away and mark them at home. You must be careful to collect and keep them in the order at the names upon the schedule, otherwise you will not easily be able to put the right marks against the right names. When you pass a paper, you should write P against the writing and arithmetic in it respectively, besides marking column ix in the schedule.

20. Whether you mark the papers in the school, or reserve them, you should bring the whole away with you, and forward them to this office with your report. My Lords will probably appoint, from time to time, committees of Inspectors and examiners to look over specimens and determine the means of fixing the minimum of each standard.

As a tentative standard, My Lords are of opinion that an exercise which in the ordinary scale of excellent, good, fair, moderate, imperfect, failure, would be marked fair, may pass. The word fair means that reading is intelligible, though not quite good; dictation, legible, and rightly spelt in all common words though the writing may need improvement, and less common words may be misspelt; arithmetic, right in method, and at least one sum free from error.

21. My Lords are informed by Mr. Cook* that from four to six hours will suffice for examining and marking 150 children. It may hereafter be needful, as the Royal Commissioners suggest, to employ additional agency

*Quoted by the Vice-President in the House of Commons on 27th March, 1862. (Hansard. Vol. CLXVI. p. 216.)

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(p. 342), but experience must first be gained by a higher class of officers.

22. Under Column VI of the schedule children may be presented to you not belonging to the class (Article 4) for whose education the Parliamentary Grant is voted. Such children should be charged the full cost (about 30s. per annum) of their education at the least, and it is perfectly legitimate to charge them more for the benefit of the fest of the school, if the managers have the opportunity of doing so. The presence of a limited number of such children among the rest has some obvious advantages besides those which are financial. It has also its danger; that, namely of causing the poorer scholars to be neglected. Subject to the Inspector's Report my Lords leave the managers of elementary schools to decide whether such children shall attend or not; they cannot bring grants to the school by their examination, and must not be included in the calculation of average attendance.

23. The children between six and seven will in all cases require a certain amount of oral examination, which may be performed for each of them at the same time as they read.

24. The remaining observations which my Lords desire to bring before you will be confined to particular articles in the Revised Code, and will be given in the order of them.

25. My Lords desire to see a third, or evening meeting, become as much a part of each school's routine, at least during certain periods of the year, as a morning or afternoon meeting. The entire staff of teachers should be made strong enough, if possible, to include this third meeting. If it has its own teachers only, it is apt to be less regularly conducted, and to be regarded as something extra, whereas, under the conditions of employment in this country it is indispensible. It should differ in nothing from the morning or afternoon meetings, except in the scholars who

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attend. Its business is not secondary, but continued elementary instruction. A few scholars here and there may be fit for more advanced instruction, and may be glad to find, at the evening meeting of the school, a room in which they can study and obtain assistance. It is far from the wish of my Lords that such scholars should not be encouraged. The pupil-teachers, if partly taught in the evening schools, will be of that order. It is a great mistake to suppose that such scholars ought to be wholly occupied with oral instruction. What they want is a time and place set apart for them to work in, and that their master or mistress be uniformly present to see that the attendance is regular, to look over previous exercises, and to afford such explanations as may be needed for those in hand. The scholars who attend in the evenings must be examined, pursuant to Article 48 if grants are to be allowed upon them. As a rule they must be presented at the same time and place as the other scholars, but in a class by themselves. Occasionally you may be able to examine such scholars apart when you are passing more than one single day in the same place as the school; or you may assemble the evening scholars of several schools together. If the school does not meet in the evening at the time of your visit, the evening scholars may, nevertheless, be assembled. They ought not to have forgotten what they have learnt within the year. Your report on evening scholars must always form part of your report on the whole school.

As the object of attendance in the evening is to fix and perfect elementary knowledge, evening scholars who have passed under Standard VI are not precluded from being examined again, and from bringing grants to the school by their examination. Article 46 is to be read as confined to scholars whose qualification to be examined (Article 42) is attendance in the morning or afternoon.

26. Teachers passed for evening schools under Article

[page 377]

159 of the Code of 1860 will continue, but only in the same schools, and in the same kind of employment, to satisfy the conditions of the Code of 1861.

27. If infants are taught by the same certificated teacher as older children, it will be your duty to judge whether they are instructed suitably to their age, and in a manner not to interfere with the instruction of the older children. If these conditions are not fulfilled, you are not at liberty to recommend any of the infants under six years of age for the grant offered without examination, and in recommending a grant for such of them as, being older, pass an examination, you will bear in mind Articles 51(e) and 52(a).

28. If infants are taught by a separate teacher, but as part of one school in the same premises under a certificated teacher their own teacher is not required to be certificated unless their number exceed 40.

29. As the greater part of the children in infant schools may obtain grants without individual examination, and as the instruction of such schools requires, above all others, special* methods and qualifications, it is reasonable to bring them, when they exceed the dimensions of a class, under the general rule whereby principal teachers are required to be certificated.

In granting certificates to teachers of infants, my Lords will give full effect to Article 122 as interpreted by paragraph 9 in the preceding part of these instructions.

30. It will save a great deal of trouble to managers and teachers, if they mark off in their class registers each scholar qualified for examination as soon as the number of his attendances rises above the prescribed minimum.

The contents of the first two columns of the examination schedules will thus collect themselves, and be ready to be

*See Report of Royal Commissioners, pp. 30 and 165.

[page 378]

written off in the same order, instead of having to be hunted out from the registers at the last. I may again point out to you, in explanation of what has gone before, that your examination schedule, being filled up in this manner, will indicate to you, on the day of your visit, certain members in each of the ordinary school classes, the whole of which classes will be before you.

31. Cubical space has to be considered upon sanitary grounds, but does not supersede the consideration of area. If you find a schoolroom which allows the minimum number of cubical feet per child, but of which the floor is not sufficiently large, or not properly shaped, for the organisation of the school, you will report accordingly.

32. The "principal schoolroom" is named because the school must for many purposes meet as one body, and 80 cubical feet of space per child is a minimum everywhere.

33. Managers of schools receiving grants under the Revised Code should regard them as part of those moneys in their hands which are applicable to meet all the expenses of their school indiscriminately, without the appropriation of particular receipts to particular outgoings.

34. If Article 51(b) forms an exception, it is only in certain special cases. As a rule, managers receiving such a grant should carry it at once to the common account, and should not pay it over to the teacher more than to any other creditor of the school. The Article does not interfere with the liberty of agreement between teachers and managers as to the amount of salary which the former shall receive, and the latter pay. It simply provides that if a teacher certificated before a certain date is not "duly paid" in a sense which it defines, the grant received by the managers, before becoming part of the common fund of the school,

[page 379]

shall be answerable to him for one third part of his "due payment." The defence of managers to a teacher who would take advantage of the Article must be that he has been "duly paid" in the sense which it defines, and he is so in any of the following cases:-

(1) If his agreement was to receive three times the grant payable upon his certificate, or more, and he has received three times that grant, he is "duly paid," although he may not have received the full sum for which he agreed.

(2) If he agreed to receive less than three times the same grant, he is "duly paid" if he has received the sum he has agreed for.

(3) He may agree to waive the benefit of the Article altogether, in which case he is "duly paid" whatever he receives.

The following cases are given by way of example. Assume a teacher with a certificate upon which three times the grant allowable by the Code of 1860 is £75. His "charge" never can exceed any one of the following limits, viz.:-

(1) The amount of the grant received by his employers under Article 40 the Revised Code.

(2) The sum of £25.

(3) The sum needed to raise his receipts to £75; Thus -

A. If he has agreed to receive £90, has received only £50, and the grant under the Revised Code is only £10, he has a charge only upon £10, and must proceed like any other creditor to recover the remaining £30.

[page 380]

B. If he has agreed to receive £90, has received only £30, and the grant under the Revised Code is £60, he has a charge only upon £25, and must proceed as in A. to recover the remaining £35.

C. If he has agreed to receive £90, has received only £60, and the grant under the Revised Code is £30, he has a charge only upon £15, and must proceed as in A. to recover the remaining £15.

D. If he has agreed to receive £90, and has received only £75, he has no charge upon the grant, but may proceed as in A. to recover the remaining £15.

E. If he has agreed to receive £60, and has received £60, he has no charge upon the grant, and nothing more to recover.

F. If he has agreed to waive the Article, and to receive £100 but has received nothing, he has no charge upon the grant, of whatever amount it may be, but must proceed like any other creditor to recover the whole £100.

36. With reference to the second charge upon the Grant given by Article 54, as long as the pupil-teachers in question, and the masters or mistresses by whom they are instructed, fulfil the conditions of the Code of 1860, the managers are assured that the sum receivable by them from the Committee of Council under the Revised Code shall not be less than the amount of the stipends and gratuities, after satisfying claims, if any, under Article 51(b).

[page 381]

37. Managers must use their own discretion as to the staff of teachers they will maintain beyond one certificated teacher. So far as the fulfilment of Article 52(b) depends upon the employment of pupil-teachers, 90 scholars, or any number between 90 and 129, both inclusive, require one pupil-teacher. For 130 there must be two, and so on for every additional 40 scholars completed. For 89 scholars or for any less number, no pupil-teacher is required. These numbers are to be understood of the largest number of scholars present at one time together. The evening scholars commonly attend in the evening only. If a school by day is attended, on an annual average, by 100 scholars, and in the evening by 30, Article 52b is satisfied by one pupil-teacher.

38. Much has been said about the injustice and impolicy of the reductions imposed by Article 52(b). Upon this subject it is sufficient to refer you to paragraph 8 of the present instructions.

39. The condition annexed to the old capitation grant, whereby the scholars upon whom it was payable were required to have paid not less than 3s. nor more than 16s. in fees supplied by their parents or by persons standing to them in loco parentis, is no longer maintained. My Lords rely upon the good sense and interest of managers to demand fees as far as possible, but they limit their own interference to prescribing that those who manage and those who benefit by the school shall between them contribute at least as much money as they draw from the public funds. The reason of this rule is not financial only, but rests in a still greater degree upon the security for good management which is given by those who spend their own money upon an object close to them. It needs again

[page 382]

and again to be repeated that the work of a school implies much more than is measured by examinations under Article 48, and that a certain amount of local contribution is a guarantee in one direction, just as the teacher's certificate is in another, for the system and framework of lasting institutions.

40. The diary or log book requires no special ruling. An outer margin for the date is all that needs to be observed. One such book should be kept by each principal teacher having charge of a school or separate department of a school. These books will not only furnish valuable records of school-keeping, but will (it is hoped) in the course of a few years save much of the registration which has to be performed at this office for the identification of teachers.

41. It does not occur to my Lords that further explanations of a general character require to be given. It would be idle to endeavour to determine all possible cases beforehand. It is sufficient if the principles whereby most of them may be promptly and consistently determined have been indicated. Practice and care must supply the rest.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
R.R.W. LINGEN.

[page 383]

ADMIRALTY SCHOOLS, Revised Code regulating inspection of, 366.

Age of school children: in England, 180; in France, 194.

Agricultural districts, schools in, Minute (April 2nd, 1853), relating to grants for support of, 300-310.

Arithmetic, Teaching of, and tests in, 93, 97, 128, 141, 180.

Art, schools and departments of, establishment of, 26 (note).

Assistant teachers - See under Teachers.

Attendance, School, 74, 111-112, 154, 172-173, 179.

BAUDOUIN, M., report of, to French Government, on primary and secondary schools in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium, 129.

Bible, teaching of the, 81; as literature, 139; in British schools, inefficient, 139; in German schools, 262-265.

Birmingham schools, 56.

Books, School:
Necessity for control of, 23-24, 119-121, 142, 143-145.
Purchase of, by children themselves, 72 -73, 120, 121.
Reading, necessity for good, 81-83; improvement in, 97-98.

Borough Road training College, extracts from Reports on, for the years 1855, 239-241; 1858, 242-248; 1861, 249-251; 1864, 252-253; 1867, 254-255; 1870, 266-267.

British Schools:
Bible teaching in, 139.
Class of children attending, 150, 151.
Comparison of, with National Schools, 150-152.
Plan of organisation of, 13, 42.
Fees in, 8.

British system of school organisation, 13.

Buildings, School:
Grants for, text of Revised Code referring to, 334-338.
Improvement in, 41, 79.

[page 384]

Butler, Right Rev. Joseph, Lord Bishop of Bristol, sermon by, preached in 1745 on behalf of charity schools of London and Westminster, 229-230.

CENTRAL SCHOOL OF DESIGN, establishment of, in 1837, 26 (note).

Certificated teachers - See under Teachers.

Chemistry, instruction in, at Borough Road and Stockwell Training Colleges, 250.

Class Subjects:
Grants for, 208-209.
Introduction of, advantageous, 167-170.

Classes, need of well defined, 54-55; sizes of, in French and English schools, 77.

Cleanliness, lack of, in London schools, 41, 79-80, 84.

Codes:
Revised Code of 1862, 90, 103, 131-132.
Aim of, 93.
Effect of, on inspection and examination of schools - See Inspection and Examination of Schools.
Effect of, on instruction in elementary schools, 111-114, 155, 172; on teaching staff, 103-111.
Text of, 331-352.
Code of 1871, working of, 141-142.
Code of 1876, working of, 166, 168, 171-172.
Code of 1882, working of, 226-229.

Co-education, advantage of, 14-15, 24.

Comenius, educational ideal of, 207.

Commissions:
Royal Commission on Education (Duke of Newcastle) 1861, 89, 102, 103, 130, 135-136.
Schools Inquiry Commission of 1865, 102.

Compulsory education, 23, 117-118, 138-139.

Continental schools, comparison of, with English schools, 77-81, 102, 111, 121.

Cookery, teaching of, 215.

Cornwell, Dr., 240, 241.

Cost of School Maintenance:
In England, 195, 196, 198, 199, 217.
In France, 195.
Suggested reasonable limit per scholar, 199.

[page 385]

Country schools, voluntary and State-aided, difficulties of, 59-63.

"Cramming", 129, 227.

Culture, lack of, in pupil teachers and students in training, 16-17, 98-100, 176; desire for, among teachers, 100-101.

Curriculum of elementary schools, 46-47, 114- 115, 169-170, 226-227; for children of from ten to thirteen years of age, 206-210. See also Extra Subjects.

DAME SCHOOL METHODS, retention of, in National schools, 152.

Desks, School, 42-43, 69- 70, 76; importance of fixed places at, 43.

Discipline, effect of high fees on, and need of, for elementary school children, 5-6.

Domestic Economy, teaching of:
At Borough Road Training College, 245 -248.
At Stockwell Training College, 249.
Desirable in curriculum for girls, 171, 215.
Letter and Memorandum (1858), to managers of schools in regard to, 245-246.
Parents of middle and richer classes indisposed towards, 247.

Drawing, teaching of, 27.

Drawing schools, establishment of, 26.

Drill, teaching of, 152.

Duport, Mr., on Elementary School Education, 131.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT OF 1876, 174.

Elementary instruction, aims of, 226-230.

Endowed schools, grants for, Revised Code of 1862 regulating, 363.

English, teaching of, advisable in Welsh schools, 11, 12; importance of study of, 17, 155-164. See also Grammar, Poetry, Reading, Recitation.

Evening schools, 223-225.

Examination of Schools - See Inspection and Examination of Schools.

Examinations:
Annual, of students in training colleges, Regulations as to, 322-329.
Excessive use of, as tests, undesirable, 134.
For grants - See under Grants, Government.
Labour Acts, in connection with, 173.

[page 386]

Examinations - cont.
In normal schools, Revised Code of Regulations, 1862, as to, 360-363.
Teachers' - see Teachers.
University of London, recommended as tests for teachers, 100-101, 164-165.

Extra Subjects, 141-142, 143, 170, 181, 185, 205-206.
English Literature most popular of, 200.
Grants for, 208, 211.
Recitation produces best results, 147-148.

FAILURES IN EXAMINATIONS FOR GRANT - see Grants, Government.

Fees, School:
High:
Check to popular education, 19- 23, 118.
In Wesleyan schools, 2-3.
Results of, on class of scholar, 4-7, 8, 19-23; on discipline and instruction, 4-7.
In French schools, 1I8, 195.
In Prussian schools, 118.
In Voluntary schools, 221.
In Wesleyan schools, amount of, 2-3.
Prepayment system of, advantageous, 118.
Subscription system of, adopted in the Llynvi Iron Co.'s school, 9.
Total contributed per annum in France and in England, 195.
Value of, 220-221.
Variation of standard of, in different districts, 22.

Fitch, Sir Joshua G., Vice-Principal of Borough Road Training College, 241; Principal, 243.

Fittings, School, 53-55, 56, 70, 76.

Fraser, Right Rev. James, Lord Bishop of Manchester, opinion of, as to Revised Code, 154-155.

Free education, 138-139, 220,

Freedom in instruction and examination, importance of, 115.

French, teaching of, 162, 185, 211.

French schools:
Books used in, 81.
Classes, size of, in, 77.
Cleanliness, of, 79-80.
Communal, under municipal control, 198.
Cost of maintenance of, 195.
Fees, in 118.
Teachers in, number of, 77.

[page 387]

GALLERIES: use of, in schools, 41- 42, 69-70, 152.

Geography, teaching of, 114, 129-130, 168, 210.

German, teaching of, 185.

Germany:
Educational control in, 121.
Gymnastics taught in schools of, 255.
Inspectors of Schools are members of School Boards, 144.
Report by M. Baudouin to French Government on primary and secondary schools in, 128-129.
See also Prussia.

Girls' schools:
National, in London, 151.

Glasgow, system of school organisation, 13.

Grammar:
Failures in, at Queen's Scholarship Examination, 84.
For fourth standard children, 212-214.
Given a larger place in examination papers of the Borough Road Training College, 266-267.
Importance of a uniform text-book in, 23-24, 86.
Papers in, at Pupil Teachers' Examinations, disappointing results of, 156-162.
Teaching of, advantageous, 85, 86-87, 168, 192, 210, 213.

Grants, Government:
Attendance of school children as a condition. affecting, 172-173.
Augmentation, 67, 108, 145.
Conditions of, 115.
Country schools and, 60-62.
Effects of, on elementary school education, 62-63.
Examinations under Revised Code for, 97, 113, ITS, 126, 132.
Failures in, 114, 125, 128, 140-141, 180.
Practical working of, effect of, 97, 132.
Proportion of children presented for, 113, 115, 125-126.
For class subjects, 208, 211.
For extra subjects, 208, 211.
For music, 208.
Maximum, to be earned per scholar as proposed by Newcastle Commission, 135; actual, in 1869, 136.

[page 388]

Grants, Government - cont.
Minutes regulating - See Minutes.
Pupil teachers, in respect of, 7, 108, 110, 145.
Revised Code of Minutes and Regulations, 1862, affecting, text of, 331-366.
Schools receiving, two classes of, 58-59.
Superannuation, for teachers, suggested, 138.
System of, proposed, 136-137.
Total amount of:
In England (1878), 194-195.
In France (1878), 195.

Gymnastics, lessons in:
At Borough Road Training College, 266.
At Stockwell Training College, 254, 266.

HALF-TlME SYSTEM OF EDUCATION, 50, 216.

Health, care of, instruction in, desirable, 171, 178.

History, teaching of, 114, 130, 168, 210.

History, Universal, teaching of, needed, 259-261.

Holland:
Assistant teachers in, 78.
Pupil teacher system in, 78.

Homerton College, Special Report on, for 1868, extract from, 256-258.

INCOME OF SCHOOLS, 1852, 2; 1897, 195.

Industrial schools, 26.

Industrial training, 215-216.

Infant schools, age of admission to should be raised, 76; want of, 14, 24, 69.

Inspection and examination of schools:
Compulsory, valuelessness of, 58-59.
Denominational, abolished, 141 (note).
Examinations as inspection tests, disadvantage of, 134-135.
Influence of Minute of 1867 on, 115, 129-130.
Influence of Revised Code of 1862 on, 90-97, 113, 116, 126-128, 131-135.

Inspectors of Schools:
Duties, functions, methods, powers, principles to be followed in reports of, 28-34, 91-92, 132-133.
Instructions to, 1862, 367-382.
Senior, 114.

[page 389]

Instruction:
Effect of high fees on, 6-7.
Effect of Revised Code of 1862, etc., on, 114-116.
Governing aim of, 228-229.
Suggested programme of, 210-212.

Intelligence of school children, development of, neglected in English elementary schools, 128-129, 188-192.

JEWS' SCHOOL, BELL LANE, 57.

KING'S SOMBOURNE SCHOOL, 21.

Küssnacht Primary Normal School:
Gymnasium of, 255.
Instruction in history of religion at, 261.

LABOUR ACTS, examination for purposes of, 173.

Lancaster, Joseph, monitorial system of, 13.

Languages, foreign, less important than English in instruction of pupil teachers, 17; suggested as an extra subject under Code, 171. See also French, teaching of; Latin, teaching of.

Latin, teaching of, desirable in elementary schools, 148-150, 162, 185, 211.

Laundry, instruction in, 249.

Learning by heart, value of, 88, 98. See also Recitation.

Lecturers, grants for, in Normal schools, Revised Code, 1862, regulating, 386.

Legislation, school See Elementary Education Act of 1876, Codes, Minutes.

Lessons, sketches of, given by students at training colleges, 252-253.

Literature, character forming attributes of, 83, 142- 143, 147-148, 251.

Local school authorities, desirability of, 174.

London School Board, policy of, in regard to supply of teachers, 145-146; cost of education under, 196, 217; evening schools of, 225.

London schools:
Accommodation of, unsatisfactory, 40.
Class of scholar attending; 150.
Cleanliness lacking in, 41, 79-80, 84.
Improvement in, 56-57, 70, 84.
Inferior on the whole to country schools, 35.
Supervision of, by ministers of religion, wanting, 38.

[page 390]

London, University of, examinations of, recommended as tests for teachers, 100-101; 164-165.

Lubbock, Sir John, on subjects of instruction, 201, 206-209; on teaching of scientific subjects, 158, 214-215.

MAINTENANCE OF SCHOOLS:
Cost of - See Cost of school maintenance.
Grants for, text of Revised Code regulating, 338-343.

Management, School, in British, Wesleyan and National Schools, 151; lectures on, at the Borough Road Training College, 243-244.

Managers of voluntary schools, influence of, on schools, 221-222.

Manchester, Bishop of - See Fraser, Right Rev. James.

Manchester schools, 36.

Method, instruction in, at Borough Road Training College, 242-244.

Middle class schools - See Private middle class schools.

Middle classes, children of lower, undisciplined, 5.

Military exercises at Küssnacht Primary Normal School, 255.

Minutes:
In regard to:
Assistant teachers, grants to (July 23rd, 1852), 298-299.
Certificated teachers in training schools, grants to (August 6th, 1851), 296.
Erection of schools, grants for (August 29th, 1833), 269-270.
Grants, appropriation of (September 24th, 1839), 273.
Pupil teachers and stipendiary monitors and support of normal schools (August 25th and December 21st, 1846), 279-295.
Queen's scholars and annual examination of students in training colleges (June 2nd, 1856), 322-329.

[page 391]

Minutes - cont.
In regard to - cont.
Queen's scholars, apprentices, and certificated teachers (August 20th, 1853), 311-321; Minute (May 4th, 1859), cancelling Section 9, of Minute of August 20th, 1853, 330.
Schools in agricultural districts and unincorporated towns of England and Wales, grants for the support of (April 2nd, 1853), 300-310.

Mixed schools - See Coeducation.

Monitorial system in schools, 13.

Municipal control of education, 118, 198.

Music:
Grant for, 208.
Instruction in, 148, 210, 250.

NATIONAL SCHOOLS, comparison of, with Wesleyan and British schools, 150-152.

Nature Study (Natur-kunde), introduction of, desirable, 169-170, 181-184, 210.

Needlework:
Inspectresses of, required, 166-167.
Teaching of, 25, 45, 47, 75, 167.

Normal schools .:
Grants to, Revised Code of Regulations, 1862, referring to, 354-363.
Support of, Minute Of 1846 in regard to, 292-295.

Norwood District School, 215.

Numbers of school children:
In England and Wales, 193.
In France, 193.

OBJECT LESSONS, 189.

Obligatory Subjects, 208.

Oral teaching, 214-215.

Order in Council creating the Committee of the Privy Council on Education, 271-273.

Organisation, school:
Battersea plan of, 41, 52-54.
Glasgow system of, 13.
Importance of, 13, 43- 45.
In British and Foreign School Society model schools, 13, 42-43.
In National schools, 45, 151-152.
In Wesleyan schools, 13, 41, 69-70.
"Standard" system of, 13, 92.

[page 392]

Over-teaching:
In elementary schools, exaggerated ideas as to, 45-47.

PARAPHRASING, criticism of exercises in, 87, 157- 159, 176.

Parents of school children, inquiry as to means and position of, 96.

Paris, cleanliness of schools of, 79-80.

Parsing, 162, 212-214.

Payment by results, 132, 209; injurious effect of, 103, 116, 125-126, 143; Revised Code of 1862, regulating, 339-341.

Pensions, for schoolmasters and mistresses, Minute of 1846 in regard to, 295.

Pestalozzi, doctrine of, as to education, 189.

Physical training, importance of, 215-216.

Playgrounds, school, 41.

Poetry:
Character forming attributes of, 186-188, 200-205, 228-229.
Choice of, 120-121, 163-164, 191, 202-203.

Poor Law schools, Revised Code of Regulations, 1862, as to inspection of, 364-366.

Practical art, department of, establishment of, in 1852, 26 (note).

Private middle class schools, comparison of, with elementary schools, 122.

Privy Council on Education, Order in Council creating the Committee of the, 271-273.

Programme of instruction - See Curriculum.

Prussia:
Compulsory education in, 117, 139.
Fees, school, in, 118.

Pupil teachers - See Teachers.

QUEEN'S SCHOLARSHIPS:
Examinations for, 36, 84, 87.
Grants for, Revised Code of Regulations, 1862, as to, 356-360.
Minute (August 20th, 1853), in regard to, 311-321.
Regulations (MInute, June 2nd, 1856), as to, 322-329.

RAGGED SCHOOLS, 151.

Reading, teaching of, and tests in, 36, 81, 93, 97, 121, 126-127, 141, 180, 191; at Borough Road Training College, 245.

Recitation, instruction in: good results of, 88, 99, 147-148, 163, 186, 200.

Recreation, 41, 215-216.

Religion, history of, need of instruction in, in training colleges, 259-261.

[page 393]

Religion, ministers of, supervision of schools by, 38-40.

Religious and moral instruction:
In schools of the Congregational Board, 256-258.
Gallery in Wesleyan schools, as a factor in, 41-42.
Inefficiency of, 139-140.
Need of, 262-265.
Regulation previous to 1870, as to, 1 (note).
Wesleyan Education Committee's principles with regard to, 232-233.
See also Bible Teaching.

Reports, inspectors', method of - See under Inspectors.

Revised Code - See under Codes.

Roman Catholic Schools 151.

Royal Commissions - See under Commissions

SALARIES, TEACHERS' - See under Teachers.

Scholars, class of, attending elementary schools, 3, 19, 46, 74. 150-151.

School Boards, procedure of, unpractical, 197, 198.

Schools Inquiry Commission, 102.

Science, criticism of demand for teaching of, 177-178; best taught as Natur-kunde in elementary schools, 184; method of instruction in, 214; civilising effect of, 250.

Science and Art, Department of, South Kensington, establishment of, 26 (note).

Scotch students in training, culture less lacking in, than in English students, 100.

Scott, Rev. John, address to students of the Wesleyan Institution, 1856, quotation from, 235-236, 237, 238.

Senior inspectors - See Inspectors, Senior.

Short-time system, 215.

Simplicity in method of teaching and school administration, desirability of, 181, 190, 192-193, 197, 199.

Singing, instruction in, at Borough Road and Stockwell Training Colleges, 250.

South Staffordshire schools, 51-53, 56.

Specific subjects - See Extra Subjects.

Spelling, reform in, proposed, 174-176.

"Standard" system in schools, 13 (note), 92.

Standards, higher, abolition of, recommended, 173, 188.

[page 394]

State aid to schools - See Grants, Government.

Stipendiary monitors, education of, Regulations (Minute of 1846), as to, 287-292.

Stockwell Training College, extracts from Reports on: 1861, 249-251; 1864, 252-253; 1867, 254- 255; 1870, 266-267.

Sunday schools, Wesleyan, attendance at, 235.

Switzerland:
Gymnastics invariably taught in schools of, 255.
Report by M. Baudouin to French Government on primary and secondary schools in, 129.

TEACHERS:

Assistant:
Certificated, grants for, Revised Code of Regulations, 1862, as to, 355.
Grants to, Minute relating to, 298-299.
In Holland, 78.
Need of trained, in higher class schools, 63-64.

Certificated:
Grants to, Minute of August 6th, 1851, relating to, 296-297.
Minute (August 20th, 1853), in regard to, 311-321.
Revised Code of Regulations, 1862, referring to, 345-347.
Revision of certificates of, 73.

Effect of Revised Code of 1862 on spirit of, 103-107.
Examinations for, mode of conducting unsatisfactory, 254; recommendation of University of London, 100-101, 164-165.
Importance of high standard of attainment in, 47.
In French schools, number of, 77.
Independence of, 71- 72.

Principal, 63.
Pupil teachers instructed by, gratuities in respect of, 105-106, 110, 145, 153.

Promotion of, 73-74.

Pupil:
Culture lacking in, 16-17, 98-100.
Difficulty in procuring, 68.

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Teachers - cont.
Pupil - cont.
Education of Regulations (Minute of 1846) as to, 291-292.
English a more important study for, than languages, 17.
Exhibition to normal schools, for, Minute of 1846 in regard to, 292-295.
Ill-health of, to be considered a disqualification, 15-16.
Government grant for - See under Grants, Government.
Improved attainments of, 67.
In Holland, 78.
Minutes in regard to: August 20th, 1853, 311-321; May 4th, 1859, cancelling Section 9 of Minute of August 20th, 1853, 330.
Number of, in 1852, 5; restricted by Minute of May 4th, 1859, 77-78; in 1861, 103-104; in 1866, 104.
Of South Staffordshire schools, 52.
Requirements as to, 104-105.
Revised Code of Regulations, 1862, referring to appointment, etc., of, effects of, on, 103-111; text of, 347-353.
Salaries of, 68-69, 108, 109.
Supply of, inadequate, 68; suggested remedy, 137-138; improvement in, 145, 153.
Welsh, proposal as to training of, in English, 12.

Salaries of, 63-64, 103, 105, 106, 107, 145, 209.
Training of, 47-48, 64-66. See also Borough Road Training College, Homerton College, Stockwell Training College, Wesleyan Training College, Westminster.

Teaching, exercises in, performed by students before inspectors, unsatisfactory as tests, 252-253.

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Timidity in scholars' examination, 97.

Training Colleges, criticism of methods employed in, 241, 242-244, 249-253.

Training of Teachers - See under Teachers.

UNDENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS:
Regulation previous to 1870, as to, 1 (note).

Unincorporated Towns, schools in, Minute (April 2nd, 1853) relating to grants for support of, 300-310.

VOCABULARY, scanty, of elementary school children, 155, 187-188, 204.

Voluntary Schools:
Comparison of, with public schools, 218- 223.
In the country, 59-62.

WAGES, a school supported out of, 9.

Weights and Measures, system of, employed in instruction, an absurdity, 180.

Welsh language, disappearance of, 11.

Welsh Schools:
Class of scholar attending, 10.
English language teaching in, advisable, 11, 12.
Generally British schools, 10.

Wesleyan Schools:
Attendance at, 51, 235.
Class of scholar attending, 3, 19, 150.
Co-education in, advantages of, 14-IS.
Comparison of, with National schools, 150-152.
Fees in, 2-3.
Galleries in, use of, 41-42, 69-70.
In Westminster, spacious playgrounds of, 41.
Infant, 14-15, 69, 235, 236.
Organisation of - See under Organisation, School.
Supervision of, usually by ministers of religion, 39-40.

Wesleyan Training College, Westminster, Reports on: for the year 1853, 231-234; for the year 1856, 235-238; for the year 1868, 259-265.

Westminster, voluntary schools in, 218-225.

Writing, teaching of, and tests in, 93, 97, 127, 141, 180.