Council shows that, in 1860, there has been a decrease of no less than 20,4677. in the building and furnishing grants, besides a saving of 8,2807. on Reformatory Schools. The same authority informs us that the net increase of expenditure for the year 1860 over that of the year 1859 is 12877. Surely this does not give a very alarming prospect for the future. At this rate of progression it would take exactly a thousand years to reach the two millions which the Commissioners brandish before our eyes as the ultimate amount of the grant. Before Dr. Temple's five millions were approached, 'the colossal man' would doubtless have outgrown the need of schooling. Whatever fragment of an argument remains in the Commissioners' figures is satisfactorily answered by themselves :—

'If the money be wisely and successfully applied, it is to be desired and expected that indefinitely for some considerable time the number of schools seeking to avail themselves of the public aid will increase, as improved education is more and more widely diffused, and operates more powerfully on the public mind. One legitimate result of this, however, in a system which is based on assisting local exertion, ought to be a higher and more practical feeling of their duty by parents to provide for the education of their children; with this may be reasonably expected an increased liberality, on the part of the higher classes, to assist their poorer neighbours in the discharge of this great duty, and thenceforward we should have a right to look for a decrease, gradual at first, and then rapid, in the demands on the public purse. We believe this to be the true and not visionary view under which the expense of giving aid to education and its tendency to increase arc, of themselves, to be regarded.'-(Report, i. p. 313.)

Mr. Senior says:—

'I am convinced that the nation in general think that the general improvement in education and its extension in inspected schools to 1,211,824 children are cheaply purchased for 572,8571. a year. The real source of alarm is the expectation of rapid, enormous, almost unlimited increase. This was mainly occasioned by Mr. Horace Mann's computation, introduced by him into the Census, and accepted by the Privy Council in their report of 1859, which anticipates the presence of 3,000,000 children in the inspected schools, to be taught by 30,000 certificated teachers. Mr. Mann, however, in his examination before us, admitted that his calculation was not that of those who might be expected to be at school, but of those who might be wished to be at school.'-(Suggestions, p. 15.)

The highest point that the Parliamentary grant can reach will be equal to the cost of two ships equipped as the 'Warrior.' We must have 'Warriors,' but we must also have education. The abandoned paper-duty would have covered the whole.

The second defect of the present system, as alleged by the Commissioners,

Commissioners, is its inability to assist the poorer districts.' This is a real difficulty; but let it not be exaggerated. If three years ago there were only 120,305 children in the whole of England and Wales, among rich and poor, who were without any schooling (Rep. i. p. 293), we cannot but think that the pictures which are sometimes drawn of youthful ignorance must be overdone. If, according to the Commissioners' statistics, there are only 120,305 untaught, and no less than 100,000 of these are the children of out-door paupers (Rep. i. p. 381), who, as we have said, may be dealt with by an immediate legislative enactment, there remain only 20,305 to be absorbed in our present National or British schools. Certainly the greater part of this small sum total must be found in towns; and if this is So, the poor rural parishes do get education in some way or other, if not by the help of the State.

Many plans have been suggested for meeting this difficulty. Sir James Kay Shuttleworth has his proposal (Evidence, 2369), Mr. Tufnell has his proposal (ib. 3341), Mr. Fraser has his proposal (Rep. ii. p. 121), Mr. Senior has his scheme (Suggestions, p. 55), and the Revised Code makes some efforts in the same direction. But every year there issue from the Training Colleges so many new masters and mistresses that serious fears have been expressed lest the market should be overstocked with them. What are these teachers to do? As soon as the larger parishes are supplied, they must be contented with the humbler work and the lower salaries of the smaller parishes. When they have done this, the State funds begin at once to flow into those parishes. In this manner the area of the Education Committee's operations becomes enlarged each year. Every year an army of a thousand teachers is sent forth, which gradually, but inevitably, must occupy every village which is capable of maintaining more than a dame's school. Mr. Scott, the intelligent and experienced Chairman of the Wesleyan Education Committee, points out that the necessitous districts cannot have good schools until there are raised up schoolmasters and schoolmistresses in sufficient numbers to take charge of the schools. He thinks that, as soon

* We have already in our last number (vol. cx. p. 491) called attention to the plan of the authoress of the Workhouse Orphan,' the leading principle of which is to combine parochial with voluntary support (a point which it is very necessary to bear in mind when considering her scheme), and to receive the children's weekly allowance from their respective unions, in aid of the houses which she desires to establish. Even thus the duty is too important to be intrusted to voluntary efforts alone. The State has no right to exact such an effort on the part of individuals, when, by an alteration of its own regulations, it has the power of applying a fit remedy to the evils of the present system.

as

as schools have been set up in the less necessitous places, religious motives will lead men to give help to the adjoining poorer districts, and thus he thinks that the present system of Government assistance will in time sufficiently pervade the whole country. (Evidence, 2127, 2128.)

The present system goes upon the plan of meeting money lotally raised with public money, and thus an annual outlay of two millions is obtained at a cost to the State of from 750,000l. to 800,0001. But if once the State were to supply the deficiencies of local energy and liberality, the majority of parishes would immediately become in their own estimation poor parishes, the greater part of the two millions would be lost, and the State would have to take upon itself the burden of supporting all or almost all the schools in England and Wales. And yet, perhaps, something might be done by lowering in the poorer parishes, with vigilance and discrimination, some of the requirements of the Committee of Council, which are found very onerous.

The third defect of the existing system is, according to the Commissioners, a a partial inadequacy of teaching,' which is explained to mean that the junior classes are neglected both by teachers and inspectors, and that elementary work is not taught as it might be taught. This is a very serious charge. It amounts to this, that neither teachers nor inspectors do their duty.

It is not surprising that Mr. Lowe should have considered that so great a defect justified a change of system. We will examine the grounds of this complaint. First for the inspectors. Is it true that they do not examine the lower classes? We have made inquiries of inspectors and of schoolmasters and of schoolmanagers, and the answer has been that they examine them with as great care as that which they bestow on the first class. The Commissioners state frequently that they do not. But on what grounds do they make the statement? There is not a particle of evidence to that effect in the Reports of their Assistant-Commissioners, nor in the replies to their circular of questions, nor in their vivâ voce evidence. Their argument is most curious. They quote a description by Mr. Brookfield of an 'excellent,' a 'good,' and a 'fair' school, and approve his standard. (Rep., i. p. 238.) They also quote a passage of Mr. Cook's, which we have already transcribed, giving an account of how much a boy of fair average attainments at the age of twelve years in a good school has learned.' They then remark: It is obvious, from the descrip tions which we have quoted, that the inspection is an inspection of schools rather than of scholars, of the first class more than of

any

any other classes.' How is it obvious? Because, speaking generally, the inspector's description of an excellent school turns, like that of Mr. Cook, upon the performance of boys of eleven or twelve years old.' But Mr. Cook was not describing what an excellent school is, but was specifically stating what a boy of twelve years in a good school has learned.' And how can it possibly follow from an inspector incidentally describing what a boy of twelve has learned, that inspection is of the first class more than of any others'? And how can such an inference be based on Mr. Brookfield's words, when he says in plain terms, in describing an 'excellent' school, 'Whatever is taught throughout the school is well taught and judiciously graduated to each class, according to its measure, down to the little inarticulate learners of the alphabet'?

From Mr. Cook and Mr. Brookfield the writer of this part of the Report passes to Mr. Norris, Mr. Norris in unadvised and ill-chosen terms had said

'School-teachers seem to have a right to ask that their success be measured by the proficiency of their first-class children. In the best schools the discipline is often imperfect, the reading and writing awkward, and the arithmetic inaccurate in the junior classes. No very lasting impressions can be made on the mind or habits of a child ten years of age. In testing the success of a school, therefore, by the conduct and intelligence of its former scholars, the teacher fairly claims that he should be held responsible for those only who were allowed by their parents to stay long enough to reach his first class.'(Minutes, 1859-60, p. 103.)

Mr. Norris's statement that the discipline of the junior classes is imperfect and their arithmetic (such as it is) inaccurate in the best schools, is wholly indefensible, as no school ought to be regarded as good where such defects exist. "We should be sorry,' say the Commissioners, to see Mr. Norris's words construed into a claim on behalf of the teachers that they should not be responsible for any children under 10,' but they acknowledge that 'his words do not necessarily bear such a meaning,' and that 'his meaning, though not clearly expressed, may have been that however a master may attempt to instruct his children, his teaching cannot be permanent in its effects if they leave him at an early age.' But if the Commissioners think that this may be all that the passage contains, it is difficult to see why they should find in it a proof of the tendency to judge a school by its first class only,' and a conclusive demonstration 'that inspectors as well as masters are inclined to measure the success of a school

by the proficiency of its first-class children.' In fact we see nothing on which to rest this charge, as against the inspectors,

except the following passage from one of Mr. Arnold's Reports: -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.' Of course it is a matter of the greatest ease;' but no inspector would write 'good' for 'bad' unless he was 'half insensible.' If Mr. Arnold only means that a good first class raises a prepossession in the mind of the examiner in behalf of the whole school, it may well be true; but the prepossession would only exist until the lower classes were examined and were found to be ill-taught.

The only vivâ voce evidence on the subject is that of Mr. Cook, Mr. Watkins, and Mr. Lingen. Mr. Cook says, 'All the inspectors try the ciphering very closely, and all the inspectors try the writing very closely. I do not know that the inspectors would consider themselves bound (I should not say that they were bound) to hear every child read, but to ascertain that they read well in every class.'-(Evidence, 864.) Mr. Watkins says, 'We hear them all read, or the great majority of them, we see all their sums, we look at all their copybooks, and question very often the whole of the scholars, almost every child.'-(Ib., 1042.) On this evidence an ingenious argument is formed in the following manner. Mr. Cook had said that he required four hours to examine a school of 150 children, but that he could get through the staple of the work in one hour and a half. The Commissioners, conveniently ignoring the first part of his statement, reduce one hour and a half to seconds, divide the sum so arrived at by 150, and find the result to be 36. Hereupon they write gravely, As only 36 seconds would be thus occupied in examining the reading, writing, and arithmetic of each scholar, the examination could be hardly otherwise than cursory.' Why did not Mr. Rogers save his colleagues from so ridiculous a blunder as this? He must have seen a school examined, and must therefore have been aware that while one class was occupied in reading, the other classes were occupied in writing and arithmetic, and vice versa, the whole hour and a half (or whatever time was employed) being fully occupied in the case of each scholar. The idea in the mind of the Commissioners seems to be that, as at the universities, each child is brought up before the inspector for his examination, while the rest are awaiting their turn in idleness. Mr. Lingen's evidence is passed over in silence :

'I think that the inspectors are one and all alive to the necessity of looking to the lower forms. In their printed reports I think you will