and with regard to the grant for pupil-teachers, which have been hitherto considered the bone and sinews of the whole system. No doubt it is contemplated that these two grants will be made up by the managers of the several schools out of the capitation grant, into which everything else is now merged; but how this will be possible has not yet been shown. There is a question of justice and a question of expediency involved in the change. The 8000 certificated teachers, as the Commissioners say, are the creation of the Committee of Council. We have no wish to see our schoolmasters become public functionaries and servants of the State, rather than of the school-committee. We think, too, that some of them have shown symptoms of turbulence and discontent, which not only require to be summarily checked and put down, but which, if universal, would be sufficient to justify the extinction of the whole class. No doubt it tickled the vanity of Mr. Snell of East Coker, Yeovil,' to be described in the Report as an intelligent schoolmaster, stating well the feelings of many of his class; but the poor man did not know into what a pit of destruction he was being gently led, when he was induced to send for publication such stuff as this:- Society has not yet learned how to value them (trained teachers). This they feel with all the sensitiveness that belongs to educated and professional men.' They are a mere social nonentity.' The lawyer.. the parson .. the doctor,' don't know them. We conceive ourselves not holding that place in public estimation we may justly expect to hold. Let us be acknowledged as an educated, honourable, and important body.' (Rep. i. p. 159.) The unfortunate pedagogue did not know that the Commissioners were only giving him plenty of rope. He, and others like him, who have been displaying themselves, much to their own satisfaction, in a valuable educational periodical, which appears monthly, have thoroughly succeeded in hanging both themselves and their more modest brethren. Nevertheless it is not usual in England abruptly to take away from actual possessors what they have learned to regard as their own, and to disappoint the reasonable expectations of whole classes of men. We do not say that it is the duty of the State to pay the present possessors of certificates their augmentation to the end of their lives, but that it would be unjust to withdraw that payment abruptly, and until the teacher was able to make up his salary by other means. The next question is, as to the expediency of the change. Is it wise to throw all the public grants into the form of one capitation grant? It is a recommendation of the Commissioners, borrowed by them from Dr. Temple, and now adopted by the Committee Committee of Council. One objection is, that there neither is, nor can be, any means of checking an almost unlimited amount of cheating. The inspector may 'verify the registers,' but what shall have prevented the master from cooking the registers to any extent the evening before the arrival of the inspector, or, if he wishes to be more cautious, week by week, or day by day? He has nothing to do but to add dots instead of leaving blanks, or, still more easy, to forget to insert an a to denote absence; and for each dot that he adds, or each a that he forgets to insert, one penny will go into his own pocket out of the public purse. We say with confidence that it is impossible to devise a scheme by which the accuracy of the registers can be tested. Single-entry or double-entry, arrange it how you will, you have nothing but the honesty of the master on which to rely. In the case of masters and mistresses who have been carefully trained for two years in colleges conducted on a religious basis, and who are brought under the influence of a high-minded and energetic clergyman, we do not doubt that this honesty may be relied on. But the schoolmasters of England are a large and increasing body. At present the capitation money does not go to the teachers. It belongs to the general fund of the school, while the teachers' grant is a definite sum allowed them in the form of an augmentation of their salary. But according to the proposed scheme a penny is to be paid for every time that a child comes to school, morning, afternoon, or evening, after the first hundred attendances. Out of these pence are to be paid teachers, pupil-teachers, and all miscellaneous expenses of the school. The manager will say to the master, I require so much for pupil-teachers, so much for miscellaneous expenditure; I guarantee you the same sum that I pay you at present, and you must make up your augmentation grant, which you now lose, by the extra capitation pence.' Consequently every surreptitiously added dot or forgotten a will be, in the master's estimation, a penny in the master's pocket. Is it right to expose him to this temptation? * The scheme of individually examining all children who claim the capitation grant, in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and of withholding one-third upon failure in any one of these subjects, is contrary to the judgment of Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, and of Mr. Tufnell, nor does it meet the approval of Dr. * The schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, rightly or wrongly, consider themselves aggrieved by their salary being cut off. We have heard of their encouraging each other with the prospect of falsifying their registers in an unlimited degree, and so revenging themselves for their loss. H 2 Temple, Temple, who is the real author of so many of the Commissioners* and Committee's recommendations. Sir James Kay Shuttleworth says: 'I think that the tendency of such a system would be this :--Instead of examining the general moral relations of the school, and all the phenomena which meet the eye, the attention of the inspector would be concentrated necessarily upon some two or three elements of education. I think that it would be quite impossible for him by examining those three elements of education to test the condition of a school.'-(Report, i. p. 231.) In his second letter to Lord Granville, Sir James proposes a modified examination-plan of his own, which would undoubtedly be preferable to that of the Revised Code, but which still is far too complicated and cumbrous. There is, at first sight, something very attractive in the idea of payment according to results proved by separate and individual examination in elementary subjects. It is only on looking closely into it that its difficulties become apparent. In 1853 something of the sort was attempted, but it was given up as soon as tried, because the inspectors declared it to be impracticable. This was stated by Mr. Lingen; but no attention was paid to the statement. The truth is, that the migratory state of the population, the indifference and caprice of parents, the gross ignorance of immigrant children, the incapacity of naturally inapt scholars, and the irregularity of attendance at school, make it an impossibility to judge what is the real amount of work which a teacher has done throughout the year, by an examination of each child that happens to be present on one day of the year in reading, writing, and arithmetic. 'A capitation grant,' says Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, 'based upon an examination of individual children, does not pay for the work done in the school. It is impossible by examination, without arrangements too minute and expensive to be practicable, accurately to test individually the work done in the elementary schools of a great nation. To do this the following arrangements are indispensable :-An impartial examiner, on the entrance of each child (or within a short time afterwards, a weck for example), must record its state of cleanliness, aptitude for school discipline and instruction, capacity, and actual acquirements. Then the inspector, having before him these facts, and the number of days which the scholar has attended in each month of the preceding year, might form an approximate opinion on the work done in the school. He would still be ignorant of the amount of hindrances in the home of the child, but he might accept irregularity of attendance as a scale with which to measure these. But it is obvious that any system so minute and delicate presents insuperable difficulties, from the the cost of the machinery required to carry it into execution.'-(Letter on the Revised Code, p. 31.) The proposal of grouping by age would by itself show that the framers of the regulations knew nothing of schools and schoolmasters. It is evident that, under such a system, the teacher would give no time or care to the dull children, or to those who attended irregularly, because they could never be made to pass the examination of their group; nor need he spend much trouble on the quick children, because they would readily pass not only their own examination, but that of the group above them. Bureaucratically this is no doubt quite wrong, but in actual life the intelligence of children will not develop according to the standard of red-tape. Again, how are the children to be ordinarily taught? In the groups determined by age? In this case the quick boys will be thwarted, baffled, checked, and kept back by their slower or more, ignorant compeers in age. If, on the other hand, they are arranged in classes determined according to ability, the whole of the ordinary organisation of the school will have to be altered on the day of the inspector's visit; the children, discomposed by the change, will be unable to do as well as usual, and the inspector will be totally unable to form any satisfactory judgment with respect to the discipline and everyday state of the school. The regulation forbidding a child to be presented for the sake of earning the capitation grant after he has reached the age of twelve, must of course be given up: the wonder is, why it was ever made, as its sole purpose seems to be to discourage the laudable efforts now made to keep children at school as long as possible. Nor can Parliament allow infant schools to be destroyed by the refusal of all aid to children under three, and to all children under five, who have not passed an examination which children under five could not pass. The requirement of sixteen attendances during the thirty-one days previous to the examination must also be of course annulled.; But there is a more serious objection than any of these to the intended examination. For the first time a line has been drawn between secular and religious instruction; and the lesson is practically taught, that the Queen or the Queen's officers care nothing for the religious knowledge of the children of the poor, provided only they can read, write, and cipher. That this is a point which has been always jealously guarded, will be shown by the following very valuable reminiscence of what is now becoming to many a matter of history, rather than of their own experience :— • The "The Commissioners state that, in the opinion of a majority of their number, the inquiries of the Queen's inspectors should be confined in all cases to secular instruction. Very different were the views expressed by the Committee of the National Society when the same proposal was made by the Committee of Council in 1839. On that occasion the Committee of the National Society transmitted to their Lordships the following remonstrance :-" With respect to the object of such inspection they desire to remark that, if secular instruction, to the exclusion of religious, be made the subject of investigation by a person acting under Royal authority, and of official reports made by him to the legislature, the former will undoubtedly be encouraged, to the disparagement of the latter. The master will almost unavoidably devote his chief attention to that department in which his scholars, by a display of their proficiency, will bring him credit with the Government, and will neglect the other, which the Government passes over without notice. He will be more anxious to see his pupils exhibit their attainments in geography, arithmetic, and history, than to instil'into their minds, and impress upon their hearts, that less showy, but more valuable knowledge, to which every other kind, desirable as it may be, ought to be secondary and subservient, and by which alone they can be trained to moral duty here, or prepared for happiness hereafter. The same pernicious prejudice will be apt to arise in the minds of parents, and still more of children, who will naturally undervalue lessons to which no regard is paid on the day of examination." In another part of the same letter the Committee of the National Society declare that "they can never sanction or approve any system of inspection which does not distinctly recognise the paramount importance of religious, as compared with secular instruction." The Committee thus conclude :-"To the maintenance of these principles they consider themselves bound by the very terms on which the Sovereign granted to the Society its Charter of Incorporation. We are satisfied that the best interest of these realms can in no way be more effectually promoted than by the encouragement of moral and religious education throughout all classes of our people." These representations were at first ineffectual, and the Committee resolved that, instead of any longer recommending applications for aid to the Committee of Council, they would, on the contrary, advise the clergy and promoters of schools not to accept grants of public money until inspection was placed upon a more satisfactory basis. The result of this resolution was that, out of two hundred and four applicants for Government aid, only forty-four accepted it; and of that small number fourteen afterwards declined it. 'Some months afterwards, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, as Primate, entered into negotiations with the Committee of Council for the adjustment of this difference, and prevailed upon their Lordships. to issue an Order in Council, dated the 10th of August, 1840, by which it was arranged that the Archbishops, each with regard to his own province, should be at liberty to recommend any person or persons for the |