The Rating System of Education.

Sir, I could wish that C. I. in his letter to you had drawn out his whole scheme, that we might see how he proposes to adopt compulsory education without having recourse to an education rate. It would be monstrously unjust to impose a penalty on a parent for not sending his child to a school that did not exist; whereas to cover the country with schools is either not an object aimed at by our present system at all, except it be in the remotest future, or, if aimed at, is absolutely impossible of attainment on the present principle of distributing the grant. I can't see how you can compel education, while at the same time you leave it to the option of purse-bearers in any given district to say whether any education shall be acceptable in that district, or no.

I must say, for myself, that I should not anticipate from the operation of a rate the evil effects which C. I. seems to dread. Reports upon the education of countries where a rate prevails are not discouraging. If inspection were left to the central authority, and a certain portion of the school fund were contributed from the general taxes upon condition of a certain standard of efficiency being maintained, it would be a powerful check upon the niggardly spirit which would starve the school (or the master) for the sake of saving the rate-payer's pockets. But I believe that the local interest felt in the schools would be vastly greater and more widely extended than it is now, and that local vestries and town councils would feel the responsibility of keeping their schools efficient, and moreover would be kept up to their duty by the pressure of public opinion, and by the emulation that would arise between neighbouring parishes or school districts. And even if they chanced to be apathetic, the Legislature might have the power, to be used in the last resort, of striking the rate for them, or otherwise compelling them to do their duty.

I should hardly think the clergy would thank C. I. for his conclusion that they would cease to care to give religious instruction in schools supported by a rate. Indeed, the supposition that a rate necessarily will lead to secular education, seems to me to presuppose an amount of indifference in the clergy, of the charge of which their past exertions in behalf of education ought to acquit them. If the schoolmaster is not allowed to teach the catechism or to give Bible lessons, surely the parish priest would feel more rather than less bound to do it himself. And I conclude that few will deny he is better qualified than the master to give religious instruction. Too often now the clergyman feels bounds to delegate his catechetical duty to a master whom he knows to be very imperfectly instructed for the discharge of it: too often he lazily acquiesces in the arrangement. And, on the other hand, to suppose that religious feeling would not still pervade the instruction, both by precept and example, given by a master whose own mind was religious, is to suppose that human nature can be secularized by act of parliament. I believe that education would still be essentially religious where it is so now, and that dogmatic teaching, being left-as it had, in my opinion, better be left- to the ministers amongst whose special functions it is, would be taken up by them more systematically than now, and with far more effect.

In conclusion, I join with C. I. in wishing to learn the views of other schoolmasters upon this most important question. Yours faithfully,

C. M.

Papers for the Schoolmaster.

No. XXXIV.-NEW SERIES.

OCTOBER 1ST, 1867.

LAST SESSION'S WORK UPON EDUCATION.

In spite of the absorbing interest of the great question which, last Session, all but overtaxed the energies of our legislators, a very large share of time and a very fair amount of attention was given to Educational topics.

On the 5th of February, the Queen in her speech announced that she had directed bills to be laid before Parliament "for the extension of the beneficial provisions of the Factory Acts to other trades, specially reported on by the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children;" and the same day the Secretary to the Treasury gave notice, that, on the 15th, Mr. Walpole would bring in a bill having that intent.

On the 28th of February, Mr. Corry laid his new minute on the table. Members who took it up might well be pardoned if they declined to face the hard work of understanding it, and fitting it into its right place in the Code. It was generally understood, however, to have three objects in view, each of which was believed to be desirable. To promote the establishment of schools in poor localities, in other words to help educate those who are unable to help themselves, though it certainly looks like the first duty which would occur to those charged with either framing or administering a system of National Education, was yet well known to have been omitted in our original design, and to have been ever since the insoluble problem which one perplexed Vice-President has handed on in turn to his despairing successor. In his attempt to foster the study of higher subjects in certain schools, and to provide a supply of efficient pupil-teachers, Mr. Corry secured, as he deserved, the credit of having honestly endeavoured to remedy evils whose growth was due to the Revised Code. Curiously enough, no one thought of asking how far the

provisions of this particular minute would secure the ends in view. The only doubt raised was whether the country could afford the money. Mr. Lowe, indignant that his andiwork should be thought liable to imperfection, raised this issue by moving an amendment. The discussion of his counter-proposition was fixed for April 5, when the Committee was represented by Lord Robert Montagu, who in the meantime had been gazetted Vice-President, in the room of Mr. Corry promoted. Mr. Lowe boldly and proudly maintained that small schools ought still to be left to fight their own difficulties, that the three R's were sufficient for children who were too poor to pay, and that there were pupil-teachers enough already; and, moreover, that the small schools would not in reality be helped at all by the minute. A majority of 163 against his amendment, however, showed that the house thought the objects desirable, and believed in the efficacy of the arrangements made to secure them, at least, sufficiently to sanction the expenditure.

On the 3rd of May, Mr. Hubbard asked four questions of the VicePresident, the object of which was to compel the Government to declare whether they intended in future grants to insist upon the Conscience Clause. He undertook the defence of the denominational system, urging that the application of the clause violated a national declaration, and was prompted by a false economy. Lord Robert Montagu defended the principle of the Conscience Clause, and strongly denied that the Government was breaking faith, either with the House or with the country, in their administration of the grant.

On the 14th of May, Mr. Fawcett, pleased with the reception which certain ideas of his had met with at a meeting of the Lewes Registration Society, asked and obtained leave to bring in a bill for regulating the education of children employed in agriculture, the main provisions of which he then sketched.

On the 31st of May, there was a short but spirited debate on the condition of the Queen's University in Ireland.

On the 18th of June, the second reading of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities bill was moved. After a warm debate, in which many eminent men took part, it was read, and referred to a select committee.

On the 21st, Mr. Grant Duff exerted himself to convey to the somewhat reluctant minds of Members some knowledge of the state of education in Scotland. The Commission appointed in 1864 had just completed its labours, and he was anxious that the information embodied in their Report, and the conclusions at which they had arrived, should arrest the attention of the House. His main object of course was to induce the Government to promise speedy legislation on the subject; but all the Vice-President could promise was that it should meet with earnest attention during the

quiet of the winter. An arm-chair by the fire, the Government's slippers, and a Blue book: it is a pretty picture.

In the meantime, Mr. Bruce's bill "to provide for the Fducation of the Poorer Classes in England and Wales," having lain its due time on the table, was ready on the 10th of July for the second reading. This bill showed a very earnest attempt to deal in a thorough and statesmanlike manner with the obstacle that beset the progress of popular Education in England. Mr. Bruce is well known to be a strict advocate of a General Rate and Compulsory Education; but he thought that the time was not come for gaining the sanction of the nation to either; and to judge from his speech from the chair, at the Annual Conference held shortly before by the Council of the Society of Arts, his object in taking charge of the bill was to have the opportunity of proving that nothing could make our present system efficient for this country, and, by showing that his views had the support of a large number of men most competent to form a judgment on these matters, to compel Parliament either to accept his measure or to offer some alternative. He certainly did receive influential support in the course of the debate, but he met with able and uncompromising opposition too. How far we may judge from the character of that debate what will be the temper of the House with respect to an organic chang in the machinery of our Education, when th question comes hereafter, as come it must, to be decisively tried, we cannot say. As many might be inclined to discountenance a transition scheme because it did not go far enough, as would oppose it because it went too far. We can only draw the conclusions that there are many men at present in the House who only long to see the question sifted out, and that the Government did not feel that they had been pressed hard enough to make it necessary for them for some time to come to originate any new measure. Probably National Education is after all left to be dealt with by a Reformed Parliament. At all events, Mr. Bruce's ambition to be the reformer of our national system has received a present check.

In the House of Lords, the "neglected districts" had a word spoken in their behalf by the Earl of Cork, and the Duke of Marlborough promised that the most anxious attention of the Government should be directed towards the whole question. There was the fact staring him in the face, however, that successive Governments had tried to effect an entrance into these troublesome districts, but had been utterly foiled; and the wise Duke spoke modestly of their contemplated attempt to reduce these apparently impregnable fortresses. These poorer parishes present to us a standing example of what is meant by "invincible ignorance.'

On the 29th of July, the Vice-President moved the vote for National Education. He is of a hopeful temperament, believing that the present

system is elastic enough to meet the utmost wants of the country. Of the speakers who followed him, but few seemed to share this belief. Opinions were freely enough expressed. We were told that the present system is not permanent-that it is too elaborate, and, by some of its regulations, retards Education-that it will be necessary to come to a national system eventually-that wherever Education has flourished, it has flourished because sapported by a system of local taxation-that the Committee refuses to assist the very schools that need assistance most. These are strong words, and seem to forewarn of a desire to come to close quarters before long with the main body of Denominationalists. This debate also brought out the fact that the House is willing to give the Government every encouragement to extend what is known as "technical Education."

On July 30th, the House, after getting rid of some slight opposition, went into Committee on the Factory Acts Extension Bill, which passed with some verbal amendments.

On the 31st, Mr. Fawcett moved the second reading of his bill. He did not affect to believe that it could pass, but wished to obtain the assent of the House to its principle. It proved somewhat difficult, however, to ascertain precisely what its principle was, though there was a vague conviction that it was something quite new. A tired-out House could not be expected to be prompt to examine a new idea, especially as its projector had spared himself the preliminary labour of working it out carefully into detail. Wherefore the innocent was slain.

On the 5th of August, in moving the vote necessary to complete the Irish Education grant, the Chief Secretary gave a brief but satisfactory review of the progress of Education in Ireland, and gave notice of the Government's intention to appoint a royal commission to enquire into the whole question.

From the above-written chronicle we seem to be allowed to gather that the House is ready at least to discuss National Education, when the fit time shall arrive, with greater freedom, and with less tenderness towards the traditions of the office, than it has shown heretofore. Not much actual work has been done perhaps beyond extending more widely, and enforcing with less partiality, the principle of Compulsory Education in that modified form which alone, for the present, is acceptable to Englishmen. A challenge has, however, been thrown down to disprove certain charges, founded upon facts which searching investigations have brought to light, and backed by men whose special knowledge and reputation for discretion give weight to their opinions upon these topics. If these charges are either openly or tacitly admitted, it will go far to weaken the confidence of the country in the efficiency of our present system; and