(Copied from London Gazette of Tuesday, April 3, 1855.) At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the 31st day of March 1855; PRESENT The QUEEN'S Most Excellent Majesty in Council. Her Majesty in Council was this day pleased to appoint the Right Honorable the Earl of Harrowby, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, to be a Member of the Committee of Council on Education. 115 CORRESPONDENCE, &c., On Questions of GENERAL ADMINISTRATION, and on BUILDING GENERAL ADMINISTRATION. 66 Council Office, April 1855. Distribution of future The Committee of Council on Education has found it necessary to give notice volumes of to all certificated schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, who have hitherto been “Minutes." presented with copies of the annual volume of “ Minutes," that, in consequence of the rapid increase in the number of schools under inspection, their Lordships must, after the present year, discontinue this part of the gratuitous distribution. Should any special regulations be made for the sale of the volumes, due notice will be given thereof. DECIMAL SYSTEM. Decimal System for Coinage and for Weights and Measures. REVEREND SIR, Committee of Council on Education, Council Office, I AM directed by the Lord President to bring under your notice the Decimal fact that there is a very strong feeling in the country that we should adopt a System. system of decimals in our coinage, and in our weights and measures. The strongest objection urged against this change is that it would create misapprehension and distrust in the minds of the people. The Lord President thinks that you might with advantage call the atten- The Lord President thinks that this may be done by personal communi- (Signed) R. R. W. LINGEN. Rev. H. Moseley, Her Majesty's Inspector of Training Schools. The word "decimals" is not confined in this context to decimal fractions, or to a knowledge of the decimal point. All that is proposed by a decimal system of money, weights, and measures is to get rid of compound arithmetic, and to employ only simple or common arithmetic, which is decimal. See articles by Professor De Morgan, in the Companion to the British Almanack, for the years 1841, 1848, 1854. H BUILDING GRANTS. As to erection and maintenance of school at sole expense of incum REVEREND SIR, (No. 1.) Committee of Council on Education, Council Office, I HAVE the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, dated 12 June 1854, relating to the National school for infants proposed to be erected at B I am directed to inform you that the objections entertained by my Lords bent without are not yet removed. effort to obtain co operation. Their Lordships are unwilling to believe that, in a parish which contains upwards of 1,100 inhabitants, and is rated (1847) to the poor at 3,6311. per annum, there is no single owner or resident, except the rector, from whom any subscription whatever can be obtained towards building or maintaining a school. Their Lordships doubt whether succeeding incumbents can be expected to acknowledge any obligation to sustain an undivided burden of this magnitude. If a considerable number of the parishioners are interested in such an undertaking, the whole body of them is not changed at once in the same way in which one incumbent is succeeded by another. My Lords hesitate to encourage a liberality which abandons all effort to obtain co-operation. My Lords do not gather from your letters that any appeal has been made to the parishioners. I have the honor to be, &c. Definition of "local con SIR, (No. 2.) Committee of Council on Education, Council Office, Downing Street, 3 August 1854. My Lords cannot extend the definition of local contributions beyond sums raised from residents, owners of real property, or employers of labour in tributions," the district for which the school is intended. under Mi nute of The Minute of 2 April 1853 enlarges the previous measure of assistance, 2 April 1853. but only for the encouragement of local contributions in the foregoing sense. It would be impossible for my Lords to admit, without completely overthrowing the principle on which the Minute rests, that the "locality" of a subscription can be determined with reference to any one except the actual donor. My Lords wish to encourage parishioners to look to themselves for a school, just as much as for the repair of their roads, or the maintenance of their poor. REVEREND SIR, (No. 3.) Committee of Council on Education, Council Office, I AM directed to inform you that my Lords could not make a grant towards Grants not the cost of procuring, or erecting, a room to be occupied by a school on made toSundays only. wards building for Sun My Lords assist in promoting no schools except such as are intended to day schools. be held daily. Their Lordships, however, distinctly recognize and provide for the use of such school premises on Sundays. You will judge, from these explanations, whether you can bring your case within the rules of this Department. I have the honor to be, &c. (Signed) R. R. W. LINGEN. SIR, (No. 4.) Committee of Council on Education, Council Office, Downing Street, 15 October 1854. assessed to In reply to the inquiry contained in your letter of the 3rd instant, as Liability of regards the liability of the above-named school to be assessed to the poor school buildrate, I am directed to state that their Lordships' Counsel has given it as his into t opinion that, if any of the school children pay for their education, the school peor-rate. building is assessable to the poor-rate, on the same terms as any other teneI have the honor to be, &c. (Signed) ment. * (No. 5.) R. R. W. LINGEN. Extract from Letter dated 19 January 1855. Committee of Council on Education, Council Office, made for only for ex THEIR Lordships' Architect reports that there are some items in the Grants not estimate which appear to be of the nature of simple restorations and repairs, simple such as are properly chargeable upon current expenditure, and form part of repair, but that general maintenance of the school which the promoters, on applying tension or for public aid towards its erection, undertook to provide. Painting is certainly improvesuch an item; and so are all expenses which admit of being stated only as ment of miscellaneous. existing schoolhouses. H ANNUAL GRANTS. (No. 1.) Circular Letter to Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, relating to Exercises in Elementary Drawing. Committee of Council on Education, Council Office, SIR, One exercise only is intended to be given to each pupil-teacher. Four sets of such exercises are forwarded, in order to enable you to vary them in different schools. The exercises should be proposed in those schools only where you have reason to believe that the pupil-teachers have received special instruction in drawing from competent instructors. If the instructor in any given case be not the master or mistress of the apprentices, but the teacher of a drawing-school in connexion with the Department of Science and Art, the passages marked A. are applicable.† You are referred to them for information; but the Committee of Council does not assume any duty in giving effect to them, beyond proposing and transmitting the exercises. If, on the other hand, the pupil-teachers shall have received their instruction in drawing from their own master or mistress, the passage marked B. applies; and the addition to the usual gratuity will be forwarded to the teacher of the apprentices whose exercises are approved.‡ Teachers of elementary schools may obtain certificates of competency to teach drawing, either directly from the Department of Science and Art, or by attendance at the examinations for certificates or registration, which will, in future, include suitable exercises in drawing. Teachers already registered or certificated will be allowed to attend, for the purpose of working the exercise in *Minutes of 1853-4, vol. i., p. 36. † Extract (A) from letter addressed to Department of Science and Art :"With a view to facilitate the commencement of such instruction during the apprenticeship itself, the Lord President thinks that apprentices might be received, for instruction in drawing, at half the fees charged to other persons. His Lordship would be prepared to place suitable examples in the hands of H.M. Inspectors, with instructions to afford an opportunity of working them to every apprentice who should produce due evidence of his having attended a drawing class during the preceding twelve months. "The exercises worked would reach this office with the rest of each apprentice's papers, and would be transmitted to the Department of Science and Art from time to time in convenient numbers, and so much money as answered to the remaining half of the fees, in the case of each apprentice whose exercise was approved, might be placed by the Department out of its funds to the credit of the several drawing masters who had instructed each such apprentice. The instructors of such apprentices as failed would receive only the half fee already paid to them." "Pupil-teachers will be admitted to study and practise at any schools in connexion with the Department of Science and Art, at a cost to themselves of only half the ordinary fees payable for instruction." Extract (B) from same letter :-" "The Committee of Council on Education will place a value on these Certificates of Competency. Every teacher who obtains a full second year's Certificate for wing, will be allowed to receive an addition of £1 a year to his annual allowom the Committee of Council on Education for every pupil-teacher (up to a of 37.) who is instructed by him in drawing, and who satisfies the DeScience and Art with his annual progress. |