following table that it is unusual to find in town schools children who are much above ten years old.

In pit schools the average age is lower; that of the first class is commonly 9.2. One effect of having efficient teachers and well-furnished schools seems to be that children can now be taught in less time than formerly the meagre smattering which passes for education, and that they are ready at an earlier age for the labour market. This is the case to such an extent that in many elementary schools the standard of instruction is not much above that of infants' schools of a very high class. Nor can any other result be expected if we have to contend with two such evils as irregular attendance and early employment in labour. On such points valuable evidence might be obtained from school registers, provided that one comprehensive system of registration were adopted by a sufficient number of schools.

The following is the abstract of the attendance at a town school in Cumberland, where a master, with a certificate of merit, and three apprentices have been employed, at an annual average cost to the public funds of 817. 10s. per annum. ABSTRACT of ATTENDANCE from 29 Sept. 1853 to 29 Sept. 1854, showing the average number of days per week each child in each class has been present during each quarter.

standard of instruction in this case cannot be called high. The school is practically in two great divisions, with very unequal attainments. In the first class the children read fluently, write a good hand, and spell very fairly. In an exercise in dictation, from the fourth book of the Irish Commissioners, four out of ten examples were correct, four had one error, two had two errors, one had three errors. The same children can work correctly sums involving vulgar and decimal fractions. But in the second class only five in seventeen children worked correctly a sum in very simple multiplication; and in the third class only eleven children in a class of thirtyfive completed a sum in simple addition. Unfortunately this is a common specimen of the schools which I have to visit. Those which follow are examples of the standard of attainments in schools from which Queen's Scholars have been elected.

A. 1st class. Twenty-five boys, in three groups.

group Working sums from books.

1

2

3

Practice. Only two out of twelve boys produced a correct result.

B. 1st class. Thirteen girls.

First Example. Only three girls in thirteen worked correctly a sum in simple division.

Second Example. Only five girls in thirteen worked correctly a sum in easy reduction.

In both schools the teachers have certificates of merit; and in all these cases the particular lesson referred to was given by the regular school teachers, according to the directions of the time-table, without the slightest interference on my part.

The worst specimen of attendance which has come under my notice is shown in the following extract from the register of a school in Cumberland, in the charge of a master with a certificate of merit.

FIRST CLASS REGISTER SHEET.-Quarter ending July 14.

NAMES.

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

I.

K.

L.

M.

The children referred to were, with two exceptions, I believe,

the sons or daughters of farmers, and were paying 6d. a week as the school fee.

I have collected a great number of examples of this kind during the last two years, and I can only consider them as unsatisfactory evidence that the humanising influences of mental culture are making the least possible progress where they are most needed. It would not be wrong to hope for some improvement if our schoolmasters were more generally animated by a missionary spirit, and had more intercourse with the parents of the children they propose to educate. It would be easy to show that this labour is seldom undertaken I have the honor to be, &c.

in vain.

To the Right Honorable

D. J. STEWART.

The Lords of the Committee of Council on Education.

APPENDIX.

DURHAM AND NORTHUMBERLAND PRIZE-SCHEME ASSOCIATION.

IN the years 1831 and 1832 Dr. Arnold addressed a series of letters to the Sheffield Courant on the social condition of the operative classes. His object was to give a sketch of the several causes which had brought about the existing relations of the rich and poor towards one another, both with regard to their mutual feelings and to their outward condition. He pointed out in plain and forcible language that great suffering, profound discontent, and general moral degradation might very naturally accompany periods of great and unusual commercial activity. The effect of wealth rapidly acquired would be, as he said, to remove different classes of society from one another, and to make their sympathies with each other less and less powerful. One half of society would move forward, while the other half would sink backward, and the distance beween them in feelings and habits would continually become greater.

Thousands of men grow up devoid alike of physical comforts and of intellectual and moral culture, and now we are reaping the fruits of it. Having no property of their own, they hate property; having no means of intellectual enjoyment, they are driven to seek the pleasures which we have in common with brutes; having never been made Christians, their undisciplined natures are incapable of valuing Christianity, and their evil passions teach them to hate it.”—Miscellaneous Works, p. 211.

What was thus said in 1832 has been repeated again and again up to the present time. Mr. Tremenheere, in his reports on the mining districts, has annually reproduced these opinions. Year after year he has had occasion to remark on the increase of immorality in operative communities, their low sensual tastes and desires, the ignorance and jealousy which make them the prey of every and any political charlatan who has impudence enough to style himself the People's Friend.

In the Times of April 5, 1855, there is a very interesting letter, signed "Charles Walker and Sons, Midland Works, Tipton." This communication shows very forcibly the sccial evils alluded to in Dr. Arnold's letters, and it suggests some remedies. The description of the South Staffordshire districts

bears so close a resemblance to what I often hear said of the mining and manufacturing localities in the North of England, that it is worth while to copy it as it stands.

The population of the whole district is divided into two classes, as far asunder as the antipodes. The employers, who are the gentry, and the employed, who are the working classes, who never associate one with the other, coming in contact only occasionally at their work, which, in general, as to the speaking point, may be pronounced seldom or never."

After pointing out the high rates of wages paid for labour, the writers proceed to say:-"Now it will be readily seen that, as far as worldly circumstances are concerned, no part of the community are better fitted to live and bring up a family respectably, to well educate their children, lay by for slack times, and as land and building materials are cheap, to prepare for sickness and old age. But what is the actual state of things? No part of the community lives less respectably. No part of the community is less educated, more than eight tenths can neither read nor write, the registrar's books show that more than three fourths sign their names with a cross. None of the community lay by less money; one week's or a fortnight's slackness will put them in a destitute condition.

"Can it be wondered, then, when men like these are thrown out of work by slack times, and are pinched by want, or on a fall in the market have a corresponding fall in their wages proposed, they should, in their simple and mischievous political economy, consider that the most easy way to obtain food is to go to a provision-shop and obtain it by force, or march in thousands to their employers and coerce them not to reduce their wages?

"What is the remedy for this vicious and sad state of things? Remove intemperance from the country and educate the people. Unless we are eye-witnesses, it is difficult to conceive the intemperance of the mining district.

"The other remedy is-educate the people. Education to the working man has far greater effects than to the wealthy. An ignorant energetic people is combustible matter, ready to blaze on the first spark. Education is a mighty help to temperance. A collier who can neither read nor write goes home at night; he has nothing to amuse him; his wife is as ignorant as himself, and, finding no amusement and recreation at home, he goes to a beerhouse to find it. His home has no attraction for him; having no education themselves, they cannot see the value of it for their children. The consequence is, that there is no disposition to send their children to school, and there is every inducement to send them to work, for in this district there are so many ways that children can be employed, that a child of eight or nine years of age may earn 5s. per week; twelve or thirteen years, 10s. and 12s. per week. Remonstrate with them on the folly of thus sacrificing the child for money, the answer outspoken is- We've had no larning; don't see why the kids shouldn't do as well as the old uns; besides, we can't afford to keep them idling, doing a'nothing.' We say, most unreservedly, these people will never be educated till you shut away work from their children, and compel the parents to send them to school by law. The voluntary system has been tried here long enough, and although they are somewhat improved (for it would be hard indeed if there were not some good), and a great amount of good has been done by the network of communication by railway in this neighbourhood, yet down to the present, education, in a general way, may safely be said to have failed, and the rising generation bids fair to be quite as unlettered as their fathers. Let other more favoured districts dispute among themselves as to what form of religion is best to be added to education, but in these mining districts let the people he educated, and compel them to come in.'

"Let legislators, if they wish to know whether it is poverty or not that keeps back education, look to these mining districts for an answer, and they will find an affluent working population almost, if not quite, as uneducated

as the negroes of the West Indies. It is not poverty, but ignorance—the parent of ignorance, the companion of improvidence, the parent of crime. The money, though hard worked for, is easily obtained. Easy come, easy go,' is not confined to the employed. Is it not pleasant to reflect that in Germany the peasant of 3s. per week is a scholar by the side of an Englishman of thirty times the amount per week? Nay, most certainly has he a more comfortable, respectable home than the Englishman."

Such are the opinions of men who are far from depreciating the capacities and knowledge of the working classes, but would gladly see one hearty feeling of brotherhood existing between them and all other sections of English society.

They honour them for their intelligence in matters connected with their own business, and believe that an improvement in their general social organization would be the greatest blessing this country could receive.

In order to attempt a remedy for some of the evils just alluded to, an association was formed in the year 1852, by twenty-three firms in South Staffordshire, for the advancement of the education of the children of operatives in their employ. Feeling that the root of all the social vice and confusion before them was being strengthened and perpetuated by the early employment of children, they offered prizes to induce children to remain longer under school influences. They hoped that in this way some lasting impression might be produced on a boy's character.

Without expecting to maintain in their schools a high standard of instruction, they hoped to persuade parents to leave their children under the schoolmaster's charge long enough to acquire lasting habits of honesty, truthfulness, and self-respect.

It is not possible to measure rigidly the success which has attended this attempt.

Those most intimately connected with it are satisfied with what has been effected already. It has led to the formation of five other associations: the system appears to be acceptable to the operatives themselves, and to be interesting to their children. It may be said, that up to the present time, wherever these prize schemes have been established, their influence has been good; they have been in some degree the means of encouraging those habits of thoughtfulness and self-control, in which the operative class is generally deficient.

The success which has been met with in these particulars, has led to the formation of an Association for the Advancement of Education in the Northern District.

In the counties of Durham and Northumberland children are seeking employment in labour at an earlier age every year. It is not usual to find the average age of children in the first class of an elementary school higher than 10.5 years. In schools in pit villages the average is often much lower. As the age of the children in attendance at a school decreases, so also does the standard of instruction maintained in that school.

There is very good ground for fearing that the majority of the children now leaving schools for labour at factories or pits has not mastered the ordinary difficulties of reading and writing. If there are any evils allied to ignorance, it is but too clear that they will abound under such conditions.

The manufacturing districts of Durham and Northumberland will reproduce those features of social disorganization which are attributed to similar districts in Staffordshire. The objects of the prize scheme for the counties of Durham and Northumberland are given in detail in the circular and statement printed herewith. The committee have at present promises of nearly 1007. from annual subscribers, and they propose to attempt nothing that has not the great recommendation of having been tried with success for some years elsewhere.

The first examination may probably be held in the autumn, but before that time it is most desirable to see how far the manufacturers as a body will