not identical with, those of the British and Foreign School Society; their schools are generally prosperous and popular; and some have reached a state of the highest practicable efficiency. Enough has been done to prove that combined schools are acceptable to the people, and adapted to spread education throughout the district, but not enough as yet to meet its wants to any considerable extent. state of among Nonconformists. The Nonconformists themselves have done very little. About Present the year 1847, the question of education was much agitated education among this class of the community, and the majority unhappily appeared to be in favour of purely voluntary action. Upon this, the minority retired from the field and quietly awaited those results which their friends had promised to bring about without any contamination from the co-operation of the State. They have waited some seven years, and the expected results are nowhere to be seen. This has not only confirmed their original conviction that the necessary work of education cannot be done by voluntary effort alone, but has brought over to their view of the question many who formerly opposed it. The subject is once more under anxious consideration, and this time it is hoped that the consequences will be very different. Already public meetings have been held at Blaina and Merthyr, and a "South Wales British School Association" has been formed for the avowed purpose of "promoting education in South Wales according to the unsectarian principles of the British and Foreign School Society, with the aid of the Committee of Council on Education." In several important neighbourhoods arrangements have been commenced for securing annual grants under your Lordships' Minutes, and it is within my knowledge that applications for fifteen certificated teachers for new schools in South Wales have been addressed to the British and Foreign School Society, who however, can supply only one. There is, indeed, a rare opportunity for action on the part of the Government at the present moment, and I am sanguine enough to believe that it might be so used as to give a decided and lasting impulse to the march of education in the district. formists. But for this purpose some modification of the present offi- Nonconcial system is absolutely indispensable. South Wales must be recognized as a land of Dissenters, and the schools intended for its benefit must be such as to command the confidence of men who hold nothing so precious as perfect religious freedom. The right of the parent to be the sole director of his child's religious training most be held sacred; and the idea that men zealously attached to one denomination can be content to leave the education of their offspring at the mercy of the ministers of another must be altogether abandoned. The Noncon Sunday schools sufficient for denominational instruction. British schools best united to South Wales. Premature certificated teachers at formists of South Wales are firmly resolved to submit to no domination on the part of the Establishment; but they have no desire to exercise dominion themselves. They are for the most part ready, in school affairs, to act with the Church on terms of perfect equality, and to support combined schools, basing their highest teaching upon the Bible, but rejecting all catechisms and denominational peculiarities. It is hardly necessary, in writing of such a people as the Welsh, to guard against the supposition that this readiness to abandon denominational instruction in the day school, may arise from indifference; but it will be useful to glance at the real reason for the feeling. Its explanation is found in the Sunday school. The same district, which sent only 65,137 children to day schools, in 1851, was filling its Sunday schools with 163,033 scholars; and whilst the day schools reached only 8.7 per cent., the Sunday school was brought home to 21.7 per cent. of the population. I have had no opportunity of examining Sunday schools; but much attention was paid to them by the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales, in 1846-7, and their opinion was decidedly favorable on the whole. The correctness of this opinion has been confirmed to me by ministers of religion in the district, who have described the large amount of sound religious knowledge diffused through the agency of Sunday schools, and have expressed themselves perfectly satisfied with the sufficiency of that agency for denominational purposes. I believe this to be the general feeling also of the working classes. They attach the highest value to religious instruction; but they prefer obtaining it for themselves and their families by means of the Sunday school. The day school is wanted for another purpose; and, though they require in it a religious character, they do not wish to employ it mainly in direct religious teaching. The schools best suited for such a population are those based upon the unsectarian, yet strictly scriptural, principles of the British and Foreign School Society. This at least should be the general type; but denominational schools might still be sanctioned in special cases, where it could be shown that they were necessary, or even that there was a fair prospect of their permanent success. Independently, however, of the principles upon which to require schools for South Wales should be constituted, I feel bound to orregistered represent that certain modifications in minor matters of administration are imperatively called for by the circumstances of the district. One of these has reference to the regulation already mentioned, which declares that, after the commencement of this year, no school shall receive new pupil-teachers, present. or the capitation grant, until its teacher shall either have obtained a certificate of merit, or have passed his examination for registration. Now, of the 41 teachers in South Wales. whose schools I have inspected, 11 only hold certificates of merit, and not one has been registered. Consequently, three fourths of the schools under inspection are at this moment in danger of being arrested in their progress of improvement, unless their teachers be changed; and, if their present teachers be dismissed, there is not the slightest chance that any considerable number of them could secure the services of certificated or registered successors. This alone would seem sufficient to show that the regulation in question, is at least premature for such a district as South Wales; but when it is added, that there is just now an educational crisis in that part of the - country, that preparations for securing annual aid in all its forms are in progress in many yet untouched localities, that fifteen certificated teachers for new British schools have actually been applied for, and that one only can be supplied; it does not seem too much to assert that such a condition cannot be rigorously enforced, without presenting a positive impediment to the progress of that education, which it is your Lordships' avowed and undoubted desire to promote. ments as to school-pre Another regulation, which it would be advantageous to Requiremodify, is that which generally refuses any public aid in title to building or even fitting up school-rooms, unless they be con- mises should veyed in perpetuity to trustees for the purposes of education. be relaxed. It happens unfortunately in many iron and coal districts, among the hills of Monmouthshire and South Wales, that the sole owner of the soil is some noble or wealthy individual; who absolutely refuses to execute conveyances in fee simple, though he has no scruple about granting leases for lives or long terms, or about renewing them when the occasion arises. In such cases the continuance of the title is often morally secure; and yet the smallest grant is rigidly refused, to the great detriment of the cause of education. To meet the evil arising out of these or similar circumstances, I venture to suggest that grants for fittings, which are always small, as well as building grants of limited amount, might be made on the security of undertakings by responsible persons to repay the grants in the event of any interruption, within a given period, to the use of the premises for a school; care being taken at the same time to ascertain that the promoters obtain the best title they have it in their own power to get. Such a modification would be particularly acceptable in cases where your Lordships call upon the managers of schools to lay down boarded floors, or adopt better fittings, as a condition of receiving as to age and should be 1 elaxed. annual aid; and I am convinced, from the difficulties of this kind which have arisen within my own experience, that it would do unmixed good not only in South Wales, but in all parts of the kingdom. Restrictions A third regulation to which I would beg leave to request number of attention is that which relates to the number of apprentices pprentices allowed in schools, and the ages at which they may be engaged. The difficulty of retaining children at school until they are thirteen years old, in order that they may be apprenticed to their teachers, is steadily on the increase in every part of my district; but in the busy neighbourhoods of iron or coal mines, it is absolutely insurmountable. The best remedy appears to be one which has already been suggested by some of my colleagues—the engagement of a staff of paid monitors at an earlier age. Should this not be adopted, it is still possible to admit exceptions in certain districts, and I strongly recommend that the standard of age be lowered in the most populous parts of South Wales. A similar relaxation should take place with respect to the number of apprentices allowed. One pupilteacher for every 40 or 50 children in attendance is frequently sufficient in a well organized and long-established school; but in new schools, and especially in such a country as Wales, with all the difficulties of a double language to encounter, this proportion is by no means enough; and it will be found very difficult to raise such institutions to the average standard of efficiency, unless a larger staff be engaged, at least for a limited time. Measures :equired 1or South Wales. It may perhaps be necessary to apologize for devoting so much space exclusively to one portion of my district; and I can only do so by pointing to its generally exceptional condition, to its present want of the average means of education, to the rapid increase of its inhabitants in some localities, daily threatening to outstrip all the means of social amelioration, to the great future which seems to await it, when its magnificent resources shall have received their full development, and to the golden opportunity for action presented by the circumstances of the present time. It has appeared to me, in reviewing the results of my inquiries into the state of education in South Wales, that there is much good remaining to be effected, not a little evil to be counteracted, perhaps some mistakes to be redeemed; and I venture to submit my deliberate opinion that two simple resolutions would suffice to effect all which it rests with your Lordships to accomplish. By the first, the exceptional condition of the district, especially with regard to religious persuasion, should be recognized, and the establishment in every locality of schools suited to that condition should receive the most liberal encouragement. By the second, the application of certain regulations, for which this part of the country is not yet prepared, should be postponed for a limited period, and the stringency of others, calculated to retard improvement in a backward district, should be relaxed. 1. EXTRACT from a Prospectus issued by the managers of the Bideford British School, at the close of 1853: "The committee, while desirous of making their school thoroughly efficient as a means of education for the poor, are aware that others will gladly avail themselves of its advantages. They have, therefore, endeavoured to prepare a scale of charges which would enablet he to admit the children of parents who have larger incomes, without violating the funds placed at their disposal for the education of the poor. They feel assured that every parent will consider these terms equitable, when it is kno n that the actual cost to the committee for the education of each child is about 6d. per week. "While the charge for each child will thus be fixed according to the circumstances of the parents, no difference whatever will be made in the character or amount of instruction. Every advantage the school possesses will be alike open to all." The committee have power to reduce or remit the fees in special cases.-All school fees to be paid in advance.-All books and stationery required in the school will be provided by the committee, but one penny per month must be paid by each child for their use.-Books and slates for home study to be provided by the parents. 2. Tables illustrative of the effects produced by the introduction of higher payments. |