Established and Free churches, and nearly one third to the Roman Catholic. The donor himself, it may be remarked, was of the latter connexion, and willing that his gift should have a really catholic application.

The late rector, in his report to the directors, observes" that there is always about 20 per cent., or one in every five of the whole population, receiving education in the parish" (where there are several schools besides those mentioned), "and that during the months of January and February the number rises to nearly 25 per cent., or one in four of the whole inhabitants of the parish.' There can be no doubt that this unusual proportion of the population at school is mainly owing to the encouragements given by the bequest.

The bequest has been applied in as many forms as can be supposed requisite to complete the means of education for a parish. There are the infant school, the school of female industry, and the juvenile school, in three separate divisions. Even the less necessary school of industry for boys is not altogether unknown here, some approach to it being made in the lessons which the English master has occasionally given in the principles of agricultural chemistry. These have ceased for a time, but they are meant to be resumed; and they can be here given with every advantage, from competent skill on the teacher's part, and a sufficient apparatus at his command. One cause of the little progress that has been made in this branch of instruction elsewhere is, that it has been given to too young a class of pupils; whereas it had better been reserved for those about to leave school, and for other young persons already occupied in agricultural work. There is reason to expect that this branch will soon receive, here, the attention due to its practical uses, and at the same time to its interest merely as an element of knowledge.

Apart from its adjuncts afore mentioned, the Milne Institution in its three divisions forms one of those academies which occupy a place betwixt the parish schools and the universities, and of which there are too few in Scotland. Yet it takes this position, not so much from anything in the programme of its instruction, which is not found in schools of a lower class, as from the partition of the work of instruction among so many masters. The rector or head master's duty is to instruct in the Latin, Greek, and French languages; in mathematics, pure and prac tical; in the practical parts of natural philosophy; the outlines of astronomy; English composition and history. He has also a general superintendence of the other departments of the institution. The English master has assigned to him all the usual elementary branches; the commercial master, writing and arithmetic. The number of pupils instructed in each of these branches at the time referred to was as follows:

Already the proportion of pupils under tuition in the higher branches exceeds what is common in the parish schools; and there is reason to expect it will soon increase, looking to the various circumstances that favour and even seem to necessitate a more considerable development of the institution.

The institution will not fail to profit, in particular, from such advantages as these:-1. The uncommon care which the directors, and more especially his Grace the Duke of Richmond, exercise in overseeing its concerns, and attending to all its interests; and their desire, which amounts to an ambition, that it should be nothing less than the model school of the district. 2. The competency of the masters to advance it to that distinction; for in knowledge and ability they are equal to the task; and they are men on whose best endeavours the directors deem that they

may safely rely, although, by the free constitution of the school, their recompense does not vary, in the usual way, according to the measure of their success. Even now the seminary, under such care and conduct, exhibits some points of excellence which promise highly for the future.

The first obvious appearance of good management is in the order, quiet, and attention maintained throughout the school. This is to be attributed mainly to the conduct of each master in his department; but, in part, also to the aid which he derives from the supervision of the rector, and from the employment of the pupil teachers, whose apprenticeship has been sanctioned by your Lordships; at the same time, the ample and spacious accommodation lends its usual facility to discipline.

In the commercial department arithmetic is well taught on the rational method; that is, with an intelligent and clear explanation of the principles. In the rector's, it is enough to say that one class has already attained to considerable proficiency in translating from English into Latin, and that the study of pure mathematics proceeds in a very promising manner. In the division for English reading, the exercises are such and so conducted as befits a school of the first class: the art of teaching to those who have been taught, but for nine months, becomes a secondary matter of attention; the real study is the narrative, description, discourse, or whatever it may be, that forms the subject of the reading lesson. Etymology, writing to dictation, writing of abstracts and short essays in English composition (the latter taught by the rector), are, of course, not wanting here. The religious instruction, under charge of the rector and the English master, is conducted in the most skilful manner, embracing, as usual, the principles of religion and sacred history, as well as very special expositions of the moral truths contained in the precepts, promises, and parables of Scripture. The text books employed for this purpose are, as usual, the Bible and Shorter Catechism for all; except for the Roman Catholic children, who do not choose to be instructed from the latter. In these and other respects, the Milne School, as yet only three years in operation, already exhibits a proficiency answerable to the great advantages it enjoys.

There can be no doubt that it belongs to schools of the rank to which this pertains, to exhibit a better method in their treatment of the elementary branches than is at all common in those elementary schools to which they may stand in the relation of a model or example. Without describing how these branches are taught in most elementary schools, it may be here noticed, in one or two instances, how it is desirable they should be taught. 1. The religious instruction might be divided with advantage into its several distinct parts, embracing the sacred history of the Old Testament, with its five or six great epochs distinguished; New Testament history, Christian doctrine, Christian morals, with special reference to the Commandments and to the parables and discourses of the Saviour. For the most part, all of these things are mixed together, and none of them in consequence are so well taught as they otherwise might be. If, but on one of those sections, the instruction were given in a very thorough manner, the result would perhaps, in any point of view, be preferable to an imperfect and confused notion of the whole: though it cannot be said that of itself any one of these would be sufficient. 2. History, as taught in most elementary schools, is only the history of England or Scotland; whereas, that even this may have its due significance, it is necessary there should be, at the same time, a very general view of other history besides, both ancient and modern. This general view there are good reasons for presenting first of all. At the same time, it is a matter of some moment to regulate aright the measure of attention due respectively to general history and to the history of the native country. On this point, there are some indications of opinion in the historical questions which your Lordships have directed to be proposed to candidates for certificate of merit

In a course of history for elementary schools, it would argue no undue partiality, if as much time and attention were allowed to the history of the native country as to all the rest together. In like manner, the different parts of the subject claim more or less attention in an elementary course of Geography; and for much the same reason as in the case of history, the geography of the native country may and ought to be studied with the greatest degree of particularity. Next in the order of importance to the pupil is the quarter of the world to which the native country belongs; and all school books of geography declare the less interest in the other quarters by the less amount of information which they afford concerning them. Another portion of this study is the great globe itself in its most remarkable divisions of land and water: some general notions of which it is of manifest use to impart at the very threshold. It happens, however, in very many elementary schools that neither the proper order is observed in taking up these different portions of the subject, nor is that degree of attention bestowed which each of them respectively requires.

On these and other points of method the Milne School is fully competent to afford the best example; and on the whole it may be said to be even now in the course of fulfilling effectually all the purposes of the benevolent testator, and of profiting from the various advantages conferred upon it by the bequest and by the statute.

I have the honor to be, &c.,

To the Right Honorable the Lords of the
Committee of Council on Education.

JOHN GORDON.

Report on the Sessional Schools of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, and Perth. By the Rev. JOHN GORDON.

MY LORDS,

Edinburgh, November, 1849.

I HAVE the honor to present to your Lordships my Report on a class of schools commonly called Sessional schools, and so called from their connection with Kirk Sessions. The number of these inspected by me, and now to be referred to, is 50. Other schools of the same description, and in like manner attached to the Established Church, exist in Scotland; their total number is supposed to be about 100. The schools which I have now to notice, occur in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, and Perth; the rest, whether in towns or elsewhere, are generally established in districts that have been formed into parishes, quoad sacra.

The schools of this class appear to have originated in views of two distinct kinds, which may be here noticed, as not without an influence still perceptible in determining the character of the schools to which they severally gave rise.

1. In the beginning of the year 1812, the Established Clergy of Edinburgh were induced, by some recent instances of startling depravity among the youth of the lower classes of that city, to inquire very closely into their moral condition. The

result of this inquiry disclosed that a considerable proportion of the young in these classes was entirely uneducated; and that the means of education, even if desired, were for many, in a considerable degree, wanting. Regarding this as the source, or among the sources of the evil which had emerged, the Clergy then united in the scheme of opening a school in each of the city parishes for the religious instruction of the children of the poor. This was a Sabbath school, and nothing more— the exercises, as usual, partly devotional-but, in great part, directed to instruction in the truths of religion, by the usual means of catechisms, not merely of doctrine and precept, but of sacred geography and history; and more especially by reading of the Holy Scriptures.

It was soon found, however, that many who resorted to these Sabbath schools were unable to read the Holy Scriptures; many both of the school age and beyond it; and that the design of giving religious instruction could not be carried out without first providing instruction of another kind. A daily school was then set on foot, to afford to the same class of children instruction in reading and the other parts of an elementary education; a single daily school supported by a general contribution, and open to pupils from all parts of the city,-each Kirk Session having the privilege of sending a certain number of children to be taught gratis. This school was placed in Market-street, of Tron Parish. It was the same, which soon became well known as the Sessional School of Edinburgh; the same, in which those remarkable improvements took their rise, in the mode of con ducting elementary education, which have since been very generally adopted throughout Scotland, and which form what is called the explanatory or intellectual method of instruction.

A single school of this sort, however, was found to be insufficient for the work it proposed to accomplish; and not many years elapsed, till others were established for the same purposes, in connection with certain Kirk Sessions in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere.

2. At a later period, this class of schools was considerably augmented, and upon views somewhat different from those that had led to their original institution. It was then proposed that the sessional school should afford a greater range of instruction than before, and receive pupils, as well from the industrious classes of the community, as from the indigent and idle; that it should not be so much, in any point of view, of the description of a charity; in short, that, in all respects, it should take a somewhat higher place among the seminaries of the country.

In this extension of its plan, perhaps some advantage was intended to the poorer class of children, by uniting them with others in the common exercises of the school; more probably, it was only meant to furnish to these others a necessary addi

tion to the means of education which befitted them; but in some instances, it was supposed that the larger course of instruction, under proper guidance, could have no other effect than to profit, in any view of the matter, all classes of children without exception.

It was on this last consideration that the sessional school of St. George's parish was planned in 1823, not for children of the poorest, but for those of the working classes; and to give, at least, an opportunity to both, of instruction in something more than the merest elements. The seal of Cause and Charter of Erection of that school, dated January 1828, bears, that the children for whom it is intended "may be safely and beneficially entrusted with a much more liberal course of instruction than what the children of our population usually enjoy; and that, when all the knowledge they acquire is guided by the authority, and sanctified by the influence of the Gospel, then the more knowledge that can be infused into them, the better will it be for elevating the tone of their dispositions, and securing the improvement of their character." Other schools of the sessional kind, it is believed, were designed upon exactly the same views; and in all such cases, it was apparently intended to assimilate, as far as possible, the Sessional to the parochial schools of the national establishment.

The Sessional schools, indeed, were commonly established in such places, and under such circumstances, as might readily suggest the fitness of conforming them in the points just noticed, to the model of the parochial. These circumstances are noticed as follows, in a memorial addressed to your Lordships, in 1842, by the General Assembly's Education Committee:

"The result of the enactments of 1696 and 1803 has been, that every parish in Scotland, either wholly or in part landward, enjoys an endowed school; while the Burgh parishes have been left to find the means of education for themselves, that is, the teachers have proceeded on their own adventure, depending for their emolument entirely on the wages which their pupils might happen to afford. Some, indeed, are aided by allowance from the public funds of the Burgh, or by chance endowment from other sources. But the number of such cases is small in proportion to the number of schools within the Burgh; it is not equal to the number of Burgh parishes; it is disproportionate in an uncommon degree to the amount of the Burgh population. This sort of provision is merely accidental, and generally of precarious continuance; it is not secured in the same effectual manner as that which has been provided for the Landward parishes.

"How far it was fit that the town parishes should be excepted from the provisions of the later Act, may appear from their present state, in respect to the education of the lower classes. It is known that a large proportion of these receive much less of the benefits of schoc! than the rural population throughout Scotland; nay, that they have little or no advantage, in this respect, over the poor in the remotest districts of the Highlands and Islands. At the same time, if instruction may be supposed more necessary in one place than another, there are obvious grounds for the strongest claims to it on the part of the lower population of the towns. The Committee are warranted in stating, that many thousands of children there are suffered to grow up without any instruction