school, not being a parish school, nor in connexion with the National or British and Foreign School Society. The Committee of Council have directed these forms to be printed separately, and are ready to furnish a copy of any one of them to any gentlemen preparing to erect a school-house which is to be conveyed to trustees. (Signed) I have, &c. JAMES PHILLIPS KAY. SIR, 2.-TRUST CIRCULAR. Committee of Council on Education, Council Office, Whitehall, 184. THE Committee of Council on Education charged with the distribution of the Parliamentary Grant for the promotion of Education in Great Britain, having hitherto appropriated these funds chiefly to the erection of school-houses, are desirous to diminish the expenses attending the conveyance of the sites of school-houses, by affording to the promoters of elementary education their advice and assistance in the examination of the titles of property and the preparation of the trust-deeds. For this latter purpose, their Lordships have already caused various forms of conveyance to be prepared, which they have published in the folio and octavo editions of their Minutes for 1839-40, and which they are ready to transmit for the use of the School Committees engaged in the erection of school-houses. The Committee are prepared to increase the number of these forms as much as experience may prove to be necessary or desirable, and thus to reduce as much as possible the cost of conveyance of the sites of school-houses. Their Lordships direct me to draw your attention to the third section of their fourth regulation, dated 24th September, 1839, in which they state that, "before any application for aid shall be entertained, the Committee will require to be satisfied that the site of the school-house has been obtained with a good legal tenure, and that by conveyance to trustees it has been duly secured for the education of the children of the poor;" and to the third clause of the certificate (to a similar effect) required to be signed by all recipients of aid from the Parliamentary grant. For the purpose, therefore, of affording the utmost facilities for the acquisition of such property, and of increasing the security of the tenure, in order that the objects sought to be accomplished by the Legislature may as much as possible be placed beyond the risk of failure, by imperfection in the titles or in the conveyance of the sites of school-houses, their Lordships have determined to refer the examination of the titles and trust-deeds of such sites to their counsel. I am therefore to request that you will transmit to this office, as early as may be convenient to you, a short statement of the title of the present owner of the land which is to form the site of your school. Their Lordships will not require a regular abstract to be made in the first instance. They wish also to know whether the site is at present unoccupied or under lease, and whether it is to be acquired by purchase or gift. This information is now sought in order that the examination of the title may take place before your application is brought under the consideration of their Lordships. I have, &c. 3.-CIRCULAR TO TWENTY-NINE MINING PROPRIETORS IN MONMOUTHSHIRE. SIR, Committee of Council on Education, : Council Office, Whitehall, March 25th, 1840. THE Committee of Council have had before them the report of an inquiry made in pursuance of their directions, by their Inspector of Schools, Mr. Tremenheere, into the state of the education of the poorer classes in the district in which you reside. Their Lordships' attention has been drawn to the lamentable deficiency of the means of elementary instruction in a great portion of that district: they find that in most parts few schools exist, or that those which do exist are so inefficiently conducted as, with few exceptions, to be incapable of exercising any salutary influence upon the manners, habits, and condition of the labouring population. The Committee of Council, being anxious to give immediate effect to their wish to provide the means of an efficient elementary education for this population, are desirous to encourage the erection of school-houses, and the settlement of well-instructed and religious men as teachers of elementary schools, throughout this district; and feeling assured that you concur with them in considering such measures as highly important to the future welfare of the labouring population by which you are surrounded, and not less to the security of property and to the peace of society, are disposed to offer you and the other persons locally interested, who are disposed to co-operate, their assistance for the establishment of a school in your immediate neighbourhood. My Lords, therefore, direct me to transmit to you the enclosed copy of a Parliamentary Paper, containing extracts from their minutes, in which you will find the regulations by which the distribution of the Parliamentary grant is ordinarily determined. Considering the peculiar circumstances of the district, my Lords are disposed to exceed the usual limit of the grants made for the erection of school-houses, provided they can be assured, by the nature of the plan selected, the form of the trust-deed, and the amount of the annual income provided for a teacher, that the school will be permanently supported and efficiently conducted. I am therefore likewise directed to transmit for your information the enclosed plans of school-houses, with an explanatory minute, as well as forms of conveyance of various kinds of schools, and to inform you, that, if you are disposed to select one of the above plans and forms of conveyance, my Lords will further furnish you with a form of building contract, with working drawings, specifications, bills of quantities, and estimates for any school, the plan of which you may select. If, further, the means can be provided for defraying the annual expenses of the schools, so as to secure the services of a teacher trained either in the Normal School of the National Society or of the British and Foreign School Society, or in one of the Normal Schools of the Church of Scotland, or in some other school which their Lordships may approve, they will be disposed to afford you one-half of the estimated expense of erecting a school-house according to the plan, specification, and estimate which you may select, upon the transmission of the usual certificate. To the Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education. The Memorial of Sir Thomas Phillips, of Newport, in Monmouthshire, SHEWETH, THAT in the county of Monmouth are several collieries, whereby coal for exportation from the port of Newport is supplied in large quantities. That those collieries are situated in a district which comprises large portions of the parishes of Bedwelty, Machen, Risca, Monythusloyne, Llantriddel, and Aberystwith; and that a population of many thousand persons is employed at or dependent upon such collieries. That, so far as is known to your memorialist, there does not exist in the entire district a single school capable of exercising much salutary influence upon the youthful members of that population. That, in the month of November, 1839, several thousand armed men assembled by night, and marched upon the town of Newport, with the view, by terror and violence, to subvert the institutions of their country; and, in furtherance of such object, commenced an attack upon the magistracy, the constabulary, and the military, on which occasion many lives were lost; and that a large portion of the insurgents inhabited the colliery district, and received constant and profitable employment at the collieries. That, in the judgment of your memorialist, the peace of that district still depends upon the presence of an armed force of suf ficient strength to overawe the disaffected portion of the popula tion; but that, although such a force may restrain violence, and thus afford time for reflection to operate, it cannot influence opinion. That the only agency by which the ignorant and disaffected portion of the population of the district can be taught their duty to God or man is to be sought for in providing for them the means of sound moral and religious training, and that the public funds now at the disposal of the state seem inadequate to accomplish this object in any other manner than by aiding and encouraging the erection of schools and the establishment of wellinstructed and religious men as teachers. That your memorialist is, to a small extent, interested in collieries now at work in the parish of Monythusloyne, near Newport; and, being impressed with the conviction that the relation of master and servant imposes upon both high moral duties, he is prepared to undertake the erection of a school and schoolhouse, and the support of a schoolmaster, in a convenient locality within that parish. That your memorialist desires to provide convenient accommodation for 200 or 250 children, and to secure a site which shall be conveyed in perpetuity, for the purposes of affording to the children of the poor a sound moral and religious education; and that he is informed the cost of the buildings, in a district where labour is dear, will exceed 6007., exclusive of the site. That the inhabitants of the district consist, with a very few exceptions, of the workmen employed at or dependent upon the collieries; and that no local assistance can be expected by your memorialist, either for the erection of the buildings or the permanent support of the school. That, although your memorialist has felt himself reluctantly compelled to abandon the hope of being able to carry into execution a comprehensive and extensive scheme for educating the children of the poor throughout the colliery district of Monmouthshire, he entertains a well-grounded belief, that when the proposed school shall be established, the example thus set will be generally imitated by the colliery proprietors of the neighbourhood. Your memorialist therefore humbly solicits from your Lordships a liberal grant towards the erection of the proposed buildings. 11th November, 1840. (Signed) T. PHILLIPS. Committee of Council on Education, SIR, I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, dated the 11th of November, and of the enclosed memorial relating the circumstances under which you apply for aid for the erection of a school at Newport in Monmouthshire. My Lords greatly regret that you see no hope at present of procuring the co-operation of the colliery proprietors in one general and well-considered scheme for the education of the mining population of Monmouthshire. Your own exertions, however, inspire their Lordships with the hope that the duties which arise from the relations of the proprietors of collieries to the population labouring in the mines will, ere long, be as fully acknowledged by others as by yourself. Already the imminent danger of a great public calamity has proved that the security of property and the peace of society are liable to disturbance in that district; and their Lordships conceive that it is consequently apparent that it cannot be the interest of a great body of wealthy proprietors that the labourers (by whose misguided turbulence this security and peace have been disturbed) should continue the prey of low moral habits, to a large extent without religion, in gross ignorance, and consequently the easy victims of the disaffected and of the emissaries of disorganising doctrines. Nor can it be the interest of proprietors, who have so much wealth at stake, that the children of this population should grow up ignorant, irreligious, corrupted, and misled. My Lords conceive that the same motives which induce merchants and manufacturers to devote a portion of their annual profits to the insurance of the capital they employ in trade ought to be sufficient (even without any reference to moral considerations of much greater dignity and importance) to deter sagacious men from leaving their wealth exposed to the dangers of popular tumults and secret violence, when a comparatively small annual expenditure, judiciously employed in introducing the elements of civilisation and religion, would render society harmonious and secure. The law, which secures the life of the most destitute and abandoned at the expense of the property of the country, confers this great benefit, among other considerations, in order that property may be the more secure. The principle has thus been recog |