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alone has brought into the field 2,788 unpaid labourers, 121 of whom hold the bishop's licence to conduct services for the poor. All these centralised and consolidated agencies may be fairly reckoned as not the least important elements in the progress of religion and philanthropy in London, and not one of them can be said to be superfluous in a condition of society which, unlike that of the continental city, or even of the English provincial town, has led to an almost complete separation of classes, until between the east and west of London there is literally "a great gulf fixed," and it is to bridge over the chasm that the efforts of all who wish well to the race must be directed. Such schemes as those with which the names of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the late Mr. Peabody, and Sir Sydney Waterlow, Bart. will ever be connected, for providing model lodging-houses and well-built dwellings for the artizan and the labourer, have already done much to improve the homes of the people, and their work is now being followed by that of the public educator, who is, with the force of the law at his back, proclaiming that it is an essential part of the English Constitution that every child shall receive a sound elementary education. The London School Board, setting aside all questions as to the naracter of the training it gives and its expenditure of the public money, has, in the nine years of its existence, contrived to multiply its red brick edifices to such an extent that they are almost as numerous as the churches and chapels; and although it is still an open question whether they have yet gathered in the waifs and strays of the streets, for whom Lord Shaftesbury and the admirable promoters of the ragged schools did such a noble work, they can boast that they have under instruction 165,900 children, and accommodation for 198,470. In the voluntary schools the average attendance is 184,607, and the accommodation for 274,501.

In provisions for the recreation of the people an immense advance has been made of late years, specially in the acquirement of open spaces, or, as it has proved in some cases, in the stoppage of the inclosure of commons to which the right of the public was only tacitly admitted. Every district of London has one or more of these now almost intra-mural gardens, and the planting and throwing open of disused churchyards, as in the case of St. Paul's Cathedral, will gradually add to the number. The addition to the Royal parks of the tastefully planted gardens at Battersea, Kennington, and Finsbury Park, and the preserva

tion of Hampstead Heath, Clapham, Wandsworth, Wimbledon, and Tooting Commons, will secure lungs for London, which, as the city grows and extends its frontier, are becoming of increasing importance. In the way of public museums and picture galleries the establishment of the South Kensington Museum, with its connected branch at Bethnal Green, forms the most important addition made within the last half century to our national collections; while the removal of the Royal Academy's rooms to Burlington House has added largely to the house-room of the National Gallery, and the new rooms are in themselves worthy examples of tasteful decoration. The National Portrait Gallery, teaching history and art at once, is another fruit of that wise application of national funds to popular education which has its widest illustration in the science and art schools, with their branches throughout the country. For its musical and dramatic entertainments the people are still, strange to say, entirely dependent upon commercial undertakings, no scheme of State subsidy having been attempted. The number of theatres has increased considerably of late years, but no attempt has been made to rival the continental cities in the cheap performances which are there rendered possible by the State aid given to the managers. In the Crystal Palace a public company has, however, opened to the people of London what is at once a place of varied entertainment and a health resort, while northwards, on the summit of Muswell Hill, the Alexandra Palace does a similar work. These additions to the entertainments of London, although due to private enterprise, are among the signs of progress, which prove that the apostles of "Sweetness and Light" have not laboured entirely in vain in an age when business threatens to absorb all interest and energy.

In accommodation for its guests London is rapidly improving. The monster hotels—although incomparable in quiet and comfort to the old hostelry of coaching days-have been erected in imitation of our American cousins, near or in connection with the chief terminus stations of our railways, and Charing Cross, Victoria, Euston Square, King's Cross, Paddington, and Cannon Street can boast of buildings palatial in capacity if not in architecture opening on to the platforms, while on the Holborn Viaduct and the eastern end of the Victoria Embankment there are similar erections, each capable of receiving a regiment at a moment's notice. The number of public-houses in the Greater London of the Metropolitan Police District is 7,077, of beer

houses 4,262, of refreshment houses with wine licences 2,115; the total number of licences granted being 13,454. In the prosaic but not less important work of providing the public with luncheon or dinner, the progress of half a century has effected but little improvement, and the rough but good and plentiful coffee-room fare of the past was far preferable to the more pretentious and costly catering of the modern dining room. We have in this matter very much to learn from our neighbours across the water, and the work which, at last, the Coffee Tavern and Refreshment Room Companies are doing for the poorer classes in London, needs to be accomplished for every section of society. There has, it is true, been a noticeable increase in the number of foreign cafés opened in the western thoroughfares of late years, but the refreshment of the people is a matter which still waits for enterprise. Partly growing out of the public needs in this direction has been the extension of the club system at the west end of the town, until Pall Mall and St. James's Street are almost filled with club-houses, in all of which, although the ostensible bond of union may be the political, professional, or social agreement of the members, no insignificant element in the life of the institutions is furnished by the chef below or above stairs. The number of clubs of a really high standard is very large, and the latest addition to the list is a club for ladies. For the working man the club has completely taken the place of the Mechanics' Institute, and the central Working Men's Club and Institute Union in London has accomplished much useful work in promoting the formation of such institutions. This system which has been developed within the last twenty-five years, has led, in some cases, to the establishment of educational classes, both technical and general, and a movement of a more extended character for the promotion of technical education is receiving considerable support from the City Companies.

Thus, in all its varied departments of life and labour, the great city is moving on, and if it cannot in architectural beauties be said to be the first city in the world, it is at any rate in the forefront as far as its material and intellectual progress is concerned.

CHARLES MACKESON.

138

THE LONDON SCHOOL BOARD.

To be well abused is almost a condition of existence for any public body elected by popular suffrage, but it has seldom fallen to the lot of any corporation, civil or ecclesiastical, to be more freely criticised than the School Board for London. When the Board was first elected, nine years ago, it was obviously entering on a new department of public work, for although in the capacity of school managers and committees laymen had occasionally assisted in the direction and maintenance of what are now, for the sake of distinction, termed Voluntary Schools, they had always felt that the parochial incumbents were the persons really responsible, and that the functions of the laity or unbeneficed clergy, in regard to educational matters, was rather to suggest than to control. When, however, the School Board arose at the bidding of Mr. Forster, its true character became apparent ; it was to be a body of the Board of Guardians type, but on a far larger scale, able by Act of Parliament to demand from the vestries the funds necessary to carry on its work, but responsible to no one, except in a limited sense to the auditor of the accounts, and in a more limited sense still to the Committee of Privy Council on Education. Established on such a basis, the future of the Board was practically settled before its birth. It is so natural, in every elective body, for the various conceptions formed by the members as to the best means of fulfilling its functions to develop into two or more distinct lines of thought and action-leading, in political life, to the creation of a Ministry and an Opposition—that there was little matter for surprise in the appearance of a strong division of opinion very early in the history of the Board, and although its first chairman, Lord Lawrence, did not, perhaps, take such a decided line as its present head, Sir Charles Reed, there soon arose within the Board a marked disagreement between the advocates of what has since been termed "the Board's policy," on the one side, and the opponents of that policy on the other. At first it seemed probable that the members of the Board would, in the main, differ upon what was termed "the Religious Question,” and in this belief strenuous efforts were made by the churchmen, and especially by the clergy of the metropolitan parishes, to return candidates who were not merely pledged to support religious teaching as an element in the School Board's syllabus, in every

one of its schools, but who also undertook to protect, as far as might be possible, the existing voluntary and denominational schools from any needless and, as they held, unfair competition on the part of the School Board. This was the fundamental principle on which the "church candidates," as they were termed, were elected to the first two Boards in 1870 and 1873, but by the time the third election arrived, in 1876 a distinct change had come over the feeling of the church portion of the constituency, and that change has now become intensified into a conviction that a strict adherence to their original platform would be a mistake, and that the future ground of appeal to the ratepayers must be economic rather than religious. In this way the two parties on the Board have gradually ranged themselves in distinct classes: those who adopt the views of Sir Charles Reed and the majority of his colleagues in favour of erecting schools and supplying teaching power to the utmost limits required or permitted under the Acts; and those who, with Mr. Arthur Mills, M.P., Mr. Evan Daniel, and others, who were, for the most part, originally returned as "church candidates," now stand forward as the advocates of reduced expenditure and of a more gradual supply of the educational needs of the great city. Thus it has come to pass that the Board is as distinctly divided as the House of Commons, and, as its division lists prove, the points raised— sometimes crucial, sometimes of minor importance-generally serve to bring out what is, if not a strong antagonism, at least a very wide difference of opinion.

To the Board which has thus grown up and has become, next to the Corporation and the Metropolitan Board of Works, the most important institution in the metropolis, both the sexes, nearly all professions, and almost all sections of society, have contributed members. Even on the first Board the representation of women was secured by the election of Mrs. Garrett Anderson and Miss Emily Davies, while on the Board which is, as we write, entering on the last month of its triennial life, the number of ladies has been doubled, and consists of Mrs. Fenwick Miller, Mrs. Surr, Miss Helen Taylor, and Mrs. Westlake. Among the members of the legislature who have served on the Board during its nine years' existence, in addition to Lord Lawrence, its first chairman, have been Viscount Sandon, Viscount Mahon, the Right Hon. W. H. Smith, Mr. Samuel Morley, Mr. Arthur Mills, Mr. Alderman Cotton, Lord Francis Harvey, Mr. W. McCullagh Torrens, while among past members

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