their annual reports; and no one, as far as I know, has come forward to controvert it. On this point managers and schoolmasters seem rather disposed to allow judgment to go by default.

In the absence, then, of any rebutting evidence we have no alternative but to believe that the statement of the Commissioners is in the main true. And if so, what follows? Why, surely, that a change of some kind is wanted. The least that should be required from an elaborate educational system, aided by State grants, is that those who take advantage of it should, as a rule, acquire the ability to read and write. To give this is not necessarily to educate in the full sense of the word, but it is to furnish the indispensable instruments of education. Where this is not given, it is very hard to say what is given; for a child who leaves school without being able to read is never very likely to do much for its own self-improvement, and will very soon lose those moral and religious impressions which it may have received through its attendance at school and its submission to school discipline.

Now, if these two facts-a necessarily increasing expenditure and an important deficiency of results-be clearly proved, no one will venture to deny that some modification of the existing system is called for. And, indeed, this is admitted by many violent opponents of the revised code. We may take it for granted, therefore, that, with the exception of some with whom personal interest outweighs every other consideration, the objection is, not to change in itself, but to the particular changes proposed, and to the manner in which they have been forced on the country. If this be so, we may hope that a full and free discussion of the subject will lead to suggestions on the one side, and concessions on the other, which may bring about a satisfactory and conclusive adjustment of the question. It is my wish to make this paper a humble contribution to this desirable result.

A careful examination of the revised code leads to the conclusion that its authors had three main objects in view:

(1) Economy of expenditure. (2) Simplification and decentralization. of system.

(3) The securing of a certain minimum of well-defined practical results.

Its

Now, with regard to the first of these, the question at once suggests itself, Is retrenchment demanded, and is it desirable? The national expenditure is, indeed, sufficiently great, and has excited considerable indignation amongst financial reformers. Economy in the outlay of public money is popular in the abstract; but opposition is sure to be excited when any particular item is selected for economical experiment. And certainly the Education Grant is not a very grievous offender. progressive increase may have called attention to it; but, after all, when we consider the importance socially and politically of the work it aims at doing, we must admit that its aggregate amount ie comparatively insignificant. It must, I think, be insisted on that, if the State is to take an efficient part in the promotion of National Education, and at the same time to extend its aid impartially to all whose position and necessities are the same, the public grant can never be less than 800,000l., and ought to be considerably more.

But this is one of the first things to be settled, and on its settlement the future of education depends. What is to be the maximum of the parliamentary vote? Are we to stop short of a million, and say to educational expenditure, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther?" If so, then the system must be adapted to this law of finality, and schools now in receipt of public money must submit to a reduction in their grants in order that as many schools as possible may participate in the distribution. Abstract justice seems to require this; and yet it is certain that education will suffer by the enforcement of such a rule for more good is done by the bestowal of liberal grants on a limited number of important schools than by the scattering of scanty streams of bene faction over a very wide surface.

But the revised code does not actually

recognise the principle of finality. Its provisions will certainly, if carried out in their present form, have the effect of reducing the amount paid to any individual school; but the grant itself will still be liable to indefinite increase, in proportion to the increase in the number of schools claiming assistance, and to improvement in the results on account of which the money is paid.

It becomes the duty of Parliament, therefore, to take up this question of expenditure, and to decide whether it is expedient, or, indeed, possible, to fix a positive limit to the Education Grant, and, if not, how, in the appropriation of the money, the conditions of economy and efficiency can best be harmonized. The revised code is a sort of attempt to deal with this question; but it is felt that the authors of that code occupy a position too purely official and too irresponsible to justify them in imposing their fiat on the country without some further appeal.

Another aim of the new code is simplification and decentralization. The official difficulties connected with the administration of the public grant are best known to official persons; and the Education Commissioners bring a great deal of evidence to show that there is some danger of the Council Office system "breaking down at its centre." It may be said, indeed, that employés in public offices are easily alarmed on this score; but still there can be no doubt that the complication of business involved in the administration of the Education Grant is great and increasing. Now, the simplification proposed by the authors of the revised code is the substitution of a single Capitation Grant for the various payments hitherto made to managers, masters or mistresses, and pupil-teachers. Such a mode of saving trouble seems reasonable and harmless enough, and would certainly to a very great extent have the effect desired. But there is one difficulty in the way. Hitherto school teachers, holding certificates of merit endorsed by the Committee of Council, have been in receipt of augmentation grants from Government propor

tionate to the grade of the certificate. The new process of simplification unfortunately cancels these grants at a stroke. Henceforth certificates are to have only an honorary character. This is loudly complained of as a breach of faith, and it must be confessed that it has that appearance. It is quite certain that, in reliance on the permanency of these allowances, many persons have become teachers who otherwise would not have done so, and many teachers of mature years, have, at considerable sacrifice, prepared themselves for and submitted to a severe and searching examination. If the Committee of Council have never actually committed themselves to the stability of the arrangement, they have in their relations with teachers taken its stability for granted, and have sought to impose conditions only justifiable on the supposition that it was stable. Here, then, we have a real live "vested interest," and the question is, What is to be done with it?

Under these circumstances, the ordinary rule is to look out for a compromise. And a compromise may surely be found. It might, for example, be insisted on that, in schools aided by the State, the teacher's salary must bear a certain proportion to the whole income of the school. Or again, the capitation grant might according to a suggestion which I have somewhere met with-be divided into two parts, one payable for attendance, the other on examination: and the latter might be secured to the Teacher by the express terms of the Government Minute. At all events, it will not do to inaugurate a new system of national education with the perpetration of an injustice; and I am pretty sure that, in spite of all contravening pleas, the good sense and good feeling of most Englishmen will pronounce this confiscation of the certificate money an injustice.

The revised code, I have said, aims not only at simplifying, but also at decentralizing the system of education. One way in which it does this is, by leaving managers to make their own arrangements with pupil-teachers. There

is much to be said in favour of this change, for the circumstances of different places are so different that the unbending rigidity of Privy Council rules must often have produced inconvenience. But the Minutes are surely inconsistent in undertaking to fix the times of payment, while they leave the amount to be settled by the contracting parties. It will generally, no doubt, be an advantage to pupil-teachers to receive their payments weekly; but it will sometimes embarrass managers to make them on those terms.

We come now to the third and most important object which the new code has in view, viz. the securing of certain well-defined and positive results.

The leading feature, indeed, of the revised Minutes is payment for results. And, setting aside all suspicion of difficulties and all imperfections of detail, this principle is economically sound, and one which should, as far as possible, characterize disbursements of public money. Now, though it would be untrue to say that results have been disregarded under the system which it is proposed to supersede, yet it must be confessed that the chief operations of that system have been directed to the provision of means. And I say this to the praise of the system, and not to its disparagement. As things were twenty years ago, the provision of educational machinery was the most urgent want. And that want has been well supplied. It is worth while to consider the benefits for which we are indebted to the direct action or the indirect influence of the Committee of Council on Education.

A much higher standard of popular instruction has been set up. The truth has been brought home to men's minds, that teaching is an art that requires cultivation, and that, to be successful, education must be conducted on methodical and scientific principles. A large body of teachers have been called into existence, more or less highly trained for their work; and, whatever may have been asserted to the contrary, unquestionably, for the most part, earnestly devoted to it. Neither must we pass

over the improvements that have been effected in books and apparatus, and in the architecture and fittings of the school-building itself—a condition, this last, of some importance in connexion with education, as serving imperceptibly to teach the lesson that all things should "be done decently and in order."

But it is said that this large and liberal provision of means has not been followed by adequate results. To some extent we own the unsatisfactory impeachment, and can give several reasons for it. Irregularity of attendance on the part of very many of the children is undoubtedly one. Another is a want of appreciation, on the part of those who originated and have carried out the system, of the actual condition and requirements of the class to be educated. Another, again, is a tendency on the part of Government Inspectors, in their examinations of schools, to overlook the rudimentary subjects, and to encourage displays of more advanced and recondite knowledge. Another, again, is the prominence given to oral teaching-to the lecturing system, in point of factamong the teachers, and their comparative want of ability to make much of a reading-lesson, or to explain lucidly the various arithmetical processes. Now, therefore, it is proposed to secure results by the simple process of paying for them. And, certainly, there must be a radical difference between education and everything else, if this process does not answer. But then, the result to be paid for must be something solid and tangible --something that can be weighed, and measured, and tested. The general character of a school, its tone and aspect, the moral atmosphere that seems to pervade it, are essences too volatile in their nature to be capable of reduction to £ s. d. Hence there is nothing left for experiment but positive acquirement. Accordingly, acquirement is fixed upon by the framers of the revised code, and acquirement, too, of the most elementary and fundamental character. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are the future pass-keys to the strong box of the Treasury.

The capitation grant is to be paid on the results of an examination in these three time-honoured branches of learning. And, however reactionary this may seem, there is very much to be said for the proposal. In the first place, it tends to secure for the greatest possible number the necessary groundwork of all education. If circumstances make it impossible for a child to learn anything else, he should at least be taught to read; and, whatever else a child may have the opportunity or the desire to learn, he should at all events learn to read as the first step. Hence a ready answer suggests itself to an objection strongly insisted on, that the effect of this scheme will be to banish everything but reading, writing, and arithmetic from our schools. It seems to me that the objectors are involved in a dilemma. Either there is time for teaching properly these elementary subjects, and also for teaching the higher branches; or there is not. If there is, there is no fear that the higher and more attractive subjects will be neglected by teachers regularly educated and trained. If there is not, will any one recommend that the children of the working classes shall be left without a competent skill in reading and writing, in order that they may pick up a smattering of geography or a few disjointed facts of history?

But it is argued by some that, if this test be applied, all education, properly so called, will be at an end, and that teaching will become as mechanical as it was under village pedagogues of the old school.

Those who think so do not seem sufficiently to understand the educating. power of two at least of the three subjects referred to. The national-school boy can have no better discipline than a course of arithmetic, intelligently and scientifically taught. The reading-lesson, again, if given as it should be, is excellent training for the mind. The power to read easily and intelligently is itself evidence of awakened intellectual activity. Nay, the reading-lesson may be made to play a far more important part than it has yet done in the work of

imparting general information. History, geography, common things, may often be better taught through this medium than by means of a discursive and wordy oral lesson, under which the class are too often, at the best, passive listeners.

Another argument in favour of the new Council Office test is, that it is not only the common foundation on which all schools must build, but it is the most neutral of all neutral ground. It is exactly the point to which an impartial central agency may direct its co-operation without trenching on local liberty as to matters where liberty is essential. And, at the same time, to help in this quarter is really to aid in the development of distinctive views and particular systems; for surely to provide the foundation is indirectly to assist in the superstructure.

For this reason I cannot fall in with the outcry against the Minutes on the ground that they make no account of religious instruction. If it were strictly true that they did not, yet if they put no impediment in its way, but left the Church and the other religious communities full liberty of action in this respect, there would be very slender grounds of complaint. It is surely the Church's mission to provide religious instruction for her members; and no severer accusation could be brought even by the Liberation Society itself, than to say that in our Church schools, where the supporters are churchmen, and where the clergyman is generally the acting manager, there is serious danger that religious instruction will be neglected unless the official vigilance of Downing Street shall interpose. If so, we must strangely in these days have forgotten the tender and touching precept spoken long ago, "Feed My lambs!" But, it will be urged, the temptation to concentrate his whole attention on the three paying subjects will be too much for the virtue of the teacher. I think too well of teachers to admit this; but, were it so, no harm can happen unless those three terrible Rs triumph over the virtue of managers also. For is not the teacher henceforth to be dependent on the managers for his salary? Is not

one half of the school income at least to have a local source? Will it not be easy for managers to say to teachers, or for subscribers to say to managers, "We "pay your salary, or we give our contri"bution, on the condition that the "children attending your school are "properly instructed in Holy Scripture "and the Church's formularies, and "brought up to lead a godly and a "Christian life, as members of Christ "should be?" And will it be any very heavy burden on the clergyman to examine the children periodically in religious knowledge, and report thereon, if necessary, to the committee? Or again, what hinders the carrying out of a complete system of diocesan inspection under the direction of the Bishop, such inspection being confined to the moral and religious aspect of our schools? Having considerable faith in the Church and in her machinery, when properly worked, I do not think the consequences can well be disastrous to religion if she is made to accept her own responsibilities, and to do her own work. Neither, again, if reading the Bible presupposes ability to read, can I think it to be anything but an advantage to religion if the State will help us to secure this necessary, though secular, foundation.

But it is not strictly true that the code completely secularizes education. It preserves the denominational character of the schools. And this really is the essential thing. This makes purely secular education impossible, so long as the religious societies are true to themselves.

More

over, it appears by a statement of the Bishop of Lichfield, in his recent charge, that it has been intimated to inspectors of Church schools, that, under article 47 of the code, they may 66 recommend a "reduction of the grant by not less than 66 one-tenth, and not more than one-half, "for deficiency of religious knowledge."

So far it has been my feeling to uphold the general principles on which the revised code is based. When, however, we come to examine its details, it is no longer possible to speak so favourably. There is abundant evidence of hasty

assumption, and of want of practical acquaintance with the subject.

In the first place, the examination test is somewhat overdone. To impose it on children of three or four years of age implies gross ignorance of child-nature, or a bias in favour of infanticide more becoming an officer of King Herod than a minister of Queen Victoria. A very simple change will rectify this blunder. Let a small capitation grant be payable on attendance only, in the case of all children under six In their case, years of age. attendance at school, with the control and discipline it involves, is a result.

It is a mistake equally unfortunate to impose conditions which will have the effect of shortening school stay; and everybody says that this will result from only allowing children above eleven to be examined once. Why not remedy this by a supplementary examination in more advanced subjects for those who have passed through all the groups"

Grouping by age, again, is strongly objected to by those who are most conversant with schools. It does indeed involve serious difficulties; but they have been so thoroughly ventilated by others who have handled the subject that I need not enlarge upon them. Now, in lieu of this arrangement according to age, the following might be suggested:Let there be three or four grades of examination, and let there be a corresponding number of payments in an ascending scale, and so adjusted that a good school may receive on the whole a fair average grant. Let children be admissible to any one of these grades irrespective of age; but let no child be presented for examination more than once in the same grade. If tickets endorsed by the Council Office were given to those children who passed in the highest grade, it would excite some interest and emulation among them, and the tickets would afterwards serve them as certificates of attainment. I have heard it remarked by an earnest friend to education, that the faults of the code may almost be excused, on account of the encouragement it gives to night-schools. This is, indeed, one of