Mr. Thomas Turner, Master of the Red Cross-street British School, Bristol, and President of the "Bristol Public School Teachers' Association," has given notice that, at the next Annual Meeting of the United Association, he will move the following resolution :

"That the second rule be rescinded, and the following rule be substituted in place thereof,-- That all who are professionally engaged in education shall be eligible to become members of this Association; but that the Acting Committee shall have power to refuse any applicant whose conduct they may deem to be inconsistent with the moral precepts of the Bible,-subject, however, to the approval of the members generally at the next Annual Meeting.'

The following is the second rule as it stands at present:

"That the Association embrace all teachers (public and private) who acknowledge the essential doctrines of Christianity, and the sufficiency of Holy Scripture as the rule of faith and practice, and who regard the Bible as the only sure basis of true education."

At a General Meeting held in St. Martin's Hall on the 25th October, Mr. E. C. Daintree, Vice-President, in the chair, a very instructive and interesting lecture on "Gymnastics as a Branch of Education was given by Mr. G. Reinicke, teacher of gymnastics in London and Brighton. At the conclusion of the lecture, Mr. Reinicke exemplified the system of gymnastics (that of Ling and Rothstein) which he employs, by putting some of the gentlemen present through certain of the exercises.

In moving a vote of thanks to the lecturer, Mr. Robert Dunning expressed his opinion that the time had now arrived for the introduction of the systematic teaching of gymnastics into our schools, and said he would be glad to see teachers carry out the sort of exercises advocated by the lecturer, with a modification of them for girls. In seconding the vote of thanks, Mr. J. P. Hall asked the lecturer whether the exercises could be taught to a large class of boys. Mr. Reinicke replied that, within reasonable limits, the larger the class was the more easily could it be managed, on account of the greater interest which the exercises excited; that 30 to 40 pupils formed a good manageable class.

The Corresponding Secretary, in supporting the resolution, suggested that the desideratum with teachers was the knowledge how to carry out the instruction, and he hoped that the Association would invite Mr. Reinicke to attend on some future occasion with a class of actual pupils, and exemplify more fully the kind of exercises which he recommended.

A desire to this effect was expressed by other members present.

The Chairman, in putting the resolution to the meeting, stated his general concurrence in the views brought forward by the lecturer, corroborating certain of them by his own personal experience. He thought that the time devoted to the exercises should be taken from the intervals now allowed for recreation, but without depriving the boys entirely of their play.

The vote was carried and duly acknowledged.

After the general meeting a Committee meeting was held, at which the arrangements for the approaching anniversary were put forward.

HANTS CHURCH EDUCATION SOCIETY.-We shall give a full report of the meeting of this Society in our next Number.

SOCIETY OF ARTS EXAMINATIONS.-At a meeting of the Council of the Society of Arts, held on the 8th inst., at which Colonel Sykes, F.R.S., Chairman of the Council, presided, it was resolved, "That the society's examinations for the North of England be held at Huddersfield, during the week commencing the 1st of June, 1857; that a sum of 100 guineas be awarded by the society's examiners in general prizes at the ensuing examinations of the society in June next." Several trade schools and commercial schools having applied to be taken into union, in order that the pupils of said

schools may avail themselves of the society's examinations, it was resolved, "That trade schools, and such other schools as profess to teach the elements of manufacturing or commercial knowledge, be eligible for admission into union on the same terms as mechanics' institutions.

Notices.

REDUCED CHARGE FOR ADVERTISEMENTS.

Orders and Advertisements must be sent ONLY to MESSRS. GROOMBRIDGE, 5, Paternoster Row; the latter, from strangers, must be accompanied by a remittance, according to the following scale :-If under 40 words, 3s. 6d. ; for every additional ten words, 6d. ; a whole page, £2. 28. ; a half-page, or one column, £1. 5s. Ten per cent. discount on all Advertisements inserted more than twice.

The JOURNAL will be sent, free of postage, for one year, on receipt of 6s. 6d. in advance.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

H.-We never heard it questioned that the capitation fee goes to the schoolmaster. We will get the Minute mentioned, and decipher it in our next. We shall be glad of the notes offered.

A PRACTICAL PLAN FOR FURTHERING EDUCATION.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M.P.

November, 1856.

MY DEAR LORD,-You were good enough to allow me to submit to your consideration, in April last, the substance of the following plan and suggestions, made in consequence of your able and comprehensive scheme for the extension of education, and you did me the favour to express your willingness that I should print it. The present season appears opportune for doing so.

Whilst no one more fully appreciates the excellent spirit and design of your speech in April last, as well as the general character of the measures you proposed, there are some matters in which I venture to think that, my long acquaintance with educational necessities, and also with the feelings of different classes, may enable me to suggest improvements.

I am aware that it is your object to facilitate the voluntary establishment of schools, and that the compulsory measures in resolutions 8 and 9 are to be regarded as a last resource. It is probably also your opinion, in unison with that which is certainly the desire of a large majority of friends to education, both among Churchmen and Dissenters, that even a voluntary local rate is inexpedient where the present system of grants can be made available. Such feeling is, I think, strongly based upon these convictions:

1. First. That the incidence of local rates falls upon a small portion only of the community; the working and poorer classes, for whose benefit the rate is chiefly imposed, being entirely exempted; together with all funded property, stock in trade, &c. &c., whilst grants from taxes are directly or indirectly paid by the whole people, by whom it is just and politic that a national benefit should be sustained.

2. That any local school-committee to be elected by the rate-payers, must of necessity organize either a Church school, a British school, or one still more distinctively denominational: and that the election of such committee, as well as their choice of the character of the school, will frequently excite bitter rivalry between different religious communities, wherever two or more exist in considerable force in the same place. It is feared that this will necessarily again evoke sectarian feuds, which the present system has at length almost extinguished; and that the animosity thus caused, and the consequent detriment to the peaceful progress of education, may be aggravated by the compulsory assessment of a school-rate upon the various dissatisfied parties who will in many cases be the majority of the rate-payers.*

* I was recently in a borough town of which the population is under 9,000, and in which thirteen denominations exist, each having their distinct place of worship. VOL. X. NO. 120, N.s.

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3. That even by the establishment of British schools, the religious teaching generally, if not always, takes its tone from the denomination which preponderates in the governing body; a fact which proves that earnest religious instruction in this country has necessarily a distinctive doctrinal character, and therefore that any system of national education which does not blend comprehensiveness of action with due regard to this religious characteristic, will fail in a primary condition of success, which is by no means equally requisite in Switzerland or elsewhere. 4. That in consequence of the general sense of these difficulties, as well as of the great reluctance to impose or pay for additional local burdens, the self-imposition of a school-rate will be too rare to supply the schools needed.

5. That for the same reasons the Quarter Sessions of the Peace will shrink from the difficulty and unpopularity of compelling a school-rate.

6. That the adoption of any local rates will, pro tanto, diminish the benefit of voluntary effort in aid of education.

It may well be that these difficulties are exaggerated, and that in course of time schools supported by rates would work harmoniously and usefully. Nevertheless, knowing as I do how large and earnest is the body of objectors, and how very desirable it is to enlist their sympathy and enhance their exertions, I respectfully crave your Lordship's favourable consideration of any practical suggestions which may secure their co-operation by facilitating the voluntary establishment of schools, in the first instance, without rates. If this can be done even for one year, it is obvious that places which should nevertheless remain in need of schools would fall more justly under the imposition of a school-rate, even if compulsory, than before such facilities were supplied. It could not then be said that coercive measures were prematurely preferred to a full development and the fair trial of a system already attended with promising results; and so framed as to foster the voluntary performance of a social duty, to the due discharge of which the heart should combine with the purse.

It is, I think, my Lord, also manifest that the present administration of grants is capable of being easily simplified, and so extended as to meet the wants of poor places which are now prevented from profiting by them. Your Lordship has suggested the codification of the diverse "Minutes of Council," an essential preliminary to their comprehension by the public. I would venture also to suggest that certain requirements which now embarrass applicants, perhaps without adequate purpose, be modified; and that bona fide efforts to establish schools and obtain grants be treated in a genial and liberal spirit. This being done, there remains the important work of apportioning the scale of grants to the necessities and resources of the places requiring them.

I would propose to engraft upon the present system a mode of effecting this pressing requisite, which I venture to think would be easy and equitable.

I submit that grants, whether for building or augmentation of salaries, instead of being, as at present, given according to the wealth of a district, should be proportioned to its poverty and populousness.

I would suggest, there re, that there be three scales of grants that the poorest places (forming Scale I.) should receive three-fourths of their whole expenditure (whether in building or salaries); that the places of medium wealth (Scale II.) should receive one-half; and the richest (Scale III.), only one-quarter.

There are three easily accessible data whereby the comparative poverty or wealth of any parish may be practically ascertained, and reduced at once to a tangible scale. These are, the POPULATION, the AMOUNT OF POOR-RATES PAID, and the RATEABLE VALUE OF PROPERTY. The larger the ratio of the two first to the third of these items, the greater, cæteris paribus, will be the poverty of the district, and vice versâ.

Without attempting to suggest an exact working plan I may be allowed to show how, for example, such a one might be formed.

In the first place, I would divide the proportion borne by the popu lation in each parish to the amount of poor-rates paid into two classes,

viz. :—

Class A. Where the rates expended yearly exceed the average ratio of rates to the number of inhabitants in the whole country.

B. Where they are under it.

Again, I would similarly classify the proportion between population and the rateable value of property, thus:

Class a. Those in which the rateable value of property, per inhabitant, is less than the average ratio of rateable value to population.

It might then be resolved that all parishes should be classified in three Scale-classes, I. II. and III.; thus, when a parish fell within categories A and a, it would belong to Scale I.; if in those of B and a, or in A and b, then to Scale II.; and if in B and b, then to Scale III.

The following actual cases in 1852 will show tolerably how this plan would work :—