been seen or heard of again except as waste paper. But the points to which their inquiries were directed obliged them to deal with an array of other facts and opinions with regard to education, not always easy to be reconciled with each other, and from which, draw what conclusions they would, they were sure to evolve subject-matter for future discussions.

Before it is possible to decide what sort of education is the best to give to any child, rich or poor, it is well to consider what is to be that child's future destination in life, and how many years of his life can fairly be devoted to education. What is the best absolutely may not be the best under the circumstances; and even the best conceivable with regard to circumstances, may not be always possible. The State-so we are told-has something like 2,500,000* children looking to it for help towards an education of some kind. It is clear that she cannot possibly afford, out of her limited income, to bring them all up as gentlemen, or educate them as thoroughly as a good mother might desire. Like other parents with large and increasing families, she is obliged to get them out into the world rather early. The Commissioners have come to the conclusion-and we believe it to be a wise and a wholesome one -that ten or eleven years of age, amongst the boys of the labouring class, must be the general limit of education. They have had before them scores of competent witnesses -statesmen, philosophers, clergymen, and plain practical men; and though, as may be supposed, they are not unanimous on this question more than on others, the overwhelming preponderance of fact and opinion tends to this. It is very well for philanthropists to wish and think it might be otherwise; thus it is, and thus it must be, so long

as there stands unrepealed the original curse under which a merciful Voice disguises a blessing-" In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread." "To set ourselves to stem back the demands of the labourmarket," says the Dean of Bristol, "is only to attempt the task of Mrs Partington over again." Mr Freeman, diocesan inspector, says that boys destined for farm-labourers should be kept "never later than ten." "Sixteen years of constant occupation in and about elementary schools," says Mr Inspector Watkins, have fully convinced him that "the school-age of the children must needs be small; they are born for hand-work, and must go to handwork as soon as they are physically able. This truth has not been denied by those who have been most active and interested in the education of the labouring classes, yet it has been practically ignored." It may possibly be urged by educational enthusiasts, that Deans and Inspectors are notoriously hard-hearted. They will not say so, we suppose, of Miss Yonge of Otterbourne, or of Miss Elizabeth Sewell. Their sympathies, we may be sure, are with the poor, and with intelligent education. Both are constrained to admit that, in the case of boys, the necessity is irremediable; the girls may be spared to the school a year or two longer. Miss Carpenter, again—a name scarcely less known, and where known not less honoured-who has, in her own words, "for thirty years paid considerable attention to the state of education of the working classes"-which means, we believe, when translated into other language, devoted her life to such objects-is content to only "wish that all children should stay till eleven or twelve," though she would gladly keep them longer, "if practicable." Lady Macclesfield and Miss Coutts are quite content to recognise in the same way the paramount claims of

labour; the latter even giving an opinion that "the urging children to remain at school has been pushed much too far, both for the interest of the individual child, and for the social condition of the working classes as a body." One lady alone, of those who favoured the Commission with their evidence-Miss Hope thinks it desirable that they should stay till about fourteen or fifteen. We respect our fair countrywoman's zeal; but we fear that she "tells a flattering tale," especially since she thinks "boys may proceed to algebra and practical mathematics, and in Scotland they will expect to learn Latin and perhaps Greek;" though we are glad to find that she considers it "not desirable" that the girls "should be encouraged to attempt those accomplishments which they are too apt to aspire to, such as French, and instrumental music." (We have already warned our readers that they lose a good many amusing things by not attending to their Blue Books.) As far as our own experience goes, we never have heard of an inspector being called upon to examine French exercises, and have never but once heard a piano going in a charity school; and in that instance the apology might have been made for it that it was a very little one, very much out of tune, and was doing duty for a harmonium, teaching the children psalms.

To return once more to the Commissioners, they sum up the result of their inquiries on this head in the words of Mr Fraser: "On the average, we must make up our minds to see the last of boys, as far as the day-school is concerned, at ten or eleven, and of the girls, at the outside, at twelve;" and while they admit that in towns "the demand for intelligent labour will keep children longer at school," they fix, as "the probable limit of education of a large body" of those who are born to labour, the age of eleven years.

And now comes the problem. Given a boy who is to be "finish

ed" at eleven, what kind of education can be allowed him? There is not much to be done with him before four, even supposing that you get hold of him; what can you put into him between those two interesting ages? There are seven years for the schoolmaster to deal with him in; or rather, such fragmentary portions of those seven years as may remain after making reasonable deduction for intervals of birdkeeping, bean - dropping, potatoplanting, and all other lawful interruptions to which a country boy's school life is subject, to say nothing of unlawful truant-playing on his own part, and weekly pence and shoes to go to school in, not always forthcoming on the part of the parents. Still, in spite of all these difficulties, the Commissioners tell us that a great deal may be taught in these seven years. Not much algebra and Latin perhaps, not even geography and the use of the globes," but a good deal which may be quite as useful to the Tom Browns of humble life. Let us hear what Mr Fraser says again; his opinion is backed in all important particulars by a whole army of witnesses; but we incline, as the Commissioners evidently do, to fortify ourselves whenever we can with his sound good sense and vigorous English :

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"I venture to maintain that it is quite possible to teach a child, soundly and thoroughly, in a way that he shall not forget it, all that is necessary for him to possess in the shape of intellectual attainment, by the time that he is ten years old. If he has been properly looked after in the lower classes, he shall be able to spell correctly the words shall read a common narrative-the parathat he will ordinarily have to use; he graph in the newspaper that he cares to read-with sufficient ease to be a pleasure to himself and to convey information to listeners; if gone to live at a distance from home, he shall write his mother a letter that shall be both legible and intelligible; he knows enough of ciphering to make out, or test the correctness of, a common shop-bill; if he hears talk of foreign countries, he has some notion of the part of the globe in

which they lie; and, underlying all, and not without its influence, I trust, upon his life and conversation, he has acquaintance enough with the Holy Scriptures to follow the allusions and the arguments of a plain Saxon sermon, and

a sufficient recollection of the truths taught him in his Catechism, to know what are the duties required of him towards his Maker and his fellow-men. I have no brighter view of the future or the possibilities of an English elementary education floating before my eyes than this. If I had ever dreamt more sanguine dreams before, what I have seen in the last six months would have effectually and for ever dissipated them.'

This estimate is certainly high for the boy who goes off to plough at ten; but if, with the Commissioners, we extend the educational period to eleven, there is abundant weight of independent authorities to show that, with our present machinery, it might be done. Mr Allies for the Roman Catholics, Mr Unwin, of Homerton College, for the Congregationalists, Mr Angel for the Jews, are in harmony on this point with Church of England inspectors and schoolmasters. Mr Shields, the master of the "Birkbeck" school at Peckham (a very remarkable institution), would expect to have a great part of this done in a good infant school by the time the child was seven. Miss Yonge would think a much higher standard practically attainable by a boy of eleven or twelve, and Miss Carpenter is at least not less sanguine than the Commissioners.

But some zealous educationists will say, This meagre dole of education is unworthy of a nation of progress in this nineteenth century; it may satisfy the Commissioners, but it does not satisfy us; it will not satisfy the public. What public is it that we are to satisfy? We have just seen that a laudable desire for education is spreading very fast through the country; what sort of education is it that the people are asking for? Mr Inspector Blandford noticed in a report, some time

ago, that "the clergy were satisfied with a low standard of instruction;" indeed, that " many among the clergy and laity, although they might not like to acknowledge it, are perfectly well satisfied if the children are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic."* The clergy are often supposed to be rather behind in the race of progress, and no doubt in some matters they are; but it is possible that in what concerns the immediate welfare of their own parishes, they may be in as good a position as any one else to see not only what is desirable but what is practicable. On this particular question, it almost seems as if they had been standing still, and find the world, contrary to its usual habits, coming back to them. Let the people speak a little for themselves. If there be one single point-and there are not many-upon which inspectors, assistant-commissioners, and witnesses are unanimous, it is on this, that the people whom we are to educate know a good school when they see one. "All the difficulties which surround the attendance of children do not prevent the efficient schools from being full." They are Mr Fraser's words, echoed, however, from all quarters. "The best schools are always full," says Mr Hare. There is a sort of instinct by which parents, even "described as too ignorant to judge," know the article they want, and choose it. Neither an additional weekly penny, nor an additional mile of distance, deters them from preferring the school where their children "get on." It is one of the most encouraging features in the educational aspect of the country. And what is the kind of instruction which the people seek, and for which they are willing to pay? There appears to be

no

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manner of doubt about it. Schoolmasters, clergymen, ministers, city missionaries, all told me," says Mr Cumin, "that the poor, in selecting a school, looked entirely

to whether the school supplied good reading, writing, and arithmetic." Mr Hare again, while bearing testimony that the best of the labouring classes hold good teachers "in the highest esteem," says also that, "when they find fault, it is that too many things are taught, not too few;" and "the trained masters are themselves the first to allow that the majority of parents, perfectly content with moderate skill in reading, writing, and arithmentic, vote superfluous grammar, geography, history, and all that kind of things. Mr Foster and Mr Wilkinson might be quoted to the same effect. Writing is the parents' favourite test of good scholarship, perhaps too exclusively; but they are so far right that the power of writing fairly and correctly from dictation, now constantly practised under all good teachers, becomes, as Mr Cumin has remarked, the most satisfactory of all practicable tests of the efficiency of a school. It not only presupposes reading and spelling, but also implies, as he says, " presence of mind and intelligence." Now, although this limited view of education on the parents' part may be said to arise from narrow considerations of its immediate value in the wagesmarket, yet, like many other vulgar and narrow notions, its foundations rest upon a broader truth. "When I ask for these four things," says Mr Allies-speaking of these three elements. combined with religious teaching "it is not a little that I ask." The boy who leaves school, say at twelve years old, with the power of reading so as to understand and be understood, of writing correctly, and working the rules of arithmetic, goes out into the world, so to say, with the full use of his mental fingers. He is not a geographer, a historian, or a natural philosopher in any degree, any more than he is a carpenter or a shoemaker; but he has the power to become either the one or the other. He can lay hold of, and with a little practice use, the delicate tools that have been invented for any branches

of mental or bodily industry to which his tastes or opportunities may lead him. Nothing has gone further to justify the doubts expressed throughout these reports, of the soundness of the present training system for masters, than the opinions which many of them have loudly expressed, at public meetings and elsewhere, against the elementary teaching exacted by the New Minute, as the sine quâ non of Government aid. They have called it "drudgery," "grinding," "machine-like and monotonous drill." They have protested against it as tending "to throw national education ten years backward." These are exactly the ideas which we should expect to find in men who have been educated at once too much and too little,-too much to believe, as many of the old schoolmasters did, that spelling and penmanship were education in themselves; too little, to have learnt that the laying a solid foundation is a greater and truer work-more wor

thy of " a wise master-builder"than building up a flimsy frontage. A great deal of the best work done in this world is "drudgery;" i. e., there are some who call it by that name; those who do it in a different spirit call it "duty." Many a young graduate, full of University honours, enters in this spirit upon one of the under-masterships of our public schools, and spends the ten or twenty best years of his life in teaching the barest elements of the classical languages, to generation after generation of boys, who are not always so willing, so grateful, or so intelligent, in their and his relative degree, as the pupils of the parish schoolmaster; but his own high education has left him very ignorant indeed, if it has taught him to think that his abilities are wasted, or that his work is a drudgery. Mr Commissioner Lake, at any rate, had been "trained" in a somewhat different school. He suggests to one of the witnesses that, after all, the parents' view of the question-that " as soon as the

child could read well, write well, and count well," he was educated for his station in life-might not be " an altogether unsound view ;' "remembering always that in the process of attaining that knowledge, the child must have attained a good deal of other knowledge besides." It might also be very safely concluded, even had we not Mr Watkins's direct testimony, that in almost every case "where children are taught reading well, the other subjects are taught well also." Any schoolmaster who fancies that the New Minute requires him to devote himself to teaching reading "mechanically," or that his "results" are likely to be either profitable or satisfactory if he makes the attempt, will do well to copy into his note book the following instructive anecdote from one of the Assistant-Commissioners' experiences :

"Some years ago, one of my old colleagues was appointed assistant-master in the great Nautical School at Greenwich. It was his first duty to drill those boys who were backward in reading, and who, being placed in a room by themselves, were kept continually reading, reading, reading. This teacher begged

permission to vary their mechanical task, and to try to interest them by explanation of what they were reading, even though some time were thus withdrawn from oral practice. After some hesitation, permission was granted, and ere long the boys gained ground in mere reading, much more rapidly than if they had done nothing else but read aloud."HODGSON, Report, iii. 559.

But it is an impertinent waste of time to force upon educated readers arguments upon the value of elementary instruction, or the absurdity of imagining that any child can receive such instruction at the hands of a competent teacher without having all his mental faculties improved, or can attain the power of intelligent reading and correct writing from dictation without having taken in a considerable amount of .collateral knowledge by the way.

Mr Fraser, indeed, confesses himself "sorely tempted to put grammar down amongst the essentials

Mr

of elementary education." There are others of his opinion. Marshall, once a clergyman of the English Church, now a Roman Catholic school-inspector, goes so far as to say that it "is the only element of education which leads to any practical result," and that "any education which omits it is a delusion." The reason which he gives for this opinion is so important that we feel bound to notice it, though quite dissenting from his conclusion. He considers that the want of some knowledge of the structure of language is the great defect in our educational system, from which arises the fact-too unfortunately true-that most clergymen preach in vain to a very large part of their congregation; in fact, that, as one of the Reports observes very strongly, there are in England two languages, the language of education, and the language of the poor. But, in the first place, this results not so much from a deficiency of grammatical knowledge as from a deficiency of reading; it is the limited vocabulary that is at fault, not the power of analysis. A child of the highly-educated classes will understand and use (and is often ludicrously fond of using) high-flown language which he has met with in books, long before he could explain the grammatical relations of his sentence. And here, again, comes in that conclusive argument of the limited period of this general schoollife. What grammar can be really taught, before twelve years old, to such children as the State alone has to deal with? It must come to this, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred-as Mr Jenkins finds it

66 grammar means generally part of a text-book learned by rote." It is not often we agree with Mr Bright; but he was right the other day about Lindley Murray for the labourers. Look even at Mr Fraser's own experience: in a school "under a highly certificated master" (that of course) "the boys in the first class being asked to what part of speech the words once, twice, be