Wraxall states to have been the American uniform. Perhaps some of our readers could tell us the real date and history of the assumption of this party costume. As proofs of the deplorable ignorance of the labouring classes, Lord Mahon quotes William Huntington's notion as a child, that the exciseman with his inkhorn at his button-hole was a heavendirected chronicler of children's sins. He gives also examples of ancient superstitions still lingering amongst us "in congenial darkness." Our pages contain numerous evidences of a similar kind prevalent down to a very recent period. The Baal-fire still burns amongst us; and the ash is still split, that weakly children may be passed through. These are indeed relics of heathenism, but in the minds of those who now use them they are rather relics of Toryism-the mere maintenance of old customary usages, the origin and meaning of which are altogether forgotten. Glancing from the state of society to the growth of those remedial agents which have happily rescued us from many of these degradations, we are reminded of Robert Raikes and Sunday schools; Arthur Young and improved agriculture; Adam Smith and political economy; the changed state of Edinburgh and London since Bolingbroke lived in Golden-square, and Harley in Buckingham-street in the Strand; and even since Ranelagh was crowded with princes, and crowds travelled to Tyburn to witness the doings of Jack Ketch; since people let out spyingglasses, like the old pensioners on Greenwich Hill, at a halfpenny a look, to enable the curious passers-by to inspect the grizzly heads of traitors affixed on Temple Bar; and, finally, since Howard found jails in which there was no separation between the sexes, where the unsalaried jailor lived by extortion, and the poor prisoners, being without allowance, depended upon charity even for their daily food. Stringing such facts together, Lord Mahon has written a chapter of much amusement and deep instruction. The moral lies upon the surface, and ought to be taken into the understanding and heart of every reader. Lord Mahon thinks that, as compared with the con temporary annals of other countries, the period of which he has treated combined happiness and glory; that it was a period of kind rulers and a prosperous people: we would add, that it was a period upon which we ought not to look back without a feeling of the deepest thankfulness for the improvements which have been since effected. During that period, the law was disgraced by innumerable cruelties and absurdities-it has been freed from the greater number of them, and replaced under the dominion of common sense; the Church had lapsed into a condition of deadly apathy-she has been aroused, and converted into an active moving power; the House of Commons had ceased to be a real representative of the people-the constitution has been strengthened by making that House what it was always designed to be; medical science has been greatly improved, and human suffering in proportion diminished, more especially in the application of mechanical aids to the practice of surgery, and in the treatment of the insane; ignorance and superstition have been driven back-would that we could say "driven out"-by advancing education; our universities have been rendered more efficient; the spirit of philanthropy has made itself conspicuous in a variety of novel and most beneficial forms; religious intolerance has been diminished; in their intercourse with others, the higher and middle classes have been relieved from the conjoint dominion of drunkenness, gambling, and duelling; our homes are no longer desecrated by the continual use of profane, disgusting oaths, nor ourselves rendered absurd by the tyranny of customs in dress most peculiarly unnatural and ridiculous; individual freedom has been protected by many new and valuable guarantees; our houses have been filled with multiplied comforts and conveniences which to our great-grandfathers were utterly unknown; and-more important than anything else-a juster consideration of what is due to other people, whatever their opinions, circumstances, or situation of life, has been worked into the general tone and spirit of society, and made to produce its effects in all classes, from the highest to the lowest. In this way the foundations of society have been rendered more secure; in ternal convulsions have been avoided; and all this has been effected-bear witness Alma and Sebastopol!-without emasculating the people, or lowering that manly courage which is the foundation of excellence, whether in the individual or the nation. The effect SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL INSPECTORS. Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education. Annual volume for 1853-4. NO one, surely, can honestly endeavour to master the contents of the huge annual volume now lying before us without feeling increased heart and hope with regard to the great subject of National Education. Abundant as are the materials for more painful contemplation, our own predominant feeling is, year by year, one of increased sympathy with the earnest and sincere men who are engaged in the work of school inspection. We find in their reports a pervading tone of candour, a greater willingness to give way to experience, a more serious sense of their responsibilities. We find these reports in general more practical, with less aim at literary effect; more simple, and more short. They have learned to know the really important points of their case, and to select the valuable from the insignificant portions of their school memoranda. We are no longer entertained or wearied by stories exemplifying the absurd ignorance of poor children. At the same time there is considerable variety of opinion among our school inspectors a variety that may disconcert the reader occasionally-but which will do no eventual damage to the cause, and probably effect much good. To be a school inspector must, we should think, be either the most agreeable or one of the most irksome of employments. Nothing in the world would seem more uncongenial to the mind of a high Oxford or Cambridge scholar, a gentleman, a man of the world, perhaps a poet, than to have his days occupied in examining poor children, whose faces he may never see again, in the elements of reading, spelling, arithmetic, and geography; in remarking on the school furniture, the size and arrangement of rooms, in apportioning the number, &c. of ap prentices; yet we know, and rejoice Feeling thus thankful for their im- It is sometimes said (he observes) that representative and agent of a system, which, tual superiors are interested in their wellbeing, and anxious to aid them in their hitherto hopeless struggle to escape from the worst evils of their condition. Parents, teachers, and children are equally anxious in most places to present a full attendance and a well-ordered school at the annual visit of her Majesty's inspectors.* This, indeed, is no more than might have been anticipated. In proportion, especially, as the number of trained and certificated teachers extends, will be the warmth of this welcome. A young man or woman, the whole course of whose previous education has been more or less calculated to create a high idea of the good faith with which the aids of Government are tendered to schools and their teachers, whose whole tone of mind has been raised by the education received, whose sympathies are earnestly scholastic, looks forward we believe with the greatest eagerness to the day of an inspector's visit, as that one day of all the year when the teacher is most sure of being understood, and of receiving practical aid and advice. The apparatus wished for long in vain, the small suggestions of desirable changes in the arrangement of his school-room, deemed by employers perhaps hardly worth attention, it is known will not be so regarded by the inspector. He is the school-teacher's true friend and ally; as to a little fault-finding, this is anticipated with resignation. The lesson of the day is to bear rebuke and improve upon it, to keep one's own spirit clear of conceit, or foolish apprehen * Rev. F. C. Cook's Report, p. 333. sion; to be, in short, more of a true man or of a true woman than before. Such, it is our belief, are the generally good results of the inspector's visits. We feel, indeed, that these benefits will be more or less real and apparent, according to the character and aptitude of the particular mind employed in the work; and hence, although it is really a benefit to obtain a considerable variety of view, Government does well in watching with scrupulous fidelity over the conformity of its agents to the principles laid down, while yet it receives affably and considers with sufficient care their suggestions, direct or indirect. An instance of this care and desire to establish the correctness of a particular view, may be seen in a correspondence between the Secretary of the Committee of Council and the Dean of Hereford (page 65), on the "Minute refusing Capitation Grants to mixed Schools conducted by Schoolmistresses." Here, although in the main our opinion and sympathy are strongly on the side of the council, and we might add on that of the reverend the dean also, we are glad to find that most kindly and zealous educator suggesting a practical way of dealing with some cases, which otherwise might be treated hardly, with reference to educational assistance, and pleading for a modification, which we have no doubt will receive the fullest consideration, of an otherwise severe regulation.† The great difficulty, indeed, which has always been a source of trouble to + The question is briefly this. Many country clergymen and rural proprietors find it difficult, in some cases impossible, to maintain separate schools for boys and girls, or, in short, both a schoolmaster and mistress. To meet this difficulty the Home and Colonial Model Infant School Society has been for some time past, partly by the suggestion, we believe, of the Rev. Mr. Cook, training mistresses expressly for the management of these mixed country schools. The Committee of Council, however, has passed the Minute we have above alluded to, and in doing so has excited some dismay in the minds of many country residents. Accordingly, a strong appeal has been made against the Minute, upon which the Secretary calls on the Dean of Hereford, as an experienced judge, to state his own view of the case. The Dean admits the difficulty in many situations; but shows the evil of giving way to the easy mode of settling a woman in a parish as schoolmistress, and there ending the matter. It is clear that the education of boys would thus come to an early close. He, however, thinks he sees a door of escape. The Minute denies Government aid to women-kept schools, when there is no other school in the parish. Now in many of these places there is an ancient foundation or a free school, which might be made available for older boys. The schoolmistress for girls cannot be dispensed with; and in many situations several parishes might unite to form one good school for elder boys. 66 those who make the rules and those who have to see that they are carried out, is the pressure upon the inspectors by parties who, in almost every place, have been calling out for a low species of universal education. The cheapest and easiest thing has too often seemed the best. To judge by the applications we have seen for aid, every locality in the kingdom is what is called a poor locality,” and on account of its poverty is doomed to the lowest measure of education. Well, says the Committee of Council, through its secretary, then our aim should be to create such a school as shall, not simply correspond to the state of things which it is intended to correct, but erect a higher standard of education. However anxiously, indeed, we may contemplate the state of children belong ing to what are called the "destitute" and even the "dangerous" classes, and earnestly desire some safe means of providing for them also, we must strenuously contend against any plan which shall compromise the efficiency of our best national schools. By some means, compulsory or other, these Pariahs must be reached; but we cannot consent to have our better schools demolished and disorganised to make way for them. We will now turn to a few of the principal points which have struck us in turning over the Minutes of 1853-4. There is no very great variety in the accounts of the training schools. They are now, for schoolmasters in connection with the Church, fourteen in number; for schoolmistresses in the like connection, eleven. In addition to these the British and Foreign School Society, and the Wesleyan Society, have each one large training establishment under inspection. The institution last alluded to, however, which is located in the Horseferry-road, Westminster, cannot be passed by without some further notice. It is a remarkable instance of denominational effort in a good cause, carried out in the most creditable manner. When we state that the cost of building, fittings, and school furniture (not, however, including the furniture of the master's residence and students' rooms), was 38,2741.—7,000l. of which only was contributed by Government, the reader will see how large a balance was left to be raised by the Wesleyan body, and most satisfactory it is to know that the whole of this great debt is discharged, the subscriptions and collections amounting to more than 30,500/. There are five practising schools and a training college for 100 students, the fee for each of the latter being 157. per annum ; while the practising schools provide accommodation for 2,339 children at varying rates of payment from 2d. per week to 6d. according to the kind of school, whether for infants, for juniors, for seniors, the model school, or the industrial school for girls only. The beautiful order and arrangement of these congregated schools seems indeed to be quite a study, and Mr. Arnold, their inspector, is almost eloquent in their praise. Covering an acre and threequarters of freehold land in the heart of Westminster, and letting light and air into one of the most neglected, overcrowded, and unhealthy places in the metropolis, by the destruction of a number of buildings of the worst class, its founders seem to have had in view the object of keeping rather than removing their students from the haunts of ignorance and misery. We "did not wish them," say they, "to be spoiled in training, and by a lengthened residence away from the dwellings of the poor, and among the attractions of superior life, disinclined and rendered unfit to undertake the arduous and self-denying life of school teachers. We hoped that, surrounded by the families of the poor, their want of education, with its attendant degradation and misery, would excite their best feelings." In looking at the moral and religious ends proposed to themselves by this body, Mr. Arnold justly speaks with tenderness of what he yet feels to be matter of doubt,-whether there is not too much of direct religious exhortation and teaching, whether the methods are always the best, &c. At the same time we must observe that a conviction of pure and high aims on the part of the present managers of a school must not be allowed to blind us to imperfections in a system; still less should an inspector permit the consideration of the general difficulties of education among the poor to lower his standard. We observe that in his more general Report Mr. Arnold complains of a high rate of school fees as having a tendency to exclude the lowest classes of children: so much the better then surely should the instruction be, since it is after all a main consideration that the class just above these should be dealt with in a way which may secure improvement. If from training schools we glance at the more general Reports, we must expect to meet with greater variety, and also with more of discouragement. It is no wonder if, on looking over these general reports, we find a very large proportion of the communications between the School Inspectors and the Committee of Council consists of statements touching the enormous multitude of children who get little serviceable education, not by reason of the guilt or abandonment of parents, but simply from the conflict between nearer interests and those more remote. wonder that the schoolmaster is discouraged and the school inspector confounded. In some districts in England No the obvious, undeniable cause of school absence is poverty; but in others it is riches, or rather the temptation to gain them. Take the children of the Staffordshire Potteries as illustrations of the latter. Mr. Norris will tell us that a boy of from seven to nine will be earning his 1s. 6d. or 2s. per week at the wheel; in a year or two from 28. to 4s. weekly; that out of ten boys'schools (having 1,110 on the books), 476 had been withdrawn in one year; and that the ages of those so withdrawn had been as follows: 28 per cent. were under seven; 51 per cent. under ten; 17 per cent. under thirteen; and 4 per cent. were above thirteen. Even worse does it seem in the northern districts, where, says the Rev. D. J. Stewart, "a young boy of 13, who has never seen a book, can earn in a week at a pit or factory what would more than cover a fortnight's wages of an agricultural labourer in the South of England." This, no doubt, must operate as heavy discouragement to education, and some of our inspectors avow their belief that nothing but a compulsory enactment will meet the difficulty; yet how are we to deal with facts and figures which seem to show that such compulsory measures would be attended with very serious disarrangements in the localities where they appear to be most needed? Mr. Bellairs, the inspector for Gloucester, Oxford, Warwick, &c. thus writes; the passages are remarkable, and worthy of attention Suppose a legislative enactment obliging all children to remain at school until 14 years of age, the loss of earnings to the employed, and of production to the country, would be somewhat as follows:--In a respectable establishment at Birmingham, where 315 pairs of hands are employed, 33 per cent. are between 8 and 14 years of age, earning on an average 4s. per week. By the census of 1851, the number of children in these six counties between 10 and 15 years of age was 170,492. The number of those between 9 and 14 would probably be much the same. Supposing these children to be employed at 9 instead of 8, as at Birmingham, and to earn on earnings would be 1,773,1167. 168. the average 4s. per week, the gross annual But by the census of 1851, it appears that of the 170,492 children between 10 and 15, 49,843 only were employed. Supposing these to earn 48. a week each, the gross amount would be 518,3677. 48.; at the rate of 38. per week, 388,7751. 8s.; at the rate of 28. weekly, 259,1831. 12s. This calculation, making all allowance for its idea of the difficulty of dealing with the imperfection, will give some proximate question, &c. . . . I have never yet seen it laid down with sufficient clearness that there is this antagonism between the material interests of the poor, the laws of political economy, in a mere productive point of view, and the objects of education. The carnings of the adult labourer are insufficient to support himself and his children up to 14 years of age; hence the removal of them from school, in order to meet the wants of his household. Com pel them to go to school, and you drive the family into the workhouse." * Such is the discouraging position of education throughout a very large portion of England. Various palliative measures have been and are in progress; nor, although their present operation is small as regards the numbers in need of the benefit they are designed to bring, can we with any * Report, p. 401-2. |