a great improvement upon the first plan; the books forming a grant to be the property of the school, and lent to the children the others allowed to be sold at the price of purchase.

Now, it surely would have been better to have made the system of buying books at the reduced prices the prominent feature of the regulation, and to have spoken of this as the pith of the matter: the grants in aid to be had recourse to in cases of such schools as are absolutely unable to purchase; making these the exceptional cases, as they ought on sound principles to have been, and not the rule, as it stands at present.

There are no doubt many schools where this grant in aid may be necessary; but there are hundreds of others rising up, which, on principle, would prefer buying the books at the reduced prices, if allowed to apply at reasonable intervals; unless this making a grant absolutely necessary should suggest to them the worse of two plans-"facilis descensus averni' and prove to be a bait too tempting to be resisted.

The parents of the labouring class will naturally, from ignorance, prefer the lending system; and those connected with the management of schools, who have not had experience of the benefits of a contrary one, or perhaps who may not have thought much upon the subject at all, will, from an apparent saving of expense which it holds out, be led to adopt

the same.

It never occurred to me as possible, that an application for books at the reduced prices on the part of any school, and without asking a grant in aid, would not be received at the Council office even with some degree of satisfaction—a sort of joy at finding a state of things sufficiently prosperous to enable it to buy books without asking for a grant, and without putting the office to any expense beyond the mere agency-so that the receiving an answer from the secretary, that the office could not dispense with the preliminary condition of asking a grant, was a matter of surpriseand it has been to me ever since a source of wonder, how so strange à principle should have found its way into practice, more particularly as an example had been set by the National Board in Ireland, which had been for some years furnishing their books to schools of a like class in this country, at low

prices, and to an extent limited only by the wants of the school.

Another thing which ought to be borne in mind, in trying to give a wholesome direction to the education of the masses of a country, is to do it upon principles as little pauperising as possible-and I feel persuaded that a child educated from borrowed books, the property of the school, and one educated from its parents buying them, and their being the property of the child, in a social sense, and for all the economic purposes of life, the two are not the same beings;-nor is the effect on the parents, or the interest they take in their children, the same in the two cases; the minds of the children are not formed in the same mould, nor are they habituated to view things, connected with the way in which they are to struggle through life, through the same medium.

No one, unless he has had experience of children in the matter of education in schools of this kind, can form an idea of the wish they have to possess books of their own, when once they have been interested in what they are learning; and if there is any one thing which more than another, from experience here, I feel entitled to recommend to managers of schools, and to those who take an interest in them, it is by all means to introduce the plan of children buying their own; a thing which, when once established and the instruction good, there is no difficulty whatever in maintaining.

* The exclusively eleemosynary character which many attempt to give to the education of the labouring classes, is, in some respects, to be regretted. One cannot but admire the conduct of those who are at great expense in doing this entirely gratis, in their own localities; still I conceive much greater good would result by establishing moderate payments even in such cases, and any saving from this might be given to school building when pecuniary assistance is wanted. This making them pay, many, more particularly ladies, who have schools of this kind, will not hear of: they no doubt find great gratification and are pleased in doing so much good, but why not allow the parents to join in this feeling, by doing something towards it themselves; without this it excites but little interest in them, and altogether wants that kind of vitality which leads to the best results.

I am persuaded with respect to my own profession, that if we relied more on improving the staple of education in our [schools, and less on charity sermons, we should find better and less expensive results. The changes lately adopted in the examinations at Cambridge, and it is to be hoped Oxford may do the same, will eventually, through the clergy, have a most beneficial effect on the education of the labouring and middle classes.

The prices of these books in the Council list are so reasonable, that the great majority of schools would be able to purchase them; and there could be no greater boon to the cause of education than enabling them to do so (unrestricted by the present conditions), and to an extent limited only by their wants, and allowed also to apply for them at reasonable intervals. The dividing the list into two parts might be worthy of consideration : one of school-books used in the school, from which grants in aid, when necessary might be made; the other, of books of a more advanced kind for pupil-teachers and masters, and to be had only at the reduced prices.

The putting in circulation a well-selected list of educational books is in itself good, inasmuch as it brings before the school-managers and school-teachers the best books of the kind, which otherwise they might not have an opportunity of knowing much about; and in this way places the education of the country in a wholesome channel, so far as books are concerned.

The restrictions with which the Council regulations are fettered may probably in some measure arise, from the booksellers and publishers being averse to this mode of supplying our elementary schools, and, of course, it is not to be expected that they can sell books at a price which is not remunerating; but if they would consider, that this is not taking away a market, which they have already had, but is opening out one in a quarter which never existed before-(the little which was wanted being supplied by the Christian Knowledge, or similar Societies)-one which, when the people are fairly in a train of being educated, so as to enable them to read when they leave school, will be of an extensive kind. If the publishers would look forward in this way, they would be anxious to supply such schools at prices which may be remunerating to the publisher, although not to the retail trade; the latter would very soon find the benefit of this, as there is scarcely a cottage, into which books, bought after leaving school, to a greater or less extent, would not find their way, when once a people are fairly educated.

The supplying our schools with educational books of the highest character, and at the lowest prices, is no doubt a great

national object,-one which well merits, and will, it is to be hoped, meet with every attention from the Committee of Council; but whether this can best be effected by the Council endeavouring to put into effective operation the talent of the country, in writing books in all those departments of knowledge which it is desirable to introduce into our schools, and be their own publishers; or whether it can best be done through private publishers and the booksellers themselves, may be a matter of question. The prices at which the National Board in Ireland supply what are termed poor schools in this country, being a remunerating one, is encouraging to the former plan, and the increasing demand for books once well established, would enable the bookseller to do it at a small rate of profit; but, under all circumstances, what the country may reasonably expect from the Committee of Council, is-school books, good and cheap.

Whenever an important want has shown itself in this country, and one by which society would be largely benefited, it is astonishing how much private individuals have done to supply the want; and now that attention is so much turned towards education, as an instrument of great public good, perhaps it may occur to some benevolent individual, blessed with the power to do it, and wishing to connect his name with the education of his country, to appropriate (as the late Earl of Bridgewater did for a high moral purpose) a sum of eight or ten thousand pounds, as prizes for the best educational books, on all useful subjects-appointing some discreet mode of carrying the object out-the copyright to rest with the Committee of Council, in order to render the books as cheap as possible. Such a sum, spent in this way, might largely benefit a whole nation, and would do more to promote the education of it, that any other conceivable application of the same amount of money.

The mode in which benevolent individuals have endeavoured to promote local education, has been by leaving property in the hands of trustees (in many cases the parish officers), and attaching some condition-such as that a certain number of children or the whole of the children of the poor shall be sent free; but however well such endowments may have operated in Scotland (and in many instances, also, in the north of England), where, from experience of the benefit of it, a strong feeling in favour of education pervades all classes of society,

and where they mix and blend harmoniously together at school, yet in this country, in the rural districts more particularly, where such endowments exist, they have become, in nine cases out of ten, a positive hinderance, rather than a benefit, to the object they were intended to promote. This indifference as to the way in which charitable endowments for education are administered, arises from an entire want of a practical knowledge, that a people can in any way be benefited by it; and it is most strange, that the abuses of these charities in England should not be looked into.

In some counties in Scotland, such bequests have been so large, that the salary of the master has been very considerably increased, in almost every parochial school in the county, and this chiefly owing to the generosity of individuals, who felt that their success in life was owing to an education received at the parish school, and who had a confidence that those intended to be benefited were sufficiently alive to the humanising effects of education upon their children, to see that bequests so left, would be properly administered.

With respect to apparatus of a philosophical kind, it will be found advisable to commence with absolutely necessary things, and to add to these, as the wants of the school in this way make themselves felt; otherwise, the buying expensive things at first, and afterwards, not turning them to account, might lead to disappointment.

Mr. Moseley, in his Report of last year, calls the attention of schoolmasters to a most important subject-one, not less important to their own happiness and welfare, and to that of their families, than it is to the interests of education in general" the consideration of means for providing for support in time of sickness and of old age, and of contributing towards the maintenance of a family in case of death;" he adds, "that a mutual assurance or benefit society, formed upon a secure basis, among persons of this class, and conducted under the auspices of the Council on Education, would be an inestimable benefit."

This is a question in which the public are deeply interested, as affording the only means of protection against a master continuing to hold his situation, when, from age and infirmity, he is unfit for the duties of it; and school-managers