respect to schools in connexion with the Established Church, the National Society, and the British and Foreign School Society, in order to allay unfounded apprehensions, and to afford the strongest security that no interference with the duties peculiarly belonging to spiritual teachers is intended by the inspection of schools. Their lordships are, however, strongly of opinion, that no plan of education ought to be encouraged in which intellectual instruction is not subordinate to the regulation of the thoughts and habits of the children by the doctrines and precepts of revealed religion. You will therefore willingly avail yourself of the opportunity of examining the religious instruction given in the schools whenever you are invited to do so by the parochial clergyman, or other minister of religion, connected with the school; or, when there is no spiritual superintendent, by the majority of the school committee or trustees; and the committee of council desire you to hold yourself ready to comply with this wish whenever it is expressed."*

It may surely be asked with some surprise, what there is in the course here marked out to excite alarm in the clergy, or that is not strictly indispensable to the honest discharge of the functions of the committee of council, to whom the appropriation of the parliamentary grants is intrusted?

But the matter will be put in a still clearer light, if some evidence be adduced as to the nature of the education now afforded in the schools assisted by public grants. I quote the following testimony on the authority of the Rev. Baden Powell:

"1.......National School. When I entered the room, the master was sitting cross-legged on a bench in a corner, while the first class were reading to a monitor the fourteenth chapter of St. John. The

...

* Extract from minutes, Jan. 4, 1840.-Commons' Sessional papers, No. 18, pp. 11, 12.

phrase occurring, 'I will manifest myself to the world,' I asked what 'manifest' meant, when not one of the boys knew. A couple of verses on there occurred the sentence, bring all things to your remembrance.' The meaning of which none could tell me, nor did they know what 'remembrance' meant. I then examined them in their catechism, in which their ignorance, though they knew it all by heart perfectly, was extraordinary. I first asked the last question but one in the catechism, in which, as I had not asked the previous question, it was necessary to substitute for the word 'thereby,' the words through the Lord's supper,' but I could get no answer to the question: but when I substituted 'thereby' for the four concluding words I had used in putting the question, the whole class instantly shouted out the answer. I then asked what the word 'thereby' in the question alluded to meant, when none of them seemed to have the slightest conception of its purport. They repeated the second commandment fluently at my request, but could not tell what the words 'graven image' meant, and said they had never been taught. I asked if they knew the meaning of the word 'rehearse,' which none could give me. I then said, 'Rehearse the articles of thy belief:' the answer was immediately given, but they could not explain what 'resurrection of the body' meant, and said, 'they had never been taught anything about the resurrection.' I then asked, 'supposing a horse and a man were both buried in one field, whether anything would happen to the body of the man that would not happen to the body of the horse,' but they could give no answer. They knew nothing of the meaning of the words 'life everlasting;' but one boy said that God would live for ever, though nobody else would.' They understood literally the words, the body and blood of Christ, which was verily and indeed taken by the faithful in the Lord's supper,' ,' and of course believed the doctrine of transubstantiation, a doctrine they must necessarily come to with this passage unexplained.

........

"2..... National School for Girls. The first-class children were reading 'God is the Creator, Benefactor,' &c., but not one could explain the meaning of those words, 'Creator, Benefactor.' They could not tell what 'thereby' referred to, in the last question but one in the Catechism; and, in fact, seemed perfectly ignorant of the meaning of any passage in it. When I asked, after they had repeated the answer in the Catechism about repentance, what do you forsake by repentance? The answer was, 'Jesus Christ.' The ministers seemed chiefly solicitous that the children should curtsey before every question they answered.

5.

National School. When I entered, a monitor was reading from a book entitled, The Truths of the Christian Religion, and each sentence was repeated after him by the whole class. I stopped him at the passages, 'calculated to advance his own honour, the happiness of mankind, to banish idolatry.' I then successively asked the meaning of the words 'calculated,'' advance,' 'banish,' 'idolatry,' but I could get no reply to any one of them, and the whole class and the master seemed aghast at my questions. The latter said, they had not been accustomed to that sort of questioning. They could not tell me who 'his,' in the phrase his own honour,' referred to. I then asked them to repeat the second commandment, which they did fluently; but after much questioning, I found they had not the slightest idea of what 'graven image,' or 'likeness of anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneathı,' was intended to convey.

......

"6. National School. The boys' school appears very bad, as the explanatory system is almost unknown. I heard the second class instructed in Ostervald's Abridgment, by a monitor of the first class, who could barely read himself. The children, having read a chapter from Ostervald, were questioned by the monitor from printed questions referring to the chapter, but only some of the answers were printed. One question was, who constrained Joseph to go and sojourn in Egypt?' The answer was 'compelled, forced,' which I could not comprehend till I found that the next question in the book was, 'What is the meaning of the word constrained?' Answer, compelled, forced.' The children had annexed the wrong answer to the question. Another question was, 'Who lived about this time?' The children answered, 'Jesus Christ; the time alluded to being that of Joseph. But the monitor did not appear to perceive the absurdity of the answers, and went to another question. ......... The above is a fair sample of what I have continually witnessed in National Schools,' in which all improvement seems to be impossible, as long as so close and servile an adherence to Bell's system is persisted in.

National School.

"7. On questioning the children in Arithmetic, they replied, after much difficulty, to how much 6 and 3, and 10 and 4 made; but none could tell what twice 2 amounted to. The majority of National Schools have no Bibles in them, but generally Trimmer's Abridgment, and not unfrequently a much smaller abridgment than Trimmer's, is the only part of the Scriptures contained in National Schools. I have frequently, in these schools, asked the children if they have been baptized, when the usual answer is a flat denial; but every child will allow that it has

been christened. The fact is, in common conversation, this rite is invariably alluded to under the term of christening,' the word 'baptism' being very rarely used. The former term, however, is nowhere used in the Catechism, where this sacrament is always called 'baptism: the children, however, according to the almost universal plan in National Schools, never having been taught to understand what they read, are unaware that the sacrament of baptism, about which they read almost daily in the schools, most of them probably having repeated the answers in the Catechism above a thousand times, is the identical ceremony which they have all undergone in their infancy."*

I make no apology for the length of this extract; the facts which it contains show most conclusively the absolute necessity of a vigorous and impartial inspection of all schools assisted by public money.

But there is another important point involved in this scheme of inspection, which is thus noticed in the instructions already quoted:

"The reports of the inspectors are intended to convey such further information respecting the state of elementary education in Great Britain, as to enable Parliament to determine in what mode the sums voted for the education of the poorer classes can be most usefully applied. With this view, reports on the state of particular districts may be required, to ascertain the state of education in such districts, and how far the interference of Government or of Parliament can be beneficially exerted by providing additional means of education."+

Necessity general enquiry into

of further

Notwithstanding the great mass of evidence of various kinds which has been collected on this subject, there is undoubtedly great need for further enquiry. And this mass of evidence itself is so much in want of education

* State Education, &c., by the Rev. Baden Powell, App. No. 3, pp. 96-103.

+ Extracts from Minutes, § 9.

the state of

in Great Britain.

3. Training schools for masters.

arrangement as to be at presen of comparatively little practical use. What the Commissioners for enquiry into the Poor Laws did for the important question of Poor Law Reform needs to be done for the still more important question of Education Reform. But can the discharge of this duty be reasonably looked for at the hands of the school-inspectors under the committee of council?

The best consideration that I have been able to give to this question has led me to the conclusion, that the required information would be most satisfactorily obtained by the appointment of a commission of enquiry, whose duties should be expressly limited to this one object. And I have the satisfaction of knowing that this is the opinion of Mr. Leonard Horner,* whose experience, as one of the inspectors of factories, gives increased value to his judgment on the subject, and that the same opinion was expressed by my lamented friend, Mr. B. F. Duppa, in his observations on Lord Brougham's bill of 1838.+

The first step towards the general and permanent improvement of our schools, consists in the improved education of schoolmasters. What Cousin describes as the great educational maxim of Prussia, "As is the master so will be the school," has at length become tolerably familiar to English ears, but as yet it has wrought little change in English practice.

It is true, we no longer hear persons officially connected with popular education asserting that three months is a sufficient period for the acquisition of all

* In the preliminary remarks to his translation of Cousin's Report on Education in Holland.

† See the second publication of the Central Society of Education, p. 159, seqq.