ample, fractional as it may seem; for the more thorough the insight afforded of the faculties of our schools, constructed as they are, the more will people be induced to pause before they give their voice for their extinction. The sight even of a fly through a microscope would often stay the hand that was raised to crush it, by unfolding beauties overlooked. Our example is the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee: the catechist begins by taking the passage to pieces, making the child in fact construe it, so as to give proof that he has not been merely talking in his sleep:what was done-who did it-what was said-who said it. Then comes a hard word, a publican-he asks-what is he? The child cannot tell, or tells him wrong. It is very easy for the questioner to set him right; but why do this when it is much better and very possible to make him set himself right? He will remember, if he is put upon it, that there were twelve apostles; that one of them was a publican; that his name was Matthew. He can tell where Matthew was sitting, and what he was doing when he was called. He thus works his own way to the meaning of the term publican; and besides, learns to bring passages of Scripture which he has read, together; thus gets at a good principle of interpretation; and, above all, holds fast that which he has in this manner made his own. But the two men went up into the temple to pray.' This reminds the catechist to give the child some simple notion of prayer. He may make a speech to this effect, but it will be to little purpose, and there is no need of it. In answer to his question the child can inform him what it was they went into the temple professedly to do: a beggar in the street will furnish him with an illustration of this; for he would teach the child to quote a text where praying is expounded by asking.' Then, when the child has told him whose house the temple was, he will be at no loss to tell him further who was to be addressed in it. And, looking to what the publican and the pharisee severally said, he will be led to state that the one asked for mercy, the other asked for nothing; consequently, that the one did actually pray, whilst the other forgot his errand. We need not pursue the example further; but, on the whole, this method will do more for a child than the plainest sermon whilst he is a child, and when he becomes a man he will put away childish things. Now, doubtless, had the catechist turned lecturer, and his interrogations been orations, he would have delivered in the same space ten times the doctrine which the other has extracted; but what of that?' says Mr. Bather, in a passage which may remind us of Mr. Hunt's diverting picture of the Sunday School Boy-' the listlessness of his youthful auditory, the vacant looks of some, and the impatient gazings of the rest in all directions, let you know infallibly that their minds have never been occupied at all; perspicuous the speech may have been, but 'like water that runneth apace,' it has passed away from them as it flowed, and whether the matter discussed related to Peter, or James, or John, or the facts were done at Jericho or Jerusalem, or the scope of the argument was to teach men to pray, or to give alms, to repent, or to believe the gospel, they know not. The sermon was blameless, but there was no constraint upon them to give their thoughts to it.'

Having thus questioned the meaning into them, for which the school for obvious reasons is the fittest scene-and which indeed there is scarcely any other opportunity for doing, but such as a school affords the Archdeacon next proposes to question the meaning out of them, which may be done not there only, but in the church, in the face of the congregation, in accordance with the injunctions of the fifty-ninth canon, and the rubric at the end of the catechism. Here the minister, who is bound up, it will be perceived, with these schools from first to last, gives the children an occasion of producing their knowledge; he extracts it from them piece by piece, and with an eye in the process to the edification of the bystanders; thus he reaches the ignorant adult through the better-informed child; awakes a fresh interest in that quarter, for to hear others questioned is the next thing to being questioned oneself; the listener will have the curiosity to catch the child's reply; a thought can scarcely fail to cross him, how he would reply himself, or whether he could reply at all: he will be glad to get information without the risk of exposing his present ignorance, and when the information is watched and waited for, it is retained.

We have quoted this passage at length, because it contains, not only the views of an enlightened writer and a sensible critic, but a complete description and definition of that identical method of teaching by the SIMULTANEOUS system, which the Government is anxious to introduce into the schools of England, and which the National Society most vehemently opposes. We entirely concur in the principles here laid down by two of the ablest defenders of Church education :—but if we inquire for the practical application of these admirable views, for the actual results of an ecclesiastical superintendence so zealous, so unremitting, so enlightened, we are answered by a return of the number of day-schools and Sunday-schools in connexion with the National Society. Writers, who appeal so warmly to the sympathies of the reflecting body of churchmen, may doubtless do much to promote the high purposes of the great institution they defend; but there is nothing but fiction and delusion in the assertion that this machinery is now in existence and at work. The whole plan on which the national schools have hitherto been governed is in direct contrast to the pleasing accounts we have extracted. The clergy of the Establishment have not learned to consider themselves as the head-schoolmasters of their parishes: few of them, comparatively speaking, are fitted by taste or by technical acquirement to perform the difficult duties of a catechist, as Mr. Bather terms him, but more properly of a teacher on the

simultaneous or suggestive method. What these gentlemen have in view, or, at least, what is required to make their views practicable, is precisely that which the friends of education, who have supported the Government plans, have most deeply at heart, viz. the preparation of a body of able masters and mistresses, instructed, supported and assisted by the clergy of the land, and perfectly versed in the whole art of which the general features have been, in the foregoing extracts, presented to the reader. Has the National Society contributed anything to the attainment of these ends? The labours of the newly-established Diocesan Boards will furnish some answer to this question; but the novelty of these establishments proves, at least, that till within a very short time the answer must have been a blank negative. Has the Government had a scheme in view which would promote or which would impair these objects? When we come to speak of what the intentions of the Committee of Council appear to be, we shall show how much analogy there exists between the wants and wishes of men of all parties, who really know what education is, and what it ought to be. The Government would have met with no ordinary success in the first and principal part of their labours in promoting the education of the children of churchmen, if such a school as Mr. Maurice and Mr. Bather approve were established in every parish in the kingdom.

The National Society, zealous in the defence of the principle which their institution is alleged to rest on, have too long confounded with it the state of the schools now under their care. We should be more satisfied that definite and important improvements, like those so forcibly described by Mr. Maurice and Mr. Bather, are actually going on, if we heard less self-applause at the boards and meetings convoked in various parts of the country to support the principle of ecclesiastical education. The principle may be excellent, but, generally speaking, the schools are bad. What they teach is imperfectly taught, being rather rubbed into the memory than absorbed into the understanding; what they teach is comprised within very narrow boundaries indeed, when we consider that the highest themes which can fill the human mind are presented to the children under a form which rarely allows them to feel their height or to follow their extensive VOL. X.-No. XIX.

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application to all the existing relations of life. And consequently, we have now very decided evidence that a great deal of the little thus taught is written on the sand, washed out by the first wave, forgotten in the first half-year of dissolute fellowship or hard-wearing toil. Whatever be the truth of the principle, it undoubtedly loses much of its strength by the absence of schools in which its practical operation can really be pointed to with approbation.

The reports of the National Society are almost equally remarkable for their great pretensions and their humiliating confessions. The following sentence from the Report of 1839 affords a curious specimen of the apologetic language in which they describe the success of their labours :

--

"If an account be taken of the periodical returns and reports which National Schools are called upon to make; the comparatively regular system of visitation and examination to which they are subjected; the greater extent of instruction the children obtain (though in the best of cases it may be small); the superior system on which they are taught (though it may often be exceedingly defective in itself); and the comparatively able teachers by which they are managed (though many of these persons are very incompetent for their work, and almost all of them need to be improved);—an undoubted evidence of the success of the National Society will be obtained."

If we were inclined to imitate this parenthetical style of composition, we might venture to qualify the concluding words by adding, "(although, by its practical results and the con❝fession of its own managers, it has been found to fall very "short of all that a National Society for Education ought to "afford)."

But with the exception of one or two of the more experienced and enlightened individuals connected with it, the Society has not condescended till very lately to admit these deficiencies-still less to correct them. And we venture to assert, that anybody visiting a number of national schools will find a deeper consciousness of their manifold defects among the masters and mistresses than among those whose duty it is to govern and improve these establishments. To quote an example which must be familiar to all who have visited schools on the pure National system, the first thing that

* See Report on the Parkhurst Prison for Juvenile Offenders, 1839.

strikes any one accustomed to other modes of teaching, is the want of books. Extracts from the Bible at first, and the whole Bible afterwards, generally form the sole resource of the teacher. Independently of the impropriety of making the sacred volume a horn-book for beginners, we deeply deplore, and we are certain the majority of masters deplore, the absence of other books, which may serve to interest and instruct the children--and most assuredly without diverting their thoughts from the sacred truths and laws which the Bible lays before them.

The technical knowledge which must be united to the practice, patience and judgement required in the government of a school is not common among the gentry or clergy of England; and the secret of the stagnation of the National schools lies simply in the fact, that the gentry and clergy have been relying too much upon the system and the master accredited from the Sanctuary; whilst the National Society has required for its improvement, nay, even for the full application of its own machinery, a degree of vigour and experience which it is not very usual to find in rural parishes. The position of the National Society does not appear to us to be sufficiently inattackable, especially in the details of its operations, for it to set up the cry of invasion and aggression the moment a more active and efficient power is invoked to promote the same end. And we are at a loss to understand on what principle, not only of Christian charity, but of common fairness and honesty, they have chosen to assume that Christianity and religious instruction were not intended by every one who has turned his attention to the subject (with the exception of a few speculative writers), as the basis of education. The most recent manifestoes of the Society do not admit of the possibility of any means of improving the system of public instruction besides their own; and they hardly condescend to acknowledge those resources which the co-operation of the Government, in conformity with its duty to the Church, is willing to place at their disposal.

Nevertheless, the strong appeal which has this year been. made to the public was accompanied by the formation of Diocesan Boards, which unquestionably bring the hierarchy