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 FOUR PERIODS 
 
 OP 
 
 PUBLIC EDUCATION 
 
LONDON 
 
 PBIKTKD BT SPOTTISWOODB AND CO. 
 
 NEW-STBF.TtT SQUARE 
 
PUBLIC EDUCATION 
 
 AS REVIEWED IX 
 
 1832-1839-1846-1862 
 
 IN PAPERS BY 
 
 SIR JAMES KAY- SHUTTLEWORTH, BART. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMAN, OREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 
 
 1862 
 
^> 
 
h-y^' 
 
 vv 
 
 FOUR PERIODS 
 
 OF 
 
 PUBLIC EDUCATION 
 
 AS REVIEWED IN 
 
 1832-1839-1846-1862 
 
 IN PAPERS BY 
 
 SIR JAMES KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, BART. 
 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 
 
 1862 
 
S5 
 
 ^'i^r^ 
 
TO 
 
 THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE, K.G. 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 THE EARL RUSSELL 
 
 THE MINISTERS OF THE CROWN 
 
 TO WHOSE SAGACITY, MODERATION, AND FIRMNESS THE COUNTRY 
 OWES THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 
 
 THE COMMITTEE OP THE PRIVY COUNCIL ON EDUCATION 
 
 AND THE ADOPTION OF 
 
 THE MINUTES OF 1846 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY THEIR FAITHFUL SERVANT 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 Marcfi 1862 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 FIEST PERIOD. 
 
 The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes of 
 Manchester in 1832 3to84' 
 
 Sketch of the Progress of Manchester in thirty years, from 1832 
 to 1862 87 to 170 - 
 
 SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 Preface 175 to 178 
 
 The Order in Council creating the Committee of the Privy 
 
 Council on Education (April 10, 1839) 179 
 
 The Minute as to the Proposed National Noimal School (April 
 
 13, 1839) 179 
 
 The Minute as to the Inspection of Schools (June 3, 1839) . 182 
 
 A Pamphlet issued by direction of the Government, entitled 
 ' Recent Measures for the Promotion of Education in England,' 
 explaining the intentions of the Ministry in 1839 . . , 187 to 286 
 
 First steps in Workhouses and Schools of Industry for Pauper 
 Children, respecting the Apprenticeship of Pupil Teachers. 
 A few brief extracts from Reports (1837 to 1840) . . .287 to 292 
 
 First Report on the Origin and Organisation of the Training 
 College at Battersea, and the introduction of some of the Pupil 
 Teachers as Students (1841) 294 to 386 
 
 Second Report on the Schools for the Training of Parochial 
 
 Schoolmasters at Battersea 387 to 431 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 THIRD PERIOD. 
 Explanation op the Minutes of 1846. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Preliminaries to the establishment of the Committee of Comicil 
 
 on Education 437 to 456 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 The Natui'e and Objects of the Appointment of Inspectors of 
 
 Schools, and the Mode of Appointing Inspectors . . , 467 to 470 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Minutes of August and December, 1846, considered in rela- 
 tion to their influence on the Schoolmaster, the School, and 
 the Poor 471 to 493 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Minutes of August and December, 1846, considered in their 
 
 Religious and Political Aspect 494 to 522 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Outlay from Public Grants and Private Contributions re- 
 quired by the Minutes of August and December, 1846 . . 523 to 530 
 
 Appendices A. B. C . . . 531 to 561 
 
CONTENTS IX 
 
 FOURTH PERIOD. 
 Two Letters to Earl Gtranville, K.G-. &c. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 1. On the Recommendations of the Royal Commissioners' Report 
 
 dated March 18, 1861 555 to 573 
 
 2. On the Minute of the Committee of Comicil on Education, 
 dated July 29th, 1861, establishing a Revised Code of Regu- 
 lations for the Distribution of the Parliamentary Grant . . 574 to 638 
 
 Appendices 639 to 644 
 
FIRST PERIOD 
 
 THE CONDITION OF THE WOEKING CLASSES 
 OE MANCHESTER IN 1832 
 
 FOLLOWED By 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE PEOGEESS OF MANCHESTER 
 
 IN THIBTY TEAR3 
 
 FROM 1833 TO 1863 
 
 Of TM, ''^V 
 
 
 A* 
 
V 
 
 > 
 
 THE 
 MOKAL AND PHYSICAL CONDITION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WOEKING CLASSES OF MANCHESTBU 
 
 IN 1832. 
 
 Self-knowledge, inculcated by the maxim of the ancient 
 philosopher, is a precept not less appropriate to societies 
 than to individuals. The physical and moral evils by 
 which we are personally surrounded, may be more easily 
 avoided when we are distinctly conscious of their exist- 
 ence ; and the virtue and health of society may be pre- 
 served, with less difficulty, when we are acquainted with 
 the sources of its errors and diseases. 
 
 The sensorium of the animal structure, to which con- 
 verge the sensibilities of each organ, is endowed with a 
 consciousness of every change in the sensations to which 
 each member is hable ; and few diseases are so subtle as 
 to escape its delicate perceptive power. Pain thus reveals 
 to us the existence of evils, which, unless arrested in their 
 progress, might insidiously invade the sources of vital 
 action. 
 
 Society were well preserved, did a similar faculty pre- 
 side, with an equal sensibility, over its constitution ; 
 making every order immediately conscious of the evils 
 affecting any portion of the general mass, and thus ren- 
 
 B 2 
 
4 First Period 
 
 dering their removal equally necessary for tlie immediate 
 ease, as it is for tlie ultimate welfare of the whole social 
 system. The mutual dependence of the individual mem- 
 bers of society and of its various orders, for the supply 
 of their necessities and the gratification of their desires, 
 is acknowledged, and it imperfectly compensates for the 
 want of a faculty, resembling that pervading conscious- 
 ness which presides over the animal economy. But a 
 knowledge of the moral and physical evils oppressing one 
 order of the community, is by these means slowly com- 
 municated to those which are remote ; and general efibrts 
 are seldom made for the relief of partial ills, until they 
 threaten to convulse the whole social constitution. 
 
 Some governments have attempted to obtain, by specific 
 measures, that knowledge for the acquisition of which 
 there is no natural faculty. The statistical investigations 
 of Prussia, of the Netherlands, of Sweden, and of France, 
 concerning population, labour, and its commercial and 
 agricultural results ; the existing resources of the country, 
 its taxation, finance, &c. are minute and accurate. The 
 economist may, however, still regret, that many most 
 interesting subjects of inquuy are neglected, and that the 
 reports of these governments fail to give a perfect por- 
 traiture of the features of each individual part of the 
 social body. Their sj^stem, imperfect though it be, is 
 greatly superior to any yet introduced into this country. 
 Here, statistics are neglected ; and when any emergency 
 demands a special inquiry, information is obtained by 
 means of committees of the Commons, whose labours are 
 so multifarious, as to afford them time for httle else than 
 the investigation of general conclusions, derived from the 
 experience of those supposed to be most conversant with 
 the subject. An approximation to truth may thus be 
 made, but the results are never so minutely accurate as 
 those obtained from statistical investigations ; and, as they 
 are generally deduced from a comparison of opposing 
 testimonies, and sometimes from partial evidence, they 
 frequently utterly fail in one most important respect, 
 
Manchester m 1832 5 
 
 namely — in convincing the public of tlie facts vfhicli tliey 
 proclaim. 
 
 The introduction into this country of a singularly 
 malignant contagious malady, which, though it selects its 
 victims from every order of society, is chiefly propagated 
 amongst those whose health is depressed by disease, men- 
 tal anxiety, or want of the comforts and conveniences of 
 life, has directed public attention to an investigation of the 
 state of the poor. In Manchester, Boards of Health were 
 established, in each of the fourteen districts of PoHce, for 
 the purpose of minutely inspecting the state of the houses 
 and streets. These districts were divided into minute 
 sections, to each of which two or more inspectors were 
 appointed from among the most respectable inhabitants 
 of the vicinity, and they were provided with tabular 
 queries, applying to each particular house and street. 
 Individual exceptions only exist, in which minute returns 
 were not furnished to the Special Board : and as the 
 investigation was prompted equally by the demands of 
 benevolence, of personal security, and of the general 
 welfare, the results may be esteemed as accurate as the 
 nature of the investigation would permit. The other facts 
 contained in this pamphlet have been obtained from the 
 pubhc offices of the town, or are the results of the author's 
 personal observation. 
 
 The township of Manchester chiefly consists of dense 
 masses of houses, inhabited by the population engaged in 
 the great manufactories of the cotton trade. Some of the 
 central divisions are occupied by warehouses and shops, 
 and a few streets by the dwellings of some of the more 
 wealthy inhabitants ; but the opulent merchants chiefly 
 reside in the country, and even the superior servants 
 of their estabhshments inhabit the suburban townships. 
 Manchester, properly so called, is chiefly inhabited by 
 shopkeepers and the labouring classes.^ Those districts 
 
 * To the stranger, it is also necessary to observe, that the investigations on 
 whose results the conclusions of this pamphlet are founded, were of necessity 
 
 b3 
 
6 First Period 
 
 where the poor dwell are of very recent origin. The 
 rapid growth of the cotton manufacture has attracted 
 hither operatives from every part of the kingdom, and 
 Ireland has poured forth the most destitute of her hordes 
 to supply the constantly increasing demand for labour. 
 This immigration has been, in one important respect, a 
 serious evil. The Irish have taught the labouring classes 
 of this country a pernicious lesson. The system of cottier 
 farming, the demorahsation and barbarism of the people, 
 and the general use of the potato as the chief article of 
 food, have encouraged the growth of population in Ireland 
 more rapidly than the available means of subsistence have 
 been increased. Debased ahke by ignorance and pauperism, 
 they have discovered, with the savage, what is the mini- 
 mum of the means of life, upon which existence may be 
 prolonged. The paucity of the amount of means and 
 comforts necessary for the mere support of life^ is not 
 known by a more civihsed population, and this secret has 
 been taught the labourers of this country by the Irish. 
 As competition and the restrictions and burdens of trade 
 diminished the profits of capital, and consequently reduced 
 the price of labour, the contagious example of ignorance 
 and a barbarous disregard of forethought and economy, 
 exhibited by the Irish, spread. The colonisation of savage 
 tribes has ever been attended with effects on civilisation 
 as fatal as those which have marked the progress of the 
 sand flood over the fertile plains of Egypt. Instructed in 
 the fatal secret of subsisting on what is barely necessary 
 to life, — yielding partly to necessity, and partly to ex- 
 ample, — the labouring classes have ceased to entertain a 
 laudable pride in furnishing their houses, and in multiply- 
 ing the decent comforts which minister to happiness. 
 What is superfluous to the mere exigencies of nature is 
 
 conducted in the tovmship of Manchestei' only ; and tliat the inhabitants of 
 a great part of the adjacent townships are in a condition superior to that 
 described in these pages. The most respectable portion of the operative 
 population has, we think, a tendency to avoid the central districts of Man- 
 chester, and to congregate in the suburban townships. 
 
Manchester in 1832 7 
 
 too often expended at the tavern ; and for the provision 
 of old age and infirmity, they too frequently trust either 
 to charity, to the support of their children, or to the pro- 
 tection of the poor laws. 
 
 When this example is considered in connection with the 
 unremitted labour of the whole population engaged in the 
 various branches of the cotton manufacture, our wonder 
 will be less excited by their fatal demoralisation. Pro- 
 longed and exhausting labour, continued from day to day, 
 and from year to year, is not calculated to develop the 
 intellectual or moral faculties of man. The dull routine 
 of a ceaseless drudgery, in which the same mechanical 
 process is incessantly repeated, resembles the torment of 
 Sisyphus — the toil, like the rock, recoils perpetually on 
 the wearied operative. The mind gathers neither stores 
 nor strength from the constant extension and retraction of 
 the same muscles. The intellect slumbers in supine inert- 
 ness ; but the grosser parts of our nature attain a rank 
 development. To condemn man to such monotonous toil 
 is, in some measure, to cultivate in him the habits of an 
 animal. He becomes reckless. He disregards the dis- 
 tinguishing appetites and habits of his species. He neg- 
 lects the comforts and delicacies of hfe. He hves in 
 squalid wretchedness, on meagre food, and expends his 
 superfluous gains in debauchery. 
 
 The population employed in the cotton factories rises 
 at five o'clock in the morning, works in the mills from six 
 till eight o'clock, and returns home for half an hour or 
 forty minutes to breakfast. This meal generally consists 
 of tea or coffee, with a httle bread. Oatmeal porridge is 
 sometimes, but of late rarely used, and chiefly by the men ; 
 but the stimulus of tea is preferred, and especially by the 
 women. The tea is almost always of a bad, and some- 
 times of a deleterious quality ; the infusion is weak, and 
 little or no milk is added. The operatives return to the 
 mills and workshops until twelve o'clock, when an hour 
 is allowed for dinner. Amongst those who obtain the 
 lower rates of wages this meal generally consists of boiled 
 
 B 4 
 
8 First Period 
 
 potatoes.* The mess of potatoes is put into one large 
 dish ; melted lard and butter are poured upon them, and 
 a few pieces of fried fat bacon are sometimes mingled 
 with them, and but seldom a httle meat. Those who 
 obtain better wages, or famihes whose aggregate income 
 is larger, add a greater proportion of animal food to this 
 meal, at least three times in the week ; but the quantity- 
 consumed by the labouring population is not great. The 
 family sits round the table, and each rapidly appropriates 
 his portion on a plate, or they all plunge their spoons into 
 the dish, and with an animal eagerness satisfy the cravings 
 of their appetite. At the expiration of the hour, they are 
 all again employed in the workshops or mills, where they 
 continue until seven o'clock or a later hour, when they 
 generally again indulge in the use of tea, often mingled 
 with spirits accompanied by a little bread. Oatmeal or 
 potatoes are however taken by some a second time in the 
 evening. 
 
 The comparatively innutritions qualities of these articles 
 of diet are most evident. We are, however, by no means 
 prepared to say that an individual Hving in a healthy 
 atmosphere, and engaged in active employment in the 
 open air, would not be able to continue protracted and 
 severe labour, without any suffering, whilst nourished by 
 this food. We should rather be disposed, on the contrary, 
 to affirm, that any ill effects must necessarily be so much 
 diminished, that, from the influence of habit, and the 
 benefits derived from the constant inhalation of an uncon- 
 taminated atmosphere, during healthy exercise in agricul- 
 tural pursuits, few if any evil results would ensue. But 
 the population nourished on this aliment is crowded into 
 one dense mass, in cottages separated by narrow, unpaved, 
 and almost pestilential streets, in an atmosphere loaded 
 with the smoke and exhalations of a large manufacturing 
 city. The operatives are congregated in rooms and work- 
 
 ^ The diet and houseliold management of the factory operatives have 
 undergone a great change since this was written. Tea, coffee, wheaten 
 bread, and animal food, are now much more consumed. — J. P. K. S. 1862. 
 
Manchester m 1832 9 
 
 shops during twelve^ hours in the day, in an enervating, 
 heated atmosphere, which is frequently loaded with dust 
 or filaments of cotton, or impure from constant respiration, 
 or from other causes. They are engaged in an employ- 
 ment which absorbs their attention, and unremittingly 
 employs their physical energies.^ They are drudges who 
 watch the movements, and assist the operations, of a 
 mighty material force, which toils with an energy ever 
 unconscious of fatigue. The persevering labour of the 
 operative must rival the mathematical precision, the in- 
 cessant motion, and the exhaustless power of the machine. 
 Hence, besides the negative results — the abstraction of 
 moral and intellectual stimuli — the absence of variety — 
 banishment from the grateful air and the cheering influ- 
 ences of Hght, the physical energies are impaired by toil, 
 and imperfect nutrition. The artisan too seldom possesses 
 sufficient moral dignity or intellectual or organic strength 
 to resist the seductions of appetite. His wife and children, 
 subjected to the same process, have little power to cheer 
 his remaining moments of leisure. Domestic economy is 
 neglected, domestic comforts are too frequently unknown. 
 A meal of coarse food is hastily prepared, and devoured 
 with precipitation. Home has little other relation to him 
 than that of shelter — few pleasures are there — it chiefly 
 presents to him a scene of physical exhaustion, from which 
 he is glad to escape. His house is ill furnished, uncleanly, 
 often ill ventilated — perhaps damp ; his food, from want 
 of forethought and domestic economy, is meagre and in- 
 nutritious ; he generally becomes debilitated and hypo- 
 chondriacal, and, unless supported by principle, falls the 
 victim of dissipation. In all these respects, it is grateful 
 to add, that those among the operatives of the mills, who 
 
 1 The Factories Eegulation Acts, restricting the hours of labour for women 
 and children, had not then passed. Practically the restriction shortens the 
 men's time to about an average of ten hom-s. 
 
 ^ A gentleman, whose opinions on these subjects command universal 
 respect, suggests to me, that the intensity of this application is exceedingly 
 increased by the system of paying, not for time, but according to the result 
 of labour. 
 
10 First Period 
 
 are employed in the process of spinning, and especially of 
 fine spinning (who receive a high rate of wages and who 
 are elevated on account of their skill), are more attentive 
 to their domestic arrangements, have better furnished 
 houses, are consequently more regular in their habits, and 
 more observant of their duties than those engaged in other 
 branches of the manufacture. 
 
 The other classes of artisans of whom we have spoken, 
 are frequently subject to a disease, in which the sensibility 
 of the stomach and bowels is morbidly excited ; the alvine 
 secretions are deranged, and the appetite impaired. Whilst 
 this state continues, the patient loses flesh, his features are 
 sharpened, the skin becomes sallow, or of the yellow hue 
 which is observed in those who have suffered from the 
 influence of tropical climates. The strength fails, the 
 capacities of physical enjoyment are destroyed, and the 
 paroxysms of coi*poreal sufiering are aggravated by deep 
 mental depression. We cannot wonder that the wretched 
 victim of this disease, invited by those haunts^f misery 
 and crime the gin shop and the tavefn7~as^e passes to his 
 daily labour,\ should endeavour to cheat his suffering of a 
 few moments, by the false excitement procured by ardent 
 spirits ; or that the exhausted artisan, driven by ennui 
 and discomfort from his squalid home, should strive, 
 in the delirious dreams of a continued debauch, to forget 
 the remembrance of his reckless improvidence, of the 
 destitution, hunger, and uninterrupted toil, which threaten 
 to destroy the remaining energies of his enfeebled con- 
 stitution. 
 
 The example which the Irish have exhibited of barba- 
 rous habits and savage want of economy, united with the 
 necessarily debasing consequences of uninterrupted toil, 
 have lowered the state of the people. 
 
 The inspection conducted by the District Boards of 
 Health, chiefly referred to the state of the streets and 
 houses, inhabited by the labouring population — to local 
 nuisances, and more general evils. The greatest portion 
 of these districts, especially of those situated beyond Great 
 
Manchester in 1832 11 
 
 Ancoats-street, are of very recent origin ; and from the 
 want of proper police regulations are untraversed by 
 common sewers. The houses are ill soughed, often ill 
 ventilated, unprovided with privies, and, in consequence, 
 the streets, which are narrow, unpaved, and worn into 
 deep ruts, become the common receptacles of mud, refuse, 
 and disgusting ordure. 
 
 The Inspectors' reports do not comprise all the houses 
 and streets of the respective districts, and are in some 
 other respects imperfect. The returns concerning the 
 various defects which they enumerate must be received, 
 as the reports of evils too positive to be overlooked. 
 Frequently, when they existed in a shghter degreCj, the 
 questions received no reply. 
 
 Predisposition to contagious disease is encouraged by 
 everything which depresses the physical energies, amongst 
 the principal of which agencies may be enumerated im- 
 perfect nutrition ; exposure to cold and moisture, whether 
 from inadequate shelter, or from want of clothing and 
 fuel, or from dampness of the habitation ; uncleanliness 
 of the person, the street, and the abode ; an atmosphere 
 contaminated, whether from the want of ventilation, or from 
 impure effluvia ; extreme labour, and consequent physical 
 exhaustion ; intemperance ; fear ; anxiety ; diarrhoea, and 
 other diseases. The whole of these subjects could not be 
 included in the investigation, though it originated in a 
 desire to remove, as far as possible, those ills which de- 
 pressed the health of the population. The list of inquiries 
 to which the inspectors were requested to make tabular 
 replies is placed in the appendix, for the purpose of en- 
 abling the reader to form his own opinion of the investi- 
 gation from which the classified results are deduced. 
 
 The state of the streets powerfully affects the health of 
 their inhabitants. Sporadic cases of typhus chiefly appear 
 in those which are narrow, ill ventilated, unpaved, or 
 which contain heaps of refuse, or stagnant pools. The 
 confined air and noxious exhalations, which abound in 
 such places, depress the health of the people, and on this 
 
12 First Period 
 
 account contagious diseases are also most rapidly propagated 
 there. The operation of these causes is exceedingly pro- 
 moted by their reflex influence on the manners. The 
 houses, in such situations, are uncleanly, ill provided with 
 furniture ; an air of discomfort if not of squahd and loath- 
 some wretchedness pervades them, they are often dilapi- 
 dated, badly drained, damp : and the habits of their 
 tenants are gross — they are ill fed, ill clothed, and un- 
 economical—at once spendthrifts and destitute — denying 
 themselves the comforts of hfe, in order that they may 
 wallow in the unrestrained Hcence of animal appetite. An 
 intimate connection subsists, among the poor, between the 
 cleanhness of the street and that of the house and person. 
 Uneconomical habits and dissipation are almost inseparably 
 allied ; and they are so frequently connected with un- 
 cleanhness, that we cannot consider their concomitance 
 as altogether accidental. The first step to recklessness 
 may often be traced in a neglect of that self-respect, and 
 of the love of domestic enjoyments, which are indicated 
 by personal slovenliness, and discomfort of the habitation. 
 Hence, the importance of providing by pohce regulations 
 or general enactment, against those fertile sources alike of 
 disease and demoralisation, presented by the gross neglect 
 of the streets and habitations of the poor. When the 
 health is depressed by the concurrence of these causes, 
 contagious diseases spread with a fatal mahgnancy among 
 the population subjected to their influence. The records^ 
 of the Fever Hospital of Manchester prove that typhus 
 prevails almost exclusively in such situations. 
 
 The following table, arranged by the Committee of 
 Classification appointed by the Special Board of Health, 
 from the reports of Inspectors of the various District 
 Boards of Manchester, shows the extent to which the 
 imperfect state of the streets of Manchester may tend to 
 promote demorahsation and disease among the poor. 
 
 ^ Abundant evidence of tliis fact was collected by Mr. Wallis, lately 
 House Surgeon to the House of Recovery. 
 
Manchester in 1832 
 
 13 
 
 No. of 
 District. 
 
 No. of streets 
 inspected. 
 
 No. of streets 
 unpaved. 
 
 No. of streets 
 partially 
 paved. 
 
 No. of streets 
 ill ventilated. 
 
 No. of streets con- 
 taining lieaps of 
 refuse, stagnant pools, 
 ordure, &c. 
 
 1 
 
 114 
 
 63 
 
 13 
 
 7 
 
 64 
 
 2 
 
 180 
 
 93 
 
 7 
 
 23 
 
 92 
 
 3 
 
 49 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 28 
 
 4 
 
 66 
 
 37 
 
 10 
 
 12 
 
 52 
 
 5 
 
 30 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 53 
 
 13 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 17 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 48 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 20 
 
 10 
 
 29 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 23 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 13 
 
 55 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 23 
 
 14 
 Total 
 
 33 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 687 
 
 248 
 
 53 
 
 112 
 
 • 352 
 
 A minute inspection of this table will render the extent 
 of the evil affecting the poor more apparent. Those 
 districts which are almost exclusively inhabited by the 
 labouring population are Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10. Nos. 
 13 and 14, and 7, also contain, besides the dwelhngs of 
 the operatives, those of shopkeepers and tradesmen, and 
 are traversed by many of the principal thoroughfares. No. 
 11 was not inspected, and Nos. 5, 6, 8, and 9, are the 
 central districts containing the chief streets, the most 
 respectable shops, the dwellings of the more wealthy in- 
 habitants, and the warehouses of merchants and manu- 
 facturers. Subtracting, therefore, from the various totals, 
 those items in the reports which concern these divisions 
 only, we discover in those districts which contain a large 
 portion of poor, namely, in Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 13, and 
 14, that among 579 streets inspected, 243 were altogether 
 unpaved, 46 partially paved, 93 ill ventilated, and 307 
 contained heaps of refuse, deep ruts, stagnant pools, 
 ordure, &c.; and in the districts which are almost ex- 
 clusively inhabited by the poor, namely, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 
 and 10, among 438 streets inspected, 214 were altogether 
 unpaved, 32 partially paved, 63 ill ventilated, and 259 
 contained heaps of refuse, deep ruts, stagnant pools, 
 ordure, &c. 
 
14 
 
 First Period 
 
 The replies to the questions proposed in the second 
 table relating to houses, contain equally remarkable re- 
 sults, which have been carefully arranged by the Classi- 
 fication Committee of the Special Board of Health, as 
 follows : — 
 
 District. 
 
 No. of 
 
 houses 
 
 inspected. 
 
 No. of 
 houses re- 
 ported as 
 requiring 
 white- 
 washing. 
 
 No. of 
 houses 
 reported 
 as requir- 
 ing repair. 
 
 No. of 
 houses 
 in which 
 the soughs 
 wanted 
 repair. 
 
 No. of 
 houses 
 damp. 
 
 No. of 
 houses 
 reported 
 
 as ill 
 ventilated. 
 
 No. of 
 houses 
 wanting 
 privies. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 850 
 2489 
 213 
 650 
 413 
 12 
 343 
 132 
 128 
 370 
 
 113 
 
 757 
 481 
 
 399 
 
 898 
 
 145 
 
 279 
 
 176 
 
 3 
 
 76 
 
 35 
 
 34 
 
 195 
 
 33 
 
 218 
 
 74 
 
 128 
 
 282 
 
 104 
 
 106 
 
 82 
 
 5 
 
 59 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 53 
 
 23 
 44 
 13 
 
 112 
 
 145 
 41 
 
 105 
 70 
 5 
 57 
 39 
 24 
 
 123 
 
 27 
 
 108 
 
 83 
 
 177 
 497 
 61 
 134 
 101 
 
 86 
 48 
 39 
 54 
 
 24 
 
 146 
 
 68 
 
 70 
 109 
 52 
 69 
 11 
 
 21 
 
 22 
 
 19 
 
 2 
 
 16 
 54 
 
 7 
 
 326 
 
 755 
 96 
 
 250 
 66 
 5 
 79 
 20 
 25 
 
 232 
 
 52 
 177 
 138 
 
 Total . 
 
 6951 
 
 2565 
 
 960 
 
 939 
 
 1435 
 
 452 
 
 2221 
 
 It is, however, to be lamented^ that even these numeri- 
 cal results fail to exhibit a perfect picture of the ills which 
 are suffered by the poor. The repHes to the questions 
 contained in the Inspectors' table refer only to cases of 
 the most positive kind, and the numerical results would, 
 therefore, have been exceedingly increased, had they 
 embraced those in which the evils existed in a scarcely 
 inferior degree. Some idea of the want of cleanhness 
 prevalent in their habitations, may be obtained from the 
 report of the number of houses requiring whitewashing ; 
 but this column fails to indicate their gross neglect of 
 order, and absolute filth. Much less can we obtain satis- 
 factory statistical results concerning the want of furniture, 
 especially of bedding, and of food, clothing, and fuel. In 
 these respects the habitations of the Irish are most desti- 
 tute. They can scarcely be said to be furnished. They 
 
Manchester m 1832 15 
 
 contain one or two chairs, a mean table, the most scanty 
 cuhnary apparatus, and one or two beds, loathsome with 
 filth. A whole family is often accommodated on a single 
 bed, and sometimes a heap of filthy straw and a covering 
 of old sacking hide them in one undistinguished heap, 
 debased alike by penury, want of economy, and dissolute 
 habits. Frequently, the Inspectors found two or more 
 famihes crowded into one small house, containing only 
 two apartments, one in which they slept, and another in 
 which they ate ; and often more than one family hved in 
 a damp cellar, containing only one room, in whose pesti- 
 lential atmosphere from twelve to sixteen persons were 
 crowded. To these fertile sources of disease were some- 
 times added the keeping of pigs and other animals in the 
 house, with other nuisances of the most revolting cha- 
 racter. 
 
 As the visits of the Inspectors were made in the day, 
 when the population is engaged in the mills, and the 
 vagrants and paupers are wandering through the town, 
 they could not form any just idea of the state of. the 
 pauper lodging-houses. The estabhshments thus desig- 
 nated are fertile sources of disease and demorahsation. 
 They are frequently able to accommodate from twenty to 
 thirty or more lodgers, among whom are the most aban- 
 doned characters, who, reckless of the morrow, resort 
 thither for the shelter of the night — men who find safety 
 in a constant change of abode, or are too uncertain in 
 their pursuits to remain beneath the same roof for a longer 
 period. Here, without distinction of age or sex, careless 
 of all decency, they are crowded in smaU and wretched 
 apartments ; the same bed receiving a succession of tenants 
 until too offensive even for their unfastidious senses. The 
 Special Board being desirous that these lodging-houses 
 should be inspected by the Overseers, the Churchwardens 
 obtained a report of the number in each district, which 
 cannot fail to be a source of siu-prise and apprehension. 
 
16 
 
 
 
 i^^V5^ Period 
 
 
 
 PAUrER LODGING-HOUSES. 
 
 
 
 No. of houses. 
 
 
 
 No. of houses. 
 
 District No. 1 . . . . 
 
 District Nc 
 
 . 9 . 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 108 
 
 
 10 . 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 
 11 . 
 
 . 26 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 . 
 
 — 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 13 . 
 
 . 60 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 14 . 
 
 1 
 
 '7 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 267 
 
 The temporary tenants of these disgusting abodes, too 
 frequently debased by vice, haunted by want, and every 
 other consequence of crime, are pecuharly disposed to the 
 reception of contagion. Their asylums are frequently 
 recesses where it lurks, and they are active agents in its 
 diffusion. They ought to be as much the objects of a 
 careful vigilance from those who are the guardians of the 
 health, as from those who protect the property of the 
 public. 
 
 In some districts of the town exist evils so remarkable 
 as to require more minute description. A portion of low, 
 swampy ground, liable to be frequently inundated, and to 
 constant exhalation, is included between a high bank over 
 which the Oxford Eoad passes, and a bend of the river 
 Medlock, where its course is impeded by a weir. This 
 unhealthy spot lies so low that the chimneys of its houses, 
 some of them three stories high, are little above the level 
 of the road. About two hundred of these habitations are 
 crowded together in an extremely narrow space, and they 
 are chiefly inhabited by the lowest Irish. Many of these 
 houses have also cellars, whose floor is scarcely elevated 
 above the level of the water flowing in the Medlock. The 
 soughs are destroyed, or out of repair : and these narrow 
 abodes are in consequence always damp, and are fre- 
 quently flooded to the depth of several inches, because 
 the surface water can find no exit. This district has 
 sometimes been the haunt of hordes of thieves and des- 
 peradoes who defied the law, and is always inhabited by 
 a class resembling savages in their appetites and habits. 
 It is surrounded on every side by some of the largest fac- 
 
Manchester in 1832 17 
 
 tories of the town, whose chhnneys vomit forth dense 
 clouds of smoke, which hang heavily over this insalubrious 
 region. 
 
 The subjoined document resulted from an inspection 
 made by a Special Sub-committee of Members of the 
 Board of Health, and the signatures of the gentlemen 
 forming that Sub-Committee were appended to it.^ 
 
 Near the centre of the town, a mass of buildings, in- 
 habited by prostitutes and thieves, is intersected by nar- 
 
 ^ to the magistkates of the district. 
 
 Gentlemen", 
 
 The undersigned having been deputed by the Special Board of Health to 
 inquire into the state of Little Ireland, beg to report that in the main street 
 and courts abutting, the sewers are all in a most wretched state, and quite 
 inadequate to cany off the surface water, not to mention the slops thrown 
 down by the inhabitants in about two hundred houses. 
 
 The privies are in a most disgraceful state, inaccessible from filth, and too 
 few for the accommodation of the number of people, — the average number 
 being two to two hundred and fifty people. The upper rooms are, with few 
 exceptions, very dirty, and the cellars much worse ; all damp, and some 
 occasionally overflowed. The cellars consist of two rooms on a floor, each 
 nine to ten feet square, some inhabited by ten persons, others by more : in 
 many, the people have no beds, and keep each other warm by close stowage 
 on shavings, straw, &c. ; a change of linen or clothes is an exception to the . 
 common practice. Many of- the back rooms where they sleep have no 
 other means of ventilation than from the front rooms. 
 
 Some of the cellars on the lower ground were once filled up as uninhabit- 
 able ; but one is now occupied by a weaver, and he has stopped up the drain 
 with clay, to prevent the water flowing from it into his cellar, and mops up 
 the water every morning. 
 
 We conceive it will be impossible efiectually to remove the evils enume- 
 rated; and ofler the following suggestions with a view to their partial 
 amelioration. 
 
 First, to open up the main sewer from the bottom, and to relay it. 
 
 Secondly, to open and imchoke the lateral drains, and secure a regular 
 discharge of the water, &c., into the main sewer. 
 
 Thirdly, to enforce the weekly cleansing and purification of the privies. 
 
 Fourthly, if practicable, to fill up the cellars. 
 
 Fifthly, to provide the inhabitants with quicklime, and induce them to 
 whitewash their rooms, where it can be done with safety. 
 
 Sixthly, if possible, to induce the inhabitants to observe greater cleanli- 
 ness in their houses and persons. 
 
 In conclusion, we are decidedly of opinion that should cholera visit this 
 neighbourhood, a more suitable soil and situation for its malignant develop- 
 ment cannot be found than that described and commonly known by the 
 name of Little Ireland. 
 
18 First Period 
 
 row and loathsome streets, and close courts defiled with 
 refuse. These nuisances exist in No. 13 District, on the 
 western side of Deansgate, and chiefly abound in Wood- 
 street, Spinning Field, Cumberland-street, Parhament- 
 passage, Parliament-street, and Thomson-street. In Par- 
 liament-street there is only one privy for three hundred 
 and eighty inhabitants, which is placed in a narrow 
 passage, whence its effluvia infest the adjacent houses, and 
 must prove a most fertile source of disease. In this street 
 also, cesspools with open grids have been made close to 
 the doors of the houses, in which disgusting refuse accu- 
 mulates, and whence its noxious effluvia constantly exhale. 
 In Parhament-passage about thirty houses have been 
 erected, merely separated by an extremely narrow pas- 
 sage (a yard and a half wide) from the wall and back 
 door of other houses. These thirty houses have one 
 privy. 
 
 The state of the streets and houses in that part of No. 
 4, included between Store-street and Travis-street, and 
 London Eoad, is exceedingly wretched — especially those 
 built on some irregular and broken mounds of clay, on a 
 steep declivity descending into Store-street. These narrow 
 avenues are rough, irregular gulhes, down which filthy 
 streams percolate; and the inhabitants are crowded in 
 dilapidated abodes, or obscure and damp cellars, in which 
 it is impossible for the health to be preserved. 
 
 Unwilling to weary the patience of the reader by ex- 
 tending such disgusting details, it may suffice to refer 
 generally to the wretched state of the habitations of the 
 poor in Clay-street, and the lower portion of Pot-street ; 
 in Providence-street, and its adjoining courts ; in Back 
 Portugal-street ; in Back Hart-street, and many of the 
 courts in the neighbourhood of Portland-street, some of 
 which are not more than a yard and a quarter wide, and 
 contain houses, frequently three stories high, the lowest 
 of which stories is occasionally used as a receptacle of 
 excrementitious matter : — to many streets in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Garden-street, Shudehill: — to Back Irk-street, 
 
Manchester in 1832 19 
 
 and to the state of almost the whole of that mass of cot- 
 tages filling the insalubrious valley through which the 
 Irk flows, and which is denominated Irish town. 
 
 The Irk, black with the refuse of dye-works erected 
 on its banks, receives excrementitious matters from some 
 sewers in this portion of the town — the drainage from the 
 gas-works, and filth of the most pernicious character from 
 bone-works, tanneries, size manufactories, &c. Imme- 
 diately beneath Ducie-bridge, in a deep hoUow between 
 two high banks, it sweeps round a large cluster of some 
 of the most wretched and dilapidated buildings of the 
 town. The course of the river is here impeded by a 
 weir, and a large tannery, eight stories high (three of 
 which stories are filled with skins exposed to the atmo- 
 sphere, in some stage of the processes to which they are 
 subjected), towers close to this crazy labyrinth of pauper 
 dwellings. This group of habitations is called ' Gibraltar,' 
 and no sight can well be more insalubrious than that on 
 which it is built. Pursuing the course of the river on 
 the other side of Ducie-bridge, other tanneries, size manu- 
 factories, and tripe-houses occur. The parish burial 
 ground occupies one side of the stream, and a series of 
 courts of the most singular and unhealthy character the 
 other. Access is obtained to these courts through narrow 
 covered entries from Long Millgate, whence the explorer 
 descends by stone stairs, and in one instance by three suc- 
 cessive flights of steps to a level with the bed of the river. 
 In this last-mentioned (Allen's) court he discovers himself 
 to be surrounded, on one side by a waU of rock, on two 
 others by houses three stories high, and on the fourth by 
 the abrupt and high bank down which he descended, and 
 by walls and houses erected on the summit. These houses 
 were, a short time ago, chiefly inhabited by fringe, silk, 
 and cotton weavers, and winders, and each house con- 
 tained in general three or four famihes. An adjoining 
 court (Barrett's) on the summit of the bank, separated 
 from Allen's court only by a low wall, contained, besides 
 a pig-stye — a tripe manufactory in a low cottage, which 
 
 c 2 
 
20 First Period 
 
 was in a state of loathsome filth. Portions of animal 
 matter were decaying in it, and one of the inner rooms 
 was converted into a kennel, and contained a htter of 
 puppies. In the court, on the opposite side, is a tan yard 
 where skins are prepared without bark in open pits, and 
 here is also a catgut manufactory. Many of the windows 
 of the houses in Allen's court open over the river Irk, 
 whose stream (again impeded, at the distance of one hun- 
 dred yards by a weir) separates it from another tannery, 
 four stories high and filled with skins, exposed to the 
 currents of air which pass through the building. On the 
 other side of this tannery is the parish burial ground, 
 chiefly used as a place of interment for paupers. A more 
 unhealthy spot than this (Allen's) court it would be diffi- 
 cult to discover, and the physical depression consequent 
 on living in such a situation may be inferred from what 
 ensued on the introduction of cholera here. A match- 
 seUer, living in the first story of one of these houses, was 
 seized with cholera, on Sunday, July 22nd : he died on 
 Wednesday, July 25th ; and owing to the wilful negH- 
 gence of his friends, and because the Board of Health had 
 no intimation of the occurrence, he was not buried until 
 Friday afternoon, July 27th. On that day, five other 
 cases of cholera occurred amongst the inhabitants of the 
 court. On the 28th, seven, and on the 29th two. The 
 cases were nearly all fatal. Those affected with cholera 
 were on the 28th and 29th removed to the Hospital, the 
 dead were buried, and on the 29th the majority of the 
 inhabitants were taken to a house of reception, and tlie 
 rest, with one exception, dispersed into the town, until 
 their houses had been thoroughly fumigated, ventilated, 
 whitewashed, and cleansed ; notwithstanding which dis- 
 persion, other cases occurred amongst those who had left 
 the court. 
 
 These facts are thus minutely related, because we are 
 anxious to direct public attention to the advantage which 
 would accrue from widening this portion of Long Mill- 
 gate, by taking down the whole of the houses on the Ii'k 
 
Manchester in 1832 21 
 
 side of the street, from a factory which projects into it, 
 on that side, as far as Ducie-bridge, and thus improving 
 this important entrance to the town, from Bury, and from 
 the north-east of Lancashire. 
 
 The houses of the poor, especially throughout the 
 whole of the Districts Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, are too generally 
 built back to back, having therefore only one outlet, no 
 yard, no privy, and no receptacle of refuse. Consequently 
 the narrow, unpaved streets, in which mud and water 
 stagnate, become the common receptacles of ofial and 
 ordure. Often low, damp, ill- ventilated cellars^ exist 
 beneath the houses ; an improvement on which system 
 consists in the erection of a stage over the first story, by 
 which access is obtained to the second, and the house is 
 inhabited by two separate families. More than one dis- 
 graceful example of this might be enumerated. The 
 streets, in the districts where the poor reside, are gene- 
 rally unsewered, and the drainage is consequently superfi- 
 cial. The liouses are often built with a total neglect of 
 order, on the summit of natural irregularities of the sur- 
 face, or on mounds left at the side of artificial excavations 
 on the brick grounds, with which these parts of the town 
 abound. 
 
 One nuisance frequently occurs in these districts of so 
 noxious a character, that it ought, at the earliest period, 
 to be suppressed by legal interference. The houses of the 
 poor sometimes surround a common area, into which the 
 doors and windows open at the back of the dwelling. 
 Porkers, who feed pigs in the town, often contract with 
 the inhabitants to pay some small sum for the rent of their 
 area, which is immediately covered with pigstyes, and 
 converted into a dung-heap and receptacle of the putres- 
 cent garbage, upon which the animals are fed, as also of 
 the refuse which is now heedlessly flung into it from all 
 
 ^ I have placed in the Appendix No. II. a Note, written in 1862, containing 
 the results of the inquiries of the Statistical Society of Manchester, as to the 
 number of cellar dwellings in Manchester and Liverpool, in 1834-5-6. 
 
 c 3 
 
22 First Period 
 
 the surrounding dwellings. The offensive odour which 
 sometimes arises from these areas cannot be conceived. 
 
 There is no Common Slaughter-house in Manchester, 
 and those which exist are chiefly situated in the narrowest 
 and most filthy streets in the town. The drainage from 
 these liouses, deeply tinged with blood, and impregnated 
 with other animal matters, frequently flows down the com- 
 mon surface drain of the street, and stagnates in the ruts 
 and pools. Moreover, sometimes in the yards of these 
 houses — from the want of a vigilant circumspection — 
 offal is allowed to accumulate with the grossest neglect of 
 decency and disregard to the health of the surrounding 
 inhabitants. The attention of the commissioners of pohce 
 cannot be too soon directed to the propriety of obtaining 
 powers to erect a Common Slaughter-house on some vacant 
 space, and to compel the butchers of the town to slaughter 
 all animals killed in the township in the building thus 
 provided. 
 
 The Districts Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, are inhabited by a 
 turbulent population, which, rendered reckless by dissipa- 
 tion and want, — misled by the secret intrigues, and excited 
 by the inflammatory harangues of demagogues, has fre- 
 quently committed daring assaults on the hberty of the 
 more peaceful portions of the working classes, and the 
 most frightful devastations on the property of their masters. 
 Machines have been broken, and factories gutted and 
 burned at mid-day, and the riotous crowd has dispersed 
 ere the insufiicient body of police arrived at the scene of 
 disturbance. The civic force of the town is totally inade- 
 quate to maintain the peace, and to defend property from 
 the attacks of lawless depredators ; and a more efficient, 
 and more numerous corps ought to he immediately orga- 
 nised^ to give power to the law, so often mocked by the 
 daring front of sedition, and outraged by the frantic vio- 
 lence of an ignorant and deluded rabble. The pohce form, 
 in fact, so weak a screen against the power of the mob, 
 that popular violence is now, in almost every instance, 
 controlled by the presence of a military force. 
 
Manchester in 1832 23 
 
 The wages ^ obtained by operatives in the various 
 branches of the cotton manufacture are, in general, such, 
 as with the exercise of that economy without which wealth 
 itself is wasted, would be sufficient to provide them with 
 all the decent comforts of hfe — the average wages of all 
 persons employed in the mills (young and old) being from 
 nine to twelve shiUings per week. Their means are too 
 often consumed by vice and improvidence. But the wages 
 of certain classes are exceedingly meagre. The introduc- 
 tion of the power-loom, though ultimately destined to be 
 productive of the greatest general benefits, has, in the 
 present restricted state of commerce, occasioned some 
 temporary embarrassment, by diminishing the demand for 
 certain kinds of labour, and, consequently, their price. 
 The hand-loom weavers, existing in this state of transition, 
 still continue a very extensive class, and though they 
 labour fourteen hours and upwards daily, earn only from 
 five to seven or eight shillings per week.'^ They consist 
 chiefly of Irish, and are affected by all the causes of moral 
 and physical depression which we have enumerated. Ill 
 fed — ill clothed — half sheltered and ignorant; — weaving 
 in close damp cellars, or crowded workshops, it only re- 
 mains that they should become, as is too frequently the 
 case, demorahsed and reckless, to render perfect the por- 
 traiture of savage life. Amongst men so situated, the 
 moral check has no influence in preventing the rapid in- 
 crease of the population. The existence of cheap and 
 redundant labour in the market has, also, a cojistant ten- 
 dency to lessen its general price, and hence the wages of 
 the English operatives have been exceedingly reduced by 
 this immigration of Irish — their comforts consequently 
 diminished — their manners debased — and the natural 
 
 1 ' The wages are paid weekly, not once a fortnight, or once a month, as 
 is the case in collieries and many other places. The youngest child in the 
 mill earns three shillings per week, and the best female spinner twenty-one 
 shillings. The total paid is i?356 — averaging nine shillings and three pence 
 per week to each person employed.' — Letter to Lord Althorp in Defence of 
 the Cotton Factories of Lancashire. By Holland Hoole, Esq. 
 
 ^ Evidence of Joseph Foster before the Emigration Committee, 1827. 
 
 c 4 
 
24 First Period 
 
 influence of manufactures on the people thwarted. We 
 are well convinced that without the numerical and moral 
 influence of this class, on the means and on the character 
 of the people who have had to enter into competition with 
 them in the market of labour, we should have had less 
 occasion to regret the physical and moral degradation of 
 the operative population. 
 
 The poor-laws, as at present administered^, retain all 
 the evils of the gross and indiscriminate bounty of ancient 
 monasteries. They also fail in exciting the gratitude of 
 the people, and they extinguish the charity of the rich. 
 The custom is not now demanded as the prop of any 
 superstition ; nor is it fit that institutions, well calculated 
 to assuage the miseries which feudalism inflicted on its 
 unemployed and unhappy serfs, should be allowed to per- 
 petuate indigence, improvidence, idleness and vice, in a 
 commercial community. The artificial structure of society, 
 in providing security against existing evils, has too fre- 
 quently neglected the remote moral influence of its arrange- 
 ments on the community. Humanity rejoices in the con- 
 sciousness that the poorest may obtain the advantages of 
 skilful care in disease, and that there are asylums for in- 
 firmity, age, and decrepitude ; but the unlimited extension 
 of benefits, devised by a wise intelligence for the relief of 
 evils which no human prescience could elude, has a direct 
 tendency to encourage amongst the poor apathy concern- 
 ing present exigencies, and the neglect of a provision for 
 the contingencies of the future. 
 
 A rate levied on property for the support of indigence 
 is, in a great degree, a tax on the capital, from whose em- 
 ployment are derived the incentives of industry and the re- 
 wards of the frugal, ingenious, and virtuous poor. If the 
 only test of the application of this fund be indigence, with- 
 out reference to desert — be want, irrespective of character 
 — motives to frugality, self-control and industry are at once 
 
 * This was published before the passing of the Poor Law Amendment 
 Act. 
 
Manchester m 1832 25 
 
 removed, and the strong barrier which nature had itself 
 erected to prevent the moral lapse of the entire population 
 is wantonly destroyed. The tax acts as a new burden on 
 the industrious poor, already suffering from an enormous 
 pressure, and not only drags within the limits of pauperism 
 unwilling victims, but paralyses with despair the efforts 
 of those whose exertions might otherwise have prolonged 
 their struggle with adversity. The wages of the worthy 
 are often given to encourage the sluggard, the drunkard, 
 and the man whose imprudence entails on the community 
 the precocious burden of his meagre and neglected off- 
 spring. 
 
 The feeble obstacle raised in the country to the propa- 
 gation of a pauper population, by making the indigent 
 chargeable on the estates of the land-owners, is even there 
 rendered almost entirely inefficacious by the too frequent 
 non-residence of the gentry, or the indifference with which 
 this apparently inevitable evil is regarded. In the South 
 of England the fatal error has been committed of paying a 
 certain portion of the wages of able-bodied labourers out 
 of the fund obtained by the poor-rates ; and a population is 
 thus created, bound hke slaves to toil, and having also like 
 them a. right to be maintained. But, in the large towns, 
 the feeble check to the increase of pauperism, which thus 
 exists in some rural districts, is entirely removed. The 
 land is let to speculators who build cottages, the rents of 
 which are collected weekly, a commutation for the rates 
 being often paid by the landlord when they are demanded, 
 which seldom occurs in the lowest description of houses. 
 A married man having thus by law an unquestioned right 
 to a maintenance proportioned to the number of his family, 
 direct encouragement is afforded to improvident marriages. 
 The most destitute and immoral marry to increase their 
 claim on the stipend appointed for them by law, which 
 thus acts as a bounty on the increase of a squalid and 
 debilitated race, who inherit from their parents disease, 
 sometimes deformity, often vice, and always beggary. 
 
 The number of labourers thus created diminishes the 
 
26 First Period 
 
 already scanty wages of that portion of the population 
 still content to endeavour by precarious toil to maintain 
 their honest independence. Desperate is the struggle by 
 which, under such a system, the upright labourer pro- 
 cures for his family the comforts of existence. Many are 
 dragged by the accidents of hfe to an unwilling acceptance 
 of this legahsed pension of the profligate, and some, over 
 informed by misfortune in the treachery of their own 
 hearts, are seduced to palter with temptation, and at 
 length to capitulate with their apparent fate. 
 
 Fearful demoralisation attends an impost whose distri- 
 bution diminishes the incentives to prudence and virtue. 
 When reckless of the future, the intelligence of man is con- 
 fined to the narrow limits of the present. He thus debases 
 himself beneath the animals, whose instincts teach them to 
 
 Oay up stores for the season of need. The gains ^ of the 
 pauper are, in prosperity, frequently squandered in taverns, 
 whilst his family exists in hungered and ragged misery, 
 and few sympathies with the sufferings of his aged relatives 
 or neighbours enter his cold heart, since he knows they 
 have an equal claim with himself, on that pittance which 
 
 . the law awards. The superfluities which nature would 
 prompt him in a season of abundance to hoard for the 
 accidents of the future, are wasted with reckless profusion ; 
 
 " because the law takes care of the future. Selfish profli- 
 gacy usurps the seat of the household virtues of the English 
 
 vjabourer. 
 
 Charity once extended an invisible chain of sympathy 
 between the higher and lower ranks of society, which has 
 been destroyed by the luckless pseudophilanthropy of the 
 law.^ Few aged or decrepid pensioners now gratefully 
 receive the visits of the higher classes — few of the poor 
 seek the counsel, the admonitions, and assistance of the 
 
 ^ See evidence of Mr. Allen concerning pauperism in Spitalfields. 
 
 ^ If the relief of indigence from the poor-rate were a matter of Christian 
 charity, in any other sense than being a humane provision of an enlightened 
 system of police, developed in a Christian nation, this might be justj but 
 otherwise it involves a confusion of charity with police. — J. P. K. S. 1862. 
 
Manchester in 1832 27 
 
 rich in the period of the inevitable accidents of hfe. The 
 bar of the overseer is however crowded with the sturdy 
 apphcants for a legahsed rehef, who regard the distri- 
 butor of this bounty as their stern and merciless oppressor, 
 instructed by the compassionless rich to reduce to the 
 lowest possible amount the alms which the law wrings 
 from their reluctant hands. This disruption of the natu- 
 ral ties has created a wide gulf between the higher and 
 lower orders of the community, across which the scowl 
 of hatred banishes the smile of charity and love. 
 
 That government have appointed a Commission of in- 
 quiry into the evils arising from the administration of the 
 Poor-laws, must be a source of satisfaction to every well- 
 wisher to the poor. Since it would be unjust to annul 
 the existing provision for a rapidly increasing indigence 
 which the law has itself fostered, the improvement of its 
 present administration is all that the most sanguine can 
 expect as an immediate result of this inquiry. Every 
 change which assimilates the method of distributing this 
 legal charity to that by which a well-regulated private 
 bounty is administered, must be hailed.^ The present 
 official organisation in the large towns is incapable of 
 producing these results. The parish officers and sides- 
 men are not sufficiently numerous to enable them (if 
 they were permitted by law) to make a discrimination 
 — concerning the characters of individuals, their actual 
 condition, and the accidents or faults that may have occa- 
 sioned it — equal to that which is observed in the most 
 judicious distribution of private bounty. Since desert 
 does not enhance the claim which indigence can enforce, 
 the only relation which the parish officer now has with 
 the apphcant for relief is that of the investigation and 
 proof of his indigence ; and, to this end, those now em- 
 
 ^ This rule is not applicable to tlie simple relief of indigence. That is a 
 pure regulation of police, giving security to life in order to give security to 
 property and peace to society, by the suppression of vagabondage and crime, 
 liut it is applicable to all the moral relations of pauper children and indigent 
 age in workhouses. — 1862. 
 
28 First Period 
 
 ployed may be sufficiently proper agents. But if we 
 would substitute any portion of that sympathy with the 
 distresses of the poor, and that gratitude for relief afforded 
 — that acknowledged right to administer good counsel, 
 and that wilhngness to receive advice — that privilege of 
 inquiring into the arrangements of domestic economy, 
 instructing the ignorant, and checking the perverse — all 
 which attend the beneficent path of private charity, much 
 superior men must be employed in the office of visiting 
 the houses of the poor, and being the almoners of the 
 public. Such an office can only be properly filled by men 
 of some education, but especially of high moral character, 
 and possessing great natural gentleness. An attempt 
 should be constantly made to relieve the mind of the 
 independent poor from the necessity of receiving an 
 eleemosynary dole, by recommending the worthy to 
 employment. It is not sufficient that the Sidesman or 
 Churchwarden should give a few hours daily to an ex- 
 amination of all applicants in our enormous townships, but 
 the towns should be minutely subdivided, each district 
 having its local board, which (besides an executive parish 
 overseer resident in the district, and thus possessing every 
 means of becoming minutely acquainted with the charac- 
 ter of the inhabitants), should also be furnished with its 
 board of superior officers. By such means : by adopting 
 the test of desert^ at least to determine the amount of 
 relief bestowed : by discouraging or even rejecting those 
 whose indigence is the consequence of dissipation, of 
 idleness, and of wilful imprudence ; and by making the 
 overseers themselves the means of instructing the poor, 
 that every labourer is the surest architect of his own 
 fortune — by constituting them the patrons of virtue and 
 the censors of vice, and besides being the almoners of the 
 public charity, the sources of a powerful moral agency — 
 
 ^ There is no moral test applicable to destitution of the means of living. 
 Society decides that it is for the public interest that even the most worthless 
 indigent should be kept alive. The pauper's claim is for life^ not on account 
 of desert; but of indigence,— J. P. K. S. 1862. 
 
Manchester in 1832 29 
 
 much good might be eiFectecL' The enormous expendi- 
 ture, incurred by the present system, might be exceedingly 
 reduced, and the alms might at length (by a process whose 
 success would depend on the gradual moral improvement 
 of society), be confined to such of the aged, the decrepid, 
 and the unfortunate, as being without the hope of assist- 
 ance from the charity of relations or friends, were thus 
 reluctantly driven, by a hard necessity, to have recourse 
 to the fund of the poor. Societies for mutual relief should 
 he everywhere encouraged^ and a constant effort should be 
 vigorously maintained to disburden the public of this 
 enormous tax, by every other means which would con- 
 tribute to the virtuous independence of the working classes. 
 
 At present this alarming impost increases so rapidly, 
 that it threatens ultimately to absorb the fund which 
 ought to be employed solely in rewarding the labour 
 of the industrious poor, and hence, to reduce the whole 
 population to the condition of helots. 
 
 The fund derived from the poor's-rate for the relief of 
 the indigent, is, in Manchester, as judiciously administered 
 as the state of the law will permit. Too much praise can 
 scarcely be given to the zealous exertions of those gentle- 
 men who fill the offices of Churchwardens and Sidesmen. 
 Yet the effect of the present state of the law is but too 
 apparent here. 
 
 Pauperism is everywhere accompanied with moral and 
 physical degradation. Impressed with this opinion, we 
 endeavoured to discover, from such facts as might be 
 ascertained at the town's offices, how this calamitous law 
 affected Manchester. 
 
 Unfortunately, the distribution of the poor-rates is not 
 registered separately for each of the police divisions. We 
 are therefore only able to compare the four sections of 
 the town visited by the overseers. The fii'st and second 
 
 * The scheme here suggested is clearly impracticable as a method of 
 administration for the relief of indigence : but it is also impossible, in the 
 strictest relief of indigence as a matter of police, to overlook all the moral 
 relations of men. — 18G2. 
 
30 
 
 First Period 
 
 of these four sections, which we shall denominate the 
 Newtown and the Ancoats districts, comprise Nos. 1, 2, 
 and 4, and therefore contain almost exclusively poor 
 inhabitants. On the other hand, the third, or central 
 division, besides Nos. 5, 6, 9, and a small part of No. 8, 
 which are inhabited by a great number of shopkeepers 
 and tradesmen, contains also Nos. 10, 11, and 14, which 
 have a very large proportion of poor. The fourth, or 
 Portland-street District, besides Nos. 3, 7, and 13, con- 
 taining many poor, likewise comprises No. 12, and the 
 greater part of No. 8, in which the poor inhabitants are 
 relatively much less numerous. 
 
 We have subjoined a table exhibiting the population of 
 each of the police divisions, according to the last census, 
 and arranged in the four sections visited by the overseers 
 of the poor, so as to exhibit their relative population. 
 
 Newtown. 
 
 Ancoats. 
 
 Central. 
 
 Portland Street. 
 
 No. 2. ..25,581 
 1 of 4... 93371 
 
 No. 1... 3 1,573 
 |of4... 6225i 
 
 No. 5... 7275 
 
 6... 1274 
 
 9... 3318 
 
 10... 3886 
 
 11. ..13,635 
 
 14... 6834 
 
 iof 8... 686 
 
 No. 3... 11,431 
 7... 9784 
 
 fofS... 2058 
 12... 1859 
 13... 7269 
 
 34,918f 
 
 37,798i 
 
 36,908 
 
 32,401 
 
 The cases relieved at the Churchwardens' offices are 
 classed as Irish and English cases : the first consist ex- 
 clusively of Irish cases without settlements^ but under the 
 denomination of EngHsh cases, are included all loho have 
 obtained settlements^ whether English or Irish; and this 
 class comprises a very great proportion of Irish. We 
 have been enabled, by the liberality of the Churchwardens, 
 and Mr. Gardiner's politeness, to obtain returns of the 
 relative proportion of these cases during the four winter 
 months of the four years from 1827 to 1831 inclusive, 
 The general table is inserted in the Appendix \ but 
 
 ^ See Appendix No. III. 
 
Manchester in 1832 
 
 31 
 
 from this we have deduced some more minutely clas- 
 sified results, which we conceive strongly to corroborate 
 the opinions which we have hazarded, concerning the 
 origin and growth of pauperism. 
 
 The table contained in the Appendix exhibits, in the 
 first place, an alarming increase of pauperism in the whole 
 township. The total number of cases (each representing, 
 on the average, two and a half individuals) relieved in the 
 township, in the months of November, December, January, 
 and February of 1827 and 1828, was 30,717, or included 
 76,792 individual acts of relief, each continued for an 
 indefinite period. This number had, in the same months 
 of 1830-31, increased to 45,842, or, at a period when the 
 population amounted to 142,026, it included 114,605 
 individual acts of relief, each of which comprised indefinite 
 portions of the four months, or had almost doubled in four 
 years. Supposing these acts to have been administered 
 at all times to different persons, then, more than four- 
 fifths of the whole population were relieved for an in- 
 definite portion of the four winter months. 
 
 The relative proportion of Irish cases without settle- 
 ments, and of English and Irish cases with settlements, 
 and their relative increase during these four years, are 
 perhaps still more remarkable. 
 
 Districts. 
 
 Nov. 
 Feb 
 
 1827 to 
 . 1828. 
 
 Nov. 1828 to 
 Feb. 1829. 
 
 Nov. 1829 to 
 Feb. 1830. 
 
 Nov. 1830 to 
 Feb. 1831. 
 
 NEWTOWN. 
 
 No. 2 & f No. 4 
 
 Irish. 
 1559 
 
 English. 
 6059 
 
 Irish. English. 
 1490 5434 
 
 Irish. English. 
 3911 8023 
 
 Irish. English. 
 4051 9129 
 
 ANCOATS. 
 
 No. 1 & 1 No. 4 
 
 1482 
 
 6701 
 
 2155 7158 
 
 2690 8022 
 
 3818 9027 
 
 CENTRAL. 
 
 No?. 5, 6, 9, 10, 
 11, 14, &| No. 8 
 
 366 
 
 7422 
 
 532 7161 
 
 742 9668 
 
 909 10,214 
 
 PORTLAND ST. 
 
 Nos. 3,7,12, 13, 
 and 1 of No. 8 
 
 264 
 
 6864 
 
 577 6974 
 
 1186 8591 
 
 1114 7580 
 
 The proportion of Irish cases without settlements^ in the 
 
32 
 
 First Period 
 
 Ancoats and Newtown Divisions, containing Nos. 1, 2, 
 and 4, and its relative increase, are exceedingly greater 
 than in the Central and Portland-street Districts ; not- 
 withstanding that the number of Irish in these latter 
 sections is much augmented by the inclusion of Nos. 3, 
 7, 10, and 13. 
 
 By the following table, this increase may be more easily 
 compared : — 
 
 Districts. 
 
 NEWTOWN AND 
 ANCOATS. 
 
 CENTRAL AND 
 PORTLAND ST. 
 
 Nov. 1827 to 
 Feb. 1828. 
 
 Irish. English. 
 3041 12,760 
 
 630 14,286 
 
 Nov. 182'< to 
 Feb. 1829. 
 
 Irish. English. 
 3645 12,592 
 
 1109 14,136 
 
 Nov. 1829 to 
 Feb. 1830. 
 
 Nov. 1830 to 
 Feb. 1831, 
 
 Irish. English. 
 6601 16,045 
 
 1928 18,259 
 
 Irish. English. 
 7869 18,156 
 
 2023 17,794 
 
 The Newtown and Ancoats Districts have always con- 
 tained a greater proportion of Irish than any other portion 
 of the town ; but the increase of pauperism in the Central 
 and Portland Districts, must evidently be ascribed to the 
 recent rapid colonisation of Irish in Divisions 3, 7, and 
 10 ; since, whilst the Irish cases, having no settlements^ 
 have increased from 600 to 2000, or are more than trebled, 
 — the cases having settlements, which have been relieved, 
 have only increased from 14,000 to 17,000, or about two- 
 ninths. In the same period, the rapid relative increase 
 of the Irish cases having no settlements, in the Newtown 
 and Ancoats Districts, renders it extremely probable, that 
 the increase of those cases which have obtained settlements^ 
 is in a great measure to be imputed to the Irish ; and that 
 pauperism, therefore, spreads most rapidly in an ignorant 
 and demoralised population. These tables also abundantly 
 testify, that pauperism chiefly prevails in those portions of 
 the town, where the sources and evidences of moral and 
 physical depression, to which we have alluded, are the most 
 
 numerous. 
 
 ^ I have no doubt M^liatever that this remark was founded on accurate 
 observ'ation j and varied experience of thirty years confirms it. — 1862. 
 
Manchester in 1832 
 
 33 
 
 The relative proportion of the population to the cases 
 and individuals reheved, in the four Sections visited by 
 the Overseers, is displayed in the following table : — 
 
 Districts. 
 
 Cases relieved for 
 indefinite periods 
 of the four winter 
 months, 1830-31. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Individual acts 
 of relief for in- 
 definite periods 
 of time. 
 
 NEWTOWN . 
 ANCOATS . . 
 
 13,180 
 12,890 
 
 34,918f of which | = 13,967i 
 37,798| ... |=I2,59f9| 
 
 32,950 
 32,225 
 
 Total . . . 
 
 26,070 
 
 72,717 ... 1=27,1431 
 
 65,175 
 
 CENTRAL . 
 PORTLAND . 
 
 11,123 
 8694 
 
 36,908 ... ^=,11,072^ 
 32,401 ... 1= 8100 
 
 27,807| 
 21,735 
 
 Total . . . 
 
 19,817 
 
 69,309 
 
 49,542 
 
 The following table ^ shows the relative proportion of 
 cases relieved in the four Overseers' Sections during three 
 portions of the year 1830-31, each containing four months. 
 
 Districts. 
 
 Nov. Dec. 
 
 Jan. Feb. 
 
 Mar. Apr. May, June. 
 
 July, Aug. 
 
 Sept. Oct. 
 
 NEWTOWN . 
 
 ANCOATS . . 
 
 CENTRAL . . 
 PORTLAND . 
 
 Irish. 
 4051 
 3818 
 
 909 
 1114 
 
 English. 
 9129 
 9027 
 
 10,214 
 7580 
 
 Irish. 
 3896 
 3333 
 
 815 
 897 
 
 English. 
 7958 
 7801 
 
 9474 
 7050 
 
 Irish. 
 3409 
 3280 
 
 695. 
 863 
 
 English. 
 7996 
 8107 
 
 9287 
 7766 
 
 
 9892 
 
 35,950 
 
 8941 
 
 32,283 
 
 8247 
 
 33,156 
 
 The population of the tow^nship is 142,026 ; aiid the 
 cost of parochial relief in one year^ each continued through 
 indefinite periods of time, were 321,172, of which cast 
 67,700 concerned Irish who had obtained no settlements. 
 
 The sources of vice and physical degradation are allied 
 with the causes of pauperism. Amongst the poor, the 
 most destitute are too frequently the most demoralised — 
 virtue is the surest economy — vice is haunted by profligacy 
 
 ^ See Appendix No. II. 
 
34 First Period 
 
 and want. Where there are most paupers, the gin shops, 
 taverns, and beer houses are most numerous. The fol- 
 lowing table enumerates the taverns of the town. Gin 
 shops are held under the same licence, and are attached 
 to three-fourths of these estabHshments. 
 
 NO. OF LICENSED TAVERN AND INNKEEPERS IN THE TOWNSHIP OF MANCHESTER. 
 
 . 1 . . 
 
 . 62 
 
 No. 
 
 6 . . 
 
 . 39 
 
 No. 
 
 11 . 
 
 . . 37 
 
 2 . 
 
 . 44 
 
 
 7 . . 
 
 . 19 
 
 
 12 . 
 
 . . 16 
 
 3 . 
 
 . 48 
 
 
 8 . . 
 
 . 10 
 
 
 13 . 
 
 . . 25 
 
 4 . 
 
 . . 31 
 
 
 9 . . 
 
 . 36 
 
 
 14 . 
 
 . . 13 
 
 5 . 
 
 . . 46 
 
 
 10 . . 
 
 . 4 
 
 
 
 
 Total. . . 430 
 
 To this number may perhaps be added 322 gin shops. 
 These last establishments especially abound in the poorest 
 and most destitute districts, where their proportion to the 
 taverns is at least four-fifths. We were unable to procure, 
 from the officers of excise in Manchester, information con- 
 cerning the relative proportion of the beer houses in the 
 several divisions of the town ; but we are informed by 
 Mr. Shawcross, of the police department, that their num- 
 ber is at least three hundred. If we subtract fifty 
 respectable inns, which, however, have generally tap- 
 rooms attached to them, one thousand haunts of intem- 
 perance exist in Manchester. 
 
 The Districts 1, 2, 3, and 4, maybe conceived to repre- 
 sent most correctly the exclusively labouring population ; 
 but in estimating the relative number of all these sources 
 of vice frequented by the population of these districts, it 
 is necessary to include those of the adjoining divisions 
 5 and 6, where a much smaller proportion of poor resides. 
 The result is, that in Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, there are 
 270 taverns, 216 gin shops (estimated as four-fifths of 
 taverns), 188 beer houses (estimated as being distributed 
 through the divisions of the town in the same ratio as the 
 taverns), total 674 : or more than two-thirds of the whole 
 number of taverns, gin shops, and beer houses of the 
 town, may therefore be considered as chiefly ministering 
 to the vicious propensities of the inhabitants of Nos. 1, 2, 
 3, and 4. Some idea may be formed of the influence of 
 
Manchester m 1832 35 
 
 these establishments on the health and morals of the 
 people from the following statement ; for which we are 
 indebted to Mr. Braidley, the Boroughreeve. He observed 
 the number of persons entering a gin shop in five minutes, 
 during eight successive Saturday evenings, and at various 
 periods from seven o'clock until ten. The average result 
 was, 112 men and 163 women, or 275 in forty minutes, 
 which is equal to 412 per hour. 
 
 The report of the Committee on gaols reveals the gross 
 mismanagement of the licence system in London, and 
 shows that taverns are the rendezvous of criminals and 
 profligates of the lowest order. The scenes of depravity 
 which occur in them, without the shadow of concealment 
 — the constant te^nptations to moral errors which they 
 unblushingly offer to those orders of society which have 
 the least power of repelling them — the seductions to 
 grosser sins by which they enthral the idle and unwary — 
 the maxims of iniquity, and the arts of dishonesty, which 
 are undisguisedly taught in them, by the miscreants who 
 find a daily shelter there — all these glaring abuses de- 
 mand the prompt and energetic interference of authority 
 with the regulations of establishments, which, without the 
 pretence of necessity, or the veil of one virtuous amuse- 
 ment, are pubhc schools of vice. 
 
 The decency of our towns is violated, even in this re- 
 spect, that every street blazons forth the invitations of 
 these haunts of crime. Gin shops and beer houses encou- 
 raged by the law (which seems to value rather the amount 
 of the pubhc revenue, than the prevalence of private 
 virtue) and taverns, over which the police can at present 
 exercise but an imperfect control, have multiplied with 
 such rapidity that they will excite the strong remon- 
 strances which every lover of good order is prepared to 
 make with government, against the permission, much less 
 the sanction, of such public enormities. Two physicians 
 of great experience who practise in two of our largest 
 manufacturing towns, inform us, that delirium tremens (a 
 disease occasioned by continued intemperance) has in- 
 
 d2 
 
36 First Period 
 
 creased, within the sphere of their observation, in an 
 alarming ratio since the passing of the Beer Act ; and 
 another, who superintends one of the largest public Luna- 
 tic Asylums in the provinces, discovers that one great 
 cause of the prevalence of insanity of late years is an 
 addiction to the use of ardent spirits. 
 
 The amount of crime is one chief means of ascertaining 
 the moral condition of a community. To the perfection 
 of this estimate it is, however, essential that crimes com- 
 mitted against the person should be distinguished from 
 those against property.^ ' The moral guilt of the latter 
 depending considerably upon the equahty of the distribu- 
 tion of wealth throughout the country, the degree of ease 
 in which the people live ought also to be brought into 
 view ; and when we compare the criminal calendars of 
 different nations, we ought not to omit to refer to their 
 respective modes of administering justice, and to the at- 
 tention paid in each countiy to that branch of it which we 
 call preventive. That prevention is by far the more im- 
 portant care, in point both of duty and expediency, is a 
 truth which governments are beginning to perceive ; 
 though in most countries repression, and in not a few vin- 
 dictiveness^, still form the spirit of the penal code.' ' So 
 long as the will of man is free, and it is in his power either 
 to conform to the law, or to violate it, the care of the 
 legislature should be to turn that will into the right 
 channel.' 
 
 The state of the registers, required for an accurate 
 investigation of the amount of crime committed in Man- 
 chester, was such as to demand more time in their classi- 
 fication, than, under the circumstances in which this 
 pamphlet was prepared, we were able to give the subject. 
 We have obtained, however, an account of the number of 
 persons committed at the New Bailey Court House, Sal- 
 ford, for the different offences under which their commit- 
 
 * ' Foreign Quarterly Review/ vol. v. p. 404. 
 
 2 Works of Charles Lucas —also ' De la Justice de la Pr^voyance' — and 
 ' Pe la Mission de la Justice Humaine.' — Par M. Depectiaux. 
 
Manchester in 1832 
 
 37 
 
 ment is recorded. The amount of crime exhibited in 
 this table results therefore from a much greater popula- 
 tion than that contained in the township; the out-town- 
 ships being also included, or a population of at least 
 240,000. 
 
 
 1829. 
 
 1830. 
 
 1831. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Number of Felons . 
 
 Persons committed for want of sureties to keep the 
 peace — non-payment of fines — neglect of family, &c. 
 For want of sureties to appear at the Sessions . 
 For disobeying orders in Bastardy .... 
 Rogues and Vagabonds ..,,.. 
 
 580 
 
 819 
 192 
 174 
 620 
 
 559 
 
 960 
 153 
 151 
 743 
 
 638 
 
 996 
 182 
 181 
 835 
 
 1777 
 
 2775 
 527 
 506 
 
 2198 
 
 7713 
 
 We subjoin, in a note, a table extracted from a very- 
 valuable pamphlet published by Mr. Eidgway, entitled 
 ' An Inquiry into the State of the Manufacturing Popu- 
 lation, and the Causes and Cures of the Evils therein 
 existing,' ^ by which the reader may be enabled to form 
 a more accurate opinion concerning the relative extent to 
 which crime prevails in Manchester. 
 
 There is, however, a licentiousness capable of corrupting 
 the whole body of society, hke an insidious disease, 
 which eludes observation, yet is equally fatal in its effects. 
 
 I 1827. 
 
 
 
 1827, 
 
 
 
 
 Crime 
 
 
 
 
 Crimf 
 
 Manufacturing 
 Counties. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Crime. 
 
 to 
 Popu- 
 lation, 
 l.to 
 
 Agricultural 
 Counties. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Crime. 
 
 Popu- 
 lation 
 l,to 
 
 Cheshire . . 
 
 304,130 
 
 497 
 
 1 
 612| 
 
 Berkshire . . 
 
 143,400 
 
 208 
 
 690 
 
 Lancashire . 
 
 1,226,600 
 
 2459 
 
 495 1 
 
 Essex . . , 
 
 319,400 
 
 451 
 
 708 
 
 Middlesex . 
 
 1,295,100 
 
 3381 
 
 353 
 
 Hertford . . 
 
 144,300 
 
 205 
 
 704 
 
 Northumberl, 
 
 220,500 
 
 96 
 
 2300 
 
 Kent . . . 
 
 468,900 
 
 632 
 
 742 
 
 Nottingham . 
 
 206,300 
 
 298 
 
 695 
 
 Hampshire . 
 
 314,000 
 
 341 
 
 920 
 
 Stafford . . 
 
 378,600 
 
 569 
 
 665 ; 
 
 Westmoreld. 
 
 55,800 
 
 20 
 
 2790 
 
 Warwick . . 
 
 310,500 
 
 602 
 
 515 
 
 Wiltshire . . 
 
 245,000 
 
 365 
 
 671 
 
 York . . . 
 
 1,321,600 
 
 1223 
 
 1080, 
 
 1 
 
 Devonshire . 
 
 484,200 
 
 432 
 
 1121 
 
 Aver 
 
 age . . . 840 
 
 
 . 1043 
 
 d3 
 
38 First Period 
 
 Criminal acts may be statistically classed — the victims of 
 the law may be emimerated — but the number of those 
 affected with the moral leprosy of vice cannot be exhi- 
 bited with mathematical precision. Sensuahty has no 
 record \ and the relaxation of social obligations may co- 
 exist with a half dormant, half restless impulse to rebel 
 against all the preservative principles of society ; yet these 
 chaotic elements may long smoulder, accompanied only 
 by partial eruptions of turbulence or crime. 
 
 In the absence of direct evidence, we are unwilhng 
 that any statements should rest on our personal testimony ; 
 but we again refer with confidence to that of an inteUi- 
 gent and imj)artial observer.'^ 
 
 One other characteristic of the social body, in its pre- 
 sent constitution, appears to us too remarkable and im- 
 portant to be entirely overlooked. 
 
 Eeligion is the most distinguished and ennobling feature 
 of civil communities. Natural attributes of the human 
 mind appear to ensure the culture of some form of wor- 
 ship; and as society rises through its successive stages, 
 these forms are progressively developed, from the grossest 
 observances of superstition, until the truths and dictates 
 of revelation assert their rightful supremacy. 
 
 The absence of religious feeling, the neglect of all re- 
 ligious ordinances, afford substantive evidence of so great 
 a moral degradation of the community, as to ensure a con- 
 comitant civic debasement. The social body cannot be 
 constructed like a machine, on abstract principles which 
 merely include physical motions, and their numerical 
 results in the production of wealth. The mutual relation 
 of men is not merely dynamical, nor can the composition 
 of their forces be subjected to a purely mathematical 
 calculation. Political economy, though its object be to 
 
 * No record exists by whicli tlie number of illegitimate births can be 
 ascertained. Even this evidence would form a very imperfect rule by which 
 to judge of the comparative prevalence of sensuality. 
 
 2 ' Inquiry into the State of the Manufacturing Population.' p. 24. — 
 Ridgway, 
 
Manchester in 1832 39 
 
 ascertain the means of increasing the wealth of nations, 
 cannot accomphsh its design, without at the same time 
 regarding their happiness, and as its largest ingredient the 
 cultivation of religion and morality. 
 
 With unfeigned regret, we are therefore constrained to . 
 add, that the standard of morality is exceedingly debased, 
 and that religious observances are neglected amongst the 
 operative population of Manchester. The bonds of do- 
 mestic sympathy are too generally relaxed ; and as a con- 
 sequence, the filial and paternal duties are uncultivated. 
 The artisan has not time to cherish these feelings, by the 
 famihar and grateful arts which are their constant food, 
 and without which nourishment they perish. An apathy 
 benumbs his spirit. Too frequently. the father, enjoying 
 perfect health and with ample opportunities of employ- 
 ment, is supported in idleness on the earnings of his op- 
 pressed children; and on the other hand, when age and 
 decrepitude cripple the energies of the parents, their adult 
 children abandon them to the scanty maintenance derived 
 from parochial relief 
 
 That rehgious observances are exceedingly neglected, 
 we have had constant opportunities of ascertaining, in the 
 performance of our duty as Physician to the Ardwick 
 and Ancoats Dispensary, which frequently conducted us 
 to the houses of the poor on Sunday. With rare excep- 
 tions, the adults of the vast population of 84,147 contained 
 in Districts Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, spend Sunday either in supine 
 sloth, in sensuality, or in listless inactivity. A certain 
 portion only of the labouring classes enjoys even health- 
 ful recreation on that day, and a very small number 
 frequent the places of worship. 
 
 The fruits of external prosperity may speedily be 
 blighted by the absence of internal virtue. With pure 
 religion and undefiled, flourish frugality, forethought, 
 and industry — the social charities which are the hnks of 
 kindred, neighbours, and societies — and the amenities of 
 life,which banish the jealous suspicion with which one order 
 regards another. In vain may the intellect of man be 
 
 D 4 
 
40 First Period 
 
 tortured to devise expedients by which the supply of the 
 necessaries of hfe may undergo an increase, equivalent to 
 that of population, if the moral check be overthrown. 
 Crime, diseases, pestilence, intestine discord, famine, or 
 foreign war — those agencies which repress the rank over- 
 growth of a meagre and reckless race — will, by a natural 
 law, desolate a people devoid of prudence and principle, 
 whose numbers constantly press on the limits of the 
 means of subsistence. We therefore regard with alarm 
 the state of those vast masses of our operative population 
 which are acted upon by all other incentives, rather 
 than those of virtue ; and are visited by the emissaries of 
 every faction, rather than by the ministers of an ennobling 
 faith. 
 
 The present means or methods of rehgious instruction 
 ^re, in the circumstances in which our large towns are 
 placed, most evidently inadequate to their end. The 
 labours of some few devoted men — of whom the world is 
 not worthy — in the houses of the poor, are utterly insuf- 
 ficient to produce a deep and permanent moral impression 
 on the people. Some of our laws, as now administered, 
 encourage indigence and vice, and hence arises an in- 
 creased necessity for the daily exertions of the teachers 
 of rehgion, to stem that flood of prevaihng immorahty 
 which threatens to overthrow the best means that political 
 sagacity can devise for the elevation of the people. 
 
 The exertions of Dr. Tuckerman, of Boston, in estabhsh- 
 ing 'a ministry for the poor' have been, until very recently, 
 rather the theme of general and deserved praise, than 
 productive of laudable imitation. This ministration is 
 effected, chiefly by a visitation of the houses of the 
 poor, and he proposes as its objects, religious instruction, 
 uninfluenced by sectarian spirit or opinions: — the relief 
 of the most pressing necessities of the poor — first by a 
 well-regulated charity, and secondarily, by instruction in 
 domestic economy — exhortations to industry — admoni- 
 tion concerning the consequences of vice, and by obtain- 
 ing work for the deserving and unemployed. The minis- 
 
Manchester in 1832 41 
 
 ter should also encourage the education of the children, 
 should prove the friend of the poor in periods of per- 
 plexity, and, when the labourer is subdued by sickness, 
 should breathe into his ear the maxims of virtue, and the 
 truths of rehgion. He might also act as a medium of 
 communication and a link of sympathy, between the 
 higher and lower classes of society. He might become the 
 almoner of the rich, and thus daily sow the seeds of a 
 kindlier relationship than that which now subsists between 
 the wealthy and the destitute. He might also serve as a 
 faithful reporter of the secret miseries which are suffered 
 in the abodes of poverty, unobserved by those to whom 
 he may come to advocate the cause of the abandoned. 
 The prevalence of the principles and the practice of the 
 precepts of Christianity, we may hope, will thus ulti- 
 mately be made to bind together the now incoherent 
 elements of society. 
 
 The success of Dr. Tuckerman's labours in Boston had, 
 before the commencement of a similar plan in Manchester, 
 given rise to several societies for the Christian instruction 
 of the people in the MetropoHs, and in other parts of the 
 kingdom. Six such societies are now in operation in 
 Manchester and its out-townships — five amongst the Inde- 
 pendent, and one amongst the Unitarian Dissenters. The 
 objects proposed by these associations, and the means by 
 which these objects are prosecuted, may be estimated by 
 the perusal of an extract from the report of that connected 
 with the Mosley-street Independent Chapel, placed in the 
 Appendix. But we regret to add that their number is 
 utterly insufficient to affect the habits of more than a 
 small portion of the population. The vast portions of the 
 town included in the Ancoats, Newtown, and Portland 
 districts, are utterly unoccupied by this beneficent system ; 
 and, when it is further observed, that in those districts 
 reside the most indigent and immoral of our poor, it will 
 be at once apparent what need there is of the immediate 
 extension of the same powerful agency to them. 
 
 Having enumerated so many causes of physical depres- 
 
42 First Period 
 
 sion, perhaps the most direct proof of the extent to which 
 the effect co-exists iii natural alhance with poverty, may 
 be derived from the records of the medical charities of 
 the town. During, the year preceding July 1831 — 
 21,196 patients were treated at the Eoyal Infirmary — 
 472 at the House of Eecovery — 3,163 at the Ardwick 
 and Ancoats Dispensary, of which (subtracting one-sixth 
 as belonging to the township of Ardwick) 2,636 were 
 inhabitants of Manchester — perhaps 2,000 at the Work- 
 house Dispensary, and 1,500 at the Children's — making 
 a total of 27,804, without including the Lock Hospital 
 and the Eye Institution. ' If to this sum,' ^ says Mr. 
 Eoberton, engaged in making a similar calculation, ' we 
 were further to add the incomparably greater amount of 
 all ranks visited or advised as private patients by the 
 whole body (not a small one) of professional men ; those 
 prescribed for by chemists and druggists, scarcely of 
 inferior pretension ; and by herb doctors and quacks ; 
 those who swallow patent medicines ; and lastly the sub- 
 jects of that ever flourishing branch — domestic medicine ; 
 we should be compelled to admit that not fewer, perhaps, 
 than three-fourths of the inhabitants of Manchester annu- 
 ally are, or fancy they are, under the necessity of submit- 
 ting to medical treatment.' 
 
 Ingenious deductions, by Mr. Eoberton, from facts 
 contained in the records of the Lying-in Hospital of 
 Manchester, prove, in a different manner, the extreme 
 dependence of the poor on the charitable institutions of 
 the town. The average annual number of births (deduced 
 from a comparison of the last four years), attended by the 
 officers of the Lying-in Charity, is 4,300 ; and the num- 
 ber of births to the population may be assumed as 1 in 
 28 inhabitants. This annual average of births, therefore, 
 represents a population of 124,400, and assuming that of 
 Manchester and the environs to be 230,000, more than 
 
 * 'Remarks on tlie Health of Euglisli Manufacturers^ and on the need 
 which exists for the Estahlishment of Couyalescents' Eetreats/ by J. 
 Eoberton. 
 
Manchester m 1832 43 
 
 one-half of its inhabitants are therefore either so destitute 
 or so degraded, as to require the assistance of public 
 charity in bringing their offspring into the world. 
 
 The children thus adopted by the pubhc are often neg- 
 lected by their parents. The early age at which girls are 
 admitted into the factories prevents their acquiring much 
 knowledge of domestic economy ; and even supposing 
 them to have had accidental opportunities of making this 
 acquisition, the extent to which women are employed in 
 the mills does not, even after marriage, permit the general 
 appUcation of its principles. The infant is the victim of 
 the system ; it has not lived long, ere it is abandoned to 
 the care of a hireling or a neighbour, while its mother 
 pursues her accustomed toil. Sometimes a little girl has 
 the charge of the child, or even of two or three collected 
 from neighbouring houses. Thus abandoned to one whose 
 sympathies are not interested in its welfare, or whose time 
 is too often also occupied in household drudgery, the 
 child is ill fed, dirty, ill clothed, exposed to cold and' 
 neglect ; and in consequence, more than one-half of the 
 offspring of the poor (as may be proved by the bills of 
 mortality of the town) die before they have completed 
 their fifth year. The strongest survive ; but the same 
 causes which destroy the weakest impair the vigour of 
 the more robust ; and hence the children of our manu- 
 facturing population are proverbially pale and sallow, 
 though not generally emaciated, nor the subjects of dis- 
 ease. We cannot subscribe to those exaggerated and un- 
 scientific accounts of the physical ailments to which they 
 are liable, which have been lately revived with an eager- 
 ness and haste equally unfriendly to taste and truth ; but 
 we are convinced that the operation of these causes, con- 
 tinuing unchecked through successive generations, would 
 tend to depress the health of the people ; and that conse- 
 quent physical ills would accumulate in an unhappy 
 progression. 
 
 Before the age when, according to law, children can be 
 admitted into the factories, they are permitted to run wild 
 
44 First Period 
 
 in the streets and courts of the town, their parents often 
 being engaged in labour and unable to instruct them, 
 rive infant schools have been estabhshed in Manchester 
 and the suburban townships, in which 600 children 
 (a miserable portion of those who are of age to learn) 
 receive instruction. ' In Britain and Ireland all sects 
 and all parties approve of infant schools ; in France those 
 who are best qualified to form a judgment fully appre- 
 ciate their value, and public tranquillity is alone wanted 
 to secure the universal adoption of them in that country : 
 in Geneva they are received so zealously as to have 
 become improved by the systematic addition of gardens, 
 in which the children pass more hours than in the school- 
 room ; in Korth America they are gaining ground with 
 the rapidity and steadiness with which everything prospers 
 in the United States : and the republicans of the West, 
 abandoning a deeply rooted and barbarous prejudice, are 
 in some places even providing infant schools for their 
 young slaves. At the Cape of Good Hope the just union 
 of the white and coloured races is begun, not more by the 
 newly imparted equality of rights, than by these establish- 
 ments being opened in common to the offspring of both ; 
 they are in like manner begun to be offered to all classes 
 without invidious distinction in India ; and in the Ultima 
 Thule of civilisation, New South Wales, the innocent 
 children of both the convict and the free are, in some 
 measure, rescued by infant schools from abominations 
 which affect the young, in a manner to which our distance 
 from the scene renders us careless.' ^ The importance of 
 this system, to our large manufacturing towns, is such 
 that we hope funds will be speedily granted by govern- 
 ment, so that it may be extended, until all the children of 
 the poor are rescued from ignorance, and from the effects 
 of that bad example, to which they are now subjected in 
 the crowded lanes of our cities. 
 
 With a general system of education, we hope will also 
 
 ^ * Westminster Keview/ No. xxxiv. 
 
Manchester m 1832 45 
 
 be introduced institutions, in which the young females of 
 the poor may be instructed in domestic economy, and 
 where those pernicious traditional prejudices, which, 
 combined with neglect, occasion the great mortality of 
 their children, may be removed ^ and they may receive 
 wholesome advice concerning their duties as wives and 
 mothers. 
 
 We have avoided alluding to evidence which is founded 
 on general opinion, or depends merely on matters of per- 
 ception; and have chiefly availed ourselves of such as 
 admitted of a statistical classification. We may, however, 
 be permitted to add, that our own experience, confirmed 
 by that of those members of our profession on whose 
 judgment we can rely with the greatest confidence, 
 induces us to conclude, that diseases assume a lower and 
 more chronic type in Manchester than in smaller towns 
 and in agricultural districts ; and a residence in the Hos- 
 pitals of Edinburgh, and practice in its Dispensaries 
 amongst the most debased part of its inhabitants, enables ' 
 us to affirm, with confidence, that the diseases occurring 
 here admit of less active antiphlogistic or depletory treat- 
 ment than those incident to the degraded population of 
 the old town of that city. 
 
 Frequent allusion has been made to the supposed rate 
 of mortality in Manchester, as a standard by which the 
 health of the manufacturing population may be ascer- 
 tained. From the mortality of towns, however, their 
 comparative health cannot be invariably deduced. There 
 is a state of physical depression which does not terminate 
 in fatal organic changes, which, however, converts exist- 
 ence into a prolonged disease, and is. not only compatible 
 with life, but is proverbially protracted to an advanced 
 age. 
 
 The difficulty of obtaining returns of burials, from all 
 the places of interment, in the town and suburbs of Man- 
 chester, prevented the estimation of the rate of mortality, 
 when the former edition of this pamphlet was published. 
 Since that period a Parliamentary paper has been pub- 
 
46 First Period 
 
 lished (No. 729) containing a return of tlie number 
 of burials occurring annually in Manchester, from 1821 
 to 1830 ; and the Board of Health have obtained re- 
 turns for the last four years, which are confirmatory 
 of this Parliamentary document. We have, from these 
 returns and the census, constructed a table, showing 
 the mortality of every year from 1821 to 1831, inclusive. 
 
 The population, by the census of the townships of Ard- 
 wick, Broughton, Cheetham Hill, Chorlton-upon-Medlock, 
 Hulme, Manchester, and Salford, in 1811 was 108,993 : — 
 in 1821, it was 152,683 :— and in 1831, 224,143 ; or the 
 increase in the first of these periods was to that of the 
 latter, nearly as 44 parts of 115 are to 71 parts of the 
 same number. Hence, supposing the sources of increase 
 from births and immigration to remain nearly the same 
 in the intermediate periods, we obtain a rule to distribute 
 the increase of population between 1821 and 1831. Divi- 
 ding this period into two equal parts, the rate of increase 
 during the first five years would be 44 of 115 equal parts 
 of the whole increase, or in 1826 the population would 
 be 152,683-1-27,369 (yY^- of the whole increase) = 180,052 
 which -|- 44,091 (^Vj' which ratio is assumed to occur 
 during the second ^yq. years) =224,143, the population 
 of the town in 1831. These sums being again distributed 
 by the same rule to half of the first and second cycles of 
 five years, and the products thus obtained divided by 
 ^YQ^ a tolerably accurate approximation to the half-yearly 
 increase of the population is obtained. By this rule, the 
 following Table of the annual rate of mortality was con- 
 structed. 
 
 Some error appears to have occurred in the returns of 
 interments for the first two years ; therefore omitting them, 
 the mean annual rate of interments acting as a divisor 
 on the mean numbers of the population from 1823 to 
 1831 inclusive, will give an approximation to the mean 
 rate of mortality, or 188,666-^5356 = 35*22, the mean 
 rate of the annual mortahty of Manchester. 
 
 Diseases, we have said, assume in this town a compara- 
 
Manchester in 1832 
 
 47 
 
 
 Interments 
 
 Interments 
 
 Total 
 
 
 Rate 
 
 Year, 
 
 of 
 
 of 
 
 of 
 
 Population. 
 
 of 
 
 
 Churchmen. 
 
 D-issenters. 
 
 Interments. 
 
 
 Mortality.' 
 
 1821 
 
 1561 
 
 1726 
 
 3287 
 
 152,683 
 
 46-45 
 
 1822 
 
 1285 
 
 1044 
 
 2329 
 
 156.663 
 
 67-223 
 
 1823 
 
 1585 
 
 3230 
 
 4815 
 
 160,664 
 
 33-36 
 
 1824 
 
 1428 
 
 3219 
 
 4647 
 
 166,117 
 
 35-74 
 
 1825 
 
 1398 
 
 3530 
 
 4928 
 
 173,083 
 
 35-12 
 
 1826 
 
 1548 
 
 3804 
 
 5352 
 
 180,052 
 
 33-64 
 
 1827 
 
 1604 
 
 3235 
 
 4839 
 
 186,462 
 
 38-53 
 
 1828 
 
 1615 
 
 4106 
 
 5721 
 
 192,874 
 
 33-73 
 
 1829 
 
 1479 
 
 3719 
 
 5198 
 
 201,691 
 
 38-80 
 
 1830 
 
 1590 
 
 4383 
 
 5973 
 
 212,913 
 
 35-64 
 
 1831 
 
 
 
 6736 
 
 224,143 
 
 33-27 
 
 tively chronic type ; and a general prevalence of such 
 m^aladies is compatible even with a low rate of mortahty. 
 Acute diseases (which are eminently fatal) prevail, on the 
 contrary, in a population where the standard of health is 
 high, and attack the most robust and plethoric. Thus, a 
 high rate of mortality may often be observed in a com- 
 munity, where the number of persons affected with dis- 
 ease is small ; and on the other hand, general physical 
 depression may concur with the prevalence of chronic 
 maladies, and yet be unattended with a great proportion 
 of deaths. We have elsewhere discussed the origin, and 
 shown the great prevalence of dyspepsia, gastralgia^, 
 enteralgia, and chronic bronchitis and phthisis^, in Man- 
 chester ; and this reference to the subject may therefore 
 be sufficient here. 
 
 The preceding statements must, we fear, be received as 
 valid evidence that many sources of physical depression 
 exist in Manchester. The Special Board of Health, in 
 the course of their inquiries, discovered that they pos- 
 sessed very limited means of removing the evils whose 
 existence was ascertained by the reports of the District 
 Inspectors. Some thousands of houses were whitewashed. 
 Several additional gangs of scavengers were employed; 
 and the result of their operations was evident in the im- 
 
 ^ Second Number of the ' North of England Medical and Surgical Jounial :' 
 On Gastralgia and Enteralgia. 
 
 ^ Thii'd Number of the ^ North of England Medical and Surgical Journal.' 
 
48 First Period 
 
 proved condition of the public tliorouglifares of the town : 
 but to repair and sewer the unpaved streets, courts, &c., 
 and to remove the gross accumulations of filth which they 
 contain, would have entailed upon the town an expendi- 
 ture for which the fiscal authorities were unwilling to 
 become responsible. Letters were also addressed to the 
 landlords of all houses reported to be out of repair, and 
 of those in which the soughs required repair — which 
 were damp — ill ventilated — or which had no privies, in- 
 forming them of the defects reported, and requesting them 
 to assist the Special Board in their efforts to ameliorate 
 the physical condition of the poor,' by remedying these 
 evils. The disease of the body pohtic is not superficial, 
 and cannot be cured, or even temporarily relieved, by any 
 specific : its sources are unfortunately remote, and the 
 measures necessary to the removal of its disorders include 
 serious questions on which great difference of opinion 
 prevails. 
 
 Visiting Manchester, the Metropolis of the commercial 
 system, a stranger regards with wonder the ingenuity and 
 comprehensive capacity, which, in the short space of half 
 a century, have here estabhshed the staple manufacture of 
 this kingdom. He beholds with astonishment the estab- 
 lishments of its merchants — monuments of fertile genius 
 and successful design : — the masses of capital which have 
 been accumulated by those who crowd upon its mart, and 
 the restless but sagacious spirit which has made every 
 part of the known world the scene of their enterprise. 
 The sudden creation of the mighty system of commercial 
 organisation which covers this county, and stretches its 
 arms to the most distant seas, attests the powder and the 
 dignity of man. Commerce, it appears to such a specta- 
 tor, here gathers in her storehouses the productions of 
 every chme, that she may minister to the happiness of a 
 favoured race. 
 
 '' When he turns from the great capitalists, he contem- 
 plates the fearful strength only of that multitude of the 
 
Manchester in 1832 49 
 
 labouring population, which lies like a slumbering giant •, 
 at their feet. He has heard of the turbulent riots of the ) 
 people — of machine breaking — of the secret and sullen \ 
 organisation which has suddenly lit the torch of incen- 1 
 diarism, or well nigh uphfted the arm of rebellion in the ? 
 land. He remembers that political desperadoes have 
 ever loved to tempt this population to the hazards of the 
 swindling game of revolution, and have scarcely failed. 
 In the midst of so much opulence, however, he has dis 
 beheved the cry of need. ^ 
 
 Believing that the natural tendency of unrestricted com- 
 merce (unchecked by the prevailing want of education, 
 and the incentives afforded by imperfect laws to improvi- 
 dence and vice), is to develop the energies of society, to 
 increase the comforts and luxuries of life, and to elevate 
 the physical condition of every member of the social body, 
 we have exposed, with a faithful, though a friendly hand, 
 the condition of the lower orders connected with the 
 manufactures of this town, because we conceive that the 
 evils affecting them result from foreign and accidental 
 causes. A system, which promotes the advance of civih 
 sation, and diffuses it over the world — which promises to 
 maintain the peace of nations, by establishing a permanent 
 international law, founded on the benefits of commercial 
 association, cannot be inconsistent with the happiness of 
 the great mass of the people. There are men who believe 
 that the labouring classes are condemned for ever, by an 
 inexorable fate, to the unmitigated curse of toil, scarcely 
 rewarded by the bare necessaries of existence, arid often 
 visited by the horrors of hunger and disease — ^ that the 
 heritage of ignorance, laboui', and misery, is entailed 
 upon them as an eternal doom. Such an opinion might 
 appear to receive a gloomy confirmation, were we content 
 with the evidence of fact, derived only from the history 
 of uncivilised races, and of feudal institutions. Ko modern 
 Eousseau now rhapsodises on the happiness of the state 
 of nature. Moral and physical degradation are insepar- 
 able from barbarism. The unsheltered, naked savage, 
 
 E 
 
50 First Period 
 
 starving on food common to the denizens of the wilder- 
 ness, never knew the comforts contained in the most 
 wretched cabin of our poor. 
 
 Civihsation, to which feudahty is inimical, but which is 
 most powerfully promoted by commerce, surrounds man 
 with innumerable inventions. It has thus a constant ten- 
 dency to multiply, without hmit, the comforts of exist- 
 ence, and that by an amount of labour, at all times 
 undergoing an indefinite diminution. It continually ex- 
 pands the sphere of his relations, from a dependence on his 
 own hmited resources, until it has combined into one 
 mighty league, alike the members of communities, and 
 the powers of the most distant regions. The cultivation 
 of the faculties, the extension of knowledge, the improve- 
 ment of the arts, enable man to extend his dominion over 
 matter, and to minister, not merely to all the exigencies, 
 but to the capricious tastes and the imaginary appetites 
 of his nature. When, therefore, every zone has contri- 
 buted its most precious stores — science has revealed her 
 secret laws — genius has applied, the mightiest powers of 
 nature to familiar use, making matter the patient and 
 silent slave of the will of man — if want prey upon the 
 heart of the people, we may strongly presume that, besides 
 the effects of existing manners, some accidental barrier 
 exists, arresting their natural and rightful supply. 
 
 The evils affecting the working classes, so far from 
 being the necessary results of the commercial system ^furnish 
 evidence of a disease which impairs its energies^ if it does 
 not threaten its vitality. 
 
 The increase of the manufacturing establishments, and 
 the consequent colonisation of the district, have been 
 exceedingly more rapid than the growth of its civic in- 
 stitutions. The eager antagonisation of commercial 
 enterprise has absorbed the attention, and concentrated 
 the energies, of every member of the community. In this 
 strife the remote influence of arrangements has sometimes 
 been neglected, not from the want of humanity, but from 
 the pressure of occupation, and the deficiency of time. 
 
Manchester in 1832 51 
 
 Thus, some years ago, the internal arrangements of mills 
 (now so much improved) as regarded temperature, venti- 
 lation, cleanhness, and the proper separation of the sexes, 
 &c., were such as to be extremely objectionable. The 
 same cause has, we think, chiefly occasioned the want of 
 police regulations, to prevent the gross neglect of the 
 streets and houses of the poor. 
 
 The great and sudden fluctuations to which trade is 
 liable, are often the sources of severe embarrassment. 
 Sometimes the demand for labour diminishes, and its price 
 consequently falls in a corresponding ratio. On the other 
 hand, the existing population has often been totally in- 
 adequate to the required production ; and capitalists have 
 eagerly invited a supply of labour fi^om distant counties 
 and the sister kingdom. The colonisation of the Irish 
 was thus first encouraged ; and has proved one chief 
 source of the demoraUsation, and consequent physical 
 depression of the people. 
 
 The effects of this immigration, even when regarded as 
 a simple economical question, do not merely include an 
 equation of the comparative cheapness of labour ; its in- 
 fluence on civilisation and morals, as they teiid to affect 
 the production of wealthy cannot be neglected. 
 
 In proof of this, it may sufiice to present a picture of 
 the natural progress of barbarous habits. Want of clean- 
 liness, of forethought and economy, are found in almost 
 invariable alhance with dissipation, reckless habits, and 
 disease. The population gradually becomes physically 
 less efficient as the producers of wealth — morally so from 
 idleness — politically worthless as having few desires to 
 satisfy, and noxious as dissipators of capital accumulated. 
 Were such manners to prevail, the horrors of pauperism 
 w^ould accumulate. A debilitated race would be rapidly 
 multiplied. Morality would afford no check to the in- 
 crease of the population : crime and disease would be its 
 only obstacles — the licentiousness which indulges its 
 capricious appetite, till it exhausts its power — and the 
 disease which, at the same moment, punishes crime, and 
 
 P 2 
 
52 First Period 
 
 sweeps away a liecatomb of its victims. A dense mass, 
 impotent alike of great moral or physical efforts, would 
 accumulate ; children would be born to parents incapable 
 of obtaining the necessaries of life, who would thus acquire, 
 through the mistaken humanity of the law, a new claim 
 for support from the property of the public. They would 
 drag on an unhappy existence, vibrating between the 
 pangs of hunger and the delirium of dissipation — alter- 
 nately exhausted by severe and oppressive toil, or enervated 
 by supine sloth. Destitution would now prey on their 
 strength, and then the short madness of debauchery would 
 consummate its ruin. Crime, which banishes or destroys 
 its victims, and disease and death, are severe but brief 
 natural remedies, which prevent the unlimited accumula- 
 tion of the horrors of pauperism. Even war and pestilence, 
 when regarded as affecting a population thus demorahsed, 
 and politically and physically debased, seem like storms 
 which sweep from the atmosphere the noxious vapours 
 whose stagnation threatens man with death. 
 
 Morality is therefore worthy of the attention of the 
 economist, even when considered as simply ministering to 
 the production of wealth. Civilisation creates artificial 
 wants, introduces economy, and cultivates the moral and 
 physical capabiHties of society. Hence the introduction 
 of an uncivihsed race does not tend even primarily to 
 increase the power of producing wealth, in a ratio by any 
 means commensurate with the cheapness of its labour, 
 and may ultimately retard the increase of the fund for 
 the maintenance of that labour. Such a race is useful 
 only as a mass of animal organisation, which consumes 
 the smallest amount of wages. The low price of the labour 
 of such people depends, however, on the paucity of their 
 wants, and their savage habits. When they assist the 
 production of wealth, therefore, their barbarous habits 
 and consequent moral depression must form a part of the 
 equation. They are only necessary to a state of commerce 
 inco7isistent with such a reward for labour as is calculated 
 to maintain the standard of civilisation. A few years 
 
Manchester in 1832 53 
 
 pass, and tliey become burdens to a community whose 
 morals and physical power they have depressed; and 
 dissipate wealth which they did not accumulate. 
 
 Conscious of the evils resulting from the immigration 
 of Irish, we nevertheless tremble at the thought of ap- 
 plying unmodified poor-laws to Ireland. In England the 
 system of parochial relief has a most prejudicial influence, 
 in chaining redundant labour to a narrow locahty, and 
 thus aggravating the pressure of partial ills, and in relax- 
 ing those bonds of the social constitution, industry, fore- 
 thought, and charity.^ Much less could the habits of the 
 Irish be corrected by a parliamentary enactment : and 
 to attempt the removal of their misery, by a constant sup- 
 ply of their wants, would be to offer direct encouragement 
 to idleness, improvidence, and dissipation. It would ulti- 
 mately render every individual dependent on the State, 
 and change Ireland into a vast infirmary, divided into as 
 many wards as there are parishes, whose endowment 
 would swallow up the entire rental of the country. Such 
 a measure, says Mr. Senior, would ^ ' divide Ireland into 
 as many distinct counties as there are parishes, each peo- 
 pled by a population ascripta glehce; multiplying without 
 forethought ; impelled to labour principally by the fear 
 of punishment ; drawing allowance for their children, and 
 throwing their parents on the parish ; considering wages 
 not a matter of contract but of right ; attributing every 
 evil to the injustice of their superiors ; and, when their 
 own idleness or improvidence has occasioned a faU. of 
 wages, avenging it by firing the dwellings, maiming the 
 cattle, or murdering the persons of the landlords and over- . 
 seers ; combining, in short, the insubordination of the free- 
 man with the sloth and recklessness of the slave.' 
 
 We believe, however, that an impost on the rental of 
 Ireland might be applied with advantage in employing its 
 
 ^ Chalmers's ^ Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns:' ^Speech 
 before the General Assembly :' ^Political Economy/ p. 398, &c., &c. 
 
 2 'Letter to Lord Howick on a Legal Provision for the Irish Poor/ 
 kc, &c. p. 33. 
 
 E 3 
 
54 First Period 
 
 redundant labour in great public works — sucli as draining 
 bogs, making public roads, canals, harbours, &c., by which 
 the entire available capital of the country would be in- 
 creased, and the people would be trained in industrious 
 habits, and more civilised manners. England would then 
 cease to be, to the same extent as at present, the receptacle 
 of the most demorahsed and worthless hordes of the sister 
 country. 
 
 The Irish, who were invited to colonise the country at 
 a period when the demand for labour was greater than 
 the native population could supply, have suffered more 
 than any other class from the introduction of the power- 
 loom. The state of transition in employment consequent 
 on a new invention (by which the powers of production 
 are increased, its cost diminished, and the demand for a 
 peculiar kind of labour almost extinguished), will always 
 be followed by an embarrassment, whose pressure and 
 duration will be determined, coeteris paribus^ by the extent 
 of the market for manufactures. If by the want of com- 
 mercial treaties — by the imposition of injudicious duties 
 on foreign produce, which provoke jealous retaliation — 
 the existence of arbitrary restrictions and monopolies, the 
 extent of the market for manufactures be diminished, the 
 demand for labour wiH be confined within the same hmits. 
 A new invention will thus be robbed of half its rewards, 
 since we deprive other nations of the power of buying 
 our manufactures, by refusing to accept what they offer 
 in exchange. We depress the spirit of their enterprise ; 
 and we discourage our own. The relations of commerce 
 are those of unhmited reciprocity — not of narrow and 
 bigoted exclusion. We encourage genius and industry 
 in proportion as we permit them to receive their reward 
 in the riches of every clime. We dam up not only the 
 well-spring of our own wealth and happiness, but of that 
 of other nations, when we refuse to barter the results of 
 the ingenuity and perseverance of our artisans, for the 
 products of the bounty of other chmates, or the arts and 
 genius of other people. Unrestricted commerce, on the 
 
Manchester m 1832 55 
 
 other hand, would rapidly promote the advance of civihsa- 
 tion, by cultivating the physical and mental power of indi- 
 viduals and nations to multiply the amount of natural 
 products, and to create those artificial staple commodities, 
 by the barter of which they acquire the riches of other 
 regions. Every new invention in agriculture or manu- 
 factures — every improvement in the powers of trans- 
 mission, would enable its possessors, by the same amount 
 of labour, to obtain a greater quantity of foreign products 
 in exchange. The labour of man would be constantly, to 
 an indefinite extent, diminished^ whilst its reward would 
 be, at the same time, perpetually increased. Human power 
 would be employed 'in its noblest occupation, that of 
 giving a direction to the mere physical power which it 
 had conquered.' ^ 
 
 But, under a restrictive system, the demand for the 
 results of labour is limited, not by the wants of the whole 
 world, but of the market from which commodities are re- 
 ceived in exchange. Even then, as civihsation multiplies 
 the desires, and stimulates the industry and mgenuity of 
 man, the quantity of products permitted to be bartered 
 for our manufactures has a constant tendency to increase. 
 Unfortunately, however, the restrictions which fetter com- 
 merce are so numerous, and the monopoHes which exclude 
 free trade from the fairest portions of the earth are so 
 extensive, as to render the progressive increase in the 
 demand for the results of our labour and capital slow. 
 Population, nevertheless, increases the supply of labour in 
 at least as great a ratio as the demand existing under a 
 restrictive system. Every invention, therefore, which 
 diminishes the quantity of labour necessary to produce 
 the objects of barter, lessens its price, and excludes, for 
 an indefinite period, a great part of the population from 
 
 ^ ' Observations on tlie Influence of Machinery upon the Working Classes 
 of the Community/ by John Kennedy^ Esq. : ^ Memoirs of the Literary and 
 Philosophical Society of Manchester/ vol. v. second series, iilso, ' The Eco- 
 nomy of Machinery and Manufactures/ by Charles Babbage^ Esq. 
 
 2 < Results of Machinery/ p. 193. 
 
 £ 4 
 
56 First Period 
 
 employment. By this system the profits of capital are 
 increased, though not in the same ratio as the wages of 
 labour are for a time diminished. But, were the restric- 
 tions abohshed, each new invention would not only enable 
 man to purchase, by a smaller amount of labour, a larger 
 portion of foreign products, but would, by these means, 
 powerfully stimulate the genius and industry of other 
 nations, whose demand for our manufactures would in- 
 crease in a ratio at least equal to their accumulation. In 
 other words, improvements in machinery diminish the cost 
 of production ; but if the demand for manufactures be 
 limited by arbitrary enactments, the increased employment 
 which would also be their natural and inevitable result, is 
 prevented, until commerce is able, in some other way, to 
 compensate for the evils of injudicious legislation. We 
 have capital and labour — but to obtain the greatest 
 amount of commercial advantages, we must also have an 
 unlimited power of exchange. 
 
 We believe, therefore, that chiefly to this cause must be 
 attributed the combined misery of severe labour and want 
 entailed on that wretched but extensive class, the hand- 
 loom weavers of the cotton trade. 
 
 Were an unlimited exchange permitted to commerce, 
 the hours of labour might be reduced, and time afforded 
 for the education and religious and moral instruction of 
 the people. With a virtuous population, engaged in free 
 trade, the existence of redundant labour would be an evil 
 of brief duration, rarely experienced. The unpopular, 
 but alas, too necessary proposals of emigration would no 
 longer be agitated. Ingenuity and industry would draw 
 from the whole world a tribute more than adequate to 
 supply the ever-increasing demands of a civilised nation. 
 
 The duties imposed on the introduction of foreign corn 
 were originally intended, by raising the price of grain, to 
 act as a compensation to the landowner for the supposed 
 unequal pressure of taxation upon him. This inequality 
 of the public burdens has, however, been exceedingly 
 exaggerated, and those taxes, which are said to be derived 
 
Manchester in 1832 57 
 
 from land on wliicli corn is grown, are also procured from 
 many other descriptions of property which are not pro- 
 tected. The faults of our present financial system* are so 
 numerous, that if the principle of relieving the inequality 
 of the pressure of taxation be admitted, we must pay back 
 in bounties one third of what is obtained by taxes. The 
 scarcity and dearness of food certainly bring to the agri- 
 cultural population no benefit, after the brief demand for 
 labour necessary to bring fresh soils into cultivation is 
 past. The landowner alone receives any advantage from 
 the high price of food, and that much less than has gene- 
 rally been supposed. The fluctuating scale by which the 
 duties on corn are at present regulated, has produced the 
 most disastrous effects among the agricultural tenantry : 
 rents ha\^e been paid out of capital, and estates have been 
 injured, in consequence of the embarrassments of the 
 cultivators. A tax on the staple commodity of life en- 
 hances the price of all other food, by increasing the wages 
 of labour, and the rent of land ; and, as it enters as an 
 element into the cost of every article produced (and that 
 in a ratio constantly accumulating with the amount of 
 labour employed), it presses heavily, though indirectly, 
 on the superior classes, and upon all other consumers. 
 !N'ot the least injurious effects of the present Corn-law 
 are the burden of supporting an unemployed population, 
 which it entails on society at large, and the insecurity of 
 property which results from the near approach to desti- 
 tution of a large portion of its members. But since this 
 system simultaneously contracts the market of the capi- 
 talist (by excluding one most important object of barter), 
 and increases the cost of production, its direst effects are 
 felt in the manufacturing districts, which have long been 
 maintaining an unequal struggle with foreign competitors. 
 In the cotton trade, to the expense of importing the raw 
 material, and that chiefly from one of those countries 
 where bounties on manufactures exist, is added the press- 
 
 ^ Sir H. Parnell^ on Financial Reform. 
 
58 First Period 
 
 ure of one tax, on the raw material, and of another, which, 
 by raising the price of labour, increases that of the manu- 
 factured result. Industry, invention, the most subtle 
 sagacity, and the most daring enterprise appear at length 
 almost baffled by the difficulties they encounter. The 
 profits of capital are reduced to the most meagre attenu- 
 ation — the rapidity of production, of transmission and 
 return, appear to have reached their utmost limit. Inju- 
 dicious duties on foreign produce have provoked retahation, 
 and the manufactures of other countries are supported by 
 artificial expedients in rivalry with our own. The diffi- 
 culty of changing the system is every day increased, until, 
 ere long, it may become a serious question with other 
 countries, whether the advantages to be derived from free 
 trade can compensate for the sacrifice of the capital em- 
 barked in their commercial establishments. The cotton 
 manufacture is rapidly spreading all over the continent, 
 and particularly in Switzerland and France ; and America 
 threatens us with a more formidable competition. 
 
 Under these circumstances, every part of tlie system 
 appears necessary to the preservation of the whole. The 
 profits of trade will not allow a greater remuneration for 
 labour, and competition even threatens to reduce its price. 
 Whatever time is subtracted from the hours of labour * must 
 be accompanied with an equivalent deduction from its 
 rewards ; the restrictions of trade prevent other improve- 
 ments, and we fear that the condition of the working 
 
 ^ The effect of sucli a measure is tliiis correctly described in an able and 
 perspicuous pamphlet lately published, entitled, ' A Letter to Lord Althorp, 
 in Defence of the Cotton Factories of Lancashire/ by Holland Hoole. 
 
 ' If Mr. Sadler's bill becomes a law, the masters will have the choice of 
 two evils. Either they must reduce the hours of labour to the limit pro- 
 posed to be fixed for children (fifty-eight hours per week) or they must 
 place their establishments without the pale of this enactment, by discharging 
 all persons under eighteen years from their factories.'' 
 
 ^In the former case a reduction of the wages of all persons employed, 
 whether children or adults, corresponding with the reduction of the time of 
 labour must inevitably take place.' * Not a few of the master cotton spinners 
 have determined to adopt the other course above mentioned, namely, to dis- 
 charge from their employment all the hands under eighteen years of age, as 
 soon as the proposed law comes into operation.' 
 
Manchester in 1832 59 
 
 classes cannot be much improved, until the burdens and 
 restrictions of the commercial system are abohshed. 
 
 We will yield to none in an earnest and unqualified 
 opposition to the present restrictions and burdens of com- 
 merce, and chiefly because they lessen the Avages of the 
 lower classes, increase the price of food, and prevent the 
 reduction of the hours of labour : — because they Avill 
 retard the application of a general and efficient system of 
 education, and thus not merely depress the health, but 
 debase the morals of the poor. Those politicians who 
 propose a serious reduction of the hours of labour, un- 
 preceded by the relief of commercial burdens, seem not 
 to believe that this measure would inevitably depress the 
 wages of the poor, whilst the price of the necessaries of 
 life would continue the same. They appear, also, not to 
 have sufficiently reflected that, if this measure were un- 
 accompanied by a gene7'al system of education^ the time 
 thus bestowed would be wasted or misused. If this 
 depression of wages, coincident with an increase of the 
 time generally spent by an uneducated people in sloth or 
 dissipation, be carefully reflected upon, the advocates of 
 this measure will, perhaps, be less disposed to regard it 
 as one calculated to confer unqualified benefits on the 
 labouring classes. To retrace the upward path from evil 
 and misery is difficult. Health is only acquired after 
 disease, by passing through slow and painful stages. 
 Neither can the evils which affect the operative popula- 
 tion be instantly reheved by the exhibition of any single 
 notable remedy. 
 
 Men are, it must be confessed, too apt to regard with 
 suspicion those who differ from them in opinion, and ran- 
 corous animosity is thus engendered between those whose 
 motives are pure, and between whose opinions only shades 
 of difference exist. We believe that no objection to a 
 reduction of the hours of labour would exist amongst 
 the enhghtened capitalists of the cotton trade, if the diffi- 
 culty of maintaining, under the present restrictions, the 
 commercial position of the country did not forbid it. 
 
60 First Period 
 
 Were these restrictions abolished, they would cease to 
 fear the competition of their foreign rivals, and the work- 
 ing classes of the community would find them to be the 
 warmest advocates of every measure which could conduce 
 to the physical comfort, or moral elevation of the poor. 
 
 A general and efficient system of education would be 
 devised — a more intimate and cordial association would 
 be cultivated between the capitalist and those in his 
 employ — the poor would be instructed in habits of fore- 
 thought and economy ; and, in combination with these 
 great and general efforts to ameliorate their condition, 
 when the restrictions of commerce had been abolished, a 
 reduction in the hours of labour would tend to elevate the 
 moral and physical condition of the people. 
 
 We are desirous of adding a few observations on each 
 of these measures. Ere the moral and physical condition 
 of the operative population can be much elevated, a system 
 of national education so extensive and liberal as to supply 
 the wants of the whole labouring population must be 
 introduced. Ignorance is twice a curse — first from its 
 necessarily debasing effects, and then because rendering 
 its victim insensible to his own fate, he endures it with 
 supine apathy. The ignorant are, therefore, properly, the 
 care of the state. Our present means of instruction are 
 confined to Sunday Schools, and a few Lancasterian and 
 National Schools, quite inadequate to the wants of the 
 population. The absence of education is like that of cul- 
 tivation, the mind untutored becomes a waste, in which 
 prejudices and traditional errors grow as rankly as weeds. 
 In this sphere of labour, as in every other, prudent and 
 diligent culture is necessary to obtain genial products from 
 the soil ; noxious agencies are abroad, and, while we 
 refuse to sow the germs of truth and virtue, the winds of 
 heaven bring the winged seeds of error and vice. More- 
 over, as education is delayed, a stubborn barrenness affects 
 the faculties — want of exercise renders them inapt — he 
 that has never been judiciously instructed, has not only 
 to master the first elements of truth, and to unlearn error, 
 
Manchester in 1832 61 
 
 but in proportion as the period has been delayed, will be 
 the difficulty of these processes. What wonder then that 
 the teachers of truth should make little impression on an 
 imlettered population, and that the working classes should 
 become the prey of those who flatter their passions^ adopt 
 their prejudices^ or even descend to imitate their manners. 
 
 If a period ever existed when public peace was secured - 
 by refusing knowledge to the population, that epoch has 
 lapsed. The policy of governments may have been little 
 able to bear the scrutiny of the people. This may be the 
 reason why the fountains of Enghsh hterature have been 
 sealed — and the works of our reformers, our patriots, 
 and our confessors — the exhaustless sources of all that , 
 is pure and holy, and of good report amongst us — have \ 
 not been made accessible and familiar to the poor. Yet 
 literature of this order is destined to determine the struc- 
 ture of our social constitution, and to become the mould 
 of our national character ; and they who would dam up 
 the flood of truth from the lower ground, cannot prevent 
 its silent transudation. A Httle knoAvledge is thus inevit- 
 able, and it is proverbially a dangerous thing. Alarming- 
 disturbances of social order generally commence with a 
 people only partially instructed. The preservation of in- 
 ternal peace., not less than the improvement of our national 
 institutions, depends on the education of the working 
 classes. 
 
 Government, unsupported by popular opinion, is de- 
 prived of its true strength, and can only retain its power 
 by the hateful expedients of despotism. Laws which 
 obtain not general consent are dead letters, or obedience 
 to them must be purchased by blood. But ignorance 
 perpetuates the prejudices and errors which contend with 
 the just exercise of a legitimate authority, and makes the 
 people the victims of those ill-founded panics which con- 
 vulse society, or seduces them to those tumults which 
 disgrace the movements of a deluded populace. Unac- 
 quainted with the real sources of their own distress, mis- 
 led by the artful misrepresentations of men whose element 
 
62 First Period 
 
 is disorder, and whose food faction can alone supply, the 
 people have too frequently neglected the constitutional ex- 
 pedients by which redress ought only to have been sought, 
 and have brought obloquy on their just cause, by the 
 bhnd ferocity of those insurrectionary movements, in 
 which they have assaulted the institutions of society. 
 That good government may be stable, the people must be 
 so instructed that they may love that which they know to 
 be right. 
 
 The present age is peculiarly calculated to illustrate 
 the truth of these observations. When we have equally 
 to struggle against the besotted idolatry of ancient modes, 
 which would retain error, and the headlong spirit of in- 
 novation, which, under the pretence of reforming, would 
 destroy — now, hurried wildly onwards to the rocks on 
 which we may be crushed; and then sucked back into 
 the deep, — between this Scylla and that Charybdis, shall 
 w^e hesitate to guide the vessel of the state, by the power 
 of an enlightened popular opinion ! The increase of in- 
 telligence and virtue amongst the mass of the people will 
 prove our surest safeguard, in the absence of which, the 
 possessions of the higher orders might be, to an ignorant 
 and brutal populace, like the fair plains of Italy to the 
 destroying Vandal. The wealth and splendour, the refine- 
 ment and luxury of the superior classes, might provoke 
 the wild inroads of a marauding force, before whose 
 desolating invasion every institution which science has 
 erected, or humanity devised, might fall, and beneath 
 whose feet all the arts and ornaments of civilised life 
 might be trampled. 
 
 Even our national power rests on this basis, which 
 power is sustained ^ ' not so much by the number of the 
 people, as by the ability and character of that people ;' 
 and we should tremble to behold the excellent brightness 
 and terrible form of a great nation resting, like the 
 ' image ' of the prophet, on a population, in which the 
 
 ^ ^ Cobbett's Cottage Economy.' Introduction. 
 
Ma7ichester in 1832 63 
 
 elements of strength and weakness are so commingled, as 
 to ensure the dissolution of every cohesive principle, 
 in that portion of society, which is thus not inaptly 
 portrayed by the feet which were part of iron and part 
 of clay. 
 
 The education ajSbrded to the poor must be substantial. 
 The mere elementary rudiments of knowledge are chiefly 
 useful, as a means to an end. The poor man will not be 
 made a much better member of society, by being only 
 taught to read and write. His education should comprise 
 such branches of general knowledge as would prove 
 sources of rational amusement, and would thus elevate 
 his tastes above a companionship in licentious pleasures. 
 Those portions of the exact sciences which are connected 
 with his occupation, should be famiharly explained to 
 him, by popular lectures, and cheap treatises. To this \ 
 end, Mechanics' Institutions (partly conducted by the 
 artisans themselves, in order that the interest they feel in j 
 them may be constantly excited and maintained) should 
 be multiplied by the patrons of education, among the 
 poor. The ascertained truths of pohtical science should . 
 be early tauglit to the laboLiriiig classes, iiii^orrect poli- 1 / 
 tical information should be constantly and industriously I 
 disseminated amongst them. Were the taxes on j^eriodi- 
 cal publications removed, men of great intelhgence and 
 virtue might be induced to conduct journals, established 
 for the express purpose of directing to legitimate objects 
 that restless activity by which the people are of late 
 agitated. Such works, sanctioned by the names of men 
 distinguished for their sagacity, spirit, and integrity, would 
 command the attention and respect of the working classes. 
 The poor might thus be also made to understand their 
 pohtical position in society, and the duties that belong to 
 it — ' that^ they are in a great measure the architects of 
 their own fortune ; that what others can do for them is 
 trifling indeed, compared with what they can do for 
 
 ^ M*=Cullocli, on the Rise, Progi'ess, and Present State of the British 
 Cotton Manufacture. ' Edinburgh Review/ No. 91. 
 
64 First Period 
 
 tliemselves ; tliat they are infinitely more interested in the 
 preservation of pubhc tranquiUity than any otlier class of 
 society; that mechanical inventions and discoveries are 
 always supremely advantageous to them; and that their 
 real interests can only be effectually promoted, by display- 
 ing greater prudence and forethought.' They should be 
 instructed in the nature of their domestic and social re- 
 lations. The evils which imprudent marriages entail on 
 those who contract them, on their unhappy offspring, and 
 on society at large, should be exhibited in the strongest 
 light. The consequence of idleness, improvidence, and 
 moral deviations, should be made the subjects of daily 
 admonition ; so that a young man might enter the world, 
 not, as at present, without chart or compass, blown hither 
 and thither by every gust of passion, but, with a know- 
 ledge of the dangers to which he is exposed, and of the 
 way to escape them. 
 
 The relation between the capitalist and those in his 
 employ, might prove a fruitful source of the most bene- 
 ficial comments. The misery which the working classes 
 have brought upon themselves, by their mistaken notions 
 on this subject, is incalculable, not to mention the injury 
 which has accrued to capitalists, and to the trade of this 
 country. 
 
 Much good ^ would result from a more general and cor- 
 dial association of the higher and lower orders. In 
 Liverpool a charitable society exists denominated the 
 ' Provident,' whose members include a great number of 
 the most influential inhabitants. The town is subdivided 
 into numerous districts, the inspection and care of each 
 of which is committed to one or two members of the as- 
 sociation. They visit the people in their houses — sym- 
 pathise with their distresses, and minister to the wants 
 of the necessitous ; but above all, they acquire by their 
 charity, the right of inquiring into their arrangements — 
 
 ' ' An Address to the Higher Classes on the present State of Feeling among 
 the Working Classes.' 
 
Manchester in 1832 65 
 
 of instructing them in domestic economy — of recom- 
 mending sobriety, cleanliness, forethouglit, and method. 
 
 Every capitahst might contribute much to the happi- 
 ness of those in his employ, by a similar exercise of en- 
 lightened charity. He might establish provident associa- 
 tions and hbraries amongst his people. Cleanliness, and 
 a proper attention to clothing and diet^ might be enforced. 
 He has frequent opportunities of discouraging the vicious, 
 and of admonishing the improvident. By visiting the 
 houses of the operatives, he might advise the multiplica- 
 tion of household comforts and the culture of the domestic 
 sympathies. Principle and interest admonish him to re- 
 ceive none into his employ, unless they can produce the 
 most satisfactory attestations to their character. 
 
 Above all, he should provide instruction for the children 
 of his workpeople : he should stimulate the appetite for 
 useful knowledge, and supply it with appropriate food. 
 
 Happily, the effect of such a system is not left to con- 
 jecture. In large towns serious obstacles oppose its in- 
 troduction ; but in Manchester more than one enhghtened 
 capitahst confesses its importance, and has made prepara- 
 tions for its adoption. In the country, the facihties are 
 greater ; and many establishments might be indicated, 
 which exhibit the results of combined benevolence and 
 intelhgence. One example may suffice. 
 
 Twelve hundred persons are employed in the factories 
 of Mr. Thomas Ashton, of Hyde, This gentleman has 
 erected commodious dwellings for his workpeople, with 
 each of which he has connected every convenience that 
 can minister to comfort. He resides in their immediate 
 vicinity, and has frequent opportunities of maintaining 
 a cordial association with his operatives. Their houses are 
 well furnished, clean, and their tenants exhibit every in- 
 dication of health and happiness. Mr. Ashton has also 
 built a school, where 640 children, chiefly belonging to 
 his estabhshment, are instructed on Sunday, in reading, 
 
 ^ * True Theory of Rent/ by T. Perronnet Thomson^ Esqi. 
 
66 First Period 
 
 writing, arithmetic, &c. A library, connected with this 
 school, is eagerly resorted to, and the people frequently 
 read after the hours of labour have expired. An infant 
 school is, during the week, attended by 280 children, and 
 in the evenings others are instructed by masters selected 
 for the purpose. The factories themselves are certainly 
 excellent examples of the cleanliness and order which 
 may be attained, by a systematic and persevering atten- 
 tion to the habits of the artisans. 
 
 The efiects of such enhghtened benevolence may be, to 
 a certain extent, exhibited by statistical statements. The 
 population, before the introduction of machinery, chiefly 
 consisted of colliers, hatters, and weavers. Machinery 
 was introduced in 1801, and the following table exhibits 
 its consequences in the augmentation of the value of 
 property, the diminution of poor rates, and the rapid in- 
 crease of the amount assessed for the repairs of the high- 
 way, during a period, in which the population of the 
 township increased from 830 to 7,138. 
 
Manchester in 1832 
 
 67 
 
 Township of Hyde, in the Parish of Stockport, in the County of Chester. 
 
 
 Estimated 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 value of pro- 
 
 Sums assessed 
 
 Sums assessed for 
 
 Popu- 
 lation. 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 perty asses- 
 
 for the Relief of 
 
 the Repairs 
 
 of the 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 
 sable to the 
 
 the Poor 
 
 
 Highway. 
 
 
 
 Poor's Rate. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 1801 
 
 693 10 
 
 .533 12 
 
 
 
 2 11 
 
 6 
 
 830 
 
 Machinery intro- 
 
 2 
 
 697 
 
 394 19 
 
 4 
 
 51 19 
 
 5 
 
 
 ^duced. 
 
 3 
 
 697 
 
 336 8 
 
 
 
 52 3 
 
 Of 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 697 10 
 
 325 10 
 
 
 
 ■52 5 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 724 
 
 385 17 
 
 4 
 
 100 6 
 
 Hi 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 786 
 
 339 6 
 
 
 
 110 12 
 
 lU 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 829 
 
 276 6 
 
 8 
 
 172 7 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 898 10 
 
 223 1 
 
 4 
 
 177 6 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 915 
 
 286 16 
 
 8 
 
 152 17 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 1810 
 
 935 
 
 345 10 
 
 
 
 146 18 
 
 ^'^i 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 945 10 
 
 417 6 
 
 4 
 
 199 19 
 
 H 
 
 1806 
 
 Riots, Macliincry 
 
 2 
 
 975 15 
 
 471 8 
 
 4 
 
 168 11 
 
 1 
 
 
 broken in vari- 
 
 3 
 
 986 
 
 687 7 
 
 8 
 
 148 18 
 
 Hi 
 
 3^ 
 
 
 ous places. 
 
 4 
 
 997 
 
 630 6 
 
 8 
 
 144 18 
 
 
 Power looms in- 
 
 5 
 
 1029 15 
 
 508 18 
 
 
 
 99 9 
 
 
 troduced. 
 
 6 
 
 1079 5 
 
 390 2 
 
 
 
 156 9 
 
 5i 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 1109 15 
 
 502 3 
 
 6 
 
 150 2 
 
 st 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 1142 
 
 421 2 
 
 
 
 171 15 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 1242 
 
 431 6 
 
 
 
 201 8 
 
 7i 
 
 
 
 1820 
 
 1272 
 
 355 4 
 
 8 
 
 229 11 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1371 15 
 
 274 7 
 
 
 
 265 1 
 
 1 
 
 3355 
 
 New County Hate 
 
 2 
 
 1429 5 
 
 435 10 
 
 6 
 
 440 12 
 
 of 
 
 8| 
 
 
 made: from this 
 
 3 
 
 1570 
 
 479 8 
 
 
 
 454 8 
 
 
 time the County 
 
 4 
 
 1792 
 
 348 17 
 
 
 
 506 2 
 
 2^ 
 
 
 Rate, together 
 
 5 
 
 1957 
 
 398 11 
 
 
 
 524 19 
 
 3| 
 
 
 with the salary 
 
 6 
 
 2093 10 
 
 438 7 
 
 6 
 
 573 10 
 
 7f 
 
 
 of the serving 
 
 7 
 
 2354 15 
 
 479 6 
 
 3 
 
 598 10 
 
 5 
 
 
 officer, average 
 
 8 
 
 2533 
 
 502 7 
 
 4 
 
 732 4 
 
 3^ 
 
 
 £200 per an- 
 
 9 
 
 2623 
 
 790 11 
 
 9 
 
 681 19 
 
 6^ 
 
 
 num. 
 
 1830 
 
 2727 
 
 549 16 
 
 
 
 578 10 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2783 
 
 '834 18 
 
 9 
 
 359 5 
 
 H 
 
 7138 
 
 
 Total 
 Avera 
 
 in 31 yrs. . 
 ge 
 
 13,994 13 
 
 7 
 
 8405 19 
 
 7 
 
 451 10 
 
 
 
 271 7 
 
 2 
 
 ^ A considerable balance in the Overseer's hands. 
 
 F 2 
 
65 First Period 
 
 This table exhibits a cheering proof of the advantages 
 which may be derived from the commercial system, under 
 judicious management. We feel much confidence in in- 
 ferring that where so httle pauperism exists, the taint of 
 vice has not deeply infected the population ; and con- 
 cerning their health we can speak from personal observa- 
 tion. The rate of mortality, from statements* with which 
 Mr. Ashton has politely furnished us, appears to be ex- 
 ceedingly low. In thirteen years (during the first six of 
 which, the number of rovers, spinners, piecers and dressers 
 was 100, and during the last seven, above 200) only eight 
 deaths occurred, though the same persons were, with rare 
 exceptions, employed during the whole period. Sup- 
 posing, for the sake of convenience, that the deaths were 
 nine ; then by ascribing three to the first six years, and 
 six to the last seven, the mortality during the former 
 period was 1 in 200, and during the latter, 1 in 233. 
 The number of weavers during the first six years was 200, 
 
 ^ Minute of Deaths among the Spinners, Piecers and Dressers, employed 
 at the works of Mr. Thomas Ashton, in Hyde, from 1819 to 1832, thirteen 
 years, viz. : Spinners — Kd. Robinson, James Seville, David Cordingly, Eli 
 Taylor. Piecers— Jas. Rowbotham^ Wm. Green. Dressers — John Cocker, 
 Samuel Broadhurst. 
 
 There are employed at these works 61 rovers and spinners, 120 piecers, and 
 38 dressers : total 219; among whom there .are at this time 10 spinners, 
 whose ages are respectively from forty up to fifty-six years ; and among the 
 dressers there are 12 whose ages are equal to that of the above spinners. 
 We have no orphans at this place, neither have we any family receiving 
 parochial relief: nor can we recollect the time when there was any such. 
 The different clubs or sick lists among the spinners, dressers, overlookers 
 and mechanics employed here, allow ten or twelve shillings per week to the 
 members during sickness, and from six to eight pounds to a funeral -, which 
 applies also to the member's wife, and, in some cases, one half or one fourth 
 to the funeral of a child. The greatest amount of contributions to these 
 funds has in no one year exceeded five shillings and sixpence from each 
 member. 
 
 The weavers (chiefly young women) have also a funeral club, the con- 
 tributions to which are fourpence per member to each funeral. In the 
 above period of thirteen years there have happened among them only forty 
 funerals. 
 
 Total number of persons employed, twelve hundred, who maintained 
 about two thousand. Joseph Tinker, Book-keeper. 
 
 Hyde, 27th March, 1832. 
 
Manchester in 1832 69 
 
 and during the last seven 400 ; and in this body of work- 
 men 40 deaths occurred in thirteen years. By ascribing 
 13 of these deaths to the first six years, and 27 to the 
 last seven, the mortality, during the former period, was 
 1 in 92, and during the latter, 1 in 103. 
 
 These facts indicate that the present hours of labour 
 do not injure the health of a population, otherwise favour- 
 ably situated^ but that, when evil results ensue, they must 
 chiefly be ascribed to the combination of this with other 
 causes of moral and physical depression. 
 
 Capitalists, whose establishments are situated in the 
 country, enjoy many opportunities of controlling the habits 
 and ministering to the comforts of those in their employ, 
 which cannot exist in a large manufacturing town. In 
 the former, the land in the vicinity is generally the pro- 
 perty of the manufacturer, and upon this he may build 
 commodious houses, and surround the operative with all 
 the conveniences and attractions of a home. In the town, 
 the land is often in the possession of non-resident pro- 
 prietors, anxious only to obtain the largest amount of 
 chief rent. It is therefore let in separate lots to avaricious 
 speculators, who (unrestrained by any general enactment, 
 or special police regulation) build without plan, wretched 
 abodes in confused groups, intersected by narrow, unpaved 
 or undrained streets and courts. By this disgraceful system 
 the moral and physical condition of the poor undergoes 
 an inevitable depression. 
 
 In Manchester ^ ' it is much to be regretted that the 
 surveyors of highways, or some other body of gentlemen 
 specially appointed, were not, forty years ago, invested 
 with authority to regulate the laying out of building-land 
 within the precincts of the town, and to enforce the 
 observance of certain conditions, on the part of the owners 
 and lessees of such property.' Private rights ought not 
 to be exercised so as to produce a public injury. The 
 
 ^ Dr. Lyon on the Medical Topography and Statistics of Manchester. 
 North of England Medical and Surgical Journal/ vol. i. p. 17. 
 
 r 3 
 
70 First Period 
 
 law, which describes and punislies offences against the 
 person and property of the subject, should extend its 
 authority by estabhshing a social code, in which the rights 
 of communities should be protected from the assaults of 
 partial interests. By exercising its functions in the former 
 case, it does not wantonly interfere with the liberty of the 
 subject, nor in the latter, would it violate the reverence 
 due to the sacred security of property. 
 
 The powers obtained by the recent changes in the 
 Police Act of Manchester are retrospective, and exclu- 
 sively refer to the removal of existing evils : their appli- 
 cation must also necessarily be slow. We conceive that 
 special police regulations should be framed for the pur- 
 pose of preventing the recurrence of that gross neglect of 
 decency and violation of order, whose effects we have 
 described. 
 
 Streets should be built according to plans determined 
 (after a conference with the owners) by a body of Com- 
 missioners, specially elected for the purpose — their width 
 should bear a certain relation to the size and elevation of 
 the houses erected. Landlords should be compelled, on 
 the erection of any house, to provide sufficient means of 
 drainage, and each to pave his respective area of the 
 street. Each habitation should be provided with a due 
 receptacle for every kind of refuse, and the owner should 
 be obhged to whitewash the house, at least once every 
 year. Inspectors of the state of houses should be ap- 
 pointed : and the repair of all those, reported to be in a 
 state inconsistent with the health of the inhabitants, should 
 be enforced at the expense of the landlords. If the ren^s 
 of houses are not sufficient to remunerate the owners for 
 this repair, their situation must in general be such, or 
 their dilapidation so extreme, as to render them so unde- 
 sirable to the comfort, or so prejudicial to the health of 
 the tenants, that they ought no longer to be inhabited. 
 
 Sources of physical depression, arising from the neglect 
 of these arrangements, abound to such an extent in Man- 
 chester, that it has been sagaciously suggested that some 
 
Manchester m 1832 71 
 
 powerful counteracting causes must also be in operation, 
 or we should otherwise frequently be subjected to the 
 visitation of fatal epidemic diseases. What all those causes 
 may be it would perhaps be vain to speculate, but it might 
 be demonstrated that the establishment of the House of 
 Eecovery has had a most salutary influence in checking 
 the spread of typhus fever. 
 
 The associations of workmen, for protecting the price of 
 labour, have too frequently been so directed, as to occa- 
 sion increased distress to the operatives, embarrassment to 
 the capitalist, and injury to the trade of the country, 
 whereas, were they properly conducted, they might exer- 
 cise a generally beneficial influence. No combination can 
 permanently raise the wages of labour above the limit 
 defined by the relation existing between population and 
 capital; but partial monopolies, and individual examples of 
 oppression might, by this means, be removed, and occa- 
 sions exist, when, on the occurrence of a fresh demand, 
 the natural advance of the price of labour might be 
 hastened. So long, however, as these associations need- 
 lessly provoke animosity by the slander of private cha- 
 racter, by vexatious and useless interference,- and by ex- 
 citing turbulence and alarm, many of their most legitimate 
 purposes cannot be pursued. Distrust will then prevent 
 masters and workmen from framing regulations for their 
 mutual benefit, such as modes of determining the quantity 
 or quahty of work produced, and the collection of correct 
 statistical information — or from combining in applications 
 to government for improvements of the laws which aflect 
 commerce. Capitalists, fearing combination amongst their 
 workmen, will conceal the true state of the demand, and 
 thus at one period, the operative will be deprived of that 
 reward of his labour, which he would otherwise obtain, 
 and, at another, will receive no warning of the necessary 
 reduction of manufacturing estabhshments; which change 
 may thus occur at a period, when, having made no provision 
 for it, he may be least able to encounter the privation of 
 his ordin^iry means of support. The risks attending the 
 
 p 4 
 
72 First Period 
 
 outlay of capital, the extension of tlie sphere of enterprise, 
 and even the execution of contracts are, by the uncer- 
 tainty thus introduced into circumstances affecting the 
 supply of labour, exceedingly augmented. Larger stocks 
 must be maintained, less confidence will attend commer- 
 cial transactions, and an increase of price is necessary to 
 cover these expenses and risks. ' ^If an establishment 
 consist of several branches which can be only carried on 
 jointly, as, for instance, of iron mines, blast furnaces, and 
 a colliery, in which there are distinct classes of workmen, 
 it becomes necessary to keep on hand a larger stock of 
 materials than would otherwise be required, if it were 
 certain that no combinations would arise. The proprie- 
 tors of one establishment in the trade which has been 
 mentioned, think it expedient always to keep above 
 ground a supply of coal, for six months, which is in that 
 instance equal in value to about £10,000.' 
 
 The efforts of these associations have not unfrequently 
 occasioned the introduction of machinery into branches of 
 labour, whence skill has been driven to undertake the 
 severer and ill-rewarded occupation of ordinary toil. 
 When machinery thus suddenly excludes skilled labour, 
 much greater temporary distress is occasioned to the opera- 
 tive, than by the natural and gradual progress of mecha- 
 nical improvements. By employing the power of these 
 associations, at periods when an advance of wages has 
 been impossible, or to resist a fall which the influence of 
 natural causes rendered inevitable, the workmen have 
 not only prevented the accumulation of the fund for the 
 maintenance of labour, at a period when the advance of 
 population was unchecked, but they have dissipated their 
 own savings, as well as the monies of the union, in useless 
 efforts, and, when pride and passion have combined to pro- 
 long the struggle, their furniture and clothes have been 
 sold, and their family reduced to the extremes of misery. 
 
 ^ ' The Ecouoniy of Machinery and Manufactures/ by Chas. Babbage, 
 Esq., p. 250. 
 
Manchester m 1832 73 
 
 The efTects of these ' strikes' are frequently shared by 
 unwilHng sufferers, first, among those whose labour can- 
 not be conducted independently of the body which has 
 refused to work, and secondly, by those whose personal 
 will is controlled by the threats or the actual violence of 
 the rest. During the ' strike,' habits of idleness or 
 dissipation are not unfrequently contracted — suspicion 
 degenerates into hatred — and a wide gulf is created 
 between the masters and the workmen. The kindlier 
 feelings are extinguished, secret leagues are formed, pro- 
 perty is d-estroyed, such of the operatives as do not join 
 the combination, are daily assaulted, and at length licence 
 mocks the law with the excesses of popular tumult. 
 
 It is impossible that the distrust, thus created, should 
 not sometimes occasion the exclusion from the trade, of 
 the entire body of workmen concerned, and the introduc- 
 tion of a new colony of operatives into the district. The 
 labourers thus immigrating are not seldom an uncivilised 
 and foreign race, so that, if ever the slightest tendency to 
 cordial co-operation existed between the capitahst and the 
 operative, that is now dissolved. The obstinacy with 
 which this struggle with the manufacturer has sometimes 
 been conducted has occasioned the removal of establish- 
 ments to another district, or even to a foreign country, 
 and these contests are always unfavourable to the intro- 
 duction of fresh capital into the neighbourhood where 
 they occur. 
 
 The more deserving and intelligent portions of the la- 
 bouring class are often controlled by the greater boldness 
 and activity of that portion which has least knowledge 
 and virtue. Thus, we fear, that the power of the Co-ope- 
 rative Unions has been directed to mischievous objects, 
 and the funds, the time, and energies of the operatives, 
 have been wasted on unfeasible projects. Moreover, they 
 who, as they are the weakest, ought to be, and generally 
 are, the firmest advocates of liberty, have been misled 
 into gross violations of the liberty of their fellow work- 
 men. The power of these unions, to create disorder, or 
 
74 First Period 
 
 to attain improper objects, would be destroyed, if every 
 assault were prosecuted, or the violation of the liberty of 
 the subject prevented by the assiduous interference of an 
 efficient police. The radical remedy for these evils is 
 such an education as shall teach the people in what con- 
 sists their true happiness, and how their interests may be 
 best promoted. 
 
 The tendency to these excesses would be much dimi- 
 nished, did a cordial sympathy unite the higher with the 
 lower classes of society. The intelHgence of the former 
 should be the fountain whence this should flow. If the 
 results of labour be solely regarded, in the connection of 
 the capitalist with those in his employ, the first step is 
 taken towards treating them as a mere animal power 
 necessary to the mechanical processes of manufacture. 
 Tliis is a heartless, if not a degrading association. The 
 contract for the rewards of labour conducted on these 
 principles issues in suspicion, if not in rancorous animosity.. 
 
 The operative population constitutes one of the most 
 important elements of society, and when numerically con- 
 sidered, the magnitude of its interests and the extent of 
 its power assume such vast proportions, that the folly 
 which neglects them is allied to madness. If the higher 
 classes are unwilling to diffuse intelligence among the 
 lower, those exist who are ever ready to take advantage 
 of their ignorance ; if they will not seek their confidence, 
 others will excite their distrust ; if they will not endeavour 
 to promote domestic comfort, virtue, and knowledge 
 among them, their misery, vice, and prejudice will prove 
 volcanic elements, by whose explosive violence the struc- 
 ture of society may be destroyed. The principles deve- 
 loped in this Pamphlet, as they are connected with facts 
 occurring within a hmited sphere of observation, may be 
 unwittingly supposed to have relation to that locahty 
 alone. The object of the author will, however, be grossly 
 misunderstood, if it be conceived, that he is desirous of 
 placing in invidious prominence defects which he may 
 have observed in the social constitution of his own town. 
 
Manchester m 1832 75 
 
 He believes the evils here depicted to be incident, in a 
 much larger degree, to many other great cities, and the 
 means of cure here indicated to be equally capable of 
 application there. His object is simply to offer to the 
 pubhc an example of what he conceives to be too generally 
 the state of the working classes, throughout the kingdom, 
 and to illustrate by specific instances^ evils everywhere 
 requiring the immediate interference of legislative autho- 
 rity. 
 
76 
 
 APPENDIX No. I. 
 
 TABLE No. 1, p. 28. 
 
 INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE STATE OF HOUSES. 
 
 District. No. 
 
 Name of Street, Court, &c. 
 
 No. 
 
 No. 
 
 Name of Street, Court, &c. 
 
 NO. 
 
 No. 
 
 1. Is the House in good 
 Repair? 
 
 
 
 12. Is a private privy at- 
 tached to the house?. 
 
 
 
 2. Is it clean? 
 
 
 
 13. Will the tenants assist 
 in cleansing the streets 
 and houses? I 
 
 ! 
 
 3. Does it require White- 
 washing? 
 
 
 
 14. Will they allow the 
 Town's Authorities 
 to whitewash them, if 
 they cannot conveni- 
 ently do it themselves ? 
 
 
 
 4. Are the rooms Well 
 ventilated, or can they 
 be without change in 
 windows, &c. ? .... 
 
 
 
 5. Is the house damp, or 
 dry? 
 
 
 
 15. Are the tenants gene- 
 rally healthy or not?. 
 
 
 
 
 6. Are the cellars inha- 
 
 
 
 
 16. What is their occu- 
 pation? .... 
 
 
 
 7. Are these inhabited 
 cellars damp or ever 
 flooded? 
 
 
 
 
 17. Remarks concerning 
 food, clothing, and 
 fuel 
 
 
 
 8. Are the soughs in a 
 bad state? 
 
 
 
 9. Who is the proprietor? 
 
 
 
 
 10. What number of fa- 
 milies or lodgers does 
 the house contain? . . 
 
 18. Habits of life .... 
 
 19. General Observations 
 
 
 
 11. What is the state of 
 the beds, closets, and 
 furniture? 
 
Appendix No. II 
 
 11 
 
 TABLE No. 2, p. 28. 
 
 INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE STATE Of STREETS, COURTS, ALLEYS, &C. 
 
 District. No. Inspectors. 
 
 Names of Streets, Courts, Alleys, &c. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Is the street, court, or alley narrow, and is it ill 
 ventilated? 
 
 
 
 
 Is it paved or not? 
 
 
 
 
 
 If not, is it under the Police Act^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 Does it contain heaps of refuse, pools of stagnant 
 fluid, or deep ruts? 
 
 
 
 
 Are the public and private privies well situated, and 
 properly attended to? 
 
 
 
 
 
 Is the street, court, or alley, near a canal, river, 
 brook, or marshy laud? . . . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 General Observations * 
 
 
 
 
 
 APPENDIX No. 11. 
 
 EXTKACTS FKOM KEPORTS OF CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION 
 
 SOCIETIES. (^Note, page 67.) 
 
 Mosley Street Christian Instruction Society » 
 
 ' Its members agreed to consider a certain section of the Town, adjacent to 
 the Chapel, as the field of their labour, and to visit periodically all the abodes 
 of the poor within the limits so marked out, for the purpose of conversing with 
 the inmates on the great truths of the Gospel, lending them tracts and books on 
 those momentous subjects, ;md inducing them to attend public worship, and to live 
 themselves, and train up their children, as immortal beings. From that time to the 
 present about forty individuals have followed out this undertaking within a dis- 
 trict of which Market Street, Mosley Street, and Ueansgate, on the South side, as far 
 as Bootle Street, have constituted the boundaries. At the commencement of the 
 present year, returns were made, from which the following facts were ascertained. 
 The dwellings visited by the Society were about 350, containing nearly 600 fami- 
 lies, which consisted of about 1800 resident members. In those families there 
 were, children under ten years of age, 453; children sent to Day School?, 149; 
 children sent to Sunday Schools only, 240 ; children old enough for school but not 
 sent, 93. There were, of families possessing Bibles, 327 ; of families in which the 
 
78 Appendix No. II 
 
 adults did not regularly neglect public worship, only 150; of Catholic families, 60; 
 of families the heads of which were avowed infidels, 5. To make the description 
 of the Society's district answerable to the impressions of it on the minds of the 
 visitors, there would have to be added, to these facts, details of drunkenness and 
 sabbath-breaking, of vice and misery, of the complete negation of moral and reli- 
 gious sentiment, of flagrant vice, and shameless profligacy, of squalid poverty, of 
 wasting sickness, and of hopeless death. When the visitors attained some exten- 
 sive knowledge of the domestic circumstances and spiritual wants of the people 
 whom they had taken under their charge, they became desirous to join, to their 
 own agency, that of one who might give his whole time to such cases as were per- 
 petually demanding more attention than they could possibly pay; cases of pro- 
 tracted illness, of approaching death, and of awakened inquiry, &c. For this 
 office they selected a member of the church, Mr. Robinson, who has since devoted 
 himself with the utmost diligence to the labours of his honourable, but arduous 
 and extremely self-denying, vocation. Two preaching stations have been estab- 
 lished; one in Queen Street, Deansgate, and one in Gee's Buildings, near Lloyd 
 Street. Both are occupied on Sunday evening; Mr. Robinson being engaged at 
 one place, while private members of the church most kindly and acceptably supply 
 the other.' 
 
 London Christian Instnictimi Society. 
 
 *Its design is, irrespective of the particular denominations of Christians, to 
 advance evangelical Religion amongst the inhabitants of the Metropolis and its 
 Vicinity, by promoting the observance of the Sunday— the preaching of the Gos- 
 pel — the establishment of Prayer Meetings and Sunday Schools — the circulation of 
 Religious Tracts, accompanied with systematic visitation — and by the establishment 
 of gratuitous Circulating Libraries — with every other legitimate method which the 
 Committee may from time to time approve, for the accomplishment of the great 
 object contemplated by the Society. To facilitate the operations of the Society, 
 the Metropolis is divided, by the establishment of Associations, into districts, to 
 each of which is appointed a Superintendent, with the approbation of the Com- 
 mittee, who presides over the proceedings of the Society in the District to which 
 he belongs, and reports to the Committee, at their conference w^ith the whole body 
 of the Superintendents, the state of the District committed to his care. At the 
 present time there are sixty-five Associations, which engage the benevolent atten- 
 tion of 1173 gratuitous visitors, who have, during the past year, visited 31,591 
 families, being an increase of 4677 families since the last report. So that, by this 
 agency alone, religious tracts and books are now placed within the reach of at 
 least 150,000 individuals. Through the benevolent eff'orts of the Visitors during 
 1830, 1260 cases of extreme distress were relieved, 617 copies of the Sacred Scrip- 
 tures were brought into circulation, and 2303 children were sent to the various 
 Sabbath Schools, and more than 1200 individuals were induced to attend public 
 worship. Many zealous Visitors have included within their spheres of benevo- 
 lence, the hospitals, workhouses, police stations, and manufactories, that are found 
 in their respective neighbourhoods. Connected with the numerous Associations 
 are ninety-three stations for reading the Scriptures, exhortation, and prayer. These 
 meetings are usually held in the apartments of the poor, who appear gratified with 
 the opportunity of showing their respect for tlic Visitors by lending their abodes 
 for such a purpose. At various stations not less than 200 sermons were preached 
 to congregations, varying from 100 to 1000 persons.' 
 
Appendix No. II 79 
 
 Greenock City Mission. 
 
 'Tins Society is engaged, 1st, In visiting the lower classes in their own houses; 
 2nd, In collecting into one house individuals living in the same neighbourhood, 
 for the purpose of reading and expounding the Scriptures ; and 3rd, In an 
 investigation into the state of the community generally. From this investiga- 
 tion, it appears that Greenock contains 6200 families, and 26,500 inhabitants, 
 of whom 8360 are below 12 years of age : 4370 are betwixt 12 and 20 : 13,970 
 are above 20 years. About 3000 children attend day schools, therefore there 
 must be nearly 2000 betwixt 6 and 14 years of age, who do not attend 
 school. It is not the business of the Directors to propose a remedy for this 
 apparent neglect of education, but it certainly suggests the propriety of exertions 
 being made, to have parish schools established in Greenock, being the legal means 
 of affording cheap education to all classes. The number attending Sabbath even- 
 ing schools is nearly 2000, and there being about 5000 youths in Greenock, 
 betwixt 7 and 16 years of age, it follows that 3000 receive no Sabbath school 
 instruction. And allowing liberally for those whose parents instruct them at 
 home, a number will still remain suflScieiHly great to show the necessity of more 
 vigorous efforts to afford the means of religious instruction to the young. As far 
 as could be ascertained, there are 500 individuals, chiefly grown up, who cannot 
 read. The Directors particularly call attention to the subject of church accommo- 
 dation and church attendance, information in regard to which is next in order. 
 The number of sittings said to be taken in churches is, 8850, being only at the 
 rate of two -thirds of a sitting to each person above 20 years of age — of course, 
 one third or 4621 persons above 20 years, have no sittings in any church, and there 
 is no provision at all for those below 20. It must be allowed that in a Christian 
 community, every individual above 12 or 14 years of age ought to have a 
 sitting in church, so that 9000 in Greenock, above 14 years of age, are without 
 sittings in any church. But, in fact, there is little more than church accommoda- 
 tion in. town, for the number of sittings said to be taken, and several of the 
 churches are not full; it follows therefore, that not nearly one-half of the popula- 
 tion above 12 years, attend church on any one Sabbath!! About 3100 families 
 state they belong to the Established Church, 1500 families are Dissenters, and 360 
 fiimilies are Catholics; nearly 1200 families could not distinctly tell to what Church 
 they belonged!! Seven thousand two hundred persons are communicants, being 
 only one-half of the population above 20 years of age! Surely such a statement 
 as this needs no comment, and the Directors merely draw from it a pressing argu- 
 ment for increased exertions to support this Society, whose object is to attend to 
 those at home, who either cannot or will not come to the house of God. It is 
 remarkable that there are no fewer than 1450 widows who keep house, being 
 betwixt a fourth and fifth of the whole number of householders. The number 
 of paupers, or those who enjoy regular assistance from the parish funds, is about 
 one thousand. It is unnecessary to state the number of families in want of Bibles, 
 the Grenock Bible Society and Association having kindly offered to supply any 
 deficiencv of this kind.' 
 
 Glasgow City Mission. 
 
 ' The object of the Mission is " To promote the Religious Interests of the 
 Poor of Glasgow and its vicinity." It enacts that the Agents of the Society 
 be chosen from all denominations of professing Christians : that they be men 
 of approved piety, prudence, and zeal ; and who, by their acquirements, especially 
 in Divinity, may appear fitted for the duties of the agency: that the Agents 
 occupy themselves, at least four hours daily, in the service of the Society, 
 
80 Appendix No, II 
 
 excepting Saturday, which is allowed them for study ; that they select such, 
 hours of call as will best suit the convenience of the people ; and that no calls 
 be niade at the hour of dinner; that preaching stations be appointed in the 
 districts visited by the Agents, to which the poor shall be invited : and that the 
 co-operaticn of ordained ministers and preachers of the Gospel be solicited to 
 maintain worship at the said stations, &c. Lastly, that no Agent be required to act 
 contrary to the laws prescribed to him, by that body of Christians with which he is 
 connected. Of the 20 x\gents employed in 1828, 6 were members of the Church 
 of Scotland ; 10 seceders, of the various sects ; 2 Independents; 1 a Keforraed 
 Presbyterian ; and 1 a Baptist. 
 
 ' The printed " Instructions to the Agents " are liberal and judicious ; but they are 
 too long to admit of being inserted. Every Agent has his own allotted district. He 
 is required to keep a schedule, in which he enters the number of hours employed 
 in the service of the Society, and the number of families visited each day. He is 
 also required to keep a regular journal or diary for the inspection of the Directors. 
 An idea of the work done by the Agents may be formed from the statement, that 
 in the month of October, 1828, when only 16 Agents were in employment, /our 
 thousand and seventy families were visited in the ordinary course of visitation. Two 
 hundred and eighty- eight sick and dying had special visits paid to them ; 239 
 meetings were held, attended by as many as 2514 poor ; chiefly of such a class as 
 otherwise might not have heard the Gospel. The number of families, the subjects 
 of regular visitation, in 1828, was about twelve thousand. These devoted Agents 
 read and expound the Holy Scriptures to the poor, and converse with them on every 
 topic connected with their own religious instruction, and that of their children. 
 They supply them with books and tracts. They enlist their children as scholai's 
 in the various Sunday schools, which happily are to be found in every neighbour- 
 hood. In cases of extreme want and destitution, they are also often the means of 
 obtaining pecuniary help, through the benevolence of opulent individuals, to whom 
 they consider it a part of their duty to make such cases known. 
 
Manchester in 1832 
 
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 * 
 
 
 
 
83 
 
 APPENDIX No. IV. 
 
 Inserted in 1862. 
 
 I shall hereafter show that the inquiries of the Statistical Society of Man- 
 chester disclosed the fact, that in 1834 upwards of 15,000 persons in a population 
 of 200,000 were living in cellar dwellings. The condition of a very large pro- 
 portion of these dwellings beneath the level of unsewered streets was, to the last 
 degree, insalubrious — it was often pestilential. I have sometimes, as a Dispensary 
 physician, had to make my way to the bed of a patient suffering from typhus, by 
 stepping from one brick to another placed for my convenience on the fiagged 
 floor, covered with some inches of water. This occurred to me twice in Little 
 Ireland, where, on one of these occasions, nearly a whole family perished of 
 typhus. The cellars were inundated during a flood in the Medlock. It occurred 
 also in ' Irish town,' in the valley of the Irk ; and during the prevalence of 
 cholera I remember carrying away some bad cases in canvas slings, on the 
 shoulders of hospital-bearers, from flooded cellars not far from Knotmill. The 
 following letter was read to the Statistical Section of the British Association for 
 the Advancement of Science, at its Annual Meeting in Liverpool, in 1837. A 
 statement had been made in the Report of the Manchester Statistical Society, on 
 the state of the working classes in Liverpool, that 31,000 persons in Liverpool, out 
 of a population of 230,000 persons, or taking the working population as two-thirds 
 of the whole, 20 per cent, of that class were living in cellars. This was disbelieved, 
 and the police were directed to make an exhaustive inquiry. The following is 
 the Report of the Head Constable of Liverpool to Mr. Adam Hodgson: — 
 
 ' Watch Office, Sept. 14, 1837. 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 ♦ I have great pleasure in fulfilling the promise casually made to you 
 yesterday, during the conversation in the Statistical section on inhabited cellars 
 of Liverpool. I had an accurate return made in the morning by the inspectors, 
 and the following is the result : — North district, 4004 inhabited cellars; South 
 district, 3858. Total, 7862. Allowing five inmates to each cellar, and that 
 number is rather under the average (this is only an estimate), the number of per- 
 sons living in cellars in this town will therefore be 39,310 ! 
 
 ' Permit me to observe, that although persons who live in cellars are always 
 poor, poverty is not exactly the cause of their selecting such domiciles. The rent 
 of rooms is not comparatively higher than that of cellars, frequently the reverse; 
 but cellars offer advantages to two descriptions of persons which give them a 
 preference. 
 
 * 1st, They serve as places for carrying on little retail trades. These trades, in 
 nine cases out of ten, are the reverse of profitable, but still they hold out a slight 
 inducement to those whose hopes are better than their habits : poor women, who 
 keep mangles, also generally live in cellars. 
 
 '2nd. A very numerous class prefer the cellar, for this reason — that it renders 
 them independent of their landlords. It is a complete dwelling in itself ; the 
 inhabitants enter and leave through their own, and not through their landlord's, 
 door, and consequently ejectment is not only a difliculty, but in many cases an 
 
 G 2 
 
84 First Period 
 
 impossibility, without pecuniary compromise. Those, therefore, who are unwilling 
 to pay rent, or occasionall}'^ unable to pay it, and whose domestic habits are not 
 very refined, prefer the cellar. 
 
 ♦ I must confess that 1 did not believe, until this morning, that so great a number 
 of persons resided in such objectionable places. 
 
 * I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 ' M. J. Whitty, Head Constable. 
 
 * Adam Hodgson, Esq.* 
 
SKETCH OF THE PEOGBESS OF MANCHESTER 
 
 IN THIETY YEAKS 
 
 FROM 1833 TO 18G2 
 
SKETCH OF THE PEOGRESS OF MANCHESTER 
 IN THIRTY YEARS 
 
 FROM 1832 TO 1862 
 
 j>;^c 
 
 The description of the moral and physical condition of 
 the working classes in Manchester, which precedes relates 
 to a period immediately before the first Treasury grants 
 for the promotion of Public Education in 1833. I had 
 then been about nine years occupied in the study and 
 practice of medicine. I had been thus led to a close 
 observation of the condition of the population of great 
 cities. As a young student, I acted as assistant to Dr. 
 Alison — the late Professor of Medicine in the University 
 of Edinburgh — first, during an epidemic typhus in the 
 wynds, closes, and many storied barrack-houses of the old 
 town of Edinburgh. Next, as his and Professor Graham's 
 clinical assistant in the wards of the Eoyal Lifirmary, and 
 of the Queensbury Fever Hospital ; and then as resident, 
 having charge of the medical wards of the Eoyal Infirmary. 
 In these capacities I had for some years opportunities of 
 observing the habits and condition of the Scotch and Irish 
 Celtic population during epidemics of the fatal typhus of 
 the old town of Edinburgh. 
 
 One autumn I spent with the poor of Dublin, among 
 whom typhus always lurked, and often broke forth with 
 epidemic violence. 
 
 o 4 
 
88 First Period 
 
 I had visited the chief cities of Europe, and been care- 
 fid to observe the comparative condition of the people. 
 
 Then for several years I had been a Dispensary Physi- 
 cian in Ancoats, the poorest district of Manchester, and 
 had spent many hours daily among the labourers and 
 factory operatives, often visited by typhus fever. 
 
 When Asiatic cholera appeared, I was Secretary to the 
 Board of Health of Manchester, and Physician to the 
 Knotmill Cholera Hospital. The account of the moral 
 and physical condition of the working classes of Manches- 
 ter was written after I had been some months in daily 
 attendance on this cholera hospital ; and also occupied 
 in tracing every successive case of the disease in the house 
 in which it occurred, in order to ascertain the means by 
 which cholera was propagated, and, if that were impos- 
 sible, then the conditions promoting its diffusion. My pre- 
 vious experience in Edinburgh, Dublin, and Manchester, 
 had enabled me to suggest to the Board of Health inquiries 
 as to such circumstances in the state of the streets, sewers, 
 drains, cesspools, nuisances, state of dwellings, and courts, 
 as I knew affected the health of the inhabitants. In fram- 
 ing these questions, and moving the Board of Health to 
 confide the investigation to the most intelligent and wealthy 
 inhabitants, I had a double object in view. I wished to 
 bring under the notice of the chief merchants and manu- 
 facturers the condition of the streets, courts, and houses 
 of that part of the town in which the poor dwelt. The 
 report would, I knew, be faithful ; and, as it would pro- 
 ceed from an indisputable authority, it would be a sure 
 basis of future municipal improvement. Then I also 
 wished to show the most influential inhabitants the 
 close connection between the public health, involving 
 the sanitary security of all classes, and the physical well- 
 being of the people. They would come to know by the 
 history of this epidemic how far the causes of disease 
 were preventible. They would ascertain that cholera and 
 typhus found their victims among classes whose health 
 was depressed hy moral and physical evils, which were 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 89 
 
 the proper objects of public solicitude. In a preface to 
 the second edition of my pamphlet in 1832, I anticipated 
 the formation of a permanent department of public health 
 in the following words : — 
 
 ' Cholera can only be eradicated by raising the physical 
 and moral condition of the community in such a degree 
 as to remove the predisposition to its reception and propo- 
 gation, which is created by poverty and immorality. 
 Were. this notion, as it ought to be, widely diffused, — did 
 it become, as it will, the conviction of every intelligent 
 man, — what additional force would be added to the argu- 
 ments suggested by sympathy and selfishness ! 
 
 ' The presence of this new danger will so affect the public 
 mind that Boards of Health, established in conformity with 
 the Orders in Council, will become permanent organised 
 centres of medical pohce, where municipal powers will be 
 directed by scientific men, to the removal of those agen- 
 cies which most powerfully depress the physical condition 
 of the inhabitants. But I chiefly depend on the strong 
 impression made upon the public mind^ when I confidently 
 expect that its energy will be directed to promote, not 
 only by general enactment, but by individual exertion, 
 every scheme devised for the moral elevation of the work- 
 ing classes.' 
 
 Subsequently to the publication of this pamphlet, a 
 Statistical Society was formed in Manchester, which pro- 
 secuted inquiries into the state of education in this and 
 other towns. In 1834, Sir Ben. Hey wood ' read before 
 the Statistical Section of the British Association for the 
 Advancement of Science, the results of an inquiry into 
 the condition of 4102 famihes belonging to the working 
 classes, which he had conducted at his own expense in 
 1 and 2 Police Districts of the town of Manchester.' The 
 Statistical Society then ' selected paid agents, on whose 
 care and diligence they could rely, to visit from house to 
 house among the working classes of the towns of Man- 
 chester, Salford, Bury, Ashton, Stalybridge, and Dukenfield, 
 and to fill up a list of queries with which they were fur- 
 
90 First Period 
 
 nished.' ' The inquiry occupied seventeen months in 
 the years 1834-5-6.' ' The information obtained was 
 afterwards analysed by the Committee, and compressed 
 into a condensed form.' These investigations were con- 
 ducted by gentlemen since distinguished — one, by his 
 success as a pohtical author — and the rest, for their emi- 
 nence as bankers or merchants in Manchester or Liverpool. 
 The results confirmed, to a remarkable extent, the account 
 which I had pubHshed of the moral and physical condition 
 of the working classes of Manchester; and I shall avail 
 myself of them in the more grateful task of describing, in 
 contrast with them, the ameliorative change which has in 
 the interval taken place. 
 
 It may be desirable to remind my younger readers that 
 the condition of the working classes, described in the fol- 
 lowing pages, preceded a course of legislatibn and of admi- 
 nistrative improvement which, in the accumulated results 
 of thirty years of beneficial progress, has amounted to a 
 social and pohtical revolution. In 1832 neither Man- 
 chester nor Salford was directly represented in Parliament. 
 Their municipal administration were conducted by com- 
 missioners of pohce, whose imperfect powers constantly 
 frustrated the zealous exertions of some of the most pubhc 
 spirited townsmen. The Municipal Corporations' Act had 
 not become law. Factories were ' running' at least twelve 
 hours daily, and often much longer, without any protec- 
 tion for women and children. Warehouses were often 
 open till ten o'clock at night or later, and generally far 
 into the evening. Print and bleach works not unfre- 
 quently toiled aU night. The system of bounties and 
 restrictions crippled trade and enhanced the cost of the 
 necessaries of life. 
 
 It is no part of my present purpose to dilate upon the 
 violation of the principles of political economy in our fiscal 
 and commercial legislation which depressed the wages of 
 labour, enhanced the cost of the necessaries of hfe, 
 occasioned extreme uncertainty in commercial arrange- 
 ments, and by the sudden changes in the rates and foci- 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 91 
 
 lities of exchange, in monetary circulation and credit, 
 created sudden embarrassments, not simply destructive of 
 private fortunes, and exceedingly discouraging to all legi- 
 timate trade, but causing the most severe suffering to the 
 hardy but rude spinners and weavers of the cotton dis- 
 tricts. I prefer to place in a note an admirable summary 
 prepared by Mr. David Chadwick of the consequences of 
 . a more statesmanlike system of legislation and government, 
 both on the wages of labour and the prices of food.^ 
 
 ^ VII, — General Remarks. 
 
 ' The results of the present inquiry prove that a large proportion of the 
 operative classes in the various branches of trade are receiving more wages 
 at the present time than they have done during the last twenty years. 
 
 ' It may be safely affirmed that the lo2v prices of provisions and clothing, 
 together with the high rate of wages, and the facilities for education and 
 mental cultm-e now existing, have placed within the reach of the working 
 classes more physical comforts, and the means of obtaining more social and 
 intellectual enjoyment, than at any previous period. 
 
 ' (1.) In the cottoti trade the advance of wages has averaged from 10 to 25 
 per cent, during the twenty years 1839-59. 
 
 ^ (2.) In the silk trade an advance of wages has taken place in all the 
 branches equal to more than 10 per cent. 
 
 ^ (3.) In calico printing, dyeing, and bleaching, and in silk and fustian 
 dyeing, a decline in wages has occurred in those branches which no longer 
 require any special or peculiar skill ; and also in the higher class of skilled 
 workmen, such as " machine printers ; " but the wages of this class now rang-3 
 from 2os. to 505. per week, the average rate being 385. 
 
 ^ (4.) In the building trades the increase in the rate of wages during the 
 twenty years, has averaged from 11 to 32 per cent. 
 
 ' (5.) In the mechanical trades there has been a general advance in nearly 
 all branches. In some instances this advance is equal to 45 per cent. 
 
 *A reduction has occuiTed in the high wages formerly paid to brass 
 moulders (now 30s.) and to engravers to calico printers, though the wages 
 of the latter now range from 25s. to 48s. per week. 
 
 ' (6.) In the miscellaneous trades, including upwards of eighty classes of 
 workmen, the rate of wages has generally been maintained, and in some 
 cases has been considerably advanced. 
 
 'The advance of wages, in the great majority of the cases, has been di- 
 rectly occasioned by improvements of machinery, whereby the increased pro- 
 duction has lessened the cost, and thereby caused a largely increased demand. 
 
 ' This is shown in a remarkable manner in the cotton trade, the extraordi- 
 nary extension of which (as illustrated in the Tables in the Appendix) is 
 entirely owing to the cheapening of the means of production. But the 
 remarkable case of the large advance of wages in the building trades presents 
 a peculiar exception to that of other trades. 
 
 ' The operatives in these trades, by restricting the number of apprentices 
 
92 First Period 
 
 Though these crises in trade were generally attended by 
 popular tumults, the authorities depended rather on the 
 troops pf the line than on a well organised pohce for the 
 restraint of a rude, ignorant, and turbulent population. 
 The principles governing the rate of wages — the fluctua- 
 tions of commerce — the state of credit — were not gene- 
 rally understood among even the middle classes, and 
 among the unlettered poor were questions on which de- 
 lusions existed, inflaming their passions to wild excesses. 
 Yet there was neither a well-disciphned town nor county 
 police. The 'runners' of a sagacious and rough chief con- 
 stable, spies and informers, and the soldiers, were the 
 
 and other arbitrary regulations, have prevented tlie supply of labour from 
 being equal to the demand, and thereby enhanced its value. 
 
 ^ The Table DD. is a carefully prepared statement of the amount expended 
 in food, clothing, &c., by a working man with a wife and three children, 
 whose earnings average 30s. per week, — as .compared with the cost of the 
 same in 1849 and 1839. 
 
 ' This return shows that out of an average income of 30s. per week, 20s. O^c?., 
 or rather more than two-thirds, are expended in provisions, leaving 95. ^^d., 
 or rather less than one-third, for clothing, rent, and sundries. It also shows 
 that the same articles of provisions which, in 1859, cost 20s. Q^d., would in 
 1849 have cost £\ Is. b^d., and in 1839, £1 4s. 7d., being a reduction in the 
 cost of provisions of the same quality and quantity during the twenty years, 
 of 4s. ^d. or 20 per cent., or nearly 14 per cent, on the amount of his average 
 income. 
 
 ^ This reduction arises principally from the repeal of the Corn Laws and 
 the reduction of the duties upon tea, coffee, sugar, and soap. 
 
 ' The Return CC. shows that the number of depositors in the Manchester 
 and Salford Savings Bank, was 11,700, in 1839 j 24,700, in 1849; and 
 45,447, in 1859. That the amount of deposits remaining in the bank was, 
 in 1839, £331,000; in 1849, £614,000; and in 1869, £1,160,085. The 
 increase in the number of depositors and the amoimt deposited may, to a 
 great extent, be ascribed to the improved resources and the extension of 
 provident habits amongst the working classes in the district generally. 
 
 ' I believe it is admitted by the great mass of the intelligent working 
 men, that their physical and social position has much improved during the 
 last twenty years ; and it is hoped that the continued progress of sanitary 
 improvements in rendering their " homes " more healthy, will further 
 greatly contribute to this result. 
 
 ' As a body, they are now much better educated, and are much less ad- 
 dicted to the sin of drunkenness ; they have much greater self-respect and 
 intelligence.' 
 
 Extracted from ' The Rate of Wages in 200 Trades and Branches of Labour 
 in Manchester and Salford, and the Manufacturing District of Lancashire, 
 during tiLenty years, from 1839 to 1859, »^c.' By David Chadwick, F.S.S., 
 Treasurer of Salford. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 93 
 
 instruments by which the peace was preserved, or disorder 
 was suppressed. The overworked population had scarcely 
 any means of education except Sunday schools, dame 
 schools, and adventure schools. They were ignorant, 
 harassed with toil, inflamed with drink, and often goaded 
 with want, owing to sudden depressions in trade, caused 
 by the defective fiscal, monetary, and commercial system 
 upheld by the law. They broke out into fierce tumults, 
 in which I have seen mobs gut the mills, destroy the ma- 
 chinery, or burn the factories at mid-day. They were at 
 the mercy of leaders who either encouraged senseless 
 ' strikes,' accompanied with the ' picketing ' of mills — the 
 mobbing or assassination of 'knobsticks' — or the occa- 
 sional murder of masters ; or they became the victims of 
 those arts of demagogues so graphically exposed in 
 Samuel Bamford's patriotic ' Autobiography of a Eadical.' 
 Thus they were led to the manufacture of pikes, moon- 
 light drilhng, secret associations encouraged by spies, 
 ' blanket ' expeditions, and to the catastrophe of the 
 * Peterloo Massacre.' Those who desire it, may learn 
 what was the political condition of the district as affecting 
 the security of property and the pubhc peace, by reading 
 the Journal of General Sir Charles Napier, when com- 
 mander of the northern district. The account which I 
 published in 1832 of the moral and physical condition of 
 the working classes of Manchester, must be regarded as 
 the work of a physician who was unwilling to enter into 
 the whole of the political and social questions involved 
 in the state of the population with which he was in con- 
 tact, but who could not avoid some reserved allusion to 
 them. It was published with the hope of strengthening 
 the hands of those who in their several spheres of action 
 were represented by Mr. George William Wood, Sir 
 Thomas Potter, Sir Benjamin Hey wood, and Mr. (after- 
 wards Alderman) John Shuttleworth. Each of these gen- 
 tlemen was the centre of energetic efforts for improvement 
 — all consciously tending, with more or less of harmony, 
 to raise Manchester and Salford from the condition of 
 
94 First Period 
 
 rude, unorganised, overgrown villages into one great city, 
 wortliy of being the emporium of the cotton manufacture 
 and the metropolis of trade. 
 
 In 1831 the town was under the government of the 
 Boroughreve and the Commissioners of Police, w^ho had, 
 with limited powers, vigorously commenced the work 
 of improvement. The Charter of Incorporation gave a 
 fresh impulse to this zeal, enlarged its capacities of ac- 
 tion, and the growing public spirit opened for itself new 
 spheres of improvement. One gentleman has been remark- 
 ably identified with the wise and able acts of the Corpora- 
 tion. No town clerk has possessed greater influence among 
 members of both houses of Parliament than Mr. Joseph 
 Heron, w^ho has laboured for twenty-five years to secure 
 to the city greater municipal power — to vindicate its 
 rights against adverse interests — and especially to render 
 its government a source of wise beneficence to the people 
 by the improvement of their sanitary condition and 
 household comfort. 
 
 The Town Council has confided the several depart- 
 ments of municipal action to committees. A very rapid 
 summary of the results of the labours of some of these 
 committees, though necessarily deformed with an accu- 
 mulation of statistics, is indispensable to a correct esti- 
 mate of the progress made in Manchester towards a 
 much higher condition of civilisation than that which I 
 described in 1831-32. None are more convinced than 
 the most intelligent and benevolent of its citizens, that 
 what has been done, though great, leaves quite as much 
 undone. But the task is well begun ; and if the rate of 
 mortality still proves an imperfect social condition, that 
 active and earnest spirit which has faithfully striven with 
 the evils exposed in 1831-2, will not fail to grapple with 
 those which remain to be overcome. 
 
 As the condition of the streets and courts forms one of 
 the most prominent topics of my pamphlet in 1831, I 
 give a brief sketch of the work done by the Paving, 
 Sewering, and Highways Committee. They have made 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 95 
 
 twenty miles of sewering, at the expense of the public 
 rates. Under the provisions of the Manchester Improve- 
 ment Act of 1851, they have also paved and sewered, at 
 the cost of the owners of adjoining property, streets con- 
 taining an area of 970,033 yards, at an expense of 
 £314,550. In 1861, 1578 streets and courts had been 
 paved, flagged, drained, &c., in thirty years. The length 
 of the streets thus improved was sixty miles ; and the 
 area flagged and paved about 205 acres. Mnety miles 
 of main sewers, and forty-nine miles of cross-sewers and 
 eyes had been constructed, and 12,948 siphon- traps had 
 been laid in connection^ with them. 
 
 In 1832, out of 687 streets inspected in Manchester by 
 the gentlemen who undertook this duty, on the invitation 
 of the Board of Health, 35.2 streets were reported to be 
 foul, with heaps of refuse, stagnant pools, ordure, &c. 
 Some of these streets were almost impassable to a cart — 
 most of them were in a condition disgusting to the senses 
 and prejudicial to the public health. The paving, sewer- 
 ing, and scavenging of the streets has almost banished 
 this loathsome evil ; and the I^uisance Committee's Inspec- 
 tors report on all neglect of drains, ashpits, cesspools, or of 
 heaps of offensive matter ; or on the prevention of noisome 
 smells, all attempts to remove manure at improper hours, 
 and generally on all forms of negligence as to other matters 
 likely to be injurious to public health and safety. 
 
 The mode in which pigs were kept in houses and close 
 streets — the position of size and tripe manufactories, and 
 slaughter-houses, and their odious foulness — were fertile 
 sources of disease in 1831. Though the Corporation has 
 not erected public abattoirs^ which is the only effectual re- 
 medy for one part of these evils, very stringent regulations 
 have been adopted to secure the proper construction of 
 slaughter-houses and their cleanliness. 
 
 ^ Similar works have been executed, at a very great cost, in the other 
 townships comprised within the municipal borough, — viz., Chorlton-upon- 
 Medlock, Hulme, Ardwick, Cheetham, and Beswick, and in the borough of 
 Salford. In Salford, from 1844 to 18G0, the paving and sewering of 282 
 streets had cost £01,540. 
 
96 First Period 
 
 The smoke from manufactories has also been greatly 
 diminished by the regulations and inspection of the Smoke 
 Committee. 
 
 In procuring a supply of water for the city of Man- 
 chester, the Corporation have constructed very extensive 
 works in the valley of Longdendale on the river Etherow, 
 at a cost of £827,000. The whole outlay (including 
 £538,000 paid for the property of the former Water 
 Works Company) has been £1,356,459.^ The valleys of 
 the Pennine chain on its southern slope above Glossop 
 now contain large lakes, which are the reservoirs of the 
 rain-fall on a wide watershed, whence a full supply of 
 water gravitates to every household in Manchester. In 
 1840 the quantity of water supplied by the Manchester 
 and Salford Water Works Company was one million and a 
 half gallons daily ; whereas the daily supply had increased 
 in 1860, under the administration of the Corporation, to 
 eleven milhons and a half The revenue received for 
 water supplied in 1840 was £22,400, and it had increased 
 in 1860 to £72,000. ^ 
 
 The Commissioners of Police, by a wise foresight, 
 chiefly prompted by the late Mr. George Wilham Wood, 
 founded gas works at the expense of the ratepayers, and 
 devoted the annual profits of this enterprise to the im- 
 provement of the town, by creating new thoroughfares, 
 like Market and John Dalton Streets, and by widening 
 old streets. The Commissioners, partly from this source, 
 and partly from the highway rates of the township of 
 Manchester, expended £383,000 on these streets before 
 the Charter of Incorj^oration was granted to the Borough. 
 Since 1839 these public improvements have been judici- 
 ously prosecuted by the Town Council with such vigour 
 that upwards of £720,000, derived solely from the 
 profits of the gas works, have been expended upon them 
 The tradition of Mr. George William Wood's wise design, 
 to improve the facilities for public traffic by the substitu- 
 
 ^ Account supplied by the Town Clerk. 
 
 Progress of Manchester.' By David Chadwick, Esq. 
 
 2 0>r 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 97 
 
 tion of wide and straight thoroughfares for tortuous and 
 narrow lanes, or intricate zigzag streets without plan, has 
 been faithfully preserved by Mr. Alderman Meld and 
 others ; and the gas works have been successfully managed 
 under the skilful and dihgent chairmanship of Alderman 
 Shuttleworth. These improvements have been so embel- 
 hshed by the rapidly growing wealth and taste of the city, 
 that a large part of the street architecture in the centres 
 of trade is transformed. Many of the warehouses are 
 chaste structures of brick and stone. Some are even 
 palaces of Italian art. One bank recently built may rival 
 any club in Pall Mall. There are, of course, one or two 
 examples of a grotesque taste. But if the city had 
 secured the site between Lever Street and Oldham Street 
 for a combination of the Town Hall, Post Office, Law 
 Courts, and Exchange, Manchester might also have pos- 
 sessed the noblest public building in Great Britain. 
 
 The Committee of the Manchester Statistical Society, 
 which conducted the inquiries into the condition of the 
 working classes in that town in 1834, reports (though the 
 inquiry does not profess to be exhaustive) that 3571 cellar 
 dwellings were examined in the borough of Manchester. 
 The average number of persons living in each cellar was 
 4*17 ; therefore, nearly 15,000 persons in a then estimated 
 population of 200,000 were living in cellars.^ Of 28,186 
 dwellings examined, 8322 were reported as 'not comfort- 
 able.' At that time a large class of these houses had 
 no back yards and conveniences; many were built 
 round close courts ; others in back premises, approached 
 from the main street only by entries ; and very many 
 w^ere in immediate contact with foul nuisances, with 
 trades so conducted as to be foci of contagion, or with 
 effluvia so noxious to the health of the neighbourhood, as 
 to make it liable to epidemic disease. The attention of 
 
 ^ The motives leading to a preference of this kind of dwelling over single 
 rooms, and to its selection in other cases, are given by the Head Constable of 
 Liverpool in the Appendix No. IV., previously inserted at a time when 
 30,310 persons were living in cellars in that town. 
 
 H . <^eLIBR4;^- 
 
98 First Period 
 
 the Corporation lias been directed to the improvement of 
 dwellings, and particularly to that of cellar dweUings, 
 since 1854, when the powers vested in the Corporation 
 were referred to a committee. From the 1st of Novem- 
 ber, 1854, to the 21st August, 1861, the total number of 
 cellars inspected was 1577, of which number 1123 were 
 ordered to be altered, and 454 to be discontinued as 
 separate dwellings. Of these 997 have either been altered, 
 or alterations were in progress when the Building Sani- 
 tary Eegulations Committee reported, and 370 had been 
 discontinued as separate dwellings. Many cellars ordered 
 to be discontinued as separate dwellings are said to have 
 been so satisfactorily altered as to induce the Committee 
 to refrain from taking further steps to secure an exact 
 compliance with their original notice. As examples of the 
 other forms of sanitary interference superintended by this 
 Committee, I place in a note ^ an extract from their report 
 of the 18th October, 1861.2 
 
 * To the Chairman and Members of the Building and Sanitary Rcgidations 
 
 Committee. 
 
 GENTLEMEN; — I very respectfully present to you the annual tabular 
 statement of the business transacted by you from the 1st May, 1860, to the 
 30th AprU, 1861. 
 
 Table No. 1 shews that the Sub-Committees have inspected 123 properties, 
 comprising 594 tenements, occupied by 2970 persons, for whose accommoda- 
 tion there existed 258 privies and 136 ashpits. After inspection, the 
 Committee, on the recommendation of the Sub-Committees, required 277 
 privies and 173 ashpits to be constructed. Of the former 256, and of the 
 latter 159, have been completed ; 21 privies and 14 ashpits have not been 
 completed ; 42 ashpits were ordered to be ventilated, which has been done. 
 
 Table No. 2 shews that during the year 17 urinals were ordered to be con- 
 structed at public-houses and beer-houses ] of which number 7 have been 
 completed and 10 not completed. 
 
 Table No. 3 shews that 3 places of worship, 15 warehouses, 8 workshops, 
 and 352 houses have been erected during the year. 
 
 Table No. 4 states that 27 buildings reported as having been dangerous, 
 were, under the direction of the Committee and City Surveyor, made secure ; 
 that 77 owners or builders of properties were served with the Committees' 
 regulations, notwithstanding which, 8 houses were built contrary to the 
 regulations, and that 22 courts and 78 passages were referred to Committees 
 for paving and sewering. 
 
 * See Extracts from Dr. Headlam Greenhow's Report (in Appendix D.), 
 
 185a 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 99 
 
 The improvement of tlie public elementary schools of 
 the city has been chiefly due to the exertions and sacri- 
 fices of the Church and other religious communions, 
 aided to the extent of about one-third the whole outlay 
 by the grants made by the government since 1833. But 
 the wisdom and zeal which founded the PubHc Free Library- 
 will long hallow the memory of Sir John Potter, a 
 worthy son of Sir Thomas Potter, thrice elected Mayor 
 of Manchester, as well as its representative in Parliament. 
 This Library, with its three branches, was estabhshed at a 
 cost exceeding £18,000, the chief part of the original 
 outlay having been procured from a public subscription, 
 collected by the persevering energy of Sir John Potter, 
 and largely enriched by his munificence. On the 5th 
 of September, 1861, these libraries contained 56,554 
 volumes. The average daily issues of books were 1369, or 
 409,021 in 1860-61. The annual expenses are now paid 
 from the borough rates under the Public Libraries' Act. 
 
 Pubhc parks for the recreation of the working classes 
 have, in like mamier, been created at a cost of £35,000 
 for the two boroughs of Manchester and Salford. 
 
 The Manchester and Salford Baths and Laundries Com- 
 pany have raised £36,135 by shares since 1856, and have 
 four separate estabhshments. The total number of bathers 
 in 1860 was 177,183, who paid £2503 16^. hd. In the 
 same year, the number of persons who washed clothes in 
 the laundries was 31,094, and they paid £481 19^. ^\d. 
 The total receipts in this year were £2985 16^. 2\d.^ 
 and the expenditure £2439 15,9. 2d.^ leaving a profit of 
 £546 Is. 0\d. The directors, therefore, were enabled to 
 pay a dividend of 1^ per cent, on the 30th December, 
 1860, to the shareholders. 
 
 Great as are the proofs given in the preceding details of 
 the progress made in municipal and social improvement, 
 the more abundant means of elementary education, and 
 since 1846, the great development of their efficiency, will 
 bear a comparison with any or all of these departments 
 of amehorative change. The population of Manchester 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 First Period 
 
 lias accumulated more rapidly than its natural increase by 
 immigration from the valleys of the Lancashire, Yorkshire, 
 and Derbyshire highlands, and from Ireland. In 1834 
 the Statistical Society reported that out of 28,186 heads 
 of families examined in Manchester, 4953 were Irish, and 
 that there were also 9841 Irish lodgers in these famihes. 
 Thus, at least 30,000 inhabitants in 200,000 were then 
 Irish ; and, as the inquiry was not exhaustive, the number 
 was certainly greater. The number of Irish in 1862 is 
 probably double that in 1834 ; and that their habits and 
 influences on the rest of the population are similar to 
 those observed in 1831, maybe deemed probable from an 
 examination of the Table in the note^ showing the num- 
 ber of Irish poor, without settlements, who were relieved 
 in one year, 1860-1, as compared with the whole of the 
 remaining indigent population, including the Irish who 
 had obtained settlements. This table should be compared 
 with the tables at pages 30-1-2-3 in 1831-2. The pro- 
 portion of Irish to the population is smaller in Salford. 
 
 A population, assembled from districts so rude, 
 was necessarily, in a large part of its elements, semi- 
 barbarous. Mingled with it was the original quaint, 
 honest, and enduring population of the Lancashire home- 
 steads and hand-looms, — a race full of rare quahties, 
 
 * Township of Manchester^ 
 
 The number of Persons (exclusive of Lunatics in Asylums, and Vagrants) 
 in receipt of Relief during the half-years ended September, 1860, and March, 
 1861 : and Cost of such Relief. 
 
 Irish Poor. 
 Half-year, ended Sept. 1860. 
 
 Do do. March 1861. 
 
 English, &c., Poor. 
 Half-year, ended Sept. 1860. 
 
 Do do. March, 1861. 
 
 Out-Door. 
 
 In-Door. 
 
 Number of 
 Persons. 
 
 Amount of 
 Relief. 
 
 Number of 
 Persons. 
 
 Cost of 
 Maintenance. 
 
 2412 
 396.5 
 
 3522 
 4513 
 
 £2086 1 
 2338 18 8 
 
 3714 11 7 
 3777 12 6 
 
 1471 
 1752 
 
 3471 
 3681 
 
 £1941 
 2226 
 
 5950 
 6942 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 101 
 
 — hardy, broken to toil, full of loyalty to the traditions of 
 family and place, — genial, humorous, but coarse, — easily 
 tempted by drink to hurtful excesses, and in periods of 
 prolonged and pinching want apt to be goaded to tumult, 
 and in blind fury to wreak its wrath on machines and 
 mills. This race, mixed with the Irish, Scotch, Welsh, 
 and border elements, presented a singular problem to the 
 educator ; for the children were taken at eight years of 
 age, or earlier, to work in factories and mines. Both 
 women and men were required by the exigencies of 
 the ever increasing trade. The mother gave, and still 
 gives, up her infant of a few weeks' or even days' 
 age to a hireling, that she may work in the mills. Young 
 girls were, and still are, kept at home to tend the house 
 and to nurse, and thus grievously interrupt their schooling 
 in order that the family may have the larger earnings of 
 the mother. High wages stimulated and still provoke 
 sensuality in an untaught and coarse population. Gin 
 shops, beer shops, and taverns multiplied before schools 
 and churches effectually began their work. The tares were 
 rank before the husbandman asked himself the question, 
 whether the wheat could contend with them for the soil. 
 Two exhaustive inquiries, one of which was conducted 
 by the Statistical Society in the years 1834-5, and the 
 other by the Committee on the Manchester and Salford 
 Local Education Bill, in 1852^, afford the means of com- 
 parison so as to show the progress made in schools in 
 seventeen years, and a recent investigation by the chief 
 constables completes this comparison to 1861. But the 
 last fifteen years have been marked by a still greater 
 improvement, if measured by the greater efficiency of 
 the schools. The statistics ' available however to demon- 
 
 ^ I shall avail myself freely of tlie results of this inquiry as recorded in 
 the important evidence of Canon Richson, before the Committee of the 
 House of Commons^ in 1852. The inquiry owes much of its completeness 
 and success to Canon Richson's statistical experience and skill, and to the 
 zeal with which he superintended the inquiiy. Mr. Joseph Adshead's 
 evidence before the same Committee contains also many valuable facts. See 
 Report ordered to be printed, June 21, 1852. 
 
 H 3 
 
102 First Period 
 
 stratethis' want the completeness of those of 1834-5, 
 and 1852. Even prior to 1852 a large part of the change 
 had consisted in the substitution of public elementary 
 day schools, under the management of the religious bodies, 
 for Dcime Schools, and Private Adventure Schools. 
 
 The Dame Schools are described in the Eeport of 
 the Committee of the Statistical Society in 1834-5 
 as ' in the most deplorable condition. The greater part 
 of them are kept by females, but some by old men, 
 whose only qualification for this employment seems to 
 be their unfitness for every other. Many of these teachers 
 are engaged at the same time in some other employment, 
 such as shopkeeping, sewing, washing, &c., which renders 
 any regular instruction among their scholars absolutely 
 impossible. Indeed, neither parents nor teachers seem to 
 consider this as the principal object in sending their 
 children to these schools, but generally say that they go 
 there in order to be taken care of, and to be out of the 
 way at home ' (p. 5). 
 
 ' These schools are generally found m very dirty un- 
 wholesome rooms — frequently in close damp cellars, or 
 old dilapidated garrets. In one of these schools eleven 
 children were found in a small room in which one of the 
 children of the mistress was lying in bed iU of the 
 measles. Another child had died in the same room of 
 the same complaint a few days before, and no less than 
 thirty of the usual scholars were then confined at home 
 with the same disease ' (p. 6). 
 
 ' In another school all the children, to the number of 
 twenty, were squatted on the bare floor, there being no 
 benches, chairs, or furniture of any kind in the room. 
 The master said his terms would not allow him to provide 
 forms ; but he hoped that as his school increased, and his 
 circumstances thereby improved, he should be able some 
 time or other to provide this luxury' (p. 6). 
 
 * In by far the greater number of these schools, there 
 were only two or three books among the whole number 
 of scholars. In others there was not one ; and the chil- 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 103 
 
 dren depended for their instruction on the chance of some 
 one of them bringing a book, or a part of one, from home. 
 Books, however, were occasionally provided by the 
 mistress, and in this case the supply is somewhat greater ; 
 but in almost all cases it is exceedingly deficient' (p. 6). 
 
 ' One of these schools is kept by a blind man, who 
 hears his scholars read their lessons, and explains them 
 with great simphcity ; he is, however, Hable to interrup- 
 tion in his academic labours, as his wife keeps a mangle, 
 and he is obliged to turn it for her ' (p. 6). 
 
 ' Occasionally, in some of the more respectable districts 
 there are still to be found one or two of the old primitive 
 Dame Schools, kept by a tidy, elderly female, whose school 
 has an appearance of neatness and order, which strongly 
 distinguishes it from this class of schools. The terms, 
 however, are here somewhat higher, and the children 
 evidently belong to a more respectable class of parents. 
 The terms of the Dame Schools vary from 2d. to Id. a 
 week, and average 4:d. The average yearly receipts of 
 each mistress are about £17 10^. The number of chil- 
 dren attending these Dame Schools is 4722 ; but it appears 
 to the Committee that no instruction really deserving the 
 name is received in them ; and in reckoning the number 
 of those to be considered as partaking of the advantages 
 of useful education, these children must be left almost 
 entirely out of the amount' (p. 7). 
 
 ' The " Common Day Schools," kept by private adven- 
 ture teachers, in 1834-5, are described by the Statistical 
 Society's Committee as in rather better condition than 
 those last mentioned, but are still very little fitted to give 
 a really useful education to the children of the lower 
 classes. The masters are generally in no way qualified 
 for their occupation, take little interest in it, and show 
 very httle disposition to adopt any of the improvements 
 that have elsewhere been made in the system of instruction. 
 The terms are generally low ; and it is no uncommon thing 
 to find the master professing to regulate his exertions by 
 the rate of payment received from his pupils — saying 
 
 H 4 
 
104 First Period 
 
 that he gives enough for 4(i., Qd.^ or ^d. a week ; but 
 that if the scholars would pay higher, he would teach them 
 more. The payments vary from 3 J. to Is. 6d per week, 
 the greater number being from 6<i. to 9<i. ; and the average 
 receipts of the master are I65. or 175. a week' (pp. 8 and 9). 
 
 ' There are very few schools in which the sexes are 
 entirely divided, — almost every boys' school containing 
 some girls, and every girls' school a few boys. They are 
 chiefly the children of mechanics, warehousemen, or small 
 shopkeepers, and learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
 and, in a few of the better description of schools, a little 
 grammar and geography. In a great majority of these 
 schools there seems to be a great want of orderly system. 
 The confusion arising from this defect, added to the very 
 low qualifications of the master, the number of scholars 
 under the superintendence of one teacher, the irregularity 
 of the attendance, the great deficiency of books, and the 
 injudicious plan of instruction, or, rather, the want of 
 any plan, render them inefficient for any purposes of real 
 education' (p. 9). 
 
 ' Eeligious instruction is seldom attended to, beyond 
 the rehearsal of a catechism ; and moral education, real 
 cultivation of mind, and improvement of character 
 totally neglected. " Morals ! " said one master, in answer 
 to the inquiry whether he taught them " morals." "How 
 am I to teach morals to the like of these ? " The girls' 
 schools are generally in much better condition than the 
 boys' schools, and bear a greater appearance of cleanli- 
 ness, order, and regularity. This seems to arise in part 
 from the former being more constantly employed, and the 
 scholars being fewer in number to each teacher' (p. 10). 
 
 In 1834-5 there were 11,512 scholars in attendance in 
 Manchester on these two classes of schools, of whom 4722 
 were in the Dames' Schools ; whereas, in schools con- 
 nected with the religious bodies there were only 3818 
 scholars. In 1852 the proportions were reversed. The 
 children in Dame and Adventure Day Schools were re- 
 duced to 4334 ; and those in the schools under the direc- 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 105 
 
 tion of the Eeligious Communions had quadrupled, 
 having become 15,270. At the same time, the numbers 
 in superior private schools had increased from 2934 in 
 1834-5, to 3772 in 1852. In Salford the scholars of the 
 Dame and Private Adventure Schools had been reduced 
 from 3357 in 1834-5, to 1217 in 1852 ; whereas the 
 children attending National, British, and Denominational 
 Schools had increased from 1566 in 1834-5, to 4246 in 
 1852 ; the superior Private Schools, from 882 to 1125. 
 
 The population of Manchester had increased from 
 200,000 to 303,358, and that of Salford, with the town- 
 ships of Broughton and Pendleton, from 55,000 in 1834-5, 
 to 84,764 in 1851. 
 
 The number of Sunday Scholars had, in this period of 
 seventeen years, increased from 24,104, in Manchester, to 
 38,699 ; and in Salford, &c., from 6566 to 12,233, or in 
 a much more rapid ratio than the population.-^ For, 
 while the population had increased at the rate of 50 per 
 cent., the Sunday Scholars were 66 per cent, more nu- 
 merous, and the scholars of superior Private Schools, and 
 National, British, and Denominational Schools had become 
 more than two and a half times as great, or had increased 
 at the rate of about 260 per cent. 
 
 The change, even up to the year 1852, was not, how- 
 ever, to be measured by the gradual extinction of the 
 worthless Dame and Adventure Schools, and the erection 
 of capacious and well ventilated elementary school-rooms, 
 
 ^ Tlie statistics submitted by Mr. Joseph Adshead to the Committee of 
 the House" of Commons, on the Manchester and Salford Local Education 
 Bill, differed iif some degree from those presented by Canon Ilichson on 
 behalf of the Manchester Committee. Mr. Adshead's ' Comparative Summary 
 of Sunday Schools, with Population, &c., in 1834 and ]8ol,' was as follows : 
 
 Population of townships of Manchester, Chorlton-upon-Medlock, Hulme, 
 Ardwick, Beswick, Cheetham, in 1834, is reduced by him to 182,010 ; and 
 the number of Sunday scholars increased to 31,953. In 1851 the population 
 is stated from the census, at 303,358 ; and the number of Sunday scholars, in 
 the above township, as 53,869. Whilst, therefore, the population had, accord- 
 ing to this account, increased about 56 per cent., the number of Sunday 
 scholars had increased at the rate of QQ per cent. Both estimates have been 
 made in good faith : it is unnecessary here to explain the causes of the dis- 
 crepancy. 
 
106 First Period 
 
 under the management of the religious bodies, nor by 
 the great increase of scholars attracted to them. From 
 about 1844, a class of trained teachers had been in 
 course of introduction. In 1847 the Pupil-Teacher-system 
 commenced; and from that time forward the Trained 
 Certificated Teachers, aided by grants under the Minutes 
 of 1846, gradually gave, with the aid of their apprentices, 
 an entirely new organisation to the schools. The internal 
 arrangement, fittings, apparatus, books, and methods of 
 instruction, were transformed. The Manchester Statistical 
 Society had, in 1834-5, reported respecting the two schools 
 on Dr. Bell's monitorial system ; and one school, with 
 1040 scholars, conducted on the Lancasterian system, that, 
 ' they seem to be well conducted according to the systems 
 they pursue ; but it appears to the Committee that some 
 of these systems are capable of much improvement. In 
 the Lancasterian school, for example, and in others where 
 a very large number of scholars are placed under the 
 direction of one master, the plan of instruction is too 
 mechanical ; and, while the children make considerable 
 progress in such branches of knowledge as can be taught 
 in this manner, particularly in writing and arithmetic, 
 many other branches of useful knowledge, and still more 
 the general cultivation of their mental powers, are often 
 totally neglected.' 
 
 The Lancasterian school thus commented upon was, 
 excepting the admirable monitorial schools of the Borough 
 Road, and those of the Kildare Place, in Dublin, the best 
 English monitorial school which I ever visited. It con- 
 tained many paid monitors, and comprised among its 
 scholars children of small shopkeepers, overlookers, supe- 
 rior mechanics, and handicraftsmen. The intelligence of 
 a large proportion of the scholars, aided by trained and 
 paid monitors, enabled this school to approach, in some 
 of its features, the successful examples to which I have 
 alluded. These schools had, by paying their monitors 
 and retaining their services to a riper age, taken the first 
 step towards the Pupil-Teacher-system. Their paid 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 107 
 
 monitors were under stricter discipline, more docile, better 
 instructed, more skilful ; and the whole organisation of 
 the school was consequently better ordered, and the 
 instruction more exact and efficient. But it was necessa- 
 rily limited to what boys from twelve to fourteen, or at 
 most fifteen, years of age could teach. They, too, received 
 their instruction in a monitorial class in the school hours, 
 and the efficiency of the school, therefore, depended on 
 the time which the master could devote to this class. 
 His attention, skill, and energy were, therefore, concen- 
 trated on it. The school of 1040 children in Manchester 
 was taught by them. 
 
 The results in the Borough Eoad and the Kildare Place 
 schools were remarkable ; but even these schools were, 
 as in Manchester, liable to the criticism of the Committee 
 of the Statistical Society. The fatal defect of the system 
 was that it was inapplicable in districts in which the 
 monitors could not be selected from intelhgent and well- 
 ordered families, who could afford, with the aid of a slight 
 remuneration, to allow them to remain three years at least 
 beyond the usual school age, in order that they might 
 have the special care and attention of the master. The 
 causes of the failure of the monitorial system in ordinary 
 practice will be found to be fully described in subsequent 
 pages of this volume. 
 
 On the contrary, the pupil teacher begins his work at 
 a more mature age than the monitor usually abandoned 
 his, except in such schools as those of the Borough Eoad 
 and Kildare Place. He is apprenticed to the teacher, and, 
 therefore, strictly subordinate to him. He is paid an 
 annual stipend contingent on his good conduct, attention 
 to his duties, and success in an annual examination by the 
 Queen's inspector. He receives daily one hour and a 
 half of instruction out of the usual school hours from the 
 teacher. His character and his religious and moral train- 
 ing are under the special charge of the parochial or other 
 minister, and their certificate and that of Managers' are 
 annually required. The result of these arrangements has 
 
108 First Period 
 
 been an almost unprecedented success. The Queen's 
 scholars are preferred to all other students in the Training 
 Colleges, not merely on account of their more exact 
 attainments, habits of application, and aptitude to learn 
 and to teach, but on account of their more docile dis- 
 positions, stricter sense of duty, and, as far as observation 
 extends, greater consciousness of religious obligation. 
 Not only so, a director of the Guarantee Society, which 
 undertakes the suretyship of persons holding mercantile 
 and government offices with pecuniary responsibility, 
 assures me that, though the Society has given security for 
 a great number of young men who had passed through 
 their apprenticeships as pupil teachers, it has suffered no 
 loss on their account. The certificated masters are the 
 Queen's scholars ripened by two years' training in college, 
 and sent forth with a renewal of obhgation to the govern- 
 ment, in addition to their direct responsibilities to the 
 managers of schools. Their certificates are not awarded 
 until after two years' good service in the same school, 
 and are liable to be withdrawn for misconduct. Their 
 augmentation grants are annually dependent on the satis- 
 faction which they give to the managers and the Queen's 
 inspector ; and this augmentation, as well as their salary 
 derived from local sources, grows with faithful and suc- 
 cessful service. This system has, between 1847 and 1862, 
 transformed the monitorial schools into well organised 
 estabhshments, supplied with a staff of certificated teachers 
 and of assistant or pupil teachers, grappling with the 
 difficulties attending the instruction of the children of an 
 unlettered sensual population, of very migratory habits, 
 unconscious from experience of the advantages of instruc- 
 tion, and apt to sacrifice the mental and moral training of 
 the scholars to some caprice or transient want, or to the 
 gratification of low animal instincts. 
 
 While this great improvement in the efficiency of day 
 schools has been in progress, the proportionate increase in 
 scholars has been very great. An inquiiy conducted at 
 the suggestion of Mr. David Chadwick by the Head Con- 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 109 
 
 stables, Captain Palin and Mr. Taylor, gave the follow- 
 ing results as to the numbers of Sunday and day scholars 
 in Manchester and Salford in 1861 : — 
 
 The pupils in day schools under the religious commu- 
 nions had increased in Manchester successively from 3818 
 in 1834-5, to 15,270 in 1852, and then to 22,837 in 1861 : 
 while in Salford they had augmented from 1566 in 1834-5, 
 to 4246 in 1852, and to 7850 in 1861. In the two 
 boroughs, therefore, the day scholars in charge of the 
 religious bodies had increased in 27 years from 5,384 to 
 30,687 ; or they were nearly six times more numerous. 
 
 For other particulars respecting the public and private 
 day schools, and also concerning Sunday schools, I must 
 refer to the subjoined Note^ containing two Tables, ex- 
 tracted from Mr. David Chadwick's papers on the Progress 
 of Manchester (1861). 
 
 The growth of the cotton manufacture had been so 
 rapid, that before 1830, even in the great centre of the 
 trade, the means of religious instruction and pubHc wor- 
 ship were strangely defective. But Mr. Joseph Adshead 
 stated in his evidence before the Committee of the House 
 of Commons on the Manchester and Salford Education 
 Bill (June 21, 1852), that the amount of accommodation 
 for pubhc worship, in connection with the whole of the 
 rehgious bodies in the borough of Manchester, had re- 
 markably increased between 1831 and 1851. In that 
 borough in 1851, there were 121 churches and chapels, 
 containing sittings for 95,729, or for nearly one-third of 
 the whole population. Of these 40 per cent, belonged to 
 the Church of England, 7 per cent, to the Eoman Catholics 
 (whose chapels are, however, thronged during several 
 successive services in the same day), and 53 per cent, to 
 the several denominations of Dissenters. Whereas in 
 
 * The present average attendance at day schools in Manchester was stated 
 as 31,923 J in Salford, 9,925; total, 41,848. And in Sunday-schools, in 
 Manchester, 42,G87 ; in Salford, 13,272 ; total, 55,969 ; as particularised in 
 the following Tables, prepared for this paper by Captain Palin and Mr. 
 Taylor: — 
 
110 
 
 First Period 
 
 1831 there had been only 50 churches and chapels, with 
 sittings for 51,742 persons. There was, therefore, in 
 20 years an increase of 43,987 sittings, or 86^ per cent., 
 during a period in which the population had increased 
 
 66f per cent. 
 
 I am indebted to the labours of Mr. David Chad wick, 
 as a statistician, for the following information, which he 
 has collected with much difficulty and expense. The 
 
 Return showing the Number of Schools of all Denominations within the City of 
 Manchester, and the number of Scholars attending them. 
 
 3 O 
 
 11 
 ^1 
 
 
 If under Government Inspec- 
 tion, and if Church of England, 
 Roman Catholic, or Dissenting. 
 
 Day Scholars. 
 
 Sunday 
 Scholars. 
 
 Under 
 7 years. 
 
 Under 
 14 years. 
 
 Above 
 14 yrs. 
 
 Total. 
 
 a! 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 6 
 
 191 
 
 2 
 
 44 
 
 10 
 
 34 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 62 
 
 6 
 
 191 
 
 Church of England . . 
 Ditto under Inspection. 
 Roman Catholic . . . 
 Ditto under Inspection . 
 
 Dissenting 
 
 Ditto under Inspection . 
 /Private Schools, Acade-\ 
 
 mies, and all Esta- 
 •| blishments not directly [ 
 
 connected with a Place 
 ^ of Worship . . . . J 
 
 463 
 6040 
 
 570 
 1226 
 1157 
 
 772 
 
 2678 
 
 700 
 6845 
 
 384 
 1516 
 1544 
 1470 
 
 5943 
 
 12 
 45 
 15 
 12 
 21 
 45 
 
 465 
 
 1175 
 12,930 
 969 
 2754 
 2722 
 2287 
 
 9086 
 
 } 14,904 
 } 5150 
 } 20,803 
 
 1830 
 
 269 
 
 46 
 
 315 
 
 
 12,906 
 
 18,402 
 
 615 
 
 31,923 
 
 42,687 
 
 Return showing the Number of Schools of all Denominations in Salford, including 
 Broughton and Pendleton, and the Number of Scholars attending them. 
 
 
 If under Government Inspection, 
 and if Church of England, Koman 
 Caiholic, or Dissenting. 
 
 Day Scholars. 
 
 Sunday 
 Scholars. 
 
 Under 
 7 years. 
 
 Under 
 14 yrs. 
 
 Above 
 14 yrs. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1 
 
 18 
 2 
 4 
 5 
 
 48 
 
 Church of England .... 
 Ditto, under Inspection . . 
 Roman Catholic .... 
 
 Dissenting 
 
 Ditto, under Inspection . 
 
 ( Private Schools, Academies,"| 
 J and all Establishments not 
 ] directly connected with a \ 
 1 Place of Worship . . 1 
 
 10 
 
 2499 
 
 318 
 
 160 
 
 642 
 
 489 
 
 43 
 
 2634 
 
 456 
 
 232 
 
 764 
 
 1402 
 
 1 
 13 
 
 2 
 10 
 66 
 
 184 
 
 54 
 
 5146 
 
 776 
 
 402 
 
 1472 
 
 2075 
 
 6757 
 1040 
 
 8557 
 
 78 
 
 
 4118 
 
 5531 
 
 276 
 
 9925 
 
 16,354 
 
Progress of Majichester since \'^c>2 111 
 
 account given by Mr. Joseph Adshead was confined to 
 the city of Manchester; that collected by Mr. David 
 Chad wick comprises the borough of Salfordand adjoining 
 districts. The aggregate population in 1840 was 315,000, 
 with sittings in churches and chapels for 86,442. In 
 1850, the population had increased to 405,000, with 
 sittings for 126,331. In 1860, the population was 470,000, 
 and the sittings were 184,016. 
 
 This account is not so encouraging as that given by 
 Mr. Adshead for the twenty years from 1831 to 1851, 
 and for the city of Manchester alone. In Manchester, Sal- 
 ford, and the adjoining districts, the proportion of sittings 
 to the population, from Mr. David Chadwick's statistics, 
 appear to have been in 1840, one sitting to nearly three 
 and two-thirds persons of all ages ; in 1850, one sitting 
 to about three and one-fifth ; and in 1860, one sitting to 
 nearly two persons and three-fifths. (See Table on p. 112.) 
 
 I gave in 1831 some account of the operation of the 
 City Missionaries and District Visiting Societies. Mr. Ads- 
 head in his evidence before the Committee of the House 
 of Commons (on the 7th June, 1852), thus describes the 
 principles and progress of the Manchester and Salford 
 City Mission, affording a gratifying answer to the ' regret ' 
 which I had expressed in 1831, that the 'number' of 
 these missionaries was ' utterly insufiicient to affect the 
 habits of more than a small portion of the population.' 
 Ancoats, Newtown, and Portland districts,' in which 
 ' reside the most indigent and immoral of our poor,' were 
 then ' unoccupied.' 'In 1832,' says Mr. Adshead, ' a few 
 persons joined together to devise the best means of pro- 
 viding an agency by which ' these ' classes of persons might 
 be morally and rehgiously benefited.' ' The Committee 
 of this Association is composed of members of the Church 
 of England, Independents, Baptists, Wesleyans, and Pres- 
 byterians ; and although comprising these several religious 
 opinions, the greatest unanimity has prevailed in ad- 
 vancing the object of the Mission.' ' The guiding prin- 
 ciple ' ' was not to proselytise, but to evangelise. The first 
 
112 
 
 First Period 
 
 c3 
 
 ^ 
 
 •S 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 =<5 
 
 g 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ?r 
 
 Cr> 
 
 
 
 </} 
 
 S 
 
 '^ 
 
 4 
 
 .^J 
 
 Q 
 
 s 
 
 '^ 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 f 
 
 Q) 
 
 ■:?: 
 
 i 
 
 
 w 
 
 ■^ 
 
 V3 
 
 s ^ 
 
 o eq 
 
 Q -J OJ 
 
 t. c a, 
 
 .-I m o 
 
 -I o o 
 
 TjH^ <^ o_ 
 
 c^f •— " o~ 
 
 00 Oi ^ 
 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 113 
 
 year of the operations of this Mission, they had 29 mis- 
 sionaries ; they have now (1852) 70 missionary agents, 
 who are daily employed in visiting the operative classes 
 in Manchester and Salford.' They ' are regarded as 
 friends of the operative classes, which will appear from 
 the following particulars of their operations from 1837 to 
 1852 : — ^Visits made to the abodes of the operative classes 
 2,247,420 ; meetings held, 65,815 ; persons who have 
 attended such meetings, 1,289,462 ; tracts distributed, 
 3,212,859 ; turned from the error of their ways, or as it 
 is said in the Eeports, "hopefully converted to God," 
 4658 ; visitations to the sick, 248,159; of the last it is- 
 said in the Eeports (" died hopefully in the faith of the 
 Gospel"), 3583; infidels reclaimed, 211; prostitutes re- 
 turned to society, 141 ; drunkards reclaimed, 987; children 
 induced to attend Sunday schools, 6285 ; adult persons 
 induced to attend public worship, 5036. The amount 
 contributed from the commencement of the Society in 
 1837 to 1852 was " £44,971 15^." ' 
 
 In 1861 the number of missionaries had increased to 
 100 ; of house visits to 379,902 in that year, and to a 
 total of 5,266,289 ; the visits to the sick to 50,059 in 
 the year, and to a total of 600,544. The other acts of 
 ministration were in similar proportion, as will be seen in 
 the tabular ^ summary, where the outlay in 1861 is 
 
 ^ ' Organised infidel opposition is scarcely known, and the Bible reader 
 and his teaching receives a welcome among all classes of working men, such 
 as was seldom witnessed in the earlier years of the Society's history. 
 
 ^ The cases reported as " Reclaimed Infidels," by the Missionaries for the 
 last few years have become less and less ; and that, too, whilst those under 
 other heads of usefulness have all increased. The present year fm^nishes only ■ 
 seven. This is another corroborative evidence at least that scepticism in 
 Manchester, so far as any avowed form of it is concerned, is greatly reduced. 
 It is therefore deemed needless any longer, to specify such instances imder 
 a distinct column among the results of Missionary labour.' — From Manchester 
 City Mission Repo7't, 1860. 
 
 The following summary was also presented to me by Mr. Geldard, the 
 Secretary to the City 3Iission : — ' The various meetings of men collected 
 together weekly, at their respective places of employment, for the purpose of 
 religious services, strongly confirm this encouraging statement. Full 2000 
 men are, by these means, instructed by the Missionaiy, in addition to 5000 or 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
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Progress of Manchester since 1832 115 
 
 recorded as amounting to £6261 9^. ^d.^ and the whole 
 outlay from the commencement of the City Mission to 
 £90,945 lis. lid. 
 
 One part of the operations of the City Mission is sup- 
 ported by a separate fund. Mr. Le Mare had been a 
 Member of the Local Committee on the Manchester and 
 Salford Education Bill. He was aware, from the inves- 
 tigations of that Committee, to how great an extent the 
 apathy of parents co-operated with their waste of the means 
 of comfortable hving, and sometimes with their poverty, 
 to induce a neglect of the schooHng of their children. 
 
 6000 met witli in ttieir daily hoiise-to-lioiise visitations. Any sceptical 
 objections or indisposition to attend these meetings are exceptions to the 
 general rule, and the opportunities seem likely to multiply every month. 
 They are held among the lurrymen or carters, in the employ of the large 
 carriers — the passenger and goods porters of the London and North V^estem 
 — the Lancashire and Yorkshire, the East Lancashire and the Manchester, 
 Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Companies ; almost all the men under the 
 town councils of Manchester and Salford, — ^viz. the police, the lamplighters, 
 the gas works and main men, the paviours, the night scavengers, the men in 
 breweries, dye works, print works, machine shops, tan yards, tile works, alum 
 works, &c. ', also, cabmen and ostlers. The large tea meetings held occasionally 
 with these men and their wives, are abundant proof of the popular feeling 
 entertained towards the religious teacher. The men in the employ of the 
 Council Lamp and Scavenging Committee, with their wives, took tea 
 together a few days since — nearly 600 in the whole — when the chairaian, 
 Ivie Mackie, Esq., stated that the improvement among the men was so 
 marked, that, instead of the. Committee being occupied at their fortnightly 
 meeting for an hour and a half, as it used to be, in hearing complaints against 
 delinquents for neglect of work, they now had scarcely any brought before 
 them. At a similar large meeting of the Railway Porters of the Goods 
 Department of the London and North Western Railway, Mr. Kay, their 
 superintendent, who was in the chair, said that about 500 copies of the 
 Scriptures had lately been sold to those under his charge, and during the 
 past year, only four men had been brought before him because of drunken- 
 ness or other fault — a smaller number by far than he had ever before known. 
 Two tea meetings will soon take place for the men and their wives, and 
 friends connected with the gas works and main men under the Gas Works 
 Committee. These together will number about 1000. 
 
 "NVhen the lurrymen or carters, in April last, obtained the boon of shorter 
 hours, by a wise arrangement made between the merchants and the carriers, 
 they desired, entirely of their own accord, to celebrate the event, and to 
 testify their gratitude by attending, in a company 800 strong, at Christ 
 Church on the Sunday afternoon, to hear a sermon from the Rev. Canon 
 Stowell. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 First Period 
 
 Mr. Forbes, one of the City Missionaries, as early as 
 January, 1849, had devised a scheme for the remedy of 
 this evil, and had to a limited extent carried it into exe- 
 cution. Mr. Le Mare subsequently resolved on a similar 
 effort on a more extended scale. The principles on which 
 these two Supplemental School funds are administered, 
 and the agency employed — the City Missionaries — are the 
 same. The intention is to arouse parents to a sense of 
 their duty of sending their children to school, and to aid 
 and encourage them in the discharge of it by paying 
 part of the school-pence. The fund collected by Mr. Le 
 Mare has, during six years, averaged £372 15^. Id. per 
 annum. That raised by Mr. Forbes, is from £110 to £120 
 per annum. ' The proportion of school-fees paid by the 
 parents at first was 38 per cent. ; but from the last year 
 (1860-61) it has been 51 per cent.' Mr. Le Mare reports 
 in 1858, that ' the number of children receiving instruc- 
 tion ' through these means was ' altogether about 2800, of 
 whom 1800 were aided by the fund' under his charge, 
 ' and the residue by other means,' such as Mr. Forbes's 
 separate fund. In 1861, the Committee of Mr. Forbes's 
 fund report that 562 children had been thus kept at 
 school at a cost of £241 is. bd., of which £129 bs. 1\d. 
 was paid by the family, and £111 18^. ^\d. by the sub- 
 scribers to the Supplementary School fund. Benevolent 
 and useful as are these forms of action, they ought to be 
 regarded as only transient expedients, adapted less to the 
 real need than the apathy and sensual condition of a 
 population in receipt, for the most part, of high wages, but 
 unlettered, unconscious of the value of education to their 
 children, and wasting their resources in coarse hving and 
 in drink. The apphcation of such palliatives is, by no 
 means, a subject of unmixed gratification. The period 
 during which they can be continued, and the classes to 
 which they can be extended, are legitimate subjects 
 of a vigilant jealousy. The charity which ceases to 
 quicken the sense of duty is often a pernicious dole. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 117 
 
 The gentlemen who have charge of these funds are 
 doubtless, however, well aware of the necessity for this 
 caution. 
 
 While churches, schools, and missionaries are striving, 
 by their moral agencies, to wean the population from 
 sensual and criminal habits, the police watch and restrain 
 the criminal classes. The proportion of the constabulary 
 to the population does not bear a strict relation to the 
 need for their interference ; but it may be regarded as 
 one among many indications of the comparative security 
 of the person, of property, and the public peace. In the 
 counties of England and Wales, apart from the boroughs, 
 the amount of this force' for 1860 was 1 in 1417 of the 
 population ; in the boroughs maintaining a separate Pohce 
 Force (excepting the City of London and the Metropolitan 
 Police District) it was 1 in 720, and in the City of Man- 
 chester 1 in 502 inhabitants. In the City of Manchester 
 in 1841 the police numbered 817, and in 1859-60 their 
 force amounted to 617. 
 
 The proportion of the criminal classes to the population 
 was more favourable in. the seats of the cotton and hnen 
 manufactures than in any other districts in England and 
 Wales, except the metropolis. The following are the 
 proportions : — 
 
 
 
 Criminal Classes. 
 
 Prostitutes. 
 
 1. 
 
 The Metropolis .... 
 
 1 in 183-8 
 
 1 in 366-8 
 
 2. 
 
 Seats of Cotton and Linen Manufac- 
 
 
 
 
 tures 
 
 1 in 131-4 
 
 I'in 506-4 
 
 3. 
 
 Seats of small Mixed Textile Fabrics 
 
 1 in 126-7 
 
 1 in 357-2 
 
 4. 
 
 Seats of Woollen and Worsted 
 
 
 
 
 Manufactures 
 
 1 in 1210 
 
 1 in 596-8 
 
 5. 
 
 Pleasure Towns .... 
 
 1 in 103-8 
 
 1 in 248-2 
 
 6. 
 
 Commercial Ports .... 
 
 1 in 99 9 
 
 1 in 1820 
 
 7. 
 
 Agricultural Towns 
 
 1 in 91-5 
 
 1 in 241-0 
 
 8. 
 
 Seats of Hardware Manufacture 
 
 1 in 67-8 
 
 1 in 423-3 
 
 Mr. David Chadwick has furnished me with another 
 
 1 Judicial Statistics, I860, England and Wales. Presented to Parlia- 
 ment; p. 5. 
 
 I 3 
 
118 First Period 
 
 result of liis laborious statistical investigations (see Ap- 
 pendix C), showing tlie number of persons ' taken into 
 custody, summarily convicted, convicted on indictment, 
 and discharged or acquitted, in each year, from 1841 to 
 ] 860. From these returns it appears that 3249 persons 
 were on the average summarily convicted in each of the first 
 six years of this term to 1846 inclusive, and 3703 in each 
 of the last six years, or from 1854 to 1860. The number 
 of criminals convicted on trial, was in each of six years, 
 from 1841 to 1846 inclusive, on the average, 571 ; 
 whereas in the last six years to 1860, the annual average 
 was 586. In the city of Manchester, therefore, crime 
 has remained stationary during twenty years, in which the 
 population has more than doubled. The number of 
 prisoners in the Manchester City Gaol has, however, 
 increased from 303 in 1851, to 508 in 1861, which is an 
 indication, either of a change in the character of the 
 punishments inflicted, or of an increase in the class of 
 crimes punished by imprisonment (see Appendix C). I 
 place some facts also in a note * extracted from the Ofii- 
 cial Summary and Tables of Judicial Statistics, relating 
 
 ^ ^Burglary and house-breaking' are stated to be most frequent in tlie 
 countiy districts. (*) ^ In the city of Manchester^ however, 269 cases of this 
 crime occurred in 18G0, or one offence in 1127"8 of the population, while in 
 Liverpool only 51 cases were reported, or an offence against every 7341-2 of 
 the population. In Manchester the number of indictable offences reported 
 was 5975 ; in Livei-jiool, 4194, — -the population of the latter town exceeding 
 that of the former by 17,000. In 1859 the cases of house-breaking and 
 burglary were in Manchester, 227 ; in Liverpool, 79. The total of the 
 indictable offences was in Manchester, 6126 ; in Liverpool, 3901 : showing a 
 still greater disproportion in the total number of crimes than in I860.' 
 On the other hand, offences entitled 'Shooting at, wounding, stabbing, &c., 
 to do bodily harm/ amounted to 106 in Liverpool, and only to 13 in Man- 
 chester. (^) In Liverpool there were 18,306 summary convictions, out of 
 37,214 proceeded against ; and in the City of Manchester only 4742 out of 
 8508 proceeded against; and in Salford 1101 ('^), out of 1877 proceeded 
 against. In explanation of this enormous disparity in the offences punish- 
 able by Justices, the following numbers may be compared ("*), which account 
 for its chief sources : — 
 
 Judicial Statistics, p. 6. ^ Ibid, p. 15. •= Ibid, p. 22. '^ Ibid, p. 27. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 119 
 
 chiefly to a comparison of the criminal returns of 
 Manchester and Liverpool. It concerns the pohce to 
 watch and detect the skilful burglars, who are attracted 
 by the defenceless state of warehouses and houses to 
 Manchester. 
 
 It ought also to be remarked that, while the population 
 of England and Wales has increased from 17,927,609 
 in 1851, to 20,066,145 in 1861, the number of per- 
 sons committed or bailed for trial in 1851, amounted 
 to 27,960, and in 1860 it was reduced to 15,999. The 
 comparative returns in the county of Lancaster ^ in 1851, 
 reported 3459 persons committed or bailed for trial in a 
 population of 2,031,236, and in 1860 they were 2701 in 
 a population of 2,465,366. If, therefore, crime has 
 remained stationary in Manchester during a period in 
 which its population has doubled, and in England and 
 Wales crime has diminished six-fourteenths, while the 
 population increased about one-eighth, the condition of 
 Manchester will bear a comparison with that of England 
 and Wales as to the relative proportions of crime to the 
 population. 
 
 Both crime and pauperism are affected by the rapid 
 accumulation of a rude immigrant population. Mr. David 
 Chadwick's Table of the increase of the population in 
 England and Wales, and in the County of Lancaster, as 
 
 Offences. 
 
 Liverpool 
 Borough. 
 
 Manchester 
 
 City. 
 
 Salford 
 Borough. 
 
 Assaults on Peace Officers, resisting, ob- 
 structing, &c. . . . . 
 Drunkenness, and drunk and disorderly 
 Local Acts and Borough Bye-laws, of- 
 fences against 
 
 Offences punishable as misdemeanours . 
 Revenue Laws, offences against 
 Mercantile Acts, offences against 
 Larceny by offenders under 16 . 
 Larceny under value of 5s. and on 
 pleading guilty .... 
 
 1126 
 10,963 
 
 14,459 
 
 1337 
 
 444 
 
 330 
 
 482 
 
 1419 
 
 276 
 2329 
 
 120 
 
 90 
 157 
 
 66 
 113 
 
 48 
 172 
 
 Judicial Statistics, p. 54. 
 i4 
 
120 
 
 First Period 
 
 compared with that of Manchester (see note '), proves 
 how vast that hnmigration has been. The accumuhition 
 of wealth in the City has kept pace with that of inhabit- 
 ants ; for the assessments for the poor-rate (see Table 
 Appendix D) have increased from £307,510 in 1820 to 
 £789,203 in 1860, in which period the population had 
 about doubled. The average annual amount of the poor- 
 rate from 1820 to 1829, both inclusive, was £59,965, and 
 in the ten years from 1851 to 1860, both inclusive, the 
 annual average was £141,667, being in 1860 £131,533. 
 So that, while the poor-rate is much more than 
 double — being two-fifths less than three times its amount 
 in 1820, population has more than doubled in the 
 same period. The rate of increase in pauperism has, 
 therefore, quite kept pace with that of wealth and popu- 
 lation since 1821. Taking into account the fact that the 
 value of the property assessed has more than doubled, 
 that wages have improved, employment has been more 
 
 * Population of England and Wales, of the County of Lancaster, and of the 
 Manchester Districts, from 1801 to 1851. 
 
 
 
 1801. 
 
 1811. 
 
 Increase 
 
 1801-11. 
 
 1821. 
 
 Increase 
 1811-21 
 
 England and Wales 
 County of Lancaster 
 Manchester . . >, 
 Salford . 
 
 Chorlton and . i- 
 Barton-upon -Ir well 
 Poor-Law Districts J 
 
 8,892,536 I 
 673,486 
 
 124.339 
 
 0,164,256 
 828,499 
 
 149,801 
 
 Percent. 
 14 
 22 
 
 20-5 
 
 12,000,236 
 1,052,948 
 
 201,506 
 
 Percent. 
 18 
 27 
 
 34-5 
 
 England and Wales. 
 County of Lancaster. 
 Manchester . ^ 
 Salford . . ! 
 Chorlton and . \ 
 Barton-upon-Irwell 1 
 Poor-Law Districts / 
 
 1831. 
 
 Increase 
 1821-31 
 
 1841. 
 
 Increase 
 1831-41. 
 
 1851. 
 
 Increase 
 1841-51. 
 
 13,896,797 
 1,336,854 
 
 284,238 
 
 Per cent 
 16 
 27 
 
 41 
 
 15,914,148 
 1,667,054 
 
 366,050 
 
 Percent 
 14 
 24 
 
 42-86 
 
 17,927,609 
 2,031,236 
 
 471,382 
 
 Per cent. 
 13 
 22 
 
 28-77 
 
 This Table is extracted from Mr. David Chadwlck's * Kate of Wages,' p. 34. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 121 
 
 steady, and the prices of food and clothing have fallen, 
 the present charge for indigence can only be explained by 
 the class of causes which we shall find that we are obhged 
 to resort to, in order to account for the maintenance of a 
 high rate of mortahty. 
 
 The character and extent of the sanitary improvements, 
 made with so much pubhc spirit in Manchester and Sal- 
 ford during the last thirty years, lead to the expectation of 
 a decrease in the annual mortahty. This is strengthened 
 by the better condition of the people in many particulars 
 affecting health and life. Their dwelhngs are improved 
 — the hours of labour are more reasonable — wages are 
 higher — the price of food and clothing is reduced — they 
 have more abundant means of innocent recreation, of 
 education for their children, and of religious instruction. 
 Owing in a great degree to neglect and mismanagement, 
 one half the children born in 1831 died in five years. The 
 chief part of this mortahty occurred in the first two years. 
 There is, therefore, reason to fear that it has been httle, 
 if at all, reduced by the increase of Infant Schools ; for 
 they do not receive children until they are three or four 
 years old. The rate of mortality continues so high, that 
 to ascertain its level and causes is a painful but unavoid- 
 able duty. In 1831 1 estimated the mean rate of mortahty 
 for nine years to 1831 inclusive, in Manchester and 
 Salford, and the then suburban townships of Ardwick, 
 Broughton,Cheetham,Chorlton-upon-Medlock, and Hulme, 
 as 1 in 35-22, or as 28*03 deaths per thousand ; in 1831 
 the rate was 30-05 deaths per thousand. But it must be 
 borne in mind that this rate was reduced by the inclu- 
 sion of the suburban townships, which continue to be 
 more healthy than the central townships. This apparent 
 rate had improved between 1841-50, when the annual 
 mortality of Manchester, as estimated by Dr. Wm. Farr, 
 was 33 per 1000 living, and in Salford, 28 per 1000. 
 The Eegistrar-General, in his Seventh Annual Eeport 
 (1845, p. 338), states the mean duration of hfe or 
 males in Manchester in 1841 to be 24-2 years, or 16*0 
 
122 First Period 
 
 years less than 40*2 years, the duration of life in all 
 England. 
 
 The Table in which the Eegistrar General compared 
 the per centage of annual mortahty at each quinquennial 
 period at all ages in 1841, in Manchester, Liverpool, and 
 Surrey, is so instructive that I have placed it in an Ap- 
 pendix (A). 
 
 The summary is as follows for all ages : — 
 
 Per centage of Mortality at all ages. 
 
 Manchester Town Sub-registration Districts 
 Manchester Country Sub-Districts 
 Liverpool .... 
 Richmond and Kingston 
 Chertsey and Epsom . 
 Croydon . ... 
 Godstone, Reigate, and Dorking 
 Guildford, Farnham, and Hambledon 
 Surrey 
 
 Males. 
 3-655 
 2-193 
 
 Females. 
 3-212 
 1-971 
 
 3-583 
 
 3-151 
 
 2042 
 
 1-749 
 
 1-935 
 2-236 
 
 1-680 
 1-985 
 
 1-536 
 
 1-616 
 
 1-781 
 1-856 
 
 1-787 
 1-756 
 
 Confining this retrospect to the general rate of mortahty 
 in the first instance, I am enabled, by Mr. David Chad- 
 wick, to give (from data furnished to him by the Eegistrar- 
 General) the following estimate of the deaths per thousand 
 in Manchester and Salford, at successive periods from 
 1851 to 1858. 
 
 
 1851. 
 
 1853. 
 
 1856. 
 
 1858. 
 
 Manchester 
 
 29-49 
 
 3437 
 
 30-35 
 
 34-09 
 
 Salford . 
 
 25-1 
 
 28-11 
 
 26-16 
 
 34-11 
 
 Mr. Eoyston, the Secretary to the Manchester and Sal- 
 ford Sanitary Association, estimates the annual deaths per 
 thousand, through two decennial periods, from 1840, to 
 be on the average as follows : — 
 
 
 1841 to 1850. 
 
 1851 to 18G0. 
 
 Registration District of Manchester 
 
 33 
 
 3H 
 
 Township of Manchester 
 
 36 
 
 34 
 
 Town of Liverpool 
 
 36 
 
 33| 
 
 ' This shows a reduction in the annual rate of mortahty 
 in the district of Manchester of 1^ to every 1000 of the 
 population, which represents a saving of 3500 lives during 
 the last ten years ; the per centage of reduction is greater 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1S^^2 123 
 
 in the Township, being at the rate of 2 to every 1000, 
 which arises from the circumstance, that during the last 
 few years, some of the out-Townships have much in- 
 creased, and become more urban in their character.' 
 
 ' Being desirous of finding at what period the addi- 
 tional improvement began to take place in Liverpool^, I 
 examined every year separately, and found the mortality 
 to be as follows : — 
 
 1888. 1859. 1860. 
 
 Manchester 36 30| 30| 
 
 Liverpool 36 30| 28^' 
 
 Mr. David Chadwick finds that in 1854 the death-rate 
 per 1000 on the population of 1851, in thirty-one prin- 
 cipal towns, containing a population of nearly seventeen 
 millions, was 24*44. In all England the Eegistrar-General 
 reports that the deaths are annually at the rate of 23*54 
 per thousand on the actual population ; in country districts 
 20-26 per thousand; and in town districts 28*16 per 
 thousand. Sixty-one thousand of the deaths in England 
 are referable to the imperfect operations of the sanitary 
 arrangements of our towns. I place on the following- 
 page, a Table extracted from Mr. David Chadwick's ' Vital 
 Statistics of Towns,' affording the means of comparison 
 between towns in which the rate of mortahty is highest. 
 
 That the high rate of mortality in Manchester is still 
 in some degree dependent on the over-crowding of the 
 population in their dwelhngs, on bad ventilation : want of 
 cleanliness, and on imperfect sanitary arrangement is 
 rendered probable by the great difference between the 
 death-rates in the more salubrious suburban districts, inha- 
 bited by a better housed and more moral and comfortable 
 class, and the death-rates in Manchester and Salford 
 separately. This is confirmed by Dr. Greenhow's Eeport.^ 
 
 1 This I consider botli disheartening and encouraging — disheartening, 
 to find that we have been passed in the race by our neighbours, — and 
 encouraging, because it shows that the improvements made by tlie autho- 
 rities in Liverpool during the last few years are beginning now to bear 
 good fruit. May it stimulate us to ' go and do likewise.' 
 
 * See Appendix E. 
 
124 
 
 First Period 
 
 
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Progress of Manchester since 1832 125 
 
 ' The number of deaths ^ average in 
 
 Manchester .... 
 
 34 
 
 per 
 
 thousand annually. 
 
 Salford .... 
 
 29 
 
 
 »» >» 
 
 Ardwick, .... 
 
 25 
 
 
 »» »» 
 
 Cheetham and Crumpsall 
 
 17 
 
 
 »» »» 
 
 Pendleton .... 
 
 24 
 
 
 » »» 
 
 Broughton .... 
 
 15 
 
 
 »» »> 
 
 Whilst this great difference exists in the several townships 
 of the same parish and district, I beheve it will be found 
 that as great a disparity in the rate of mortality exists 
 between various parts of each of the said townships.' 
 
 Mr. Eoyston, the Deputy-Treasurer, calls the attention 
 of the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association to the 
 fact pubhshed by the Eegistrar-General in his Sixteenth 
 Annual Eeport, that the rate of mortality in England 
 varies in the different registration districts from 15 to 36 
 annual deaths per thousand of population. 
 
 'England and Wales are divided into 624 districts, 
 which are classified as follows : — 
 
 In 3 Districts the Annual Mortality Avas 15 to every 1000. 
 
 14 
 
 
 »> 
 
 
 16 
 
 47 
 
 
 »» 
 
 
 17 
 
 87 
 
 
 n 
 
 
 18 
 
 96 
 
 
 » 
 
 
 19 
 
 111 
 
 
 »» 
 
 
 20 
 
 90 
 
 
 » 
 
 
 21 
 
 48 
 
 
 (and all England) 
 
 22 
 
 28 
 
 
 n 
 
 
 23 
 
 29 
 
 
 ♦» 
 
 
 24 
 
 24 
 
 
 »» 
 
 
 25 
 
 18 
 
 
 »» 
 
 
 26 
 
 13 
 
 
 >» 
 
 
 27 
 
 18 
 
 
 >» 
 
 and 
 
 28 
 up to 36 
 
 624 
 
 Tliesc Tables are based on the Mortality in the 10 years, 1841 to 1850, and 
 the population for the same years. 
 
 ' It will be seen that there are 64 districts, containing 
 a population of about 1,000,000, in which the mortality 
 
 1 Variation of tlie Death-rate in England, by William Royston. 
 
126 First Period 
 
 does not exceed 17 per 1000 ; and, in reference to these 
 64 districts, the Eegistrar-Greneral observes that "the 
 health and the circumstances of the population by no 
 means approach any ideal standard of perfection ; and 
 although nature has done much for the inhabitants, the 
 health of the people in those districts admits of improve- 
 ment; and it may be assumed with certainty that the 
 mortality of the English people, in very variable but ge- 
 nerally favourable conditions, does not exceed 17 per 1000 ; 
 the deaths of 17 in 1000 may therefore be considered, in 
 our present imperfect state, natural deaths, and all the 
 deaths above that number may be referred to artificial 
 causes." According to this rule, it would appear that 
 during the ten years on which these Tables are based, viz. 
 1841 to 1850, 846,000 more deaths took place than should 
 have done.' 
 
 The average mortality of the Township of Manchester, 
 from 1851 to 1860, is, we have seen, estimated by Mr. 
 Eoyston at 34 per thousand. Before proceeding to sepa- 
 rate the elements of which this high rate of deaths is 
 composed, it is necessary to examine the comparative rate 
 of infant mortality during the last thirty years, and its 
 present proportion to the whole rate of deaths. 
 
 In 1831 the infant mortality of Manchester was such 
 that I stated that ' more than one-half of the offspring of the 
 poor die before they have completed their fifth year.' In 
 1841 the Eegistrar-General reports that out of 100,000 
 born in Manchester, 49,910 only were alive at six years 
 of age ; 50,090 infants having perished in five years. 
 Of these, 38,368 died under two years of age. 
 
 The relative duration of fife among Males in Manches- 
 ter, and in all England, was, in 1841, estimated by the 
 Eegistrar-General as follows (p. 338, Seventh Annual 
 Eeport) : — 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 127 
 
 
 Manchester. England. 
 
 Manchester 
 
 
 
 Precise Age. 
 
 Expectation of Life. 
 
 below the 
 average. 
 
 
 Years. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Years. 
 
 
 
 24-2 
 
 40-2 
 
 16-0 
 
 1 
 
 33-1 
 
 46-7 
 
 13-6 
 
 10 
 
 40-6 
 
 47-1 
 
 6-5 
 
 20 
 
 33-3 
 
 39-9 
 
 6-6 
 
 30 
 
 26-6 
 
 33-1 
 
 6-5 
 
 40 
 
 20-6 
 
 26-6 
 
 6-0 
 
 50 
 
 15-2 
 
 20-0 
 
 4-8 
 
 60 
 
 10-3 
 
 13-6 
 
 3-3 
 
 70 
 
 6-8 
 
 8-5 
 
 1-7 » 
 
 80 
 
 4-6 
 
 4-9 
 
 
 90 
 
 3-2 
 
 2-7 
 
 
 100 
 
 1-2 
 
 15 
 
 
 The degree in which this Infant mortality is attributed 
 to crowded dwelhngs, and a lower physical state of the 
 population, can only be imperfectly estimated by a com- 
 parison of the rate in the town and suburban districts. 
 Moral and social causes operate in more than a propor- 
 tionate degree, with the better physical condition of the 
 inhabitants of these districts, to diminish this mortahty of 
 infants. But that preventible sanitary evils, which were 
 legitimate subjects of legislative provision and of mum- 
 cipal administration, were not eradicated in 1841, was only 
 too apparent from the following facts, extracted from the 
 Eegistrar-General's Seventh Annual Eeport : — 
 
 Manchester — Town Sub-Districts 
 of Registrars, viz. : 
 
 Ancoats . 
 
 Deansgate 
 
 St. George I 
 
 London Road 
 
 Market Street 
 
 Manchester— Country Sub-Districts 
 of Registrars, viz. : 
 
 Blackley ^ 
 
 Cheetham 
 
 Failsworth L 
 
 Newton 
 
 Prestwich J 
 
 1841. 
 Annual Mortality per cent. 
 
 Age. 
 
 Males. 
 34-637 
 17827 
 7-829 
 5-644 
 4-205 
 
 Females. 
 
 27-413 
 
 16-872 
 
 7-954 
 
 6046 
 
 4-415 
 
 
 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 
 22 094 
 7-451 
 3-004 
 2-042 
 1-723 
 
 15-397 
 6-327 
 3-635 
 2-353 
 2-311 
 
 
 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 
 * The facts for Manchester are too few to admit of a comparison above 
 the age of 80. 
 
128 
 
 First Period 
 
 The number of children hving under two years of age 
 was not distinguished in the Census Tables of 1851, and 
 the ages of those living in 1861 have not yet been ascer- 
 tained. It is not possible, therefore, accurately to com- 
 pare the three decennial periods from 1841 to 1861 as 
 respects the per centage of deaths under two years of age. 
 This can, however, be done approximatively for those 
 under five up to 1860, by estimating those living under 
 five in 1861 as bearing the same proportion to the whole 
 population as in 1851. The mean of the deaths under 
 five registered from 1851 to 1860, both inclusive, compared 
 with the estimated population of 1860, is the basis of the 
 following statement, as far as it respects 1860. 
 
 Infant Mortality of Children under Five Years of Age, from 1841 to 1860, 
 
 both inclusive} 
 
 1841 
 Seven yrs., 
 of \^hich 
 1841 was 
 the centre. 
 
 1851 
 
 1860 
 
 Living under five years 
 of age. 
 
 Deaths under five years 
 of age. 
 
 Per centage of Annual 
 
 Mortality under five 
 
 years of age. 
 
 Man- 
 Chester. 
 
 Salford. 
 
 Man- 
 chester. 
 
 Salford. 
 
 Man- 
 chester. 
 
 Salford. 
 
 24,917 
 
 28,652 
 30,050*' 
 
 9648 
 
 11,514 
 13,798" 
 
 2788 
 
 3218 
 
 3098 
 34080 
 
 lOSl 
 
 1115 
 
 1058 
 1259'= 
 
 11-189 
 
 12-908' 
 
 10-58 
 11-34 
 
 10-68 
 
 ll-324» 
 
 9-18 
 9-05 
 
 » This per centage is calculated on the population of 1841. 
 
 ^ Estimated from population of 1861. 
 
 « The mean of five years, from 1856 to 1860 inclusive. 
 
 The rate of infant mortality has continued so high in 
 Manchester during the last thirty years, that it is necessary 
 
 ^ In tlie Ancoats district^ inliabited almost exclusively by an operative 
 population, and tlie smaller shop-keepers supplying them, the deaths under 
 5 years of age were above the average rate of Manchester in 1859. The 
 population of Ancoats, in 1851, was 73,737 ; the total deaths in 1859, were 
 1493 5 and the deaths under 5 years of age were 785 ; or they accounted 
 for more than half the mortality of the year. I am not enabled to state 
 the number living under 5. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 129 
 
 to a correct estimate of the causes of the mortality at all ages 
 to separate that of infants. When the deaths under five 
 years are deducted from the whole deaths, the rate of 
 mortahty is greatly reduced. In the Appendix (B) are 
 some remarks, and a diagram prepared by Mr. William 
 Eoyston^ making this result very apparent. In like 
 manner, comparing Brampton in Cumberland with Man- 
 chester, the whole death-rate of Brampton is 17 per 
 thousand, as compared with 34 in Manchester ; but as in 
 Manchester the deaths under five are 17 per thousand, 
 and in Brampton only 5 per thousand, it follows that ' at 
 all ages the variation is only 5' {i.e. M. 34 — 17 = 17 death- 
 rate, andB. 17—5 = 12 : nowM. 17— B. 12 = 5), 'being a 
 reduction of the balance against Manchester from 17 to 5 
 per thousand.' Mr. Eoyston further gives an interesting 
 Table showing the effect of immigration on the proportion 
 of the population from 15 up to 45 years of age (see Ap- 
 pendix B). He also shows ' that above 5 years and up 
 to 35, the mortality is 50 per cent, greater in Manchester 
 than in Brampton ; but that from 35 to 65 years of age, 
 the mortality is 100 per cent, greater ; thus proving that 
 the statement of Dr. Farr was no exaggeration, that, in 
 London, Birmingham, and Manchester, the mortality 
 among working men was probably double what it was in 
 the healthy districts.' 
 
 What, then, are the causes operating to cause this high 
 rate of mortahty in Manchester, after twenty-five years of 
 sanitary improvement in the drainage, water supply, 
 paving, scavenging, and ventilation of the central parts of 
 the town, and in a partial improvement of the condition 
 of houses, the closing of the worst cellar dwellings, and 
 the better state of others ? 
 
 The mortality is greater in the central than the sub- 
 urban districts. The least intelligent, civilised, and moral 
 
 1 Variation of the death-rate in England; pp. 5, 6. 
 K 
 
130 First Period 
 
 part of the population inhabits those central districts. 
 The immigration of labourers is not a simple phenomenon 
 of the introduction of a large class at the most healthy 
 periods of life, if they bring with them semi-barbarous 
 habits, and are unable to resist temptations to brutal ex- 
 cesses, when in receipt of higher wages, and exposed to the 
 temptations of town life. No doubt sanitary police, espe- 
 cially as respects the suppression of cellar dwellings, the 
 inspection and regulation of lodging-houses, the removal 
 of slaughter-houses to the outskirts, the extirpation of 
 nuisances, the periodic cleansing of ashpits and cesspools 
 after brief intervals, the opening of close courts, the 
 sewering, paving, and scavenging of the city and borough, 
 can be still considerably improved. What has been 
 done should create a just civic pride in completing this 
 great work of municipal improvement. 
 
 But a larger part of the inhabitants of the central town- 
 ships consists of factory operatives ; and among them the 
 employment of the married women and girls in mills has 
 a fatal influence on the health and life of infants, by neg- 
 lect and mismanagement in nursing. This employment, 
 of married women in factories also deranges the comfort 
 of the workman's household. He escapes from a slat- 
 ternly home and an ill-cooked meal to the tavern. The 
 price paid for the cheap labour of married women is a 
 high rate of infant mortality, and of waste in drink, fatal 
 to health and life. 
 
 Mr. David Chadwick, in his ' Eate of Wages' (p. 5), 
 gives the proportionate number of men, women, boys, and 
 girls in a cotton mill employing 500 persons, and the 
 average wages to each class. There were 95 men, or 19 
 per cent., at 18^. 6<i. average weekly wages ; 251 women, 
 or 50-2 per cent., at 10^. 2d. weekly wages ; 33 boys, or 
 6-6 per cent., at 76'. weekly wages ; and 121 girls, or 24-2 
 per cent., at 5^. average weekly wages. The wages of all 
 classes of factory operatives appear to have increased from 
 10 to 25 per cent, during the last twenty years. It is, 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 131 
 
 therefore, clear that the employment of women and girls 
 is excessive'; and that for the reasons previously stated, 
 it tends to promote intemperance, and thus, by a waste of 
 hardly-earned resources, to perpetuate the misdirection of 
 women's work, and with it infant mortality. This is an 
 evil to be cured by the growth of intelligence, and of a 
 higher sense of responsibihty and duty among the working 
 classes and mill owners. Legislative interference with the 
 labour of married women could also be applied as a form 
 of protection in well-defined cases. The charge of an 
 
 Proportioji and Wages of Adults and Children in a Cotton Mill of 500 Workers. 
 
 Class of Work. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Women. 
 
 Boys. 
 
 Girls. 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 No. 
 
 No. 
 
 No. 
 
 No. 
 
 No. 
 
 1. Stokers, engi- ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 neers, lodge- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 keepers and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 warehouse- 
 
 20 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 ... 
 
 27 
 
 men, mecha- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 nics, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 porters . . .'' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2. Cotton mixing \ 
 and blowing ) 
 
 7 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 g 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 
 3. Curding .... 
 
 17 
 
 36 
 
 4 
 
 15 
 
 72 
 
 4. Self-acting 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mule spin- • 
 
 24 
 
 ... 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 35 
 
 ning . , . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5. Throstle spin- ^ 
 ning, wind- ( 
 ing, and 
 warping . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 39 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 69 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7. Power-loom \ 
 weavers ... 5 
 
 10 
 
 173 
 
 ... 
 
 92 
 
 275 
 
 8. Beaming, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 twisting, and 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 14 
 
 sizing ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 251 
 
 33 
 
 121 
 
 500 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Average of Total' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wages of Work- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ers in ALL de- >■ 
 
 87 17 6 
 
 127 11 10 
 
 11 11 
 
 30 5 
 
 257 5 4 
 
 partments taken 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 together . • . •, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Average Wages ; 
 to each Person . \ 
 
 18 6 
 
 10 2 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 10 3i 
 
 K 2 
 
132 First Period 
 
 infant child is a distinct duty not to be neglected, except 
 under the pressure of one even more urgent. 
 
 In all evils, having principally a moral source, like pau- 
 perism, or neglect of the nurture or education of children, 
 the degree in which palhatives can be applied without 
 injuriously masking the mischief and postponing the apph- 
 cation of efficient remedies is questionable. But the moral 
 and intellectual elevation of the people, by schools and 
 religious training, is a work requiring generations of 
 effort. Parents more lettered and less sensual will be less 
 prone to neglect infants and children of riper age. A 
 population imbued with a religious sense of responsibility 
 would not bear such a burden on the conscience. But is 
 nothing meanwhile to be done, in the name of humanity, 
 to prevent the premature extinction of infant life ? Shall 
 we say, that it is better that the more feeble germs of the 
 life of such a sensual race should perish by undue expo- 
 sure and mismanagement, than that the race itself should 
 degenerate ? Or shall we more hopefully say, inspired 
 by the charity which Christ has taught, that these infants 
 are objects of compassionate interference ? If they were 
 born one degree lower in the scale of society the parents 
 would be paupers, and they would be in the excellent In- 
 dustrial School for pauper children at Swinton. 
 
 Infant schools, to a great extent, take charge of them at 
 three years of age. In the infant school they are in a well- 
 ventilated room — they are in healthful exercise in various 
 forms of amusement and drill — their manners, temper, 
 tone of thought, and habits of application are under intel- 
 ligent training. That is a form of interference justified 
 by the results of experience. The infant school, for chil- 
 dren from three to five, ought to be self-supporting. There 
 might also be connected with the infant school, in all 
 districts in which married women are much employed from 
 home, a nursery, managed — ^^as a school of domestic train- 
 ing — under the superintendence of the schoolmistress by 
 girls, who should be paid and instructed in infant manage- 
 ment. This nursery ought to be entirely self-supporting. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 133 
 
 It should provide for the food and nursing of the infants 
 during twelve hours of the day. Estabhshments of the 
 kind, but capable of much improvement, exist in France. 
 I do not here enter on the simple details of their economy. 
 
 On mature reflection I consider them to be legitimate 
 palhatives. They bear the same relation to the manage- 
 ment of infants by ignorant, careless, or harsh hirehngs, 
 that the infant school does to the old dame school, or the 
 much worse modern dame school. 
 
 There remains the important question, in what cases 
 the law should interfere. What are the conditions under 
 which mothers should be allowed to delegate to other 
 persons the personal care of infant children during the 
 first years of nurture, in order to increase the earnings of 
 the family ? This subject is one too intricate and exten- 
 sive for more than a passing allusion here. But in pre- 
 sence of the proportions which the labour of women bears 
 to that of men in factories, and of the rate of infant 
 mortahty in Manchester, this question is one deserving 
 consideration. 
 
 The employment of girls in manufactories interferes 
 with their domestic training. Factory girls are, to a 
 lamentable extent, ignorant of household management. 
 The Infant JSTursery might be a most important school. 
 Married women, besides their inaptitude in cooking and 
 household economy, are away from home during ten or 
 twelve hours in the day ; though it may be very question- 
 able how far their work compensates for the want of 
 thrift, for the absence of domestic management, and for 
 the waste of wages in drink and in coarse feeding. The 
 discomfort of the home reacts on the habits of all, and 
 especially of the husband. This discomfort costs far more 
 than the decent proprieties of a well-ordered house. In 
 this vicious circle of cause and effect, there is a destructive 
 force accumulating with the accelerated revolution of this 
 weight of evil, which sweeps before it comfort, peace, 
 morality, health, and life itself 
 
 In 1851, the Chairman of the Licensed Victuallers' As- 
 
 K 3 
 
134 First Period 
 
 sociation of Manchester and Salforcl said at their annual 
 dinner, that ' there were 600 licensed victuallers in Man- 
 chester and Salford, whose annual rental, taken on a 
 moderate scale, amounted to £48,000 ; paying for as- 
 sessed taxes, £6000 ; for income tax, £4800 ; for licenses, 
 £10,800 ; for pohce and highway rates, £2400 ; for poor- 
 rate, £9000 ; for gas rent, £9000 ; for water, £1800 ; 
 total, £91,800. He thought those figures were sufficient to 
 show that they should not he treated as an insignificant 
 body' ' They employed 3000 servants, whose wages, calcu- 
 lated at the low average of 12^. per week each, amounted 
 to £93,600 per annum.' 
 
 There are, says Dr. Lees^ 1500 (1852) beer-houses in 
 the two boroughs, which he estimates to cost £168,700 
 per annum. Dr. Lees proceeds, as will be seen, to estimate 
 the whole annual outlay on intoxicating liquors in Man- 
 chester and Salford in 1852 at £1,400,000 at least. 
 
 A Committee of the Manchester and Salford Temperance 
 
 ^ From the best information obtainable, we learn that the 1500 beer- 
 sellers pay annually for rent, at an average of £18 each, £27,000 ; for poor- 
 rates, police rates, highway rates, and water rates, at the very least, £6500 j 
 for gas rent, £3000 ; for family expenses, viz., eating, drinking, clothing, 
 schooling, and incidental family matters (including the bad debts they com- 
 plain of), say 25s. per week each establishment, or £97,500 ; for 1500 servants, 
 being one for each house, and allowing for wages, maintenance, wear and 
 tear, &c., 8,<?. per week each, or in the aggregate, £31,200, per annum ; 
 and for painting, repairing, beautifying, &c., including lamps, signs, break- 
 ages, &c., say £2 per annum each, or in the aggregate, £3000 ; making the 
 total cost of the beer houses per annum, £168,700. 
 
 Hence we learn that the costs out of pocket for keeping 600 
 
 public houses, is, at a low estimate . . . £286,680 
 
 Ditto for 1500 beer houses £168,700 
 
 Making the total yearly cost of the public-houses and beer- 
 shops of Manchester and Salford .... £455,380 
 
 This sum, being, as we have intimated, for costs out of pocket, must neces- 
 sarily come out of the profis of business \ and if we allow the drink trade 
 to realise an average profit of 32 per cent,, or say, 6s, M. in the poundj it fol- 
 lows, that to supply a profit equal to the necessary expenses of maintaining 
 these establishments, the inliabitants of Manchester and Salford must spend 
 in the public-houses and beer-shops, considerably more than £1,400,000 a 
 year ! — Inquiry into the Cost and Consequences of Intoxicating Drinks in 
 Mancheste)- and Salford. By J, J. Lees^ 1852. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 135 
 
 Society in 1854 watched during ten successive Sundays 
 ' the houses in which intoxicating drinks are usually sold,' 
 and kept an ' exact report of the number of visits paid to 
 each.' For this purpose the city of Manchester ' was 
 divided into 63 wards, each district superintended by a 
 captain, with one general superintendent over the whole.' 
 
 They thus found, as will be seen below^, that 215,318 
 Sunday visits were paid to 1437 houses for the purchase 
 of intoxicating liquors, and that among the visitors were 
 71,699 women and 23,585 children. 
 
 If the money expended in the abuse of intoxicating 
 drinks could be diverted to the rent of better houses, pro- 
 bably four-fifths of the families of Manchester and Salford 
 
 * From the ^ Alliance ' newspaper of August lOth, 1854. The following 
 is a general summary. It will be seen that while the proceedings of the 
 Committee extended over ten Sundays, yet, as no house was taken twice, a 
 fair average of the attendance at each has been arrived at. The Committee 
 are aware of no particular cause which could operate to render the results 
 of one Sunday's census different from another ; and it would have rendered 
 observation much more difficult had not due caution and secrecy been 
 observed. The Committee have every reason to believe in the perfect accuracy 
 of the figures : — 
 
 General Summary of Visits during Legal Hours. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Houses. 
 
 
 
 
 Men. 
 
 Women. 
 
 Children 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 April 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 936 
 
 278 
 
 429 
 
 1643 
 
 
 „ 9 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 2163 
 
 902 
 
 51 
 
 3116 
 
 
 „ 16 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 
 9789 
 
 5277 
 
 851 
 
 15,917 
 
 
 „ 23 
 
 57 
 
 
 
 
 7056 
 
 3981 
 
 692 
 
 11,729 
 
 
 „ 30 
 
 95 
 
 
 
 
 7078 
 
 6378 
 
 935 
 
 14,391 
 
 
 May 7 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 6699 
 
 4088 
 
 1109 
 
 11,896 
 
 
 „ 14 
 
 234 
 
 
 
 
 18,239 
 
 9566 
 
 2559 
 
 30,364 
 
 
 „ 21 
 
 329 
 
 
 
 
 27,684 
 
 16,322 
 
 6201 
 
 50,207 
 
 
 „ 28 
 
 354 
 
 
 
 
 25,602 
 
 16,299 
 
 6528 
 
 48,429 
 
 
 June 4 
 Total 
 
 222 
 
 
 
 
 14,878 
 
 8518 
 
 4230 
 
 27,626 
 
 
 1437 
 
 
 
 120,124 
 
 71,609 
 
 23,585 
 
 215,318 
 
 
 
 
 Public- 
 
 Beer- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Vaults. 
 
 house. 
 
 house. 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 
 avge. 
 
 
 114 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 1 29,568 
 
 17,926 
 
 4147 
 
 51,641 453 
 
 
 
 127 
 
 
 127 
 
 I 14,880 
 
 7947 
 
 2835 
 
 25,662 202 
 
 
 
 
 746 
 
 746 
 
 51,474 
 
 27,512 
 
 11,544 
 
 90,530 121 
 
 Mixed 
 
 3? 
 
 122 
 
 281 
 
 440 
 
 24,202 
 
 17,726 
 
 5059 
 
 47,485 106^ 
 
 Total 
 
 151 
 
 259 
 
 1027 
 
 1437 
 
 120,124 
 
 71,609 
 
 23,585 
 
 215,318 
 
 I49| 
 
 K 4 
 
136 First Period 
 
 might afford dwellings containing at least three ample bed- 
 rooms. Another less considerable portion would, with the 
 occupation of ten-pound houses, obtain the franchise. 
 
 A large number of rate-payers and inhabitants of Man- 
 chester agreed to a memorial to the magistrates at their 
 Brewster Sessions, on the 6th of August, 1859. In this 
 memorial they represented that there were in that city 485 
 licensed victuallers' houses, and 1538 beer-houses. The 
 pohce had reported that ' no improvement had taken place 
 in the conduct of the hcensed victuallers and beer retailers. 
 Of the pubhc-houses, 61 are reported as the resort of 
 thieves and prostitutes, being upwards of 12 per cent.;' 
 ' and of the beer-shops Qd> are similarly reported, or nearly 
 5 per cent.' ' Of robberies from the person by prostitutes 
 and others, 75 occurred in the premises of licensed victual- 
 lers, being nearly 16 J per cent, on the number of the 
 houses ; and of robberies from the person in beer-houses 
 there were 37 cases, being a percentage of 2 1 on the num- 
 ber of the houses.' 
 
 The memoriahsts presented statistics to show that there 
 existed in the city of Manchester in 1858 one place for 
 the sale of intoxicating hquors for every 29 houses ; one 
 for every 171^ inhabitants (men, women, and children) ; 
 7 such places for every school (including both pubHc and 
 private schools) ; and 15 to every church or chapel in the 
 city. 
 
 Another fact, most material in the consideration of the 
 proper province and object of legislation on the sale of 
 intoxicating liquors transpires in a Table furnished by 
 the Chief Constable, Captain Palin, to Mr. David Chad- 
 wick (See Appendix C). While the number of hcensed 
 victuallers' houses with or without spirit vaults, was 498 
 in 1841, it was only 485 in 1859-60, though the vaults 
 attached to these houses had increased one-fourth since 
 1847. Whereas the beer-houses, which numbered 769 
 in 1841, had increased to 1646 in 1859-60, or were more 
 than twice as numerous. 
 
 The United Kingdom Alliance struggles by various 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 137 
 
 means against these evils. The mischief, which is one 
 chief source of a revenue^ of nearly twenty millions, pro- 
 bably causes an outlay of between sixty and seventy mil- 
 lions in the United Kingdom, by far the larger part of 
 which is paid from the earnings of the poor, in a great 
 degree by a waste of those resources, if not by a use of 
 them fatal to health or hfe, domestic morality and peace ; 
 and directly causing crime and disorder. 
 
 There is, therefore, little occasion for wonder that in 
 Manchester the Local AlHance Committee obtained 6826 
 signatures for the enactment of the Maine Law as a per- 
 missive measure. The magnitude of the evil is reflected 
 in the extreme form of interference sought. The Grand 
 Jury of the County Palatine, at the Assize held in Liver- 
 pool in August, 1859, made the following presentment to 
 the late Baron Watson : — 
 
 'My Lord Judge, — The grand jury of this assize for 
 the county palatine of Lancaster desire to make the fol- 
 lowing presentment to your lordship : In the charge 
 with which your Lordship opened this assize, you directed 
 the attention of the grand jury to those acts of violence 
 which occupy a prominent place in the calendar. You 
 informed them that it contained "thirty-five cases of 
 cutting, stabbing, and wounding, by which eight persons 
 
 ^ Public revenue from Excise for tlie year ending March 31st, 1861. 
 
 Hops .... 
 Malt .... 
 
 Spirits .... 
 Sugar used in brewing 
 
 Part also of Licenses 
 Income from Customs : — 
 Rum 
 
 Brandy . 
 Geneva . 
 Other sorts of spirits 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 582,727 9 5 
 
 6,208,813 8 10 
 
 9,225,538 19 10 
 
 180 1 
 
 ^16,017,259 19 
 
 1 
 
 1,492,687 7 
 
 1,733,445 12 
 
 747,150 12 
 
 107,263 6 
 
 35,755 5 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 
 £20,133,562 3 
 
 2 
 
138 First Period 
 
 had come to their deaths." Your Lordship conchided your 
 charge by directing the attention of the jury to those 
 means of prevention which might be wisely adopted to 
 check the growth of crime. The grand jury have care- 
 fully borne in mind both parts of your Lordship's charge. 
 They find that the acts of violence to which your Lord- 
 ship directed their attention have been of an aggravated 
 description. A large proportion resulted from quarrels 
 commenced within the walls of licensed public-houses, 
 after drinking prolonged for hours, and indeed until it 
 had produced a brutal frenzy. After savage blows struck 
 in the house — sometimes producing severe injury — the 
 combat has been renewed in the yard, or the adjoining 
 road, or the street, and in some cases an unmanly use 
 has been made of knives — stabs, with dangerous bleeding 
 or immediate loss of life, or blows and kicks have been 
 given with such barbarity as to cause death. In cases 
 where the grand jury had not before them evidence of 
 the commencement of the quarrel in a particular pubhc- 
 house, it has been clear that the parties had been infuri- 
 ated with drink. The grand jury desire emphatically to 
 express their opinion that, apart from the moral mischief 
 which the excessive use of intoxicating drinks occasions 
 in families and in society, all the poisons sold to male- 
 factors, or wantonly or carelessly used, cause far fewer 
 deaths than the unregulated sale of beer or spirits. The 
 chaplains of our gaols have for many years called the at- 
 tention of the magistrates of this county to drunkenness as 
 the chief source of crime. But the magistrates have only 
 a very limited power over beer-houses, inasmuch as they 
 cannot hmit the number of licenses ; and their discretion 
 as to the suspension or removal of the license of public- 
 houses is subjected to embarrassing restrictions. It is 
 especially to be regretted that the law does not enable 
 the magistrates to secure the personal residence of the 
 licensed victualler in his public-house. The grand jury, 
 nevertheless, suggest that in all cases of intoxication 
 causing any breach of the peace, the police should be 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 139 
 
 directed to ascertain, and report to the justices in petty- 
 sessions, what were the houses in which the several 
 parties had been permitted to obtain drink in excess. They 
 would urge that the j ustices should pursue these inquiries, 
 so as to impress on all who are intrusted with the sale of 
 intoxicating hquors that they become parties to disorder 
 — to much moral mischief — to breaches of the peace and 
 acts of brutal violence, ending in homicide — by permit- 
 ting drink to be taken in excess. They therefore frustrate 
 the intentions of the legislature — that the Kcense should 
 be held on condition of co-operation with the justices of 
 the peace to prevent the abuse of intoxicating drinks, and 
 should be withdrawn if this condition were not fulfilled. 
 The grand jury conceive that the justices in petty sessions 
 may be strengthened in the discharge of such duties if, 
 from this assize, their attention be called to all those cases 
 of violence caused by intoxication, and commencing in 
 public-houses, which have been sent for trial by your Lord- 
 ship, and that they be requested to consider whether they 
 should take such measures with respect to the Hcenses of 
 such publicans as may issue in their suspension or removal. 
 Some such immediate exercise of the authority of the 
 justices, followed by a vigorous and persevering adminis- 
 tration of the law, has become indispensable. The grand 
 jury, however, feel that if these efforts were successful 
 they would leave untouched the mischievous influences 
 of beer-houses, kept by a ruder class of persons than 
 the licensed victuallers. Either, on the one hand, the 
 sale of beer and spirituous liquors may be safely made 
 an open trade, both without reference to the character 
 of the dealers or to any guarantee for their good conduct ; 
 or, if such a trade cannot be suffered without control, 
 then the security which the legislature has required from 
 the hcensed victuallers should be rendered thoroughly 
 effectual, and extended to beer-houses. Such security 
 should be sought, not only in the provisions of the statute, 
 but also by an administration of the law, prompt, earnest, 
 and free from personal or party favour or interest. The 
 
140 First Period 
 
 present law neither effectually promotes wholesome re- 
 straint, nor is it consistent with an unfettered trade. It 
 is administered by two classes of functionaries, on two 
 conflicting ill-defined principles, so as to cause a confusion 
 most injurious to those who are supported by manual 
 labour, and to become a fruitful source of crime. The grand 
 jury are of opinion that the laws as to the sale of intoxi- 
 cating drinks in beer-houses and public-houses should be 
 assimilated, and that the authority administering the law 
 should be made uniform, and should be such as to secure 
 a prompt, pure, and faithful enforcement of the intention 
 of the legislature. The grand jury venture to say that 
 no graver question of domestic legislation awaits the 
 action of the executive government. The grand jury 
 cannot conclude this presentiment without expressing their 
 earnest concurrence with your Lordship as to the supreme 
 importance which you attached to all the moral means 
 for the prevention of crime afforded by the rehgious 
 bringing up of our youth, by private example, and by 
 efficient schools. They likewise desire to rejoice with 
 your Lordship in the marked success which has hitherto 
 attended the institutions of late created, for the reforma- 
 tion especially of females and of juvenile offenders. They 
 would further urge that the associations of "patronage," 
 which aid the reformed adult prisoner, on his discharge, 
 to obtain an honest livehhood by work, deserve confi- 
 dence, and that an immediate extension of such societies 
 is rendered desirable by the practical abohtion of the 
 punishment of transportation. 
 
 'J. P. Kay Shuttleworth, Foreman: 
 
 I cannot hesitate, therefore, to attribute the present high 
 rate of mortahty in Manchester and Salford in a great 
 degree to intemperance. But one fertile source of this 
 intemperance, as well as a consequence of it in the vicious 
 circle of causation, is, I repeat, the excessive employment 
 of women in the manufactories of the cotton trade. This 
 explains the continuance of the hidi rate of infant 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 141 
 
 mortality, notwithstanding that sanitary improvements 
 have been so general and efficient as to have reduced 
 the frequency and violence of epidemic diseases in Man- 
 chester since 1847. The chief means of improving the 
 health and prolonging the hfe of the poorer classes now 
 consist in the elevation of moral and rehgious feeling, and 
 of general intelhgence. The withdrawal of a large part 
 of the married women from work out of their own homes, 
 except in cases of absolute necessity, is indispensable to im- 
 prove the domestic training of girls. The radical cure for 
 an excessive infant mortality lies in the same power of the 
 wife over her household which will enable her to wean 
 her husband from the tavern. Crime and disease will 
 be proportionately diminished, and the annual death-rate 
 will be reduced. This excessive employment of married 
 women is neither an unavoidable necessity in factory work, 
 nor needed for the sufficiency of the income of families 
 in the cotton district ; but, on the contrary, it is a wasteful 
 source of expense, and a cause of intemperance, disease, 
 and death. 
 
 The power to issue hcenses should be vested in a 
 Surveyor-General, not liable to political influence, aided 
 by the pohce and an efficient staff of inspectors, co- 
 operating with the county and borough Magistrates, but 
 independent of them. The hcense should no longer con- 
 fer a value on property held by a brewer or landed pro- 
 prietor, but should be granted to the hcensed victualler 
 personally, as a man of approved good character, and 
 should be revocable by the Surveyor-General. On com- 
 plaint of Justices of the Peace, or of the Grand or Petty 
 Jury, or Chairman of Quarter Sessions, or on the recom- 
 mendation of any Jury as to any serious disorder, crime, 
 or abuse of privilege, the Surveyor-General should have 
 no option as to the revocation of the license, unless, after 
 inquiry, he convinced the authority complaining of some 
 serious defect in the evidence. Holders of lieenses should 
 be subject to a preliminary warning from the Surveyor- 
 General, which should be communicated to the Local Jus- 
 
142 First Period 
 
 tices, and by them to the Police ; and to a second warning, 
 which should be advertised in the local papers at the 
 expense of the holder. If after this second warning com- 
 plaint were made, slighter offences should cause the with- 
 drawal of the hcense. No beer-houses should be held 
 without such a license. All holders of licenses should be 
 regarded as persons selected for their good character and 
 capacity to co-operate with the Police for the prevention 
 of drunkenness. 
 
 The power of the licensed victuallers to prevent the 
 adoption of such a system arises from two causes. It is 
 probable that the return of the House of Commons in a 
 general election costs from £600,000 to one miUion of 
 money. A large part of this sum is spent in besotting 
 the lower class of voters with drink. The power of the 
 licensed victuallers in a contested election is, therefore, not 
 small. The brewers in town and country make the public- 
 houses the spouts through which they empty their vats. A 
 large brewing firm is prosperous in proportion to the 
 number of licensed public-houses which it possesses or rents. 
 The spirit dealers, in like manner, by advances of money — 
 possession of houses — and otherwise, provide for the 
 attractions of the gin-shops. The capital invested, and 
 the vast imperial revenue derived from the abuse of in- 
 toxicating liquors, render any effort to save the working 
 classes from this source of ruin to their comfort, health, 
 or life, a question which arrays against it formidable inte- 
 rests. No Chancellor of the Exchequer would, however, 
 deliberately seek to raise a revenue at so frightful a sacri- 
 fice of national well-being. The horrors of excessive 
 mortahty and crime, clearly attributable mainly to the ex- 
 penditure of upwards of sixty millions annually on beer, 
 spirits, and tobacco, are now brimful and run over. 
 The progress of sanitary improvement unmasks them. 
 Drunkenness must be regarded by the law as a misde- 
 meanour endangering the public peace, health,* and life, 
 and filling the criminal calendar with offenders. It must 
 be restrained by a reformed license system, faithfully ad- 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 143 
 
 ministered by a iirni, equal, and vigilant central authority. 
 The misdemeanour must also be punished summarily. 
 The stocks were a good method of expressing a public 
 loathing of the self-degrading character of this offence. 
 The working men ought to know, that the right 
 apphcation of the money now ruinously expended would 
 raise a larger number of them within the £10 fran- 
 chise, than would, according to the calculations of its 
 advocates, be admitted by the reduction of the franchise 
 to a £6 rating qualification. No man who has not this 
 power of self-restraint ought to possess the franchise. 
 
 In every class of workmen there are frugal men 
 who. save, — who establish the building clubs — become 
 possessors of their own cottages — or, with a provident 
 forethought, even build several dwellings. The first step 
 towards these results is often a deposit in the savings' 
 bank ; though, especially in rural districts, a secret hoard, 
 hid in crevices of walls — in mattresses — under a flag in 
 the floor, or in some other ' nook' — is a favourite device.* 
 The building club is attractive, by the high rate of interest 
 which is given, and the generally sound security and good 
 management of these clubs. They let out the fund at a 
 high rate of interest, to aid workmen and others building 
 cottages, on which they take security by holding the 
 building lease, with a promissory note. The regularity of 
 factory-work aflbrds a check to extreme intemperance 
 during the week, but this is often more than compensated 
 by gross feeding and drinking on Saturday night and 
 Sunday. The handicraft trades, out-door labourers' occu- 
 pations, and work in mines, are much more embarrassed 
 by the absence of the men ' on a sj^ree.' Intemperance is 
 not, however, the habit of a class. The wives and families 
 of aU classes of workmen are much employed in mills, It 
 is not, therefore, possible to trace in the classification of 
 
 ^ One of the colliers of a Lancashire estate built several cottages. Hia 
 wife kept his own and his sons' hoards. When it was necessary to pay 
 the builders, she produced the money from hoards hidden in this way ii^ 
 many different parts of the cottage, 
 
144 First Period 
 
 depositors in tlie savings' bank any marked distinction in 
 favour of any class, either as to the average amount be- 
 longing to each depositor, or as to the number of deposi- 
 tors. The most numerous class in the Manchester and 
 Salford Bank for Savings on the 20th November, 1861, 
 was that of domestic servants (24,697, with an average 
 deposit of £24) ; then clerks, shopmen, warehousemen, 
 porters, and their wives (22,189, with an average of £24); 
 the whole body of operatives employed in silk and cotton 
 spinning and weaving, and in calico-printing, bleach- 
 ing, dyeing, in packing and making-up, with their wives, 
 had opened 22,493 accounts, of which 5083 remained 
 open in Nov. 20th, 1861, containing £143,515 16^. 3d, 
 with an average deposit of rather more than £28. In like 
 manner, 14,624 mechanics and handicraftsmen had opened 
 accounts, of which 4024 remained open on the 20th Nov., 
 1861, containing £113,703 O5. lOc?., or an average deposit 
 
 of £28. 
 
 The provident members of each class are, therefore, 
 probably more numerous in proportion as their occupation 
 places them either in the famihes, or under the immediate 
 influence, by personal intercourse in the warehouse, or in 
 their work, of members of the middle classes. Apart from 
 this influence, no other source of a great difference in the 
 proportionate numbers of frugal members appears to exist 
 in any class. 
 
 But it is gratifying to observe that the amount of 
 deposits relatively to the whole population has steadily 
 increased. Adopting the estimate of the Manchester 
 Statistical Society, and of Mr. David Chadwick, as to the 
 population of Manchester, Salford, and the adjoining 
 districts, in the decennial periods from 1831 to 1861, and 
 reducing this population to the decennial periods from the 
 opening of the bank in 1827, the following is an approxi- 
 mate result : — 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 145 
 
 
 
 
 On 
 
 
 Average 
 
 Fate per head of 
 
 Ye;r. 
 
 Populafion. 
 
 
 Inhabit 
 
 Balance. 
 
 amount of 
 
 total Ijalance to 
 
 
 
 open. 
 
 ants. 
 
 
 balance. 
 
 whole population. 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 1827 
 
 1 70,000 
 
 4998 
 
 34 
 
 144,911 
 
 28 19 11 
 
 17 
 
 1837 
 
 270,000 
 
 10,245 
 
 26 
 
 298,342 
 
 29 2 5 
 
 1 1 
 
 1847 
 
 370,000 
 
 21,735 
 
 17 
 
 580,915 
 
 26 14 7 
 
 1 il I 
 
 1857 
 
 446,000 
 
 39,333 
 
 IH 
 
 986,319 
 
 25 1 6 
 
 2 4 
 
 1860 
 
 464,000 
 
 47,337 
 
 n 
 
 1,228,500 
 
 25 19 
 
 2 12 11 
 
 The number of frugal persons who confide their savings 
 to this bank, and the amount of their whole deposits, have, 
 therefore, steadily increased relatively to the whole 
 population, though the average amount of the balance on 
 each account has diminished. Those who deposited in 
 from 1827 to 1837 were evidently of a class less mixed 
 with the mass of the operative population, and probably 
 more under the personal influence of the middle class than 
 after 1837. Setting the increase of benefit and building 
 clubs against the previous custom of hiding hoards, it 
 seems probable that the sum saved in 1860 per head is 
 three times as great as in 1827. 
 
 In the year following the second edition of the account 
 of the ' Moral and Physical Condition of the Working 
 Classes of Manchester,' — a District Provident Society was 
 formed, on the type of one founded in Liverpool at the 
 suggestion of Mrs. Fry, and the operations of which I had, 
 with my friend, Mr. William Langton, carefully examined. 
 After preUminary meetings summoned by the Borough- 
 reeve in the Town Hall, in February, 1833, a general 
 meeting was held in the Exchange dining-room, under 
 the presidency of the Chief Constable, at which resolutions 
 were adopted embodying the principles and defining the 
 practical operations of the Society. The design was to 
 collect the transient savings of the working classes for the 
 purchase of clothing, furniture, and fuel; or for rent; or as 
 a preliminary to more permanent deposits in the savings' 
 banks. This was accomplished by a weekly visitation 
 and collection from house to house. The savings might 
 at any time be withdrawn, in whole or in part. The 
 
 iii-i 
 
 Ca 
 
146 First Period 
 
 checks were well devised, and worked without fraud or 
 friction. It was, however, found necessary to employ a 
 paid agency to a great extent, owing to the increasing 
 tendency of the more wealthy inhabitants to live in the 
 remoter suburbs and in the country, — a tendency now 
 greatly increased by the greater facihties for locomotion, 
 especially by railways. There was also a Mendicity 
 department, conducted by a machinery closely resembhng 
 that of London. 
 
 I extremely regret to observe that the operations of this 
 most useful Society have gradually become more languid ; 
 for, unless the City Missionaries were also agents of the 
 Society, their labours do not, in promoting frugality, super- 
 sede it. I will not here attempt to determine whether 
 the work of the City Missionaries ought not to include 
 that which has been hitherto the peculiar work of the 
 agents of the Provident Society. I incline to think that 
 the City Missionaries would greatly increase their own op- 
 portunities for intercourse with the poor, and augment their 
 usefulness, by taking up this now comparatively neglected 
 sphere of beneficent labour. In the Eeports for 1853-4-5, 
 it is stated that ' the Society originally contemplated the 
 encouragement of habits of provident economy among the 
 poor by means of periodical house-to-house collections of 
 small deposits through the agency of volunteer district 
 visitors.' This machinery has ' steadily decreased in effi- 
 ciency. It is not without regret that the Committee have 
 felt themselves unable to check this decline. They are 
 wiUing to believe that a plan which the Society was for- 
 merly amongst the most prominent to encourage, has 
 more recently been extensively adopted by individuals in 
 connection with the various congregational associations, 
 and similar institutions in the town ; and that, though 
 they have fewer names on their roll of visitors, there may 
 be no real diminution in the kindly intercourse between 
 the rich and poor of this great town, which it was the 
 Society's aim to foster. Nevertheless they conceive that 
 it would not be difficult for any one who is already engaged 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 147 
 
 in regular visitation to superadd to his or her engage- 
 ment the charge of one or more sections in the Provident 
 Society's district map.' 
 
 Certain modifications in the action of the Society, and 
 its annual results, are recorded in the Note below. ^ 
 
 The preceding facts and deductions concentrate in one 
 main conclusion. 
 
 The removal of purely physical evils, such as inordinate 
 toil, a bad sanitary condition of the town or neighbour- 
 hood, even the better condition of the dwelhng, higher 
 wages, cheaper food and clothing, however important as 
 
 ^ lu order in some degree to provide a means of supplying, as near as 
 possible to the homes of the poor, the desired opportunity of saving, the 
 Society in 1848 initiated a system of district depots for the receipt of small 
 sums. With one exception these depots have been highly successful, and, 
 subject to a temporary check in cases of unavoidable removal, have succeeded 
 in attaching increasing bodies of depositors, vrhose individual payments are, 
 generally speaking, regular though often of very small amoimt. 
 
 The Society now maintains depots in St. Michael's district, in Ancoats, in 
 Grosvenor Street, Lower Mosley Street, and Pendleton. Each is kept open 
 under the superintendence of two at least on each occasion of the members 
 or officers of the Society, from seven to half-past eight, every Monday night. 
 
 The following Table shows the Amount deposited with and withdrawn from the 
 Society in each year, from its formation to the end of 1860. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Deposits. 
 
 Repayments. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Deposits. 
 
 Repayments. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 1833 
 
 351 
 
 10 8 
 
 110 
 
 13 
 
 8 
 
 Forward 
 
 69,134 
 
 3 
 
 io| 
 
 68,640 
 
 10 
 
 H 
 
 1834 
 
 4169 
 
 7 11^ 
 
 3297 
 
 4 
 
 H 
 
 1848 
 
 2088 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 2045 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 1835 
 
 7856 
 
 17 8 
 
 7059 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 1849 
 
 2256 
 
 7 
 
 11 
 
 2295 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 
 1836 
 
 8489 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 8964 
 
 17 
 
 ^ 
 
 1850(a) 
 
 1759 
 
 11 
 
 8 
 
 1S76 
 
 19 
 
 H 
 
 1837 
 
 4735 
 
 19 .5^ 
 
 5084 
 
 14 
 
 65 
 
 ! 1851 
 
 1353 
 
 15 
 
 10 
 
 1420 
 
 14 
 
 H 
 
 1838 
 
 5582 
 
 19 2i 
 
 5482 
 
 9 
 
 1852 
 
 1333 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 1352 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1839 
 
 4468 
 
 14 10^ 
 
 4843 
 
 19 
 
 9 
 
 1853 
 
 1229 
 
 13 
 
 8* 
 
 1282 
 
 2 
 
 lU 
 
 1840 
 
 4696 
 
 11 9 
 
 4561 
 
 17 
 
 H 
 
 1854 
 
 954 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 970 
 
 14 
 
 5 
 
 1841 
 
 4249 
 
 12 11 
 
 4470 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 1855 
 
 1001 
 
 14 
 
 9 
 
 1003 
 
 1 
 
 10^ 
 
 1842 
 
 3200 
 
 13 5 
 
 3142 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 1856 
 
 1455 
 
 13 
 
 7 
 
 1365 
 
 16 
 
 10 
 
 1843 
 
 4935 
 
 7 3 
 
 4702 
 
 14 
 
 n 
 
 1857 
 
 1843 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 1781 
 
 18 
 
 8 
 
 1844 
 
 5053 
 
 13 4 
 
 4815 
 
 8 
 
 lOi 
 
 1 1858 
 
 2093 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 1906 
 
 5 
 
 H 
 
 1845 
 
 5157 
 
 5 8 
 
 5171 
 
 15 
 
 7 
 
 1 1859 
 
 3286 
 
 17 
 
 7 
 
 3077 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 1846 
 
 3847 
 
 1 1 
 
 4192 
 
 19 
 
 6 
 
 i 1860 
 
 3464 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 3482 
 
 18 
 
 H 
 
 1847 
 
 2339 
 
 6 10 
 
 2739 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 ! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 69,134 
 
 3 10| 
 
 68,640 
 
 10 
 
 4| 
 
 Total 
 
 1 
 
 93,254 
 
 19 
 
 H 
 
 92,500 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 (a) No Premium given from this date. 
 l2 
 
14S First Period 
 
 elements of the comfort of the working classes, do not 
 insure their well-being. If the population of the lowest 
 faubourgs of Paris had in 1830 or in 1848 permanently 
 taken possession of the Quartier St. Germain, or converted 
 the Palace of the Tuileries and the Louvre into a Phalan- 
 stere, that revolution would not only not have insured their 
 welfare, but would certainly have precipitated them into 
 the direst misery amidst the ruins of society. But even 
 temporarily, before the catastrophe was complete, and 
 while they enjoyed a possible revenue from the sale of 
 the crown jewels, and of the articles of luxury and vertu 
 which they had not wantonly destroyed, they would 
 merely have converted the palaces into styes like their 
 own lodgings ' au cinquieme' 
 
 The removal of physical evils is indispensable to the 
 elevation of the working classes. But in itself, though 
 followed in the mixed constitution of man by a certain 
 amount of moral advantage, this change consists more 
 in the removal of obstacles to moral progress, and in 
 the provision of a secure foundation for the higher and 
 nobler structure. 
 
 It is, on the contrary, in the nature of that which 
 improves the mind and raises the moral character of a 
 class, to secure a triumph over physical evils. JSTeither 
 form of beneficent labour should be neglected. Each 
 co-operates with the other. But that which derives its 
 power from mental, moral, and religious agencies is in- 
 calculably stronger. It is, therefore, to education and to 
 religion that society must mainly owe its progress. 
 
 Mancliester and Salford have, therefore, in thirty years 
 made vast progress, not only in population and wealth, 
 but in social organisation. The municipal authority lias 
 been administered with wisdom and vigour. The sanitary 
 condition of both towns is greatly improved. The wages 
 and prices of clothing and food of the working population 
 place them in a position commanding a much larger share 
 of the comforts of life. The hours of labour are reduced 
 to a reasonable hmit. The means of innocent recreation 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 149 
 
 are greatly increased. The provision for public worship, 
 the City Mission, the Provident Society, the Savings' 
 Banks, and the growth of the number and efficiency of 
 Day Schools, conspire as moral forces to penetrate the 
 sensual habits of a population which has continued to 
 accumulate from the rudest districts by immigration. 
 Yet the waste of earnings on coarse feeding, and the 
 abuse of intoxicating liquor, is maintained, though it de- 
 grades its victims to worse and more crowded dwelHngs, 
 and to the loss of home comfort and wholesome diet, and 
 subjects married women to work in mills. The ill- venti- 
 lated, uncleanly, crowded cottage, surrounded by in- 
 fluences which depress the health, in a close court or 
 narrow back street, is the price paid for a misuse of 
 earnings sufficient to pay the rent of a house, with three 
 ample bed-rooms, in a salubrious neighbourhood, — to ena- 
 ble the wife to remain in charge of her household duties, — 
 especially to nurture her infant children — and to provide 
 wholesome food, innocent recreation for the family, and 
 regular schooling for the children. 
 
 The well-paved and sewered streets, the improving or 
 closing of cellars, the increase of proper conveniences to 
 cottages, an ample supply of pure water, and the suppres- 
 sion of the grossest nuisances, unmask the evils which 
 still so depress the health of the population that the rate 
 of mortality is 34 in 1000 in 1860, and the rate of infant 
 mortality 11*34 per cent, under five years of age, having 
 been 11*189 in 1841. Those evils now are mainly the 
 habits of an unlettered sensual population, which has not 
 yet learned self-restraint, and fails to second the efforts of 
 a spirited and intelligent municipal power, by that right 
 use of the more abundant means of well-being, which 
 can only be fully enjoyed by a thoroughly civilised and 
 Christian people. 
 
 It was because I had always foreseen this result, that I 
 attached more importance to the moral expedients for the 
 extirpation of pauperism and crime when I wrote in 
 1831, than to the influence of restraints in the adminis- 
 
 1.3 
 
150 First Period 
 
 tration of the law. Such restramts are not without their 
 moral consequences ; and I co-operated with zeal in the 
 extirpation of able-bodied pauperism in the Eastern Coun- 
 ties and in the Metropolis, by the workhouse system. 
 But in the manufacturing districts of the ISTorth, the forms 
 of able-bodied pauperism were not, as in the agricultural 
 districts, and in the cities fed from them, remains of the 
 helotry of the middle ages, aggravated by recent mal- 
 administration. In the North, they were attributable, 
 except in crises of trade, to exactly the same causes as 
 those which still keep up a high rate of mortality in the 
 towns. A semi-barbarous population, rapidly accumulated 
 from the rudest regions, has been discipHned by the or- 
 ganisation of labour and the Police of the municipalities, 
 but has not learned self-restraint, providence, or the real 
 sources of domestic and social well-being. That is the 
 lesson which this population has to learn by every form 
 of instruction and training before the rate of mortahty 
 can fall nearer to the average of all England. 
 
 The efficacy of the moral forces at work is wasted by 
 the constant accumulation of obstacles. The population 
 of Manchester and Salford and the adjacent townships * 
 has increased from 1801 to 1811 at the rate of 20-5 per 
 cent; from 1821 to 1831, at 34-5 ; from 1831 to 1841, at 
 41 ; from 1841 to 1851, at the rate of 28-77 per cent. ; 
 while in all England the rate of increase in these fifty years 
 has never exceeded 18 per cent, in any decennial period, and 
 has ranged from 13 percent, to 18. It is clear, therefore, 
 that the growth of the population in Manchester and 
 Salford has been to a great extent due to immigration. 
 This population has been derived from Ireland, from the 
 hills and moors of the Pennine chain, of the border, of 
 Derbyshire, and of Wales. The immigrants have been 
 singularly rude. The Irish have commonly filtrated 
 through Liverpool ; the hill migrants through some other 
 of the manufacturing towns and villages of Lancashire. 
 
 1 ' Rate of Wages.' By Mr. David Chadwick, p. 33. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 151 
 
 This preliminary training has only broken them to work 
 at out-door labour or in factories. They have not been 
 in any other sense civilised by it. They had lived in a 
 semi-savage state in Irish cabins, or moorland huts, or the 
 rudest cottages built of boulders, one storey high. They 
 had exchanged the solitude of a cottier's, or shepherd's, or 
 herdsman's, or lead miner's, or quarryman's life for the 
 throngs of the manufacturing districts. The meagre diet 
 of potatoes, or oatmeal and bacon, or ' brassy,' ^ was 
 succeeded by that purchased by the work of the wife and 
 children in the mill, and of the father in the building 
 trades or out-door labour. A semi-barbarous race seldom 
 resists the satanic attraction of the ' firewater,' and is in- 
 different to the domestic comfort of a well-furnished and 
 well-ordered home. High wages, bad example, and con- 
 stant temptation, together with the waste of force caused 
 by the exchange of the air of the mountain or plain for that 
 of the close city, and the expenditure of animal energy 
 in toil, render the use of beer, if it could be taken in 
 moderation, and in combination with wholesome food, 
 perhaps the best support for the strength of a workman. 
 But the abuse follows close on the heels of the use, espe- 
 cially in such a race. The brain is inflamed by excess ; a 
 vicious habit is formed. The vendors of intoxicating 
 liquors to a constant succession of uncivilised immigrants 
 are now the hostile force with which all the higher moral 
 agencies of society have to contend. They must be de- 
 feated, or no further progress can be made. 
 
 The immigration of this uncivilised population every- 
 where throughout Lancashire keeps down the level of the 
 condition of the working classes, but it has been indis- 
 pensable to the progress of trade. Mr. Eobert Hyde 
 Greg, in the evidence embodied by Sir George Cornewall 
 Lewis, in his ' Eeport on the State of the Irish Poor in 
 Great Britain' in 1834, said, ' Supposing that all external 
 competition ' for labour ' could have been shut out, wages 
 
 ^ The mutton of sheep found dead on the moors. 
 l4 
 
152 First Period 
 
 might have temporarily advanced so much as to have 
 transferred our manufactures to other places, — perhaps 
 to the coal districts of Wales, or to Ireland itself, where 
 cheap labour is found united to the noblest falls of water. 
 What would then have been the rate of labour, and the 
 amount of the poor's rates ? If the competition of Irish 
 labour has done anything towards averting such a catas- 
 trophe, its tendency has been to raise, not to depress, the 
 rate ' of the wages 'of labour.'^ Mr. Houldsworth doubts 
 whether, without this immigration, the trade ' could ' have 
 met 'foreign competition',^ especially that of the Americans. 
 It is clear that the entire 'plant ' of the trade in mills, 
 docks, reservoirs, mines, roads, canals, railways, and other 
 great works, as well as warehouses and cottages, must 
 have cost a vastly greater outlay of capital. Lancashire 
 has built up its present power with the help of a rude 
 uncivilised immigrant class. In the evidence which I 
 gave to Sir George Cornewall Lewis in 1834, I said,^ 
 ' The introduction of masses of inhabitants into the large 
 towns of England, greatly below the civilisation common 
 to its working classes, is an evil which much economical 
 benefit would be required to compensate. This coloni- 
 sation ^ is not without its influence on the manners of the 
 inhabitants.' ' A knowledge of the minimum of comfort, 
 and of the means of subsistence upon which life can be sup- 
 j)orted, is thus obtained.' I attributed ' a great deal of the 
 discomfort in the habitations of the working classes of 
 Manchester, and the adoption of an inferior diet, to the 
 example of the Irish,' and of other rude immigrant classes. 
 ' In sopae of the neighbouring towns, in all other respects 
 similarly situated to Manchester, but not colonised by 
 Irish, the dwellings of the poor contain more furniture, 
 and are cleaner, and their diet is superior to that of a 
 great portion of the population of Manchester.' In the 
 interval since 1834, I have had abundant opportunity to 
 
 ^ Sir George Cornewall Lewis's Report, p. 36. - P. 35. 
 
 3 Sir George 0. Lewis's Report, p. 40. * Ibid. p. 39. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 153 
 
 examine the bases of this opinion, as apphcable, not simply 
 to the Irish, but to all other semi-civilised immigrants ; 
 and with this qualification, I have no doubt whatever that 
 the moral influence of the immigration of semi-barbarous 
 masses is prejudicial, by example, and personal intercourse, 
 to the habits of the population with which they mingle. 
 
 These classes are also strange impediments to the salu- 
 tary influence of the higher moral agencies. The igno- 
 rant, unkempt, and stultish children of a half-brutish class 
 of immigrants from the moors or border, render progress 
 in a school difficult, or if they are numerous, almost im- 
 possible. A school encumbered with this burden exhibits 
 classes of half-savage scholars, big rude dullards in the 
 lower classes, some disorder, much inattention, none of 
 the higher moral condition which is detected at a glance 
 by an experienced eye. In the street they are wild and 
 boisterous, if not turbulent. In like manner, the City 
 Missionary finds a street of such families exchanging toil 
 for the tavern, and mingled labour and excess for supine 
 sloth. They keep their children with great irregularity 
 at school, if they send them there at all. Except the 
 Eoman Catholics, they are seldom seen in a place of reli- 
 gious instruction and worship. The physician finds their 
 houses, courts, alleys, and barracks, dens of fever. 
 
 These are evils to surmount which generations of effort 
 are required. The Day and Sunday Schools must do their 
 work with children. The Evening School and Mechanics' 
 Institution must combine their functions for youth be- 
 tween school age and manhood with the precedent and co- 
 operating influences of civilisation. A second generation 
 of educated parents wiU not be indifferent to the schooling 
 of their children. A third may be willing to make more 
 abundant provision for it ; and with a higher capacity 
 for the discharge of such a duty, may claim some control 
 of elementary schools, proportionate to its more abundant 
 contribution to their support. With the growth of intel- 
 ligence, there will, doubtless, be an increase of the power 
 of self-restraint, and a partial triumph of mind over sense. 
 
154 First Period 
 
 This cannot occur in a Christian country, without the 
 awakening of the conscience from its sleep, to the acknow- 
 ledgment of the higher responsibilities of our being. 
 Then religion will be at hand, with the revelation which 
 brought life and immortality to light. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 155 
 
 
 4i 
 
 o 
 
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 anchester. 
 
 he age of 45 and under 55, it 
 
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156 First Period 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 * It is well known that the chief cause of the excessive mortality in large towns 
 is the deaths of children under 5 years of age ; this first induced me to think that 
 it might be interesting to show the death line under 5 years, and I have accordingly 
 done so. The upper line of the following diagram indicates the death-rate at all 
 ages, beginning with Glendale, in Northumberland, with 15 deaths per 1000, and 
 ending with Liverpool, with 35 deaths per 1000, — so that we have here a dif- 
 ference of 20 per 1000 between the two extremes. The lower line indicates the 
 deaths exclusive of those under the age of 5 years, and shows a rate of 11 per 
 1000 for Glendale, and 18 for Liverpool, — thus proving that in Glendale the 
 deaths under 5 are only 4 per 1000, while in Liverpool they are 17, which is 
 represented by the space between the two lines. These being the facts, we have 
 thus reduced the difference in the mortality from 20 to 7 per 1000, — proving 
 very clearly that it is the deaths under the age of 5 years which are the chief 
 cause of the great variation in the death-rate, — of these above one-half die under 
 one year of age, and nearly a quarter from one to two. These calculations are 
 based on the deaths for five years, viz. 1851 to 1855, and the population of the 
 census of 1851.' 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 157 
 
 0001 'i^tl sinuorr 'v'«owwcococ^(M(mcnc^c^(N(N(nt<i-'— <r-i.-ir-.r-(r-.r-irH 
 
 "loojafiAiT; 
 
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 J? 2 ;§ 
 
 ^ J=S ^ 
 H H B 
 
 •a-ivaxaiQ 
 
 •A[\m 
 
 311 UUU OrJ<cOCqr-OOOOI^«OiO'tCO(N— iOOiQOr-«3tOTfCO(>lr-' 
 cool "ISd Sq}«3(T WC0COS<3CCCO0M(NC><(M5*l(N(M(NS^3^r-i^rHrH^r-.r^.-^ 
 
158 First Period 
 
 APPENDIX B {continued). 
 
 • We will now endeavour to ascertain at what other periods of life the death- 
 rate is excessive in large towns ; and, in doing so, we will compare our own city, 
 in which the rate at all ages is 34 per 1000, with Brampton, in Cumberland, 
 where the rate is 17 per 1000: in Manchester the deaths under 5 are 17 per 
 1000, and in Brampton only 5 per 1000, — so that at all ages the variation is 
 17 per 1000; but above the age of 5, the variation is only 5, — being a reduc- 
 tion of the balance against Manchester from 17 to 5 per 1000. Before proceeding, 
 it may be as well to premise that in contrasting the mortality in different places 
 many disturbing causes may arise. The most important is that which springs 
 from the difference in the proportion of persons at the same ages ; because if in 
 one place we have a greater proportion of the population at those ages which are 
 the most healthy, as a matter of course the mortality in those places will be the 
 lowest ; hence those towns that are sustained and enlarged by immigration will 
 have a greater per centage of the population at the healthy ages, which will tend 
 to reduce the rate of mortality from what it would have been but for this immi- 
 gration. In Liverpool it is calculated that this cause makes a difference of six 
 deaths per 1000 per annum. To show the effect of this immigration, it may not 
 be out of place to state that without it Liverpool would soon decrease, — in the 
 5 years ending 1858 the deaths exceeded the births by .55. But the mere 
 decrease in the population would be the least important feature ; it would so alter 
 the character and proportions of the population as regards its age, that in a few 
 years there would not be a sufficient number of adults to carry on the business of 
 the town. 
 
 'Let us now proceed with our comparison of Manchester with Brampton: the 
 following Table shows the proportion of the population in each place at the 
 various ages in 1851, and that the per centage of the population under the age of 
 15 was greater in Brampton than in Manchester ; from the age of 15 and up to 
 45 the per centage is larger in Manchester ; and after 45, the scale turns again 
 in favour of Brampton ; — thus proving the effect of immigration, and the ages at 
 which it takes place. In this Table I have also given the rate of mortality at the 
 various ages in both towns, which shows the periods of life at which the remaining 
 portion of the excess in the mortality takes place. We have named how much 
 arises under 5 years of age, and now ive find that above 5 years and up to 35 
 the mortality is 50 per cent, greater in Manchester than in Brampton ; but that 
 from 35 to 65 years of age the mortality is 100 per cent, greater; — thus proving 
 that the statement of Dr. FaiT was no exaggeration, — "that in London, Bir- 
 mingham, and Manchester, the mortality among working men was probably 
 double what it was in the healthy districts by which they were surrounded." ' 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 159 
 
 
 
 
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160 
 
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 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Beturn of the Number of Persoyis Apprehended within the City of Manchester, 
 and how disposed of, ^c.,J'or 19 years and 9 months. 
 
 Years. 
 
 o 
 
 ^ to 
 
 ^8 
 
 1 
 
 c 
 
 C J, 
 
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 II 
 
 III 
 III 
 
 Number of Public Houses 
 
 ■si 
 
 OP 
 
 a 
 
 <D 
 
 m 
 III 
 
 Jl 
 
 11 
 
 to 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1841 . . 
 
 13,345 
 
 2,138 
 
 824 
 
 10,383 
 
 NoRet. 
 
 NoRet. 
 
 498 
 
 769 
 
 NoRet 
 
 309 
 
 317 
 
 1842 . . 
 
 8,341 
 
 1,503 
 
 414 
 
 6,424 
 
 « 
 
 U 
 
 NoKet. 
 
 NoRet. 
 
 " 
 
 NoRet. 
 
 383 i 
 
 1843 . . 
 
 12,147 
 
 2,981 
 
 590 
 
 76 
 
 « 
 
 (( 
 
 502 
 
 781 
 
 - 
 
 330 
 
 398 
 
 1844 . . 
 
 10,702 
 
 3,961 
 
 540 
 
 6201 
 
 " 
 
 « 
 
 490 
 
 941 
 
 " 
 
 :32 
 
 413 i 
 
 1845 . . 
 
 9,635 
 
 5,117 
 
 535 
 
 3,983 
 
 " 
 
 '^ 
 
 482 
 
 1,006 
 
 a 
 
 300 
 
 435 
 
 1846 . . 
 
 7,629 
 
 3,795 
 
 527 
 
 3,307 
 
 
 " 
 
 487 
 
 1,089 
 
 u 
 
 303 
 
 469 
 
 1847 . . 
 
 6,587 
 
 3,091 
 
 654 
 
 2,842 
 
 259 
 
 223 
 
 482 
 
 1,100 
 
 a 
 
 308 
 
 469 
 
 1848 . . 
 
 6,477 
 
 2,885 
 
 646 
 
 2,746 
 
 264 
 
 211 
 
 475 
 
 1,143 
 
 « 
 
 314 
 
 469 
 
 1849 . . 
 
 4,687 
 
 2,311 
 
 527 
 
 1,849 
 
 266 
 
 214 
 
 480 
 
 1,230 
 
 « 
 
 366 
 
 4 69 
 
 1850 . . 
 
 4,578 
 
 2,058 
 
 594 
 
 1,926 
 
 265 
 
 216 
 
 481 
 
 1,298 
 
 1,054 
 
 297 
 
 467 
 
 1851 . . 
 
 4,890 
 
 2,176 
 
 722 
 
 1,992 
 
 271 
 
 210 
 
 481 
 
 1,312 
 
 996 
 
 312 
 
 467 
 
 1852 . . 
 
 5,166 
 
 2,494 
 
 730 
 
 1,942 
 
 273 
 
 208 
 
 481 
 
 1,465 
 
 1,174 
 
 289 
 
 476 
 
 1853 . . 
 
 5,362 
 
 2,627 
 
 623 
 
 2,112 
 
 274 
 
 210 
 
 484 
 
 1,572 
 
 1,148 
 
 254 
 
 482 
 
 1854 . . 
 
 5,955 
 
 2,584 
 
 805 
 
 2,566 
 
 272 
 
 213 
 
 485 
 
 1,576 
 
 1,624 
 
 259 
 
 529 
 
 1855 . . 
 
 6,054 
 
 3,077 
 
 748 
 
 2.229 
 
 272 
 
 215 
 
 487 
 
 1,581 
 
 1,561 
 
 263 
 
 532 
 
 1856 to "1 
 Sep. 30 J 
 
 4,470 
 
 2,372 
 
 505 
 
 1,593 
 
 273 
 
 216 
 
 489 
 
 1,552 
 
 1,414 
 
 302 
 
 546 
 
 1856-7 . 
 
 7,797 
 
 4,144 
 
 602 
 
 3,051 
 
 273 
 
 212 
 
 485 
 
 1,573 
 
 1,827 
 
 325 
 
 576 
 
 1857-8 . 
 
 7,643 
 
 4,325 
 
 605 
 
 2,713 
 
 283 
 
 202 
 
 485 
 
 1,538 
 
 1,301 
 
 382 
 
 605 
 
 1858 9 . 
 
 6,788 
 
 3,946 
 
 520 
 
 2,322 
 
 307 
 
 177 
 
 4S4 
 
 1,628 
 
 1 314 
 
 401 
 
 604 
 
 1859-60 
 
 7,387 
 
 4,359 
 
 541 
 
 2,487 
 
 318 
 
 167 
 
 485 ' 
 
 1,646 
 
 1,231 
 
 404 
 
 617 
 
 This Table was prepared by Captain Palin, Chief Constable, fur Mr. D.ivid Chadwick. 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 161 
 
 SALFORD POLICE FORCE. 
 
 Number of Police 
 Cost of Force 
 
 Number of Apprehensions 
 „ Public-houses 
 „ Vaults 
 „ Beer-houses 
 „ Pawnbrokers 
 
 1810. 
 . 31 . 
 
 1861. 
 105 
 
 £1,861 10 3 
 
 £4,931 7 6 
 
 
 after deducting Government 
 Grant, £1,493 11 8 
 
 2275 . 
 
 1525 
 
 97 . 
 
 97 
 
 10 . 
 
 75 
 
 250 . 
 
 387 
 
 7 . 
 
 34 
 
 This Table was prepared by Mr. James Taylor, Chief Constable. 
 
 Return showing the average number of Prisojiers in the Manchester City Gaol, 
 with cost per head per day, after deducting earnings. 
 
 Date of 
 opening. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Average 
 Number of 
 Prisoners. 
 
 Cost per head 
 per day. 
 
 Nett Earnings per 
 Annum. 
 
 Cost per head 
 
 per day, 
 
 deducting 
 
 Earnings, &c. 
 
 March 11th 
 1850. 
 
 1851 
 1852 
 
 303 
 469 
 
 19^^. 
 \2\d. 
 
 £ S. d. 
 162 8 8 
 
 683 7 
 
 19|(/. 
 lli^. 
 
 
 1853 
 
 420 
 
 I2d. 
 
 845 15 8 
 
 10|(/. 
 
 
 1854 
 
 438 
 
 12M 
 
 1,086 3 
 
 lOfJ. 
 
 
 1855 
 
 514 
 
 12|rf. 
 
 ],282 5 2 
 
 \\d. 
 
 
 1856 
 
 569 
 
 I2^d. 
 
 1,170 10 4 
 
 lid. 
 
 
 1857 
 
 557 
 
 u^d. 
 
 1,310 15 1 
 
 \o\d. 
 
 
 1858 
 
 512 
 
 13d. 
 
 1,510 12 4 
 
 Ud. 
 
 
 18.59 
 
 540 
 
 llf^. 
 
 1,694 4 7 
 
 ^d. 
 
 
 1860 
 
 514 
 
 llfrf. 
 
 2,425 4 3 
 
 s^d. 
 
 
 1861 
 
 508 
 
 12frf. 
 
 2,776 5 5 
 
 Hd. 
 
 This Table was prepared by C. B. J. Lank, Governor, Manchester City Gaol. 
 
 M 
 
162 First Period 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Poor-Rates: — Value of Property Assessed, Number and Amount of the 
 
 
 
 No. of 
 
 A mount 
 
 
 Amount 
 
 
 Amount 
 
 
 =.e 
 
 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Assess- 
 
 of 
 
 
 of 
 
 
 of 
 
 Per 
 
 H 
 
 Paid to 
 
 Paid to 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ments. 
 
 Assessmente. 
 
 
 Poor's- Rate. 
 
 
 Rate collected. 
 
 Cent. 
 
 Constables. 
 
 Countj Rates. 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 £ S. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 
 
 £ 5. d. 
 
 £ s. d 
 
 
 1820 
 
 4 6 
 
 19,811 
 
 307,510 10 
 
 
 
 69,189 17 
 
 3 
 
 42.313 16 6| 
 
 61-1 
 
 6 
 
 3,074 6 4 
 
 10,124 7 8 
 
 
 1821 
 
 4 6 
 
 20,824 
 
 313,147 10 
 
 
 
 70,458 3 
 
 9 
 
 44,077 7 
 
 62*5 
 
 
 2,127 4 9 
 
 12,075 8 9 
 
 
 1822 
 
 3 
 
 22,213 
 
 2!t6,112 15 
 
 
 
 44,416 18 
 
 3 
 
 36,144 6 6 
 
 81-3 
 
 
 1,967 16 11 
 
 7,804 4 5 
 
 
 1823 
 
 2 
 
 24,115 
 
 305,200 15 
 
 
 
 30,520 1 
 
 6 
 
 24,800 10 9| 
 
 81-2 
 
 
 2,037 7 4 
 
 7,461 9 
 
 
 1824 
 
 2 
 
 25,215 
 
 317,063 
 
 
 
 31,706 6 
 
 
 
 24,911 16 llf 
 31,086 6 U 
 
 78-5 
 
 
 1,706 10 4 
 
 9,017 8 
 
 
 1825 
 
 2 6 
 
 26,402 
 
 334,737 10 
 
 
 
 41,842 3 
 
 9 
 
 74-3 
 
 
 2,464 5 2 
 
 10,440 15 7 
 
 
 1826 
 
 5 
 
 27,013 
 
 346,176 5 
 
 
 
 86,544 1 
 
 3 
 
 59,371 10 71 
 
 68-6 
 
 
 3,218 8 Ci 
 
 12,305 9 5 
 
 
 1827 
 
 5 
 
 27,306 
 
 352.588 5 
 
 
 
 88,147 1 
 
 3 
 
 66,204 11 3A 
 
 75-1 
 
 10 
 
 3,356 2 3 
 
 12,774 19 3 
 
 
 1828 
 
 4 
 
 27,464 
 
 337,861 
 
 
 
 67,572 4 
 
 
 
 55,080 10 Oi 
 56,590 8 7^ 
 
 81-5 
 
 
 3,501 16 8 
 
 6,485 18 8 
 
 
 1829 
 
 4 
 
 28,100 
 
 346,288 
 
 
 
 69,257 12 
 
 
 
 81-7 
 
 
 4.014 19 11 
 
 4,924 19 3 
 
 
 1830 
 
 No 
 
 Rate 
 
 • 
 
 
 • • • 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 3,227 18 4 
 
 8,611 4 4 
 
 
 1H31 
 
 3 
 
 28,667 
 
 360,121 
 
 
 
 61,018 3 
 
 
 
 45,722 10 4J 
 61,044 15 9A 
 
 84-6 
 
 
 3,708 3 9 
 
 6,000 2 
 
 
 1832 
 
 4 
 
 29,317 
 
 362,839 5 
 
 
 
 72,567 17 
 
 
 
 84- 1 
 
 
 3,652 7 7 
 
 5,841 4 2 
 
 
 I8.S3 
 
 3 
 
 29,690 
 
 367,141 10 
 
 
 
 55,071 4 
 
 6 
 
 47,585 19 5 
 
 8-64 
 
 
 3,106 9 11 
 
 6,728 15 6 
 
 
 1834 
 
 2 6 
 
 30,722 
 
 409,191 
 
 
 
 51,148 17 
 
 6 
 
 45,108 8 
 
 88-1 
 
 
 3,810 13 5 
 
 5,-583 2 5 
 
 
 1835 
 
 2 
 
 31,540 
 
 429,814 
 
 
 
 42,981 8 
 
 
 
 38,871 3 
 
 90-4 
 
 
 3,831 10 10 
 
 5,831 9 10 
 
 
 1836 
 
 1 4 
 
 33,099 
 
 467,476 5 
 
 
 
 31,165 1 
 
 8 
 
 28.127 3 4 
 
 90-2 
 
 
 4,320 7 1 
 
 3,437 8 
 
 
 1837 
 
 1 8 
 
 34,535 
 
 5G8,8H3 5 
 
 
 
 47,406 18 
 
 9 
 
 40,532 19 8 
 
 85-6 
 
 
 5,185 12 5 
 
 4,546 8 6 
 
 
 1838 
 
 I 6 
 
 34,793 
 
 574,341 10 
 
 
 
 43,075 12 
 
 3 
 
 37,018 5 8A 
 
 85-9 
 
 
 5,018 4 4 
 
 7,162 6 
 
 
 839 { 
 
 2 
 
 35,827 
 
 . 
 
 
 58,9.':3 17 
 
 
 
 49,646 5 8i 
 
 84-2 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 1 
 
 35,827 
 
 589,538 10 
 
 
 
 29,476 18 
 
 6 
 
 24,001 19 U 
 
 81-4 
 
 
 2,210 r 8 
 
 7,947 13 6 
 
 
 1840 
 
 2 4 
 
 35.632 
 
 597,921 15 
 
 
 
 69,757 10 
 
 9 
 
 .57,683 8 9A 
 
 82«6 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 1841 
 
 2 4 
 
 35,661 
 
 601,351 15 
 
 
 
 70,152 16 
 
 8 
 
 56,666 12 8i 
 
 80-7 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 1842 
 
 3 4 
 
 36,009 
 
 602,620 15 
 
 
 
 10t),436 15 
 
 10 
 
 79,361 8 6 
 
 79-0 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 1843 
 
 4 
 
 36,603 
 
 590,938 
 
 
 
 118,179 13 
 
 
 
 96,278 9 6 
 
 81-4 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 
 
 1844 
 
 3 
 
 37,033 
 
 596,531 15 
 
 
 
 89,480 1 
 
 3 
 
 75,806 4 10 
 
 84-7 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 1845 
 
 3 
 
 37,407 
 
 617,156 5 
 
 
 
 92,573 8 
 
 9 
 
 79,695 17 4 
 
 86-0 
 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 1846 
 
 5 
 
 37,761 
 
 633,017 16 
 
 
 
 158,254 9 
 
 
 
 135,491 18 81 
 
 85-6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1847 
 
 4 6 
 
 38,024 
 
 643,821 
 
 
 
 144,026 15 
 
 6 
 
 122,662 19 
 
 85- 1 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 1848 
 
 6 8 
 
 38,151 
 
 647,568 15 
 
 
 
 215,856 5 
 
 
 
 174,245 15 8 
 
 81-0 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1849 
 
 4 
 
 38,728 
 
 657,863 5 
 
 
 
 131,573 17 
 
 
 
 107,531 19 5 
 
 81-6 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 1850 
 
 3 6 
 
 38,974 
 
 665,669 
 
 
 
 1 16,492 1 
 
 6 
 
 96,699 9 10 
 
 83-0 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1851 
 
 4 
 
 40,113 
 
 677,446 10 
 
 
 
 135.489 6 
 
 
 
 114,020 2 1 
 
 84-1 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 1>'52 
 
 4 
 
 41,540 
 
 691,354 
 
 
 
 138,270 16 
 
 
 
 117,156 17 
 
 84-7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1853 
 
 3 6 
 
 42.549 
 
 721,082 
 
 
 
 126,189 7 
 
 
 
 105,860 5 10 
 
 84-4 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 1854 
 
 3 6 
 
 43,081 
 
 732,408 10 
 
 
 
 128,171 9 
 
 9 
 
 107,589 17 4 
 
 83-9 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 1855 
 
 4 
 
 43,718 
 
 737,325 10 
 
 
 
 147,465 2 
 
 
 
 123,545 19 
 
 83-7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1856 
 
 4 
 
 43,6S9 
 
 741,991 10 
 
 
 
 148 398 6 
 
 
 
 124,055 11 10 
 
 83-6 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 1857 
 
 4 
 
 43,521 
 
 757,106 10 
 
 
 
 151,421 6 
 
 
 
 126,953 7 2 
 
 838 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 1858 
 
 4 
 
 44,045 
 
 769,690 10 
 
 
 
 153,938 2 
 
 
 
 130,920 12 1 
 
 85-0 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 1859 
 
 4 
 
 42,265 
 
 778,985 10 
 
 
 
 155,797 2 
 
 
 
 136,005 3 
 
 87-2 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 1860 
 
 3 4 
 
 41,916 
 
 789,203 10 
 
 
 
 131,533 18 
 
 4 
 
 115,944 17 1 
 
 88-1 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,409,500 
 
 21,637,085 16 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Average rate in thef for 20 years, 1820-1840=2. lW.fA«^^g;j,f^j"^^^^^^ 
 " .. " 21 years, 1840-1860-3. 9id.-[ ZVsXl^^itrHd 
 
 Assessrarnts Per Cent. 
 
 Increase in the number of assessments in 20 years, 1820—1840 = 15,821, or 79-86. 
 « " " 20 years, 1840— 1860= 6,284, or 17-64- 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1832 
 
 163 
 
 D. 
 
 Assessments, and Bates Collected in Manchester 1820 to 1860. 
 
 
 Paid Parish 
 
 .Sir Chas. Sha« 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total paid 
 
 Balance in hand 
 
 
 Highway 
 
 paid Chief 
 
 Paid to 
 
 Paid to 
 
 
 Overseers 
 
 ' 
 
 out of 
 
 at the end of each 
 
 i'ear. 
 
 Katfs. 
 
 Commissioners 
 of Police. 
 
 Borough Kate. 
 
 Guardians. 
 
 
 Expense. 
 
 
 Poor-Rates. 
 
 Year. 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 1820 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 . 
 
 
 28,380 4 
 
 0^ 
 
 41, .578 18 Oi 
 
 12,029 2 2 
 
 1821 
 
 316 7 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 24,.525 4 
 
 9 
 
 39,044 
 
 15.767 15 6 
 
 1822 
 
 316 7 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 '^0,550 9 
 
 0^ 
 
 30,638 18 11 
 
 25.038 19 5A 
 
 1823 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 21,248 
 
 3 
 
 30,746 16 7 
 
 20,827 1 O5 
 10,029 7 5a 
 
 1824 
 
 316 7 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 22,058 13 
 
 7 
 
 33,098 12 4 
 
 1825 
 
 3Ib' 7 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 26,243 19 
 
 7^ 
 
 39,465 8 n 
 
 3,241 3 2 
 
 1826 
 
 316 7 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 42,383 
 
 4 
 
 58,283 6 2 
 
 1,582 17 10 
 
 1827 
 
 1,565 11 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 36,882 7 
 
 8| 
 
 4 
 
 54,579 n 
 
 15,803 1 9i 
 
 1828 
 
 1,598 6 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 29,831 19 
 
 41,418 1 U 
 
 29,521 4 11 
 
 1829 
 
 774 9 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 48,203 1 
 
 5 
 
 6r,917 10 1 
 
 31,724 6 8 
 
 1830 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 41,787 5 11 
 
 53,626 8 7 
 
 5,767 5 8| 
 
 1831 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 47,191 7 
 
 9 
 
 56,899 11 8 
 
 2,505 1 7 
 
 1832 
 
 388 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 .53,411 13 
 
 4 
 
 63,293 5 4 
 
 9,377 7 8 
 
 1833 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 33,634 4 
 
 6 
 
 43,463 9 11 
 
 11, .532 15 6 
 
 1834 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 27,645 9 
 
 6i 
 
 37,039 5 4i 
 43,186 9 41 
 
 18,044 10 7 
 
 1835 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 33,523 8 
 
 ?i 
 
 23,186 4 6 
 
 1836 
 
 193 12 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 30,815 3 
 
 38,766 3 9| 
 
 21,708 11 6 
 
 1837 
 
 387 4 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 37,603 8 
 
 5 
 
 47,722 14 1 
 
 18,432 13 10 
 
 1838 
 1839 J 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 36,190 1 
 
 9 
 
 48,370 6 3 
 
 13,987 10 11 
 
 387 4 "9 
 
 9,ono ' 
 
 
 
 
 ; 
 
 
 40*650 12 
 
 "7 
 
 6OJ95 12' 6 
 
 17*027 13 
 
 1840 
 
 387 4 9 
 
 16,391 12 8 
 
 22,104 15 6 
 
 
 
 46,192 15 
 
 3 
 
 85.076 8 2 
 
 6,393 7 1 
 
 1841 
 
 751 16 3 
 
 16,896 1 8 
 
 9,701 15 6 
 
 31,001 
 
 
 
 4,206 10 
 
 6 
 
 62,557 3 11 
 
 *1,654 8 5 
 
 1842 
 
 
 14,478 19 2 
 
 7,000 
 
 58,350 18 
 
 11 
 
 3,752 9 
 
 4 
 
 83,ii82 7 5 
 
 6,276 1 4 
 
 1843 
 
 
 
 31,191 14 6 
 
 49,073 8 
 
 2 
 
 3,475 13 
 
 
 
 83,740 15 8 
 
 25,941 8 7 
 
 1844 
 
 751 16 '3 
 
 
 
 34,H40 19 6 
 
 44,000 
 
 
 
 3,313 16 
 
 3 
 
 82,906 12 
 
 25,(44 11 1 
 
 1845 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 42,766 16 4 
 
 54,000 
 
 
 
 3,505 13 10 
 
 100,272 10 2 
 
 7,588 11 11 
 
 1846 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 42,'273 10 3 
 
 60,000 
 
 
 
 3,707 4 
 
 9 
 
 105,9SO 15 
 
 t30,167 11 3 
 
 1847 
 
 563 17 3 
 
 
 
 37,189 14 1 
 
 122,000 
 
 
 
 4,037 12 
 
 7 
 
 163,791 3 11 
 
 3,285 4 11 
 
 1848 
 
 
 
 
 33,707 15 2 
 
 90,000 
 
 
 
 4, .389 12 
 
 6 
 
 128,097 7 8 
 
 39,510 15 10 
 
 1849 
 
 563 17 '3 
 
 
 
 43,760 5 4 
 
 70,000 
 
 
 
 5,784 1 
 
 1 
 
 120,108 3 8 
 
 J40,991 18 10 
 
 1850 
 
 1,503 12 7 
 
 
 
 4.3,148 2 
 
 50,000 
 
 
 
 21,(63 18 
 
 9 
 
 115,715 13 4 
 
 §25,549 11 2 
 
 1851 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 42,322 19 
 
 60,000 
 
 
 
 5,(;60 2 
 
 2 
 
 107,983 1 2 
 
 33,703 2 7 
 
 1852 
 
 
 
 
 47,052 4 
 
 54,585 16 
 
 8 
 
 5,051 4 
 
 9 
 
 106,689 5 5 
 
 49,-583 15 
 
 1853 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 45,165 19 11 
 
 60,000 
 
 
 
 5,196 
 
 10 
 
 110,362 9 
 
 48,820 13 4 
 
 1854 
 
 
 
 
 ii2.509 16 
 
 65,000 
 
 
 
 5,264 19 
 
 9 
 
 122,774 15 9 
 
 35,807 6 8 
 
 1855 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 49,687 9 7 
 
 80,000 
 
 
 
 5,677 18 
 
 10 
 
 135,365 8 5 
 
 25,033 12 
 
 1856 
 
 
 
 
 42,155 11 8 
 
 80,000 
 
 
 
 5,701 15 
 
 7 
 
 127,857 7 3 
 
 24,811 17 11 
 
 1857 
 
 
 
 
 47,296 3 9 
 
 77,000 
 
 
 
 6,108 
 
 9 
 
 130,404 4 6 
 
 22,740 13 2 
 
 1858 
 
 
 
 
 45,133 18 2 
 
 80,000 
 
 
 
 7,056 12 
 
 5 
 
 132 190 10 7 
 
 28,201 9 10 
 
 1859 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 45,453 8 3 
 
 84,945 
 
 10 
 
 5,542 19 
 
 10 
 
 1.35,941 8 11 
 
 32,497 13 3 
 
 1860 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 44,872 12 8 
 
 60,000 
 
 
 
 5,345 9 
 
 11 
 
 110,218 2 7 
 
 39,788 14 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * Went into Union, t New Poor Law order nf accounts. % Removal Department returned to Overseers. 
 § One Quarter's relief of Poor. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Increase in the value of property assessed in 20 years, 1820 — 1840 =£290,411, or 94-44. 
 " " « « 20 years, 1840— 1860 = ^191,282, or 31-99. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 Fii'st Period 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 I HAVE excluded from the sketch of the progress of Manchester all medical details 
 not mdispensable to an estimate of the three chief causes of the high rate of mor- 
 tality still maintained there. To enter into the various questions of vital statistics 
 subordinate to the three prominent sources of this mortality would be inconsistent 
 with the main objects of this volume. But I place in this Appendix corrobora- 
 tive evidence that I have not without sufficient ground attributed this high rale of 
 mortality chiefly :— 1. To the sanitary defects in the construction of dwellings and 
 their conveniences ; to their being too closely crowded ; and to the degree in 
 which the removal of nuisances still baffles the efforts of the Corporations of Man- 
 chester and Salford. 2. To the mismanagement or neglect of children under five 
 years of age. And 3. To intemperance. 
 
 In support of the first two of these causes I append the following extracts from 
 the Report of Dr. Headlam Greenhow, to the Public Health Department of the 
 Privy Council, on Diarrhoea in Manchester, presented to both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment in 1859. 
 
 It is especially satisfactory to me to find that the particular nuisances to which 
 in 1831 I had directed the attention of the Board of Health, and of the committees 
 of inspection appointed by it, — the absence or bad position of privies; the over- 
 crowding of dwellings; the want of ventilation of courts, alleys, and small streets; 
 the imperfect removal of excrementitious matter; the defects in scavenging — 
 though less in degree, are exactly those which, in Dr. Greenhow's opinion, com- 
 bine with the neglect or mismanagement of infants as two main sources of the 
 high rate of mortality. 
 
 I also append an analysis of the causes of deaths among children under five years 
 of age in the Ancoats district in 1859. 
 
 ' Manchester. — Cholera occasioned 891 deaths in Manchester in 1849, but vi- 
 sited it very lightly in 1854; indeed, the deaths from cholera, dysentery, and diarrhcea 
 were more numerous in Manchester in 1852, when cholera was not supposed to be 
 epidemic in this country, than in 1854, when it prevailed severely in an epidemic 
 form in several parts of England. Excluding the 891 deaths from cholera in 1849, 
 but including those in other years, 7032 persons died of diarrhoeal disease ; that is 
 to say, of diarrhoea, cholera, and dysentery, in the registration district of Man- 
 chester during the eleven years 1848-58. Of these deaths, 4924 occurred during 
 the seven years 1848-54, and 2836 during the five years 1854-8; being an annual 
 average of 703 during the earlier, and of 567 during the later period. The deaths 
 from diarrhoea have thus materially decreased of late years ; and, as the popula- 
 tion has increased, the diminution in proportion to the number of inhabitants is 
 even larger than is represented by these figures.' ' The average annual death- 
 rate from diarrhoeal disease, which was 3*20 per 1000 persons during the septennial 
 period 1848-54, had fallen to 228 during the five years 1854-8, or nearly one- 
 third.' * Satisfactory as is this great reduction in the mortality from diarrhcea in 
 Manchester, thei-e yet remains a wide margin for improvement, seeing that the 
 present death-rate from this disease is more than seven times higher than the nor- 
 mal rate. There can be little hesitation in attributing this improvement in the 
 public health of Manchester, more especially as regards diarrhcea, mainly, if not 
 exclusively, to the efforts made by the civic authorities to amend the sanitary state 
 of the city. 
 
 'Manchester is a densely-built town ; the interspaces between the streets being 
 small, and almost entirely covered with buildings.' 
 
Progress of Manchester sijice 1832 165 
 
 'The streets and courts of Manchester are, generally speaking, well kept and 
 cleanly, the little heaps of refuse so commonly to be observed in most towns being 
 here found only exceptionally. During a very minute inspection of the town, but 
 few places were observed requiring notice, on account of their filthy condition.' 
 * These, together with a few small courts and back passages, were in this respect 
 the only strikingly exceptionable places observed. Courts abound in the inter- 
 spaces between the streets, and are often narrow, ill ventilated, and, being some- 
 times entered under an archway, arc so entirely surrounded by buildings as to 
 form mere wells of stagnant air, which is often rendered otfensive by the effluvia 
 from privies. Indeed, these latter form the prevailing nuisance of Manchester. 
 Although apparently well looked after, they cannot fail, more especially in close, 
 warm, still weather, to be a source of great annoyance to the inhabitants ; and, if 
 their influence on the public health may be judged of by experience in other places, 
 they are one of the primary causes of the prevalence of diarrhoea. Privies are the 
 only kind of convenience attached to the dwellings of the labouring classes, Avater- 
 closets being apparently discountenanced by the local authorities. 
 
 *It is stated in the official regulations published by the Sanitary Committee of 
 the Council, "that water-closets will only be allowed under special arrangements 
 with the Committee, and the owner or occupier agreeing with the Water Works 
 Committee for Water, for the purpose of cleansing the pipes ; also defraying one 
 half of the cost of removing the ashes." Privies are, therefore, in general use; in 
 the older portion of the town, where they did not formerly exist, their construction 
 has been enforced in the proportion of one privy for every four houses; and, when 
 necessary, houses have, it is said, been removed, to afford room for their construc- 
 tion. Every recently built dwelling-house is provided with a privy and ash-pit. 
 Very stringent regulations have been adopted on this subject by the civic autho- 
 rities. (The regulations are then quoted.) 
 
 'It results from these regulations that, inlaying out ground for building purposes, 
 the space between the backs of parallel rows of houses is usually just sufficient to 
 admit of the construction of privies, ash-pits, and passages in accordance with the 
 requirements of the Sanitary Committee. In some instances, the space is not even 
 quite enough to comply with the spirit of the law, although the letter be scrupu- 
 lously adhered to.' (^Instances are related.) 'Sometimes there are rooms over 
 privies, as in ' streets named. ' There is usually in such cases a ventilating shaft or 
 flue for carrying away the exhalations from the privy to the open air, the flue con- 
 structed for this purpose sometimes passing through the rooms above the privy. 
 In other places, perhaps of more recent construction, a space for the dispersion of 
 effluvia is left between the top of the privy and the floor of the room above ; ex- 
 amples of this arrangement are met with in the neighbourhood of Brown and 
 Calcdon Streets. Small sculleries, with bedrooms over them, are occasionally 
 erected as projections from the backs of houses ; these interfere materially with 
 the passage of the air through the interspaces behind the houses, the ventilation 
 being often so impeded that offensive exhalations are but slowly dispersed into the 
 general atmosphere. 
 
 ' When it is considered that this system of constructing privies in very confined 
 spaces is common throughout Manchester, it may well be termed the monster sani- 
 tary defect of this important city. This evil, curiously enough, is less conspicuous 
 in the older than in the newer portions of the town; for, although the older houses 
 are often loftier, and occasionally let out in tenements of a single room each, the 
 yards are usually larger, and the privies often less objectionably placed than in the 
 more modern streets. Pigs were observed in a few places, but by no means com- 
 monly. Strictly speaking, ihe keeping of pigs in the town is not prohibited; but 
 whenever complaints are made concerning them, their removal is ordered ; and, 
 practically, this has almost sufficed to banish them from the denser portions of the 
 city. Many cellar dwellings are found in Manchester, and often the houses stand 
 
 M 3 
 
166 First Period 
 
 back to back with each other. The water supply is almost, if not entirely, obtained 
 from the public waterworks.' 
 
 ' Nearly two- thirds of the deaths' from diarrhoea ' were those of infants under one 
 year of age, and considerably more than four-fifths those of children who had not 
 attained the age of five years. If the deaths during the five years comprised in 
 this investigation had amounted to 1000, they would have been distributed among 
 the several stages of life in the following manner: — 
 
 Under 1 year 603-1 
 
 From 1 to 5 years 273-6 
 
 „ 5 to 60 years ... . . 68 -7 
 Over 60 years 57-6 
 
 1000-0 
 'The proportion of infant deaths' from diarrhoea 'varied considerably in different 
 years; the per centage of infant deaths was 57*6 in 1854, 62-0 in 1855, 50-5 in 1856, 
 54-4 in 1857, and 59-6 in 1858.' 
 
 'The proportion of infant deaths also varied in the several registration districts, 
 having been much larger in the town districts than in Newton, Cheetham, Fails- 
 worth, Blackley, and Prestwich, which are termed the five suburban districts.* 
 
 'The annexed Table shows the mortality at all ages' from diarrhoea 'per 1000 per- 
 sons in each of the urban sub-districts, and in the five suburban districts here treated, 
 as though they formed but a single district: — 
 
 Ancoats 2-63 
 
 Deansgate 2-37 
 
 London Eoad 2-27 
 
 Market Street 1-84 
 
 St. George's 2-15 
 
 Five Suburban Districts 0-96 
 
 • The peculiar arrangement of the privies prevails more or less in every part of 
 Manchester, but is not equally objectionable in all. The differences of diarrhceal 
 death-rate appear to coincide with these local differences of construction. Ancoats 
 district, which is very densely built, has the highest rate of mortality in proportion 
 to its population. This is the more striking, as the proportion of infant deaths is 
 somewhat less in Ancoats than in the other districts. The connection between the 
 mortality from diarrhoea and the existence of privies in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of dwellings was repeatedly ascertained, and the comparative immunity of 
 places freer from this local nuisance was also apparent, both from the evidence of 
 the inhabitants and the small number of deaths recorded in the death register.' 
 
 * Chorlton comprises Ardwick, Chorlton, and Hulme, which form integral por- 
 tions of the city of Manchester, besides several less populous townships.' 
 
 ' The same evils were found to exist in it as in Manchester, but in a minor degree, 
 the ground being less densely covered with buildings, so that, with few exceptions, 
 there is a wider space between the rows of houses. It is true the same regula- 
 tions relative to new houses apply to Hulme, Ardwick, and Chorlton, as to Man- 
 chester; and, in some cases, they have been as closely adhered to ; but this is 
 exceptional, and more commonly the air at the back of the houses is less stagnant 
 in Chorlton than in Manchester.' 
 
 ' Salfokd Registration District comprehends the borough of Salford, together 
 with Pendleton, Pendlebury, and Broughton. In common with Manchester and 
 Chorlton, it was visited by cholera in 1849, and almost entirely escaped the visita- 
 tion of 1854. In the former of these years, 234 deaths were occasioned by the 
 epidemic. It also participated, but less severely in proportion to its population, in 
 the diarrhceal epidemic of 1852. Exclusive of the deaths from cholera in 1849, 
 but including the deaths from cholera, dysentery, and diarrhoea in the other years 
 of the series, 2748 deaths were caused by diarrhceal disease in Salford during the 
 eleven years 1848-58. Of these, 1863 occurred during the seven years 1848-54, 
 
Progress of Manchester since 1^?>2 167 
 
 and 1239 during the five years 1854-8, being an annual average of 266 daring 
 the earlier, and of 248 during the later period. There has thus been a decrease in 
 the diarrhoeal mortality of Salford, as well as in that of the adjoining districts. The 
 population of Salford in 1851 consisted of 87,523 persons ; and if it has increased 
 in the same ratio since 1851 as during the preceding ten years, it would consist in 
 1856 of nearly 98,000 persons. If this estimate be correct, the average annual 
 diarrhoeal death rate, which was 303 per 1000 persons during the septennial 
 period 1848-54, has only been 2*55 during the five years 1854-8. Thus the 
 diminution of mortality, although unquestionable, has been smaller in Salford 
 than in either Manchester or Chorlton. The rate of mortality from all causes has 
 likewise been less during the last five than during the seven preceding years. It 
 was 2783 per 1000 persons during the seven years 1848-54, and has only been 
 26-58 during the five years 1854-58, 
 
 * Some parts of Salford are very densely covered with buildings, but others are 
 much less densely built than Manchester, which in many respects it closely resem- 
 bles, but with this difference, that the privy nuisance is, in some respects, even 
 worse in Salford than in Manchester. Houses placed back to back, and cellar 
 dwellings, are common in Salford. Houses are not often let in single-room tene- 
 ments, and are rarely overcrowded, usually containing only the members of a 
 single family. The sanitary arrangements in some of the more recently built 
 houses are quite satisfactory ; those in some of the older streets very much the 
 reverse. There are no waterclosets to the dwellings of the poorer classes; the 
 soil from the privies being removed by the municipal authorities, forms a source 
 of revenue which would be lost if waterclosets were in general use. The water 
 supply is the same as that of Manchester, being exclusively derived from the 
 Manchester Waterworks ; wells, formerly in common use, have been altogether 
 disused and covered over. The rule respecting privies is, that they shall be con- 
 structed for cottage property to the satisfaction of the Sanitary Committee, and, 
 although sometimes one of these conveniences is allowed to serve for six houses, 
 the Committee generally require that there shall be one for every four houses. In 
 some parts of the town privies are well apart from dwellings ; in others they are, 
 as in Manchester, situated in very small yards, and in close proximity to the 
 houses. In very many instances they are either actually within the houses, having 
 dwelling rooms immediately over them, or in the centre of rows, having houses on 
 either side ; being, in fact, constructed in what were formerly houses, the upper 
 floor being left unoccupied or employed for ventilation. Sometimes, but more 
 rarely, houses have been entirely removed, and privies erected on their site. It 
 would be easy to give examples of these several arrangements.' Instances are re- 
 lated. ' In several of these places the inhabitants residing in the adjoining houses 
 complained of the privies, and sometimes diarrhoea had prevailed among them. 
 Four courts are there described with privies in houses, below occupied rooms, in 
 which the annual diarrhoeal rate of mortality rose to 7*2 per 1000. 
 
 ' More than half the deaths were those of infants under the age of one year, and 
 more than four-fifths those of children who had not reached the fifth anniversary 
 of their birth. If the entire mortality during the five years had been 1000, it 
 would be distributed among the several stages of life in the following manner: — 
 
 Under 1 year 578*2 
 
 From 1 to 5 years 277*4 
 
 „ 5 to 60 years 72*2 
 
 Over 60 years 72-2 
 
 1000 
 ' The proportion of infant deaths varied from year to year, being 55"8 per cent, of 
 the entire diarrhoeal mortality in 1854, 58-1 in 1855, 49*4 in 1856, 54-9 in 1857, 
 and 59'6 per cent, in 1858.' 
 
 M 4 
 
168 Fir,9t Period 
 
 'As in Coventry and Nottingham, so in Manchester, the large diarrhoeal mortality 
 of children is partly attributed by the medical rnen to the neglect arising from the 
 employment of women in factories. Infants, it is said, are frequently left by their 
 mothers, at the age of three or four weeks, for the greater portion of the day, 
 during which they are fed upon bread and water, and more rarely upon arrow-root 
 and milk. Coffee, meat, and " little drops " of gin are also sometimes given to 
 infants; and the system of drugging with Godfrey's Cordial is so common, that 
 one druggist is reputed to sell thirty gallons per week of this narcotic. Mr. Leigh, 
 one of the sub-registrars, and likewise a medical practitioner, who has devoted 
 much attention to the sanitary state of Manchester, attributes the frequency of 
 atrophy in young children to this system of drugging them with opiates, and the 
 large mortality among children from diarrhoea, to neglect ; parents, he says, send 
 for medicines to druggists at the commencement of an illness, and only call in 
 medical advice when the case has assumed a serious character. But it was also 
 stated by some of the medical gentlemen that diarrhoja prevails likewise among 
 persons not of the poorest class, and among adults, to neither of whom the above- 
 mentioned causes are applicable.' 
 
 * The local distribution of diarrhoeal disease has varied less in Manchester than in 
 some of the towns previously visited ; but where such variations have been ob- 
 served, they appear to have been in a direct ratio to the tainting of the air with 
 the exhalations from foul privies or ash-pits. The inhabitants themselves some- 
 times complained of the effluvia, and also, in a few instances, attributed the preva- 
 lence of diarrhoea among their households to this cause. In all probability, the 
 general diffusion of deaths from diarrhoea in Manchester should be referred to the 
 uniform manner in which stinking ash-pits and privies are distributed throughout 
 the town; and the slightly higher mortality of Salford to the larger proportion of 
 privies in common use by the inmates of several houses, causing the accumulation 
 of ordure in larger quantities in the midst of the population, and to the closer 
 proximity of this nuisance, in but too many instances, to the dwellings.' 
 
 Extracts from the concluding Summary. 
 
 ♦ A very large number of the deaths were those of young children, but the pro- 
 portion has varied in different places. "With the exception of Merthyr Tydfil 
 and Dudley, more than half the deaths were those of infants in the first year after 
 birth. The deaths of infants have borne the largest proportion to those of all 
 ages in the three manufacturing towns, Coventry, Nottingham, and Manchester, 
 in each of which evidence has been adduced of the mismanagement of infants, 
 arising from the employment of mothers in factory labour. The different pro- 
 portions in each place would seem to countenance the opinion that the assigned 
 cause is not without influence, seeing that a much larger proportion of the women 
 of Coventry were employed in the special manufactures of that city in 1851 than 
 of those of either Manchester or Nottingham. The four years between the com- 
 pletion of the first and the termination of the fifth year after birth is the next most 
 fatal period of life, and the deaths in these four years being added to those of the 
 first year, very nearly equalise the mortality in most of the places during the first 
 five years of life. But here again variations exist, which would appear to denote 
 the operation of different influences in the several districts. Manchester and 
 Salford have been the districts most fatal to children ; next to them Coventry; 
 whilst in Leeds, Merthyr Tydfil, and Nottingham, the proportion of deaths of 
 children under five years of age from diarrhoea, in proportion to the whole mor- 
 tality from this disease, has been smaller than in the other places. The following 
 Table, based upon the assumption that 1000 deaths have occurred in each district, 
 shows at a glance the proportion which the deaths from diarrhoeal disease at each 
 period of life bears to the total mortality from this disease in the several places. 
 
Progr^ess of Manchester since 1832 
 
 169 
 
 The figures have already been given separately for each place, but they are here 
 placed side by side for all the places, and an additional column has been added to 
 show the mortality under five years of age: — 
 
 
 Under 
 
 From 
 
 Under 
 
 From 
 
 Over 
 
 All 
 
 Name of District. 
 
 
 Ito 5 
 
 5 
 
 r, to 60 
 
 60 
 
 Ages. 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Coventry . 
 
 675-9 
 
 1768 
 
 852-7 
 
 69-3 
 
 78-0 
 
 1-000 
 
 Birmingliam 
 
 549 
 
 267-0 
 
 816-0 
 
 H7-0 
 
 97.0 
 
 1 000 
 
 Wolverliainpton 
 
 52-2-2 
 
 310-1 
 
 832-3 
 
 94-0 
 
 7:5-7 
 
 1-000 
 
 Dudley . 
 
 477-3 
 
 3.59 8 
 
 837-1 
 
 89-4 
 
 73-5 
 
 1-000 
 
 Meithyr Tydfil. 
 
 385 4 
 
 3703 
 
 755 7 
 
 1-28-5 
 
 115-8 
 
 1-000 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 608-0 
 
 136-0 
 
 744-0 
 
 105 
 
 151-0 
 
 l-COO 
 
 Leeds. 
 
 .535 5 
 
 250-5 
 
 7860 
 
 92-0 
 
 122-0 
 
 1-000 
 
 Manchester 
 
 C03- 1 
 
 273-6 
 
 876-7 
 
 65-7 
 
 57-6 
 
 I -000 
 
 Chorlton . 
 
 .599-3 
 
 '239-4 
 
 838-7 
 
 90 1 
 
 71-2 
 
 1-000 
 
 Salford . . , . 
 
 57S*8 
 
 277-4 
 
 866 -2 
 
 72-2 
 
 72-2 
 
 1-000 
 
 ' The proportion of infant deaths in each place varied in the several years, but 
 there has been no uniformity in this respect in the difi"erent districts; even such as 
 are contiguous, like Manchester, Chorlton, or Salford, or near to each other, like 
 Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Dudley, having differed from one another. 
 
 ' However great the influence of season, of age, or of the mismanagement of 
 young children in causing a large mortality from diarrhoea, the concurrence at 
 least of some other cause might be expected from the very different rate of mortal- 
 ity which prevails in different districts. The present inquiry has very clearly esta- 
 blished the existence of two principal local causes of this disease. These are the 
 breathing an atmosphere tainted with the products of animal decomposition, more 
 especially, although perhaps not exclusively, that of human excrement, and the 
 drinking of impure water.' 
 
 ' Confirmation of the opinion here expressed, that the diarrhoeal mortality of 
 towns is mainly due to the accumulation of night-soil within their precincts, is 
 afforded by the beneficial results accruing from such local exertions as have had for 
 their object the suppression or diminution of this evil, and which have been attended 
 by success, almost in exact proportion to the greater or less completeness with 
 which this object has been attained.' 
 
 Causes of Death in the Ancoats District of Manchester in 1859 among Children under 
 
 five years of age. 
 
 Population of Ancoats Sub -Registration District in 1861 . 55,983 
 
 Deaths under five years ... .... 785 
 
 Deaths of illegitimate children 64 
 
 Total deaths 1493 
 
 Furnished by Arthur Ransome, Esq., Honorary Secretary to the Manchester 
 and Salford Sanitary Association. 
 
 UN' 
 
170 
 
 First Period 
 
 Diseases. 
 
 Deaths under 
 1 year, 
 
 Deaths, 
 from 1_2. 
 
 Deaths 
 from 2 — 5. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Scarlatina . 
 
 5 
 
 20 
 
 55 
 
 80 
 
 Bronchitis , 
 
 17 
 
 11 
 
 16 
 
 44 
 
 Pneumonia . 
 
 29 
 
 27 
 
 17 
 
 73 
 
 Marasmus . 
 
 30 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 44 
 
 Tabes, Mesen. 
 
 17 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 26 
 
 Hooping-cough & 
 
 debility . 
 Premature births 
 
 30 
 13 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 31 
 13 
 
 Convulsions 
 
 109 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 122 
 
 Dentition . 
 
 19 
 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 31 
 
 Fever . 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 
 Hooping-cough . 
 Syphilis 
 Diarrhoea . 
 
 13 
 9 
 
 88 
 
 11 
 
 2 
 
 32 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 33 
 11 
 
 127 
 
 Dysentery . 
 
 Measles 
 
 4 
 2 
 
 2 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 8 
 
 Dropsy 
 Croup . 
 Small-pox . 
 Plydrocephalus . 
 Diphtheria . 
 Other causes 
 
 2 
 
 * 2 • 
 
 1 
 42 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 27 
 
 6 
 1 
 3 
 2 
 24 
 
 2 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 93 
 
 435 
 
 175 
 
 175 
 
 785 
 
SECOND PERIOD 
 
 1839 
 
 THE FORMATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL 
 ON EDUCATION 
 
 1837 TO 1840 
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PUPIL-TEACHER 
 
 SYSTEM 
 
 1841 TO 1843 
 
 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FIRST TRAINING 
 
 COLLEGE 
 
SECOND PEEIOD. 
 
 1. The Order in Council creating the Committee of the Privy Council on 
 
 Education. April 10, 1839. 
 
 2. The Minutes as to the National Normal School (April 13, 1839), 
 
 and as to the Inspection of Schools (June 3, 1839). 
 
 3. A Pamphlet issued hy direction of the Government, entitled * Recent 
 
 Measures for the Promotion of Education in England, explaining 
 the Intentions of the Ministry in 1839. 
 
 4. First Steps in Workhouses and Schools of Industry for Pauper 
 
 Children respecting the Apprenticeship of Pupil Teachers. A few 
 brief Extracts from Reports. 1837 to 1840. 
 
 5. Two Reports describing the Origin and Organisation of the Training 
 
 College at Battersea, and the Introduction of some of the Pupil 
 Teachers as Students. 1841 and 1843. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In entering on the chief features of a new period, it may be 
 well to recapitulate. The account given in the First Period of the 
 condition of the Working Classes in Manchester in 1832, and of 
 the progress of that city in thirty years, exhibits the relative 
 power of moral and physical forces on the Well-being of the 
 people. The growth of Manchester in wealth has been accom- 
 panied by a corresponding improvement in all the means of 
 physical well-being in the operative population. They have 
 better wages — more regular employment — cheaper food and 
 clothing— the houses and streets which they inhabit are gene- 
 rally in a l)etter sanitary condition— they have a more abundant 
 supply of pure water — their labour is restrained within reason- 
 able limits — institutions have sprung up since 1832 to encourage 
 providence, cleanliness, and a knowledge of sanitary laws, and 
 to provide the means of innocent recreation. The limitation of 
 the hours of attendance in warehouses, and the Saturday half- 
 holiday, are signs of the sincerity of the desire which exists in 
 Manchester that no obstacle should prevent social improvement. 
 
 These changes belong rather to the ameliorations of the physi- 
 cal than of the moral condition of the population; but they do not 
 consist simply in the removal of impediments to moral progress. 
 Necessarily, in our complex nature, moral and physical improve- 
 ment are in some degree correlative. 
 
 When, therefore, the extension and the greater efficiency of 
 moral agencies is combined with the amelioration of the physical 
 relations of the population, we are naturally led to seek the 
 proofs of the effects of these combined improvements in the 
 diminution of the rate of mortality. Efficient Schools have in- 
 
176 Second Period 
 
 creased in number ; Churches and Chapels have been built with 
 zeal ; a City Mission labours with activity in the houses of the 
 poor; Free Public Libraries, Mechanics' Institutions, Even- 
 ing Schools, and Savings' Banks, combine their attractions with 
 the warning voice of religious teachers to wean the workman 
 from sensuality. But the population is swollen by the immigra- 
 tion of a large mass of semi-barbarous colonists, who are drawn 
 thither by the unexampled demand for labour caused by the 
 growth of the cotton manufacture during these thirty years. 
 The pauperism of Manchester is thus largely fed by the Irish 
 and other immigrants. It has been customary in Manchester 
 to relieve the indigent Irish from the poor-rate, though they 
 have obtained no settlement. The number of unsettled Irish 
 thus relieved amounts to two-thirds of the number of English 
 and settled Irish who obtain relief. Doubtless the amount of 
 intemperance, and of those crimes which are its direct con- 
 sequence, are at least in similar proportions. If to the 
 deteriorating influence of this Irish population be added the 
 similarly barbarising influence of uncivilised English immigrants, 
 we have before us two powerfully counteracting forces which re- 
 sist the inflvience of physical and moral agencies now at work. 
 
 This immigrant barbarism is one main source of that increase 
 of beer-houses which has been recorded. The intemperance 
 of this population, and its apathy as to those parental* and fami- 
 liar duties which would keep the mother of an infant child at 
 home, and would secure the early and regular attendance of any 
 young children at the Infant School, are among the causes of 
 the excessive infant mortality, and of the permanence for thirty 
 years of a high rate of general mortality. The civilisation of 
 such a population must be gradual. It is the work of successive 
 generations. These obstacles to the combined influence of all 
 forms of social improvement are analysed in Manchester. It is 
 clear, then, that sanitary defects, though much improvement may 
 still be made, are not now the chief source of the high rate of 
 mortality that is attributable to. the low mental and moral state 
 of a population so rude, that prosperity itself inflames its sensual 
 appetites, and thus defeats the wisdom and public spirit of the 
 corporation, as well as the zeal of the School managers and of 
 the religious communions. 
 
 The demonstration of the nature of the obstacles to social 
 progress afforded by the Sketch of the progress of Manchester in 
 
Preface 177 
 
 thirty years throws much light on the value of those moral 
 forces which have been called into operation by the improvements 
 in Public Education in Grreat Britain since 1833, and especially 
 since 1846. It also accounts for the difficulty which has been ex- 
 perienced by the promoters of Schools in securing all those results 
 among their scholars which they were so sanguine as to expect 
 might, at an early period, flow from their labours. They had first 
 to train and discipline before they could instruct their scholars, 
 — an uncivilised, ignorant population, supporting their own 
 sensual excesses in some degree by the too early labour of their 
 children, is necessarily indifferent to their education. Such 
 scholars attend School irregularly — change their Schools 
 capriciously — are ignorant, undisciplined, dull, inattentive, 
 wayward, if not obstinate and turbulent. They are the elements 
 of disorder in Schools. They are the dead-weights which 
 the teacher has to carry. He has no help in their training at 
 home : there they are neglected, or harshly treated. They come 
 to school unkempt, ragged, dirty, insubordinate, if they come at 
 all. But they are often truant : they are often kept away to go 
 an errand — to nurse a child — to do some household work — 
 which a dexterous housewife would otherwise provide for. In 
 short, Barbarism and the School are at war. In this warfare the 
 School will be the victor; but time is an indispensable element of 
 success. The account, therefore, of the First Period in Public 
 Education has been devoted to an analysis of the character of 
 the population of one of our most prosperous cities, and to a 
 description of the difficulties encountered by generous and 
 enlightened citizens in their efforts to promote the Christian 
 civilisation of their fellow-townsmen. 
 
 The Second Period opens a more agreeable task to the Author. 
 Successive publications here record the means adopted by the 
 Grovernment to elevate the standard of education in elementary 
 Schools, by the first steps in the introduction of Pupil Teachers, 
 and by the proposal of a National Normal Training School, 
 the defeat of which was one reason why the Battersea Training 
 College was established. These several documents naturally tell 
 the story of the progress made in this Second Period. 
 
 The account given of foreign education in the defence of the 
 Government measures in 1839 was limited to the briefest space, 
 on account of the indisposition of the public at that time to 
 believe that anything was to be learned from foreign institutions. 
 
178 Second Period 
 
 The Author, therefore, availed himself only of those authorities 
 whose testimony would tend to recommend their statements to 
 popular attention. He is glad to be enabled now to refer to 
 the Fourth Volume of the ' Report of the Eoyal Commission on 
 Education of 1858,' published in 1861, containing the Reports of 
 the Assistant Commissioners appointed to inquire into the State 
 of Popular Education in Contmental Europe. The Reports of 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold, the Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and 
 one of the Inspectors of Schools, * On Systems of Popular Edu- 
 cation in use in France, Holland, and the French Cantons of 
 Switzerland,' and that of the Rev. Mark Pallison, B.D., now 
 Master of Lincoln College, Oxford, ' On the State of Elementary 
 Education in Grermany,' are valuable contributions to our 
 knowledge of these subjects, and worthy of the most attentive 
 perusal. 
 
Creation of Committee of Council on Education 179 
 
 L 
 
 ORDER IN COUNCIL, CREATING THE COMMITTEE OF 
 THE PRIVY COUNCIL ON EDUCATION. 
 
 At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the lOth of April, 1839. 
 
 Present : 
 
 The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council. 
 
 * It is this day ordered by Her Majesty in Council, that the Most Ho- 
 nourable Henry, Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord-President of the Council ; 
 the Right-Honourable John WiUiam, Viscount Duncannon, Lord Privy 
 Seal ; the Right-Honourable Lord John Russell, One of H.M.'s Principal 
 Secretaries of State ; and the Right-Honourable Thomas Spring Rice, 
 Chancellor of H.M.'s Exchequer, be, and they are hereby appointed, a 
 Committee to superintend the Application of any Sums voted by Par- 
 liament for the purpose of promoting Public Education. 
 
 ' (Signed) C. C. Greville.' 
 
 II. 
 
 THE NATIONAL NORMAL SCHOOL OF 1839. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of the Committee of Council appointed to 
 superintend the Application of any Sums voted hy Parliament for 
 the purpose of promoting Public Education, 
 
 April 13th, 1839. 
 
 Read, The following scheme for the future guidance of the Committee, 
 viz. : — 
 
 ^ Normal School. — To found a school,. in which candidates for the 
 office of teacher in schools for the poorer classes may acquire the 
 knowledge necessary to the exercise of their future profession, and may 
 be practised in the most approved methods of religious and moral 
 training and instruction. 
 
 ''Model School. — This- school to include a Model School, in which 
 children of all ages from three to fourteen, may be taught and trained, 
 
 N 2 
 
180 Second Period 
 
 in sufficient numbers to form an Infant School, as well as schools for 
 children above seven. 
 
 * Religious Instruction in Model ScJiool. — Religious instruction to be 
 considered as general and special. 
 
 ' General. — Religion to be combined with the whole matter of 
 instruction, and to regulate the entire system of discipline. 
 
 ' Special. — Periods to be set apart for such peculiar doctrinal in - 
 struction as may be required for the religious training of the children. 
 
 * Chaplain. — To appoint a chaplain to conduct the religious instruc- 
 tion of children whose parents or guardians belong to the Established 
 Church. 
 
 ' Dissenters. — The parent or natural guardian of any other child to 
 be permitted to secure the attendance of the licensed minister of his 
 own persuasion, at the period appointed for special religious instruction, 
 in order to give such instruction apart. 
 
 ' Licensed Minister. — To appoint a licensed minister to give such 
 special religious instruction wherever the number of children in attend- 
 ance on the Model School belonging to any religious body dissenting 
 from the Established Church is such as to appear to this Committee to 
 require such special provision. 
 
 ' Scriptures read daily in School. — A portion of every day to be de- 
 voted to the reading of the Scriptures in the School, under the general 
 direction of the Committee, and superintendence of the Rector. Roman 
 Catholics. — Roman Catholics, if their parents or guardians require it, 
 to read their own version of the Scriptures, either at the time fixed for 
 reading the Scriptures, or at the hours of special instruction. 
 
 * Simultaneous Method Classes. — To arrange the classes in separate 
 rooms or sections of the same apartment, divided by partitions, so as to 
 enable the simultaneous method to be applied to 40 or 50 children of 
 similar proficiency. 
 
 ' Gallery, — To adopt means to assemble a greater number of chil- 
 dren for simultaneous instruction on subjects not so technical as to 
 require a division into classes of 50. 
 
 ' Insti^uction in Industry. — To include instruction in industry as a 
 special department of the moral training of the children. 
 
 ' Special Character of Secular Instruction. — To give such a cha- 
 racter to the matter of instruction in the school as to keep it in close 
 relation with the condition of workmen and servants. 
 
 ' Physical Training. — Besides the physical training of the children 
 in various employments, to introduce such exercises during the hours 
 of recreation as will develop their strength and activity. 
 
 ' Moral Training. — To render the moral training of the children at 
 all times an object of special solicitude. 
 
 'NORMAL SCHOOL. 
 
 * Candidate Teachers to reside. — To provide apartments for the 
 residence of the candidate teachers. 
 
The National Normal School of 1839 181 
 
 ^ Class-Rooms. — To construct the class-rooms so as to aiFord the 
 candidate teachers an opportunity of attending each class in the Model 
 School without distracting the attention of the children or of the teacher. 
 
 ' Means of Instruction and Training. — To provide means for the 
 instruction of the candidate teachers in the theory of their art, and for 
 furnishing them with whatever knowledge is necessary for success in it. 
 
 ' Rector : his duties. — To appoint a Rector to give lectures upon the 
 method and matter of instruction, and on the whole art of training chil- 
 dren of the poor. To regulate the reading and exercises of the candi- 
 date teachers, and to examine them. To determine the order in which 
 they may be admitted to the practice of their art in the school, and at 
 length intrusted with the conjoint management of classes, and to 
 superintend their ultimate examination, subject to the rules of this 
 Committee. 
 
 ' Religious Instruction of Candidate Teachers. — The religious instruc- 
 tion of the candidate teachers to form an essential and prominent ele- 
 ment of their studies, and no certificate to be granted unless the 
 authorised religious teacher has previously attested his confidence in 
 the character, religious knowledge, and zeal of the candidate whose 
 religious instruction he has superintended. 
 
 ' Chaplain to instruct Teachers belonging to Established Church. — 
 The religious instruction of all candidate teachers connected with 
 the Established Church to be committed to the Chaplain, and the spe- 
 cial religious instruction to be committed (in any case in which a wish 
 to that effect is expressed) to the licensed Minister of the religious per- 
 suasion of the candidate teacher, who is to attend the school at stated 
 periods, to assist and examine the candidate teachers in their reading on 
 religious subjects, and to afford them spiritual advice. 
 
 ' Internal Discipline of Normal School. — The candidate teachers in 
 all other respects to conform to such regulations as respects the entire 
 internal economy of the household as may be issued by the Rector, 
 with the approval of this Committee. 
 
 ' Number of Children in AJodel School. Boarders. — To provide ac- 
 commodation in the Model School for at least 450 children, who should 
 lodge in the household, viz. 120 infants, 200 boys and girls receiving 
 ordinary instruction, and 50 boys and 50 girls receiving superior in- 
 struction, and 30 children probably absent from sickness or other causes. 
 '■Day School. — To establish a day school of 150 or 200 children of 
 all ages and both sexes, in which the candidate teachers may realise 
 the application of the best methods of instruction, under the limitations 
 and obstructions which must arise in a small village or town day 
 school.' 
 
 N 3 
 
182 Second Period 
 
 III. 
 
 A MINUTE OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON 
 EDUCATION, 
 
 Of the 3rd day of June, 1839. 
 
 At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the Zrd of June, 1839. 
 
 Present : 
 The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council. 
 
 Whereas there was this day read at the Board a Report from the 
 Committee of Council appointed to superintend the application of any 
 sums voted by Parliament for the purpose of promoting Public Educa- 
 tion ; which Eeport, dated the 1st of June, was in the words following ; 
 viz. : — 
 
 ' Your Majesty having been pleased, by your Order in Council of 
 the 10th of April, 1839, to appoint us a Committee of Council to super- 
 intend the application of any Sums voted by Parliament for the purpose 
 of promoting Public Education, we, the Lords of the said Committee, 
 have this day met, and agreed humbly to present to Your Majesty the 
 following Report : 
 
 ' The Lords of the Committee recommend that the sum of Ten 
 Thousand Pounds, granted by Parliament in 1835 towards the erection 
 of Normal or Model Schools, be given in equal proportions to the 
 National Society and the British and Foreign School Society. That 
 the remainder of the subsequent Grants of the years 1837 and 1838, 
 yet unappropriated, and any Grant that may be voted in the present 
 year, be chiefly applied in aid of Subscriptions for building, and, in 
 particular cases, for the support of Schools connected with those Socie- 
 ties ; but that the rule hitherto adopted of making a Grant to those 
 places where the largest proportion - is subscribed be not invariably 
 adhered to, should application be made from very poor and populous 
 districts, where Subscriptions to a sufficient amount cannot be obtained. 
 
 ' The Committee do not feel themselves precluded from making Grants 
 in particular cases, which shall appear to them to call for the aid of 
 Government, although the applications may not come from either of 
 the two mentioned Societies. 
 
 ' The Committee are of opinion, that the most useful application of 
 any sums voted by Parliament would consist in the employment of those 
 monies in the establishment of a Normal School, under the direction of 
 the State, and not placed under the management of a voluntary society. 
 The Committee, however, experience so much difficulty in reconciling 
 conflicting views respecting the provisions which they are desirous to 
 make in furtherance of Your Majesty's wish, that the children and 
 
Minute of Committee of Council on Education 183 
 
 teachers instructed in this School should be duly trained in the prin- 
 ciples of the Christian religion, while the rights of conscience should be 
 respected, that it is not in the power of the Committee to mature a plan 
 for the accomplishment of this design without further consideration, 
 and they therefore postpone taking any steps for this purpose until 
 greater concurrence of opinion is found to prevail. 
 
 ' The Committee recommend that no farther Grant be made, now or 
 hereafter, for the establishment or support of Normal Schools, or of any 
 other Schools, unless the right of inspection be retained, in order to 
 secure a conformity to the regulations and discipline established in the 
 several Schools, with such improvements as may from time to time be 
 suggested by the Committee. 
 
 * A part of any Grant voted in the present year may be usefully 
 applied to the purposes of inspection, and to the means of acquiring a 
 complete knowledge of the present state of Education in England and 
 Wales.' 
 
 Her Majesty, having taken the said Eeport into consideration, was 
 pleased, by and with the advice of Her Privy Council, to approve 
 thereof. 
 
 (Signed) C. C. Geevii-le. 
 
 ^LlHKA-y 
 
 N 4 
 
AN EXPLANATION OF 
 THE INTENTIONS OF HER MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 EEGENT MEASUEES FOR THE PROMOTION OF 
 EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 
 
 Published in 1839 
 
187 
 
 HECENT MEASURES 
 
 &c 
 
 >>K< 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION STATE OF EDUCATION IN ENGLAND EFFECTS ON CRIME 
 
 REPORTS OF CHAPLAINS OF GAOLS NECESSITY FOR INTERFERENCE 
 
 OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 All plans which have been proposed for promoting Na- 
 tional Education in England by calling into operation 
 the powers of the Executive Government, have neces- 
 sarily been subjected to the most searching scrutiny. The 
 advocates of education must not, however, accept the 
 earnestness with which pubhc attention is directed to this 
 subject as a measure of the degree in which the necessity 
 of an extension and improvement of the elementary edu- 
 cation of the poorer classes is recognised. It is indeed 
 generally known that even the art ofj:eading has been 
 acquired by a portion only'STtKelrising population, and 
 by a smaller part of the adult working class ; and that, as 
 respects the rudimentary knowledge which might develop 
 the understanding, and afford the labourer a clear view of -a 
 his social position, — its duties, its difficulties, and rewards, ] 
 — and thus enable him better to employ the powers with I 
 which Providence has gifted him, to promote his own j 
 comfort and the well-being of society, he is generally des- / 
 titute, and, what is worse, abandoned to the ill-regulated 
 and often pernicious agencies by which he is surrounded. 
 It is commonly confessed that no sufficient means exist to 
 
188 Second Period 
 
 train the habits of the children of our poorer classes, — to 
 inspire them with healthful, social, and household sympa- 
 thies, — ^with a love of domestic peace and social order, — 
 with an enlightened reverence for revealed truth, — and 
 with the sentiment of piety and devotion. 
 
 But while these proofs of the fatal void in our national 
 institutions are admitted, we fear we may not attribute 
 the eagerness with which every proposal for the improve- 
 ment and extension of popular education is discussed 
 solely to an earnest and enhghtened sympathy with the 
 condition of the working classes. We must admit as a 
 necessary element of our estimate of the popular feeling, 
 the fact that the connection which exists in every well- 
 devised plan for National Education between the secular 
 and the religious instruction and moral training of the 
 people, rouses the advocates of the antagonist principles 
 involved in questions of civil and rehgious liberty, which 
 J^ have caused pohtical struggles deeply affecting the middle 
 V and higher classes of society, but in the consequences of 
 which the lower classes have hitherto had comparatively 
 little practical interest. 
 
 The ferment occasioned by the recent settlement of 
 ^ -J some of these grave questions has not yet subsided ; and 
 to the state of public opinion, which has had its source 
 in their prolonged discussion, we must attribute, in a 
 great degree, the suspicion with which every proposal 
 for the promotion of National Education is regarded, 
 and the singular excitement produced by its announce- 
 ment. 
 
 We are the last to deprecate pubhc discussion — we 
 invite it : we rejoice in the activity of the public mind — 
 we have nothing to fear excepting from its apathy ; our 
 hopes are all concentrated in the right of private opinion 
 — in the freedom with which, in this country, every 
 question of public pohcy is debated, and in the conse- 
 quent spread of a knowledge of the principles on which 
 the changes demanded by the advance of civilisation 
 are based. 
 
ExplanatioJi of Measures (?/1839 189 
 
 In the first movements of popular excitement, misre- 
 presentation and clamour may mislead individuals or 
 entire political or religious bodies into an opposition to 
 plans, which on more attentive consideration they would 
 have cordially approved. Nay, in any society in which 
 the right of public discussion is admitted, it is the lot 
 of every improvement to be misunderstood and misre- 
 presented at its first announcement ; the frame of society 
 receives a shock at every change, even for the better, and 
 in the first moments of surprise the entire community 
 bestirs itself to ascertain whence comes the disturbance, 
 and what is its object. 
 
 To enable every person interested in this national ques- 
 tion to ascertain what is the plan of her Majesty's 
 Government, and thus to prevent or to remove the conse- 
 quences of industriously circulated misrepresentations ; 
 — to invite pubhc discussion, and at the same time to 
 provide it with a plain exposition of the principles and 
 arrangements which we conceive to be involved in that 
 plan, we have published the Eeport of the Committee of 
 Council approved by her Majesty, with a few observations. 
 
 Evidence has been collected from time to time by 
 Committees of the House of Commons, by voluntary 
 societies, and by individuals, incontestably proving that 
 the provision for the education of the poorer classes in 
 England is most limited in extent and defective in quahty. 
 In the year 1816, the ' Eeport from the Select Committee 
 of the House of Commons on the Education of the Lower 
 Orders in the Metropolis,' of which Mr. Brougham was 
 Chairman, states the Committee 'have found reason to 
 conclude that a very large number of poor children are 
 wholly without the means of instruction, although their 
 parents appear to be generally very desirous of obtaining 
 that advantage for them.' 'They feel persuaded that 
 the greatest advantages would result to this country from 
 Parhament taking proper measures, in concurrence with 
 the prevailing disposition of the community, for supplying 
 
190 Second Period 
 
 the deficiency of the means of instruction which exists 
 at present, and for extending the blessing to the poor of 
 all descriptions.' 
 
 In their Eeport in the year 1,8 18^ this Committee states 
 
 ' that a very great deficiency exists in the means of 
 
 educating the poor wherever the population is thin and 
 
 I y scattered over country districts. The efforts of individuals 
 
 k/ ,,je6mbined in societies are almost wholly confined to popu- 
 
 J^^ lous places.' 
 1^ On the 4th of May, 1835, Lord Brougham brought 
 
 the subject of National EdiicMoif'before the House of 
 Lords, by moving a series of resolutions, among which 
 were the following : — 
 
 ' 1. That although the number of schools, where some 
 of the elementary branches of education are taught, are 
 greatly increased within the last twenty years ; yet, that 
 there exists a great deficiency of such schools, especially 
 in the metropohs and other great towns, and that the 
 means of elementary education are pecuHarly deficient in 
 the counties of Middlesex and Lancaster. 
 
 ' 2. That the kind of education given at the greater 
 number of schools now established for the poorer classes 
 of the people is of a kind by no means sufficient for 
 their instruction, being for the most part confined to 
 reading, writing, and a httle arithmetic ; whereas, at no 
 greater expense, and in the same time, the children might 
 easily be instructed in the elements of the more useful 
 branches of knowledge, and thereby trained to sober, 
 industrious, prudent, and virtuous habits. 
 
 ' 3. That the number of Lifant Schools is exceedingly 
 deficient, and especially in those great towns where they 
 are most wanted, for improving the morals of the people, 
 and preventing the commission of crimes. 
 
 ' 4. That, while it is expedient to do nothing which 
 may relax the efforts of private beneficence, in forming 
 and supporting schools, or which may discourage the 
 poorer classes of the people from contributing to the 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/ 1839 191 
 
 cost of educating their children, it is incumbent upon 
 Parhament to aid in providing the effectual means of 
 instruction, where these cannot be obtained, for the 
 people. 
 
 ' 5. That it is incumbent upon Parhament to encou- 
 rage, in hke manner, the estabhshment of Infant Schools, 
 especially in the larger towns. 
 
 '6. That, for the purpose of improving the kind of 
 education given at schools for the people at large, it is 
 expedient to establish, in several parts of the country, 
 seminaries where good schoolmasters may be trained, 
 and taught the duties of their profession.' 
 
 The Committee on the education of the poorer classes, 
 over which Mr. Slaney presided in 1838, in their Eeport 
 say, ' they apprehend that they have ample grounds for 
 stating, throughout this vast metropolis, the means of 
 useful daily instruction are lamentably deficient. It must 
 be borne in mind, that in the various valuable Eeports 
 made by the Statistical Societies of Manchester and 
 London, and in much of the evidence adduced before your 
 Committee, the worthless nature of the education sup- 
 posed to be given in the common Day and Dame Schools, 
 has been dwelt upon ; so that in many places it may be 
 left almost out of account.' 
 
 Your Committee now turn to the state of education 
 in the large manufacturing and seaport towns, where 
 the population has rapidly increased within the present 
 century ; they refer for particulars to the evidence taken 
 before them, which appears to bear out the following 
 results : — 
 
 ' 1. That the kind of education given to the children of 
 the working classes is lamentably deficient. 
 
 ' 2. That it extends (bad as it is) to but a small pro- 
 portion of those who ought to receive it. 
 
 ' 3. That, without some strenuous and persevering efforts 
 he made on the part of the Government^ the greatest evils 
 to all classes may follow from this neglect.' 
 
192 
 
 
 Second Period 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Children of Working Classes 
 
 
 
 Place. 
 
 Population. 
 
 at Daily Schools, &c. 
 
 Total, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Day and Dame 
 
 Other 
 
 
 
 
 
 School; very 
 
 better 
 
 
 
 
 
 indifferent. 
 
 Schools. 
 
 
 1836. 
 
 Liverpool . 
 
 230,000 
 
 11,336 
 
 14,024 
 
 25,360* 
 
 1834. 
 
 Manchester 
 
 200,000 
 
 11,520 
 
 5680 
 
 17,200* 
 
 1835. 
 
 Salfordf . 
 
 50,810 
 
 3340 
 
 2015 
 
 5355* 
 
 
 
 Bury. 
 
 ■ Ashton . . ] 
 
 20,000 
 
 1648 
 
 803 
 
 2451 
 
 1835. 
 
 Dukenfield . [ 
 Staleybridge j 
 
 47,800 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 2496 
 
 1837. 
 
 Birmingham 
 
 100,000 
 
 8180 
 
 4697 
 
 12,877} 
 
 1837. 
 
 Bristol 
 
 112,438 
 
 4135 
 
 Not including 
 Private Schools. 
 
 1119 
 
 5254 
 
 1838. 
 
 „ . , , (. ( B. and F. ) 
 
 40,634 in 1831 
 
 ( 1367 
 1 863 
 
 ( 3033 
 1 3247 
 
 (4400 
 14110 
 
 1838. 
 
 Leeds . B. & F. 
 
 123,393 in 1831 
 
 No return of 
 Dame or Day, 
 
 but only of 
 Public Schools. 
 
 2971 
 
 
 1838. 
 
 Sheffield \\. 
 
 96,692 in 1831 
 
 3359 
 
 5905 
 
 9264 
 
 
 North- ( B. and F. 1 
 ampton . 1 National 1 
 
 20,000 
 
 ( 1011 ■ 
 
 t 996 
 
 ( 1215 
 1 1202 
 
 (2226 
 12198 
 
 
 
 Heading . B. & F. 
 
 • 15.595 in 1831 
 
 297 
 
 962 
 
 1259 
 
 
 Exeter 
 
 28,242 in 1831 
 
 2045 
 
 1830 
 Including 
 Evening. 
 
 3875 
 
 1836. 
 
 York^ . 
 
 2 5,.'] 59 in 1831 
 
 1494 
 
 2697 
 
 4191 
 
 The returns made to the Education Inquiry, undertaken 
 in 1833 on the motion of Lord Kerry, were, from the 
 great imperfection of our administrative ma(ihinery, ex- 
 ceedingly incorrect, as has been proved by the subsequent 
 investigations of societies and individuals. At the period 
 of this inquiry, the population of England and Wales was 
 
 * Vide Keports of Statistical Society. 
 
 t Report of Manchester Statistical Society on a Manufacturing District, 
 read at British Association. Ridgway, 1837. 
 
 X Vide Evidence, Riddall Wood. 
 
 § Where ^B. & F.' or ^National ' are mentioned, it only means that the 
 returns came through the Secretaries of those Societies. 
 
 II Report (B. & F.) excluding superior and middling Schools. 
 
 ^ Report of Statistical Society of Manchester, 1837. 
 
 Note. The general result of all these Towns is, that about one in 
 twelve receive some sort of daily instruction, but only about one in twenty- 
 four an education likely to be useful. In Leeds, only one in forty-one ; in 
 Birmingham, one in thirty-eight ; in Manchester, one in thirty-five. 
 
Explanation of Measures o/1839 193 
 
 14,314,102 ; and the number of children between the 
 ages of three and fifteen, estimated as bearing the same 
 ratio to the population as in 1821, was 4,294,230 ; and 
 the returns to the Education Inquiry give 1,276,947 chil- 
 dren as in receipt of daily instruction. We must recur 
 to the Eeport of the Parliamentary Committee of 1838 
 for the quality of that instruction, which, being for the 
 most part conveyed in Dame and common Day Schools, 
 is to be regarded as almost worthless, if not, in many 
 instances, pernicious. The number returned as attending 
 Sunday Schools, in 1833, was 1,548,890, which is to be 
 regarded as a cheering indication of the extent of the 
 means at present in existence for procuring an observ- 
 ance of the Sunday among the children of the labouring 
 classes, and of conveying to them a hmited amount of 
 religious instruction upon that day, but cannot be accepted 
 as an indication of the amount of the efficient means for 
 the intellectual development and moral and religious 
 training of the children of our working- classes. The 
 children between the ages of three and seven, estimated 
 as bearing the same ratio to the population as in 1821, 
 was 1,574,551 ; and all under this age must be regarded 
 as lit only for Dame and Infant Schools. 
 
 But we have already remarked, that the returns to the 
 Parliamentery^ Inquiry of 1833 are utterly insufficient .£o" 
 tesTthe quality and extent of education iii. England and 
 Wales ; we must therefore have recourse to some of the 
 laborious investigations, conducted impartially by Sta- 
 tistical Societies, into the extent of education provided 
 for the poorer classes in certain districts. 
 
 In the Report of the Manchester Statistical Society, 
 respecting the state of education in Manchester, Salford, 
 Liverpool, Bury, and York, we find the population esti- 
 mated as 533,000 ; and it has been calculated that the 
 number of children of the working classes, from three to 
 thirteen, for whom daily education should be provided, is 
 80,050 (one-third having been deducted from the whole 
 
 o 
 
i 
 
 194 Second Period 
 
 number of children between three and thhteen, for those 
 privately educated, or employed, or sick, or prevented 
 by casualties from attending School, and deducting the 
 number attending superior private Schools) ; of these 
 children 21,957 attend Endowed and Charity Schools, 
 National and Lancasterian, and Schools attached to public 
 institutions, and Infant Schools. 
 
 Further, of the total number of 80,050 children who 
 ought to be educated, 29,259 receive an almost worth- 
 less instruction in Dame and common Day Schools, leaving 
 28,834 uneducated in any Week-day Schools. Therefore 
 58,093 children out of 80,050, either receive no weeekly 
 instruction^ or instruction only in Dame or common Day 
 Schools. 
 
 The Eeports of the Manchester Statistical Society show 
 the inefficieii£3Ljc£-theJnstriLCtiQn given in the Dame an d 
 coromon Day Schogis^- which is confirmed by the Eeport 
 onSe Parliamentary Committee of 1838, which we have 
 already quoted. In our Appendix, No. 1, we have given, 
 in a tabular form, summaries of the results of these inves- 
 tigations. 
 
 Whenever inquiries of a similar character have been 
 conducted in rural districts, they have exhibited an 
 equally lamentable deficiency of the means of primary 
 instruction; and as the physical agencies of civilisation 
 are in less active operation in rural districts than in 
 towns, we fear that a large portion of our labouring 
 population have already realised the description given 
 by Adam Smith of the working classes of a nation whose 
 instruction has been neglected by the Government. 
 
 What might be accomplished for ,the advancement of 
 civihsation, and for the eradication of crime, by the intro- 
 duction of a more efficient primary education of the 
 working classes, may in some slight degree be estimated 
 from the following facts, showing the proportion of 
 offenders to their respective intellectual conditions in the 
 years 1836, 1837, and 1838 :— 
 
Explanation of Measures i?/ 1 8 3 9 195 
 
 1836, 1837. 1838. 
 
 Wholly uninstructed, or having received 
 only the first rudiments of learning . 
 Able to read and write well . 
 Instructed beyond reading and writing . 
 lutellec'tual condition not known . 
 
 85-85 
 
 87-93 
 
 87-81 
 
 10-56 
 
 9-46 
 
 8-77 
 
 0-91 
 
 0-43 
 
 0-34 
 
 2-68 
 
 2-18 
 
 2-08 
 
 100 100 100 
 
 From this rule of moral inefficiency we fear we cannot 
 exclude any class of Schools as at present conducted, for 
 the methods of teaching which at present prevail commit 
 the instruction of the children even of our National and 
 Lancasterian Schools chiefly, if not solely, to the most pro- 
 ficient boys and girls ; and from these it is apparent that 
 little or no moral injiuence capable of elevating the cha- 
 racter of the scholars can proceed. The training of the 
 habits and affections, and the adoption of systematic means 
 to develop either the faculties or the feelings of the 
 children, are therefore necessarily neglected. Such ac- 
 quirements as are made in these Schools result almost 
 solely from an effort of the memory, which receives a 
 meagre supply of the most rudimentary knowledge, while 
 in a great number, if not the majority, of instances, as this 
 knowledge is received with distaste, it is not retained long 
 after the children leave the School, and besides, exerting 
 no influence on the character in after hfe, is of little use in 
 enabling its possessor even to improve his physical con- 
 dition. But Avhat is most lamentable, we may say most 
 fearful, is the fact which Professor Pillans and Mr. Wood 
 have fully exposed, that the rehgious instruction consists, 
 chiefly, if not solely, in comimttmgTo'^ inernory catechisms 
 and forniularies which explained nor under- 
 
 stood, and that thus not only are the great truths of Chris- 
 tiauityjiot jecommended. -to. t^ capacity of the 
 
 child,, but the sympatliies wliich they are calculated to 
 rouse and to develop, and which form so essential a part 
 of a lively faith and an operative sentiment of devotion^ are 
 left uncultivated. While, however, we depict, with deep 
 
196 
 
 Second Period 
 
 regret, the defects of the existing system of primary edu- 
 cation, we render our hearty thanks to those individuals 
 and societies, particularly the National and British and 
 Foreign, which have taken even the first step in the* intel- 
 lectual advancement of the people ; but we request them 
 to contemplate with us with apprehension the facts dis- 
 closed in the following Table, resulting from an examina- 
 tion respecting the education of 1052 prisoners in the 
 Penitentiary at Millbank : — 
 
 EDUCATION OF PRISONERS IN THE PENITENTIARY. 
 
 
 Total 
 Number. 
 
 Of whom 
 
 could not 
 
 read. 
 
 Proportion of 
 those who 
 
 could not read 
 to Total. 
 
 f National School 
 Schools connected , *^'lf ''^M®,-''°°l''«°°lr 1 
 
 ^ Church of England 
 a V, 1 „^^ ^^i^A f SundaySchools — Dissenters 
 
 Common Day Schools 
 
 Attended no School of any kind . 
 
 66 
 96 
 
 96 
 
 28 
 
 19 
 
 598 
 149 
 
 1 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 43 
 
 1 in 66 
 1 in 14 
 
 1 in 5 
 
 1 in 28 
 1 in 19 
 1 in 4 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 Total Number educated in Schools ) »-„ ^ c \^ u l a nn ■> ' tr, 
 
 connected with the Church . ( ^58 | of whom could not read 26, or 1 m 10 
 
 Total Number educated in Schools ) a>, S c x, u ^ lo i-oo 
 
 connected with Dissenters .\ ^M ^^ "'^'''^ "''"^^ "°* ''^^ ^' °' ^ '" '^ 
 
 Total Number educated in common 
 Day Schools . 
 
 " > 598 ] of whom could not read 43, or 1 in 14 
 hool of 7 
 
 Total of the above . 903 of whom could not read 71, or 1 in 13 
 Number who attended no School of 
 any kind 
 
 149 
 1052 
 
 The results contained in the foregoing Table are abun- 
 dantly confirmed in all their details by the records of the 
 prisons for juvenile offenders in this country. 
 
 Lord John Eussell, in his Letter to the Lord President 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/1839 197 
 
 of the Council, says, ' The reports of the chaplains of gaols 
 show that to a large number of unfortunate prisoners a 
 knowledge of the fundamental truths of natural and re- 
 vealed religion has never been imparted.' 
 
 The Eeport of the Chaplain respecting the prisoners of 
 the county gaol at Bedford in 1838, states 'that their 
 great leading characteristic was ignorance, heathenish 
 ignorance of the simplest truths.' At Midsummer Quarter 
 Session he reported, that ' as to the condition, mentally and 
 morally, of his unhappy charge, he regretted to say it could 
 scarcely be more ignorant or degraded. It was his con- 
 viction that no pen could depict in colours sufficiently dark 
 the moral and spiritual ignorance and debasement of the 
 vastly greater number of those unhappy beings who pass 
 through the prisons.' ^ 
 
 Eespecting the county gaol of Hertford, the Visiting 
 Magistrates report, ' The schoolmaster has been regular 
 and diligent in discharging the duties of his office. During 
 the year there have been 72 discharged, exclusive of those 
 who did not fall under his notice and instruction, of whom 
 30 had been taught to read the Psalms and New Testa- 
 ment imperfectly, or so far to improve themselves as to 
 read well. Of the rest, some have progressed to a know- 
 ledge of most words of two syllables, and the remainder 
 were totally ignorant, the short periods of their imprison- 
 ment not admitting of improvement.' 
 
 The Eeport of the Chaplain of the House of Correction 
 at Preston says, ' The following Table shows the amount of 
 ignorance in the 1129 individuals committed for various 
 offences during the year, and the connection subsisting 
 between that and the causes which have led to their 
 offences : — 
 
 1 Gaol "Returns under 4 Geo. IV. c. 64, and 5 Geo. IV. c. 12, dated 20th 
 Feb. 1839. 
 
 o 3 
 
198 
 
 Second Period 
 
 i 
 
 CAUSES OF CRIME. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <o 
 
 
 
 DEGREES OF EDICATION. 
 
 tb 
 
 c 
 
 c 
 
 §i 
 
 J 
 
 *i 
 
 II 
 
 = 
 
 « s 
 
 . 
 
 
 s 
 
 S 
 
 
 2 
 
 § 
 ^ 
 
 §"5 
 
 ^ 
 ■^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 5 
 
 e2 
 
 
 D 
 
 ^1 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^W 
 
 1 
 
 ^o 
 
 
 1 . Unable to read 
 
 139 
 
 215 
 
 49 
 
 5 
 
 59 
 
 72 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 554 
 
 2. Barely capable of reading 
 
 57 
 
 92 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 24 
 
 32 
 
 1 
 
 
 222 
 
 3. Can read the Testament . 
 
 46 
 
 61 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 19 
 
 21 
 
 
 1 
 
 155 
 
 4. Can read fluently . 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 
 1 
 
 38 
 
 5. Can read well, and write a little 
 
 71 
 
 50 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 152 
 
 6. Can read and write well . 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 331 
 
 435 
 
 73 
 
 16 
 
 122 
 
 134 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 1129 
 
 ' If we consider the educated criminals as represented by 
 the amount of those who are able to " read and write well," 
 the proportion is remarkably small ; and the inference 
 surely must be, that education prevents or restrains crime, 
 either by the operation of those good and religious prin- 
 ciples which it should be its great object to communicate, 
 or, at the least, by giving a taste and capacity for pursuits 
 incompatible with the low and debasing propensities which 
 open the door to crime for the ignorant and sensual. On 
 the other hand, it is evident that the greatest absolute 
 amount of crime is the result of ignorance and drinking 
 combined. It is also, I think, specially worthy of obser- 
 vation, that, as the scale of instruction rises, intoxication 
 begins to exhibit itself as a gradually increasing cause of 
 crime, until, with the educated, it appears paramount over 
 every other which can be distinctly ascertained.' 
 
 The following is an extract from the Eeport of the 
 Chaplain of the County Gaol at Warwick, on the condition 
 of the criminals confined in that prison, presented at the 
 Michaelmas Sessions in 1836 : — 
 
 ' Their condition, as regards education, is this : of every 
 twenty -four who are committed, on an average seven have 
 been taught to read and write ; eight can read only ; and 
 nine can do neither ; most of those who can write can read 
 tolerably well, though their writing is generally a very 
 poor performance ; but at least the half of those who can 
 
Explanation of Measures o/1839 199 
 
 read only, do it very badly. With regard to those im- 
 portant parts of education, rehgion and morality, generally 
 speaking, no instruction whatever appears to have been 
 given to them ; for, in a vast majority of instances, the 
 persons who come to prison are utterly ignorant both of 
 the simplest truths of religion, and of the plainest precepts 
 of morality. Further, it seldom happens that any effort 
 has been made to bring the reasoning faculties into healthy 
 exercise ; and the mind being thus left blank, as far as re- 
 gards everything that is good, it ceases to be a wonder 
 that evil principles should so readily be adopted. Indeed, 
 where such a miserable system of education is found, as 
 appears to prevail in many places, it were much better that 
 nothing were attempted ; for people often appear to learn 
 only just sufficient to render ignorance conceited, and to 
 supply them with fresh incentives to vice. As far as re- 
 gards religious worship, it is very true that at some period 
 of their lives most of the prisoners have attended a place 
 of worship of some denomination, but very few have been 
 taught to consider this as an imperative duty, but rather 
 as a matter of indifference, which perhaps it may be 
 better to do than leave undone.' 
 
 Many similar extracts might be given from the Eeports 
 of other chaplains of gaols, all confirmatory of the brutal 
 state of ignorance exhibited by almost all the offenders 
 who come under their observation ; but these may suffice. 
 We have, however, placed in the Appendix a Table con- 
 taining a summary of the proficiency of the prisoners in 
 Norwich Castle in reading and writing at the time of 
 their commitment, taken at different periods, fi:om 1826 
 to 1835.1 
 
 But the consequences flowing from this neglect are not 
 fully exhibited in such returns. The expense of the penal 
 administration for the prevention, detection, and 'punish- 
 ment of crime in England and Wales, amounts to 
 
 * See Appendix, Table No. IT. 
 o 4 
 
200 Second Period 
 
 £1,213,082/ and tlie number of juvenile offenders in 
 the prisons last year was 12,000. 
 
 On the 12th of February, 1839, by her Majesty's com- 
 mand. Lord John Eussell laid upon the table of the House 
 of Commons the letter which he addressed by her Majesty's 
 command to the President of the Council, with Lord 
 Lansdowne's reply. His Lordship's letter commences 
 with words which cannot be too attentively considered, — 
 'My Lord, I have received her Majesty's command to 
 make a communication to your Lordship on a subject of 
 the greatest importance. Her Majesty has observed, with 
 deep concern, the want of instruction which is stiU observ- 
 able among the poorer classes of her subjects. All the 
 inquiries which have been made show a deficiency in the 
 general education of the people, which is not in accordance 
 with the character of a civilised and Christian nation.' 
 
 In the Treatise on the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith 
 thus describes the condition of a people whose education 
 is neglected by the Government : — 
 
 ' In the progress of the division of labour, the employ- 
 ment of the far greater part of those who Hve by labour, 
 that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be con- 
 fined to a few very simple operations — frequently to one or 
 two. But the understandings of the greater part of men 
 are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. 
 The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few 
 simple operations, of which the effects too are perhaps al- 
 ways the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion 
 to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention, in 
 finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never 
 occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of exertion, 
 and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as is possible 
 for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind 
 renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a 
 part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any 
 generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of 
 
 1 See Returns for 1834 and 1838. 
 
Explanation of Measures 0/ 1839 201 
 
 forming any just judgment concerning many even of the 
 ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive 
 interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judg- 
 ing ; and unless very particular pains have been taken to 
 render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending 
 his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life 
 naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him 
 regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and ad- 
 venturous Hfe of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity 
 of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his 
 strength with vigour and perseverance in any other em- 
 ployment than that to which he has been bred. His 
 dexterity at his own particular trade seems in this manner 
 to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and 
 martial virtues. But in every improved or civilised society, 
 this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the 
 great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless 
 Government takes some pains to prevent it.' — B. v. c. i. 
 
 The calamity thus foreseen by our great economist is 
 realised in the condition of our rural population. The 
 abuses of the poor laws, together with the almost univer- 
 sal neglect of instruction, have reduced this class to a 
 state of mental and physical torpor. The gradual absorp- 
 tion of our domestic manufactures in the great vortices 
 of trade, left in the south-eastern counties of England a 
 larger population on the soil than could be supported in 
 comfort by agricultural labour only ; yet the labourer, re- 
 duced to the condition of a serf, was incapable of any 
 independent exertions to procure employment by remov- 
 ing to the great seats of commerce, or embarking in some 
 new sphere of enterprise, like the more adventurous, 
 because more intelligent, Scottish population. Though 
 the labouring class in these counties must often have suf- 
 fered from continued want, few or none could be induced 
 to emigrate — few or no recruits for the army could be 
 procured — their struggles were confined to stupid contests 
 with the overseer, in which they suffered their wages to 
 be swindled away. Then, when they found industry had 
 
202 Second Period 
 
 no reward — that all were bound to toil, but liad a right 
 to be maintained hke helots — acts of secret and sullen 
 revenge ensued. They sought to extort by fear what 
 they could no longer procure by virtuous exertion. Pro- 
 perty seemed their enemy ; therefore they wrapped in one 
 indiscriminating flame the stacks and homesteads of the 
 southern counties, seeking the improvement of their con- 
 dition by the destruction of capital. 
 
 On the other hand, the rapid progress of our physical 
 civilisation has occasioned the growth of masses of manu- 
 facturing population, the instruction, and moral, and 
 rehgious elevation of which have hitherto been neglected 
 by the State. These communities exhibit alarming features; 
 labouring cla'sses, unmatched in the energy and hardihood 
 with which they pursue their daily toil, yet thriftless, 
 incapable of husbanding their means, or resisting sensual 
 gratification; high wages and want under the same roof; 
 while other portions of the same classes are struggling on 
 the barest pittance with continual labour, abstinent by 
 necessity. From opposite quarters misery and discontent 
 are goading both. The Eev. Mr. Close, perpetual Curate 
 of Cheltenham, says, in a sermon just pubhshed, 'It is a 
 well-known fact that, in the manufacturing districts, where 
 the highest wages are obtained, the greatest poverty often 
 prevails ; where money is easily acquired, it is as quickly 
 spent, and often in feasting as well as drunkenness ; per- 
 sons in this rank of hfe will not unfrequently discover a 
 degree of extravagance in the gratification of their appe- 
 tites, which would astonish those who are much their 
 superiors in station ; expending a week's wages in one 
 feast, heedless of the wants of their families to-morrow.' 
 At the next door to the highly-paid artisan, who has 
 squandered his week's earnings on the Sunday's feast, 
 pines- the hand-loom weaver, exhausted with continual 
 penury and toil. 
 
 Physical prosperity stimulates all the animal appetites, 
 and, if unaided by moral restraint, wastes her resources, 
 and, instead of connecting content and peace with plenty, 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/ 1839 203 
 
 continually rouses the population to feverish exertion. 
 Notwithstanding the high Avages of the artisan, the wife 
 commits her infant to an hireling, and leaves her domestic 
 duties to work in the manufactory. The parents, to enable 
 ill-regulated means to satisfy increasing wants, lead their 
 children of a tender age to the same scene of continual 
 exertion. Domestic virtue and household piety have 
 little opportunity to thrive in a population alternating 
 between protracted labour and repose, or too frequent 
 sensual gratification. When all the animal powers are 
 thus continually called into action, adversity is met with 
 sullen discontent, or with fierce outbreaks of passionate 
 disquiet. Whoever will promise less toil and more money, 
 is a prophet in the manufacturing districts ; and — in 
 the absence of those who w^ould teach, that comfort 
 can only be secured by a cultivation of those domestic 
 sympathies and household virtues, which spring from a 
 well-regulated mind, and prove that happiness depends 
 upon those internal moral resources, without which the 
 greatest prosperity is often a curse — prophets will always 
 be found ready to teach the population to seek a remedy 
 for the evils they endure by violent attempts at social 
 change. To the ignorant man, who has only the sense oi 
 the continual necessity to labour, in order to gratify his 
 unapp eased desires for sensual gratification, and to meet 
 the wants created by wasted means, who can be more 
 welcome than he who comes with the golden promise of 
 high wages and ease, instead of leading him to an en- 
 lightened estimate of his domestic and social duties, and 
 teaching him how much a resolute will, under the influ- 
 ence of morality and religion, may do, even in adverse 
 circumstances, to render the lot of the poor man peaceful 
 and happy ? Less work and more means have always, 
 therefore, been the promises of every impostor who has 
 practised on the ignorance, discontent, and suffering of 
 the manufacturing population. 
 
 We shall have to speak, in subsequent pages, of the 
 political and social combinations which have of late pre- 
 
 fe;?/i>> 
 
204 Second Period 
 
 vailed in the manufacturing districts ; the Trades' Unions, 
 in which incendiarism, personal violence, and even assas- 
 sination, are practised for the unattainable object of sus- 
 taining the rate of wages above the level resulting from 
 the natural laws of trade — and the more recent armed 
 associations for political purposes, in which the working 
 classes have been exliorted to obtain by force privileges 
 withheld by the constitutional representatives of the 
 people ; results, which are all ascribable to the fact that 
 the physical development of the population has been more 
 rapid than the growth of our intellectual, moral, and 
 rehgious institutions. 
 
 On the other hand, it is cheering to know, that the ac- 
 cumulation of the people in masses renders them more 
 accessible to the beneficial influence of well-regulated 
 social institutions. Having once encountered the necessity 
 of supplying the intellectual and moral wants of the 
 labouring classes, knowledge and virtue will, with adequate 
 agencies, ma ke m ore rapid progress am^^jL_concentrated 
 than a scattered population. So long as our artisans hved 
 in cottages scattered bver the moors of our northern, and 
 the wolds of our southern counties, little danger might 
 arise to the State from their universal ignorance, apathy, 
 and want ; but if the necessity for raising their moral 
 and intellectual condition could, under such circumstances, 
 have been as pressing as it now is, the difficulty of civil- 
 ising them would have been almost insuperable. In the 
 concentrated population of our towns, the dangers arising 
 from the neglect of the intellectual and moral culture of 
 the working class are already imminent ; and the conse- 
 quences of permitting another generation to rise, without 
 bending the powers of the executive government and of 
 society to the great work of civilisation and religion, for 
 which the poHtical and social events of every hour make 
 a continual demand, must be social disquiet little short of 
 revolution. But the same masses of population are equally 
 open to all the beneficial influences derivable from a 
 careful cultivation of their domestic and social habits ; 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 205 
 
 from the communication of knowledge enabling them to 
 perceive their true relation to the other classes of society, 
 and how dependent their interests are upon the stabihty 
 of our institutions and the preservation of social order. 
 
 The law recognises the duty devolving on property, as 
 respects the education of the facto ry children ; and we re- 
 joice to believe that, under the guidance of men of high 
 intelligence and benevolence, such as many of the most 
 wealthy manufacturers are, we shall soon realise what are 
 the fruits of a well-devised system of intellectual, moral, 
 and religious training, in rendering the communities, in 
 whose well-being they have so deep a stake, examples of 
 what may be effected by applying to the moral elevation 
 of the population the same sagacity and perseverance 
 which have occasioned its physical prosperity. A short 
 time only will elapse before, in some of our great towns, 
 the most influential inhabitants will combine for the erec- 
 tion and support of Model Schools. Such institutions will 
 create and diffuse a more correct estimate of the value of 
 Education, and will promote its spread. 
 
 For another neglected class also the State has interfered. 
 Under the parochial system, the orphan, deserted, ancl 
 illegitimate~~'chiTdren— waifs of socTely^^were scattered 
 through the parochial workhouses of England, where they 
 were promiscuously mingled with the idiots, the sick, the 
 sturdy vagabond, and profligate women. From the paro- 
 chial workhouses, the gaols and hulks recruited the ranks 
 of crime. These children are now under the care of 
 Boards of Guardians, separated from the adult paupers, 
 and measures are in progress to educate them so as to 
 render them efficient and virtuous members of society. 
 
 For the juvenile offenders the Government is carefully 
 preparing a system of reformatory discipline and train- 
 ing, in which all the resources of the educator will be 
 exhausted to redeem these outcasts from the depravity 
 consequent on neglect and evil example. 
 
 Besides these signs of coming improvement, we hail, as 
 a presage of no little importance, the fact that the subject 
 
206 Second Period 
 
 of National Education has occupied the attention of the 
 Houses of ParHament during five nights of anxious dis- 
 cussion. We never were so sanguine as to expect that the 
 STcat embarrassments with which it is surrounded could 
 
 o 
 
 be at once dispelled ; but we have a confident belief that 
 every hour increases the anxiety of all friends of our con- 
 stitutional liberties and national institutions, to preserve 
 both by the education of the people. 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/ 1 8 3 9 207 
 
 CHAPTEE n. 
 
 RESULTS OF REFORMATION IN EUROPEAN PROTESTANT STATES SCOTLAND 
 
 PRUSSIA CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE SWITZERLAND SWEDEN 
 
 NORWAY DENMARK HOLLAND, ETC. CONDITION IN CATHOLIC STATES 
 
 BELGIUM — FRANCE COMPARATIVE RESOURCES IN ENGLAND. 
 
 One of the early consequences of the Eeformation in 
 Europe, with the exception of England, was the establish- 
 ment of a system of elementary instruction. It was a 
 natural consequence of the assertion of the right of private 
 judgment, that every Government should charge itself with 
 the duty of raising the standard of knowledge among the 
 mass of the people. Thu§ a century and a half have elapsed 
 since the system of parochial education was estabhshed 
 by an Act of the Scottish Parliament, and we may now 
 trace, in the industry, enterprise, and foresight of our 
 Scottish fellow-subjects, and above all, in their household 
 virtues and earnest patriotism — in their domestic piety and 
 reverence for the public institutions and ceremonial of re- 
 ligion, the consequences of a system of National Education, 
 which, whatever be its imperfections — and they are nume- 
 rous, — is in many respects adapted to the genius of their 
 nation. Prussia, as early as 1736, declared the elementary 
 education of the people to be an essential part of the policy 
 of the State. In that year she provided for the erection 
 and repair of school-houses by the communes ; regulated 
 the duties and privileges of the teachers ; appropriated 
 portions of the Church revenues to the provision of their 
 salaries ; and provided from the public funds means to 
 meet the contingent expenses of the Schools. This law 
 underwent successive improvements in the years 1763 and 
 
208 Second Period 
 
 1765. These edicts also provided for the inspection and 
 due regulation of the Schools; for the transmission of Ee- 
 ports to the Government ; for the examination of teachers 
 by the School inspectors ; and for the elevation of some of 
 the principal Schools of the newly acquired territory of 
 Silesia to the character of Normal Schools. The preamble 
 to the first of these statutes describes the condition of 
 the elementary instruction of Prussia, in terms singularly 
 appropriate to that of the primary education of England 
 at this moment. The training of the rising population was 
 extremely inefficient, on account of the incompetency of 
 the teachers : in wide districts of the country the training 
 of the children of the working class was almost utterly 
 neglected. The spread of true religion — the maintenance 
 of social order — the diffusion of useful knowledge and 
 virtuous habits, and the cultivation of the industrial arts — 
 could not be secured excepting by a system of education 
 capable of raising the people from ignorance, and, in some 
 districts, from semi-barbarism.^ 
 
 ' The late President of the United States, in his Letters on Silesia, thus 
 describes the Schools which Frederick the Great established in every village 
 of Silesia. 'At the time of the conquest of Silesia/ says Mr. Adams, 
 ' education had seldom been made an object of the concern of Governments, 
 and Silesia, like the rest of Em-ope, was but wretchedly provided either 
 with Schools or teachers. In the small towns and villages, the schoolmasters 
 were so poorly paid, that they could not subsist without practising some 
 other trade besides their occupation as instructors ; and they usually united 
 the character of the Village Fiddler with that of the Village Schoolmaster. 
 Even of these there were so few, that the children of the peasants in general, 
 throughout the province, were left untaught. This was especially the case 
 in Upper Silesia. Frederick issued an ordinance, that a School should be 
 kept in eveiy village, and that a competent subsistence should be provided 
 for the schoolmaster, by the joint contributions of the lord of the village, 
 and of the tenants : the superintendence of the Schools was prescribed as the 
 duty of the Clergy.' 
 
 Mr. Adams then relates how Frederick carried into execution his great 
 design ; he describes the mission of Felbiger, to acquire a knowledge of the 
 latest improvements in the art of teaching, and the consequent establishment 
 of Model Schools at Breslau and Glatz, for the training of educators for the 
 primaiy Schools. 
 
 'After all these preparatory measures had been carried into eiFect,' he 
 says, ' an ordinance was published in the year 1765, prescribing the mode 
 of teaching as adopted in the seminaries, and the manner in which the 
 
Explanation of Measures q/' 1 8 3 9 209 
 
 W'e have not space to describe the consequences which 
 followed the exertions of the Prussian Grovernment, until 
 the disastrous war of 1806 involved Prussia in embarrass- 
 ments, which, for a time, impeded the progress of her 
 social institutions. Nevertheless, even when she was sub- 
 jected to the incursion of foreign armies, or to a foreign 
 yoke, her Normal Schools had, between 1806 and 1816, 
 
 Clergy sliould supermtend the efficacious establishment of the system. The 
 regulations of this ordinance prove the earnestness with which the King of 
 Prussia laboured to spread the benefits of useful knowledge among his 
 subjects. The teachers are directed to give plain instruction, and upon 
 subjects applicable to the ordinary concerns of lifej not merely to load the 
 memory of their scholars with words, but to make things intelligible to 
 their understanding -, to habituate them to the use of their own reason, by 
 explaining every object of the lesson, so that the children themselves may 
 be able to explain it upon examination. The candidates for school-keeping 
 must give specimens of their ability, by teaching at one of the schools con- 
 nected with the seminary, in presence of the professors, that they may 
 remark and correct any thing defective in the candidate's method. The 
 school tax must be paid by the lord and tenants, without distinction of 
 religions. The boys must all be sent to school from their sixth to their 
 thirteenth year, whether the parents are able to pay the school-tax or not, 
 for the poor, the school money must be raised by collections. Every parent or 
 guardian who neglects to send his child or pupil to school, without sufficient 
 cause, is obliged to pay a double tax, for which the guardian shall have no 
 allowance. Every curate must examine weekly the children of the school 
 in his parish. A general examination must be held annually by the deans 
 of the districts of the schools within their respective precincts ; and a report 
 of the condition of the schools, the talents and attention of the school- 
 masters, the state of the buildings, and the attendance of the children, made 
 to the office of the Vicar-General, who is bound to transmit all these reports 
 to the royal domain offices, from which orders are issued to supply the 
 deficiencies in the schools. This system was at first prepared only for the 
 Catholic schools ; but it was afterwards adopted by most of the Lutheran 
 consistories. 
 
 ^ The system had at first many difficulties to contend with. The indolence 
 of the Catholic clergy was averse to the new and troublesome duty impof?ed 
 upon them. Their zeal was alarmed at the danger arising from this dif- 
 fusion of light to the stability of their Church ; they considered alike the 
 spirit of innovation, and the spirit of inquiry, as their natural enemies. 
 But the firmness of the Government overcame every obstacle. There ar^' 
 now more than 3500 schools established in the province. Before the Seven 
 Years' war, there had not been more than one periodical journal or gazette 
 published in the province at one time; while there are now no fewer than 
 seventeen newspapers and magazines, which appear by the day, the week, 
 the month, and the quarter, and many of them upon subjects generally 
 useful, and which contain very valuable information on all the most in- 
 teresting topics of discussion.' 
 
 P 
 
210 Second Period 
 
 increased from six to sixteen. A special department for 
 the superintendence of public worship, pubHc instruction, 
 and medicine, was created by an ordinance issued on the 
 Peace of Tilsit in 1810, and successive ordinances have 
 regulated the whole details of pubhc instruction, into the 
 system of which we cannot now enter. 
 
 At the present moment, the extent of the existing pro- 
 vision for the education of the poorer classes, is remarkable. 
 There are forty-five schools for the training of teachers in 
 the several provinces, which are constantly educating 2583 
 teachers ; but so vigilant is the Prussian Grovernment, that 
 the official reports state that a considerable number of the 
 teachers still entrusted with the management of schools, 
 have hitherto not obtained certificates of competency, and 
 the annual supply of teachers is not adequate to the 
 demand created by casualties, and the retirement of teach- 
 ers from age and other causes. To the supply of these 
 wants the attention of the Government is constantly 
 directed. 
 
 In 1838, Prussia contained a population of 14,000,000; 
 the number of public schools was 22,910, in which 
 27,575 teachers were employed, who educated 2,171,745 
 children (or one teacher to seventy-eight scholars) ; besides 
 which, 117,982 children were educated at Middle and 
 Burgher schools. The number of children between five and 
 fifteen, or of an age to go to school, was 2,830,328 ; the 
 number of children receiving instruction in the schools 
 was 2,289,727, so that only 540,601 children were not at 
 school, in the whole body of children, between the ages 
 of five and fifteen. The proportion of children at school 
 to the population, being as one to six, it may be considered 
 that the extent of the provision for education in Prussia is 
 complete as to quantity, though as regards quality, it is 
 still susceptible of considerable improvement. In the great 
 towns of Prussia, the proportion of children at school to 
 the population was, in Berlin, one in ten ; in Breslau, one 
 in nine ; m Cologne with Deuz, one in eight ; in Konigs- 
 berg, one in nine ; in Danzig, one in eleven ; in Magde- 
 
Explanation of Measures 0/ 1839 211 
 
 burg, one in eight ; in Elberfeld with Barmen, one in 
 seven ; in Aix-la-Chapelle, one in thirteen ; in Posen, one 
 in thirteen ; in Stettin, one in ten. The interference with 
 primary instruction in towns occasioned by the early 
 employment of children in the manufactories, by the less 
 settled habits of the population, and by other causes, is 
 greater than in the country ; and the proportion of one in 
 eight has been generally deemed a complete provision 
 for the education of the poorer classes in towns. Though 
 the number of children attending school in the principal 
 cities of Prussia falls short of this proportion, it is greatly 
 superior to the whole number attending school in the 
 great towns of this country, even including the ill-regu- 
 lated common day and dame schools. The Prussian 
 regulations respecting education are adapted to the cha- 
 racter of the people, and in harmony with the general 
 policy of the Government. The state of education in 
 Prussia may be employed as a means of comparison be- 
 tween the extent and quality of the means of instruction 
 existing in that country and our own, while we carefully 
 bear in mind that any measures which may be adopted 
 by the Government of this country may be required to 
 differ as widely from the ordinances of Prussia as the 
 character of the Enghsh people and the nature of the 
 laws and institutions of this country differ from those of 
 the Prussian nation. 
 
 The condition of education in some of the states of Ger- 
 many is, perhaps, superior to that of any other portion of 
 Europe. The development of primary instruction in Saxe 
 Weimar and Wurtemburg has, during the present century, 
 been promoted by one of the greatest minds of modern 
 times, which embodied the national characteristics of the 
 genius of his countrymen so as to command their universal 
 homage. We avail ourselves of a luminous account of the 
 state of education in Germany, and its legitimate conse- 
 quences, given in the Journal of Education \ by the 
 
 ^ ^The change for tlie better, consequent on the system of instruction 
 introduced into Prussia, seems to be inferior to that which has followed the 
 
 p 2 
 
212 Second Period 
 
 learned and experienced traveller, Mr. Loudon, wliose 
 powers of observation and impartiality will command 
 
 introduction of National Schools into Wirtembiirg, Baden^ Bavaria^ and 
 generally in all those states included in what was formerly denominated the 
 Confederation of the Rhine, In Wirtemburg, indeed^ the inhabitants have 
 been pretty well supplied with the means of education for near a century 
 past ; but during the last thirty years, the system has been very greatly 
 extended and improved. At present, not only in Wirtemburg, but also in 
 Baden, Hesse, &c., a public school is established in every parish, and in 
 some instances, in every hamlet. The Master receives, as in Scotland, a 
 fixed salary from the parish, exclusive of a small fee from the pupils, varying 
 according to their age, and the subjects in which they are instructed. The 
 fees are fixed by Government, and are everywhere the same. Exclusive of 
 the salaries and fees, the Masters are furnished with a house, a garden, and 
 in most instances, a few acres of ground, corresponding to the glebes of the 
 Scotch Clergy. The law requires that the children should be instructed in 
 reading, writing, and arithmetic, and it is specially enacted that they shall 
 be instructed in the principles of German grammar and in composition. 
 The books used in the schools of Wirtemburg and Baden, and generally 
 throughout Germany, are very superior to those used in similar establish- 
 ments in this country. They consist of geographical, biographical, and 
 historical works, and of elementary treatises on moral science, natural 
 history, and the principles and practice of some of the most important and 
 useful arts. In all the larger schools, the boys and girls are kept separate, 
 and the latter, in addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, are taught 
 all sorts of needle-work, the knitting of stockings, the making of clothes, &c. 
 receiving at the same time lessons in the art of cookery, the management 
 of children, &c. The supervision of the schools is intrusted, in every 
 parish or commune, to a committee, consisting of a few of the principal 
 inhabitants ; the clergy of the parish, whether Protestants or Catholics, 
 being always ex-officio members of the Committee. This body is intrusted 
 with the duty of inspecting the school, and is bound to see that the Master 
 does his duty, and that the children regularly attend. No particular system 
 of religion is allowed to be taught in any of the schools of Wirtemburg, 
 and most of the other Germanic States. The tuition of this important branch 
 is left entirely to the Clergy, and the parents of the children, so that the 
 sons and daughters of Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Quakers, &c. fre- 
 quent the same schools, and live in the most perfect harmony. 
 
 * In Bavaria, the beneficial consequences resulting from the establishment 
 of a system of National Education have been more signal than in any other 
 European country. Half a century ago, the Bavarians were the most 
 ignorant, debauched, and slovenly people between the Gulf of Genoa and 
 the Baltic. (For proofs of what is now stated, see Riesbeck's '^ Travels in 
 Germany," vol. i. cap. xi.) That they are at present patterns of morality, 
 intelligence, and cleanliness, it would be going too far to afSrm ; but we 
 are bold to say, that no people has ever made a more rapid advancement in 
 the career of civilisation, than they have made during the last thirty years. 
 The late and present Kings of Ba\'aria, have been truly the fathers of their 
 country j for they have not only swept away myriads of abuses, and estab- 
 lished a representative system of government, but they have laid the only 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/1839 213 
 
 universal respect, and wliose statements are so important 
 as to deserve quotation, without abridgment. We have, 
 therefore, placed them in a note. 
 
 The schools in the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland 
 have long been under the direction of a Council of Edu- 
 cation, appointed by the Government, and are frequented 
 by one-sixth to one-tenth of the population. Considerable 
 
 sure foundations of permanent and real improvement, in the organisation of 
 a truly admirable system of National Education. A school has been estab- 
 lished in every parish of Bavaria, to which^ as already observed, every one 
 is obliged to send his children, from the age of six to fourteen. Lyceums, 
 Colleges, and Universities, have also been instituted for the use of those 
 who are desirous of prosecuting their studies, and every facility is afforded 
 for the acquisition of the best instruction at the lowest price. In Bavaria 
 the schools are inspected, and reports regularly made upon their condition 
 by properly qualified officers, appointed for that purpose by Government. 
 There is a particular department in the Ministry of the Interior appropriated 
 to the supervision of the different kinds of schools. We subjoin a list of 
 the places of primary education, and the number of teachers, pupils, &c. 
 in Bavaria in 1828. 
 
 Public or National Schools . . 5394 
 
 Normal Schools ... 7 
 
 Teachees and Pupils. 
 
 Inspectors of Schools . . . 286 
 
 Teachers .... 7114 
 
 Pupils of all classes, about . . 498,000 
 
 *^ Now, as the population of Bavaria is almost exactly four millions, it 
 follows that not less than one-eighth of the entire population is at school. 
 This is a very high proportion, and shows conclusively how universally 
 education is diffused. In Scotland, it is supposed that the individuals at 
 school amount to about one-tenth of the entire population. 
 
 ^ Throughout Germany the greatest attention is paid, not merely to the 
 acquirements of the Teachers, but also to their capacity for teaching. To 
 ensure proficiency in this respect, normal or pattern schools have been estab- 
 lished in all the principal towns, which are attended by those who are 
 candidates for the situation of Master j who, besides being instructed in the 
 branches they are to be employed in teaching, are at the same time instructed 
 in the best methods of teaching, and in the conduct proper to be followed 
 in the management of scholars.. Some of these schools very justly enjoy a 
 very high reputation ; and their establishment has had the most powerful 
 and salutary influence on the system of instruction. No one is admitted to 
 the pattern schools under thirteen years of age, and candidates are obliged 
 to have made considerable proficiency in various branches. At the famous 
 Normal School of Rastadt, the pupils, among other indispensable requisites, 
 are expected to be masters of the elements of music' — See Quarterly Journal 
 of JEducation, vol. i. p. 29. 
 
 p 3 
 
214 Second Period 
 
 improvements have been introduced into the system of 
 Swiss education during the last sixteen years. Berne, 
 Geneva, Basle, and Argovia have been long distinguished 
 by their zeal, and the Canton de Vaud has recently made 
 great exertions for the improvement of the methods pur- 
 sued in its schools. Fribourg has been distinguished by 
 the labours of Pere Girard, whose schools in that town 
 were the most successful development of the system of 
 mutual instruction, which the Continent has yet witnessed. 
 His method resembled, in some important respects, that 
 pursued by Mr. Wood in the Edinburgh Sessional Schools. 
 In the Protestant Cantons, the average number of pupils 
 to each school is about 90, and the proportion to each 
 teacher 70. No detailed accounts of the Normal Schools 
 of Switzerland have reached this country, but we are in- 
 formed by intelligent travellers that two Normal Schools 
 exist in the Canton of Berne ; a very good one at Lau- 
 sanne, in the Canton de Yaud ; two in Argovia ; a very 
 large school at Kusnacht, near Zurich ; one in Thurgovia, 
 presided over by Yehrli, whose name is familiar to all 
 who take an interest in the progress of education ; two in 
 St. Gall ; a school in Appenzell, pronounced to be well con- 
 ducted, and one at SchafFhausen, another in the Catholic 
 Canton of Grisons, and a third in that of Lucerne. Besides 
 these, there are doubtless others of which at present we 
 have no account, and generally it may be stated, that the 
 Protestant Cantons of Switzerland are nearly foremost in 
 Europe, as respects primary education. Throughout 
 these Cantons the superintendence of the schools by a 
 Council of Education, appointed by the Government, and 
 acting by means of Training Schools, and a system of 
 active inspection, has been found not only efficient in pro- 
 moting the progress of education, but in perfect harmony 
 with the free constitutions of the Swiss Cantons. 
 
 Li Sweden, Gustavus Yasa, in 1527, dilTused the Lu- 
 theran doctrine over the whole country. This change in 
 the religious institutions of the country harmonised with 
 the wants and character of the people of that age. Though, 
 
Explanation of Measures o/1839 215 
 
 liowever, tlie Swedish clergy are still in numbers equal to 
 their task, and though their ecclesiastical discipline is 
 admirable, the Church has ceased to be influenced by the 
 genius of Protestantism. A spiritual tyranny represses the 
 right of private judgment, and the people continue super- 
 stitious. In 1684, Charles XI. enacted that every one of 
 his subjects should be able to read, that the curate should 
 examine him in religion before he was admitted to the 
 Holy Sacrament, and that nobody should be married who 
 had not been confirmed. These enactments appear to 
 account for the fact that the Swedish peasantry were, 
 until towards the close of the last century, regarded as 
 the most religious and best instructed working class in 
 Europe. Before the present century, education in Sweden 
 was almost solely parental ; few" children attended public 
 schools, but in order to entitle them to the privileges of 
 citizenship, they were instructed and trained by their 
 parents at home. Since the latter part of the last century 
 a rapid deterioration has taken place in Swedish manners 
 and in the moral condition of the population. Mr. Laing 
 traces this degeneration to the influence of a defective 
 social system, in which some of the worst institutions of 
 feudahsm corrupt a people aroused from the incurious 
 apathy of the middle ages. The system of parental in- 
 struction has been found insufficient to struggle against 
 the demoralising influence of misrule and imperfect laivs, 
 discouraging industry and merit, and impoverishing the 
 mass — and the evil example of corrupt manners among 
 the privileged classes. Of late years only has any attempt 
 been made to provide a remedy for these formidable evils. 
 An elementary school for the training of teachers in the 
 best methods has been established at Stockholm, and a 
 Committee for the revision of Public Education, formed by 
 an order of the King in 1825, have reported their opinions 
 on schools for the common people, on elementary schools, 
 and on the universities. They recommend that a school 
 be established in every parish for tlie children of the 
 poorer class, where they may be instructed in reading, 
 
 F 4 
 
216 Second Period 
 
 writing, arithmetic, religion, biblical history, church sing- 
 ing, linear drawing, history, geography, and gymnastic 
 exercises. They also recommend that libraries of useful 
 books be attached to each school. These measures have 
 since the Eeport of the Committee, been in a state of pro- 
 gressive execution, and Sweden will soon enjoy institu- 
 tions suited to the character of her people and the wants 
 of the age. 
 
 A parochial system of primary instruction is established 
 in Norway resembling that of Scotland, but partaking of 
 the primitive character of the institutions of that country. 
 The funds for the support of schools are generally de- 
 rived from endowments, from local taxes, subscriptions, 
 &c. Manufacturers employing more than thirty workmen 
 are obliged to provide schools for their children, and to 
 pay the teachers. Several training schools for teachers 
 exist, and it is the intention of the Grovernment to extend 
 and improve them. The population of Norway being 
 thinly scattered over wide mountainous districts, the 
 Government, besides the paid parochial teachers, has 
 provided a class of itinerant teachers, who successively 
 visit the hamlets of their districts, assembling and in- 
 structing the children in the usual elementary knowledge. 
 In 1833, the population being about 1,000,000, Mr. 
 Ewerloff stated the fixed schools^ in Norway, to be 183, 
 instructing 13,693 children of both sexes, and the num- 
 ber of ambulatory schools as 1610, instructing 132,632 
 children. Besides which there were in the vicinity of 
 towns 55 regular schools, supported by the citizens, in 
 which 600 or 700 children were instructed. [Journal of 
 Education.) 
 
 In Denmark a general code of regulations for schools 
 has existed since 1817, the condition of the primary 
 instruction having previously to that period made satis- 
 factory progress. The elementary schools of Denmark 
 now amount to 4600, educating 278,500 children. The 
 population is 2,000,000, and it is estimated that there are 
 300,000 children of an age to go to school. The entire 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/1839 217 
 
 population of Denmark may, therefore, be said to be re- 
 ceiving instruction. 
 
 Holland has long enjoyed the advantages of an advanc- 
 ing civilisation. The institutions of the central states of 
 Europe for the promotion of primary education procured, 
 at an early period in the Batavian Eepublic, spontaneous 
 efforts from a sagacious people for the training and instruc- 
 tion of the poorer classes. The direct interference of the 
 Government was reserved for the present century ; and 
 this is in no slight degree to be attributed to the labours 
 of Pestalozzi in Switzerland, which called forth similar 
 exertions from Van den Ende, from Prinsen, and from 
 Talk. Early in the present century the Normal School 
 at Haarlem was established under the direction of Prinsen. 
 The superintendence of education was thrown upon the 
 Minister of the Interior, assisted by the Inspector-General 
 of Instruction. From this department a series of well- 
 devised regulations have in successive years emanated, 
 which have been gradually carried into execution by a 
 system of inspection so devised as to be in perfect har- 
 mony with the municipal institutions of the country, 
 and the character and feelings of the inhabitants. The 
 inspectors form the medium of communication between 
 the Government, the municipal councils, the provincial 
 authorities, and the committees and directors of schools. 
 It is their duty to foster the exertions of the local com- 
 munities, and to direct them to useful objects. The 
 inspection of schools ; the examination of teachers, and 
 their special authorisation ; together with the diffusion of 
 information concerning the best methods of teaching, the 
 proper apparatus, and most useful books, are among the 
 inspectors' duties. Every inspector visits the schools of 
 his district at least twice every year ; he has power to 
 appoint local school commissions ; but is himself under 
 the authority of a commission of inspectors of each de- 
 partment, which assembles three times a year in the chief 
 town of the province, to examine the reports of the local 
 inspectors, and to discuss and settle all matters relating 
 
218 Second Period 
 
 to the internal regulation of schools. Deputies from each 
 departmental commission are sent to the council of in- 
 spectors at the Hague, which assembles annually to confer 
 with the Inspector-General and the Minister of the Inte- 
 rior. Two normal schools now exist in Holland, in 
 which a large body of teachers is trained ; but it is a 
 part of the discipline of the Dutch schools to select 
 the most promising pupils, first, as assistants in the more 
 mechanical arrangements of the school, and then to be 
 trained successively in every department, and at the same 
 time to receive such instruction as may fit them, when 
 they arrive at maturity, successfully to perform tlie duties 
 of teachers in primary schools. Many of the pupils thus 
 reared in the primary schools finish their education in 
 the normal schools. Holland is now one of the best 
 instructed countries in Europe ; and the singular pru- 
 dence, industry, moral habits, and religious feeling of 
 the Dutch people are chiefly attributable to a system of 
 education interwoven with the institutions and with the 
 habits and feehngs of the nation. Mr. Mcholls thus 
 describes the connection between the religious and edu- 
 cational institutions of Holland. 'As respects religion, 
 the population of Holland is divided, in about equal 
 proportions, into Cathohc, Lutheran, and Protestants of 
 the Eeformed Calvinistic Church, and the ministers of 
 each are supported by the state. The schools contain, 
 without distinction, the children of every sect of Chris- 
 tians. The rehgious and moral instruction afforded to 
 the children is taken from the pages of Holy Writ, and 
 the whole course of education is mingled with a frequent 
 reference to the great general evidences of revelation. 
 Biblical history is taught, not as a dry narrative of facts, 
 but as a storehouse of truths, calculated to influence the 
 affections, to correct and elevate the manners, and to 
 inspire sentiments of devotion and virtue. The great 
 principles and truths of Christianity, in which all are 
 agreed, are hkewise carefully inculcated ; but those points 
 which are the subjects of difference and religious con- 
 
Explanation of Measures 0/1839 219 
 
 troversy, form no part of the instructions of the schools. 
 This department of rehgious teaching is confided to the 
 ministers of each persuasion who discharge this portion 
 of their duties out of the school : but within the schools 
 the common ground of instruction is faithfully preserved, 
 and they are consequently altogether free from the spirit of 
 jealousy and proselytism. We witnessed the exercise of 
 a class of the children of notables in Haarlem (according 
 to the simultaneous method) respecting the death and 
 resurrection of our Saviour, by a minister of the Lutheran 
 Church. The class contained children of Catholics, Cal- 
 vinists, and other denominations of Christians, as well as 
 Lutherans ; and all disputable doctrinal points were care- 
 fully avoided. The Lutherans are the smallest in number, 
 the Calvinists the largest, and the Catliolics about mid- 
 way between the two ; but all appear to live together in 
 perfect amity, without the slightest distinction in the 
 common intercourse of life ; and this circumstance so 
 extremely interesting in itself, no doubt facihtated the 
 establishment of the general system of education here 
 described, the effects of which are so apparent in the 
 highly moral and intellectual condition of the Dutch 
 people.' 
 
 The proceedings of the States of Germany probably 
 suggested to Frederick the great designs which he con- 
 ceived for the moral, intellectual, and religious improve- 
 ment of Silesia. From these States the influence of 
 advancing civilisation spread into Switzerland, Sweden, 
 Denmark, and Holland. The wars which succeeded the 
 French Eevolution kept back for a time the educational 
 institutions of these states ; yet even under a foreign 
 yoke, and in the confusion consequent on rapid political 
 changes, a gradual progress was made ; every interval 
 of quiet was, in Germany and Prussia, apphed to the 
 reparation of the consequences of foreign invasion, and 
 the general peace was no sooner proclaimed than the 
 Government of every Protestant state on the Continent 
 sought to rescue the people from the demoralisation con- 
 
220 Second Period 
 
 sequent on a disorganising war, and to prepare the means 
 of future defence in the development of the moral force 
 of her people, England alone appears in this respect to 
 have misunderstood the genius of Protestantism. With 
 the wealthiest and most enlightened aristocracy, the 
 richest and most influential church, and the most enter- 
 prising middle class, her lower orders are, as a mass, more 
 ' ignorant and less civilised than those of any other large 
 Protestant country in Europe. 
 
 By reference to the foUowing table, extracted from 
 various authorities, it will be perceived how far we are 
 correct in tracing to the Eeformation the great impulse 
 which education has given to the civilisation of Europe. 
 
 Proportion of Scholars in Elementary Schools to whole Population. 
 
 Pupil. Inhabitants. 
 
 Thurgovia, Switzerland (1832) . . . . 1 in . 4-8 
 
 Zurich, Switzerland (1832) .... 1 in 5 
 
 Argovia, Switzerland (1832) .... 1 in 5*3 
 
 Bohemia (1833) 1 in 57 
 
 Wurtemburg 1 in 6 
 
 Prussia (1838) 1 in 6 
 
 Baden (1830) 1 in 6 
 
 Dren the, Province of, Holland (1835) . . 1 in 6 
 
 Saxony 1 in H 
 
 Province of Overyssel (1835) .... 1 in 62 
 
 Canton of Neufchatel (1832) .... 1 in 6-4 
 
 Prise (1833) 1 in 6-8 
 
 Norway (1834) 1 in 7 
 
 Denmark (1834) 1 in 7 
 
 Scotland (1834) I in 10-4 
 
 Bavaria (1831) 1 in 8 
 
 Austria (1832) ...... 1 in 10 
 
 Belgium . 1 in 11*5 
 
 England I in 115 
 
 Lombardy (1832) ...... 1 in 126 
 
 France 1 in 17 6 
 
 Ireland 1 in 18 
 
 lloman States 1 in 50 
 
 Lucca I in 53 
 
 Tuscany 1 in 66 
 
 Portugal 1 in 88 
 
 Russia 1 in 367 
 
 In England we have no normal schools deserving of 
 the name ; Scotland owes to spontaneous individual exer- 
 tions the only model schools which exist in that country ; 
 
Explanation of Measures of \^^^ 221 
 
 and in Ireland, the Board of Education, obstructed by- 
 peculiar difficulties, is proceeding to complete the fabric 
 of an institution for the training of teachers, as a part of 
 the great mission of civilisation with which it is entrusted 
 in that distracted country. Meanwhile the Catholic States 
 of Europe have caught the impulse communicated from 
 Germany to the Protestant Governments. When Belgium 
 was incorporated in the kingdom of the Netherlands, the 
 present King of Holland planned, and carried on for 
 fourteen years, a series of measures for securing to the 
 poorer classes an efficient education, which up to the 
 Belgian Eevolution were eminently successful. The en- 
 tire proceedings of the Dutch Government, as related in' 
 the Eeports of the Inspector-General of Education, are 
 descriptive of the benefits derivable from a judicious and 
 persevering apphcation of the powers of the Executive 
 to the improvement and extension of primary instruction ; 
 while the consequences of the law proclaiming the liberty 
 of teaching, or in other words, abandoning primary edu- 
 cation to the spontaneous agencies of society, are to be 
 found in the almost complete ruin of all institutions for 
 the primary education of the people in Belgium. - 
 
 Since the year 1833, the Minister of the Department 
 of Public Instruction in France has been assiduously 
 employed in the execution of the law of June, 1833, 
 relating to primary instruction in that country. The 
 translation of the reports of M. Cousin on the state of 
 primary instruction in Prussia and in Holland, has made 
 the English public universally acquainted with the inquiry 
 which M. Cousin executed by direction of the Erencli 
 Government in those countries, on the results of which 
 the French law of instruction was founded, and which 
 has served as a guide to the Department of Pubhc Instruc- 
 tion in the execution of that law in France. 
 
 In the Eeport of M. GiUon, on the part of the Com- 
 mission charged with the examination of the French 
 budget of 1839, it is stated that there are seventy-six 
 normal schools in France, training 2500 teachers. No 
 
222 Second Period 
 
 department now wants an establishment for the training 
 of teachers ; but ten are associated with others for the 
 support of a common estabhshment, and many instruc- 
 tors throughout France are engaged in rearing educators 
 from their most successful pupils. 
 
 The state of primary instruction at the end of the 
 year 1837, was as follows : — 
 
 Communes without schools 
 
 Communes provided with schools 
 
 T> , 1 1 ^ Communal 
 Boys schools ] p^j^^^^ _ 
 
 r^^ ^ , v i ^ Communal 
 Girls' schools ] Private . 
 
 5663 
 29,750 
 30,065 
 9439 
 5283 
 9143 
 
 39,504 
 14,426 
 
 53,930 
 
 The want of schools in some departments is still very 
 great. The number of children attending school amounts 
 to 2,654,492, whereas it is calculated from recent official 
 returns of the population that the number of children 
 between the age of five and twelve years, is upwards of 
 4,800,000 ; but one-fourth of the children in the schools 
 are above twelve years of age ; the number of children 
 therefore between five and twelve in actual attendance 
 on the schools is 1,989,000 ; and on these premisses it is 
 calculated that there are 
 
 -rj_,^ C At school . . . 1,164,000 > „ t^« .^^ 
 
 ^°y« 1 Not attending school . i;386;000 J 2,550,000 
 
 ^., C At school . . . 822,000) oo;.,. nr^n 
 
 ^"^^ I Not attending school . 1,428,000 l 2,250,000 
 
 From these facts it appears that only five-twelfths of 
 the whole number of children attend school. 
 
 The Eeport proceeds to deplore the fact that 2,811,000 
 children in France receive no other instruction than that 
 which is given by their parents, the greater part of whom 
 are the hardest worked and the most ignorant of the 
 population. In 1830, however, the number of children 
 of both sexes attending the primary schools was only 
 1,642,206, since which period an increase of 1,009,000 
 has occurred. In 1830 there were only 10,000 schools 
 
Eaiplanatio7i of Measures o/1839 
 
 223 
 
 for girls ; now there are 14,000. The Eeport continues : 
 — Young people seldom instruct themselves when their 
 infancy has been neglected. Of this, sufficient proof is 
 given by the return made respecting those who are called 
 by their age to partake in the operations of the military 
 service. A table has been prepared, in which they are 
 classed according to the degree of instruction. From 
 1833 to 1836, the proportion of this class who could 
 neither read nor write was nearly one-half It should 
 be remarked that this return relates to young men who 
 should have been at school between the years 1825 and 
 1828, a period when primary instruction was encouraged 
 in France more by the zeal of voluntary associations than 
 by the intervention of the State. Now the whole influ- 
 ence of the Administration is applied to induce children 
 to accept the instruction which is offered them, and it is 
 evident that the number of the illiterate has diminished. 
 
 If, continues the Eeport, the influence of ignorance on 
 crime were doubted, all uncertainty would be dispelled 
 by the official table of the persons accused and convicted, 
 just pubhshed by the Minister of Justice, for the Admin- 
 istration of 1836, and which diflers but little from previous 
 returns. 
 
 Accused. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Women. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Neither able to read nor to write .... 
 Imperfectly instructed in reading and writing. 
 Well instructed in reading and writing . . . 
 Having an instruction one degree superior 
 
 3172 
 
 1853 
 
 620 
 
 248 
 
 1067 
 
 220 
 
 45 
 
 7 
 
 4239 
 
 2073 
 
 665 
 
 255 
 
 5893 
 
 1339 
 
 7232 
 
 France cannot be cited as a country exhibitmg the 
 efiects of a well-devised system of Education on the 
 moral and religious condition of the people, because 
 sufficient time has not yet been afforded for the success 
 of the exertions of the French Government in the im- 
 provement and extension of the means of primary 
 
 "c \3B^^^^ 
 
224 
 
 Second Period 
 
 education in that country ; neither can France be cited 
 as an example that a high degree of secular instruction 
 is found connected with a diminution of violence, but an 
 increase of the crimes of fraud. 
 
 Mr. Porter has shown that M. Guerry's conclusion re- 
 specting the diminution of the crimes of violence and the 
 increase of the crimes of fraud in the direct ratio of the 
 extent of primary instruction in France was drawn from 
 one year only (1831), but was not found to be su]3ported, 
 as far as the extent of this increase of the crimes of fraud 
 is concerned, by an examination of the same facts in a 
 series of five years, including that selected by M. Guerry, 
 The yearly average of 1829-30-31-32-33, was as follows 
 in the four most instructed departments, and in the four 
 least instructed, the population being nearly the same in 
 the departments compared. 
 
 
 Crimes 
 against 
 person. 
 
 Crimes 
 against 
 property. 
 
 Total No, 
 
 of 
 Criminals. 
 
 No. up"n whom sen- 
 tence < f death, and of 
 forced labour for life, 
 and for terms of years, 
 was passed. 
 
 Four most instructed 
 Departments .... 
 
 For least instructed 
 Departments .... 
 
 45 
 66 
 
 136 
 132 
 
 181 
 
 198 
 
 35 
 41-6 
 
 See Trans, of Statistical Sociefi/ of London, vol. i. p. 97, folio edition. 
 
 This result reduces the annual average excess of offen- 
 ders against property in the four most instructed depart- 
 ments to 4 in 132, or about three per cent. We have 
 before shown that France cannot be regarded as a country 
 enjoying the benefits of a well-devised system of primary 
 instruction, either as respects the extent or quality of the 
 existing means of education, and we are inclined to agree 
 with the following remarks of Mr. Porter on these facts as 
 applicable to a country in that stage of civilisation: — 
 ' Crimes against property may be considered as among the 
 consequences of civilisation, since it is evident that the 
 temptation to commit them must be greatest when the 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 225 
 
 artificial wants of man are the most numerous and urgent, 
 and where the accumulation of the means for their grati- 
 fication is most considerable.' 
 
 We have already shown that nearly all the crime in 
 France is committed by persons who are ignorant ; and, 
 within a fraction, all the crime is confined to those whose 
 instruction has been hmited to reading and writing merely. 
 Mr. Porter proves that this was equally true in the year 
 selected by M. Guerry, and that therefore the excess of 
 crimes against property in the four most instructed de- 
 partments in that year is attributable solely to the physical 
 influences of civilisation on the uninstructed part of the 
 population. If we separate the criminals of the eight de- 
 partments under examination according to this classifi- 
 cation, we shall find that, in the year 1831, they were 
 divided as follow : — 
 
 Class 1. Those wholly uninstructed . . . 
 
 2. Those who read and write im- 
 
 perfectly 
 
 3. Those who read and write well 
 
 4. Those still further educated . . 
 
 Four most 
 
 Instructed 
 
 Departments. 
 
 Four least 
 
 Instructed 
 
 Departments. 
 
 101 
 
 103 
 
 24 
 4 
 
 158 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 4 
 
 232 
 
 187 
 
 The deductions of M. Guerry are thus entirely disproved 
 from his own data, — a result which it is to be regretted 
 should have been overlooked in some recent discussions.^ 
 
 The influence of instruction superior to that of mere 
 
 1 The following extract from Mr. Porter's paper contains facts too im- 
 portant to be omitted, though, perhaps, too elaborate for the text. 
 
 ^ We have seen that in the more enlightened departments the proportion 
 of persons who can read and write is 73 in 100, while in the least instructed 
 it is no more than 13 in 100. The population of the first being 1,142,454, it 
 follows that only 308,463 persons are wholly uninstructed j and the number 
 of offenders in this class being 101, it further follows that one person in 
 3054 among them has been brought before the tribunals; whereas, among 
 the three instructed classes the offenders are 131 among 833,991 instructed 
 persons, or only 1 in 6366. 
 
 * In the least instructed departments a similar examination gives us the 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 Second Period 
 
 reading and writing may be estimated also from tlie sub- 
 joined Table, from which ' it will be seen that out of 50 
 persons sentenced to death, not one belonged to the well- 
 educated class ; that 47 in that class were subjected to 
 only slight correctional punishments, and 4 to simple sur- 
 veillance ; leaving only 49 well-educated persons out of 
 the whole population of more than 32 millions, or 1 m 
 664,678 persons, who, in the course of the year 1833 
 were considered deserving of punishments in any degree 
 severe/ 
 
 Punishments. 
 
 Cannot 
 read or 
 write. 
 
 Read and 
 write im- 
 perfectly. 
 
 Read and 
 write 
 well 
 
 Superior 
 degree of 
 instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Death 
 
 Perpetual Labour .... 
 Labour for different periods . 
 Solitary Confinement . . 
 
 Transportation 
 
 Imprisonment 
 
 Correctional Punishments 
 Children detained .... 
 Surveillance 
 
 34 
 
 90 
 
 483 
 
 437 
 
 1 
 
 13 
 
 1544 
 
 16 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 44 
 
 235 
 
 213 
 
 4 
 
 628 
 
 7 
 8 
 
 6 
 4 
 
 67 
 64 
 
 1 
 
 198 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 23 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 47 
 
 4 
 
 50 
 
 141 
 
 802 
 
 737 
 
 4 
 
 21 
 
 2417 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 2628 
 
 1149 
 
 345 
 
 100 
 
 4222 
 
 
 
 8-2 
 per cent 
 
 2-4 
 per cent. 
 
 100 
 per cent. 
 
 3777 
 89-4 per cent. 
 
 Eesults exactly similar are contained in the returns for 
 1834, 1835, and 1836, which it would, however, be super- 
 fluous to insert. 
 
 following result : — ^the population being 1,134,280^ of whom only 13 in 100 
 are instructed, there will be 986,824 wholly ignorant, and 147,456 who can 
 read or write. The number of wholly ignorant offenders being 158, gives 
 in that class only 1 offender in 6245 persons 5 whereas the instructed 
 classes, amounting in number to 147,456, include 29 offenders, or 1 in every 
 5084 individuals. 
 
 ^ It is not difficult to account for these results. In situations where edu- 
 cation is pretty generally imparted, the wholly ignorant wiU find themselves 
 at a disadvantage, through the greater portion of employments being occupied 
 by those who are instructed. The ignorant man is therefore more impelled 
 to lawless courses than in other situations, where the great bulk of the people^ 
 being equally uninstructed, all have a nearly equal chance of obtaining 
 honest employment.' 
 
Explanation of Measures o/1839 227 
 
 But if this be the state of primary education in the 
 Continental States, what, we are entitled to ask, ought to 
 be its condition in England ? Our political atmosphere 
 has been comparatively serene ; our social institutions have 
 not suffered the shock of any disastrous revolution ; our 
 country has not been ravaged, as has been the fate of every 
 Continental state, by any armies. The great territorial 
 possessions of our aristocracy, are but so many stores of 
 wealth and power, by which the civihsation of the people 
 might be promoted. In every Enghsh proprietor's domain 
 there ought to be, as in many there are, school-houses with 
 well trained masters, competent and zealous to rear the 
 population in obedience to the laws, in submission to their 
 superiors, and to fit them to strengthen the institutions of 
 their country by their domestic virtues, their sobriety, 
 their industry, and forethought, — by the steadiness of pur- 
 pose with which they pursue their daily labour, — by the 
 enterprise with which they recover from calamity, — and 
 by the strength of heart with which they are prepared to 
 grapple with the enemies of their country. How striking 
 is the contrast which the estates of the landed proprietors 
 of almost all other European countries bear in all that re- 
 lates to material wealth— to the domains of our Enghsh 
 aristocracy ! On the Continent you are met on every side 
 by the proofs of meagre or exhausted resources. In Eng- 
 land we have no excuse ; we have proofs of how much can 
 be affected, and at how little cost, by the well directed 
 energy of individuals ; and we have in our eye examples 
 among our peerage which cannot but be imitated as soon 
 as they are generally known and appreciated. 
 
 Our great commercial cities and manufacturing towns 
 contain middle classes whose wealth, enterprise, and intel- 
 ligence have no successful rivals in Europe ; they have 
 made this country the mart of the whole earth ; they have 
 covered the seas with their ships, exploring every inlet, 
 estuary, or river which affords them a chance of successful 
 trade. They have colonised almost every accessible region ; 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 Second Period 
 
 and from all these sources, as well as from the nightly and 
 daily toil of our working classes in mines, in manufac- 
 tories, and workshops, in every form of hardy and con- 
 tinued exertion on the sea and on the shore, wealth has 
 been derived, which has supported England in unexampled 
 struggles ; yet between the merchants and manufacturers 
 of this country and the poorer class there is little or no 
 alliance, excepting that of mutual interest. But the cri- 
 tical events of this very hour are full of warning, that the 
 ignorance — nay the barbarism — of large portions of our 
 fellow-countrymen, can no longer be neglected, if we are 
 not prepared to substitute a military tyranny or anarchy 
 for the moral subjection which has hitherto been the only 
 safeguard of England. At this hour military force alone 
 retains in subjection great masses of the operative popu- 
 lation, beneath whose outrages, if not thus restrained, the 
 wealth and institutions of society would fall. The manu- 
 facturers and merchants of England must know what 
 interest they have in the civilisation of the working popu- 
 lation ; and ere this we trust they are conscious, not merely 
 how deep is their stake in the moral, intellectual, and 
 religious advancement of the labouring class, but how 
 deep is their responsibility to employ for this end the vast 
 resources at their command. 
 
 In one other respect England stands in the strongest 
 contrast with the Continental States as to the extent of her 
 means for educational improvement. It is scarcely credible 
 that, with primary education in utter ruin, we should pos- 
 sess educational endowments to the extent of half a million 
 annually, which are either, to a large extent, misapplied, 
 or are used for the support of such feeble and inefficient 
 methods of instruction as to render little service to the 
 community. Whenever the Government shall bend its 
 efforts to combine, for the national advantage, aU these 
 great resources, we have no fears for our country. We 
 perceive in it energies possessed by no other nation — 
 partly attributable to the genius of our race ; to a large 
 extent derived from the spirit of our policy, which has 
 
Explanation of Measures (?/1839 229 
 
 admitted constant progression in our social institutions ; in 
 no small degree to our insular situation, which makes the 
 sea at once the guardian of our liberties and the source of 
 our wealth. But any further delay in the adoption of 
 energetic measures for the elementary education of her 
 working classes is fraught both with intestine and foreign 
 danger — no one can stay the physical influences of wealth 
 — some knowledge the people will acquire by the mere 
 intercourse of society — many appetites are stimulated by 
 a mere physical advancement. With increasing wants 
 comes an increase of discontent, among a people who have 
 only knowledge enough to make them eager for additional 
 enjoyments, and have never yet been sufficiently educated 
 to frame rational wishes and to pursue them by rational 
 means. The mere physical influences of civihsation will 
 not, we fear, make them more moral or religious, better 
 subjects of the State, or better Christians, unless to these 
 be superadded the benefits of an education calculated to 
 develope the entire moral and intellectual capacity of the 
 whole population. 
 
 A great change has taken place in the moral and intel- 
 lectual state of the working classes during the last half 
 century. Formerly, they considered their poverty and 
 sufferings as inevitable, as far as they thought about their 
 origin at all ; now, rightly or wrongly, they attribute their 
 sufferings to political causes ; they think that by a change 
 in political institutions their condition can be enormously 
 ameliorated. The great Chartist petition, recently pre- 
 sented by Mr. Attwood, affords ample evidence of the 
 prevalence of the restless desire for organic changes, and 
 for violent political measures, which pervades the manu- 
 facturing districts, and which is every day increasing. 
 This agitation is no recent matter ; it has assumed various 
 other forms in the last thirty years, in all of which the 
 manufacturing population have shown how readily masses 
 of ignorance, discontent, and suffering may be misled. At 
 no period within our memory have the manufacturing 
 
 Q 3 
 
230 Second Period 
 
 districts been free from some form of agitation for unat- 
 tainable objects referable to these causes. At one period, 
 Luddism prevailed ; at another, machine -breaking ; at 
 successive periods the Trades' Unions have endeavoured in 
 strikes, by hired bands of ruffians, and by assassination, to 
 sustain the rate of wages above that determined by the 
 natural laws of trade ; panics have been excited among 
 the working classes, and severe runs upon the Savings' 
 Banks effected from time to time. At one time they have 
 been taught to beheve that they could obtain the same 
 wages if an eight hours' bill were passed as if the law per- 
 mitted them to labour twelve hours in the day ; and mills 
 were actually worked on this principle for some weeks, to 
 rivet the conviction in the minds of the working class. 
 The agitation becomes constantly more systematic and 
 better organised, because there is a greater demand for it 
 among the masses, and it is more profitable to the leaders. 
 It is vain to hope that this spirit will subside spontane- 
 ously, or that it can be suppressed by coercion. Chartism, 
 an armed pohtical monster, has at length sprung from the 
 soil on which the struggle for the forcible repression of 
 these evils has occurred. It is as certain as any thing 
 future is certain, that the anarchical spirit of the Chartist 
 association will, if left to the operation of the causes now 
 in activity, become every year more formidable. The 
 Chartists think that it is in the power of Government to 
 raise the rate of wages by interfering between the employer 
 and the workman ; they imagine that this can be accom- 
 phshed by a maximum of prices and minimum of wages, 
 or some similar contrivance ; and a considerable portion 
 of them believe that the burden of taxation and of all 
 ' fixed charges ' (to use Mr. Attwood's expression) ought 
 to be reduced by issuing inconvertible paper, and thus de- 
 preciating the currency. They are confident that a Par- 
 liament chosen by universal suffrage would be so com- 
 pletely under the dominion of the working classes as to 
 carry these measures into effect ; and therefore they 
 petition for universal suffrage, treating all truly remedial 
 
Explanation of Measures o/1839 231 
 
 measures as unworthy of their notice, or as obstacles to 
 the attainment of the only objects really important. Now 
 the sole effectual means of preventing the tremendous evils 
 with which the anarchical spirit of the manufacturing 
 population threatens the country is, by giving the working 
 people a good secular education, to enable them to under- 
 stand the true causes which determine their physical con- 
 dition and regulate the distribution of wealth among the 
 several classes of society. Sufficient intelligence and infor- 
 mation to appreciate these causes might be diffused by an 
 education which could easily be brought within the reach 
 of the entire population, though it would necessarily 
 comprehend more than the mere mechanical rudiments 
 of knowledge. 
 
 We are far from being alarmists ; we write neither 
 under the influence of undue fear, nor with a wish to in- 
 spire undue fear into others. The opinions which we have 
 expressed are founded on a careful observation of the pro- 
 ceedings and speeches of the Chartists, and of their pre- 
 decessors in agitation in the manufacturing districts for 
 many years, as reported in their newspapers ; and have 
 been as deliberately formed as they are deliberately ex- 
 pressed. We confess that we cannot contemplate with 
 unconcern the vast physical force which is now moved 
 by men so ignorant and so unprincipled as the Chartist 
 leaders ; and without expecting such internal convulsions 
 as may deserve the name of civil war^ we think it highly 
 probable that persons and property will, in certain parts 
 of the country, be so exposed to violence as materially to 
 affect the prosperity of our manufactures and commerce, 
 to shake the mutual confidence of mercantile men, and to 
 diminish the stability of our pohtical and social institu- 
 tions. That the country will ultimately recover from these 
 internal convulsions we think, judging from its past history, 
 highly probable ; but the recovery will be effected by the 
 painful process of teaching the working classes, by actual 
 experience, that the violent measures which they desire do 
 not tend to improve their condition. 
 
 Q 4 
 
232 Second Period 
 
 It is astonishing to us, that the party calhng themselves 
 Conservative should not lead the van in promoting the 
 diffusion of that knowledge among the working classes 
 which tends beyond any thing else to promote the security 
 of property and the maintenance of pubhc order. To re- 
 store the working classes to their former state of incurious 
 and contented apathy is impossible, if it were desirable. 
 If they are to have knowledge, surely it is the part of a 
 wise and virtuous Government to do all in its power to 
 secure to them useful knowledge, and to guard them 
 against pernicious opinions. 
 
 We have already said that all instruction should be 
 hallowed by the influence of religion ; but we hold it to 
 be equally absurd and short-sighted to withhold se- 
 cular instruction, on the ground that rehgion is alone 
 sufficient. 
 
 We do not, however, advocate that form of religious 
 instruction which merely loads the memory, without de- 
 veloping the understanding, or which fails to stir the sym- 
 pathies of our nature to their inmost springs. There is a 
 form of instruction in religion which leaves the recipient 
 at the mercy of any religious or political fanatic who may 
 dare to use the sacred pages as texts in support of impos- 
 ture. We have seen that even a maniac may lead the 
 people to worship him as the Messiah, whose second 
 coming, spoken of in the pages of Holy Writ, was fulfilled. 
 Many of the Chartists proclaim themselves Missionaries of 
 Christianity. They know how to rouse the superstition 
 of an ignorant population in favour of their doctrines, by 
 employing passages of Scripture the true meaning of 
 which the uninstructed mass do not reach. They con- 
 tinually set before them those verses which speak of the 
 rich man as an oppressor — which show with how much 
 difficulty the rich shaU enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 Poverty is the Lazarus whom they place in Abraham's 
 bosom — wealth the Dives whom they doom to hell. They 
 find passaegs in the writings of the Apostles speaking of 
 a community of goods among the early Christians : on 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1%^^ 233 
 
 this they found the doctrines of the Socialists. Our 
 Saviour, in the synagogue of Nazareth, opened the Scrip- 
 ture at the prophecy in which Isaiah describes His divine 
 mission : ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
 hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, &c/ 
 From these and similar passages, they gather the sanctions 
 of their own Mission. Christianity in their hands be- 
 comes the most frantic democracy, and democracy is 
 clothed with the sanctions of religion. Even the arming 
 of the Chartist association is derived from our Saviour's 
 injunction, 'he that hath no sword, let him sell his 
 garment and buy one.' To such purposes may the 
 Scriptures be wrested by unscrupulous men who have 
 practised on the ignorance, discontent, and suffering of 
 the mass. 
 
 Their power will continue as long as the people are 
 without sufficient intelligence to discern in what the fear- 
 ful error of such impiety consists. There are times in 
 which it is necessary that every man should be prepared 
 to give a reason for the faith that is in him. We loathe 
 a merely speculative religion, which does not purify the 
 motives, and which robs piety alike of humihty and cha- 
 rity ; but when the teachers of the great mass of the 
 people unite the imposture of religious and political 
 fanatics, preaching anti-social doctrines as though they 
 were a gospel of truth, the knowledge of the people must 
 be increased, and their intellectual powers strengthened, 
 so as to enable them to grapple with the error and to 
 overcome it. 
 
 Next to the prevalence of true religion, we most ear-\ 
 nestly desire that the people should know how their inte- 
 rests are inseparable from those of the other orders of 
 society ; and we will not stop to demonstrate so obvious a 
 truth as that secular knowledge, easily accessible, but- 
 most powerful in its influence, is necessary to this end. 
 
 If, on the other hand, an opponent of popular education 
 should admit the existence of the evil and the sufficiency 
 of the remedy, but should refuse to apply it because 
 
234 Second Period 
 
 it would violate his notions of the duty of the Govern- 
 ment to diffuse the orthodox faith, we can only say that 
 such a person is unfit for the government of men in the 
 nineteenth century, and that he is sacrificing to his own 
 opinions upon abstruse questions of theology, the certain 
 and demonstrable temporal happiness of milhons of his 
 fellow-creatures. 
 
Explanation of Measures (?/1839 235 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF HER MAJESTy's GOVERNMENT LORD JOHN 
 
 Russell's letter to the lord president of the council — minute 
 
 OF THE committee OF COUNCIL OF THE THIRD OF JUNE. 
 
 Since the reform of the Eepresentation, the state of edu- 
 cation in England has, during three sessions, occupied the 
 attention of Committees of the House of Commons. It 
 has also incidentally been brought under the notice of 
 various Commissions of Inquiry and departments of ad- 
 ministration ; but the Government has not yet proposed 
 to Parliament any general plan for the improvement and 
 extension of primary education. The difficulty of devising 
 a system consistent with the principles of civil and re- 
 ligious hberty, and at the same time capable of combining 
 all parties and all religious denominations, has hitherto 
 appeared to be insurmountable. The Government has 
 therefore confined its interference to prehminary and ex- 
 perimental measures, which only indicate the embarrass- 
 ment with which this question is surrounded, and its 
 desire to surmount them. 
 
 Lord Althorp procured the consent of the House of 
 Commons to a vote of £20,000, for the building of School- 
 houses in England and Wales, which has since been an- 
 nually voted, as well as the sum of £10,000 for similar 
 purposes in Scotland. The appropriation of these gri 
 was confided to the Treasury, by which, in England and 
 Wales, they were distributed, through the medium of the 
 National Society, and of the British and Foreign School 
 Society.^ On tlie 30th of August, 1833, the Chancellor 
 
 ^ Copy of Treasury Minute, dated 30th Auytist, 1833. 
 My Lords read the Act of tlio last Session, by wliicli a sum of ^20,000 is 
 
236 Second Period 
 
 of the Exchequer proposed the rules contained in the sub- 
 joined note, to regulate the distribution of the sums annu- 
 ally voted by the House of Commons. Eespecting the 
 proceedings of the Treasury on these rules, the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, in the recent debate in the House of Lords 
 said, ' he would appeal to the consciences of the Clergy 
 in general, whether with respect to the grant of £20,000, 
 which of late years had been given by the Government, 
 very laudably and liberally, to the Schools connected with 
 the National School Society, and the Lancasterian School 
 
 granted to His Majesty to "be issued in aid of private subscriptions for the 
 erection of Schools for the Education of the Children of the Poorer Classes 
 in Great Britain. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer feeling it absolutely necessary that cer- 
 tain fixed Rules should be laid down by the Treasury for their guidance in 
 this matter, so as to render this sum most generally useful for the purposes 
 contemplated by the grant, submits the following arrangements for the con- 
 sideration of the Board. 
 
 1st. That no portion of this sum be applied to any purpose whatever, except 
 for the erection of new School-houses ; and that in the definition of 
 a School-house, the residence for Masters or Attendants be not in- 
 cluded. 
 2nd. That no application be entertained unless a sum be raised by private 
 contribution, equal at the least to one-half of the total estimated ex- 
 penditure. 
 3rd. That the amount of private subscription be received, expended, and 
 accoimted for, before any issue of public money for such School be 
 directed, 
 4th. That no application be complied with, unless upon the consideration of 
 such a Report, either from the National School Society, or the British 
 and Foreign School Society, as shall satisfy this Board that the case 
 is one deserving of attention, and there is" a reasonable expectation 
 that the School may be permanently supported. 
 5th. That the applicants whose cases are favourably entertained, be required 
 to bind themselves to submit to any audit of their accounts which 
 this Board may direct, as well as to such periodical Reports respect- 
 ing the state of their Schools, and the number of scholars educated, 
 as may be called for. 
 6th. That in considering the applications made to the Board, a preference 
 be given to such applications as come from large cities and towns, in 
 which the necessity of assisting in the erection of Schools is most 
 pressing, and that due inquiries also be made before any such appli- 
 cation be acceded to, whether there may not be charitable funds, or 
 public and private endowments, that might render any further grants 
 inexpedient or imnecessary. 
 
 In these suggestions My Lords concur. 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1^^^ 237 
 
 Society, they had ever complained of the share which the 
 Dissenters in the Lancasterian Schools had had in that 
 grant. They took the share belonging to them, not only 
 without complaint, but with thankfulness, and never in- 
 quired into the proportion in which it was distributed. 
 They were satisfied with the grant, considering it as a 
 temporary expedient. Lord Althorp said, when he brought 
 forward the resolution, that he proposed it only as an ex- 
 periment. It was an experiment, however, which had 
 succeeded extremely well, and the money, as far as it went, 
 had been most usefully expended. They considered it 
 then as an experiment — as a temporary expedient — and 
 no better could have been imagined as such ; but, at the 
 same time, they looked forward to the period when a per- 
 manent system would be established by Parliament, — 
 when a plan of education would be definitively settled. 
 They conceived that the whole matter would be referred 
 to the consideration of the legislature, and that the libe- 
 rahty of Parliament would be, as it had been, distributed 
 equally to all who might be entitled to it.' 
 
 The exertions of the National and British and Foreign 
 School Societies, in connexion with the assistance thus 
 granted, are thus acknowledged in Lord John Eussell's 
 letter to the Lord President. ' It is some consolation to 
 her Majesty to perceive that, of late years, the zeal for 
 popular education has increased; that the EstabHshed 
 Church has made great efforts to promote the building of 
 Schools, and that the National, and British and Foreign 
 School Societies, have actively endeavoured to stimulate 
 the liberality of the benevolent and enhghtened friends of 
 general education. 
 
 ' Still,' his Lordship continues, ' much remains to be 
 done ; and among the chief defects yet subsisting, may 
 be reckoned the insufiicient number of qualified School- 
 masters — the imperfect method of teaching which prevails 
 in, perhaps, the greater number of the Schools — the ab- 
 sence of any sufficient inspection of the Schools, and ex- 
 amination of the nature of the instruction given — the 
 
238 Second Period 
 
 want of a Model School, wliicli might serve for the 
 example of those Societies and Committees which anxiously 
 seek to improve their own methods of teaching; and finally, 
 the neglect of this great subject among the enactments of 
 our voluminous legislation. 
 
 ' Some of these defects appear to admit of an imme- 
 diate remedy; and I am directed by Her Majesty to desire, 
 in the first place, that your Lordship, with four other of 
 the Queen's servants, should form a Board or Committee 
 for the consideration of all matters affecting the Education 
 of the People. 
 
 ' For the present it is thought advisable that this Board 
 should consist of 
 
 The Lord President of the Council. 
 
 The Lord Privy Seal. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 The Secretary of State for the Home Department, and 
 
 The Master of the Mint. 
 
 ' It is proposed that the Board should be intrusted with 
 the application of any sums which may be voted by Par- 
 liament for the purposes of Education in England and 
 Wales.' 
 
 A Committee of Council on Education was accordingly 
 appointed on the 10th of April, 1839 — and it should be 
 observed that the functions of the Committee are limited 
 to ' superintend the application of any sums voted by 
 Parliament for the purpose of promoting pubhc Educa- 
 tion.' These functions are therefore precisely similar to 
 those which were exercised by the Treasury in the years 
 1835, 6, 7, and 8. 
 
 The Committee of Council is equally amenable to Par- 
 liament, annually, for all its proceedings : the sum confided 
 to it is not greater than that intrusted to the Treasury 
 As it consists of five responsible Members of the Cabinet, 
 instead of only one, the security for correct administration 
 is augmented, and its proceedings are, in all respects, ren- 
 dered more open to observation, by their separation from 
 the mass of details with which the Treasury is encum- 
 
Explanation of Measures of l^?t^ 239 
 
 bered, and their transference to a department where they 
 can obtain more constant and dehberate attention from 
 the Executive. In all these respects the change is a great 
 improvement, though it appears to have been the source 
 of much groundless alarm. 
 
 But we perceive the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the 
 recent debate in the House of Lords, remarked, 'He 
 knew not if there was any objection in principle to the 
 Committee appointed, but he should have thought the 
 Lords of the Treasury were just as competent to judge 
 of these matters as the Noble Lords named.' 
 
 In his letter to the Lord President of the Council, Lord 
 John Eussell proceeds to state, that ' among the first objects 
 to which any grant may be applied, will be the establish- 
 ment of a Normal School. In such a School a body of 
 schoolmasters may be formed, competent to assume the 
 management of similar institutions in aU parts of the 
 country. In such a School, likewise, the best modes of 
 teaching may be introduced, and those who wish to im- 
 prove the Schools of their neighbourhood may have an 
 opportunity of observing tjieir results. 
 
 'In any Normal or Model School to be estabhshed 
 by the Board, four principal objects should be kept in 
 view : namely^j^religious instruction, general instrucli^jj^ 
 moral training, and habits of industry. Of these four, 
 T neeToiilylQTuHeTcrthe'^TsI WittfTespect to rehgious 
 instruction, there is, as your Lordship is aware, a wide, 
 or apparently wide, difference of opinion among those who 
 have been most forward in promoting education. 
 
 ' The National Society, supported by the Established 
 Church, contend that the schoolmaster should be inva- 
 riably a Churchman; that the Church Catechism should 
 be taught in the School to all the scholars ; that all should 
 be required to attend church on Sundays, and that the 
 Schools should be, in every case, under the superintend- 
 ence of the clergyman of the parish. 
 
 ' The British and Foreign School Society, on the other 
 hand, admit Churchmen and Dissenters equally as school- 
 
240 Second Period 
 
 masters, require that the Bible should be taught in their 
 Schools, but insist that no catechism should be admitted. 
 
 'Others, again, contend that secular instruction should 
 be the business of the School, and that the ministers of 
 different persuasions should each instruct separately the 
 children of their own followers. 
 
 'In the midst of these conflicting opinions, there is not 
 practically that exclusiveness among the Church societies, 
 nor that indifference to religion among those who exclude 
 dogmatic instruction from the School, which their mutual 
 accusations would lead bystanders to suppose. 
 
 'Much, therefore, may be effected by a temperate at- 
 tention to the fair claims of the Estabhshed Church, and 
 the religious freedom sanctioned by law. 
 
 'On this subject I need only say, that it is her Ma- 
 jesty's wish that the youth of this kingdom should be 
 rehgiously brought up, and that the rights of conscience 
 should be respected.' 
 
 The necessity for the immediate establishment of Nor- 
 mal Schools is demonstrated by the account given in the 
 subjoined Table of the number of teachers (engaged in 
 daily instruction, in various classes of Schools) who had 
 received any previous preparation for their vocation, in 
 the five large northern towns to which we have before 
 referred, and in Westminster. 
 
 Accordingly the Minute of the proceedings of the Com- 
 mittee of Privy Council on Education, of the 11th of April, 
 1839, related chiefly to the plan of a Normal School. 
 This plan was subsequently postponed, in consequence of 
 the difficulty of obtaining a concurrence of public opinion 
 respecting the means to be adopted for the rehgious in- 
 struction of the children and teachers of different reh- 
 gious denominations in that School. We shall only remark 
 here, that 'rehgion' was, in this School, 'to be combined 
 with the whole matter of instruction, and to regulate the 
 entire system of discipline,' as respected the children trained 
 therein; and that 'the religious instruction of the candi- 
 date teachers' was 'to form an essential and prominent 
 
Explanation of Measures 0/ 1839 
 
 241 
 
 Number of Teachers 'of various Classes of Day and Evening Schools^ and the 
 number who have received any Education for their Employment, in the undermen- 
 tioned places : — 
 
 
 Dame 
 Schools. 
 
 Common 
 
 Boys' ^ Girls' 
 
 Schools. 
 
 Superior 
 Private 
 Schools. 
 
 Evening 
 Schools. 
 
 Infant 
 Schooh. 
 
 Endowed 
 
 and Charity 
 
 Schools. 
 
 
 H 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 -St 
 
 ii u 
 
 11 
 
 'A 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 I 
 
 Si 
 
 I 
 
 u 
 
 B 
 
 3 
 
 il 
 
 1" 
 
 1 
 
 £ 
 1 
 
 S 
 
 3 
 
 it 
 
 u c 
 
 It 
 ll 
 
 ■5 
 
 I 
 
 if 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 H 
 3 
 'A 
 
 V 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 S 
 
 .0 ^ 
 
 il 
 If 
 
 Is 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 "A 
 
 1 
 
 B 
 
 3 
 
 25 
 
 Si 
 
 it 
 
 II 
 
 c 
 
 ■3 
 
 Manchester . 
 
 230 
 
 
 8 
 
 179 
 
 29 
 
 11 
 
 114 
 
 24 
 
 9 
 
 83 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 Salfbrd . . 
 
 65 
 
 10 
 
 
 42 
 
 8 
 
 , . 
 
 29 
 
 14 
 
 . . 
 
 28 
 
 7 
 
 . . 
 
 3 
 
 
 . 
 
 13 
 
 2 
 
 . . 
 
 Liverpool . 
 
 244 
 
 2 
 
 . . 
 
 194 
 
 18 
 
 2 
 
 143 
 
 71 
 
 11 
 
 43 
 
 6 
 
 . . 
 
 17 
 
 1 
 
 . . 
 
 50 
 
 18 
 
 7 
 
 Bury . . . 
 
 30 
 
 2 
 
 . . 
 
 17 
 
 2 
 
 . . 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 . . 
 
 6 
 
 . . 
 
 
 2 
 
 . 
 
 . . 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 . . 
 
 rork . . . 
 Totals . 
 
 Westminster 
 
 37 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 2 
 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 31 
 
 19 
 
 3 
 
 606 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 Ahb 
 
 59 
 
 13 
 
 324 
 
 125 
 
 23 
 
 162 
 
 20 
 
 4 
 
 30 
 
 2 
 
 
 122 
 
 46 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ;in 3 districts) 
 St. Martin-in 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tlie-Fields, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 St. Clement 
 
 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Danes, St. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Marj'-le- 
 Strand, St. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Paul, Co- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 vent Gar- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 den, and the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Savoy . . 
 3t. John and 
 
 21 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 •32 
 
 18 
 
 2 
 
 • • 
 
 • • 
 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 ' 
 
 14 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 St. Margaret 
 
 63 
 
 12 
 
 . 
 
 41 
 
 20 
 
 . 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 
 . . 
 
 , , 
 
 . 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 
 23 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 St. George, St. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 James, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 St. Anne, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Soho . . . 
 Totals . 
 
 46 
 
 7 
 
 . . 
 
 55 
 
 25 
 
 
 73 
 
 54 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 
 130 
 
 20 
 
 5 
 
 129 
 
 54 
 
 4 
 
 129 
 
 92 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 55 
 
 29 
 
 5 
 
 element of their studies, and no certificate' was ' to 
 be granted, unless the authorised religious teacher' had 
 'previously attested his confidence in the character, reli- 
 gious knowledge, and zeal of the candidate whose reli- 
 gious instruction he' had 'superintended.' The postpone- 
 ment of the establishment of a Normal School, has been 
 represented as the temporary postponement only of this 
 
 R 
 
 
242 Second Period 
 
 particular plan, which, notwithstanding repeated assur- 
 ances to the contrary in Parliament, it is contended may. 
 still be carried into execution during the recess. A perusal 
 of the clause of the Eeport of the Committee of Council 
 of the 3rd of June, which announces the postponement 
 of any attempt to create a Normal School, will convince 
 any candid reader that, as the whole proceedings of 
 the Committee are annually dependent on the opinion 
 and votes of the House, the Committee could only havt 
 referred to the 'greater concurrence of opinion,' as far 
 as it influenced the decisions of Parliament, or, in other 
 words, to the opinion of Parliament. The postponement 
 of any proceedings respecting the Normal School was an- 
 nounced in the following terms, in the Eeport of the Com- 
 mittee of Council on the 3rd of June : — 
 
 ' The Committee are of opinion that the most useful 
 apphcation of any sums voted by Parliament, would con- 
 sist in the employment of those moneys in the establish- 
 ment of a Normal School, under the direction of the State, 
 and not placed under the management of a voluntary 
 Society. The Committee, however, experience so much 
 difficulty in reconciling conflicting views respecting tlie 
 provisions which they are desirous to make in furtherance 
 of your Majesty'" wish, that the children and teachers 
 instructed in this School should be duly trained in the 
 principles of the Christian religion, while the rights of 
 conscience should be respected; that it is not in the power 
 of the Committee to mature a plan for the accomplish- 
 ment of this design without further consideration; and 
 they therefore postpone taking any steps for this purpose 
 until greater concurrence of opinion is found to prevail. ' 
 
 As the Committee of Council have postponed to another 
 year the establishment of a Normal School, we shall re- 
 serve to the close of these remarks our comments on the 
 plan which they submitted to Parliament, and we pro- 
 ceed to point out in what respects the plan now proposed 
 by the Committee of Council for the appropriation of 
 any sums voted by Parhament for the purpose of pro- 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/ 1839 243 
 
 moting public education, differs from that formerly adopted 
 by the Treasury. 
 
 1. 'The Lords of the Committee recommend that the 
 sum of £10,000, granted by Parliament in 1835, towards 
 the erection of Normal or Model Schools, be given in 
 equal proportions to the National Society, and the British 
 and Foreign School Society. 
 
 2. 'That the remainder of the subsequent grants of the 
 years 1837 and 1838 yet unappropriated, and any grant 
 which may be voted in the present year, be chiefly ap- 
 plied in aid of subscriptions for building, and, in par- 
 ticular cases, for the support of Schools connected with 
 those societies ; but that the rule hitherto adopted of 
 making a grant to those places where the largest propor- 
 tion is subscribed be not invariably adhered to, should 
 application be made from very poor and populous districts, 
 where subscriptions to a sufficient amount cannot be 
 obtained.' 
 
 Thus far no objection appears to have been raised 
 to the plan. 
 
 3. ' The Committee do not feel themselves precluded 
 from making grants in particular cases which shall appear 
 to them to call for the aid of Gover;iment, although the 
 applications may not come from eithor of the two men- 
 tioned societies.' 
 
 The special exception thus made to the general rule 
 may have been the source of some apprehension, and it 
 certainly has been the subject of much misrepresentation. 
 We find it difficult, however, to believe that if in any par- 
 ticular locality great destitution, combined with extreme 
 ignorance and demoralisation, should be found to prevail, 
 to wliich the plan of either of the two societies should be 
 found to be absolutely inapplicable without some variation 
 in deference to the right of conscience, any reasonable 
 man, to whom authority to decide such a question was 
 committed, having before him the Minutes of the Com- 
 mittee of Council, would not determine it somewhat in 
 the following manner. The Minutes of the Committee 
 plainly limit the apphcation of the sums voted by Parlia- 
 
 E 2 
 
244 Second Period 
 
 ment to Schools connected with the two societies, with 
 the exception of these particular cases. It is therefore 
 evident that any deviation from the plans by which the 
 two societies are distinguished from each other, and from 
 other societies (z. e. the method of giving religious in- 
 struction), ought in such cases to be admitted on the plea 
 of absolute necessity — the choice being between, on the 
 one hand, ignorance and barbarism, and on the other, the 
 erection of a School in which a variation from the plans 
 of the two societies is admitted ; and that, as the distin- 
 guishing characteristics of the two societies relate to reh- 
 gious instruction, this variation should be only such as 
 would be required for the success of the School. One 
 principle ^ ..... . 
 
 is especially applicable to these 
 cases, — ^viz., that while the Government is most anxious 
 that rehgious instruction should be united to secular, and 
 will therefore grant all proper facilities for that purpose, 
 the State is peculiarly charged with the duty of rendering 
 secular instruction accessible to all, and with the improve- 
 ment of the quality of such secular instruction, by assist- 
 ance from the pubhc funds and by constant superintend- 
 ence.^ ....... 
 
 The particular regulation 
 embraced in this clause of the Minute of the Committee 
 of Council, provides for a cautious experimental applica- 
 tion of the principle as a temporary expedient. Arrange- 
 ments similar to those proposed by the Committee of the 
 British and Foreign School, in their memorial dated 14th 
 April 1838, would probably suffice in such exceptional 
 cases, viz., 'That the Holy Scriptures should be read and 
 taught in ' such ' Schools, such instruction to form a part 
 of the usual occupation of the School, and to be communi- 
 
 ^ Certain words omitted. 
 
 2 Interlocutory remarks from Eeport of Debate in the House of Lords, and 
 another sentence omitted, in consequence of a correspondence which was 
 printed in the Preface to the tenth and succeeding editions of this Pamphlet. 
 It is not necessary now to revive the memory of this discussion. 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 245 
 
 cated by the schoolmaster, but that the children of Catho- 
 lics and Jews might, if their parents required it, be absent 
 at such time, and that the children of Dissenters should 
 not be compelled to learn any religious formulary or 
 catechism to which their parents objected,' 
 
 4. ' The Committee recommend that no further grant 
 be made, now or hereafter, for the estabhshment and 
 support of Normal Schools, or of any other Schools, unless 
 the right of inspection be retained, in order to secure a 
 conformity to the regulations and discipline established in 
 the several Schools, with such improvements as may from 
 time to time be suggested by the Committee. A part of 
 any grant voted in the present year may be usefully ap- 
 plied to the purposes of inspection, and to the means of 
 acquiring a complete knowledge of the present state of 
 education in England and Wales.' 
 
 We have seen that the inspection of Schools by a skilled 
 agency is regarded by the Continental Governments as 
 second only to the foundation of Normal Schools in its 
 influence on the advancement of primary education. We 
 have observed how well organised are the arrangements . 
 for the inspection of Schools in Holland. M. Cousin says, 
 ' The Dutch legislators made no attempt at a master-piece 
 of codification, in which the whole subject of primary in- 
 struction was to be divided and classed according to the 
 rules of philosophical analysis ; they went straight to their 
 point by the shortest and the safest road ; and as inspection 
 must be the fundamental basis of primary Schools, it was 
 inspection they estabhshed bylaw.' And in another place 
 he says — 'There are, by the law both of Prussia and 
 Holland, salaried officers called Inspectors, selected because 
 they are found to possess the requisite quahfications, who 
 are responsible to Government for the whole of the pri- 
 mary Schools within a given district.' (Their powers are, 
 therefore, vastly more extensive than any thing contem- 
 plated in the Minute of the Committee of Council). ' This 
 is the true kind of government,' he adds, ' for primaiy 
 Schools ; and to determine how the organisation of that 
 
 R 3 
 
246 Second Period 
 
 government shall be most skilfully contrived is, in my 
 mind, the vital question in a system of popular education.' 
 M. Guizot, in his Eeport to the King of the French, on 
 the execution of the Law of the 28th of June 1833, at- 
 taches at least equal importance to this measure, and 
 describes in detail the means by which this inspection is 
 accomplished throughout the whole of France. Lord 
 Lansdowne, in the debate in the House of Lords, ' appealed 
 to the experience of those Noble Lords who had sat upon 
 the Committee of Inquiry into the state of Education in 
 Ireland. He appealed to the experience of those Noble 
 Lords whether they were not met at every step of their 
 inquiry by evidence showing that some inspection of those 
 Schools on behalf of the public was absolutely indispens- 
 able to their success as a means of education.' 
 
 The subjoined evidence of the Eev. J. C. Wigram, the 
 Secretary of the National School Society, and of Mr. Dunn, 
 the Secretary of the British and Foreign School Society, 
 leads to the same conclusion.^ 
 
 1 ' Rev. J. C. Wigram,— 
 ^ Chairman.] Do you not think that if the Government makes grants of 
 money for the purpose of aiding Schools on either system, that they may 
 fairly make it a condition that a due inspection of the Schools should take 
 place, and that adequate returns should be made to Parliament to show that 
 the Schools are well and efficiently conducted ? — I think it would be very 
 desirable that they should do so ; and I think that they might promote that 
 object very much, and with great benefit, by giving grants in aid of some 
 places to the schoolmasters of certain districts, upon examinations reported, 
 with all particulars, with respect to a certain number of Schools ; for instance, 
 that a return should be made of the particulars which they might determine, 
 respecting not less than fifty Schools, and that some pecuniary reward should 
 be given, to a different amount, to the five or six masters whose scholars 
 were best conducted. Those examinations might be triennial, or at distant 
 intervals ; and in order to prevent the same man from always getting the 
 reward, the prizes might be given with due reference to the circumstances of 
 the School, and for different qualifications in the state of the School. It might 
 be one year given for the intellectual state of the School ; another year for 
 retaining the scholars for a longer period ; and other qualifications might be 
 introduced. It has been done by the National Society to a small extent in 
 many parts of the country, and with great benefit.' 
 
 ' Henry Dunn, Esq. — 
 ^ Do you not think that one of the first steps towards any general plan of 
 education for the humbler classes would be, tlie formation of such a board 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 247 
 
 After recommending the appointment of a Board of 
 Education, the Committee of the British and Foreign 
 School, in a Memorial addressed to Lord John Eussell on 
 the 14th of AprH 1838, say — 
 
 ' It has been suggested that great advantages would 
 result if these Commissioners were brought, in the dis- 
 posal of the public funds, into immediate correspondence 
 Avith the Individual or Local Committee sustaining each 
 separate School, instead of acting through the agency of 
 any society or societies ; this point seems weU worthy of 
 consideration ; but, however this may be decided, the 
 Committee would suggest — 1st. That the Board should 
 not interfere in any way with the religious instruction 
 imparted in any School. 2nd. That it should not impose 
 any terms or restrictions, except such as might be neces- 
 sary in order to secure efficient teaching, and an adequate 
 share of secular information.' 
 
 On this subject the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the 
 recent debate on Education, said, ' He conceived that the 
 pubhc when they made a grant for rehef, should be assured 
 
 as the two gi-eat parties who have interested themselves in education in this 
 country would have confidence in ? — I think it would ; and that then their 
 efforts should be directed to improve the existing Schools rather than extend 
 them. I should lay great stress upon that; there are a great number of 
 Schools scattered throughout the country, of all kinds and descriptions, 
 which, with inspection and a little assistance, might be rendered efficient 
 Schools. 
 
 ' When you give an opinion as to the necessity of improving, rather than 
 extending, existing Schools, you may not have gone into the detail of the 
 want of efficient Schools in the towns of Lancashire ? — No one can have a 
 stronger impression than I have of the want of Schools ; but I believe that 
 the improvement of Schools leads to their extension. 
 
 ^ Do you not think that it would be very practicable, supposing by an;^ 
 mode a sufficient fund was provided, to do both ; that is, to improve, and at 
 the same time gradually to extend, Schools for the humbler classes ? — I quite 
 think so ; but to begin by extending is, I think, to begin at the wrong end ; 
 the first step should rather be to improve, and give efficiency to those which 
 at present exist. 
 
 * Do not you think that one necessary accompaniment of the Board to 
 promote education would be some system of Inspectors, who bhould make 
 returns to the Central Board of the degree of efficiency of the Schools, and 
 the number attending, and who should make periodical visits to inquire and 
 look into the state of the Schools? — I think it would be essential.' 
 
 B 4 
 
248 Second Period 
 
 of the efficiency of that relief. (Hear, hear.) Whenever 
 a grant of pubhc money was made, the pubhc had a right 
 to know that it had been properly applied ; and he was 
 satisfied that the public would be contented if they knew, 
 that with the money which they had granted the secular 
 instruction was properly apphed to the people, leaving the 
 religious instruction in the hands of the Church' (hear.) 
 On these observations the Marquis of Lansdowne remarked, 
 ' Would the Eight Eeverend Prelate forgive him for stating, 
 that it had never entered into the mind of any member of 
 the Committee of Privy Council to use the Inspectors as 
 agents to interfere, either directly or indirectly, with the 
 rehgious education given in the Schools ? What the In- 
 spectors ought to interfere in was the more mechanical 
 arrangements and improvements in education — improve- 
 ments which ought to be introduced into all Schools, as 
 they did not bear on any question of religion, but on a 
 question which was all but of equal importance — he 
 meant the training up of the scholars in those habits of 
 discipline, of industry, and of employment (hear, hear), 
 which ought to form part of every plan of general educa- 
 tion.' (Hear, hear.) 
 
 On the propriety of a system of Inspection, and on the 
 limits to be assigned to it, one fruit of the recent discus- 
 sions in Parhament seems to be a concurrence of opinion 
 in the highest authorities, and in the representatives of 
 the Government and the Church. 
 
 The whole discussion tends to prove the importance, 
 not to say the necessity, of an inquiry into the state of 
 Education in England and Wales. Our precise statistical 
 information is hmited to a few districts in which the spon- 
 taneous exertions of individuals have collected facts. The 
 knowledge we have of the extent of destitution is general 
 only, and therefore not satisfactory to minds accustomed 
 to a careful induction. Such an inquiry will doubtless 
 prove of eminent service by stimulating the spontaneous 
 exertions of society for the extension of education, and 
 by diffusing information to guide its newly awakened zeah 
 
Explanation of Measures o/1839 249 
 
 We may hope, by such means, also to obtain a more in- 
 timate acquaintance with the opinions of all classes on this 
 momentous subject ; and that the wants and moral and 
 social peculiarities of different districts may be examined, 
 so that when the period arrives that a more comprehen- 
 sive measure can be submitted to the Legislature, it may 
 be welcomed by a greater concurrence of popular opinion. 
 
250 . Second Period 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 EXAMINATION OF THE MINUTE OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL OF THE 
 11th of APRIL, RESPECTING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NORMAL SCHOOL, 
 WHICH MINUTE IS NOW SUPERSEDED BY THAT OF THE 3rD OF JUNE. 
 
 The most important part of the plan originally sub- 
 mitted by the Committee of Privy Council to Parliament, 
 was, as we have said, abandoned in consequence of the 
 difficulty encountered in attempting to reconcile a due 
 regard to the legitimate claims of the Established Church 
 with a i:espect for the rights of conscience. Though the 
 establishment of a Normal School has been for the pre- 
 sent postponed, it may be useful to show what were the 
 views of the Committee of Privy Council respecting the 
 principles on which such an estabhshment ought to be 
 conducted, and on the details of its internal economy. 
 The departments of religious and general instruction, and 
 of moral and industrial training proposed in Lord John 
 Eussell's letter to the President of the Council were in- 
 cluded as elements of the plan of this school. It will be 
 most convenient to consider the arrangements for rehgious 
 instruction last. 
 
 The Committee of Council appear from that Minute to 
 have been impressed with the fact, that throughout the 
 country the number of schools for the poorer classes is 
 inadequate to the reception of those who need instruction, 
 but that this defect, from its extent and notoriety, appears 
 to withdraw attention in some degree, from the equally 
 lamentable inefficiency of the teachers commonly employed 
 in the primary schools, arising from their imperfect attain- 
 ments, their ignorance of correct methods of instruction, 
 and still more from their want of skill in training the 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 251 
 
 habits and developing the characters of the children, so as 
 to prepare them for the persevering discharge of their 
 duties in Hfe. In many cases, the profession of the edu- 
 cator has fallen into the hands of persons who are desti- 
 tute of means, not merely from want of ability, but from 
 defects of character, and who resort to this calHng after 
 they have been proved to be unfit for any other. The 
 exertions of the Clergy and Ministers in the rehgious in- 
 struction of the population would be materially assisted if 
 the instruction of the children of the poor were given in 
 such a form as not merely to inform their minds on their 
 duties to God and to man, but to influence their habits 
 and feelings, so that a sense of the true source of all moral 
 and social obligations, might be not merely instilled as a 
 precept on the understanding, but be imbibed from every 
 part of the daily routine in such a way as to influence the 
 life. It is feared, that the teachers now employed, often 
 content themselves with requiring that the approved for- 
 mularies be committed to memory. 
 
 In order to abate these evils the Committee of Council 
 intended to found a school in which candidates might ac- 
 quire knowledge necessary to the exercise of their future 
 profession, and be practised in the most approved methods, 
 both of moral training and instruction. 
 
 By such means alone can the parochial village, and 
 town schools, as well as the endowed and charity and pri- 
 vate schools throughout the country be supphed with teach- 
 ers duly impressed with the great responsibilities of their 
 vocation — entering on the discharge of their functions, as 
 on a mission of truth and civilisation — and furnished with 
 such attainments, such skill in the practice of their art — 
 with minds and habits so disciphned, as to fit them to be- 
 come at once the guides and the companions, the instruc- 
 tors and the foster parents of the children whose temporal 
 and eternal welfare is committed to their care. 
 
 Such a school necessarily included a Model School in 
 which children might be taught and trained, and it ap- 
 peared expedient that it should comprise children of aU 
 
252 Second Period 
 
 • 
 ages from three to fourteen, in sufficient numbers to form 
 
 an Infant School, as well as schools for children above 
 seven. A considerable portion of the children were to 
 board and lodge in the estabhshment, in order that the 
 means of moral training might be proportionately more 
 complete, and opportunities afforded to the candidate 
 teachers for acquiring a knowledge of the method of re- 
 gulating the moral condition of such a household greater 
 than any which could be obtained in a school attended 
 solely or chiefly by day scholars. 
 
 The Model School, thus formed, would have afforded 
 examples of approved methods of instruction in each stage 
 of proficiency and in each department of knowledge. The 
 earliest information of all improvements would have been 
 obtained; they would have been systematically examined, 
 and introduced when approved, in that form which might 
 appear to render them most easily applicable to the wants 
 of the country. Industrial and moral training were to be 
 developed, so as constantly to give a practical tendency to 
 the entire instruction of the school, supplying the future 
 handicraftsman, or domestic servant, with the knowledge 
 required in his station, and reducing precept to habit. 
 
 The Model and Normal School were to have been be- 
 neath the superintendence of a Eector, acting under the 
 regulation of the Committee of Council. The selection 
 of teachers, and of candidates for the office of teacher, 
 would have been a subject of great difficulty and impor- 
 tance. Diligent inquiry, under direction of the Committee 
 of the Privy Council, concerning their previous habits 
 and associations, an examination of their attainments, evi- 
 dence of gentleness of disposition, and a fondness for the 
 duties of an educator, together with a sense of the secular 
 and religious responsibihty of the office, would have been 
 essential prehminaries to the admission of a candidate 
 teacher. 
 
 The internal organisation of the Model School indicates 
 tlie method of instruction which was to have been adopted. 
 The Committee of Council proposed to arrange the classes 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 253 
 
 in separate rooms, or sections of the same apartment, di- 
 vided by partitions, so as to enable the simultaneous 
 method to be appUed to forty or fifty children of similar 
 proficiency. The Committee intended also to use the gallery, 
 commonly employed only in the Infant School, as a means 
 of giving lessons on objects of sense, or requiring illustra- 
 tions from objects of sense, to the older children in larger 
 bodies than when assembled in the classes for mere tech- 
 nical instruction. The gallery would also have been used 
 at periods when the teacher desired to assemble the chil- 
 dren for serious moral admonition. Such arrangements 
 would have enabled each teacher not merely to convey 
 his instructions with greater success, shut out from the 
 noise and confusion incident to the assemblage of large 
 numbers in the same room, but to have cultivated moral 
 relations with his scholars, who would gradually have 
 learned to regard him with affection as well as respect, 
 resulting from the paternal character of the discipline. 
 All the lessons in which it is important that the sympathies 
 should be awakened, as well as the understanding, might 
 be conveyed by the teacher in a more impressive manner 
 in a separate apartment than in the large hall of a school 
 filled with some hundreds of children. Without such ar- 
 rangements, the design of the Committee of Council to 
 interweave moral training with the whole tissue of instruc- 
 tion would not have been fulfilled ; and the teachers must 
 have been content with whatever success they could attain 
 in the merely intellectual advancement of their pupils. 
 
 The simultaneous instruction which the Committee of 
 Council apparently intended to combine Avith the moni- 
 torial or mutual instruction prevalent in this country, 
 depends for its efficacy gn the fact that, by the simulta- 
 neous method, the mind of the teacher may be more con- 
 stantly in contact with that of every child under his care. 
 The moral agencies employed are, under such a method, 
 greatly superior to those in operation where the child re- 
 ceives instruction chiefly, if not wholly, from a boy but 
 little older than himself. 
 
254 Second Period 
 
 The successful prosecution of the simultaneous method 
 supposes that the teacher is accustomed to a careful 
 analysis of the subjects of instruction to their simplest 
 elements, and that he proceeds by a suggestive method 
 from the previous limits of the child's knowledge, that is, 
 from the most simple and rudimentary facts to those which 
 are the result of combination. In this process each step 
 is accompanied by a corresponding exercise of the child's 
 mind, which finds a natural pleasure in pursuing a pro- 
 cess of induction stimulating it to exertion. To learn is 
 no longer a task, but a pleasure ; the teacher successfully 
 appeals to the sense of utility and the natural desire to 
 know and combine, which are ordinarily discouraged by 
 the difficulties attending an opposite method. The disci- 
 pline of the school naturally acquires a milder character 
 with wiUing pupils than with the sluggish or perverse ; 
 and the educator depends on his skill in rendering the 
 pursuit of knowledge attractive, rather than on a resort to 
 the inferior stimulus of rewards and punishments. 
 
 The Committee were of opinion that industrial instruc- 
 tion forms an important element of the routine of a Model 
 School, probably not only because it practically inculcates 
 the great lesson of industry, but also because it tends to 
 give a special character to the matter of instruction in the 
 school, keeping it in close relation with the condition of 
 workmen and servants, and engrafting whatever is new on 
 habits and pursuits which are necessary and permanent. 
 
 The candidate teachers were to reside in the Normal 
 School in order that their habits and characters might be 
 under the constant observation of the Eector and his 
 assistant teachers. 
 
 The class-rooms were to be sa constructed as to afford 
 the candidate teachers an opportunity of attending the 
 lessons without distracting the attention of the children 
 or of the teacher. 
 
 Means were to be provided for the instruction of the 
 candidate teachers in the theory of their art, and for fur- 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/1839 255 
 
 nishing them witli whatever knowledge is requisite for 
 success in it. 
 
 The superintendence of their studies and the general 
 regulation of their conduct would have devolved on the 
 Eector of the School. He would have given lectures on 
 the method and matter of instruction, and the whole art 
 of training children of the poor. Each course of study 
 would have been conducted by him, as well as the reading 
 and the exercise and examination of the candidate teachers. 
 The order in which they were admitted to the practice of 
 their art in the school, and at length entrusted with the 
 conjoint management of the classes, together with their 
 ultimate examination and certificate would have been 
 chiefly regulated by him. 
 
 The candidate teachers were to conform to such regu- 
 lations respecting the internal economy of the household, 
 as might have been issued by the Eector with the ap- 
 proval of the Committee of Privy Council. 
 
 In the Model School it would have been desirable to 
 have had ^accommodation for at least 450 children, who 
 should lodge in the household, viz., 120 infants, 200 boys 
 and girls receiving ordinary instruction, and 50 boys and 
 50 girls receiving special instruction, leaving 30 children 
 absent from sickness or other causes. Such arrangements 
 would have enabled the teachers to conduct the school 
 with complete success on the best methods, and thus to 
 afford to the candidate teachers the best opportunity of 
 acquiring the art of teaching. 
 
 But in order to enable the teachers to reaHse the appli- 
 cation of these methods under all the limitations and 
 obstructions which must arise in a small village or town 
 day-school, it was deemed desirable that a day school of 
 150 or 200 children, of all ages and both sexes, should 
 form part of the establishment. 
 
 Here the candidate teacher would have learned the 
 limitations which the organisation and method pursued in 
 the larger school must undergo when the numbers are 
 reduced, and when all ages are assembled in the same 
 
256 Second Period 
 
 room : and would have become acquainted with the 
 expedients to be adopted under varying circumstances ; 
 for example when the number was even still further re- 
 duced by the prevalence of sickness, by the inclemency 
 of the weather, or by the caprice of parents. He would 
 have been taught how to communicate with the parents 
 respecting the conduct, health, and progress of their chil- 
 dren — respecting the payment of the school fees, the ma- 
 nagement of the children at home, and their observance 
 of their religious duties morning and evening, and on the 
 Sunday. The industrial training of children in day 
 schools also has some peculiarities, and their moral train- 
 ing is hable to interference from the parents and other 
 external circumstances, over which the teacher has little 
 control, and is certainly limited in its operation to the 
 period spent in the school and exercise ground. 
 
 The progress of education would probably soon, under 
 the influence of the Normal School, have multiplied the 
 number of Eural Schools of Industry, so as to have 
 enabled the candidate teachers to visit other Model 
 Schools near the metropolis, where they might have 
 completed their acquaintance with the modifications re- 
 quired by limitations and obstructions incidental to the 
 different situations of the schools. The teachers having 
 charge of schools in London and its vicinity might have 
 been admitted to the Eector's lectures, and to certain of 
 his classes. 
 
 Teachers having charge of schools, whether in the 
 metropolis or elsewhere, might, during the holidays 
 common to such establishments, have been permitted 
 to attend the school. 
 
 Conferences of teachers trained in the Seminary would 
 probably have occurred, under regulations issued by the 
 Committee of Privy Council ; at those conferences the 
 Eector might have presided — the teachers might have 
 given an account of their schools, of the difficulties which 
 they had encountered and overcome, and especially of 
 
Explanation of Measures (>/1839 257 
 
 any improvement in apparatus or method, &c. of suffi- 
 cient importance for consideration. 
 
 That the benefits derivable from such an Institution are 
 ahiiost incalculably great appears to be universally ad- 
 mitted. The want of teachers thus furnished with all 
 the acquirements necessary for their honourable station 
 — thus trained in correct methods of teaching — with 
 habits of thought and demeanour so discipHned as to 
 enable them to sustain a moral dignity while they mingle 
 with the sports, sympathise with the feelings, yet elevate 
 the thoughts of children — capable of making knowledge 
 attractive by the simplicity and kindness with which it is 
 imparted — imbued with a deep sense of their rehgious 
 responsibilities, and hallowing all their moral instruc- 
 tion by a constant reference to the sanctions of rehgion 
 — the want of such men is felt by every clergyman and 
 gentleman who takes an interest in the condition of the 
 labouring families on his estates, and by every member of 
 the middle classes who recognises in the present condi- 
 tion of the poor proofs of the fatal void in our national 
 institutions. , 
 
 Deeply, therefore, do we regret the difficulty experi- 
 enced in devising any method by which the religious 
 instiTiction of children and teachers can be reconciled in 
 such an estabhshment, with due regard to the rights of 
 conscience. 
 
 The regulations contained in the Minute of the Com- 
 mittee of Council of the 11th of April 1839, now 
 superseded, were — 
 
 ' Eehgious instruction to be considered as general and 
 special. 
 
 ' Eeligion to be combined with the whole matter of 
 instruction, and to regulate the entire system of disci- 
 pline. 
 
 ' Periods to be set apart for such peculiar doctrinal in- 
 struction as might be required for the religious training 
 of the children. 
 
 ' To appoint a chaplain to conduct the religious in- 
 
 S 
 
258 Second Period 
 
 struction of children whose parents or guardians belong to 
 the Estabhshed Church. 
 
 ' The parent or natural guardian of any other child to 
 be permitted to secure the attendance of the licensed 
 minister of his own persuasion, at the period appointed 
 for special rehgious instruction, in order to give such 
 instruction apart. 
 
 ' To appoint a hcensed minister to give such special 
 religious instruction, wherever the number of children 
 in attendance on the Model School belonging to any reh- 
 gious body dissenting from the Estabhshed Church, is 
 such as to appear to this Committee to require such 
 special provision. 
 
 ' A portion of every day to be devoted to the reading 
 of the Scriptures in the school, under the general direc- 
 tion of the Committee, and superintendence of the Eector. 
 Eoman Catholics, if their parents or guardians require it, 
 to read their own version of the Scriptures, either at the 
 time fixed for reading the Scriptures, or at the hours of 
 special instruction.' 
 
 These regulations had reference to the religious instruc- 
 tion of the children in the Model School only, and it was 
 not the intention of the Committee of Council to propose 
 similar regulations for the adoption of any other School, 
 much less was this School intended in this respect as a 
 type of schools to be established in different parts of the 
 country. On the contrary, th^ sum voted by the Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commoiis was to have been 
 distributed to Schools in connection with the National 
 and the British and Foreign School Societies, with cer- 
 tain exceptional cases only, admitted in consequence of 
 the inapphcability of the rules of those societies in neigh- 
 bourhoods where extreme ignorance and destitution 
 appeared to demand the interference of Government for 
 the civilisation of the people. 
 
 The Committee of Privy Council appear to have consi- 
 dered it unnecessary to descend into an explanation of 
 all the more minute regulations by which the instruction 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 259 
 
 of the children in the principles of the Christian religion 
 was to have been guarded ; but their views appear in all 
 their leading features to be so strictly in accordance with 
 those of that able and pious prelate, Daniel Wilson, the 
 Bishop of Calcutta, as developed in regulations which he 
 proposed to the Committee of the Martiniere, that we 
 feel bound to state the most material parts of those regu- 
 lations.^ 
 
 This institution owed its existence to the following ex- 
 traordinary circumstances: — An English private soldier 
 by great merit rose from the ranks in India, was pro- 
 moted to the rank of Major -General, and amassed a 
 great fortune. At his death he bequeathed his wealth 
 for general education, without reference to the creed of 
 those who partook of the benefits of the institution to be 
 founded. 
 
 It was the wish of the Bishop of Calcutta to have 
 founded this institution on the express doctrines and 
 discipline of the Church of England only ; but finding 
 that the intentions of the founder were that the benefits 
 of the institution should be extended to all persons, with- 
 out distinction of creed, he proposed and strenuously 
 advocated the plan described in the report, comprehend- 
 ing, as he says, ' all the great doctrines of redemption, 
 as held by the five main divisions of the Christian world 
 — the English^ the Scotch^ the Roman Catholic, the Greek, 
 and the Armenian churches — as our fundamental prin- 
 ciples — leaving the minister of each church to supply 
 instructions on the sacraments and matters of discipline to 
 the children of their own communions respectively' The 
 following are extracts from the Eeport, signed by the 
 Committee, and adopted unanimously by the Board, and, 
 we may add, republished by the Bishop in his own vindi- 
 cation. 
 
 ^ The statements of tlie i3ishop of Calcutta, and of his Chaplain and others, 
 made it subsequently apparent that the regulations of the Martiniere were 
 adopted as special and exceptional provisions to meet a peculiar case. 
 J. P. K. S. 1862. 
 
260 Second Period 
 
 'Report^ (^c. of the Committee appointed to frame a 
 
 Plan, <^c. 
 
 ' I. Your Committee submit, that in order to meet the 
 first rule adopted by the Honourable Governors, the reli- 
 gious instruction of the children must be divided into 
 two parts, — the one general, the other particular : the one 
 embracing the fundamental truths of Christianity, as they 
 are held in common by the live great existing divisions of 
 Christendom enumerated in the rule ; the other relating 
 to disciphne, church government, the sacraments, and 
 other matters on which differences more or less import- 
 ant exist. Your Committee consider that the first part 
 should be taught, daily and publicly, to all the children by 
 the head master of the School ; the second, privately, 
 and on particular days," by the ministers and teachers 
 whom the parents of the respective children may, with 
 the approbation of the Governors, select. 
 
 ' II. The following are the main truths held in com- 
 mon, on which the pubhc rehgious instruction should, in 
 your Committee's opinion, proceed. 
 
 1. The Being of God ; his unity and perfections. 
 
 2. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment, a revelation inspired by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 3. The mystery of the adorable Trinity. 
 
 4. The Deity, Incarnation, Atonement, and Intercession 
 of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 5. The fall and corruption of man ; his accountableness 
 and guilt. 
 
 6. Salvation through grace by the meritorious sacrifice 
 and redemption of Christ. 
 
 7. The personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit, and 
 his operations and grace in the sanctification of man. 
 
 8. The indispensable obligation of repentance towards 
 God, faith in Christ, and continual prayer for the grace of 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 9. The moral duties which every Christian is bound to 
 perform towards God, his neighbour, and himself, as they 
 
Eaiplanation of Measures of 1SS9 261 
 
 are summed up in the Ten Commandments, and enlarged 
 upon in other parts of the Holy Scriptures ; all based on 
 the doctrines above specified, and enforced as their proper 
 fruits. 
 
 ' III. As to the first of these branches of the rehgious 
 instruction — the public and general — the Committee 
 recommend that it be chiefly drawn from the Holy Scrip- 
 tures themselves ; such simple instruction being given by 
 the masters and mistresses in a catechetical form as may 
 be adapted to the capacities of the children, on the points 
 which fall within the limits of the public teaching ; all 
 matters which belong to the private, or which touch on 
 controversy, being sedulously avoided. 
 
 ' With respect to versions of the Scriptures, your Com- 
 mittee will offer their opinion under a subsequent rule. 
 
 'V. The second branch of the religious instruction — 
 the private and particular — will require no regulations 
 from your Committee ; it will be merely supplementary ; 
 so that what is, in the judgment of the parents and guardians 
 of the respective children, omitted, or insufiiciently taught 
 in public, may thus be suppHed. In this private teaching 
 the entire Catechisms of the different churches, and the 
 versions of the Holy Scriptures approved by them, may 
 of course be freely used. 
 
 ' VII. We come next to the subject of family devotional 
 exercises, and the public worship of Almighty God. 
 
 • ' The daily mornmg and evening family prayers, your 
 Committee suggest, should be read by the Head Master 
 from a Form of Prayer extracted from different liturgies, 
 wliich we have prepared, and which accompanies these 
 rules. On these occasions all the children of both sexes, 
 and all the masters and mistresses, with all the Christian 
 members of the household, should attend. 
 
 ' The family devotions should not exceed ten or fifteen 
 minutes altoQ-ether in leno^th. 
 
 ' The masters and mistresses are to aUow also a few 
 minutes to the children for private prayer, before they 
 retire to bed at night and when they rise in the morning. 
 
262 Second Period 
 
 ' On Sunday mornings, your Committee think all the 
 children should be conducted to their respective churches 
 and chapels for the worship of the Almighty, in the 
 manner and after the rites approved by their parents. 
 
 ' On Sunday evenings they recommend that the ordinary- 
 family devotions be read, with the addition of a suitable 
 sermon, to be approved of by the governors. 
 
 ' The same to be done also on Sunday mornings, when 
 circumstances may prevent the children from going out ; 
 with the addition of a Litany extracted from one or more 
 of the Liturgies of different churches. 
 
 ' VIIL As it respects versions of the Holy Scriptures, 
 your Committee are not aware that the Greek and Arme- 
 nian churches have any English version of their own. The 
 Enghsh and Scotch churches use the authorised English 
 version. It remains only that the case of the church of 
 Eome be considered, which has long possessed an English 
 version of its own — that of Douay and Eheims ; we 
 recommend that, whenever the Eoman Catholic children 
 are required to have the Holy Scriptures in their hands, 
 and to learn lessons, or receive direct rehgious instruction 
 from them, this version be permitted to be employed ; 
 the copies being of course without notes or indexes which 
 touch on controversy, and the master taking care to range 
 the children in different classes, so that no confusion may 
 arise by the variations in the readings. 
 
 'As this, however, could not be done in family prayer, 
 where all the children of all classes and each sex, as well 
 as the Christian household, are assembled together, we are 
 of opinion that the portions of Holy Scripture, directed 
 to be read as a part of the doctrines, should be taken from 
 the authorised English version: the selection being, of 
 course, subject to the provisions of the foregoing rules. 
 
 ' Your Committee do not know that they need proceed 
 more into detail. Much will and ought to be left to the 
 head master, if he be a man of piety, talent, discretion, 
 and temper. His suggestions, founded on experience, 
 will be of the greatest value. Much will also depend on 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 263 
 
 the number, description, age, and capacities of the children. 
 But your Committee feel a great confidence that by this 
 union of public and religious instruction, on the basis- of 
 the great doctrines of redemption held by the universal 
 church, with the private inculcation of what regards church 
 discipline, the sacraments, and other matters of contro- 
 versy, the practical blessings of a Christian education may 
 he conveyed to the children^ without indifference and latitu- 
 dinarianism on the one hand^ or a spirit of debate and 
 proselytism on the other, 
 
 'Daniel Calcutta, 
 'Egbert S. LEGER,y.A., 
 'James Charles. 
 
 ^August 31, 1835.' 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add, that this Eeport is not 
 inserted in this place on the presumption that it anticipates 
 in all its details the plan which the Committee of Council 
 had prepared. On the contrary, we have already been 
 publicly informed, that on no occasion did the Committee 
 of Council intend that different versions of the Scriptures 
 should be used in the same apartment in the Model 
 School, but only in separate rooms. We need not more 
 particularly allude to other details upon which the Com- 
 mittee of Council have expressed no opinion ; but we have 
 quoted these extracts from this Eeport of the Committee 
 of the Martiniere, to show that one of the ablest and most 
 pious prelates that ever shed the lustre of a comprehensive 
 and highly- cultivated mind and of eminent Christian vir- 
 tues on society and the church, has lent the authority of 
 his name to regulations conceived in the same spirit of 
 Christian charity as that part of the Minute of the Com- 
 mittee of Council of the 11th of April by which the re- 
 hgious instruction of the children in the Model School 
 was to be regulated. By such means the Bishop of 
 Calcutta believes ' tlie practical blessings of a Christian 
 education may be conveyed to the children without indif- 
 ference and latitudinarianism on the one hand, or a spirit 
 of debate and proselytism on the other.' 
 
 S 4 
 
264 Second Period 
 
 This Eeport may at least serve as a complete answer to 
 the question which the Archbisliop of Canterbury asked 
 in the House of Lords, respecting 'the meaning of general 
 instruction in Christianity.' We refer him to the Bishop 
 of Calcutta's solution of that question. 
 
 Then as to the Minute, ' Eeligion to be combined with 
 the whole matter of instruction, and to regulate the entire 
 system of discipline,' the Archbishop said, 'he was at 
 a loss how this was to be carried into .effect.' The 
 answer is contained in the Eeport signed by the Bishop 
 of Calcutta. 
 
 On this question, the Bishop of London quoted the 
 opinion of Erofessor Thiersch respecting the Seminary of 
 Teachers at Kayerslautern. We solicit our readers' atten- 
 tion to the very passage which the Eight Eeverend Erelate 
 read to the House of Lords. The Erofessor, on whom the 
 Bishop passed so just an eulogium, respects the ennobling 
 sentiments of Christian charity which induced the Govern- 
 ment, in the circle of the Ehine, to establish a common 
 seminary for teachers. 'In the Bavarian circle of the 
 Ehine,' he says, ' there is but one seminary for teachers. 
 This is too little, both for the number of pupils to be in- 
 structed and for the wants of different confessions. It 
 was rightly observed to me at the Training Seminary of 
 Neuwied, by its excellent director Braun, that an institu- 
 tion of this kind flourishes better the more nearly it 
 approximates to a family circle ; and as its object is not so 
 much instruction as education, that about thirty-six is the 
 largest number it should contain. Besides, many argu- 
 ments recommend the division of the seminary according 
 to confessions of faith. I know and respect the motives 
 which dictated that, in the circle of the Ehine, both con- 
 fessions (Erotestant and Eomanist) should be united in a 
 single seminary, in tlie advantages of which even the future 
 rabbis should be allowed to participate. But it is con- 
 ceivable, and the experience of other countries shows that 
 it is found, that when seminaries are divided, toleration may 
 be. secured both among teachers and connnunities ; indeed, 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 265 
 
 tliat tliis is more effectually attained, the more each con- 
 fession is secured in its real wants. Among these wants 
 it would seem that the education and instruction of the 
 persons to whom elementary Schools are to be intrusted 
 must be especially included ; and since such an education 
 cannot be conceived unless its basis is firmly laid in the 
 knowledge of some Christian confession, therefore the 
 division of seminaries according to modes of faith, as 
 happens in Nassau, in Prussia, and perhaps one may say 
 in every other country, is necessarily required.' Appa- 
 rently adopting the erroneous opinion that the plan of 
 religious instruction proposed for the Model School only 
 was to be extended to other Schools, the Bishop also re- 
 ferred, in support of his argument, to the opinion of M. 
 Guizot, Avhen, as Minister of Public Instruction in France, 
 he was intrusted with the execution of the Law of the 
 28th of June 1833. This opinion was extracted from a 
 circular addressed to the French Prefets on the 24th of 
 July 1833. The Bishop quoted only part of the paragraph 
 of the circular relating to this question ; we will give the 
 whole, and we shall then request our readers' attention to 
 the opinion of M. Cousin in his Eeport to the Chamber of 
 Peers, as the head of the Commission charged with the 
 examination of the ' Projet de Loi' on Primary Instruction 
 in 1833. M. Guizot says, ' In those communes in which 
 the inhabitants profess different forms of religion recog- 
 nised by the State, Schools particularly attached to each 
 of these religious denominations may be established with 
 consent of the Municipal Council, and under my authori- 
 sation. It is, in general, desirable that children whose 
 parents do not profess the same religious opinions, should 
 early contract, by frequenting the same Schools, those 
 habits of natural good- will and tolerance which will grow 
 into sentiments of justice and union when they become 
 fellow-citizens. It may, however, sometimes be nScessar}^, 
 even with a view to the public peace, that separate Schools 
 should be opened in the same commune for each faith.' 
 So far the Bishop, wdio omitted what follows, 'You will 
 
266 Second Period 
 
 be careful to transmit to me. before tlie 5tli of September 
 a Eeport of the deliberations of the Municipal Councils on 
 this subject, with your suggestions. It will possibly 
 happen that in some communes of mixed faith, tlae elec- 
 tions will have sent to the Municipal Council men only of 
 one rehgious denomination, and the Councils thus formed 
 might show themselves inclined to support only one School, 
 notwithstanding local circumstances, such as old and deeply 
 rooted dissensions, the importance of the population, or 
 some other cause, might render the opening of a second 
 School very desirable. I recommend you to examine with 
 the greatest care the remonstrances which may be made 
 against the designs of the Municipal Councils. You will 
 communicate with them to ascertain their opinion — you 
 will then send it to me with your own — and you will 
 inform me what is the number of inhabitants belonging to 
 each religious community, as well as all the facts necessary 
 to illustrate the decision I shall have to form. 
 
 ' Bear in mind, M. le Prefet, that the efficacy, as well as 
 the hberty of religious education, and the security of 
 families in this respect, are the principal considerations 
 which. ought to guide the administration in this matter.' 
 
 We find nothing here but a provision against the in- 
 tolerance of a dominant sect, which might abuse the regu- 
 lations of the Communal School, so as to make its religious 
 instruction agree chiefly, if not solely, with its own views, 
 and be a subject of vexation or suspicion to the other 
 religious persuasion. 
 
 But we may learn from M. Cousin's Eeport to the Chamber 
 of Peers in what spirit the Law of Primary Instruction in 
 France was conceived. Concerning article 2, the Com- 
 mission say they ' cannot but applaud the homage rendered 
 to liberty of conscience, and to the sacred rights of parents, 
 by the declaration, that the wishes of parents shall always 
 be consulted and complied with in whatever concerns the 
 participation of their children in religious instruction.' 
 
 Again — ' The ninth article of the project of the Govern- 
 ment attached at least one public elementary School to 
 
Explanation of Measures o/1839 267 
 
 each commune ; and it is evident that to compel a com- 
 mune to have one^ was not forbidding it to have several^ 
 if it could maintain them ; and that in this case the 
 children of the commune should be distributed in the best 
 way possible. A vast number of urban communes have 
 several Schools ; and then, instead of dispersing through 
 them all the children of different communions, it is the 
 constant practice of the local authorities to coUect the 
 children of one communion in one School, whenever they 
 are numerous enough to compose a whole School, and 
 the local resources allow it. The Chamber of Deputies 
 has deemed this practice sufficiently important to find a 
 place in the law. This is a fresh homage to rehgious 
 liberty, to which we subscribe ; and we propose to adopt 
 the amendment of the Chamber of Deputies, wording it 
 as follows : — " In case local circumstances permit, the 
 Minister of Public Instruction may, after hearing the 
 Municipal Council, authorise, as Communal Schools, the 
 Schools more peculiarly attached to any one of the modes 
 of pubhc worship recognised by the State." 
 
 ' Thus, when there is but one School, all sects will fre- 
 quent it, and wiU there receive a common instruction 
 which, without injury to rehgious liberty (placed under 
 the perpetual security of Article 2), will strengthen the 
 ties which ought to unite all the children of the same 
 country. Whenever there are several Schools in a com- 
 mune, the several sects shall be divided ; but these different 
 Schools shall all be established on the same footing, and 
 with the same title : they shall all enjoy the same dignity, 
 and all the inhabitants of the commune shall contribute 
 to their common support ; as, in a higher sphere, all the 
 citizens contribute to the general tax which goes to the 
 maintenance of the different churches. This measure of 
 perfect tolerance appears to us conformable to the true 
 spirit of religion, favourable to the pubhc peace, worthy 
 of the intelligence of our age and of the munificence of a 
 great nation.' 
 
 Now it cannot be too constantly borne in mind that the 
 
268 Second Period 
 
 regulations of the Committee of Privy Comicil respecting 
 tlie religious instruction of children of different sects in 
 one School, related only to the Model School, and that, as 
 we have said before, the Committee (with rare exceptions 
 admitted on the plea of urgent necessity only) intended to 
 confine the application of the money voted by Parliament 
 to the assistance of Schools connected with the National 
 Society and the British and Foreign School Society. The 
 Bishop of London's argument was therefore addressed 
 against a plan which was not contained in the Minutes of 
 the Committee of Privy Council, and to represent which, 
 as within their contemplation, would be an unwar- 
 rantable assumption. But if the spirit of the French Law, 
 to which the Eight Eeverend Prelate appealed, be in 
 harmony with his Lordship's views, we shall rejoice to 
 reckon so able an advocate among the champions of civil 
 and religious liberty. 
 
 The inferences which Professor Pillans draws from the 
 practice of the German states to which the Bishop of 
 London referred, and from the circular addressed by M. 
 Guizot to the Prefets of France, are exactly the opposite 
 of those which the Bishop of London conceives himself 
 entitled to make. As we have quoted the extracts alluded 
 to by the Eight Eeverend Prelate, we place in contrast 
 with his inferences those of the able Head-Master of the 
 High School, and now Professor of Humanity in the 
 University of Edinburgh. 
 
 ' Are you aware what is the system in Germany in that 
 respect (of religion) ? — I should say the arrangements in 
 Germany upon that subject are extremely liberal, and, 
 with every anxiety for religious instruction, provide at the 
 same time for the cases of different religions with the 
 greatest attention, and with the most perfect impartiality. 
 
 ' Do you not suppose that a sufficient rehgious education 
 could be conveyed without the conveyance, at the same 
 time, of any peculiar religious doctrine .^ — I am disposed 
 to think so as regards children, both because I think that 
 the doctrines of our religion, as far as they have a tendency 
 
Explanation of Measures 0/ 1839 269 
 
 to influence the habits and practice of the young, may be 
 separated and kept distinct from the pecuhar opinions of 
 any one sect, and because such opinions embodied in any 
 school-books, I should consider as nearly ineffectual for 
 any purpose at all, turning, as they generally do, upon 
 points which are altogether beyond the comprehension of 
 the young mind ; and therefore it is that I think it most 
 of all desirable to have a system of religious instruction 
 for Schools founded upon the Scriptures, but directed only 
 to those parts of the sacred volume which have a moral 
 tendency, and which are likely to influence the conduct, 
 cherish the best affections, and regulate the behaviour of 
 the young. I am fortified in that opinion by the example 
 of the German States, where the School instruction is 
 founded on this principle, as well as of France, where the 
 law on that head is very nearly a transcript of the German. 
 
 ' Has it ever suggested itself to you, in the matter of 
 teaching religion, that teaching theology is one thing, and 
 inculcating religious habits is another? — Yes, I think 
 that is obvious, though certainly not sufficiently attended 
 to in practice. 
 
 ' In the creation of religious habits, do not all sorts of 
 Christians agree, as far as you have had an opportunity 
 of considering the subject of teaching? — I think so. 
 
 ' Supposing that we wanted to teach theology to pupils, 
 the teaching of theology would be hke the teaching of 
 any other science ? — It certainly requires a matured 
 vmderstanding to deal with subjects so deep and difficult; 
 nor can it be a very profitable employment for the mind 
 of a child to be turned to points of doctrine upon which, 
 from its very nature, it cannot be informed. 
 
 ' So that, in fact, the business of a teacher of the people, 
 considering the matter of national education, would be to 
 form rehgious habits ; and those might be formed in a 
 national School which did not impose any dogmata upon 
 the minds of the pupils? — I should say so certainly; at 
 the same time I wish it to be understood, that by dogmata 
 I mean the pecuhar tenets of any particular sect : the 
 
270 Second Period 
 
 leading and distinctive doctrines of Cliristianity ouglit not 
 to be omitted. It is these only, I conceive, that are within 
 the province of the schoolmaster, his vocation being more 
 of a literary than of an ecclesiastical character. 
 
 ' Assmning that there is a general ^coincidence in all 
 Christian sects, those truths might be taught in a national 
 School, without trenching upon any religious differences 
 that might exist between them ? — I think they might. 
 
 ' And, therefore, if there were a spirit of forbearance 
 among the Christian sects at this time existing in England, 
 there would, in reahty, be no objection on this score to 
 the institution of a national education? — Not the least, I 
 should think. There is in the present day, as far as I have 
 observed, less of excitement and mutual hostihty between 
 the different sects in Germany and France than in 
 England ; and, accordingly, in the ministerial and official 
 instructions sent out to the prefect of the circle or de- 
 partment, as well as to the teachers themselves, they are 
 strongly enjoined to encourage mixed Schools, where the 
 children may practically learn the principle of toleration 
 arid mutual forbearance ; and where that cannot be done, 
 the authorities are invited to take every means to provide 
 such religious instruction apart as shall be thought neces- 
 sary, or even to form separate Schools. The last, however, 
 they consider as a resource not to be resorted to, unless 
 all means of uniting the two persuasions shall be found 
 unavailing. 
 
 ' Do you not suppose that the teaching of various 
 sects in one School, under that system of Catholic faith, if 
 it may be so called, would very much tend to promote 
 general kindhness amongst the whole population ? — I 
 think so desirable an object most likely to be attained by 
 such a joint and mixed system. Judging both from 
 reason and experience, I should say it is a result that could 
 scarcely fail to take place. 
 
 ' Do you not think a true Christian feeling would be 
 created by such a system of National Education.^ — I do. 
 
 ' Do you consider that, in any way, the interests of 
 
Explanation of Measures q/* 1839 271 
 
 religion would be injured by sucli a system ? — On the 
 contrary, it appears to me that the amount of religious 
 feehng and true Christianity would be increased very 
 considerably by such an arrangement, inasmuch as we are 
 all taught to beheve, and cannot help believing, who are 
 familiar with the Scriptures and the New Testament, that 
 brotherly love is the first of Christian virtues.' 
 
 The religious instruction of the candidate teachers in the 
 Normal School was, by the regulations of the Committee 
 of Privy Council, to be in strict conformity with the 
 tolerant principles which have characterised our modem 
 legislation. 
 
 The regulation contained in the Minute of the 11th of 
 April was as follows : — ' The rehgious instruction of all 
 candidate teachers connected with the Established Church 
 to be committed to the cliaplain, and the special religious 
 instruction to be committed (in any case in which a wish 
 to that effect is expressed) to the licensed minister of the 
 rehgious persuasion of the candidate teacher, who is to 
 attend the School at stated periods, to assist and examine 
 the candidate teachers in their reading on religious sub- 
 jects, and to afford them spiritual advice.' 
 
 Let us inquire whether the Dissenters of England are 
 entitled to so much respect in the regulations of a Normal 
 School. We may ascertain their title to consideration by 
 examining the degree in which they have spontaneously 
 assumed the charge of the primary education of the people 
 of this country. If we find them in charge of a consider- 
 able amount of the primary education at present provided 
 for the people, those who will not listen to right may 
 perhaps be inchned to bend to necessity ; or those who 
 refuse to admit the principle must contrive to dispose of the 
 fact. And here, we again find ourselves greatly indebted 
 to the labours of the London and Manchester Statistical 
 Societies. In the towns of Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, 
 Bury, York, and Birmingham, comprising an estimated 
 population of 713,000 inhabitants, the following Table 
 exhibits the number of children receiving instruction in 
 
272 
 
 Second Period 
 
 the Sunday Schools of different rehgioiis classes, and also 
 affords similar information respecting the three divisions 
 of Westminster, comprising 215,000 inhabitants 
 
 Church Establishment 
 Dissenters .... 
 Catholics .... 
 Unconnected with any lleligious 
 Body ... 
 
 Total . 
 
 Manchester, Sal ford, Li- 
 verpool, Bury, York, and 
 Birmingham. 
 
 Westminster in Three 
 Divisions. 
 
 No. of 
 Schools. 
 
 No. of 
 Scholar- 
 on book. 
 
 Average 
 attend- 
 ance. 
 
 No. of 
 Schools. 
 
 No. of 
 Scholars, 
 oil book 
 
 Average 
 attend- 
 ance. 
 
 96 
 
 171 
 
 16 
 
 1 
 
 27,151 
 
 49,675 
 
 5686 
 
 150 
 
 21,772 
 
 39,4 li' 
 
 4563 
 
 65 
 
 14 
 
 26 
 
 2115 
 4152 
 
 1517 
 2794 
 
 284 
 
 82,662 
 
 65,812 
 
 40 
 
 6267 
 
 4311 
 
 Note. In the case of Birmingham, the average attendance is not specilicdjit is 
 therefore presumed to be the same as the number of scholars on books. 
 
 The number of Sunday Schools in these towns under 
 the Church Establishment was 107; under Dissenters, 197; 
 under Catholics, 16 ; unconnected with any religious 
 body, 4. The average attendance of scholars at the Church 
 Schools was 22,841 ; at those of Dissenters, 42,206 ; at 
 Cathohc Schools, 4563 ; and at Schools unconnected with 
 any religious body, 513. 
 
 The Table referred to in the note contains these facts in 
 detail for the five northern towns. ^ 
 
 The religious profession of the teachers of the various 
 classes of day and evening Schools in Manchester, Salford, 
 Liverpool, Bury, and York, and in Westminster, is shown 
 in the summary (p. 273), proving to what extent Dis- 
 senters have charge of the common daily instruction of 
 the children of the middle and lower classes in tlie great 
 towns of this country. 
 
 In the above classes of Schools, out of 2159 teachers, 
 1185 were members of the Established Church ; 170 were 
 Catholics ; and 730 Dissenters ; Avhile the religious pro- 
 fession of 74 teachers was not ascertained. 
 
 See Appendix, Table No. IV. 
 
Ea'planation of Measures <9/ 1839 
 
 273 
 
 
 Northern Towns. 
 
 Westminster. 
 
 Dame Schools 
 Common boys' and girls' 
 
 Schools 
 Superior boys' and girls' 
 
 Schools 
 Infant Schools 
 Charity and Endowed 
 
 Schools. . . . 
 Evening Schools . 
 
 Total . 
 
 1 
 
 S3 
 
 i 
 
 JS 
 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 00 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 Q 
 
 a 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 .c 
 
 1 
 •s 
 
 la 
 
 B 
 
 3 
 
 J3 
 
 i 
 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 CO 
 
 Q 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 606 
 
 455 
 
 324 
 30 
 
 119 
 165 
 
 285 
 
 209 
 
 177 
 18 
 
 74 
 67 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 24 
 
 240 
 
 163 
 
 130 
 11 
 
 34 
 65 
 
 19 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 9 
 
 130 
 
 129 
 
 129 
 17 
 
 55 
 
 97 
 
 100 
 
 110 
 12 
 
 36 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 29 
 
 22 
 
 17 
 5 
 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 1699 
 
 830 
 
 166 
 
 643 
 
 60 
 
 460 
 
 355 
 
 4 
 
 87 
 
 14 
 
 We are indebted to the Eeports of the Commissioners 
 of Inquiry into the Condition of the Hand-loom Weavers 
 for the following statement of the condition of popular 
 education in tlie city of Coventry, and the contiguous 
 weaving districts of the ribbon manufacture, as collected 
 by their secretary, Joseph Fletcher, Esq. 
 
 'From an accompanying Table ^ it will be seen, 
 
 ' 1st. That the population of the City and Weaving 
 District of Coventry in 1831, was somewhat more than 
 55,000, and must now, therefore, reckoning on an increase 
 of 15 per cent., which that of the previous period more 
 than justifies, be no less than 63,000. 
 
 ' 2nd. That the number of healthy children, .from two 
 to fourteen years of age^ which the modern prevalence of 
 Dame and Infant Schools in our manufacturing districts 
 marks as the limits of the School ages, is therefore about 
 15,000, or nearly one-fourth of the population; the pro- 
 portion of those from 5 to 15 in the City and County of 
 
 ^ It has not been considered necessaiy to reprint this Table in the Ap- 
 pendix in confirmation of the late Mr. Fletcher's statement, which was not 
 challenged at any time. J. P. K. S. 1862. 
 
 T 
 
274 Seco7id Period 
 
 the City in 1821, being between one-fifth and one-fourth, 
 according to the census. 
 
 ' 3rd. That besides the children of the richer classes at 
 the City Free Grammar School, and about twenty-five 
 private Schools, there are 9369 children receiving instruc- 
 tion of some kind, so that the total number of children 
 receiving instruction will be about two-thirds of those from 
 two to fourteen years of age, while the other third, are 
 under no School discipline whatever, even on the Sabbath. 
 
 ' 4th. That of the total number receiving instruction, 
 only 2957, or scarcely one-third, receive any whatever in 
 private Schools, at the cost of their parents ; and of this 
 number, excepting the children who attend the very few 
 pay Schools which give an instruction similar to that of the 
 ordinary Lancasterian Schools, nearly the whole are in 
 Dame Schools, or subscription nurseries of the most 
 wretched description, in w^hich little attempt at religious 
 instruction is made (though sometimes the Catechisms of 
 different creeds are found in the same Schools), and which 
 are best described by their usual name of ' out-of-the-way 
 Schools,' from the children being sent to them chiefly to 
 be out of the way of their parents or of harm. 
 
 ' 5th. That 6412, or more than two-thirds of the chil- 
 dren receiving any instruction, receive only public instruc- 
 tion, which is already, therefore, a permanent institution, 
 though on the voluntary system. 
 
 '6th. That of this pubhc instruction, nearly two- thirds 
 is, at the present moment, in the hands of Dissenters, with 
 some few Roman Catholics, under whose management 
 4123 of these children are receiving all the schooling which 
 they obtain ; leaving only 2289 under the management of 
 the Church. 
 
 ' 7th. That of the children receiving public instruction, 
 4150, or nearly two-thirds, are under only Sunday School 
 teaching, which is chiefly religious, and, as a means of se- 
 cular instruction, almost beneath notice ; and of the total 
 number of children receiving only this Sunday schooling, 
 3415, or nearly seven-eighths, are in the Schools of Dis- 
 
Explanation of Measures ^/ 1 8 3 9 275 
 
 senters ; tlie predominance being yet greater in the country 
 districts than in the city. 
 
 '8th. That 1510 children, or nearly one-fourth of those 
 receiving public instruction, attend unendowedDsij Schools, 
 of the character of National Schools generally, with some 
 few Infant Schools, in which the number of children at- 
 tending those under the management of Dissenters, is, in 
 the city of Coventry, approaching two to one of those at- 
 tending the Church Schools ; while in the Eural Districts, 
 the poverty and dispersion of the Dissenting population, 
 leave the daily instruction almost whoUy to the Church 
 Schools ; and the total of children receiving instruction in 
 pubhc Day Schools, supported by voluntary subscriptions 
 in the city and rural parishes jointly, is therefore divided 
 between the Church Schools and the Dissenting Schools, 
 in nearly the reverse proportion that is observed in the 
 city. 
 
 ' 9th. That the whole of the remaining 752 children re- 
 ceiving public daily instruction, are in Schools more or less 
 well endowed, of a character in few instances superior to 
 National Schools, and nearly all under the management of 
 Churchmen ; and it is by the addition of these alone that 
 the Church acquires a decided preponderance of 846, even 
 in regard to the number of day scholars, to meet the over- 
 whelming balance of nearly 3000 in the exclusively Sun- 
 day teaching. 
 
 ' 11th. That secular instruction, at all worthy of the 
 name, being attempted only in the public Day Schools, 
 and the few common Day Schools of superior character, 
 the proportion of children under instruction to the popu- 
 lation is rather 1 in 20 than 1 in 6, as the mere enume- 
 ration of the scholars of every class would indicate, — an 
 enumeration assuredly in excess, through the prevalent 
 desire of teachers to represent their Schools in the best 
 light. 
 
 ' 12th. That much has been done by these several classes 
 of Schools towards redeeming the labouring population of 
 this district from a state approaching to absolute barbarism, 
 
276 Second Period 
 
 cannot be doubted ; any more than that somewhat of this 
 has been pursued in a spirit of rivalry, where much more 
 might have been accomphshed by united efforts. 
 
 ' And 13th. That there is still a want of any sufficient 
 influence by which the rising generation of this district can 
 be preserved from pursuing the like courses, and abiding 
 in the same rudeness and misery which has been the usual 
 lot of their predecessors. 
 
 'Joseph Fletcher. 
 
 ^3 Trafalgar Square, Westminster, 
 'Juhj 1,1839J 
 
 In the purely rural districts the Dissenters are not 
 numerous. The inhabitants of agricultural parishes consist 
 for the most part of the proprietors, the clergy, the 
 farmers, and the labourers. Dissent lias spread chiefly 
 among the middle classes ; but exceedingly less among the 
 farmers than the inhabitants of towns. The gentry and 
 clergy have little encouragement or assistance from the 
 farmers in the erection or improvement of Schools. The 
 common argument employed by the farmer is, that he had 
 little or no instruction himself, and that he does not see 
 why his labourers' children should be as well instructed 
 as his own. No general sympathy in the improvement of 
 the education of agricultural labourers can be expected, 
 until proprietary Schools for the children of farmers have 
 been established ; and we hope that every intelhgent land- 
 owner, and especially our aristocracy, will recognise the 
 importance of thus providing such an education for farmers' 
 children as shall enable the next generation to keep exact 
 accounts of the income and outlay of their farms — to com- 
 prehend the mechanical improvements recently introduced 
 into husbandry — to read with profit the treatises in which 
 agriculture is treated as a science — to understand as much 
 of general science as may enable them with less empiricism, 
 and therefore with a greater chance of success, to conduct 
 their trials of manures and composts on their different soils, 
 and to avoid a vf aste of capital on experiments in draining, 
 
Explanation of Measures of 1839 277 
 
 irrigation, &c., which are now often conducted contrary to 
 ascertained principles. A taste for reading itself would 
 assist the diffusion of a knowledge of improvements in 
 agriculture, and would thus increase the inteUigence and 
 enterprise of a class of men who contribute so largely to 
 the national wealth. 
 
 The clergyman might then rejoice to find his exertions 
 for the erection and support of Schools for the children of 
 labourers in the agricultural districts more cordially and 
 steadily seconded by the farmers than they now are. He 
 would also be able to reclaim from misappropriation edu- 
 cational endowments, on which parochial authorities have 
 for a long time laid their hands ; and among the labourers 
 themselves would arise a stronger sense of the value of 
 education to their children. At the present we fear we 
 have for the most part to record, respecting the rural dis- 
 tricts, a melancholy void in the means of instruction for 
 the poorer classes. The exceptions to this rule are attri- 
 butable almost solely to the interference of the proprietors 
 of the soil, or of the clergy, to whose exertions we must 
 owe any further advance which can at present be made. 
 
 But in the towns the influence of the middle class is, 
 from their numbers and intelligence, predominant ; and, 
 consequently, that of the Dissenters is great. No Govern- 
 ment could long exist in this country which should either 
 neglect the legal right which the Established Church has 
 to expect the protection and support of the Executive 
 Government, or which, on the other hand, should refuse 
 to admit that a large body of Her Majesty's subjects who 
 dissent from the Established Church have a legal right to 
 an equal distribution of all the secular advantages de- 
 rivable from a Government supported by the pubhc funds. 
 
 But when to the rights recognised by the law the Dis- 
 senters have superadded the claim arising out of the ex- 
 ertions they have spontaneously made to provide for 
 education in some of the most important districts of this 
 country, we are at a loss to know, on what pretence they 
 can be excluded from sharing the secular benefits of any 
 
 T 3 
 
278 Second Period 
 
 provision for National Education furnished at the public 
 cost, or how the Government could have been justified, 
 either in formally excluding them from the privilege of 
 educating their teachers in the Normal School, or (which 
 is equivalent to that) in imposing such religious observ- 
 ances on those teachers, or so inadequately providing for 
 their entire religious freedom, as practically to have occa- 
 sioned their exclusion. 
 
 Nothing would tend so much to increase the political 
 power of religious denominations not agreeing with the 
 Established Church, as to attempt a partial or exclusive 
 distribution of any new civil advantages, after admitting 
 them to a theoretical equality of civil rights. We beheve 
 it to be impossible to place on the statute book any such 
 law ; but once there, the clamour raised would be so loud 
 and fierce, that any Administration must quail before it, 
 and if Parliament did not listen to the indignant remon- 
 strances of the constituency, this would become the sole 
 topic of electioneering agitation until the new enactment 
 was repealed. 
 
 Conceiving the application of the pubhc funds to tlie 
 exclusive secular advantage of any class of religionists im- 
 possible, we are of opinion that two courses only were 
 pen to the Committee of Privy Council in proposing the 
 plan of a Normal School — 
 
 1. To establish separate Normal Schools for different 
 classes of religionists. 
 
 2. To establish a Normal School open to all. 
 
 One principle our laws require should be preserved in- 
 violate under all circumstances, viz., that the Established 
 Church should suffer no detriment, but should hold her 
 position among the rehgious denominations of this country, 
 as the Church, whose head is the Sovereign, and whose 
 institutions are interwoven with those of the temporal 
 power. 
 
 If, then, separate Normal Schools were established for 
 different classes of rehgionists, let us examine in what way 
 an impartial distribution of the secular advantages of such 
 
Exp lanation of Measures ()/1839 279 
 
 institutions could have been secured. A Normal School 
 being estabhshed for the Church, would it be necessary to 
 estabhsh a separate Normal School for each one of the 
 numerous sects, or do those sects admit of some classifi- 
 cation into groups, for each of which a Normal School 
 might be provided ? Clearly the latter is the only prac- 
 ticable plan, and the British and Foreign School Society is 
 founded on a principle which provides Schools for the chil- 
 dren, and a certain amount of training for the teachers, of 
 the Orthodox Congregational Dissenters and of the Society 
 of Friends. The plan of separate Schools for each sect is 
 thus impracticable, and that of a common School for the 
 Orthodox Congregational Dissenters is in practical opera- 
 tion. We may infer, from these premisses, that the neces- 
 sity of distributing impartially the secular advantages of 
 such institutions under the plan of separate Normal 
 Schools for separate classes of religionists would have 
 required at least the following schools: — 1. A Normal 
 School for the Church. — 2. A Normal School for the Wes- 
 leyan Methodists. — 3. A Normal School for the Orthodox 
 Congregational Dissenters, and for the Society of Friends. 
 — 4. A Normal School for the Eoman Catholics. And it 
 would have been necessary to make provision for any 
 other classes by admitting them to the secular benefits of 
 one or other of the above Schools without imposing any 
 religious observances. 
 
 We are content to state, without comment, the scheme 
 which appears to us to afibrd the only ultimately practicable 
 alternative to the plan proposed by the Government. We 
 do not hesitate to say, the concern of the Committee of 
 Council to preserve the interests of the Church, while 
 they exercised the authority confided to them by the 
 temporal Head of the Church for the promotion of Na- 
 tional Education, so as to protect the rights of conscience, 
 could alone have induced the Committee to prefer the 
 plan which they announced in their Minute of the 11th 
 of April. 
 
 We have sufficiently vindicated that plan from the 
 
 T 4 
 
280 Second Period 
 
 charge of a tendency to promote latitiidinarianism by our 
 previous remarks — we have now shown what is evidently 
 the only practicable alternative to the adoption of that 
 plan. 
 
 One feature of the recent debates is a source of no little 
 regret to the friends of education. The fact of the want 
 of means of instruction for the people was admitted; 
 but little or nothing transpired indicating tliat the extent 
 of the void was known. — Had the fearful breadth of this 
 chasm in our ISTational Institutions been perceived, we 
 cannot believe that so much time would have been ex- 
 pended in exaggerating every difficulty obstructing the 
 extension of education to the entire people, whether those 
 difficulties be referable to the religious divisions which 
 unhappily separate the middle classes into hostile camps, 
 or whether they originated in the opposition of any of the 
 existing voluntary associations for primary education. 
 Assuredly the privileges of the Established Church, and 
 also the rights of conscience, must be respected, and the reh- 
 gious education of the people is of paramount importance. 
 Neither are we inclined to disparage the value of any of 
 the existing voluntary associations; but it is of infinitely 
 greater importance that the feuds of sects and the interests 
 of bodies incompetent effectually to deal with this national 
 question, should not rob the people of England of the 
 heritage which the Grovernment, after periods of ruinous 
 deprivation, was about to restore to them. The grievance 
 would not be greater if the administration of justice was 
 impeded, or rendered partial, by any attempt to extend 
 spiritual jurisdiction from the Ecclesiastical Courts to the 
 Civil, or to renew the interdicts upon the enjoyment of 
 the civil advantages of society in consequence of some 
 shght to the representative of the Church, or some inter- 
 ference with his spiritual power. But if the whole of this 
 kingdom were placed under an ecclesiastical interdict ; 
 if marriages could no longer be solemnised; if the dead 
 were left unburied : and the Churches closed, terrible 
 
Explanation of Measures 0/ 1 8 3 9 281 
 
 though the calamity would be, we find a parallel to it in 
 that wide-spread and demoralising ignorance wliich para- 
 lyses all the healthful influences of society, if it does not 
 convert its elements into engines of mutual destruction. 
 
282 
 
 Second Period 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 TABLE No. I. 
 
 1 
 
 6CO .' 1 
 
 'tHU > . 1 
 
 1 u 
 
 
 •3 
 
 
 
 
 3 C 
 
 CO 
 
 c 
 o 
 
 to 13 
 bein 
 13 fo 
 r pre 
 educt 
 
 §3 
 
 ll 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 •a o 
 
 
 m 3 
 •third 
 and 
 ck, 
 alsod 
 ols. 
 
 Is 
 
 1-2 
 
 
 C to 
 t3 
 
 1 
 
 
 ! 
 
 o 
 
 If 
 
 1 
 
 classes fro 
 ivided, one. 
 between 3 
 )yed, or si 
 chool, and ; 
 rivate scho 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 District. 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 li 
 II 
 
 
 working 
 Id be pro 
 number 
 or emplc 
 tendings 
 uperior p 
 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 S3 
 
 ■3 
 
 
 '■C 
 
 «"= 
 
 S" 
 
 ;_ 3 m ,■* w 
 
 
 g 
 
 s 
 
 13 
 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 Ill 
 
 £:£.2 
 
 ^a3 
 
 i{ 
 
 mber of children o 
 hom education sho 
 ited from the whol 
 privately educated 
 d by casualties from ; 
 le number attending 
 
 ■SI'S 
 
 111 
 111 
 
 bo . 
 
 II 
 
 ^^ 
 
 I3 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 3 
 
 rt 
 1 
 
 
 
 22-S 
 
 So 
 
 £-03 
 
 S2 
 
 .3 
 
 
 
 
 — -i — 
 
 ^^ 
 
 55 t,T3 O C 6D 
 
 ^1- 
 
 n 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 5 2 
 
 c 
 
 5 oj^ a, '^ 
 
 .2 3 
 
 
 
 !?; 
 
 
 
 
 ni Q, 
 
 
 c: -O *j > .3 
 
 '3 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 Manchester 
 
 200,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 2934 
 
 30,400 
 
 4103 
 
 11,624 
 
 14,641 
 
 26,265 
 
 Salford 
 
 55,000 
 
 13,750 
 
 882 
 
 8285 
 
 1776 
 
 3357 
 
 3172 
 
 6509 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 230,000 
 
 57,500 
 
 4080 
 
 34,254 
 
 13,500 
 
 ! 1,336 
 
 9418 
 
 20,754 
 
 Bury 
 
 20,000 
 
 5000 
 
 174 
 
 3160 
 
 652 
 
 1648 
 
 860 
 
 2508 
 
 York 
 
 28,000 
 
 7000 
 
 716 
 
 3951 
 
 1296 
 
 1294 
 
 731 
 
 2025 
 
 533,000 
 
 133,250 
 
 8786 
 
 80,050 
 
 21,957 
 
 29,259 
 
 28,822 
 
 58,061 
 
 
 Ratio 
 
 to 
 
 population 
 
 1 in 24 
 
 
 
 1 to 9 
 
 Ratio to children of 
 
 working 
 
 classes 
 
 who 
 
 ought to be 
 
 
 
 
 
 in attendance on 
 
 school 
 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 1 in S| 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 5|to8 
 
 Westminster (in 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 divisions). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 St. Martin in Fields, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 St. Clement Danes, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 St. Mary-le-Strand, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 St. PauI'sCoventGar- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 den, The Savoy, St. 
 
 50.000 
 
 10,000 
 
 1017 
 
 56.50 
 
 1861 
 
 1124 
 
 2665 
 
 3789 
 
 John & St, Margaret, 
 
 54,000 
 
 10,800 
 
 690 
 
 6510 
 
 2718 
 
 1675 
 
 2117 
 
 3702 
 
 St. George, St. James, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 and St. Anne, Soho. 
 
 111,000 
 
 22,000 
 
 2429 
 
 12,371 
 
 3382 
 
 1944 
 
 7045 
 
 8989 
 
 
 215,000 
 
 43,000 
 
 4136 
 
 24,531 
 
 7961 
 
 4743 
 
 11^827 
 
 16,570 
 
Ajipendioj 
 
 283 
 
 llatio to population 
 
 Katio to children of working classes who ought to 
 be in attendance on school .... 
 
 1 in 27 . . 1 to 13 
 
 1 in 3 . . 2 to 3 
 
 See Reports as to average expense of education in Schools, London and Manchester Statistical Societies. 
 The table contains the following results for 
 
 * 
 
 Estimated population at period of inquiry 
 Estimated number of children between 3 and 13 
 Number of children of working classes from 3 to 13, for 
 whom education should be provided .... 
 Number of children of working classes who attend en- 
 dowed and charity schools, and schools attached to pub- 
 lic institutions and infant schools 
 
 Number very ill educated in dame and commnon day 
 
 schools 
 
 Number uneducated in week day schools* 
 
 Manchester, Sal- 
 ford, Liverpool, 
 Bury, York. 
 
 Westminster, 
 3 Divisions. 
 
 533,000 
 133,250 
 
 80,050 
 
 21,957 
 
 29,259 
 
 28,822 
 
 215,000 
 43,000 
 
 24,531 
 
 7961 
 4743 
 
 aM27 
 
 * Of these .several receive some instruction (chiefly religious) in Sunday Schools. See 
 
 Table No. IV. 
 
284 
 
 Second Period 
 
 A Summary of the proficiency of the Prisoners in Norwich Castle, in Reading, Sfc. at 
 the time of their commitment, taken at different periods from 1826 to 1835. 
 
 
 _. 
 
 1 
 
 
 11 
 
 T3 
 
 s 
 
 11. 
 
 
 
 
 rt 
 ■" 
 
 1 
 t 
 
 a 
 
 1«5 
 
 
 1 
 
 ■c c > 
 Sort 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 ^ 
 
 2^2 
 
 4) 3 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ c 2 
 
 C 
 
 * 
 
 
 S 
 
 >, 
 
 , 13 , 
 
 »- J2 
 
 
 O e« Ci 
 
 3 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 1 
 
 sl 
 
 111 
 
 li 
 
 :b6 
 
 m 
 
 3 
 
 
 1826 Eeb. 7 
 
 153 
 
 24 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
 89 
 
 134 
 
 217 
 
 351 
 
 Mar. 8 
 
 173 
 
 28 
 
 49 
 
 51 
 
 99 
 
 150 
 
 250 
 
 400 
 
 June 6 
 
 223 
 
 32 
 
 60 
 
 56 
 
 129 
 
 185 
 
 315 
 
 500 
 
 Oct. 24 
 
 264 
 
 40 
 
 68 
 
 68 
 
 160 
 
 228 
 
 372 
 
 600 
 
 Dec. 27 
 
 311 
 
 43 
 
 85 
 
 81 
 
 180 
 
 261 
 
 439 
 
 700 
 
 1827 Mar. 15 
 
 350 
 
 52 
 
 105 
 
 91 
 
 202 
 
 293 
 
 507 
 
 800 
 
 June 13 
 
 393 
 
 57 
 
 119 
 
 109 
 
 222 
 
 331 
 
 569 
 
 900 
 
 Oct. 16 
 
 430 
 
 60 
 
 12S 
 
 124 
 
 258 
 
 382 
 
 618 
 
 1000 
 
 1828 Feb. 5 
 
 475 
 
 66 
 
 141 
 
 137 
 
 281 
 
 418 
 
 682 
 
 1100 
 
 April 28 
 
 515 
 
 67 
 
 153 
 
 153 
 
 312 
 
 465 
 
 735 
 
 1200 
 
 Sept. 1 
 
 554 
 
 72 
 
 167 
 
 169 
 
 338 
 
 507 
 
 793 
 
 1300 
 
 Nov. 29 
 
 604 
 
 77 
 
 177 
 
 181 
 
 361 
 
 542 
 
 858 
 
 1400 
 
 1829 Feb. 4 
 
 641 
 
 81 
 
 187 
 
 197 
 
 394 
 
 591 
 
 909 
 
 1500 
 
 April 4 
 
 678 
 
 88 
 
 205 
 
 207 
 
 422 
 
 629 
 
 971 
 
 1600 
 
 July 13 
 
 718 
 
 94 
 
 215 
 
 221 
 
 452 
 
 673 
 
 1027 
 
 1700 
 
 Oct. 21 
 
 750 
 
 99 
 
 228 
 
 237 
 
 486 
 
 723 
 
 1077 
 
 1800 
 
 1830 Jan. 21 
 
 793 
 
 100 
 
 242 
 
 253 
 
 512 
 
 765 
 
 1105 
 
 1900 
 
 Mar. 29 
 
 822 
 
 105 
 
 262 
 
 273 
 
 538 
 
 811 
 
 1189 
 
 2000 
 
 July 28 
 
 848 
 
 109 
 
 286 
 
 291 
 
 566 
 
 857 
 
 1243 
 
 2100 
 
 Noy. 15 
 
 875 
 
 111 
 
 306 
 
 310 
 
 598 
 
 908 
 
 1292 
 
 2200 
 
 Dec. 24 
 
 916 
 
 117 
 
 324 
 
 320 
 
 623 
 
 943 
 
 1357 
 
 2300 
 
 1831 Feb. 10 
 
 955 
 
 120 
 
 339 
 
 339 
 
 647 
 
 986 
 
 1414 
 
 2400 
 
 May 4 
 
 989 
 
 123 
 
 351 
 
 357 
 
 680 
 
 1037 
 
 1463 
 
 2500 
 
 Sept. 3 
 
 1019 
 
 127 
 
 366 
 
 378 
 
 710 
 
 1088 
 
 1512 
 
 2600 
 
 Dec. 7 
 
 1052 
 
 129 
 
 381 
 
 395 
 
 743 
 
 1138 
 
 1562 
 
 2700 
 
 1832 Jan. 31 
 
 1084 
 
 133 
 
 398 
 
 415 
 
 770 
 
 1185 
 
 1615 
 
 2800 
 
 April 9 
 
 1113 
 
 140 
 
 417 
 
 433 
 
 797 
 
 1230 
 
 1670 
 
 2900 
 
 June 25 
 
 1146 
 
 147 
 
 428 
 
 445 
 
 834 
 
 1279 
 
 1721 
 
 3000 
 
 Oct. 15 
 
 1175 
 
 152 
 
 449 
 
 461 
 
 863 
 
 1324 
 
 1776 
 
 3100 
 
 1833 Jan. 5 
 
 1204 
 
 157 
 
 459 
 
 479 
 
 901 
 
 1380 
 
 1820 
 
 3200 
 
 Mar. 19 
 
 1238 
 
 166 
 
 470 
 
 494 
 
 932 
 
 1426 
 
 1874 
 
 3300 
 
 June 18 
 
 1268 
 
 173 
 
 483 
 
 511 
 
 965 
 
 1476 
 
 1924 
 
 3400 
 
 Sept. 27 
 
 1296 
 
 177 
 
 493 
 
 533 
 
 1001 
 
 1534 
 
 1966 
 
 3500 
 
 Noy. 28 
 
 1330 
 
 186 
 
 499 
 
 555 
 
 1030 
 
 1585 
 
 2015 
 
 3600 
 
 1834 Jan. 16 
 
 1364 
 
 194 
 
 508 
 
 577 
 
 1057 
 
 1634 
 
 2066 
 
 3700 
 
 Mar. 22 
 
 1397 
 
 204 
 
 521 
 
 599 
 
 1079 
 
 1678 
 
 2122 
 
 3800 
 
 June 24 
 
 1428 
 
 211 
 
 534 
 
 617 
 
 1110 
 
 1727 
 
 2173 
 
 3900 
 
 Oct. 23 
 
 1463 
 
 219 
 
 540 
 
 635 
 
 1143 
 
 1778 
 
 2222 
 
 4000 
 
 1835 Feb. 10 
 
 1499 
 
 222 
 
 547 
 
 651 
 
 1181 
 
 1832 
 
 2268 
 
 4100 
 
 April 7 
 
 1542 
 
 231 
 
 554 
 
 675 
 
 1198 
 
 1873 
 
 2327 
 
 4200 
 
 July 16 
 
 1581 
 
 237 
 
 561 
 
 693 
 
 1228 
 
 1921 
 
 2379 
 
 4300 
 
 Nov. 4 
 
 1611 
 
 249 
 
 571 
 
 715 
 
 1254 
 
 1969 
 
 2431 
 
 4400 
 
 N.B. All recommittals are omitted, and also those prisoners who may have been 
 committed for too short a time to come under the Chaplain's regular and 
 continued instruction. 
 

 Averaj^e Attendance. 
 
 •: 2 i : i 
 
 s 
 
 Total Number of Scholars 
 on the Books. 
 
 1 : S : : : 
 
 IS 
 
 Number of Schools. 
 
 : "^ : : : 
 
 1 - 
 
 n 
 
 Average Attendance. 
 
 |t ^ 1 : - 
 
 
 Total Number of Scholars 
 on the Books. 
 
 1 ^^ o M . S 
 
 11 
 
 Number of Schools. 
 
 1 '- " ' : - 
 
 1 2 
 
 i 
 P 
 
 Average Attendance. 
 
 1 o to 
 
 
 Total Number of Scholars 
 on the Books. 
 
 2 S : : : 
 
 11 
 
 Number of Schools. 
 
 CO - : : : 
 
 1 ' 
 
 IJ 
 
 Average Attendance. 
 
 ^ S i : : 
 
 1 
 
 Total Number of Scholars 
 on the Books. 
 
 i ^- : : : 
 
 1 
 
 Number of Schools. 
 
 SN r- : : . 
 
 CO 
 
 2i 
 
 II 
 
 Average .Attendance. 
 
 § S2 2 * S 
 
 CO CO — 
 
 
 Total Number of Scholars 
 on the Books. 
 
 s o s , ^ 
 
 1 
 
 Number of Schools. 
 
 (M « — . 5^ « 
 
 50 
 
 .2 
 
 H 
 
 "S 
 
 Average Attendance. 
 
 1 s g 1 s 
 
 Total Number of Scholars 
 on the Books. 
 
 i s i i s 1 
 
 2 
 
 s 
 
 N.imber of Schools. ] 
 
 — — <M — -« 
 
 to 
 
 
 Average Attendance. 
 
 1 1 1 r : 
 
 § 
 
 Total Number of Scholars 
 on the Books. 
 
 i 3 E 2 ; 
 
 00 
 
 Number of Schools. 
 
 oi <rj (M — . : 
 
 
 .1 1 
 
 Average Attendance. 
 
 '^ i i % :• 
 
 53 
 
 Total Number of Scholars 
 on the Books. 
 
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287 
 
 PIRST STEPS AS TO PUPIL TEACHERS 
 
 3>8<OC — 
 
 4. Fwst steps in Workhouses and Schools of Industry for 
 pauper children, in the apprenticeship of Pupil Teachers. 
 A feiv brief extracts from Reports ('1 837 to 1840). 
 
 The first step which my memory recalls in the employ- 
 ment of Pupil Teachers occurred in a Norfolk Work- 
 house, in the case of a boy who became a Pupil Teacher 
 there, and entered a Training College, and after some 
 years' education became the master of a school. Having 
 succeeded the late Sir Edward Parry in the admini- 
 stration of the Poor Law Amendment Act in Norfolk, 
 the organisation of the workhouse schools for pauper 
 children occupied my attention. I procured teachers 
 from Mr. Wood's Edinburgh Sessional School, and from 
 Mr. David Stow's schools in Glasgow, now the Free 
 Church Training College. An organising Master from 
 Mr. Wood's school (Mr. Home, afterwards a master in 
 Battersea Training College), successively resided in several 
 workhouses of the Eastern Counties for a month or two. 
 He reconstructed the school in each workhouse. Wherever 
 the schoolmaster was capable, he placed him — with im- 
 proved knowledge of method, a better organised and 
 disciplined school, new desks, books, and apparatus — in 
 charge of the training of the children, in humble learning, 
 rehgion, and industry. If quite incapable, the teacher was 
 removed, and another appointed. In the Gressenhall 
 Workhouse of the JViitford and Launditch Union, Mr. 
 Home found an intelligent, active schoolmaster, who 
 entered eagerly into all our plans. The garden, the school, 
 and the workshops, when once organised, flourished 
 
288 Second Period 
 
 under his care. Some of his scholars caught his spirit. 
 Among these was a lad named William Eush, who 
 rapidly rose to the head of the little school. The 
 master fell seriously ill ; Wilham Eush, unbidden, though 
 a boy of only thirteen years of age, took charge of the 
 scholars. The master of the Workhouse found the school 
 in its usual order. The whole discipline and routine of 
 the garden, workshop, and class instruction went on un- 
 broken. The Guardians were summoned to witness the 
 phenomenon. Their Chairman — my late lamented friend, 
 Mr. Fredk. Walpole Keppel of Lexham — entered at once 
 into the merits of the case, and authorised the boy to con- 
 tinue his work in the school. I visited the workhouse, 
 and at my suggestion William Eush was thenceforth 
 regarded as the apprenticed assistant of the schoolmaster, 
 who soon recovered, but afterwards employed Eush as 
 his Assistant Teacher. This incident afforded a valuable 
 hint, of which I availed myself in organising other 
 workhouse schools. Generally we sought out the most 
 promising boys, with a view to retain their services for a 
 series of years as Assistant Teachers. Eush was after- 
 wards sent to Norwood, and thence removed to Battersea 
 Training School. 
 
 On taking charge of the Metropolitan District, I was 
 early impressed with a conviction of the necessity of 
 organising the establishments in which the pauper chil- 
 dren, sent to be reared in the country under 'Jonas 
 Hanway's Act,' had been grouped together from the 
 houses of the dames, or others to whom they had been 
 originally confided. I found in Mr. Aubin, at Norwood, 
 an intelligent, honest, and active contractor— ready to 
 adopt all reasonable improvements. He was, with equal 
 good sense and kindness of disposition, desirous to be 
 faithful to his young charge. The Guardians of the 
 City of London Union first adopted my suggestions for 
 the reorganisation of Mr. Aubin's Children's Establishment' 
 at Norwood. Aided by a grant of £500 per annum, 
 which Earl Eussell — then Secretary of State for the Home 
 
First Steps as to Pupil Teachers 289 
 
 Department — made, this pauper childrens' asylum became 
 the Norwood District School of Industry. It has since 
 been transferred to • Hanwell, where, under the faithful 
 superintendence of Mr. Edward Carleton TufneU, it is 
 now the Central London District School for Pauper 
 Children. 
 
 In Mr. Aubin's School of Industry at Norwood, and 
 afterwards at Limehouse, Edmonton, and elsewhere, the 
 system of Pupil Teachers was rapidly introduced. They 
 were not all apprenticed, but by the consent of their 
 guardians all were to be retained in the School for a series 
 of years. William Push and others were sent up from 
 rural workhouses at the expense of their patrons ^ in 
 order that they might have the advantage of the syste- 
 matic instruction and training then provided at Norwood, 
 and conducted by masters much more skilful than any in 
 charge of the rural workhouse Schools. 
 
 While the earliest of these arrangements were in suc- 
 cessful operation, I visited Holland, and found that in 
 many of their features these plans resembled those adopted 
 in the Dutch Schools. This confirmed my conviction 
 of their value, and I was careful to justify them^ by 
 a reference to the experience of Holland in the Peport 
 on the Training of Pauper Children, and on District 
 Schools, written in 1838. Again in a Peport on the 
 Norwood School of Industry, dated 1st May, 1839, occur 
 the following passages. [Ibid^ pp. 106-7-8.) 
 
 ' For each class monitors have been selected, who are 
 chiefly employed in superintending the mechanical daily 
 routine ; that is, in assisting the teacher in assembling the 
 class in order, in procuring and preserving silence and 
 attention, in distributing the books, slates, pens, &c., in 
 superintending lessons in which moral training forms no 
 element, such as writing and ciphering. From these 
 monitors have already been selected those most distin- 
 
 * William Eush at the expense of Mr. F. W. Keppel. 
 ^ Report to Secretary of State for Home Department from the Poor Law 
 Commissioners on the Training of Pauper Children, p. 46. 
 
 U 
 
290 Second Period 
 
 guisheci by zeal, skill, attainments, and gentleness of 
 disposition, who are to be apprenticed, and reared as 
 teachers. The organisation of each class will not be 
 complete until it has at least one monitor and a pupil 
 teacher ; and when the pupil teachers have acquired 
 considerable skill, and the arrangements for the instruc- 
 tion of the monitors are complete, it is believed that 100 
 children may with such assistance be instructed by one 
 master alternately, in two classes of 50, and in the 
 gallery. Such an arrangement, however, supposes that 
 one of these classes shall be employed in writing, cipher- 
 ing, composition, or drawing, while the other is receiving 
 instruction from the master in reading, geography, and 
 other matters of general knowledge. The monitors and 
 pupil teachers sleep in a room apart from the rest of the 
 children ; they have also recreation in a separate garden, 
 and in the evening receive instruction in a room situated 
 there, where they also read and prepare the lessons for 
 their classes on the succeeding day. 
 
 ' The pupil teachers are distinguished by a uniform 
 dress, and wear upon their arms the number of the class 
 to which they are at the time attached. 
 
 ' Some children of schoolmasters, and some of the 
 most intelligent boys in workhouse Schools, have been 
 sent to Norwood either by private individuals or by 
 Boards of Guardians ; and have, in consequence of strong 
 testimonials of character, attainments, and fondness for 
 the duties of a teacher, been admitted into the class of 
 pupil teachers. In such cases it is required that each 
 child shall be furnished with the uniform of the pupil 
 teachers at the expense of his patrons ; and that 
 5^. per week shall be paid for his board and lodging ; 
 and it is now necessary to require that they shall be 
 apprenticed for a term of five years, after a certain period 
 of probation, so as to secure their being so reared as to 
 enable them rightly to discharge the duties of a teacher. 
 
 'The indenture of apprenticeship stipulates that the 
 moral conduct and character of the pupil shall continue 
 
Fir'st Steps as to Pupil Teachers 291 
 
 to be such as to afford the superintendent teacher a 
 confident expectation of his success. Each child will 
 undergo a formal half-yearly examination, at each of 
 which successive periods he will be required to prove 
 his qualification to complete his apprenticeship by his 
 attainments in the several branches of instruction and 
 School discipline. The subjects of examination will be 
 so graduated as to test his proficiency and talent, rising in 
 each -successive half-year towards the examination re- 
 quired from candidate teachers, after a certain residence 
 in the School. 
 
 'Each class contains 50 children, and is furnished with 
 at least one pupil teacher and a monitor. Two classes of 
 50 children each have, besides their pupil teachers and 
 monitors, one teacher and one candidate teacher attached 
 to them ; the teacher instructs each class alternately, or 
 both classes together in the gallery ; the candidate teacher 
 Hstens to the instruction given in the gallery ; or, when 
 he has attained sufficient proficiency, occasionally assists 
 the teacher in giving these lessons. The candidate teacher 
 also instructs one of the classes at the desks alternately 
 with the teacher, so that they are both always receiving 
 instruction either from the teacher or candidate teacher. 
 Candidate teachers are not intrusted with the instruction 
 of the children until they have been some time in the 
 School ; and they are then first attached to those classes 
 which require the smallest amount of skill, and the most 
 slender attainments, and afterwards to those where greater 
 proficiency is requisite. The means for instructing the 
 candidate teachers at Norwood will require to be en- 
 larged and improved, as soon as it is apparent that the 
 demand for teachers trained in this School renders such 
 measures expedient.' 
 
 In a subsequent Eeport, dated December 1st, 1840^, 
 occurs the following passage : — 
 
 ^ See Poor Law Commissioners Eeport to Secretary of State for the Home 
 Department; pp. 129, 130. 
 
 v2 
 
292 Second Period 
 
 ' Mr. Aubin has, under your directions, taken the first 
 steps towards the apprenticeship of some of the best con- 
 ducted and most advanced boys as pupil teachers. If he 
 be enabled, by the Boards of Guardians, to carry into 
 execution this plan of retaining by apprenticeship some 
 of the most promising children in the School, rearing 
 them in the constant practice of the duties of teachers, 
 and preparing them, -by separate instruction every even- 
 ing, for that vocation, he will be enabled gradually to 
 estabhsh his School on the sure basis of the " mixed 
 method of instruction " — the characteristics of which it 
 has hitherto only partially and imperfectly attained. 
 
 ' Mr. Aubin's first attention should therefore be steadily 
 directed, to rearing up within the School a body of well- 
 instructed pupil teachers to assist the teachers in the 
 general duties of the School. This, however, he has 
 hitherto failed to accomphsh ; but I trust that arrange- 
 ments which have recently been made will insure the 
 attainment of this advantage. 
 
 ' The introduction of greater precision in the methods 
 of instruction, and the assimilation of those methods to 
 the most approved forms, will necessarily depend on the 
 degree of skill which the pupil teachers attain, and on 
 the amount of assistance which they are enabled to afford 
 the teachers. 
 
 ' All progress in the introduction of correct methods 
 must necessarily be slow, and subject to frequent embar- 
 rassments under existing circumstances.' 
 
 These extracts may suffice to mark the gradual develop- 
 ment of the Pupil-Teacher system. In the month of 
 January, 1840, some of these Pupil Teachers were re- 
 moved from Norwood to the Training School (since 
 called College) at Battersea, where their further pro- 
 gress will be found to be described in the Eeport on 
 that School. 
 
293 
 
 TWO REPORTS 
 
 PESCEIBING 
 
 THE ORiaiN OF THE TRAINING COLLEGE AT BATTERSEA,— THE 
 INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF THE PUPIL TEACHERS AS STUDENTS, 
 — AND ITS ORGANISATION AND PROGRESS. 
 
 :>>Hc 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The two following Eeports on the Battersea Training 
 School record the history of the joint enterprise in which my 
 friend, Mr. Edward Carleton Tufnell, and I were engaged 
 for some years, without, so far as I can call to mind, any 
 material difference of views as to principles, or in the 
 management of the School. 
 
 But I have no right to hold Mr. Tufnell responsible 
 for the style or colouring of these two Eeports. As I 
 was resident in charge of the School, it was natural that 
 these Eeports should be drawn by me. With the excep- 
 tion of the translation of the tabular account of the 
 courses of instruction given in the Swiss Normal Schools, 
 Mr. Tuftiell is not responsible for more than a general, 
 though, I am sure, a cordial, approval. 
 
 u 3 
 
294 Second Period 
 
 EIEST EEPOET ON THE TEAINING SCHOOL AT 
 BATTERSEA 
 
 TO THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 January 1, 1841. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 The efforts made by your Assistant Commissioners 
 for the improvement of the training of pauper children 
 in the rural and metropolitan districts, made apparent, at 
 a very early period, the great difficulty of procuring the 
 assistance of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses acquainted 
 with the principles on which the education of this class 
 of children ought to be conducted. 
 
 Very httle inquiry confirmed what was previously sus- 
 pected, that the number of English schoolmasters ac- 
 quainted with the organisation and disciphne of elemen- 
 tary schools, and skilful in the apphcation of approved 
 methods of instruction, is exceedingly small, and by no 
 means on the increase. Successive applications were made 
 to those sources from which teachers are usually obtained 
 in England, but these applications were almost invariably 
 unsuccessful, for a variety of reasons. 
 
 The teachers trained in the Model Schools of the me- 
 tropolitan and other societies enter those schools with the 
 expectation of taking charge of rural or town day schools. 
 They are not instructed in the management of schools of 
 industry. They are not trained in that regulation of 
 the habits of children at meals, in their dormitories, 
 and during hours of recreation, which is essential to the 
 success of a school of industry for pauper children. 
 Moreover, the period during which they receive instruc- 
 
The Training School at Battersea 295 
 
 tion and are trained in the art of teaching in these Model 
 Schools is unfortunately very short. Such Schools possess 
 slender funds apphcable to the maintenance of the can- 
 didate teachers. The candidates, therefore, are maintained 
 by their own meagre resources or are dependent on their 
 friends, in the hope of being able, at the expiration of a 
 short period, to take charge of a School ; or they are 
 maintained by the patrons or committee of some School, 
 the mastership of which they are to assume, and which is 
 probably in course of erection. Their attendance on the 
 Model School seldom exceeds six months, and often does 
 not extend beyond three. But little reflection is necessary 
 to prove, that in six months they cannot acquire all thq 
 knowledge which is desirable, either of the principles, the 
 matter, or the art of elementary instruction. 
 
 These Model Schools will ere long be re-organised, with 
 more abundant resources for the training of the candidate 
 teachers, and doubtless the teachers then trained in them 
 wiU go forth much better prepared for the discharge of 
 their duties than at present. 
 
 The introduction of works of industry, however, forms 
 no part of the plan of the improved arrangements hitherto 
 announced, and they afford no means of preparing teachers 
 to learn that system of moral management which is essen- 
 tial to the success of Schools for pauper children. 
 
 The training of pauper children in a workhouse or dis- 
 trict School cannot be successful unless the teacher be 
 moved by Christian charity to the work of rearing in 
 rehgion and industry the outcast and orphan children of 
 our rural and city population. The difficulty of redeeming 
 by education the mischief wrought in generations of a 
 vicious j)arentage can be estimated only by those who 
 know how degenerate these children are. 
 
 The pauper children assembled at Norwood, from the 
 garrets, cellars, and wretched rooms of alleys and courts, 
 in the dense parts of London, are often sent thither in a 
 low state of destitution, covered only with rags and ver- 
 min ; often the victims of chronic disease ; almost univer- 
 
 u 4 
 
296 Second Period 
 
 sally stunted in their growth ; and sometimes emaciated 
 with want. The low-browed and inexpressive physio- 
 gnomy or mahgn aspect of the boys is a true index to the 
 mental darkness, the stubborn tempers, the hopeless spirits, 
 and the vicious habits, on which the master has to work. 
 He needs no small support from Christian faith and 
 charity for the successful prosecution of such a labour ; 
 and no quality can compensate for the want of that spirit 
 of self-sacrifice and tender concern for the well-being of 
 these children, without which their instruction would be 
 anything but a labour of love. A baker or a shoemaker, 
 or a shop apprentice, or commercial clerk, cannot be ex- 
 pected to be imbued with this spirit during a residence of 
 six months in the neighbourhood of a Model School if he 
 has not imbibed it previously at its source. 
 
 The men who undertake this work should not set about 
 it in the spirit of hirelings, taking the speediest means to 
 23rocure a maintenance with the least amount of trouble. 
 A commercial country will always offer irresistible temp- 
 tations to desert such a profession, to those to whom the 
 annual stipend is the chief, if not sole, motive to exertion. 
 The outcast must remain neglected, if there be no prin- 
 ciple, which, even in the midst of a commercial people, will 
 enable men to devote themselves to this vocation from 
 higher motives than the mere love of money. 
 
 Experience of the motives by which the class of school- 
 masters now plying their U'ade in this country are com- 
 monly actuated, is a graver source of want of confidence 
 in their ability to engage in this labour than the absence 
 of skill in their profession. A great number of them 
 undertake these duties either because they are incapaci- 
 tated by age or infirmity for any other, or because they 
 have failed in all other attempts to procure a livelihood ; 
 or because, in the absence of well-qualified competitors, 
 the least amount of exertion and talent enables the most 
 indolent schoolmasters to present average claims on pubhc 
 confidence and support. Eare indeed are the examples 
 in which skill and principle are combined in the agents 
 
The Training School at Battersea 297 
 
 employed in this most important sphere of national self- 
 government. Other men will not enable you to restore 
 the children of vagabonds and criminals to society, purged 
 of the^taint of their parents' vices, and prepared to perform 
 their duties as useful citizens in a humble sphere. 
 
 The peculiarities of the character and condition of the 
 pauper children demand the use of appropriate means for 
 their improvement. The general principles on which the 
 education of children of all classes should be conducted 
 are doubtless fundamentally the same ; but for each class 
 specific modifications are requisite, not only in the methods 
 but in the matter of instruction. 
 
 The discipline, management, and methods of instruction 
 in elementary schools for the poor, differ widely from 
 those which ought to characterise Schools for the middle or 
 upper classes of society. The instruction of the blind, of 
 the deaf and dumb, of criminals, of paupers, and of chil- 
 dren in towns and in rural districts, renders necessary the 
 use of a variety of distinct methods in order to attain the 
 desired end. 
 
 The pecuharity of the pauper child's condition is, that 
 his parents, either from misfortune, or indolence, or vice, 
 have sunk into destitution. In many instances children 
 descend from generations of paupers. They have been 
 born in the worst purlieus of a great city, or in the most 
 wretched hovels on the parish waste. They have suf- 
 fered privation of every kind. Perhaps they have wan- 
 dered about the country in beggary, or have been taught 
 the arts of petty thieving in the towns. They have lived 
 with brutal and cruel inen and women, and have suffered 
 from their caprice and mismanagment. They have seen 
 much of vice and wretchedness, and have known neither 
 comfort, kindness, nor virtue. 
 
 If they are sent very young to the workhouse, their en- 
 tire training in rehgious knowledge, and in all the habits 
 of life, devolves on the schoolmaster. If they come 
 under his care at a later period, his task is difiicult in 
 proportion to the vicious propensities he has to encounter. 
 
298 Second Period 
 
 The children to whose improvement Pestalozzi devoted 
 his hfe were of a similar class, — equally ignorant, and 
 perhaps equally demoraHsed, in consequence of the inter- 
 nal discords attendant on the revolutionary wars, which 
 at the period when his labours commenced had left Switzer- 
 land in ruin. 
 
 The class of children wliich De Fellenberg placed under 
 the charge of Vehrli at Hofwyl were in like manner 
 picked up on the roads of the canton — they were the 
 outcasts of Berne. 
 
 These circumstances are among the motives which led 
 us to a careful examination of the Schools of Industry and 
 Normal Schools of the cantons of Switzerland. These 
 schools are more or less under the influence of the lessons 
 which Pestalozzi and De Fellenberg have taught that 
 country. They differ in some important particulars from 
 those which exist in England, and the experience of 
 Switzerland in this peculiar department of elementaiy in- 
 struction appears pre-eminently worthy of attention. 
 
 Those Orphan and Normal Schools of Switzerland which 
 have paid the deference due to the lessons of Pestalozzi 
 and De Fellenberg, are remarkable for the gentleness and 
 simphcity of the intercourse between the scholar and his 
 master. The formation of character is always kept in 
 mind as the great aim of education. The intelligence is 
 enhghtened, in order that it may inform the conscience, 
 and that the conscience, looking forth through this intelli- 
 gence, may behold a wider sphere of duty, and have at 
 its command a greater capacity for action. The capacity 
 for action is determined by the cultivation of habits ap- 
 propriate to the duties of the station which the child 
 must occupy. 
 
 Among the labouring class no habit is more essential 
 to virtuous conduct than that of steady and persevering 
 labour. Manual skill connects the intelligence with the 
 brute force with which we are endued. The instruction 
 in elementary Schools should be so conducted, as not only 
 to assist the labourer in acquiring mechanical dexterity, but 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 299 
 
 in bringing his intelligence to aid the labours of his hands, 
 whether by a knowledge of the principles of form or 
 numbers, or of the properties of natural objects, and the 
 nature of the phenomena by which his labours are hkely 
 to be affected. In a commercial country it is pre-eminently 
 important to give him such an acquaintance with geo- 
 graphy as may stimulate enterprise at home, or may tend 
 to swell the stream of colonisation which is daily extending 
 the dominion of British commerce and civilisation. Labour, 
 which brings the sweat upon the brows, requires relaxa- 
 tion, and the child should therefore learn to repose from 
 toil among innocent enjoyments, and to avoid those vicious 
 indulgences which waste the labourer's strength, rob his 
 house of comfort, and must sooner or later be the source 
 of sorrow. There is a dignity in the lot of man in every 
 sphere, if it be not cast away. The honour and the joy of 
 successful toil should fill the labourer's songs in his hour 
 of repose. From religion man learns that all the artificial 
 distinctions of society are as nothing before that God who 
 search cth the heart. Eehgion therefore raises the la- 
 bourer to the highest dignity of human existence, the 
 knowledge of the will and the enjoyment of the favour of 
 God. Instructed by religion, the labourer knows how in 
 daily toil he fulfils the duties and satisfies the moral and 
 natural necessities of his existence, while the outward 
 garb of mortality is gradually wearing off, and the spirit 
 preparing for emancipation. 
 
 An education guided by the principles described in this 
 brief sketch, appears to us appropriate to the preparation 
 of the outcast and orphan children for the great work of 
 a Christian's Hfe. 
 
 After a trial of various expedients, to which allusion 
 has been made in preceding Eeports, it became apparent 
 that the means of embracing within one comprehensive plan 
 the training of the 50,000 pauper children now in the 
 workhouses did not exist in this country; and the im- 
 portance of not abandoning these children to the conse- 
 quences of the misfortunes and vices of their parents grew 
 
300 Second Period 
 
 in proportion to the difficulties with which the subject 
 was encumbered. 
 
 That which seemed most important was the preparation 
 of a class of teachers who would cheerfully devote them- 
 selves, and with anxious and tender sohcitude, to rear 
 these children, abandoned by all natural sympathies, as a 
 wise and affectionate parent would prepare them for the 
 duties of life. 
 
 To so grave a task as an attempt to devise the means 
 of training these teachers, it was necessary to bring a 
 patient and humble spirit, in order that the results of ex- 
 perience in this department might be examined, and that 
 none that were useful might be hastily thrown aside. Our 
 examination of the continental Schools was undertaken 
 with this view. A visit was made to Holland at two suc- 
 cessive periods, on the last of which we took one of 
 Dr. Kay's most experienced schoolmasters with us, in 
 order that he might improve himself by an examination 
 of the methods of instruction in the Dutch Schools, all the 
 most remarkable of which were minutely inspected. A 
 visit has been paid to Prussia and Saxony, in which 
 several of the chief Schools have been examined with a 
 similar design. Two visits were paid to Paris, in which 
 the Normal School at Versailles, the Maison Mere and the 
 Koviciate of the Brothers of the Order of the Christian 
 Doctrine, and a great number of the elementary Schools 
 of Paris and the vicinity, were examined. The Normal 
 School at Dijon was especially recommended to our atten- 
 tion by M. Cousin and M. Villemain, and we spent a day 
 in that School. Our attention was directed with peculiar 
 interest to the Schools of Switzerland, in the examination 
 of which we spent several weeks uninterruptedly. During 
 this period we daily inspected one or more Schools, and 
 conversed with the authorities of the several cantons, with 
 the directors of the Normal Schools, and with individuals 
 distinguished by their knowledge of the science of ele- 
 mentary instruction. The occasional leave of absence 
 from our home duties which you have kindly granted us 
 
The Training School at Battersea 301 
 
 in the last three years respectively was mainly solicited 
 with the view, and devoted to the purpose, of examining 
 the method of instruction adopted in the Schools for the 
 poorer classes on the continent. 
 
 This Eeport is not intended to convey to you the results 
 of our inquiries. It may suffice to describe the chief 
 places visited, and the objects to which our attention was 
 directed, in order that you may know the sources whence 
 we have derived the information by which our subse- 
 quent labours have been guided. We entered Switzer- 
 land by the Jura, descending at Geneva, and, having 
 obtained the sanction of the authorities, were accompanied 
 by some members of the council in our visit to the Schools 
 of the town and neighbourhood. Thence we proceeded to 
 the Canton de Yaud, inspecting certain rural Schools, and 
 the Schools of the towns on the borders of the lake on our 
 way to Lausanne. Here we spent two days in company 
 with M. Gauthey, the director of the Normal School of 
 the canton, whose valuable Eeport has been translated by 
 Sir John Boileau, our fellow-traveller in this part of our 
 journey. 
 
 At Lausanne we attended the lectures, and examined 
 the classes in the Normal School and the Town Schools, 
 and enjoyed much useful and instructive conversation 
 with M. Gauthey, who appeared eminently well quahfied 
 for his important labours. 
 
 At Fribourg we spent some time in the Convent of the 
 Capuchin friars, where we found the venerable Pere Girard 
 officiating at a religious festival; but he belongs to the 
 Dominican order. The Pere Girard has a European re- 
 putation among those who have laboured to raise the 
 elementary instruction of the poorer classes, consequent 
 on his pious labours among the poor of Fribourg ; and the 
 success of his Schools appeared to us chiefly attributable, 
 — first, to the skill and assiduity with which the monitors 
 had been instructed in the evening by the father and his 
 assistants, by which they had been raised to the level of 
 the pupil teachers of Holland ; and secondly, to the skilful 
 
302 Second Period 
 
 manner in which Pere Girard and his assistants had infused 
 a moral lesson into every incident of the instruction, and 
 had bent the whole force of their minds to the formation 
 of the character of the children. It was, at the period 
 of our visit, the intention of Pere Girard to pubhsh a 
 series of works of elementary instruction at Paris, for 
 which we have since waited in vain. 
 
 Near Berne we spent much time in conversation with 
 M. De Fellenberg, at Hofwyl. We visited his great esta- 
 blishment for education there, as well as the Normal 
 School at Munchen Buchsee, in which visit we were 
 accompanied by M. De Fellenberg. What we learned 
 from the conversation of this patriotic and high-minded 
 man we cannot find space here to say. His words are 
 better read in the establishments which he has founded, 
 and which he superintends, and in the influence which 
 his example and his precepts have had on the rest of 
 Switzerland, and on other parts of Europe. The town 
 Schools of Berne and other parts of the canton merited, and 
 received, our attention. 
 
 At Lucerne we carefully examined the Normal and 
 Orphan Schools. Thence we proceeded through Schweitz, 
 with the intention of visiting the colony of the Linth, in 
 Glarus, but failed, from the state of the mountain roads. 
 Crossing the lake of Zurich at Eapperschwyl, we succes- 
 sively visited St. Gall and Appenzell, examining some of 
 the most interesting Orphan Schools in the mountains, 
 particularly one kept by a pupil of De Fellenberg at 
 TeufTen, the Normal School at Gais (Kruisi, the director 
 of which, is a pupil of Pestalozzi), and the Orphan School 
 of M. Zeltveger at Appenzell. 
 
 Descending from the mountains, we crossed the lake 
 to Constance, where we found Yelirli, who had many 
 years conducted the poor school of De Fellenberg at 
 Hofwyl, now in charge of the Normal School of the Canton 
 of Thurgovia, in a large mansion once connected with 
 the convent of Kruitzhngen. Here we spent two days 
 in constant communication with Vehrli and his pupils, 
 
The Training School at Battersea 303 
 
 in the examination of his classes, and deriving from him 
 much information respecting his labours. Erom Con- 
 stance we travelled to Zurich, where we carefully ex- 
 amined the Normal and Model Schools, both at that time 
 considerably shaken by the recent revolution. 
 
 At Lenzburg we had much useful conversation with 
 the director of the Normal School of the Canton of Aar- 
 govia; thence we travelled to Basle, where we visited the 
 orphan house of the town, and also that at Beuggen, 
 as well as other Schools of repute. 
 
 We have ventured to give this sketch of our journey 
 in Switzerland as some apology for the strength of the 
 opuiion we have formed on the necessity which exists 
 for the establishment of a training School for the teachers 
 of pauper children in this country. Our inquiries were 
 not confined to this object; but both here, at Paris, in 
 Holland, and in Germany, we bought every book which 
 we thought might be useful in our future labours ; and in 
 every canton we were careful to collect all the laws re- 
 lating to education, the regulations of the Normal and 
 Elementary Schools, and the bye-laws by which these insti- 
 tutions were governed. An abstract of these laws would 
 form a most useful contribution to the hterature of this 
 country, which is well prepared to regard with respect 
 the institutions of the free Protestant states of Switzerland. 
 
 In the Orphan Schools which have emanated from Pes- 
 talozzi and De Fellenberg, we found the type which has 
 assisted us in our subsequent labours. In walking with 
 M. De Fellenberg through Hofwyl, we hstened to the 
 precepts which we think most apphcable to the education 
 of the pauper class. In the Normal School of the Canton 
 of Thurgovia, and in the Orphan Schools of St. Gall and 
 Appenzell, we found the development of those principles 
 so far successful as to assure us of their practical utility. 
 
 The Normal School at Kruitzlingen is in the summer 
 palace of the former abbot of the convent of that name, 
 on the shore of the Lake of Constance, about one mile 
 from the gate of the city. The pupils are sent thither, 
 
304 Second Period 
 
 from the several communes of the canton, to be trained 
 three years by Yehrh, before they take charge of the 
 Communal Schools. Their expenses are borne in part by 
 the commune, and partly by the council of the canton. 
 We found 90 young men, apparantly from 18 to -24 or 
 26 years of age, in the School. Vehrli welcomed us with 
 frankness and simphcity, which at once won our confi- 
 dence. We joined him at his frugal meal. He pointed 
 to the viands, which were coarse, and said, 'I am a pea- 
 sant's son. I wish to be no other than I am, the teacher 
 of the sons of the peasantry. You are welcome to my meal: 
 it is coarse and homely, but it is offered cordially.' 
 
 We sat down with him. 'These potatoes,' he said, 
 ' are our own. We won them from the earth, and therefore 
 we need no dainties ; for our appetite is gained by labour, 
 and the fruit of our toil is always savoury.' This intro- 
 duced the subject of industry. He told us all the pupils 
 of the Normal School laboured daily some hours in a 
 garden of several acres attached to the house, and that 
 they performed all the domestic duty of the household. 
 When we walked out with Vehrli, we found them in the 
 garden digging, and carrying on other garden operations 
 with great assiduity. Others were sawing wood into logs, 
 and chopping it into billets in the court-yard. Some 
 brought in sacks of potatoes on their back, or baskets of 
 recently gathered vegetables. Others laboured in the 
 domestic duties of the household. 
 
 After a while the bell rang, and immediately their 
 out-door labours terminated, and they returned in an 
 orderly manner, with all their implements, to the court- 
 yard, where having deposited them, thrown off their frocks, 
 and washed, they re-assembled in their respective class- 
 rooms. 
 
 We soon followed them. Here we hstened to lessons 
 in mathematics, proving that they were well-grounded 
 in the elementary parts of that science. We saw them 
 drawing from models with considerable skill and precision, 
 and heard them instructed in the lav/s of perspective. 
 
The Training School at Battersea 305 
 
 We listened to a lecture on the code of the canton, and to 
 instruction in the geography of Europe. We were in- 
 formed that their instruction extended to the language of 
 the canton, its construction and grammar, and especially to 
 the history of Switzerland; arithmetic; mensuration; such 
 a knowledge of natural philosophy and mechanics as might 
 enable them to explain the chief phenomena of nature and 
 the mechanical forces ; some acquaintance with astronomy. 
 They had continual lessons in pedagogy, or the theory of 
 the art of teaching, which they practised in the neigh- 
 bouring village school. We were assured that their in- 
 struction in the Holy Scriptures, and other religious know- 
 ledge, was a constant subject of solicitude.^ 
 
 The following extract from Vehrh's address at the first 
 examination of the pupils, in 1837, will best explain the 
 spirit that governs the seminary, and the attention paid 
 there to what we believe has been too often neglected in 
 this country — the education of the heart and feehngs, as 
 distinct from the cultivation of the intellect. It may 
 appear strange to English habits to assign so prominent a 
 place in an educational institution to the following points ; 
 but the indication here given of the superior care bestowed 
 in the formation of the character to what is given to the 
 acquisition of knowledge, forms in our view the chief 
 charm and merit in this and several other Swiss semi- 
 naries, and is what we have laboured to impress on the 
 institution we have founded. To those who can enter 
 into its spirit, the following extract will not appear tinc- 
 tured with too sanguine views: — 
 
 * The course of life in this seminary is threefold : — 
 ' 1st. — Life in the home circle, or family life. 
 
 ' 2nd. — Life in the school-room. 
 
 * 3rd. — Life beyond the walls in the cultivation of the soil. 
 
 ' I place the family life first, for here the truest education is imparted ; here the 
 future teacher can best receive that cultivation of the character and feelings which 
 will fit him to direct those, who are intrusted to his care, in the ways of piety and 
 truth. 
 
 ' A well-arranged family circle is the place where each member, by participating 
 
 ^ See Table of the course of instruction in Appendix. 
 X 
 
306 Second Period 
 
 in the other's joys and sorrows, pleasures and misfortunes, by teaching, advice, 
 consolation, and example, is inspired with sentiments of single-mindedness, of 
 charity, of mutual confidence, of noble thoughts, of high feelings, and of virtue. 
 
 ' In such a circle can a true religious sense take the firmest and the deepest root. 
 Here it is that the principles of Christian feeling can best be laid, where oppor- 
 tunity is continually given for the exercise of aff*ection and charity, which are the 
 first virtues that should distinguish a teacher's mind. Here it is that kindness and 
 earnestness can most surely form the young members to be good and intelligent 
 men, and that each is most willing to learn and receive an impress from his fellow. 
 He who is brought up in such a circle, who thus recognises all his fellow-men as 
 brothers, serves them with willingness whenever he can, treats all his race as one 
 family, loves them, and God their Father above all, how richly does such a one 
 scatter blessings around ! What earnestness does he show in all his doings and 
 conduct — what devotion especially does he display in the business of a teacher! 
 How differently from him does that master enter and leave his school whose feel- 
 ings are dead to a sense of piety, and whose heart never beats in unison with the 
 joys of family life. 
 
 ' Where is such a teacher as I have described most pleasantly occupied ? In his 
 school amongst his children, with them in the house of God, or in the family circle, 
 and wherever he can be giving or receiving instruction. A great man has ex- 
 pressed, perhaps too strongly, "I never wish to see a teacher who cannot sing." 
 With more reason I would maintain, that a teacher to whom a sense of the plea- 
 sures of a well-arranged family is wanting, and who fails to recognise in it a well- 
 grounded religious influence, should never enter a school-room.' 
 
 As we returned from the garden with the pupils on the 
 evening of the first day, we stood for a few minutes with 
 Vehrli in the court-yard by the shore of the lake. The 
 pupils had ascended into the class-rooms, and the evening 
 being tranquil and warm, the windows were thrown up, 
 and we shortly afterwards heard them sing in excellent 
 harmony. As soon as this song had ceased, we sent a 
 message to request another, with which we had become 
 familiar in our visits to the Swiss schools; and thus, in 
 succession, we called for song after song of Nageh, ima- 
 gining that we were only directing them at their usual 
 hour of instruction in vocal music. There was a great 
 charm in this simple but excellent harmony. When we 
 had hstened nearly an hour, Vehrli invited us to ascend 
 into the room where the pupils were assembled. We 
 followed him, and on entering the apartment great was 
 our surprise to discover the whole school, during the 
 period we had listened, had been cheering with songs 
 their evening employment of peeling potatoes, and cutting 
 the stalks from the green vegetables and beans which 
 they had gathered in the garden. As we stood there 
 
The Training School at Battersea 307 
 
 tliey renewed their choruses till prayers were announced. 
 Supper had been previously taken. After prayers, Yehrh, 
 walking about the apartment, conversed with them fami- 
 liarly on the occurrences of the day, minghng with his 
 conversation such friendly admonition as sprang from the 
 incidents, and then, lifting his hands, he recommended 
 them to the protection of heaven and dismissed them to 
 rest. 
 
 We spent two days with great interest in this estabhsh- 
 ment. Yehrh had ever on his hps, 'We are peasants' 
 sons ; we would not be ignorant of our duties ; but God 
 forbid that knowledge should make us despise the simph- 
 city of our hves. The earth is our mother, and we gather 
 our food from her breast, but while we peasants labour 
 for our daily food we may learn many lessons from our 
 mother earth. There is no knowledge in books hke an 
 immediate converse with nature, and those that dig the soil 
 have nearest communion with her. Believe me, or believe 
 me not, this is the thought that can make a peasant's life 
 sweet and his toil a luxury. I know it ; for see, my hands 
 are horny with toil. The lot of men is very equal, and 
 wisdom consists in the discovery of the truth, that what is 
 without is not the source of sorrow, but that which is 
 within. A peasant may be happier than a prince if his 
 conscience be pure before God, and he learn not only con- 
 tentment, but joy in the hfe of labour, which is to 
 prepare him for the life of heaven.' 
 
 This was the theme always on Yehrh's Hps. Expressed 
 with more or less perspicuity, his main thought seemed I 
 to be that poverty, rightly understood, was no misfortune. [ \ 
 He regarded it as a sphere of human exertion and human 
 trial, preparatory to the change of existence, but offering 
 its own sources of enjoyment as abundantly as any other. 
 
 'We are all equal,' he said, 'before God; why should 
 the son of a peasant envy a prince, or the lily an oak; 
 are they not both God's creatures ? ' 
 
 We were greatly charmed in this school by the union i 
 of comparatively high intellectual attainments among the j/ 
 
 x2 
 
308 Second Period 
 
 scholars with the utmost simphcity of life, and cheer- 
 fulness in the humblest menial labour. Their food was 
 of the coarsest character, consisting chiefly of vegetables, 
 soups, and very brown bread. They rose between four 
 and five, took three meals in the day, the last about six, 
 and retired to rest at nine. They seemed happy in 
 their lot. 
 
 Some of the other Normal Schools of Switzerland are 
 remarkable for the same simplicity in their domestic 
 arrangements, though the students exceed in their intel- 
 lectual attainments all notions prevalent in England of 
 what should be taught in such schools. Thus in the 
 Normal School of the canton of Berne the pupils worked 
 in the fields during eight hours of the day, and spent the 
 rest in intellectual labour. They were clad in the coarsest 
 dresses of the peasantry, wore wooden shoes, and were 
 without stockings. Their intellectual attainments, how- 
 ever, would have enabled them to put to shame the 
 masters of most of our best elementary schools. 
 
 Such men, we felt assured, would go forth cheerfully 
 to their humble village homes to spread the doctrine 
 which Yehrli taught of peace and contentment in virtuous 
 exertion; and men similarly trained appeared to us best 
 fitted for the labour of reclaiming the pauper youth of 
 England to the virtues, and restoring them to the hap- 
 piness of her best instructed peasantry. 
 
 We therefore cherished the hope that on this plan a 
 Normal School might be founded for the training of the 
 teachers, to whom the schools for pauper children might 
 be usefully committed. The period seemed to be unpro- 
 pitious for any public proposals on this subject. We were 
 anxious that a work of such importance should be under- 
 taken by the authorities most competent to carry it into 
 execution successfully, and we painfully felt how inade- 
 quate our own resources and experience were for the 
 management of such an experiment ; but after various in- 
 quiries, which were attended with few encouraging results, 
 we thought that as a tet resort we should not incur the 
 
The Training School at Battersea 309 
 
 charge of presumption, if, in private and unaided, we 
 endeavoured to work out the first steps of the estabhsh- 
 ment of an institution for the training of teachers, which 
 we hoped might afterwards be intrusted to abler hands. 
 We determined therefore to devote a certain portion of our 
 own means to this object, beheving that when the scheme 
 of the institution was sufficiently mature to enable us to 
 speak of results rather than of anticipations, the well-being 
 of 50,000 pauper children would plead its own cause 
 with the government and the public, so as to secure the 
 future prosperity of the establishment. 
 
 The task proposed was, to reconcile a simplicity of life 
 not remote from the habits of the humbler classes, with 
 such proficiency in intellectual attainments, such a know- 
 ledge of method, and such skill in the art of teaching, as 
 would enable the pupils selected to become efficient masters 
 of elementary schools. We hoped to inspire them with 
 a large sympathy for their own class.. To implant in 
 their minds the thought that their chief honour would be 
 to aid in rescuing that class from the misery of ignorance 
 and its attendant vices. To wean them from the influ- 
 ence of that personal competition in a commercial society 
 which leads to sordid aims. To place before them the 
 unsatisfied want of the uneasy and distressed multitude, 
 and to breathe into them the charity which seeks to heal 
 its mental and moral diseases. We were led to select 
 premises at Battersea chiefly on account of the very frank 
 and cordial welcome with which the suggestion of our 
 plans was received by the Hon. and Eev. Eobert Eden, 
 the vicar of Battersea. Mr. Eden offered the use of his 
 village schools in aid of the training school, as the sphere 
 in which the pupils might obtain a practical acquaintance 
 with the art of instruction. He also undertook to super- 
 intend the training school in all that related to religion. 
 
 We, therefore, chose a spacious manor-house close to 
 the Thames, surrounded by a garden of five acres. This 
 house was altered and divided so as to afford a good separate 
 
 X 3 
 
310 Second Period 
 
 residence to Dr. Kay^, who undertook to superintend the 
 progress of the estabhshment for a hmited period, within 
 which it was hoped that the principles on which the 
 training school was to be conducted would be so far deve- 
 loped as to be in course of prosperous execution, and not 
 likely to perish by being confided to other hands. 
 
 In the month of January, 1840, the class-rooms were 
 fitted up with desks on the plan described in the Minutes 
 of the Committee of Council, and we furnished the school- 
 house. About the beginning of February some boys were 
 removed from the School of Industry at Norwood, whose 
 conduct had given us confidence in their characters, and 
 who had made a certain proficiency in the elementary 
 instruction of that school. 
 
 These boys were chiefly orphans, of little more than 1 3 
 years of age, intended to form a class of apprentices. 
 These apprentices would be bound from the age of 14 to 
 that of 21, to pursue, under the guidance and direction of 
 the Poor Law Commission, the vocation of assistant teachers 
 in elementary schools. For this purpose they were to 
 receive at least three years' instruction in the training 
 school, and to be employed as pupil teachers for two 
 years at least in the Battersea village school during three 
 hours of every day. 
 
 At the termination of this probationary period (if they 
 were able satisfactorily to pass a certain examination), 
 they were to receive a certificate, of which mention will 
 be made hereafter, and to be employed as assistant teachers 
 under the guidance of experienced and well-conducted 
 masters, in some of the schools of industry for pauper 
 children. They were at this period to be rewarded with 
 a certain remuneration, increasing from year to year, and 
 secured to them by the form of the indenture. 
 
 If they were unable to satisfy the examiners of their 
 proficiency in every department of elementary instruction, 
 
 ^ For which he pays half the rent and taxes, in addition to his share of 
 the expenses of the school. 
 
The Training School at Battersea 311 
 
 and thus failed in obtaining their certificate, they would 
 continue to receive instruction at Battersea until they had 
 acquired the requisite accomplishments. 
 
 The number of pupil teachers of this class has been 
 gradually increased, during the period which has since 
 elapsed, to 24. But it seemed essential to the success of 
 the school that the numbers should increase slowly. Its 
 existence was disclosed only to the immediate circles of 
 our acquaintance, by whom some boys were sent to the 
 school, besides those whom we supported at our own 
 expense. For the clothing, board and lodging, and educa- 
 tion of each of these boys, who were confided to our care 
 by certain of our friends, we consented to receive £20 
 per annum towards the general expenses of the schools. 
 Pupil teachers have been placed in the establishment by 
 the Bishop of Durham, the Earl of Chichester, Lady Noel 
 Byron, Frederick Walpole Keppel, Esq., the Board of 
 Guardians of the Kingston Union, E. W. Blencowe, Esq., 
 and our colleagues, Edward Senior and Edward Twisleton, 
 and H. W. Parker, Esqrs. 
 
 Besides the class of pupil teachers, we consented to 
 receive young men, to remain at least one year in the 
 establishment, either recommended by our personal friends, 
 or to be trained for the schools of gentlemen with whom 
 we were acquainted. These young men have generally 
 been from 20 to 30 years of age. We have admitted 
 some on the recommendation of Lady George Murray, 
 Lady Noel Byron, the Earl of Eadnor, the Eev. Mr. Hos- 
 kins, of Canterbury ; the Eev. Mr. Wilkinson, of Holbrook, 
 in Suffolk ; Leonard Horner, Esq. 
 
 The course of instruction, and the nature of the disci- 
 pHne adopted for the training of these young men, will be 
 described in detail. This class now amounts to 9, a 
 number accumulated only by very gradual accessions, as 
 we were by no means desirous to attract many students 
 until our plans were more mature, and the instruments of 
 our labour were tried and approved. 
 
 The subjects of instruction were divided, in the first 
 
 x4 
 
312 Second Period 
 
 instance, into two departments, which will be described 
 in this Eeport ; and over each of these departments a 
 tutor was placed. Mr. Home arrived at the opening of 
 the school, and Mr. Tate on the 22nd of March, 1840. 
 
 The domestic arrangements were conducted with great 
 simplicity, because it was desirable that the pupils should 
 be prepared for a hfe of self-denial. A sphere of great 
 usefulness might require the labours of a man ready to 
 live among the peasantry on their own level — to mingle 
 with them in their habitations — to partake their frugal 
 or even coarse meals — and to seem their equal only, 
 though their instructor and guide. It was desirable, 
 therefore, that the diet should be as frugal as was con- 
 sistent with constant activity of mind, and some hours of 
 steady and vigorous labour, and that it should not pamper 
 the appetite by its quality or its variety. 
 
 A schoolmaster might settle in a situation in which a 
 school-house only was provided. Prudence might dictate 
 that he should not marry, and then his domestic comfort 
 would depend on himself. 
 
 No servants, therefore, were provided, with the excep- 
 tion of a matron, who acted as cook. The whole house- 
 hold-work was committed to the charge of the boys and 
 young men ; and for this purpose the duties of each were 
 appointed every fortnight, in order that they might be 
 equally shared by all. The young men above 20 years of 
 age did not aid in the scouring of the floors and stairs, 
 nor clean the shoes, grates, and yards, nor assist in the 
 serving and waiting at meals, the preparation of vege- 
 tables and other garden-stuff for the cook. But the 
 making of beds and all other domestic duty was a 
 common lot ; and the young men acted as superintend- 
 ents of the other work. 
 
 This was performed with cheerfulness, though it was 
 some time before the requisite skill was attained ; and 
 perfect order and cleanliness have been found among the 
 habits most difficult to secure. The pupils and students 
 were carefully informed that these arrangements were 
 
The Training School at Battersea 313 
 
 intended to prepare them for the discharge of serious 
 duties in a humble sphere, and to nerve their minds for 
 the trials and vicissitudes of hfe. 
 
 The masters partook the same diet as the pupils, sitting 
 in the centre of the room and assisting in the carving. They 
 encouraged familiar conversation (avoiding the extremes 
 of levity or seriousness) at the meals, but on equal terms 
 with their scholars, with the exception only of the respect 
 involuntarily paid them. 
 
 After a short time a cow was bought, and committed 
 to the charge of one of the elder boys. Three pigs were 
 afterwards added to the stock, then three goats, and 
 subsequently, poultry, and a second cow. These animals 
 were all fed and tended, and the cows were daily milked, 
 by the pupil teachers. It seemed important that they 
 should learn to tend animals with care and gentleness ; 
 that they should understand the habits and the mode of 
 managing these particular animals, because the school- 
 master in a rural parish often has a common or forest- 
 right of pasture for his cow, and a forest-run for his pig 
 or goat, and might thus, with a little skill, be provided 
 with the means of healthful occupation in his hours of 
 leisure, and of providing for the comfort of his family. 
 
 Moreover, such employments were deemed important, 
 as giving the pupils, by actual experience, some know- 
 ledge of a peasant's Hfe, and therefore truer and closer 
 sympathy with his lot. They would be able to render 
 their teaching instructive, by adapting it to the actual 
 condition and associations of those to whom it would be 
 addressed. They would be in less danger of despising 
 the labourer's daily toil in comparison with intellectual 
 pursuits, and of being led by their own attainments to 
 form a false estimate of their position in relation to the 
 class to which they belonged, and which they were 
 destined to instruct. The teacher of the peasant's child 
 occupies, as it were, the father's place, in the performance 
 of duties from which the father is separated ^y his daily 
 toil, and unhappily, at present, by his want of knowledge 
 
314 Second Period 
 
 and skill. But the schoolmaster ought to be prepared in 
 thought and feeling to do the peasant-father's duty, by 
 having sentiments in common with him, and among these 
 an honest pride in the labour of his hands, in his strength, 
 his manual skill, his robust health, and the manly vigour 
 of his body and mind. 
 
 The garden, on the arrival of our pupil teachers, was a 
 wilderness of rubbish, withered grass, and weeds. Our 
 first attention was directed to labours which were to in- 
 sure the health of the students and pupil teachers, to 
 invigorate their bodies, and make them strong and cheer- 
 ful men. This was a matter of no mean importance. 
 Many of the young men came to the school altogether 
 unfitted for any common bodily exertion. Some, either 
 from previous habits of inactivity, or from having followed 
 some closely sedentary employment, were exceedingly 
 weak. Slight labour in the garden produced profuse 
 perspiration and exhaustion, or muscular cramps, pains, 
 and even inflammation of the muscles of the chest. In 
 two or three instances, the first attempt to labour in the 
 garden (though cautiously commenced) brought on some 
 slight febrile action, which confined the sufierer to the 
 house for a day or two. Exposure to the weather was at 
 first attended with colds or shght rheumatic attacks. In 
 short, the young men were nearly all unaccustomed to 
 any invigorating bodily exercise, and their first attempts 
 to work required a certain period of transition, in which 
 some caution was requisite. 
 
 At first, four hours were devoted every day to labour 
 in the garden. The whole school rose at half-past fiYe, 
 The household-w^ork occupied the pupil teachers alto- 
 gether, and the students partially, till a quarter to seven 
 o'clock. At a quarter to seven, they marched into the 
 garden, and worked tiU a quarter to eight, when they 
 were summoned to prayers. They then marched to the 
 tool-house, deposited their implements, washed, and 
 assembled .at prayers at eight o'clock. At half-past 
 eight they breakfasted. From nine to twelve they were 
 
The Training School at Battersea 315 
 
 in school. They worked at the garden from twelve to 
 one, when they dined. They resumed their labour in the 
 garden at two, and returned to their classes at three, 
 where they were engaged till five, when they worked 
 another hour in the garden. At six they supped, and 
 spent from seven to nine in their classes. At nine, even- 
 ing prayers were read, and immediately afterwards they 
 retired to rest. The subject of the routine of study and 
 labour will be spoken of hereafter, and subsequent altera- 
 tions described ; and the periods of labour and study are 
 here briefly related in reference only to the earhest period 
 of our proceedings. 
 
 The garden, it has been said, was a wilderness of weeds. 
 The first care of the masters was, that it should be regu- 
 larly trenched over its whole surface ; and as the loam 
 was rich and deep, the weeds were buried under three 
 feet of soil. This trenching required vigorous exertion, 
 as the soil had not been disturbed to that depth for many 
 years. The teachers laboured in the trenches, and we 
 occasionally joined. The work, therefore, gradually re- 
 stored order. As the weeds disappeared, the ground was 
 sown with such garden seeds as would yield the most 
 abundant and useful crop for the household consumption. 
 Attention was this year confined to the most obvious 
 necessities, because the state of the ground required so 
 much labour, that little time could be bestowed in pro- 
 viding a variety of garden-stuff as a means of instructing 
 the pupils in horticulture. The ground, it was expected, 
 would be reclaimed before the ensuing spring ; and at that 
 period more comprehensive and systematic instruction in 
 gardening was to commence. 
 
 During the past year, however, the garden has yielded 
 almost all the vegetables and a very abundant supply of 
 fruit for the use of the school. As the year advanced, 
 the crops were gathered and followed by others, cabbages 
 and turnips succeeding the potatoes and peas ; and where 
 a large crop of mangel-wurzel had been grown for the 
 cows, a green crop was sown for their consumption in the 
 
316 Second Period 
 
 spring. The disturbance of tlie soil to so great a depth 
 appeared to have the most beneficial influence on the 
 trees. They bent under a load of fruit, by which the 
 boughs of some were broken ere we were aware, and 
 other boughs had to be disencumbered and propped for 
 their preservation. 
 
 In these labours the pupils and students rapidly gained 
 strength. They almost all soon wore the hue of health. 
 Their food was frugal, and they returned to it with appe- 
 tites which were not easily satisfied. The most delicate 
 soon lost all their ailments. One young man on his arrival 
 was affected with a rheumatic inflammation of the joints, 
 attended with signs of feebleness of constitution, which 
 created some apprehension that this chronic inflammation 
 would incapacitate him. Some perseverance enabled him 
 to work in the garden, and the gymnastic exercises and 
 drill, introduced at a later period, restored him to great 
 muscular vigour. Another had been a tailor, and pro- 
 bably had seldom quitted his shop-board. His first attempts 
 at labour in the garden occasioned inflammation of the 
 muscles of the chest, and severe muscular pains all over 
 the body, attended with much nervous agitation. These 
 symptoms disappeared in about a week or ten days, after 
 which he resumed his work in some light occupations, and 
 by degrees became inured to the more severe, until, after 
 some time, he was the most expert and vigorous athlete 
 in the gymnastic exercises. 
 
 The gymnastic frame and the horizontal and parallel 
 bars were not erected until the constitutional and muscular 
 powers of the pupils and students had been invigorated 
 by labour. After a few months' daily work in the garden, 
 the drill was substituted for garden work during one hour 
 daily. The marching exercise and extension movements 
 were practised for several weeks ; then the gymnastic 
 apparatus was erected, and the drill and gymnastic ex- 
 ercises succeeded each other on alternate evenings. The 
 knowledge of the marching exercise is very useful in 
 enabling a teacher to secure precision and order in the 
 
The Training School at Battersea 317 
 
 movements of the classes or of his entire school, and to 
 pay a due regard to the carriage of each child. A slouch- 
 ing gait is, at least, a sign of vulgarity, if it be not a proof 
 of careless habits — of an inattention to the decencies and 
 proprieties of life, which in other matters occasion dis- 
 comfort in the labourer's household. Habits of cleanliness, 
 punctuahty, and promptitude, are not very compatible with 
 indolence, nor with that careless lounging which fre- 
 quently squanders not only the labourer's time, but his 
 means, and leads his awkward steps to the village tavern. 
 In giving the child an erect and manly gait, a firm and 
 regular step, precision and rapidity in his movements, 
 promptitude in obedience to commands, and particularly 
 neatness in his apparel and person, we are insensibly lay- 
 ing the foundation of moral habits, most intimately con- 
 nected with the personal comfort and the happiness of the 
 future labourer's family. We are giving a practical moral 
 lesson, perhaps more powerful than the precepts which 
 are inculcated by words. Those who are accustomed to 
 the management of large schools know of how much im- 
 portance such lessons are to the establishment of that 
 order and quiet which is the characteristic of the Dutch 
 schools, and which is essential to great success in large 
 schools. A notion is prevalent in some of our English 
 schools that a considerable noise is unavoidable, and 
 some teachers are understood to regard the noise as so 
 favourable a sign of the activity of the school, as even 
 to assert, that the greater the noise the greater the intel- 
 lectual progress of the scholars. The intellectual activity 
 of the best Dutch schools is quite as great as that of any 
 school in this country, and their average merit is exceed- 
 ingly greater than that of the town schools of England ; 
 but a visitor seldom finds in a school of 700 children more 
 than twelve persons speaking in the room at the same 
 time, and those twelve persons are each speaking in a 
 natural tone, and are distinctly heard. Such results do 
 not depend solely or chiefly on the discipline of the drill- 
 master, but they arise, in fact, from that minute attention 
 
318 Second Period 
 
 to all the details of school organisation which secures 
 the greatest amount of attention from the pupil, with the 
 least amount of disturbance to his fellows. In the result, 
 however, attention to the posture and to the movements of 
 the children is by no means an unimportant element. 
 
 The training of the pupil teachers and students in the 
 marching exercises had not, therefore, reference solely 
 to their own habits and health — to their own love of 
 order, cleanliness, and propriety, but to the influence of 
 the formation of such habits in them on their future 
 scholars. Neither was it deemed an unimportant element 
 of the discipHne and organisation ol schools to enable 
 the master to detect at a glance the cause of any disorder 
 in inconvenient postures and ill-timed and inappropriate 
 motions, which it is a part of the duty of an experienced 
 master to control hy a sign. 
 
 The gymnastic exercises were intended, in like manner, 
 to prepare the teachers to superintend the exercises and 
 amusements of the school playground; — to instruct the chil- 
 dren systematically in those graduated trials of strength, 
 activity, and adroitness, by which the muscles are deve- 
 loped, and the frame is prepared for sustaining prolonged 
 or sudden efforts. The playground of the school is so 
 important a means of separating the children from the 
 vicious companions and evil example of the street or lane, 
 and of prolonging the moral influence of the master over the 
 habits and thoughts of his scholars, that expedients which 
 increase its attractions are important, and especially those 
 which enable the master to mingle with his scholars use- 
 fully and cheerfully. The schools of the Canton de Yaud 
 are generally furnished with the proper apparatus for this 
 purpose, and we frequently observed it in France and 
 Germany. 
 
 The pupil teachers and students soon acquired con- 
 siderable skill in these exercises. Their practice was 
 interrupted by the equinoctial rains, but resumed as soon 
 as the frost brought with it more settled weather, and will 
 be steadily pursued. 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 319 
 
 The physical training of our charge was not confined 
 to these labours and exercises. Occasionally Dr. Kay 
 accompanied them in long walking excursions into the 
 country, in which they spent the whole day in visiting 
 some distant school or remarkable building connected 
 with historical associations, or some scene replete with 
 other forms of instruction. In those excursions their 
 habits of observation were cultivated, their attention was 
 directed to what was most remarkable, and to such facts 
 and objects as might have escaped observation from their 
 comparative obscurity. Their strength was taxed by the 
 length of the excursion, as far as was deemed prudent ; 
 and after their return home they were requested to write 
 an account of what they had seen, in order to afford 
 evidence of the nature of the impressions which the ex- 
 cursion had produced. 
 
 Such excursions usefully interrupted the ordinary rou- 
 tine of the school, and afforded a pleasing variety in the 
 intercourse between ourselves and the teachers and pupils. 
 They spurred the physical activity of the students, and 
 taught them habits of endurance, as they seldom returned 
 without being considerably fatigued. 
 
 Such excursions are common to the best Normal Schools 
 of Switzerland. It is very evident to the educators of 
 Switzerland that to neglect to take their pupils forth to 
 read the great truths left on record on every side of them 
 in the extraordinary features of that country, would 
 betray an indifference to nature, and to its influence on 
 the development of the human intelligence, proving that 
 the educator had most limited views of his mission, and 
 of the means by which its high purposes were to be 
 accomplished. 
 
 The great natural records of Switzerland, and its his- 
 torical recollections, abound with subjects for instructive 
 commentary, of which the professors of the Normal 
 Schools avail themselves in their autumnal excursions 
 with their pupils. The natural features of the country; 
 its drainage, soils, agriculture ; the causes which have 
 
320 Second Period 
 
 affected the settlement of its inhabitants and its insti- 
 tutions ; the circumstances which have assisted in the 
 formation of the national character, and have tlius made 
 the history of their country, are more clearly apprehended 
 by lessons gathered in the presence of facts typical of 
 other facts scattered over hill and valley. England is so 
 rich in historical recollections, and in the monuments by 
 which the former periods of her history are linked with 
 the present time, that it would seem to be a not unim- 
 portant duty of the educatoj to avail himself of such 
 facts as lie within the range of his observation, in order 
 that the historical knowledge of his scholar may be 
 associated with these records, marking the progress of 
 civilisation in his native country. Few schools are placed 
 beyond the reach of such means of instruction. Where 
 they do not exist, the country must present some natural 
 features worthy of being perused. These should not be 
 neglected. In book-learning there is always a danger 
 that the thing signified may not be discerned through the . 
 sign. The child may acquire words instead of thoughts. 
 To have a clear and earnest conviction of the reality of 
 the things signified, the object of the child's instruction 
 should as frequently as possible be brought under its eye. 
 Thus Pestalozzi was careful to devise lessons on objects 
 in which, by actual contact with the sense, the children 
 were led to discern qualities which they afterwards de- 
 scribed in words. Such lessons have no meaning to 
 persons who are satisfied with instruction by rote. But 
 we contend that it is important to a right moral state of 
 the intelligence that the child should have a clear percep- 
 tion and vivid conviction of every fact presented to its 
 mind. We are of opinion that to extend the province of 
 faith and implicit unreasoning obedience to those subjects 
 which are the proper objects on wdiich the perceptive 
 faculties ought to be exercised, and on which the reason 
 should be employed, is to undermine the basis of an 
 unwavering faith in revelation, by provoking the rebelhon 
 of the human spirit against authority in matters in which 
 reason is free. 
 
The Training School at Battersea 321 
 
 To the young, the truth (bare before the sight, palpable 
 to the touch, embodied in forms Avhich the senses realise) 
 has a charm which no mere words can convey, until they 
 are recognised as the sign of the truth, which the mind 
 comprehends. In all that relates to the external pheno- 
 mena of the world, the best book is nature, with an 
 intelhgent interpreter. What concerns the social state of 
 man may be best apprehended after lessons in the fields, 
 the ruins, the mansions, and the streets within the range 
 of the school. Lessons on the individual objects prepare 
 the mind for generalizations, and for the exercise of faith 
 in its proper province. Elementary schools, in which 
 word-teaching only exists, do not produce earnest and 
 truthful men. The practice, prevalent in certain parts of 
 the Highlands and Wales, of teaching the children to read 
 English books, though they understand nothing of the 
 English language, is about as reasonable as the ordinary 
 mode of teaching by rote, either matters which the chil- 
 dren do not understand, or which they do not receive 
 with a hvely conviction of their truth. The master who 
 neglects opportunities of satisfying the intelligence of his 
 pupil on anything that can be made obvious to the 
 sense, must be content to find that when his lessons 
 rise to abstractions he will be gazed upon by vacant 
 faces. The mind will refuse a lively confidence in 
 general truths, when it has not been convinced of the 
 existence of the particular facts from which they are 
 derived. From a master, accustomed to regard himself 
 as the interpreter of nature, as the engrafter of thoughts 
 and not of words, and who is endeavouring to form the 
 character of his pupils by inspiring them with an earnest 
 love for truth, the pupils will gladly take much upon 
 authority with a hvely confidence. From the rote teacher 
 they take nothing but words ; he gains no confidence ; it 
 is difficult to love liim, because it is not obvious what 
 good he communicates ; it is difficult to trust him, because 
 he asks belief when he takes no pains to inspire convic- 
 tion. What reverence can attach to a man teachinor a 
 
322 Second Period 
 
 Highland child to read English words, which are unmean- 
 ing sounds to him ? 
 
 The excursions of the directors of the Swiss Normal 
 Schools also serve the purpose of breaking for a time an 
 almost conventual seclusion, which forms a characteristic 
 of estabhshments in which the education of the habits, as 
 well as the instruction of the intelligence, is kept in view. 
 These excursions in Switzerland extend to several days, 
 and even longer in schools of the more wealthy classes. 
 The pupils are thus thrown in contact with actual society ; 
 their resources are taxed by the incidents of each day; 
 their moral quahties are somewhat tried, and they obtain 
 a glimpse of the perspective of their future hfe. It is 
 not only important in this way to know what the condi- 
 tion of society is before the pupil is required to enter it, 
 but it is also necessary to keep constantly before his eye 
 the end and aim of education — that it is a preparation 
 for the duties of his future life, and to understand in 
 what respect each department of his studies is adapted to 
 prepare him for the actual performance of those duties. 
 For each class of society there is an appropriate education. 
 The Normal Schools of Switzerland are founded on this 
 principle. None are admitted who are not devoted to the 
 vocation of masters of elementary schools. The three or 
 four years of their residence in the school are considered all 
 too short for a complete preparation for these functions. 
 The time therefore is consumed in appropriate studies, 
 care being taken that these studies are so conducted as to 
 discipline and develope the intelligence ; to form habits of 
 thought and action ; and to inspire the pupil with prin- 
 ciples on which he may repose in the discharge of his 
 duties. 
 
 Among these studies and objects, the actual condition 
 of the labouring class, its necessities, resources, and in- 
 telhgence, form a most important element. The teachers 
 go forth to observe for themselves ; they come back to 
 receive further instruction from their master. They are 
 led to anticipate their own relations to the commune or 
 
The Training School at Battersea 323 
 
 parish in which their future school will be placed. They 
 are prepared by instruction to fulfil certain of the com- 
 munal duties which may usefully devolve upon them ; 
 such as registrar, precentor, or leader of the church choir, 
 and clerk to the associations of the village. They re- 
 ceive familiar expositions of the law affecting the fulfil- 
 ment of these duties. 
 
 The benefits derived from these arrangements are 
 great ; not only in furnishing these rural communes 
 with men competent to the discharge of their duties, 
 but the anticipations of future utility, and the conviction 
 that their present studies enfold the germ of their future 
 life, gives an interest to their pursuits, which it would be 
 difficult to communicate, if the sense of their importance 
 were more vague and indistinct. 
 
 To this end, in the excursions from Battersea we have 
 been careful to enter the schools on our route, and lessons 
 have been given on the duties attaching to the offices 
 which may be properly discharged by a village school- 
 master in connexion with his duty of instructing the 
 young. 
 
 This general sketch may suffice to give an idea of the 
 external relations of the life of a student in the training 
 school, with the important exception of that portion of 
 his time devoted to the acquirement of a practical know- 
 ledge of the duties of a schoolmaster in the village school. 
 This may be more conveniently considered in connexion 
 with the intellectual pursuits of the school. We now 
 proceed to regard the school as a household^ and to give a 
 brief sketch of its famihar relations. 
 
 The period which has elapsed since the school was 
 assembled is much too brief to enable us fully to realise 
 our conception of such a household among young persons, 
 to the majority of whom the suitable example had per- 
 haps never been presented. 
 
 The most obvious truth lay at the threshold : a family 
 can only subsist harmoniously by mutual love, confidence, 
 
 t2 
 
324 Second Period 
 
 and respect. We did not seek to put tlie tutors into 
 situations of inaccessible authority, but to place them in 
 the parental seat, to receive the wilhng respect and obe- 
 dience of their pupils, and to act as the elder brothers of 
 the young men. The residence of one of us for a certain 
 period, in near connexion with them, appeared necessary 
 to give that tone to the famihar intercourse which would 
 enable the tutors to conduct the instruction, and to main- 
 tain the discipline, so as to be at once the friends and 
 guides of their charge. 
 
 It was desirable that the tutors should reside in the 
 house. They rose at the same hours with the scholars 
 (except when prevented by sickness), and superintended 
 more or less the general routine. Since the numbers have 
 become greater, and the duties more laborious, it has 
 been found necessary that the superintendence of the 
 periods of labour should be committed to each tutor 
 alternately. They have set the example in working — 
 frequently giving assistance in the severest labour, or that 
 which was least attractive. 
 
 In the autumn, some extensive alterations of the pre- 
 mises were to a large extent effected by the assistance of 
 the entire school. The tutors not only superintended but 
 assisted in the work. Mr. Tate contributed his mechanical 
 knowledge, and Mr. Home assisted in the execution of 
 the details. In the cheerful industry displayed on this 
 and on other similar occasions, we have witnessed with 
 satisfaction one of the best fruits of the discipline of the 
 school. The conceit of the pedagogue is not likely to 
 arise among either students or masters, who cheerfully 
 handle the trowel, the saw, or carry mortar in a hod to 
 the top of the building ; such simphcity of life is not very 
 consistent with that vanity which occasions insincerity. 
 But freedom from this vice is essential to that harmonious 
 interchange of kind offices and mutual respect which we 
 were anxious to preserve. 
 
 The diet of the household is simple. The fruits and 
 vegetables of the garden afford the chief variety without 
 
The Training School at Battersea 325 
 
 luxury. The teachers sit in the midst of their scholars. 
 The familiar intercourse of the meals is intended to be a 
 means of cultivating kindly affections, and of insuring that 
 the example of the master shall insensibly form the habits 
 of the scholar. Every day confirms the growing import- 
 ance of these arrangements. 
 
 It has been an object of especial care that the morning 
 and evening prayers should be conducted with solemnity. 
 A hall has been prepared for this service, which is con- 
 ducted at seven o'clock every morning in that place. A 
 passage of Scripture having been read, a portion of a psalm 
 is chanted, or they sing a hymn ; and prayers follow, 
 generally from the family selection prepared by the Bishop 
 of London. The evening service is conducted m a similar 
 manner. The solemnity of the music, which is performed 
 in four parts, is an important means of rendering the family 
 devotion impressive. We trust that the benefits derived 
 from these services may not be transient, but that the 
 masters reared in this school will remember the household 
 devotions, and will maintain in their ow^n dwelUngs and 
 schools the family rite with equal care. 
 
 Quiet has been enjoined on the pupils in retiring to 
 rest. 
 
 The Sunday has been partially occupied by its appro- 
 priate studies. The services of the church have been 
 attended morning and evening ; and, besides a certain 
 period devoted to the study of the formularies, the even- 
 ing has been spent in writing out from memory a copious 
 abstract of one of the sermons. At eight o'clock these 
 compositions have been read and commenteTi upon in the 
 presence of the whole school ; and a most useful oppor- 
 tunity has been afforded for religious instruction, besides 
 the daily instruction in the Bible. Mr. Eden has likewise 
 attended the school on Friday, and examined the classes 
 in their acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures and formu- 
 laries of the Church. The rehgious department, generally, 
 is under his superintendence. 
 
 The skill which they have acquired in singing has en- 
 
 Y 3 
 
326 Second Period 
 
 abled Mr. Eden to create from the school a choir for the 
 village church, increasing the solemnity of the services by 
 the manner in which the sacred music is performed. 
 
 The household and external life of the school are so 
 interwoven with the lessons, that it becomes necessary to 
 consider some of their details together, before the intellec- 
 tual instruction is separately treated. 
 
 The boys who were selected as apprentices were rather 
 chosen on account of their characters than their acquire- 
 ments, which were very meagre. The young men who 
 have been admitted as students have frequently been 
 found even worse prepared than the boys of thirteen years 
 of age, chiefly brought from Norwood, though some of 
 these young men have been in charge of village and work- 
 house schools. Their acquaintance even with rudimental 
 knowledge would not bear the test of shght examination. 
 With pupils and students ahke, it was therefore found 
 necessary to commence at an early stage of instruction, 
 and to furnish them with the humblest elements of know- 
 ledge. The time which has elapsed since the school has 
 opened ought therefore to be regarded as a preparatory 
 period, similar to that which, in Germany, is spent from 
 the time of leaving the primary school to sixteen, the 
 period of entering the Kormal School, in what is called a 
 preparatory training school. 
 
 As such preparatory schools do not exist in this country, 
 we had no alternative. We selected the boys of the most 
 promising character, and determined to wade through the 
 period of preparation, and ultimately to create a prepara- 
 tory class in the school itself. Our design was to examine 
 the pupils of this class at the end of the first year, and to 
 grant to such of them as gave proof of a certain degree of 
 proficiency a certificate as Candidates of the training 
 school. At the end of the second year's course of instruc- 
 tion, it is intended that a second examination shall occur, 
 in which proficients may obtain the certificate of Scholar ; 
 and at the close of the ordinary course in the third year. 
 
The Training School at Battersea 327 
 
 another examination is to be held, in which the certificate 
 of Master will be conferred on those who have attained a 
 certain rank intellectually, and who support their claims 
 by a correct moral deportment. 
 
 The means of determining this proficiency will be de- 
 scribed hereafter. 
 
 Training schools, developed on this design, would there- 
 fore consist of — 
 
 1. Preparatory classes of Students and Pupils. 
 
 2. A class of Candidates. 
 
 3. A class of Scholars. 
 
 And some students, who had obtained the certificate of 
 Master, might remain in the school in preparation for 
 special duties as the Masters of important district schools^ 
 or as Tutors in other training schools. These students 
 would constitute 
 
 4. A class of Masters. 
 
 Hitherto the training school has not passed the prepa- 
 ratory stage. No certificate of candidateship has been 
 granted ; and the examination of the quahfications of the 
 students and pupils, by which they can acquire this certi- 
 ficate, will not occur till the end of March, at which period 
 a certain number will have resided a year in the estabhsh- 
 ment. Another examination may probably take place on 
 the 30th of June, and other certificates of candidateship 
 may then be distributed to those who came to the school 
 between March and June of last year. 
 
 The routine of preparatory classes was at an early period 
 arranged according to the annexed Table, which regulated 
 the daily lessons of the school until the members of the 
 first class were employed as pupil-teachers in assisting in 
 the instruction of the village school. 
 
 T 4 
 
328 
 
 Second Period 
 
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 &I -^ 
 
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 > O 
 
 o 
 
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 o 
 
 o) '-I h ci s-i * ■•-> 
 2 o o3 t:^ o 4) fl 
 
 rC ts ia s o b f3 • 
 
 1 
 
 Committing to 
 memory texts 
 of Scripture, or 
 examination on 
 the Scriptural 
 reading of the 
 week. 
 
 Weekly exami- 
 nation. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Music. 
 
 Q 
 
 Committing to 
 memory texts 
 of Scripture. 
 
 Mechanics. 
 Arithmetic. 
 Mental arithme- 
 tic. 
 Etymology. 
 
 Geography. 
 
 Q 
 
 D 
 S 
 
 H 
 
 Reading in the 
 Bible and re- 
 ligious instruc- 
 tion. The 
 Epistles. 
 
 Arithmetic 
 Mechanics. 
 Etymology. 
 
 Mental arithme- 
 tic. 
 Geography. 
 
 z 
 
 g. 
 
 Reading in the 
 Bible and re- 
 ligious instruc- 
 tion. The Acts 
 of the Apostles. 
 
 Mechanics. 
 Arithmetic. 
 Mental arithme- 
 tic. 
 Etymology. 
 
 Music. 
 
 s 
 
 Reading in the 
 Bible and re- 
 ligious instruc- 
 tion. The Gos- 
 pels. 
 
 Arithmetic 
 Mechanics. 
 Etymology. 
 
 Mental arithme- 
 tic. 
 Geography. 
 
 >< 
 
 a 
 z 
 
 o 
 
 Reading in the 
 Bible and re- 
 ligious instruc- 
 tion. Old Tes- 
 tament history. 
 
 Mechanics. 
 Arithmetic 
 Mental arithme- 
 tic. 
 Etymology. 
 
 Geography. 
 
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The Training School at Battersea 
 
 329 
 
 
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330 Second Period 
 
 The weekly examination was conducted orally during 
 the day, until Dr. Kay's engagements in town rendered it 
 necessary that some other method of examination should 
 be adopted. As soon, therefore, as the attainments of the 
 students and pupils appeared to warrant the experiment, 
 an hour was daily appropriated to examination by means 
 of questions written on the board before the class, the re- 
 phes to which were worked on paper, in silence, in the 
 presence of one of the tutors. This hour is, on successive 
 days of the week, appropriated to different subjects ; viz., 
 grammar, etymology, arithmetic, mensuration, algebra, 
 mechanics, geography, and biblical knowledge. The ex- 
 amination papers are then carefully examined by the tutor 
 to whose department they belong, in order that the value 
 of the reply to each question may be determined in re- 
 ference to mean numbers, 3, 4, 5, and 6. These mean 
 numbers are used to express the comparative difficulty of 
 every question, and the greatest merit of each reply is ex- 
 pressed by the numbers 6, 8, and 10 and 12 respectively, 
 the lowest degree of merit being indicated by 1. 
 
 The sum of the numbers thus attached to each answer 
 is entered in the examination-book opposite to the name 
 of each pupil. These numbers are added up at the end of 
 the week, and reduced to an average by dividing them by 
 the number of days of examination which have occurred 
 in the week. In a similar manner, at the end of the 
 month, the sum of the weekly averages is, for the sake of 
 convenience, reduced by dividing them by four; and a 
 convenient number is thus obtained, expressing the intel- 
 lectual progress of each boy. These numbers are not pub- 
 lished in the school, but are reserved as an element by 
 which we may be enabled to award the certificates of 
 Candidate, Scholar, and Master. 
 
 The examination papers are in our possession after the 
 close of each week, and we select certain of them for our 
 special examination, in order that we may form an opi- 
 nion of the intellectual progress of each pupil. 
 
 The examination for the quarterly certificates will 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 331 
 
 necessarily also include the inspection of the writing, 
 drawings, abstracts, and compositions. Oral examination 
 will be required to ascertain the degree of promptitude 
 and ease in expression of each pupil. They will likewise 
 be required to give demonstrations of problems in arith- 
 metic, algebra, and mechanics, on the black-board, to 
 describe the geography of a district in the form of a 
 lecture, and to conduct a class before us, ere we award 
 the certificates. 
 
 The examination of the pupils will gradually rise in 
 importance, and the quarterly examinations wiU be marked 
 by a progressive character, leading to the three chief ex- 
 aminations for the certificates of Candidate, Scholar, and 
 Master, which will be distinguished from each other, both 
 as respects the nature and number of the acquirements, 
 and by the degree of proficiency required in some branches 
 which will be common to the three periods of study. 
 
 In another department of registration we have thought 
 it important to avoid certain errors of principle to which 
 such registers appear to be liable. We have been anxious 
 to have a record of some parts of moral conduct connected 
 with habits formed in the school, but we have not at- 
 tempted to register moral merit. Such registers are at 
 best very difficult to keep. They occasion rivalry,and often 
 hypocrisy. On this account we did not deem it advisable 
 to require that they should be kept ; but it was important 
 that we should be informed of certain errors interfering 
 with the formation of habits of punctuality, industry, clean- 
 liness, order, and subordination ; and registers were devised 
 for noting deviations from propriety in these respects. 
 First, a time-book is directed to be kept, in which the ob- 
 servance of the hour of rising, and of the successive periods 
 marked in the routine of the school is noted, in order that 
 any general cause of aberration may meet the eye at once. 
 Secondly, one book is kept by the superintendents ap- 
 pointed from among the students to inspect the household 
 work above stairs^ another in relation to the household work 
 below stairs^ and a third by the tutor having charge of 
 
332 Second Period 
 
 out-door labour. In these books tlie duties assigned to 
 eacli pupil are entered opposite to his name. The super- 
 intendent, at the expiration of the period allotted to the 
 work, marks in columns under each of the following heads, 
 — Subordination, Industry, Cleanhness, Order, — the extent 
 of deviation from propriety of conduct by numbers va- 
 rying from 1 to 4. 
 
 The register of punctuality in classes is kept by writing 
 opposite to each pupil's name the number of minutes which 
 elapse after the proper period before he enters the class. 
 The sum of the numbers recorded in these books denotes 
 the extent of errors in habits and manners into which any 
 of the pupils fall, and directs our attention to the fact. 
 Such records would, in connexion with the results of the 
 examinations, enable us to determine whether, in reference 
 to each period, a certificate of Candidate., Scholar., or 
 Master., of the Jirst^ second, or third degree, should be 
 granted. 
 
 The reports of the superintendents are presented to 
 Dr. Kay immediately after morning prayers. The record 
 is read in the presence of the school, and any appeal 
 against the entry heard. At this period the relation 
 which the entire discipline holds to the future pursuits of 
 the pupils is from time to time made familiar to them 
 by simple expositions of the principles by which it is 
 regulated. 
 
 The tendency towards any error in the general conduct 
 is indicated by the registers, and is at this period, if neces- 
 sary, made the subject of mild expostulation. 
 
 Such expostulations have been needed in relation to 
 such precision in the orderly management of the detail of 
 work and household service as can perhaps only be attained 
 by greater experience than the pupils have yet enjoyed. 
 
 The superintendents are chosen from among those 
 students who appear to possess the requisite qualifications. 
 We thus have an unexceptionable means of distin- 
 guishing with offices of trust those in whom we can place 
 most confidence, and of preparing them for the discharge 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 333 
 
 of their future duties by accustoming them to a mild vigi- 
 lance, to fidelity, impartiality, and firmness. On the other 
 hand, the rest of the pupils learn subordination to those 
 who, on account of these qualifications, exercise a limited 
 degree of control over them, and are thus prepared to 
 occupy subordinate positions if it be found necessary that 
 they should be employed as assistants. 
 
 The special training of those who may hereafter take 
 charge of district schools for pauper children has been 
 fulfilled, by charging certain of the superintendents with 
 other details of the domestic arrangements. For this pur- 
 pose a Steward has been appointed among the young men, 
 who has cut and weighed the provisions, and kept accounts 
 resembling the 'Provision Consumption Account' of a 
 workhouse. The dietary has been found to preserve the 
 pupils and students in florid health, under the physical and 
 mental activity in which they have lived. 
 
 The dietary is hung in the steward's room, and guides 
 him in cutting the rations for each meal. 
 
 It does not indicate the amount of vegetables and fruit 
 in pies which are consumed ; and it ought to be remarked 
 that the fruit pies and vegetables have formed a wholesome 
 and considerable part of the food of the household, which 
 has perhaps been enjoyed with the greater relish as it is 
 the product of the labours in the garden. 
 
 The influenza of the spring has been the only sickness 
 which has occurred in the house, excepting those ailments 
 which some of the students brought with them, and which 
 disappeared as soon as they were accustomed to the 
 routine of labour and instruction. Instead of sickness, 
 numerous signs of increased strength, activity, and vigour 
 are observed, which confirm the views by which the diet 
 and the alternations of employment and study have been 
 regulated. 
 
 This is the household life of the school. In proceeding 
 to speak of the intellectual training, we premise that this 
 report afibrds little opportunity for an explanation of the 
 
334 Second Period 
 
 principles which have determined and regulated the pre- 
 paratory course of instruction, and that we do not intend 
 to anticipate the course which will be pursued in the future 
 periods of study for the certificates of Scholar and Master, 
 The questions which beset every step of this path could 
 only be properly discussed in a work on pedagogy, re- 
 sembhng the numerous German pubhcations on this 
 subject. Brief hints only of these principles can find a 
 place in the remarks we have to ofier on the preparatory 
 course. 
 
 The students have been stimulated in their application 
 by a constant sense of the practical utihty of their intel- 
 lectual labours. After morning prayers, they are from 
 day to day reminded of the connexion between their 
 present and future pursuits, and informed how every part 
 of the disciphne and study has a direct relation to the 
 duties of a schoolmaster. The conviction thus created 
 becomes a powerful incentive to exertion, which might be 
 wanting if those studies were selected only because they 
 were important as a discipline of the mind. 
 
 The sense of practical utihty seems as important to the 
 earnestness of the student as the lively conviction attending 
 object teaching in the early and simplest form of ele- 
 mentary instruction. In the earliest steps an acquaintance 
 with the real is necessary to lively conceptions of truth, and 
 at a later period a sense of the value of knowledge re- 
 sulting from experience inspires the strongest conviction of 
 the dignity and importance of all truth, where its imme- 
 diate practical utihty is not obvious. 
 
 Far, therefore, from fearing that the sense of the prac- 
 tical utility of these studies will lead the students to 
 measure the value of all truth by a low standard, tlieir 
 pursuits have been regulated by the conviction, that the 
 most certain method of attaining a strong sense of the 
 value of truths, not readily applicable to immediate use, is 
 to ascertain by experience the importance of those which 
 can be readily measured by the standard of practical uti- 
 lity. Thus we approach the conception of the momentum 
 
The Training School at Battersea 335 
 
 of a planet moving in its orbit, from ascertaining the mo- 
 mentum of bodies whose weight and velocity we can 
 measure by the simplest observations. From the level of 
 the experience of the practical utiHty of certain common 
 truths, the mind gradually ascends to the more abstract, 
 whose importance hence becomes more easily apparent, 
 though their present apphcation is not obvious, and in 
 tliis way the thoughts most safely approach the most diffi- 
 cult abstractions. 
 
 In the humble pursuits of the preparatory course, a 
 lively sense of the utility of 'their studies has Hkewise 
 been maintained by the method of instruction adopted. 
 Nothing has been taught dogmatically^ but everything by 
 the combination of the simplest elements : i. e., the course 
 which a discoverer must have trod has been followed, 
 and the way in which truths have been ascertained pointed 
 out by a synthetical demonstration of each successive step. 
 The labour of the previous analysis of the subject is the 
 duty of the teacher, and is thus removed from the child. 
 
 The preparatory course is especially important, because 
 the pupil's instruction is conducted on the principles 
 which will guide him in the management of his own 
 school. Having ascertained what the pupil knows, the 
 teacher endeavours to lead him by gentle and easy steps 
 from the known to the unknown. The instruction, in the 
 whole preparatory course, is chiefly oral, and is illus- 
 trated, as much as possible, by appeals to nature and by 
 demonstrations. Books are not resorted to until the 
 teacher is convinced that the mind of his pupil is 
 in a state of healthful activity ; that there has been 
 awakened in him a lively interest in truth, and that he 
 has become acquainted practically with the inductive 
 method of acquiring knowledge. At this stage the 
 rules, the principles of which have been orally commu- 
 nicated, and with whose apphcation he is familiar, are 
 committed to memory from books, to serve as a means 
 of recalling more readily the knowledge and skill thus 
 attained. This course is- Pestalozzian, and, it will be per- 
 
336 Second Period 
 
 ceived, is the reverse of the method usually followed, 
 which consists in giving the pupil the rule first. Expe- 
 rience, however, has confirmed us in the superiority of 
 the plan we have pursued. Sometimes a book, as for 
 example a work on Physical Geography, is put into his 
 hands, in order that it may be carefully read, and that 
 the student may prepare himself to give before the class 
 a verbal abstract of the chapter selected for this purpose, 
 and to answer such questions as may be proposed to him, 
 either by the tutor or by his fellows. During the prepa- 
 ratory course exercises of this kind have not been so 
 numerous as they will be in the more advanced stages of 
 instruction. Until habits of attention and steady applica- 
 tion had been formed, it seemed undesirable to allow to 
 the pupils hours for self-sustained study, or voluntary 
 occupation. Constant superintendence is necessary to the 
 formation of correct habits, in these and in all other re- 
 spects, in the preparatory course. The entire day is 
 therefore occupied with a succession of engagements in 
 household work and out-door labour, devotional exercises, 
 meals, and instruction. Eecreation is sought in change of 
 employment. These changes afibrd such pleasure, and 
 the sense of utihty and duty is so constantly maintained, 
 that recreation in the ordinary sense is not needed. Lei- 
 sure from such occupations is never sought excepting to 
 write a letter to a friend, or occasionally to visit some 
 near relative. The pupils all present an air of cheerful- 
 ness. They proceed from one lesson to another, and to 
 their several occupations, with an elasticity of mind which 
 affords the best proof that the mental and physical effects 
 of the training are auspicious. 
 
 In the early steps towards the formation of correct 
 habits, it is necessary that (until the power of self-guid- 
 ance is obtained) the pupil should be constantly under 
 the eye of a master, not disposed to exercise authority so 
 much as to give assistance and advice. Before the habit 
 of self-direction is formed, it is therefore pernicious to 
 leave much time at the disposal of the pupil. Proper 
 
The Training School at Battersea 337 
 
 intellectual and moral aims must be inspired, and the 
 pupil must attain a knowledge of the mode of employing 
 his time with skill, usefully, and under the guidance of 
 right motives, ere he can be properly left to the spon- 
 taneous suggestions of his own mind. Here, therefore, 
 the moral and the intellectual training are in the closest 
 harmony. The formation of correct habits, and the 
 growth of right sentiments, ought to precede such con- 
 fidence in the pupil's powers of self-direction as is implied 
 in leaving him either much time unoccupied, or in which 
 his labours are not under the immediate superintendence 
 of his teacher. 
 
 In the preparatory course, therefore, the whole time is 
 employed under superintendence, but towards the close of 
 the course a gradual trial of the pupil's powers of self- 
 guidance is commenced ; first, by intrusting him with 
 certain studies unassisted by the teacher. Those who 
 zealously and successfully employ their time will, by 
 degrees, be intrusted with a greater period for self-sus- 
 tained intellectual or physical exertion. Further evidence 
 of the existence of the proper quahties will lead to a 
 more liberal confidence, until habits of application and 
 the power of pursuing their studies successfully, and with- 
 out assistance, are attained. 
 
 The subjects of the preparatory course were strictly 
 rudimental. It v^U be found that the knowledge ob- 
 tained in the elementary schools now in existence is a 
 very meager .preparation for the studies of a training 
 school for teachers. Until the elementary schools are 
 improved it will be found necessary to go to the very roots 
 of all knowledge, and to re-arrange such knowledge as the 
 pupils have attained, in harmony with the principles on 
 which they must ultimately communicate it to others. 
 Many of our pupils enter the school with the broadest 
 provincial dialect, scarcely able to read with fluency and 
 precision, much less with ease and expression. Some 
 were ill-furnished with the commonest rules of arithmetic, 
 and wrote clumsily and slowly. 
 
338 , Second Period 
 
 They have been made acquainted with the phonic 
 method of teaching to read practised in Germany. Their 
 defects of pronunciation have been corrected to a large 
 extent by the adoption of this method, and by means of 
 dehberate and emphatic syllabic reading, in a well sus- 
 tained and correct tone. The principles on which the laut 
 or phonic method depends have been explained at con- 
 siderable length as a part of the course of lessons on 
 method which has been communicated to them, and they 
 will commence the practice of this method in the village 
 school as soon as the lesson-books now in course of print- 
 ing are pubhshed. 
 
 We have deemed it of paramount importance that they 
 should acquire a thorough knowledge of the elements and 
 structure of the English language. The lessons in reading 
 were in the first place made the means of leading them 
 to an examination of the structure of sentences, and 
 practical oral lessons were given on grammar and ety- 
 mology according to the method pursued by Mr. Wood 
 in the Edinburgh Sessional School. The results of these 
 exercises were tested by the lessons of dictation and of 
 composition which accompanied the early stages of this 
 course, and by which a hvely sense of the utihty of a 
 knowledge of grammatical construction and of the ety- 
 mological relations of words was developed. As soon as 
 this feeling was created, the oral instruction in grammar 
 assumed a more positive form. The theory on which the 
 rules were founded was explained, and the several laws 
 when well understood were dictated in the least excep- 
 tionable formulae, and were written out and committed 
 to memory. In this way they proceeded through the 
 whole of the theory and rules of grammar before they 
 were intrusted with any book on the subject, lest they 
 should depend for their knowledge on a mere effort of 
 the memory to retain a formula not well understood. 
 
 At each stage of their advance, corresponding exercises 
 were resorted to, in order to famiharise them with the 
 application of the rules. 
 
The Trainiiig School at Battersea 339 
 
 When they had in this way passed through the ordinary 
 course of grammatical instruction, they were intrusted 
 with books, to enable them to give the last degree of pre- 
 cision to their conceptions. 
 
 In etymology the lessons were in hke manner practical 
 and oral. They were first derived from the reading- 
 lessons of the day, and applied to the exercises and 
 examinations accompanying the course, and after a certain 
 progress had been made, their further advance was in- 
 sured by systematic lessons from books. 
 
 A course of reading in Enghsh Hterature, by which the 
 taste may be refined by an acquaintance with the best 
 models of style, and with those authors whose works have 
 exercised the most beneficial influence on the mind of 
 this nation, has necessarily been postponed to another part 
 of the course. It, however, forms one of the most import- 
 ant elements in the conception of the objects to be 
 attained in a training school, that the teacher should be 
 inspired with a discriminating but earnest admiration for 
 those gifts of great minds to English literature which are 
 alike the property of the peasant and the peer ; national 
 treasures which are among the most legitimate sources of 
 national feehngs. 
 
 A" thorough acquaintance with the Enghsh language can 
 alone make the labouring class accessible to the best influ- 
 ence of English civilisation. Without this, lettered men 
 will find it diflicult, if not impossible, to teach the vulgar. 
 
 Those who have had close intercourse with the labour- 
 ing classes well know with what difficulty they comprehend 
 words not of a Saxon origin, and how frequently addresses 
 to them are unintelhgible from the continual use of terms 
 of a Latin or Greek derivation; yet the daily language 
 of the middle and upper classes abounds with such 
 words ; many of the formularies of our church are full 
 of them, and hardly a sermon is preached which does 
 not in every page contain numerous examples of their 
 use. Phrases of this sort are so naturalised in the lan- 
 guage of the educated classes, that entirely to omit them 
 
 z 2 
 
340 Second Period 
 
 has the appearance of pedantry and baldness, and even 
 disgusts persons of taste and refinement. Therefore, in 
 addressing a mixed congregation, it seems impossible to 
 avoid using them, and the only mode of meeting the 
 inconvenience alluded to is to instruct the humbler classes 
 in their meaning. The method we have adopted for this 
 purpose has been copied from that first introduced in the 
 Edinburgh Sessional Schools ; every compound word is 
 analysed, and the separate meaning of each member 
 pointed out, so that, at present, there are few words in 
 the English language which our pupils cannot thoroughly 
 comprehend, and from their acquaintance with the com- 
 mon roots and principles of etymology, the new compound 
 terms, which the demands of civilisation are daily intro- 
 ducing, are almost immediately understood by them. We 
 believe that there are few acquirements more conducive 
 to clearness of thought, or that can be more usefully in- 
 troduced into common schools, than a thorough knowledge 
 of the Enghsh language, and that the absence of it gives 
 power to the illiterate teacher and demagogue, and de- 
 prives the lettered man of his just influence. 
 
 Similar remarks might be extended to style. It is 
 equally obvious that the educated use sentences of a con- 
 struction presenting difficulties to the vulgar which are 
 frequently almost insurmountable. It is, therefore, not 
 only necessary that the meaning of words should be 
 taught on a logical system in our elementary schools, 
 but that the children should be made famihar with ex- 
 tracts from our best authors on subjects suited to their 
 capacity. It cannot be permitted to remain the oppro- 
 brium of this country that its greatest minds have 
 bequeathed their thoughts to the nation in a style at 
 once pure and simple, but still inaccessible to the intelli- 
 gence of the great body of the people. 
 
 In writing, they were trained, as soon as the various 
 books could be prepared, according to the method of 
 Miilhauser, which was translated and placed in the hands 
 of the teachers for that purpose. 
 
The Training School at Battersea 341 
 
 It is unnecessary to describe, in this place, a method of 
 which the details will soon be accessible in the manual 
 now printing. 
 
 It may be sufficient here to remark that both these 
 methods are eminently synthetical. They depend for 
 their success on the delicacy of the analysis which they 
 put into the hands of the teacher, and by which they 
 enable him to present the simplest elements of knowledge 
 first, and then to proceed in a regularly graduated series 
 to those combinations which, if presented in the first 
 instance, would occasion the pupil much difficulty and 
 consequent discouragement. 
 
 In like manner, in arithmetic it has been deemed desir- 
 able to put them in possession of the pre-eminently 
 synthetical method of Pestalozzi. As soon as the re- 
 quisite tables and series of lessons, analysed to the simplest 
 elements, could be procured, the principles on which 
 complex numerical combinations rest were rendered 
 familiar to them, by leading the pupils through the 
 earher course of Pestalozzi's lessons on numbers, from 
 simple unity to compound fractional quantities; connect- 
 ing with them the series of exercises in mental arithmetic 
 which they are so well calculated to introduce and to 
 illustrate. The use of such a method dispels the gloom 
 which might attend the most expert use of the common 
 rules of arithmetic, and which commonly affiDrd the pupil 
 little hght to guide his steps off the beaten path illumi- 
 nated by the rule. 
 
 The analysis in the lessons of Pestalozzi is so minute 
 as to inspire all minds, who have attained a certain know- 
 ledge of number by other means, with a doubt whether 
 time may not be lost by tracing all the minute steps of 
 the analytical series over which his lessons pass. The 
 opposite practice of dogmatic teaching is so ruinous, 
 however, to the intellectual habits, and so unperfect a 
 means of developing the inteUigence, that it ought, we 
 think, at all expense of time, to be avoided. With this 
 
 z 3 
 
342 Second Period 
 
 conviction, the method of Pestalozzi has been dihgently 
 pursued. 
 
 Whilst these lessons have been in progress, the common 
 rules of arithmetic have been examined by the hght of 
 this method. Their theory has been explained, and by 
 constant practice the pupils have been led to acquire 
 expertness in them, as well as to pursue the common 
 principles on which they rest, and to ascertain the prac- 
 tical range within which each rule ought to be employed. 
 The ordinary lessons on mental arithmetic have taken 
 their place in the course of instruction separately from 
 the peculiar rules which belong to Pestalozzi's series. 
 
 These lessons also prepared the pupils for proceeding at 
 an early period in a similar manner with the elements of 
 algebra, and with practical lessons in mensuration and 
 land surveying. 
 
 These last subjects were considered of peculiar import- 
 ance, as comprising one of the most useful industrial 
 developments of a knowledge of the laws of number. 
 Unless, in elementary schools, the instruction proceed 
 beyond the knowledge of abstract rules, to their actual 
 application to the practical necessities of life, the scholar 
 will have little interest in his studies, because he will not 
 perceive their importance, and, moreover, when he leaves 
 the school, they will be of little use, because he has not 
 learned to apply his knowledge to any purpose. On this 
 account boys, who have been educated in common ele- 
 mentary schools, are frequently found, in a few years 
 after they have left, to have forgotten the greater part 
 even of the slender amount of knowledge they had 
 acquired. 
 
 The use of arithmetic to the carpenter, the builder, the 
 labourer, and artisan, ought to be developed by teachmg 
 mensuration and land surveying in elementary schools. 
 If the scholars do not remain long enough to attain so 
 high a range, the same principle should be applied to 
 every step of their progress. The practical apphcation 
 of the simplest rules should be shown by familiar ex- 
 
llie Training School at Battersea 343 
 
 amples. As soon as the cliild can count, he should be 
 made to count objects, such as money, the figures on the 
 face of a clock, &c. When he can add, he should have 
 before hhn shop-bills, accounts of the expenditure of 
 earnings, accounts of wages. In every arithmetical rule 
 similar useful exercises are a part of the art of a teacher, 
 whose sincere desire is to fit his pupil for the apphcation 
 of his knowledge to the duties of hfe, the preparation for 
 which should be always suggested to the pupil's mind as 
 a powerful incentive to action. These future duties should 
 be always placed in a cheering and hopeful point of view. 
 The mere repetition of a table of numbers has less of 
 education in it than a drill in the balance-step. 
 
 Practical instruction in the book-keeping necessary for 
 the management of the household was for these reasons 
 given to those who acted as stewards ; accounts were 
 kept of the seeds, manure, and garden produce, &c., 
 as preparatory to a course of book-keeping, which will 
 follow. 
 
 The ^ recently rapid development of the industry and 
 
 ^ It is somewliat remarkable that since this paragraph was written I should 
 have received a letter from one of the principal Directors of a Railway Com- 
 pany, in which he informs me that the frequent occurrence of accidents had 
 induced the Directors of the railway to make a careful examination into their 
 causes. The Directors rose from this inquiry convinced that these accidents 
 were, to a large extent, attributable to the ignorance of the men whom they 
 had been obliged to employ as engineers, for the want of better ; and to the 
 low habits of these men, who, though they do not subject themselves to dis- 
 missal by such a defiance of regulations as to be found ' drunk,^ are in the habit 
 of stupifying themselves with dram-drinking ! The Directors of the Com- 
 pany had determined, that the proper remedy for these evils was to provide 
 amusement and instruction for their men at night, and application has since 
 been made to Mr. Tate, the tutor in mechanics, &c., in the Training School, 
 to afford his assistance in delivering lectures on mechanics to the engineers, 
 stokers, and other servants of the Company. A large room has been provided 
 for these pm-poses, and it is understood to be the intention of the Company 
 to draw their servants to this room by such amusements as may be more 
 attractive than the tavern — to excite their attention to subjects of instruc- 
 tion appropriate to their duties by a series of popular lectures — and then to 
 open classes, where they may learn mechanics and such of the elements of 
 natural science as may be useful to them in their calling. 
 
 As a part of the amusements, application was made by one of the Directors 
 to Mr. Hullah to open a class like those of the artisans of Paris, and to in- 
 struct them in singing on the method of Wilhem. — J. P. K. S. 
 
 z 4 
 
344 Second Period 
 
 commerce of this country by maclimery creates a want for 
 well-instructed mechanics, which in the present state of 
 education it will be difficult adequately to supply. The 
 steam-engines which drain our coal-fields and mineral 
 veins and beds, which whirl along every railroad, which 
 toil on the surface of every river, and issue from every 
 estuary, are committed to the charge of men of some 
 practical skill, but of mean education. The mental re- 
 sources of the classes who are practically intrusted with 
 the guidance of this great development of national power 
 should not be left uncultivated. This new force has 
 grown rapidly, in consequence of the genius of the people, 
 and the natural resources of this island, and in spite 
 of their ignorance. But our supremacy at sea, and our 
 manufacturing and commercial prosperity (inseparable 
 elements) depend on the successful progress of those arts 
 by which our present position has been attained. 
 
 On this account we have deemed inseparable from the 
 education of a schoolmaster a knowledge of the elements 
 of mechanics and of the laws of heat, sufficient to enable 
 him to explain the structure of the various kinds of steam- 
 engines in use in this country. This instruction has 
 proved one of the chief features even of the prepara- 
 tory course, as we feared that some of the young men 
 might leave the establishment as soon as they had ob- 
 tained the certificates of candidates, and we were unwilhng 
 that they should go forth without some knowledge at least 
 of one of the chief elements of our national prosperity, 
 or altogether without power to make the working man 
 acquainted with the great agent, which has had more in- 
 fluence on the destiny of the working classes than any 
 other single fact in our history, and which is probably 
 destined to work still greater changes. 
 f Knowledge and national prosperity are here in strict 
 alliance. Not only do the arts of peace — the success of 
 our trade — our power to compete with foreign rivals — 
 / our safety on our railways and in our steam-ships — depend 
 \ on the spread of this knowledge, but the future defence 
 
The Training School at Battersea 345 
 
 of this country from foreign aggression can only result \ 
 from our being superior to every nation in those arts. / 
 The schoolmaster is an agent despised at present, but 
 whose importance for the attainment of this end will, by 
 the results of a few years, be placed in bold relief before 
 the public. 
 
 The tutor to whom the duty of communicating to the 
 pupils a knowledge of the laws of motion, of the mechanical 
 powers and contrivances, and of the laws of heat, was 
 committed, was selected because he was a self-educated 
 man, and was willing to avail himself of the more popular 
 methods of demonstration, and to postpone the apphcation 
 of his valuable and extensive mathematical acquirements. 
 By his assistance, the pupils and students have been led 
 through a series of demonstrations of mechanical combi- 
 nations, vmtil they were prepared to consider the several 
 parts of the steam-engine, first separately, and in their suc- 
 cessive developments and applications, and they are at 
 present acquainted with the more complex combinations 
 in the steam-engines now in use, and with the principles 
 involved in their construction and action. 
 
 In geography it has been deemed important that the 
 tutors should proceed by a similar method. The lessons 
 on land surveying have famiharised the pupils with the 
 nature ^nd uses of maps. As one development of the art 
 of drawing, they have been practised in map-drawing. 
 For this purpose, among other expedients, the walls of 
 one class-room have been prepared with mastic, in order 
 that bold projections of maps might be made on a great 
 scale. 
 
 Physical geography has been deemed the true basis of 
 all instruction in the geography of industry and commerce, 
 which ought to form the chief subject of geographical 
 instruction in elementary schools. The tutor has first 
 endeavoured to convince the pupils that nothing which 
 presents itself to the eye in a well-drawn map is to be re- 
 garded as accidental ; the boldness of the promontories ; 
 the deep indenture of the bays ; the general bearings of 
 
346 Second Period 
 
 the coast ; are all referable to natural laws. In these 
 respects the eastern and western coasts of England are in 
 striking contrast, in appearance, character, and in the 
 circumstances which occasion their peculiarities. The 
 physical geography of England commences with a descrip- 
 tion of the elevation of the mountain ranges, the different 
 levels, and the drainage of the country. The course, 
 rapidity, and volume of the rivers are referable to the ele- 
 vation and extent of the country which they drain. From 
 the cHmate, levels, and drainage, with little further matter, 
 the agricultural tracts of the country may be indicated ; 
 and when the great coal-fields and the mineral veins and 
 beds, the depth of the bays and rivers, are known, the dis- 
 tribution of the population is found to be in strict relation 
 to certain natural laws. Even the ancient political divisions 
 of the country are, on inspection, found to be in close de- 
 pendence on its drainage. The counties are river basins, 
 which were the first seats of tribes of population. If any 
 new political distribution were to be made, it would 
 necessarily, in like manner, be affected by some natui'al 
 law, which it is equally interesting and useful to trace. 
 
 Geography taught in this way is a constant exercise to 
 the reasoning powers. The pupil is led to trace the mutual 
 dependence of facts, which, in ordinary instruction, are 
 taught as the words of a vocabulary. Geography, taught 
 in the ordinary way is as reasonable an acquisition as the 
 catalogue of a museum, which a student might be com- 
 pelled to learn as a substitute for natural history. A cata- 
 logue of to'wns, rivers, bays, promontories, &c., is even less 
 geography than the well-arranged catalogue of a museum 
 is natural history, because the classification has a logical 
 meaning in the latter case, which is absent in the former. 
 
 The intelligent tutor should feel himself bound to ac- 
 quire sufficient knowledge to explain to his pupil the 
 mutual dependence of the facts which the map presents 
 to the eye. Thus it is easy to explain why certain tracts 
 are rich pastures, why others are arable; to account for 
 the climate, productions, industry, and commerce of such 
 
The Trai7iing School at Batter sea 347 
 
 a county as Lancashire, and to read its history in the 
 natural features of its hills, valleys, streams, coal-field, 
 rivers, and western site. London, originally the outport to 
 Europe, now the outport to the world, presents a great 
 problem, equally instructing and useful to work, compared 
 with which the facts of its being the capital of England, 
 and situated on the Thames (ordinarily taught), are as 
 the ciphers detached from a numerical power. Its tidal 
 river carrying vessels into the heart of the land ; its posi- 
 tion in relation to the old Norman possessions of the 
 conquerors of this country; its subsequent position between 
 the commerce of Europe and the richest tracts of England ; 
 the facilities which it affords equally for commerce with 
 the East and the West Indies; the resources it derives 
 from the Northumberland and Durham coal-fields, with- 
 out which its prosperity would suffer a grievous blow 
 from the rivalry of other outports to which coal-beds are 
 readily accessible: these, and a multitude of other consi- 
 derations, too numerous to relate in this place, constitute 
 that lesson in geography which the mention of London 
 suggests. Its very place in the map is determined by 
 natural laws of the most positive character, and capable 
 of strict definition. 
 
 Every county in England and Scotland is treated induc- 
 tively in this manner, and its productions, the distribution 
 of its population, &c., are referred to the operation of 
 the natural laws on which, in the beneficent providence 
 of God towards our country, they are dependent. 
 
 In like manner, but in more general terms, the great 
 streams of our commerce are described and accounted 
 for. The colonies of England form the first step beyond 
 this country, and beyond a general description of the 
 world ; and tlien follow those nations with which we have 
 the most intimate commercial connexion. 
 
 This geography is examined in relation to the great 
 commercial activity of England, and the influence of our 
 industry on the Christian civihsation of the world. 
 
 In like manner, the great internal changes of the country 
 
348 Second Period 
 
 are accounted for. The spread of agriculture over pre- 
 viously barren tracts ; the drainage of former marshes ; 
 the influence of the coal-fields in creating great vortices of 
 trade, to which all the domestic manufactures are drawn ; 
 the laws affecting the importance of the respective out- 
 ports, &c. &c. ; are topics of important illustrations. 
 
 For the dehvery of this course of instruction the present 
 books and maps are found exceedingly defective. No good 
 school-books on geography exist, and the maps at present 
 in use are mere outlines, neglecting most of the great fea- 
 tures of physical geography, which is the basis, first, of the 
 geography of commerce and industry, and then (in a natu- 
 ral series) of that statistical and political geography which 
 should form a prominent element of the instruction given 
 in schools for the middle classes. 
 
 Maps are wanted, in which the elevation and drainage 
 of the country should be faithfully dehneated, giving the 
 chief coal-fields and mineral veins and beds ; containing 
 the soundings of the coast and harbours, and the chief 
 means of internal commercial communication, such as 
 canals, railroads, &c. On this basis should be depicted in 
 colour the great agricultural tracts, as distinguished by 
 soils ; and the seats of the chief manufactures. Along 
 the coast the chief streams of commerce should be shown ; 
 the fisheries ; and the comparative amount of tonnage 
 entering every port. The use of a few symbols would 
 convey much important information respecting our in- 
 ternal relations. 
 
 Geographies should be prepared adapted to the use of 
 such maps both by the teacher and by his scholars. 
 
 If such maps and books had been in existence, the 
 tutors of the Training School would have been spared 
 much labour, and the progress of their pupils would have 
 been both more rapid and more satisfactory. 
 
 As a department of geographical instruction, the ele- 
 ments of the use of the globes, in connection with nautical 
 astronomy, has been cultivated with some diligence. 
 
The Training School at Battersea 849 
 
 The further progress of the pupils in the geography of 
 commerce and industry will be accelerated by the lectures 
 which will now be delivered three days in the week by 
 Mr. Hughes, one of the Professors of the College of En- 
 gineers, who has been appointed lecturer on this subject. 
 
 The outhnes only of the history of England have been 
 read, as preparatory to a course of instruction in English 
 history, which is to form one of the studies of the second 
 year. The history of England has been read in the even- 
 ing as an exercise in the art of reading, and the examin- 
 ations which have followed have been adapted only to 
 secure general impressions as to the main facts of our his- 
 tory. In the second year's course it is hoped that this 
 general knowledge will be found useful. 
 
 Skill in drawing was deemed essential to the success of 
 a schoolmaster. Without this art he would be unable to 
 avail himself of the important assistance of the black-board, 
 on which his demonstrations of the objects of study ought 
 to be deUneated. His lessons on the most simple subjects 
 would be wanting demonstrative power, and he would be 
 incapable of proceeding with lessons in mechanics, with- 
 out skill to dehneate the machines of which his lessons 
 treated. 
 
 The art of design has been little cultivated among the 
 workmen of England. Whoever has been accustomed to 
 see the plans of houses and farm buildings, or of public 
 buildings of a humble character from the country, must 
 know the extreme deficiency of our workmen in this 
 apphcation of the art of drawing, where it is closely con- 
 nected with the comfort of domestic life, and is essential 
 to the skilful performance of pubhc works. The survey 
 now in progress under the Tithe Commissioners affords 
 abundant evidence of the want of skill in map-drawing 
 among the rural surveyors. 
 
 The improvement of our machinery for agriculture and 
 manufactures would be in no small degree facilitated, if 
 
350 Second Period 
 
 the art of drawing were a common acquirement among 
 our artisans. Invention is checked by the want of skill 
 in communicating the conception of the inventor, by draw- 
 ings of all the details of his combination. In all those 
 manufactures of which taste is a principal element, our 
 neighbours, the French, are greatly our superiors, solely, 
 we believe, because the eyes and the hands of all classes 
 are practised from a very early age in the arts of design. 
 In the elementary schools of Paris, the proficiency of the 
 young pupils in drawing is very remarkable, and the even- 
 ing schools are iiUed with young men and adults of mature 
 or even advanced age, engaged in the dihgent cultivation 
 of this art. Last midsummer, in some of the evening 
 schools of the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, classes 
 of workmen were questioned as to their employments. 
 One was an ebeniste, another a founder, another a clock- 
 maker, another a paper-hanger, another an upholsterer; 
 and each was asked his hours of labour, and his motives 
 for attendance. A single example may serve as a type. 
 A man without his coat, whose muscular arms were bared 
 by rolling his shirt-sleeves up to his shoulders, and who, 
 though well washed and clean, wore the marks of toil on 
 his white horny hands, was sitting with an admirable copy 
 in crayon of La Donna della Segiola before him, which 
 he had nearly completed. He was a man about 45 years 
 of age. He said he had risen at five, and had been at 
 work from six o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock 
 in the evening, with brief intervals for meals ; and he had 
 entered the evening class at eight o'clock, to remain there 
 till ten. He had pleasure, he said, in drawing, and that 
 a knowledge of the art greatly improved his skill and 
 taste in masonry. He turned round with a good-humoured 
 smile, and added, he could live better on less wages than 
 an Englishman, because his drawing cost him less than 
 beer. Some thousand working men attend the adult 
 schools every evening in Paris, and the drawing classes 
 comprise great numbers whose skill would occasion much 
 astonishment in this country. The most difficult engravings 
 
Tlie Training School at Battersea 351 
 
 of the paintings of the Italian masters are copied in crayon 
 with remarkable skill and accuracy. Complex and exqui- 
 sitely minute architectural details, such, for example, as 
 perspective views of the Duomo at Milan, or the cathe- 
 drals at Eouen or Cologne, are drawn in pen and ink, with 
 singular fidelity. Some were drawing from plaster casts 
 and other models. We found such adult schools in many 
 of the chief towns of France. These scliools are the 
 sources of the taste and skill in the decorative arts, and in 
 all manufactures of which taste is a prominent element, 
 and which have made the designs for the cahco printers, 
 the silk and ribbon looms, the papers, &c. &c., of France, 
 so superior in taste to those of this country, notwithstand- 
 ing the superiority of our manufactories in mechanical 
 combinations. 
 
 These considerations lead us to account drawing an im- 
 portant department of elementary education. The manu- 
 facturers of Lancashire are well aware how difficult it is, 
 from the neglect of the arts of design among the labourers 
 of this country, to procure any skilled draftsmen to design 
 for the cotton or silk manufacturer. The elevation of the 
 national taste in art can only be procured by the constant 
 cultivation of the mind in relation to the beautiful in form 
 and colour, by familiarising the eye with the best models, 
 the works of great artists, and beautiful natural objects. 
 Skill in drawing from nature results from a careful progress 
 through a well-analysed series of models. The interests 
 of commerce are so intimately connected with the results 
 to be obtained by this branch of elementary education, 
 that there is httle chance that it will much longer suffer 
 the grievous neglect which it has hitherto experienced. 
 
 The drawing classes at Battersea were first exercised in 
 very simple models, formed of oblong pieces of wood, 
 arranged in a great variety of forms by the master, ac- 
 cording to a method observed in the Swiss and German 
 schools. These Avere drawn in common and in isometrical 
 perspective, the laws of perspective being at the same 
 time carefully explained, and the rules applied in each 
 
352 Second Period 
 
 case to the object wliicli the pupil drew. A very little 
 practice made us aware that a method comprising a more 
 minute analysis of form was necessary to the greatest 
 amount of success. Some inquiries which were pursued 
 in Paris put us in possession of the method invented by 
 M. Dupuis ; and a series of his models were purchased 
 and brought over at the close of the autumn, for the 
 purpose of making a careful trial of this method. Con- 
 siderable difficulty was experienced in procuring the 
 services of an artist to superintend the instruction ; but at 
 length the application of this method has been commenced, 
 and is in progress. 
 
 The experience of the French Inspectors of Schools 
 (at an early period after the estabhshment of the system 
 of inspection) convinced them that, to the perfection of 
 skill in drawing form, the practice of drawing from 
 models is necessary. The best copyists frequently, or 
 rather generally, were found to fail in drawing even very 
 simple natural objects on their first trials. In the drawing 
 schools at Paris, in which the most elaborate engravings 
 were admirably copied, an Inspector would discover that 
 the pupils were unable to draw correctly the professor's 
 desk and chair. It became, therefore, evident that the 
 copy could not stand in the place of the natural object. 
 Coppng works of art might be essential to one department 
 of skill and taste, but it by no means necessarily gave skill 
 in drawing from nature. 
 
 M. Dupuis was an Inspector, and, observing this defect, 
 he invented a series of models, ascending from a simple 
 line of wire through various combinations to complex 
 figures. These models are fixed in an instrument on the 
 level of the eye, and may, by the movement of the instru- 
 ment, be placed in a varying perspective. By this means 
 the pupil may learn to draw the simplest objects, and 
 proceed by gradual steps through a series of combinations 
 of an almost insensibly increasing difficulty, until he can 
 draw faithfully any object, however complex. The in- 
 strument which holds the object enables the teacher, by 
 
I 
 
 The Training School at Battersea 353 
 
 varying its position, to give at each lesson a series of demon- 
 strations in perspective, applying the rules to objects of a 
 gradually increasing complexity, until they are understood 
 in their relations to the most difficult combinations. Thus 
 practical skill and theoretical knowledge are in harmony 
 in this instruction. The taste may afterwards be cultivated 
 by drawing those works of art best adapted to create a 
 just sense of the beautiful in form and colour. 
 
 That which a workman first requires is mechanical skill 
 in the art of drawing. Nature itself offers many opportu- 
 nities to cultivate the taste insensibly ; and skill can be 
 acquired only by careful and prolonged practice in the 
 art of drawing from nature. In the more advanced parts 
 of the course, we shall be able to satisfy ourselves as to 
 the best mode of using the skill acquired for the formation 
 of the taste. 
 
 In the Normal Schools at Versailles, one year's instruc- 
 tion had sufficed to. give the pupils a wonderful facility 
 and skill in drawing from models. Some complicated 
 pneumatic apparatus, consisting of glass, mahogany, brass, 
 and in difficult perspective, was drawn rapidly, and with 
 great truth and skill. It is not, however, our intention to 
 carry the instruction, of our pupils in this art further than 
 is necessary for the industrial instruction of their future 
 scholars. 
 
 Some of the reasons inducing us to attach much im- 
 portance to the cultivation of vocal music have already 
 been briefly indicated. We regarded it as a powerful 
 auxiliary in rendering the devotional services of the house- 
 hold, of the parish church, and of the village school 
 solemn and impressive. Our experience satisfies us that 
 we by no means over-estimated this advantage, though all 
 the results are not yet obtained which, we trust, will flow 
 from the right use of these means. 
 
 Nor were we indifferent to the cheerfulness diffused in 
 schools by the singing of those melodies which are attrac- 
 tive to children, nor unconscious of the moral power 
 
 A A 
 
354 Second Period 
 
 which music has when hnked with sentiments which it is 
 the object of education to inspire. We regard school 
 songs as an important means of diffusing a cheerful view 
 of the duties of a labourer's life ; of diffusing joy and 
 honest pride over English industry. Therefore, to neglect 
 so powerful a moral agent in elementary education as 
 vocal music would appear to be unpardonable. We 
 availed ourselves of some arrangements which were at 
 this time in progress, under the superintendence of the 
 Committee of Council, for the introduction of the method 
 of M. Wilhem, which has been singularly successful in 
 France. It affords us great satisfaction to say how much 
 advantage the pupils of the Training School have derived 
 from the instruction they have received, during the de- 
 velopment of this method, from Mr. HuUah, the gentleman 
 selected by the Committee of Council to adapt the method 
 of Wilhem, under their superintendence, to the tastes and 
 habits of the Enghsh people. Mr. Hullah has devoted 
 himself with unceasing assiduity and great skiU to this 
 important public duty ; and his pupils will always re- 
 member, with a pleasure without any alloy, the delightful 
 lessons they have received from him. 
 
 The method of Wilhem is simply an apphcation of the 
 Pestalozzian method of ascending from the simple to the 
 general through a clearly analysed series, in which every 
 step of the progress is distinctly marked, and enables the 
 pupil, without straining his faculties, to arrive at results 
 which might otherwise have been difficult of attainment. 
 Wilhem has not in any respect deviated from the well- 
 ascertained results of experience, either in the theory of 
 music or in the musical signs ; but he has with great skill 
 arranged all the early lessons, so as to smooth the path of 
 the student to the desirable result of being able to read 
 music with ease, and to sing with skill and expression 
 even difficult music at sight. The progress of the pupils 
 at Battersea has been very gratifying, and, even in the 
 brief period which has elapsed since the opening of the 
 school, they sing music at sight with considerable facihty. 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 355 
 
 They have received, on the average, only two lessons 
 weekly, each of an hour's duration, and until lately have 
 not been permitted to practise in the intervals, lest they 
 should contract bad habits before their sense of time and 
 tune had been cultivated. Of late, they have been per- 
 mitted to practise daily for one hour. Their progress has 
 necessarily been less rapid than it would have been had 
 the entire method been previously arranged, as it now is, 
 in a complete and logical- series, as the result of Mr. 
 HuUah's valuable labour. Much time has necessarily been 
 expended in copying music, which will be spared to those 
 who follow, and who, after Easter, 1841, will possess the 
 volume and singing tablets pubhshed by the Committee 
 of Council on Education. 
 
 Those who desire further proof of the importance of 
 the method of Wilhem should visit the Normal School at 
 Versailles, various day schools at Paris, and especially the 
 great assemblages of the Working Classes, which occur 
 almost every evening in Paris, for the purpose of receiving 
 instruction in vocal music. The most remarkable of these 
 probably is at the Halle-aux-Draps, where from 300 to 500 
 artisans are almost every evening instructed, from eight to 
 nine o'clock, in vocal music-. M. Hubert, a pupil of Wil- 
 hem, conducts this great assembly, by the method of 
 mutual instruction, with singular skill and precision. We 
 know scarcely anything more impressive than the swell of 
 these manly voices when they unite in chorus. 
 
 •If the music of Handel and Haydn were better known 
 by the professors of music at Paris, assuredly this would 
 be the place in which to display its most remarkable 
 effects. Even in the singing ofWilhem's solfeggios in 
 harmony, or of the scale in harmony, such a volume of 
 sound was poured forth, that the effects were very im- 
 pressive. 
 
 A method which has succeeded in attracting thousands 
 of artisans in Paris from low cabarets and miserable 
 gambling-houses to the study of a science, and the practice 
 of a aiptivating art, deserves the attention of the public. 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 - Second Period 
 
 Mr. HuUah, in adapting tlie method of Wilhem to English 
 tastes and habits, has both simphfied and refined it. He 
 has, moreover, adapted to it a considerable number of old 
 English melodies of great richness and character, which 
 were fast passing into oblivion, and which may be restored 
 to the place they once held in the affections of the people, 
 being now allied with words expressive of the joys and 
 hopes of a labourer's Hfe, and of the true sources of its 
 dignity and happiness. 
 
 We have assisted in the development of this method, 
 being convinced that it may tend to elevate the character 
 of our elementary schools, and that it maybe of great use 
 throughout the country in restoring many of our best old 
 English melodies to their popularity, and in improving the 
 character of our vocal music in village churches, through 
 the medium of the parochial schoolmaster and his pupils. 
 
 The pupils and students of the Training School now 
 conduct the vocal music in the Hon. and Eev. Eobert 
 Eden's church at Battersea, and, under Mr. HuUah's 
 superintendence, they also manage the instruction of the 
 village school in singing. 
 
 When the preparatory course was sufficiently advanced, 
 a series of lectures on the construction and organisation 
 of elementary schools, and on the theory and art of teach- 
 ing, were commenced. They have resembled those given 
 in the German and Swiss schools under tlje generic term 
 Pasdagogik. 
 
 They have treated of the general objects of education, 
 and the means of attaining them. The peculiar aims of 
 elementary education ; the structure of school-houses in 
 various parts of Europe ; the internal arrangement of the 
 desks, forms, and school apparatus, in reference to dif- 
 ferent methods of instruction ; and the varieties of those 
 methods observed in different countries. The theory of 
 the discipline of schools. Its practice, describing in detail 
 the different expedients resorted to in different countries 
 for the purpose of procuring order, decorum, propriety of 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 357 
 
 posture and manner, regularity and precision in movements, 
 and in changes of classes and exercises, and especially tlie 
 right means of securing the reverence and the love of the 
 children. This last subject naturally connects the consi- 
 deration of the mechanical and methodic expedients with 
 that of the sources of the schoolmaster's zeal, activity, 
 and influence, on which much has been said. To these 
 subjects have succeeded lectures on the great leading 
 distinctions in the methods of communicating know- 
 ledge. When the distinguishing principles had been 
 described, the characteristic features of the several methods 
 were examined ^^;i^?^a%, and certain pecuHar applications 
 of each were treated. The application of these methods to 
 each individual branch of instruction was then commenced, 
 and this part of the course has treated of various methods 
 of teaching to read, especially giving a minute description 
 of the phonic method. Of methods of teaching to write, 
 giving a special account of the method of Mulhauser. 
 On the application of writing in various methods of in- 
 struction. Of methods of teaching to draw, giving a 
 detailed account of that of M. Dupuis. Of methods of 
 teaching arithmetic, in which the method of Pestalozzi 
 has been carefully explained, and other expedients exa- 
 mined. This brief sketch may indicate the character of 
 the instruction up to the period of this Eeport. Our 
 desire is to anticipate as little as possible, but, on the 
 contrary, to relate only what has been done. We have 
 therefore only to add, that the instruction in Pgedagogik 
 is in its preparatory stage, and that the course will be 
 pursued, in relation both to the general theory and practice, 
 and to the special application of the theory and practice 
 to the development of the village school, and of the train- 
 ing school, through the whole period of instruction, as 
 that part of the studies of the pupils by which the mutual 
 relations of these studies are revealed, and their future 
 apphcation anticipated. 
 
 We regard these lectures, combined with the zealous 
 labour of the Hon. and Eev. Eobert Eden, as the chief means 
 
 A A 3 
 
358 Second Period 
 
 by which, aided by the tutors, such a tone of feehng can be 
 maintained as shall prepare the teachers to enter upon 
 their important duties, actuated by motives which will 
 be the best means of insuring their perseverance, and 
 promoting their success. 
 
 The Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, who devote 
 their lives a cheerful sacrifice to the education of the 
 poorer classes of France, can be understood best by those 
 who have visited their Noviciate and schools at Paris. 
 From such persons we expect acquiescence when we say, 
 that their example of Christian zeal is worthy of the 
 imitation of protestants. Three of the Brothers of this 
 order are maintained for a sum which is barely the 
 stipend of one teacher of a school of mutual instruction 
 in Paris. Their schools are unquestionably the best at 
 Paris. Their manners are simple, affectionate, and sincere. 
 The children are singularly attached to them. How 
 could it be otherwise, when they perceive that these 
 good men have no other reward on earth for their mani- 
 fold labours than that of an approving conscience ? 
 
 The regime of the Noviciate is one of considerable aus- 
 terity. They rise at four. They spend an hour in private 
 devotion, which is followed by two hours of religious exer- 
 cises in their chapel. They breakfast soon afterwards, and 
 are in the day schools of Paris at nine. They dine about 
 noon, and continue their attention to the schools till ^Ye. 
 They sup at six, and then many of them are employed in 
 evening schools for the adults from seven till nine, or 
 from eight to ten, when, after prayers, they immediately 
 retire to rest. 
 
 No one can enter the schools of the Brothers of the 
 Christian Doctrine without feeling instinctively that he is 
 witnessing a remarkable example of the development of 
 Christian charity. 
 
 With such motives should the teachers of elementary 
 schools, and especially those who are called to the arduous 
 duties of training pauper children, go forth to their 
 work. The path of the teacher is strewn with disappoint- 
 
I 
 
 The Training School at Battersea 359 
 
 ments, if lie commence with a mercenary spirit. It is 
 full of encouragement, if he be inspired with the spirit 
 of Christian charity. No skill can compensate adequately , i / 
 for the absence of a pervading religious influence on the / 
 character and conduct of the schoolmaster. 
 
 The discipline of the Training School has been gradually 
 developed with this design ; 'and, under the faithful and 
 judicious guidance of Mr. Eden, we trust, in the course of 
 time, it may obtain some measure of success. 
 
 It is in this spirit that we have been anxious that 
 the young pupils and students should, under the superin- 
 tendence of Mr. Eden, and the immediate tuition of the 
 master of the village school, undertake their duties in 
 that scene of labour and instruction. 
 
 It is not our intention to say much on the arrange- 
 ments which have been adopted in the Village School, 
 which has been connected with the Training School only 
 a few weeks. The first class of the Training School has 
 been divided into two sections, one of which suppHes 
 pupil teachers to the Village School in the morning, and 
 the other in the afternoon, each continuing their studies 
 in the Training School at the periods not thus occupied. 
 
 The village school will, under the superintendence of 
 Mr. Eden, be gradually developed as a school on the 
 mixed method of instruction; but we cannot hope that 
 anything like the precision in method which characterises 
 the continental schools should be attained in it, excepting 
 after prolonged and unremitting attention to all the details 
 of its discipline and management. 
 
 Such attention continued through the course of the 
 three years' instruction necessary to the certificate of 
 Master, will, we trust, furnish the village school with such 
 a class of educators as may enable it to realise the chief ' 
 features of those schools which are most worthy of imita- 
 tion in the Protestant countries of Europe; but before 
 the expiration of the three years' course, we cannot hope 
 it will be able to accomplish this design. At present, 
 all that we feel warranted to say is, that we are very 
 
 A A 4 
 
 
360 Second Period 
 
 sensible of the great difficulties which lie in the way 
 of success, and that much humble and patient exertion 
 will be required to surmount them. The able and zealous 
 superintendence of Mr. Eden affords the village school a 
 prospect of success which, under less vigilant and intel- 
 ligent management, we should despair to attain. 
 
 We have secured for the* village school the advantage 
 of the services of Mr. M'Leod, recently the principal 
 master of the School of Industry at Norwood. He is 
 aware of the great difficulty of assihmating an elementary 
 school in this country to some of those forms of excellence 
 which we have afforded him an opportunity of examining 
 in Holland. He is therefore prepared to endeavour, by 
 gradual improvements, in the course of time, to render 
 the elementary school a scene in which the pupils of the 
 Training School may prepare themselves for the skilful 
 performance of their future duties. The success of these 
 efforts pre-supposes so much improvement in his assistant 
 teachers and in the scholars, that we deem it prudent not 
 to venture to anticipate results which it must be very 
 difficult to attain. 
 
 The examination of the third quarter of the residence 
 of several of our pupils is now just concluded. 
 
 The mode in which the daily examinations are con- 
 ducted has already been described. During the depth of 
 winter, when the out-door labour is necessarily suspended, 
 the place which these examinations occupy in the daily 
 routine may be ascertained by the inspection of the sub- 
 joined Tables, pp. 362 — 3. 
 
 At the quarterly examination the usual routine is sus- 
 pended, and examination-papers are prepared by the 
 tutors, containing a series of questions, passing over the 
 chief features of the studies of the quarter in each class. 
 
 The students and pupils have no intimation of the 
 questions which will be proposed; but, three hours being 
 allotted to each examination-paper, the questions of a par- 
 ticular subject (as for example grammar) are distributed 
 to each pupil in the assembled class. The pupils then 
 
The Training School at Battersea 361 
 
 attempt the solution of all the questions without the aid 
 of books, and without assistance from the tutors, or from 
 each other. 
 
 At the expiration of the three hours the repHes to the 
 questions are collected, and in the afternoon, a similar 
 plan is pursued with some other subject, the examination- 
 papers of which are distributed without any previous 
 intimation of their nature. 
 
362 
 
 Second Period 
 
 Rise, wash, dress, and make beds. 
 
 Household work, viz., scouring and sweeping floors, cleaning grates, shoes, knives, &c., pumping water and preparing vegetables, 
 
 and milking cows. 
 Reading of Scriptures and prayers. 
 Superintendents present reports. 
 
 Lecture on the theory and art of teaching, and on school discipline. 
 Breakfast. 
 The first division of the first class go to the village school. 
 
 < 
 
 1 
 
 E. p. on problems. 
 
 Algebra. 
 Grammar. 
 
 Grammar. 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 Mental arithme- 
 tic. 
 
 The first division of the first class return from village school. 
 
 Garden -work, feed the animals, &c. At 1, march to the house and prepare for dinner. 
 
 A class practising singing in the hall. 
 
 Dinner. 
 
 a 
 
 E.P. on geography 
 
 and globes. 
 Arithmetic. 
 Drawing. 
 
 Drawing. 
 Writing on Mul- 
 hauser's method. 
 
 Etymology. 
 
 t 
 
 B 
 
 H 
 
 on Papers — 
 E.P.on arithmetic 
 
 Mensuration. 
 
 Algebra or men- 
 suration. 
 
 Grammar. 
 
 Practising arith- 
 metic on Pesta- 
 lozzi's tables. 
 
 Mental arithmetic. 
 
 > 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 Examinati 
 E. P. on mecha- 
 nics. 
 Arithmetic. 
 Drawing. 
 
 Drawing. 
 Writing on Miil- 
 hauser's method. 
 
 Etymology. 
 
 t 
 
 E.P. on grammar 
 and etymology. 
 
 Algebra. 
 
 Algebra or men- 
 suration. 
 
 Grammar. 
 
 Practising arith- 
 metic on Pesta- 
 lozzi's tables. 
 
 Mental arithmetic. 
 
 o 
 z 
 
 o 
 
 E. P. on mensu- 
 ration. 
 Arithmetic. 
 Drawing. 
 
 Drawing. 
 Writing on Miil- 
 hauser's method. 
 
 Etymology. 
 
 
 (Second division, 
 \ first class. 
 ( Second class. 
 [ Second division, 
 \ first class. 
 [ Second class. 
 /Second division, 
 first class. 
 
 .Second class. 
 
 il 
 
 -A 
 wo* 
 
 Quarter to 7 . 
 Quarter-past 7 
 Half-past 7 . 
 Quarter-past 8 
 Quarter to 9 . 
 
 
 9 to 10 . , 
 
 10 to 11 . . 
 
 11 to 12 . . 
 
 12 o'clock . . 
 12 to 1 . . . 
 
 Quarter-past 1 
 
The Training School at Battersea 
 
 363 
 
 
 
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 f3 
 
 
 
 
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 < 
 
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 ^.i 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 Useofthi 
 Surveyin 
 
 
 On Monda 
 Dur's durat 
 
 ,e, &c. 
 
 
 
 fcb 
 
 
 r^ 'S-i '5 
 
 
 -a .3 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 ■^ 2 :=J 2 
 
 
 ^1 1 
 
 
 
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 < 
 
 fl s c a 
 
 
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 Q 
 
 ® s ® s 
 
 
 ^3 *, «*-. 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 c 
 
 5 
 
 M-?' bC..'« 
 
 
 C i» o 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 Writin 
 hausei 
 Writin 
 hausei 
 
 
 rce and i 
 f a quan 
 
 ography 
 
 
 
 
 
 e3 
 
 II 
 
 tie - 
 
 u 
 
 If 
 
 
 globes 
 
 arith- 
 Pesta- 
 ethod 
 
 
 lommei 
 ation 
 
 onge 
 
 
 
 s 
 a 
 
 Use of the 
 
 Practising 
 metic on 
 lozzi's m 
 
 
 1 the geography of c 
 eded by an examini 
 
 ly, and Friday. 
 ns of the Jews, and 
 
 
 SUNDAY. 
 
 mory. 
 ommented upon. 
 
 < 
 
 Miil- 
 ethod. 
 Mul- 
 ethod. 
 
 illage school. 
 xercises in fair weat 
 fair weather ; in ro 
 
 1 
 
 Writing on 
 hauser's m 
 Writing on 
 hauser's m 
 
 
 m. village school. 
 Friday, lectures upon 
 !S on geography, prec 
 
 Wednesday, Thursds 
 e manners and custoi 
 
 
 5i 
 
 globes. 
 
 • arith- 
 Pesta- 
 ethod. 
 
 >■ I' fl . 
 
 a 
 
 03 M fl a 
 
 
 
 03 O 
 
 ^ .2 •" 2 
 
 S 
 
 
 S'^ 1 >^'B 
 
 
 a^ 
 
 -= -2 S ^ 
 
 D 
 
 "^ .2 .2 r" 
 
 
 "^ c 2 =* t^ 
 
 
 a i 
 
 ■« "? s^ a. 
 
 H 
 
 O ^ -M S 
 
 
 _. 03 1^ ns d 
 
 
 irst class go to 
 rill and gymna 
 tnnastic exercis 
 xamination-pa 
 
 
 g .^ a § 
 
 P (1h '^ 
 
 1 
 
 le second division of the first class return 
 
 asses united. On Tuesday, Wednesdav, 
 
 Thursday, writing out the notes of the le( 
 
 pper. 
 
 asses united. Mechanics, Monday, Tues 
 
 asses united. Biblical reading ; lesson o 
 
 ayer. 
 
 
 .2§ 
 
 Q 
 1 
 
 on Miil- 
 method. 
 on Miil- 
 method. 
 
 The second division of the fi 
 j First division first class. D: 
 t Second class. Drill and gy 
 
 First division, first class. E 
 
 Writing 
 hauser's 
 Writing ^ 
 hauser's 
 
 § 
 
 03 
 
 .2 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 u 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 ■§1 
 Is 
 
 1- 
 
 w S 
 
 ft 
 
 
 econd class . 
 
 'irst division, 
 first class. 
 
 
 CO P^ 
 
 1 
 
 HQ OiOOPIIpH 
 
 8s 
 
 . . . 
 
 
 
 2o 
 
 Tj< • • O • • • 
 
 OS 
 
 
 uarter to 2 
 to 3 . . 
 to4 . . 
 
 
 to quarter 
 to4 . . 
 to quarter 
 to5 . . 
 
 uarter to 4 
 quarter to 
 uarter-past 
 uarter to 5 
 to 6 . . 
 uarter-past 
 to8 . . 
 to9 . . 
 o'clock . 
 
 1 
 
 d 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 
 <y o\ cT) 
 
 
 CO "* 
 
 O* 
 
 CO* O't^ooo* 
 
 
364 Second Period 
 
 In this way, in three or four days, all the subjects of 
 instruction in the Training School are brought under mi- 
 nute examination. 
 
 As soon as the answers are collected, they are examined, 
 and the relative merit of each reply is ascertained. A 
 mean number having been attached to each question, the 
 merit of the reply is expressed in numbers above or 
 below this mean, and thus the whole results of the ex- 
 amination may be tabulated, and the intellectual progress 
 of each pupil ascertained. 
 
 The following series of questions were issued at the 
 examination of the third quarter, which expired at Christ- 
 mas. We submit them to you, because we are desirous 
 that you should form an accurate opinion of the results of 
 the instruction in the Training School during the pre- 
 paratory course. The questions faithfully represent the 
 general course of the instruction on the subjects to which 
 they relate, and they are level to the capacity and attain- 
 ments of the pupils. 
 
 In order that this may be more clearly evident to you, 
 we have appended to the series of questions Tables con- 
 taining the name of each pupil, his age, and period of 
 entrance into the Training School, at the head of the 
 columns. On the left side of each Table a column con- 
 tains the number of each question, and in the next column 
 the mean number indicating the comparative difficulty of 
 the question ; then, under the name of each boy the 
 merit of the answer of each pupil is given in successive 
 columns, and in the same manner, the merit of the 
 replies to each of the questions respectively is tabulated. 
 
 In order that you may possess a standard from which 
 to determine the relative merit of the rest of the replies, 
 we have likewise placed, in an Appendix, replies to the 
 questions from most of the pupils, the comparative merit 
 of which may be estimated by a reference to the numbers 
 in the Tables. 
 
 The answers to the questions on reUgious instruction 
 have not been deemed simply an intellectual exercise, and 
 
The Training School at Battersea 365 
 
 the results in this case have not been tabulated. They 
 were framed by the Hon. and Eev. Eobert Eden, who 
 has superintended the reUgious instruction of the Training 
 School with unwearied assiduity. We are enabled to fur- 
 nish you with a note, expressive of Mr. Eden's opinion of 
 the general progress of the pupils in rehgious knowledge, 
 during the three quarters of the preparatory course which 
 have now elapsed. 
 
 Before submitting the questions to you, we are anxious 
 to avoid one source of misconception, to which the plan 
 of the school might be liable in consequence of our 
 reluctance to anticipate results, by describing the course 
 we intend to pursue in the future parts of the course of 
 instruction. The technical instruction in that knowledge 
 which it will be the duty of the pupils to communicate in 
 elementary schools, occupies a much greater portion of 
 the time in the preparatory course than that which will 
 be allotted to such studies in the two subsequent years. 
 
 Every month will now bring into greater prominence 
 instruction^ theoretical and practical^ in the art of teaching. 
 The outlines ^nly of a future course of instruction in this 
 most important element of the studies of a training school 
 have been communicated. Some of the principles have 
 been laid down ; but the application of these principles to 
 each subject of instruction, and the arrangement of the 
 entire matter of technical knowledge, in accordance with 
 the principles of elementary teaching, is a labour to 
 which a large portion of the future time of the pupils 
 must be devoted. 
 
 Those studies which will prepare them for the perform- 
 ance of collateral duties in the village or parish have not 
 been commenced. 
 
 The instruction in the management of a garden ; in 
 pruning and grafting trees ; in the relative qualities of 
 soils, manures, and the rotation of garden crops, is to form 
 a part of the course of instruction, after the certificate of 
 candidate is obtained. 
 
 A course on the domestic economy of the poor will be 
 
366 Second Period 
 
 delivered in the same year, which will be followed by 
 another on the means of preserving health, especially 
 with regard to the employments, habits, and wants of the 
 working classes. Some general lectures on the relations 
 of labour and capital will close this course. 
 
 Those parts of the present course of technical instruc- 
 tion which will obtain the largest share of attention in 
 the year in which the candidates are trained, will be the 
 geography of commerce and industry ; mensuration, land 
 surveying, and mechanics ; and the history of England, 
 treated chiefly in connection with the progress of civili- 
 sation, and especially of industry and the arts. 
 
 The religious instruction will develope itself, under the 
 guidance of Mr. Eden, in its relations to those subjects of 
 history in which it is desirable that the pupils should receive 
 impressions consistent with Christian charity and truth. 
 
 This brief indication of that which lies immediately 
 before the pupils of the Training School will, we trust, 
 remove any apprehension which might be entertained 
 that the technical character of certain of their present 
 studies will overlay a large portion of the future course. 
 
 The spontaneous preparation for instruction in the 
 village school, and which will require considerable and 
 well-directed application to miscellaneous reading, will in 
 itself be an obstacle to the continuance of the present 
 extent of technical instruction. This spontaneous prepa- 
 ration must embrace many subjects collateral to the 
 instruction in the school, but which must be commu- 
 nicated in a popular manner in an elementary school, 
 requiring a re-arrangement of knowledge previously 
 acquired in a technical form. 
 
 The chief source of any confidence we have in the 
 course we have pursued, is derived from the inquiries re- 
 specting the routine of instruction in Normal Schools in 
 certain parts of the continent. 
 
 We have, for your information, placed in the Appendix 
 to this Eeport several Tables of the routine of studies in 
 some of the chief Normal Schools in different parts of 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 367 
 
 Europe. A comparison of these Tables with the general 
 sketch of the plans of the Battersea Training School, 
 with which we have furnished you, will enable you to 
 perceive how far our personal inquiries have guided us 
 in the regulation of the Training School, founded under 
 your sanction. 
 
 We lay before you the questions of the third quarterly 
 examination at Battersea, and the tabulated results of the 
 rephes. In the first of these Tables, viz., that on grammar 
 and etymology, we have given the age and day of the 
 month when each pupil entered the school in the year 
 1840. It has not been deemed necessary to reprint 
 these Tables in this place. 
 
 The preceding notes contain a few examples of the 
 manner in which the questions have been answered, one 
 being selected for each question, which, in conjunction 
 with the numerical statements contained in the Tables, 
 may serve as a standard of comparison by which the 
 merit of the rest of the rephes may be ascertained. It 
 is a source of pleasure to us that a Maltese, confided to 
 our care by the Maltese Government, notwithstanding the 
 obstacles created by the want of a perfect knowledge of 
 the language, occupies such a position in this examination 
 as to justify our confidence in his success as the Teacher 
 of a Model School in Malta, which is his destination. 
 
 The questions and answers afford better evidence than 
 anything which we can say of the intelligent and perse- 
 vering attention which Mr. Tate and Mr. Home have paid 
 to their duties. They have earned the reward of the 
 affection and respect of their pupils, and if our own 
 tribute of esteem can add anything to the satisfaction 
 derivable from that source it has been freely accorded. 
 
 We are somewhat apprehensive that these questions 
 may lead to erroneous opinions of our views. We are 
 fully aware that all such tests must give a very imperfect 
 idea of the real condition of a school, and in fact, from 
 being necessarily confined to intellectual displays, omit all 
 
368 Second Period 
 
 reference to what we have always considered to be the 
 most essential, as it is the most difficult, object of our 
 endeavours, — the formation of moral and rehgious cha- 
 racters. The progress that may have been made towards 
 this latter object is incapable, as in the former, of being 
 shown by written questions. We can only then sohcit 
 credit for our intentions in repeating with all earnestness, 
 that we hold the end of all these intellectual demonstra- 
 tions to be infinitely subordinate to the cultivation of the 
 heart and feelings. We have no wish to send forth simply 
 clever teachers ; we beheve, on the contrary, that the 
 vice of several of the German Normal Institutions, which 
 we have examined, has been the too great attention paid 
 to instruction as distinct from education. The Swiss 
 schools appeared to us to be mostly free from this defect, 
 and to them we have chiefly resorted as models for what 
 we have done. 
 
 It may also be objected to these questions, that some of 
 them refer to subjects different from or beyond what it 
 may be desirable or possible to teach in many schools. 
 We admit the correctness of this statement, but deny the 
 inference that some may attempt to draw from it deroga- 
 tory to the utility of such studies for the purpose we have 
 in view. The schoolmaster whose knowledge is strictly 
 confined to what he has to impart, will frequently be at a 
 loss, in attempting to explain many points that occur in 
 his lessons, and puzzled with questions from the more 
 intelligent pupils, whose unsatisfied inquiries will quickly 
 generate a disrespect for their instructor. It is impossible 
 to know or to teach many of even the lowest branches of 
 knowledge thoroughly without some acquaintance with 
 the theories and higher generalizations on which those 
 inferior departments depend. But on this point we would 
 refer to a higher authority, M. Guizot, with whose opinion 
 on this subject, as well as in the following description of 
 what a teacher ought to be, we beg to add our unquah- 
 fied concurrence : — " A good schoolmaster ought to be a 
 man who knows much more than he is called upon to 
 
The Training School at Battersea 369 
 
 teach, that he may teach with inteUigence and with taste ; 
 who is to hve in a humble sphere, and yet to have a noble 
 and elevated mind, that he may preserve that dignity of 
 sentiment and of deportment, without which he will 
 never obtain the respect and confidence of families ; 
 who possesses a rare mixture of gentleness and firm- 
 ness ; for, inferior though he be in station to many 
 individuals in the parish, he ought to be the obsequious 
 servant of none ; a man not ignorant of his rights, 
 but thinking much more of his duties ; showing to all a 
 good example, and serving to all as a counsellor ; not 
 given to change his condition, but satisfied with his situa- 
 tion, because it gives him the power of doing good ; and 
 who has made up his mind to live and to die in the 
 service of primary instruction, which to him is the service 
 of God and his fellow-creatures. To rear masters ap- 
 proaching to such a model is a difficult task ; and yet we 
 must succeed in it, or else we have done nothing for ele- 
 mentary instruction." 
 
 The questions for this quarterly examination have been 
 chiefly selected by the tutors. We do not propose tha: 
 this course shall be pursued in the questions employed in 
 the examination for the certificate of Candidate^ or Scholar, 
 or Master. We are of opinion that such institutions as 
 this Training School (the further management of which 
 we hope to superintend in entire subordination to your 
 wishes) should be placed under the inspection of that 
 department of the executive Government which is charged 
 with the promotion of elementary education. The humble 
 effort which we have made to place in your hands the 
 means of providing schoolmasters for the workhouses, 
 and especially for the district schools for pauper children, 
 has not, we trust, been conducted inconsistently with the 
 pubHc interest ; but we are anxious to afford the public 
 the fullest warrant for confidence in the future manage- 
 ment of this school, and we know no way of accomplishing 
 this object so fully as by sohciting the periodical exami- 
 nation of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, which we 
 
 B B 
 
370 Second Period 
 
 trust the Committee of Council on Education will allow. 
 In the quarterly examinations of the Training School we 
 hope for the assistance of one of Her Majesty's Inspec- 
 tors, and we trust that, upon application from you, the 
 Committee of Council will consent to associate one or 
 more of their Inspectors with one of your own body, in 
 selecting the questions for the annual examination, by 
 which the certificates will be awarded ; in determining the 
 merit of the several replies ; and in selecting the indivi- 
 duals who may be entitled to certificates. 
 
 In order that the selection of questions may have the 
 necessary relation to the studies of the year, we pro- 
 pose to furnish the examiners with the weekly and 
 quarterly examination-papers of the school, from which 
 papers they will readily ascertain the range of the ac- 
 quirements of the pupils in the several classes ; but it 
 will be expedient that every question shall emanate only 
 from the examiners at the annual examination for certifi- 
 cates. 
 
 We are desirous that some standard of attainment 
 should be fixed for entrance upon the preparatory course, 
 and we wish to refer the examination-papers (employed 
 to ascertain the acquirements of the pupils on their 
 entrance) to the approval of the Committee of Council 
 on Education ; and that the replies, being prepared by 
 pupils under the eye of an Inspector, at the end of a short 
 probationary period, should be approved by their Lord- 
 ships before each pupil is finally entered for the prepara- 
 tory course on the books of the school. 
 
 We trust that, in this way, security wiU be afforded 
 that any funds which may be devoted to the maintenance 
 of this Training School will not be applied in any way 
 inconsistently with the interests of the public. 
 
 We regard these securities to be indispensable to the 
 permanent prosperity of such institutions. By the ex- 
 amination of the pupils at their entrance, and the submis- 
 sion of the examination-papers (prepared in the presence 
 of an Inspector at the end of a short probationary period). 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 371 
 
 we intend to exclude favouritism in the selection of pupils, 
 and the interference of partial interests in burdening the 
 school with unqualified students. 
 
 By the continual inspection of the school by able, inde- 
 pendent, and impartial men, we hope to secure the most 
 useful stimulus to the exertions of the tutors and pupils ; 
 to provide against self-deception on their part as to the 
 condition of the school; and, above all, to afford the 
 public the only sufficient security against the impression 
 derived from appearances skilfully dramatised to prevent 
 the disclosure of defects. 
 
 We are especially anxious that the certificates should be 
 awarded by persons not directly interested in the manage- 
 ment of the school, in order that a conviction of impar- 
 tiality may prevail among the scholars, that the certificates 
 may have more than the ordinary value of such documents, 
 and that the pubhc may have only a legitimate, and in all 
 respects a weU-founded, confidence in the results of the 
 training. 
 
 We should much rejoice if the results of these prepara- 
 tory steps towards the foundation of a training school 
 were deemed sufficiently auspicious to warrant the confi- 
 dence of the Commission and of the Government, so far 
 as to procure for the future expenses of the school as- 
 sistance from the public funds. In that case we feel that 
 the Government would be entitled to require that no tutor 
 or professor should be appointed in the school without 
 their approval; that their sanction should be necessary 
 to the dismissal of any tutor or professor; and further 
 that, on the Eeport of their Inspectors, they should be 
 entitled to proceed to remove any tutor or professor from 
 his office. 
 
 We are also of opinion that the Training School would 
 not be entitled to support, in any considerable degree, 
 from the public funds, unless the estimates for the school 
 were annually submitted for the approval of the Com- 
 mittee of Council on Education, and the accounts annually 
 audited by one of their Lordships' Inspectors. 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 Second Period 
 
 The expenses of the Training School during the pre- 
 paratory course have been cheerfully borne by ourselves, 
 with the exception of those payments which have been 
 made on behalf of individual pupils and students, and the 
 entirely unsohcited aid of three or four of our personal 
 friends. We have not presumed to think that we were 
 warranted in expecting confidence in plans which had not 
 hitherto been put forth in this country, until we could place 
 before you at least a partial development of our views. We 
 have, therefore, avoided soliciting assistance from any one, 
 and, to all inquiries on this subject, we have deemed it 
 proper to suggest, that the personal confidence of friends 
 would not insure the permanent prosperity of a training 
 school, which could onlyflourish by deserving and obtaining 
 the confidence of the pubhc. Such remarks have not pre- 
 vented Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd and Mr. George Cornewall 
 Lewis from urging us to permit them to contribute each 
 £100 to the expenses of this year. We have accepted 
 these offers. The Bishop of Durham has not been con- 
 tent with the usual payment for the pupil he has placed 
 in the Training School, but his Lordship has requested us 
 to accept a more hberal rate of remuneration. Mr. George 
 Norman, of Bromley, has also sustained the charge of a 
 pupil, whom, however, he has not selected. The Earl of 
 Chichester added £10 to the sum paid with a boy whom 
 he recommended. 
 
 The efficiency of the school during the course of in- 
 struction in the ensuing year can only be maintained by a 
 considerable increase of expense. The number of the 
 pupils and students will probably increase to sixty in the 
 early part of the spring. The attention of the tutors will 
 necessarily be so much occupied with the preparatory 
 studies of those who then enter the school that an addi- 
 tional tutor will be indispensable. Certain of the courses 
 of instruction of this year cannot be pursued without the 
 assistance of professors who will attend from day to day. 
 We have already secured the attendance of Mr. Hughes, 
 who lectures on the geography of commerce and industry, 
 
The Training School at Batter sea 373 
 
 and of an artist to assist in the instruction in drawing and 
 perspective. We regret to say that Mr. HuUah's services 
 have been given gratuitously, and with a zeal and dis- 
 interestedness which would, we fear, place it beyond our 
 power adequately to express the value which we attach to 
 his admirable lessons on vocal music. We have further 
 incurred a part of the charge of the master of the village 
 school. We propose to appoint a well-conducted, inteUi- 
 gent, and skilful gardener to superintend the instruction 
 in horticulture, which will now receive increased attention. 
 The charge for the rent may soon increase by our en- 
 countering the necessity of occupying the entire house, 
 with the exception of two apartments, which we each 
 intend to reserve in the establishment, where we may 
 confer with the tutors. The further expenses of furniture 
 required by the increase of the number of pupils and 
 tutors, the additional books, apparatus, and certain con- 
 templated alterations which it will be impossible to post- 
 pone beyond the spring, will raise the expenses of the 
 ensuing year (after all the payments for individual scholars 
 are deducted) to a balance of £2000 at least. 
 
 We are prepared to sustain this expense, if it be neces- 
 sary that the Training School should be carried through 
 another stage of its development before it deserves the 
 pubhc confidence. In fact we consider ourselves bound to 
 do so should we obtain no assistance, as we have entered 
 into engagements with the pupils, which we must fulfil at 
 whatever cost to ourselves. Considerable inquiry and 
 observation have impressed us with the views on which 
 the Training School is founded, and we have been desirous 
 to make a practical trial of the principles and expedients 
 which the experience of the Protestant States of Europe 
 has sanctioned by a concurrent testimony. It would be 
 grateful to us to receive an early assurance of confidence 
 in the plans and principles which we have, with as much 
 unreserve as is consistent with the limits of this Eeport, 
 freely set before you ; but we have not entered on our 
 present undertaking without expecting that a sacrifice 
 
 B B 3 
 
374 Second Period 
 
 would be required of us, before the work was in a con- 
 dition to obtain that confidence which we trust will not 
 be refused. 
 
 We also trust that the exposition of the principles by 
 which we have been guided will not be misconceived, as 
 evincing so unwarrantable a confidence in our opinions as 
 to lead us to indulge in dogmatism. We conceive we 
 may sincerely entertain them, and endeavour to promote 
 their diffusion, without any undue confidence in our own 
 judgment, or want of respect for the opinions of others. 
 
 You will naturally expect that this free disclosure of 
 our views and proceedings in relation to the Training 
 School should be terminated by an account of the ex- 
 penses we have incurred to the termination of the year 
 1840. We think it right to lay the balance-sheet of the 
 expenses and receipts of the school, without reserve, be- 
 fore you. We have been careful to take receipts for all 
 the payments we have made, and as we regard ourselves 
 as labouring at the foundations of a public institution, in 
 which our experience may be of some value to others, 
 we shall feel obhged if you will direct the accounts to be 
 audited. 
 
 We have endeavoured, by a scrupulous economy in 
 every department, to render the expenses of the school 
 as low as is consistent with its efficiency, and we have 
 accordingly foregone many convenient arrangements not 
 absolutely required, but which it would have been desir- 
 able to make. 
 
 Some expenses might have been reduced, had not the 
 demands of our pubhc duties rendered it impossible to 
 give constant superintendence to certain details. 
 
The Training School at Battersea 
 
 375 
 
 James Phillips Kat and Edward Carleton Tuffnell in account with the 
 Training School, Battersea. 
 
 Drs. 
 
 To Cash from G. W, Norman, Esq. 
 Lord Cliichester 
 S. Jones Loyd, Esq. 
 G. C. Lewis, Esq. 
 Landlord repairs 
 
 Sundries sold 
 Mr. Philbrick . 
 for Students and Pupils 
 
 Amount owing for dito ditto . 
 
 Balance 
 
 31 St December. 1840. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 '200 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 14 13 
 
 3 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 271 14 
 
 2 
 
 1% 19 
 
 4 
 
 1283 11 
 
 10 
 
 2265 18 
 
 7 
 
 By furnishing and repairs 
 
 Clothing 
 
 Books, stationery, &c. 
 
 House account, viz., provisions, 
 wages, and petty cash ac- 
 count 
 
 House account, viz., servants' 
 wages 
 
 Garden account .... 
 
 Rent and taxes (deducting Dr. 
 Kay's rent) .... 
 
 Alterations and repairs (deduct- 
 ing Dr. Kay's charge) 
 
 Bad bank-note .... 
 
 Salaries 
 
 Mr. Senf 
 
 Bills unpaid .... 
 
 Salaries due .... 
 
 Crs. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 444 6 lU 
 91 12 1 
 76 15 7i 
 
 564 7 4 
 
 103 5 6 
 
 340 
 
 5 
 
 154 
 
 70 
 
 343 19 8 
 20 10 10 
 
 2265 18 7 
 
 The balance of expenses for which we find we have to 
 provide on the 1st January, 1841, is £1283, which we 
 have accordingly devoted to the establishment of this 
 school. This sum arises to a large extent from the ex- 
 penses incurred in fiu*nishing, repairs, and alterations. The 
 rest is attributable to salaries and the charge of clothing 
 and maintaining the boys selected from the best schools 
 for poor children, and educated at our expense. 
 
 The expenses of Dr. Kay's own private estabhshment 
 are of course all borne by himself, and his arrangements 
 are in all respects separate. 
 
 We have the honour to be. 
 Gentlemen, . 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 James Phillips Kay, 
 Edward Carleton Tuffnell. 
 
 To the JPoor Law CommissionerSf Somerset Souse, 
 
 B 4 
 
376 
 
 Second Period 
 
 Course of Instrcction pursued in the 
 
 u r 
 
 II 
 
 33 
 
 EC 
 
 
 Geography 
 of Palestine, 
 Jewish Ar- 
 chaeology. 
 History of 
 the Chris- 
 tian Church. 
 
 Faith and 
 morals, as 
 founded on 
 revelation. 
 
 Lectures on 
 the Bible, 
 with ques- 
 tions. 
 
 German 
 Language. 
 
 Grammar, 
 exercises in 
 reading and 
 recitations ; 
 composi- 
 tion. 
 
 Grammar, 
 continuation 
 of exercises 
 in reading 
 and recita- 
 tions, com- 
 position of 
 letters, and 
 speeches. 
 
 Etymology 
 and logical 
 exercises, 
 recitations, 
 and compo- 
 sition. 
 
 French 
 Language. 
 
 Exercises in 
 reading, and 
 translation 
 of easy 
 
 pieces of 
 French into 
 German ; 
 introduction 
 to the gram- 
 mar and ety- 
 mology. 
 
 Continuation 
 of the above; 
 beginning of 
 the transla- 
 tion of Ger- 
 man into 
 French ; 
 grammar ; 
 vocabulary. 
 
 Continued 
 exercises of 
 reading and 
 translation 
 into Ger- 
 man ; gram- 
 mar; syn- 
 tax; transla- 
 tion from 
 German into 
 French ; 
 speaking. 
 
 Arithnieti( 
 
 Elementary 
 rules of 
 
 arithmetic ; 
 Vulgar and 
 Decimal 
 Fractions. 
 
 Proportion; 
 
 mental 
 
 arithmetic. 
 
 Continuation 
 of exercises 
 in the ele- 
 mentary 
 rules. 
 
 Geometry. 
 
 The doctrine 
 of parallel 
 lines, pro- 
 perties of 
 triangles, si- 
 milar trian- 
 gles. 
 
 Measure- 
 ment of tri- 
 angles, and 
 strai-ght line 
 figures, pla- 
 nimetry. 
 
 Further ex- 
 position of 
 the proper- 
 ties of trian- 
 gles, and of 
 straight line 
 figures. 
 
 History. 
 
 History from 
 the begin- 
 ning of the 
 world to the 
 subjection of 
 Greece to 
 the Romans. 
 
 From the 
 building of 
 Ri>me to the 
 Westphalian 
 Peace. 
 
 History of 
 Switzerland 
 from the be- 
 ginning to 
 the West- 
 phalian 
 Peace. 
 
 Lectures on 
 the Bible, 
 with prac- 
 tical illus- 
 trations, and 
 references. 
 
 Repetitions 
 of the more 
 difficult 
 parts of 
 grammar; 
 more ex- 
 tended com- 
 positions ; 
 laws of 
 poetry. 
 
 Continuation 
 of exercises 
 in reading 
 and transla- 
 tion; conclu- 
 sion of syn- 
 tax ; recita- 
 tions of easy 
 pieces. 
 
 Continuation 
 of exercises 
 in Propor- 
 tion; Simple 
 Equations. 
 
 Tiie circle; 
 elements of 
 stereome- 
 try ; easy 
 questions in 
 practical 
 geometry. 
 
 History of 
 Switzerland 
 as it bears 
 on that ol 
 the rest of 
 the world to 
 the present 
 period. 
 
 Deeper and 
 more ab- 
 struse 
 
 points of 
 doctrine, 
 with Scrip- 
 tural proofs 
 cind prac- 
 tical illus- 
 trations. 
 
 The more 
 important 
 peculiarities 
 of the Ger- 
 man lan- 
 guage: ver- 
 bal exposi- 
 tions of the 
 written exer- 
 c'ses. 
 
 Further ex- 
 positions of 
 grammar ; 
 more diffi- 
 cult transla- 
 tions from 
 and into 
 
 French and 
 German re- 
 spectively; 
 composition. 
 
 MorediflBcult 
 applications 
 of the pre- 
 ceding rules. 
 
 Continuation 
 of planime- 
 try ; plain 
 and solid 
 angles; pro- 
 jection of 
 straight line 
 figures ; 
 questions in 
 the above 
 subjects. 
 
 General his- 
 tory from 
 1389 to 1815. 
 
 Continuation 
 of the above 
 
 View of Ger- 
 man litera- 
 ture; poeti- 
 cal exer- 
 
 Continuation 
 of the above; 
 short sketch 
 of French 
 literature. 
 
 Quadratic 
 
 and Cubic 
 
 Equations; 
 
 Logarithms, 
 
 Properties 
 
 of Numbers; 
 
 Progression 
 
 Polygonal 
 figures; ele- 
 ments of tri- 
 gonometry ; 
 practical 
 geometry ; 
 projection of 
 bodies with 
 straight or 
 curved sur- 
 faces; sec- 
 tions. 
 
 General his- 
 tory from 
 1815 to the 
 present 
 time. 
 
Tlie Training School at Battersea 
 
 377 
 
 Normal Seminary at Zurich, Switzerland. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Geography. 
 
 Natural 
 History. 
 
 Physics. 
 
 Singing. 
 
 Art of 
 Writing. 
 
 Drawing. 
 
 Art of " 
 Teaching. 
 
 
 Introductory 
 
 General intro- 
 
 
 Elementary 
 
 
 
 
 
 explanations 
 
 duction to 
 
 
 exercises of 
 
 
 
 
 
 the ocean 
 
 natural his- 
 
 
 the voice ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 and conti- 
 
 tory,descrip- 
 
 
 easy choral 
 
 
 e« 
 
 
 
 nentg, with 
 
 tion of ele- 
 
 
 exercises. 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 their re- 
 
 mentary bo- 
 
 ... 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 '■% 
 
 ... 
 
 
 spective di- 
 
 dies, general 
 
 
 
 ■5 
 
 j: 
 
 
 
 visions. 
 
 characteris- 
 tics of mi- 
 nerals. 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 Special geo- 
 
 Unmetallic 
 
 
 Melody, reli- 
 
 
 
 
 graphy ol 
 
 minerals. 
 
 
 gious hymns 
 
 a 
 
 'i 
 
 
 
 Europe. 
 
 metals, 
 
 
 and choral 
 
 
 0. 
 
 
 
 
 mountains, 
 
 
 singing. 
 
 «) 
 
 
 
 
 introduction 
 
 ... 
 
 
 V 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 of botany. 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 B 
 
 
 
 
 The most 
 
 Systems of 
 
 The common 
 
 Further ex- 
 
 Introduction 
 
 
 important 
 
 botany, de- 
 
 phenomena 
 
 ercises in 
 
 .5- 
 
 ^ 
 
 to psycho- 
 
 
 points of 
 
 scription of 
 
 arising from 
 
 Sol-Fa, also 
 
 fc's 
 
 "S. 
 
 logy, me- 
 
 
 mathemati- 
 
 plants, spe- 
 
 the various 
 
 with words. 
 
 ■5 ce 
 
 t 
 
 thods of in- 
 
 
 cal and phy- 
 
 cial inform- 
 
 properties of 
 
 exercises in 
 
 2 J 
 
 4) 
 
 struction. 
 
 
 sical geogra- 
 
 ation on the 
 
 differently 
 
 solo singing 
 
 II 
 
 J= 
 
 
 
 phy. 
 
 plants 
 known to 
 
 , constituted 
 
 and choral 
 
 
 
 
 
 bodies. 
 
 singing. 
 
 
 
 
 
 the pupils. 
 
 
 
 g 
 
 0. 
 
 
 
 Geography of 
 Asia, Africa, 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Acoustics, 
 
 Continuation 
 
 Further ex- 
 
 
 to zoology; 
 
 optics, heat. 
 
 of the above, 
 
 OJ 
 
 5* 
 
 position of 
 
 
 America, 
 
 classification 
 
 magnetism, 
 
 special ex- 
 
 
 
 
 
 methods of 
 
 
 and Austra- 
 
 and descrip- 
 
 electricity. 
 
 position of 
 
 C 
 
 instruction. 
 
 
 lia. 
 
 tions intro- 
 
 
 the art of 
 
 S 
 
 «i: 
 
 and of the 
 
 
 
 ductory to 
 
 
 teaching 
 
 .2 
 
 « 
 
 cantonal 
 
 
 
 the natural 
 
 
 music. 
 
 Jf 
 
 .£ 
 
 laws and re- 
 
 
 
 history of 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 ^ 
 ■^ 
 
 gulations re- 
 
 
 
 man. 
 
 
 
 Ed 
 
 lative to 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CO 
 
 school8;prac- 
 tical teaching 
 in the pri- 
 mary school. 
 
 
 More extend- 
 
 Natural his- 
 
 Further ex- 
 
 Continuation 
 
 
 
 Fundamental 
 
 
 ed exposi- 
 
 tory of man; 
 
 position of 
 
 of the above. 
 
 
 
 pruiciples of 
 
 
 tions of 
 
 further ex- 
 
 the above 
 
 
 
 
 the science 
 
 
 mathemati- 
 
 positions of 
 
 subjects. 
 
 
 
 
 of teaching. 
 
 
 cal and phy- 
 
 the natural 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 sical geogra- 
 
 history of 
 
 
 
 .•• 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 phy. 
 
 the lower 
 animals. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Special geo- 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Further ex- 
 
 Continuation 
 
 
 
 Practical 
 
 
 graphy of 
 
 to geology ; 
 
 position of 
 
 of the above. 
 
 
 
 teaching in 
 
 
 Asia, Africa, 
 
 fossils. 
 
 the above 
 
 
 
 
 the second- 
 
 
 America, 
 
 
 subjects. 
 
 
 
 
 ary school. 
 
 
 and Austra- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 lia. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
378 
 
 Second Period 
 
 xn 
 
 of Ol 
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The Training School at Battersea 
 
 379 
 
 >< 
 
 < 
 
 Q 
 X 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 New Testament. 
 
 New Testament. 
 
 Natural history. 
 
 Organ. 
 
 Composition. 
 
 Organ. 
 
 Grammar. 
 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 Natural history. 
 
 Singing. 
 
 Organ. 
 
 Art of teaching 
 deaf and dumb. 
 
 r 
 
 "i . 
 
 S 
 
 8 
 
 Singing. 
 Singing. 
 
 ' 
 
 < 
 
 a 
 
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 2 
 
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 2 
 
 
 
 
 
380 
 
 Second Period 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 t 
 
 p 
 
 Idem. 
 
 Instruction in law and 
 in the duties of a 
 citizen, 1, 2, 3. 
 
 Theme, 1, 2. 
 
 Arithmetic, 3. 
 
 Chemistry, &c., 1, 2, 3. 
 Writing, 3. 
 Geometry, 1, 2. 
 
 < 
 a 
 
 Idem. 
 
 Swiss history (all). 
 
 Arithmetic, 1. 
 Theme, 3. 
 
 Writing, 1, 2, 3. 
 
 Exercises on the phy- 
 sical sciences, 1, 2. 
 
 Geometry, 3. 
 
 Composition, 1, 2. 
 
 Pedagogical exercises 
 in mathematics, 1, 2. 
 
 Swiss geography, 1, 
 2, 3. 
 
 Singing, 1, 2, 3. 
 
 < 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 a 
 H 
 
 Idem. 
 
 Use of globes, first 
 and second classes. 
 
 Composition, 1, 2. 
 Mental arithmetic, 3. 
 
 Chemistry, then Zoo- 
 logy, 1, 2, 3. 
 
 Drawing, 3 ; mental 
 arithmetic, 1, 2. 
 
 Drawing, 3 ; reading, 
 1, 2. 
 
 Reading, 3. 
 
 Geography, 1, 2. 
 Singing, 1, 2. 
 
 
 Idem. 
 
 The art of teaching 
 (all). 
 
 Theme, 1, 2. 
 Arithmetic, 3. 
 
 Chemistry, then 
 Zoology, 1, 2, 3. 
 
 Grammar, 1, 2, 3. 
 
 Gymnastics, 3. 
 Book-keeping, 1. 
 Reading, 1, 2. 
 Geometry, 3. 
 
 Singing, 1, 2," 3. 
 
 
 As on Monday. 
 
 General history (all). 
 
 Arithmetic, 1, 2. 
 Theme, 3. 
 
 Writing, 1, 2, 3. 
 
 Drawing, 1, 2; read- 
 ing 3. 
 Drawing, 1, 2. 
 
 Geography, 1, 2. 
 
 Geography, 3. 
 Singing, 3. 
 
 z 
 
 o 
 
 Prayer, reading, and 
 religious instruction 
 (all). 
 
 The art of teaching 
 11). 
 
 Geometry, 1, 2. 
 
 The means of improv- 
 ing the health and 
 condition of the 
 people. 
 
 Botany, 1, 2. 
 
 Grammar, 1, 2, 3. 
 Gymnastics, 1, 2. 
 Geography, 3. 
 
 Pi 
 D 
 
 00 0> O i-Hn-iC^C0-^Ot>. 
 
 bo 
 
The Training School at Battersea 
 
 381 
 
 •A 
 o 
 
 es 
 
 < 
 CO 
 
 On the method of 
 writing (teachers). 
 
 As on Monday. 
 
 Arithmetic (teachers). 
 Composition (young 
 pupils). 
 
 Instruction in the law 
 and in the duties of 
 a citizen (all). 
 
 Geometry (teachers). 
 
 Grammar (pupils). 
 
 Reading (teachers). 
 Arithmetic (older 
 pupils). 
 
 Practical geometry 
 (pupils). 
 
 Q 
 
 As on Monday. 
 
 Composition 
 (teachers). 
 Geometry (pupils). 
 
 Art of teaching (all). 
 
 Grammar (teachers). 
 Geography (pupils). 
 
 Pedagogical exercises 
 on the physical sci- 
 ences (pupils). 
 
 Gymnastics (pupils). 
 
 Singing (teachers). 
 Arithmetic (pupils). 
 Singing (pupils). 
 
 > 
 
 Geography (teachers). 
 Writing (pupils). 
 
 As on Monday. 
 
 Arithmetic (teachers). 
 A theme (pupils). 
 
 Instruction in the law 
 and duties of a citi- 
 zen (all). 
 
 Reading, with analy- 
 sis of the grammar, 
 structure, and mean- 
 ing (all). 
 
 Natural history (all). 
 
 Drawing (pupils). 
 
 Drawing (pupils). 
 
 Reading (all.) 
 Singing (all). 
 
 >> 
 
 Z 
 
 Q 
 
 Geography (teachers). 
 
 As on Monday. 
 
 Composition 
 (teachers). 
 Geometry (pupils). 
 
 Art of teaching (all). 
 
 Geometry (teachers). 
 Grammar (pupils). 
 
 Natural history (all). 
 
 A theme (teachers). 
 
 Geography of Switzer- 
 land (teachers). 
 
 Singing (teachers). 
 Arithmetic (pupils). 
 Singing (pupils). 
 
 i 
 
 Book-keeping 
 (teachers).* 
 Writing (pupils).t 
 As on Monday. 
 
 Arithmetic (teachers). 
 A theme (pupils). 
 
 Use of the globes (all). 
 
 Grammar (teachers). 
 Geography (pupils). 
 
 Physics (pupils). 
 
 Drawing (teachers). 
 Composition (young 
 
 pupils). 
 Drawing (teachers). 
 Composition (young 
 
 pupils). 
 Reading (all). 
 
 Singing (all). 
 
 1 
 
 Prayer, Reading, and 
 religious instruction. 
 
 Composition (older 
 pupils). 
 
 Arithmetic (younger 
 (pupils). 
 
 The Art of teaching 
 (all). 
 
 Geography (teachers) 
 Mental arithmetic 
 (pupils). 
 
 Natural history (all). 
 A theme (teachers). 
 Gymnastics (pupils). 
 
 Reading (pupils). 
 
 Mental Arithmetic 
 (teachers). 
 
 1 
 
 O «Ot^ 00O» O r^ ox CO TfO 
 
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387 
 
 SECOND REPORT 
 
 ON THE SCHOOLS FOE THE TEAINING OF PAROCHIAL SCHOOL- 
 MASTERS AT BATTERSEA 
 
 London, December 15, 1843. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 The Committee of Council on Education voted 
 £1000 on the 14t]i day of November, 1842, towards the 
 expenses attending the estabhshment of the schools for 
 the training of parochial schoolmasters at Battersea, and 
 their Lordships have also, during the present year, granted 
 £2200 to enable us to carry into execution the plan for 
 enlarging and improving the premises which is appended 
 to this Eeport, on condition that satisfactory arrangements 
 should be made for the future support of the schools. 
 
 We therefore consider it our duty to submit to your 
 Lordship a general account of our proceedings since the 
 pubhcation of our Eeport in January, 1841 ; and to relate 
 what arrangements have been made for the future manage- 
 ment and support of these schools. 
 
 Li the course of the four years which have elapsed since 
 these schools were founded, we have had considerable ex- 
 perience of the difficulties which oppose the success of such 
 establishments : we have been led to modify one part of 
 our original plan, and the perspective of the future pro- 
 gress of the institution displays features in some respects 
 different from those which we contemplated, when we 
 stood upon the threshold of our experiment. 
 
 To record the results of our experience, and to narrate 
 the reasons which have suggested changes in our original 
 design, appear to us duties which we owe to the promoters 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 Second Period 
 
 of education in this country. Our desire is, that our 
 errors may become beacons to those who follow, and our 
 success a light on their path. We also think it important 
 that some of the pecuhar difficulties to be overcome in the 
 management of such schools should be described, in order 
 that they may not be encountered unawares. These are 
 the reasons which induce us to submit to your Lordship 
 some account of the progress of the Battersea Training 
 Schools. 
 
 Our first step, on founding the institution, was to remove 
 from schools which had been under our immediate super- 
 intendence, in connection with the Poor Law Commission, 
 some of the most promising pupils. We were not indif- 
 ferent to the impression that, in selecting the destitute 
 childi'en of pauper parents as the subjects of a trial of the 
 transforming influences of a religious training, our success 
 would not fail to increase the confidence of the public in 
 the ameliorative tendency of national education, on the 
 manners, habits, and feehngs of the most neglected classes ; 
 we hoped that a more active sympathy might be inspired 
 for the 50,000 pauper children who await the legislative 
 interference of Parliament for their efficient education in 
 religion and industry. But our chief design was to ascer- 
 tain whether, by training youths for a series of years in the 
 strict regimen, the exact and comprehensive instruction, 
 the industrious and self-denying habits, and the pecuhar 
 duties of a Normal School, we should not be able to pro- 
 cure more efficient instruments for the instruction of the 
 children of the poor than by any other means. 
 
 We had frequently visited the schools of the Brothers 
 of the Christian Doctrine in Prance, and had spent much 
 time in the examination of their E coles-meres. Our atten- 
 tion was attracted to these schools by the gentle manners 
 and simple habits which distinguished the Fveres ; by their 
 sympathy for children, and the religious feeling which per- 
 vaded their elementary schools. Their schools are cer- 
 tainly deficient in some of the niceties of organisation and 
 method ; and there are subjects on which the instruction 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Baitersea 389 
 
 might be more complete and exact, but eacli master was, 
 as it were, a parent to the children aromid him. The 
 school resembled a harmonious family. 
 
 The self-denying industry of these pious men was re- 
 markable. The habits of their order would be deemed 
 severe in this country. In the Mother School (where they 
 all reside), they rise at four. After private meditation, their 
 pubHc devotions in the chapel occupy the early hours of 
 the morning. The domestic drudgery of the household 
 succeeds. They breakfast at seven, and are in the schools 
 of tlie great cities of France at nine. When the routine 
 of daily school-keeping is at an end, after a short interval 
 for refreshment and exercise, they open their evening 
 schools, where hundi*eds of the adult population receive 
 instruction, not merely in reading, writing, and the simplest 
 elements of numbers, but in singing, drawing, geography ; 
 the mensuration of planes and sohds ; the history of France ; 
 and in reliction. Their eveninoj schools do not close till 
 ten. The pubhc expenditure on account of their services 
 is one -third the usual remuneration of an elementary 
 schoolmaster in France, and they devote their lives, con- 
 strained by the influence of a religious feeling, under a 
 rule of celibacy, but without a vow, to the education of 
 the poor. 
 
 The unquestionable self-denial of such a life, the attach- 
 ment of the children, and of the adult pupils to their in- 
 structors, together with the constant sense of the all- 
 subduing presence of Christian principle, rendered the 
 means adopted by the Christian Brothers, for the training 
 of their novices, a matter of much interest and inquiry. 
 
 The Mother School differs in most important respects 
 from a Normal School, but the extent of this difference is 
 not at first sight apparent, and is one of those results of 
 our experience which we wish to submit to your Lord- 
 ship. 
 
 The Mother School is an establishment comprising ar- 
 rangements for the instruction and training of novices ; 
 for the residence of the Brothers, who are engaged in the 
 
 c c 3 
 
390 Second Period 
 
 active performance of the duties of their order, as masters 
 of elementary day and evening schools ; and it affords an 
 asylum, into which they gradually retire from the fatigues 
 and cares of their pubHc labours, as age approaches, or 
 infirmities accumulate, to spend the period of sickness or 
 decrepitude in the tranquillity of the household provided 
 for them, and amidst the consolations of their brethren. 
 The Brothers constitute a family, performing every do- 
 mestic service, ministering to the sick and infirm, and 
 assembling for devotion daily in their chapel. 
 
 Their novices enter about the ages of 12 or 14. They 
 at once assume the dress of the order, and enter upon the 
 self-denying routine of the household. The first years of 
 their noviciate are of course devoted to such elementary 
 instruction as is necessary to prepare them for their future 
 duties as teachers of the poor. Their habits are formed, 
 not only in the course of this instruction, but by joining 
 the rehgious exercises ; performing the household duties ; 
 and enjoying the benefit of constant intercourse with the 
 elder brethren of the Mother School, who are at once their 
 instructors and friends. In this hfe of seclusion, the supe- 
 rior of the Mother School has opportunities of observing and 
 ascertaining the minutest traits of character, which indicate 
 their comparative quahfications for the future labours of 
 the order ; nor is this vigilance relaxed, but rather increased, 
 when they first quit the private studies of the Mother 
 School, to be gradually initiated in their public labours as 
 instructors of the people. 
 
 Such of the novices as are found not to possess the re- 
 quisite qualifications, especially as respects the moral con- 
 stitution necessary for the duties of their order, are per- 
 mitted to leave the Mother School to enter upon other 
 pursuits. During the period of the noviciate, such instances 
 are not rare, but we have reason to believe that they 
 seldom occur after the Brother has acquired maturity. 
 
 As their education in the Mother School proceeds, the 
 period devoted every day to their public labours in the ele- 
 mentary schools is enlarged ; and they thus, under the eye 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 391 
 
 of elder brethren, assisted by their example and precepts, 
 gradually emerge from the privacy of their noviciate to 
 their public duties. 
 
 In all this there is not much that differs from the life of 
 a young pupil in a Normal School ; but, at this point, the 
 resemblance ceases, and a great divergence occurs. 
 
 The brother, whose noviciate is at an end, continues a 
 member of the household of i}\Q Mother School. He has 
 only advanced to a higher rank. He is surrounded by the 
 same influences. The daily routine which formed his do- 
 mestic and rehgious habits continues. His mind is fed, 
 and his purposes are strengthened by the conversation and 
 examples of his brethren, and his conduct is under the 
 paternal eye of his superior. Under such circumstances, 
 personal identity is almost absorbed in the corporate life 
 by which he is surrounded. The strength of the order 
 supports his weakness : the spirit of the order is the per- 
 vading principle of his hfe : he thinks, feels, and acts, by 
 an unconscious inspiration from everything by which he is 
 surrounded, in a calm atmosphere of devotion and religious 
 labour. All is prescribed; and a pious submission, a 
 humble faith, a patient zeal, and a self-denying activity are 
 his highest duties. 
 
 Contrast his condition with that of a young man leaving 
 a Normal School at the age of 18 or 19, after three or four 
 years of comparative seclusion, under a regimen closely re- 
 sembling that of the Mother School. At this age, it is ne- 
 cessary that he should be put in charge of an elementary 
 school, in order that he may earn an independence. 
 
 The most favourable situation in which he can be placed, 
 because remote from the grosser forms of temptation, and 
 therefore least in contrast with his previous position, is the 
 charge of a rural school. For the tranquil and eventless 
 life of the master of a rural school, such a training is not 
 an unfit preparation. His resources are not taxed by the 
 necessity for inventing new means to meet the novel com- 
 binations which arise in a more active state of society. His 
 energy is equal to the task of instructing the submissive 
 
 c c 4 
 
392 Second Period 
 
 and tractable, though often dull children of the peasantry ; 
 and the gentle manners and quiet demeanour, which are 
 the uniform results of his previous education, are in har- 
 mony with the passionless life of the seclusion into which 
 he is plunged. His knowledge and his skill in method are 
 abundantly superior to the necessities of his position, and 
 the unambitious sense of duty which he displays attracts 
 the confidence and wins the regard of the clergyman 
 of the parish and of his intelhgent neighbours. For such 
 a life, we have found even the young pupils whom we 
 introduced into the training schools at their foundation 
 well fitted, and we have preferred to settle them, as far as 
 we could, on the estates of our personal friends, where we 
 are assured they have succeeded. Those only who have 
 entered the Normal School at adult age have been capable 
 of successfully contending with the greater difiiculties of 
 town schools. 
 
 But we are also led by our experience to say, that such 
 a noviciate does not prepare a youth of tender age to en- 
 counter the responsibihties of a large town or village school 
 in a manufacturing or mining district. Such a position is 
 in the most painful contrast with his previous training. He 
 exchanges the comparative seclusion of his residence in the 
 Normal School for the difficult position of a pubhc in- 
 structor, on whom many jealous eyes are fixed. For the 
 first time he is alone in his profession ; unaided by the ex- 
 ample of his masters ; not stimulated by emulation with 
 his fellows ; removed from the vigilant eye of the Principal 
 of the school ; separated from the powerful influences of 
 that corporate spirit, which impelled his previous career ; 
 yet placed amidst difficulties, perplexing even to the most 
 mature experience, and required to tax his invention to 
 meet new circumstances, before he has acquired confi- 
 dence in the unsustained exercise of his recently developed 
 powers. He has left the training school for the rude 
 contact of a coarse, selfish, and immoral populace, whose 
 gross appetites and manners render the narrow streets in his 
 neighbourhood scenes of impurity. He is at once brought 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 393 
 
 face to face with an ignorant and corrupt multitude, to 
 whose childi'en he is to prove a leader and guide. 
 
 His difficulties are formidable. BQs thoughts are fixed 
 on the deformity of this monstrous condition of society. 
 It is something to have this sense of the extremity of the 
 evil, but in order to confront it, that sense should become 
 the spur to persevering exertion. We have witnessed this 
 failure, and we conceive that such difficulties can only be 
 successfully encountered by masters of maturer age and 
 experience. 
 
 The situation of the novice of a Mother School, founded 
 in the centre of a great manufacturing city, is in direct 
 contrast with that of the young student, exchanging his 
 secluded training in a Normal School for the unaided 
 charge of a great town school. 
 
 If such a Mother School were founded in the midst of 
 one of our largest commercial towns, under the charge of a 
 Principal of elevated character and acquirements ; if he 
 had assembled around him devoted and humble men, 
 ready to spend their lives in reclaiming the surrounding 
 population by the foundation and management of schools 
 for the poor ; and into this society a youth were introduced 
 at a tender age, instructed, trained, and reared in the 
 habits and duties of his profession ; gradually brought 
 into contact with the actual evil, to the healing of which 
 his hfe was to be devoted ; never abandoned to his own 
 comparatively feeble resources, but always feeling himself 
 the missionary of a body able to protect, ready to console, 
 and willing to assist and instruct him ; — in such a situa- 
 tion, his feebleness would be sustained by the strength 
 of a corporation animated with the vitality of Christian 
 principle. 
 
 We are far from recommending the estabhshment of 
 such a school, to the success of which we think we perceive 
 insurmountable obstacles in this country. The only form 
 in wliich a similar machinery could exist in England is 
 that of a Town Normal School, in which all the apprentices 
 or pupil teachers of the several elementary schools might 
 
394 Second Period 
 
 lodge, and where, under the superintendence of a Principal, 
 their domestic and religious habits might be formed. 
 The masters of the elementary schools might be associates 
 of the Normal School, and conduct the instruction of the 
 pupil teachers, in the evening or early in the morning, 
 when free from the duties of their schools. The whole 
 body of masters would thus form a society, with the 
 Principal at their head, actively employed in the practical 
 daily duties of managing and instructing schools, and 
 also by their connection with the Town Normal School, 
 keeping in view and contributing to promote the general 
 interests of elementary education by rearing a body of 
 assistant masters. If a good library were collected in this 
 central institution, and lectures from time to time dehvered 
 on appropriate subjects to the whole body of masters and 
 assistants, or, which would be better, if an uppei' school 
 were founded, which might be attended by the masters 
 and most advanced assistants, every improvement in 
 method would thus be rapidly diffused through the ele- 
 mentary schools of towns. 
 
 The first steps towards the establishment of such an 
 institution for schoolmasters may be taken by the masters 
 of elementary schools unaided, if they are disposed to 
 adopt the system pursued. in Holland of rearing pupil- 
 teachers as apprentices in all the town schools, and com- 
 pleting their course of instruction by one year's training 
 in a Normal School. 
 
 In Holland, the elementary schoolmasters of every great 
 town form a society, associated for their common benefit. 
 Their schools are always large, varying in numbers from 
 three to seven hundred or even a thousand children, who 
 are often assembled in one room. Every master is aided 
 by a certain number of assistants of different ages, and by 
 pupil teachers. 
 
 The course through which a youth passes from a posi- 
 tion of distinction, as one of the most successful scholars, 
 to that of master of a school, is obvious. He is apprenticed 
 as a pupil teacher (an assistant equivalent, in the first 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 395 
 
 stage, to the most superior class of our monitors in Eng- 
 land). As pupil teacher he assists in the instruction of 
 the youngest classes during the day, witnessing and taking 
 part in the general movements of the school, and in the 
 maintenance of discipline and order. He resides with his 
 own family in the city, and before he is admitted appren- 
 tice, care is taken to ascertain that he belongs to a well- 
 conducted household, and that he will be reared by his 
 parents in habits of religion and order. Every evening 
 all the pupil teachers of the town are assembled to receive 
 instruction. The society of teachers provides from its 
 own body a succession of instructors, by one of whom, on 
 each night of the week, the pupil teachers are taught 
 some branch of elementary knowledge necessary to school- 
 keeping. One of the most experienced masters of the 
 town, likewise, gives them lectures on metliod, and on the 
 art of organising and conducting a school. 
 
 The society of schoolmasters meets from time to time 
 to receive from each of its members an account of the 
 conduct, progress, and qualifications of each pupil teacher 
 in the town, not only in the evening class, but in the school 
 duties of the day. 
 
 On the reputation thus acquired and preserved, depends 
 the progress of the pupil teacher in the art of school- 
 keeping. As his experience becomes more mature, and 
 his knowledge increases, he is intrusted with more im- 
 portant matters and higher classes in the school. He 
 undergoes two successive examinations by the Govern- 
 ment Inspector, being first admitted candidate and after- 
 wards assistant master, and he is then at Hberty to complete 
 his course of training by entering the Normal School at 
 Haarlem^ from which he can obtain the highest certificates 
 of fitness for the duties of his profession. 
 
 This appears to us a course of training peculiarly well- 
 adapted to the formation of masters for the great schools 
 of large towns, and likewise for supplying these great 
 schools during the education of the pupil teacher, with 
 the indispensable aid of a body of assistant masters, with- 
 
396 Second Period 
 
 out which they must continue to be examples of an 
 economy which can spare nothing adequate to the im- 
 provement of the people. 
 
 The formation of a body of pupil teachers in each great 
 town, thus instructed by a society of schoolmasters, is 
 an object worthy of encouragement from the Committee 
 of Council, who might at least provide the fees and charges 
 of apprenticeship, and grant exhibitions for the training of 
 the most successful pupil teachers in a I^ormal School at 
 the close of their apprenticeship, even if the Government 
 were indisposed to encounter any of the annual charges 
 incident to the plan. 
 
 Few words are requisite to render apparent the difference 
 between the life of a pupil teacher so trained, and that of 
 a young novice in a Normal School. The familiar life of 
 the parental household, while it exercises a salutary in- 
 fluence on the habits and manners of the young candidate, 
 is not remote from the great scene of exertion in which 
 his future hfe is to be spent. He is unconsciously prepared 
 by the daily occurrences in his father's family, and by his 
 experience and instruction in the day and evening school, 
 to form a just estimate of the circumstances by which he 
 is surrounded. He is trained from day to day in the 
 management of the artful and corrupt children even of 
 the dregs of the city, and enabled to apply such means as 
 the discipline and instruction of a common school afford, 
 to the improvement of the moral and intellectual condition 
 of the children of the common people. He becomes an 
 agent of civilisation, fitted for a peculiar work by habit, 
 and prepared to imbibe during the two or three years 
 he may spend in a Normal School those higher maxims 
 of conduct, that more exact knowledge, and those more 
 perfect methods of which it is the proper source. From 
 such a period of training, he returns to his native city, 
 or is sent to some other town, strong in the confidence in- 
 spired by his prolonged experience of the peculiar duties 
 he has to perform, either to take a high rank as an assis- 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 397 
 
 tant master, or to undertake the responsibility of conduct- 
 ing a town school as its chief. 
 
 These are the views which have led us to conclude that 
 the admission of boys into a Normal School, as distinguished 
 from a Mother School, is not a fit preparation for the 
 discharge of the duties of a schoolmaster in a large town. 
 
 We have gradually raised the age of admission from 14 
 to 16, and thence to 18 or 20 years, and we are now of 
 opinion that few or none should be admitted into a Normal 
 School under the latter age. 
 
 Besides the reasons already stated why youths under 
 18 should not be admitted into such a school, there are 
 some arising out of the internal economy of a Normal 
 School of sufficient importance to deserve enumeration. 
 
 If youths are admitted, none who have arrived at adult 
 age should be permitted to enter. The youth neces- 
 sarily enters for a course of training which extends over 
 several years ; the adult student commonly enters for 
 two years. The attainments of all are meagre on their 
 admission. In the course of a few years, therefore, 
 the youngest pupils are necessarily at the head of the 
 school in their attainments and skill, which is a source 
 of gr€at discouragement to an adult entering such an 
 estabUshment, and a dangerous distinction to a youth 
 whose acquirements have suddenly raised him intellectually 
 above all in his sphere of life. The tendencies of such a 
 great disparity in the acquirements appropriate to the two 
 classes of age are obviously injurious. We have expe- 
 rienced the consequences of this disparity as a disturbing 
 force in the Training Schools, and to counteract these ten- 
 dencies has required a vigilance and provident care, which 
 has increased our labours and anxieties. Few things have 
 been more pleasing than the readiness with which some 
 of the oldest students who have entered the schools have 
 taken their seats in the humblest positions, and passed 
 with patient perseverance through all the elementary 
 drudgery, though boys have held the most prominent 
 positions in the first class, and have occasionally become 
 
398 Second Period 
 
 their instructors. On the other hand, to check the conceit 
 too frequently engendered by a rapid progress, when at- 
 tended with such contrasts, we have suggested to the 
 masters, that the humble assiduity of the recently entered 
 adult pupil ought to secure an expressive deference and 
 attention. 
 
 The intellectual development of the young pupils is a 
 source of care insignificant in comparison with that attend- 
 ing the formation of their characters^ and this could be 
 accomplished with greater ease and certainty if they were 
 the sole objects of solicitude. But, as members of an 
 establishment into which adults are admitted in an 
 equality or .inferiority of position, the discipline is com- 
 plicated, and the sources of error are increased. 
 
 For these reasons we prefer to admit into a JSTormal 
 School only students of adult age, reared by religious 
 parents, and concerning whose characters and qualifica- 
 tions the most satisfactory testimonials can be procured. 
 The inquiries preliminary to the admission of a student 
 should in all cases, where it may be practicable, extend 
 to his previous habits and occupations, to the character 
 of the household in which he has resided, and the friend- 
 ships he has formed. In all cases those young men are 
 to be preferred whose previous pursuits warrant some 
 confidence in their having a predilection for the duties 
 of a teacher of the poor. 
 
 Our plans have therefore tended to the introduction of 
 young men of 18 years of age and upwards for a training 
 of two years which we are led to regard as the shortest 
 period which it is desirable they should spend in such a 
 school. 
 
 Our pupils who have settled in charge of rural schools 
 have been encouraged by the correspondence which has 
 been maintained with the majority of them. They have 
 been supported by the sense, that as long as they perse- 
 vered faithfully in their labours, they had friends ready to 
 help in any casualty. This correspondence has maintained 
 the influence of the" Normal School, Avhen the labours of 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Batter sea 399 
 
 the masters prevented their writing to their absent pupils. 
 We have also promoted a famihar correspondence be- 
 tween the students who have left the school and those 
 who remain ; and between all who have settled in Hfe, in 
 order that they . may have a feeling of community of 
 interest, . and maintain among themselves an esprit de 
 corps, the offspring of the pubhc opinion of the school. 
 
 The main object of a Normal School is the formation 
 of the character of the schoolmaster. This was the primary 
 idea which guided our earliest efforts in the establishment 
 of the Battersea Schools on a basis different from that of 
 any previous example in this country. We have sub- 
 mitted to your Lordship the reasons which have led us to 
 modify one of the chief features of our plan, but our 
 convictions adhere with undiminished force to the prin- 
 ciple on which the schools were originally founded. They 
 were intended to be an institution, in which every object 
 was subservient to the formation of the character of the 
 schoolmaster, as an intelligent Christian man entering on 
 the instruction of the poor, with religious devotion to his 
 work. If we propose to change the means, the end we 
 have in view is the same. Compelled by the foregoing 
 considerations to think the course of training we proposed 
 for youths does not prepare them for the charge of large 
 schools in manufacturing towns, we are anxious that the 
 system pursued in Holland should be adopted, as a train- 
 ing preparatory to the examination of the pupil teachers 
 previously to their admission into a Normal School. 
 Finding that the patrons of students and the friends of the 
 estabhshment are unable, for the most part, to support a 
 longer training for young men than one year and a half, 
 we are more anxious respecting the investigation of their 
 previous characters and connections, and more fastidious 
 as to their intellectual qualifications and acquirements. 
 
 When the Battersea Schools contain their complement 
 
 1 
 
400 Second Period 
 
 of 50 students, the entire charges of the institution have 
 been on the average, about £55 for each pupil : £30 have 
 recently been required from the patrons or friends of the 
 pupils towards the expenses of their maintenance and edu- 
 cation. The average annual charge on the founders of the 
 schools, has therefore been £25 for each pupil, or about 
 £1250 per annum, when the school has been full. 
 
 If the number of pupils were augmented, the staff of 
 masters would require to be increased, and the average 
 expense would be about £20 each for 70 pupils, or £1400 
 per annum. The plans for the enlargement and repair of 
 the school-buildings towards which your Lordships have 
 voted us a grant of £2200, would provide convenient 
 accommodation for 70 pupils, and for the residence of a 
 Principal, an officer whose superintendence of the future 
 progress of the estabhshment has become indispensable. 
 
 When 70 pupils are in course of training in the schools 
 for one year and a half, upwards of 50 would leave the 
 establishment annually, at an expense of £30 for the 
 training of each pupil ; or if the insufficiency of the re- 
 sources of the establishment, and of the pupils conspired 
 for the present, with the urgency of the wants of the 
 public, to defeat this plan, and to render one year's 
 traming the maximum course, 70 pupils would leave the 
 estabhshment annually, at an average expense of £20 for 
 each pupil, or £1400 per annum. 
 
 When circumstances thus combine to prevent the resi- 
 dence of the students in the training school for a longer 
 period than a year and a half, the inquiries as to previous 
 character cannot be conducted with too much care, and 
 the first month of training should under any circumstances 
 be regarded as probationary. 
 
 Under these arrangements also, the impression produced 
 upon the characters of the students during their residence 
 is of paramount importance. 
 
 They are commonly selected from a humble sphere. 
 
 They are the sons of small tradesmen, of baihffs, of 
 
 / servants, or of superior mechanics. Few ha\'e received 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 401 
 
 any education, except that given in a common parochial 
 school. They read and write very imperfectly ; are un- 
 able to indite a letter correctly ; and are seldom skilful, ' \ 
 even in the first four rules of arithmetic. Their biblical 
 knowledge is meagre and inaccurate, and all their concep- 
 tions, not less on religious than on other subjects, are 
 vague and confused, even when they are not also very j 
 limited or erroneous. ' Their habits have seldom prepared ' 
 them for the severely regular life of the Normal School, 
 much less for the strenuous effort of attention and applica- 
 tion required by the daily routine of instruction. Such 
 concentration of the mind would soon derange the health, if 
 the course of training did not provide moderate daily exer- 
 cise in the garden, at proper intervals. The mental torpor, 
 which at first is an obstacle to improvement, generally 
 passes away in about three months, and from that period 
 the student makes rapid progress in the studies of the 
 school. The tables and examination papers appended to 
 Mr. Allen's ^ Eeport show the state of the pupil's acquire- 
 ments, and how his intellectual powers are strengthened, 
 when his course of instruction is completed. 
 
 These attainments, humble though they be, might prove 
 dangerous to the character of the student, if his intellec- 
 tual deyeh)pmen^ were the chief concern of the masters. 
 
 How easy it would be for him to form an overweening 
 estimate of his knowledge and abihty, must be apparent, 
 when it is remembered that he will measure his learning 
 by the standard of that possessed by his own friends and 
 neighbours. He will find himself suddenly raised by a 
 brieT course of training to the position of a teacher and 
 example. If his mind were not thoroughly penetrated 
 by a religious principle, or if a presumptuous or merce- 
 nary tone had been given to his character, he might go 
 forth to bring discredit upon education by exhibiting a 
 precocious vanity, an insubordinate spirit, or a selfish 
 ambition. He might become not the gentle and pious 
 guide of the children of the poor, but a hireling into 
 
 ^ The present Archdeacon of Salop, — then H. M. Inspector. 
 D D 
 
402 Second Period 
 
 whose mind had sunk the doubts of the sceptic ; in whose 
 heart was the worm of social discontent ; and who had 
 changed the docihty of ignorance and dulness, for the 
 restless impatience of a vulgar and conceited sciolist. 
 
 In the formation of the character of the schoolmaster, 
 the disciphne of the Training School should be so devised 
 as to prepare him for the modest respectabihty of his lot. 
 He is to be a Christian teacher, following him who said, 
 " he that will be my disciple, let him take up his cross." 
 Without the spirit of self-denial, he is nothing. His re- 
 ward must be in his work. There should be great simph- 
 city in the life of such a man. 
 
 Obscure and secluded schools need masters of a con- 
 tented spirit, to whom the training of the children com- 
 mitted to their charge, has charms sufficient to concen- 
 trate their thoughts and exertions on the humble sphere 
 in which they live, notwithstanding the privations of a 
 life but httle superior to the level of the surrounding 
 peasantry. When the scene of the teacher's exertions is 
 in a neighbourhood which brings him into association 
 with the middle and upper classes of society, his emolu- 
 ments will be greater, and he will be surrounded by 
 temptations which, in the absence of a suitable prepara- 
 tion of mind, might rob him of that humility and gentle- 
 ness, which are among the most necessary quahfications 
 of the teacher of a common school. 
 
 In the Training School, habits should be formed consis- 
 tent with the modesty of his future life. On this account 
 we attach peculiar importance to the discipline which we 
 have established at Battersea. Only one servant, besides 
 a cook, has been kept for the domestic duties of the 
 household. From the table contained in Mr. Allen's 
 Eeport, you will perceive that the whole household work, 
 with the exception of the scouring of the floors and cook- 
 ing, is performed by the students, and they hkewise not 
 only milk and clean the cows, feed and tend the pigs, but 
 have charge of the stores, wait upon each other, and culti- 
 vate the garden. We cannot too emphatically state our 
 opinion that no portion of this woik could be omitted, ' 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Batter sea 403 
 
 without a proportionate injury to that contentment of 
 spirit, without which the character of the student is hable 
 to be overgrown with the errors we have described. He 
 has to be prepared for a humble and subordinate position, 
 and though master of his school, to his scholars he is to 
 be a parent, and to his superiors an intelligent servant and 
 minister. 
 
 The garden work also serves other important ends. 
 Some exercise and recreation from the scholastic labours 
 are indispensable. Nevertheless, a large portion of the 
 day cannot be devoted to it, and when three or four 
 hours only can be spared, care should be taken that the 
 whole of this time is occupied by moderate and healthful 
 exertion in the open air. A period of recreation employed 
 according to the discretion of the students would be liable 
 to abuse. It might often be spent in listless sauntering, ^ 
 or in violent exertion. Or if a portion of the day were 
 thus withdrawn from the observation of the masters of 
 the school, it would prove a period in which associations 
 might be formed among the students inconsistent with the 
 discipline ; and habits might spring up to counteract the 
 influence of the instruction and admonition of the masters. 
 In so brief a period of training, it is necessary that the 
 entire conduct of the student should be guided by a 
 superior mind. 
 
 Not only by the daily labour of the garden, are the 
 health and morals of the school influenced, but habits are 
 formed consistent with the student's future lot. It is well 
 both for his own health, and for the comfort of his family, 
 that the schoolmaster should know how to grow his 
 garden stufi", and should be satisfied with innocent recrea- 
 tion near his home. 
 
 We have also adhered to the frugal diet which we at 
 first selected for the school. Some httle variety has been 
 introduced, but we attach great importance to the students 
 being accustomed to a diet so plain and economical, and 
 to arrangements in their dormitories so simple and devoid 
 of luxury, that in after life they will not in a humble 
 
 D » 2 
 
404 Second Period 
 
 school be visited with a sense of privation, when their 
 scanty fare and mean furniture are compared with the 
 more abundant food and comforts of the training school. 
 We have therefore met every rising complaint respecting 
 either the quantity or quality of the food, or the humble 
 accommodation in the dormitories, with explanations of 
 the importance of forming, in the school, habits of fru- 
 gality, and of the paramount duty of nurturing a patient 
 spirit, to meet the future privations of the life of a teacher 
 of the poor. Though we have admitted some variety 
 into the ingredients of the diet, we have not increased 
 the quantity, or raised the quality, of the food of the 
 school, or added one element even of additional comfort 
 to their hfe. 
 
 Our experience also leads us to attach much importance 
 to simplicity and propriety of dress. For the younger 
 pupils we had, on this account, prepared a plain dark 
 dress of rifle green, and a working dress of fustian cord. 
 As respects the adults, we have felt the importance of 
 checking the slightest tendency to peculiarity of dress, 
 lest it should degenerate into foppery. We have endea- 
 voured to impress on the students that the dress and the 
 manners of a master of a School for the poor should be 
 decorous, but that the prudence of his life should likewise 
 find expression in their simphcity. There should be no 
 habit nor external sign of self-indulgence or vanity. 
 
 On the other hand, the master is to be prepared for a 
 life of laborious exertion. He must, therefore, form habits 
 of early rising, and of activity and persevering industry. 
 In the winter, before it is light, the household work must 
 be finished, and the school-rooms prepared by the students 
 .for the duties of the day. One hour and a half is thus 
 occupied. After this work is accomplished, one class 
 must assemble winter and summer, at a quarter to seven 
 o'clock, for instruction. The day is filled with the claims 
 of duty requiring the constant exertion of mind and body, 
 until at half-past nine the household retire to rest. 
 
 By this laborious and frugal life, economy of manage- 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Batter sea 405 
 
 ment is reconciled with the efficiency both of the moral 
 and intellectual training of the School, and the master 
 goes forth into the world humble, industrious, and in- 
 structed. 
 
 But into the student's character higher sentiments must 
 enter, if we rightly conceive the mission of the master of 
 a school for the poor. On the rehgious condition of the 
 household, under the blessing of God, depends the culti- 
 vation of that religious feeling, without which the spirit 
 of self-sacrifice cannot take its right place among the 
 motives which ought to form the mainspring of a school- 
 master's activity. 
 
 There is a necessity for incessant vigilance in the man- 
 agement of a training school. The Principal should be 
 wise as a serpent, while the gentleness of his disciphne, 
 and his affectionate solicitude for the well-being of his 
 pupils, should encourage the most unreserved communi- 
 cations with him. Much of his leisure should be devoted 
 to private interviews with the students, and employed in 
 instilling into their minds high principles of action. A 
 cold and repulsive air of authority may preserve the ap- 
 pearance of order, regularity, and submission in the house- 
 hold ; but these will prove delusive signs if the Principal 
 does not possess the respect and confidence, not to say the 
 affections, of his charge. He should be most accessible, 
 and unwearied in the patience with which he listens to 
 confessions and inquiries. While it is felt to be impossible 
 that he should enter into any compromise with evil, there 
 should be no such severity in his tone of rebuke as to check 
 that confidence which seeks guidance from a superior in- 
 telligence. As far as its relation to the Principal only is 
 concerned, every fault should be restrained and corrected 
 by a conviction of the pain and anxiety which it causes to 
 an anxious friend, rather than by the fear of a too jealous 
 authority. Thus conscience will gradually be roused by 
 the example of a master, respected for his purity, and 
 loved for his gentleness, and inferior sentiments will be 
 replaced by motives derived from the highest source, 
 
 D D 3 
 
406 Second Period 
 
 Where so mucli has to be learned, and where, among 
 other studies, so much rehgious knowledge must be 
 acquired, there is danger that religion should be regarded 
 chiefly as a subject for the exercise of the intellect. A 
 s|)eculative religious knowledge, without those habits and 
 feelings which are the growth of deeply-seated religious 
 / convictions, may be a dangerous acquisition to a teacher of 
 / the young. How important, therefore, is it, that the reh- 
 gious services of the household should become the means 
 of cultivating a spirit of devotion, and that the religious 
 instruction of the School should be so conducted as not 
 merely to inform the memory, but to master the convic- 
 tions and to interest the feelings. Eehgion is not merely 
 to be taught in the School — it must be the element in 
 which the students live. 
 
 This rehgious life is to be nurtured by the example, by 
 the pubhc instruction of the Principal, and by his private 
 counsel and admonition ; by the religious services of the 
 household ; by the personal intercourse of the students, 
 and the habits of private meditation and devotion which 
 they are led to form ; by the public worship of the church, 
 and by the acts of charity and self-denial which belong to 
 their future calhng. 
 
 How important is it that the Principal should embody 
 such an example of purity and elevation of character, of 
 gentleness of manners and of unwearied benevolence, as 
 to increase the power of his teaching, by the respect and 
 conviction which wait upon a consistent hfe. Into the 
 religious services of the household, he should endeavour 
 to inspire such a spirit of devotion as would spread itself 
 through the familiar Hfe, and hallow every season of retire- 
 ment. The management of the village school affords op- 
 portunities for cultivating habits of kindness and patience. 
 The students should be instructed in the organisation and 
 conduct of Sunday schools ; they should be trained in the 
 preparation of the voluntary teachers by previous instruc- 
 tion ; in the visitation of the absent children ; in the 
 management of the clothing and sick clubs and hbraries 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 407 
 
 attached to such schools. They should be accustomed to 
 the performance of those parochial duties in which the 
 schoolmaster may lighten the burthen of the clergyman. 
 For this purpose they should learn to keep the accounts 
 of the benefit club. They should instruct and manage the 
 village choir, and should learn to play the organ. 
 
 While in attendance on the village school, it is pecu- 
 liarly important that they should accompany the master 
 in his visits to children detained at home by sickness, and 
 should listen to the words of counsel and comfort which he 
 may then administer ; they should also attend him when 
 his duty requires a visit to the parents of some refractory 
 or indolent scholar, and should learn how to secure their 
 aid in the correction of the faults of the child. 
 
 Before he leaves the Training School, the student should 
 have formed a distinct conception, from precept and prac- 
 tice, how his example, his instruction, and his works of 
 chaTity and religion, ought to promote the Christian civi- 
 lisation of the community in which he labours. 
 
 Turn we again to the contrast of such a picture. Let 
 us suppose a school in which this vigilance in the forma- 
 tion of character is deemed superfluous ; or a Principal, the 
 guileless simplicity of whose character is not strengthened 
 by the wisdom of experience. A fair outward show of 
 order and industry, and great intellectual development, 
 may, in either case, be consistent, with the latent pro- 
 gress of a rank corruption of manners, mining all beneath. 
 Unless the searching intelligence of the Principal is capable 
 of discerning the dispositions of his charge, and antici- 
 pating their tendencies, he is unequal to the task of 
 moulding the minds of his pupils, by the power of a 
 loftier character and a superior will. In that case, or 
 when the Principal deems such vigilance superfluous and 
 is content with the intellectual labours of his ofiice, leaving \ 
 the Httle repubhc, of which he is the head, to form its \ 
 own manners, and to create its own standard of principle 
 and action, the catastrophe of a deep ulcerous corruption, 
 is not likely to be long delayed. 
 
 D D 4 
 
408 Second Period 
 
 In either case it is easy to trace the progress of degene- 
 racy. A school, in which the formation of cliaracter is 
 not the chief aim of the masters, must abandon that all- 
 important end to the republic of scholars. When these 
 are selected from the educated, and upper ranks of society, 
 the school will derive its code of morals from that preva- 
 lent in such classes. When the pupils belong to a very 
 humble class, their characters are hable, under such ar- 
 rangements, to be compounded of the ignorance, coarse- 
 ness, and vices of the lowest orders. One pupil, the victim 
 of low vices, or of a vulgar coarseness of thought, escaping 
 the eye of an unsuspicious Principal, or unsought for by 
 the vigilance which is expended on the intellectual pro- 
 gress of the school, may corrupt the private intercourse 
 of the students with low buffoonery, profligate jests, and 
 sneers at the self-denying zeal of the humble student ; may 
 gradually lead astray one after another of the pupils to 
 clandestine habits, if not to the secret practice of vice. 
 Under such circumstances, the counsels of the Principal 
 would gradually become subjects of ridicule. A con- 
 spiracy of direct insubordination would be formed. The 
 influence of the Superior would barely maintain a fair ex- 
 ternal appearance of order and respect. 
 
 Every master issuing from such a school would become 
 the active agent of a degeneracy of manners, by which 
 the humbler ranks of society would be infected. 
 
 The formation of the character is, therefore, the chief 
 aim of a Training School, and the Principal should be a 
 man of Christian earnestness, of intelligence, of experience, 
 of knowledge of the world, and of the humblest simphcity 
 and purity of manners. 
 
 Next to the formation of the character of the pupil is, 
 in our estimation, the general development of his intelh- 
 gence. The extent of his attainments, though within a 
 certain range a necessary object of his training, should be 
 subordinate to that mental cultivation, which confers the 
 powers of self-education, and gives the greatest strength 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 409* 
 
 to his reflective faculties. On this aQCount, among others, I 
 we attach importance to the methods of imparting know- ' 
 ledge pursued in the Normal School. While we have 
 ensured that the attainments of the students should be 
 exact, by testing them with searching examinations, re- 
 peated at the close of every week, and reiterated lessons 
 on all subjects in which any deficiency was discovered, 
 nothing has been taught by rote. The memory has never 
 been stored, without the exercise of the reason. Nothing 
 has been learned which has not been understood. This 
 very obvious course is too frequently lost sight of in the 
 humbler branches of learning — principles being hidden 
 in rules, defining only their most convenient application ; 
 or buried under a heap of facts, united by no intelligible 
 link. To form the character, to develope the intelligence ,)^ 
 and to store the mind with the requisite knowledge, these ^i 
 were the objects of the Normal School. 
 
 In the Village School a new scene of labour developed 
 itself, which has been in progress since the period of our 
 last report, and has now nearly reached its term. If we 
 attach pre-eminent importance to the formation of cha- 
 racter as the object of the Normal School, a knowledge of 
 the method of managing an elementary school, and of 
 instructing a class in each branch of elementary know- 
 ledge, is the pecuUar object of the Model School attached 
 to any training institution. In its proper province as 
 subordinate to the instruction and training in a Normal 
 School, it is difficult to exaggerate the importance to a 
 teacher, of a thorough familiarity with the theory and 
 practice of organising and conducting common schools. 
 Without this, the most judicious labour in the Normal 
 School may, so far as the future usefulness of the student 
 as a schoolmaster is concerned, be hterally wasted. It is 
 possible to conceive that the character may be formed on 
 the purest model ; that the intelligence may have been 
 kept in healthful activity ; and that the requisite general 
 and technical instruction may have been acquired, yet 
 
410 Second Period 
 
 without the aptitude to teach ; without skill acquired 
 from precept and example ; without the habits matured 
 in the discipline of schools ; without the methods in which 
 the art of teaching is reduced to technical rules, and the 
 matter of instruction arranged in the most convenient 
 form for elementary scholars, the previous labour wants 
 the link which unites it to its peculiar task. On the other 
 hand, to select from the common drudgery of a handicraft, 
 or from the humble, if not mean pursuits of a petty trade, 
 a young man barely (if indeed at all) instructed in the 
 humblest elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
 and to conceive that a few months' attendance on a Model 
 School can make him acquainted with the theory of its 
 organisation, convert him into an adept in its methods, or 
 even rivet upon his stubborn memory any significant part 
 of the technical knowledge of which he has immediate 
 need, is a mistake too shameful to be permitted to survive 
 its universal failure. 
 
 When we speak of the necessity of a thorough acquaint- 
 ance with methods of organising and teaching in common 
 Schools, we mean to exalt the importance of previous train- 
 ing of the character, expansion of the intelligence and suffi- 
 cient technical instruction. Without this previous prepa- 
 ration, the instruction in the Model School is empirical, and 
 the luckless wight would have had greater success in his 
 handicraft, than he can hope to enjoy in his school. 
 
 For these reasons, among others, the attention of the 
 students has especially of late been directed to the theory 
 of the organisation of Schools, and to the acquirement of 
 the art of teaching. Whatever degree of success has at- 
 tended the introduction of changes in the organisation and 
 methods of instruction in the village school is greatly to 
 be attributed to the zealous co-operation of the Honour- 
 able and Eev. Eobert Eden, who opened his Schools to 
 our pupils, and has personally superintended the progress 
 of these improvements with persevering activity. 
 
 It would be difficult in the brief limits of this Eeport 
 to give a satisfactory account of the objects sought to be 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Batter sea 411 
 
 accomplished in the oi^ganisation of the Battersea Village 
 School. This would be a subject more fitly discussed in a 
 work on Method. General indications would only serve 
 to mislead. 
 
 The method of conveying instruction is peculiarly im- 
 portant in an Elementary School, because the scholars 
 receive no learning and httle judicious training at home, 
 and are therefore dependent for their education on the 
 very hmited period of their attendance at school. On 
 this account nothing superfluous should be taught, lest 
 what is necessary be not attained. The waRt of a fit 
 preparation of the mind of the scholar, and the brevity of 
 his school life, are reasons for adopting the most certain 
 and efficacious means of imparting knowledge, so that this 
 short period may become as profitable as possible. The 
 regularity of the child's attendance, the interest he takes 
 in his learning, and his success, will be promoted by the 
 adoption of means of instruction suited to the state of his 
 faculties and the condition of society from which he is 
 taken. If his progress be obstructed by the obscurity of 
 his master's teaching, and by the absence of that tact 
 which captivates the imagination of children and rouses 
 the activity of their minds, the scholar wiJl become dull, 
 listless, and untoward ; will neglect his learning and his 
 school, and degenerate into an obstinate dunce. The 
 easiest transition in acquirement is in the order of simpli- 
 city from the known to the unknown, and it is indispen- 
 sable to sldlful teaching that the matter of instruction 
 should be arranged in a synthetic order, so that all the 
 elements may have to each other the relation of a pro- 
 gressive series from the most simple to the most complex. 
 This arrangement of the matter of instruction requires a 
 previous analysis, which can only be successfully accom- 
 plished by the devotion of much time. Such methods are 
 only gradually brought to perfection by experience. The 
 elementary schoolmaster, however highly instructed, can 
 seldom be expected to possess either the necessary leisure 
 
412 Second Period 
 
 or the peculiar analytical talent ; and unless this work of 
 arrangement be accomplished for him, he cannot hope, by 
 the technical instruction of the Normal School, to acquire 
 sufficient skill to invent a method by arranging the matter 
 of instruction. 
 
 In order, therefore, that he may teach nothing super- 
 fluous ; that he may convey his instruction in the most 
 skilful manner, and in the order of simplicity, it is neces- 
 sary that he should become acquainted with a method of 
 communicating each branch of knowledge. 
 
 This is the more important, because individual teaching 
 is impossible in a common school. Every form of orga- 
 nisation, from the monitorial to the simultaneous, includes 
 more or less of collective teaching. The characteristics of 
 skilful collective teaching are the simphcity and precision 
 with which the knowledge is communicated, and the logical 
 arrangement of the matter of instruction. Diffuse, desul- 
 tory, or unconnected lessons are a waste of time, they leave 
 no permanent traces on the memory ; they confuse the 
 minds of children instead of instructing them and strength- 
 ening their faculties. 
 
 Certain moral consequences also flow from the adoption 
 of skilful methods of teaching. The relations of regard 
 and respect which ought to exist between the master and 
 his scholars are liable to disturbance, when, from his im- 
 perfect skill, their progress in learning is slow, their minds 
 remain inactive, and their exertions are languid and un- 
 successful. A school in which the master is inapt, and the 
 scholars are dull, too frequently becomes the scene of a 
 harsher discipline. Inattention must be prevented — in- 
 dolence quickened — impatience restrained — insubordina- 
 tion and truancy corrected ; yet all these are early conse- 
 quences of the want of skill in the master. To enforce 
 attention and industry, and to secure obedience and de- 
 corum, the languid and the hstless are too often subjected 
 to the stimulus of coercion, when the chief requisite is 
 method and tact. The master supplies his own deficiencies 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 413 
 
 with the rod ; and what he cannot accomphsh by skill, he 
 endeavours to attain by the force of authority. 
 
 Such a result is not a proper subject of wonder, when 
 the master has received no systematic instruction in method. 
 To leave the student without the aid of method^ is to subject 
 him to the toil of analysis and invention, when he has 
 neither the time nor the talent to analyse and invent. 
 
 Some progress has been made in the introduction of ap- 
 propriate methods into the Village School at Battersea. 
 
 In the introduction of the Phonic method of teaching to 
 read^ less has been practically done than the length of time 
 expended in the production of the Manual would apj)ear 
 to justify, if it had been possible to accomplish much before 
 the Manual and apparatus were prepared. The first and 
 second books of the Manual are now complete, being 
 printed, with the tablets for elementary schools, in new 
 type, by Mr. Parker. The other books are almost ready, 
 and all will be published without delay. The complete 
 introduction of the Phonic method into the Village School 
 will therefore encounter no further obstacle. Meanwhile 
 the school has been the scene of all the early trials of the 
 method. Mr. Senf, to whom the analytical labour, and the 
 task of arrangement, was confided, resided in the Normal 
 School, and from time to time conducted a class expe- 
 rimentally in the Village School. The task has since been 
 confided to Mr. Tomhnson, who has prepared the reading 
 lessons for the tablets and the Manual ; and Mr. Macleod, 
 the master of the Village School, has practically tested the 
 labours of these gentlemen, by his own experience of the 
 method in conducting classes in the Village School. Mr. 
 Tomhnson has also had charge of classes in London, in 
 order that the method might not be published before its 
 adaptation to English schools was proved by adequate 
 experience. The limits of these pages do not permit us 
 to enter upon the principles on which this method is 
 based. It is perhaps sufiicient to say, that it has been, in 
 various forms, almost universally adopted in elementary 
 schools in Holland, Germany, and Prussia. 
 
414 Second Period 
 
 The method of teaching writing invented by M. Mul- 
 hauser, of Geneva, and adopted in the chief JSTormal 
 Schools of France, was introduced by us into the Batter- 
 sea Village School, and taught there by Mr. Macleod. He 
 has since given lessons to classes of the metropolitan 
 schoolmasters at the School of Method formerly assem- 
 bling in Exeter Hall, and now in St. Martin's Lane ; and 
 this method is adopted in many schools in London. Most 
 of the principal improvements in this method have, since 
 the public instruction given by Mr. Macleod, been adopted 
 by the inventor of another method, who attended Mr. 
 Macleod's classes for his own instruction. His copy-books 
 and black-boards have been modified by the introduction 
 of the most_ characteristic features of the method of Mul- 
 hauser ; and, as there was no desire on our part to create 
 a monopoly of instruction, we rejoice that this gentleman 
 has become the propagator of the chief elements of this 
 method. Some difficulty is frequently experienced in pro- 
 curing the Manual and copy-books of Mulhauser through 
 the country booksellers. This obstacle to its diffusion will 
 be removed. The method is so simple, that any country 
 schoolmaster of common intelligence may learn it, without 
 trouble, from the Manual ; and the books are sold at so 
 low a price, as to be within the means of all. 
 
 The method of teaching arithmetic introduced into the 
 Village School is a modification of that of Pestalozzi. By 
 this method the theory of numbers, and the art of mental 
 calculation have been taught both to the students of the 
 Normal School and the village scholars. All the masters 
 acknowledge the assistance they have derived from it. 
 
 We had seen the method of Pestalozzi cultivated in 
 various parts of Europe, under different modifications, and, 
 on visiting the Kildare Place Schools in Dublin, a few years 
 ago, we found one of the most successful examples of the 
 cultivation of this method, conducted by Mr. Irvine, now 
 head master of the Lower School at the Eoyal Hospital, 
 Greenwich. We never observed in any school greater 
 expertness in mental calculation, than in the Kildare Place 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Batter sea 415 
 
 Schools, nor so universal an aptitude for numerical com- 
 binations. 
 
 The method had been introduced into the Kildare Place 
 Schools by Mr. Singh, of Wicklow, who had visited Pes- 
 talazzi at Iverdun, made himself acquainted with the 
 method, and published in Dublin a Manual of Exercises 
 for the use of the schools in connection with the Kildare 
 Place Society. 
 
 Mr. Irvine was subsequently appointed head-master of 
 the Lower School at Greenwich by the Lords of the Ad- 
 miralty; and, notwithstanding the interruption of imperfect 
 health, and many obstacles, has succeeded in establishing 
 this method in his class. 
 
 He had also conducted classes, consisting chiefly of 
 masters of elementary schools in London, at the School of 
 Method, and there succeeded in creating interest in this new 
 study, and in imparting considerable skill. It is greatly to 
 be regretted that these labours exhausted his strength, and 
 seriously impaired his health. 
 
 Mr. Tate, the mathematical master of the Training 
 School, undertook the introduction of this method into that 
 school, aided by the Manual of Exercises published by Tims 
 of Dublin for Mr. Singh. Shortly afterwards Mr. Macleod 
 also introduced the method into the Village School. Some 
 months' experience led Mr. Tate to perceive that the 
 Manual of Exercises might be condensed, and might be so 
 arranged as to have a more evident relation to the theory 
 and practice of the commercial arithmetic commonly 
 taught in schools. With this view he was intrusted with 
 the preparation of a Manual, which, after a prolonged 
 trial, both in the Normal and Village Schools, is now 
 ready for publication. 
 
 As soon as the Manual is published the lessons in the 
 School of Method will probably be resumed. The Manual 
 wiU be published cheaply by Mr. Parker, by whom the 
 Tables necessary for instruction on this method will also 
 be sold, both printed on sheets and painted on black 
 boards. 
 
416 Second Period 
 
 The method of teaching drawijig from models invented 
 by M. Dupuis was also practised in the Training School. 
 The development given to this method is due to the zeal 
 of Mr. Butler Williams as a public teacher, and to the skill 
 with which he has prepared a manual of the method. 
 Mr. Butler Williams commenced his labours as a public 
 teacher of this mode of drawing in the Battersea Village 
 School, where he soon acquired, by his own efforts and 
 ingenuity, such skill in the illustration of the method as 
 to enable him to conduct with success the classes for 
 drawing from models, which were immediately opened 
 by him in the School of Method, and attended by school- 
 masters, superior mechanics, and artificers. The public 
 exhibition of the drawings made by Mr. Butler Williams' 
 classes has established the efficiency of this method of 
 teaching the drawing of form. Since that period, the 
 pupils who executed these drawings have assembled in 
 St. Martin's Church, and in a series of lessons have pro- 
 duced views of the interior. The elementary classes in 
 the School of Method are re-opened, and an upper school 
 of drawing from models has been established in a con- 
 venient gallery in Maddox-street, where Mr. Williams is 
 now pursuing, experimentally, Dupuis' application of the 
 method to the drawing of the human figure. The power 
 of drawing from natural objects acquired by the artificers 
 and schoolmasters who have attended these classes, 
 together with the increase of their skill in design, have 
 attracted Mr. Butler Williams' pupils to his course, and 
 have also occasioned the opening of private classes in the 
 new gallery in Maddox-street. It is also arranged that 
 this course shall be required as a preliminary to an 
 entrance into the classes of the Government School of 
 Design at Somerset House, and for this purpose several 
 new classes will immediately be opened. 
 
 The preliminary measures for the introduction of the 
 method of teaching singing, invented by M. Wilhem, are 
 related in your Lordships' Minute on that subject ; but 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 417 
 
 the success which has attended the labours of Mr. Hullah 
 remains to be told. The primary object of the inquiries 
 which Mr. Hullah was directed to make in Paris was the 
 experimental introduction of this method in the Training 
 Schools at Battersea, and the consequent preparation of 
 the Manual. Here Mr. Hullah carefully pursued his 
 early trials of the method, adapted it to English use, 
 and gave the first demonstrations of its efficiency. The 
 illustrations of Mr. HuUah's early lectures were sung by 
 the pupils of the Training School ; and when the method 
 had been thus tested by a prolonged trial, the Manual 
 was pubhshed, and the classes of the School of Method 
 were opened at Exeter Hall. These classes were con- 
 duGted at great expense, owing to the heavy charge made 
 by the directors of that building for the use of the rooms, 
 and for several incidental sources of outlay ; yet, during 
 two years, they have been maintained by the payments of 
 the pupils, without the aid of subscriptions, or any grant 
 from the Government, though the expenditure of the 
 first year exceeded £3000, and that of the second year 
 amounted to £2000, notwithstanding that Mr. Hullah's 
 services were gratuitous, and that he remunerated his 
 assistants. During the first year, 2657 members were 
 in attendance on these classes, and during the second year 
 2325, and Mr. Hullah now has 1200 members in his 
 upper schools, besides those attending the elementary 
 classes, although in every part of London both elementary 
 classes and upper schools are conducted by his pupils and 
 assistants. The method has hkewise been introduced by 
 Mr. Hullah into the public schools of Eton, Winchester, 
 the Charter House, Merchant Tailors' School, and into 
 the school attached to King's College, London. It is, 
 likewise, taught in St. Mark's College, Chelsea, the White- 
 land's Training School, and the Central Schools of the 
 National Society, in the Training Schools of the British 
 and Foreign School Society in the Borough-road, in 
 the Home and Colonial Infant School Society's Model 
 Schools, in the Chester Diocesan Training School, in the 
 
418 
 
 Second Period 
 
 Model and Normal Schools of the Irish Commissioners in 
 Dublin, in the Norwood Schools, and those of the Eoyal 
 Hospital, Greenwich, and in the majority of well-conducted 
 elementary schools both in town and country. Mr. Hullah 
 is now Professor of Vocal Music in King's College. 
 
 The Manual is pubhshed in various forms, and the 
 number of each of these forms sold by Mr. Parker may 
 give some idea of the extent to which the method is dif- 
 fused. We have, therefore, appended in a note a state- 
 ment of the number of copies sold 'About 130,000 
 copies of the first part of the Manual, Exercises, Sheets, 
 
 * Statetaent of the Sale of Copies of Hullah' s Manuals for Singing, December 12. 
 HuUah's Manual . 
 
 Exercises 
 
 Large Sheets 
 
 Part 1. 
 
 31,200 
 
 
 Part 2. 
 
 25,800 
 
 57,000 
 
 
 
 Book 1. 
 
 95,000 
 
 
 Book 2. 
 
 44,300 
 
 
 Book 3. 
 
 31,000 
 
 170,300 
 
 1 to 10 
 
 1738 
 
 
 11 — 20 
 
 1170 
 
 
 21 — SO 
 
 672 
 
 
 31 — 40 
 
 550 
 
 
 41 — 50 
 
 417 
 
 
 51 — 60 
 
 325 
 
 
 61 — 70 
 
 290 
 
 
 71 — 80 
 
 242 
 
 
 81 — 90 
 
 531 
 
 
 91 — 100 
 
 214 
 
 
 5849 
 10 
 
 HuUah's Vocal Grammar . , 
 Tablets for Monitorial Schools 
 
 58,490 
 
 1150 
 
 173 
 
 Statement of the Sale of Copies of Mr. HuUah's Part Music. 
 
 
 Class A. 
 
 Class B. 
 
 Class C. 
 
 Score, No. 1 
 
 3030 
 
 2100 
 
 1025 
 
 „ 2 
 
 1450 
 
 1250 
 
 680 
 
 3 
 
 1050 
 
 730 
 
 500 
 
 4 
 
 850 
 
 90 
 
 * 
 
 5 
 
 820 
 
 -;:- 
 
 ■«• 
 
 6 
 
 740 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■X- 
 
 7 
 
 360 
 
 ^ 
 
 * 
 
 8 
 
 170 
 
 if 
 
 «• 
 
 8470 
 
 4170 
 
 2205 
 
 Those numbers marked * not yet published. 
 
Trainimj of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 419 
 
 and Tablets are in use. Estimating that 100 children are 
 under instruction in every case in which the large sheets 
 and tablets are in course of sale, and that only one person 
 receives instruction from each copy of the Manual, Gram- 
 mar, and Exercises in course of distribution, upwards of 
 300,000 persons are now receiving instruction in singing 
 according to this method in England and Wales, without 
 reckoning those who have entered upper schools, and are 
 now using the Part Music and Psalter. Mr. Hullah's 
 Part Music is printed for three classes of voices, each class 
 being also printed both in score and for each separate 
 voice, in order to provide appropriate music for the prac- 
 tice of the upper schools. In the course of a few months 
 47,765 copies of the separate numbers of this Part Music 
 have been sold, and 16,305 copies of the first number of 
 each part in score or for a separate voice. 
 
 Mr. Hullah's labours for the diffusion of popular in- 
 struction in music are, for the present, completed by the 
 pubhcation of a Psalter. 
 
 Those methods of teaching grammar and etymology to 
 which the denomination of intellectual methods had been 
 given by the late conductor of the Edinburgh Sessional 
 School, Mr. Wood, have been satisfactorily estabhshed, 
 both in the instruction of the Village School and that of 
 the Normal School. In the Normal School the course of 
 instruction in grammar is more extensive, and a grammar 
 
 Statement of the Sale of Mr. HiiUalis Part Music — continued. 
 
 
 Soprano. 
 
 Alto. 
 
 Tenor. 
 
 Bass. 
 
 Summary. 
 
 I 
 General Summary. | 
 
 No. 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 7 
 8 
 
 3800 
 1980 
 1550 
 1200 
 1130 
 1000 
 450 
 340 
 
 1900 
 1090 
 775 
 625 
 560 
 520 
 260 
 200 
 
 2200 
 1330 
 1100 
 830 
 780 
 710 
 425 
 300 
 
 2250 
 1390 
 1150 
 870 
 830 
 750 
 425 
 200 
 
 Soprano 11,450 
 Alto . 5930 
 Tenor . 7675 
 Bass . 7865 
 
 Class A.— 
 Score . . 8470 1 
 Separate \ \ 
 Voices.]" ^-'^20 , 
 Class B. 4170 1 
 Class C. 2205 j 
 
 32,920 
 
 47,765 
 
 ! 
 
 ' 
 
 \ 11.4 50 
 
 5930 
 
 7675 
 
 7865 
 
 £ E 2 
 
420 Second Period 
 
 of more refined analysis is employed than in the Village 
 School, it being obvious the master ought to have a deeper 
 insight into the construction of his native language than 
 he can hope to impart to the scholar of a common school. 
 In both schools, however, the aim of Mr. Wood to give 
 a logical arrangement to the matter of instruction in these 
 subjects, is folio v^ed. 
 
 These several Methods have now been tested by expe- 
 rience on the most pubhc theatre, and have become an 
 important part of the instruction of masters of elementary 
 schools. The Manuals in which they are embodied, 
 render their acquisition comparatively easy even to those 
 who do not enjoy the advantage of receiving lessons in 
 the art of teaching by them from adepts. The School of 
 Method will place within the reach of the schoolmasters 
 of the metropolis the means of acquiring the requisite 
 skill ; and the body of schoolmasters, whom the Normal 
 Schools will annually disseminate, will diffuse them through 
 the country. Every school conducted with complete 
 efficiency by a master trained in a Normal School, will 
 become a model to neighbouring schools which have not 
 enjoyed similar advantages. On this account alone it is 
 important that no student from a Normal School should 
 commence his labours in the country, until he has acquired 
 a mastery of the methods of teaching these necessary 
 elements. 
 
 The arrangements for conveying instruction in these 
 methods, have recently acquired a more definite form in 
 the Training Schools, since the completion of the Manuals 
 has enabled us to confide to Mr. Macleod, the master of 
 the Village School, the course of instruction in the Phonic 
 Method of Teaching to Eead, in Miilhauser's Method of 
 Writing, in the Arithmetic of Pestalozzi, in the art of 
 managing and instructing a class, and in the art of giving 
 lessons to a group of classes in the gallery, as well as such 
 outlines of the discipline and organisation of schools as 
 his experience suggests. To Mr. Butler Williams would 
 have been confided the instruction in the metliod of teach- 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Batter sea 421 
 
 ii]g drawing from models, and to Mr. May is intrusted 
 that of singing after the method of Wilhem. The Eev. 
 John Hmiter, who is acquainted with the intellectual 
 methods of Mr. Wood, conveys his instruction in grammar 
 and etymology on those methods, and hkewise the Biblical 
 instruction, which is his peculiar charge. 
 
 On the theory of the disciphne and organization of 
 elementary Schools no complete course has hitherto been 
 attempted in the Training Schools. Sufficient leisure has 
 not been found for the completion of a Manual on this 
 subject. 
 
 In a course of instruction extending over a year and a 
 half, a student ought to spend three hours daily, during 
 six or eight months, in the practice of the art of teaching 
 in the Village School. When the course of instruction 
 is necessarily hmited to one year, four months should 
 be thus employed, and during the entire period of his 
 training, instruction in method should form an element of 
 the daily routine in the Normal School. 
 
 By such means alone can a rational conception of 
 method be attained, and that skill in the art of conducting 
 a School and instructing a class without which all the 
 labours of the Normal School in imparting technical 
 knowledge are wasted, because the student has no power 
 of communicating it to others. 
 
 The Battersea Training Schools were founded in the 
 hope that they would be employed to assist the executive 
 Government in supplying masters to the Schools of in- 
 dustry for pauper children, to the prisons for juvenile 
 offenders, to the Schools of Eoyal foundation for the 
 army and navy, to the Schools of the dockyards and 
 men-of-war, and to the colonies. 
 
 The constitution impressed upon them was conceived 
 Avith this view. We intended that these Schools should 
 be under the direction of the State and in harmony wdth 
 the Church. 
 
 The religious teaching was confided to the Honourable 
 
 B E 3 
 
422 Second Period 
 
 and Eev. Eobert Eden, Vicar of the Parish, and the Eev. 
 J. Hunter, by whom the instruction in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, and in the Liturgy and Catechism, was conducted, 
 and the rehgious disciphne was superintended. Our 
 desire was that the rehgious instruction should be posi- 
 tive; that it should be occupied with the exposition of 
 truth; and that it should be copious, comprehending the 
 great standards of our faith, so as to prepare the masters 
 trained in the School to become in truth Christian teachers 
 with all the strength of conviction and feeling. 
 
 In the asylum of indigence, and in the service of the 
 State the law knows no distinctions of religion. It pro- 
 vides alike for the necessities of all whose services it 
 demands. Pauperism is succoured without an inquiry 
 into creeds, and crime is scourged without distinction of 
 opinions. The Masters of Schools for such asylums by 
 law belong to the Church of England, but we conceived 
 they might be faithful to that Church without being into- 
 lerant to those who separate from her communion. We 
 desired to rear Christian teachers, not antagonists of sup- 
 posed error, but men regarding the Church with reverence 
 and affection, and all Christians as brethren. We hoped 
 that without adopting any previous limits for secular 
 instruction, or acknowledging any rule but that of effi- 
 ciency in the methods and matter of learning, the Schools 
 might enjoy the confidence of the heads of the Church. 
 
 With these relations to the Church, and to those who 
 separate from her communion, we desired to place the 
 institution under the guidance of the executive Govern- 
 ment, in order that the great Schools under its immediate 
 control might be supplied with masters from this source. 
 
 The late Government left on Eecord the following 
 Minute {see Appendix), approving the constitution of the 
 Schools, and recommending that a grant towards the ex- 
 penses incurred by their founders should be included in 
 the estimates of the year. 
 
 The Committee of Council, over which your Lordship 
 has presided, voted £1,000 in 1842, towards the expenses 
 attending the establishment of the Scliools. 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 423 
 
 This year your Lordship is aware, that we renewed 
 our appHcation for aid in a letter contained in the 
 note at the foot of this page.^ 
 
 1 My Lord,— 
 
 You communicated to me the decision of the Committee of Coimcil, on 
 my letter, applying for a grant towards the establishment and support of the 
 Battersea Training and Village Schools, and expressed on behalf of their 
 Lordships a desire that the permanent prospeiity of these schools might be 
 secured. Their Lordships were pleased to grant £2000, on condition that 
 the trustees of the school procured a lease of the premises which they now 
 occupy at Battersea, and that the Committee could be satisfied that the 
 schools were likely to be maintained in a state of efficiency for a reasonable 
 period. 
 
 I did not hesitate to express to your Lordship my determination to do 
 every thing that lay in my power to carry the wishes of the Committee into 
 execution. I lost no time in making inquiries as to the terms on which it 
 would be prudent to take a lease of the premises, and I now submit the 
 result of those inquiries. 
 
 The schools have been conducted with the most rigid economy, and we 
 have, therefore, avoided expending money on the repairs of the premises. 
 Consequently, a considerable outlay on repairs is now unavoidable. I appre- 
 hend that about £400 would be required to put the premises into tenantable 
 repair. 
 
 We have hitherto, likewise, been content with imperfect arrangements. 
 We use one of the class rooms as a dining-hall. We have no convenient 
 washing-room ; the communication between the different parts of the pre- 
 mises is circuitous ] and the domestic offices are not separated from that part 
 of the building in which the students reside. 
 
 The greatest defect is, that the students sleep in common dormitories, 
 each room containing many beds, placed near each other. I stated in my 
 previous letter, that the whole body of students will now be adults, and the 
 course of training limited to one year. The common dormitories were first 
 occupied when boys only were admitted into the establishment, and when 
 the course of instruction extended to three years. Separate dormitories 
 have become necessary since we have admitted only young men. We pro- 
 pose to convert a range of stabling attached to the premises into a series of 
 small separate bed-rooms, and to add another story to this and an adjoining 
 building. 
 
 A lease of the premises without these repairs and alterations would be very 
 undesirable. We have submitted to great inconvenience as long as we re- 
 garded the schools as provisional ; but the improvement of the premises is 
 indispensable to their prolonged occupation. 
 
 I lay before your Lordship, therefore, plans of the alterations in the pre- 
 mises, which are indispensable if we take a lease. They have been designed, 
 and will be executed, on the most economical scale of expenditure. Mr. 
 Cubitt has surveyed the premises, and furnished me with an estimate of the 
 cost of these improvements, amounting to £2000, without including some 
 general repairs which may be estimated at £200. 
 
 We should be imwilling to remove the training school from Battersea ; our 
 associations with the vicar have been harmonious j the parochial school, 
 
 E E 4 
 
424 Second Period 
 
 After renewed deliberation the Committee of Council 
 resolved to grant £2200 towards the expense of enlarging 
 and improving the School buildings, on condition that a 
 
 which serves as our model school, has attained a degree of excellence, which, 
 if we removed from this parish, could not be reached without the labour of 
 years. We should not willingly commit the practical inj ustice of having 
 raised this parochial school to its present state of efficiency, and then aban- 
 doned it, to the great injury of the parish, nor lose the aid of a school of 
 such merit for the illustration of method to our pupils. 
 
 Having obtained the estimate of the cost of the projected improvements, I 
 laid the plans and estimate before the landlord. He agrees to gi'ant us a lease 
 for seven, fourteen, and twenty-one years, and to contribute £400 towards 
 the outlay, leaving £1800 to be provided for by your Lordships' grant. The 
 grant of the Committee of Council will thus be reduced to £200, or barely a 
 reasonable allowance for unforeseen contingencies. 
 
 We should hold the premises at a moderate rent, and I should be disposed 
 to take a lease for seven, fourteen, and twenty-one years, and with the aid 
 of their Lordships' grant, to expend £2200 on the improvements proposed in 
 the plan which accompanies this letter, and on other repairs, under the follow- 
 ing an-angements : — 
 
 That the students entering the School consist of four classes. 
 
 1. Those who provide the whole cost of their maintenance and education 
 themselves, or by their patrons. These students will be free to settle where 
 they please at the close of their course of training. 
 
 2. Those who provide £30 towards the cost of their maintenance and edu- 
 cation, and who sign an agreement to serve the Government for five years 
 from the period when they pass the examination for the first year's certificate. 
 The subsequent regulations A and B apply to this class. 
 
 3. Those who provide £30 towards the cost of their maintenance and edu- 
 cation, and give security for the payment of £25 within one year of the period 
 when they leave the institution. These students will be free to settle where 
 they please. 
 
 4. The trustees will offer every quarter an exhibition of £25 to the best 
 candidate for admission, who may be able to pass a preliminary examination 
 in religious knowledge, English grammar, etymology, and composition ; 
 arithmetic, as far as decimals ; algebra, as far as simple equations ; and the 
 geogi-aphy of Palestine and England. The trials will be conducted by the 
 masters by means of examination papers and oral questions. The successful 
 candidates will be admitted to one year's training for £30, without any con- 
 dition as to future service. 
 
 5. The trustees will offer an exhibition every quarter to the ten students 
 whose year of training expires in that quarter, upon trials by examination 
 papers, oral questioning, and public teaching in the village school. They 
 will award this exhibition to that student, whose proficiency in his studies, 
 skill in teaching, conduct in the institution, and general character, shall 
 appear to the Directors and masters most fully to warrant confidence in his 
 success as the master of an elementary School. This exhibition for students 
 of the first class shall consist of £25. 
 
 Students of the second class who have agreed to serve the Government, 
 may fulfil the agreement without repaying £25 from their salaries : and the 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Batter sea 425 
 
 lease of the premises were taken, and that satisfactory 
 arrangements were made for the permanent support of the 
 institution. 
 
 We had expended upwards of £5000 in the manage- 
 
 training School will then have no claim on the Government for any payment 
 on behalf of such student. 
 
 Students of the third class will by this exhibition free their sureties from 
 the repayment of £25. 
 
 Students of the foui-th class will gain a second exhibition of £25^ and will 
 pay only £5 for one year's training. 
 
 A. That students who belong to the second class shall sign an agreement 
 to serve the Government as schoolmasters for five years after they obtain 
 their certificates. 
 
 1. In any establishment containing a School under the executive Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 2. In any School connected with the army^ navy, or dock-yards. 
 
 3. In any institution for the reformation of criminal youth. 
 
 4. Or for the training of pauper children. 
 
 5. In any model School, partly or wholly supported by aid from the 
 Committee of Council. 
 
 6. Or as inspectors or masters of model Schools in the colonies. 
 
 With a proviso that they shall not be required to serve for less than £50 per 
 annum, and also, that if the salary exceed £70 per annum, they shall repay 
 to the Government by annual instalments, in two years, the premium advanced 
 on their behalf An account shall be kept in the training School of the re- 
 payment of these instalments on behalf of the Government. 
 
 B. For every student signing such an agreement, the Government shall 
 pay £25 to the training School, upon the presentation of a certificate from 
 the Inspector, that the student has been instructed and trained for one year, 
 and has, after the usual periodical examinations, obtained a diploma, certi- 
 fying his good conduct, industry, capacity, and skill, the subjects upon which 
 he has been examined, and the degree of competency he has acquired in 
 each, which diploma shall be signed by the Directors, the vicar of the parish, 
 and by the chaplain and masters of the training and village Schools, and 
 countersigned by Iler Majesty's Inspector of Schools. 
 
 Under this arrangement the trustees will assume the pecuniary risks of 
 maintaining the establishment, and whatever responsibility may be con- 
 nected with its management. 
 
 In order to conduct the establishment efficiently, it will be necessary to 
 raise £500 or £600 annually by subscriptions beyond the grants of the Com- 
 mittee of Council, or of the patrons of students, and the payments of the 
 pupils themselves. 
 
 I have no doubt that contributions to this extent can be secured, and that 
 the stimulus which will be given to the Schools, if the Committee approve 
 this arrangement, will ensure their prosperity. 
 
 On the other hand, the adoption of this arrangement, or of some similar 
 plan, appears the only alternative to the immediate dissolution of the Schools. 
 I have the honour to be. 
 
 Your Lordship's most obedient servant, 
 
 J. P. K. S. 
 
426 Second Period 
 
 ment of the Schools; of this £1000 had been received 
 from the patrons and friends of pupils towards the expenses 
 of their training, and £1500 had been contributed by 
 our personal friends {see Apjoendix) with unsohcited confi- 
 dence and generosity. Our own expenses amounted to 
 £2500. 
 
 We felt that in future the Schools could not be con- 
 ducted without the aid of a Principal, and that our 
 expenses would therefore rise from £1200 to £1500 per 
 annum. We were unable to pledge our personal resources 
 to this extent, and we could not claim the grant of £2200 
 offered by the Committee of Council without providing 
 for the permanent support of the establishment by arrange- 
 ments satisfactory to their Lordships. We felt it necessary 
 carefully to deliberate on tlie course we should pursue. 
 
 The Battersea Training Schools had been founded with 
 two distinguishing objects: — 
 
 1. To give an example of Normal Education for School- 
 masters, comprising the formation of character, the develop- 
 ment of the intelligence, appropriate technical instruction, 
 and the acquisition of method and practical skiU in 
 conducting an Elementary School. 
 J 2. To illustrate the truth that, without violating the 
 I rights of conscience, masters trained in a spirit of Christian 
 ' charity, and instructed in the discipline and doctrines of 
 the Church, might be employed in the mixed schools 
 necessarily connected with public establishments, and in 
 which children of persons of all shades of religious opinion 
 are assembled. 
 
 Our first impulse was to remember the generous and 
 unsolicited contributions by which our funds had been 
 replenished, and to turn to those friends who had offered 
 us this voluntary evidence of their sympathy. A little 
 reflection, and the advice of some experienced friends, 
 convinced us that, however successful such an apphcation 
 might be, a subscription for the support of tlie Schools, 
 in the present agitated state of the pubhc mind, would 
 probably raise a new subject of controversy. 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 427 
 
 The Training Schools had to a remarkable extent escaped 
 the fierce denunciations with which the success of almost 
 every other effort for the improvement of Elementary- 
 Education had been menaced from one or other of the 
 great parties, and we had no desire to expose them to 
 the violence of party feuds, unless it were clear that some 
 signal advantage could thus be obtained for the progress 
 of an efficient religious Education based on the recog- 
 nition of civil rights. We had no assurance that such an 
 achievement could be won, by the exertions of so fluc- 
 tuating a body as the subcribers necessary for the support 
 of a charitable institution. 
 
 We were unable to fulfil our original design of de- 
 voting this estabhshment to the supply of masters to 
 Schools connected with the executive Government, and 
 especially to the great Schools of Industry for Pauper 
 Children now existing at Norwood, Manchester, Liver- 
 pool, Sheffield, and about to be erected elsewhere. We 
 therefore turned to observe in what sphere existed the 
 greatest need of a supply of skilful and religious men, 
 ready to devote their lives to the great work of spreading 
 a truly Christian civilization through the masses of the 
 people. Our personal experience had made us early ac- 
 quainted with the absence of a growth in the spiritual 
 and intellectual hfe of the masses, corresponding with the 
 vast material prosperity of the manufacturing districts. 
 
 We had witnessed the failure of efforts to found a 
 scheme of combined Education on the emancipation of 
 infants from the slavery into which the necessities and 
 ignorance of their parents, and the intensity of commercial 
 competition, had sold them. 
 
 To arrest the progress of degeneracy towards material- 
 ism and sensuality, appeared to us to be the task most 
 worthy of citizens in a nation threatened by corruption 
 from the consequences of ignorance and. excessive labour 
 among her lower orders. 
 
 It is impossible that the Legislature should, year after 
 year, receive and publish such accounts of the condition 
 
428 Second Period 
 
 of the people as are contained in the Eeports of the 
 Hand-loom Weavers' Commission, or of the Commission 
 on the Employment of Women and Children, or that 
 on the Dwellings of the Poor and on the Sanitary Con- 
 dition of Large Towns, without resolving to confer on the 
 poor some great reward of patience, by offering national 
 security for their future welfare. 
 
 These considei'ations have a general relation, but the 
 state of the manufacturing poor is that which awakens 
 the greatest apprehension. The labour which they un- 
 dergo is excessive, and they sacrifice their wives and 
 infants to the claims of their poverty, and to the demands 
 of the intense competition of trade. Almost every thing 
 around them tends to materialise and inflame them. 
 
 They are assembled in masses — they are exposed to 
 the physical evils arising from the neglect of sanitary 
 precautions, and to the moral contamination of towns — ■" 
 they are accustomed to combine in trades unions and 
 political associations — they are more accessible by agi- 
 tators, and more readily excited by them. 
 
 The time for inquiry into their condition is past, the 
 period for the interference of a sagacious national fore- 
 thought is at hand. We therefore felt that the imminent 
 risks attending this condition of the manufacturing poor 
 established the largest claim on an institution founded to 
 Educate Christian Teachers for the people. 
 
 We have explained the relations which the Training 
 Schools had to the Established Church of this country, and 
 the circumstances by which that condition was determined. 
 When, therefore, we perceived the resources recently 
 collected by the Church to promote the spreadof Education 
 in the manufacturing districts, we felt that to contribute 
 towards rendering the Education there provided efficient 
 and comprehensive, was an object strictly consistent with 
 the first of the intentions for Avhich the instruction was 
 founded, and we felt that the force of circumstances had 
 defeated the accomplishment of the second. 
 
 After some correspondence with the Bishop of London, 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 429 
 
 we therefore requested the Committee of CounciP to per- 
 mit us to transfer the grant made by their Lordships 
 
 Council Office, Whitehall, November 20, 1843. 
 1 My Lokds^ — 
 
 The Lord President communicated to me the result of your deliberations 
 at the last meeting of the Committee concerning the application for aid 
 towards the establishment and support of the Battersea Training School. 
 
 I was very sensible of the confidence in the founders and managers of that 
 institution implied by your Lordships' grant of £2200^ towards the expenses 
 attending the enlargement and repairs of the school buildings. The con- 
 dition of your Lordships' grant, however, demanded some deliberation. You 
 required that satisfactory arrangements should be made for the pemixanent 
 establishment and support of the schools. 
 
 Such an-angements it appeared could not be satisfactory to your Lordships, 
 if entered into with private individuals only, unless they were prepared to 
 pledge their private fortunes for the fulfilment of the condition. 
 
 The alternative that suggested itself was, that the schools should cease to 
 be under the control of private persons, and that their future management 
 should be confided to some public body, which, from its position, numbers, 
 and character, could, with a reasonable prospect of success, assume the 
 responsibility attaching to the fulfilment of the condition of your Lordships' 
 grant. 
 
 Upon mature reflection, and after consultation with some friends, we felt 
 that the public body, to which alone the schools could be confided, should 
 be prepared to conduct them on the principles of the tolerant Church of 
 England, and to acquiesce in the existing arrangements for the internal dis- 
 cipline and instruction of the schools, and for the training of the pupils for 
 their peculiar vocation. These were the principles and the methods to which 
 your Lordships had previously extended the sign of your approbation by a 
 gTant of £1000, and which you were now prepared to distinguish by a further 
 grant of £2200. 
 
 With this conviction, I entered into communication with the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, proposing to them to put the 
 schools under the management of a Committee of the National Society, dis- 
 posed to carry into execution the plans upon which the schools had been 
 founded. 
 
 I found the Archbishop and the Bishop both cordially disposed to acquiesce 
 in this proposal. 
 
 They have since communicated with the principal members of the Com- 
 mittee of the National Society, and found them equally ready to concur, and 
 I am informed that a special meeting of the Society will be held this week 
 to consider and determine the question. 
 
 I therefore communicate to your Lordships the steps which liave beejj 
 taken towards the fulfilment of the condition of your grant, viz. that satis- 
 factory arrangements should be made for the permanent establishment and 
 suppoi-t of these schools, and I request your approval. 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 My Lords, 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 J. P. K. S. 
 
 The Committee of Council on Education. 
 
430 Second Period 
 
 for the enlargement and improvement of the buildings, 
 together with the entire establishment, to the National 
 Society. 
 
 This arrangement has since been completed, with the 
 concurrence of the Committee of Council and the National 
 Society, and we have now withdrawn from the direction 
 of the Schools. 
 
 We have the honour to be, 
 
 My Lords, your obedient Servants, 
 
 J. P. Kay Siiuttleworth. 
 Edward Carleton Tuffnell 
 
Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Battersea 431 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Minute of the Committee of Council on Education, datedJune 23, 1841. 
 
 The Committee had under their consideration a letter from the Poor Law Com- 
 missioners, dated the 6th of May, describing the urgent necessity of providing well- 
 trained schoolmasters for pauper schools, and the expediency of enabling them to 
 avail themselves of a training school lately established at Battersea from private 
 resources, under the sanction and with the assistance of the clergyman of that 
 parish. 
 
 Lord Duncannon further reported to the Committee the extreme difficulty 
 recently experienced by the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital, notwithstand- 
 ing repeated public advertisements, in procuring adequately prepared masters and 
 assistant-masters for the schools connected with that establishment. 
 
 Their Lordships were, therefore of opinion, that in an estimate to be laid before 
 Parliament, a sum^ should be included for the purpose of enabling the Committee 
 to defray such part of the expenses of the school at Battersea as may appear to be 
 a reasonable compensation for the benefits derived to the Poor Law Commissioners, 
 or any public institutions connected with the State, in obtaining schoolmasters 
 under their direction, or that of any other department of the executive. 
 
 The Donors to the Battersea Training Schools. 
 
 The Viscount Morpeth . 
 
 
 
 
 £.500 
 
 TheDuke of Sutherland 
 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 The Marquis of Lansdowiie 
 
 
 
 
 . 100 
 
 The Earl of Radnor 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 Samuel Jones Loyd, Esq. 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 George Cornewall Lewis, Esq. 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 Seymour Tremenheere, Esq. . 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 Kcv. Mr. Brown 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 Mrs. Fydel 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 George Norman, Esq. 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 Total 
 
 
 £14.59 
 
THIRD PERIOD 
 
 THE MINUTES OF 1846 
 
 EXTENDINa THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE PARLIAMENTARY 
 GRANT FOR EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN TO 
 
 PUPIL-TEACHERS AND QUEEN'S SCHOLARS 
 
 THE SUPPORT OF TRAINING COLLEGES 
 
 THE AUGMENTATION OF THE SALARIES OF TEACHERS 
 
 THEIR RETIRING PENSIONS FOR LONG AND EFFICIENT SERVICES 
 
 DAY SCHOOLS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 A NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL FOR MASTERS OF WORKHOUSE AND 
 PRISON SCHOOLS 
 
 F F 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The following explanation of the Minutes of 1846 was first 
 published in 1847 by direction of the Committee of Council on 
 Education in defence of. those measures, under the title of * The 
 School, in its Relatione to the Stg^te, the Church, and the Con- 
 gregation: J. P. K. S., 1862. 
 
 F P 2 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Preliminaries to the establishment of the Committee of Council on Education 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The nature and objects of the inspection of Schools, and the mode of appoint- 
 ing Inspectors 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 The Minutes of August and December, 1846, considered in relation to their 
 influence on the Schoolmaster, the School, and the Poor .... 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Minutes of August and December, 1846, considered in their Religious 
 and Political Aspect 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The outlay from public grants and and private contributions required by. the 
 Minutes of August and December, 1846 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 The Plan for encouraging and aiding voluntary exertions for the Promotion 
 of Education in Great Britain, proposed by Lord John Russell's administra- 
 tion in 1847 : — 
 Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education in August and De- 
 cember, 1846 
 
 Regulations respecting the Education of Pupil Teachers and Stipendiary 
 
 Monitors 
 
 Support of Normal Schools 
 
 Grants in aid of Day-schools of Industry . . .... 
 
 Normal Schools for Training Masters for Workhouse Schools and for 
 
 Penal Schools , . . . 
 
 Minute on the Administration of the Grants for the Salaries of Masters 
 
 and Mistresses of Schools for Pauper Children 
 
 Supplementary Official Letters 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 The Origin, Procedure, and Results of the Strike of the Operative Cotton 
 Spinners of Preston, from October 1836, to February 1837 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 Annual Cost of Establishments, &c., for the Repression of Crime . 
 
EXPLANATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MINUTES OF 1846 
 
 5>i«< 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 PRELIMINARIES TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL 
 
 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 The education of the working classes had not been re- 
 garded as of national importance in England until this 
 century. The early ecclesiastical system which encour- 
 aged the admission of poor students into the schools of 
 the rehgious foundations, was partly intended to provide 
 for those indigent scholars who with little culture exhi- 
 bited signs of superior natural capacity : and partly to 
 satisfy the wants of the Church, by filhng the ranks of 
 the inferior orders of her clergy, and throwing across 
 the complex woof of her hierarchy the thread of an 
 order of men raised by genius alone. The parochial 
 endowments for education were founded on the model 
 of the richer foundations. They were chiefly grammar- 
 schools, often enriched with exhibitions or scholarships 
 in some college of one of the Universities, and thus 
 opening to youth of humble origin access to the seats 
 of learning. 
 
 The reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth were distin- 
 guished by a great pohcy, intended to consolidate the 
 Eeformation by the diffusion of learning ; and schools 
 founded in those reigns were rendered still more acces- 
 
 r r 3 
 
438 Third Period 
 
 sible to the common people. But even these schools 
 partook of the character of the more ancient founda- 
 tions. They were institutions by which the learning of 
 the Universities might be diffused among the middle 
 classes, and portals through which they might enter 
 the colleges ; a postern only was left open for the poor. 
 
 The Eeformation, however, gave birth to the idea that 
 there is a certain amount of learning indispensable even 
 for a man who earns his bread by manual labour. The 
 teaching of the Catechism in the vulgar tongue was 
 enjoined, as a part of the services of the Church. The 
 proficiency of the humblest scholars was a necessary pre- 
 liminary to the solemn rite of confirmation. 
 
 On this religious basis, the instruction of the humblest 
 classes was not entirely neglected, but public opinion was 
 not favourable to any other form of instruction. Pro- 
 testantism vindicated the interference of reason in reli- 
 gion, to discriminate, at least, the authority to which we 
 ought to submit, and proclaimed the sufficiency and 
 completeness of the canon of Holy Scripture. But the 
 formularies containing the doctrine of the Church were 
 chiefly taught to the poor. The doctrines thus implanted 
 were regarded as germs which would probably grow to 
 maturity, and the vitaHty of which would, at least, destroy 
 the noxious weeds of heresy. 
 
 The conception of what was necessary for the religious 
 education of the poor seldom rose above this level. The 
 art of reading was little cultivated ; that of writing was 
 almost universally neglected. The duties of schoolmasters, 
 as set forth in the 79th canon^ were apphcable to the 
 
 ^ All schoolmasters shall teach in English or Latin, as the children are 
 able to bear, the larger or shorter Catechism heretofore by public authority 
 set forth. And as often as any sermon shall be upon holy and festival days 
 within the parish where they teach, they shall bring the scholars to the 
 church where such sermons shall be made, and there see them quietly and 
 soberly behave themselves ; and shall examine them at times convenient, 
 after their return, what they have borne away of such sermons. Upon other 
 days, and at other times, they shall train them up with such sentences of 
 Holy Scripture as shall be most expedient to induce them to all godliness ) 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 439 
 
 grammar-scliools of an intermediate period, and in these 
 schools the scholars were chiefly the children of the 
 tradesmen of the small towns and villages, but few of 
 the poor resorted to them. Until the close of the last 
 century, it was not practically deemed of the highest 
 importance that the Holy Scriptures should be univer- 
 sally accesible to the poor. Much less was any strong 
 conviction entertained that, to promote the vital efficacy 
 of Christianity on the great mass of the nation, the culti- 
 vation of the intellect was desirable, at least so far as to 
 enable the common people to read the Scriptures with 
 understanding, and to hsten to their spiritual teachers 
 with profit. Catechetical instruction, conducted on such 
 principles, operated rather to the exclusion of error than 
 to the circulation of truth — the effects were negative 
 rather than positive. 
 
 The natural energies of society had occasioned the 
 practical development of imperfect means for the educa- 
 tion of the poor during the progress of the eighteenth 
 centiu-y ; but the Eeformation in England failed to give 
 birth to any national system of instruction for all the 
 humblest ranks of society. The school did not become, 
 as in Scotland, an institution in every parish, provided at 
 the expense of the proprietors, and supported partly by 
 an assessment on the land, and partly by the contribu- 
 tions of the middle classes and of the poor. The precepts 
 and doctrines of Christianity were communicated to the 
 great mass of the common people by catechetical and 
 oral instruction from the pulpit. The school was not 
 regarded either as a parochial institution indispensable 
 for the completion of the ecclesiastical organisation, as in 
 Scotland, or as any part of the means which ought to be 
 employed by religious congregations, among dissidents 
 from the Church, to instruct the poor as an act of Chris- 
 tian charity and zeal. The Government had not con- 
 
 and they shall teach the grammar set forth by Eang Henry the Eighth, and 
 continued in the times of King Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth; of 
 noble memory, and none other. — Eoctract from Canon LXXIX, 
 
 rr 4 
 
440 Third Period 
 
 eluded that it was expedient rather to prevent the growth 
 of crime by sound instruction, than to attempt to repress 
 it by pohce, or to eradicate it by a system of penal ban- 
 ishment, or to crush it by the punishment of death. The 
 anarchical tendencies of ignorance among the great mass 
 of the commonalty were not regarded as an evil in the 
 polity of the State to be met by the diffusion of know- 
 ledge, but rather as eruptions, forming inevitable pheno- 
 mena of social history, to be restrained by the interference 
 of an armed force. The theory of government adopted 
 coercion and punishment among its most active agencies ; 
 but to the great mass of the labouring classes the State 
 was content with affording (as one of the conditions of 
 the tenure of property) that security for life, which the 
 laws for the rehef of the poor had provided in the reign 
 of Elizabeth. 
 
 Even the endowed schools, which had been founded 
 chiefly in the reigns of Edward YI. and Elizabeth, being 
 subject to no efficient supervision, and having also very 
 imperfect constitutions for their management, fell into 
 disorder, and not unfrequently into disuse. Their revenues 
 were to a large extent absorbed by other local objects, or 
 wasted by neglect, or rendered useless by their inefficient 
 application. 
 
 The catechetical instruction of children had been much 
 neglected during the eighteenth century. It had fallen 
 into almost complete desuetude in the churches. Towards 
 the close of this century, however, the Church and the 
 rehgious congregations of England took the first step 
 towards a provision for the education of the poor by the 
 creation of Sunday-schools. These important institutions 
 were the spontaneous growth of the zeal of rehgious com-^ 
 munities for the diffusion of Scriptural knowledge, and 
 were the first advance towards the cardinal idea that 
 the school is an inseparable element of the organisation 
 of a Christian congregation. Founded on a conception 
 which has such vast relations (though then imperfectly 
 foreseen), and fostered by intense religious zeal, the 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 441 
 
 Sunday-school, especially in the north and west of Eng- 
 land, and in the seats of manufactures and mining, has 
 supplied a means for the rehgious instruction of the 
 people, which may probably, by the good providence 
 of God, have contributed to save this country from some 
 great convulsion. 
 
 The influence of the Sunday-school on public order and 
 social progress must be regarded from two points of view. 
 These institutions are most numerous and successful in the 
 great towns which have been created on the coal-fields of 
 Great Britain since the invention of the steam-engine. 
 In such towns the labouring poor are employed during 
 12 or 14 hours in the day, and the occupations of the 
 middle class are during the week incessant. Until Sunday 
 arrives there are few or no opportunities for intercourse 
 between the more wealthy and the working classes. The 
 fact, that on the Sunday many thousands of the middle 
 class devote three hours of their rest from the business of 
 life to the pious office of instructing the children of the 
 humblest ranks, shows how powerfully the cohesive 
 influence of Christian charity has been in operation, be- 
 tween those elements of society among which repulsive 
 forces abound. 
 
 The indirect influence of the Sunday-school has there- 
 fore been most favourable to social harmony and pubhc 
 order. Its direct influence is not less important. A large 
 portion of the population chiefly owe the power to read, 
 and whatever acquaintance they have with the Holy 
 Scriptures, their connection with a religious congregation, 
 and the influence of a rehgious example, to this school. 
 It has also laid the foundations of public education for 
 the poor deeply in the rehgious organisation of the country. 
 The type of this school has to a great extent predetermined 
 the constitution of the daily school, and provided the 
 fabric which, by a natural transition, may be employed in 
 the estabhshment of an efficient system of elementary in- 
 struction, tending, in harmony with the Sunday-schools, 
 to complete the work of Christian civihsation, which has 
 been so auspiciously commenced. 
 
442 Third Period 
 
 The establishment of Sunday-schools prepared public 
 opinion for more general efforts to form voluntary associa- 
 tions for the promotion of elementary education by means 
 of day-schools. 
 
 As the modern day-schools for the poor were a natural 
 consequence of the Sunday-schools, the objects of elemen- 
 tary instruction received at first httle extension. No expe- 
 rience existed to determine in what way the highest aims of 
 education might be most certainly attained. No sympathy 
 was awakened in the public mind for any other result 
 than the acquirement of the almost mechanical arts of 
 reading, writing, and cyphering. It was difficult to pro- 
 cure funds for these purposes. A severe economy of 
 their resources was therefore indispensable to the exis- 
 tence of the day-schools. Under these circumstances the 
 monitorial system was suggested as a solution of the 
 question, how hmited means could be most effectually 
 applied, to the accomphshment of objects equally hmited 
 in extent ; and from the labours of Joseph Lancaster and 
 Dr. Bell the two great societies for promoting Education 
 in England arose. 
 
 The National Society has successfully embodied the 
 spirit and applied the resources of the Church of England 
 to the foundation and support of parochial schools, in 
 which the doctrines of the Church, as taught in her 
 Catechism, are inculcated. The British and Foreign 
 School Society, founded on the principle of religious 
 equality, was estabhshed with the intention of uniting all 
 Protestant congregations on the basis of the authorised 
 version of the Scriptures without note or comment, and 
 to the exclusion of all catechetical instruction. 
 
 From the voluntary labours of these two great societies, 
 elementary education received its chief, if not its sole 
 impulse down to the year 1833. 
 
 Until this period the Government had not intervened 
 even to foster the operations of these societies. It was, 
 therefore, a just tribute to the benefits which the country 
 had derived from their labours, that when Parliament, on 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 443 
 
 the motion of Lord Al thorp in 1833, devoted an annual 
 grant of £20,000 to the promotion of education in Great 
 Britain, this money was apphed in the first instance 
 through the intervention of these two societies, to aid 
 their resources and the voluntary contributions of each 
 locality, in the erection of schools. The distribution of 
 this grant was confided to the Lords of the Treasury, who 
 acted on the recommendations of these two societies, ap- 
 portioning the money according to fixed regulations. 
 
 Hitherto the education of the poor had depended almost 
 solely on voluntary contributions ; for the ancient endow- 
 ments for education being without superintendence, and 
 under local management, which had become inefficient, 
 were almost useless. The grants in aid of voluntary 
 contributions were made on conditions, which afforded 
 only the minimum of security for the appHcation of the 
 public funds. It was required that the school building 
 should be held in trust for the education of the children 
 of the poor by a vahd deed, that the building accounts 
 should be liable to audit, and that the trustees and mana- 
 gers should make such reports, from time to time, as 
 might be called for by the Lords of the Treasury. The 
 Government by these means promoted the extension of 
 education by voluntary efforts, but took no effectual step 
 towards its improvement. The principle of voluntary 
 action was not interfered with, but encouraged, and the 
 basis on which voluntary associations had been organised 
 was adopted as the means of progress. 
 
 Even this limited interference of the Government awak- 
 ened new ideas as to the objects and aims of popular 
 education. It was more clearly perceived that the Nation 
 as well as the Church or Congregation had a direct in- 
 terest in the solution of this question. The first act of the 
 Government was a sign of confidence in the two great 
 societies organised on a religious basis. By this act, the 
 Government declared that it accepted the antecedent 
 history of elementary instruction, as determining that the 
 constitution of its schools should have a religious founda- 
 
444 Third Period 
 
 tion, in harmony with the institutions of the country. 
 The two societies differed in one important feature. The 
 National Society made no effort at comprehension; its 
 schools were founded on the doctrine of the Church ; their 
 religious constitution was in conformity with its discipline, 
 and their management was confided to the laity of the 
 Church, who co-operated with the parochial clergyman. 
 The British and Foreign School Society desired to com- 
 prehend in the support and management of its schools all, 
 whether Churchmen or Dissenters, who could co-operate 
 in communicating religious instruction from the authorised 
 version of the Holy Scriptures without any sectarian in- 
 terpretation. 
 
 When, therefore, the Government determined to pro- 
 mote the erection of schools connected with these two 
 societies, it recognised on the one hand the principle of 
 separate, and on the other that of combined education. 
 These two principles had been adopted by voluntary asso- 
 ciation. It remained to be seen which would predominate, 
 or whether one of them might be accepted, as the ex- 
 pression of the views of Dissenting Communions, in com- 
 bination with such members of the Church of England as 
 were favourable to combined education, and the other of 
 the majority of the clergy and laity of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 Few or no schools were established on a purely secular 
 basis. The whole elementary education of England tended 
 towards a religious organisation. Combined schools, even 
 among congregations of the different orthodox sects, be- 
 came a rare phenomenon, and the new schools, in union 
 with the British and Foreign School Society, chiefly origi- 
 nated in the zeal of dissenting congregations, and had a 
 continually closer connection with their internal disciphne. 
 The British and Foreign School Society deserved the con- 
 fidence of those politicians and churchmen who determined 
 to consent to no system of national education inconsistent 
 with civil and religious liberty, and of those statesmen 
 with whom the civil rights of the minority were sacred. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 445 
 
 Between the years 1833 and 1839, the provmce of the 
 Government in promoting the education of the people 
 attracted continually more attention. The interference of 
 Parhament had necessarily caused the sufficiency of the 
 existing means of education for the accomplishment of 
 national objects to be called into question, and public 
 opinion decided through all its organs in favour both of 
 the extension and improvement of those means. These 
 were the preliminaries which led to the creation of the 
 Committee of Council on Education in 1839. 
 
 The period had arrived when the creation of a depart- 
 ment, specially charged with the superintendence of 
 whatever means the Government might employ for the 
 promotion of education, had become a matter of general 
 expectation. In the letter by which Lord John Eussell 
 communicated to Lord Lansdowne Her Majesty's intention 
 to create the Committee of Council on Education, the 
 principles which were to regulate its administration, and 
 the objects to which it was to be devoted, were declared 
 in the following words : — 
 
 ' Much may be effected by a temperate attention to the 
 fair claims of the Established Church, and the religious 
 freedom sanctioned by the law.' 
 
 ' On this subject I need only say that it is Her Majesty's 
 wish that the youth of this kingdom should be religiously 
 brought up, and that the rights of conscience should be 
 respected.' 
 
 ' It is some consolation to Her Majesty to perceive that 
 of late years the zeal for popular education has increased, 
 that the Established Church has made great efforts to pro- 
 mote the building of schools, and that the National and 
 British and Foreign School Societies have actively endea- 
 voured to stimulate the hberahty of the benevolent and 
 enlightened friends of general education.' 
 
 ' Still much remains to be done ; and among the chief 
 defects yet subsisting may be reckoned the insufficient 
 number of qualified schoohnasters ; the imperfect method 
 of teaching which prevails in, perhaps, the greater number 
 
446 . Third Period 
 
 of the schools ; the absence of any sufficient inspection of 
 the schools, and examination of the nature of the instruc- 
 tion given ; the want of a model school, which might 
 serve for the example of those societies and committees 
 which anxiously seek to improve their own methods of 
 teaching; and, finally, the neglect of this great subject 
 among the enactments of our voluminous legislation.' 
 
 By the annual Parliamentary Grant, the Government 
 had from the year 1833 promoted the extension of elemen- 
 tary education, but beyond confiding the schools thus 
 erected to the superintendence of the two societies, it 
 had assumed no direct responsibility for their efficiency. 
 Yet it was not enough that convenient schools should be 
 erected ; nor even that the hours of labour for children 
 of a tender age should be subject to some restriction, so 
 as to afford them time for education. The first step 
 towards the improvement of elementary education, was 
 obviously the estabhshment of a system of inspection, by 
 which Parliament and the country might be informed of 
 the actual condition of schools aided by public grants. 
 The next step appeared to be the creation of a Normal 
 and Model School for the training of masters, and the 
 development of the best methods, as well as to afford an 
 example both of the organisation, discipline, and course 
 of instruction, which might with advantage be pursued 
 in elementary schools. 
 
 The assumption of a direct responsibihty for the condi- 
 tion of the schools for the poor necessarily subjected the 
 acts of the Government to discussion. The questions to 
 be decided were of great importance and of the most ex- 
 citing interest. On the one hand were claims on the part 
 of the Established Church that education should be 
 regarded as an ecclesiastical function devolving, both by 
 divine authority and by prescription, as settled in the 
 ancient ecclesiastical law, on the clergy. The 77th 
 canon had declared that ' no man shall teach either in 
 public school or private house, but such as shall be 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 447 
 
 allowed by the Bishop of the diocese, or Ordinary 
 of the place, under his hand and seal, being found 
 meet, as well for his learning and dexterity in teaching, 
 as for sober and honest conversation, and for the right 
 understanding of God's true religion ; and also except he 
 shall first subscribe to the first and third articles afore- 
 mentioned, simply, and to the two first clauses of the 
 second article.' The claims of the Church were however 
 asserted less, as inconsistent with toleration, than with 
 the authority assumed by the Government to promote 
 education. 
 
 On the other hand, various classes of dissenters and 
 politicians, regarded the Government as the legitimate 
 arbiter of civil rights, and called for its interference to 
 establish a system of instruction on the basis of rehgious 
 equality. Among politicians were some who regarded the 
 school as a purely civil institution, and who consequently 
 desired that education should be under the sole charge of 
 the Government, and should be confined to secular learn- 
 ing. Others distinguished between the secular and the 
 religious instruction, and while they imposed upon the 
 Government the support and regulation of a system of 
 secular learning, charged the clergy and the ministers of 
 different religious communions, with the instruction of the 
 children of the poor in religion. The British and Foreign 
 School Society adopted the Bible without pecuhar interpre- 
 tation as the basis of rehgious education, and attempted to 
 unite the Church and the orthodox sects on this ground. 
 
 These proposals were all forms of combined education 
 on the principle of religious equahty. It was also possible 
 to create combined schools on the plan of rehgious tolera- 
 tion, in which the secular advantages of the schools should 
 be open to all, without any requirement inconsistent with 
 the rights of conscience. 
 
 When the Government intervened to promote the im- 
 provement of education, great principles were therefore 
 necessarily brought into conflict. Many claims were put 
 forth. Some acknowledged, but indefinite rights had to 
 
448 Third Period 
 
 be defined. The authority of the Government, while its 
 powers were only generally asserted, and without distinct 
 limitation, excited apprehension. It remained to be ascer- 
 tained how far the claims of the Church could be satisfied 
 consistently with civil rights, and with the authority and 
 duty of the State to promote the temporal well-being of 
 its subjects. The constitution of society, as settled by 
 institutions which were the growth of centuries, and by 
 laws securing civil and religious freedom, was obviously 
 the mould in which any system of education must be cast, 
 and yet not so as to accept transient phenomena, instead 
 of permanent principles. 
 
 Though therefore the proposals of the Government 
 could scarcely have been more moderate, the whole ques- 
 tion of the authority of the State and of the Church, of 
 civil rights and rehgious immunities, and of combined and 
 separate education, necessarily became subjects of con- 
 troversy. 
 
 The Government had proposed in the constitution of 
 the Normal and Model School that the rehgious instruc- 
 tion should be regarded as general and special^ and that 
 the general rehgious instruction should be given to the 
 scholars by the master of the school, the special being 
 reserved for the clergy and ministers of different com- 
 munions, who were to impart it at hours set apart for that 
 purpose. Under the term general religious instruction 
 was . intended such teaching from the Holy Scriptures as 
 is pursued in the schools of the British and Foreign School 
 Societies. Under the term special was intended such 
 religious instruction as is contained in the catechism 
 and liturgy of the Church, and in the catecliisms of 
 the several Dissenting Communions. It was at once 
 apprehended that this Normal and Model School would 
 become the type of schools to be founded by the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The Government had, however, no intention to bring 
 into discussion the question of combined education, nor to 
 alter the constitution in which elementary schools, (lided 
 
Explanation of the Minutes 0/ 1846 449 
 
 by public grants, had hitherto been founded. They pro- 
 posed to continue to make grants to schools in connection 
 with the National and British and Foreign School Socie- 
 ties, but to introduce inspection as a condition of those 
 grants, and to establish a Normal School as a means of 
 training masters of greater skill and attainments, as well 
 as to afford an example of the working of such insti- 
 tutions. Their object was to improve without altering 
 the basis of popular education ; when therefore they per- 
 ceived that the proposed establishment of a Normal 
 School was misunderstood, that project was withdrawn. 
 
 The Government persevered, notwithstanding great 
 opposition, in maintaining the establishment of the 
 Committee of Council on Education, and invested that 
 body with the power to inspect and report on the condi- 
 tion of all schools aided by public grants. 
 
 In every instance in which the authority of the State 
 to interfere for the education of the people has been 
 questioned, the doubt has been suggested by some an- 
 tagonist authority. The abstract objection to the inter- 
 ference of the Government has been prompted either by 
 some real practical grievance, or by the desire of some 
 dominant majority to refuse an equality of civil privileges 
 to the minority, or by a combination of these two causes. 
 The abstract justice of the exercise of this power by the 
 State would never have been called in question, if it had 
 not appeared to threaten some existing interest, or failed 
 to acknowledge some manifest social right. In France, 
 where the Government and the University have repre- 
 sented the ideas prevalent during the Imperial and 
 Eevolutionary eras, the Eoman Catholic Church has 
 claimed the freedom of education, and the Jesuits have 
 been the most able and persevering expositors of that 
 doctrine. In Belgium, the Protestant Government of 
 Holland had established a system of combined education, 
 on the basis of rehgious equality, for Protestant and 
 Eoman CathoHc communions. The authority of Holland 
 
 G G 
 
450 Third Period 
 
 was naturally odious in Belgium ; and some great legisla- 
 tive and administrative errors liad been committed by 
 the Government, both in the courts of law and in the 
 schools, wounding national instincts and rights as repre- 
 sented in language and local customs. But the sense of 
 these injuries was inflamed and rendered intolerable by 
 the industry with which the Eoman Catholic clergy 
 availed themselves of every means to irritate the public 
 mind against the combined system of education. The 
 impolicy of the Government of the Netherlands in other 
 particulars might have failed to produce the Eevolution 
 of 1830, if the clergy of the Eoman Catholic faith had 
 not determined to resist a system of education, however 
 efficient, which reduced the majority to the same level of 
 civil rights with the minority of the religious commu- 
 nions, and which, for this purpose, excluded from the 
 combined schools instruction in the peculiar doctrines 
 of the Eoman Catholic faith, reserving them as the sepa- 
 rate duties of the clergy. These were the circumstances 
 which induced the Eoman Catholic clergy to proclaim the 
 doctrine of the freedom of education from all interference 
 of the State. 
 
 The immediate secular consequences of the success of 
 this outcry from the Eoman Catholic clergy in Belgium, 
 were most disastrous. Throughout Belgium the King of 
 the Netherlands had established schools after the model 
 of those in Holland, distinguished for their admirable 
 organisation, and for the skill, care, and success with 
 which the instruction of the scholars was conducted. 
 From the revolution until a very recent period, ele- 
 mentary education in Belgium has been in ruin ; pre- 
 senting an ominous contrast between the results of the 
 power of the State directed with skill to the establish- 
 ment of an efficient system of instruction, and the impo- 
 tence of that freedom of education which (evoked to 
 satisfy the claims of rehgious zeal, and to aid a patriotic 
 resistance to the errors of a foreign government) pro- 
 duced in the schools nothing but failure or confusion. 
 
Explanation of the 3Iinntes of 184:6 451 
 
 These are tlie most remarkable instances in Europe, in 
 which the freedom of education from all interference of 
 Government has been asserted. In both cases the objec- 
 tion arose from an authority antagonist to the State ; in 
 both that authority was a dominant religious party, and 
 the objection embodied a double protest. One part of 
 this protest consisted in a desire to possess in the schools 
 full opportunity to inculcate the entire doctrine of the 
 Church ; the other part of this protest consisted in a re- 
 fusal to admit the civil power to the control of education, 
 lest it should grant equal privileges to the minority. The 
 first of these two objections is reconcilable with civil and 
 religious hberty ; the second is subversive of it. 
 
 It is the characteristic of such controversies that the 
 interests of the common people are sacrificed to those of 
 the middle classes : the well-being of the State is postponed 
 to promote the triumph of a party. 
 
 The authority of Government, especially in a represen- 
 tative system, embodies the national will. There are 
 certain objects too vast, or too complicated, or too im- 
 portant to be intrusted to voluntary associations ; they 
 need the assertion of the power, and the application of the 
 resources of the majority. The means for national defence, 
 for the preservation of public order, and the maintenance 
 of the institutions sanctioned by the law ; the security of 
 persons and property obtained by the protection of the 
 law and the agency of the police, are among these objects. 
 In Hke manner the municipal power provides, on principles 
 settled by the legislature, for the regulation of local go- 
 vernment, for police and the administration of justice, for 
 the lighting and drainage of our towns, for the supply of 
 water, and for the progressive improvements by which 
 local abuses and . defects are removed. These are all 
 objects obviously too vast and too complicated to be 
 accomphshed by purely voluntary association. Many of 
 them operate almost solely by restraint or coercion, and 
 some interfere constantly with the individual wiU — even 
 with the rights of property — and subordinate them to the 
 
 G G 2 
 
452 Third Period 
 
 general advantage. Yet there are persons who sanction 
 a large expenditure by the State for the preservation of 
 public order by the maintenance of the military organisa- 
 tion of the country, for the prevention or detection of 
 crime by the establishment of an almost universally dif- 
 fused police force, and who regard with complacency the 
 annual outlay on the machinery of criminal jurisprudence, 
 and the secondary punishment of offences, yet who deny 
 that the State, which they permit to interfere by penal 
 and coercive arrangements, may apply its resources even 
 to promote the success of voluntary efforts for the educa- 
 tion of the people. 
 
 To a statesman the condition of the great mass of the 
 people presents a question of the greatest importance and 
 interest. For the security of the life of the humblest 
 wayfarer, the ministers of Queen Elizabeth charged the 
 whole property of the country with a tax for the relief of 
 indigence, which now amounts to five milhons per annum. 
 The liberty of the poorest is secured by the same statutes, 
 and defended by the same legal authority as that of the 
 highest. Some signs are beginning to appear that the 
 condition of the poor has attracted the attention of the 
 legislature in the improvement of the discipUne of our 
 gaols ; in the amelioration of the criminal code ; in the 
 mitigation of all punishments, and the limitation of the 
 penalty of death to murder, and a few crimes akin to it ; 
 in the attention now paid by Government to the sanitary 
 arrangements of our towns, which has prepared public 
 opinion for the adoption of a legislative arrangement 
 intended to remove pestilence from the habitations of the 
 poor ; to promote the cleanliness and comfort of their 
 dwellings, and thus to improve the morahty of their 
 households. 
 
 These are among the signs that the condition of the 
 common people in England has become, in the opinion of 
 statesmen, one of the chief tests of the prosperity of the 
 nation, and of the stability of public order. The enact- 
 ments which have restricted the liours of labour of 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 453 
 
 women, children, and young persons in public manufac- 
 tories, are among the earhest provisions for a great moral 
 reformation intended to reach the condition of the entire 
 body of the working classes. 
 
 There are social disorders not attributable to defects 
 in the physical condition of the people. The mobs of 
 machine-breakers, which resisted every improvement in 
 the inventions of our manufacturing industry, ignorantly 
 attempted to destroy the chief sources of their own 
 domestic well-being, and of the national prosperity. The 
 Trades Unions, which have endeavoured to limit the 
 number of workmen in the best-paid employments; to 
 prescribe a minimum of wages; to impose a uniform 
 standard of earnings for the young and old, the feeble 
 and robust, the industrious and the negligent, and to 
 withdraw the workmen from the control of their masters, 
 have for long periods rendered the working classes, par- 
 ticularly in Ireland and in the mining districts, the victims 
 of their ignorance. They have adhered to these projects 
 through many years, at the expense of great privations, 
 and of a sacrifice of personal liberty such as no despotic 
 government has ever been able to enforce, and with a 
 frequent disregard of justice and humanity. The conse- 
 quences have been most disastrous. Capital has been 
 driven from entire districts ; the labouring population has 
 been dispersed; and if such combinations could become 
 dominant, they would certainly destroy the manufac- 
 turing prosperity of this country. These are examples 
 of a class of evils which arise from ignorance. It is 
 difficult, but perhaps possible, to repress such evils, by 
 giving summary and almost despotic powers to the ma- 
 gistrates, and by increasing the numbers, vigilance, and 
 preventive authority of the police. But such measures are 
 opposed to the spirit of our constitution, and the legislature 
 has wisely determined to rely rather on the growth of 
 intelligence among the great body of the people, than on 
 the coercive powers of the law, for the correction of 
 these disorders. 
 
 G G 3 
 
454 Third Period 
 
 On the other hand, much social evil has its origin 
 in the low condition of the morals of a people who have 
 not been reared under the influence of an efficient system 
 of religious education. Vast expenses are incurred by 
 the country for the rehef of those forms of indigence 
 which are attributable to these causes. The whole ap- 
 paratus of criminal jurisprudence and of secondary punish- 
 ments, including the outlay on the constabulary force, 
 involves an expenditure of two millions per annum. The 
 provisions for the preservation of pubhc order and the 
 suppression of popular tumults, are an expensive barrier 
 against the eruptions of popular passion. It is obvious 
 to statesmen that to neglect the condition of the people 
 is to permit society to be corrupted by domestic im- 
 morality ; to render social order and the growth of national 
 wealth insecure, by the combinations maintained by the 
 prejudices of popular ignorance; to entail on the State 
 the support of unnecessary indigence and physical suffering ; 
 to endanger public liberty itself, by increasing the need 
 of coercive and penal arrangements, and vastly to augment 
 the charge by which persons and property can be secured 
 against violence and fraud, and public order preserved 
 against anarchy. 
 
 The relief of indigence is not confided solely to private 
 charity; nor the sanitary improvement of our towns to 
 benevolent associations; nor the defence of property and 
 public order to voluntary combinations; can it then 
 become any great statesman to abandon to voluntary 
 charity alone, that improvement of the moral and intellec- 
 tual condition of the people on which such vast conse- 
 quences depend? 
 
 That it is a function of the legislature to improve do- 
 mestic morality and household comfort by education is 
 apparent, because on the State devolves the duty of sup- 
 pressing crime by coercive means and penal enactments. 
 If public order may be preserved by the concerted arrange- 
 ments of a highly disciplined military organisation, why 
 may not the statesman seek, in the improved intelligence 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 455 
 
 of the people, safeguards, surer and more consistent with 
 personal freedom? Those who would create an alarm 
 at the expenditure required for an efficient system of 
 education, keep out of sight how much the national 
 industry has been obstructed by combinations resulting 
 from ignorance; what has been the cost of mihtary 
 establishments for the protection of society in periods of 
 turbulence — how many millions have been annually 
 expended on those forms of indigence which result from 
 immorality or listless improvidence — how many millions 
 the police force, the machinery of criminal jurisprudence 
 and of secondary punishments engulf — and what is the 
 annual waste in improvident expenditure occasioned by 
 the immoral excesses and crimes of an uneducated people. 
 Those who pretend that public liberty is endangered by 
 the rewards which Government desires to give efficient 
 schoolmasters and their assistants (representing it as the 
 invasion of an army of Government stipendiaries), appear 
 to forget how many thousand troops of the line are em- 
 ployed to protect the institutions of the country — how 
 many thousand police to watch their houses and protect 
 their persons — how many gaolers, warders, and officers 
 of the hulks have charge of the victims of popular igno- 
 rance and excess — how many ships are annually freighted 
 with their frightful cargoes to the pandemonium of crime 
 in Van Diemen's land — how many overseers have charge 
 of the convict gangs — and how vast is the outlay which 
 sustains the indigence of orphanage and bastardy, of im- 
 provident youth, sensual maturity, and premature age. 
 
 The statesman who endeavours to substitute instruction 
 for coercion; to procure obedience to the law by intelli- 
 gence rather than by fear; to employ a system of encou- 
 ragement to virtuous exertion, instead of the dark code 
 of penalties against crime; to use the public resources 
 rather in building schools than barracks and convict ships ; 
 to replace the constable, the soldier, and the gaoler by 
 the schoolmaster, cannot be justly suspected of any seri- 
 ous design against the liberties of his country, or charged 
 
 G G 4 
 
456 Third Period 
 
 with an improvident employment of the resources of the 
 State. 
 
 When, therefore, freedom of education from the inter- 
 ference of the Government becomes the war-cry of any 
 party, will it not be suspected that they seek the interest 
 of a class rather than the welfare of the nation; that 
 they prefer popular ignorance to party insignificance ; the 
 liberty to neglect the condition of the people, rather than 
 the liberty of progressive civilisation ? 
 
457 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE NATURE AND OBJECTS OF THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS, AND THE 
 MODE OF APPOINTING INSPECTORS. 
 
 Having in the preceding chapter related the preliminary 
 circumstances which led to the formation of the Com- 
 mittee of Comicil on Education, we now proceed to 
 describe its constitution, and the mode of its operation. 
 Beside the abstract objections to the interference of 
 Government in education, with which it was probable 
 that such a step would be assailed, the structure of the 
 Committee itself was described as unconstitutional, its 
 members as irresponsible, and its powers as arbitrary. 
 These were, however, only exaggerated expressions of 
 alarm at the interference of Government in a new sphere, 
 excusable perhaps, considering the difficulty of defining 
 at an early period the mode of its operation and the 
 limits of its authority, as well as the great interests dis- 
 turbed by its existence. The Committee on Education, 
 it was justly pleaded, was founded on the constitutional 
 precedent of the Board of Trade, which also originated in 
 the Privy Council, and continues to be one of its Com- 
 mittees. 
 
 The Education Committee is composed solely of 
 responsible Ministers of State, acting under their oaths of 
 office, all of them in Parliament, and liable to be there 
 questioned or even impeached for their acts as meftibers 
 of this Committee. Its proceedings also are under the 
 check of publicity, for all its correspondence and minutes 
 might, by a vote of either House, be required to be sub- 
 mitted to Parliament without reserve, if the Committee 
 did not always anticipate such a motion, by laying every 
 
458 Third Period 
 
 document of any importance on tlie tables of both Houses. 
 Lastly, no powers whatever are confided to the Committee 
 of Council, other than to superintend the application of 
 any sums voted by Parhament for the promotion of educa- 
 tion in Great Britain. The regulations by which the 
 distribution of these grants are determined are laid before 
 both Houses, before the grant is submitted to the consi- 
 deration of the House of Commons. Experience of the 
 operations of the Committee of Council was however 
 required to allay the apprehensions arising from these 
 misconceptions. The Minutes of the Committee of Council 
 presented to Parliament in 1839-40 occasioned only one 
 distinction of importance between the proceedings of the 
 Committee of Council on Education and those of the Lords 
 of the Treasury. By the third regulation it was declared 
 that ' the right of inspection will be required by the Com- 
 mittee in all cases. Lispectors authorised by Her Majesty 
 in Council will be appointed from time to time to visit 
 schools to be henceforth aided by public money; the 
 Inspectors will not interfere with the religious instruction, 
 or discipline or management of the school, it being their 
 object to collect facts and information, and to report the 
 result of their inspection to the Committee of Council on 
 Education.' 
 
 Prior to the publication of the instructions to the In- 
 spectors of Schools, the nature of this inspection was the 
 subject of much misconception and alarm. It was appre- 
 hended, that notwithstanding the restrictions contained 
 in the regulation which made inspection a condition of 
 their Lordships' grants, it would become a system of vex- 
 atious interference with the internal disciphne and manage- 
 ment of schools, and an instrument by which the voluntary 
 charity of society would be restrained in its operations, 
 and thus chilled and extinguished. 
 
 The instructions issued to the Inspectors of Schools were, 
 however, framed in a spirit which opposed a mild but 
 effectual rebuke to these anticipations. 
 
 ' 3. In superintending the application of the Parlia- 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 459 
 
 mentary grant for public education in Great Britain, my ^^ 
 Lords have in view the encouragement of local efforts for 
 the improvement and extension of elementary education, 
 whether made by voluntary associations or by private 
 individuals. The employment of Inspectors is therefore I 
 intended to advance this object, by affording to the pro- \ 
 moters of schools an opportunity of ascertaining, at the ^ 
 periodical visits of inspection, what improvements in the ( 
 apparatus and internal arrangement of schools, in school \ 
 management and discipline, and in the methods of ] 
 teaching, have been sanctioned by the most extensive ^^_^^ 
 experience. 
 
 ' 4. The inspection of schools aided by public grants is, 
 in this respect, a means of co-operation between the Go- 
 vernment and the committees and superintendents of 
 schools, by which information respecting all remarkable 
 improvements may be diffused whenever it is sought ; 
 you will therefore be careful, at visits of inspection, to 
 communicate with the ^ [parochial clergyman, or other 
 minister of religion] connected with the school, and with 
 the school committee, or in the absence of a school com- 
 mittee, with the chief promoters of the school, and will 
 explain to them that one main object of your visit is to 
 afford them your assistance in all efforts for improvement 
 in which they may desire your aid ; but that you are in 
 no respect to interfere with the instruction, management, 
 or discipline of the school, or to press upon them any sug- 
 gestions which they may be disinchned to receive. 
 
 ' 5. A clear and comprehensive view of these main 
 duties of your office is at all times important ; but when 
 a system of inspection of schools aided by public grants 
 is for the first time brought into operation, it is of the 
 utmost consequence you should bear in mind that this 
 
 1 In relation to the elementaiy schools of Scotland^ the following passage 
 is added in lieu of the words within brackets : — [presbytery of the bounds 
 or the minister of the parish, in regard to all schools which are placed by 
 law, or by the condition of their endowments or constitution, under the 
 superintendence of the Church of Scotland, and^ as respects other schools, 
 with the minister of religion.] 
 
460 Third Period 
 
 inspection is not intended as a means of exercising control, 
 but of affording assistance ; that it is not to be regarded 
 as operating for the restraint of local efforts, but for their 
 encouragement ; and that its chief objects will not be 
 attained without the co-operation of the school commit- 
 tees ; — the Inspector having no power to interfere, and 
 not being instructed to offer any advice or information 
 
 '' excepting where it is invited. 
 
 ' 10. The Committee doubt not you are duly impressed 
 with the weight of the responsibility resting upon you, 
 
 ' and they repose full confidence in the judgment and dis- 
 i cretion with which your duties will be performed. 
 / 'My Lords are persuaded that you will meet with 
 
 / much cordial co-operation in the prosecution of the im- 
 portant object involved in your appointment ; and they 
 are equally satisfied that your general bearing and con- 
 duct, and the careful avoidance of whatever could impair 
 / the just influence or authority of the promoters of schools, 
 
 / or of the teachers over their scholars, will conciliate the 
 confidence and good-will of those with whom you will 
 have to communicate ; you will thus best fulfil the pur- 
 poses of your appointment, and prove yourself a fit agent 
 to assist in the execution of Her Majesty's desire, that the 
 youth of this kingdom should be religiously brought up, 
 and that the rights of conscience should be respected.' 
 
 1 ' 
 
 The publication of instructions framed in this spirit 
 tended to remove misapprehension and to establish confi- 
 dence, which within a short period was confirmed by the 
 arrangements which the Committee of Council made with 
 the Church of England, with the Church of Scotland, 
 and with the British and Foreign School Society, as to 
 proceedings to be taken on the appointment of the Inspec- 
 -tors of Schools. 
 
 These three classes of schools differed essentially in 
 their constitution, and in the nature of their religious 
 instruction. In the Church of England schools, the re- 
 
 1 Minutes 1839-40, p. 22, and vol. i. 1844, p. 22. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 461 
 
 ligious instruction was confided to the superintendence of 
 the parochial clergyman, and was enjoined to be given from 
 the catechism and liturgy of that church, as well as from 
 the Holy Scriptures. In the schools of the British and 
 Foreign School Society, instruction in religion was con- 
 fined to the Holy Scriptures without any peculiar interpre- 
 tation or catechetical teaching, and was directed by the 
 school managers, who were chiefly laymen. In schools 
 placed under the superintendence of the Church of Scot- 
 land, rehgion was taught under the inspection of the Kirk 
 Session and Presbytery, as weU from the catechism of the 
 Assembly of Divines as from tlie canon of Scripture. 
 
 The Church of England and the Church of Scotland 
 were desirous that the religious instruction in their 
 schools should be open to the examination of the Inspec- 
 tor. On the contrary, the British and Foreign School 
 Society was understood {vide Minutes, 1842-3, p. 525) to 
 prefer that the terms of their Lordships' third regulation 
 of the Minute of the 2ith September, 1839, should be 
 adhered to, viz., that ' the Inspector should not be 
 authorised to examine into the religious instruction given 
 in the schools.' 
 
 As these three classes of schools differed so widely both 
 in their constitution, mode of management, and in the 
 nature of their religious instruction, and as opposite 
 opinions appeared to be entertained by the Church of 
 England and the Church of Scotland on the one hand, 
 and by the British and Foreign School Society on the 
 other, as to the propriety of authorising the Inspec- 
 tor to examine the religious instruction given in the 
 schools, it was, after much consideration, determined that 
 three separate classes of Inspectors should be appointed : 
 one for schools connected with the Church of England ; 
 another for schools connected with the Church of Scot- 
 land ; and the third for schools connected with the British 
 and Foreign School Society. 
 
 The Committee of Council were of opinion that unless 
 each Inspector possessed the confidence of the rehgious 
 
462 Third Period 
 
 communion with which the schools visited by him were 
 connected, he could not usefully co-operate with the 
 school-managers. Their Lordships finally determined 
 that in proceeding to nominate Inspectors they would 
 consult the Central Board, watching over the interests of 
 any distinct class of schools, in order to avoid the appoint- 
 ment of any persons who, especially on religious grounds, 
 did not enjoy its confidence. Moreover, circumstances 
 led to the practical conclusion, that no Inspector should 
 be employed in the visitation of other schools than those 
 for the examination of which he was appointed, except 
 on the direct and formal invitation of their managers. 
 With respect to the appointment of Inspectors of schools 
 connected with the Church of England, their Lordships 
 submitted to Her Majesty a Minute dated 15th July, 1840, 
 on which was founded an Order in Council dated 10th 
 August, 1840 {vide Minutes, 1839-40, pp. ix. x.). By 
 this Order in Council it is settled that before the Com- 
 mittee of Council proceed to recommend to Her Majesty 
 any person for appointment, as an Inspector of Church 
 of England schools, their Lordships will consult the 
 Archbishops of Canterbury and York, each with regard 
 to his own province, and that without their concurrence 
 their Lordships will not recommend any person to Her 
 Majesty for appointment. It was also determined that if 
 either of the Archbishops should at any time, with regard 
 to his own province, withdraw his concurrence in such 
 appointment, the Committee of Council should advise Her 
 Majesty to revoke the appointment of such Inspector. 
 
 As it was the desire of the Church of England, that tlie 
 religious instruction in schools connected with that Church 
 should be examined by the Inspectors appointed in con- 
 formity with this Order in Council, it was agreed that the 
 following instructions, formed by the Archbishops, relating 
 solely to the examination of the religious instruction in 
 Church of England schools, should be added to the 
 general instructions issued to Inspectors of this class of 
 schools : — 
 
Explanation of the Minutes 6>/1846 463 
 
 ' In tlie case of schools connected with the National 
 Church, the Inspectors will inquire, with especial care, 
 how far the doctrines and principles of the Church 
 are instilled into the minds of the children. The 
 Inspectors will ascertain whether church accommodation, 
 of sufficient extent, and in a proper situation, is pro- 
 vided for them ; whether their attendance is regular, 
 and proper means taken to insure their suitable behaviour 
 during the service ; whether inquiry is made after- 
 wards by their teachers how far they have profited 
 by the public ordinances of religion which they have been 
 attendmg. The Inspectors will report also upon the 
 daily practice of the school with reference to Divine 
 worship : whether the duties of the day are begun and 
 ended with prayer and psalmody ; whether daily instruc- 
 tion is given in the Bible ; whether the Catechism and 
 the Liturgy are explained with the terms most commonly 
 in use throughout the authorised version of the Scriptures. 
 
 ' They will inquire likewise whether the children are 
 taught private prayers to repeat at home ; and whether 
 the teachers keep up any intercourse with the parents, so 
 that the authority of the latter may be combined Avith that 
 of the former in the moral training of the pupils. As an 
 important part of moral disciphne, the Inspectors will in- 
 form themselves as to the regularity of the children in 
 attending school — :in what w^ay registered — and how 
 enforced ; as to manners and behaviour, whether orderly 
 and decorous ; as to obedience, whether prompt and 
 cheerful, or reluctant, and limited to the time while they 
 are under the master's eye ; and as to rewards and 
 punishments, on what principles administered, and with 
 what results. The Inspectors will satisfy themselves whe- 
 ther the progress of the children in religious knowledge 
 is in proportion to the time they have been at school ; 
 whether their attainments are showy or substantial ; and 
 whether their replies are made intelligently or mechani- 
 cally and by rote. The Inspectors will be careful to esti- 
 mate the advancement of the junior as well as of the 
 
464 Third Period 
 
 senior class, and the progress in each class of the lower 
 as well as of the higher pupils. And in every particular 
 case th€ Inspector will draw up a Eeport, and transmit a 
 duplicate of it through the Committee of Council on 
 Education to the Archbishop of the Province.' — Vide 
 Minutes, 1839-40, p. 32. 
 
 The Committee of Council had, several months previ- 
 ously to this arrangement with the heads of the Church 
 of England, communicated to the Education Committee 
 of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, their 
 intention to act in concurrence with that body in proceed- 
 ing to recommend to Her Majesty any person for appoint- 
 ment as an Inspector of schools which were by law or by 
 the condition of their endowments or constitution, under 
 the superintendence of the Church of Scotland. ^ At a 
 
 ^ ' The Committee of Coimcil direct me to inform you^ in reply to your 
 inquiries, that the Inspectors of schools aided by public gTants are appointed 
 by Her Majesty in Council^ on the recommendation of the Committee of 
 Council on Education ; and, in order to aftbrd you the fullest information 
 respecting the duties of the Inspectors, my Lords direct me to transmit the 
 inclosed copy of instructions addressed to the Inspectors for England and 
 Wales. Instructions framed on the same principles, but modified so as to 
 render them applicable to any peculiar circumstances in Scotland, will be 
 issued to the Inspectors for that country. With respect to such modifi- 
 cations, my Lords will be glad to receive any observations from the Com- 
 mittee of the General Assembly. 
 
 ' In these documents you will perceive that the inspection of schools is 
 intended to be a means of co-operation between the Government and the 
 ministers, local committees and trustees of schools, for the improvement and 
 extension of elementary education ; and my Lords embrace the opportunity of 
 expressing their intention to co-operate with the Church of Scotland for the 
 attainment of these results, as regards the schools which are placed by law, 
 or by the condition of their endowments or constitution, imder the superin- 
 tendence of the Church of Scotland. 
 
 ' In further reply to your inquiry, my Lords direct me to assure you that, 
 with respect to these schools, my Lords will at all times feel it their duty to 
 communicate and co-operate with the Education Committee of the General 
 Assembly, and will direct copies of their Inspectors' Reports to be trans- 
 mitted to the Committee from time to time. 
 
 * My Lords conceive this co-operation may best be promoted by selecting 
 for the inspection of such schools gentlemen who possess the confidence of 
 the Church of Scotland, while their acquaintance with all the technical 
 details of elementary instruction, and their zeal for the education of the 
 poorer classes, will afford a guarantee that they are fit agents for promoting 
 
Explanation of the 31{nutes of 1846 465 
 
 subsequent period the Committee of Council communi- 
 cated to the Committee of the British and Foreign School 
 Society the following Minute in relation to the same 
 subject : — 
 
 ' The Committee of Council on Education having had 
 under their consideration the memorial presented from 
 the Committee of the British and Foreign School Society, 
 respecting the inspection of schools in connection with 
 that Society, it was resolved : — 
 
 ' That their Lordships will communicate the Eeports 
 which their Inspectors may make respecting schools in 
 connection with the British and Foreign School Society to 
 the Committee of that Society, for their information. 
 
 ' That when Inspectors, on the invitation of the Local 
 Committees and Managers of schools, make suggestions 
 to them respecting the discipline and management of 
 their schools, such suggestions shall be reported to their 
 Lordships, who wiU communicate these suggestions (with 
 the reports on the condition of the school) to the Com- 
 mittee of the British and Foreign School Society, and 
 will request their co-operation in recommending to the 
 approbation of the Local Committee such of the Inspector's 
 suggestions as their Lordships may approve ' — (vide letter 
 dated February 8, 1841, pp. 411—415, Minutes 1842-3). 
 
 In another letter Lord WharnclifFe conveyed to the 
 Committee of the British and Foreign School Society an 
 assurance that in the appointment of Inspectors of 
 British Schools, no person would be selected for that 
 office who did not possess the confidence of that Society, 
 
 tlae improvement and extension of siicli elementary education as may secure 
 the religious and moral improvement of the children of the poor. 
 
 ' The Committee of Council consider that much advantage will arise from 
 their Lordships having the opportunity of consulting the Education Com- 
 mittee of the General Assembly with respect to the selection of the Inspectors 
 of such schools ; before, therefore, a recommendation of any gentleman for 
 this office is made to Her Majesty in Council, my Lords will communicate 
 the name to the Committee of the General Assembly for their observations.' 
 Minutes, 1839-40. 
 
 H H 
 
466 Third Period 
 
 and in whose appointment its Committee did not concur 
 {vide Minutes, 1842-3, p. 537).^ 
 
 It was not practically found necessary to make any 
 arrangement for the inspection of any other class of 
 schools, until the disruption of the Church of Scotland 
 occasioned the withdrawal of a great number of school- 
 masters from the communion of that Church, the transfer- 
 ence of many adventure schools^ and schools under the 
 management of trustees, to the supermtendence of the Free 
 Church, and the establishment of numerous new schools 
 under that Church. Mr. Gibson, who had been their Lord- 
 ships' Inspector in Scotland, having withdrawn from the 
 Established Church, was retained as Inspector of Schools not 
 connected with the Established Church, until to his great 
 experience and ability were confided (under the direction 
 of the Education Committee of the General Assembly of 
 the Free Church) the organisation of the schools which 
 that Church might hereafter determine to form. 
 
 The principles on which the inspection of schools was 
 founded ceased to be a matter of controversy. The in- 
 structions of the Committee of Council to their Inspectors 
 
 1 Wortley Hall, Sheffield, Nov. SO, 1843. 
 
 ' My deah Sir, 
 
 ' Upon further consideration of what passed "between Mr. Forster and you 
 and myself, on Monday last, I think it desirable, that you should be able, at 
 your meeting with your Committee, to state to them exactly what the course 
 is which the Committee of Council propose to pursue with regard to the 
 appointment of Inspectors of Schools connected with the British and Foreign 
 School Society. I therefore, for this purpose, refer you to pages 19 and 20 
 of the volume of the Committee of Council's Reports for 1839-40, containing 
 a letter from Mr. Gordon, Secretary to the Education Committee of the 
 Church of Scotland, and the answer of the Committee of Coimcil upon ihe 
 subject of the appointment of Inspectors for the schools in connection with 
 that Church. Those are the precise groimds upon which we are desirous of 
 placing the appointment of Inspectors for your schools, and no Inspector for 
 them wiU be appointed without the full concurrence of your Committee. 
 
 ' I earnestly hope that that Committee will be convinced, by the proposal 
 of the Committee of Council to adopt that course, of their anxious wish to 
 do every thing they can, consistently with their duty, to satisfy the British 
 and Foreign School Society upon this important subject. 
 
 I am, &c., 
 
 (Signed) Wharncliffe. 
 * Ilemy Dunn, Esq.'' 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 467 
 
 were carried into execution with the utmost fidelity. 
 Inspection was welcomed by the trustees and managers 
 of schools so far, that throughout entire districts, schools 
 which had received no pecuniary aid from the Committee 
 of Council, invited the visits of the Inspectors, in order 
 that the managers might have the advantage of the coun- 
 sels .of the Inspectors, and the schools receive a new im- 
 pulse from their examination. 
 
 Besides the three great classes of schools described 
 as having entered into definite arrangements with the 
 Committee of Council, with respect to the inspection of 
 their schools, their Lordships' grants in aid of the erection 
 of school-buildings, &c., were, by a Minute of the 3rd 
 of December, 1839, rendered accessible to schools not 
 connected with the Established Churches of England or 
 Scotland, or mth the British and Foreign School Society. 
 It has been the practice of the Committee of Council 
 to make grants in Scotland to all classes of schools con- 
 nected with the orthodox rehgious communions of that 
 country, as well as to schools of a mixed religious 
 constitution, not distinctly connected either with the 
 Church of Scotland or with any particular religious body. 
 But in England few grants have been sought for schools 
 not connected either with the Church of England, or with 
 the British and Foreign School Society. Their Lordships 
 have not hitherto in England been urged to remove the 
 requirement in their Minute of the 3rd of December, 1839, 
 which states that ' if the said school be not in connection 
 with either of those societies (the National, and British 
 and Foreign), the Committee will not entertain the case, 
 unless some special circumstances be exhibited to induce 
 their Lordships to treat the case as special.' 
 
 Their Lordships would probably upon application re- 
 move this preliminary requirement, but the principles 
 which the rest of this Minute embodies, continue to 
 regulate the administration of their Lordships' grants. 
 This Minute has not been succeeded by any other which 
 either supersedes or modifies it in any particular ; it may 
 
 H n 2 
 
468 Third Period 
 
 therefore be received in all respects as an authoritative 
 expression of the principles by which the distribution 
 of grants to any class of schools, not connected with the 
 Church of England, or with the British and Foreign School 
 Society, is now in England determined. 
 
 It is obviously of importance therefore that this Minute, 
 and especially that the conditions with which it concludes, 
 should be carefully perused. 
 
 Minute of the Committee of Cowicil of Education. 
 3rd December, 1839. 
 
 Their Lordships deliberated on the 9th Eegulation of 
 the 24th September, viz.: 'In every application for aid 
 to the erection of a school-house in England or Wales, 
 it must be stated whether the school is in connection 
 with the National Society, or the British and Foreign 
 Society; and if the said school be not in connection with 
 either of those societies, the Committee will not entertain 
 the case, unless some special circumstances be exhibited 
 to induce their Lordships to treat the case as special.' 
 
 Resolved — That if such special circumstances be stated 
 as to induce the Committee to entertain the consideration 
 of any such case, their Lordships will require to be in- 
 formed — 
 
 1. What are the objections which the applicants make 
 to connecting the intended school with the National 
 Society or the British and Foreign School Society. 
 
 2. To whom the superintendence of religious instruction 
 win be confided in their school, and whether such reh- 
 gious instruction will be obhgatory on all the children 
 in the school, or whether the parent or natural guardian 
 of any child may withdraw it from such rehgious in- 
 struction, or from any portion of it, without thereby 
 forfeiting the advantages of the general education in the 
 school. 
 
 3. Whether the Bible or Testament will be required 
 to be read daily in the school by the children, and whether 
 «T1Y and what catechism will be taught, and whether, if 
 
Explanation of the Minutes (>/ 1846 469 
 
 the parents or guardian of any child object to such cate- 
 chetical instruction, it will be enforced or dispensed with. 
 
 4. Whether the children who attend the day-school 
 are required to attend the sunday-school, for the purpose 
 of religious instruction, or to attend for Divine worship 
 at any particular church or chapel, or whether the place 
 of Divine worship is left to the selection of their parents 
 solely, without their incurring, by reason of such selection, 
 any loss of the privileges of the school. 
 
 5. Whether the school is to be connected with the 
 congregation of any religious denomination, either by the 
 erection of the school-house within the boundary-wall of 
 the site on which a place of Divine worship is built, or 
 by reason of its being chiefly supported by subscriptions 
 from the members of such congregation, or in conse- 
 quence of any rule hmiting admission to any one religious 
 denomination. 
 
 6. If it is intended that the school shall be so esta- 
 bhshed and supported, the Committee must be informed 
 what is the district from which the children will assemble 
 in the school; what is the population of the district, and 
 what portion of that population belongs to the rehgious 
 denomination of the congregation with which the school 
 is connected. 
 
 Resolved — That on these facts in relation to each case 
 being presented to the Committee, and their Lordships 
 being satisfied that the regulations of the 24th of Sep- 
 tember will in all other respects be fulfilled, they will limit 
 their aid to those cases in which proof is given of a great 
 deficiency of education for the poorer classes in the dis- 
 trict; of vigorous efforts having been made by the inha- 
 bitants to provide funds, and of the indispensable need 
 of further assistance; and to those cases in which com- 
 petent provision will be made for the instruction of the 
 children in the school, the daily reading of a portion of 
 the Scriptures forming part of such instruction. 
 
 The Committee will further give a preference to schools 
 in which the religious instruction will be of the same 
 
 H H 3 
 
470 Third Period 
 
 character as that given in schools in connection with one 
 or other of the above-named Societies; and to those in 
 which the school committee or trustees, while they 
 provide for the daily reading of the Scriptures in the 
 school, do not enforce any rule by which the children 
 will be compelled to learn a catechism, or attend a place 
 of Divine worship, to which their parents, on religious 
 grounds, object. 
 
 This Minute is of the greater importance since the 
 pubhcation of the Minutes of the Committee of Council 
 in August and December, 1846, inasmuch as it defines 
 the classes of schools in which pupil teachers and stipen- 
 diary monitors may be apprenticed, in which masters 
 having certificates may receive augmentations of salary, 
 and to which in short their Lordships will be disposed 
 to extend all the other benefits now consequent on in- 
 spection. It is, however, probable that the Committee 
 of Council will no longer require that in such cas^s 
 ' special circumstances shall be exhibited to induce their 
 Lordships to treat the case as special.' 
 
471 
 
 OHAPTEE ni. 
 
 THE MINUTES OF AUGUST AND DECEMBER 1846, CONSIDERED IN RELATION 
 TO THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE SCHOOLMASTER, THE SCHOOL, AND THE 
 POOR, 
 
 By the events which have been thus described, it had been 
 determined that the assistance of Government for the 
 promotion of elementary education should be distributed 
 in aid of voluntary exertions, chiefly in connection with 
 the Church of England and the British and Foreign School 
 Society; with the Church of Scotland, and with those 
 rehgious communions which united in giving instruction in 
 their schools from the Shorter Catechism of the Assembly 
 of Divines. A new condition was annexed to these grants, 
 viz., that the schools thus aided should be open to in- 
 spection by officers appointed by the Crown, but who 
 were not to interfere with the discipline or management 
 of the school, nor even to examine the rehgious instruc- 
 tion, unless invited by the managers, but only to report 
 the results of their inspection for the information of Par- 
 liament and of the public. Two great principles were 
 thus estabhshed — the right and duty of the legislature to 
 promote the extension anct^^faprovement ofelement^jj^ 
 education, and the interest of Parhai^yilL illlU Lli^pUDiic 
 in the condition of every school aided by the Government. 
 The nature of the inspection by which this publicity was 
 obtained was carefully defined in the instructions issued 
 to Her Majesty's Inspectors. In order to satisfy the wish 
 of the Estabhshed Churches of England and of Scotland, in- 
 spection was extended to the religious instruction of schools 
 connected with those Churches ; and as soon as the pro- 
 priety of this extension of the objects of inspection was ad- 
 
 H H 4 
 
472 Tliird Period 
 
 mitted, the Committee of Council agreed to consult the 
 Archbishops of the English Church, each with regard to his 
 own province, and the Education Committee of the General 
 Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as respected Pres- 
 byterian schools, before they should proceed to recommend 
 any person for appointment as an Inspector of Schools 
 connected with these Churches respectively. In Hke 
 manner, their Lordships consented to communicate with 
 the Committee of the British and Foreign School Society, 
 and not to appoint an Inspector of British and Foreign 
 Schools without their concurrence. The inspection of 
 schools was thus extended beyond the objects originally 
 contemplated by the Government, and was placed in 
 harmony with the rehgious constitution of the several 
 classes of schools. 
 
 These arrangements having been made, the application 
 of the Parhamentary Grant to the extension of elementary 
 education proceeded without further interruption. Little 
 could be accomplished in the improvement of the condi- 
 tion of the schools visited, because the Inspectors had no 
 administrative function, for the Parhamentary Grant was 
 then inapplicable to the support of schools ; but the pub- 
 licity given by the Eeports of the Inspectors to the condi- 
 tion of elementary education (even in those schools which 
 being recently founded were supported by the most active 
 zeal) tended to bring about a more general acknowledg- 
 ment of the incompleteness of that instruction which had 
 been dignified with the name of education. The proposal 
 made by the Government, in 1839, to establish a Normal 
 School, awakened public attention to the important influ- 
 ence which such institutions might exert on the character 
 of schoolmasters, and on the standard of instruction 
 throughout the country. Shortly afterwards, a Normal 
 School originated in the exertions of private individuals. 
 This was followed by the establishment of several others, 
 under the auspices of the Church, in London and in other 
 dioceses. The British and Foreign School Society like- 
 wise established a Normal School in the Borough Eoad ; 
 
E:7iplanation of the Minutes o/1846 473 
 
 and the Church of Scotland, at a later period, one in 
 Edinburgh and another in Glasgow. Eight of these Normal 
 institutions received hberal assistance from the Govern- 
 ment for their establishment, who also contributed towards 
 the annual expenses of four of them. 
 
 Every new step, however, disclosed the poverty of the 
 resources of the existing system. During the feverish 
 excitement of controversy it was possible, by great exer- 
 tions, to procure considerable funds for the promotion of 
 education ; but with the termination of the conflict, the 
 tendency to personal sacrifices was exhausted, and the 
 original languor returned. 
 
 It may be important to trace the consequences of this 
 poverty of resources on the condition of the elementary 
 school, on that of the Normal School, and on the profession 
 of the schoolmaster. These subjects are necessarily so 
 connected, as not to be capable of a separate treatment. 
 The Eeports of the Inspectors of Schools disclosed that in 
 a great number of instances, even the primary arrange- 
 ments for enclosing the school site, providing proper offices, 
 completing the drainage and ventilation of the building, 
 furnishing it with proper means of warmth in winter, and 
 with desks and benches for the scholars, were either 
 executed in a meager and insufficient manner, or were, in 
 some cases, entirely neglected. The schools were gene- 
 rally found ill supphed with the apparatus of instruction ; 
 often, the only class-book was the Bible or Testament, 
 desecrated as a horn-book, because indispensable for reli- 
 gious instruction, and on account of the low price at which 
 it is sold by religious associations. If there were any other 
 books, they were often in tatters. Black boards, easels, 
 maps, and other indispensable apparatus of skilful instruc- 
 tion, were seldom to be found, except in the best schools. 
 
 The Eeports of the Inspectors disclosed a relation be- 
 tween the imperfection of the school and the condition of 
 the schoolmaster of the most painful character. Few effi- 
 cient elementary schools exist in England, though the 
 number of school-houses has of late years greatly increased. 
 
 &££SE im^ 
 
474 Third Period 
 
 The most prominent of the causes to which these defects 
 are attributable is the fact, that the master of an elemen- 
 tary school is commonly in a position which yields him 
 neither honour nor emolument. He has, therefore, a 
 scanty knowledge even of the humblest rudiments of 
 learning, meager ideas of the duties of his office, and even 
 less skill in their performance. 
 
 There is little or nothing in the profession of an ele- 
 mentary schoolmaster, in tliis country, to tempt a man 
 having a respectable acquaintance with the elements of 
 even humble learning to exchange the certainty of a re- 
 spectable hvelihood in a subordinate condition in trade or 
 commerce, for the mean drudgery of instructing the rude 
 children of the poor in an elementary school, as it is now 
 conducted. 
 
 For what is the condition of the master of such a school ? 
 He has often an income very httle greater than that of an 
 agricultural labourer, and very rarely equal to that of a 
 moderately skilful mechanic. Even this income is to a great 
 degree' contingent on the weekly pittances paid from the 
 earnings of his poor neighbours, and liable to be reduced 
 by bad harvests, want of employment, strikes, sickness 
 among the children, or, worst of all, by the calamity of 
 his own ill-health. 
 
 Of late years he may more frequently have a small cot- 
 tage rent-free, but seldom a garden or fuel. 
 
 Some portion of his income may be derived from the 
 voluntary subscriptions of the promoters of the school — a 
 precarious source, Hable to be dried up by the removal or 
 death of patrons, and the fickleness of friends. 
 
 Amidst these uncertainties, with the increase of his 
 family his struggles are greater. He tries to eke out his 
 subsistence by keeping accounts, and writing letters for 
 his neighbours. He strives to be elected parish clerk, or 
 registrar, or clerk to some benefit club. These additions 
 to his income, if he be successful, barely keep him out of 
 debt, and in old age he has no prospect but hopeless indi- 
 gence and dependence. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1 846 475 
 
 To intrust the education of the labouring classes of this 
 country to men involved in such straits, is to condemn the 
 poor to ignorance and its fatal train of evils. To build 
 spacious and well-ventilated schools, without attempting 
 to provide a position of honour and emolument for the 
 masters, is to cheat the poor with a cruel illusion. Even 
 the very small number of masters now well trained in 
 Normal and Model Schools, will find no situation in which 
 their emoluments and prospects will be equal to those 
 which their new acquirements and skill might insure if 
 they should desert the profession of an elementary school- 
 master. Whilst their condition remains without improve- 
 ment, a rehgious motive alone can induce the young men, 
 who are now trained in Normal Schools, to sacrifice all 
 prospects of personal advancement for the self-denying and 
 arduous duties of a teacher of the children of the poor. 
 Unless, therefore, concurrently with the arrangements 
 made for training masters of superior acquirements and 
 skill, efforts be also made to provide them with situations 
 of decent comfort, and the prospect of a suitable provision 
 for sickness and old age, they will be driven by necessity, or 
 attracted by superior advantages, to commercial pursuits. 
 
 It may be well that the poor should give proof of the 
 value they attach to the education of their children, by 
 making some sacrifice from their earnings to promote the 
 comfort of the schoolmaster, and should thus preserve a 
 consciousness of their right to choose the school in which 
 their children are to be trained, and to exercise some 
 vigilance over the conduct of their master ; but the social 
 condition of the poor must be greatly superior to what the 
 most sanguine can expect it will become in the next half- 
 century, before they can afford to provide an adequate 
 subsistence for the schoolmaster ; and their moral and in- 
 tellectual state must be at least equally improved, before 
 they are prepared by the value they attach to the educa- 
 tion of their children, to make sacrifices adequate to the 
 remuneration of the teacher. 
 
 From the contributions of the poor, therefore, little 
 
476 Third Period 
 
 more can be expected in aid of the master's income, and 
 that increase, if procurable, must be derived both from a 
 more lively appreciation of the benefits of education to a 
 labouring man, and from an improvement in his own 
 means of subsistence. 
 
 But if it were otherwise, it may be doubted whether 
 it would be a wise policy to make the schoolmaster de- 
 pendent on the parents of his scholars for his entire income, 
 for this would be to subject him to the caprices of the least 
 intelligent classes, who would also certainly be the most 
 vigilant and rigorous superiors. 
 
 Moreover, a provident charity can, by means of the 
 village school, most gracefully interfere to elevate the 
 condition of the poor, without undermining their independ- 
 ence or teaching them habits of servility ; it would not 
 therefore be. wise to deprive the rich of a means of ex- 
 pressing their sympathy with the condition of the poor 
 by means of a charity, in which the virtue of self-denial 
 is not obscured by the degradation of the recipient. 
 
 The contributions which are annually dependent on 
 the will of the donor, likewise afford him a most effectual 
 means of stimulating the exertions of the master, and 
 thus place the school to a great degree under the influence 
 of the superior classes of society. 
 
 On these grounds, while on the one hand it may be 
 doubted whether it is expedient to supersede either the 
 weekly payments of the parents of the scholars, or the 
 contributions of the more wealthy classes, by any fixed 
 sources of income ; on the other it is evident, that to 
 leave the master dependent on the poor, and on the 
 fluctuating charity of the rich, is to subject him, in the 
 great majority of cases, to poverty in his office and to 
 indigence and dependence when deprived of it by sick- 
 ness or old age. 
 
 A certain portion of the schoolmaster's income should 
 be attached to his office independently of all local sources 
 of fluctuation and change ; he should enjoy his house rent- 
 free, and if possible be provided with a garden and fuel. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes q/'1846 477 
 
 If then an estimate be made of his salary, on a scale equal 
 to the position he ought to hold in society, one-third of 
 this income should be certain. The smallest sum which 
 ought to be secured to the master, besides a comfortable 
 dwelling, should be £15 or £20, as part of an income of 
 £45 or £60 per annum, and the condition of the master 
 cannot be deemed respectably provided for, unless an in- 
 come of £30 per annum be secured to him, besides what 
 may be derived from school-pence, and from the contribu- 
 tions of the wealthy, which ought at least to raise this 
 income to £90 per annum. 
 
 While the condition of the master is one of such priva- 
 tion and uncertainty, he has by the existing system of 
 school instruction been placed in a situation, the difficulties 
 of which are insuperable, even by the highest talent and 
 skill, much less by men struggling with penury, exhausted 
 with care, often ill-instructed, and sometimes assuming the 
 duties of a most responsible office, only because deemed 
 incompetent to strive for a hveliliood in the open field of 
 competition. Men so circumstanced, have been placed, 
 without other assistants than monitors, in charge of schools 
 containing from 150 to 300 scholars and upwards. The 
 monitors usually employed are under twelve years of age, 
 some of them being as young as eight or nine, and they 
 are in general very ignorant, rude, and unskilfal. The 
 system of monitorial instruction has practically failed in 
 this country because of the early period at which chil- 
 dren are required for manufacturing and agricultural 
 labour. It has been generally abandoned on the Continent 
 on account of its comparative imperfection under any 
 circumstances, but it was probably never exhibited under 
 greater disadvantages than in England. 
 
 The earliest efforts of recent promoters of the education 
 of the labouring classes were made in towns. The schools 
 of towns are commonly large — the children are sent to 
 work at a very early age — the population is migratory, 
 and the school attendance short, irregular, and uncertain. 
 One master was placed over a school containing for the 
 
478 Third Period 
 
 most part from 200 to 400 children, and he was not 
 supphed with any assistance, excepting what he could 
 derive from the scholars committed to his charge. His 
 own efforts to create an instructed class, which might 
 render him this service, were constantly thwarted by the 
 migration of the parents, by the removal of the child to 
 work, and the extreme difficulty of combining the in- 
 struction and training of the monitorial class with such 
 an attention to the whole school as would preserve order 
 and disciphne, and secure so much progress in the several 
 classes as to furnish a proper succession in the first class 
 of ripe scholars from whom to select the monitors. 
 
 Under such difficulties few masters succeeded in this 
 country in creating and maintaining efficient monitorial 
 schools, but they have succeeded exactly in proportion as 
 they were enabled by local circumstances to retain the 
 monitors beyond the age of 13 at the school, or were per- 
 mitted by the trustees to pay them a small weekly stipend 
 for their services, if they also gave them the advantage of 
 separate instruction. 
 
 If this be the condition of the master, and if this be the 
 character of the only assistance afforded him in the dis- 
 ciphne and instruction of his school, is it a legitimate 
 subject of surprise, that a very large proportion of the 
 children attending elementary schools in this country 
 should not even acquire the art of reading accurately, 
 much less with ease and expression, and that all the 
 higher aims of education should appear, notwithstanding 
 constant school extension, to be unattainable ? Can we 
 wonder that the working classes should attach no value 
 to an education so meager and worthless, and consequently 
 that the school attendance of their children should not 
 exceed a year and a half on the average throughout entire 
 districts ? Is it surprising that juvenile dehnquency should 
 be on the increase ? 
 
 There are other features connected with the condition 
 of elementary schools which are equally to be deplored. 
 Too commonly their prosperity depends on the exertions 
 
Explanation of the Minutes ^/1846 479 
 
 and sacrifices of some benevolent individual. In Church 
 of England schools, the labour and burthen of their main- 
 tenance often depend on the parochial clergyman ; in 
 Dissenting Schools, on some layman, who exhausts his 
 resources and his time on the task of constantly rebuilding 
 what always threatens to become a ruin. Even this want 
 of sympathy of the laity of the Church, and the congrega- 
 tions of Dissenters, in the prosperity of their schools, is 
 probably, in the first instance, a consequence of that in- 
 efficiency, which their apathy tends to perpetuate. The 
 school exists, but produces no fruit ; no one perceives 
 that it exercises a civilising influence ; when visited it is 
 a scene of noise and disorder. It is obvious to a toil-worn 
 member of the middle class of this country, that he has 
 neither leisure, nor superfluous energy, to undertake the 
 task of introducing order into this Babel. It fails to in- 
 terest his sympathies ; consequently elementary schools 
 are visited by their supporters chiefly on the annual field- 
 day of a paraded exhibition, when the children are 
 initiated in a pubhc imposture, and the promoters of the 
 school are the willing and conscious dupes of a pious 
 fraud. 
 
 The influence which the inadequacy of voluntary con- 
 tributions, for the support of a system of elementary edu- 
 cation, exerts on the condition even of the most prosperous 
 Normal Schools, is not less remarkable. 
 
 The Normal Scliools are at present supported partly by 
 funds contributed by the Central Societies and Diocesan 
 Boards, and partly by the sums paid by the patrons or 
 friends of students to procure their settlement in the pro- 
 fession of schoolmasters, by obtaining for them the benefit 
 of training in a JSTormal School. 
 
 As the Central Society contributes for the most part 
 only half the requisite funds, or even less, the selection of 
 the candidates for admission is narrowed to the class who 
 are able and willing to pay for the admission of their chil- 
 dren and dependents, and to the individuals whom they 
 may present as candidates. 
 
480 Third Period 
 
 Unfortunately the tendency is to select young men 
 wanting those natural energies, physical or mental, re- 
 quisite for success in an independent career in life, and to 
 seek, by means of the Normal Schools, to introduce into 
 the profession of schoolmaster young persons, not from 
 any peculiar fitness for this vocation, but rather on account 
 of the absence of quahfications for any other. 
 
 The Principals of Normal Schools therefore complain, 
 not only of their want of preparation for the course of in- 
 struction given in the Training Schools, because the can- 
 didates have not been grounded in ordinary elementary 
 knowledge, but of the absence of the proper physical, 
 mental, and moral qualifications. It is reported that a 
 great number of the candidates and students of the Normal 
 Schools show signs of scrofula, and that generally their 
 physical temperament is sluggish and inert. They have 
 too often had no further instruction than what can be 
 obtained in an elementary school of average character, 
 during the usual period of attendance, till 13 years of age. 
 They do not for the most part enter into the profession 
 from inclination, and it is therefore proportionately difii- 
 cult to give the right moral direction to their minds, and 
 to kindle in them energies equal to the difiiculties they 
 must encounter. 
 
 Ill-adapted as this class of students is for success in the 
 Normal School, and likely as they are to fail in the ele- 
 mentary school when their training is (with whatever 
 care) completed, the number of candidates presented by 
 patrons and friends, on the terms of payment required by 
 the Normal Schools, is barely sufficient to keep these 
 schools in activity. There is therefore no opportunity 
 for selection ; and unless other sources be developed, even 
 this imperfect supply is precarious, and liable soon to 
 fan. 
 
 On these grounds it is of the utmost importance to the 
 future prosperity of the Normal Schools, that the elemen- 
 tary schools should be rendered the means of educating a 
 class of candidates for admission, who in their earliest 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 481 
 
 youth should have been selected on account of their pro- 
 ficiency and skill, and whose progress in the several grades 
 of monitor, pupil teacher, and assistant teacher, should not 
 only have been the object of systematic care and continual 
 vigilance, but whose ultimate selection should be made by 
 the Inspector on the ground of their superiority, as proved 
 by the experience of years, in all the quahfications re- 
 quired for success in the vocation of a schoolmaster. 
 
 On the other hand, it is important to provide for the 
 Normal Schools a means of support which shall guarantee 
 their efficiency by ensuring the application of the money 
 to the completion of the training of teachers, whose in- 
 struction, character, and skill, have been the objects of 
 years of vigilance and care. 
 
 The Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, 
 in August and December 1846, were int€«nded to provide 
 remedies for the evils which have been described in this 
 chapter. Their Lordships desired to render the profession 
 of schoolmaster honourable, by raising its character, by 
 giving it the public recognition of impartially awarded 
 certificates or diplomas, and by securing to well-trained 
 or otherwise efficient masters a position of comfort during 
 the period of their arduous labours, and the means of 
 retirement on a pension awarded by the Government. 
 They were also anxious to lighten their ill-requited toil 
 in the school, by providing them with the aid of assistant 
 teachers trained and instructed under their own eye, and 
 adequate in number to the efficient management of the 
 school. 
 
 The arrangements for rearing a body of skilful and 
 highly instructed masters are to commence in the school 
 itself, by the selection of the most deserving and proficient 
 of the scholars, who are to be apprenticed from the age 
 of 13 to that of 18. By the regulations determining the 
 character of this apprenticeship, the school is to be in a 
 condition fitting it to become a sphere for the training of 
 a candidate for the office of schoolmaster. A great stimulus 
 is thus offered to the scholars to qualify themselves by 
 
 1 1 
 
482 Third Period 
 
 good conduct and by tlieir attainments, for appointment 
 as pupil teachers ; to the promoters of the school to render 
 its condition complete as respects fittings, apparatus, and 
 the supply of books ; and to the schoolmaster, so to order 
 the discipline and instruction of the school, as to raise it 
 to the proper standard of efficiency. But no requirements 
 are made, limiting the discretion of the trustees, in the 
 selection or dismissal of the master or mistress, in the dis- 
 missal of any assistant or pupil teacher, or either as to the 
 books and apparatus to be used, the system of organisation 
 to be adopted, or the methods of instruction to be pursued. 
 
 In each year of the apprenticeship, the pupil teacher is 
 to be examined by Her Majesty's Inspector in a course of 
 instruction, the subjects of which are enumerated in the 
 regulations. Great care is to be taken that he live in a 
 household where- he will be under the constant influence 
 of a good example. His rehgious instruction is to be con- 
 ducted by the master of the school. In Church of England 
 schools, this religious instruction will for the most part be 
 under the superintendence of the parochial clergyman, but 
 whenever the managers of the school are disposed to 
 permit the apprenticeship in a Church of England school 
 of a scholar whose parents do not belong to the Church of 
 England, their Lordships have no desire to fetter their 
 discretion in that respect, and would acquiesce in any rea- 
 sonable arrangements which might be made between the 
 managers and the parents for the rehgious training of their 
 children. Though their Lordships have not by any of 
 their Minutes attempted to enforce, they are nevertheless 
 desirous to promote by their sanction and encouragement, 
 such arrangements in Church of England schools as may 
 provide for the admission of the children of persons not 
 members of the Church of England, without any require- 
 ments inconsistent with the rights of conscience. 
 
 In schools not connected with the Church of England, 
 the Committee of Council, acting on the third regulation 
 of the 24th September, 1839, and on the Minute specially 
 communicated to the British and Foreign School Society 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 483 
 
 as related in the last chapter, will not direct the Inspector 
 of such schools to examine the religious instruction of the 
 apprentice. They desire to enable the promoters of 
 schools connected with dissenting congregations, to accept 
 the advantages impartially offered by their Minutes, with- 
 out entering into any compromise of the opinions they 
 entertain as to rehgious endowments. On these grounds 
 their Lordships declare that they will accept the certificate 
 of the managers of such schools that they are satisfied 
 with the state of the rehgious knowledge of the pupil 
 teacher. The Committee of Council thus intend to avoid 
 making any requirement as to the character of such reh- 
 gious teaching beyond that contained in their Minute of 
 the 3rd of December, 1839 (quoted in the last chapter), 
 which states that ' the daily reading of a portion of the 
 Scriptures shall form part of the instruction ' of the 
 school ; nor do their Lordships require attendance on any 
 particular Sunday school, or on any particular place of 
 public worship ; but at the close of each year will be 
 satisfied if the managers certify that the pupil teachers 
 have been attentive to their religious duties. 
 
 The scholars selected for apprenticeship will for the 
 most part belong to famihes supported by manual labour; 
 there is thus open to the children of such famihes, a career 
 which could otherwise be rarely commenced. The first 
 steps of their entrance into the honourable profession of a 
 schoolmaster will be attended with an alleviation of the 
 burthens, often ill-sustained by their parents, of supporting 
 a family by manual industry. The pupil teacher will re- 
 ceive directly from the Government a stipend increasing 
 from £10 at the close of the first year to £20 at the close 
 of the fifth year of his apprenticeship. In many cases it 
 is probable that the good conduct of the apprentice will 
 secure additional rewards from the managers of the school, 
 such as a supply of text-books on the prescribed subjects 
 of instruction, or an annual grant of clothes, or an addition 
 to his stipend. At the close of the apprenticeship, every 
 pupil teacher who has passed the annual examination wiU 
 
 I I 2 
 
484 Third Period 
 
 be entitled to a certificate, declaring that he has success- 
 fully completed his apprenticeship. This certificate, as a 
 testimonial of character and of attainments, would be in 
 itself an invaluable introduction to the confidence of a 
 merchant, or of the member of a learned profession, if the 
 apprentice should then determine not to pursue the voca- 
 tion of a schoolmaster. But the Government have ex- 
 tended their provident care even further. Every pupil 
 teacher provided with a certificate at the close of his 
 apprenticeship, may become a candidate for one or two 
 employments under the patronage of the Government. In 
 each Inspector's district, an annual examination will be 
 held, to which all apprentices who have obtained their 
 certificates will be admitted, to compete for the distinction 
 of an exhibition entitling them to be sent as Queen's 
 scholars to a Normal School under their Lordships' inspec- 
 tion. Such pupil teachers as are successful in obtaining a 
 Queen's Scholarship, will thus be enabled to complete their 
 training as schoolmasters, by passing through the course 
 of discipline and instruction provided in a Normal School. 
 They wiU thus have an opportunity of increasing their 
 knowledge, improving their acquaintance with the best 
 methods of instruction, and of becoming more experienced 
 in the organisation and discipline of schools. At the 
 close of each year's instruction in the Normal School, the 
 students will be examined by one or more of Her Majesty's 
 Inspectors, and upon such examination, their Lordships 
 will award a certificate denoting one of three degrees 
 of merit. Every master who leaves the Normal School 
 with a certificate of the first degree of merit will be en- 
 titled to a grant of £15 or £20 per annum. If he obtain 
 a certificate of the second degree of merit, a grant of £20 
 or £25 per annum ; and for a certificate of the third 
 degree of merit a grant of £25 or £30 per annum, on 
 condition that the trustees and managers of the school of 
 which he may have charge provide him with a house 
 rent-free, and with a further salary equal to twice the 
 amount of the grant. 
 
Expla7iation of the Minutes of 1846 485 
 
 A poor man's child may thus, at the age of thirteen, not 
 only cease to be a burthen to his father's family, but enter 
 a profession at every step in which his mind will expand, 
 and his intellect be stored, and, with the blessing of God, 
 his moral and religious character developed. His success 
 will be acknowledged by certificates from authority. 
 Honorary distinctions connected with solid advantages 
 will be open to him. He may attain a position the lowest 
 rewards of which are, that he shall occupy a comfortable 
 dwelhng, rent-free, with a salary of £45 or £60 per an- 
 num ; and which may, if he complete his course of training 
 be raised to a minimum stipend of £90 per annum. 
 
 Instead of having before him a hfe of arduous, ill-re- 
 quited, and necessarily unsuccessful toil, if he had otherwise 
 entered the profession of a schoolmaster, he will, on his 
 settlement as master of a school, be enabled to organise 
 that school with apprenticed assistants conducted by him- 
 self through a prescribed course of instruction from 
 the age of 13 to that of 18. Thus aided by apprentices 
 selected on account of merit, whose education will be com- 
 pleted under the eye of a vigilant inspection, his school 
 will reward him by becoming a scene of order, and his 
 scholars by their cheerful obedience and success. It will 
 be the duty of the" master to instruct the apprentices daily 
 during one hour and a half after the usual school time, and 
 to teach them the management of a school. If the numbers 
 under his charge amount to 150, he may have six appren- 
 tices, and he will then receive a further addition of £21 
 per annum to his salary as a remuneration for the time and 
 care bestowed on the education of these apprentices. A 
 school so conducted could not fail to attract the confidence 
 of the neighbouring poor. They would soon discover the 
 great practical advantages of its discipline in moulding 
 the habits, increasing the knowledge, and developing the 
 mental energies of their children. They would perceive 
 that education was not an unreal abstraction, affording 
 no practical advantage, but a powerful means of pro- 
 
 n 3 
 
486 Third Period 
 
 moting success in life, and of securing the happiness of 
 their children. 
 
 On the other hand, if, at the close of his apprentice- 
 ship, the pupil-teacher shall be unable at the public com- 
 petition to procure a Queen's Scholarship, the Government 
 have opened to the imsuccessful candidates appointments 
 in departments of the public service, which have hitherto 
 been the obj ects of purely political patronage. The parents 
 of poor families in the neighbourhood of any school will 
 have an obvious interest in its efficiency, as a means of 
 procuring for their children admission into departments 
 of the public service with double or treble the wages 
 of a working man, and the prospect of further promotion. 
 
 The Committee of Council have also shown a just 
 consideration for the interest of the masters who, not 
 having received a regular training in a Normal School, 
 have at present charge of elementary education. Not- 
 withstanding the low standard of acquirements, and the 
 want of skill generally prevalent among the existing race 
 of schoolmasters, there are among them men whose 
 natural energies have triumphed over the difficulties of 
 a neglected and ill-paid profession, and who, by self-edu- 
 cation and natural sagacity, have attained a just reputation. 
 The Committee of Council, desirous to avoid a practical 
 injustice to such masters, and to offer incentives to all 
 other teachers who may now have charge of schools, to 
 qualify themselves for certificates, have resolved to admit 
 untrained masters to an examination for three classes of 
 certificates, corresponding with those to be granted in 
 Normal Schools. The augmentation of salary annexed 
 to such certificates will therefore be accessible to all meri- 
 torious schoolmasters; and, as it will not be necessary 
 that a man of good education should, in order to enjoy 
 this advantage, pass through the course of instruction 
 given in a Normal School, the profession will probably 
 attract men of character and acquirements. 
 
 The honour and emoluments of any profession are 
 obviously among the chief inducements to its adoption. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes ^/ 1846 487 
 
 For the first time in the career of schoolmasters, they 
 may obtain from authority the certificate of a successfully 
 completed apprenticeship — the rank of Queen's Scholar, 
 and three diplomas, denoting three degrees of attainments 
 and merit. Through the whole period of their education, 
 the Government offers rewards to stimulate exertions, 
 and at length assists to establish them in a condition of 
 comfort and respectability. These are circumstances likely 
 in themselves to induce masters of schools to remain in 
 their profession, even if we can suppose them to be insen- 
 sible to motives of a higher character. But it is impossible 
 to secure any position against vicissitude, and especially 
 to prevent a deserving man from being plunged into 
 privation by disabling sickness or infirmity, or robbed 
 by unavoidable calamity of a provision for old age. 
 Their Lordships have, therefore, rendered superannuation 
 pensions accessible to masters distinguished by long and 
 efficient services (adopting, as a minimum period, fifteen 
 years, seven of which must have been spent in a school 
 subject to inspection), and who by age or by any disabling 
 infirmity are compelled to retire. It cannot be doubted 
 that such arrangements will raise this profession in public 
 estimation, by increasing its efficiency and respectability. 
 
 The Normal School is the most important institution \ \ 
 in a system of elementary education. It has been before ' 
 shown how desirable it is that the Normal School should 
 be fed with students from the elite of the scholars edu- 
 cated in elementary schools. It cannot be expected \ \ 
 that members of the middle class of society will, to any i \ 
 great extent in this country, choose the vocation of 
 teachers of the poor. The system which renders Normal 
 Schools dependent on that ambiguous support, rather 
 intended to befriend persons of feeble character or physi- 
 cally infirm, than to give the largest amount of efficiency 
 to elementary instruction, must impair the results which 
 might otherwise be attained. To make every elementary 
 school a scene of exertion, from which the highest ranks 
 of teachers may be entered by the humblest scholar, is to 
 
 I I 4 
 
488 Third Period 
 
 render the profession of sclioolmasters popular among 
 the poor, and to offer to their children the most powerful 
 incentives to learning. Every boy of character and ability 
 who is first among his fellows may select this career, and 
 in the. majority of cases will do so. In his whole course 
 he will be in vigorous competition with the pupil teachers 
 of other schools; and thus the Queen's Scholars, who, 
 after a public trial, are selected for admission into the 
 Normal Schools, will be naturally the most gifted, and by 
 persevering application, the best instructed and most skil- 
 ful youths, which the elementary schools of the country, 
 can rear. Instead, therefore, of the complaint which the 
 Principals of Normal Schools now make, that the students 
 entering them are deficient in physical and mental energy, 
 and for the most part in knowledge even of the' humblest 
 rudiments of learning ; the Queen's Scholars who are after 
 public competition admitted, will have passed through 
 an elementary course of instruction in religion, in English 
 grammar and composition, in the history of their country, 
 in arithmetic, algebra, mensuration, the rudiments of 
 mechanics, in the art of land-survejdng and leveUing, in 
 geography, and such elements of nautical astronomy as 
 are comprised in the use of the globes. Their skill in 
 conducting a class will have been developed by fiYQ 
 years' experience as assistants in a common school. 
 To these attainments will in many cases be added a 
 knowledge of the theory and skill in the art of vocal 
 music, and also, in some cases, of drawing from models, 
 or linear drawing. The Normal Schools, therefore, will 
 be fed with a class of students much superior to that 
 which now enters them. 
 
 The expense of supporting a Normal School in efii- 
 ciency is a burthen too heavy to be borne by purely 
 voluntary contributions. The cost of the maintenance 
 and education of each student is about £50 per annum ; 
 the annual expenditure on a Normal School, containing 
 100 students, must therefore be £5000. If the training 
 of each student be continued for three years, little more 
 
Explanation of the Miyiutes of 1846 489 
 
 than 30 schoolmasters will annually enter the profession 
 from such a school, and when the number of schools 
 which ought to exist in the country is compared with 
 this annual supply, it is obvious that if Normal Schools 
 are to be the chief sources from which the ranks of this 
 profession are to be replenished, the outlay for the support 
 of such a system is in itself greater than anything which 
 has ever been contemplated by a scheme of purely chari- 
 table contribution. Their Lordships have, however, by 
 the plan of apprenticeship, at the same time provided 
 both for the increased efficiency of the elementary school, 
 and for the completion of a considerable portion of the 
 training of the candidate before he enters the Normal 
 School ; it is probable, therefore, that the period of 
 instruction in Normal Schools may in the case of Queen's 
 Scholars be reduced from three years to a shorter term. 
 The remaining expenses are in part to be met by assist- 
 ance afforded by the Government. Every Queen's Scholar 
 will have an exhibition of £20 or £25, which sum will 
 be applied towards the expenses attending his education 
 during the first year in a Normal School. At the close 
 of that year, if he be successful in obtaining a certificate, 
 a second contribution of £20 will be made to the school, 
 so that in the first year of the training of a Queen's 
 Scholar, four-fifths of the expense may be borne by the 
 Government. At the close of the second year £25 are 
 to be paid, and at the close of the third year £30, if the 
 student obtain a certificate of merit in each year. In the 
 two latter years, therefore, the Government will defray 
 one-half of the cost of his training. With such Hberal 
 arrrangements for their support, it is probable that the 
 number of Normal Schools will rapidly increase. A wide 
 scope is still left for charitable contributions towards the 
 erection of the requisite buildings, two-thirds of which 
 outlay must be derived from private subscriptions ; and 
 in the maintenance of the schools, one-third at least of 
 the expense will devolve on private charity, even if the 
 Queen's Scholars should form a considerable proportion 
 
490 Third Period 
 
 of the students entering the schools. One-half the charge 
 of educating candidates who are not Queen's Scholars, 
 will obviously devolve on private benevolence. 
 
 The efficiency of elementary schools will doubtless 
 establish the confidence of the poor in these institutions, 
 and increase the period of school attendance for their 
 children. Some time must however elapse, ere parents 
 struggling with poverty will consent to forego even those 
 small additions to the weekly income of their families, 
 which are derived from the humble earnmgs of their chil- 
 dren at a tender age. The difference of popular opinion 
 in Scotland on the advantage of education for the child of 
 a poor man, as compared with that sentiment in England, 
 is a remarkable proof of the natural influence of a system 
 of national education, in raising the estimate among the 
 poor of the value of mental and moral endowments. In 
 Scotland, especially among the rural population, every 
 labourer is willing to undergo privations to provide that 
 education for his children which he deems essential to 
 their success in this life, and to their preparation for 
 another state of existence. This opinion is grounded not 
 more on a shrewd estimate of the causes which promote 
 the advancement of their children, than of that deep re- 
 ligious instinct which characterises the Scotch as a nation. 
 There is nothing in the opinion of the poor in England as 
 to the value of education, at all comparable to the saga- 
 cious foresight and profound and pious feeling which 
 prompt the Scotch parent to make sacrifices for this object. 
 The Committee of Council have however been unwilling, 
 in the absence of such sentiments, to resort to any com- 
 pulsory arrangements to procure school attendance. 
 Such expedients they have regarded as ill suited to the 
 genius of this country ; they have been desirous to vindicate 
 the parental right to determine the nature and extent of 
 the education to be given to the child, and to promote the 
 growth of a livelier sense of the benefits of education by 
 the increased efficiency of the schools, and also by arrange- 
 ments intended to show the labouring man, that consider- 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 491 
 
 able knowledge and mental cultivation are compatible with 
 the hardihood necessary to sustain the rudest forms of 
 toil, and to meet the privations of a labourer's life. With 
 this view their Lordships have been disposed to promote 
 the establishment of Schools of Industry. In rural districts, 
 field-gardens may be advantageously connected with the 
 school. The master may superintend the instruction of 
 the scholars during half the day in the culture of a garden, 
 and may devote the rest of the time to the ordinary school 
 instruction. If the school field-garden were divided into 
 allotments, for which a rent was paid by the scholars, the 
 cultivation of these garden plots would aiford a larger 
 addition to the income of the labourer's family, than the 
 earnings of a child in the casual employments of farming 
 labour. 
 
 In the denser parts of great cities, a large, and possibly 
 an increasing number of children have no training in any 
 handicraft, but seek a precarious livelihood by eoster- 
 mongering ; by casual employment in errands ; and in 
 small services to persons whom they encounter in the 
 streets. Such habits naturally tend to mendicancy, va- 
 grancy, petty thefts, and the criminal career and vagabond 
 life of a juvenile delinquent. Such children have often no 
 home ; the father is dead, or has absconded ; the mother 
 may be a prostitute, or may have married and deserted 
 her offspring; or the child has fled from the drunken 
 violence or loathsome selfishness of his parents. Many 
 sleep under the open arches of the markets, or of the 
 areas of the houses of ancient construction ; in deserted 
 buildings, out-houses, and cellars, and rise in the morning 
 not knowing where or how to obtain a meal. Others are 
 driven forth by their parents to beg or to steal, and not 
 allowed to eat until they have brought home the produce 
 of their knavery or cunning. Some Hve in the haunts of 
 professed thieves, are trained in all the arts of pilfering, 
 instructed how to elude the police, and to evade the law. 
 They are reared to regard society as their enemy, and 
 property as a monstrous institution on which they may 
 
492 Third Period 
 
 justly prey. The majority of this class of children are 
 practically heathens. They probably never heard the 
 name of Christ. Christianity has done nothing for them. 
 The most obvious advantage to be offered to such chil- 
 dren is the means of earning a livelihood by training them 
 in some handicraft requiring skill. If every such child 
 had the opportunity of entering a workshop in which he 
 could acquire the art of a smith, or a carpenter, or a 
 cooper, or other similar trade, and after some hours of 
 application was provided with a coarse but wholesome 
 meal, it is not to be doubted that many, attracted not less 
 by the sympathy which such arrangements would prove 
 to exist for their forlorn condition, than by the opportunity 
 of escaping from the misery of a life of crime and priva- 
 tion, would become assiduous scholars in such schools of 
 industry. If also an hour or two daily were set apart for 
 instruction in the general outline of Christian faith and 
 duty, and in the rudiments of humble learning, how many 
 children might we not hope would be saved from ruin. 
 To promote such arrangements, their Lordships have 
 offered assistance towards the erection of the requisite 
 buildings, towards the purchase of tools, and for the en- 
 couragement of the master workmen by granting gratuities 
 for every boy who, in consequence of skill acquired in the 
 workshop, shall have become a workman or assistant in 
 any trade or craft whereby he is earning a livelihood. 
 
 The domestic arrangements of the poor are often ex- 
 tremely defective, from the want of a knowledge of the 
 commonest arts and maxims of household economy. A 
 girl who works in a factory or a mine, or who is employed 
 from an early hour in the morning until the evening in 
 field labour, has little or no opportunity to acquire the 
 habits and skill of a housewife. Even the rudest tradi- 
 tions of domestic thrift are liable to be lost, when public 
 employment interferes so much with the proper training 
 of the labourer's daughter at home. Commerce offers a 
 larger variety of productions for the sustenance of the 
 common people of this country, than of any other ; but 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 493 
 
 they are unacquainted with the use of any articles of food 
 besides those which are of home production, with the 
 exception of tea, coffee, and sugar. From these defects, 
 a considerable portion of the earnings of the labourer is 
 unskilfully wasted, his home is deprived of comfort which 
 he might otherwise enjoy, and discontent often drives him 
 to dissipation. 
 
 To remedy these evils it has been proposed to make 
 the school itself a means of instructing and training girls 
 in the arts of domestic economy. It has been conceived, 
 that a considerable portion of the oral lessons given in the 
 girls' school, might be devoted to the subject of household 
 management, and that if a wash-house and kitchen were 
 connected with the school, they might, by proper arrange- 
 ments, receive a practical training in cottage cookery, and 
 in the care of the clothes of a labourer's family. For the 
 encouragement of such plans their Lordships have pro- 
 posed to grant assistance towards the erection of the re- 
 quisite buildings, and gratuities to the mistress for success 
 in the instruction of her scholars. 
 
 The social tendencies of the plans contemplated in the 
 Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education for 
 August and December, 1846, are, therefore, to raise the 
 character and position of the schoolmaster ; to provide 
 for him a respectable competency ; to make arrangements 
 for rearing a race of more highly instructed masters by the 
 estabhshment and support of a larger number of Normal 
 Schools ; to feed those Normal Schools with candidates 
 having much higher attainments and greater skill and 
 energy than those which have hitherto entered them ; to 
 render the school popular among the poor, as a means of 
 introducing their children to more honourable and profit- 
 able employments, and by its increased efiiciency to create 
 in the minds of the working class a juster estimate of the 
 value of education for their child^-en. These combined 
 influences will, it is hoped, raise considerably the standard 
 of instruction among the humbler classes, and promote the 
 growth of a truly Christian civihsation. 
 
494 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE MINUTES OF AUGUST AND DECEMBER, 1846, CONSIDERED IN THEIR 
 RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ASRECT. 
 
 Having thus sketched the social tendencies of the measures 
 contemplated in the Minutes of the Committee of Council 
 for August and December, 1846, we are naturally led to 
 examine their religious and pohtical aspect. For this 
 purpose a slight retrospect of previous events may be 
 useful, in attempting to illustrate the adaptation of these 
 measures to the state of pubhc opinion, and the condition 
 of society in this country. For many years prior to the 
 creation of the Committee of Council in 1839, a conviction 
 of the necessity of the interference of the State, to promote 
 the education of the people, had gathered strength both 
 in political circles and among many classes of Dissenters. 
 On the other hand, the Estabhshed Church still cherished 
 the desire and expectation, that the ancient function of 
 the Church, as defined in her ecclesiastical law, might be 
 revived, and that the education at least of the common 
 people might be confided to her hands. Among the 
 younger and more earnest members of her communion, 
 lay as well as clerical, extensive plans for this end were 
 cherished. At that time, however, it may be doubted 
 whether, except among the able men who had formed 
 these large conceptions, the civil aspects of elementary 
 education had been sufficiently regarded by churchmen. 
 The school it is probable was, in the conception of the 
 majority of the clergy and laity, simply a means of 
 spreading Christian truth, and of establishing the discip- 
 line and ceremonial of the Church in the convictions and 
 sympathies of the great mass of the population. It was 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 495 
 
 scarcely believed that it could enter into the conceptions 
 of statesmen to regard religion as a primary and indis- 
 pensable element of education. They imagined that the 
 statesmen of this country relied solely on the cultivation 
 of the intellect, and on the spread of secular knowledge, 
 for the growth of a higher morahty, and for the promotion 
 of the pubhc order and well-being of society ; and while 
 they justly repudiated the gross and mischievous error, 
 that a purely secular knowledge was capable of establish- 
 ing society on an immutable basis of social order, or was 
 even necessarily connected with a high condition of pubhc 
 morality, it is to be apprehended that they had fallen into 
 the opposite fallacy, and were not convinced how im- 
 portant it was to raise the intellectual condition of the 
 people for the purpose of promoting the growth of true 
 religion. Yet this was surely a strange want of foresight 
 in those who would avoid the extremes of fanaticism on 
 either hand, viz., that of presumptuous ignorance, and 
 that of abject superstition. While these suspicions of the 
 tendencies of the interference of the Government were 
 entertained by the great body of churchmen, they had 
 not arrived at any distinct conception of the amount of 
 secular instruction which it was desirable to communicate 
 to the poor. A considerable portion of the clergy and 
 laity of this country confidently held the conviction that 
 the inevitable tendency of an elevated secular instruction 
 was to unsettle the minds of the working classes — to unfit 
 them for a hfe of manual labour — to render them discon- 
 tented with their station, and if such instruction were 
 general it was feared that it would prepare an universal 
 insurrection of the poor against the rich. Such as did 
 not hold these doctrmes with distinctness, did not believe 
 that the state of the labouring poor could be materially 
 improved by education ; and were of opinion that the 
 best condition that could be expected was that of quiet 
 homage, which, though characterised by no energies, and 
 accompanied with few virtues beyond patience and sub- 
 mission, was yet consistent with their highest conceptions 
 
496 Third Period 
 
 of tlie condition of a race, wliicli appeared to exist only 
 to labour and to die. The ideas wliicli were formed of 
 the influences that Christianity might have on the minds 
 and hearts of such a population were necessarily low. It 
 may be doubted whether the Saxon serf under the teach- 
 ing of the early English Bishops had not a livelier interest 
 in Christianity, and was not a devouter and more con- 
 sistent member of his Church than the pauper of the 
 southern counties of England. Accordingly at that time 
 little was attempted in the parochial school except in- 
 struction in reading and in writing, and the repetition of 
 the catechism. The school had little or no influence on 
 the intelligence — on the habits or character of the popu- 
 lation, and as a means of inculcating religious truths it 
 utterly failed. 
 
 On the other hand, there was much in the opinions of 
 a certain class of politicians to justify the suspicions with 
 which the clergy and a large body of the laity regarded 
 proposals for the interference of Government in the edu- 
 cation of the people. Among such politicians it was a 
 favourite doctrine to represent the certainty of the exact 
 sciences, the harmony that prevailed as to the results of 
 experimental philosophy, and to contrast these conditions 
 of scientific investigation with the almost endless diversities 
 of opinion on morals and religion. Some went so far as 
 to assert that it was obvious that reli^^ion ought to be 
 excluded altogether from the education of the young, and 
 to be examined only by a mature and vigorous intellect. 
 According to them, the proper occupation of a young 
 mind was to examine and contemplate in the laws of the 
 material world, the proofs of a first great Cause, and to 
 trace by the evidence of nature, the majesty, power, 
 justice and mercy of the Supreme Being. Yet they did 
 not include even in this chain of investigation, the history 
 of man, the operation of all external causes upon his mind, 
 or the inward emotions and outward acts of that spirit, 
 which surely must in a higher degree exhibit a natural 
 revelation of that great first and benignant Cause. Ac- 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 497 
 
 cording to this class of reasoners, that knowledge could 
 alone be deemed divine which was capable of a rational 
 demonstration commanding universal assent, and all know- 
 ledge in which such assent had not been obtained, must 
 in every case but one necessarily be human. Leave then, 
 said they, the dogmas of churches and sects to be examined 
 by an intellect matured in the study of an exact philosophy, 
 and present, for the first time, the choice of a rehgion to 
 those whom you have thus taught to discriminate between 
 falsehood and truth. 
 
 There were others whose views were more superficial, 
 who proposed the diffusion of useful knowledge, not 
 simply because of its influence in dispelling the anarchical 
 tendencies of popular ignorance, in expanding the intel- 
 lect, and promoting the refinement of manners, but who 
 appeared to rely upon it as a moral panacea by teaching 
 men how prudent it was to be wise, how useful to be 
 virtuous, how politic to be honest, and that the greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number was a condition certain 
 to be attained by proving the convenience of virtue and 
 the suicidal tendencies of vice. 
 
 To another class equally sincere, but who consider 
 education as appertaining alone to civil government, the 
 establishment of schools on a simply secular basis appeared 
 the only practicable solution of the difficulties with which 
 this question was encumbered. Agreeing among them- 
 selves in the civihsing tendencies of secular instruction, 
 and having no hope of reconcihng the differences of rival 
 r^hgious parties, they conceived that the only way of re- 
 moving these obstacles was the establishment of a school 
 of purely secular learning, it being provided that reli- 
 gious instruction should be conducted by the ministers of 
 the different communions at periods set apart for that pur- 
 pose. Such politicians did not appear to foresee that a 
 rehgious country could not tolerate a body of school- 
 masters without religion ; that it would be impossible to 
 avoid a provision for the rehgious education of school- 
 masters in Normal Schools ; that the selection of the 
 
 K K 
 
498 Third Period 
 
 master of each elementary school would form an inter- 
 minable subject of discord ; and that while they ineffec- 
 tually attempted to evade these difficulties in the elemen- 
 tary schools, it was impossible they should elude them in 
 the constitution of the Normal School. On very different 
 grounds indeed was it that Doctor Hook, at a recent 
 period, witnessing on every side of him the frightful 
 evils of a want of education among the poor, despairing 
 that the energies of the Church could be efiectually 
 exerted for the removal of these evils, and having no 
 confidence in what is called the voluntary system, invoked 
 with a cry of despair the interference of the Government 
 to found a system of secular education, leaving only to 
 religious communions the establishment and support of 
 Normal Schools. When Dr. Hook proposed that instruc- 
 tion in the elementary school should be confined to 
 secular knowledge, he provided at the same time that cer- 
 tificates should be presented of the attendance of the 
 child on Sunday, and on two other days in the week, on 
 a school of religion to be founded and supported by the 
 religious communion to which the parents of the scholar 
 belonged. This proposal originated in the conviction that 
 the secular instruction communicated by masters rehgi- 
 ously educated, would be pervaded by a rehgious spirit, 
 and that such instruction so given would form a most 
 useful preparation for the rehgious teaching which the 
 child was to receive on Sunday and on two other days in 
 the week. By such means it is obvious that Dr. Hook 
 expected to triumph over the radical defects of the 
 school of purely secular instruction, and felt confident 
 that by concentrating the energies of the country on 
 the establishment and support of combined schools, 
 the spirit of Christianity would inevitably penetrate the 
 whole instruction even of the secular school, while the 
 secular learning energised the instruction given in the 
 school of religion. 
 
 Some years previously to 1839, however, a preference 
 had been given to the establishment of a purely secular 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 499 
 
 school, on grounds essentially differing from those which 
 influenced Dr. Hook. The class of pohticians who 
 espoused these views were active, vigorous, and intelH- 
 gent, and they did not fail, in the absence of any efficient 
 system of instruction in the country, to obtain a consider- 
 able though transient influence on pubhc opinion. When 
 therefore the prevalence of such opinions among a certain 
 class of politicians occasioned alarm in the religious com- 
 munions of Great Britain, they not unnaturally adopted 
 the unjust suspicion that the interference of Government 
 must, in the very nature of things, be exerted for a system 
 of education from which rehgion must be excluded. Yet 
 these opinions were never entertained by the leading 
 statesmen of either of the two great parties in Parliament. 
 Lord John Eussell, in his letter to Lord Lansdowne in 
 1839, had declared that ' it is Her Majesty's wish that 
 the youth of this kingdom should be i^eligiously brought 
 up, and that the rights of conscience should be re- 
 spected.' 
 
 This continued to a great extent to be the condition of 
 opinions and parties at the period when the Committee of 
 Council was estabhshed in 1839. At that period, as we 
 have said, a body of young and able men had arisen in 
 the Church, who did not despair of elevating the system 
 of secular instruction imparted in her schools, and of 
 bringing about a total change in the opinions of a 
 majority of the clergy and laity as to the mutual in- 
 fluences of secular and rehgious teaching, and the neces- 
 sity of both for the developement of a truly Christian 
 civilisation among the poor. At the same time a con- 
 siderable body of Dissenters, having confidence in the 
 vigour with which the hberal Government of that day 
 had defended the great interests of civil and rehgious 
 liberty, anxiously claimed the interference of Government 
 for the estabhshment of an impartial system of national 
 education. They proposed a Board of Education, and 
 the establishment of a vigorous inspection of schools ; 
 they claimed the application of a larger portion of the 
 
 K K 2 
 
500 Third Period 
 
 public resources, and appeared to be content that the 
 Church should receive a share of the Parliamentary 
 grants in a proportion corresponding to her exertions, if 
 the Dissenting Communions, through the medium of the 
 British and Foreign School Society, might obtain an equal 
 degree of encouragement. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that, as has been 
 related in the first chapter, the Committee of Council on 
 Education was created by an Order in Council. That 
 Committee has since its estabhshment continued to distri- 
 bute the Parliamentary grants for promoting education, 
 without deviating in any degree from the principles then 
 espoused by the Dissenting, and especially by the Con- 
 gregational Communions, and which were declared in 
 petitions presented to Parliament during the education 
 controversy of 1839. 
 
 Such being the condition of opinions and parties, it 
 will be less useful for us to trace the gradual growth of 
 the Parliamentary Grant from £30,000 per annum to 
 £100,000 in 1846, or to describe in detail what have 
 been the subordinate objects to which the Committee 
 of Council have directed their attention, than to examine 
 what indications of the state of public opinion have tran- 
 spired since 1839, which may be presumed to have 
 formed grounds for the adoption of the recent Minutes 
 of the Committee of Council, dated August and Decem- 
 ber 1846. 
 
 One of the earliest proposals of the Committee of 
 Council was the establishment, in 1839, of Normal and 
 Model Schools. We have already said that these Normal 
 and Model Schools were proposed, for the purpose of im- 
 proving the instruction and training of schoolmasters, in 
 order to awaken public attention to the importance of 
 such institutions, and to offer an example of their organisa- 
 tion, course of instruction, and management. The con- 
 stitution of the Normal School was necessarily declared by 
 the Government, but though no such intention had been 
 entertained, this constitution was at once regarded by 
 
Explanation of the Minutes (?/ 1846 501 
 
 almost all religious parties, as a type of tlie constitution 
 of schools wliich tlie Committee of Council intended 
 to establish throughout the country. The Normal and 
 Model Schools were to be institutions of combined educa- 
 tion, upon a religious basis. It was declared that ' reh- 
 gion was to be combined with the whole matter of 
 instruction, and to regulate the entire system of disciphne.' 
 That ' rehgious instruction was to be regarded as general 
 and special. That periods were to be set apart for such 
 pecuhar doctrinal instruction as might be required for the 
 rehgious training of the children. That the chaplain 
 should conduct the religious instruction of children whose 
 parents or guardians belonged to the Established Church. 
 That the parent or guardian of any other child should 
 be permitted to procure the attendance of the hcensed 
 minister of his own persuasion, at the period appointed 
 for special rehgious instruction, in order to give such 
 instruction apart. That a licensed minister should be 
 appointed to give such special religious instruction, where- 
 ever the number of children in attendance on the Model 
 School belonging to any body dissenting from the Esta- 
 blished Church should be such as to appear to this Com- 
 mittee to require such special provision.' It was intended, 
 as before stated, that the general religious instruction 
 should resemble that given in British and Foreign Schools 
 from the Holy Scriptures, without pecuhar interpretation, 
 and that such doctrinal instruction should be given only 
 at times set apart. The constitution of the Normal and 
 Model Schools was to be one of combined education on 
 a basis of rehgious equality. As the various religious 
 communions refused to accept any assurance from the 
 Government, that the constitution of this school was not 
 to be regarded as the type of a predetermined plan of 
 national education, the reception of this proposal must be 
 regarded as that which would have attended an attempt 
 to establish a system of combined education on the basis 
 of religious equality. Considered from this point of 
 view the results were most instructive, as to the state 
 
 K K 3 
 
502 Third Period 
 
 of public opinion and tlie condition of parties in tlie 
 country. 
 
 This supposed scheme of combined national education 
 received such unqualified and persevering opposition on 
 the part of the Ecclesiastical Establishments of England 
 and Scotland, and of the Conference and congregations of 
 the Wesleyan connection, that it was not only very soon 
 withdrawn, even as a constitution for the Normal and 
 Model Schools, but the proposal itself so far endangered 
 the existence of the Committee of Council on Education, 
 that the Parliamentary Grant of 1839 was, after pro- 
 longed discussion, only carried by a majority of two ; 
 and the House of Lords voted, by a majority of 111, 
 an Address to the Queen, which a considerable number 
 of peers and prelates carried to the foot of the throne, 
 praying that Her Majesty would be ' graciously pleased 
 to give directions that no steps should be taken 
 with respect to the establishment or foundation of 
 any plan for the general education of the people of this 
 country, without giving to this House, as one branch of 
 the legislature, an opportunity of fully considering a 
 measure of such importance to the highest interests of 
 the community.' 
 
 Again, in the year 1843, another proposal, which was 
 received as an indication of an intention to establish a 
 system of combined education, was made by Sir Eobert 
 Peel's Government, in the education clauses of the Bill to 
 regulate the employment of children and young persons in 
 factories, and for the better education of the children in 
 factory districts. These clauses provided for the estabhsh- 
 ment and support of schools. 
 
 The constitution of the schools thus proposed to be 
 created, may be described as one of combined education 
 on the basis of religious toleration. 
 
 The opinion of the Church of England, and the Church 
 of Scotland, and of the Conferences and congregations of 
 Wesleyan dissenters, had been unequivocally declared to 
 be hostile to a system of combined education on the basis 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 503 
 
 of religious equality. It remained to be seen among what 
 parties a system of combined education, based on the 
 principle of toleration, would find favour, and by whom 
 it would be rejected. 
 
 On the announcement of this measure it was received 
 with a simple and calm acquiescence by the Established 
 Church. But the British and Foreign School Society, the 
 Sunday School Union, and the Congregational Dissenters 
 united with the Conference and congregations of the Wes- 
 leyan connection, and the other associations of Methodists, 
 in vehement and persevering resistance. It is unnecessary 
 to examine the circumstances, which had been accessory 
 to this almost universal opposition of Dissenters to a 
 measure, which embodied, with respect to education, the 
 existing state of the law of this country as to religion. It 
 cannot be doubted, that the House of Commons sympa- 
 thised less with this agitation, than with that which had 
 occasioned the withdrawal of the plan for the estabhsh- 
 ment of a Normal and Model School in 1839. 
 
 The leaders of the opposition in Parhament regarded 
 the extreme form which the objections assumed with 
 regret, and though wishing to aid Dissenters in procuring 
 every reasonable guarantee for civil and religious hberty, 
 were anxious that decisive measures for the education of 
 the people should not be postponed. If, therefore, there 
 had been any hope, that even a considerable section of the 
 opponents of the measure would have considered modifi- 
 cations for the protection of their interests, they would 
 certainly have been listened to with the utmost attention 
 by the Government, and would probably have been se- 
 conded by the co-operation of the opposition, not in fac- 
 tious resistance to the administration of Sir Eobert Peel, 
 but with an anxious desire to assist him, in disentangling 
 the complexed skein of this difiicult controversy. The 
 Government, therefore, with a regret which it did not 
 conceal, but with the dignity of a wise forbearance, did 
 not use the power which it undoubtedly possessed to pass 
 this measure into a law, in opposition to the almost uni- 
 
 K K 4 
 
504 Third Period. 
 
 versal protest of tlie religious communions of England and 
 Wales dissenting from the Established Church. This, 
 which was esteemed the second measure of combined 
 education brought forward by the Government, was there- 
 fore withdrawn. 
 
 In 1843 Mr. Eoebuck, during the discussions on the 
 education clauses of the Factory Bill, moved ' that in no 
 plan of education maintained and enforced by the State, 
 should any attempt be made to inculcate pecuhar rehgious 
 opinions ; because, as such an attempt would be con- 
 sidered a plan for maintaining and strengthening an undue 
 superiority of one sect over all others, the animosities and 
 strife already existing among dijQTerent religious denomina- 
 tions would thereby unhappily be greatly increased, and 
 the cordial co-operation of all sects and denominations, 
 which is absolutely necessary to secure the success of any 
 plan of public education, rendered impossible.' This 
 motion Mr. Eoebuck supported with his usual acuteness 
 and vigour, but it was lost by a majority of 96, the Ayes 
 being 60, and the Noes 156. 
 
 There were still politicians and men of justly acquired 
 and extensive influence among the Dissenting commu- 
 nions, who conceived that a system of combined education, 
 on a purely secular basis, would obtain a more favourable 
 reception from the country. A Parhamentary Committee 
 had sat, apparently with a view to investigate this subject. 
 The Central Society of Education, though it did not 
 avowedly embody any positive declaration of opinion, and 
 comprised among its supporters many gentlemen who had 
 never embraced such a doctrine, yet by the general ten- 
 dency of its pubHcations, had indirectly supported this 
 view with great ability. Other motions had been made 
 in the House of Commons, supported by speeches de- 
 livered by veteran political economists, in which the 
 attention of the Government had been called to this mode 
 of solving the difficulties of the question. Such advocacy 
 had, however, produced httle or no effect on the opinions 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 505 
 
 of churchmen, or of the majority of the religious commu- 
 nions dissenting from the Church. The possibility of 
 establishing a system of combined education on this basis, 
 however, attracted great attention when Dr. Hook, in 
 1846, demanded on behalf of rehgion and morahty, and 
 also on behalf of the Church which he had served with 
 zeal, that all should unite to make a sacrifice of interest 
 and prejudice, in short of everything but principle, in 
 order that the power of the Government might be suc- 
 cessfully exerted for the instruction of the poor. Dr. Hook 
 possessed, in a pre-eminent degree, the confidence of high 
 churchmen. No one could suspect him of any unworthy 
 concession of the clainis of the Church or of religion. 
 When, therefore, he earnestly proclaimed his desire to re- 
 linquish, on the part of the Church, any desire for predo- 
 minance ; when he sought to place the Church on the 
 same level with the Dissenting communions with respect 
 to the education of the poor, and to forego his own pre- 
 ference for a system of rehgious education, rather than 
 leave the poor in ignorance ; this plan of providing for 
 education was introduced to the consideration of church- 
 men under the most favourable auspices. They placed 
 confidence in the sincerity of his zeal, and if any advo- 
 cacy short of a concurrence of opinion among distin- 
 guished prelates could have reconciled the Estabhshed 
 Church of England to such a plan, the vigour and ability 
 with which Dr. Hook espoused this cause must have had 
 this efiect. On the other hand, among Dissenters, a very able 
 and distinguished minister. Dr. Vaughan, the President of 
 the Independent College at Manchester, and the editor of 
 the British Quarterly Eeview, threw the weight of his 
 character and the influence of his powerful advocacy into 
 the same scale. Some of the leading journals of liberal 
 politics hkewise assiduously promoted the success of this 
 proposal. It was impossible not to regard with interest 
 the effect which might be produced on public opinion by 
 such a combination in favour of a system of combined 
 education on a secular basis. This experiment it appeared 
 
506 Third Period 
 
 would exhaust, by a final test, the question of combining 
 in one system of education the different religious commu- 
 nions of England. 
 
 The result of this appeal to public opinion seemed 
 to be unequivocal. A great number of pamphlets ap- 
 peared from the clergy of the EstabHshed Church, others 
 from laymen and ministers of Dissenting congregations, 
 all uniting in a rejection of the plan, and the majority of 
 them calling upon Government to continue the system 
 of encouraging the extension and improvement of elemen- 
 tary education, by grants in aid of schools connected 
 with the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, 
 with the British and Foreign School Society, and with 
 the congregations of Dissenting communions. Mr. Edward 
 Baines, jun., of Leeds, occupying a position of great in- 
 fluence in the metropolis of Dissent, addressed to Lord 
 John Kussell twelve letters of the most earnest depre- 
 cation and warning; entered into a controversy with 
 Dr. Vaughan, though belonging to the same religious 
 persuasion ; and endeavoured with much success to excite 
 among the non-conformists of England, not only oppo- 
 sition to the plan of Dr. Hook, but also to the abstract 
 principle of the right of the Government to promote 
 the education of the people. The great majority of 
 churchmen therefore appeared to regard the sclieme of 
 combined secular education, though emanating from Dr. 
 Hook, with disfavour, and Mr. Baines was successful in 
 exciting among Dissenters a general alarm lest Govern- 
 ment should be induced, by any combination of circum- 
 stances, to adopt this plan. 
 
 The Government had however never wavered in its 
 adherence to the principle adopted in 1839, that rehgion 
 should be mixed with the entire matter of instruction 
 in the school, and regulate the whole of its discipline ; 
 and though the proposal of Dr. Hook might be regarded, 
 by sagacious politicians, as one of great interest in deter- 
 mining the drift of public opinion, it was, in pohtical 
 circles, regarded as impracticable. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 507 
 
 It is now necessary to take a brief restrospect of the 
 progress of opinion among various ranl^s of society, on 
 the subject of elementary education, from 1839 to 1846. 
 The first efforts to raise elementary schools above the 
 common level of the monitorial system, were made one 
 or two years prior to the estabhshment of the Committee 
 of Council on Education, and continued wherever oppor- 
 tunity offered after that period. Among efforts of this 
 kind may be enumerated the organisation of the School 
 of Industry at Norwood; the improvement of a consider- 
 able number of Schools of Industry under the Poor Law 
 Commission; the system of instruction exhibited in some 
 parochial schools, such as that of Battersea ; the reforma- 
 tion of the Upper and Lower Schools of the Koyal Hos- 
 pital at Greenwich ; the foundation of the Battersea 
 Training School, and subsequently of St. Mark's College, 
 of the Chester Diocesan Training School, of schools for 
 the training of Schoolmistresses at Whitelands, Sahsbury, 
 and Warrington ; the extension of the means of instruction 
 for teachers, and the prolongation of their period of 
 training in the Normal Schools of the British and Foreign 
 School Society in the Borough Eoad; the foundation of 
 Normal Schools in the Dioceses of York and Eipon, 
 and Durham, with the commencement of similar insti- 
 tutions on a smaller scale in other dioceses ; the erection 
 of buildings for Normal Schools connected with the 
 Church of Scotland in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and 
 of similar institutions for the Free Church in both those 
 cities; the fact that a considerable number of trained 
 schoolmasters had been introduced by the Education Com- 
 mittee of the Wesleyan Conference from Scotland, to 
 take charge of the day schools established by their con- 
 gregations ; the origin of a Dissenting Trahiing School 
 for Mistresses at Eotherhithe, and the establishment of 
 another for Welsh teachers at Brecon. All these circum- 
 stances were proofs that the necessity of improving the 
 condition of elementary education had at length attracted 
 a large share of public attention, and was hkely to call 
 
508 Third Period 
 
 forth considerable exertions. The condition of the vast 
 majority of elementary schools continued to be much as 
 we have described it in the third chapter, but a great 
 change had occurred in public opinion. The education 
 of the poor was no longer a subject of popular apprehen- 
 sion, as hkely to lead to social disorder. The best con- 
 dition of the working classes of this country was no longer 
 considered to be one of unenterprising contentment, un- 
 instructed reverence, and unrepining submission. Public 
 opinion appeared gradually to prepare itself for the effort, 
 great and difficult though it might be, to overcome the 
 obstacles to the establishment of a system of national 
 education, by which the labouring classes might be 
 made the intelligent supporters of order, and might adopt 
 a faith not without knowledge. 
 
 The difficulties opposing the accomplishment of this 
 great object, appeared to be insurmountable by private 
 benevolence. The Normal Schools which had been esta- 
 blished were strugghng with great pecuniary embarrass- 
 ment. The parochial schools were indebted to a great 
 extent to the sacrifices made from the incomes of clergy- 
 men of slender stipends, often of humble curates. They 
 still continued to be very meagerly furnished with the 
 apparatus of instruction, and the teachers were generally 
 unskilful, ill paid, and overworked, having to supply by 
 their own untrained abilities, all the defects of the moni- 
 torial system. In schools not connected with the Church 
 of England, the embarrassments had sometimes become 
 extreme. Several of these schools were burthened with 
 debts incurred at the period of their erection, at the time 
 of Joseph Lancaster's teaching. Some schools had been 
 sold for the redemption of these burthens ; others ex- 
 hibited in their accounts a continually increasing deficit. 
 In aU school committees, whether of the Church or of 
 Dissent, the necessity of resorting to continual efforts to 
 sustain the income of the school by public meetings, 
 examinations, sermons, bazaars, fancy fairs, personal can- 
 vassing for subscriptions, canvassing by letter, and similar 
 
Explanation of the Alinutes (?/1846 509 
 
 expedients, were confessed to entail a scarcely tolerable 
 burthen of humiliating exertion on the promoters of 
 schools. What had been accomplished towards the im- 
 provement of elementary education was rare and isolated. 
 The common phenomenon was its disheartening imperfec- 
 tion, if not its complete failure. The question therefore 
 presented to the Government, under the circumstances 
 which we have related, was — is this condition inevitable? 
 Has the failure of every proposal for the estabhshment 
 of a system of combined education precluded the inter- 
 ference of the Government ? Is there no other way in 
 which the national resources can be applied to rescue 
 the people from ignorance and vice, and from consequent 
 crime and disorder? Can no expedient be devised, 
 by which the State may be enabled to substitute 
 the reward and encouragement of virtuous actions for 
 a system of coercion and punishment? Are the com- 
 mon people necessarily and permanently (in the com- 
 plications of modern civihsation) excluded from the 
 possession of knowledge, from the softening influences of 
 art, and from the transforming power of a well-grounded 
 faith ? 
 
 Little reflection is necessary to show why a Statesman 
 should prefer a system of combined education. A com- 
 bined school is in itself not a mere external sign of har- 
 mony. Where it is possible, such an institution might 
 tend to soften the prejudices which may be fostered, when 
 the population is reared in separate schools, obviously 
 liable to degenerate into hostile camps, in which the 
 scholars may be trained for future conflicts. A combined 
 school also concentrates on one institution the resources 
 which must otherwise be divided among several ; and as 
 it tends to diminish the expense of an efl[icient system of 
 education, renders its establishment more easy. The 
 principle of local assessment for the support of the school, 
 of boards of management representing the rate-payers, 
 and elected according to our popular forms of municipal 
 
510 Third Period 
 
 government, together with the subordinate apparatus of 
 an audit of accounts by public officers, and the complete 
 publicity which attends all our civic arrangements ; the 
 fact that such a system being established by statute, would 
 be in itself a purely civil arrangement, are circumstances 
 which have strongly recommended the adoption of a 
 system of combined education to the legislature. The 
 means by which the interests of the minority may be pro- 
 tected from the encroachments of a too powerful majority 
 when intolerant, are also, in a combined system of educa- 
 tion, more within the control of Parliament, than in a 
 system of separate schools. But experience shows, that 
 against such arrangements the religious sympathies of the 
 country revolt. Every system of combined education 
 which has been proposed, whether on a purely secular 
 basis, or on that of toleration, or on that of rehgious 
 equality, has been rejected promptly, if not indignantly, 
 by the religious communions of England. 
 
 According to the conscientious convictions of the reli- 
 gious bodies of this country, the school is a part of the 
 machinery of a Christian congregation. They are of 
 opinion, that its management should be confided to cer- 
 tain of the most respectable communicants of the Church, 
 or to the elders, deacons, or class leaders of the congrega- 
 tion. The office of school manager is so strongly regarded 
 by them as partaking a religious character, that in the 
 Church it has been doubted whether it was not a purely 
 clerical function ; and though a more mature considera- 
 tion of the subject has convinced churchmen that school 
 management is a Christian office, devolving on the laity, 
 not simply of right but as one which they may not avoid, 
 there is the utmost unwillingness both in the Church and 
 among the congregations of Dissenters, to commit the 
 management of schools to other than religiously-minded 
 men, who may fitly represent the congregation to whicli 
 the school is attached. From the conviction that educa- 
 tion is primarily a religious institution, have arisen the 
 objections to the interference of the State, even for the 
 
Explanation of the Minutes 0/1846 511 
 
 purpose of improving all its secular arrangements, and 
 raising the standard of its purely literary instruction. The 
 perseverance of successive Governments in the adoption 
 of the principle, that rehgion is the foundation on which 
 education must be built, has vindicated Statesmen from 
 the suspicion to which we have previously alluded, that 
 they valued education solely because of their confidence 
 in the influence of purely secular learning. But though 
 the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, the 
 Eree Chiu-ch of that country, and the Wesleyan Dissenters 
 have no abstract aversion to State endowment, there is 
 on all hands an insuperable objection to subordinate re- 
 ligion to purely civil authority. On these grounds it is 
 obvious, that arrangements which should leave the election 
 of the committee of school managers to the rate-payers of 
 each school district, would to the rehgious congregations 
 be intolerable. Experience also shows that the instruction 
 in religion, given in separate schools, is seldom of that 
 dogmatic character which delights to bring into undue 
 prominence the distinguishing doctrines. In fact, such 
 instruction treats generally of the Christian faith as 
 common to all orthodox communions. Among the poor 
 such differences are not perceived, and though this must 
 often, it is feared, be attributed to their ignorance and in- 
 difference, yet the truth also is, that the danger to be in- 
 curred from the zeal of proselytism, by a child of 13, is 
 small. On the other hand, it may be doubted whether 
 the separate class-rooms of a combined school would not 
 encourage more dogmatic doctrinal teaching, by appa- 
 rently making it the^ duty of the rehgious instructor to 
 dwell on those distinctions, which are the motives and 
 apologies for rehgious divisions. It may further be ap- 
 prehended, that the common basis of religious instruction 
 in a combined school would prove a constant source of 
 jealousy and suspicion, and thus disturb the management 
 with continual bickerings, and array against each other, 
 in the constituency of the school district, hostile parties for 
 a perpetual religious feud. 
 
512 Third Period 
 
 Under these circumstances, the Government have appa- 
 rently dehberated, whether it is desirable (for a problem- 
 atical benefit, only to be obtained by a total change in the 
 feehngs of the religious congregations of this country) to 
 persevere in efforts to estabhsh a combined system of 
 education. The demand for an improvement in popular 
 instruction is urgent, and Lord John Eussell, immediately 
 after accepting from the Queen her commands to form an 
 administration, announced his intention to employ the 
 power confided to him for this purpose. It was desirable 
 to ascertain, whether a system could not be devised, cap- 
 able of adapting itself to separate schools, so as to encour- 
 age voluntary contributions for their support, to stimulate 
 the activity of their management, and to promote their 
 efficiency, by rendering it one of the conditions on which 
 aid should be awarded. 
 
 The Minutes of the Committee of Council for August 
 and December, 1846, which have been explained in de- 
 tail in the third chapter, as far as they affect the interests 
 of the school, the schoolmaster, and the poor, appear 
 to have been the subject of prolonged deliberation by 
 the Government. It is now important to show how the 
 interests of civil and rehgious liberty are affected by 
 this measure. 
 
 Many of the Dissenting bodies had, prior to 1839, and 
 in that year, declared that they concurred in the justice 
 and expediency of distributing the aid of Parliament, in 
 proportion to voluntary contributions. In support of this 
 view, some remarkable petitions were presented to both 
 Houses, from which we have selected examples printed 
 in the Appendix.^ It is difficult indeed to conceive how 
 such a system can be reasonably resisted, except the 
 principle be admitted that the State has no right to inter- 
 fere in the education of the poor. For those who assert 
 the sufficiency of the voluntary principle to provide both 
 the religious institutions and the schools of the country, 
 
 ^ This Appendix is not reprinted in tliis volume. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes t>/ 1846 513 
 
 and who therefore would render the diffusion of each 
 creed, and the schools of each sect simply co-extensive 
 with its abihty to maintain them, cannot on the ground of 
 inequality object to the impartial administration of the 
 Parliamentary fimd, in proportion to the comparative 
 exertions of each school committee. With the abstract 
 objection to the interference of the Government, we have 
 dealt elsewhere. 
 
 It is perhaps pardonable here to recapitulate. 
 
 In order to remove the scruples which certain non- 
 conformist bodies might entertain to the acceptance of 
 aid — partaking in their conceptions of the nature of reh- 
 gious endowment — the Government, as we have described 
 in the second chapter, have carefully provided that their 
 Inspectors shall not examine the religious instruction in 
 such schools, and have made all grants to Dissenters arising 
 out of the recent Minutes, on requirements relating to 
 literary instruction alone. The certificate of the managers 
 of the school, that they are satisfied with the state of the 
 rehgious knowledge, is accepted in the stead of any ex- 
 amination. While therefore the school will be under the 
 direction of managers selected from the congregation, and 
 its religious instruction will be ordered according to their 
 unfettered discretion, they may obtain assistance towards 
 the improvement of the hterary instruction of the scholars, 
 on condition only of giving proof of the efficiency of such 
 secular instruction. The Committee of Council will accede 
 to the desire of the managers of Church of England schools, 
 that the children of Dissenters shall be admitted to the 
 privileges contemplated in these Minutes, without being 
 required to learn the Catechism or Liturgy of the Church, 
 if their parents object. If it should be found, that in any 
 parish a Church of England school alone exists, that this 
 school is aided by the Government, and that there are 
 communicants of dissenting congregations too poor to 
 provide for the education of their children, and who can- 
 not conscientiously permit them to attend a school in 
 which instruction in tlie Catechism and Liturgy is required 
 
 L L 
 
514 Third Period 
 
 from all the scholars ; it would become their Lordships to 
 inquire, whether the managers of the school feel them- 
 selves under the obhgation of .duty to enforce this con^ 
 dition. Such a result would be to be regretted, and 
 it is beheved would be rare ; but if it existed, it would 
 become the Government to dehberate in what way- 
 education could be provided for the children of reli- 
 gious parents, who conscientiously objected to permit 
 their children to be taught the Catechism and Liturgy 
 of the Church. 
 
 Every School Committee will continue to hold in its 
 own hands the power of selecting and dismissing the 
 master ; of determining the organisation, disciphne, course 
 of instruction, and methods of teaching, to be adopted in 
 the school ; of selecting the books ; dismissing the pupil 
 teachers or stipendiary monitors ; in fact, of regulating in 
 all respects its affairs. In the selection of the Inspector 
 who may visit the school, the Government wiU consult 
 the Education Committee, or other central authority 
 watching over the interests of the schools of each reli- 
 gious communion. The Inspector will act under instruc- 
 tions restraining him from all interference with the dis- 
 ciphne and management of the school. He wiU have no 
 authority to direct, and will not be permitted even to 
 advise, unless invited to do so by the School Committee. 
 With these precautions against the exactions of authority, 
 he will not fail to be useful to all schools which he may 
 visit, by skilfuUy placing under the light of a searching ex- 
 amination, conducted in the presence of the managers, 
 the actual condition of the school. The results of his 
 experience will be available for their instruction and 
 guidance. If they desire the assistance of the Govern- 
 ment to enable them to provide for the apprenticeship of 
 pupil teachers, he will become the organ of an impartial 
 communication with the Committee of Council. If the 
 master desire to present himself for examination for the 
 certificate necessary to an augmentation of his salary, the 
 Inspector will inform him what are the studies to be pur- 
 
Explanation of the Minutes o/1846 515 
 
 sued, and the standard of acquirements to be attained, in 
 order to procure this benefit for himself and for the school. 
 If the augmentation of salary be granted, it will be with- 
 drawn in any year in which the managers refuse a certifi- 
 cate of their satisfaction in the conduct of the master and 
 of his attention to his duties. For a similar cause the sti- 
 pend of the pupil teacher will cease. Yet the master and 
 his assistant are described, by the objectors to this measure, 
 as subservient to the authority of the executive, to a de- 
 gree menacing the Hberties of the country. It is, on the 
 contrary, difficult to conceive any system by which the 
 sympathies of the religious congregations could be more 
 carefully consulted — by which their discretion could be 
 left more completely unfettered — or which could afford 
 effectual assistance, on terms more conducive to the in- 
 terests of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 Considerable effort has been made to produce an im- 
 pression that the Established Church of England will 
 chiefly derive advantage from the administration of the 
 Parliamentary grant, according to the Minutes of August 
 and December, 1846 ; yet in point of the extent of the 
 requirements which are conditions of grants under those 
 Minutes, the advantage is certainly on the side of schools 
 not connected with the Established Church. In British 
 and Dissenting schools the Inspector will not examine the 
 rehgious instruction. If the managers certify that they 
 are satisfied with the state of the religious knowledge of 
 the pupil teachers, the Committee of Council will not re- 
 quire further proof of proficiency, or that any catechism 
 shall be used, or any particular form of religious instruc- 
 tion adopted, beyond the daily reading of a portion of the 
 Scriptures in the school. When the managers of British 
 or Dissenting schools certify, that the apprentice has been 
 attentive to his rehgious duties, no requirement is to be 
 made as to his attendance on any particular place of 
 Divine worship. It is obvious, therefore, that the con- 
 ditions of grants to Dissenting schools are much less 
 
 L L 2 
 
516 Third Period 
 
 stringent than those imposed on schools connected with 
 the Church of England. 
 
 It has also been represented, that, by these Minutes, the 
 clergy of the Established Church will enjoy a large amount 
 of patronage and influence. The fact that they are re- 
 quired to assist the Inspector in examining the rehgious 
 knowledge of the pupil teachers in Church of England 
 schools, and, at the close of every year, to certify that the 
 apprentices have been attentive to their religious duties, 
 has been represented as conferring on the clergy an inor- 
 dinate power, and a patronage so extensive as to threaten 
 rehgious liberty. But the parochial minister has no 
 authority in Church of England schools, in this or any 
 other particular, which is not confided to the managers in 
 British or Dissenting schools. Whatever patronage or 
 influence is to be enjoyed by the clergy in the one case, 
 is conferred on the managers in the other. In the ar- 
 rangement itself there is a perfect equality. 
 
 We have made these remarks, without questioning 
 whether it is in any degree fair to represent this power 
 to award certificates of the state of the religious know- 
 ledge of pupil teachers, and of their attention to their 
 religious duties, as a means of dispensing patronage and 
 exercising influence. Such a representation involves a 
 charge of corruption against the parochial clergy, and not 
 less by inference against the managers of British and Dis- 
 senting schools. The zeal of the clergy and managers of 
 schools for the religious instruction of the children of their 
 congregations, is, in the mind of a controversialist, a cor- 
 rupt ingenuity in entangling souls in the meshes of a spiritual 
 pohcy. Her Majesty's advisers have not doubted that the 
 predominating feeling among the clergy, as well as among 
 the managers of Dissenting schools, would be a simple de- 
 sire that the scholars should become thoroughly grounded 
 in the doctrines, precepts, and evidences of Christianity, 
 and should derive from their acquaintance with the 
 material world a confirmation of their faith, and weapons 
 with which to repel infidelity ; but it has not been 
 
 \ 
 
Explanation of the Minutes {?/1846 517 
 
 conceived that the managers could resort to a perversion 
 of the authority confided to them, simply to bribe poor 
 children to be of their party, without being of their faith. 
 
 But if any disparity should arise in the opportunities 
 for the exercise of the supposed degenerate authority, that 
 could be attributed only to one of two causes, — either to 
 the fact that the condition of society in England is such 
 that, by voluntary association, the Church of England has 
 both the means and the will to erect and support more 
 schools than the Dissenting communions ; or to the fact, 
 that certain bodies of Dissenters might, on whatever 
 ground, refuse to participate in the advantages offered to 
 them by the Government. If this disparity arose from 
 the state of society, and were attributable to the greater 
 numbers, wealth, and zeal of members of the Established 
 Church, that would not constitute a pohtical injustice, for 
 it would be strictly consistent with the equitable principle, 
 of applying the assistance of Government in aid of volun- 
 tary exertions. It is difficult to conceive, how the advo- 
 cates of the voluntary system could object, that the number 
 and efficiency of schools for the poor in any rehgious 
 communion should bear an exact relation to the voluntary 
 contributions of their supporters, and should carry with 
 them whatever legitimate influence such institutions can 
 afford. 
 
 On the other hand, if such disparity should arise from 
 the determination of Dissenters to reject the aid of the 
 Government, this would obviously be a self-inflicted pri- 
 vatiorj, by no means inherent in the measure. Such an 
 objection has its parallel in the opinions of those who 
 object to any increase of rehgious endowments, or rather 
 to the principle of rehgious endowment from resources in 
 any degree national. That a minority should suffer for 
 conscience' sake the deprivation of its worldly substance, 
 or place itself in a position of persevering protest against 
 institutions sanctioned by experience and supported by 
 the law, must probably be the inevitable result of that 
 freedom of opinion and action, private and public, which 
 
 L L 3 
 
518 Third Period 
 
 is happily secured to individuals and associations by tlie 
 English constitution. But deference to such a minority 
 is a question of public convenience and practical states- 
 manship. Few are prepared to appropriate to purely 
 secular uses the tithes and other endowments of the 
 Estabhshed Church. In such a case as the present, the 
 minority would simply deprive itself voluntarily of its 
 share of the means destined by the State to augment the 
 resources of private charity. It is obviously within the 
 power of the minority to show its attachment to its own 
 principles, by the increased personal sacrifices of its 
 members to fill the void which its rejection has occa- 
 sioned. But it is impossible to admit, as a sufficient ob- 
 jection to the adoption of any measure which does not 
 violate the first principles of justice, and which the majo- 
 rity conceive tends to the general advantage, the fact that 
 a protesting minority claim the highest sanctions for the 
 scruples which induced them to undergo privation, or 
 submit to the spoiling of their goods for conscience' sake. 
 We will not attempt to add any force to this argument, 
 by calling in question the sincerity of the professions of 
 rehgious scruples against the reception of aid from the 
 Government for the objects contemplated in the Minutes 
 of August and December, 1846. Little time, however, 
 has elapsed since the petitions from Dissenting congrega- 
 tions and other Dissenting bodies, in favour of State 
 interference, were presented to Parhament in 1839. 
 The basis of the grants of the Committee of Council on 
 Education has in no respect changed from that declared in 
 the Minutes of the 3rd of June and the 3rd of December, 
 1839 ; the same Statesmen are in power ; the principle of 
 aiding voluntary exertions by grants of public money is 
 still in force ; the instructions to Lispectors of schools, and 
 their mode of appointment, remain unchanged ; the con- 
 stitution of the Committee of Council is exactly the same 
 as in 1839. No pretence of partiahty has ever been set 
 up against the administration of the pubHc money by this 
 Committee. The only change that has occurred is, that 
 
Explanation of the Minutes <9/ 1846 519 
 
 it is proposed to extend the assistance which has hitherto 
 been given only towards the erection of school buildings, 
 from that object, to grants under the Minutes of August 
 and December, 1846, for the support and improvement of 
 existing schools. In the interval, the Established Church 
 has, by great exertions and large contributions, availed 
 itself to a great extent of the assistance afforded from the 
 public funds. From whatever cause, the Dissenters have 
 applied for this assistance to a much smaller extent. If 
 this disparity be, in any degree, attributable to the com- 
 paratively feebler resources of Dissenting congregations, 
 there is one feature in the Minutes of August and Decem- 
 ber, 1846, which ought to convince Dissenters, that these 
 measures were framed in that spirit of equity which, while 
 it deals justice to all, and refuses to be partial to any, re- 
 joices in a just opportunity to assist the weak. Thus, 
 though the grants for the stipends of pupil teachers and 
 stipendiary monitors, and for the gratuities and pensions 
 to deserving masters, are to be given on condition that a 
 certain standard of efficiency has been attained in the 
 school, and that the master, by his acquirements and cha- 
 racter, merits encouragement ; and though they will not 
 fail thus to stimulate voluntary exertion, yet grants for' 
 these purposes are not to be made on condition of an 
 equivalent contribution. This form of assistance is there- 
 fore available in schools, which by the natural energy and 
 zeal of their promoters have attained a certain standard 
 of efficiency, though the School Committee may be unable 
 to make further pecuniary sacrifices. 
 
 The most astonishing objection which has been made 
 against the operation of the Minutes of August and Decem- 
 ber, 1846, is that which declares, that they must operate 
 to discourage and paralyse voluntary exertion. We have 
 just said, that in the operation of these Minutes, some 
 other forms of exertion are called forth than mere pecu- 
 niary sacrifices. Let any person make inquiry in his own 
 neighbourhood from the masters of the schools by which 
 
 L L 4 
 
520 Third Period 
 
 he is surrounded, how often those schools are entered by 
 visitors ; whether there is a School Committee ; when and 
 where it assembles ; whether, if there be a School Com- 
 mittee, it ever examines the scholars, or how often an- 
 nually ; and whether the master receives any and what 
 amount of voluntary assistance in the instruction of the 
 day-school, or of the evening-school ; or the mistress, in 
 teaching the girls to knit or to sew. The lamentable fact 
 is, that except at some pubhc annual exhibition dignified 
 by the name of an examination, few or none of the sub- 
 scribers enter an elementary school, from the commence- 
 ment to the close of the year ; that the schoolmaster is 
 often without any other assistance, encouragement, or 
 advice, than that of the clergyman, or in other cases, of 
 some single member of the Committee of Managers. 
 
 In the generous rivalry which ought to exist among 
 the schools of different religious persuasions, it is there- 
 fore obvious, that voluntary exertions, more valuable even 
 than voluntary contributions, may accomplish very much 
 for the improvement of the schools, by assiduous visita- 
 tion, sympathy, and actual aid to the master in his arduous 
 labours. By such exertions the school may be raised to 
 that condition of order and efficiency which is required 
 for the apprenticeship in it of pupil teachers ; the master, if 
 deficient in attainments, might, by the direction and assist- 
 ance given to his studies, be quahfied to receive and 
 educate apprentices. These are forms of true charity 
 more precious than money, which the regulations for the 
 apprenticeship of pupil teachers are likely to call forth ; 
 they are also means of promoting education, inde- 
 pendently of the mere wealth of a religious communion, 
 and which therefore place zeal and the spirit of self- 
 sacrifice on a level with money. 
 
 The tendency of this, however, as well as of every other 
 part of the Minutes, will doubtless be to call forth increased 
 pecuniary contributions. As the power to obtain assist- 
 ance under these Minutes will depend on the efficiency of 
 the master and of his school, the managers will be willinof, 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 521 
 
 where tliey cannot otherwise compensate for such sacrifices, 
 to increase their subscriptions in order to send their master 
 to be trained, to improve the fittings and apparatus, and to 
 increase the supply of books for the school. In other cases, 
 to procure a master who has obtained a certificate, and to 
 raise his salary to the amount required as a condition of the 
 augmentation offered by the Government ; to build a resi- 
 dence for the master ; to supply the pupil teachers with 
 text-books for their studies, with clothes, or with an allow- 
 ance in aid of their stipends ; to hire a field garden, to erect 
 workshops, or school kitchens and wash-houses, and to 
 supply the remaining means of supporting a School of In- 
 dustry. The Minutes are obviously destined to give a 
 great impulse to the erection of Normal Schools. The 
 Committee of Council have already, in their Minute of the 
 16th January, 1844, indicated what establishment Normal 
 Schools require ; and by their grants to St. Mark's College, 
 the Battersea Training Schools, the British and Foreign 
 Normal School, the Training Schools of Chester, of York 
 and Eipon, and of Diu"ham, have shown what is the cha- 
 racter of the establishments which they are disposed to 
 recognise. Such Normal Schools cannot be erected with- 
 out a large outlay, about one-third of which is contributed 
 by the Government. We have already seen that under 
 the Minutes of August and December, 1846, from one- 
 third to one-half of the expense of their support would 
 have to be borne by voluntary contributions. But there 
 is no doubt that the number of Normal Schools would 
 rapidly increase, and consequently that the funds derived 
 from private benevolence for their establishment and sup- 
 port would be at an early period greatly augmented. It 
 is not improbable that £40,000 will be collected for the 
 erection of Normal Schools in the ensuing year. Such an 
 amount of contribution involves, with the usual amount of 
 aid from the Government, an outlay of £60,000, and a 
 provision for the training of 400 masters, at an expense of 
 £20,000 per annum, one-third or one-half of which must 
 also be derived from private charity. The settlement of 
 
522 Third Period 
 
 trained masters (vfho have procured certificates) in im- 
 proved elementary schools throughout the country, will 
 necessitate the erection of schoolmasters' houses, the im- 
 provement of the school apparatus, a better and more 
 constant supply of books, a better and more certain salary 
 for the master, and in some cases assistance to the pupil 
 teachers. Where these objects cannot be compensated 
 for by personal exertions, the improvements will neces- 
 sarily occasion an increase of pecuniary contributions. 
 
 On these various grounds we conceive the recent Minutes 
 of the Committee of Council on Education to be consistent 
 with the interests of religion, with political justice, with 
 civil and religious liberty, and with the improvement of 
 education by increased voluntary exertions, and therefore 
 to deserve the confidence of Parliament and the country. 
 
523 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE OUTLAY FROM PUBLIC GRANTS AND PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS RE- 
 QUIRED BY THE MINUTES OF AUGUST AND DECEMBER, 1846. 
 
 The opposition whicli has been raised against tlie Minutes 
 of the Committee of Council on Education of August and 
 December, 1846, has assumed two other remarkable posi- 
 tions — the first of these is, an attempt to produce satis- 
 faction mth the present condition and prospects of ele- 
 mentary education ; and the second, to excite an alarm 
 at the outlay which may be incurred by the estabhshment 
 of a system of National Education. The assumption from 
 the first of these two positions is, that if the present state 
 and future prospects of elementary education are so satis- 
 factory, there is no necessity whatever for the assistance 
 of the Government, and therefore that the great drain on 
 the resources of the country, contemplated under the 
 second form of objection, is a wanton and mischievous 
 outlay. The second objection would, in the eyes of the 
 English people, be insignificant, if there were no force in 
 the first. It is no part of the characteristics of the EngHsh 
 nation to withhold whatever money is necessary for the 
 acc9mphshment of great and worthy objects. It would 
 therefore be a great miscalculation to suppose that they 
 would turn aside, hke a startled horse from a shadow, at 
 the prospect even of a possible future outlay of a million 
 and a half annually, to improve the moral, intellectual, 
 and physical condition of the great mass of their feUow- 
 citizens. It has been justly observed that a nation which 
 has, in Httle more than one generation, contracted a debt 
 of nearly a thousand miUions in warfare — which spent 
 twenty milHons to atone for the guilt of slavery — which 
 
524 Third Period 
 
 has lately, in the defence of its frontier, strewn a nearly 
 equal sum, together with the bones of its citizens, over 
 the passes of Cabul and the deserts of Scinde, is not hkely, 
 by the mere dread of expense, to cast aside so vast an 
 object as the education of the people. 
 
 Moreover, an outlay for such a purpose has no analogy 
 with the direful expenditure of war ; or even with the 
 continual drain for national defence ; or with the waste 
 of national wealth occasioned by social tumult, domestic 
 immorahty, and crime ; or with the means of repression 
 and punishment which Government is compelled to employ. 
 All these forms of expenditure may be regarded as un- 
 productive, except as far as some of them may be protec- 
 tive ; yet the expenditure on these objects forms the chief 
 drain on the national resources. The Appendix C con- 
 tains a necessarily imperfect estimate of the outlay occa- 
 sioned by crime. In the Appendix B is an account of the 
 loss sustained by the operatives, masters, and shopkeepers 
 of Preston, in a strike which lasted only three months. 
 The workmen sustained a nett loss of £57,210, the 
 masters of £45,000, the shopkeepers of £4986. The total 
 loss to the town amounted in three months to £107,196. 
 The waste and expense of popular ignorance and crime 
 alone consume several millions per annum. 
 
 • Mr. Baines, the most indefatigable and able of the op- 
 ponents of the Minutes of the Committee of Council, has 
 endeavoured to excite alarm against their adoption by 
 giving the following estimate of the outlay which he con- 
 ceives might, in the course of years, be incurred. 
 
 Annual Expenditure, supposed by Mr. Baines. 
 
 £ 
 
 1. Grants to Normal Schools, for 1000 male students admitted each 
 
 year on the average, £21 10s. for each .... 22,500 
 
 Ditto for 500 female students, at 2-3rds the amount per head . . 7500 
 
 2. Grants in aid of the salaries of Schoolmasters, 15,000, at £20 each 300,000 
 
 3. Grants to Schoolmasters for training pupil teachers and stipendiary 
 
 monitors, 30,000 pupil teachers, at £9 for 2 . . . .1 35,000 
 
 30,000 stipendiary monitors, at £4 for 2 60,000 
 
 4. Salaries of pupil teachers and stipendiary monitors — 30,000 pupil 
 
 teachers, at £15 each 450,000 
 
 30,000 stipendiary monitors, at £10 each ...... 300,000 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 525 
 
 5. Grants to students in Normal Schools — 3000 male students, at £25 
 
 each 75,000 
 
 1500 female ditto, at £16 13*. 4rf. each 25,000 
 
 6. Gratuities to Schoolmasters for skill in training pupil teachers and 
 
 stipendiary monitors — suppose 1500 to receive yearly £5 each . 7500 
 
 7. School Field Gardens — suppose 2000, aided by grants of £5 each, 
 
 for rent, &c 10,000 
 
 Purchase of tools first year — may average yearly .... 1000 
 
 Gratuities to masters for teaching agriculture, say £10 each . . 20,000 
 
 8. Workshops for Trades — suppose 1000, aided by grants of (say) £5 
 
 each, for rent, &c . . 5000 
 
 Purchase of tools first year — may average yearly .... 2000 
 
 Gratuities to masters for teaching, at (say) £10 each . . . 10,000 
 
 9. School Kitchens and Washhouses — suppose 2000, at £5 each, for 
 
 rent, &c 10,000 
 
 Outfit, may average yearly 2000 
 
 Gratuities to mistresses for teaching, at (say) £7 each . . . 14,000 
 
 10. Superannuation Pensions to Schoolmasters — not to exceed 2-3rds of 
 
 salary and emoluments — suppose 1500, at £50 each . . . 75,000 
 
 1 1. Grants for Workhouse Schools, Schools of Industry, and Penal 
 
 Schools — Parliamentary grant already made for salaries of 
 
 schoolmasters 15,000 
 
 Annual charge of Normal Schools for ditto 3500 
 
 Other expenses (say) 15,000 
 
 12. Grants, as at present, for building school- houses, and also the build- 
 
 ing of workshops, kitchens, &c. (say) 100,000 
 
 13. Salaries and travelling expenses of Inspectors — suppose 75, at £700 
 
 each 52,500 
 
 14. Expenses of the head office in London, clerks, &c. (say) . . 25,000 
 
 Total expenditure £1,742,500 
 
 It cannot have escaped Mr. Baines' penetration, that 
 the period, within which such an outlay could be incurred, 
 must be almost indefinitely postponed by the vast amount 
 of contribution required from private sources, as a con- 
 dition of the grants under many of the heads of his 
 estimate. With a view to show how long a time must 
 elapse before the sums required from private contribu- 
 tions could be collected, it may be useful to furnish a 
 statement of the amount which must be raised by charity 
 alone under each head of Mr. Baines' estimate. 
 
 The Cost of the erection of Normal and Model Schools for the training 
 of 4500 male and female students (supposed in Mr. Baines' 
 estimate) at £150 for each, of which one-third would be granted 
 by Government (therefore 4500 X 100 = ) .... £450,000 
 
 Of this but Httle has been accomplished hitherto. 
 
526 Third Period 
 
 We will not enter into any estimate of the number of 
 masters' houses and school-rooms to be erected, though 
 that would, in our opinion, require a vast outlay. 
 
 Annual Amount of Subscriptions, Sfc, required as a condition of the Public Grants, 
 to meet the Annual Expenditure in Grants supposed in Mr. Baines' Estimate. 
 
 £ 
 
 1. If, according to Mr. Baines' estimate, 3000 male and 1500 female 
 
 students were trained in Normal Schools, about one-third of this 
 expense would be borne by private subscriptions (4500 x £50 
 annual expense -^ 3)= 75,000 
 
 2. Twice the amount of ' Grants in aid of the salaries of Schoolmasters, 
 
 1500, at £20 each, £300,000 ' 600,000 
 
 3. Expense of clothes and books for one-half the number of pupil 
 
 teachers and stipendiary monitors, or 30,000, at £5 each . . 150,000 
 
 4. Additional stipends to one-fourth of the pupil teachers and stipen- 
 
 diary monitors, 15,000, at an average through the apprenticeship 
 
 of £10 each 150,000 
 
 5. Annual expenditure in books, fuel, light, apparatus, and repairs in 
 
 15,000 schools, at £30 each 450,000 
 
 10,000 
 10,000 
 10,000 
 5000 
 20,000 
 400,000 
 
 6. One-half the rent of school field gardens, 2000, at £5 each 
 Purchase of tools annually after first year, at £5 each 
 
 7. Workshops for trades, 1000, at £10 each for rent . 
 Purchase of tools annually after first year, at £5 each . 
 
 8. School kitchens and washhouses, 2000, at £\0 each for rent 
 Annual expenses, at £"200 each .... 
 
 Total £1,880,000 
 
 Before, therefore, the money estimated by Mr. Baines 
 would ultimately be required from the public resources 
 to carry into execution the Minutes of the Committee of 
 Council, the annual amount raised by voluntary subscrip- 
 tions, collections, and school-pence, must rise to the sum 
 of £1,880,000, and, which is perhaps more difficult, the 
 schools throughout the country must be made thoroughly 
 efficient. The Chancellor of the Exchequer need there- 
 fore have no apprehensions of any suddenly large demand 
 upon the national income for education. It is obvious, 
 that even if we were to admit, that Mr. Baines has accu- 
 rately anticipated the largest outlay which this measure 
 could entail upon the country (and he is not likely to 
 have erred by an under estimate), the growth of this 
 charge must be slow, inasmuch as it must be attended at 
 every step, though not in all its forms, by equivalent con- 
 tributions from private charity. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes of 1846 527 
 
 That the very gradual increase of the grant has been 
 contemplated by Government, is obvious, because the 
 sum to be voted in Parliament this year is to undergo no 
 increase. 
 
 But there is another very obvious inference from Mr. 
 Baines' statistics, which affords the most convincing proof 
 of the fallacy of his assumption, that the present condition 
 and prospects of elementary education are satisfactory. 
 At present, there are scarcely any apprenticed pupil 
 teachers in England. The only assistants which school- 
 masters now have are, with rare exceptions, unpaid 
 monitors, from eight to thirteen years of age. When a 
 provision from the national resources for 30,000 pupil 
 teachers, and 30,000 stipendiary monitors, or one trained 
 assistant for every 25 scholars, is introduced into the 
 estimate, no one questions that it is necessary to make 
 some such a provision, either from private charity or by 
 means of public grants. On all hands, it is admitted that 
 the monitorial system has failed, and that it is necessary 
 to substitute the services of trained apprentices between 
 the ages of thirteen and nineteen for those of monitors 
 between the ages of eight and thirteen. If, therefore, the 
 aid of the State be rejected, voluntary charity will have 
 to provide the whole charge of this arrangement. 
 
 In like manner, few masters have charge of elementary 
 schools who have passed through any education compar- 
 able to that proposed to be accomphshed by five years 
 of apprenticeship to a skilful master, followed by two or 
 three years' training in a Normal School. If, therefore, 
 the efficiency of the schoolmaster is to be increased in all 
 the elementary schools of England, to the standard con- 
 templated by the Government, some such system as that 
 proposed by the Committee of Council must be adopted, 
 and the charge of erecting and supporting Normal 
 Schools, if not in part provided for by pubHc grants, 
 must be wholly met ^y private charity. 
 
 The same remarks apply to the expense to be incurred 
 for making provision for a sufficient income to support a 
 
528 Third Period 
 
 trained schoolmaster in respectability and comfort. If 
 education is to be within the reach of every working 
 man — if the schools are to be well furnished ; provided, 
 with sufficient books and apparatus ; taught by skilful 
 masters, and well-trained assistants, though we may 
 demur to Mr. Baines' estimate as exaggerated, yet the 
 outlay must eventually be considerable. Mr. Baines' 
 estimate of the amount required to carry into execution 
 the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education 
 (£1,742,500), together with the sums necessary to fulfil 
 the conditions of the grants included in that estimate 
 (£1,880,000), amount to £3,622,500. The proportion 
 to be raised by subscriptions and school-pence would, how- 
 ever, be two thirds. Is there much hope that, from volun- 
 tary contributions and school-pence, two thirds this sum 
 could soon be raised, and every school be made as efficient 
 as the Minutes require ? If, for the sake of argument, we 
 should assume that an efficient system of National Educa- 
 tion could not be maintained without a large outlay, the 
 operation of the Minutes of the Committee of Council on 
 Education would very slowly bring upon the State that 
 portion of this charge which would have to be sus- 
 tained from the pubhc resources. Every fresh incre- 
 ment of expense would have to be met with an equal 
 amount derived from private charity. The funds at the 
 disposal of Parhament would have to meet no burthen 
 for which private benevolence did not first spontaneously 
 supply its offering. Such a system is therefore under the 
 double check of pubhc opinion as expressed in voluntary 
 charity, and of the national feehng as it may find expres- , 
 sion in Parhament. No system could be devised more 
 dependent on popular favour. Unless the whole adminis- 
 tration of public education should as cordially enhst the 
 sympathies of the public, as associations purely dependent 
 on voluntary subscriptions do, the sources of local charity 
 would dry up ; the conditions of th^^ public grants would 
 fail to be fulfilled, and the whole fabric would crumble 
 into ruin. On the other hand, if the system w^ere found. 
 
Explanation of the Minutes o/1846 529 
 
 to be inconsistent with public rights, or to operate in any- 
 way so as to give umbrage to Parliament, it would be 
 under the check of an annual vote. During all the 
 earlier stages of its progress,, much vigilance would 
 naturally attend its operation, and it would in each year 
 be subject to such alterations as Parliament might 
 require. While in its infancy, and therefore in the 
 feebleness of immaturity, it would have acquired no 
 powers of resistance to salutary changes. The plan, if 
 necessary, might be moulded according to the will of the 
 Legislature ; and it is obvious that the Government have 
 been of opinion, that a measure strictly tentative and ex- 
 perimental in its character, afforded the fairest chances of 
 solving, in the course of years, all the difficulties of this 
 most complex question. 
 
 With respect, therefore, both to the nature and the 
 extent of the annual outlay from the pubhc resources 
 required for the execution of these Minutes, the power of 
 Parhament will be continually exercised. For this reason, 
 the introduction of a plan for the improvement of the 
 education of the poor, in the form of regulations affecting 
 the appropriation of a sum of money annually voted by 
 Parliament, affords a much larger amount of security that 
 pubhc opinion will be continually directed to the subject, 
 and vnll have an opportunity to exercise a legitimate 
 control, through the press and the representative system, 
 than if a measure were submitted in the form of a Bill 
 for a complete system of education, and having been 
 carried through all its stages, were subject to repeal only 
 by a ^milar process. 
 
 The growth of the outlay contemplated under these 
 Minutes must therefore be slow, not only because the 
 amount derived from private charity must undergo an 
 equal increase, but hkewise because it will be under the 
 annual control of Parhament, and subject to all those 
 hindrances which prevent the rapid growth of expense in 
 any pubhc department. If in the course of some years, 
 it should be found that the public interest in the education 
 
 M M 
 
530 , Third Period 
 
 of the working classes, and the estimate of its importance 
 among the poor had increased so far that the sums 
 derived from school-pence, and from private subscriptions, 
 and the efficiency of the schools, occasioned a demand for 
 a considerable increase of the Parliamentary grant, and if 
 pubHc opinion in Parliament had watched the growth of 
 this system with approbation, it would be within the 
 power of Parliament to pass a measure giving the sanction 
 of law to a system which had passed through every step 
 of trial, and had, with whatever modifications, been 
 sanctioned by experience. 
 
531 
 
 APPEJSTDIX (A). 
 
 THE PLAN FOR ENCOURAGING AND AIDING VOLUNTARY EX- 
 ERTIONS FOR THE PROMOTION OF EDUCATION IN GREAT 
 BRITAIN, PROPOSED BY LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S ADMINIS- 
 TRATION IN 1847. 
 
 MINUTES OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION IN 
 AUGUST AND DECEMBER, 1846. 
 
 COUNCIL CHAMBER, WHITEHALL, August 25, 1846. 
 By the Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education. 
 
 GENERAL MINUTE. 
 
 Their Lordships had under their consideration the sufficiency of the present 
 number of Inspectors of Schools for the duties they have to perform, and 
 
 Resolved — That it would be highly expedient that all the schools which are 
 under the inspection of the Priry Council should be visited at least once in each 
 year : that the existing number of Inspectors appears to be insufficient, as, notwith- 
 standing their constant assiduity in the discharge of the duties intrusted to them, 
 it is found impossible to make arrangements for the inspection of schools oftener 
 than once in two years. 
 
 Their Lordships are, however, unwilling to make so considerable an addition at 
 once to the number of Inspectors as would be necessary for an annual visit to each 
 school, but will recommend the appointment of three new Inspectors this year, 
 reserving for consideration hereafter any further appointments which may be re- 
 quired. 
 
 Their Lordships had further under their consideration the Report of the Inspec- 
 tors of Schools, memorials from certain Boards of Education, and letters from the 
 clergy and others, representing the very early age at which the children acting as 
 assistants to schoolmasters are withdrawn from school to manual labour, and the 
 advantages which would arise if such scholars as might be distinguished by profi- 
 ciency and good conduct were apprenticed to skilful masters, to be instructed and 
 trained, so as to be prepared to complete their education as schoolmasters in a 
 Normal School. 
 
 Resolved — That the Lord President cause Regulations to be framed defining 
 the qualifications of the schoolmaster ; the condition of Instruction in the school ; 
 
 M M 2 
 
532 Third Period 
 
 and the local contributions to be required as conditions on which annual grants of 
 money may be made towards the stipends of apprentices in elementary schools ; 
 and further, cause indentures of apprenticeship to be prepared, declaring the duties 
 of the apprentice and the nature of the instruction he is to receive ; the periods of 
 examination by the Inspectors of Schools, and the circumstances under which the 
 indenture may be dissolved, in order that stipends increasing in each year of the 
 apprenticeship may be granted in aid of local contribution. 
 
 It was further Resolved — That as the masters having charge of the instruction 
 and training of school apprentices will be selected for their character and skill ; 
 and as the education of the apprentices will increase the labour and responsibilities 
 of such masters, it is expedient that the successful performance of these duties be 
 rewarded by annual grants in aid of their stipends, according to the number of 
 apprentices trained by each master. 
 
 Jt was further Resolved — That it is expedient to make provision in certain cases, 
 by a retiring pension, for schoolmasters and mistresses who, after a certain length 
 of service, may appear entitled to such provision. 
 
 That tlie Lord President cause Regulations to be framed respecting the grants 
 of such retiring pensions. 
 
 That it is expedient for the further encouragement of deserving schoolmasters, 
 that small gratuities be annually distributed, under the authority of the Lord 
 President, to schoolmasters whose zeal and success in teaching may, on the Report 
 of the Inspector, appear to entitle them to such encouragement ; and that Regu- 
 lations be framed with reference to the distribution of such gratuities. 
 
 COUNCIL CHAMBER, WHITEHALL, 21st December, 1846. 
 By the Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education. 
 
 REGULATIONS respecting the EDUCATION of PUPIL TEACHERS and 
 STIPENDIARY MONITORS. 
 
 The Lord President communicated to their Lordships the Regulations which he 
 had caused to be framed to carry into execution the Minute of the Committee of 
 Council on Education of the 25th day of August, 1846, respecting the Apprentice- 
 ship of Pupil Teachers. 
 
 General Preliminary Conditions. 
 
 Upon application being made to their Lordships from the trustees or managers 
 of any school under inspection, requesting that one or more of the most proficient 
 scholars be selected to be apprenticed to the master or mistress, the application 
 will be referred to the Inspector, and will be entertained, if he report — 
 
 That the master or mistress of the school is competent to conduct the apprentice 
 through the course of instruction to be required : 
 
 That the school is well furnished and well supplied with books and apparatus : 
 That it is divided into classes ; and that the instruction is skilful, and is gradu- 
 ated according to the age of the children and the time they have been at school, so 
 as to show that equal care has been bestowed on each class: 
 
 That the discipline is mild and firm, and conducive to good order : 
 That there is a fair prospect that the salary of the master and mistress, and the 
 ordinary expenses of the school, will be provided for during the period of appren- 
 ticeship. 
 
Minutes of August and December^ 1846 533 
 
 General Rule. — The qualifications to be required of candidates and of pupil 
 teachers in each year of their apprenticeship will be regulated by the following 
 rules, in which the minimum of proficiency to be attained is precisely defined, in 
 order to prevent partiality ; but their Lordships reserve to themselves the power 
 to reward superior merit, by shortening the term of the apprenticeship, or by 
 awarding the higher stipends of the later years of the apprenticeship to pupil 
 teachers whose attainments enable them to pass the examination of one of the 
 later years at an earlier period. 
 
 Pupil Teachers — Qualifications of Candidates. 
 
 The following qualifications will be required from candidates for apprenticeship: 
 — They must be at least thirteen years of age, and must not be subject to any- 
 bodily infirmity likely to impair their usefulness as pupil teachers. 
 
 In schools connected with the Church of England, the clergyman and managers, 
 and, in other schools, the managers, must certify that the moral character of the 
 candidates and of their families justify an expectation that the instruction and 
 training of the school will be seconded by their own efi'orts and by the example of 
 their parents. If this cannot be certified of the family, the apprentice will be 
 required to board in some approved household. 
 
 Candidates will also be required — 
 
 1. To read with fluency, ease, and expression. 
 
 2. To write in a neat hand, with correct spelling and punctuation, a simple 
 prose narrative slowly read to them. 
 
 3. To write from dictation sums in the first four rules of arithmetic, simple 
 and compound ; to work them correctly, and to know the tables of weights and 
 measures. 
 
 4. To point out the parts of speech in a simple sentence. 
 
 5. To have an elementary knowledge of geography. 
 
 6. In schools connected with the Church of England they will be required to repeat 
 the Catechism, and to show that they understand its meaning, and are acquainted 
 with the outline of Scripture history. The parochial clergyman will assist in this 
 part of the examination. 
 
 In other schools the state of the religious knowledge will be certified by the ma- 
 nagers. 
 
 7. To teach a junior class to the satisfaction of the Inspector. 
 
 8. Girls should also be able to sew neatly and to knit. 
 
 Qualifications of Pupil Teachers in each Year of their Apprenticeship. 
 
 At the end of the first year pupil teachers will be examined by the Inspector: — 
 
 1. In writing from memory the substance of a more difficult narrative. 
 
 2. In arithmetic, the rules of * Practice ' and ' Simple Proportion,' * and in the 
 first rules * of mental arithmetic. 
 
 3. In grammar, in the construction of sentences, and in syntax. 
 
 4. In the geography of Great Britain and Palestine. 
 
 5. In the Holy Scriptures and in the Catechism, with illustrations by passages 
 from Holy Writ, in Church of England schools, the parochial clergyman assisting 
 in the examination. 
 
 The managers will, iyi other schools, certify in this and in the succeeding years 
 of the apprenticeship, that they arc satisfied with the state of the religious know- 
 ledge of the pupil teachers. 
 
 6. In their ability to give a class a reading lesson, and to examine it on the 
 meaning of what has been read. 
 
 7. In the elements of vocal music, in this and in succeeding years, when taught 
 from notes. 
 
 M M 3 
 
534 Third Period 
 
 8. In their ability to drill* a class in marching and exercises ; and to conduct 
 it through the class movements required for preserving order. 
 
 9. Girls should also be able to instruct the younger scholars in sewing and 
 knitting. 
 
 At the end of the second year, pupil teachers will be examined by the Inspec- 
 tor : — 
 
 1. In composition, by writing the * abstract of a lesson, or a school report. 
 
 2. In decimal arithmetic*, and the higher rules of mental arithmetic. Girls 
 will not be required to proceed beyond the rule of ' Compound Proportion ' in 
 this year. 
 
 3. In syntax and etymology.* 
 
 4. In the geography of Great Britain, of Europe, the British Empire*, and Pa- 
 lestine. 
 
 5. In the Holy Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism in Church of England 
 schools, more fully than in the preceding year, the parochial clergyman assisting in 
 the examination. 
 
 6. In their ability to examine a class in reading, in the rudiments of grammar 
 and arithmetic ; and, during the examination, to keep the class attentive, in order 
 and in activity, without undue noise. 
 
 At the end of the third year, pupil teachers will be examined by the Inspector: — 
 
 1. In the composition of the notes of a lesson on a subject selected by the In- 
 spector. ' 
 
 2. In the elements of mechanics*, or in book-keeping. 
 
 3. In syntax, etymology, and prosody.* 
 
 4. In the geography of the four* quarters of the globe. Girls in the geography 
 of the British Empire. 
 
 5. In the outlines of English History. 
 
 6. More fully in the Holy Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism, in Church of 
 England schools, the parochial clergyman assisting in the examination. 
 
 7. In their skill in managing and examining the second class in grammar, geo- 
 graphy, and mental arithmetic. 
 
 8. The girls should have acquired greater skill as teachers of sewing, knitting, &c. 
 At the end of the fourth year, pupil teachers will be examined by the Inspec- 
 tor: — 
 
 1. In the composition of an account of the organisation of the school, and of the 
 methods of instruction used. 
 
 2. In the first steps in mensuration*, with practical illustrations ; and in the 
 elements of land surveying* and levelling.* 
 
 3. In syntax, etymology, and prosody.* 
 
 4. In the * geography of Great Britain as connected with the outlines of Eng- 
 lish history. Girls in the geography of the four quarters of the globe. 
 
 5. More fully in the Holy Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism, in. Church of 
 England schools, the parochial clergyman assisting in the examination. 
 
 6. In their skill in managing and examining the first class in grammar, geo- 
 graphy, and mental arithmetic, and in giving * a lesson to two or three classes 
 grouped together. 
 
 At the end of the fifth year, pupil teachers will be examined by the Inspector: — 
 
 1. In the composition of an essay on some subject connected with the art of 
 teaching. 
 
 2. In the rudiments of algebra *, or the practice of land surveying * and level- 
 ling.* 
 
 3. In syntax, etymology, and prosody. 
 
 4. In the use * of the globes, or in the geography of the British Empire * and 
 Europe *, as connected with the outlines of English history. In this year girls 
 may be examined in the historical geography of Great Britain. 
 
Minutes of August and December^ 1846 535 
 
 5. More completely in the Holy Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism, in Church 
 of England schools, the parochial clergyman assisting in the examination. 
 
 6. In their ability to give a gallery lesson, and to conduct the instruction of the 
 first class in any subject selected by the Inspector. 
 
 General Rules. — In the subjects marked with an asterisk girls need not be ex- 
 amined, but in every year they will be expected to show increased skill as semp- 
 stresses, and teachers of sewing, knitting, &c. 
 
 In the examinations, the Inspectors will, in each year, observe the degree of 
 attention paid by the pupil teachers to a perfect articulation in reading, and to a 
 right modulation of the voice in teaching a class. A knowledge of vocal music 
 and of drawing (especially from models), though not absolutely required, because 
 the means of teaching it may not exist in every school, will be much encouraged. 
 Every pupil teacher will be required to be clean in person and dress. 
 
 The number of pupil teachers apprenticed in any school will not exceed one to 
 every twenty-five scholars ordinarily attending. 
 
 Certificate. — Every pupil teacher who has passed all the foregoing examinations, 
 and has presented the required testimonials in each year, will be entitled to a cer- 
 tificate declaring that he has successfully completed his apprenticeship. 
 
 Stipendiary/ Monitors. — The Inspectors may, for some time, find in the rural dis- 
 trict schools, in which all the general conditions required for the apprenticeship of 
 a pupil teacher may be satisfied, but the master or mistress of which may be 
 unable to conduct an apprentice even through the foregoing course of instruction. 
 Their Lordships being desirous so to adapt their regulations to the condition of 
 such schools, as by their improvement to enable them hereafter to provide for the 
 training of pupil teachers, are disposed, for a few years, to encourage the man- 
 agers to retain their monitors, by small stipends, to the age of seventeen, without 
 apprenticeship, but under a form of agreement with the parents, on condition that 
 the master give each monitor extra daily instruction. 
 
 For such an arrangement all the general rules and preliminary conditions pre- 
 viously enumerated will be required, and the following qualifications for candidates 
 for such stipends: — 
 
 Stipendiary Monitors — Qualifications of Candidates. 
 
 The candidates must be thirteen years of age, and they will be required — 
 
 1. To read with fluency. 
 
 2. To write a neat hand. 
 
 3. To write from dictation sums in the first four simple rules of arithmetic, and 
 to work them correctly. 
 
 4. To point out the parts of speech in a simple sentence. 
 
 5. In Chjifrch of England schools, to repeat the Catechism, and show a know- 
 ledge of its meaning, the parochial clergyman assisting in the religious examina- 
 tion. 
 
 In other schools, the managers will certify that they are satisfied with the state 
 of their religious knowledge. 
 
 6. Girls to sew neatly and to knit. 
 
 Qualifications of Stipendiary Monitors in each Year. 
 
 The stipendiary monitors will be examined at the end of each year of service 
 and will be required — 
 
 At the end of the first year — 
 
 1. To read with fluency, ease, and expression. 
 
 2. To write in a neat hand, with correct spelling and punctuation, a simple 
 prose narrative, slowly read to them. 
 
 M M 4 
 
536 Third Period 
 
 3. To write from dictation sums in the first four compound rules of arithmetic, 
 to work them correctly, and to know the tables of weights and measures. 
 
 4. To point out the parts of speech in a simple sentence, and to give the rules 
 of its construction. 
 
 5. To have an elementary knowledge of geography. 
 
 6. In Church of England schools, to show a general acquaintance with the . 
 Scriptures; the parochial clergyman, in this and the succeeding years, assisting in 
 the religious examination. 
 
 In other schools, the managers will certify, in this and succeeding years, that 
 the religious knowledge of the stipendiary monitors is satisfactory to them. 
 
 7. In schools where vocal music is taught, he should have commenced instruc- 
 tion from notes, and should give proof of improvement in each succeeding year. 
 
 8. Girls to teach sewing and knitting in this and succeeding years. 
 At the end of the second year — 
 
 1. To write from memory, with correct spelling and punctuation, the substance 
 of a simple prose narrative, read carefully to them two or three times. 
 
 2. In arithmetic, to write from dictation sums in ' Practice,' and to work them 
 correctly. 
 
 3. In grammar, to parse more difficult sentences, and give the rules of their 
 construction. 
 
 4. To know the geography of Great Britain and Palestine. 
 
 5. In Church of .England schools, to give illustrations of the Catechism from 
 the Bible, and to show a more complete acquaintance with the Scriptures. 
 
 6. To give a class reading lesson, and examine it on the meaning of what 
 has been read. 
 
 7. Girls to be able to cut out clothes. 
 At the end of the third year — 
 
 1. To write from memory the substance of a longer and more difficult prose nar- 
 rative, and to show greater skill in composition. 
 
 2. In arithmetic, to write from dictation sums in simple proportion and simple 
 interest, and to work them correctly. 
 
 3. In grammar, to be able to parse sentences, with a thorough knowledge of 
 the rules of syntax. 
 
 4. To know the geography of Great Britain, Europe, and Palestine, and that 
 of the outlines of the four quarters of the globe. 
 
 5. In Church of England schools, to possess a more extensive knowledge of the 
 Holy Scriptures, and of the Liturgy and Catechism. 
 
 6. To examine a class in the rudiments of grammar, geography, and arithmetic. 
 At the end of the fourth year — 
 
 1. To prepare the notes of an oral lesson on a subject selected by the Inspector. 
 
 2. To work correctly sums in decimal arithmetic, and to show an acquaintance 
 with the simple rules of mental arithmetic. 
 
 3. In Grammar to be examined in etymology. 
 
 4. To know the geography of the four quarters of the world, and especially of 
 the British Empire. 
 
 5. To have a general knowledge of the outlines of English history. 
 
 6. In Church of England schools, to show' a more perfect knowledge of the 
 Holy Scriptures, Catechism, and Liturgy. 
 
 7. To examine the first or second class in grammar, geography, and arithmetic, 
 and to give it an oral lesson, keeping the class attentive in order, and in activity , 
 without undue noise. 
 
Minutes of August and December^ 1846 537 
 
 Certificates of Character and Conduct to be annually required from Pupil Teachers 
 and Stipendiary Monitors. 
 
 At the close of each year pupil teachers or stipendiary monitors will be required 
 to present certificates of good conduct from the managers of the school, and of 
 punctuality, diligence, obedience, and attention to their duties from the master or 
 mistress. 
 
 In Church of England schools, the parochial clergymen, and in other schools, the 
 managers, will also certify that the pupil teachers or stipendiary monitors have been 
 attentive to their religious duties. 
 
 Salaries of Pupil Teachers and Stipendiary Monitors. 
 
 If these certificates be presented, and if the Inspector certify, at the close of each 
 year, that he is satisfied with the oral examination and the examination papers of 
 the pupil teachers or stipendiary monitors, and if those papers be satisfactory to 
 their Lordships, the following stipends wiir be paid, irrespectively of any sum that 
 may be received from the school or from any other source ; — 
 
 For a Pupil For a Stipendiary 
 Teacher. Monitor. 
 
 £ s. £ s. 
 
 At the end of the 1st Year . . .10 . 5 
 
 2nd „ . 
 
 3rd „ . 
 
 4th „ . 
 
 << i« otn •• . 
 
 12 10 , 7 10 
 
 15 . 10 
 
 17 10 . 12 10 
 
 20 . 
 
 Hemuneration and Duties of Schoolmasters and Mistresses. 
 
 At the close of each of these years, if the pupil teachers have received a certificate 
 of good character and of satisfactory progress, the master or mistress by whom 
 they have been instructed and trained shall be paid the sum of £5 for one, of £9 
 for two, of £12 for three pupil teachers, and £3 per annum more for every addi- 
 tional apprentice; and, on the like conditions, £2 10s. for one stipendiary monitor, 
 £4 for two, £6 for three, and £l lO.s. in addition in each year for every additional 
 stipendiary monitor. 
 
 In addition to the foregoing subjects of instruction, if the pupil teachers be skil- 
 fully trained by the master in the culture of a garden, or in some mechanical arts 
 suitable to a School of Industry, or the female pupil teachers be instructed by the 
 mistress in cutting out clothes, and in cooking, baking, or washing, as well as in 
 the more usual arts of sewing and knitting, and the Inspector certify that the pupil 
 teachers are thereby in a satisfactory course of training for the management of a 
 School of Industry, the master or mistress will receive an additional gratuity, pro- 
 portioned to the degree of skill and care displayed. 
 
 In consideration of the foregoing gratuity, and of the assistance obtained from 
 the pupil teachers and stipendiary monitors in the instruction and management of 
 the school, the master will give them instruction in the prescribed subjects, during 
 one hour and a half at least, during five days in the week, either before or after the 
 usual hours of school-keeping. 
 
 The stipends will be liable to be withdrawn by their Lordships on the report of 
 their Inspector, on proof, of the continued ill health of the pupil teachers or stipen- 
 diary monitors, or of misconduct, want of punctuality, diligence, or skill, or failure 
 in their examination, or in default of the required certificates. 
 
538 Third Period 
 
 SUPPORT OF NORMAL SCHOOLS. 
 Education of Schoolmasters and Mistresses, and Grants in aid of their Salaries. 
 
 Exhibitions on behalf of successful Pupil Teachers to Normal Schools — Employment 
 of certain of them in the Public Service. Grants in aid of Expenses of Normal 
 Schools, and of the Salaries of Masters and Mistresses educated therein. 
 
 The Committee of Council on Education had under their consideration their 
 Lordships' Minutes as to the apprenticeship of pupil teachers in elementary- 
 schools. 
 
 It appeared further expedient to their Lordships, that the Lord President should 
 authorise one or more of Her Majesty's Inspectors, together with the Principal of a 
 Normal School under inspection, to submit to his Lordship, from among the pupil 
 teachers who had successfully terminated their apprenticeship, a certain number of 
 those who, upon competition in a public examination, to be annually held by such 
 Inspectors and Principal in each Inspector's district, might be found most profi- 
 cient in their studies and skilful in the art of teaching, and concerning whose 
 character and zeal for the office of teachers the Inspector of the district could give 
 the most favourable report. 
 
 That the Committee of Council on Education, on comparison of the testimonials 
 and examination papers of these apprentices, should award, for as many as they 
 might think fit, an exhibition of £20 or £25 to one of the Normal Schools under 
 the inspection of Her Majesty's Inspectors. 
 
 That the pupil teachers to whom such exhibitions should be awarded, should be 
 thenceforth denominated ' Queen's Scholars.' 
 
 That the exhibition should be liable to be withdrawn if the Principal of the 
 Training School should be dissatisfied with the conduct, attainments, or skill of the 
 * Queen's Scholar.' 
 
 Their Lordships were also of opinion, that it might be useful to offer further in- 
 centives to exertion and good conduct among the pupil teachers, by opening to 
 such of them as might not display the highest qualifications for the office of school- 
 master, but whose conduct and attainments were satisfactory, an opportunity of 
 obtaining employment in the public service, under such regulations as may be 
 hereafter adopted. 
 
 Their Lordships hope that the grant of an exhibition of ^20 or £25 to the most 
 proficient pupil teachers, to enable them to enter a Normal School, may 
 diminish the difficulty, experienced by the trustees and managers of such institu- 
 tions, of maintaining them in efficiency. In order still further to reduce the 
 burden of such establishments, their Lordships will award to every Normal School 
 subject to inspection a grant for every student trained therein, concerning whose 
 character and conduct the Principal shall give a favourable report, and concerning 
 whose attainments, skill in teaching, and general aptitude for the vocation of a 
 schoolmaster, it shall appear to the Lord President, at the close of each of three 
 years of training from the report of one or more of Her Majesty's Inspectors, and 
 from the examination papers, that a certain standard of merit has been attained. 
 Such grants shall be £20 at the close of the first year, £25 at the close of the 
 second, and £30 at the close of the third year's course of instruction. This 
 standard of acquirement shall not be so ordered as to interfere with the studies 
 pursued in any Normal School, but shall be adapted to those studies, so, however, 
 as to apply impartially to all such Normal Schools an equal incentive to exertion, 
 by requiring efficiency in a sufficient number of the studies pursued in them. 
 
 Their Lordships will further grant, in aid of the salary of every schoolmaster 
 appointed to a school under their inspection, and who has had one year's training 
 in a Normal School under their inspection, £15 or £20 per annum ; and in aid of 
 
Minutes of August and December^ 1846 539 
 
 the salary of every such schoolmaster who has had two years of such training, £20 
 or £25 per annum ; and of every such schoolmaster who has had three years of 
 such training, £25 or £30 per annum ; provided he has upon examination ob- 
 tained the proper certificate of merit in each year, on the following conditions : — 
 
 1. That the trustees and managers of the school provide the master with a house 
 rent-free, and a further salary, equal at least to twice the amount of this grant. 
 
 2. That the trustees and managers annually certify that his character, conduct, 
 and attention to his duties are satisfactory. 
 
 3. That the Inspector report that his school is efficient in its organisation, 
 discipline, and instruction. 
 
 On the same conditions their Lordships will grant, in aid of the salaries of 
 schoolmistresses appointed to schools under their inspection, who obtain similar 
 certificates in a Normal School, two-thirds of the sums to be awarded to school- 
 masters for each year's certificate of merit. 
 
 Retiring Pensions to Schoolmasters and Mistresses for long and efficient Services. 
 
 That a retiring pension may be granted by the Committee of Council to any 
 schoolmaster or schoolmistress who shall be rendered incapable by age or infirmity 
 of continuing to teach a school efficiently. 
 
 Provided that no such pension shall be granted to any schoolmaster or school- 
 mistress who shall not have conducted a normal or elementary school for fifteen 
 years, during seven at least of which such school shall have been under inspection. 
 
 That in all cases of application for pensions a report shall be required from the 
 Inspector, and from the trustees and managers of the schools, as to the character 
 and conduct of the applicants, and the manner in which the education of the pupils 
 under their charge has been carried on. 
 
 The amount of the pension shall be determined according to such report, but 
 shall in no case exceed two-thirds of the average amount of the salary and emolu- 
 ments annually received by the applicant during the period that the school has 
 been under inspection. 
 
 A Minute of the grant of every such pension, and of the grounds on which it has 
 been awarded, shall be published in their Lordships' Minutes. 
 
 GRANTS in aid of DAY-SCHOOLS of INDUSTRY. 
 
 Their Lordships had under their consideration Reports published in theif 
 Minutes on Schools of Industry. 
 
 Resolved — That when the managers of schools apply for aid to enable them to 
 hire a field-garden for the instruction of the scholars, or to erect workshops in which 
 handicrafts may be taught, or to provide a school wash-house or kitchen for the 
 instruction of girls in domestic economy, their Lordships will be disposed, on the 
 following conditions, to grant assistance towards the promotion of these objects. 
 
 L School-Field Gardens. 
 
 If their Lordships are satisfied with the position of the field in relation to the 
 school; 
 
 With the rent; 
 
 With the regulations for the management of the garden; 
 
 And with the competency of the master to superintend the work and give the 
 requisite instruction ; — 
 
 Their Lordships will consider whether it may be expedient to make an annual 
 
540 Third Period 
 
 grant, not exceeding one-half the rent, so long as the Inspector may report that 
 the field is skilfully and industriously cultivated ; 
 
 To make a grant towards the purchase of tools in the first year ; and 
 To grant a gratuity to the master in each year in which the instruction in in- 
 dustry is successful. 
 
 2. Workshops for Trades. 
 
 In schools situated in the denser parts of great cities, and intended to attract 
 from the streets vagrant youths who are there trained in criminal pursuits, or 
 accustomed to begging and vagrancy, if their Lordships are satisfied — 
 
 With the site, plan, and specifications ; 
 
 And with the regulations for the management of the workshops, especially as 
 respects the character of the persons selected as master- workmen, the share the 
 scholars have in the produce of their labour, and the disposal of their work, — 
 
 They will, in the case of each application, consider the propriety of making 
 grants for the erection of workshops. 
 
 They will also be disposed to contribute towards the purchase of tools in the 
 first year. 
 
 In cases in which it may be desirable, in the first instance, to avoid the outlay 
 re<juired for the erection of workshops, their Lordships will entertain applications 
 for assistance towards the hiring of a suitable building on the foregoing conditions, 
 so long as the Inspector shall report that the handicrafts are successfully taught 
 therein. 
 
 They will also consider the propriety of granting a gratuity to the master for 
 every boy who, in consequence of the skill acquired in the workshop, shall have 
 become a workman or assistant in any trade or craft whereby he is earning a live- 
 lihood. 
 
 3. School-Kitchens and Wash-houses. 
 
 If their Lordships are satisfied — 
 
 With the site, plan, and specifications ; 
 
 With the competency of the schoolmistress to give the requisite instruction ; 
 
 And with the regulations for the management of the school of industry — 
 
 They will be disposed to make a grant towards the erection of these buildings. 
 
 They will also consider the propriety of granting a gratuity to the mistress, in 
 every year in which the Inspectors may report that the girls are successfully in- 
 structed in domestic economy. 
 
 In all cases of application for grants to establish Schools of Industry, it will be 
 required that the schools shall be subject to inspection, and that th^general system 
 of instruction shall be found to be in conformity with the Minutes by which the 
 distribution of the Parliamentary Grant towards the erection of school buildings 
 has hitherto been regulated. 
 
 NORMAL SCHOOLS for TRAINING MASTERS for WORKHOUSE 
 SCHOOLS and for PENAL SCHOOLS. 
 
 Theik Lordships had further under their consideration the measures required to 
 carry into execution the suggestions of the Secretary of State for the Home De- 
 partment, for the establishment of Normal and Model Schools for the training of 
 masters of schools for pauper and for criminal children. 
 
 Resolved — That a building be erected for the Normal School, providing accom- 
 modation for a principal, vice-principal, two masters, and for 100 candidate 
 teachers. 
 
Minutes oj August and December, 1846 541 
 
 That it be referred to the Lord President and Secretary of State for the Home 
 Department, to cause plans to be prepared for this purpose. 
 
 That, as two years must elapse before this building can be ready for occupation, 
 premises be in the mean time procured, in which the Normal School may be tem- 
 porarily conducted ; and that these premises be situated, if possible, near some 
 workhouse or other school, which may serve as a practising school during the 
 interval. 
 
 That, in connection with the Normal School, a Model School of Industry be 
 erected, for the pauper children of some of the London Unions, who may be received 
 into this school, either on contract by a steward with the Unions, or by letting the 
 building to a district of Unions for the reception of children, under the direction 
 of a Board of Management, according to the provisions of the 7 & 8 Vict. c. 101. 
 
 That, in connection with this Normal School, but distinct and separate from the 
 school for pauper children, a school be erected for criminal children, and that 
 plans of buildings for the School of Industry for pauper children, for this sepa- 
 rate Penal School, be prepared and submitted to the Secretary of State for the 
 Home Department. 
 
 That it be referred to the Lord President and Secretary of State for the Home 
 Department, to cause regulations to be prepared for the management of the Nor- 
 mal School, and of the Practising Schools as connected with it, as well as for the 
 Pauper School of Industry and the Penal School. 
 
 That an area of at least 1 acres is desirable for the Normal School, 1 acres 
 for the Pauper School, and 10 for the Penal School, in order that training in gar- 
 dening, and the management of a cottage farm, may be successfully pursued. 
 
 That the following general estimate of outlay on the buildings, and of annual 
 expenditure, be approved : 
 
 Buildings. 
 
 The buildings of the Normal School . . . £10,000 
 
 The buildings of the Pauper School .... 5000 
 
 The buildings of the Penal School .... 5000 
 
 Annual charge of Normal School .... 3500 
 
 That it be referred to the Lord President and Secretary of State for the Home 
 Department to direct the selection of the buildings required for the temporary 
 management of the Normal School, and to determine the number of officers which 
 may be required during the gradual growth of the establishment. 
 
 That the qualifications of the candidates for the offices of teachers in these schools 
 be subjected to a careful examination, under the direction of the Lord President ; 
 and that the several schools be, from time to time, inspected by Her Majestj^'s 
 Inspectors, and a Report thereon submitted to the Committee of Council, and 
 transmitted by their Lordships to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. 
 
 MINUTE on the ADMINISTRATION of the GRANTS for the SALARIES 
 
 of MASTERS and MISTRESSES of SCHOOLS for 
 
 PAUPER CHILDREN. 
 
 The Lord President brought under the consideration of their Lordships a letter 
 received from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, dated 18th No- 
 vember, 1846, calling their attention to the fact, that £15,000 was granted in the 
 lute Session of Parliament, towards defraying the expense of salaries of masters 
 and mistresses of pauper schools, and to the importance of rendering grants for 
 this purpose in future years, conducive to the increased efficiency of such schools. 
 
 The Lord President also communicated to their Lordships a paper, prepared at 
 the request of Sir George Grey, on the administration of these grants. 
 
542 Third Period 
 
 From these documents, it appeared that there were upwards of 700 Workhouse 
 Schools, and that httle progress had hitherto been made in the establishment of 
 Schools of Industry for districts of Unions, owing to the limitation of the radius 
 of such districts in the Act of Parliament authorising their creation, and also to 
 the limitation of the expense for which the rate-payers under this Act might be 
 rated towards the erection of the requisite buildings. Their Lordships were of 
 opinion, that it was expedient to employ Inspectors for the examination of Work- 
 house Schools, in order that by their suggestions to the Guardians, and upon their 
 reports, measures might be adopted in the administration of these grants to pro- 
 cure the improvement of these schools. 
 
 Resolved — That it is desirable to train the pauper children now in workhouses 
 in habits of industry. 
 
 That with this view, and for the purpose of improving Workhouse Schools, four 
 Inspectors be appointed, with authority to examine the condition of schools for the 
 education of pauper children; and to ascertain the character and qualifications of 
 the persons employed as schoolmasters and mistresses, in order that unfit and in- 
 competent persons may no longer be employed in that capacity, and that measures 
 may be taken for awarding salaries according to the qualifications of the masters 
 or mistresses, and the extent of the duties they have to perform. 
 
 That instructions be prepared for the guidance of such Inspectors. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY OFFICIAL LETTEPvS. 
 
 Committee of Council on Education, Privy Comicil Office, 
 Downing-street, March 11, 1847. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I HAD yesterday to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 8th instant, 
 in which you inquired whether masters of elementary schools, who have not been 
 trained in a Normal School under the Inspection of the Committee of Council, 
 * are admissable to the advantages offered by their Lordships' Minutes of August 
 and December last, provided that, upon the report of Her Majesty's Inspectors of 
 Schools, my Lords find such masters to be efficient and deserving.' 
 
 It was very satisfactory to me to have been then enabled to state, that all such 
 masters may enjoy the gratuities offered in their Lordships' Minutes, for the train- 
 ing of pupil teachers and stipendiary monitors apprenticed under the regulations 
 of their Lordships, as well as the gratuities offered for the successful management 
 of Schools of Industry, and for general merit. 
 
 I informed you alsOj that my Lords, being desirous to offer the strongest induce- 
 ments to schoolmasters and schoolmistresses to render long and efficient services to 
 the public had opened the prospect of a retiring pension to this class of teachers, and 
 that the sole point of distinction which, in their Lordships' recent Minutes, had 
 been left between this class of teachers and those who may obtain certificates of 
 merit by a course of training in a Normal School under their Lordships' inspec- 
 tion, was the augmentation of salary to which the latter class will become entitled 
 when provided with a house rent-free, and with a salary equal to twice the amount 
 of the stipend granted from the Parliamentary Fund. 
 
 I was able at once to assure you, that my Lords did not intend that any injus- 
 tice should be done to teachers whose merits and attainments equal those of mas- 
 ters and mistresses regularly trained in a Normal School under inspection, and pro- 
 vided with the required certificates of merit; as well as to intimate that their 
 Lordships had under their consideration the important question, whether teachers 
 who had not obtained such certificates at the close of a course of training in a 
 
Minutes of August and December^ 1846 543 
 
 Normal School under inspection, should be admitted to an examination for certifi- 
 cates of merit. 
 
 The attention of their Lordships had been directed to this subject by numerous 
 letters received from the trustees and managers, and from the masters of schools. 
 My Lords had also before them the resolution of a meeting in Leeds, of the friends 
 of the measure recently adopted by Government for the promotion of public edu- 
 cation. 
 
 That resolution declares, * That, as the benefits of Government aid are proposed 
 to be confined to those masters and mistresses who have been trained in Normal 
 Schools already under inspection, this meeting would beg leave respectfully to sug- 
 gest that these benefits might, for the present, be extended to teachers who have 
 not had that advantage, and who shall be reported to be duly qualified by compe- 
 tent exaipi nation.' 
 
 These communications having been carefully considered, I have now the satis- 
 faction to say, that I am authorised to inform you that the Committee of Council 
 on Education will cause regulations to be framed, for the purpose of defining the 
 conditions upon which masters or mistresses of schools under their Lordships' 
 inspection, who have not passed through a course of training in a Normal School, 
 may be admitted to an examination for three classes of certificates, to correspond 
 with those which are to be granted in Normal Schools. 
 
 Masters and mistresses who have not received such training, but who may, upon 
 this examination, obtain certificates, will thus enjoy the augmentation of salary 
 proposed to be granted, according to their Lordships' Minutes of August and 
 December last, to teachers who shall have procured certificates of merit. 
 I am, &c., 
 
 J. P. KAY SHUTTLEWORTH. 
 
 Mr. E. Salter, 68 Park Street, Hulme, Manchester, 
 
 Secretary to the British Schoolmasters' Association. 
 
 38 Gloucester Square, Hyde Park, March 12, 1847, 
 Reverend Sir, 
 
 I READ in the * Patriot ' newspaper this evening a letter to which your name 
 is attached, addressed on behalf of the Committee of Privileges to ministers of the 
 Wesleyan association, requesting them ' to use their best efforts to get a petition 
 from every congregation in their circuits,' in order to induce ' the House of Com- 
 mons not to vote any further sum of money to be placed at the disposal of the 
 Committee of Council on Education, and to entreat the House to petition the 
 Queen to dissolve the Committee by whom this pernicious scheme ' (the Minutes 
 for August and DecemlDcr, 1846) 'has been recommended, and to declare that the 
 interests of the nation will be best promoted by the non-interference of Govern- 
 ment as to the education of the people.' A form of petition is appended to this 
 letter, and intended to be sent to every congregation connected with your Associa- 
 tion. 
 
 For this purpose the letter commences with the following representation: — 
 'Her Majesty's Ministers having recently brought before Parliament certain 
 Minutes of the Committee of Privy Council on Education, proposing that provision 
 should be made by Government for training, supporting, and pensioning school- 
 masters and mistresses, and for creating and supporting a widely-extended system 
 of education, by which it is intended that the instructors of masses of the rising 
 generation should become Government stipendiaries and expectants of Govern- 
 ment pensions, to obtain which purposes they will have to secure the approbation 
 of an Inspector appointed by Government, but who must also be sanctioned by 
 one of the archbishops, and who is to remain in office only so long as such sanc- 
 tion is continued.' 
 
544 Third Period 
 
 If such was your interpretation of the intentions of the Government, I cannot 
 wonder that you should have used your utmost efforts, in conjunction with the 
 Committee of Privileges, to arouse the congregations of the Wesleyan Association 
 to defeat so gross an injustice. But if you have misunderstood, and unintention- 
 ally very gravely misrepresented the plan developed in the recent Minutes of 
 the Committee of Council, observe the consequences. 
 
 Every superintendent minister, placing confidence in your Committee of Pri- 
 vileges — every local preacher acting in obedience to the suggestions of his super- 
 intendent — and every congregation which may rely on the representations of its 
 minister, will receive from your letter the impression that no school connected with 
 the Wesleyan Association can partake of the grants offered by the Committee of 
 Council in their recent Minutes, unless this school be subject to the visits of an 
 Inspector, appointed with the concurrence of one of the archbishops, and liable to 
 be dismissed by the withdrawal of the archiepiscopal sanction. They will believe 
 that no Wesleyan pupil teacher can be appointed — no master can receive a gra- 
 tuity — no teacher can be pensioned — no apprentice can be elected to a Queen's 
 scholarship — and no candidate in a Normal School connected with the Wesleyan 
 Association, can obtain a certificate, and the consequent augmentation of salary, 
 unless he be examined by an Inspector appointed with the concurrence of an arch- 
 bishop, and for whose continuance in office his grace's sanction is requisite. 
 
 Such a conception of the intentions of the Committee of Council would justify 
 the appeal of the Committee of Privileges to the congregations of the Wesleyan 
 Association, and such a representation is likely to rouse the superintendent min- 
 isters, the local preachers, aud their congregations, to the utmost activity, to peti- 
 tion the House of Commons to withhold the parliamentary grant for the promo- 
 tion of so ' pernicious a scheme.' 
 
 Accordingly, as your letter suggests, that * it is important that the petitions should 
 be numerously signed,' it is probable that on the ensuing Sunday (March 14th), as 
 your letter is dated March 4th, the form of petition appended to your letter will 
 be signed by great numbers of persons belonging to the congregations and Sunday 
 schools of the Wesleyan Association. All will feel that a plan of education which 
 thus imposes the interference of an ecclesiastical authority, as a condition of grants 
 from the Committee of Council to dissenting schools, is an intolerable injustice. 
 
 You will rejoice to learn, that the danger which you apprehend to be impending 
 over the schools connected with the congregations of the Wesleyan Association is 
 a delusion. 
 
 The Committee of Council never made any grant to a dissenting school on such 
 a condition as you have supposed. They have never acquired, either as a conse- 
 quence of their grants, or otherwise, power to authorise any Inspector, appointed 
 with the concurrence of an archbishop, to enter any British or dissenting school. 
 The Order in Council of the 10th of August, 1840, makes the approval of an arch- 
 bishop an incident in the appointment of Inspectors of Church of England schools 
 alone. 
 
 Six other Inspectors have been appointed, in whose nomination the Archbishop ' 
 has in no respect intervened, and three more of this class are about to be appointed. 
 Their lordships have agreed (vide Minutes 1842-3, p. 537) that they will not pro- 
 ceed to recommend any candidate to Her Majesty as an Inspector of schools con- 
 nected with the British and Foreign School Society, until they have consulted the 
 Committee of that Society, and found that the candidate has their approval. In 
 like manner, their Lordships have agreed to consult the Education Committee of 
 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland as to the appointment of any 
 Inspectors of schools, which are by law, or by their constitution, connected with 
 that church (vide Minutes 1839-40, pp. 19 and 20). 
 
 The Committee of Council have been of opinion that, unless each Inspector pos- 
 sessed the confidence of the religious communion with which the schools visited 
 
Minutes of August and December^ 1846 545 
 
 by him were connected, he could not usefully co-operate with the school managers. 
 Their Lordships have, therefore, in proceeding to nominate Inspectors, been ready 
 to consult the Central Board, watching over the interests of any distinct class of 
 schools, in order to avoid the appointment of any persons, who, especially on reli- 
 gious grounds, did not enjoy their confidence. No Inspector is employed in the 
 visitation of other schools than those for the examination of which he is appointed, 
 except on the direct and formal invitation of their managers, which rarely occurs. 
 
 Schools connected with the Wesleyan Association would not, therefore, ever be 
 entered by a Church of England Inspector, or by any Inspector who did not enjoy 
 the confidence of the Committee of Privileges. If the managers of such schools 
 desired the aid of Government to enable them to apprentice pupil teachers — to 
 procure for these assistants exhibitions to Normal Schools at the close of their ap- 
 prenticeship, or an augmentation of the salaries of their masters — the principle on 
 which Inspectors of schools are appointed would oppose no obstacle to their appli- 
 cation for such aid, for no person would be so employed who did not enjoy the 
 confidence of the Committee of Privileges. 
 
 The opposite conception is a delusion, which the proceedings of the Committee 
 of Council, as recorded in their Minutes, from the year 1839 to this date, disprove. 
 Those Minutes contain abundant proof that the Committee of Council have, with 
 unwavering impartiality, endeavoured on all occasions to protect the interests of 
 the minority from civil injustice, while they have paid due respect both to the rights 
 of conscience, and to the religious institutions and convictions of all classes of Her 
 Majesty's subjects. 
 
 I am, &c., 
 J. P. KAY SHUTTLEWORTH. 
 
 The Rev. Robert Eckett, 6 Argyle Square. 
 
 N N 
 
546 Third Period 
 
 APPENDIX (B). 
 
 THE ORIGIN, PROCEDTJIIE, AND RESULTS OF THE STRHCE OF 
 
 THE OPERATIVE COTTON SPINNERS OF PRESTON, 
 
 FROM OCTOBER, 1836, TO FEBRUARY, 1837. 
 
 {Working Man's Guide Book, 1839-40.) 
 
 Preston has, from an early period, been a principal scat of the cotton manufac- 
 ture. In October last, there were in Preston and its vicinity forty-two cotton 
 mills, giving employment to 8500 hands, and requiring about 1200 horse-power 
 to work them, consuming about one twenty-first part of the cotton spun in the 
 United Kingdom : 
 
 And having a capital invested in them in buildings, ma* £ 
 
 chinery, &c., of about 550,000 
 
 And a working capital employed of about . . . 250,000 
 
 Making a Total of . . £800,000 
 The number of operative spinners employed in these mills was 660, each spinner 
 having under his care on an average about 600 spindles. 
 
 The year 1836 was remarkable for great activity in the cotton trade; the master- 
 spinners were making considerable profits, or at least such was the general belief, 
 and the operative spinners were persuaded, with some truth, that they were not 
 sharing in the general prosperity in the same degree as others of the same class in 
 the neighbouring towns. Their net earnings — that is, what remained to them 
 after paying the wages of the children employed by them as piecers — varied 
 from 20s. to 25s. a week, and might be averaged at 22s. 6c?., which was less than 
 what was paid for the same description of work at the same period in other towns 
 in the cotton districts, and particularly at Bolton, where the wages had recently 
 been advanced, and which, in the disputes which afterwards arose, was assumed as 
 a standard by the operative spinners of Preston. 
 
 It must here be observed, however, that the Preston masters had long been in 
 the habit of adopting an uniform rate of wages, varying but little with the fluctua- 
 tions in the state of their trade, whereas, in other places, and especially in Bolton, 
 it had been the custom for the masters to raise the wages of their workpeople in 
 favourable states of trade, and to lower them at times of depression. Such a prac- 
 tice, operating in conjunction with the almost universal want of economy and fore- 
 thought amongst the working class, is necessarily very detrimental to the real 
 interests of the operatives, giving them at one time a strong temptation to intem- 
 perance and excess, and at another reducing them to a very painful state of want 
 and privation. Thus, in times of prosperity, the Bolton operative spinner may be 
 receiving higher money wages than the spinner of Preston, but part of this diffier- 
 
Origin and Results of ' Strike ' in Preston in 183G-7 547 
 
 cnce is more nominal than real; for, if we take into consideration the comparative 
 cheapness of the several articles constituting the expenditure of the working man 
 in the two towns, we shall find that the advantage is, in no small degree, in favour 
 of Preston, so that the same money wages will go further in the latter than the 
 former place. In Bolton, the operative pays less for his coals; in Preston he pays 
 less for provisions and house rent, and it is found that he has greatly the advan- 
 tage over the former. 
 
 In October, 1836, while the spinners of Preston were receiving in money wages 
 22s. 6c?. a week, those of Bolton were receiving about 26*. 6c/. 
 
 There existed in Preston, previously to this time, a Spinners' ' Trades' Union , 
 consisting of from 250 to 300 members, or less than one-half of the number of 
 spinners employed there; but, inasmuch as it was a rule in many of the mills to 
 give employment to those only who were unconnected with such institutions, its 
 acts had been chiefly confined to relieving its own sick members, or contributing 
 to the wants of other societies. 
 
 In October, 1836, on the occasion of the Preston spinners sending a deputation 
 to Bolton and other places, to inquire into the current rate of wages, the ' Union ' 
 first began to assume a formidable aspect — numerous delegates, commonly 
 called ' agitators,' began to arrive at Preston from Bolton, and the other places 
 visited. Meetings were held; the disadvantages under which the Preston spinners 
 laboured, as compared with those of Bolton and other places, were spoken of in 
 exaggerated terms; the masters were denounced as unfeeling and tyrannical, and 
 the efiicacy of combinations, as a means of giving to the work-people a proper 
 control over the proceedings of their masters, was pointed out and enlarged upon 
 with great enthusiasm. 
 
 It may be proper here to observe, that none of the Preston people were officers 
 of the Union, the affairs of the 'Union' being conducted by the delegates from 
 other towns. Great excitement was produced, and nearly the whole of the spin- 
 ners, not previously members of the Union, were induced or coerced by threats 
 and intimidating means, to join the Union, and under this semblance of strength 
 they, on the 13th of October, appointed a council, which commenced sitting at a 
 public-house in the town. 
 
 The first act of the council was to wait on one of the most extensive houses in 
 the town, who were known to be very strict in requiring from their hands an en- 
 gagement not to belong to any ' Trades' Union,' and demand an advance in the 
 spinners' wages, to which request the house refused to accede. Immediately after 
 this, six spinners in the employment of this house became insubordinate, and were 
 discharged, the remaining spinners threatening thereupon to leave their work, 
 unless the six men were restored to work. The house then ascertained from their 
 hands that they were in reality seeking, by advice of the spinners' council, to 
 obtain the Bolton list of prices for spinning, the like demands being made simul- 
 taneously by the spinners to all the other masters in the town. The masters 
 showed no disposition to give way to these demands made on them, and the 
 result was, that all the spinners throughout the town united in giving notice to 
 their masters of their intention to quit their work. 
 
 The masters now held a meeting, at which it was determined to offer the spin- 
 ners an advance of ten per cent, on their gross earnings, or about 35. Ad. per 
 week, on the condition that they would detach themselves from the Union. This 
 offfer was in many instances accepted by individual spinners, but the council of 
 the Union assuming the right to return an answer in the name of the whole body, 
 rejected the off"er of the masters, and renewed their demand of the ' Bolton List 
 of Prices,' unaccompanied by any condition relative to the Union. 
 
 To these terms the masters refused to accede, and on Monday morning, the 7th 
 November, the spinners discontinued their attendance, and the factories were 
 closed. 
 
 N N 2 
 
548 Third Period 
 
 From the following statement it would appear that the offer of an advance of 
 ten per cent, on the previously existing rate of wages, was, in fact, setting aside 
 the question of the Union, a concession of all the pecuniary advance that was 
 demanded : — 
 
 s. d. 
 The gross weekly wages of the Preston spinner was . . . . 33 6 
 From which, if we deduct for the amount of the wages paid by the spin- 
 ner to his piecers 110 
 
 There would remain for the net wages of the spinner the weekly sum of 22 6 
 To which, if we add the proposed addition of ten per cent, on the gross 
 
 sum 33s. 6c?. or 3 4 
 
 The result will be . . . 25 10 
 
 which, taking into consideration the pecuniary advantages of cheaper living of the 
 Preston spinners as compared with those of Bolton, was fully equal to the 26s. e>d. 
 earned by the latter. From this it would appear that the struggle, on the part of 
 the operatives,, was rather to establish a precedent of successful resistance to the 
 master, than to obtain any real and tangible benefit, inasmuch as the demand for 
 the ' Bolton List of Prices * insisted upon by the operatives, amounted to a differ- 
 ence in the mode of reckoning the amount of wages for the work performed, 
 ■which at Preston is computed by the yard, and at Bolton by the pound. 
 
 The operatives of Preston ceased working, and at the time of the turn-out, the 
 5th of November, they amounted, as was stated, to 8500 persons. 
 
 Of these 660 were spinners. 
 
 „ 1320 were piecers, children employed by the spinners. 
 
 „ 6100 were card-room hands, reelers, and power-loom weavers. 
 
 „ 420 were overlookers, packers, engineers, &c. 
 
 Making 8500 persons. 
 
 Of this number, it may be said, that only 660 (that is the whole of the spinners) 
 voluntarily left their work, the greater part of the remaining 7840 being thereby 
 tlirown out of employment. 
 
 During the first fortnight of the turn-out no change was apparent in the condi- 
 tion of the work-people ; some meetings were held both by masters and men, but 
 nothing resulted from them. At the commencement of the second fortnight com- 
 plaints began to be heard from the card-room hands, and from the shopkeepers of 
 the town. 
 
 Early in December, when the mills had been closed for a month, the streets 
 began to be crowded" with beggars. The ofiices of the overseer were besieged 
 with applicants for relief, the inmates of the workhouse began to increase rapidly, 
 and scenes of the greatest misery and wretchedness were of constant occurrence. At 
 this period the spinners were receiving from the fund of the Union five shillings a 
 week each, and the piecers, some two and others three shillings a week ; the 
 card-room hands and power-loom weavers were destitute of all means of support, 
 receiving no assistance except such as the masters afforded them, which (except in 
 the cases of eighteen or twenty individuals who had not joined the Union) extended 
 only to one meal a day for each person. 
 
 In December £100 was granted by the corporation towards relieving the general 
 distress, and a meeting was convened for the purpose of raising a further sum, and 
 of considering the most effectual means of putting an end to the turn-out, but 
 nothing resulted from it. 
 
Origin and Results of ' Strike' in Preston in 1836-7 549 
 
 Towards the middle of December, when the turn-out had lasted six weeks, it 
 was evident that the funds of the Union were nearly exhausted. 
 
 By the end of December the distress had become universal and intense, and the 
 masters came to the resolution of opening their mills, in order to give those who 
 wished for it an opportunity of resuming their work. In doing so they announced 
 their determination to abide by their former offer of an increase of ten per cent. 
 on the rate of wages ; but to require from those who should enter the mill^, a 
 written declaration to the effect, that they would not, at any future time, whilst in 
 their service, become members of any Union or combination of workmen. 
 
 Immediately on the re-opening of the mills, which took place on the 9th of 
 January, all the card-room hands rushed anxiously to their work, but the continued 
 absence of the spinners rendered it impossible to give them employment. 
 
 At the end of the first week after the mills had been opened, forty spinners were 
 at work, of whom eighteen were those who, as before stated, had not joined the 
 Union, and the remaining twenty-two had never before been regularly employed 
 in that kind of work. 
 
 In the course of the second week the number had increased to 100, of whom 
 some were entirely new to the work, and three were seceders from the Union ; and 
 at the end of the third week there were 140 spinners at work; some of the addi- 
 tional forty having been procured from neighbouring towns. Besides this, in two 
 of the factories a few self-acting mules, or spinning machines, were substituted for 
 common mules, thereby dispensing with the services of the spinners. 
 
 As the number of spinners increased, of course a corresponding increase took 
 place in the number of persons employed in the other departments. 
 
 Towards the middle of the fourth week the supplies from the funds of the Union 
 suddenly stopped, and those who had depended entirely on this resource, had no 
 alternative left but to endeavour to obtain re-admission to the factories. 
 
 On the 5th February, exactly three months from the day on which the mills 
 were first closed, work was resumed in all the mills to its usual extent, but about 
 200 of the spinners who had been most active in the turn-out were replaced by 
 new hands, and have since either left the town, or remain there without employ- 
 ment. 
 
 No systematic acts of violence, or violation of the law, took place during the 
 turn-out. Detachments of military were stationed in the town to preserve order, 
 but their services were not required. Some inflammatory hand-bills appeared on 
 the walls, but without creating much sensation. 
 
 While the turn-out lasted, the operatives generally wandered about the streets 
 without any definite object : seventy-five persons were brought before the magis- 
 trates and convicted of drunkenness and disorderly conduct ; twelve were impri- 
 soned or held to bail for assaults and intimidation ; about twenty young females 
 became prostitutes, of whom more than one-half are still so, and of whom two 
 have since been transported for theft : three persons are believed to have died of 
 starvation, and not less than 5000 must have suffered long and severely from 
 hunger and cold. In almost every family the greater part of the wearing apparel 
 and household furniture was pawned. 
 
 In nine houses out of ten, considerable arrears of rent were due, and out of the 
 sum of iJieoO deposited in the savings' bank, by about sixty spinners or over- 
 lookers, £900 was withdrawn in the course of the three months ; most of those 
 who could obtain credit, got into debt with the shopkeepers. The trade of the 
 town suffered severely ; many of the small shopkeepers were nearly ruined, 
 and a few completely so. 
 
 The following estimate may be made of the direct pecuniary loss to all classes 
 of operatives, in consequence of the turn-out : — 
 
 N N 3 
 
550 Third Period 
 
 The wages of the 660 spinners for 13 weeks, at 22s. 6c?. . . 
 
 1320 piecers for 13 weeks, at 5*. 6c?. ... 
 6520 card-room hands, weavers, overlookers, en 
 gineers, &c., &c., for 13 weeks, averag' 
 
 ing ^s 
 
 8500 
 
 Estimated loss sustained by hand-loom weavers in consequence of 
 
 the turn-out 9,500 
 
 Estimated loss sustained by clerks, waggoners, carters, mechanics, 
 dressers, sizers, &c., in consequence of the turn-out 
 
 Total £70,013 
 
 From which must be deducted — 
 Estimated amount of wages earned during the partial resumption 
 
 of work, between the 9th of January and the 5th of February . 5,013 
 
 Estimated value of relief given by the masters 1,000 
 
 Other private charity and parish relief 2,500 
 
 Allowance to the spinners and piecers from the funds of the Union 4,290 
 
 £12,803 
 Leaving a net pecuniary loss to the whole body of the Preston 
 operatives of £57,210 
 
 £ s. 
 9,652 10 
 4,719 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 38,142 
 
 
 
 9,500 
 
 
 
 8,000 
 
 
 
 But to the town at large it may be said the loss was that of the whole sum of 
 £70,013, as the amount of the deductions are mostly of a charitable nature. 
 
 Add to the loss to the Preston operatives £57,210 
 
 The loss to the masters being three months' interest of £800,000, 
 some of which being sunk capital was not only unproductive, 
 but was taking harm from being rendered useless, has been esti- 
 mated at 45,000 
 
 And the loss sustained by the shopkeepers from loss of business, bad 
 
 debts, &c., &c 4,986 
 
 Making the total loss to the town and trade of Preston, in this un- 
 availing struggle £107,196 
 
551 
 
 APPENDIX (C). 
 
 ANNUAL COST OF ESTABLISHMENTS, ETC., FOR THE REPRESSION 
 
 OF CRIME. 
 
 Rates paid by Counties in England and Wales : 
 Constables' rate .... 
 
 Rural police rate .... 
 
 Paid by Votes of Parliament: 
 
 Cost of prosecutions defrayed by the Treasury . 
 „ „ formerly paid from County rate 
 
 „ „ relating to coinage 
 
 Expenses of prison at Peutonville 
 „ „ at Milbank 
 
 „ „ at Parkhurst 
 
 Expenses of criminal lunatics at Bethlem 
 Issued from Consolidated Fund, for payment of 
 the police of the Metropolis, including both 
 the Police Courts' establishment and the £ 
 
 Metropolitan police force .... 122,179 
 Defrayed by rate on different parishes . . 210,500 
 
 City of London: — Cost of police force . . . . 
 
 Cost of police, defrayed by Corporate Towns in England and 
 Wales 
 
 Expenses connected with convicts, at home, at Bermuda, and at 
 Gibraltar 
 
 Freight of Ships employed in carrying Exiles, Stores, Provi- 
 sions, &c. 
 
 Votes for Convict Establishments, New South Wales and Van 
 Diemen's Land 
 
 Expenses of criminal prosecutions, Scotland .... 
 
 „ of Central Prison, at Perth 
 
 „ of Prison Board for Scotland . . . . 
 
 Expenses of criminal prosecutions, Ireland , 
 „ of Convict Depot, Dublin 
 „ of Criminal lunatics, ditto 
 „ of Dublin police .... 
 An equal sum levied by rate on inhabitants . 
 Expenses of constabulary force, Ireland, viz.,— 
 Contributed from Consolidated Fund . 
 Amount raised by rate on counties, &c. 
 
 271,497 
 180,080 
 
 £ 
 
 17,970 
 
 132,068 
 
 21,000 
 239,000 
 10,600 
 19,934 
 34,083 
 12,463 
 3,935 
 
 332,679 
 41,351 
 
 186,120 
 62,330 
 35,622 
 
 250,000 
 
 64,610 
 6,693 
 
 8,986 
 
 66,209 
 
 3,971 
 
 6,000 
 
 36,000 
 
 36,000 
 
 451,577 
 
 150,038 
 
 1,249,117 
 
 80,289 
 
 599,757 
 
 £2,079,201 
 The above sum does not include any part of the cost of the judicial establish- 
 ments of the country, since it would be necessary to maintain those establishments 
 for the purposes of civil justice. It must be evident, however, that a fewer num- 
 ber of judges and other officers would suffice for that branch than is necessary for 
 dispensing justice in both branches. 
 
 N N 4 
 
FOURTH PERIOD 
 
 TWO LETTERS TO EAEL GEANVILLE, K.G. 
 
 IN 1861 
 
 1. On the Recommendations of the Commissioners appointed by 
 
 Warrant under the Queen's Sign Manual on the 30th June, 
 1858, TO Inquire into the Present State op Popular Education 
 IN England, as contained in their Report dated the 18th March, 
 1861, presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of 
 Her Majesty. 
 
 2. On the Minute of the Committee of Council on Education, dated 
 
 29th July, 18G1, Establishing a Revised Code of Regulations for 
 the Distribution of the Parliamentary Grant. 
 
555 
 
 LETTER TO THE EARL GRANVILLE, K.G., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL 
 ON EDUCATION, ETC. ETC., ON THE REPORT OF THE COMMIS- 
 SIONERS APPOINTED TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF POPULAR 
 EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 My Loed, 
 
 The Commission whicli has reviewed the Minutes 
 of the Committee of Council, and the administration of 
 the Parhamentary Grant for Pubhc Education in England 
 were called to the discharge of that duty, chiefly in con- 
 sequence of the questions raised by the increase of the 
 charge on the pubhc revenue. 
 
 But the whole system was submitted to their scrutiny. 
 They have, by a large majority, decided against relying 
 for the support of elementary schools on the voluntary 
 aid of parents and promoters. They have unanimously 
 approved of the management of training and primary 
 schools by the religious bodies ; of the denominational 
 character of the inspection ; of the training of the teacher 
 by his five years' apprenticeship, and two years' education 
 as a Queen's scholar in a Training College. They even 
 require that the proportion of pupil teachers should be 
 increased from the present ratio of one in fifty on the 
 average attendance to that of one in thirty. They do 
 not alter the grants to Training Colleges. To the extent 
 of 7s. to 85. Qd. per scholar on the average attendance 
 they subsidise the certificated and pupil teachers, who, in 
 the proportions required by them would, at the present 
 rate of aid, require 135. b^d. But they provide a sub- 
 sidiary grant, which might raise the aid to a successful 
 school even to 1 bs. per scholar, so as also to meet in some 
 degree that obtained from book and capitation grants 
 under the present system. The Commissioners confirm 
 the half-time system as appHed to the associated labour 
 
556 Fourth Period. Recommendations of the 
 
 of children in factories and other works, and recommend 
 its extension. 
 
 They also perceive the necessity of encouraging even- 
 ing schools, and recommend that grants be made for their 
 organisation. The urgency of this need will be made 
 daily more apparent by experience and discussion. They 
 confirm the recommendations of the Eeport on the Train- 
 ing of Pauper Children published in 1840, and urge that 
 these children should be removed from the workhouses 
 and brought up in district schools. They recommend a 
 steady progress in the development of reformatory insti- 
 tutions for vagrant and criminal children, and offer useful 
 suggestions as to the schools of the army, navy, dock- 
 yards, and mihtary asylums. A very able part of this 
 report confirms the efforts made by successive keepers of 
 the Great Seal to invest the Privy Council with important 
 administrative functions as to certain endowments for 
 education and for the poor. 
 
 The general result of the Commissioners' judicial ex- 
 amination of the existing system is therefore to erect a 
 buttress to sustain it — apparently firm — if it could be 
 regarded separately, from some suggestions which are 
 like a dry rot in the new timber. 
 
 The grant from the Consolidated Fund is assessed on 
 an annual value of £550,000,000 ; but the growth of the 
 miscellaneous estimates within a few years has made suc- 
 cessive Chancellors of the Exchequer jealous of the in- 
 crease of each item. Calculations had been hazarded as 
 to the claims which the present mode of administering 
 the education grant would create on this fund. One 
 principal question, therefore, to which the Commissioners 
 had to direct their attention was, whether the Consoh- 
 dated Fund could be reheved of any part of this burthen. 
 
 They have decided that the growth of income from 
 school fees and from voluntary subscriptions must be so 
 gradual, that no immediate and remarkable change in 
 their proportions to the amount of public aid can be ex- 
 pected. One of the results of improved and extended 
 
Royal Commission on Education m 1861 557 
 
 education will, however, obviously be to develope the 
 income from both of these sources until, in a quarter of a 
 century, considerable rehef may be had to the charge on 
 the national fund. At least half a milHon annually may, 
 within that time, be added to the present income from 
 school-pence alone. 
 
 In searching for means of immediate rehef to the Par- 
 Hamentary grant, the Commissioners have examined the 
 question of local rating. They had been warned that 
 this subject had undergone anxious and prolonged scru- 
 tiny. The question presented is simply this — How can 
 any part of the burthen of public education be transferred 
 from an area of assessment of £550,000,000, on which 
 the Consolidated Fund is charged, to one of £86,000,000, 
 from w^hich the county and borough rates are collected, 
 without such a change as shall transfer the controlling 
 and managing power altogether or substantially from the 
 religious communions and the Committee of Council on 
 Education to the ratepayers. 
 
 This question was examined during many months in 
 1851-2 by a mixed committee, representing all the 
 religious communions of Manchester. The result of their 
 deliberations was that no authority could be confided to 
 the corporation of that city, or to any education com- 
 mittee appointed by it, except the administration of a 
 capitation grant, upon terms which conferred mainly a 
 power of registration and the rare arbitration of certain 
 questions of civil and religious freedom. The bill framed 
 on this basis was laboriously examined by a Committee 
 of the House of Commons during two successive sessions 
 of Parhament. Moreover, Lord John Eussell's Borough 
 Education Bill of 1853 was founded on this basis. Both 
 these measures failed to secure support, because they were 
 constructed on the principle of shifting a burthen from a 
 wide area of assessment to one of less than one-sixth the 
 capacity, without conferring local powers to economise 
 the charge, or any substantial authority over its appli- 
 cation. The corporations would not accept this illusive 
 
558 Fourth Period. Recommendations of the 
 
 shadow of local government, with a real increase of their 
 rates — cast on them for the rehef of property six times 
 greater than that locally assessed. 
 
 I speak of this the more emphatically, because I was 
 responsible for aiding in the careful analysis of this 
 question, so that the result might be brought before 
 Parliament, in both forms, for public discussion. 
 
 My own impression finally was, that the ratepayers 
 would not accept a transference of the charge of public 
 education, in whole or in part, from the assessment of 
 £550,000,000 of annual value to the local assessment of 
 £86,000,000, without so substantial a transference of 
 authority in the management of the schools, as would be 
 subversive of that of the religious communions. If, for 
 the sake of argument, we were to conceive that the 
 control now exercised by the Committee of Council on 
 Education over the Training Colleges, the apprenticeship, 
 and the inspection, were in the hands of the ratepayers, I 
 apprehend that civil and religious liberty would be in 
 more danger from the dominant majority than from a 
 department of representative Government watched by the 
 religious bodies, under the criticism of the press, and 
 subject to Parliament. This fear the elaborate investi- 
 gation of the Commissioners confirms, by a new exhaustive 
 process. They have doubtless examined numerous plans. 
 Their scrutiny has resulted in one which consists in 
 charging the county rates with an immediate burthen of 
 £428,000 per annum, with the prospect of a very early 
 increase to half a milhon. But they have not been able 
 to confer on the County Committee of Education any 
 other administrative functions than the appointment of 
 examiners, who are to be certificated schoolmasters of seven 
 years' standing, and who are to examine and register how 
 many children can read, write, and cypher, in each school. 
 The county board would thus have no real authority over 
 the amount of the rates, except by appointing stingy 
 examiners, and not the slightest influence in the schools, 
 except by thus stinting their income to save the rates. 
 
Royal Commission on Education m 1861 559 
 
 The transfer is itself a contradiction to Sir Eobert Peel's 
 policy, which removed the stipends of the teachers of 
 pauper children and other similar charges from the poor- 
 rates to the Consolidated Fund. The local administrative 
 power acquired is so utterly disproportionate to the tax- 
 ation imposed, that it rather oppresses than supports the 
 principle of local administration, by transferring a central 
 charge without giving the county board such authority as 
 the magistracy have over the police, the prisons, the 
 asylums, the bridges, and other objects of county ex- 
 penditure. 
 
 This is not, therefore, decentralisation of anything but 
 taxation. It is a removal of a charge of half a million 
 from an area of £550,000,000 to one of £86,000,000, 
 without giving any such control over the institutions to 
 which this money is to be paid as exists in every other 
 case. 
 
 There are certain words in the report of the Com- 
 mission which the religious bodies must interpret for 
 themselves. Among ' the direct effects which ' they ' anti- 
 cipate from this recommendation,' they state that (p. 338) 
 ' it will secure as much local management as is at present 
 desirable.'' Whether the increase of local management, 
 in the future, is to be obtained by transferring to the 
 County Board the examination of any Training College 
 within the county, or of the pupil teachers and Queen's 
 scholars, or by placing in its hands the appointment and 
 direction of the inspection, together with a corresponding 
 transference of the charge from the Consohdated Fund to 
 the county rates, is not defined. But it must mean some 
 or all of these things, or, on the other hand, such an in- 
 terference by the County Board with the management of 
 the schools by the Committees now appointed under their 
 school deeds, as should give either the magistrates or the 
 delegates of the ratepayers power to appoint and dismiss 
 the teachers and regulate the details of school management. 
 
 This County Board is, therefore, either the thin end 
 of the wedge of a total change in administrative action. 
 
560 Fourth Period, Recommendations of the 
 
 or its power is too insignificant to justify the doubling of 
 the county rates. 
 
 The grant administered for elementary education now 
 amounts to £723,115. The Commissioners are of opinion 
 that it can be restrained within the limits of £1,200,000, 
 and will not increase to that amount for several years. 
 The transfer of £500,000 from the ConsoHdated Fund 
 to the county rates would secure no economy, and if un- 
 accompanied with adequate local authority over education 
 would be an unjustifiable expedient. 
 
 If, therefore, this charge cannot be justified as an 
 economy of pubhc funds, on what other grounds can it 
 be defended ? 
 
 The education department has for many years been in 
 the condition of a juvenile hero outgrowing the suit of 
 armour in which it was at first encased. Its helmet, 
 greaves, and gauntlets have become instruments of torture. 
 In other words, the building is too small — departments 
 have swarmed out of it into neighbouring streets — its 
 staff is too slender — and the provisional character of its 
 arrangements has been injuriously prolonged. In their 
 despair, the secretaries, worn out with the worry of an 
 insufficient organisation, appeal to the Commission for 
 rehef. 
 
 The relief which the Commission offers is described as 
 simphfication. This consists in transacting the business 
 of payment in forty county treasurers' offices and all the 
 county banks, besides the education department, instead 
 of as at present iii the Council Office and the Post Offices 
 only. 
 
 The cost of the present plan consists in the salaries of 
 a few registering clerks in London, and in one-quarter 
 per cent., paid from the education grant into the revenues 
 of the Post Office. The payments are made by Post 
 Office orders drawn in favour of each recipient of the 
 grant, and sent to the correspondent of the school for 
 distribution. The risks of confusion and misappropriation 
 are thus minimised. 
 
Royal Commission on Education m 1861 561 
 
 The plan proposed is, that the whole sum of grants due 
 to a county should be paid in one sum periodically (it is 
 not said whether monthly, quarterly, or annually), to the 
 account of the county treasurer, accompanied by a state- 
 ment of its appropriation to each school. 
 
 The correspondent of each school is to claim what is 
 due to it from the county treasurer, who is to transfer the 
 money to the local bank appointed by the correspondent. 
 The cheques on this local bank are to be drawn in favour 
 of each person who has acquired a claim to aid under 
 the Minutes : the voucher of each payment is to be sent 
 by the local bank to the county treasurer, who is to 
 tabulate them for publication. 
 
 The complication consists in the employment of four 
 agencies, besides the school managers, instead of two. 
 The increase of expense would arise from the much 
 larger number of clerks required to transact this business 
 in each county treasurer's office than in one central 
 department, and the employment of many unconnected 
 banks in each county instead of the Post Offices, organised 
 into one system strictly regulated by a central inspection 
 and control, and which really make a profit out of the 
 transaction. The risks of loss from error, confusion, and 
 fraud, are obviously greatly increased by this complica- 
 tion. The clerk's work in the county treasurer's office, 
 and the county banker's charge, would be a burthen on 
 the county. The local bank could not affi)rd to make 
 minute payments and conduct the correspondence for less 
 than one quarter per cent, of deduction from the grants 
 to each school. All this involves an increase of compli- 
 cation, risk, and expense. The Commissioners do not 
 announce any plan, but they leave an alarming suspicion 
 that (as they expect such a simplification) this end will be 
 sought under this scheme, by holding the examination of 
 pupil teachers half-yearly in certain places, and sending 
 their papers to a London office, where they are to be 
 examined, and the apprentice passed or rejected without 
 appeal. Yet the inspectors are to visit each elementary 
 
 0- 
 
562 Fourth Period. Recommendations of the 
 
 school as heretofore — they are to satisfy themselves as 
 to the character and conduct of the apprentice — they 
 are to hear him read, and observe his teaching and 
 management of a class. Their report on the skill, cha- 
 racter, and conduct of the pupil teachers, must be made 
 either conjointly with that on the merely scholastic ex- 
 amination of the apprentices on paper, or separately. If 
 conjointly, then both of these matters should come under 
 the same eye for the primary report; otherwise there would 
 be comphcation. If separately, then there must be delay, 
 confusion, and conflict of authority. There would be no 
 important change if the Inspectors are to conduct the col- 
 lective examination of the apprentices on paper, or sup- 
 posing they deputed the merely formal superintendence of 
 this examination, then if the examination papers of the pupil 
 teachers whose schools they have visited were to be brought 
 under their review and reported on by them conjointly 
 with their report on their character, conduct, and skill. 
 
 The Inspectors of late have availed themselves of every 
 opportunity afforded by facilities of conveyance to as- 
 semble the pupil teachers of schools within a radius of 
 four, six, or eight miles, for their scholastic examination ; 
 but they have thus brought together those pupil teachers 
 whose schools they had visited or were about to visit. 
 This has saved trouble to the Inspectors by the use of the 
 same exercises for apprentices in the same year, and it 
 has enabled the pupil teachers to work their papers with 
 less interruption than is often possible on the day of the 
 Inspector's parochial visit. But there are limits of con- 
 venience, as to distance and means of conveyance, in thi;^ 
 which cannot be overstepped without mischief. Few 
 managers of schools would like their pupil teachers 
 to go more than ten miles from home. A journey of 
 twenty miles (ten each way) in a farmer's open spring- 
 cart, on a cold, wet day — a luncheon on cold bread and 
 meat — and five hours' head work on examination papers 
 — would endanger the health of many apprentices and 
 their teachers accompanying them. 
 
Boyal Commission on Education m 1861. 563 
 
 A distance of five or six miles should be the limit. 
 
 The system of apprenticeship has succeeded so as to 
 secure the approbation of the managers of schools, of 
 the Principals of Training Colleges, of the Inspectors, and 
 of this Commission. But it has succeeded mainly be- 
 cause of the way in which the hourly influence of the 
 teacher, and the authority of the clergy and the managers, 
 have been in harmony with the final report of the In- 
 spector, to whose judgment and experience all are 
 inclined to defer, because he acts from personal communi- 
 cation with all concerned, and not as a mere scholastic 
 calculating machine, but as a moral arbitrator. If there 
 be any material change in this plan, I should expect the 
 system of apprenticeship to give continually less and less 
 satisfaction, and ultimately to fail. 
 
 But the proposals of the Commission, for the consoH- 
 dation of the annual grants into three capitation grants, 
 are also liable to serious objections. 
 
 The grants proposed to be paid from the Consolidated 
 Fund, are — 
 
 First. A grant of 5^. 6 6?. to 65. in schools containing 
 less than sixty children, and from 4^. Qd. to 5^. in schools 
 containing more than sixty children, to be paid per head, 
 on the average number of children attending the school, 
 where a certificated teacher is employed. 
 
 Secondly. A hke capitation grant of 2^. 6<i. where one 
 duly qualified pupil teacher is employed for every thirty 
 children in average attendance. 
 
 Thirdly, A payment of 20^. on the average attendance 
 of children under seven in infant schools, without exami- 
 tion or condition. 
 
 In page 586, the Commissioners report that the present 
 payments from the Parliamentary grant, for certificated 
 teachers, amount to €>s. h\d. per head on the average 
 attendance of scholars in Church of England inspected 
 schools, to 35. 3(i. per head in British inspected schools, 
 and 4-5. id. per head in denominational schools ; and for 
 
 o o 2 
 
564 Fourth Period. Recommendations of the 
 
 pupil teacliers (who are now employed in tlie proportion 
 of one to every fifty scholars), the grant is at the rate of 
 65. 2Jd per head. 
 
 The grants to teachers and pupil teachers in Church 
 of England inspected schools, amount together to 9«9. ^\d. 
 per scholar in attendance. But if one pupil teacher were 
 now paid for by the Committee of Council for every 
 thirty scholars in average attendance, the grant would be 
 at the rate of 10^. per head for that alone. 
 
 A proposal, therefore, to raise the capitation grant, on 
 account of the employment of certificated teachers, from 
 85. h\d. to bs. 6d., and at the same time to depress the 
 rate of grant for pupil teachers, from what would be 10.?. 
 under the present system to 2^. 6<i., ought not to have 
 proceeded from a Commission which approves the pupil 
 teacher system so heartily, that it proposes to insist on an 
 increase of more than one third of their relative numbers. 
 The managers are called on to decide whether they will 
 incur a charge of 10s. per scholar for a grant of 2s. 6d. 
 per scholar. Throughout England and Wales, more than 
 three-fifths of the children attend the same school less 
 than two years, and more than two-fifths less than one 
 year. If, therefore, it be rephed that the managers 
 might make up the difference by the fourth capitation 
 grant proposed by the Commissioners for every child 
 who may pass an examination in reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, the answer is, that there would obviously be 
 more risk of failure than of success, since the migration 
 of scholars is so frequent. The rate of capitation grant 
 which the Commission propose to give on the average 
 attendance, where certificated teachers and pupil teachers 
 respectively are employed, is obviously an error which, 
 in practice, would produce only confusion. 
 
 The capitation grant of 205., on the average attendance 
 of children in infant schools under seven, is to be given 
 without any examination, or, so far as I can perceive, any 
 other condition than the attendance of the child in a 
 
Royal Commission on Education m 1861 565 
 
 building of a certain size which can be reported to be 
 not unhealthy. 
 
 This mode of administration would be novel, and, if 
 expedient, might save all trouble but the keeping of 
 registers. If the managers of infant schools are entitled 
 to this confidence, good ground would have to be shown 
 why it should not be extended to the managers of schools 
 having children above seven years of age. If such a 
 principle were adopted in practice, the whole machinery 
 of Public Inspection, Apprenticeships, and Training Col- 
 leges would have to be disused or disconnected from the 
 Education department, for it would have no administra- 
 tive value whatever. All that would be needed for the 
 administration of such an unconditional capitation grant 
 would be a pay office and local audit clerks to examine 
 registers of schools and certify claims founded on the 
 attendance thus recorded. This cannot be the intention 
 of the Commissioners, yet it is the necessary consequence 
 of their proposal as it stands. 
 
 If even the infant schools to be thus aided were 
 required to employ certificated teachers and pupil teachers 
 in the present proportions, they would receive at least 
 2O5. per scholar from this form of grant ; whereas the 
 Committee of Council obtain the same result for 9^. 8^^/. 
 per scholar on the average attendance. 
 
 The Commissioners might have continued the present 
 system of aiding infant schools, if they had not obviously 
 shrunk from the contradiction of paying for the machinery 
 of education trained and acting under inspection in these 
 schools, while they repudiate the sufficiency of that 
 system in boys' and girls' schools. 
 
 Turning from the capitation grants proposed by the 
 Commission to be paid from the Consohdated Fund to 
 that which is proposed to be charged on the county 
 rate, we encounter a new principle of administration as 
 applied to elem^entary schools. The Commission desire 
 to increase the proportionate number of scholars who are 
 
 o o 3 
 
566 Fourth Period, Recommendations of the 
 
 able to pass an examination in reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic. For this purpose, they propose to make a 
 capitation grant in a form which, in schools having only- 
 certificated teachers, might attain a maximmn of from 
 95. to IO5. ^d. per head on the average attendance ; which 
 in those that had also the required number of pupil 
 teachers might reach 7^. per head ; and in schools which 
 had neither certificated teachers nor pupil teachers might 
 reach any sum short of 22s. ^d, per head. 
 
 No condition is inserted in the scheme requiring 
 subscriptions in any proportion to meet this fourth form 
 of grant, for it is intended to encourage schools founded 
 by independent or adventure teachers ; nor is any stipu- 
 lation even made as to school-pence. The limitation in 
 these respects applies only to the amount of grants from 
 three sources of capitation collectively. 
 
 This fourth form of grant will be found to operate, as 
 far as it goes, as a premium on discarding certificated 
 teachers and pupil teachers, and on limiting instruction 
 to reading, writing, and arithmetic. It is proper to 
 illustrate its tendencies by extreme cases. 
 
 We might suppose a man, broken down in character, 
 without a certificate, and without the technical knowledge 
 required to obtain one, though with skill enough to teach 
 reading, writing, and arithmetic. He registers himself as 
 a schoolmaster, takes a cottage with a deserted loom-shop, 
 or garret, 20 feet by 24 feet, or 16 feet by 30 feet. In 
 this he puts writing-desks, benches, and a grate or stove. 
 At an outlay of a few pounds, and Avith the risk of five 
 to seven pounds of annual rental he is a schoolmaster. 
 He may be registered without examination (p. 96). He 
 admits pupils solely with a view to claim the largest 
 possible sum from the county rate. His scholars pay 
 threepence or fourpence per week, conditionally that if 
 regular in attendance for 150 days in the year, and if they 
 pass their examination in reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
 one half the school-pence is to be repaid to them. No 
 scholars are admitted unless they can pass a certain 
 
Royal Commission on Education m 1861 567 
 
 preliminary examinaj^ion. The children prepared by- 
 good infant schools are canvassed for and brought to this 
 adventure school. He may even get the best scholars of 
 the parochial or congregational school to attend for 140 
 days by some inducement to which the managers would 
 not stoop, or which, in their case, would be subversive of 
 discipline. The whole school-time is concentrated on the 
 three subjects of instruction. Nothing else is taught. If 
 forty scholars attend and pass out of sixty, probably £13 
 would be received from school-pence, even though half 
 were returned or lost ; and the master could also receive 
 £44 from the Government. He would have a clear 
 income of £50 per year. 
 
 If we were to suppose such a man to have a patron 
 willing to back him, either from opposition to the 
 clergyman, or to the dissenting minister, or to the squire, 
 or to the managing committee, or as a means of easily 
 providing for one having claims of relationship or other- 
 wise, or out of a spurious charity for a broken-down 
 man, this grant may thus be made an effectual local 
 bhster, w^ith the certainty of keeping the instruction 
 limited to its lowest elements, without any moral re- 
 deeming qualities, and without any religious instruction. 
 The Commissioners recognise the great moral and social 
 benefits flowing from the schools of the religious com- 
 munions. If, for the sake of argument, we were to 
 admit that the arts of reading, writing, and cyphering 
 would be more effectually taught on their plan, what 
 becomes of the religious and moral influences, and the 
 social bond? 
 
 But in an ordinary parochial school, which depends, as 
 •is too frequently the case, on some one individual for a 
 third part or half of its resources (even supposing that 
 the certificated teacher were employed), this grant would 
 obviously, on the part of the teacher, be a strong motive 
 to limit the instruction more and more to the three 
 elementary subjects, and to concentrate all his efforts 
 on them, in order to secure the 9^. or lOs. 6d. per head 
 
 o o 4 
 
568 Fourth Period, Recommendations of the 
 
 which would still be attainable under the proposed scheme 
 of grants. He would thus save his patron's purse, and 
 establish claims on his gratitude. In other cases, a 
 niggard patron, or committee, or managers starved in 
 their resources, would eke out these funds by the ixtost 
 stringent limitation of the instruction to that which 
 would pay. They would aim at securing the largest 
 amount of grant for teaching these elements only. 
 
 This effort endangers not merely the religious instruc- 
 tion, the general information of the scholars, but even 
 their understanding of what they read and their ortho- 
 graphy. They are not required to write from dictation, 
 nor to be examined in the meaning of what they read. 
 The largest amount of this capitation grant can be obtained 
 by sacrificing the moral and religious instruction, the 
 intellectual training and general information, and restrict- 
 ing the instruction to a mechanical drill in the reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic. 
 
 But any capitation grant, the distribution of which is 
 determined by the results of instruction in schools, is 
 liable to the fundamental objection that the average period 
 of the attendance of the majority of scholars is so short, 
 that, as far as that majority is concerned, few schools 
 would be paid for the results of their own work. In the 
 specimen districts, 42*3 per cent, of the scholars (p. 659) 
 had been in the same public week-day school less than 
 one year, and 22*7 per cent, had been one year, but less 
 than two years. These proportions for England and 
 Wales are 41-65 per cent, of the scholars who had at- 
 tended the same school less than one year, and 22-58 who 
 had been one year and less than two years. With such 
 migratory scholars, it is impossible justly to pay for work 
 done in schools on any plan constructed to embrace those 
 three-fifths of the scholars who attend school less than 
 two years. The remaining 35-77 per cent, who attend 
 more than two years are alone subjects for an examination 
 of the results secured by the work of any school. This, 
 however, is not the proposal of the Commission. Their 
 
Royal Commission on Education m 1861 569 
 
 proposal is to pay a capitation grant on every scholar wlio 
 has attended 140 days in the preceding year, and can 
 read, write, and cj^pher. A scholar cannot learn to read, 
 write, and cypher so as to pass a pubhc examination in 
 two years, much less in 140 days. Any examination of 
 the majority of more than three-fifths who attend less 
 than two years must therefore obviously fail to ascertain 
 how far even these elements have been taught to that 
 majority in any school. If the remaining two-fifths who 
 have been in the school more than two years were sepa- 
 rated from the other scholars, and examined apart, some 
 approximate estimate might be thus made of the work 
 done in the school. If any grant could be devised 
 founded on the results of the school work, it must be 
 proportionate only to the proficiency of this two-fifths 
 of the scholars. But the working of any such grant was 
 long ago examined, and rejected as fuU of difficulties 
 which appeared insuperable. 
 
 I purposely confine my remarks to those practical 
 recommendations of the Commissioners which affect the 
 administration of the aid now distributed from the Par- 
 liamentary grant. In as far as the Eeport of the Com- 
 missioners approves of the present system, that sanction 
 has its value, as the result of a careful critical analysis by 
 a body of able men, selected because they had no pre- 
 vious connection with this administration, and for the 
 most part, none with the controversies attending its esta- 
 blishment. Their Eeport, in the main agreeing with 
 experience, points to a statesmanlike perseverance in 
 those efforts hitherto made with so much success, by 
 the Committee of Council, to develope in the existing 
 system all its civil and secular elements, in harmony 
 with the religious, and also with liberty gf conscience. 
 But, where their Eeport departs from that system, I have 
 endeavoured to show how difficult it is to do anything 
 inconsistent with that experience. 
 
 The force which wiU ultimately transform the whole 
 
570 Fourth Period. Recommendations of the 
 
 will be tlie result of education itself. When the people 
 know that they have even more interest in the education 
 of their children than their rulers have, they will more 
 and more take charge of it. They now bear two-thirds 
 of the burthen; but that third which they do not pay 
 has given value to what before was of little worth, and 
 has thus created a transient power destined to pass from 
 the Government into the hands of those who will take 
 the charge. The transference of administrative power 
 to the local managers and the parents will attend the 
 gradual assumption by them of the payment of the pupil 
 teachers, and of the whole of the stipends of the certifi- 
 cated teachers, consequent on the effects of education 
 on some generations of parents, and on the middle 
 classes. 
 
 The Parliamentary grant has hitherto been so ad- 
 ministered by the Committee of Council as to stimulate 
 the investment of large sums in school buildings, by giving 
 about one-third of their value. Between 1839 and 1860 
 grants amounting to £1,076,753 have caused an invest- 
 ment of subscriptions amounting to £2,360,226 in school 
 buildings, or altogether of £3,436,226. The grant has 
 also promoted the rapid growth of the annual income 
 of schools, by subsiches at a similar rate of one-third the 
 whole annual outlay, so that probably two millions an- 
 nually are now expended in the support of schools. The 
 public grant may in a few years increase, with corres- 
 ponding results, to £1,000,000 or £1,200,000, making 
 in its progress adequate provision for the education of 
 youth from school age to manhood; but at that point, 
 by well-devised antecedent expedients, its increase may 
 not only be arrested, but this annual aid may be converted 
 into an instrument, in the hands of skilful administrators, 
 by which alL the rest of the work may be done in the 
 most apathetic as well as in the most earnest districts. 
 That result attained, a new series of operations may 
 commence, by which the charge of public education may 
 be gradually transferred from the Consolidated Fund to 
 
Hoyal Commission on Education in 1861 571 
 
 the local sources of income, school-pence and subscrip- 
 tions. 
 
 Both of these operations will be accelerated by giving 
 to the Privy Council sufficient administrative authority 
 over the charities apphcable to the education of the poor. 
 
 The hopes of the voluntary educationists would thus, 
 step by step, assume the form of probabihties, or realities, 
 through means which they have regarded with unwar- 
 rantable distrust. For, from the first, this system was 
 composed of two elements: one of which — viz. the re- 
 source of Christian benevolence and parental solicitude 
 — was by the natural consequences of success rendered 
 capable of indefinite extension; while the other — the aid 
 granted by Parliament — was destined as it grew to 
 awaken a jealousy and resistance, greater in a geometric 
 ratio than its increase. It was -therefore clear from the 
 first that if a system of aid from local rates were not 
 adopted, the grant from Parliament must have an early 
 limit and must then be regarded as an instrument for the 
 development of that other element in the system, which 
 was capable of indefinite expansion. All proposals for 
 deriving support for public education in England and 
 Wales from the local rates have failed — from Lord 
 Brougham's early Bill to Sir James Graham's Education 
 Clauses in his FactiDries' Bill in 1842 — the Manchester and 
 Salford Education Bill — and those of Lord John Eussell 
 and Sir John Pakington. To these failures, this Com- 
 mission has added a proposal which, if it were practicable, 
 is liable to the most grave objections. The question of 
 deriving support for public education from the local rates 
 is therefore probably settled in the negative. 
 
 But if it were not, it would be proper to observe at 
 greater length on the difference between the tendencies of 
 such a system, as respects its influence on voluntary sup- 
 port from parents and subscribers, when compared with 
 that of the Parliamentary grant wisely administered. The 
 tendency of the local rating system would be, not to stimulate 
 but to benumb voluntary exertion. A subscriber might 
 
572 Fourth Period. Recommendations of the 
 
 properly say, since local rates are by law established, ' I 
 see no reason why I should relieve the purses of absentee 
 proprietors, or of niggardly residents, by my contribution.' 
 A parent would say, ' If the schools are provided by law 
 and paid for from the rates, for the education of all who 
 are disposed to send their children there, it is unjust to 
 ask from me a payment so disproportionate to my means 
 as school-pence. I will pay the rate which is propor- 
 tionate to my means, but not the school-pence, which are 
 disproportionate. I claim the education for my child as a 
 citizen.' Thus the sense of parental duty would be super- 
 seded by the policy of the State, which would wean the 
 child from the parent. It is evident that neither sub- 
 scriptions nor school-pence would long be paid under such 
 a system. The whole of the £3,000,000 annually required 
 to educate two millions of scholars, would soon come to 
 be charged on the local rates. 
 
 The opposite result of a gradual transference of the 
 burthen to the local resources — school-pence and sub- 
 scriptions — might be attained by a wise administration 
 of the Parliamentary grant, after it had attained the 
 maximum which I have indicated. 
 
 In the impatience felt that all is not yet done, it is for- 
 gotten that seven years — from 1839, when the Committee 
 of Council was founded — were chiefly expended in a suc- 
 cession of almost mortal conflicts, as to the principles on 
 which the system of public education should be founded. 
 The Minutes of 1846, and those of 1853, settled the 
 course of administration, which, with modifications of 
 detail, has since been pursued. Fifteen years are but a 
 brief period for a great national change. All permanently 
 beneficial improvements are the slow growth of secular 
 development. Up to this time, the Minutes of Council 
 have had a remarkable success, out-stepping the expecta- 
 tion of their authors, but rebuking hasty generalisation, 
 which had conceived that a national system of education 
 could be extemporised on paper, approved in Parliament, 
 
Royal Commission on Education m 1861 573 
 
 and, when made law, have a universal existence like a neAV 
 post-office administration, or a new tax. 
 
 These views, which are the gradual result of observa- 
 tion of the working of the education scheme, I desire to 
 submit through your Lordship to the consideration of the 
 Committee of Council on Education. 
 
 I have the honour to be, my Lord, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 James P. Kay Shuttleworth. 
 
 38, Gloucester Square, Hyde Park, W. 
 April 24th, 1861. 
 
574 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 LETTER TO EARL GRANVILLE, K.G. 
 
 ON THE EEVISED CODE OF EEQULATIONS CONTAINED IN THE 
 
 MINUTE OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION 
 
 DATED JULY 29th, 1861. 
 
 38, Gloucester Square, Hyde Park, 
 
 November 4, 1861. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I had the honour to address to you a letter soon after 
 the appearance of the Eeport of the Eoyal Commission, 
 on the 24th of April, 1861. 
 
 That letter was confined to those practical recommen- 
 dations of the Commissioners which affected the adminis- 
 tration of aid from 'the Parliamentary Grant.' The 
 period when the annual grant would come under the 
 consideration of Parliament was not remote, and the 
 direct bearing of those recommendations on the financial 
 arrangements to be then discussed appeared to justify 
 immediate comment. I had no doubt whatever that in 
 doing this, I was loyally aiding the Committee of Council 
 in disposing of impracticable suggestions. 
 
 Other parts of that Eeport were left without comment. 
 Almost all the Managers of Training Colleges and elemen- - 
 tary schools, in common with the most experienced Prin- 
 cipals and Teachers, regretted that they were compelled 
 to differ from the Commissioners, both on questions of 
 fact, and on principles so critical that on them hinged the 
 plan which the Commissioners proposed. 
 
 The committees of the great Education societies of the 
 rehgious communions had confidence that nothing would 
 be done by the Committee of Council on Education 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 575 
 
 materially to derange, miich less to subvert, the system 
 which they had been encouraged by the Government to 
 build up. On the 11th of July the Vice-President con- 
 firmed this confidence ' on moving the Education Estimate,' 
 when he said (p. 11) — ' If we have spent £4,800,000 in 
 educating the people, private liberality has spent double 
 that sum. In fact, the opinion as to what system of 
 education is to prevail, will be regulated by the opinion 
 of those whose hands maintain it :' Also, when he pre- 
 faced his statement of ' the outhne of the Minute' with 
 the ' assurance that the Committee need not be afraid that 
 we contemplate any coup d'etat' (p. 25.) And again, 
 when he said — ' We thmk it would be rash and impru- 
 dent to sweep away a machinery which has been con- 
 structed with great labour, care, and dexterity, — which, 
 although it may be comphcated and difficult to work, has 
 answered many of the purposes for which it was designed, 
 in order to substitute the new and untried plan of trusting 
 merely to the results of examination.' (p. 27.) 
 
 Those who bore in mind the fierce conflicts which had 
 defeated every attempt to found national education on 
 any other basis, and had observed that the churches and 
 congregations had been at length weaned from a jealousy 
 of the interference of the State, rejoiced in the prospect 
 of the maintenance of this harmony. Gradually the 
 hmits of the authority of the several boards of educa- 
 tion, the managers of schools, the inspectors, tlie teachers, 
 and the Committee of Council on Education had been 
 defined. 
 
 The several Education societies contributed invaluable 
 services, and two-thirds of the permanent outlay in found- 
 ing schools, as well as of the annual expense of supporting 
 them. The Committee of Council appeared to think that 
 they had made a good bargain for the civil Government, 
 in stimulating, by such an outlay, the production of so 
 large an income and the good management of schools. The 
 money paid by Parhament rose to £750,000, but repre- 
 sented an annual outlay of more than two millions of 
 
576 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 money, the rest of whicli was derived from private and 
 local sources. 
 
 The ' Eevised Code ' has been so interpreted by the 
 managers and teachers of schools as to produce a convic- 
 tion that it would destroy the existing system. I think 
 it right faithfully to record their impressions. They say 
 that the Code at once abrogates the principles on which 
 the Parhamentary grant has hitherto been administered ; 
 for it condemns the method of examining results in the 
 education of the pupil teachers, Queen's Scholars, and 
 students in Training Colleges, pursued in the present mode 
 of the inspection of the teacher's work in their schools. 
 It abolishes the plan of paying for the efficiency of the 
 machinery in the schools, subject to satisfaction with 
 the state of the instruction. It releases the teacher from 
 all direct obhgation to the State, and at the same time 
 renders his income much more uncertain and insecure. 
 It cuts off about two-fifths of the annual grants of elemen - 
 tary schools. The abruptness of this change shakes the 
 confidence of the managers of 7500 inspected schools in 
 the Committee of Council on Education, for it requires 
 them in one year to raise £175,000, in addition to their 
 present resources, or to cut down to the extent in which 
 they fail to do this, the machinery of their schools. 
 
 Contrary to the recommendations of the Eoyal Com- 
 missioners, it lops off a large part of the income of the 
 Training Colleges. Their Principals declare that it 
 further discourages them by making it certain that they 
 will be supplied by quite an inferior class of Queen's 
 Scholars — for the Code, contrary to all experience as to 
 their sufficiency, apparently reduces the average stipend' 
 and the time for the instruction of pupil teachers one- 
 third. It proposes to mix them with evening scholars — 
 for the most part rough youths learning only the humblest 
 elements, when the instruction of the pupil teachers would 
 be rendered almost if not quite impracticable. It renders 
 
 1 Revised Code^ Clause 47 (/>). 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 577 
 
 tlieir prospects less encouraging, by throwing the teacher's 
 support wholly on the managers at a time when one-third 
 of the managers' school-income is made extremely uncer- 
 tain, and on the average reduced two-fifths. It renders 
 the hterary certificate purely honorary, and thus removes 
 the chief motive for remaining two years in the Training 
 Colleges. Under these circumstances one-half the Training 
 Colleges would be closed, though built with direct encour- 
 agement from the Government not exceeding one- third 
 their cost, at a large expense to their founders. 
 
 The efiect of these changes woidd, in the opinion of the 
 official representatives ' of the National and Church of 
 England Education Societies ; the British and Foreign, 
 and Home and Colonial School Societies ; the Wesleyan 
 Education Committee ; and of the Principals of the Metro- 
 politan Training Colleges, assembled on the 10th of Octo- 
 ber,' be, ' to introduce into elementary schools a lower 
 class of teachers, and to degrade the instruction in the 
 schools.' 
 
 I trust your Lordship will permit me to submit to the 
 Committee of Council the reasons why the promoters of 
 schools are of opinion that this Ee vised Code is impracti- 
 cable, without pulverising the existing system and des- 
 troying the connection of the Government with elemen- 
 tary education. 
 
 The vindication of the Eevised Code is based on the 
 denial that the existing system secures adequate results. 
 By implication it attributes this alleged failure to a mis- 
 direction of effort. The teachers are too highly instructed, 
 — they are above their work, — their daily instruction as 
 apprentices and their residence in college must be 
 shortened, — their education must be lowered to the level 
 of their work, — that level is the teaching of reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic, to scholars early absorbed by 
 labour in agriculture or manufactures. This work ought 
 to be done before eleven. No working man's child need 
 be paid for after that age. The teachers have been mis- 
 
 p p 
 
578 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 cliievously pampered and protected. ' Hitherto,' says the 
 Vice-President, ' we have been hving under a system of 
 bounties and protection ; now we prefer to have a httle 
 free trade.' (p. 31.) The teachers must, hke corn and 
 cotton, be subject to the law of supply and demand. 
 They and the managers must make the best bargains they 
 can. The school managers must be paid only for work 
 done. It is quite easy to test the work their teachers do, 
 by examining every scholar in those elements which alone 
 are the care of the State. If a fair proportion of the 
 scholars learn to read, write, and cypher before they are 
 eleven years old, nothing else is wanted. But to accom- 
 plish this — whatever has been the age at which a child 
 first entered school — whatever his home training, capacity, 
 or the comparative regularity of his school attendance, — 
 any school which takes charge of him must either do so 
 without State aid, or must by some art Hft him up to a 
 fixed standard of attainment, to be required between the 
 ages, respectively, of 3 and 7, — 7 and 9, — 9 and 11, and 
 11 upwards. If he know more and can do more than is 
 required at his age by this standard, he must be examined 
 among those who are less proficient than himself 
 
 The remedy devised in the Code for the defects of the 
 existing system may be thus defined : — 
 
 The most certain way in which to secure the only 
 results which are the legitimate concern of the State in 
 elementary schools, is to examine each scholar in reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic, and pay the managers a certain 
 sum per head for each school attendance of every scholar 
 who can pass an examination in each of these three ele- 
 ments, according to a standard of attainment to be required 
 at fixed periods of age, and other conditions set forth in 
 the Code. 
 
 As respects the foregoing vindication of the Code, as far 
 as it is grounded on the alleged inadequacy of the results 
 obtained under the existing system, the promoters of edu- 
 cation maintain that they have, under all the difiiculties 
 with which they have had to struggle, produced so large 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 579 
 
 an amount of the only results which were attainable in 
 the time during which they have been at work, that they 
 base the vindication of the existing system on those 
 results. 
 
 The Eoyal Commissioners, however, cast a shadow of 
 doubt on the pubhc satisfaction with the progress of ele- 
 mentary education, by giving great prominence in this 
 respect to the alleged failure of a large part of the scholars 
 to read, write, and cypher. Archdeacon Sinclair, the 
 Treasurer of the National Society, repHes that ' in respect 
 to National Schools in particular, it appears from the 
 Eeports of the Queen's Inspectors for the year 1860-61, 
 that of schools under certificated teachers, the per centage 
 reported to have been instructed " excellently," " well," or 
 " fairly," was, in reading, 86*2 ; in writing, 87*9 ; and in 
 arithmetic, 80.' The British and Foreign, and Wesleyan 
 Education Committee reply in Hke manner. 
 
 I throw into a note the results reported by the In- 
 spectors of Schools, as recorded by the Committee of 
 Council for 1860-61, and extracts from the Inspector's 
 Eeports, for which I am indebted to Mr. J. Langton.^ 
 
 The Committees of the great Educational Societies would 
 not, however, be content to leave the question on this issue. 
 They would say — 
 
 1. That the obstacles to the production of the results 
 contemplated in the Eeport of the Commissioners in 
 teachmg reading, writing, and cyphering well, to three- 
 fifths of the scholars, have been hitherto insurmountable. 
 
 2. That satisfactory results have been obtained — 
 
 (a) In building and founding schools. 
 
 [b) In getting rid of brutish incapacity to learn, 
 
 gross habits, heathenism, and barbarism in their 
 scholars, notwithstanding frequent migration, 
 extreme irregularity of attendance at school, 
 and the rareness of auxihary home training, 
 
 1 1'his note contained extracts from the Reports of Her Majesty's Inspectors 
 giving a favourable account of the results obtained. It is excluded because 
 of want of space. 
 
 p p '2 
 
580 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 (c) In teaching tlie elements, and giving general 
 intelligence. 
 
 {d) In training tlie existing machinery of 23,000 
 pupil teachers, assistant and certificated teachers. 
 
 [e) In accomphshing all these results, while they 
 have satisfied the feehng and convictions of the 
 Church and other religious communions. 
 
 (/) In the moral and religious influences exercised 
 by the schools as one of the most powerful 
 agencies of civilisation ; the value of which 
 receives a signal recognition from the Com- 
 missioners. 
 
 Now, on these results the Eoyal Commission has given 
 a favom-able Eeport, with the exception already stated. 
 
 The first of the two preceding pleas of the promoters of 
 schools may be demonstrated upon the elements collected 
 by the Eoyal Commission in support of their plan of 
 making a considerable part of the annual grants to schools 
 dependent on the number of scholars who could pass 
 an examination in reading, writing, and cyphering. 
 
 The Commissioners state their own proposition (p. 174) 
 in the following words : — ' Even under the present con- 
 dition of school age and attendance, it would be possible 
 for at least three-fifths of the children on the books of the 
 schools, the 63-7 per cent, who attend 100 days and up- 
 wards, to learn to read and write without conscious difii- 
 culty, and to perform such arithmetical operations as occur 
 in the ordinary business of life. This knowledge they 
 might receive while under the influence of wholesome 
 moral and religious discipline, and they might add to it an 
 acquaintance with the leading principles of religion, and 
 the rules of conduct which flow from them.' 
 
 The hindrances under the heads of school age and 
 attendance are erroneously estimated in this formula. 
 
 National education does not depend simply on the 
 school-training of one generation. The first generation 
 of children in school inherit some physical incapacity to 
 
Against the Revised Code {?/ 1861-2 581 
 
 learn. Their instruction is hindered by the late age at 
 which they enter, the extreme irregularity with which 
 they are sent to school, and the early age at which they 
 are withdrawn. They have no help at home from semi- 
 barbarous parents ; but on the contrary, much hindrance 
 from bad example, rude household management, capri- 
 cious and often harsh treatment, and the incapacity of the 
 parents to understand the value of school training. The 
 influence of the school is not fully felt, even in the 
 humblest technical acquirements of the children, until 
 the parents have been themselves trained and instructed 
 in day and evening schools, and civiHsed by other in- 
 fluences. 
 
 The Commissioners have overlooked the condition of 
 the people immediately before the constitution of the 
 Committee of Council on Education. In the pauperised 
 counties they were in a state resembling helotry. The 
 labourers were bound to their parish by a strict law 
 of settlement. They were largely dependent on the poor- 
 I'ate. There were few or no schools. The population 
 was ignorant and demoralised ; it had the craft of the 
 pauper, or of the pensioner on parochial doles, — of the 
 poacher and the squatter on the common, but not the 
 manly bearing of the independent labourer. Wages 
 varied from 7^., in Dorsetshire and some parts of Suffolk, 
 to \0s. per week in other counties. The income of an 
 agricultural labourer's family on the average was £26 to 
 £30 per annum, including harvest work and the earnings 
 of children. 
 
 The manufacturing and mining districts had been 
 peopled in fifty years with a vast population gathered 
 from these pauper counties, — from wolds, moors, fens, and 
 from the wild, desolate hills and glens of the border and 
 of Wales. The villages and even the towns were rude, 
 irregular, to a great extent unsewered and unpaved, — 
 without proper water supply or pohce. Entire districts 
 were without church or school, and religious teaching was 
 
 p p 3 
 
582 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 supplied by voluntary agencies, while education was given 
 almost solely in scattered Sunday Schools. 
 
 The last twenty-five years has witnessed a great muni- 
 cipal and religious revolution ; — the last fifteen years a 
 still greater change in education. When schools were 
 planted twenty years ago in towns, villages, and rural 
 parishes, almost the only teachers were either untrained 
 men, who from some defect of body or health had been 
 driven from the rougher struggles of life or muscular toil, 
 or were self-taught Sunday School teachers, trained for 
 three or six months in some central Model School. 
 
 They had to struggle, aided only by monitors under 
 thirteen years of age, with the untamed brutishness of the 
 wild or pauperised immigrant population, — with the semi- 
 barbarism of children from coarse sensual homes, — 
 with the utter want of consciousness in the population that 
 humble learning could do their children any good, — with 
 the then extravagant and harsh claims of an unorganised 
 system of manufacturing and mining labour, — with the 
 absence of previous training in the home or infant school, 
 — with the late age at which children with no school- 
 habits, savage, ignorant, incapable, wayward, or wild, 
 came under their care, — with irregularity of attendance, 
 — short school attendance in each year, and brief school 
 time altogether, — constant migration of families, — and 
 overwhelming ill-paid duties. 
 
 To grapple with these evils, the Government resolved to 
 create a new machinery of public education. This new 
 trained machinery of apprenticed pupil teachers, assistant 
 and certificated teachers, has come into existence chiefly 
 since 1847. The number in each year since that date has 
 been as follows (p. 638, vol. i. Eeport of Eoyal Com- 
 mission) : — 
 
Against the Bevised Code ^/ 1861-2 
 
 583 
 
 At the 
 end of 
 
 Number of Certificated 
 Teachers. 
 
 Number of Assistant 
 Teachers. 
 
 Number of Pupil 
 Teachers. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female, 
 
 Total. 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1849 
 
 
 
 681 
 
 
 
 
 2424 
 
 1156 
 
 3580 
 
 1850 
 
 , 
 
 . 
 
 980 
 
 . . 
 
 
 
 3070 
 
 1590 
 
 4660 
 
 1851 
 
 845 
 
 328 
 
 1173 
 
 , 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 3657 
 
 1950 
 
 5607 
 
 1852 
 
 1158 
 
 513 
 
 1671 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 
 4011 
 
 2169 
 
 6180 
 
 1853 
 
 1541 
 
 756 
 
 2297 
 
 67 
 
 28 
 
 95 
 
 4308 
 
 2604 
 
 6912 
 
 1854 
 
 1859 
 
 977 
 
 2836 
 
 139 
 
 33 
 
 172 
 
 4500 
 
 3096 
 
 7596 
 
 1855 
 
 2242 
 
 1190 
 
 3432 
 
 173 
 
 48 
 
 221 
 
 4910 
 
 3614 
 
 8524 
 
 1856 
 
 2726 
 
 1647 
 
 4373 
 
 181 
 
 44 
 
 225 
 
 5800 
 
 4445 
 
 10,245 
 
 1857 
 
 3206 
 
 1960 
 
 5166 
 
 198 
 
 46 
 
 244 
 
 6773 
 
 5449 
 
 12,222 
 
 1858 
 
 3568 
 
 2320 
 
 5888 
 
 184 
 
 59 
 
 243 
 
 7673 
 
 6351 
 
 14,024 
 
 1859 
 
 4137 
 
 2741 
 
 6878 
 
 214 
 
 81 
 
 295 
 
 8219 
 
 7005 
 
 15,224 
 
 This corps of teachers has been Hke the raw recruits of 
 an army suddenly raised — brought into the field in suc- 
 cessive battahons, on the verge of an immature manhood, 
 and placed, as soon as drilled, in the front of difficulties 
 and dangers. They have had to take up everywhere the 
 work of the untrained masters. They have been the 
 pioneers of civilisation. Fourteen years have barely 
 elapsed since their first companies took up their position, 
 and their ranks are still full of the last batches of raw re- 
 cruits. The schools hitherto founded have met the wants 
 of barely one-half of the population. Every year has been 
 adding to the experience of the Inspectors of schools, and 
 of managers and teachers. But schools are not universal, 
 and are not yet thoroughly efficient. 
 
 The teachers have had to contend with all the obstacles 
 which defeated their untrained predecessors. If some of 
 these hindrances be examined in detail, it will become ap- 
 parent that the proposition of the Commissioners, that it 
 is reasonable, under aU these circumstances, to expect that 
 three-fifths of the scholars should now have the attain- 
 ments required by them, is a fallacy, founded on a neglect 
 of these considerations. I have thrown into a note^ a 
 
 ^ The manufacturing districts of Lancashire and Yorksliire liave been fed 
 by a constant immigration from tlie wolds of Nortli Yorksliire and tlie 
 border, and from the moors of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Derbysliire, the 
 Pennine Chain, and Wales. A family enters a manufacturing village; 
 the children are at various school ages, from seven to eleven. They probably 
 
 p p 4 
 
584 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes 0/ 1846 
 
 more minute description of certain typical classes of unci- 
 vilised scholars whom the teachers have had to train. 
 
 All these classes of children tend, if the school contain 
 any other more fortunate scholars, to drag down their 
 
 have never lived but in a hovel ; have never been in the street of a village or 
 town ; are unacquainted with common usages of social life ', perhaps, never 
 saw a book ] are bewildered by the rapid motion of crowds ; confused in an 
 assemblage of scholars. They have to be taught to stand upright, — to walk 
 without a slouching gait, — to sit without crouching like a sheep dog. They 
 have to learn some decency in their skin, hair, and dress. They are com- 
 monly either cowed and sullen, or wild, fierce, and obstinate. In the street 
 they are often in a tumult of rude agitation. In the school they are pro- 
 bably classed with scholars some years younger than themselves. They have 
 no habits of attention, and are distracted by the Babel of sounds about them. 
 The effort of abstraction required to connect a sound with a letter is at first 
 impossible to them. Their parents are almost equally brutish. They have 
 lived solitary lives in some wild region, where the husband has been a shep- 
 herd, or hind, or quarryman, or miner, or turf cutter, or has won a precarious 
 livelihood as a earner, driver of loaded lime ponies, or poacher. The pres- 
 sing wants of a growing family have induced them to accept the offer of some 
 agent from a mill. From personal experience of many years, I know that 
 such children as these form a large portion of the scholars which the schools 
 of the cotton and woollen districts have to civilise and Christianise. A large 
 part of that better work has often been accomplished, and the benumbed 
 brain has been awakened from its torpidity, and fitted for the reception of 
 knowledge which there has not been time to give. The half-time system in 
 factories, and the rule that no child under eight shall be employed in them, 
 have been in operation little more than twenty years. Before this time the 
 factory children of settled families were as brutish as they still are in mining 
 districts. The children employed in bleach and print works have had only 
 a limited and almost worthless protection from too early and excessive 
 labour. 
 
 A different kind of brutishness is shown by a large class of scholars in the 
 most degraded parts of great cities. A London child, living in a street of 
 brothels and thieves' dens, with parents leading abandoned lives, spends his 
 day in the kennel among sharp-witted, restless little creatures like himself. 
 He is his own master. His powers of observation are singularly acute ; his 
 powers of decision rapid ; his will energetic. He is known as the ' Arab of 
 the street.' He learns a great deal of evil. Perhaps, he is an accomplished 
 thief or beggar, or picks up a precarious living by holding horses, sweeping 
 a crossing, or costermongering. Such children have of late years been netted 
 in shoals, — got into schools, — have been won, tamed, and, in some degree, 
 taught. But is it not a mischievous fallacy to say that the work done is to 
 be measured by the proficiency of such children in reading, vn-iting, and 
 arithmetic ? All that has been done has been against wind and tide. At 
 home — misery, drunkenness, sullen despair, or the irritability of a dissolute 
 life, drive the child into the street. Bad example at home lends its corrup- 
 tion to the foulness of the street of stews, and hiding holes. Are twenty 
 scattered weeks, even if repeated in three successive years, enough to get 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 585 
 
 instruction. They inlyroduce elements of disorder. They 
 overtax the energies of the teachers in striving to hft them 
 somewhat nearer to a level of intelhgence and decency. I 
 have had experience during nearly twenty years of large 
 schools, through which, until lately, has floated a constant 
 supply of an immigrant semi-savage population, bred on 
 the moors of the Pennine Chain. While this immigration 
 of an uncivihsed transient population continued, and the 
 teachers had also the additional burthen of the half-time 
 factory system, a staff of most skilful trained teachers, 
 working with exemplary industry, failed to produce any 
 results in the schools which would bear the apphcation of 
 the Commissioners' test. Yet the cost of these schools, 
 since 1844, has seldom been below 30^. per scholar. Of 
 late years the surrounding population has become settled, 
 
 rid of the wild, untamed barbarism of such children, and to graft on this 
 civilisation that amount of knowledge of reading, writing/ and arithmetic 
 which the Commissioners say is so easy ? 
 
 What has to be done in the case of the children who have hitherto worked, 
 without protection and without instruction, in mines ? From eight years of 
 age they have sat eight hom-s daily in the black darkness, with their feet in 
 the mud or running water, and the dripping roof of the mine overhead — 
 opening and shutting the ventilating doors — or as they grew older dragging 
 the corves or waggons. 
 
 Take Mr. Norris's account of the life of a potter's child, up to the age of 
 apprenticeship (p. 184, Commissioners' Report): — ' A± eighteen months or 
 two years old he is sent to one of the dames who gain a livelihood by takiijg 
 care of young children whose mothers are at the factory. There, from seven 
 in the morning to eight or nine at night, he is stowed away in a small room, 
 without exercise or change of air, predisposing the constitution to consump- 
 tion, which is a common malady in the pottery towns. This continues, o-- 
 an average, for four years. He is then, at five and a half or six years old, 
 sent perhaps to the National School, where he stays one or two, or at most 
 three years : but dui'ing the latter part of the time he is sure to be kypt 
 away very much, to act as an occasional substitute for some other boy who 
 is at work. At eight or nine (earlier if his parents are drunken or impro- 
 vident, often at six or seven) he begins to work regularly for a jom*neyman 
 potter, turning his jigger (the potter's wheel, to which steam seems never to 
 hare been applied), and earning from Is. to 25. a week. In a year or two 
 a quick boy will begin "handling" (making handles for cups, &c.) or 
 " figuring," and earn from 2s. to 4s. But by this time a great change has 
 come over him, — he has been kept at work twelve or thirteen hours each 
 day, and so, even if disposed to continue his school studies, has little time 
 to do so ; consequently he now reads badly, and writes worse ) and, in short, 
 nearly all he acquired at school is forgotten.' 
 
586 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 and consists of families selected from the immigrant mass 
 for tlieir better qualities. The schools have begun to 
 triumph over these formidable difficulties ; but for reasons 
 (which will be explained at length hereafter) the scheme 
 of the capitation grant contained in the Code would still 
 be unjust, and would disorganise the machinery of these 
 schools. 
 
 These are some of the facts overlooked by the Commis- 
 sioners, which prove that it is not reasonable to expect that, 
 under the present conditions of school age and attendance, 
 it would be possible for at least three-fifths of the children 
 on the books in these schools — the 63*7 per cent, who 
 attend 100 days and upwards — to attain the standard 
 contained in the formula previously quoted from their 
 Eeport. 
 
 The promoters of schools say, in reply, that the merely 
 technical and mechanical results follow a large part of the 
 moral and rehgious training, and never precede them. 
 
 They have satisfied the Commissioners with the moral 
 and religious training of their scholars. They have, as 
 shown by the reports of the Inspectors already quoted, ob- 
 tained already no httle success in these technical elements. 
 That is the first step towards complete success. They are 
 certain that the present teachers and their pupil teachers 
 would soon-7-out of the degree of civilisation which the 
 schools have created — evolve better results in all the ele- 
 ments of a sound English education, than have been at- 
 tained in those parts of Scotland which have had parochial 
 schools and a settled population since the Eeformation. 
 
 But the promoters of schools entertain a just apprehen- 
 sion that the necessities of many schools would compel the* 
 managers to refuse to admit children who presented them- 
 selves with a standard of acquirements so much below that 
 required in the Code, as to give no hope that they could, 
 however skilfully taught, pass the examination ; to turn 
 out dull scholars, sluggards, and truants, though the fault 
 might be in the want of local civilisation and home training. 
 School managers emphatically say that the Eevised Code 
 
Against the Revised Code ^1861-2 587 
 
 overlooks the value of all this indispensable prehminary 
 moral and intellectual training. It treats it as no part of 
 the work done. It discourages it because it cannot test it, 
 and therefore excludes it from aU aid. Moreover, the clergy 
 and religious communions regard with alarm the scheme 
 which bases the whole of the annual grants on a technical 
 examination in the purely secular elements of knowledge, 
 to the entire exclusion of all the results of moral and 
 intellectual discipline, and religious training and instruction. 
 
 That part of the negative proposition on which the 
 Eevised Code is built, v/hich implies a misdirection of 
 effort, wiU be replied to in detail in other parts of this 
 paper. It will be more convenient, in the first instance, 
 to examine the scheme in the Eevised Code by which it 
 is presumed that the work done in elementary schools is 
 tested, as respects the three lowest elements ; and the 
 whole annual grants are in future proposed to be trans- 
 ferred from their present basis to a capitation grant, 
 determined by this new and untried test. 
 
 The Appendix^ contains those clauses of the Eevised 
 Code which relate to the examination, by the results of 
 which the amount of this capitation grant is to be awarded. 
 
 I propose, first, to examine the practicability of making 
 the whole of the annual grants, or any large part of them, 
 dependent on the conditions of this scheme. 
 
 In the letter which I addressed to your Lordship on 
 the financial recommendations of the Eoyal Commission, 
 I stated that the working of any such scheme was long 
 ago examined and rejected, as fuU of difficulties which 
 appeared insuperable. I did not intend to say that a 
 scheme of examination in the three lowest elements could 
 not be devised, on the results of which a certain limited 
 portion of the grant might not be made dependent. I 
 had, in fact, advised the adoption of such a scheme in the 
 last paragraph of the Minute of 2nd of April, 1853. But 
 
 ^ I have also caused the alterations proposed February 13, 1862, and then 
 presented to Parliament, to be printed in the margin. Nine thousand copies 
 of this paper had, however, been sold before these changes were proposed. 
 
588 Fourth Period, Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 such an arrangement cannot be extended beyond a certain 
 limit, and even within that limit would be attended with 
 partial injustice. 
 
 I will quote the passage from the letter which I ad- 
 dressed to your Lordship on the report of the Eoyal 
 Commission: — 'Any capitation grant, the distribution of 
 which is determined by the results of instruction in 
 schools, is Hable to the fundamental objection that the 
 average period of the attendance of the majority of 
 scholars is so short, that, as far as that majority is con- 
 cerned, few schools would be paid for the results of their 
 own work. In the specimen districts 42*3 per cent, of 
 the scholars (Commissioners' Eeport, p. 659) had been in 
 the same public week-day school less than one year, and 
 22-7 per cent, had been one year, but less than two years. 
 These proportions for England and Wales are 41-65 per 
 cent, scholars who had attended the same school less than 
 one year, and 22*58 who had been one jjear and less than 
 two years. With such migratory scholars, it is impossible 
 justly to pay for work done in schools on any plan con- 
 structed to embrace those three-fifths of the scholars who 
 attend school less than two years. The remaining 35*77 
 per cent, who attend more than two years are alone 
 subjects for an examination of the results secured by the 
 work of any school. This, however, is not the proposal 
 of the Commission. Their proposal is to pay a capitation 
 grant on every scholar who has attended 140 days in 
 the preceding year, and can read, write, and cypher. 
 A scholar cannot learn to read, write, and cypher so as to 
 pass a pubhc examination in two years, much less in 140 
 days. Any examination of the majority of more than 
 three-fifths who attend less than two years must therefore 
 obviously fail to ascertain how far even these elements 
 have been taught to that majority in any school. If the 
 remaining two-fifths who have been in the school more 
 than two years were separated from the other scholars, 
 and examined apart, some approximate estimate might be 
 thus made of the work done in the school.' 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 
 
 589 
 
 This was a brief statement of a fundamental difficulty 
 grounded on the — 
 
 1. Migratory state of the population in Great Britain, 
 and the indifference or caprice of parents, who have had 
 only brief experience of good schools. That difficulty 
 alone appeared so insuperable an obstacle that others 
 were not set forth. Those other objections may now be 
 examined in connection with the capitation grant scheme 
 in the Code, or with any modifications of it affecting any 
 large part of the annual grants. 
 
 2. Scholars enter the school who are in a state of 
 brutish ignorance, unreclaimed barbarism and incapacity, 
 requiring many months of skilful elementary training. 
 Even if they enter young, they cannot fulfil the require- 
 ments of the Code. But it would be worse than useless 
 to reduce the standard of acquirements in the Code 
 towards this class of scholars, v/ho enter at nine or even 
 seven years of age without the knowledge of a letter. ^ 
 
 ^ Extract from Report of Royal Commission : — 
 
 ^It must also be remembered that the children are frequently grossly 
 ignorant when they first come to school, haying been either at no infant 
 school or at a mere dame's school. This is illustrated by the following 
 Table* of the state of knowledge of 369 boys, admitted or re-admitted to 
 St. George's School, Sheffield, from August 1854 to August 1865' :— _ 
 
 * The following Table is drawn up from the Admission-book or Register, 
 and shows the state of education, or rather the ignorance of the children 
 admitted into the St. George's Boys' National School, between 1st August, 
 1854, and 1st August, 1855. 369 were admitted and re-admitted during 
 the above period, 
 
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 3 M "3 '3 
 
 2.-5'S 18 
 
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 JS 
 
 
 
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 61 
 
 99 
 
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 139 
 
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 272 
 
 291 
 
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 • This includes 8 boys who had previously been in the school, but on leaving work were re-admitted, 
 t This includes 3 who were re-admitted. % This includes 3 who were re-admitted. 
 
 § This includes G who were re-admitted. 
 
 ^ESE r?/.^ 
 
590 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes o/184G 
 
 Such a change would be to fix the standard on the 
 capacities and knowledge of savages, and on a transient 
 remediable state of the population. Yet the reclamation 
 of these children from barbarism is a good, greater far 
 than mere technical instruction in the three lowest ele- 
 ments. This reclamation is not to be tested by mere 
 technical examination. 
 
 3. Besides the brutish immigrants, and the street- 
 taught children of cities, the school has charge of very 
 dull scholars. They are inept from scrofula ; from mis- 
 management in childhood ; from the dissolute habits of 
 their parents, entailing on them forms of brain torpor or 
 disease. When the teacher expends a larger amount of 
 labour on them than on clever children, the school could 
 receive no aid for them under the ' Ee vised Code.' 
 
 4. The children of dissolute, or rude parents, indifferent 
 to their education, attend with strange irregularity. 
 They are not simply among the two-fifths who do not 
 attend twenty weeks, but their attendance is most capri- 
 cious. When away from school, its influences are coun- 
 teracted by the worst home example — and by that bad 
 school, the street, with its republic of vagrant little 
 ruffians. They return after each interval demorahsed. 
 That is an insuperable obstacle to early success in tech- 
 nical instruction. 
 
 The degree of success attending the struggle with all 
 these formidable difficulties cannot be tested by any such 
 examination as that set forth in the Code. 
 
 We must suppose a settled population, in which most 
 of the children enter an infant school at three years of 
 age, and spend 140 days, on the average, in a good 
 school, with a fair amount of home training and example, 
 before we can even approach to the hope expressed by 
 the Eoyal Commissioners, that three-fifths of the scholars 
 may receive the amount of instruction which they are so 
 sanguine as to expect. 
 
 But even in this case it is easy to show how sudden 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 591 
 
 would be the reduction of the annual grants, by the ope- 
 ration of the Eevised Code, on these inspected schools, 
 without taking into account the losses contingent on the 
 absence of children on the day of inspection, or during 
 sixteen and a half school-times in the preceding month, 
 or on account of errors of judgment on the part of the 
 Inspector, and on the incalculable, because indefinite, 
 reduction of the grant which the Inspector may recom- 
 mend under Clause 47 of the Code. 
 
 The actual loss I shall show by returns obtained from 
 schools ; but without such returns it was easy to foresee 
 what the extent of loss would be. Only 35*77 per cent. 
 of the scholars attend the same school more than two 
 years, and 22*58 per cent, only one year and less than 
 two years. The improved machinery of schools has been 
 only gradually introduced in the last fourteen years ; it is 
 still comparatively inexperienced, and has to meet the 
 wants of children whose parents for the most part have 
 either had no instruction or only that of the Sunday- 
 school. Under such circumstances, a reduction of about 
 two-fifths of the annual grants of elementary schools 
 might have been anticipated; or of £175,340 in the 
 first year of the operation of the Eevised Code. That 
 anticipation is supported by the returns obtained fi?om 
 schools. 
 
 Some of the details of the conditions in the Code, as to 
 attendance, deserve only brief comment. Such are those 
 of Clause 41 (a), that no grant will be made for any 
 scholar who has not attended 16^ school times in the 31 
 days preceding the day of inspection, and of course who 
 is not present at the examination. 
 
 School managers naturally ask whether this is to apply 
 to a school inspected during or soon after any harvest ; 
 or after any holiday week, such as a fair, wakes, rush- 
 bearing week, Whitsuntide, or Christmas; or after the 
 usual school holidays; or after a period of very bad 
 weather, in a district of bad roads, with a scattered popu- 
 lation ; or after a general prevalence of influenza, or any 
 
592 Fourth Period. Defence of Miiiutes (9/1846 
 
 of the contagious diseases of children. They inquire, too, 
 whether their grant for any child is to be subject to the 
 consequences of discontent in a master under notice of 
 dismissal ; or to possible hurry, impatience, carelessness, 
 or error of judgment in an Inspector ; or to the dread of 
 the scholars of examination by a stranger; or to the 
 caprice of any ignorant, negligent, or ill-tempered parent 
 who may choose to keep one or more scholars at home 
 on the day of examination ; or to meet the common 
 daily claims of the households of the poor on the services 
 of their children for nursing, errands, and other duties. 
 
 Nothing has surprised the promoters of pubHc education 
 more than the regulation which practically discourages the 
 extension of school attendance beyond eleven years of 
 age, by refusing the grant to such scholars. A very small 
 percentage of such children belong to any other class 
 than that supported by manual labour. 
 
 There are no provisions in the Code to meet the cir 
 cumstances of children working, according to the pro 
 visions of the law, in bleach or printworks, or in mines 
 The same examination is prescribed for girls as for boys 
 and for half-time scholars as for those attending full time, 
 Children between three and seven years of age (Clauses 
 43, 44) are required to read a 'narrative in mono- 
 syllables ; ' to ' form, on a black board or slate, from 
 dictation, letters, capital and small, manuscript ; ' and to 
 'form, on black board or slate, from dictation, figures 
 up to 20 ; name at sight fig*ures up to 20 ; add and sub- 
 tract figures up to 10, orally, from examples on black 
 board.' The opinion of practical educators on these 
 requirements from infants has been unanimous, as to their 
 impracticability and injurious tendency. 
 
 If the principle of making a large part of the grant 
 dependent on attendance and on this examination were 
 defensible, these details might be amended. But the 
 objection to this mode of apportioning the grant could 
 not be remedied by raising the scale of grant, as has been 
 proposed. 
 
Against the Revised Code q/" 1861-2 593 
 
 Suppose the scale were raised so as to make the whole 
 amount of the annual grants equal to the sum now dis- 
 tributed. That change would not get rid of the injustice 
 and absurdity of the consequent inequahty of the sums 
 allotted to schools in districts widely differing in their 
 power to fulfil the conditions. It would still bear no 
 proportion whatever to the work done, or to the true 
 wants of the schools. The objection is one of principle, 
 which is not to be overcome by any change of detail or 
 scale. A capitation grant, based upon an examination of 
 individual children, does not pay for the work done in the 
 school. It is impossible by examination, without arrange- 
 ments too minute and expensive to be practicable, accu- 
 rately to test individually the work done in the elementary 
 schools of a great nation. To do this, the following 
 arrangements are indispensable : — An impartial examiner, 
 on the entrance of each child (or within a short time 
 afterwards — a week for example) must record its state of 
 cleanliness, aptitude for school discipline and instruction, 
 capacity, and actual acquirements. Then the Inspector, 
 having before him these facts, and the number of days 
 which the scholar has attended in each month of the pre- 
 ceding year, might form an approximate opinion on the 
 work done in the school. He would stiU be ignorant of 
 the amount of hindrances in the home of the child, but 
 he might accept irregularity of attendance as a scale with 
 which to measure these. But it is obvious that any system 
 so minute a,nd delicate presents insuperable difficulties, 
 from the cost of the machinery required to carry it into 
 execution. If, therefore, the scale of capitation grant 
 proposed in the Code were raised, a short analysis will 
 show how that change would operate. 
 
 According to the note at page 8 of the Code, a school of 
 100 children, under the average conditions of attendance 
 ascertained by the Commissioners, would earn £64. 3s. 4d. 
 But this note says that ' fifteen shillings = 180 pence, may 
 be earned, according to the proposed scale, by an attend- 
 ance twice per diem of 140 days.' Double the scale, and 
 
( 
 
 594 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 suppose a scliool with a settled population in a wealthy- 
 town, well organised for regular attendance, by the visitors 
 of a rehgious congregation sending the children early to 
 school, and keeping them there five years during 150 
 days in the year. Then at least £140 of capitation grant 
 might be earned. 
 
 Suppose a school in a rude village of East Lancashire, 
 with a migrant population constantly floating through it 
 from the moors of the forests of Bowland and Pendle 
 and the Pennine Chain, with scholars brutish, ignorant, 
 irregular in attendance, without home training, with 
 nothing but coarse or evil example ; no sooner disciplined 
 than they are removed. The children would probably 
 not attend 100 days on the average. If classed according 
 to age," as proposed in the Eevised Code, a large pro- 
 portion of them would be unable to pass the examination 
 in the three elements, at the standard of acquirement 
 required, for want of previous training, consequent ignor- 
 ance, and incapacity. As soon as they were partially 
 reclaimed, they would often migrate. Such a school, 
 needing aid much more than the former, would earn, 
 perhaps, a fourth part of the double capitation grant. 
 The one would have an extravagant grant ; the other one 
 quite insufficient for its wants. 
 
 A similar result would, probably, defeat the improve- 
 ment of schools in the colhery and iron districts, in the 
 Potteries, and in the worst parts of great cities. In the 
 purely rural parishes of such counties as Dorsetshire, and 
 other almost exclusively agricultural districts, the very early 
 labour of the children on the farms, and the interference 
 of successive harvest and seed-times, make school attend- 
 ance so brief, and interrupt it by such long intervals, that 
 the child's poor capacity for school work and learning are 
 subject to constant drawbacks. Moreover, there is no 
 help at home. His parents, though skilful in farm work, 
 are unlettered, and in all other respects ignorant, — perhaps 
 as superstitious as where the impostor Thom succeeded in 
 deluding the peasantry in Kent a few years ago. The 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 595 
 
 progress of the young scholar, thus hindered, is very- 
 slow, and the results are meager. But the teacher's work 
 is not less real, and is more arduous than in schools more 
 favourably placed for progress, though he may fail to pass 
 many scholars through the examination in the Eevised 
 Code. 
 
 The best of these various classes of schools would earn 
 at least three-fifths of the amount of the capitation grant 
 (as estimated in the note at page 8 of the Code) ; the rest 
 would get, some two-fifths, others one-fifth, and some 
 might utterly fail.^ 
 
 The doubling of the scale of the capitation grant in the 
 Code would not get rid of these inequalities. One class of 
 schools under that double scale would earn from £120 
 to £140, another from £80 to £120, while many would 
 not get more than £50 or £40, or even £30, for every 
 hundred children, if the scale were doubled. 
 
 To fix an arbitrary maximum beyond which no school 
 could obtain any grant, would be simply to reduce the 
 motives to exertion (presumed to be given by the Eevised 
 Code) in all schools in which this maximum was likely 
 to be exceeded. That evil would be exaggerated by 
 doubhng the scale. 
 
 This argument might be pursued through every variety 
 of change, with a similar demonstration of insuperable 
 difficulties. 
 
 Though the objections in principle to basing a large 
 part of the annual grants to schools on the results of an 
 individual examination of the scholars in the first three 
 elements are thus fundamental and insuperable, it was 
 intended by the Minute of details contemplated in the last 
 paragraph of the Minute of the 2nd of April, 1846, to 
 provide, to the extent of that supplementary grant, (1) for 
 an examination of the scholars in reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, and (2) for an apportionment of the grant 
 according to the results reported, having due regard to 
 
 ^ See Appendix A. 
 Q Q 2 
 
596 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 age, previous training, school attendance, and acquire- 
 ments. 
 
 The design was to encourage attention to these elements, 
 and to test and reward success by an approximate estimate 
 of the work done in the school. But it never was con- 
 ceived that the work done would be tested by a classifica- 
 tion of the scholars solely according to age, and an 
 examination according to an arbitrary standard of acquire- 
 ments in each group of age. 
 
 I will state the details of the plan, and then shew that, 
 on this plan, it would be impossible to determine the dis- 
 tribution of a large part of the annual grants to schools in 
 different districts, without leaving too large a discretion to 
 Inspectors in considering circumstances necessary for the 
 avoidance of very unequal results. 
 
 To describe the plan, may give it some appearance of 
 complexity from which it would be free in practice. 
 
 The Minute of details would have comprised the follow- 
 ing arrangements : — 
 
 A schedule would be sent to the teacher a week prior 
 to the Inspector's visit, in which the teacher would enter 
 the following particulars : — 
 
 The names of all the scholars, arranged in the classes 
 in which the school is organised for daily instruction, but 
 with each class subdivided into the following sections, 
 viz. : — 
 
 Separate sections containing successively the names of 
 the scholars in the class who had — 
 
 {a) Attended at least 120 days in each of the two 
 preceding years. 
 
 {h) Attended at least 100 days in the preceding year 
 only, or at least 80 days in each of the two pre- 
 ceding years. 
 
 (c) Scholars who had attended a shorter time than 
 either of the two preceding classes. 
 
 The scholars in each section — (a), {h\ (c) — would be 
 entered in the order of seniority, the oldest first. 
 
Against the Revised Code ^/ 1861-2 597 
 
 Then the following particulars would have been entered, 
 in successive columns, with respect to each scholar : — His 
 age ; the time spent in any other inspected school in each of 
 three or four years previous to his entrance ; the number of 
 days' schooling in each preceding quarter of the last year. 
 
 The schedule would then contain columns in which the 
 Inspector would mark, by numbers or letters, his opinion 
 of the results of the instruction of any scholar examined in 
 reading, writing, and arithmetic ; and a last column for 
 his estimate of work done in all other subjects. He 
 would not examine every child, but only so many as ap- 
 peared to him necessary to test the state of the section of 
 each class. 
 
 He would record his opinion at the foot of each class. 
 
 Then, as a summary of the whole, he could recommend 
 one-third, two-thirds, or the whole capitation grant to be 
 given to the school. 
 
 I place in an Appendix (B) the form of the schedule, 
 to make this statement more clear. The regulations as 
 to school attendance, in the Minute of April 2, 1853, 
 would have to be modified, if this scheme were made 
 universal. 
 
 If the capitation grant thus awarded were kept within 
 moderate limits, and were accommodated, in the standard 
 required, to the character of schools in different districts, 
 according to their facihties for success, though it would 
 still only imperfectly test the amount of the work done in 
 each school, it would make a much closer approximation 
 to justice than the plan proposed in the Eevised Code. 
 
 By limiting the capitation grant dependent on these 
 results to 4^. ^d. per scholar, the following serious diffi- 
 culties would be avoided. It would not be necessary — 
 
 1. To interfere with the augmentation grants to teachers 
 suddenly or extensively. 
 
 2. Changes in the sources of the stipends of the pupil 
 teachers might be made, adapted to the growth of local 
 resources, upon conditions which would not cause alarm, 
 because they would operate graduallv. 
 
 Q Q 3 
 
598 Fourth Period, Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 3. The arrangement of the scholars in their ordinary- 
 classes, divided into sections according to the length of 
 their school attendance ; and the admission of a record of 
 the amount of previous instruction in an efficient school, 
 would reduce the inequalities in the operation of a capita- 
 tion grant in unsettled and uncivilised districts, and in 
 those in which the attendance of children is much inter- 
 rupted by labour, such as half-time in factories, work in 
 mines, &c., and harvest and other work. The estimate of 
 the school-work done would be founded on a considera- 
 tion of all these elements. But it is clear that such dis- 
 cretion could not be allowed to operate if the capitation 
 grant were large. 
 
 The Inspectors should also have instructions to take 
 into account the degree of civihsation in the district, and 
 the period during which the school has had the services 
 of a certificated teacher and pupil teachers. Here, again, 
 the fact that the grant forms only a small part of the an- 
 nual grants, would facilitate the exercise of such discre- 
 tion, which would be impossible with a large capitation 
 grant. 
 
 This plan differs from that in the Code — 
 
 1. In the mode of classification of the scholars for ex- 
 amination. The classification is not primarily by age. First, 
 the scholars are grouped in their usual classes. Then 
 each class is divided into sections corresponding to their 
 periods of attendance in the school, and in each section 
 the children are arranged according to age. The Inspector 
 ows how long the teacher has had them under his 
 charge. 
 
 The schedule also informs him how long they have 
 been in any other efficient school, in each of four preced- 
 ing years. 
 
 He is not to examine every scholar, but so many in 
 each section as to enable him to test the condition of that 
 section. He will enter the results in the proper columns 
 for every scholar so examined. 
 
 He will then enter his opinion of each class in the 
 school. 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 599 
 
 He will, finally, recommend one-third or one-half of 
 the whole of the capitation grant of 4.9. 6<i to be awarded. 
 
 Such duties would not make it impossible for the Inspec- 
 tor to examine the rehgious and other instruction, as well 
 as the three lowest elements, without devoting a very 
 great increase of time to each school. It would, therefore, 
 not be necessary to increase the number of Inspectors so 
 much as the Vice-President states (p. 31) in his speech 
 would have been 'unavoidable' under the Code. 
 
 The duties of the Inspector under the Eevised Code 
 would have been most harassing to himself, and would 
 have occasioned an amount of irritation and controversy 
 between school-managers and the Education Department 
 which cannot have been foreseen. 
 
 The unavoidable reduction in very many schools would 
 have amounted to half the annual grants, in some to much 
 more, and the average deduction would have been two-fifths. 
 
 The Inspector would have been the ostensible instru- 
 ment of this reduction. He has hitherto exercised greater 
 influence on the improvement of the schools by his ex- 
 perience and conciliation of co-operative efforts, than by 
 his power to recommend the withdrawal of the grants to 
 the teachers and pupil teachers for neglect and consequent 
 unsatisfactory results, either in organisation, instruction, 
 or discipline. His tune, under the Eevised Code, would 
 be consumed in a mechanical drudgery which would 
 necessarily withdraw his attention from the rehgious and 
 general instruction, and from the moral features of the 
 school. The organisation of the^school could not be in- 
 spected, for it would be necessarily broken up into groups 
 of age for the purposes of the examination. Scholars with 
 attainments above the Code standard would be degraded 
 to their groups of age, to be placed along with untaught 
 savages, dullards, sluggards, and truants, unable to reach 
 the standard. The managers and teachers would watch 
 anxiously the trial of each child, which was to determine 
 whether twenty-five shillings or nothing was to be awarded 
 to the school. 
 
 Q Q 4 
 
600 Fourth Period, Defence of Minutes <9/1846 
 
 The scholars of elementary schools are often much dis- 
 turbed during an inspection, because the examiner is a 
 stranger. He speaks, perhaps, in the most encouraging 
 way, but in a tone of voice, with words and a manner, to 
 which they are not accustomed. The very refinement, 
 gentleness, and scholastic accuracy of the Inspector often 
 puts them out. I have seen scholars examined one day 
 by the curate in some part of one of the Gospels, and reply 
 successfully to questions uttered by one with whose 
 person, manner, voice, words, and method they were quite 
 familiar ; and lamentably fail the next day, when ques- 
 tioned with perfect fairness by the Inspector, who was a 
 stranger. 
 
 But all Inspectors are not perfect either in manner, 
 utterance, choice of words for poor children, method of 
 examining them ; nor in the skill, kindness, and patience, 
 required to bring out the true state of the child's know- 
 ledge. 
 
 This apphes forcibly to such elements as reading, writ- 
 ing, and arithmetic, even if the examination is restricted 
 (as apparently intended in the Eevised Code) to the most 
 mechanical results, without any examination in the mean- 
 ing or grammar of what is read, or in that ' logic of the 
 poor' — arithmetic. 
 
 If an Inspector enter a school with an abrupt manner 
 and a harsh voice, — if he roughly interfere with the or- 
 ganisation, — scold one or two scholars, — or be hurried, for 
 lack of time or patience, — hewiU never discover what the 
 children know or can do in their school- work. They will 
 be bewildered He will get few juniors to read without 
 strange hesitation and mistakes. Few will write correctly 
 1,000,003 from dictation. Very few will write with their 
 usual skill. . A large portion will fail in arithmetical trials, 
 which they would have passed with ease if the clergyman 
 or the master had examined them. Thus the true state of 
 the school is often not known to the Inspector. Experienced 
 Inspectors make allowance for these hindrances in then: 
 estimate of the state of the schools under the present form 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 601 
 
 of inspection. That would not, however, be possible if an 
 Inspector had to deal with purely mechanical results, as 
 in the examination in the Eevised Code. 
 
 But when the results of the Inspector's examination dif- 
 fered widely from that made during the preceding week 
 by the clergyman and teacher, his function would be re- 
 garded as the instrument for disallowing the just claims 
 of schools. It would soon become the most unpopular 
 and irksome function in Great Britain. The Pri\y Coun- 
 cil Office would be worried with numerous and reiterated 
 remonstrances. 
 
 The policy of investing the Inspectors with such exten- 
 sive administrative policy is in absolute opposition to all 
 the previous maxims and experience of the Department. 
 The apportionment of the pubhc grant has been reserved 
 as the special function of the President and Vice-Presi- 
 dent, aided by their secretaries. 
 
 Even the Department itself has never exercised any 
 authority so large as that with which it is now proposed 
 to charge the Inspectors. By their direct instrumentality 
 £175,000 would be, in the first year of the operation of 
 the Code, withdrawn from the annual income of element- 
 ary schools. The acts of the Inspectors in this operation 
 are not to be subject to the review of the Office, except 
 only under clause 46, section (^), if the Inspector cancels 
 the whole annual grant, ' when there appears to be any 
 prima facie objection of a gross kind,' or under the cir- 
 cumstances related in the note below. ^ 
 
 This delegation of administrative authority over a large 
 part of the grant to the Inspectors would place them in a 
 position challenging criticism, and so vexatious, from the 
 great uncertainty of the resources of the managers of the 
 schools under the Eevised Code, as to provoke attacks 
 
 1 The grant is to he withheld altogether, ' (a) if the school he not held in 
 a huilding certified hy the Inspector to he healthy, properly lighted, drained, 
 and ventilated, supplied with offices, and containing in the principal school- 
 room eighty cuhical feet of internal space for each child in average attend- 
 ance j' and for other reasons, giving less scope to the Inspector's discretion. 
 
602 Fourth Period, Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 upon their conduct of the examination and the justice of 
 their decisions. The results of the examination of the 
 managers, minister, or teacher, would be sent up to 
 Downing-street in contrast with that of the Inspector, and 
 as a protest against it. 
 
 By hunting the direct operation of the Inspector's dis- 
 cretion to 45. 6d per scholar, this jealousy would scarcely 
 exist. The work done in the school would be more truly 
 tested by the plan which I have proposed. In harmony 
 with the organisation of the school, a limited capitation 
 grant might be safely confided to the discretion of the 
 Inspector, to be distributed in the proportion of one-third, 
 one-half, or two-thirds the grant for each scholar who had 
 attended according to the conditions of a Minute prepared 
 for that purpose. ^ 
 
 The abruptness of the change in the annual grants may 
 be estimated from the following returns, which have been 
 furnished from 523 elementary schools, having on the 
 average 66,375 scholars in attendance. These schools, 
 last year, received £43,564 as grants. The capitation 
 grant of the Eevised Code would reduce this sum to 
 £25,073, even without taking into account the reductions 
 which are discretionary with the Inspectors, or cannot be 
 foreseen under the 47th clause, or which result from 
 clause 46. The estimated loss, nevertheless, amounts to 
 £18,491 in one year's operation of the Code on 523 
 schools, or to a loss of more than two-fifths of the aid 
 hitherto received. Probably the loss ascertained by more 
 extensive data will not widely difier from this. 
 
 The abruptness of this change would tend to discourage, 
 if not paralyse, the exertions of the promoters of schools, 
 and especially of the clergy ; for it would not be probable, 
 if it were even possible, that, under all the varied circum- 
 stances of elementary schools, the two-fifths to be thus 
 deducted in one year from the annual grants could be 
 supphed from their local resources, and the one-fourth cut 
 off from the income of Training Colleges could be raised 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 603 
 
 by general subscriptions. (See Eeport of Eoyal Commis- 
 sion, pp. 144 and 145, vol. 1). 
 
 One object of the Eevised Code, viz., that of economis- 
 ing the public grant by developing local resources, would 
 thus be certainly defeated by the abruptness of the demand 
 on private contributions, and the perplexing and impracti- 
 cable character of the scheme and its untried conditions. 
 
 The Parliamentary grant was not simply an instrument 
 for creating, by a suitable training during apprenticeship 
 and in the Training College, the machinery of a system of 
 education, and for the introduction of this machinery into 
 elementary schools, on the conditions and by the aid of 
 the annual grants ; it was a powerful stimulant to private 
 exertions and sacrifices. The £4,800,000 expended by 
 the Government have called forth ^ double that sum. All 
 the phenomena of activity in the founding and supporting 
 of schools and Training Colleges owe two-thirds of their 
 vitality to the Parliamentary grant of one-third, and 
 would languish without it. To withdraw this grant 
 abruptly, or any large portion of it, would produce a 
 great shock. Many schools must perish if the annual 
 grants hitherto given were suddenly exchanged for the 
 capitation grant under the Eevised Code. 
 
 The Eoyal Commission confirms the report of Her 
 Majesty's Inspectors as to the extent of the sacrifices made 
 by the clergy in rural districts for the support of parochial 
 schools.^ The note at the foot of this page shews the 
 nature and extent of the strain on their private means. 
 The reduction of two-fifths in the annual grants would 
 often, if not in the great majority of cases, have to be 
 made up by the parochial clergymen ; or, if he were 
 
 1 See speech, of Right Hon. Robert Lowe, M.P. 
 
 2 ^ In the second place, the landowers do not contribute to the expenses of 
 the schools so liberally as the wealthy classes in mining districts or large 
 towns, so that the burden of supporting the schools falls principally on the 
 parochial clergy, who are very ill able to support it. This is set in a strong 
 light by a letter published in the Appendix to Mr. Eraser's Report, from 
 which it results that £4518, contributed by voluntaiy subscription, was 
 derived from the following sources : — 
 
604 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes 6)/ 1846 
 
 unable to make this further contribution, he would have 
 to dismiss his pupil teachers, — if he did not also lose the 
 services of his certificated teachers. ^ Or, as an alternative 
 (adopted with a personal disappointment which none who 
 have not the hfe-work of a parish in hand can under- 
 
 
 
 £ £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 169 Clergymen contributed 
 
 1782, or 10 10 
 
 each. 
 
 399 Landowners 
 
 V 
 
 2127, „ 5 6 
 
 ,, 
 
 217 Occupiers 
 
 j> 
 
 200, „ 18 
 
 6 „ 
 
 102 Householders 
 
 V 
 
 181, „ 1 15 
 
 ♦> „ 
 
 141 other persons 
 
 }} 
 
 228. 
 
 
 ^The rental of the 399 landholders is estimated at £650,000 a year.'— 
 (Commissioners' Eeport, vol. i., p. 77.) 
 
 ' The heaviness of the burden borne by the clergy is imperfectly indicated 
 by such figures as these. It frequently happens that the clergyman considers 
 himself responsible for whatever is necessary to make the accounts of the 
 school balance ; and thus he places himself towards the school in the position 
 of a banker who allows a customer habitually to overdraw his account. He 
 is the man who most feels the mischief arising from want of education. 
 Between him and the ignorant part of his adult parishioners there is a 
 chasm. They will not come near him, and do not understand him if he 
 forces himself upon them. He feels that the only means of improvement is 
 the education of the young ; and he knows that only a small part of the 
 necessary expense can be extracted from the parents. He begs from his 
 neighbours, he begs from the landowners. If he fails to persuade them to 
 take their fair share of the burden, he begs from his friends, and even from 
 strangers ; and at last submits most meritoriously, and most generously, to 
 bear, not only his own proportion of the expense, but also that which ought to 
 be borne by others. It has been repeatedly noticed by the school Inspectors, 
 and it is our duty to state, that, as a class, the landowners, especially those 
 who are non-resident (though there are many honorable exceptions), do not 
 do their duty in the support of popular education j and that they allow 
 others, who are far less able to afford it, to bear the burden of their neglect.' 
 — (Commissioners' Report, vol. i. p. 78.) 
 
 ^ A ^Poor Parson' writes to one of the journals to ask how he can meet 
 this abrupt change. He has schools with two certificated teachers and four 
 pupil teachers. He can see no means of increasing the resources of his 
 school from subscriptions. His two teachers receive from the Government 
 £35 as augmentation, and £9 each for teaching two apprentices. The 
 average stipend of the foiu* apprentices is £60. The ^ Poor Parson's ' own 
 income is £70. He asks how he is to provide for the annual expenditure of 
 the school, and to pay in weeldy instalments £60 to the pupil teachers 
 besides the quarterly instalments of the teachers' salaries, even if a cer- 
 tainty existed of his being repaid. But with the exceeding uncertainty 
 of the capitation grant, he says that he must dismiss the pupil teachers, 
 and make his school a private speculation, conducted by his teachers, with a 
 guarantee limited to the amount of his subscriptions. This is an example of 
 a very large number of schools. 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 605 
 
 stand), he would convert it into an ' Adventure School,' 
 conducted either by his certificated teacher or some un- 
 trained master, in which he would retain some influence by- 
 providing books and fuel, keeping the school premises in 
 repair, and allowing the teacher to use them free of rent 
 and taxes. The blow to the rural clergy would come so 
 swiftly and suddenly as to stun them. They would in 
 many cases abandon their hopeless struggle, and close 
 their schools. When they had adopted one of the fore- 
 going alternatives, they would inquire at the Rural-decanal 
 Chapters whether this measure of public economy arose 
 out of a jealousy especially directed against their order. 
 Was the Church, they would ask, absorbing a larger 
 share of the Parliamentary grant by her zeal and wealth 
 than was intended by the authors of the Minutes of 1846 
 and 1853 ? Was it deemed to be a sound piece of state 
 policy to conciliate the ' voluntary ' and the ' secular • 
 parties ? Was there in the Privy Council Office an impa- 
 tience at the complication of the denominational system 
 and its obstruction to civil hberty 2 Was it intended to 
 pulverise the existing system by a crushing blow, so that 
 when nothing was left as a memorial of it but its ruins, 
 there might be built upon its dust and ashes a rate- 
 supported secular system in conflict with the schools 
 which the Church and the religious communions, faithful 
 to their principles, would struggle to maintain ? 
 
 Apart from the embarrassment or destruction of the 
 rural schools, the abruptness of the change will every- 
 where discourage instead of stimulating exertion. When 
 two-fifths of the annual grants are in one year removed, 
 there will be no hope, in the majority of cases, of making 
 up, in one year, the deficiency. 
 
 The questions presented to the managers of large poor 
 town schools will rather be : — To what reduction of 
 emoluments will the teachers submit ? Will the certifi- 
 cated teachers accept their salaries without any, or with 
 what, compensation for the augmentation and gratuities 
 
606 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 hitherto conditionally provided by the Government ? Will 
 the pupil teachers accept smaller stipends ? ^ Or can the 
 services of one or more be dispensed with in future?^ 
 The confusion and embarrassment caused by these inqui- 
 ries, and the extreme uncertainty in the amount of the 
 capitation grant under the Eevised Code, will be very 
 unfavourable to the increase of private subscriptions. 
 School pence cannot be suddenly increased without a 
 reduction of the school income. 
 
 One of two courses might be pursued in the restraint 
 or reduction of the public grant. The first course is to 
 declare that the children of parents supported by manual 
 labour in Great Britain shall have a less costly education, 
 — all classes of their teachers shall be trained at less ex- 
 pense, shall be worse paid, and be fewer in number than 
 they now are, — instruction shall be chiefly technical and 
 quite elementary. 
 
 The second course is so to order any reduction of the 
 pubhc charge as that it shall not derange the existing 
 machinery, or give the poor a lower class of instruction than 
 they now have, while it tends to throw the charge of main- 
 taining a system which has the cordial approbation of the 
 Church and other rehgious communions more and more, 
 in successive years, on the resources of Christian benevo- 
 lence, and on the growing sense of the value of education 
 among the parents of the scholars. 
 
 The Eevised Code appears to proceed on the presump- 
 tion that the first course is the best. Its abruptness and 
 its provisions tend, in the opinion of the representatives of 
 the great education societies, ' to introduce into elemen- 
 tary schools a lower class of teachers, and to degrade the 
 instruction in the schools.' 
 
 But one-third of the annual grants might be, in ten 
 years, derived from local resources without strain, if one- 
 
 * This will certainly not be possible in the manufacturing and mining dis- 
 tricts, nor in towns, without taking a lower class. 
 
 2 This will be inevitable, with a consequent loss of efficiency and lowering 
 of the level of instruction in the school. 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 607 
 
 thirtieth part were deducted in each successive year, in 
 order that it might be suppHed by subscriptions, or school 
 pence, as a condition of the payment of the remainder. 
 A more rapid rate of reduction would cause more or less 
 embarrassment, and would be less certain to secure the 
 earnest cooperation of the clergy and laity in evolving 
 the local resources of schools. 
 
 To disgust and discourage the managers of schools, who 
 raise more than £1,250,000 annually from local sources 
 towards the support of a system of public education the 
 cost of which amounts to two millions annually, would be 
 an act of gross impohcy, unless the intention of the Go- 
 vernment were to sweep away what exists in order to 
 make room for something else. 
 
 The abruptness of the change in the position of the 
 managers is not more sudden nor greater than in that of 
 the teachers. The amount and conditions of their emolu- 
 ments, and the sources whence they are derived — their 
 relations to their pupil teachers as to authority, time and 
 opportunity of instruction, and to the Inspector of schools 
 — are all gravely changed. 
 
 They have regarded their apprenticeship and studies in 
 the Training College — their litei'ary position there, and the 
 certificate awarded for that and for two years' good 
 management of their schools — as parts of a system in 
 in which the Government had used the Parhamentary 
 grant as an instrument to create and sustain an improved 
 machinery in schools, by calhng forth local intelligence, 
 exertions, and contributions. The cost of creating this 
 machinery would be thrown away if it could not be sus- 
 tained. It could be sustained only by stimulating managers 
 of schools to give sufficient salaries, and encouraging the 
 best scholars to become apprentices at low stipends, by 
 the prospect of salaries rewarding seven years' iU-paid 
 preparation ^ — by giving the teacher as much security in 
 
 1 In the cotton district pupil teachers could, on the average, earn one-third 
 more in factories. 
 
608 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1M(3 
 
 bis position as is consistent with his large dependence on 
 local fluctuating voluntary resources. The whole machi- 
 nery has been thus fostered. To have thus cherished its 
 growth is now described as an error — as a system of 
 ' bounties and protection.' But it is forgotten that this 
 has been the history of all Enghsh and of all national 
 education whatever. Edward the Sixth and Ehzabeth 
 thus founded the Endowed Schools. The education at 
 Eton, Harrow, Eugby, Winchester, Birmingham, and in 
 every other public school of celebrity for the middle and 
 upper classes, is largely endowed. The colleges of Oxford 
 and Cambridge are proprietors of estates with an aggre- 
 gate annual value of probably half a million ; and they 
 further reward their most distinguished scholars and 
 fellows by their patronage of large endowments ecclesias- 
 tical and scholastic — in hvings and schools. No fallacy 
 is more transparent or more monstrous than that which 
 assumes that knowledge, or whatever training is got in 
 schools, is a natural want, certain to assert itself like the 
 want of food, or clothing, or shelter, and to create a 
 demand. The fact is the very reverse of this assumption. 
 Otherwise an ignorant man's appetite for knowledge, a 
 savage man's desire for civilisation, a heathen's thirst for 
 revealed truth, ought to be in proportion to their destitu- 
 tion ; whereas mental, moral, and religious destitution 
 have no appetite — they have no desire — they make no 
 demand. All statesmen who have wished to civihse and 
 instruct a nation, have had to create this appetite. The 
 desire for knowledge has been implanted in the popula- 
 tion by founding schools. The demand for instruction 
 has been called forth by middle class schools — by endow- 
 ments for masters — ^by foundations for poor scholars — by 
 bursaries and exhibitions, enabling those who are success- 
 ful to go to college ; and in colleges by sizarships, scholar- 
 ships, prizes, fellowships, honours, rewards of every des- 
 cription. These honours open a career in the scholastic, 
 legal, and clerical professions. That has been the practice 
 both of English statesmen and the Enghsh people before 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 609 
 
 and since the Eeformation. Tliat practice is the type, 
 and part of the justification, of the Education Grant and 
 its administration hitherto. 
 
 The teachers settled in elementary schools, therefore, 
 did not expect that the arbitrary and indefensible appli- 
 cation of a doctrine of pohtical economy respecting supply 
 and demand, bounties and protection, to a sphere of action 
 in which it has never had any place in Enghsh statesman- 
 ship — to a sphere of moral action in which it is totally 
 inapphcable — would cause an abrupt and total change in 
 every element of their position. 
 
 Similar errors in the application of doctrines of pure 
 economy to questions in which moral elements greatly 
 predominate have been committed before. Thus, because, 
 at the time of the reformation of the rehef of indigence, 
 the children of independent labourers were either with- 
 out schools, or in very bad schools, it was said that the 
 pauper children in workhouses ought not to be well 
 instructed, lest their better education should operate as 
 an encouragement to pauperism. The fallacy here con- 
 sisted not simply in a neglect of the consideration that 
 education is the most efficient antidote to hereditary 
 pauperism ; but still more in a cynical and sceptical 
 denial of all moral obligation on the part of the State to 
 these children. 
 
 In like manner, the protection of women, and of 
 children under 13, from excessive labour in manufactories 
 and mines, has been resisted as a violation of the prin- 
 ciples of free trade. Trade, it is said, should be free 
 from all State regulation. If this were so, trade might 
 exist in slaves — or workmen might be reduced to the 
 condition of serfs or slaves — or the physical and moral 
 condition of the people might be subject to any degree 
 of degradation, while the interference of the Government 
 for the interests of the commonwealth would be shut out 
 by an inexorable abstract principle of pohtical economy. 
 
 The fallacy in the application of the principles of free 
 trade to the education of the people resembles these. 
 
 E R 
 
610 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes ^/1846 
 
 The Parliament and the Executive Government are the 
 guardians of our mixed constitution, — they represent the 
 nation, — but they are collectively a power created by the 
 people for the promotion and conservation of national 
 interests. This central power is embodied in the word 
 State. The central authority has a greater interest, collec- 
 tively, in the intelligence and virtue of the people than 
 any fragment of the nation can have. On that intelligence 
 and virtue depend respect for the law, — the right dis- 
 charge of civil functions and political franchises, — the 
 due subordination to authority, — the harmony of classes, 
 — the development of the natural resources of the country 
 and its power, — the increase of commerce, wealth, com- 
 fort, and national contentment, — the public spirit of 
 citizens, — the valour of armies and navies, — and the 
 national patriotism in sustaining the constitution alike 
 against invasion and against internal corruption or revo- 
 lution. But the education of the mass is not a want to be 
 so felt, when ignorance and coarse habits prevail among 
 them, as to create a supply by the act of the uneducated 
 classes. Education infiltrates from the upper and govern- 
 ing classes to the lower. All civilisation is primarily the 
 work of inventive genius. The lesson such minds have to 
 teach is first imparted to the upper and governing classes. 
 Its benefits descend from them to the lower. These un- 
 civilised classes are trained by example and discipline ; 
 they are, as minors are, the care of the governing classes 
 in some form, — they do not seek to be civilised and 
 taught, as an original and irrepressible want, but they are 
 sought by the missionary, by the teacher, by the agent of 
 industrial progress, and they are rescued, not by their 
 own act, but by that of the State and the upper classes, 
 to whom their progress has become a social and pohtical 
 necessity. But the State — that is, the most able govern- 
 ing minds in the counsels of the sovereign power — is 
 more hkely to perceive this want of the commonwealth 
 than even the middle classes ; for the collective dangers 
 from national ignorance and barbarism are greater, and 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 611 
 
 the cost of national pauperism, crime, and disorder, are^ 
 more apparent to the Government than they can be to I 
 individuals. Consequently, the education of the people J 
 has, throughout Europe, and in this country, originated in 
 a great degree with the State. But if we were to suppose 
 that education received no aid from the central authority, 
 or the national resources from taxation, it would still be 
 an error to speak of free trade in education. The several 
 education societies certainly have a friendly rivalry in their 
 efforts to found and support schools, and to attract children 
 to them. The State in no way interferes with their free- 
 dom in doing this ; but it is not trade. This work is noH 
 done for pecuniary profit ; it is done under the influence I 
 of a sense of moral and religious obligation, and a con- 
 viction that the wealth and strength of States, and domestic I 
 peace and prosperity, depend on the moral and intellectual ] 
 elevation of the people. There is the utmost amount ofj 
 civil and rehgious liberty for such efforts ; there is no lack 
 of freedom in such work, which however is not trade. 
 To pretend that it is trade — and on that pretence to 
 invoke the appHcation of an abstract principle to shut out 
 the aid of the State — is by a fallacy to attempt to limit 
 the power of the State to promote the intelligence and 
 virtue of the people, in which it has a larger stake than 
 any fragment of the people, even than the Church esta- 
 bhshed by law. 
 
 It is impossible, then, to justify any part of the Eevised 
 Code by an appeal to the principles of free trade. The 
 teachers of elementary schools have not, under the Minutes 
 of 1846, been so much the subjects of 'protection and 
 bounties' as the masters of the endowed schools of Edward 
 the Sixth and Elizabeth, or the masters or presidents and 
 fellows of colleges, and the professors of universities. 
 The creation of an efficient machinery for elementary 
 education, by the apprenticeship of pupil teachers and 
 the two years' training of Queen's Scholars, and the secu- 
 rity afforded to certificated teachers by a partial and 
 conditional endowment of their schools, were in strict 
 
 E R 2 
 
612 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes o/1846 
 
 harmony with all English statesmanship since the Ee- 
 formation. 
 
 Were it possible to conceive that those who thus appeal 
 to the principles of free trade had narrowed their concep- 
 tions of national education from the interests of the people 
 to those of the schoolmaster, then their formula as to 
 bounties and protection, though inapplicable to national 
 interests, would at least be intelligible. They would say 
 — It is inexpedient to protect by endowment the school- 
 master who has been reared by the influence and aid of 
 the State, — it is better that he should be wholly de- 
 pendent on the managers of schools. 
 
 But, in the first place, this — under the Eevised Code — 
 is not an accurate statement of the fact. Though the 
 master is to make his bargain with the managers, they are 
 to be aided by the State to pay him. The change, there- 
 fore, does not consist in the withdrawal of endowments. 
 
 The annual grants are now made to the managers, 
 though their apportionment is defined. The managers, 
 under the Eevised Code, are to have more discretion in 
 this matter. The pretence of the absence of bounty and 
 protection in the Code, therefore, arises from a confusion 
 of ideas. The managers would receive a reduced bounty, 
 and would still be thus protected, though in a less degree. 
 There would, therefore, be no free trade in schools. Those 
 which had certificated masters and pupil teachers would 
 receive the bounty and protection of the capitation grant. 
 The transference of protection would be at the expense of 
 the certificated teacher. He would have to make the best 
 bargain he could with managers at a time when one-third 
 of their annual school income — viz., that received in an- 
 nual grants — would be reduced to two-fifths. This is the 
 free trade of the Eevised Code. 
 
 But if to regard the principles of all promotion of 
 elementary education as identical with those of freedom 
 in trade be erroneous, have the certificated teachers 
 acquired any legal or moral claim to the continuance 
 of their conditional grants in aid of local resources.^ 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 613 
 
 The Eoyal Commission reports: — 'It may be said that 
 the State has excited expectations in the minds of the 
 teachers by the system of augmentation grants, which 
 give them a moral right to their continuance ; but we do 
 not think that this is really the case. The fact that the 
 present system is supported by sums voted annually, and 
 not by a permanent charge on the Consolidated Fund, 
 shows that the State is not pledged to its permanence. 
 Indeed, it is notorious that it has grown up by degrees, 
 and that ever since its origin the propriety of replacing or 
 altering it has been under discussion. The arrangement 
 by which a certain portion of the grant is appropriated to 
 the augmentation of the teacher's salary, is an arrange- 
 ment between the State and the managers, not between 
 the State and the teachers ; and it is for the benefit of the 
 school, not for the benefit of the teachers. At present the 
 average emoluments of certificated masters of all classes 
 and denominations are £97, which considerably exceeds 
 the amount which can be said to be in any sense guaran- 
 teed to the holders of certificates ; nor is there any reason 
 to believe that the managers of schools, under the modi- 
 fied system, would desire to reduce the salaries of their 
 teachers.' — {Commissioners' Report^ vol. 1, p. 149.) 
 
 In order to ascertain whether the opinion thus given by 
 the Commissioners is applicable to the position of the 
 certificated teacher under the Eevised Code, it is desirable 
 first to define, as accurately as possible, what that position 
 would be as contrasted with what it now is. Tlie aug- 
 mentation grants, and the gratuities for instructing pupil 
 teachers, hitherto conditionally paid to certificated teachers 
 by the Committee of Council on Education, are withdrawn. 
 The total annual reduction of these direct payments to 
 them would be £98,171 5^. for the augmentation grants, 
 and about £62,000 for teaching 15,500 apprentices, 
 calculated at £4 gratuity for each. The number of 
 certificated teachers actually teaching is said to be 7711 ; 
 therefore the grants withdrawn would amount to upwards 
 of £20 each. The reduction of direct grants would, 
 
 R R 3 
 
614 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 however, be more than this sum for masters, and less for 
 mistresses. Thus masters might have their salaries from 
 all sources reduced from the average of £94 to £65 
 or £70 ; mistresses, from £62 to £44 ; and infant 
 mistresses, from £58 to £40. 
 
 The ' protection' thus afforded by the State being with- 
 drawn, what are the chances that this reduction would be 
 made up by the managers ? 
 
 School managers have, in the first place, to provide for 
 a loss to their schools of £175,000 in the annual grants. 
 They have further to pay weekly in advance the stipends 
 of 15,500 pupH teachers or (15,500 x £15) £232,500 
 annually, before they receive the capitation grant, which 
 imphes this reduction of £175,000 from the sum which 
 they have hitherto received in annual grants. This double 
 operation is to occur in one year. First, £232,500 are to 
 be paid, in the hope of an uncertain return ; and then, 
 £175,000 of the annual grants are to be withheld. 
 
 In Appendix A it will be seen that this would affect 
 schools in very different degrees. The positive ultimate 
 reduction in schools in different districts would vary 
 from nothing to one-fifth; one-third; two-fifths; one-half; 
 three-fifths; or three-quarters of the grants hitherto an- 
 nually received. 
 
 In some cases, especially where the clergy had liitherto 
 made up the annual deficiency in the school income from 
 scanty personal resources, the school would be closed ; — or 
 the teacher could receive nothing in lieu of his aug- 
 mentation or gratuity. Often the aid of pupil teachers 
 would be given up. Very generally, if not universally, 
 their number would be diminished. 
 
 The embarrassments in the finances of schools could 
 not, however, be measured by these two elements. If 
 pupil teachers were not apprenticed to the teachers, they 
 would be much less amenable to discipline. Their mo- 
 tives for a steady perseverance in their engagements 
 would be incalculably reduced by the great uncertainty 
 introduced into the position of the certificated teachers. 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 615 
 
 Bound only by an agreement with the managers, termi- 
 nable on notice, they would soon become dissatisfied 
 with stipends one-third below the market value of their 
 labour in the manufacturing and mining districts. The 
 caprice of youth would have its way. Not half of them 
 — ^perhaps not above one-third — ^would persevere to the 
 end of their five years' service. Consequently, as the 
 Eevised Code produced its inevitable results, the school 
 would approach more and more to the condition of the 
 monitorial schools superseded by the system of pupil 
 teachers. At every step of this decline, the efficiency 
 of the school, for all purposes, would be impaired. The 
 energies of the teacher would be taxed in proportion as 
 his assistants were inexperienced, ill-instructed, unskilful, 
 insubordinate, and childish. Even the number of these 
 stipendiary monitors would often be reduced for want of 
 school-funds. At the time when his salary was both 
 reduced and uncertain, his task would be made intolerable. 
 With the worse condition of the school, both subscriptions 
 and school-pence would fall off. 
 
 The position of the teacher, with respect to the ma- 
 nagers, would become extremely irksome. The amount 
 of the capitation grant, with his reduced and ill-paid staff 
 of half-mutinous assistants, would be dependent mainly 
 on his personal exertions. Whatever his conceptions as 
 to the most powerful agencies to civihse and christianise 
 his rude scholars, he would have to work like a horse 
 in a gin-wheel, at the routine of teaching the elements, 
 according to the mechanical standard of the Eevised 
 Code. Beading would be taught with mechanical flu- 
 ency, even if the children (hke many Welsh and some 
 Caffre and Indian scholars) understood Httle or nothing 
 of what they read. Writing would be learned according 
 to the Code standard, though lessons in dictation and 
 composition were disused. Such last-named lessons would 
 fall out of the observation of the Inspector for want of 
 time, while he examined the scholars' mechanical skill 
 in forming letters. The religious instruction and the 
 
 K R 4 
 
616 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes (?/1846 
 
 moral training of the scholars, which the Eoyal Com- 
 mission declare to be so satisfactory, must yield to the 
 paramount necessity of earning a larger capitation grant, 
 by the success of the scholars in attaining the mechanical • 
 standard of the Eevised Code. 
 
 These circumstances would altogether change the re- 
 lations of the teacher with the managers. Every act of 
 his school disciphne and instruction might alter the an- 
 nual result. Some managers would try to make the 
 teacher's salary mainly dependent on this result; some 
 would insist on his teaching an evening school — ^hitherto 
 forbidden — ^in order to augment the grant. Then the 
 five hours' instruction of the pupil-teachers would be a 
 farce. The regulations which thus reduce the instruction 
 of pupil-teachers from seven and a half hours weekly to 
 five, and permit this to be given in the evening school, 
 are utterly inconsistent with all the antecedent Minutes of 
 the Committee of Council. They look Hke a sneer at 
 the care with which the teacher's health was 'protected' 
 from overwork, and at the solicitude with which the 
 training and instruction of the apprentices were provided 
 for by the Minutes which they repudiate and contradict. 
 
 The theory of schools under the administration of the 
 Education Grant, hitherto, has been, that it was necessary 
 to create a machinery of education capable of exerting 
 considerable rehgious and moral influence in the civi- 
 lisation of the people; that it was expedient to protect 
 and encourage the teacher as the agent of this change, — 
 to place him in close relations with the religious organi- 
 sation of the country, and to uphold him in a position 
 above that of a needy dependant; — that the staff of 
 unpaid or ill-paid monitors, under thirteen years of age, 
 previously employed, should be displaced, and in their 
 room apprentices introduced, who should be most care- 
 fully trained. There is the authority of the Vice-President 
 for saying that these pupil teachers have more than 
 earned their stipends by their services in the schools, 
 when they do not enter the Training Colleges. The teacher 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861--2 617 
 
 tlius aided was not to be worn out prematurely by a 
 coarse, ill-aided and ill-paid drudgery. That, however, 
 would be his fate under the Eevised Code. 
 
 It is in the contrast of these two positions that the 
 breach of faith with the trained certificated masters con- 
 sists, rather than in the exact technical form in which 
 their engagements as pupil teachers and Queen's Scholars, 
 or students, have been assumed. Undoubtedly, the Ee- 
 vised Code would reduce the teachers' salaries ; would 
 load them with ill-aided work ; and worsen^, in all respects, 
 that position in which it has hitherto been the object of 
 the Government to place them. A large part of this 
 evil is the simple and direct consequence of the abrupt- 
 ness of the change. Thus defined, the effects of the 
 Eevised Code would amount to an unexampled breach 
 of public faith with a most meritorious class. 
 
 That the arrangement as to stipend was made between 
 the State and the managers^, as pleaded by the Eoyal 
 Commission, is unimportant if it was made on the con- 
 dition and with perfect security that the money should 
 be paid to the teacher. Then, also, it is for the ' benefit 
 of the school; '^ but that benefit is to be derived througli 
 the teacher, whose remuneration was thus protected, — 
 not simply by the grants, but by all the conditions binding 
 the managers. The last plea of the Commissioners, that 
 the average actual salaries exceed those guaranteed as 
 a condition of the augmentation grants, has no application 
 whatever to an abrupt change which would shake the 
 stabihty of all school arrangements, and probably reduce 
 their salaries below that level; nor does it apply to a 
 scheme which worsens ^ the condition of the teacher, not 
 merely in income, but in the quaUty and number of his 
 assistants ; in the amount and value of his work ; in his 
 relations to the managers of schools ; and, necessarily, in 
 his social position : a scheme which converts him into an 
 ill-paid and overworked drudge. 
 
 ' and^ authority — Milton. 
 * Report, vol. 1, p. 149. 3 m^^^ p. 149, 
 
618 Fourth Period, Defence of Minutes of 1%^^ 
 
 ' The fact that the present system is supported by sums 
 voted annually, and not by a permanent charge on the 
 Consolidated Fund,'^ and that the arrangements have 
 ' grown up by degrees,' and have been liable to changes 
 moderate and harmonious in character, might be pleaded 
 in favour of some change which would operate gradually, 
 and thus give time for the development of those local 
 resources which, if subjected to an abrupt and harsh 
 blow, would rather dwindle under discouragement, or 
 perish in panic. 
 
 The managers of schools, as the Eoyal Commissioners 
 anticipate'"^, have no desire to alter the social position, 
 the duties, or the remuneration of the teachers of schools; 
 and they will probably resist with a rare unanimity the 
 disastrous revolution threatened by the Eevised Code. 
 But the same solicitude and zeal would exhibit themselves, 
 in harmony with the Committee of Council on Education, 
 if they were called upon to augment by moderate annual 
 increments the local resources of schools, so as to main- 
 tain in their present position the whole staff of teachers 
 and apprenticed pupil teachers, with a corresponding 
 reduction of the amount of the annual grants. 
 
 I have already stated that one-thirtieth part of these 
 annual grants to teachers and pupil teachers might be cut 
 off every year, until in ten years one-third had been re- 
 duced. As each thirtieth part was reduced, the remainder 
 would, on this plan, be granted, on condition that the 
 fractions withdrawn should be furnished from local re- 
 sources. All the conditions of these grants would remain 
 otherwise unaltered. The stipends of all classes of teachers, 
 and their relative positions to each other, — to the mana- 
 gers, the Inspector, and the Committee of Council on Edu- 
 cation, would remain unchanged. 
 
 This was one of those restraints on the growth of the 
 Education Grant referred to in the letter which I addressed 
 to your Lordship on the 24th of April, 1861, when I an- 
 ticipated that the ' increase ' of ' the pubhc grant ' might, 
 
 1 Eeport^ vol. \, p. 140. ^ n^jjj. 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 619 
 
 after providing for evening schools and for the apathetic 
 districts, ' not only be arrested, but this annual aid might 
 be converted into an instrument, in the hands of skilful 
 administrators, by which all the rest of the work may be 
 done in the most apathetic as well as in the most earnest 
 districts.' 
 
 The development of the whole scheme of such arrange- 
 ments would require separate treatment. I allude to them 
 now only because the gradual change in the administra- 
 tion of the annual grants to schools is an illustration of the 
 principle which such a scheme would embody. 
 
 The effect of the Eevised Code on the position and 
 training of pupil teachers having been incidentally referred 
 to, a brief recapitulation only is necessary here. 
 
 1. The stipend of the pupil teachers is, as a direct con- 
 sequence of clause 47 (6), to be reduced from an average 
 of £15 to one of £10 per annum.^ Pupil teachers could 
 not be obtained on these terms in the manufacturing and 
 mining districts. For example, a girl can earn 12s. per 
 week in the cotton district when she can manage two 
 power-looms ; at sixteen or seventeen, by managing three 
 looms she can often earn I65. ; at eighteen, she can gain 
 I85. with four looms, and, if working bareges, she can 
 secure a guinea as weekly wages. Young men can of 
 course earn as much. The reduction of the average 
 stipend in such districts in itself amounts to the substitu- 
 tion of stipendiary monitors, on short engagements of one 
 or two years, for pupil teachers, with an apprenticeship 
 and training of five years. In rural districts and small 
 agricultural towns and villages, the reduction of the 
 stipend would at once preclude the reahsation of the hope 
 entertained, especially in the case of girls 2, that appren- 
 tices might be derived from well-ordered homes of the 
 middle classes. This hope is legitimate if due care be 
 taken to insist on every precaution to shut out those who 
 
 ^ Eevised Code, clause 47 (b) ; also clause 80. 
 ^ See the Pamphlet of Miss Burdett Coutts, 
 
620 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 have bodily defects, or are feeble in health or intellect. 
 With a rigid examination of candidates, the realisation of 
 this hope would be an unequivocal advantage. 
 
 2. The reduction of the time during which the certi- 
 ficated teacher is required to instruct his apprentices, from 
 seven and a half hours to fiYQ^ and the permission granted 
 that this instruction may be conducted in an evening 
 school, would lower the tone and amount of the pupil 
 teacher's instruction, if the provision as to the evening 
 school were practicable — which it is not. 
 
 3. The withdrawal of all pecuniary value from the cer- 
 tificate would prevent the apprenticeship of the most de- 
 sirable candidates, and greatly discourage the application 
 of pupil teachers to their preparatory studies. Such of 
 them as gained Queen's Scholarships would rarely, if ever, 
 remain more than one year in the Training College. Many 
 would not go to the Training College at all, but would avail 
 ihemselves of the opportunity afforded them by the Code ^ 
 to take charge of rural schools, and to get a certificate at 
 twenty-one years of age by examination. 
 
 Taking all these provisions in connection with the pecu- 
 niary embarrassments of the school managers, the Eevised 
 Code undermines the whole system of apprenticeship, if it 
 does not, by the abruptness and harshness of the blow, at 
 once destroy it. 
 
 The disallowance of the grants towards the salaries 
 of lecturers* in Training Colleges operates in the same di- 
 rection. The Eoyal Commissioners ' '^do not recommend 
 any reduction of aid at present given to the Colleges in 
 various forms.' '^It may be asserted that, though the 
 money is well spent, and though the relation between the 
 Government and the Training Colleges is satisfactory, the 
 assistance given discourages private liberahty, and that 
 the withdrawal of a part of it would be compensated by 
 private subscriptions. We (the Commissioners say) do 
 
 1 Clauses 118 and 119. 
 
 2 Repoi-t of Eoyal Commission, vol. 1, p. 143; and again p. 148. 
 
 3 iijid,^ p. 144^ 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 621 
 
 not agree in this opinion. It appears probable that con- 
 siderable difficulty would be found in obtaining subscrip- 
 tions enough for these institutions. Private benevolence 
 usually operates rather to relieve the evils which directly 
 excite sympathy and attract attention, than to prevent 
 their occurrence by contributing to the removal of their 
 remote causes.' ' ^ Some conveniences are attached to the 
 present state of things. No other institutions stand so 
 much in need of a permanent income and of a consider- 
 able degree of Government supervision, which, of course, 
 can only be had at the expense of Government grants. 
 To ascertain and to regulate the principles on which 
 teachers should be trained is a difficult process, and re- 
 quires the hght of long and varied experience. If every 
 Training College was self-supporting, and was entirely re- 
 gulated by its own subscribers or committee, they would 
 vary far more than they do now, and would lose the great 
 benefits which they at present derive from the common 
 course of examination imposed upon the students by the 
 syllabus, and from the experience which the Inspectors 
 derive from their annual visits, and make pubhc in their 
 reports.' 
 
 The repeal of auxiliary grants by the Eevised Code, limi- 
 tations and diminutions in the supply of students directly^ 
 and indirectly, and the reduction of the period of training, 
 all operate to cripple the resources of the Colleges. There- 
 fore, if the grants to lecturers be withdrawn, the whole, or 
 most of the lecturers will be removed. This result will 
 be consistent only with a lower level of instruction. Such 
 a result cannot have been foreseen without aii intention to 
 degrade the curriculum of study. The Queen's Scholars 
 and students would thus not merely remain in coUege 
 only half the time hitherto occupied with their training, 
 but would be taught by a less numerous and an inferior, 
 because worse paid staff, — the work would be reduced, 
 and a lower range of attainment would be required. This 
 
 1 Eeport, vol. 1, p. 145. ^ Revised Code, clause 97. 
 
622 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 degradation of the level and diminution of the time of the 
 instruction of the Queen's Scholars and students, is in har- 
 mony with the pohcy adopted towards the apprenticed 
 pupil teacher. Together they must be accepted as signs 
 of a dehberate intention to put the education of the poor, 
 under the Eevised Code, into the hands of teachers whose 
 knowledge, experience, aptitude, and skill, are all of a 
 much lower order than those of the present certificated 
 teachers and their assistants. 
 
 Yet the Eeport of the Eoyal Commission supports the 
 present scheme of rearing the apprentices in schools, and 
 of training the Queen's Scholars in Colleges. It shows 
 (p. 65) 'the great popularity of the certificated teachers, 
 and especially of the certificated mistresses.' Uninspected 
 schools are said to be not so liberally supported as the 
 inspected schools (p. 64): — 'To lower the standard of 
 popular education throughout the country by discouraging 
 the employment of trained teachers, would be fatal' 
 (p. 155). ' The training given in the Colleges is on the 
 whole sound, though there are several drawbacks to its 
 value' (p. 138). 'On the whole, however, we have ex- 
 pressed a favourable opinion of the intellectual training of 
 the students. The moral condition of the Colleges, espe- 
 cially of the female Colleges, appears to be satisfactory ' 
 (p. 168). ' In these opinions we were fortified by the evi- 
 dence as to the moral and intellectual character of those 
 who, having passed through the Training Colleges, were 
 found by our witnesses in the actual charge of schools. 
 We cited from that evidence abundant proof that the 
 trained teachers not only are comparatively far superior 
 to the untrained, but are in every respect but one posi- 
 tively good ' (p. 168). That defect is the teaching of the 
 three lowest elements, and the Commissioners attribute it 
 ' not to want of power, but to want of motive.' 
 
 Concerning pupil teachers the Commissioners say : — 
 ' Almost all the evidence goes to prove that the efiect of 
 the presence of pupil teachers upon the condition of the 
 schools is very beneficial, especially when it is compared 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 623 
 
 with the influence exercised over the schools by monitors' 
 (p. 102). ' The evidence of the Assistant-Commissioners 
 is unanimous as to the superiority of schools in which 
 pupil teachers are employed' (p. 103). 'Of the whole 
 number of pupil teachers, 87*32 per cent, successfully com- 
 plete their apprenticeship ; and 76-02 per cent, become 
 candidates for Queen's Scholarships, which most of them 
 obtain. The 11*3 per cent, who do not become candi- 
 dates for Queen's Scholarships, include those who either 
 adopt other pursuits or follow the calhngs of a school- 
 master without going through the course of instruction 
 given in the Training Colleges' (p. 107). The Commis- 
 sioners then show that this 11 -3 per cent, have rendered, 
 ' year by year, services for the salaries received,' and ' that 
 this salary is presumably not excessive, inasmuch as they 
 might earn more in other callings ' (p. 107). The Com- 
 missioners in their recapitulation (section vi., art. 2) further 
 say : — ' We have shown that the pupil teachers' action on 
 the scholars is eminently beneficial, but more on the 
 higher and middle classes than on the lower' (pp. 166, 
 167). Yet the overthrow of the whole of this machmery 
 is certain under the Eevised Code. The financial embar- 
 rassments of school managers are interwoven with those 
 of the teachers and pupil teachers in such a way as to 
 operate with a most pernicious, if not fatal, effect on ele- 
 mentary schools. The lower social and moral condition 
 of future Queen's Scholars — their inferior capacity and 
 attainments — the cutting off of 10 per cent, in the number 
 allowed to each College — the reduction of the duration of 
 their training one-half — the repeal of auxiliary grants, 
 and the hmitations and diminutions of the supply of 
 students, directly and indirectly — all form elements of a 
 fatal disorder in the Training Colleges. A lower curricu- 
 lum will be adapted to the inferior training of the Queen's 
 Scholars. One-half the Colleges must be shut up, or a 
 double supply of teachers poured upon the country, not 
 half trained, yet to compete with the well-trained certifi- 
 cated teachers, by taking lower salaries, and so to aid that 
 
624 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1^4:^ 
 
 competition in driving them to better remunerated occu- 
 pations. 
 
 These changes could not occur without the ruin of the 
 present system of elementary education. They would 
 cause it to be displaced by one closely resembling that 
 which preceded it. What are the advantages which 
 it is conceived would be purchased by this disastrous 
 revolution^ 
 
 It is said that the administration in the central office 
 is so ' comphcated and cumbersome ' that the system 
 threatens ' to break down at the centre.' If it were so, 
 the Eevised Code would only give it partial relief in one 
 way — ^in the annual grant department — to bury it under 
 an angry storm of controversial remonstrance against the 
 Inspector's awards of the capitation grant. The rehef 
 which the Eevised Code gave in the central office would 
 be purchased, as the Vice-President says (p. 31), by an 
 ' unavoidable ' increase in the number of Assistant Inspec- 
 tors. In other words, the clerks of the Education Depart- 
 ment would be replaced by Inspectors whose emoluments 
 and expenses would in each case be three or four times 
 as great. The duties of the Inspectors would not be 
 simpHfied ; they would be degraded into a complicated 
 and cumbersome daily drudgery, as wearisome as pick- 
 ing oakum. The system would then break down in its 
 hmbs. Scholars and gentlemen would scarcely spend 
 their hves in examining nearly a million of poor chil- 
 dren in their imperfect skill in what is purely mechani- 
 cal in reading, writing, and arithmetic. But when it is 
 asserted that the work of the office is too complicated 
 and cumbersome, I reply — that one day's work in the 
 General Post Office involves more comphcation, and is 
 encumbered with more details, than one whole year's 
 work in the Education Department. That which is most 
 complained of — the payment of individual teachers and 
 assistants by money-orders — is in fact mainly effected by 
 the Post Office Money-order Department, and is an insig- 
 nificant part of its enormous load of work ; yet the 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 625 
 
 Cliancellor of the Exchequer is now wisely attempting, 
 at the expense of an immense increase of this comphca- 
 tion, to convert the Money-order Department into a 
 National Savings' Bank of shiUings. In hke manner, it 
 might be shown that the complaint of complication and 
 burthen of work will bear no comparison with the adminis- 
 tration of the Admiralty, with a navy scattered over the 
 whole world. The reserve, the coast guard, the dock 
 yards, arsenals, hospitals, pensions, courts-martial, promo- 
 tion, and the whole theory of naval construction in a state 
 of transition — certainly cumber the Admiralty with a 
 complicated burthen. Nor could the work be for one 
 moment compared with that of the whole War depart- 
 ment, directing the regiments of the hne and mihtia; 
 inspecting the new battalions of volunteers; with the 
 ordnance ; the citadels of Grreat Britain and the Mediter- 
 ranean ; with the forces scattered through the colonies ; 
 the examinations for commissions ; the recruiting depart- 
 ment ; the depots ; hospitals ; the pension hst ; normal and 
 model schools, and barracks' schools ; and the colleges 
 of staff, engineer, and artillery officers. 
 
 An addition to the present buildings of the Education 
 Department is needed, in order conveniently to concentrate 
 the work under one roof; the Examiners' department 
 may be simplified by being reduced to a system of checks ; 
 an Inspector-General is required to hold the inspection 
 well m hand, while more discretion is given to experienced 
 Inspectors ; a permanent Vice-President is needed, to pre- 
 serve intact the traditions of the office, and give unity of 
 principle to all changes. The labour of making individual 
 payments of money, which seems a great bugbear, may 
 be minimised by transmitting the annual grant in one 
 sum to the correspondent of each school, provided each 
 recipient to whom its portions are allotted sign a receipt 
 in the schedule of the annual grants awarded. 
 
 The complaint of compHcation and load of work is to 
 be met by an enlargement of the building adapted to this 
 national work ; the concentration of the responsibility for 
 
 s s 
 
626 Fourth Period, Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 the Inspector's work in an Inspector-General, might reheve 
 the office of a mass of details ; the money payments may 
 be simplified ; the Examiners' work greatly reduced. No 
 doubt many other like changes might be made. 
 
 2. The expense of the present system, and its tendency 
 to increase, might be pleaded in favour of a system of 
 economy of the public grant. I have already shown that 
 the reduction projected under the Eevised Code is so ill 
 contrived that it would simply disorganise and ruin the 
 schools which now exist. But it is desirable to ascertain 
 on what principle, and in what way, the growth of the 
 Education Grant can be restrained so as to avert such 
 disastrous results as the catastrophe prophesied by Dr. 
 Temple. Of those who are alarmed at the tendency of 
 the public grant to increase, the Eoyal Commission are 
 the most moderate and reasonable representatives. They 
 say: — 'According to the most careful estimate we have 
 been able to make, which is based upon a calculation of 
 an increase in the number of pupil teachers and in the 
 augmentation grant, the extension of the general system 
 to the whole country would cost about £1,300,000, if the 
 unassisted public schools alone were brought under it. If 
 the scholars in private schools were added, the sum would 
 amount to about £1,620,000. And supposing an increase 
 in the number of scholars of 20 per cent., in consequence 
 of an improvement in attendance, it would be increased 
 to about £1,800,000 yearly. To this sum, if the present 
 system were unaltered, would have to be added a capita- 
 tion grant for 2,300,000 children ; and at the present rate 
 of attendance, which is an increasing one, at least 800,000 
 of these would earn 65. a head. This would make the 
 whole grant amount to nearly £2,100,000 a year.' (Com- 
 missioners' Eeport, p. 314.) 
 
 The Commissioners contrast this estimate with my own, 
 that with a full provision for aid in the creation and support 
 of evening schools, and in the spread of the whole system 
 to the apathetic districts, the public gi^ant for education 
 might be kept within £1,000,000 per annum, or at the 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 627 
 
 utmost, £1,200,000. I expressed this opinion in my letter 
 to your Lordship of the 24th April, 1861, in the follow- 
 ing words : — 
 
 ' The force which will ultimately transform the whole 
 will be the result of education itself. When the people 
 know that they have even more interest in the education 
 of their children than their rulers have, they will more 
 and more take charge of it. They now bear two-thirds 
 of the burthen ; but that third which they do not pay has 
 given value to what before was of httle worth, and has 
 thus created a transient power destined to pass from the 
 Government into the hands of those who will take the 
 charge. The transference of administrative power to the 
 local managers and the parents wiU attend the gradual 
 assumption by them of the payment of the pupil teachers, 
 and of the whole of the stipends of the certificated teachers, 
 consequent on the effects of education on some generations 
 of parents, and on the middle classes. ' 
 
 ' The Parliamentary grant has hitherto been so admin- 
 istered by the Committee of Council as to stimulate the 
 investment of large sums in school buildings, by giving 
 about one-third of their value. Between 1839 and 1860, 
 grants amounting to £1,076,753 have caused an invest- 
 ment of subscriptions amounting to £2,360,226 in school 
 buildings, or altogether of £3,436,226. The grant has 
 also promoted the rapid growth of the annual income of 
 schools, by subsidies at a similar rate of one-third the 
 whole annual outlay, so that probably two millions an- 
 nually are now expended in the support of schools. The 
 public grant may in a few years increase with correspond- 
 ing results to £1,000,000 or £1,200,000, making in its 
 progress adequate provision for the education of youth 
 from school-age to manhood ; but at that point, by well- 
 devised antecedent expedients, its increase may not only 
 be arrested, but this annual aid may be converted into an 
 instrument, in the hands of skilful administrators, by 
 which all the rest of the work may be done in the most 
 apathetic as weU as in the most earnest districts. That 
 
 s s 2 
 
628 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes (t/* 1 846 
 
 result attained, a new series of operations may commence, 
 by which the charge of pubHc education may be gradually 
 transferred from the Consolidated Fund to the local sources 
 of income, school-pence, and subscriptions.' 
 
 Now, what are the alternatives to the adoption of such 
 a system ? 
 
 First, we have the scheme of the Eevised Code. This 
 may be briefly described as an attempt to reduce the cost 
 of the education of the poor, by conducting it by a 
 machinery — half trained and at less charge ; to entrust it 
 to a lower class of ill-paid teachers, and generally to young 
 monitors as assistants ; to neglect the force of a higher 
 moral and rehgious agency in the civilisation of the people, 
 and to define national education as a drill in mechanical 
 skill in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The State would 
 pay less, and be content with a worse article. The cheap- 
 ness of the result would, however, be no measure of its 
 value, — it would be almost worthless. There is too clear 
 and faithful a sense of duty in the Church and religious 
 communions to acquiesce in such a scheme. It comprises 
 impracticable details. It is an abrupt revolutionary change 
 from all the traditions of the Department, and is destuaed 
 to fail. 
 
 Secondly, the notion of the practicability of a rate- 
 supported system has been refuted by repeated careful 
 investigation and experiment. Sir James Graham's Edu- 
 cation clauses in the Factories' Eegulation Act failed in 
 consequence of the united opposition of non-conformists. 
 These clauses were framed on the basis of toleration, — 
 they gave as much authority to the Church as was con- 
 sistent with complete civil and religious liberty within the 
 school. Churchmen reluctantly assented to them, and 
 they were almost universally rejected by dissidents from 
 her communion. The subsequent Bills, for the partial 
 support of education from the rates, were intended to 
 operate in harmony with the Minutes and administration 
 of the Committee of Council on Education. They failed 
 from two causes : from the suspicion with which aU the 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 629 
 
 religious communions shrink from giving even tlie shadow 
 of authority in schools to the representatives of the rate- 
 payers ; and secondly, from the indisposition of the Town 
 Councils, and other representative bodies, to permit the 
 total or partial transference of the burthen of pubHc edu- 
 cation — with only limited authority over its administra- 
 tion — from an assessment of 550 millions on which the 
 Consolidated Fund is charged, to that of 86 milhons, from 
 which the local taxes are raised. The proposal of the 
 Eoyal Commission, as to county rates, was also wrecked 
 upon this rock. 
 
 Thirdly, there remains the expedient of devising 
 measures for tlie restraint of the growth of the public 
 grant without destroying the efficiency of the existing 
 system ; while due provision is made for the extension of 
 the system, with necessary modifications of detail, to 
 rural parishes with very limited population, — to districts 
 apathetic on account of the non-residence of proprietors, 
 and the humble intelligence and means of the tenantry, — 
 and to the worst parts of great towns and cities. 
 
 I have already given a statement with respect to the 
 mode of administering a limited capitation grant, so as to 
 secure attention to the three lowest elements, and another 
 as to the mode of reducing the annual grants to schools 
 one-third, so as to cause a supply from local resources of 
 the money thus withdrawn. 
 
 This reduction of the annual grants was proposed to be 
 effected in equal annual instalments in ten years. In like 
 manner the whole of the grants might be reduced gradu- 
 ally by equal annual diminution, on condition that the 
 sums withdrawn should be supplied from local resources. 
 Thus, in fifteen years, the proportions of the whole grant 
 to the whole money raised locally might be changed, from 
 the present ratio of one-third grant and two-thirds private 
 funds, to the proportion of one-fourth of Parhamentary 
 aid to three-fourths of voluntary contributions. Applying 
 this ratio to the extension of education to the wliole of 
 England and Wales — the Commissioners say tliat, 'iu 
 
 s s 3 
 
630 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 round numbers, the annual grants in 1860 promoted the 
 education of about 920,000 children, while they leave 
 unaffected the education of 1,250,000 others of the same 
 class.' Accepting this statement as the basis of calcula- 
 tion, let us suppose that in fifteen years the present 
 system could be extended so as to include these 2,170,000 
 children. The annual cost of this education, at 28s. per 
 scholar, would be £3,038,000 annually. The present 
 Parhamentary grant of £750,000 would provide for the 
 whole of this extension, if the proportions of all the 
 grants were altered from one-third to one-fourth gradu- 
 ally, by equal annual reductions, which would proceed 
 pari passu with the whole phenomena of extension. 
 Two millions and a quarter would thus be raised locally, 
 to meet three-quarters of a million of public grants. One 
 great source of the increase of local funds would consist 
 in a gradual growth of income from school-pence. This 
 would arise both from somewhat larger weekly payments 
 and more regular attendance. If the average attendance 
 of each scholar became thirty-six weeks annually, an 
 advance of one penny per week in the school-pence of 
 two millions of scholars would produce £300,000. 
 This result may be attained without doubt in fifteen 
 years. Three-hal^ence advance, weekly, would produce 
 £450,000 annually. 
 
 The principle of the change by which the growth of 
 the public grant might be restrained, is sufficiently indi- 
 cated in these arrangements. There is but one alter- 
 native. Either the education of the poor must be 
 worse, in proportion as it costs the State less ; or the 
 restraint on the growth of the public grant, and the 
 reduction of its proportions to private contributions, must 
 be so ordered that Christian benevolence and the sense of 
 duty in parents may have time to step in, and gradually 
 sustain, by increased subscriptions and school-pence, the 
 efficiency of schools. 
 
 The Government is responsible for the present character 
 of schools, in all their details. It invented the pupil- 
 
Against the Revised Code 0/ 1861-2 631 
 
 teacher apprenticeship, and the Training Colleges. It 
 convinced the religious communions, by the earnest advo- 
 cacy of its own authorised agents, that the education of 
 the poor ought to be raised to its present standard. It 
 has vigilantly superintended the execution of its Minutes 
 by its own Inspectors. At any moment it might have 
 required more drill in elementary subjects by school- 
 masters. One circular letter would have ensured the 
 closest attention to the subject. It even neglected to 
 carry into execution the last clause of the Minute of the 
 2nd of April, 1853, devised for this express purpose, in 
 schools which might obtain that capitation grant. The 
 whole curriculum of study has been regulated by its exami- 
 nations of the Training Colleges, of certificated teachers, 
 and of pupil teachers. This curriculum might have been 
 modified at any time. The Government is therefore 
 identified with what exists. The present level of popular 
 instruction has been the result of its administration. The 
 work is confessedly incomplete, but for its condition in 
 this stage of progress, the Committee of Council is pri- 
 marily, in all respects, responsible. It has, however, 
 contributed only one-third of the cost. The £4,800,000 
 expended by the Government, have been met by double 
 that sum raised locally. The total outlay in l3uilding, 
 enlarging, and improving 27 Training Colleges has been 
 £334,981, of which £101,641 were derived from the 
 Government, and £223,339 from other sources. Yet the 
 State, as the contributor of only one-third, arrogates to 
 itself the right to say that all that is done is wrong, though 
 the Education Societies, the Diocesan and Archidiaconal 
 Boards of Education, the committees and Principals of 
 Training Colleges, chng to the principles of the existing 
 system, and to the great majority of its details. Espe- 
 cially, when the State has thus invented and stimulated 
 a system which has cost its promoters £9,600,000, by an 
 outlay of one-half of that amount of pubHc money, it has 
 incurred obligations to those who have expended nearly 
 ten millions, in the confidence that the Executive was not 
 
 s s 4 
 
632 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of I'^i^ 
 
 a mere abstraction, but a power capable of contracting 
 moraL'obligations. The character of a system of pubhc 
 education thus created, ought not to be abruptly and 
 harshly changed by the fiat of a Minister, without the 
 consent of the great controlhng bodies and communions 
 who have expended twice as much as the State. Even 
 were Parliament to make such a change, it would be a 
 national dishonour. It would be an act of repudiation 
 ever to be remembered with shame. 
 
 But not only would such an abrupt change be dis- 
 graceful, it would be short-sighted statesmanship ; it 
 would be a present saving, with the certainty of an ulti- 
 mate disastrous loss. Otherwise, all those who have 
 depended on the growth of Christian civilisation for the 
 diminution of pauperism and crime have been dreamers. 
 The protection of the public peace from tumult — of 
 private property from depredation, — the detection, pur- 
 suit, trial, and punishment of crime, — cost the nation 
 £9,000,000 annually, without taking into account the 
 loss of wealth by robbers, incendiaries, and rioters. 
 Pauperism, which is the hereditary consequence of gene- 
 rations of ignorance, superstition, and the slow and partial 
 emancipation of the people from a previous state of 
 serfdom, costs £6,000,000 annually. This relief of indi- 
 gence is simply a measure of police. The hfe of the 
 indigent is protected, as at the very foundation of laws 
 for the protection of property and the public peace. The 
 alternative would be a vast increase of vagabondage, 
 crime, and tumult. 
 
 But this system of pohce for the restraint of crime and 
 pauperism, has little or nothing in it that tends to cure 
 those disorders. All curative agencies are of a totally 
 different character. They are purely moral agencies. 
 Their operation is gradual ; it is felt only in a generation 
 of men, or in successive generations. Such agencies appeal 
 to the faith of great Statesmen, who are alone capable of 
 guiding nations. A Statesman who foresees the necessity 
 of providing for a great though remote danger, threaten- 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 633 
 
 ing the independence of his country, trains the population 
 to arms ; inspires them with a martial spirit ; year by 
 year strengthens citadels and erects batteries on the coasts ; 
 accumulates the munitions of war ; and creates a great navy. 
 The arsenals and dockyards, the citadels and forts, after 
 years of preparation, contain a vast accumulation of the 
 means of national defence. The nation, too, is armed, 
 disciplined, and filled with a patriotic spirit. That con- 
 ception of the necessity of thus meeting a great emergency 
 is the result of the experience which history records. In 
 like manner, a confidence in the efficacy of moral agencies 
 in the dimunition of crime and pauperism, results from a 
 careful study of the history of the emancipation of the 
 humblest classes of any European nation from serfdom, 
 helotry, and villenage. The primary agent in this has 
 been Christianity, which has taught the moral equality of 
 all men in the eye of God. This idea, notwithstanding 
 inferiorities of race, renders the slavery of accountable 
 human beings ultimately impossible in Christian nations. 
 It is equally impossible that responsible moral agents 
 should be allowed to be the victims of mere animal in- 
 stinct, of ignorance, of the want of moral, religious, 
 and mental culture, in any Christian people. Crime 
 and pauperism are — in the degree in which they now 
 exist — the heir-looms of the state of serfdom. They are 
 the signs of the partial nature of the emancipation of the 
 people from a brutish condition in which they were used 
 like more intelligent beasts of burthen. But that States- 
 man who refuses to make an immediate outlay on the 
 religious education of the people, in order to humanise 
 their manners, correct their habits, increase their intelli- 
 gence, and raise their moral condition, or prefers to cripple 
 such an outlay for the sake of some immediate paltry 
 economy, is not only shortsighted, but he must in his 
 heart disbelieve the efficacy of moral and rehgious agencies 
 as antidotes to pauperism and crime. 
 
 The force of the confidence in these agencies which 
 exists in the nation, may be measured by the fact that 
 
634 Fourth Period, Defence of Minutes of ISiQ 
 
 the Education Grant is the only part of the fund derived 
 from national taxation which, by its expenditure, now 
 produces a voluntary contribution twice as great, and 
 which by a gradual change, extending over fifteen years, 
 may be made to produce from local sources, contributions 
 thrice as large, as the public grant. Would a Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer be farsighted who should put this result 
 in peril, if not render it impossible, by an abrupt and 
 harsh change? 
 
 Eecently proposals have been submitted to successive 
 Parliaments for a reduction of the county franchise to a 
 rating occupation of £10, and of the borough franchise to 
 one of £6. Nothing tended to defeat these measures so 
 much as the alarm excited in the middle classes by the 
 proceedings of the Trades' Unions. These combinations 
 often attempted to regulate labour so as to interfere with 
 the freedom of workmen, and dictated to capital so as to 
 usurp the authority necessary to successful enterprise. 
 The domination of the Unions was generally without the 
 violence and vindictiveness of former times. But it was 
 arbitrary — was often directed to objects so mischievous 
 or impracticable, as to inspire a deep-seated aversion to 
 the extension of the franchise by the reduction of the 
 property qualification. That proposal for including a larger 
 number of the most intelligent and morally deserving por- 
 tion of the working classes within the pale of the constitu- 
 tion is indefinitely postponed. But all parties agreed in 
 the importance of devising the means of sifting out the 
 best representatives of the classes supported by manual 
 labour from the mass, and conferring the franchise on 
 them. The effect of a steady perseverance in a system of 
 national education, such as is at present in operation, 
 would be to raise such men within the pale of the con- 
 stitution. The 23,000 teachers and pupil teachers will 
 certainly all possess the franchise. They are nearly all 
 children of parents supported by manual labour, or of 
 persons not possessing the franchise. Their elevation is 
 a type of the true and certain influence of the same kind 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 635 
 
 of training on the mass. The fifty-eight milhons annually 
 expended on beer, spirits, and tobacco will be reduced. 
 The money thus saved will be devoted to the rent of more / 
 comfortable houses, to better household management, to/ 
 the education of the children. A better-housed popula- 
 tion will soon have many heads of families within the pale 
 of the present franchise. 
 
 To give the people a worse education from motives of 
 short-sighted economy, would be, in these respects, utterly 
 inconsistent with all preceding national policy. The idea 
 that an ignorant, brutish people is either more subordi- 
 nate or more easily controlled than a people loyal by con- 
 viction and contented from experience and reason, is 
 exploded. The notion that the mass of the people are 
 the sources of national wealth merely as beasts of burthen 
 — that the nation has no interest in their inteUigence, in- 
 ventive capacity, morality, and fitness for the duties of 
 freemen and citizens, — is a doctrine which would find no 
 advocates. No Chancellor of the Exchequer would dare 
 to avow that their sensuahty was a prolific source of re- 
 venue which he could not afford to check. Why, then, 
 is education to be discouraged by regulations which cut 
 off all aid to children under seven and after eleven years 
 of age ? Why are the annual grants to be reduced two- 
 fifths at one blow ? Why are the stipends, training, and 
 qualifications of schoolmasters to be lowered ? Why is 
 instruction in the school to be mainly concentrated on the 
 three lower elements ? If these scholars are in prepara- 
 tion for Confirmation in the Church, why are the following 
 instructions to Inspectors, of August, 1840, to be rendered 
 practically nugatory by the individual examination of 
 scholars in the lower elements imposed by the Eevised 
 Code, viz. — 'That no plan of education ought to be en- 
 couraged in which intellectual instruction is not subordi- 
 date to the regulation of the thoughts and habits of the 
 children by the doctrines and precepts of revealed religion? ' 
 Why is this formidable, if not insurmountable, impedi- 
 ment placed in the way of the order that 'in the case of 
 
636 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 schools connected with the national Church, the Inspectors 
 will inquire with special care how far the doctrines and 
 principles of the Church are instilled into the minds of the 
 children ? ' 
 
 3. One of the pleas for the Eevised Code is, that it was 
 necessary to reduce the annual grants to inspected schools 
 and Training Colleges, in order to provide for the establish- 
 ment of evening schools, and for the extension of educa- 
 tion in the apathetic districts. 
 
 But the plan proposed for both of these objects in the 
 Eevised Code is impracticable, or nugatory in some of its 
 essential features. 
 
 For exariiple, as to evening schools : the master could 
 not teach in them without the ruin of his health and the 
 neglect of his pupil teachers ; for to mix them with these 
 rude evening scholars, struggling with the lowest ele- 
 ments, is an utterly indefensible proposal. The proposed 
 payments to the evening schools are not such as to be a 
 motive for exertion to establish them. The Code there- 
 fore provides no available machinery for evening schools, 
 and no motive for founding them. 
 
 As to the apathetic districts, there are only two provi- 
 sions in the Code which seem to afford them any practical 
 aid ; they are — the creation of the fourth-class certificate, 
 and the permission to pupil teachers who have successfully 
 completed their apprenticeship, to serve as teachers in 
 small rural schools until their twenty-fifth year.^ But 
 
 1 118. Pupil teachers who fulfil the conditions of Article 84, may, upon 
 special recommendation by the Inspector, and upon consideration of their 
 last examination papers, be provisionally certified in the lower grade of the 
 fourth division for immediate sei'vice in charge of small rural schools, but 
 after the holder's 25th year of age (completed) such provisional certificates 
 must have been exchanged for permanent certificates (Article 60), or are 
 vpso facto cancelled. 
 
 119. Rural schools, in order to fall under Article 118, must not contain 
 more than 1200 square feet of superficial area in the whole of the school- 
 rooms and class-rooms, or they must be certified as not needing nor likely to 
 be attended by more than 100 scholars. 
 
 Pupil teachers who have successfully completed their Apprenticeship. 
 84. At the close of the apprenticeship pupil teachers are perfectly free in 
 
Against the Revised Code of 1861-2 637 
 
 these arrangements would be frustrated by the want of 
 resources in such schools under the Eevised Code. They 
 are, as will be seen by a reference to Appendix B, exactly 
 the schools in which the capitation grant of the Code 
 would be often the least productive. 
 
 Much experience has been accumulated as to the or- 
 ganisation of evening schools, which is quite without 
 influence on the regulations of the Code. The employ- 
 ment of raw apprentices — youths of only 19 — in sole 
 charge of rural schools, is open to the gravest objec- 
 tions. 
 
 I shall not venture now to enter further on the plan of 
 administration to be adopted on these two important 
 questions, but I have no doubt whatever that an effectual 
 impulse might be given to the general introduction of 
 good evening schools, and that the present system might 
 be extended into the smallest rural parishes, and the most 
 apathetic districts, without any considerable temporary 
 increase of the Parliamentary grant. I have already 
 quoted the passage in which I deliberately stated my 
 conviction that the public grant, under a wise and provi- 
 dent restraint, would at no time exceed £1,000,000 or 
 £1,200,000, and that above two millions of scholars 
 might, in fifteen years, be well taught and trained in in- 
 spected schools, under certificated teachers, at an expense 
 to the State then reduced to £750,000 per annum. 
 
 Can Parliament refuse this outlay, when it would re- 
 present three millions of annual expenditure, of which 
 two millions and a quarter would be derived from local 
 voluntary resources, and at least £1,125,000 from the 
 school pence paid by the parents of the scholars? I 
 
 the clioice of employment. Any person properly interested in knowing the 
 character of a pupil teacher may apply to the Committee of Council for a 
 testimonial, declaring that the pupil teacher has successfidly completed an 
 apprenticeship ; or the pupil teacher, if willing to continue in the work of 
 education, may become an assistant in an elementary school (Article 85), or 
 may become a Queen's scholar in a normal school (Articles 92-107), or may 
 be provisionally certificated for immediate service in charge of small rural 
 schools (Articles 118, 119). 
 
638 Fourth Period. Defence of Minutes of 1846 
 
 should feel the utmost confidence that the co-operation of 
 the Education Societies representing the Church and the 
 rehgious communions, would be given to produce this 
 result. Under a wise, faithful, and sympathising adminis- 
 tration, strenuously striving with the Education Societies 
 to attain it, there would be the utmost moral certainty 
 of its accomphshment 
 
 It is impossible in this letter to submit to your Lord- 
 ship observations on numerous matters of detail, which 
 would only encumber and obscure the drift of the general 
 observations which I have felt it my duty to lay before 
 you. But I hope your Lordship will give me credit for 
 not having overlooked them, though I have found it im- 
 possible even to allude to them in this argument. 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 My Loed, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 James P. Kay Shuttleworth. 
 
 The Earl Gkanville, K. G., President of the Council 
 and of the Committee of tlie Privy Council on Education. 
 
639 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Extract from Revised Code. 
 Annual grants conditional upon the number and pro- 
 ficiency of the scholars, the number and qualifica- 
 tions of the teachers, and the state of the schools. 
 
 38. Schools may meet three times daily: viz., in the 
 morning, afternoon, and evening. 
 
 39. Schools which do not meet more than once daily 
 cannot receive grants. 
 
 40. The managers of schools may claim per scholar 
 \d. for every attendance, after the first 100, at the 
 morning or afternoon meetings, and after the first 12 
 at the evening meetings, of their school, within the year 
 defined by Article 17.^ Attendances under Half-time 
 Acts may be multiplied by two to make up the pre- 
 liminary number. One-third part of the sum thus 
 claimable is forfeited if the scholar fails to satisfy the 
 Inspector in reading, one-third if in writing, and one- 
 third if in arithmetic respectively, according to Article 
 44. 
 
 ' Proposed Alterations ' as 
 presented to both Houses 
 of Parliament on Feb. 13, 
 1862. 
 
 ^ The Commissioners estimate the cost of education at 305. per annum (p. 345), 
 and recommend that the average grant obtainable should be about 10*. per child, 
 never exceeding 15s. per child. 
 
 Fifteen shillings = 180 pence, may be earned, according to the proposed scale, 
 by an attendance (twice per diem) of 140 days = the attendance proposed by the 
 Commissioners as reasonable to aim at. (p. 330.) 
 
 According to the estimate of the Commissioners, the education of every 100 
 children = £150, and according to a rough application of the Table at p. 172 of 
 their Report to the proposed scale, the grant obtainable for the attendance of 100 
 children would be £64 3s. 4d., before the reductions consequent upon examina- 
 tion and inspection. The average, therefore, including evening scholars, would 
 probably not exceed 1 Os. per head. The calculation is as follows : — 
 
 Amount of Grant for 100 Children at \d. per Attendance after the First 100 
 
 Attendances. 
 Out of every 100 children, according to the average of England and "Wales 
 (Report, p. 172), taking round numbers, and counting 1 day = 2 attendances : — 
 20 make less than 100 attendances =£000 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 between 100 and 200 = (upon an average) 150, of 
 
 which 50 at lc?. = 20 x4s. 2(; 
 
 between 200 and 300 = (upon an average) 250, of 
 
 which 150 at 1J. = 20 x 12s. 6d. 
 
 between 300 and 400 = (upon an average) 350, of 
 
 which 250 at lrf.=20 x20s. lOcf. 
 
 between 400 and 440 = (upon an average) 420, of 
 
 which 320 at lcf.= 20x2 6s. 8(/. 
 
 4 3 4 
 
 12 10 
 
 20 16 8 
 
 26 13 4 
 
 £64 3 4 
 
640 
 
 Fourth Period 
 
 41. No claim may be made on account of — 
 
 (a.) Any scholar, except in Group IV., who hag 
 given less than sixteen morning or afternoon 
 attendances, or eight evening attendances, 
 within the thirty-one days preceding the date 
 of the return ; 
 
 (6.) Evening attendances by scholars under 
 thirteen years of age ; 
 
 (c.) A third attendance on the same day ; 
 
 ((/.) Scholars once passed in Group IV. 
 
 42. The claim is to be made, and the examination 
 recorded, in a schedule of the following form, or in 
 such a modification of it as the Committee of Council 
 shall from time to time prescibe. 
 
 Article 41. (a.) Cancel. 
 
 (6.) For 13 read 12. 
 
 Article 42. Heading 
 of second column. Cancel 
 all the words after (' Ar- 
 ticle 17'). 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 Name of every 
 Scholar who has at- 
 tended more than 
 100 separate Jleet- 
 ings of the School 
 in the Year ending 
 
 186 (Article 
 
 17), of wliich at. 
 tendances 16 or up- 
 wards were within 
 31 days of the last- 
 mentioned date. 
 
 i 
 
 lis 
 
 pi. 
 
 m 
 
 liii 
 
 liii 
 
 m 
 
 lill 
 
 2 
 
 S 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 4 
 5 
 
 &c. 
 
 Group I. 
 A.B. 
 CD. 
 
 &c. 
 
 Group II. 
 E.F. 
 G.H. 
 
 &c. 
 
 Group III. 
 J.K. 
 L.M. 
 &c. 
 
 Group IV. 
 N.O. 
 
 r.Q. 
 
 &c. 
 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d 
 
 £s. d. 
 
 43. Group I. is confined to children between 3 
 and 7 years of age. 
 „ II. between 7 and 9 years of age. 
 „ ill. J, ij ,, 11 ,y 
 
 „ IV. „ 11 and upwards. 
 
 Article 43. After * 1 1 
 and upwards* add 
 ♦ Children under 6 years 
 of age, in those schools in 
 which the Inspector is able 
 to report thai special pro- 
 vision is made for the in- 
 struction of infants, are 
 not requi?-ed to be indi- 
 vidually examined. But 
 the grants of Id. per at- 
 tendance do not begin to be 
 made for them until after 
 the first 200 attendances' 
 
Appendix A. 
 
 641 
 
 Those scholars who attend in the evenings only 
 (Articles 40-1), must be distinguished from the rest 
 in Group IV., and entered therein after the rest. 
 
 44 
 
 Read 
 ing. 
 
 Writ- 
 ing. 
 
 Group I. 
 
 Narrative in 
 monosyllables. 
 
 Form on black- 
 board or slate, 
 from dictation, 
 letters, capital 
 and small, ma- 
 nuscript. 
 
 Form on black- 
 board or slate, 
 from dictation, 
 figures up to 
 20 ; name at 
 
 subtract figures 
 up to 10, orally, 
 from examples 
 on black-boaid 
 
 Group II. 
 
 A short para- 
 graph from 
 an elementary 
 reading book 
 used in the 
 school. 
 
 A sentence from 
 the same para- 
 graph, slowly 
 read once, and 
 then dictated 
 in single words. 
 
 ii sum in any 
 simple rule as 
 far as short di- 
 vision (inclu- 
 sive). 
 
 Group III. 
 
 A short para 
 graph from a 
 more advanced 
 reading book 
 used in the 
 school. 
 
 A sentence slow 
 ly dictated once 
 by a few word: 
 at a time, from 
 the same book, 
 but not from 
 the paragraph 
 read. 
 
 A sum in com 
 pound . rules 
 (money & c 
 mon weights 
 and measures). 
 
 Group IV. 
 
 A short ordin- 
 ary paragraph 
 in a newspaper, 
 or other mo- 
 dern narrative. 
 
 Another short 
 ordinary para- 
 graph in a 
 newspaper, or 
 other modern 
 narrative,slow 
 ly dictated oncel j. 
 by a few words J T*. 
 at a time. 
 
 A sum in prac- 
 tice or simple 
 proportion 
 
 II 
 
 ./I « c 
 
 - o £ 
 o* Z 
 €■21 
 
 45. The grant may either be withheld altogether or 
 reduced. 
 
 46. The grant is withheld altogether, — 
 
 (a.) If the school be not held in a building certi- 
 fied by the Inspector to be healthy, properly 
 lighted, drained, and ventilated, supplied with 
 offices, and containing in the principal school- 
 room at least 80 cubical feet of internal space 
 for each child in average attendance. 
 
 (6.) If the principal teacher be not duly certificated 
 (Article 61). 
 
 (c.) If the girls in the school be not taught plain 
 needlework as part of the ordinary course of 
 instruction. 
 
 (d) If the registers be not kept with sufficient ac- 
 curacy to warrant confidence in the returns. 
 
 (e.) If, on the Inspector's Report, there appears to 
 be any prima facie objection of a gi'oss kind. 
 A second inspection, wherein another Inspector 
 or Inspectors takes part, is made in every such 
 instance, and if the grant be finally withheld, a 
 special minute is made and recorded of the 
 case. 
 
 (/. ) If three persons at least be not designated to 
 sign the receipt for the grant on behalf of the 
 school. 
 
 Article 44. Heading 
 of second column. Add 
 * excluding children under 
 six years of age.* 
 
 Article 45. Add ^for 
 causes arising out of the 
 state of the school.' 
 
 Article 45*. The In- 
 spector does not proceed 
 to examine scholars in 
 reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic for the grant, 
 until he has first ascer- 
 tained that the state of 
 the school does not re- 
 quire it to be withheld. 
 
 Article 46 (,b.). For 
 'full stop' after '(Article 
 61)' read * comma/ and 
 add' and dull/ paid. Teach- 
 ers certificated before Zlst 
 March, 1864, and who 
 have not otherwise agreed 
 with their employers, are 
 duly paid if they receive 
 not less than three times 
 the grant allowable upon 
 their certificates in Article 
 64-5 of the Code 0/I86O, 
 and they have a first 
 charge to the extent of this 
 grant, being one- third of 
 such due payment, upon 
 the money received by the 
 Managers, under Article 
 42 of the Revised Code.* 
 
 * 7%*s number is provisionally retained in order not to disturb the numbers in the 
 remainder of the Code. 
 
 T T 
 
642 
 
 Fourth Period 
 
 47. The grant is reduced, — 
 
 (a.) By not less than one-tenth nor more than one- 
 half in the whole, upon the Inspector's Keport, 
 for faults of instruction or discipline on the part 
 of the teacher, or (after one year's notice) for 
 failure on the part of the managers to remedy 
 any such defect in the premises as seriously 
 interferes with the efficiency of the school, or 
 to provide proper furniture, books, maps, and 
 other apparatus of elementary instruction. 
 
 (6.) By the sum of £10 for every completed num- 
 ber of 30 scholars after the first 50 in average 
 attendance who are without a teacher fulfilling 
 the conditions of Articles 61, or 75-83, or 85-7. 
 
 (c. ) By its excess above 
 
 1. The amount of school fees\ in the year 
 and subscriptions ; or, I defined 
 
 2. The rate of 15*. per scholar [by Article 
 in average attendance j 17. 
 
 48. If the excess of scholars over the ratio of 30 to 
 every pupil teacher has arisen from increased attend- 
 ance of children since the last settlement of the school 
 staff' (Articles 56, 57), the forfeiture prescribed by 
 Article 47 (h.) does not accrue. 
 
 49. In every school receiving annual grants is to be 
 kept, besides the ordinary registers of attendance, — 
 
 (a.) A diary or log-book. 
 
 (6.) A portfolio wherein may be laid all official 
 letters, which should be numbered (1, 2, 3, 
 &c.,) in the order of their receipt. 
 
 (e.) Add* after the 
 ' objection ' referring to 
 foot note. 
 
 Article 47 (a). Add* 
 after the word ^instruc- 
 tion' referring to foot 
 note. 
 
 (6) Cancel, and instead 
 read ' by the sum of £\0, 
 if after the first 50 scholars 
 in average attendance there 
 be not either one pupil 
 teacher fulfilling the con- 
 ditions of Articles 75-83 
 for every 40 scholars, or 
 one certificated, or assist- 
 ant teacher fulfilling the 
 conditions of Articles 61 
 and 85-7, respectively, for 
 every 80 scholars, in aver- 
 age attendance. The fijr- 
 feiture is reducedfrom £ 1 
 to £5, if the failure to 
 comply with these Articles 
 be confined to the examina- 
 tion of a pupil teacher 
 (Article 82); but this re- 
 duction is made only once 
 for the same pupil teacher, 
 and not in successive years 
 for the same school.' 
 
 '* In Church of England Schools the Order in Council of lOth August, 1840, 
 and the instructions to Inspectors relative to examination in religion, which are 
 founded upon it, are included under this paragraph. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 The inequalities in the operation of the capitation grant scheme in the Revised 
 Code exhibited in different districts. 
 
 Rev. John Menet, Chaplain of the Hockerill Training School, Bishop's Stortford, 
 in a letter to the Guardian, dated October 21st, 1861, gives the following results 
 of his inquiries : — 
 
 1. * That infant schools could not in the great majority of cases be kept open. 
 
 2. * That new schools and schools in shifting populations would suffer enor- 
 mously. 
 
 3. ' That boys' schools in particular parts of towns would suffer the least, and 
 that some might gain more than they receive now. 
 
 4. * That the largest grants would be earned where they are least needed, and 
 that therefore the assistance given would be in inverse proportion to the need.' 
 
 No. 
 
 1. Boys' school in very shifting London population . 
 
 6. Boys' school in a manufacturing town .... 
 11. Boys' school in a shifting London population 
 
 7. Boys' school long-established, and including farmers') 
 
 and middle-class children .... 3 
 
 14. Boys' school, with very close approximation to H.M.I. ) 
 
 standard ) 
 
 17. Girls' school (ditto as to standard) . . . . 
 20. Girls' school in a large town (ditto as to standard) 
 5. Mixed under a mistress, scattered country population . 
 
 2. Infant school, very successful (average attendance, 150) 
 9. Infant school, established a year, in a very low town } 
 
 population S 
 
 8. Infant school, London population 
 
 Last annual 
 grant under 
 Old Code. 
 
 Estimated 
 grant under 
 New Code. 
 
 £133 
 
 £97 
 
 96 
 
 48 
 
 132 
 
 76 
 
 38 
 
 39 
 
 28 
 
 11 
 
 58 
 
 22 . 
 
 134 
 
 38 
 
 30 
 
 13 
 
 80 
 
 21 
 
 61 
 
 8 
 
 97 
 
 15 
 
 The returns which have been furnished to me by school managers, teachers, 
 
 and others, give the following results : — 
 
 Rate of loss in annual grant* 
 under Revised Code. 
 
 Schools with semi-barbarous, migrant population in manu- ) « ^^i, . „ ^.. 
 
 ^ , . ,. , . ^ ^.r■^^ f From 2-5ths to 3-5ths. 
 
 factunng districts — Villages . . . . .3 
 
 Towns From 2-5ths to2-3rds. 
 
 Schools in dense and corrupt parts of old cities and large ) ^ 
 towns .........) 
 
 Schools in pauperised rural districts, where the children 
 
 are employed in numerous harvests, &c. 
 Schools on wild moorland, with scattered population . From 2-5ths to 2-3rds. 
 
 1 The whole previous 
 Schools closely connected with a wealthy congregation in I grant would be ob- 
 long settled and prosperous parts of a town . . j tained, or only one- 
 
 J fifth loss suffered. 
 Schools of a settled, well-employed rural population, in T 
 
 which the influence of the proprietors and tenantry > One-fifth loss. 
 
 From 2-5ths to 2-3rds. 
 
 are beneficially exercised 
 Schools in rural parishes, intermediate between those with 1 pj-^jj^ 
 wealthy and vigilant patrons, and schools in pau- > , 
 
 i-4th to 1.3rd 
 
 perised and apathetic districts 
 Schools in rural parishes with bad roads - 
 population — non-resident proprietors— 
 different — much harvest- work — and 
 benefice for clergyman , 
 
 -a scattered T „,.„ . , 
 tenantry in- ^'^ «.\^,^f ^« 
 ill-endowed r or will become 
 
 closed 
 Ad- 
 venture Schools.' 
 
644 
 
 Fourth Period 
 
 « s -S 
 
 ^ 
 
 CQ 
 
 CQ 
 
 
 •s 
 
 ^ s 
 
 Here the Inspector will re- 
 cord his opinion on the work 
 done in each class. 
 
 He will, on the summary of 
 the whole work done, re- 
 commend one-third, two- 
 thirds, or the whole capita- 
 tion grant to be given. 
 
 
 1; 
 111 
 
 111 
 
 •Xjojsih 
 
 qsTiSuH 
 
 
 •iqdBaSoao 
 
 
 •JBUiuiBao 
 
 
 •uoijisodujoo 
 
 pUB UOpBlDlCI 
 
 
 •uouonj^suj 
 snoiSiiaji 
 
 
 Marks award- 
 ed to each 
 scholar ex- 
 amined : — 60 
 highest merit, 
 40 merit, 20 
 competency. 
 
 •Suuaqd^O 
 
 
 •SupuM 
 
 
 •SujpBaH 
 
 
 Approximate num- 
 ber of days spent 
 in any other school 
 having a certifi- 
 cated teacher in 
 each of four pre- 
 ceding years. 
 
 •8581 
 
 
 •6S8I 
 
 
 •0981 
 
 
 •1981 
 
 
 No. of days' 
 
 school attendance 
 
 in each quarter 
 
 of last year. 
 
 •aa?jBn5 q^^ 
 
 
 •4a?aBn5 pig 
 
 
 •jawBn^ pug 
 
 
 •aajjBn^ isi 
 
 
 No. of days' 
 school attend- 
 ance in each 
 of two preced- 
 ing years, or 
 of last year. 
 
 
 
 •XBpqiJig ?SEi IB aSv 
 
 
 Names of Scholars arranged 
 in their Classes in the fol- 
 lowing Sections, and in each 
 Section in the order of seni- 
 ority :— 
 
 Class Section (1.) Those 
 Scholars in the Class who 
 have attended 120 days at 
 least in each of two preced- 
 ing years. 
 
 (2.) 100 days at least in last 
 year, or 80 days in each of 
 last two years. 
 
 (3.) Scholars who have at- 
 tended a shorter time than 
 preceding Sections. 
 
 l-H 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 Id 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 o 
 a 
 
 m 
 
 1-^ 
 
 /O 
 
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