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ILLINOIS

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN

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V

THE UNIVERSITY
OF ILLINOIS
LIBRARY

6sSCHOOL ECONOMY:

A PRACTICAL BOOK

ON THE

BEST MODES OF ESTABLISHING AND TEACHING
SCHOOLS,

AND OF MAKING THEM THOROUGHLY USEFUL
TO THE WORKING CLASSES

BY MEANS OP

MORAL AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

BY

JELINGER SYMONS, A.B.

<✓

LONDON:

JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.

MDCCCLII.London:

savill and edwards, printers,
chandos street.\ f

iJ

s

0 vV"



TO THE

YERY REVEREND RICHARD DAWES, M A.

DEAN OF HEREFORD.

My dear Sir,

^ I wish I could think this little book in the least degree
^worthy of your sanction. It may, however, serve as
r*a means of expressing the gratitude which I, and all
friends of real education feel to you, as the exponent of the
^best mode of teaching the poor, and of adapting schools
<yt* the wants of life. If this revolution in the prevailing
^System should come to pass, it will be. owing to you more
^han to any one else.

' — This work is an humble attempt to give practical further-
ance to the principles you have laid down. I can truly
jpjsay, that a very extensive inspection of schools of all kinds,
^at home and abroad, for twenty years, though it has abun-
dantly disclosed defects, has failed to give me the same
Oinsight into remedies that I have derived from the c hints,'
^jboth written and oral, which I owe to your public zeal and
private friendship. Please to accept this slight tribute of
rligh esteem from

Yours: faithfully and respectfully,

Jelinger Symons.

*3

i

16
111

The Vineyard, near Hereford',
r(5	May 1, 1852.

291810ADVERTISEMENT.

It may be expedient to guard against the mistake, that
in the expression of my own views in this book, I am in
any degree expressing those of the Committee of Conncil
on Education; or that their lordships are in the remotest
way compromised by its contents. As an Inspector of
schools, it is just possible that such a mis-impression
might arise. I have, on the contrary, refrained from
seeking any other sources of information than such as
were equally open to others. So far have I carried this,
that I have to correct an error, into which I might not
otherwise have fallen, in the statement at page 5, that ' in
church schools, aided by grants, care is taken (by the
Committee of Council) that dissenters' children may be
educated, and at the same time exempted from instruc-
tion in the distinctive doctrines and catechism of the
Church/ It is not exactly so; though this system is often
recommended to, and adopted by, the promoters and
managers of such schools.

J. S.CONTENTS.

PAET THE FIRST.

1 CHAP. I. How to Start and Maintain Schools,

Aid of the State essential—Voluntary efforts insufficient—Edu-
cation must be reformatory; and to be so, it must be religious
—Secular instruction alone is not education—Dr. Hook's
opinion—'Difficulties of religious education exaggerated—-
State aid should be combined with voluntary co-operation—
Examination of plans for local school-rates — Why objec-
tionable—Evil at present exists in the scale of grants, and not
in the system—The advantages of the present system—It is
understood and established—Upheld by the Working Men's
Association—Clergy, their aid in educating, and their willing-
ness to take Grants............p. 1

CHAP. II. Need of Better Schools.

Oar schools do not sufficiently train in morals, or improve the
mental or industrial faculties—Too much time is given to
high secular instruction—Evil resulting from cultivating
mental talents without improving the morals—Opinions of
school inspectors on the shortcomings of schools for the poor
in these respects—The prevailing system does not attempt the
kind of training and teaching needed—Mode in which visitors
are deceived as to religious knowledge of children—Mis-viii

contents.

statements of the actual amount of schooling—Mr. Baines—
Amount of grants in England and Scotland no more than
enough to educate the increase in population for sixteen last
years—Tabular statement of degrees of instruction and crime
— Semi-instruction to the dangerous classes incites and
increases crime—The ten most instructed counties, according
to the writing test, are more criminal than the ten least
instructed . . . . ..........p. 18

Chap. III. How to make Schools thoroughly useful
for Poor Children.

Prejudice against education in different classes, and reasons for
it—Education of the poor unsuitable to their wants—Moral
training not to be confined to the school-room—Mr. Stowe's
view on the subject—Moral training most efficient by means
of industrial labour—Quotations from reports of Messrs.
Moseley and Bowyer—Vehrli's opinion of industrial labour
—Account of the district school at Quatt—Lord Lyttelton's
and the Countess of Cawdor's Industrial Schools—Opinion of
Kev. Mr. Mitchell on agricultural schools .... p. 46

PAKT THE SECOND.

Chap. I. The Building and Organization of Schools.

Soil on which the school is to be erected very important—
School buildings too highly ornamented—Section plans of
school buildings—Memorandum of Committee of Council on
organization of schools—Plans of parallel benches and desks
—Ventilation and drainage—Cost and size of school build-
ings—Books and apparatus—Home and Colonial Society's
plans—Play-grounds—Gymnastic exercises . . . . p. 52contents.

ix

Chap. II. Systems of Teaching.

Use of gallery—Pupil teachers, and monitorial system—Evils
of the latter—Mr. Dunne's remarks on it—Mr. Crossley's
rules for training monitors—The elliptical system—Simul-
taneous and individual questions and answers—e Object
lessons'—Imposture at examinations—-The Rev. Mr. Brook-
field thereon—The Rev. Mr. Moseley's tripartite system
recommended.............p.68

Chap. III. How to teach Reading, Writing, and
Ciphering.

Good reading rarely met with—Defective system of beginning
with the alphabet — The comprehension of words — The
imitation principle—Rev. Mr. Bellair's Report of 1848-9
—Irish Society's secular books recommended—The Bible
should not be made a class-book—Spelling—Writing—
Ciphering should be an exercise of the mind—Compound
addition—Use and abuse of mental arithmetic—Opinion of
the Rev. Mr. Thurtell thereon—Practical method of teaching
fractions—Education hitherto an abstraction, must now be a
reality................p. 79

Chap. IY. Higher Branches.

Geometry useful as a means of exercising the reasoning facul-
ties-—Quotations from the Dean of Hereford's Hints on
Secular Education—Opinion of Mr. Woodbridge—Defective
method of teaching geography—Home geography to be
learnt first—Physical illustrations the best mode of teaching
—Children should draw maps—Geography to be interspersed
with the reading lesson—Geography to be chiefly industrialcontents.

and commercial—It should comprise all kinds of facts relating
to topography and knowledge of places, products, people
and th.e animal and vegetable creation—History blended with,
reading lesson—Dickens5 Child's History—Much depends on
the mode of teaching—History, like geography, often turned
upside down—Sullivan's Geography and History—The rudi-
ments of grammar only to be taught to the poor, and that in
the reading lesson—Composition a good mental exercise—
Mr. Bowyer's view—Knowledge of the arts of life essential
—Necessity for teachers who are ignorant of them, to learn
them—Quotation from the Dean of Hereford—System of
Williams' school—Social and political economy . . p. 96

Chap. V. Religious Education and Moral Training.

Religion and morals to be combined—Constant reading of the
Scriptures, as a lesson, does not promote scriptural know-
ledge—Religion blended with nature not merely a code of
laws—The wretched rote-system a stumbling-block to all
mental effort—The Clergy the mainspring of existing schools
—The Church Catechism, and Scripture proofs and precepts—
Mode of questioning — Active minds only fit to instruct
others—Sound knowledge in secular learning and religion,
go hand in hand—The general run of schools do not moralize
the poor—Miss Carpenter's opinion of the inefficiency of mere
Bible reading—Offences tried by the teacher as judge, and
by some of the children as the jury—The teacher should watch
the disposition of the child in the playground—Rewards and
punishments.............p. 112

Chap. VI. School Teachers.

Ought not to become such without natural talents for the work:—
Responsibility of appointers ........ p. 126contents.

xi

PABT THE THIRD.

Chap. I. Industrial Training.

Yehrli—Sir J. Kaye Shuttleworth's and Mr. E. Carleton Tuffnell's
description of system of Swiss farm-schools—Spade-husbandry
not the only, but the best industrial labour—Field-gardening
well adapted to the labour of boys—A garden only better
than no ground—Reasons for haying the ground as near as
possible to the school—Plan for school and industrial labour
—Number of boys to ground—Schoolmasters must not be
fine gentlemen — District union schools good nurseries for
teachers—School and work hours—Working children should
have dinner—Needlework for girls—Handicrafts for boys—
The industry should be instructional—Cheerfulness and sing-
ing—Shop work—Hand corn-mill recommended by Cobbett—
Baking, washing, cooking, and dairy-work for girls —
Summary of boys' and girls5 work—Lord Lyttelton's school
at Hagley..............p. 130

CHAP. II. The School Farm.

The Earners may give kind aid—System of cultivation recom-
mended—Rotation of crops—Drains and tank for liquid
manure—Management of the latter—Liquid manure cart—
Plans of it and barrel—Sketch of hoe and sub-soil prong—
The appropriation of produce—Management and food of cows
—System at Quatt—Cultivation of flax—Expenses—Labour
costs nothing — Dinner for children, and other modes of
remunerating them ... -.......p. 144xii

CONTENTS.

LIST OF APPENDICES.

A.—Exaggerations	of progress of schools......162

B.—Tables	of crime, population, and marriage register
marks in each county in 1848, 184-9, and 1850 . . 167

C.—Scripture	proofs and precepts, No. 1 and 2 .... 168

D.—Produce	from field-gardening . . . . * . . . .178

E.—Paper	on gorse for cows ..........187

E.—Gloucester Ragged Schools.........189PART THE FIRST.

Chapter I,

How to Start and Maintain Schools*

THE subject of Schools for the people suggests two great
questions: first, how best to establish and maintain
them; and, secondly, what sort of schools they should be*
Although this work is intended chiefly to aid this last con-
sideration, and that after a very practical fashion, it is, not-
withstanding, expedient to clear one's way through those
restless controversies and bootless feuds, which beset the
first of these questions, and obstruct the second.

Every good man would probably desire that each class
or denomination of Christians, in an enlightened country
like this, should educate its own poor; or, better still,
that its own poor should educate themselves. The State, in
Such a case, would have no call upon it to interfere in the
matter, unless, indeed, in behalf of the pauper or criminal
classes, who, as waifs of the State, must be cared for by its
Government, and by common consent fall under its tutelage.
But, unhappily, our moral shortcomings stand in sad con-
trast with our physical achievements, and, as a people, we
do not educate our poor; and it is now a very generally
admitted fact, that if their education is to depend on
voluntary effort and individual benevolence, they will, for
the most part, not be educated at all. The failures of the
voluntary principle are too numerous, signal, and decisive,
to leave this a matter of question by any unbiassed man
acquainted with the facts. It becomes, therefore, a matter
of simple alternative, either to have the poor educated by
public means, or to sacrifice their education to a stubborn

B%	HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

preference of what is impracticable. The good sense of
Dissenters already largely preponderates in favour of doing
that by public money which will not be done by private
purses. As to a violation of the rights of conscience by
such a system, on the pretext that it is making one creed
pay for the religious instruction of another, it is obvious
that such can alone result from the partial rejection, and
not from the general acceptance, of aid from the fund to
which all contribute. The evil objected to is, in fact, the
result of the objection. If the Churchman and Dissenter
severally receive as much from the fund for the payment
of grants to schools as they contribute to it, no support is
given by one to the other; but if either of them refuse to
receive his share of the benefit, the fault is his own,
land the alleged injustice entirely of his own creation.
The difficulty on this score is not worthy of consideration
by Parliament or the country, and ought not to stand for a
moment in the way of effective State aid to schools for the
poor on the most liberal and catholic scale.

Nevertheless, partly in deference to this objection, it is
proposed to dissever religious from secular instruction, and
to apply State grants only to the latter. In other words,
to give the husk without the kernel.

' If our education is to be education at all, it must
moralize and Christianize. It must educate the heart as
well as the head and hand; and, if so, what possible means
is there of doing this without religion, or of teaching
religion without the Bible? No man of sense wishes to
degrade the Bible into a mere reading or class book; but
unless it be interwoven with all primary teaching, and
associated in the child's mind with every duty he learns, as
the essence by which his moral being is to be inspired and
guided, there can be little security for the right use of
mental instruction—a power more likely to be wielded for
evil than for good, if unaccompanied by the moral principleHOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS. 3

which can alone render it a blessing to the scholar and a
boon to society.

Some of the advocates of a secular system of education
-say that they desire to incorporate a high moral philosophy
with their temporal teaching. That is to say, they would
give the stream without the source. Their scholars may
learn Christianity, so long as they be not taught of Christ!
They may be schooled in the duties of charity, but much in
the way in which they might learn them from Pagan ethics;
for they are not to drink in the living spirit in all the ful-
ness of that glorious manifestation of love in the life and
death of the Bedeemer, as told by the Evangelists. They
may perchance hear of God, but not through the revelation
of Himself which He has expressly provided for their in-
struction. His omnipresence, justice, truth, loving-kind-
ness, mercy, and omnipotence, they may gather dimly and
deviously through the pages of human science, or the
mouths of human teachers; but from the glowing words of
that wondrous book inspired by God, in which His attri-
butes are divinely developed, they may not learn them! In
such schools, the Bible would be more completely excluded
than in the most rigid of the Bomish seminaries. Dr..
Hook, in his letter to the Bishop of St. David's, thus ably
denounces this grave error

Upon investigating the subject, we find that a notion pre-
vails among careless people, that religion may be treated as
either general or special: special religion is doctrinal, and general
religion is some system of morals, which, being divested of all
doctrine, looks so like no religion at all, that religious persons at
once perceive, that when people talk of an education based on
such a religion, they seek to deceive themselves as well as us,
and utter a falsehood.

Now all really Christian persons must stand opposed to any
•system of education which, being professedly based upon this
■general religion, which is no. religion, will in fact unchristianize
this country. To separate the morality of the Gospel from the
doctrines of the Gospel, every one who knows what the Gospel
as, knows to be impossible. The doctrines of grace and of good4

HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

works are so interwoven that they must stand or fall together.
Faith and works, doctrine and morality, are like body and soul;
the pretended mother may be willing to divide them; they who
know what the Gospel is, like the true mother before the throne
of Solomon, will suffer any affliction before they will consent to
it. Satan could devise no scheme for the extirpation of Christi-
anity more crafty or more sure than this, which would substitute
a system of morals for religion. The generality of mankind
content themselves always with the lowest degree of religion,
which will silence their conscience and aid their self-deception.
They desire to believe as little as they may without peril to their
souls, and to do only what the majority of their neighbours say
they must. On this general religion, which is no religion—on
this semblance of religion, this shadow put for the substance, the
majority of the people of England will, under such a system of
education, be taught to rest as sufficient.

In defence of a system thus practically irreligious, we are
told that the children will receive religious instruction at
home and elsewhere, at the hands of their parents or friends.
To this assertion, a direct contradiction is the best and truest
answer. The parents and friends of those children who
need religious instruction the most, are the very last persons
fit or likely to give it; and to expect it from them, or to
believe that such children will seek it elsewhere for them-
selves, is a mischievous delusion. If these poor children,
whose present minds and morals most need religious
instruction, do not obtain it at our schools, they will
have it nowhere.

The difficulties in the way of giving effectual religious
teaching in schools for the poor, aided by public grants,
have been vastly exaggerated, if not wholly created, by a
sectarian monomania, which, though not very prevalent, is
sufficiently noisy and restless to impair the peacefulness
and effectiveness with which the general body of Church-
men and Dissenters would perhaps have otherwise laboured
to educate their poor. It has, moreover, spoiled many
efforts, and prevented the establishment of many schools.
Judging from its practical working, where fairly trustedHOW TO STAET AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

5

and fully tried, it is probable that the present system, if its
operation were enlarged by more liberal grants, would
answer every purpose as regards the establishment and
maintenance of schools. The Church of England has re-
ceived the largest part of the grants already made, nor is it
either natural or desirable that it should be otherwise. In
the first place, it is the established religion of the country.
It is also undeniable, that of all classes and denominations
of men, our clergy have been pre-eminent in their zealous
and noble efforts to advance the education of the poor.
The rights of conscience, and the privileges of Dissenters,
have been nevertheless carefully provided for, not only by
the precautions taken, that in Church schools, aided by
public grants, their children may be educated, and at the
same time exempted from instruction in the distinctive
doctrines and catechism of the Church, which would clash
with their own religious persuasions, but they are them-
selves entitled to grants for their own schools, and some
excellent ones have been so established, in connexion with
the British and Foreign and Wesleyan societies. This
system, so far from requiring an organic change, may be
said to have worked well enough to render any extensive
alteration in its principle a speculation of very questionable
expediency. The condition of the grants, viz., that of a
proportionate amount of local aid and contribution, is, per-
haps, better calculated than any other system would be to
secure the vitality of that interest in the school, on the
part of its promoters, which is often essential, and
always conducive to its success. To substitute for this,
the compulsory superintendence which a system of schools
supported by local rates would necessitate, might not prove
equally beneficial. Assuredly, the difficult and delicate
task of duly organizing and managing schools admits of no
comparison, and has no analogy, with that of the relief of
pauperism and the local administration of the Poor Laws.6

HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

The chances are, that anything approaching to a similar
mode of superintending or conducting schools for the poor,
would entirely defeat their object.

Whilst education for the poor cannot subsist on voluntary
effort alone, neither can State efforts suffice without volun-
tary co-operation. For it is essential to the good govern-
ment and successful teaching of schools for the poor, that
local interest in their welfare should foster and animate
them. There is no surer way to secure this, than by
making those from whom such interest must flow con-
tribute to its object. The proportion in which this is done
is comparatively immaterial, so long as it be done. The
school is thenceforth ours, not others'; and there is magic
in the possessive pronoun, where the question is how to*
engender an enduring and active sympathy.

A politic and not an unworthy consideration in support
of the present system, is presented by the sectarian ten-
dency of that religious feeling among us, which almost
necessarily inspires our educational efforts. It is question-
able how far it is wise or just to the interests of the unedu-
cated poor to run counter to so powerful a principle. The
only systematized effort to establish schools apart from
religious principles, has certainly met with significant
indifference from the country at large. Scarcely any such
exist; and what is more remarkable is, the predominance
of some one religious body or sect in nearly every school
in which religion is taught. In any, above the standard of
mere dame schools, there is very little blending of denomi-
nations. But few Church children attend the British or
Dissenting schools, whilst those of the Establishment are
very partially attended by any but its own children. The
British and Foreign are essentially Dissenting schools; nor
is this all, for however unsectarian the articles of their
constitution, one denomination usually predominates in,
if it does not monopolise, the management. However trueHOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

7

it is, therefore, that these schools are theoretically catholic,
they are often practically sectarian. This state of things is
not only the natural growth and produce, but it has been
part and parcel of all religious realities among us for three
centuries past. Independence of judgment, diversity of
creed, and sincerity of faith, have necessarily produced it;
less, perhaps, as a result of the Reformation (which they
rather caused), than of that English love of free judgment
which is incarnate in us. Our national mind is, moreover,
peculiar; and though our convictions are usually sincere*
even when passive, they are seldom earnest until animated
by antagonism; and this characteristic pertains peculiarly
to our religious opinions. It is, therefore, worse than vain
to expect to further education, especially religious education,
by reducing its promoters to an unnatural uniformity of reli-
gious teaching, or to a surrender of distinctive doctrines. It
would be un-Engiish, and I think unsuccessful, to do so.
At any rate, is it wise, when we are striving at a work suf-
ficiently beset with its peculiar difficulties, to embark in a
scheme which thwarts a national idiosyncracy, which, so far
from opposing our efforts, powerfully aids them. Denomi-
national zeal in the education of the poor is one of the
most effective means whereby it is furthered; and, so far
from being an evil, a little rivalry among their richer
neighbours not unfrequently educates all the poor children,
in a place where assuredly mere benevolence would fail
in any such result.

Now the system of aiding each religious body to educate
its own children enlists this powerful agency in direct aid
of the real object in view, namely, that of a sound and
useful education, first and foremost in the great principles
of the Christian religion, and, next, in all useful secular
knowledge. And if this be achieved, albeit partly through
the instrumentality of Dissent, good men, who have
higher interests at heart, will not repine because good8

HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

has been thus accomplished. Neither will it greatly
alloy their satisfaction eventually to discover, that the secta-
rian element had been swamped in the substantial work of
the school; and that the young minds of the scholars had
but superficially learned the dogmas of theology, whilst the
great truths of religion, and the principles of our common
faith, were alone implanted in the heart, and permanently
impressed on the memory.

t It is objected, with more of subtle logic than knowledge
of the actual working of the present system, that inasmuch
as it renders aid incident to the religious rather than the
civil character of education, and that grants are given to
every religious denomination, we are bestowing them in aid
of every religious tenet which may choose to seek further-
ance through schools to which a modicum of secular instruc-
tion is added, thus wronging conscience, and invading
religious liberty. Now, in the first place, the require-
ment as regards religious teaching is, we believe, simply
that of reading the Bible daily, and not mentioning the
tests of each sect. This clearly does not involve, or even
imply, a requirement as to doctrinal teaching. That it may
be, nevertheless, given, is probable; nay, that the grants so
obtained may empower sectarian activities, and promote
schism, is possible. It is difficult to say what human power
may not be abused. The only thing, however, that can
give this fear force, is its realization in practice. The
system of grants has subsisted many years, and they
have amounted to a considerable number, yet who, prac-
tically acquainted with the country, or any part of it, can
substantiate its schismatical effect, to an extent of
the least importance? Can a new sect, or even a single
schism, be pointed out which owes its existence, or even its
vigour, to a grant to a school? If not, even on that
ground may we not appease our qualms, and say ' be at
rest' to legislation? It is not very easy to proselytizeHOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS,

0

Children, or to make schools instruments of schism. Nor
is this all. It is very well to say broadly, that the Council
gives grants to all religious denominations, and therefore
encourages all; but there are two items in the matter left
out of view—namely, number and opinion. The grant is
not given to any denomination unless the number of its
children (i. e. its members) justifies a school. If this num-
ber does exist, it is an evidence that opinion in that locality
is strong in favour of the denomination. I am not aware
that a much safer standard than this can be devised, of th6
justice as well as expediency of such a denominational
claim; or could be adopted, even if the public or the rate-
payers (who, by the way, are not the public) were to
regulate education, and stand banker to themselves. The
abuses feared are just as much under the preventive
influence of public opinion as any other abuses; and inas-
much as every additional school enhances the wholesome
power of public opinion, we have in it a sufficient security
against the danger our alarmists have conjured up. This
check is, be it remembered, infinitely more powerful over
the distribution of grants by a responsible public office,
than it could ever be over the local distributors of local
funds to their own neighbours. I apprehend that the
largesses to sects would be greatly increased were there
neither national funds, nor national responsibility in their
appropriation. It seems to escape the notice of the objec-
tors, that the same money-aid to seceders would be just as
effectual to their purpose whether it came from rates or
grants. True it is that, under the cogent conditions I
have named, school grants are made to all denominations
indifferently that come in the name of religion. We have,
however, this comfort, that none who do not come in that
name can receive it. If it be that the present system is
guilty of sometimes aiding schism, it is perhaps no
inadequate atonement, in the eyes of Christians, that itro

HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

excludes tlie chance of furthering irreligion, or endowing
scepticism.

It has, indeed, been strongly recommended, by men whose
enlarged views and signal philanthropy entitle their sug-
gestions to careful attention, that a school-rate by means
of local assessment should be thus substituted for grants by
the Committee of Council; and, as a necessary concomitant,
that there should be local boards for its administration.

Now, in the first place, it may well be that the system of
local and municipal government, as far as it has gone, and
confined as it has been to fiscal objects, has worked
tolerably well; and yet, that such power cannot be extended
with like success to the administration of schools. If
it be argued that it is merely proposed to confine the local
boards to raising the money, without any control over its
application, it is very little likely that they will assent to be
thus used as mere instruments for their own taxation : if,
on the contrary, it is intended that they should be invested
with any such control, it is no less certain that they are
not qualified to use, and ought not to have it. The usual rea-
sons why the exercise of new powers by the central autho-
rity in the state is watched with jealous scrutiny, and
ceded with reluctance, do not apply to an enlargement by
them of the means of education, inasmuch as the object of
the power in this case is to benefit the poor, and not those
who can confer services, or repay favours. An abuse of
power in the increase of popular education is a practical
contradiction, for the intelligence of a people is the best
security of freedom and preventive of misgovernment.

If a school-rate is adopted, with a view to give a fixed
fee to the school for each child educated there, as an induce-
ment to the parents to send their children—in the first place,
such persons would rarely be payers of the rate, who must
be, of a class generally above those who would alone avail
themselves of eleemosynary education. In the next place,
the poor who did so would thereby be inured to a habit ofHOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

11

dependence on others for the fulfilment of one of the highest
duties they owe to themselves and their children. I founds
even among the poor hand-loom weavers of Scotland, an.
universal repugnance to what they deemed the humiliation
of gratuitous education. A stern necessity should alone
induce us to disregard the advantages of cherishing this
feeling. As far as station and self-respect are contingent
on independence, the difference is not very perceptible
between the recipient of education paid for by the rates, and
the out-door pauper. The practical difficulty and cost of
checking the payments, and apportioning them to the con-
stantly-fluctuating attendance in schools for the poor all
over the kingdom, is a minor disadvantage, though still a
considerable one. If the object be merely to meet the
necessities of the indigent classes in the poorer districts, it
is very easy to do so, under the existing system, by giving
a discretion as to the amount of grants, rendering it a con-
dition of the grant of salary, that all or a great number of
children selected by each school committee be admitted and
instructed at small or merely nominal school fees. There
are other means of inducing the poor to avail themselves of
such privileges.

A local rate is objectionable because it is local, and there*
fore partial in its incidence. A wealthy district would be
taxed less than a poor one, notwithstanding, as would ofteii
happen, the latter required more school aid. The burden of
the rate would necessarily fall heavier on the country thai!
on towns. In addition to these drawbacks, be it remembered
that any local rate is levied only on persons who are land or
householders; that is to say, a very large part of the com-
munity do not pay it at all. On what ground is this large
portion to be exempted % What is there in the nature of the
duty of aiding the education of the poor, which renders ifc
incumbent only on persons who have land or houses ? "Why
are fundholders, ship-owners, annuitants, salaried officers*
clerks, shopmen, nay, even independent artisans and labour12 HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

ers, to be exempted from that duty in the same proportion
to their income ? And why are nearly all women to be also
included in the same category ? Surely each and all of these
are just as deeply interested in the moral welfare of the people I
But how, it may be asked, is such a distribution of the inci-
dence to be effected ? By just leaving it as it now is. So
Jong as it comes from the general revenue of the country, it
is paid by the whole community, all of whom are directly
or indirectly taxed; and such, surely, is the most equitable
manner of levying the fund for the discharge of a national
duty.

It must also be remembered, that to levy a school-rate
&t all is to add another to the existing local burdens, and
to risk unpopularity; whilst to take the same or more
money from a surplus revenue imposes no new tax, and
escapes a formidable prejudice. If it be desirable to enlist
public sympathy in an enterprise, which can scarcely be
successful unless it be popular, this is surely a consideration
which it were an imprudence to underrate, and temerity to
disregard.

There are also some ministerial difficulties in the assess-
ment and due appropriation of local school-rates, easily
appreciated by those who are conversant with parochial
administration, and also with the jealousies and jobbing
which often engender malversation among bodies less
likely to; be beset with them than those to whom the
assessment of school-rates would be entrusted.

Assuming, however, that it were possible to escape the
operation of all these evils, and to render local boards mere
collectors of money, the above-named evil is necessarily
encountered; and, what is of still more moment, the opera-
tion of the voluntary principle, so feeble by itself, but so
valuable as an auxiliary, is excluded.

Before we launch forth on so entire a change of the
existing system, may it not be wise to consider whether its
shortcomings are really inseparable from its continuance.HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

13

Great changes are usually great evils—and a modification is
preferable to the destruction of a system already in opera-*
tion, with at least some measure of admitted usefulness.
May it not perchance be, that the evil is in the present
scale, rather than in the system of grants. To compel
municipal or any local support of schools, seems to be
justifiable only if all other means have been found to fail.
This cannot be, unless they have been fairly tried. Now
a scale of grants which gives aid on terms which are
unavailable wherever aid is most needed, cannot be deemed
a fair trial. Yet the present cast-iron scale inflexibly
exacts, that the parish or district shall subscribe a large part
of the whole sum required. But poor parishes cannot do
this; and thus they who often need schools the most, and
are least able to support them, are those whom the present
scale leaves unaided and uneducated. Increase the annual
Parliamentary grant so as to deal very liberally with such
necessities. Let the Committee of Council—whose general
management has inspired ample and well-deserved confi-
dence—exercise a discretion in the aid given to each case,
according to its wants, proportioning the largeness of the
grant rather to the poverty of the parish than to its
means of contribution; and the present system will then,
and not till then, be fairly tried. There are many parishes
where two-thirds, or three-fourths, of the whole amount
required should be granted, whether in the shape of
building grants, or in part or entire payment* of teachers*
salaries. + _

* It is very questionable whether it is advisable to call or treat
this latter kind of aid as ' augmentations.5 "Why in all cases, having
ascertained, by the usual examination, the standard of the teacher, and
assigned his certificate, may not the grant be a part payment of th&
salary attached to it ? The salary paid to each ought to be apportioned
to his competency and work. To give him an augmentation, implies
that his salary falls short of what it ought to be, and the augmentation
assumes the untoward character of a make-weight.

t The means of testing the poverty of each district are afforded by theH HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

Thus beneficially to enlarge tlie application of tlie aid
given by the State to education, on the present well-
organized, perfectly understood, and accepted system,
would, I firmly believe, meet with the general assent
•of the country; nor is there much reason to doubt that
Parliament would devote half a million of redundant
revenue to that object; nor is it unlikely that such a grant
might be afterwards increased. It is obviously premature
to denounce the present system as inadequate, until its
scope be sufficiently enlarged to enable it to do its work.
It is also probable that the present semi-dormant zeal in
the establishment of schools would be stimulated to activity
by such new promise of success; and that apathy would
disappear with the hopelessness of effort. Many a clergy-
man and minister are discouraged and passive, simply
because they are certain of the inability of their parish or
people to comply with the existing conditions of a grant.
Moreover, the very increase of schools, and the spread of
.education, engender the desire for them, and provoke
emulation. Parish A, well countenanced in its effortless
darkness, and its non-schooled poor, by the like condition
4)f its neighbours, is less satisfied with ignorance when
parishes B and 0 have begun to be educated; and thus
the example spreads, together with the facilities for adopt-
ing it.

But the great recommendation of a change which shall
be merely fiscal is, that we shall thereby avoid the re-open-
ing of those very mischievous feuds and contests which it
has taken ten years to appease, and whose extinction has

rateable value of property and the amount of population and poor-rate,
•consideration being had of other local circumstances, which might affect
either the need of schooling, or the means of supplying it by voluntary
contribution. It is one of the benefits of a corps of inspectors above
the suspicion of biassed judgments, that such local data can be readily
and inexpensively ascertained.SOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

15

been with so much difficulty achieved by the operation of
the discreet and just system which it is now—in the
first years of its success—proposed to pull down,. and
replace by an untried project, which has already evoked
the opposition of Boman-catholics, and will, in all proba-
bility, create a struggle of sects, wherever their partisans
exist in the local bodies who are causelessly invited to tax
themselves for that for which the revenue already suffices,
and to meddle in a matter which its present managers
are tenfold better qualified to deal with.

There are, perhaps, fewer stronger reasons for retaining
the present system than the fact of its well-tested practica-
bility. This is a vast item in the success of any system, in
this country and in these times. Nor is there a surer mode
of wasting good effort, and perilling the best causes, than to
disregard the prestige of the practical, and our idolatry of
usage, and to experimentalize in new systems, where no ne-
cessity exists of discarding those which are established. That
clamour which almost necessarily assails every infant mea-
sure affecting great interests, and at one time c wagged its
tongue' lustily against the Committee of Council and its
grants, has now died away, or lives only in the faint
murmurs of two powerless extremes in Church and
Dissent.

The present system, at length well understood—a matter
of some ten years to accomplish—is beginning to come into
its intended operation. To increase its grants, and extend the
liberality and scale of its aid, is merely to give fuller effect
to its established design under its present organization. It
is to sail with the stream, in unison with public feeling, and,
in fact, in compliance with a general desire. On the other
hand, the disruptions of this system begin de novo; and to
establish on its ruins another scheme, which, whatever may
be its theoretical merits, will necessarily have to struggle for
years against misapprehension and hostility, and ensure pre-16

HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

judice where popularity is essential to success, is certainly
likely to retard, if not to endanger, the progress of educa-
tion.

The present condition and character of our schools for
the poor are certainly far from fulfilling every require-
ment. But are their defects anywise contingent on the
principle of parliamentary grants'? Crippled, and stinted
of sufficient means to render them effective to their
purpose, many schools undeniably are; but is that a reason
for anything beyond an increase of means 1 How can it in
any way bespeak the need of another mode of raising or
administering the required funds 1

If, indeed, Parliament had shown a reluctance to vote
adequate sums for such a purpose, that might, perhaps, have
been a reason for desiring some easier and surer mode of
obtaining the money; or if malversation of the present
grants had taken place, and unfairness were attributed to
the Committee of Council in assigning them, that indeed
would be cause for the gravest dissatisfaction with a system
open to such abuses; but when the fact is, that the only
reluctance Parliament has ever shown has been in voting
so small a sum,* whilst no bond fide suspicion has ever
attached to the honour or fair dealing of the Committee
of Council,t one naturally looks for some very strong
reason for the proposed change—which assuredly none
of its proposers have yet presented. Its adminis-
tration is, in fact, becoming popular, in the widest
sense of the term. So far from being regarded as an
interference with individual liberty, its present system
was strongly upheld by the Working Men's Association,

* See Mr. Henley's speech on the vote of £20,000 for parochial
-union schools in 1851.

f Save, perhaps, the attack of the extreme party who met at Willis's
Rooms in June, 1850, and of whose misstatements its former allies seem
heartily to repent.HOW TO START AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS. 17

even when democratic tendencies were far rifer than now.
In its Address to the Working Classes on National Edu-
cation,* after having dilated on the benefits of education, it
says:—

But how, it may be asked, are the means to be provided ?
We may reply by asking, how were the means provided for less
worthy purposes ? We remember that twenty millions were
paid to compensate the owners of slaves for relinquishing their
unjust traffic. That the means were provided for pajang extra-
vagant pensions, and for erecting useless palaces to royalty, and
are still found to support an almost interminable list of idlers
from year to year. Whence, too, we may inquire, came our
means to war against freedom wherever it raised its head, and to
assist all the despots of Europe to keep their people in ignorance
and slavery ? Were but half the anxiety evinced to train the
human race in peace and happiness, as has hitherto been exerted
to keep them in subjection to a few despots, abundant means
would be afforded for the purpose.

But though we hold it to be the duty of Government to raise
the means of education, by taxation or otherwise, to see it properly
apportioned, in the erecting of suitable and sufficient schools, and
for superintending them so far as to see the original intention
of the people carried into effect, we are decidedly opposed to
the placing such immense power and influence in the hands of
Government as that of selecting the teachers and superintendents,
the books and kinds of instruction, and the whole management
of schools in each locality. While we want a uniform and just
system of education, we must guard against the influence of
irresponsible power and public corruption; we are opposed,
therefore, to all concentration of power beyond that which is
absolutely necessary to make and execute the laws; for, inde-
pendent of its liability to be corrupt, it destroys those local
energies, experiments, and improvements, so desirable to be
fostered for the advancement of knowledge, and prostrates the
whole nation before one uniform despotism.

It would be difficult more accurately to describe the
exact extent to which the Government does, by the exist-
ing system, raise the means of education, properly appor-
tion it, and superintend schools, without interfering so far

* It is signed, among others, by Henry Vincent, Henry Hetherington,
and William Lovett.

C18

need of better schools.

as to select teachers, books, or to undertake their manage-
ment, leaving local energies in full and unlimited opera-
tion.

The higher and middle classes, including the clergy, have
given ample proof of their approval of this mode of aiding
schools, by largely availing themselves of grants, and desiring
more. In fine, it is difficult to understand the ground on
which the substitution of local rating for a system so highly
sanctioned as the existing one, is proposed ; and assuredly
no adequate one is stated by its proposers.

The first need is that of increased grants.

Chapter II.

Need of Better Schools.

THE second need is of a far more efficient system of educa-
tion in our schools—an education consisting both of
training and teaching. True it is, that there has been a
numerical increase alike of schools and scholars of late years,
and that there has been also taught a considerably higher
amount of unintellectual acquirement than formerly, and a
smattering of subjects which thirty years ago were not
taught at all. So that if the success of schools is to be
measured by the number of scholars, and the amount of
education by that of reading, writing, and arithmetic, it is
undeniable that we have reason to plume ourselves on our
efforts, and repose on our laurels. But if we are to deal
with school children as future men and women, to whose
welfare our present education is the passport—welfare
dependent tenfold more on those moral qualities and indus-NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

19

trial faculties which, will fit them for the duties of their sta-
tion in life, than on mere scholarship, then it is to be feared
that there is a certain amount of actual failure in our
apparent success. It is difficult otherwise to understand
such facts, for instance, as that, out of 957 convict boys
admitted to Parkhurst, no less than 360 (above one-third
part) had been not only nominally c educated' in national
schools, but for considerable periods* Perhaps this results
from the defective character of the religious instruction
given, and the total absence of all moral and industrial
training worth the name, in a large majority of our present
schools for the poor. May it not also be feared, that
incomparably more time and skill are devoted to a frag-
mentary and imperfect secular instruction, pursued to the
sacrifice of the infinitely more important work of teaching-
useful knowledge, and the training of mind, heart and
hand? Now if this be so, the sharpening of the wits
alone, and the mere collection of a number of children
together, coming and going, moreover, by themselves, will
have a necessary tendency to create bad habits and foster
contamination. To increase the mere mechanical agencies
of the mind, without moral culture, speaking generally, is
as sure to demoralize, as it is certain that our hearts are
naturally prone to evil. Now what are the evidences
- that such various defects exist in our present school
system?

The direct evidence consists in the statements of those
who are the best enabled, by opportunity, skill, and expe-
rience, to ascertain the fact, and who are not only men of
irreproachable veracity, but who are necessarily unwilling-
witnesses to the truths they feel constrained to tell, by a
sense of the duty their office imposes on them—I mean
the Inspectors of Schools, and especially those of Church.

* Report on Prison Discipline, p, 513.
C 220

NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

schools. In turning to the latest of these reports,* we
find the Reverend Mr. Moseley speaking thus:—

The conception of what really belongs to elementary educa-
tion is as yet very imperfectly formed in this country; and if
the present promoters of schools had abundance of funds placed
at their disposal, and were called upon to-morrow to realize
their idea of it, I can imagine nothing more absurd than the
result.

The Rev. Mr. Blandford says :—

The acquaintance with Scripture, and the intelligent know-
ledge of the catechism, which many of the upper classes in these
schools exhibit, is very pleasing; but the great defect which
characterizes the religious instruction is, that it is not sufficiently
practical, nor incorporated as it should be in the daily routine of
the school. The children learn texts of the Bible by heart, are
fairly acquainted with the outline of Scripture history, and can
prove points of doctrine ; but when questioned as to their prac-
tical application and bearing upon our every-day life and inter-
course with each other, the inference, however obvious, can
seldom be drawn, I believe the masters of our national schools
to be, as a body, a respectable class of men; but they are de-
ficient in that deep religious feeling, the expression of which will
be visible in a thousand ways in the management of their schools,
and will be identified, in a greater or less degree, with the con-
duct of the children; that this one thing is wanting there is the
testimony of the clergy to appeal to, who have daily and personal
intercourse with them, and who complain of the want of this all«
important element in their character.

Again : as to secular instruction, he observes that—

The little use that teachers make of the chalk and black
board, otherwise than for setting copies and giving the children
sums in arithmetic, is a significant proof how slight is their
acquaintance with teaching as an art.

The Rev. Mr. Kennedy, in his report, writes thus:—

I have endeavoured in every case, as far as time would
allow, to ascertain the amount of religious knowledge among
the children of the schools in my district. I cannot speak in
high terms of the average proficiency in this subject. Before
examining a class in arithmetic, I commonly ask the master
what rules they can work; the answer sometimes is,4 Oh, any-

* Minutes of Council for 1850-51.NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

21

thing-—decimals, interest, mensuration, &c. ;5 and in most cases
I have found the boys unable to work with accuracy sums in
simple subtraction and division.

After complaining of defective organization, Mr. Kennedy
sums up his comments thus:—

So distracted, indeed, are all the elements of popular educa-
tion—and, if I am not travelling too far out of my sphere, I
would add, so distracted are they in all departments of education,
from national schools to the great public schools, and from
training schools to the universities—that I feel as if nothing
thoroughly systematic and effective, nothing worthy of the sums
•expended, and worthy of this great nation, would be accom-
plished, till the whole business of education be methodically
organized and adjusted, under the responsible care of a Minister
and Board of Public Instruction. At present there is an im-
mense waste of force. The energy which is exerted, the money
which is expended, is almost like the work of the Danaides or of
Ixion, so wasted is it all, or so counteracted.

The Rev. Mr. Eorris observes—

That in order to cram a more than heretofore amount of
acquirement into a shorter than heretofore period of schooling,
several of our teachers are sacrificing in a great measure all that
makes education truly valuable to men as citizens and as Christians.
And I am constrained to add, that this is precisely the impression
left upon my mind by more than one-third of the higher order
of schools that I have visited.

As to industrial training, nearly all the inspectors report
that it has scarcely an existence.

The Rev. Mr. Watkins finds an improvement in the
quality of the education given, but portrays an evil which
defeats its effect, in the very early age at which the children
leave school:

One might (he says) almost state it thus :—that about five
children out of 100 of the poorer classes stay at school to an age
when they may learn something, and when their characters may
fie moulded into shape. Is not this a mockery of education ?

In every report (he afterwards adds) it has been my duty
to notice the tender age of the children in elementary schools,
the gradual lowering of that age in the great majority of those
places, and the contemporaneous shortening of the school-time of22	NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

the children. This evil has now, I conceive, grown to such
magnitude, that it must be remedied. All the partial restora-
tives have failed to touch this disease. All the roundabout
methods of treatment have not reached its source. Its cause
still remains:

Tolle mali causam, tollitur omne malum.

But can this be done ? What is its cause ? The value of the
child's work in the market, either of manufacturing or agri-
cultural labour, and the want of its wages at home.

This is no doubt the cause, and its existence proves and
points most clearly to the deficiency in useful and practical
training which exists in our school system. In a word,
the parents do not value the schooling the children get,
simply because it is not valuable. Make it so, and the
remedy will be attained.

The poor are not bad judges of the value of what they
purchase—poverty makes them so; and although it is not
in the nature of things that ignorance should rightly appre-
ciate knowledge, it is not difficult so to adapt the know-
ledge we give poor children to their wants, as to make its
value felt by the dullest parent. It is because we do not
so adapt it, that the parents do not feel the benefits of
education. It is our fault, not theirs. Their child comes
home coated with crude learning, which they cannot under-
stand, and perhaps do not much undervalue in thinking it
worthless. But this they do understand—that their child
is none the better fitted for work, and all the less inclined
to it; that his learning has not improved his love for
them, or school discipline his obedience; that Scripture
lessons have not made him religious, nor catechisms moral;
and albeit he can entangle himself in tare and tret, trace
the Nile, and name the prophets, greater and less, wiser
people than his parents are prone to estimate such attain-
ments as dearly purchased, at the sacrifice of homelier
virtues and handier faculties; and the notion runs strongly
and spreads widely, among many a class above the peasants^NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

23

that we are over-educating our poor—^filling their heads
and puffing them up with comparatively useless knowledge.
Perhaps it is not useless; but can we honestly say ifc is
as useful as we are capable of making it % Most certainly
not—it were the worst kind of pedantry to say so.

The false estimates of our progress arise in various ways.
First, as to the efficiency of the schools. The faults under
which they usually labour are these : they are either en?
tirely and obviously incapable of teaching at all,-or they
present certain appearances of efficiency which are more or
less deceptive. There is another class of schools, which teaches
the ordinary acquirements efficiently, and yet fails to give
the children moral or industrial training. Of the first class,
nothing need be said. Of those which present deceptive
appearances of teaching well, the number has probably mucli
increased with the growing interest taken in education, and
with the concern the teachers have in creating a good im-
pression of their success.

The devices for passing off a bad school, so as to make it
appear a good one at an examination, are manifold, and
many teachers study them as an art. I have known old
scholars who had left, and even children who never be-
longed to the school at all, introduced into the first class on
such occasions; but the most common device is, to cram
the first class with rote answers to previously-prepared
questions. This is an exceedingly convenient and suc-
cessful plan; for, inasmuch as the questions are so selected
that the bystanders could not answer them themselves, not
only are they astounded at the children's proficiency, but
entirely deterred from adventuring on any examination on
their own account. At an annual display of the kind at a
school in Shropshire, the master objects to any other ques-
tioning than his own—it puts the children out!' At
another, where the tributaries of the Mississippi were cor-
rectly enumerated to the master, and the geographical at-NEED OF BETTEK SCHOOLS.

tainments were passing off with great eclat, a pertinacious
visitor persisted in a few home inquiries about English
rivers, and found the whole class utterly unconscious of the
existence of the Mersey. But in nineteen cases out of
twenty the fraud passes undiscovered. The best way to
break it down is for all visitors, however humble their own
sphere of attainments, to persist in getting answers to plain
questions on simple subjects which are within it. It either
supports the genuineness of the display in the higher
flights, or it breaks it dow*n and exposes it on the spot*
In arithmetic, it is no uncommon trick to cram the children
in particular sums, which the master sets: or where the class
can work them they are written down for them, and thus
numeration is not tested; in the lower classes, it is always
essential to dictate vivd voce a compound addition sum
which shall test this elementary branch; it is frequently
neglected, and children can cast fairly, who have no notion
how to numerate and write down money-sums correctly.

Mr. Tufnell, one of H. M. Inspectors of Union Schools,
says in his last report:—

The longer experience I have as a School Inspector, the
more impressed I am with the necessity of exercising extreme
caution before pronouncing on the character of the instruction
given in any school. Under some circumstances, I believe it
almost impossible to discover what the children know. An
examination, before a large and promiscuous assembly, appears
to me the most inexpedient of all methods of testing what has
been taught. The children are required to play their parts in a
public spectacle, and I should no more expect them to do so
without particular and special preparation, than I should expect
a drama to be well performed on the stage without previous re-
hearsal. To put really searching questions to children placed
in so novel a position is unfair; and though in a first-rate school,
much accustomed to be examined by strangers, the children may
pass such an ordeal with credit, in nine-tenths of schools what
is really known cannot be elicited by such a proceeding.
Accordingly, I believe it not an uncommon practice, in public
exhibitions of schools, to settle beforehand everything that is to
be asked or answered. This plan sometimes leads to untimelyNEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

25

leplies. In one meeting of this description, the master interr
rupted the boys while reading the Scriptures with a question
intended to show their ready knowledge of the Bible, thus :
'Now, children, perhaps you will be able to refer to that beauti-
ful passage in'—before he could proceed any further, all the
class shouted out the passage required. But mental arithmetic
offers the most convenient field for making a favourable impres-
sion on a public audience. Children may easily be taught
the extended multiplication-table, and this alone is sufficient to
startle many persons unacquainted with the subject, and who
are unaware of the arithmetical tricks by which many apparently
very difficult questions are solved by a, simple and easy effort of
memory. I once threw a teacher into confusion—who was
asking such questions as 'What are 18 times 45 ?' and getting
instantaneous answers—by asking how many half-crowns there
were in a pound, which proved too difficult for them.

The most frequent defect is in this practical application
of the rules. There are many school teachers well versed
in the higher rules who never teach how to apply the lower
ones; and multitudes of scholars who work long-division,
and sometimes even reduction of money and practice, sums,
fail utterly in the simplest kind of mental arithmetic. How
much will four ounces of tea cost at 5s. per lb. ? and what is
five feet of lace at 9s. per yard ? will often floor a whole
school, in which the arithmetic, as displayed by the teacher,
has gone off famously. In the most important of all
branches of instruction—religious knowledge—the defects
are, in all tolerably good schools, less easily detected. Shy-
mess is oftener a genuine plea in this than in any other
branch of instruction. It is often, however, most shamefully
neglected. The rote system comes generally in aid of the
master. The catechism is a great make-weight. Five
people out of six who examine, or hear an examination in
it, are satisfied with the rote answers; and nineteen out of
twenty are delighted if the children can pass muster in the
broken catechism, which is no more than a second edition
of answers by rote. Of course the actual amount that the
child comprehends is nowise tested, and in most cases,26

NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

where questioning proceeds no further, they comprehend
next to nothing. It is a very common dodge to instruct
two or three children who answer well, and so hide the
ignorance of the rest.

Frequently, where a portion of the Holy Scriptures has
been read, and the questioning takes place on it, it is in such
a manner that the questions are suggested by the answers as
they are read in the book, or at most repeated from the
memory only. The child reads, for example—' Peter went
up into the housetop to pray.' < Who went wpV—' Peter.'
6 Where did he goV—'Into the housetop.' 6 What forV
—f To pray.' This is done sometimes with the book open
and sometimes shut; in either case, it is no effort of the
mind, nor is the child made to think. It is only when
the questions require thought in order to be answered,
that the real value of the instruction is ascertained.
Many a school passes muster until it is examined to some
better effect, and it is then found that no answer can
be obtained to questions such as these:—What duty
are we reminded of in the Lord's Prayer by the words,
( Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass
against us V Which commandment are we put in mind of
by the words ' Hallowed be Thy name V Which parables
teach us the duty of prayer—of repentance—of the good
use of our faculties ? How does the parable of the good
Samaritan teach us to do good to our enemies ? What do
the words c There is no health in us,' in the confession of
sins, mean ? what great truth does it convey % Which of
the words, in our duty towards God in the catechism, mean
that we ought to pray to him 1 If you tell tales of another
child, which commandment do you break ? Mention any of
the types of Christ, and name the points of resemblance.
How does our Lord's death save us ? What must we do
to profit by it % What are we taught is the fulfilling of
the law, and by what parables and precepts did our Lord
enforce it? Any questions which require thought toNEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

27

answer, and which relate to any great duty or principle,
such as ought to be plainly impressed on the child's mind,
will thus fairly test the school and its teacher. A similar
mode of questioning should be applied in each branch of the
education given. Any examination short of this is worth-
less ; and a school which will not pass successfully under
such an ordeal is scarcely worthy of the name of a school.
Still less easily will it pass successfully if the children are
examined in useful knowledge. Only in the higher order
of schools is this taught at all.

The dean of Hereford (Mr. Dawes) has, in his admirable
Hints on Secular Education, familiarized the public with
the mode in which this may be readily done in the school-
room; and in the following pages it is designed to show
how it may be further developed and practised in industrial
employment. If the object of instruction be to render the
child more able to fulfil the duties of his station in life, as
well physical as moral, it is surely evident that, at any rate,
useful knowledge, relating, for example, to the arts of life,
is of the first utility. According to the old notion and
practice of schools, it is undeniable that no such instruction
had a place. But the question is, whether the new require-
ments and circumstances of these times do not render an
education for the working classes exceedingly defective which
omits it. When we perceive the ease and success with which
such instruction may be given, and how practicable it is,
the reasonableness of classing it among the requirements of
good schools will appear less questionable. On the expe-
diency, however, of imparting a practical knowledge of the
arts of life, which can be given without the accessories—in
some cases impossible—for industrial training, no question
is admissible. Let schools be tested by the amount of use-
ful knowledge of all kinds which they teach children—not
merely to repeat from memory, but to understand and to
apply. If this be done faithfully, a very moderate estimate
of their actual value will result.28

NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

Another false estimate of the progress of education
relates to the existing amount of education, which has been
much exaggerated. In 1847, Mr. Edward Barnes, of Leeds,
addressed some letters to Lord John Russell, in which he
endeavoured to prove a large and gratifying increase of
scholars. Dr. Hook, of Leeds, has also made some erroneous
estimates of their increase. I have given in the appendix
(A) some evidence of the untrustworthiness of their
statistics, and the entire fallacy of conclusions built on such
data. Since then, the grants made by the Committee of
Council indicate tolerably the increase which has taken
place; for so general has been the desire to avail themselves
of grants, that few promoters of schools for the poor have
foregone their aid. The grants, therefore, indicate nearly
the increased number of schools; and it is as follows:—

In the Minutes for 1849-50 there is a detailed statement
of all the grants made for the 4 erection, enlargement, and
improved fittings] of all schools aided by grants from 1833
to October 31st, 1849, a period of sixteen years, during
which the following is an abstract of the whole:—

		Number of	Number of Scholars.		Number of Schools in which the average is taken.
	Total Grants.	Schools aided in any way.	Daily average attendance,	Number accom- modated.	
England. .	£  399,358	3255	246,979	539,202	217.1
Wales . . .	27,418	198	12,540	24,579	121
Scotland. .	41,563	302	24,065	39,230	205
Total . .	468,339	3755	283,584	603,011	2497

Assuming that the proportion of attendance to schools
here given applies to the whole of the 3755 schools, then
426,454 children actually attend them.NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

29

A portion of these grants, and also of the 603,011 chil-
dren accommodated, and of the 426,454 daily attendance of
children, belong to schools which were in existence before
1833, and which figure in this list merely as having been
aided in respect of fittings and enlargements, &c. Without
making any deduction in respect of these, and crediting
the whole number of the daily attendance as a net increase
of scholars during the sixteen years, to what does this
426,454 amount % Why, to less than the actual increase of
the juvenile population in the same time who are within the
scope of the schools in question, namely, one-eighth of the
whole increase."* It maybe urged, that many schools have been
established or enlarged without the aid of grants during this
period. But it may be doubted whether they do not form
a small portion of the whole, and may be fairly set off
against the scholars and schools before in existence, and
included in the above table.

The undeniable effect of true education on morals has
been too largely credited to the past and present schools,
and the laudable endeavour to vindicate the principle has
led some good men into a false estimate of the practical
effect of a shallow schooling, which, in reality, neither em-
bodies the principle of education nor produces its fruits.

The statistics of crime and schooling have been uninten-
tionally perverted to the support of this mistake. The
most careful use of the only available statistics of crime and
education is necessarily imperfect, and it must be premised
that so are the deductions drawn from them. As far, how-
ever, as they enable us to judge, they show that such school-
ing as our humbler classes have hitherto had leads rather
to crime than to virtue. There are, of course, many, and,
happily, increasing exceptions to this rule among the really

* The total increase of population in Great Britain, from 1833 to 1850,
was about 3,657,000.30

NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

good schools which the recent progress in education pro-
duces; but, as regards the class old enough to have already
come under the penalties of the law, as a general rule the
most ignorant and unschooled are not the most criminal—
the most criminal having been those whose instruction shows
them, at any rate, to have had some schooling.

The amount of instruction possessed by criminal offenders
is ascertained at the gaols, and used to be given in each
annual report of the Home Office; it resulted thus from
1838 to 1847:—

Degrees of Instruction.	Mean of 1838—1842.	Mean of 1843—1847.	Difference.
Unable to read and write . . .	33'86	30'68	2-68
Able to read and write imperfectly	55*49	58*72	3*23
Able to read and write well . .	8'46	8-00	0-46
Instruction superior to reading ) and writing well . . . )	0*34	0-37	0-03
Instruction could not be ascer- ) tained.......)	2'34	2-21	0-13

Thus, out of the above number of criminals, amounting
to 228,806, during the above period, from 1838 to 1847
inclusive, no less than 65^ per cent, were schooled, and a
decided minority perfectly ignorant; and this dispropor-
tion, so far from being diminished by fresh schools for the
poor, has been on the increase together with crime itself.
Neither can the disproportion be explained by an assump-
tion, that the schooled or instructed portion of the people
largely exceeds that of the ignorant, and thus accounts for
the disproportion; for the fact is otherwise. The National
School Association took great pains to ascertain this so
recently as 1850; and, notwithstanding a large increase of
schools, they state in their address, dated May, 1850,
c nearly one-half of this great nation is unable to read and
write.' Now, if we deduct from the half who are able allNEED OF BETTEll SCHOOLS.

31

the upper classes, and those who are not within the tempta-
tion of crime, it must be that, of the classes out of which
nearly all crime springs, a large majority are ignorant.
Hence the fact, that nevertheless so large a per-centage as
65 of the criminals are more or less instructed, tends to
prove very strongly, that the sort of instruction possessed
by them, and by the lower classes generally, promotes instead
of preventing crime. Assuming that in the following para-
graphs the National School Association, by the words c un-
taught' and 6 not educated,' mean not properly educated,
they contain some truth, and draw from practical experience
a fearful picture:—

The existing means for popular education is, for the most
part, poor in quality, as well as insufficient in amount.

Our gaols and our poor-houses are full. Our cities, our
towns, and our villages contain, in a large proportion of their
inhabitants, persons who are vicious, criminal, or destitute,
because they are untaught. The ranks of this large class are
constantly recruited from the great numbers of young persons
of both sexes for whom no educational provision exists; for
while the population is rapidly increasing, little comparatively is
doing for the extension or the improvement of education.

Such is the state in which the country has been left by those
in whose hands has been the care of popular education. These
parties maybe classed under two heads:—1, the Established
Church; *2, the Dissenters. The Established Church of this
kingdom is the most opulent and the most powerful corporation
in the world. It claims the right to educate the people, but for
the most part has neglected the duty, for the people are not
educated. The Dissenters have, by their voluntary efforts,
effected something for the education of the people. The joint
operations of the Established Church and the Dissenters have
proved insufficient, for the people are not educated; the joint
operations of the Established Church and the Dissenters have
left us with a small modicum of intelligence, a preponderating
mass of ignorance, crime, pauperism, and wretchedness. Some-
thing else is necessary.

And that something is a practically religious, moral, and
industrial training. But ere we open the more practical
pages of this little book, let us examine another of theNEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

theoretical mistakes we are desirous of putting out of our
way. It has been found that the local statistics of crime,
compared in gross with the returns of education gathered
from the number of those who sign their names in the mar-
riage registers, in each corresponding county, show a similar
concurrence between criminality and so-called instruction.
Now these marriage-register marks are certainly not a
reliable index of education ; but it is the opinion of certain
able statisticians, that they afford the best approximation to
it which we possess, the census returns of schools not being yet
published. In appendix (B) will therefore be found a table
giving the population—the persons to each hundred acres-—
total criminal offences, divided into grave and minor, for the
three years, 1848, '49, and '50, and the per-centage of both
sexes who signed the marriage-register with marks in 1848.
The result of this table is, that selecting the ten most
instructed counties and the ten least instructed, including
South and North Wales, the most instructed are the most
criminal, both as to grave and minor crimes, as will be seen
from the following short table:—-

Ten most instructed Counties.	Persons signing Marriage Registers with Marks.	Grave J Crimes in every 1000 Persons.	Minor Crimes in every 1000 ■ Persons.  I	Ten least instructed Counties.	Persons signing Marriage Registers with Marks.	Grave Crimes in every 1000 Persons.	Minor Crimes in every 1000 Persons.
Westmld.	17*2	•34	2'63	Kent	56*8	•73	4-04
Cumberld.	23-8	•32	1-90	Monmth.	56-5	•99	5*21
Northumb	29*1	•57	1-87	S. Wales	.55*2	•43	2'38
Rutland .	29-8	•94	3-74	N.Wales	55-0	•45	1'98
Sussex. .	81-1	•59	3-90	Bedford .	52*6	•65	3'40
Devon. .	31-7	•48	4*10	Stafford .	51-6	•72	4*32
Middlesex	33*0	•85	5*70	Herts	50-6	•82	4'81
Gloucester	33*2	•85	6.35	Lancasli.	50-g	•69	4*34
Derby. .	35-9	•44	2*48	Bucks	49*2	•95	4*88
Oxon . .	36-1	•61	4-38	Salop. .	48*8	•59	3*31
Total Averages	©  CO	0-70	4*65	Total Averages	| 50 6	0*67	3*88NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

33

It had, previously to the publication of the returns for
these later years, been said, by an able writer on the
subject, that a vagrant class, bred in the districts where
the grave crimes abound, migrate from thence into the
more instructed districts, where the minor crimes abound,
which the said class therefore commit, rather than the
native population of such districts. That people bred in
districts prone to the graver crimes should, on migrating
to other districts, instead of swelling the catalogue of such
crimes, swell only the amount of minor crimes, requires
support; and certainly derives none from the mere fact,
that in the best instructed and most populous districts the
minor, rather than the major offences prevail. It never
was, however, by any means evident that the grave class
of offences are less committed by vagrants than others, or
that the minor ones, such as larceny, are more generally
committed by them. And it is now proved that the entire
theory is erroneous; and that these statistics concur with
the foregoing, and indicate the brotherhood of faulty
schooling and greater criminality of all kinds.

There are many other proofs of the same effect. Of 957
convicts sent to Parkhurst, independently of those who
had had some smattering of instruction, no less than 360
had been educated in national schools, and most of them
for a long period. Many such instances can be cited.
Truly does the Rev. Benjamin Parsons, in his able work,
entitled Education the Birthright of every Human Being,
after doing ample justice to the good which day-schools
have effected, proceed thus to comment on their short-
comings :—

Suffice it to say, that little comparatively has yet been effected.
Myriads of our race who pass for persons of education have not
yet learnt what intellectual and moral powers they possess; how
to govern themselves and perfect their characters; what is their
chief business upon earth; and what the reckoning that awaits
them at the Divine tribunal. What they ought to be, and

D34	NEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

what they can be, on earth, and what they must be in eternity,
seem to have hardly occupied a thought.

The schools of the higher classes of society have, in thou-
sands of instances, been undeserving the name. The schools of
the middle classes have been nearly as bad ; and the schools for
the working portion of the people have too often been nothing
better than a mockery.

They have too often been 'nothing better than a mockery/
•—a mockery, moreover, of the most mischievous descrip-
tion, for they have left one-half of the people in profound
ignorance, and have frequently aided the natural powers
of evil in the rest. The wretchedly-superficial instruction
we used to give in reading and writing, and the other
mechanical rudiments of learning, if alone imparted, often
result in crime. Can facts speak more plainly than these %
We have given the form of instruction, without its life and
spirit. We have created instruments, without teaching how
to use them, and of which the proneness of human nature
to evil renders the abuse all but inevitable. Our e educa-
tion' has been no education: it has-taught the alphabet of
abilities without the capacity to turn them to good account.
It has done too little to inform the mind or improve the
disposition, but enough to feed pride and empower passion.
Scanty, indeed, has been that higher knowledge which
teaches a man to know himself, and opens, by mental
culture, the fruitfulness of knowledge, and those rich stores
of information which that culture imparts desire to retain
""Had power to profit by. The natural offspring of our
past system is to be found in the growth of selfish
principles, cold hearts, and froward will. Is this safe % is
it politic % is it prudent % Will it give more development
to weal or to woe % Will it create for us a people who
live for time, or for eternity ? Will it rear men governed
by moral influence—mindful of the golden rule—good
citizens, and good Christians—or will it create so much
lawless energy, swinging to and fro in society, dependentNEED OF BETTER SCHOOLS.

35

on accident for its working; arm evil propensities; misapply
talent; intrust clever heads and corrupt hearts to strong
hands, and sow broadcast the seeds of moral debility and
crime throughout the land ? Schools form men, and men
the times: look at the fruits before us. Was there ever
a period when mental opportunities were so abundant,
and mental powers so insignificant ? Has there often
been a greater dearth of high purpose and generous
impulse ? or a time when men looked more keenly to
their own interests, and more coldly on the common weal ?
Philanthropy and patriotism, indeed, nobly strive in their
generation; but how sorely thwarted by the dominant
indifference to principle, and idolatry of profit, which
characterize the times, and wither many of the best enter-
prises of our best men.

We live in days perilous to principle, and some think
even to our national welfare; and need may come to mus-
ter all that is sound-hearted among the people, in defence
of all that is dearest and worthiest in the institutions and
liberties we possess. God forefend the danger; but should
it come, as come it may, is it from the schooling we have
been bestowing that we dare look with confidence for
sound judgment and prompt bravery for the truth among
the people, in face of all peril and all temptation ? Or is
there not, despite all the efforts on which we are so prone
to plume ourselves, a mass of mental shallowness and
moral weakness, of vanity and venality, apt for subjuga-
tion, and averse to self-sacrifice, too long neglected, amongst
men on whom, in the hour of trial, we may call in vain to
rally, under the banner they have never learnt to honour 1
In the words of Kaleigh, c may we yet gather a policy no
less wise than eternal, by the comparison of other men's
forepassed miseries with their own errors and ill desery-: ^
ings.5

t>236

Chapter III.

How to make Schools thoroughly useful
for Poor Children.

IT should be remembered that, in dealing with the educa-
tion of children, we are dealing with moral infirmities to
be cured, or diseases to be prevented, as well as with bodies
and minds to be trained and instructed. That the bulk of
our schools have as yet done neither, is sufficiently evident
to those who are able and willing (few are both) to inves-
tigate their actual condition thoroughly and dispassion-
ately. The prejudices against education, though much
reduced among the first and second classes of society,*
linger very largely among the third class; and a prevalent
indifference to it certainly exists among the fourth and fifth
classes. A small minority of society thus really cares for,
and strives to promote it.

The prejudice of the three higher classes arises from a
dislike and distrust of its effects, and the indifference of the
lower classes from a disbelief of its benefits. What with over-
teaching and under-teaching, I regard the prejudice natural,
and the indifference inevitable. Education has not been
—and what is more, it is not sufficiently—in harmony
with the, position of the labouring class, for whom it is
designed; nor does it supply them with the information

* It is convenient thus to divide them. There is a class, evidently
above the middle class (an ambiguous term), often called the aristocracy..
Without defining it too narrowly, it may constitute the first class. Then
come the professions, the minor gentry, merchants, &c. The third class
comprises tradesmen, yeomen, farmers, &c. (once termed the epicier class,
from the French.) The fourth class comprises all independent labourers v
and paupers, vagabonds, prostitutes, criminals, See., form the fifth or*
dangerous class.TO MAKE SCHOOLS USEFUL FOR POOH CHILDREN. 37

or skill of which they will in after-life stand especially in
need.

The first objection arises naturally in the mind of those,
who judge of the benefit of education by the results of what
they hear called by that name. An education radically
defective in its chief elements for the most part exists in
the country, and its fruits tend rather to evil than to good.
Immoralities, insubordination, conceit, disinclination to
hard labour and continuous industry, though they are not
necessary results of superficial instruction, are promoted by
it. Practical experience in country districts teaches the
farmer to prefer the labourer or servant who cannot write,
simply because he finds that those who can, oftener wrong
him than those who cannot. From this frequent fact, he
draws a wrong conclusion.# He mistakes reading and
writing for education, and attributes evils to its existence
which are owing to its absence. It is difficult to convince
him that it is not teaching reading and writing that does
ihe mischief, but teaching nothing else. Beading and
writing and arithmetic, to an educated mind, are as
limbs to the body, or sails to the ship; but they can effect,
if given alone, nothing for good conduct. They are mecha-
nical, not moral elements. They can no more make a good
man, than a crucible can make a chemist, or a plough a
(ploughman.

Hence the practical operation of the system, as I have
stated, not only is hurtful to the future lives of the children,
but results in discredit to education. It is believed to do
more harm than good; and until we are enabled, by better
systems and schools, to spread abroad among the people
examples of the practical fruits of real education, so that
men who thus reason may have proofs of their error be-
fore their eyes, it is almost hopeless to wrestle with it
effectually.

The objection to the education of poor children on38	HOW TO MAKE SCHOOLS USEFUL

account of its intrinsic value to them, is mucli the most
formidable one to its progress. Often, to convince some
people of the good effects of proper education, is to confirm
their hostility to its being given to the poor, for fear their
children should obtain a start over their superiors.

But if the children of class three do not get their due,,
that fact is a strong reason for giving it to them with all
possible expedition, but assuredly it is none for withholding
what is also due from class four. The instruction of the
former cannot be furthered by the ignorance of the latter;
on the contrary, the instruction of the poorer would be
a wholesome stimulus to that of the richer. The ob-
jection arises, unfortunately, from the narrowest and most
pitiful feeling of our nature—that of selfish pride, and
it deserves no quarter. It is indispensable that, in order
to make schools for the poor efficient for their pur-
pose, we should take it for granted that they ought to
be so.

The main points which will minister to this end are
these :■—

First,—To make the children thoroughly understand
that which it is most useful for them to learn.

Secondly,—To train their morals.

Thirdly,—:As far as practicable to train them in industry.

The practical means of compassing each of these objects,
will be treated of severally. It may be expedient, how-
ever, to introduce them by a few general comments.

The first point needs no argument. That which is worth
doing, is worth doing well; the short-comings on this score
have been already noticed, and the subjects taught are
often but little better chosen. The great fault is, that the
education of the poor is seldom rudimentary enough, and
too little attention is paid to the fact, that half the words
used in the books they read are entirely strange to them*
If these are not explained, instead of being educated theFOR POOR CHILDREN.

39

child is merely exercised in a jargon of words, which im-
part neither instruction nor ideas to his mind. The
intense love of display which animates so many teachers,
induces them to teach higher subjects, and more of them>
than can benefit the child, even if he understood them.

As regards moral training, it may be conceded that it
cannot be successfully given merely in the school-room.

Mr. Stow, in his exposition of the admirable system he
has adopted in his Glasgow training, observes—

Moral training is, of course, practical throughout, and is the
main end and object of the whole system in every depart-
ment. It comprehends the restraining of all the evil propen-
sities of our nature, and, on the contrary, a cultivation of all
that is noble and virtuous, founded on Bible training; in other
words, on the principles of the immutable standard of revealed
truth, and stimulated by its high sanctions and motives.

We must here notice a fundamental error in education, which
is the confounding of two things essentially distinct. Moral
instruction and moral training are generally imagined to mean
the same thing; whereas the former is merely the imparting of
knowledge, and the latter is the cultivation of the practical habit.
On this clear and practical distinction hangs one chief peculiarity
of our system.

Habits are so important a part of education, and so influential
on individuals as well as nations, that we may almost be said to be
the children of habit. Proceeding, then, on this idea, how im-
portant must early training be before habits are formed, and
when we have only evil 'propensities to contend with.

A few of the evil propensities and habits may be mentioned,
which it is the duty of the trainer to restrain and suppress as
they are developed; whether mental, in the school gallery, or
practical, in the school play-ground, viz., rudeness, selfishness,
deceit, indecency, disorder, evil speaking, cruelty, want of
courtesy, anger, revenge, injustice, impatience, covetousness, and
dishonesty, so fearfully general in society.

On the contrary, all the amiable feelings and christian virtues
must be cultivated, such as speaking truth, obedience to parents
and all in lawful authority, honesty, justice, forbearance, gene-
rosity, gentleness, kindness, fidelity to promises, courteousness,
habits of attention, docility, disinterestedness, kindness to inferior
animals, pity for the lame and the distressed, and the weak in
intellect, and, in general, doing to others as we would wish to be
done by.40	HOW TO MAKE SCHOOLS USEFUL

Such evil propensities must be subdued, and moral habits
formed, not by teaching, but by training. We cannot lecture
a child into good manners, or change habits of any kind by the
longest speech. The physical, intellectual, or moral habit, is
only changed by a succession, or rather by a repetition of
doings.

This department requires a play-grou?id for moral development
and sympathy, as the intellectual department does a gallery for
mental sympathy.

[ That which Mr. Stow proposes to effect by the play-
ground, I would, wherever practicable, endeavour to do by
industrial employment. The principle of the system would
be the same, embodying the same practical working out of
the rules of moral conduct, and the faculties of the moral
I being. In the ordinary school-room, little can be done be-
' yond the mere teaching of ethics; this is not moral train-
ing, any more than the possession of a library is knowledge,
i or a sermon religion. Children especially require to be
taught the application of what they learn, in order that
they should profit by it. The disposition of the child,
whether for good or evil, is imperfectly developed under
the constraint and formality of the school-room. The play-
ground, or the field, gives scope for the free working of
nature—feelings, passions, and talents obtain free scope;
and in this unconstrained state alone can these be ascer-
tained, moulded, encouraged, or uprooted. Much may be
done towards this in the school-room, and it would be very
unfair to depreciate the earnest efforts, by precept and
school discipline, rewards and punishments, to minister
towards it in all good schools; but, after all, if the observa-
tion of conduct be confined to the room, the work is not,
and cannot be, thoroughly accomplished. Moreover, until
lately, the duty of moral training (ignored in nearly all in-
ferior schools) has been but very scantily acknowledged or
enforced in any of the very valuable works on education
which its friends have published. After Mr. Stow, Mr.
Dunn has probably said more on the subject than any other;FOR POOR CHILDREN.

41

and lie laments the imperfect manner in which it is carried
out. In his very able work, entitled The Principles of
Teaching, he remarks:—

In moral education, a twofold work has to be accomplished :
4 the faculty of reason must be taught how to judge rightly
between truth and error, good and evil,' and the habit of acting
rightly must be formed in order that the imagination, the pas-
sions, and the affections, may be accustomed to bow to the
decisions of reason, when thus enlightened and strengthened.
The first of these (the formation of right judgments) has long
been a primary object of our efforts; the last (the formation of
habits and the regulation of emotions) has not yet received that
share of attention which its paramount importance demands. It
may be worth inquiry whether more cannot be done in this way
than has hitherto been considered practicable.

I am convinced, not only from long observation of the
existing short-comings in the ordinary schools, but by prac-
tical experience of a different system at Quatt and other
industrial schools, that efficient moral training can T>e !
best accomplished where industrial labour out of school
is combined with religious and secular instruction in
school; and I believe horticulture and farm-work by far ;
the best adapted for the purpose. It seems to have these
recommendations as regards moral training: first, the child
is thereby taught to be useful, and receives perhaps .his
earliest lesson in labour. This is a great step in moral
elevation, and herein does industrial employment distance
the playground, which affords no such advantage. In the
next place, the work done is of a kind to call into operation
not only more of the faculties of mind and body, but also
of the moral feelings and perceptions. Thirdly, horticulture
has a direct tendency to turn the mind to God. It has
been truly said, that4 it presents to the bodies of children
healthful and placid muscular development; to their minds,
ever-varying proofs of the Almighty's greatness, goodness,
and wisdom.' Its advantages as an auxiliary to the general
work of such education as may fit the child for the station42

HOW TO MAKE SCHOOLS USEFUL

in life in which it has pleased God to place hini are borne
out, not merely by the practical proofs I have seen of its
efficiency, but by the highest authorities on the subject of
education, amongst whom are the Dean of Hereford and
my respected colleague, the Rev. Mr. Moseley, who says, in
one of his recent reports:—

The King's Sombourne School, on which I have already
reported at length, still stands alone in the views and principles
as to secular instruction on which it is conducted. Schools
resembling it in the scale of payment are indeed multiplying,,
but the idea on which the school is based as to teaching, I find
reproduced nowhere. 4 We educate,' said Mr. Dawes (now
Dean of Hereford), in his recent pamphlet, entitled Observa-
tions on the Working of the Government Scheme of Educa-
tion, 4 in the middle class with reference to the way in which
people are to get their livelihoods, and why not in the lower ?*
That is a just view of the education, which considers it in relation
to the things which surround the child to be educated, and the
exigences of its condition, and so obvious a one, that it would
seem needless to insist upon it, were it not a very rare thing
to find it acted upon.

As to the manner of instruction, it suggests the expediency
of not dealing with a mind, subject to one class of moral influ-
ences, accustomed to expatiate among one class of objects,
and adapt itself to one social position, precisely as you would
a mind placed in all these respects under other circumstances
and in other relations.

All this obviously points to a different order of schools
than we at present possess, save in some exceptional cases*
It also demands another order of teacher. It is by more
intimate intercourse than that of the old style of mere master
and scholar that faults are known and corrected, virtues de-
veloped and nursed, sympathies strengthened, minds opened,
and knowledge improved. The field is a fine sphere for
effecting all this. I believe that schools without industrial
and moral training fulfil but part, and that the least im-
portant part, of education. It is not too much to say, that
mere schools cannot educate. I believe this to be true
even for the higher and middle classes of the people; but itFOR POOR CHILDREN.

43

is infinitely more true and forcible when we are dealing
with poor children, who require both moral and physical
regime.

Of very little avail is it to teach such children the
rudiments of book learning, or to seek to remedy evil
passions and idle habits with catechisms and copy-books.
They require, I repeat it, a far more apt and practical dis-
cipline, and I believe it is embodied in religious and < in-
dustrial training.'

An aptitude for work of all kinds, and habits of industry,
are the chief industrial advantages of the system. It is a
mistake to suppose that the intention is to form finished
labourers, or skilled artisans. Boys thus educated will
probably, on leaving school, be neither able to plough, milk,
shear, or mow; but they will, in addition to a store of prac-
tical and useful knowledge, have acquired those useful gifts—
a handiness for work and a habit of industry. Mr. Bowyer,
one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Union Schools, speaks
thus of many of the schools in workhouses; and assuredly
it is quite as true and applicable to the majority of schools
for the independent poor:—

They are reared like the sons of persons of fortune, and
their days are passed in alternate lessons and play. A boy thus
brought up is entirely unfitted for an agricultural labourer;
he can neither dig, hoe, nor plough; is puzzled with a harness,
and afraid of a horse. Any hard or continuous labour exhausts
his body and wearies his mind; he has formed a completely
false conception of the life that awaited him ; instead of the
joyous voices of his playfellows, he hears the rough commands
of an unindulging master or a scolding mistress; he is con-
tinually reproached for his awkwardness and timidity, and
reminded of his pauper origin. Under these circumstances, it
can hardly be wondered at if he often look back with regret
to the happy indolence of his childhood.44	HOW TO MAKE SCHOOLS USEFUL

Vehrli, Principal of the Swiss Teachers' College at Con-
stance, thus expressed himself to Mr. Kay, the author of
that very valuable work, The Social Condition of the People
in Germany and Switzerland:—

After a long experience in teaching both the children of rich
and poor, it is my firm opinion that all children should be
accustomed, while they are young, to labour with their own
hands for a certain time every day. "No school ought ever to
be situated in a town. All ought to be situated in the country;
and every boy, 110 matter who his parents are, ought to be
obliged to labour upon the soil. Labour makes the children
healthy, capable of bearing fatigue, and robust, and it teaches
the children of the rich to get rid of all those notions which
riches are apt to stimulate; to understand the feelings of the
poor better; to treat them better, and to associate with them
better; it thus diminishes the artificial distance between classes,
and, with the1 distinction of this artificial distance, it diminishes
also the jealous feelings which false mannerism on the part of
the rich too often engenders.

The beneficial effect of industrial labour on mental
activity is great. I have no hesitation in saying, that four
hours' school with it is quite equivalent to six without it,
and that more will be learned in the four hours; for so
close is the sympathy of body with mind, that the indolence
of the one is the feebleness of the other. Mental strength,
incompatible with an inert frame, gains necessarily with
that which develops bodily vigour.

Vehrli's notions are much too far-going for adoption
here as regards the rich, but they are not beyond the
chance of being applied to the poor, which will suffice for
our purpose.

One of the best practical examples of the value of farm
schools is that of the school at Quatt in Shropshire, in
conjunction with the Bridgnorth Union, and now a district
school for the pauper children of four unions. This school
owes much of its merit and success to the unwearying
interest taken in it by Mr. Whitmore of Dudmaston, and
also to the peculiar talent and zeal of Mr. Garland, theFOR POOR CHILDREN.

45

master, who has accomplished more by his own single-
handed exertion, than could have been done by any one
whose heart and hand were less devoted to the work.
This school being a boarding-school, with many small
children, requires much more labour than any day-school
which adopted the industrial system. A short description
of this school, as given in one of my reports to the Lords
of the Committee of Council, will serve to illustrate the
system recommended. It affords at once a proof of the
profit both to the children and the ratepayers. It is the
only school, with one or two exceptions, in my district,
where the children are entirely separated from the work-
house. A private dwelling-house has been taken, in a
rural village four miles from the workhouse, with about
four acres of arable, and half an acre of meadow land.
About fifteen boys cultivate this land, and attend to the
stable, cows, pigs, &c. Not quite as many girls are
instructed and employed in household work, sewing,
baking, washing, and the dairy. The afternoons are
wholly devoted to industrial labour, and the mornings
chiefly to school instruction, in which the attainments of
the children are very superior to those of most workhouse
schools where no industrial training exists. An account
of the produce of the land, together with the description
given by Mr. Garland, the master, of his system of culti-
vation, was obtained by me from him, and has been
extensively circulated throughout the unions of England.
In that account, Mr. Garland gave an abstract of the
ledger of one year, which has been made the subject of
much comment and discussion. Further information on
the subject will be found in the Appendix lettered C,
which contains some authenticated details and proofs of the
productiveness of spade husbandry, and to which I invite
attention. It will suffice to state here, that this establish-
ment is not based, as has been most erroneously supposed,46

HOW TO MAKE SCHOOLS USEFUL

on a self-supporting system : it was neither designed nor
intended for such. The mere fact that only four and a
half acres of land are taken into cultivation, ought to have
prevented such a mis-impression. The large produce
derived from this very limited portion of land has, indeed,
been held forth, as well it might, as evidence of what may
be done on a larger scale, in order to reimburse the
expenses of such establishments ; but this was all.

The mis-impression was, however, of a somewhat mis-
chievous tendency, inasmuch as it represented what is
really a most successful attempt at industrial training, in
the light of an agricultural speculation, of which the
merits might be debateable. It may be safely upheld, as
an almost perfect example of the virtues of spade hus-
bandry for educational purposes, but it is by no means an
example of all that may be effected in realizing large
produce from the land by such a mode of cultivation. But
I can safely aver, that the effects of the system at the
Quatt farm school upon the minds, morals, hearts, and
conduct of the children have left little to desire.

Although the children cannot of course learn all the
various work to be done in farms, so as to become perfect
labourers; and though the girls in their various occupa-
tions in the house, the kitchen, the dairy, the bakehouse,
the washhouse, and the laundry, do not in all cases become
perfect servants; yet both boys and girls learn the elements
of profitable industry in all these useful spheres of service.
They become apt, instead of inapt, for industrial pursuits.
Instead of leaving the workhouses, as the children in
them generally do,—nerveless, spiritless, inert, unskilled
even in the use of their hands and arms, those at Quatt
go forth well qualified to profit both themselves and those
who employ them. This result seems to be fully appre-
ciated by the farmers and others, who are desirous of
obtaining them as servants.FOR POOR CHILDREN.

47

Of their mental progress I can speak in equally high
terms. The vigour of the body imparts itself to the
intellect; and not only relieves the monotony of the
school-room by the alternate labour in the fields, but it
gives zest and energy to the powers of the mind.

In understanding the Scriptures, arithmetical calcu-
lations, the comprehension of the objects of nature, in
general information, as well as in various branches of
mere mechanical instruction, such as reading, writing,
spelling, &c., these boys at the Quatt farm school excel
those in the great majority of schools of far higher
pretension which have fallen under my notice. Mr. Gar-
land, the excellent master, has the faculty of gaining the
affections of these poor children, many of whom in after
life will regard him as a friend to whom they owe the
highest debt of gratitude and affection.

The Rev. Mr. Moseley, speaking of this school, says:—

It is plain, therefore, that the fifteen boys of the Quatt school
•earn a good deal more than the cost of their dinners daily ; and
I think I am justified in assuming, that the like number of boys
•of similar ages, in any village school, aided by the master, hav-
ing the same facilities for cultivating the same number of acres
of ground, and devoting to the cultivation of it the same number
<of hours daily, might, in like manner, earn for themselves, and
for three or four of the elder girls employed in the work of the
dairy and the kitchen, a meal daily, of my.ch humbler fare per-
haps than that of the school of which I have spoken, but probably
more substantial and more abundant than they could get at
liome.# It might improve with any improvement in the culti-
vation of the land, or with any increase in the industry of the
little labourers. The value of improved methods of cultivation
and greater industry could scarcely be brought home to them
under any other form, indeed, in which they would be so likely
to understand it. Whilst by this arrangement the training of
the children in habits of forethought and industry would be pro-
vided for, the removal of a portion of the burden of their main-

* To he convinced of this, it is only necessary to inquire what kind of
•dinners poor children who live at a distance are accustomed to bring to
eat at school.48

HOW TO MAKE SCHOOLS USEFUL

tenance from the parent would probably secure their attendance
at school to a more advanced age. Thus, what was sacrificed of
their school learning on the one hand, by setting apart only half
the day to it instead of the whole day, would be gained on the
other hand by their- continuing at school longer.

The value of that moral influence which might, by a judicious
master, be exercised over the boys when associated with them
during their hours of labour and at their meals* will, I am sure,
be appreciated by every practical educationist. It is during
these hours that the real characters of the children become
known, and at such times that the springs of action among them
may be influenced and controlled, and the public opinion of the
school brought over to the side of the schoolmaster.

I am well convinced of the entire truth of these opinions.

The profitableness of land cultivated as will be pre-
sently set forth in some detail has been found to be very
considerable wherever it has been properly tried. There
are three reasons why it is so—

First,—The system of field gardening and high manuring
recommended is peculiarly adapted for boy labour, and
necessarily highly productive.

Secondly,—The labour is unpaid.

Thirdly,—The produce, instead of having to seek a mar-
ket, is mainly consumed at home.

Market gardeners pay high rents; and, though they have
both to pay for labour, and also to seek a market, they make
good profits; a fortiori, school-farms would be more pro-
fitable.

* At the school of St. Mark's, Windsor, tlie boys breakfast with the
schoolmaster, each bringing his bread and butter, and the clergyman pro-
viding the cocoa. I doubt not that tliis meal, eaten in common by the.
teacher and children, has contributed largely to the high moral tone and
discipline of that remarkable school; and it is a great satisfaction to me
to find the opinion I hold on this subject supported by the experience of
so able and so devoted a friend to the education of the people as the Rev.
Stephen Hawtrey. The most perfect idea we can form of a school
approaches most nearly to that of a well-ordered family, and, of the proper
relation of the teacher and his scholars, to that of a parent and his children.
It is, perhaps, difficult to conceive this idea to be realized unless they take
their meals together.FOR POOR CHILDREN.

49

It is absolutely requisite to the successful working of the
system, that the children should partake of the produce of
their labour. There are instances of opposite systems—
one at Hagley, in a school established . there by Lord
Lyttelton, and one by Lord Ellesmere at Worsley, at both of
which the boys have the produce of the garden allotments
attached to the school, and these work most successfully:
In an other at Warren, established by the Countess Cawdor,
which is the source of much benefit to the neighbourhood,
the industrial department, comprising the cultivation of a
few acres of arable land, does not thrive equally, the- chil-
dren having no part of the produce, and the parents not
liking them to work. At Llanelly, a similar effort to intro-
duce industrial employment proved abortive. I believe that
the same feeling exists everywhere. The labouring classes
set a just value on labour, and the constant objection made
by them is, ' My child shan't work for nothing.' The only
way of obviating this objection—and it is a very effectual
one—is to give them something for their labour. Not only
does this conciliate the parents, but it teaches the child an
early lesson in the value of industry, and gives him a
wholesome pride in the utility of his exertions. This is
of great importance. It is of importance also in another
way, touched on by the Rev. Mr. Moseley in the foregoing
extract, namely, that it would prolong the attendance of the
children in the school, reduced now throughout the king-
dom by the parents to the shortest possible limit, from the
universal desire and frequent necessity to set the children
to earn something towards their livelihood as early as pos-
sible. Let schools be so moulded as to fulfil this desire
instead of hindering it; let children be taught and worked
together; let us abandon the purblind system of educating
the head, and neglecting the hand and the heart, and our
schools will soon be better filled, and our educational zeal
better valued by the poor. As it is, I neither wonder a

E50

HOW TO MAKE SCHOOLS USEFUL

nor condemn their reluctance to surrender the time and
labour-value of their children for the sort of instruction they
chiefly obtain, and which they can but partially use, at the
best, in after life.

The Rev. Mr. Mitchell also well observes, in his report in
the Minutes of Council for 1848-9:—

The employers of labour complain, either with reason or with-
out, that the children attending national schools are unfitted for
the work required of their condition ; and, therefore, occupiers
of land generally are not merely indifferent, but frequently
entirely opposed, to all education of the operative classes. The
only method of overcoming this feeling, it seems to me, is to
make the schools really practically efficient, by teaching in them
such subjects only as may conduce to form the mind of a
labourer, and fit him for his future career. And it should be
borne in mind, that the education required by a town boy is
widely different to that needed for an agricultural labourer.
The object to be pursued is, to fit the child for his present occu-
pation and status in society, not to raise him out of it. If he
wishes to rise he must elevate himself. He must look to his
own or his parents' exertions, not to the help of the State or
charity, to place him in a more advanced position in life.

I am therefore led to think that, if it were possible to attach to
every school land for the scholars to be trained in agricultural
pursuits, it would be a very great improvement. The employers
of labour would then see that a positive advantage was attained,
and the parents might also be induced to make some further
sacrifice to procure an evident worldW benefit, which, however
it may be regretted, is to most of them the only, or at least chief,
object why they send their children to schooL

The same inspector corroborates and repeats these views
in his report for 1850:—

This system might be applied by means either of field-
gardening or handicraft work. Where schools are so
situate that ground cannot be had, much as it is to be
preferred, handicrafts are the only resource. Many of the
ragged schools have adopted them, and the boys learn,
shoemaking, tailoring, netting, &c. The great objection to
this is, that these are trades over-full already; and the second
is, that they neither exercise the body, nor afford the meansFOR POOR CHILDREN.

51

©f moral training, so effectually as field-labour or garden-
ing; and it is certainly quite impracticable to follow out
Vehrli's plan of rural schools exclusively. In such cases, it
is a great improvement over the present system to have any
kind of industrial employment.

The kind of schools which appear to be best fitted for the
wants of the times and the people having been thus briefly
sketched, let us enter on the practical details and sugges-
tions, not only for carrying the industrial system into effect,
but likewise each branch of instruction, and the organiza-
tion of ordinary schools for the poor, which will form the
second part of this little work, bearing throughout the prin-
ciple in view, that education, in whatever branch, to be of
use must be thoroughly practical, and applicable to the
business of life.

E 2PART THE SECOND.

Chapter I.

The Building and Organization of
Schools, &e.*

HERE a school is to be built, the selection of a good

site is very important. Where it can be avoided, a
clayey or wet soil should never be selected. If the school
is not intended to be industrial this is of less moment,
as by building on arches, and attention to draining, the
rooms may be kept dry, though it should be remembered
—little as that fact is apparently regarded—that healthi-
ness is as much dependent on soil as on almost any other
circumstance of locality. If the school is to be a farm
school, it must be on a loam or friable soil of some kind.
A stiff clay soil is a very great objection; and none of the
calculations hereafter given are capable of being verified
on any other condition than that of a fair soil for the spade.

The buildings are in most cases far too ornamental and
costly. It may well be questioned whether, when the
funds exist for this outward show, it be not a very unwise
example to set; and where some more essential matter
is foregone in order to indulge in it, it is of course unjus-
tifiable. This is, however, not unfrequently the case; and

* The mode of proceeding, in order to obtain a grant from the Com-
mittee of Council, will be best learned by writing to the secretary for the
necessary forms of application.BUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS. 5$

when the school fittings are required, and the school
teacher's salary to be determined, it is found that the fount
of voluntary subscription has been exhausted on profitless
expenditure, and the real requirements of the school are
starved accordingly. This should not be. The only legi-
timate ornaments to a school should be sought within. A
contrary practice, however, prevails; and if the present
mongrel Gothic architecture is to pass muster for orna-
ment, we oftener find it outside than inside. The taste thus
generated becomes a precedent, and is obligatory almost as
a law, much to the discouragement of poorer parishes and
less opulent benevolence, deterred by examples of display
they cannot imitate, and yet fear to dispense with. It
would be a wholesome correction, if some rich philanthro-
pists would build schools with perfectly plain walls, doors,
and windows, supposing it possible to get a builder to
assent to anything so heterodox.

The Minutes of the Committee of Council, for the years
1839-40, and also for 1844 and '45, contain several very
good plans for school buildings.

To industrial schools, out-buildings should be attached
adapted for the purpose, which will be more conveniently
detailed hereafter, in treating of them specially.

THE ORGANIZATION AND FITTINGS.

These form a most important consideration. They may
vary in some, but a small degree, according to the system of
teaching pursued. Nevertheless, there are so many points of
organization essential to all effective teaching, that a
general plan may be laid down, almost equally applicable to
any system. The suggestion of a new scheme of organiza-
tion here would be not only unnecessary, but deteriorate the
practical utility of this book, after the excellent and well-
matured rules and plans recently put forth by the Com-
mittee of Council on Education, entitled, MemorandumM BUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

'respecting the Organization of Schools in Parallel Groups
of Benches and Desks. As this publication is designed
for circulation among the promoters of schools, that object
will be in some degree furthered by its insertion here. It
may be premised that, without such benches and desks no
school can be deemed perfectly fitted. They are most
essential.

MEMOBANDUM, &C.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Before a schoolroom is planned—and the observation applies
equally to alterations in the internal fittings of an existing
school-room, the number of children who are likely to occupy
it; the number of classes into which they ought to be grouped;
whether the school should be 'mixed,' or the boys and girls
should be in different rooms—should be carefully considered, in
order that the arrangements of the school may be designed
accordingly.

A.	Every class, when in operation, requires a separate teacher,
be it only a monitor acting for the hour. Without some such
provision it is impossible to keep all the children in a school
actively employed at the same time.

The apprenticeship of pupil teachers, therefore, is merely an
improved method of meeting what is, under any circumstances,
a necessity of the case; and, where such assistants are main-
tained at the public expense, it becomes of increased importance
to furnish them with all the mechanical appliances that have been
found by experience to be the best calculated to give effect to
their services.

B.	The main end to be attained is the concentration of the
attention of the teacher upon his own separate class, and of the
class upon its teacher, to the exclusion of distracting sounds and
objects, and without obstruction to the head master's power of
superintending the whole of the classes and their teachers. This
concentration would be effected the most completely if each
teacher held his class in a separate room; but such an arrange-
ment would be inconsistent with a proper superintendence, and
would be open to other objections. The common schoolroom
should, therefore, be fitted to realize, as nearly as may be, the
combined advantages of isolation and of superintendence, with-
out destroying its use for such purposes as may require a large
apartment. The best shape (see diagrams annexed) is an oblong
about eighteen feet in width. Groups of desks are arranged
along one of the walls. Each group is divided from the adjacentBUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

55

-group or groups by an alley, in which a light curtain can be
drawn forward or back. Each class, when seated in a group of
desks, is thus isolated on its sides from the rest of the school.
'The head master, seated at his desk placed against the opposite
wall, or standing in front of any one of the classes, can easily
superintend the school; while the separate teacher of each class
stands in front of it, where the vacant floor allows him to place
his easel for the suspension of diagrams and the use of the black
board, or to draw out the children occasionally from their desks,
and to instruct them standing for the sake of relief by a change
in position. The seats at the desks and the vacant floor in front
of each group are both needed, and should therefore be allowed
for in calculating the space requisite for each class.

C. By drawing back the curtain between two groups of desks,
the principal teacher can combine two classes into one for the
purpose of a gallery lesson ; or a gallery (doubling the depths of
rows) may be substituted for one of the groups. For simul-
taneous instruction, such a gallery is better than the combination
of two groups by the withdrawal of the intermediate curtain;
because the combined width of the two groups is greater than
will allow the teacher to command at a glance all the children
sitting in the same line. It is advisable, therefore, always to
provide a gallery.

The drawings annexed to the following rules purport, simply
to show the best internal dimensions of schoolrooms, and the best
mode of fitting them up, the doors and windows being placed
accordingly. The combination of such rooms with others of the
same kind, with teachers1 residences, and with the remainder of
the school premises, as well as the elevations which may thereby
be obtained, depending, as they always must, upon local circum-
stances, are not intended to be here shown.

The Committee of Council do not recommend that the benches
and desks should be immovably fixed to the floor in any schools.
They ought to be so constructed as to admit of being readily
removed when necessary, but not so as to be easily pushed out of
place by accident, or to be shaken by the movements of the
children when seated at them.

The reasons of the following rules will be readily inferred from
these preliminary explanations.

1.	In planning a schoolroom, if it be not more than 18 feet in
width, about 8 or 9 square feet will be sufficient for each child
in actual attendance. If the width be greater, there must be a
proportionate increase of area allotted to each child.

2.	A school not receiving infants should generally be divided
into at least four classes. (The varying capacities of children56 BUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

between seven and thirteen years old will be found to require
at least thus much subdivision.')

3. Parallel benches and desks, graduated according to the
ages of the children, should be provided for all the scholars in
actual attendance (See Preliminary Remarks, B.); and there-
fore a schoolroom should contain at least four groups of parallel
benches and desks. (See Mule 2.)

I

}\ 4. A group should not contain more than three rows of
I benches and desks (otherwise the distance of the last row is too
great for the teacher to see the children's slates, and he must also
\ raise his voice to a pitch which is exhausting to himself and adds
} inconveniently to the general noise.)

r 5. As a general rule, no group of benches and desks should
accommodate more than twenty-four children—i. e., eight chil-
; dren in each of the three rows of the group, (otheriuise the
\ width is too great. See Preliminary Remarks, C.)

5

6.	The proper lengths are 7 feet 6 inches for five children
in a row; 9 feet for 6 in a row; 10 feet 6 inches for 7 in a
row ; 12 feet for 8 in a row—i. e18 inches for each child.

[The other dimensions and details are shown in the annexed
drawings.]

7.	Each group of desks must be separated from the contigu-
ous group, either by an alley for the passage of the children,
or by a space sufficient for drawing and withdrawing the cur-
tains.

It will be sufficient to provide an alley for the passage of
children at one end only of each group. At the other end a
space of three inches will suffice for drawing and withdrawing
the curtains.

[Alleys intended for the passage of children must not be less
than 18 inches wide in the smallest school, and need not be more
than 2 feet wide in any school, unless where a door or fireplace
requires a greater interval.]

8.	The best width for a schoolroom, intended to accommodate
any number of children between 48 and 144, is 17 or 18 feet.
This gives sufficient space for each group of benches and desks
to be ranged (with its depth of three rows) along one wall, for
the teachers to stand at a proper distance from their classes, and
for the classes to be drawn out, when necessary, in front of the
desks around the master or pupil teachers. (No additional
accommodation being gained by greater width in the room, the cost
of such an increase in the dimensions is thrown away.)BUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

57

9.	Where the number of children to be accommodated is too
great for them to be arranged in five, or at most six, groups,
an additional schoolroom should be built, and placed under
the charge of an additional schoolmaster, who may, however,
be subordinate to the head master, or a large school may be
built. Where neither of these arrangements can be accom
plished, the schoolroom should not be less than 32 feet wide,
and the groups should be arranged along both sides of the
room, the children in all cases facing the centre. (But such
an arrangement is very inferior to that of the single row along
one wall. The opposite classes see each other, and their several
teachers have to stand too close together. See Preliminary
Remarks, B.)

10.	A curtain, capable of being readily drawn and with-
drawn, should separate the several groups ; but not so as, when
drawn, to project into the room more than 4 inches in front of
the foremost desk.,

11.	If the schoolroom be lighted from above, which is the :
best possible mode, great care should be taken to prevent the
skylights from leaking, and to provide channels for the water
which the condensation of the children's breath will deposit on
the inside of the glass.

12.	All sashes, both upper and lower, should be hung; and
all windows, whether in the roof or elsewhere, should be made
to open.

13.	It is better to have a few large and well-placed windows
than many small ones.

14.	It is important to provide that the faces of the children
and teachers, and also the black boards and diagrams, should
fee placed in a full clear light.

15.	If the schoolroom be not lighted from above there should
be windows, if possible, at each end and on one side of the room.
The windows should be carried up as high as possible ; and those
which are placed at the backs of the children, an arrangement
which should be avoided as far as possible, should not come
down within 5 feet 6 inches, or at least 5 feet, from the floor.

16.	When the benches and desks are arranged on both sides
of the room it should be lighted from above, or there should be,
if possible, windows in each of the side walls.

17.	Except when a schoolroom is very broad, there should be
no fireplace in the centre of an end wall.

[A good place for a fireplace is under a window.]BENCHES AND DESKS FIXED ON A KAISED PLATFORM.



The dimensions in each of these three groups are calculated for children of the age of from 11 to 13. It is
important that the dimensions should be varied to suit younger children.

There are other Plans in the Memorandum, a selection from which is given here.PLAN OF BENCHES AND DESKS.

SPACE

[ BENCH	
..... .	
	• t
3 DESK	nI  1
	
I BENCH	
	
% DESK	i
	
BENCH	nL-
	
DESK  CROCVE INK CROOVC INK CSOOVE IKK CROOVE	4  INK fiROOVE j  © <pww«^-Vj J,

ALLEY
BETWEEN

	g]0"~

ALLEY
BETWEEN

. /«£_

-------------------g]0"~

ft.	in.	Children.

Desks 7	6 in length to accommodate 5

„ 9	0	„	6

„ 10	6	7

„ 12	0 8

c

i:

L
[

L

Alleys between groups of Desks, from 1 foot 6 inches to
2 feet.

An inkstand of earthenware glazed, with sliding covers of
slate or earthenware, to be placed at the extreme right of
each space of 18 inches on desk. The grooves are to pre-
vent the falling of pencils, &c.

	Q	..... .........A  i i
		
	O	i

Plan of iron standards to
Desks and Benches.

The flap of the Girls' Desks
made to fall down for needle-
work.60 BUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

18.	The desks should be either quite flat or very slightly
inclined. The objections to the inclined desk are, that pencils,
pens, &c., are constantly slipping from it, and that it cannot be
conveniently used as a table. The objection to the flat desk is,
that it obliges the children to stoop. A raised ledge in front of
a desk interferes with the arm in writing.

19.	A large gallery for the simultaneous instruction of two or
more classes, without desks, may advantageously be provided in
a classroom, or at one end of the schoolroom. Such a gallery
may be better placed along, than across, the end of the school-
room, for the reasons stated in the Preliminary Remarks, B.

20.	No such gallery, nor any gallery in an infant schoolroom,
should be placed in front of a window, unless it be very high up
above the heads of the children when they stand on the top row
of the gallery.

21.	No infant gallery should hold more than 80 or 90 infants.

22.	An infant school should (besides a large gallery) have a
small group of benches and desks for the occasional use of the
elder infants.

23.	The alleys leading to a gallery should be at its sides, not
an its centre. (See Rules 5 and 6.)

24.	Great care should be taken that the valves which admit
the fresh air into the schoolroom should be placed so as not to
create draft where the teachers and children sit.

25.	An easel and a black board should be provided for each
class, and a larger black board for the gallery.

VENTILATION AND DKAINAGE.

Nothing is more important than attention to these
essential points. There should in every school be an inlet
vent below, and an outlet vent above. This is easily
accomplished by means of perforated zinc plates. Oil-cur-
tain ventilators in the chimney, near the ceiling, are admi-
rably adapted for letting off foul, and keeping up the circu-
lation of fresh air, in any apartment, the warm in the
chimney causing the draft, and the little curtains prevent-
ing the escape of smoke into the room. Many a close
room has been rendered wholesome by this cheap andBUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

61

simple expedient. In a school, or other crowded room,
this, however, though an admirable assistant, could not
suffice for the outlet vent.

Drainage is equally essential. It is the established
usage, in perhaps two-thirds of the houses in this country,
to pen up the stuff which flows from them in holes
and cesspools close under the noses of the occupants..
These abominations are usually constructed, even when
walled, so as to allow of the escape of the liquid, which
penetrates through the bricks, and saturates the surround-
ing soil, which of course exhales its effluvia into the air,,
and is frequently the hidden cause of disease. This plan is.
in one view both cheap and nasty, for it avoids the-
necessity of emptying these places out. It is, however,,
less economical than at first appears, for the value derivable
from the contents of the cesspool for raising garden or
farm produce is entirely lost, and the plan results in an in-
jury to the health at the expense of the pocket.

Where schools have ground or garden attached, there
should always be a tank, properly cemented as hereafter
described, into which everything runs, and from which it is
again pumped and put on the land, the drains from the build-
ing "being properly secured. Where the school-house is
deprived of the advantage of land, the refuse, &c., cannot
be carried away too far. It should be conveyed into some-
culvert or drain, entirely away from the house if practi-
cable; if not, a cemented tank should be sunk, with
properly-fitted stink-traps, and so constructed with man-
trap above, as to admit of being emptied when full.
Where neither of these is done, health is certain to be
more or less injured.

Warming stoves are more economical than open fires,,
but never so healthy.62 BUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

THE COST AND SIZE OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

It is very difficult to give an estimate which is of any-
practical use, so much must depend on the locality, the
character of the materials, the fittings, and the style of
building. In few cases can what is requisite for the school-
rooms alone be furnished for 100 children at so little as
.£200, site not included; for 150 or 200, the cost would be
less in proportion. Small schools are always the dearest,
and generally the least efficient. Too large ones are, how-
ever, an evil. It is doubtful whether 250 is not the
maximum which can be ever properly superintended by the
same master and mistress.

The height of the room, from the floor to the wall-plate,
should be from 10 to 15 feet, according to its dimensions.
Schoolrooms surrounded by other buildings should be
somewhat more lofty than those in open situations, in order
to admit a greater body of air.

DOORS AND WINDOWS.

The door at which the children enter should always have
a porch, under which they may shelter themselves in.case
of rain, or whilst kept waiting. It is also desirable for the
inarching exercises, that all the doors should be made to
open outwards. Windows should be on opposite sides of
the room and high up.

CLASS-ROOM, HATS, ETC.

In a school for 100 children the classroom should be at
least 10 feet by 12, and 15 by 18 would be better. It
should have a small gallery, capable of containing from
thirty to forty children; the hats and cloaks also may be
hung up here, or the main gallery may be so arranged as
to allow of their being placed under it, or they may be
hung up in the porch, if that be convenient: at all eventsBUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS. 63

they should not, when it can be avoided, be hung round
the main schoolroom. Many teachers like to have the
children enter through the classroom, instead of entering
directly through the main schoolroom; the arrangement
may be easily made by an extra door, and has its advan-
tages. Moderately large schools should have two class-
rooms, as before observed.

Of course, where the funds cannot be had, there are less
costly modes of housing schools. The Home and Colonial
Society, in their admirable Hints on the Establishment of
Schools, from which some of the foregoing particulars
are borrowed, very justly remark that—

Two cottages standing together, the rooms on the ground-
floor (if sufficiently lofty) thrown into one, a room up-stairs
appropriated for a classroom, and the remaining rooms as a
residence for the teacher, the garden forming a play-ground;
or a barn with the walls whitewashed, and the tiles pointed (not
ceiled, as that often causes echo), and when large enough, a por-
tion divided off for a classroom, will be frequently found to
answer the desired purpose. In the latter case, a residence for
the teacher should be procured very near to the school, as this is
a matter never to be lost sight of. Of course it is unnecessary
to point out the advantage of using Sunday schoolrooms for
infant schools during the week, when they can be obtained; and
if there be no classroom attached, a division of the schoolroom
by a woollen curtain will often be found both more convenient
and cheaper than a wooden partition.

BOOKS AND MAPS AND APPARATUS.

Schools under inspection may obtain grants of any school-
books in the list of the Committee of Council on Education
at about two-thirds of the usual selling price. The list
of books is a very full and good one. The conditions
tinder which the grant maybe obtained, are to be had,
like all the other forms, on application in writing to the
Secretary of the Committee. The books deemed most
useful will be indicated under each branch of instruc-64 BUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

tion in the following pages. Maps of the British Islands
and Palestine are indispensable in every school. Those of
Europe and the world ought to be added. The exceed-
ingly low rate at which these, and all school books, are now
supplied, put it in the power of the poorest promoters to
obtain at least a moderate supply.

The apparatus needed in schools is very slight; with a
proper arrangement of forms and desks, two black boards
on frames and castors, will answer every purpose of
ordinary illustration. Small working models of the me-
chanical powers are also necessary for the more advanced
classes, and are strongly to be recommended, though as yet
but rarely introduced. At Lord Lyttelton's school at Hagley
they have been long used with excellent effect; to these,
working models of pumps, steam-engines, looms, cranes, &c.,.
may be most advantageously added, together with models
of mines and strata for mineral districts, where it is useful to
give the boys some insight into the nature of their probable
occupation. This principle of adapting the instruction and
its instruments to the probable wants of the scholars should
be the guiding principle. The raised platform (see plan,
p. 58) will serve as a gallery. It is invaluable.

PLAYGROUNDS.

These are essential where there is no ground or garden,
and a useful addition where there is. They serve, to some
extent, as a means of moral training, and nurseries of
character, as* well as for bodily exercise and muscular train-
ing. Mr. Stow calls it ' the uncovered schoolroom.'

It should be as large as conveniently practicable, and so-
floored that it may be soon dry after rain. Small borders
for flowers should, if possible, be placed round it. One of the
best floors for playgrounds is a binding gravel, and a por-
tion of it turfed, on which the common circular swings andBUILDING AND ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS.

65

the following bars, &c., may be advantageously placed, so
that the tumbles may be soft.

1. The Climbing Stand.

The exertion of raising the body by the hands, moving
them up these ropes, is extremely healthful, tending to
exert the muscles to the best advantage.

2.	The Parallel Bars.

The exercises on these bars consist in supporting the
body on the arms, one hand resting on each bar, and by
moving each hand alternately, proceeding forwards and
backwards along the bars; in swinging the body between
the arms; and in springing over the bar on each side, both
backwards and forwards.

3.	The Horizontal Bar

consists of a wooden bar formed of some tough wood, not
apt to splinter or warp, about three inches in diameter,
and usually six feet long, turned or planed round and
smooth, in order that the hands may not be blistered by
the friction.

The Circular Swing is well understood. It is discom-
mended, however, by one of the school societies, because
accidents have sometimes happened. It were difficult to
mention any athletic exercise at which accidents may not
happen. This is, in my opinion, a recommendation of
them. The object of all these exercises is to prepare
children for the incidents of life, and especially those of
hard-working life. If they are to be carefully guarded from
such dangers as ordinary care may avoid, they are, in so
far, not being prepared for the incidents of their future life.
It is essential that they should, on the contrary, be early
introduced to such dangers, and experienced in them, and
in the means of avoiding them. We should, of all things,
take care not to rear apron-string children on the go-cart
system.66

systems of teaching.

Chapter II.

Systems of Teaching.

THE importance of systems lias been greatly over-
rated. There are very good and very bad schools in
each system. The best schools are usually on no system,
but adopt the best parts of each. Most modes of teaching
have ceased to be peculiar to the systems in which they
originated.

Galleries, for example, are happily no longer an adjunct
only of infant schools, but their admirable utility for all
simultaneous and collective instruction is generally appre-
ciated. The addition to them of desks relieves another part of
the school-room from that encumbrance, without in the least
degree lessening the value of the gallery. This is a great
improvement. The system of separate class instruction, as
well, is indispensable; and accordingly, in all good schools,
room is left on the floor for their formation. This should
never be neglected. If this view continues to be adopted,
we shall soon see the systems disappear which either fill the
area of school-rooms with parallel benches and desks, with a
meagre margin for drafts (according to the British), or with
the formal parallelograms of benches, giving nearly the whole
area to classes, and a writing-desk, fixed like a shelf round
the wall, where the children are placed with their backs to
their masters, like horses at mangers.

All these points are rather important; but after all, as
is well said by Mr. Kennedy in a recent report, e What is
wanted in every school is a master mind. With an inferior
schoolmaster, no method will be good, and with a really good
one, no system ivill be bad.' So thinks also Professor
Moseley: 'Nothing,' he says, 'has been more certainly
impressed 011 my mind, by an experience in the inspectionSYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

67

of schools, now extending over six years, than the fact that
the whole question of elementary education is involved in a
gradual elevation of the religious and moral character, and
of the intellectual standard of the teachers.'*"

On the most important work of imparting knowledge,
and educating the mind of the child, it may be> remarked,
that all modes may be reduced to two leading features—
first, to expound, and second, to question: first, to put
knowledge into the head of the scholar, and then to find
out whether the head has got possession of it- This is best
done by such expositions of the subject as may be at once
the most intelligible and the most attractive. This is highly
important. The teacher who does not choose or cannot
interest the scholars in what they learn, and relieve lessons
of the repugnant dryness they have hitherto been clothed
with, is not fit to be a teacher at all. He must enter into
the child's mind, and consult his taste as well as inform his
ignorance. Then comes close questioning, which tests the
progress made, and makes the work secure. It is on the
skill of the teacher, however, in doing this, that the whole
benefit of the system depends. No set rules can dictate
what to explain, how to elucidate, or how to question.
Still less can the life and spirit, so essential to good teaching,
be imparted by precepts. If the master has not the neces-
sary qualities, it is of but little use to endeavour to instil
them into him.

Taking these general principles as the basis of our remarks,
let us see how far the chief component parts of each system
are available.

PUPIL-TEACHERS AND THE MONITORIAL SYSTEM.

The monitorial system, of all others, requires a first-rate
teacher; and so far from saving him any trouble, if this

* Minutes for 1848-49-50; vol. i. p. 19.
F 268

SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

system is to be efficiently carried out and prevented from
being a perfect infliction on tlie school, it will greatly in-
crease his work. Dunn, the chief and ablest advocate of
the system, adopts De Fellenberg's words, and affirms that
it requires f a vigilance that never sleeps, a perseverance
that never tires.' Mr. Crossley, the zealous, highly-skilled
superintendent at the Borough-road, has given the follow-
ing detail of the duties incumbent on the master of a moni-
torial school, which I transcribe, not merely for the sake of
showing how thoroughly impossible it is to secure command
of such functions in at least nine-tenths of our existing"
school teachers, even if they had the time for them. I give
it also for the more important purpose of affording an admir-
able summary of the proper training of pupil-teachers, to
which I think nearly all of the following directions is.
appropriate:—

A master's first thoughts, on taking charge of a school, should
be directed to the formation of a band of monitors. For this,
purpose, after selecting, as nearly as he can, boys possessing
suitable qualities, he will arrange his lessons according to tho
number of his drafts, which will of course depend on the number
of his pupils. Having thus determined on the number of his
drafts, and on the lessons to be studied at each draft, he will
appoint a boy to the several stations to act as a monitor. The boy
thus appointed, is supposed to be able to spell and to read the
lessons, but possessing no knowledge of the business beyond
these two qualifications; he is then first to be taught the mean-
ing of each word, and to be exercised in giving illustrations of
its varied application, both from Scripture, general history,
science, and from subjects within the range of the pupils' obser-
vation. In some cases the prefixes, postfixes, and roots of the
words are important. He must then be exercised in the art of
questioning, so as to be able to communicate his information by*
interrogation, and by that alone, and to keep up, without any
auxiliary stimulant, the eager attention of his pupil. He must
further be taught to vary his questions on the same word, so that
repetition may not tire ; and he must be instructed how to dis-
cover the proper instant to change from simultaneous repetition
to individual examination, from brief description to rapid ques-
tioning, from the lively statement of facts, to the calm and im-
pressive deduction of instructive lessons.SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

In giving definitions, the simplest mode of expression must be
•carefully sought; which will, of course, generally be in Saxon
phraseology. These definitions must be learned by the newly-
appointed monitors at the rate of about a dozen or twenty a day.
The master must set apart a portion of each day, either from 12
to 1 (which usually is best), or from 6 to 7 in the evening, to
hear each individual repeat these meanings. In the first instance,
it may be necessary to give up both these portions of time to the
work. To accomplish his purpose, he must form his newly-
selected monitors into a draft; each in turn must then question
on his own particular words, as he would do in the draft for
which he is training. After the definition has been given, the
questioner for the time being must call for an instance of the
application of the word, or an illustration containing some addi-
tional information more or less remotely connected with it.
Here the master's reading, experience, and j udgment will find
full scope; for when the boys fail, he should be ready to supply
the desirable lesson, the parallel passage, the fact, or the opinion.
In this way the monitor's mind is stored with numerous perti-
nent illustrations: he is exercised in applying them naturally,
and in familiar language; and instead of communicating in a
formal manner and set style, he learns so to vary his observations
as to avoid sameness. His mind thus disciplined, will ever fur-
nish him with new examples in his daily course of teaching.
This plan must be followed daily till the whole of the lessons of
each draft have been the subject of inquiry; nor must this prac-
tice be discontinued, until monitors can be chosen from among
the boys who have themselves been taught by those who have
thus been trained.

I must, however, here enter a protest against the master's sup-
posing that all is done when Jus monitors are trained; and, further,
against his even imagining that they ever will be thoroughly
trained by this or by any other method, except he can and does
set them the example, both in the manner and in the spirit of
teaching. He must, from the commencement, he daily seen teach-
ing in the drafts, infusing into his monitors a spirit little short of
enthusiasm, and showing himself a model both of what he ivishes
them to he and to do,

Mr. Dunn, with great truth, thinks that the difficulties of
Ms office do not stop here.

Severer trials (he says) than any that have yet been men-
tioned, must occasionally be endured by the conscientious teacher
of a monitorial school,—I mean those which are connected with
the punishment, and, if necessary, the dismissal of his monitors.70

SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

I have already referred to the opportunity which extended
responsibility affords, for the manifestation of evil as well as good
principles, and I have ranked this means of discovering character
among the advantages of the monitorial system. It is obvious,
however, that it can only be so in proportion as delinquency thus
manifested is followed by appropriate punishment. Monitors, by
their office, are exposed to certain temptations from which others
are exempt. Bribes of various kinds, in spite of every regula-
tion to the contrary, will from time to time be offered and
accepted. Partiality will then be shown to one, and tyranny be
exercised over another; falsehood will probably follow, and evils
of the most tremendous character may in this way be fostered
and indulged. It must be so while human nature continues-
as it is.^

It must indeed. And inasmuch as the few boys old
enough to be monitors in the great bulk of our schools are
open to all these evil dispositions, and not one schoolmaster
out of one hundred can or will take the prescribed pains to
counteract them, it follows clearly enough that no benefit is
derivable from the monitorial system in our schools for the
poor which is not counterbalanced by the risk of very great
evils. The bullying and bribery may be chiefly confined to
large schools, but the worthlessness of the instruction given
by the majority of the monitors is unfortunately but toa
prevalent, as I am well able to vouch. Supposing that
the intense training and incessant watching can be effected,
the monitorial system presents these advantages—viz., it
trains teachers; it gives to those taught the probably greater
sympathy with, and comprehension of, their difficulties; it
promotes industry, and tends to enhance its importance in
the eyes of the school; it is also said to be economical,
inasmuch as there is no payment of salaries.

Weighing, however, the advantages against the evils, I
incline to regard the monitorial system merely as a resource-
in default of all other means of maintaining a school.

Every single advantage it offers may be derived from
pupil-teachers, with these great additional benefits—firsts

* Dunn's Principles of Teaching, p. 55.SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

71

that being far more discriminately selected, they are quali-
fied, morally and mentally, for the work; secondly, and that
there being fewer of them, the master has more opportunity
and power to instruct and superintend them; thirdly, that
lie being paid to do so, is more likely to do it well; fourthly,
that the expense does not fall on the school, but on the
State; fifthly, that all such schools are inspected, and enjoy,
therefore, a further security that the pupil-teachers will be
well trained.

Without going the length of saying that monitors should
never be employed in any school, I think that the primary
effort of every school should be to do without them, and to
effect the same object by pupil-teachers; and where that is
impracticable, at least by efficiency in the schoolmaster. I
have seen a mixed school of eighty children thoroughly well
taught by one master and a single assistant teacher. At
the Quatt Union School, sixty-five boys and girls have been
well instructed by one master, who at the same time trained
fifteen of the boys in spade husbandry. If the master has,
in fact, both zeal and skill, no monitor or even pupil-
teacher is required for a moderately sized school. It is
scarcely possible, however, to overrate the value of pupil-
teachers, not only to the schools in which they are now
placed, but far more to those schools for which they will
hereafter form a supply of competent teachers. The only
danger to be avoided is, lest in the natural desire to fill the
office, both on the part of the candidates and of the inspect
tor, appointments should take place rather more rapidly
than is consistent with competency. Time, however, will
soon cure this.

The great object in all instruction being to conquer
the natural inattention of the child, and to make him
thoroughly understand what he ought to learn, all the
modes of imparting knowledge have been devised for this
purpose, and ought to be estimated accordingly.72	SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

The gallery lessons form a new era in education, and
are admirably adapted to give effect to each of these
modes. Of these the synthetical method combined with
the simultaneous has perhaps proved to be the most
efficient. In explaining and describing, the teacher, adopt-
ing such phrases and illustrations as are most familiar to
the children, leads them from the known to the unknown
by easy and imperceptible steps ; and to borrow the words
of Mr. (now Sir James) Kay Shuttle worth, < to render the
knowledge of general facts the consequence of an acquaint-
ance with the elements from which they spring,' Thus
the children in a measure teach themselves by a process of
deduction, and their reason is thus exercised whilst the
mind is informed. Then comes the questioning, which,
if it be efficiently done, will combine direct questions
with elliptical statements. Mr. Stowe recommends the
combination of the two; c sometimes a question, then
sometimes an ellipsis; keeping in view the age and attain-
ments of the children. The younger the children are, the
more frequently must an ellipsis be formed. The question
sets the mind a-thinking or astir, the ellipsis draws out
what has been set a-moving. The union of the two, along
with analogy and illustration, form intellectual training.'
Most of our readers are familiar with the elliptical system,
but will excuse this fragmentary illustration of it, mixed
with questions, for the benefit of those who may not.

Subject.—The Pharisees watching our Lord on the Sabbath-day.

[The children's answers are in italics.]

Who were the Pharisees ?

Self-righteous Jews; great hypocrites, Sfc. People who pretended
io be holier than they were. Men who trusted to outward forms
of religion, and prided themselves on that, but who were, in
reality, haughty and wicked, 8fc*

* The teacher should generally require more than one answer. It
exercises the reflection, and enables the children to enter into a whole-
some emulation with each other.

No ellipsis should ever be made in a question; only in statements.SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

73

Teacher: Then they were not what they seemed, but——
hypocrites, liars, pretenders, SfC.

Teacher: Very true, they were-hypocrites-people

who, too like many in these times, say one-thing-while

they-mean another.

Teacher: Just so. Now tell me in which of the parables are
their vainglory and self-righteousness described ?

The parable of the Publican and Pharisee praying in the
Temple.

Teacher: They made long—prayers-then, to be seen

--of men.

Teacher : Of what was it that the Pharisees wished to accuse
our blessed Lord, as described in the passage we have just read ?

Of breaking the. Sabbath-day.

Teacher: Because he healed-the man with a withered

hand.

Teacher: Was it for love of God that they did this ?

No.

Teacher: No; it was through hatred of-Christ

Teacher: Yes ; in order that they might-kill him.

Teacher : Did Christ really break God's law ?

No.

Teacher: Certainly; for according to the spiritual meaning,
it is lawful to do-good on the Sabbath-day.

Questioning and answering should be both simultaneous
and individual. Neither of these is necessarily confined
either to the gallery or the class, as is often supposed, but
both are applicable to each. Simultaneous questions and
answers are more useful when they follow individual ones,
as a means of reimpressing them on the minds and memory
of the whole class or gallery. To use the simultaneous
mode alone, is almost inevitably to neglect the bulk of the
children, who readily catch and repeat the answers of the
few most forward ones, and are soon able to do so with a
rapidity and apparent simultaneousness which impose a
belief that they are really instructed, whilst they are
answering mechanically, like parrots. The only way to
prevent this is to question individually.

The best mode of questioning and answering indivi-
dually, is to make all the children who think they can74

SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

answer the question liold out their hands, silently, as soon
as it is put. The teacher will then name the child who is
to answer it-, usually selecting one who is least likely to
answer it rightly and fully. When the answer is given, all
the other children who are holding their hands out and
intended to give the same answer, drop theirs; they who
intended to give another answer, or a fuller and more
complete one, on the contrary, continue to hold their hands
out; and the teacher then again selects one of these to
give his answer. And so on, on the same system, until all
the hands are down, and all the answers are exhausted.
The intelligent teacher, or rather, the teacher who is up to
his craft, will point out errors, and having put in proper
phrase the cream of the answers, will then explain it to
the whole class, and question on it generally, getting
answers simultaneously. Of course it is not designed to
lay down this as the only course to be pursued, but as an
illustration of one, and perhaps the chief, mode in which
the explanatory and questioning part of instruction may
be given.

From what has been said, it will be more apparent that
a mixed system is feasible and expedient. All systems
resolve themselves into different modes of applying one of
the two main kinds of instruction—the oral or explana-
tory, and the catechetical; the one to convey knowledge to
the mind, the other to keep it there.

In ' Object lessons/ as they are improperly named, the
c objects' ought to be merely incidental to ' lessons,' and
are not a distinct branch of instruction, or of a system.
They are essential to any system which aims at giving the
children a thorough comprehension of what they learn,
especially on subjects of every-day knowledge and the
arts of life. They ought at first to consist of simple
substances, such as chalk, oak, marble; and then of simple
manufactures and compounds, a clasp-knife, a plane, a bell,SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

75

brass, cheese, soap, &c., and so on, to tlie most compound
and complex, such as the printing-press, steam-engine, &c*
In these, the black board is indispensable. In all such
lessons, the rules above-cited from Mr. Crossley as to the
mode of explanation are most important; they should be
closely observed.

Lessons on animals are also of the same character, a
picture of the animal being placed before the children.
The following synopsis of such a lesson, taken from the
daily lesson-book of the British and Foreign Society, will
exemplify what is meant.

Polar Bear.

Polar Bear.—Show picture—quadruped,—12 feet long—hair
white—long—coarse—shaggy;—foot, plantigrade; teeth,
incisors—canine—molares.

1.	Abode.—Greenland—islands of ice—frozen ocean—show
on map—poles—cold—ice—snow; other animals there—-
seals, fish, &c.

2.	Character and habits.—Powerful—savage—ferocious-
great activity in water—can swim 6 or 7 leagues at sea—
omnivorous—chiefly fish and blubber; love of young
—(illustration) sailors and bear.

3.	How caught. — Tracked by dogs — killed with guns—
speared.

4.	Uses.—Skin—shoes, &c., as leather; flesh, food for Green-
landers—fat, melted—oil—tendons, thread for Green-
landers.

Lesson.—Wisdom of God in adapting animals to different
countries—white hair—cold—([illustration) pieces of cloth
on snow in the sun—wants of the Greenlanders supplied.

The various subjects touched on show how these lessons
may be made to combine instruction, not only in the pre-
cise subject of what has been read or explained, but of a
vasfT amount of collateral and pertinent knowledge, partly
relating to geography, trade, natural history, manufactures,
national character, and lastly, to religion itself.

All these lessons should be got up by the teacher before-
hand, whose great aim should be to bring to the work a
full head.76

SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

Lessons on particular brandies of instruction are very
needful, and hints on each will follow this; but it is all-
important to give collective lessons which shall embrace,
more or less, all elementary subjects. These, though they
can be given very fairly and usefully in classes—say, two
classes combined—yet the best way of giving them is to
the whole school, or as large a number as can be con-
veniently congregated in the gallery. Many of the younger
children, who will be unable to follow the whole, will yet
glean a good deal; and if the lesson be given with due
animation, will be at once usefully interested, and by de-
grees trained to take their part in it. Besides, it is an
excellent opportunity of training in discipline, obedience,
and attention. For the elder children, the collective lesson
is invaluable. Here it is that the master can effectually
deal with the minds of the children—pour knowledge
broadside into them; evoke their latent powers of thought,
reason, and expression; correct errors, develop and apply
intellectual activity, while he quickens and moulds the moral
sense.

There is a danger to which the gallery leads, which
should be named: it is that of affording great facility to
the trickery of got-up exhibitions, by means of cramming
a few children scattered over the gallery, so as to astound
visitors with their answers, and give a false colour to the
school. The Eev. Mr. Brookfield remarks:—'These ex-
aminations have, however, been much simplified by the
expert assistance of the clergy, and by their disdain of those
annual impostures which consume time merely in putting
into the children's mouths a mechanical series of answers
to amaze a Midsummer row of visitors not acquainted with
the secret.' There is no other corrective. Such frauds
ought to be treated as gross immoralities, and exposed and
denounced accordingly. It is an abuse to which gallery
examinations are necessarily liable; and it must be left toSYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

77

the more intelligent part of tlie auditors to test the reality
of such exhibitions by putting simple questions of their own
to the children, both collectively and individually. This is
the only safeguard; for the instances are nowise rare where
the teacher is sufficiently unprincipled to resort to this
mean and mischievous device, of which the direct effect is
to give the whole school a-lesson of deceit.

THE TRI-PAUTITE SYSTEM.

The Rev. Mr. Moseley has recommended this excellent
plan, which was in use in Scotland some years ago, of
which we will give a slight sketch. He proposes to class
the following subjects thus:—

A.	For oral instruction.

B.	For writing, and slate arithmetic.

C.	For reading.

And to each of these subjects he assigns a separate place, or
gallery, divided by a curtain, as pointed out in the following
sketch:—

Hours. I.	H.	III.
9 to 10 | A	B	C
10 to 11 j B	C	A
11 to 12 j C  i	A	B

Mr. Moseley also proposes that the children should be
formed into three equal divisions, and that when the morning
prayers and Bible lessons are terminated, each class should
go into one of these localities, and there receive the instruc-
tion belonging to that locality. Thus, while Division I. are
occupied with oral instruction, Division II. will be engaged
in writing and arithmetic, and Division III., in subdivisions
of from six to ten, in reading under pupil-teachers and
monitors.78

SYSTEMS OF TEACHING.

In the foregoing sketch, three hours in the morning are
devoted to school, and, in the summer, three hours in the
afternoon.

At the expiration of each hour, a change is made: No. 1,
who were receiving oral instruction, are removed to No. 2
for writing and arithmetic; and No. 2 are removed on to
No. 3 for reading; while No. 3 go to the master to be
examined in the reading lesson they have just had.

The great benefit derived from this system is, that it is
much less noisy in the school, one class only receiving oral
instruction at the same time, whilst two are employed in
silent occupations.

CLASS-BOOMS.

These are used under any system of teaching for the
instruction usually of the older scholars, and especially of
pupil-teachers, in the higher branches of distinct subjects.
They are, of course, less needed in small and elementary
schools, but are more or less useful in all.

In this brief summary of systems, and hints rather for
their successful combination than respective preference,
enough has been said in this place. It has been deemed
desirable to condense, rather than to enlarge, a subject which
certainly has, in the opinion of the best judges, obtained
undue importance and attention. It is of much greater
importance to note well the predominating faculties of each
child, and to teach him accordingly, always observing the
rule of what will be most useful to him or her in after-
life.

Surely, it is time to adapt education to capacities, and
to modify it accordingly; instead of treating children like
bricks, who only want to be cast in one mould, to be turned
out all alike for the same use.79

Chapter III.

How to Teach Reading, Writing,
and Ciphering.

GOOD reading is as muck neglected as any branch of
elementary instruction. It is deemed quite enough?
in a large majority of schools, that the children should be
able to utter the words they see before them without
emphasis or expression. It is certainly in exceptional
cases only that the latter acquirements are thought neces-
sary, or even desirable. That good impressive reading is
not among the most essential acquirements for a poor
child, and that it will be but occasionally useful to him in
after life, cannot be denied; still it is always important
that what is taught at all should be taught well; and it is
equally so that it should be taught with the least possible
expenditure of time. The ordinary mode of teaching it is
the longest; and it is one of the leading defects of bad
.schools to keep the youngest children wading through the
alphabet, and stumbling through columns of unmeaning
monosyllables, till they are half stupified and thoroughly
disgusted with the whole process. Nothing can be better
calculated to make a young child regard lessons' as the
great grievance of his life—a feeling which he not unfre-
quently or unnaturally transfers to the other steps in his
educational career.

There is no occasion that the child should learn the
alphabet as a set lesson at all. The order of the letters
.(which is wholly without arrangement or classification) is
not a necessary acquirement at an early age, and of
extremely limited use in after life for children who will
not use dictionaries. Then as to the letters in combina-80

HOW TO TEACH READING,

tion, unfortunately in our language to learn the sound of
most of them gives no help whatever as to their sound in
different words, and therefore often misleads in reading.
For instance, the child is taught that b, a, is to be sounded
as ba (long); this misteaches him at once to pronounce
bad and mad similarly as bade, made, and he has then to
unlearn what he has been taught at great sacrifice of time
and pains and inclination. In fact, he has been disgusted
and prejudiced against education itself by a drudgery,
which so far from being useful, is absolutely useless.
There are high authorities for this view.

The Central Society of Education, which some years since
enrolled the most distinguished friends of education among
its members, in one of its publications says :—

It is not our wish that children should any longer conquer
this 1 most difficult of human attainments* (reading) through
the medium of A, B, C ; a, b, ab; b, a, ba, &c., neither would
we encounter with them any system of syllabic classifications,
on which several meritorious elementary reading-books have
been recently published; and the naming of the letters, as in
spelling, we would altogether discard. A modification of the
system of Jacotot, with a series of interesting lessons printed so
large that all the children could see them, would be found to be
the only needful auxiliaries to be employed. The lessons must
be graduated, and every sentence contained in them must possess,
a meaning level to the comprehension of the children. Mono-
syllabic lessons, though almost universally employed in early
teaching, are not of that value which is generally attached to
them; indeed, such lessons are so filled with particles,—words-
which only possess a meaning in connexion with others,—and
so deficient of the language of ordinary life, that they have less
interest for children than exercises apparently more difficulty
but which are less cramped and more natural.

The American President of the Nashville University,
Lindsley, in an excellent lecture on education, remarks
tnat—

In order to learn to read, it is by no means indispensable that
the long, tedious method of the schools for children should be
adopted: the process may be rendered extremely simple andWRITING, AND CIPHERING.

81

easy. It is not necessary to commence even with the alphabet,
or to go through a course of spelling in Dilworth or Webster.
Adults have very recently been taught to read in penitentiaries,
and elsewhere, in a very short period,—even within one or two
weeks, in some cases,—who previously did not know a letter.
The chaplain, or teacher, opens his Bible, directs the eye of his
pupil to the first verse of the first chapter, reads it distinctly,
points out each word to the learner, and makes him repeat it,—-
and so on to the end of the verse : in a few minutes the pupil
can read the verse backwards or forwards. He now knows the
words by their phases or appearances in the book.

Mr. Henry Dunn, enlarging on the necessity of annex-
ing sense to sound, and making the child comprehend
whatever he utters, observes, in his ' Principles of Teach-
ing

The great evil of. putting before children unmeaning combi-
nations of letters, such as 4 bla, ble, bli, bio, blu,' and all the
rest of this ridiculous tribe, is, that in reading them, a habit is
formed of separating the sight and sound of words from sense,
a habit which frequently cleaves to the mind long after the days
of childhood have passed away.

# # m ^	^

The alphabet is usually the first subject presented to the
notice of a child at school; and a more difficult or tiresome
lesson he is never doomed to meet with in his whole future
course. The names of the letters are unmeaning and arbitrary
sounds; and, with two or three exceptions, the forms are not
associated with any object previously recognised. How can
such an exercise be expected to produce anything but weariness
and disgust?

Mr. Woodbridge thus forcibly illustrates the same mis-
taken system:—

The absurdity of teaching the letters of the alphabet by their
arbitrary names, in place of their sounds, has long been felt in
France and Germany. We tell a child to say pe-aytch-wi-es-i-see,
and then call upon him to pronounce it. What would he con-
clude, if he reasoned, but that it must be peaytchwiesisee, and
by what magic can he learn that it should be pronounced fizik !

Reading (says Mr. Parkhurst) should invariably pre-
cede spelling. I do not mean that the child should be kept
a long time in learning to read before he commences spelling;
but that he should never be set to spell a word until he has

G82

HOW TO TEACH READING,

first become able readily to read it. The reason is, that reading
is much easier than spelling, and that a person cannot spell by
thinking how a word sounds, but he must recollect how it looks.

Very*many more testimonies might be cited to the
same facts. The old system should be uprooted and
abandoned, alike in schools and in family instruction, and
one more consistent with common sense adopted.

Jacotot has the credit of being the first to introduce one
which consists of an abandonment of all alphabetic teach-
ing, making the children begin by pronouncing such words
only as are most familiar to them, accustoming them to
connect the sound, the sense, and sight. A few sentences
should be read slowly and distinctly by the teacher, point-
ing to each, and simultaneously repeated by the chil-
dren, After frequent repetitions, they will begin to dis-
tinguish the words, and shortly after to point them out in
other sentences. The subject of the sentences should
present some striking picture to the child's mind, and
should be illustrated by wood cuts. The same words
should be frequently repeated. Animals, flowers, produc-
tions in field or garden, instincts of animals, &c., would be
fit topics. Pestalozzi has given numerous examples. The
reading lessons should always be preceded by conversa-
tional explanations of the subject, so as to lead the child's
mind to it and interest him in it, for at no period is it
more important that the child's will should be engaged in
his work and tedium prevented. All this was generally
done in Germany thirty years since, and perhaps it is not
premature to expect its adoption here now.

After the child has learnt the words in a sentence, he
may then be taught the sounds and names of the letters;*

* An addition to this has been suggested by Mrs. "Williams, who has
published cards for its adoption. Above all the consonants she places a
picture, and under it a syllable representing the sound of the consonant,
and beginning with it; as, for example, Butterfly—Bur-bur; Custard—WRITING, AND CIPHERING.

83

but this is of secondary importance, and ought never to
precede them.*

It may be objected, that it will be difficult to teach very
young children on this system. The best answer is, that
it is wrong to teach very young children at all. It is the
great mistake to begin education too early. Most assuredly,
the child who begins the above recommended system at
five years old, will, if his education be consistently pursued,
have learned more and retained more at seven, than the
child who has been dragged through the old method begin-
ning at four.

HOW TO CUKE BAD BEADING.

Let us proceed to make one or two brief remarks on the
best mode of preventing bad reading. The best reading
generally follows the best comprehension of the subject,
hence the rule, 'read naturally, and you will read well;'
for if the reader feels what he reads, he is less likely to do
so in constrained or unnatural tone. Two-thirds of the
children in schools do read in this unnatural tone, because
they neither know nor care what they are reading about.
The two primary rules for making children read well are,
first, to make them thoroughly understand what they are
reading about; and, secondly, that the teacher should read
well to them, making them repeat the same words in the
same tone, with the same stops, emphasis, fluency, and

Cur-cur; Dunce—Dur-dur; and so on. The vowels are not so well
represented; and when the child is more advanced, and sees these letters,
it often begins as usual—bur, cur, rur, whether the word is bat, cat, or
rat. It is therefore a method which requires a good deal of care in
.applying.

* There is another system, termed 'the phonic,' which divides the
•letters into eight classes (!) such as palatals, g (hard), 1, k, c, x, q; nasals,
m and n; gingcouls (!), d, t, j, &c. It is at once complex and difficult,
to say nothing of the total inappropriateness of the names of these
classes of letters. Mr. Browne, one of Her Majesty's Inspectors, says
it is obvious that 4 much care and patience and systematic attention "to
the classification and gradation of sounds are essential to successand
for those very sufficient reasons is it wholly unfit for the purpose.

G 284

HOW TO TEACH READING,

expression. If the teacher cannot do this—and not very
many can—neither can his scholars read well.

The principle of imitation must be applied negatively
as well as affirmatively: the teacher must not only be
imitated, but he must himself imitate the faults of his
scholars, in order that their ear may appreciate the
difference. This should be done with good humour, and so
as to give the least possible pain: but without this it will
be found impossible to get rid of that inveterate drawl and
sing-song accent which infest so many of the country
districts.

The Eev. Mr. Bellairs makes the following sensible
remarks in his report for 1848-9: —

For good reading, the following should, I think, he insisted
on:—

1.	A distinct pronunciation of every word.

2.	A clear perception of every word; first, when separate,,
and secondly, when in combination, in order to

3.	A correct emphasis.

4.	An ocular command over words and sentences, in order
to fluent expression.

To express these, I am of opinion that the following plan
will prove successful :—

1.	The master and scholars to read each word simulta-
neously.

2.	The teacher to explain to the children the meaning of
all the difficult words, and to interrogate them thereon.

3.	The teacher alone to read to the children each sentence
of the lesson as it occurs: the children repeating after
him, and, as far as possible, catching his mode of ex-
pression.

4.	The teacher to call out certain children to read parts of
the lesson individually, for which purpose the most im-
perfect readers may be selected.

5.	The class to be broken up into small sections; each
section to be under the care of the best reader in it, and
to be engaged in reading over alternately, the lesson
they have learned as above.WRITING, AND CIPHERING.

85

When poor children are once taught to read with tole-
rable fluency and ease, it is surely inexpedient to bestow
much more time on their instruction in the specific art of
reading. It is but rarely that they will have to read aloud;
and, though to read well is at all times a desirable art, it is
with them only very exceptionally an available one; and
its acquirement ought not to absorb too much of the limited
school time of a working child.

The best ordinary secular reading books are unquestion-
ably those of the Irish Society: they rise in proper grada-
tions, and the lower ones are entirely free from those
absurdly long, and, to children, unaccustomed words which
are found in so many books designed for them. The addi-
tion of questions without answers, at the end of each
chapter, would be a great improvement.

The Bible ought never, under any circumstances, to be
made a class-book, or used to teach children to read. It
i-s a desecration of God's word, and connects that which
should be a privilege and a pleasure with one of the most
irksome processes in education.

THE COMPREHENSION" OF WORDS

is more important than correct reading; for, unless the
child understands the meaning of what he utters, he can
only read mechanically, and on the parrot system. The
reading lesson should never be deemed complete without
the children have been made to understand the full mean-
ing of every word they have uttered. No one would credit
how little poor children do commonly understand what
they read,

It is not until the child is asked what is meant by such
words as persecute, precede, command, guiltless, &c., that it
is discovered that he has not the remotest conception of
what they mean. Profound ignorance prevails among them
as to the meaning of very many words which are used in86

HOW TO TEACH READING,

the most familiar conversation among the middle and upper
classes, and occurring in almost every line in the Scriptures.
The words consider, reflect, meditate, conclude, perceive,
observe, persecute, appease, velocity, relieve, conceive, vigour,
deliberate, and hosts of others equally simple, are as utterly
foreign to the children who have uttered them as if the
Greek or Hebrew words had been substituted for them. It
cannot well be otherwise. Poor children are almost exclu-
sively Saxon or Celtic; and inasmuch as there has been
little or no amalgamation of races since the Conquest in
the country districts, they use exclusively Anglo-Saxon
or Celtic words in their fireside language; and slight
pains are taken in the schools to teach them those of
Norman origin. I have several times seen by-standers
much astonished, after fairly testing and satisfying them-
selves of the reality of the child's ignorance of Norman and
Boman words. This is, of course, a complete barrier, where
it exists, to the instruction of the child. Instead of being-
educated, he is merely mechanically exercised in a verbal
jargon, which imparts but little benefit either to his mind
or morals.

The child should also be taught to distinguish the senses
of words too often treated as synonymous: covet and desire,t
for example; defer and procrastinate; reflection and thought;
persecute and illtreat, &c. &c.

SPELLING.

Spelling should not be taught as a separate branch of
instruction, but always as a collateral to reading and
writing. To acquire all the incongruous anomalies in our
language, and master the various spellings of the sound,
ain, or uff, for example, and the puzzling precedence of
e g i, by dint of learning Mavor by heart, is indeed up-hill
work. The Welsh children master it wMi marvellous
success, a very large portion of their time being devoted toWRITING, AND CIPHERING.

87

its acquirement, but it is rare to find English children
doing so by means of ' spelling lessons.' They are now
generally exploded in good schools. The practice of spell-
ing is identified with reading. First as we have seen in
the above-mentioned mode of teaching words before letters.
In the more advanced stages spelling is learned in nearly
everything that is taught, especially in reading and writing,
but more so in the latter. In reading, the eye itself im-
perceptibly learns spelling, and is at length shocked by an
error. But writing is the best mode of teaching to spell.
6 What,' says the Eev. Mr. Kennedy,* ' is meant by c spell-
ing,' belongs rather to ' writing' than c reading;' and the
old -plan is therefore correctly being superseded by dic-
tation—i. a, by spelling by the slate instead of by word
of mouth. Moreover, dictation includes punctuation, which
has hitherto been neglected.'

It is essential, I think, to frame sentences for this purpose.
Those taken from a book seldom answer the purpose. One of
the most useless publications I ever saw was a little book
lately published, containing nothing but ordinary extracts
from different books for the purpose of dictation, and
without any peculiar difficulties of spelling, so that only
half the object could be answered by it, and that equally
well from the first book that came to hand. The teacher
should frame sentences on purpose; no matter with how
little sense or beauty; the object is to exercise the child in
spelling correctly and writing fluently. Eight heifers and
ewe sheep were chewing the cud beneath the tough boughs of
an ancient yew tree in that beautiful field. Or: I rode along
the Gloucester Eoad in the rain, with the bridle-reins on
my mare's neck. Or: He fainted and feigned to be ill, but
the physician gave him nauseous medicine, and he was fain
to recover quickly enough from his malady. Let the

* Minutes of Committee of Council, 1849, vol. ii.88

HOW TO TEACH READING,

children be practised in such sentences; write tlieir names at
the foot of their slates; and let slight rewards he given to
those who can write the whole a certain number of times
correctly, and without copying from others.*

There is another mode of teaching spelling, easily
adopted when the children are a little practised in it by
holding out hands, either in class or gallery. Let the
teacher put a word to be spelled; he selects a boy who
spells it. Instead of saying right or wrong, he repeats the
child's answer and takes a show of hands whether it be so
or not. If wrong, another child, who has declared by his
hand that it is wrong, is asked to spell it rightly, and again
the opinion of the class is taken on the answer. This has
been often found to enliven the children and excite an in-
terest in a very dry branch of education.

The copybooks are another means of teaching to spell,
but are very seldom so adapted. Instead of trite axioms
or long names, why not let copies consist of difficult words
to spell, in common use—such as Believe, deceive; prey,
pray; skein, chain; petition, passion; ate, mete, meat, meet;
rein, reign, rain; though, rough, bough, &c. &c. See also
Suggestive Hints for Secular Instruction, by the Dean of
Hereford. The home exercises on his excellent plan,
when produced each morning in the different classes, are
submitted to the teacher, and the errors are talked over
between the teacher and his children, and subsequently re-
produced in their corrected form.

WRITING.

Mulhausers copies are the best; but when these are
thought too expensive, let the teacher rule slanting lines
from the top to the bottom of the copybook, in the proper

* This should be always punished as a lie, and the children so taught
to regard it. If they cannot be prevented in any other way, let them be
turned two and two back to back as a disgrace.WRITING, AND CIPHERING.

89

inclination for the letters, which is usually not upright
enough. It is unwise to keep children too long in large
hand; the hand they will find it most useful to write is
unquestionably running-hand, and this should be arrived at
as soon as possible. The teacher ought to keep up a con-
tinual inspection of the copy-books. It is very common
among bad and negligent ones to set copies and give them-
selves no further trouble about the children, except to
scold for blunders or blots when the whole is done. This
is a pernicious abuse, which should be at once checked
wherever it is discovered. Bad spelling frequently leads
to its detection, and is also a very injurious result of the
master's neglect, inasmuch as the children thus copy their
own blunders, until the oye becomes familiarized with
them, and so the mistake is perpetuated.

It is good for children not only to copy printed extracts
from books, but to write compositions as early as possible.

All writing lessons should be on the parallel disks, so
that the children face the master, and he can see their
postures, and the motion of the hands and fingers. By
this means, as recommended by Mr. Kennedy, one copy on
Mr. Eichson's plan (sold at Darton's, Holborn) would serve
for all. A drawing of a hand holding a pen in a proper
position should also be placed before the writers: it assists
greatly.

Writing should be taught together with reading, certainly
not later. The Central Committee of Education, in one of
its papers, says:—

With regard to writing, we have known little children write
words very well upon slates at four years of age, so that
there can be no doubt of their capacity to learn at that age ; and
sooner we would not begin. The first lessons should be on the
elementary forms; the following comprise all these forms, and
each should be written till it is conquered.

lib 1 GOO90

how to teach reading,

These being acquired, their progress in the formation and
the joining of letters will be rapid. These letters are quite
large enough. It is a mistake to make children stretch their
fingers an inch up and down in order to accustom them ulti-
mately to do so a quarter of an inch. People do not ride races in
order to learn trotting, or bellow in order to practise articulation.
Short words in copies are preferable to long ones.

ciphering.

This also should be taught early, as children can be soon
made to comprehend the principles of the simple rules, and
earlier still to commit the tables to heart, and learn nota-
tion ; but Dean Dawes lays down this admirable precept,
which must not be neglected even in the first steps:—
'Arithmetic should be made an exercise of the mind,

and not merely an application of rules got by heart.'
Nor can the teacher do better than study and apply all that
this writer has laid down for his guidance in his Hints on
Secular Instruction. i Take care/ says Mr. Dunn, ' that
your pupil never proceeds to a second example in any rule
until you are quite sure that he thoroughly understands the
first, no matter what time may be consumed upon this intro-
ductory effect; he must not be allowed to go on with partial
and inaccurate notions of what he is about.' The first duty
of the teacher, moreover, consists in extending as much ele-
mentary instruction as possible to every child in the school.
This is by no means the usual system. They are far too
prone to push a few children on, in order that they may shine
in an examination, and buoy up the rest, who frequently know
next to nothing. In this way many a bad school passes
for a good one, and this is especially the case with arith-
metic. I have found the younger children almost uni-
versally backward: there are few things that tend more to
habits of providence among the poor than such a know-
ledge of accounts as may enable them to check their score
with the shopkeepers, and otherwise economize their humbleWHITING, AND CIPHERING.

91

finances. This is an obvious means, therefore, of giving
the practical benefit of education to the poor, for it would
ensure better economy among them: useful arithmetic
has, nevertheless, been so grossly neglected, that a small
portion only of the boys, and fewer still of the girls, can
usually cast accounts, or work the simplest sums in Com-
pound Addition. There is also a practice, in almost all
the schools, of putting the children through all four of the
simple rules before they are taught Compound Addition,
which is very inexpedient. In the first place, the transition
is far easier from the one to the other, than from Simple
Addition to Multiplication, or to Division. Another re-
commendation is, that Compound Addition is incomparably
more useful than any other rule to poor people, and will
be used by them at least a hundred times whilst they want
to multiply or divide once. It is essential, therefore, to
teach it to as many children as possible before they leave,
as shoals of them do now, without being able to cast a
figure. Any child of average ability, if well taught, may
learn to cast simple accounts in four months, knowing
nothing but the figures when he begins.

If a teacher wishes to do justice to his school, he will
never delegate to another the whole work of teaching-
arithmetic to any one child. He will so manage as to give
some instruction to each, He will himself explain each
operation over and over, till it is understood, with the aid
of the black board, without which his labour will be
doubled; and he will also especially avoid that last re-
source of laziness—setting children to copy sums for them-
selves out of arithmetic books, and to work them by them-
selves. Every sum should be written down by himself from
dictation, or the child will fail to learn half what he
ought to learn. It is by neglecting this that so few
children comparatively can numerate or notate correctly.
I have known many, nominally in Practice or -Beduc-92

HOW TO TEACH BEADING,

tion, who were puzzled to write down such a sum as
this:—

£ s. d.

80,907 0	0£

8,080 12	Of

19	10

100,909 1	11

And I may add, that some teachers could not write it
either from dictation.

Mental arithmetic should be encouraged, and applied to
the solution of practical subjects—the following questions,
for example:—What will 4 ounces of tea come to, at 5s.
per lb.?—9 articles at 6s. 8d. each?—15 at 16dA—the
poles in 3^ roods?—the difference between 12 square feet
and 12 feet square? If 15 loaves cost 2s. Id., what will 9
cost ? How many cubic feet in a cubic yard ? &c. Children
are but indifferently instructed who cannot readily reckon
these mentally, and also state how they work them. The
astounding answers sometimes made to questions which
seem to require much calculation, but which are really
done by a mere trick, should be discouraged. They lead
to no good result, and are well calculated to break down a
high sense of truthfulness by the sanction they afford to
false appearances. The Eev. Mr. Thurtell, Fellow of
Caius, and Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, said on the
subject:—

It is to be regretted that exercises in mental calculation
should not be employed at every stage of the pupil's progress
for developing his conceptions of the relation of number, and
rendering his use of arithmetical rules more intelligent. Children
may easily be converted into machines for ready reckoning, but,
in a practical view this is scarcely worth while, and for the
scholar's education, exercises gone through in this spirit are of
small service. I was glad to meet with no instance of the tricks
by which apparently prodigious results in power and rapidity of
calculation are sometimes produced in order to astonish.

Gf all mental powers, that of calculation exists in theWRITING, AND CIPHERING.

93

most varying measure. Applying, therefore, the great
rule I have ventured to lay down, as to the cultivation of
the peculiar talent of each child, especially to this branch
of instruction, let the teacher carefully select those children,
who evince the greatest amount of it for the higher rules;,
carefully excluding from them such children as can, with
greater profit to themselves, devote their limited school-
time to other subjects.

The first thing, after mastering the first four rules, in-
cluding their concomitants—viz., Reduction and Proportion,
is to drill them well in fractions. This may be simplified.
I have found that children best understand what a fraction
is by physical illustration, which may be done easily by
cutting several sticks of a foot each into a different
number of parts, some of them into twelfths, others into
fourths, thirds, &c. These are to represent denominators.
The numerator will be named, and require no such illustra-
tion. The most easily understood definition of a fraction
is, that it represents certain equal parts of a single number
or thing, the denominator* telling the number of parts into
which it is divided, and the numerator how many of those
pa/rts there are in the fraction; in other words, how many of
them the fraction represents. Having got a distinct notion
thus into their heads, proceed to show how to deal with
fractions, and first how to multiply them; the scholar will
readily understand how if both numerator and denominator
be multiplied by the same figure, the fraction is unaltered
in value. For example, let the numerator and denominator
of f be multiplied by 3. It may be shown that ~ |
to ocular demonstration, by cutting another stick of the
same length into 12 parts, taking 9 of them, and showing,
by placing them together, that they measure exactly the
same length as the three-fourths.

Subtraction of fractions may be illustrated similarly, by
showing that to find the value of f — one of the fourths,,94

HOW TO TEACH READING,

or fourth part of the whole, must be taken away, and f- will
remain. So in the multiplication of fractions: show that
by multiplying the numerator we increase the parts taken,
or denominators, and that if we wish to multiply f by 3,
we have to take nine fourth parts instead of three, and we
shall, by putting together nine of these fourth parts of the
stick, have three times as great a length as before. Simi-
larly may the division of fractions, by the multiplication of
the denominator, be illustrated. If we thus divide f by 3,
we now get for our new denominator only the twelfth parts
of the stick, and this we find is only a third in length of
the fourth parts, and therefore the three-twelfths will be
seen to be a third part only of the three-fourths.

The addition of fractions with the same denominator
may of course be shown even still more easily. As regards
those with different denominators, it is obvious that the
impossibility of adding them as they are, will be well illus-
trated by the parts of sticks; the one-fourth and the two-
thirds, supposing the numerators were added, could not be
called either three-fourths or three-thirds, for they would
visibly be neither the one nor the other. What, then, must
be done? How shall we so alter the separate fractions as
to make them nevertheless represent the same values, and
enable us to add them together ? To tell the child to mul-
tiply each numerator by all the denominators except its
own, and all the denominators together for a new denomi-
nator, and then to set him to do it, teaching him nothing
more, is to follow the wretched system of rote learning. I
think the sticks may be used at first to show the facts.
Take the fractions § i. The child having been made to
multiply according to the rule, obtains the fractions T%-
1^-. Let him take two-thirds of the stick, and place by
the side of them eight-twelfths; he will then see that they
make equal lengths, and that the rule laid down, namely,
to alter the fractions into some others of like value, hasWRITING, AND CIPHERING.

95

been observed. Similarly with the change of to T^. Let
him next add the numerators, and give them the common
denominator = Let him now assure himself, by mea-
surement, that eleven-twelfths of the stick is the same as
two-third parts and one-fourth part of it. Now explain
the principle. Recall to the child's mind the former rule,
that by multiplying the numerator and denominator of a
fraction by the same number, you do not alter the value of
that fraction. If need be, go patiently again over the
proof of that, by reason and with the parts of sticks. Then
show him that this is just what he has been doing when he
reduced the two fractions to a common denominator.
Taking the first fraction, §, he multiplied the numerator by
4, and he also afterwards multiplied the two denominators
together, and the other denominator was four. So that he
did exactly that which does not alter the value of the frac-
tion—namely, he multiplied both of them by 4. Similarly
in the other fraction, he multiplied both the numerator
and the denominator by 3; and so both the new fractions
were of the exact value of the original ones, but they now
had the same denominator, and this enabled him to add
them. Proceed then to longer examples, and show that
exactly the same set of facts obtain. If there be a dozen,
each numerator will be multiplied by eleven denominators,
and by the same eleven denominators will its own denomi-
nator be multiplied; thus in each fraction will each
numerator and each denominator be multiplied by the
same figure, and its value remain as it was. We need not
stay to illustrate how similar physical demonstrations may
be applied to the distinction between proper and improper
fractions, and how, to a considerable extent, it is applicable
to algebra.

Dean Dawes, whose steps these remarks have been
humbly following, shows how ocular proof may be given
of solid measures, &c.; nor can there be a doubt that, in96

higher branches.

all teaching, we ouglit to bring everything in its most
tangible, practical shape before the child's mind. Educa-
tion has hitherto been nearly an abstraction; let us strive
to reduce it as much as possible to realities.

Chapter IV.

Higher Branches.

EOMETRY is by no means a useless branch of instruc-
^ tion for children of the working class.

In the first place, it is useful because it is of all other
sciences that which exercises and strengthens the reasoning
faculties, and thus improves the power of correct judgment.
This is a most valuable boon. Right reason is little else
than drawing right conclusions from given facts; and this
is the essence of all mathematical science. Its phraseology,
moreover, is as precise as its deductions are accurate; so
that not only does this study teach us to think justly, but
also to express ourselves correctly. This again is a great
advantage, for much evil results from defects in each of
these points. Endless, and often disastrous, are the evils
which arise from false judgment, and almost equally so are
misunderstandings caused wholly by the slip-shod way in
which imperfectly educated people express, or rather mis-
state their meaning. For both these defects, there is no
corrective more useful than the first four books of Euclid.
In schools, geometry should be demonstrated, as the Dean
of Hereford recommends, on the principle of practical
application; and, as far as possible, by visible illustra-
tions.HIGHER BRANCHES.

97

It should be so taught, that it may be applicable espe-
cially to carpentering and engineering. One or two
examples from Hmts cm Secular Instruction, will illustrate
how to do this.

It will be found very useful in fixing on their minds any par-
ticular geometrical truth likely to be of use to them afterwards,
if the teacher tests it by application to actual measurement, and
not to rest satisfied with proving it merely as an abstract truth :
for instance, in this schoolroom there is a black line, marked on
two adjoining walls, about a foot from the floor; as the walls
are at right angles to each other, of course these lines are also ;
they are divided into feet and divisions of a foot, numbered from
the corner or right angle, then taking any point in each of these
lines and joining them by a string, this forms a right-angled
triangle. The boys having learned that the sum of the squares
of the two sides containing the right angle is equal to the
square on the third side, the teacher will tell them, for instance,
to draw a line between the point marked six feet on the one, and
eight feet on the other ; square each number, add them together,
and extract the square root, which they find to be 10 : then they
apply the foot rule, measure the string, and find it is exactly ten
feet by measurement.

In teaching them land-measuring, they should be made to
understand on what principle it is that they reduce any field
complicated in shape to triangles, squares and parallelograms;
why they make their offsets at right angles to the line in which
they are measuring; to be able to prove the propositions in
Euclid as to the areas of these figures, &c., that a triangle is
half the parallelogram on the same base and altitude, &c.; and
not do everything mechanically, without ever dreaming of the
principles on which these measurements and calculations are
made.

The Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, in his Machinery of Educa-
tion, aptly remarks:—

How few in our schools, or among farmers or mechanics, have
a clear and distinct idea of what is meant by a cube, or solid
inch, or foot, or mile ! And, until a person has a clear concep-
tion of that original elementary idea in solids, how can he move
one step on the subject, except by groping in midnight dark-
ness ? And how is he to gain a conception of that idea, except
by some familiar practical illustration ? Three or four years
ago, a gentleman sold a right of some water for carrying a mill.
The quantity first agreed upon was a stream which could be

H98

HIGHER BRANCHES.

discharged through a two-inch tube. When asked what he
should charge for the quantity which could pass through a four-
inch tube, he answered, 4 Twice the price of the other.' The
purchaser, of course, obtained four times the water for twice the
money, as a tax upon the seller's ignorance ; which a glance at
a diagram might have removed.

GEOGRAPHY.

Many teachers begin by wandering through the world,
and puzzling the children with zones, meridian lines, &c.
without any globe to make them intelligible. Many more
teach the four quarters, oceans, &c. before they have given
the children any definite knowledge what a map is, or even
the rudest notion of topography, I would begin at home.
Give them , an idea of the towns and villages around them
on a county map, and instruct them in whatever was most
noteworthy about them. I would proceed next to any
peculiarity of soil or produce, and also to indicate the hills,
mountains, rivers, and all other topographical features.
Even this sketch of their own county would be advisably
introduced by a rough outline of the village or town in
which the school is. , Thus I would go, step by step, from
the best known to the less known, and so proceed from
county to country, from country to continent, and from
continent to the world.

The great rule should be, throughout the teaching of
geography to children, to make it a series of vivid pictures,
and to clothe the skeleton of names with the life-like
features which characterize places. This is the only way
to make geography either pleasing or thoroughly useful to
working children. Every kind of fact which tends to give
useful or interesting notions of countries or places opens
the mind, as well as affords the specific information. Com-
mercial geography is very essential, and all the commercial
features of countries, places, and seas or rivers, should be
prominently described. Railways ought to be described,HIGHEJEt BRANCHES.

99

and their lines traced. For this purpose, the map in
Bradsliaw's Guide may foe used. After tracing the great
lines there, it will be a good exercise to trace their course
in the large map of England, and show the counties they
run through.

English geography ought to be mastered first; and
children ought to be able to tell where are Sheffield,
Macclesfield, Whitehaven, Penzance, Maidstone, Devonport,
and Ipswich, with all their chief features, rivers, &c., before
they ever hear of the Ganges or Copenhagen. Until the
home land, in which they have to live, and out of which
nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths will never stir,
(in truth, this proportion rarely if ever leave their native
county,) be pretty well understood, a very slight and
general idea of other lands will suffice. This will be
probably acquired by seeing the maps of Europe and the
world, and being occasionally told what they are, and their
main divisions.

A great deal of the physical part of geography may be
taught out of doors during walks. As Mr. Dunn says :—

If you wish a child to have correct notions about lakes, islands,
or isthmuses, you will be much more likely to insure his possess-
ing them, by referring him to the peculiarities of a neighbouring
pond or rivulet, than by any abstract description whatsoever.
The name of mountain, and valley, and lake, and river, should
indeed be invariably connected with the observation of hill and
hollow, pond and brook.

Let it be always borne in mind, that physical illustrations
are the best modes of teaching, where they are feasible.
Thus the raised maps, with the mountains in relief, are useful.

Let the scholars be exercised in drawing maps them-
selves, which, as a reward for skill, they may be allowed,
to colour. Let this be done first of the district or county
in which they live, marking all the towns and chief villages,
<foc. Another writer on this subject, says—

It is scarcely necessary to add, that as no description can be
h 2100	HIGHER BRANCHES.

equally useful with the view of objects themselves, it is desirable
that the pupil should learn the geography of the neighbouring
country, as well as his own town, as much as possible from per-
sonal observation, and be accustomed to describe and delineate
its outlines. It should only be after his own sketches are
executed that he should be furnished with more complete en-
graved maps of the same region.

The principle is no doubt sounds but it is carried here a;
little too far. It is not likely that children would be able
to draw maps with any approach to correctness before they
had carefully examined good ones. The order should be
reversed.

Beally good maps are very expensive. Arrowsmiths
are excellent; but for ordinary schools and purposes, the
best of the c Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge' are
sufficient, and they are very cheap.

There should be a map of Palestine and Canaan, of the
British Islands, Europe, and the World, and a good county
map, in each school. County school maps, I believe, do
not exist; but a set, at a reasonable price, on a scale of a
third of an inch to a mile, reduced from the Ordnance
maps, would be a great boon, if published at a reasonable
price.* The railways should be marked.

Set lessons in geography must be given, but as much as
possible should be interspersed in the reading lesson. If a
county or town be ever so casually named in the subject-
matter, invariably ask where it is, and have its position
indicated, and something told about it, unless it be a place
the children are already familiar with. Such stray shots
tell far more effectually than the aggregate lesson, which
usually wearies some one in the class unless it be very
cleverly given. Nevertheless, there is nothing which so

* Say 5«y. each for the smaller counties, and 6s. or 7<?. for the larger.
Having consulted persons likely to be able to judge correctly, I have no
doubt that the sale would far exceed that of the school demand, and that
they would be generally purchased.HIGHER BRANCHES.

101

keenly enlivens and excites as maps, They are the salt of
schools; and the teacher is dull indeed if they do not
savour the other food. I have seen wonders worked with
them in workhouse schools, where , we have perhaps the
dullest of dull children to deal with.

It is not so easy as it seems to give a map lesson.
Some make all the children point to a place, when named,
with sticks. A grotesque appearance it has ; they usually
wait for the bell-wether of the flock, and then every stick
darts after his; and the thing becomes quite a mechanical
game. The map gets sadly poked and scratched. To ask
individual children to show the places, &c., is a quieter
mode; but this, if carried through the class, is a long
process, and piecemeal work. The teacher must chiefly
handle the map. Let him trace rivers and boundaries,
making mistakes; and create a rivalry, who shall detect
them soonest. This is one way of varying the process.
Let him point to places, and the children name them;
making the eldest, as a common rule, remain silent till the
younger have tried to tell. For this purpose the map
must be far removed from the children, or they will read
the answers.

Let especial pains be taken to teach the different indus-
trial districts : the iron districts, the coal districts, the tin,
-copper, and lead; the hardware, cotton, silk, and linen
manufactures; the pottery, cutlery, &c. &c., with the chief
towns of each. Why are there not industrial maps, as well
as geological, coloured according to industry % It would
greatly assist the teaching of the ' arts of life,' and be useful
for general information, as well as commercial geography.

It may be as well to say, that of all the things vilely ill
taught in inferior schools, geography is perhaps the worst.
It arises partly from inaptitude and laziness in the teacher,
and from a prejudice against this particular branch of
instruction. It is one of those old English crotchets—102

HIGHER BRANCHES.

heir-looms of the narrow-minded ignorance of the middle
ages—which still make hosts of people, not otherwise
bereft of sense, hostile to teaching any geography to poor
children. I believe a vast deal of the prejudice centres in
the term. It is Greek, and has a learned sound. I wish
it could be called by some short Saxon-sounding word,,
indicating knowledge of places ; because, perhaps, it would
not seem quite so absurd then to talk of teaching this to
poor children. It used to be the policy of the poor-law to*
encourage the poor to migrate from place to place where
work could be had ; and no one objected then, that to do
this effectually the poor ought to have some little knowledge
of places; and yet certain good people would have been
horrified then, as now, at the bare thought of teaching them
geography.* The difference1 is but verbal notwithstanding..

Maps should always be open on the wall. Children
learn a great deal by frequently looking at them. They
thus acquire outlines imperceptibly.

There are very few good school-books on geography.
That of the Irish Society contains as much as most, and
as clearly put as any; but they are all too cut and dry
—scraps, rather than descriptive pictures. Near Home, is
an admirable book, but it is not a school-book. The
teacher should buy it, and similar works, and then be the
book himself. Hughes's Geography, just published, is a
useful little book, and so is Sullivan's. The Earth and
Man, by Guyot, is a book full of useful hints and informa-
tion for teachers.

* An inspector of a workhouse school having recommended maps, they
were at length very unwillingly purchased and hung up. Shortly after he
was remonstrated with for having had two globes for pauper children,which
it was affirmed were in the room at his order. Much astonished, he
went to the spot, and found that the said globes were the ordinary double
map of the World, in the two circular hemispheres, hanging on the wall,
which an erudite guardian, in his wrath against 'Jography,' had devoutly
believed were globes!. This is a literal fact.HIGHER, BRANCHES,,

103

HISTORY.

This should be doled out in very small portions to all
but very advanced scholars. Its use, at best, has been over-
rated. In the first place, we have but dim lights and im-
perfect knowledge of past times and events. Historians are
able, for the most part, to give us only the salient points. The
mountains, the dales, the storms, torrents, and volcanoes
predominate; and the even tenor and quiet features of the
landscape which chiefly composed and characterized it, are
lost sight of, so that the whole appears in false colours,
and out of its proper perspective. If any one will take up
the different histories of no remoter times or personages
than Cromwell and Mary of Scotland, he will find them
painted in nearly all the shades between a fiend and an
angel by different writers, all of them truthful and diligent
Inquirers,—a proof of the impossibility of learning the
exact facts of past times, or even their general aspect. If
this be so, can we rely on history as a lesson whereon to
draw sound conclusions for the conduct of life? To some
extent, we may do it; but little more than we could also
draw them from the best works of fiction. This remark
applies, of course, to the details of history; its great land-
marks are sufficiently authentic, and are easily learned,
and it is right to know them; but they avail little
towards the culture of the mind, and still less to that of
the heart.

History should, for the most part, be introduced like
geography, into the reading lesson, and whenever it
becomes pertinent to the subject in hand. Set lessons in
history are usually confined to the first classes, and rightly so.
They then form the ordinary reading lessons of the day.,
and, if well-selected books be used, this is the best mode
of introducing history. The best hitherto have been,104

HIGHER BRANCHES.

Davy's History of England\ and Hogarth's Outlines ; Mr.
Dickens is now publishing a Child's History of England,
which is more interesting than correct, but much more
adapted, in style, to a child's mind, than any other I have
seen. Some other writers have recently furnished another
new series of little books on English, Colonial, and Sacred
History, but certainly not in a style or phrase adapted for
young scholars.

It is an evil to condense history or geography. They
cease to be interesting; for so voluminous is the matter, and
so numerous are the events of importance, that a condensa-
tion becomes a string of abrupt facts, much isolated and
little readable.

As in geography, so in history, all depends on the use
the teacher makes of them, and the living spirit he puts
into his instruction. Professor Moseley most truly says,
' that the geography, history, and grammar of the elementary
school are mere fact-teaching—the teaching of facts from
which no conclusions are drawn, and which follow one
another in an endless cycle and with a continual repetition.
The mind of an intelligent youth famishes, at the age of
sixteen or seventeen, on food like this.' Doubtless, and
long before then. The number of men who have imbibed
a distaste for learning, and remain ignorant for the rest of
their lives, because they have been disgusted by this brain-
less mode of teaching at school, is past belief; in fact,
bad schools have been a great cause of ignorance.

History, like geography, is often turned upside down in
schools; and children who have not the remotest notion of
the distinction between Brunei and Buonaparte, or the
.Reformation and the French Revolution, are elaborately
instructed in the invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar, and
so trudge downwards through the Heptarchy, the Danish
and Norman conquests, &c. &c., until, long before they
arrive at modern times and useful history, nine-tenths ofHIGHER BRANCHES.

105

them leave school, and forget Caractacus and William
Kufus with all possible expedition.

It is by no means unusual to find children answering
minute questions in the history (as we call it) of times
eight hundred years ago, who do not know whether Ireland
is governed by England, or what are the chief features of
our own Constitution.

School books for children on history might very bene-
ficially begin with a short and plainly written account of
our present constitution, including a concise statement of
the nature and administration of the law. These subjects
appear to me to be quite as important for a poor child to
learn as about the battle of Hastings, or the wars of the
Boses. The history, chiefly instructive for them, relating
to past times, will be that of inventions, manufacture, and
commerce.

Sullivan's Geography cmd History is a very useful book
for the teacher.

GRAMMAR.

The English grammar should be taught to all boys, but it
should be only in its rudiments. Poor children will not need
to be learned in syntax. If they know the parts of speech,
and how to express themselves with tolerable correctness, it
is all that can be required; indeed, only the upper classes can
be taught this without detriment to other studies. There
are particular parts of the country, where attention to this
point should be greater than elsewhere. In Yorkshire it
will be more needed, for instance, than in Eadnorshire,
where I believe the English language is both spoken and
pronounced more accurately than elsewhere. We shall
never break down all provincialisms to the level of pure
English; but we may and ought to get rid of the grosser
inaccuracies and patois dialect which render some of them
actually unintelligible. Care should be taken, however,106

HIGHER BRANCHES.

not to uproot old Saxon words, which are often used by
the poor and by no other class. These words are some-
times purer and more expressive than the Anglo-Norman
terms we have not, very happily, substituted for them.

The Dean of Hereford says, in his Hints—.

Grammar is taught here (King's Somborne) almost entirely
through their reading lessons, and in this way,' far from being
the dry subject many have supposed it to be, it becomes one in
which they take great interest. Any attempt at giving them
dry definitions of parts of speech and rules of grammar is almost
sure to fail; for one which it interests it will disgust ten, and
therefore the thing ought not to be attempted in this way.

The plan is to point out in the reading lessons, first, the
articles, where and how to use them, making the children
themselves find out examples, and so with the other
parts of speech. When a little practised, the teacher
should give sentences with bad grammar, and make the
children point out the mistakes.

COMPOSITION.

This is a famous mental exercise, and it affords a vast
field for instruction in grammar, style, and also in the sub-
ject matter of the essay. Some topic with which the
children are familiarly acquainted should be selected.
Never set them to write formal essays on any of the
cardinal virtues or vices; a life of Nelson, or William the
Conqueror, or Moses, is less objectionable, but less likely to
bring out their minds and interest them, than if they were
to write on what they did yesterday: on the work going
on in the ground or garden, on some excursion, or on some
interesting account they had been reading, of something
modern and life-like.

Mr. Bowyer, who inspects workhouse schools, and there
has experience in the highest class of education—because
the most difficult to accomplish, and applied to the classHIGHER BRANCHES.

107

who need it most—speaks thus of the success of composi-
tion exercises, and how to make them useful:—

The point to which I more particularly directed my attention
in the past year, was the introduction of composition. Pre-
viously there was only one school in which it was practised, and
the utmost use to which the art of writing was ever put, was
writing from dictation or memory. I have, however, unless the
school was so bad as to render it out of the question, invariably
made' composition an essential part of the inspection; and, even
in some instances, its principal medium, by taking the exercises
as the subject of oral examinations, and I have found that by
adapting the subject to the character of the school, very fair
specimens may be obtained, even from those of the humbler
description. In an ordinary school, under a mistress, for example,,
the first class would be able to write a fair abstract of a chapter
of the scriptures, consisting of narrative, or a short life of one of
the patriarchs; while in a school of the highest class, they
would be able to accomplish an abstract of a chapter from the
3rd, 4th, or 5th Dublin Keading Books, or a reign of a king of
England. These exercises, excepting the worst, should then be
read before the whole class, and should form the text of an
examination in a plain 4 common sense' way, upon the subject
matter, the proper order in which it should be treated, the
spelling, the punctuation; and (in the better class of schools)
the grammar. If this be done without formality or pedantry,
it is a source of much interest and amusement to the children,
especially if care be taken to compare the exercises, and point
out in what respect one may be better than another. The mis-
spellings, mistakes, confusions, and omissions, which even intel-
ligent children fall into when unaccustomed to express their
ideas in writing, thus become an important means of practical
instruction, and exercise of the reasoning faculties, and afford an
opportunity of bringing into use the rules of grammar, which
are otherwise a merely ornamental accomplishment. Writing
from dictation or verbal memory, on the contrary, which is the
utmost attempted in most schools, can only serve as an exercise
in spelling, but not in grammar, punctuation, composition, and
reasoning.^

* Report on Parochial Union Schools for 1848-9-50, presented to
Parliament by the Committee of Council.108

HIGHER BRANCHES.

ARTS OF LIFE AND EVERY-DAY KNOWLEDGE.

The reading lessons books of the Irish, and British and
Foreign, and the Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge,
contain tolerably well-selected subjects for this purpose.
Many of the lessons give practical and useful information
on them, but it would be well to have a series which
should be exclusively on the useful arts of life—brewing,
baking, gardening, carpentering, and on every kind of
useful knowledge. One great mistake is, to assume that
children know these things already. If classes be
thoroughly well questioned and probed, it will be found
but very few can give correct or intelligent answers to
questions such as these—What is glass made of 1 What
are soap, brass, or lime ? If we ask the mode of making
them, or their various properties, or where the two former
are made, we shall get still less information. Many boys
do not know what malt is, or whether it is made from oats,
barley, or wheat, still less how it is made. The times of
sowing and planting, the modes of managing animals and
their habits, the culture of the ground, the different kinds
of soil, the manures that suit them, the different kinds of
timber trees, and the properties and uses of their woods,
are all subjects, and many, many more, which seem to me
to be useful for working-class boys and girls to know; but
how little can we expect to obtain answers about such
things, when so many are found ignorant how to plant
potatoes, and how long it takes to boil them. The handi-
crafts, their localities, and the physical and moral features
connected with them, wherever they are interesting or
useful to know, should be surely taught.

Every teacher who is ignorant of these things, should
set to work to learn them: then every walk he takes in the
fields with his scholars, as well as every lesson they read,
will be the means of instruction to them on all such subjects.HIGHER BRANCHES.

109

The Dean of Hereford, in his Hints, illustrates the
ignorance even of people living in the country of every-
day knowledge by some amusing and instructive remarks,
on this head, prefaced by some practical suggestions how
to give it:—

There is something extremely pleasing and interesting to*
children in having their attention called to the habits different
in structure, in covering, in manner of feeding, in fact, all
possible outward differences, a knowledge of which can be
acquired by the eyes and by the hands (seeing and feeling), of
the beasts and birds about them; and of this a very strong proof
is given in what I have related in connexion with my giving
to a class of boys a lesson of the following kind, which was sug-
gested by some observations in a book on Natural History, by
the Rev. L. Jenyns, on the difference of the way in which
animals with which they are acquainted, rise. How does the
cow get up ? hind feet or fore feet first ? How the sheep ?
How the deer, &c. P Some will answer right, some wrong, but
all think and are alive to the question. Then pointing out to
them that all these animals rise with the hind legs first, and that
they belong to the class of ruminating, or cud-chewing animals,
and that if it is true that in one, two, three, four, &c. particular
cases of animals which chew the cud that they rise in this way,
whether it would not be likely to be true in all cases—showing
them the way of getting at a general rule, from its being true
in a number of individual instances.

Then again : how do the horse, the pig, the dog, &c., rise ?
Hind feet or fore feet first ? Do they ruminate ? Have they
front teeth in the upper jaw ? The teacher would point out
how they differ from the ox, the sheep, &c.

Children living in the country are very much alive to this-
kind of instruction, and I found that several of them in going
home from school had observed the animals when rising, and
gone out of their way to make them get up; thus bringing
to the test of experience what they had been taught, and
commencing at this early period habits of observation on things
around them, which, in after life, may add much to their
happiness, and open out sources of enjoyment to them, to
which they have hitherto been strangers.

Happening to mention that some observers of the habits of
animals thought that sheep more frequently lie down on the
left side than the right, I find that many of them count a.
flock of sheep, as to the side they are lying on, when they see
them lying down in the fold or in the field; and I have no110

HIGHER BRANCHES.

doubt will, in time, have counted such numbers as may balance
their opinions one way or the other.

Mr. Jenyns says that he mentioned to a farmer, who had
passed all his life among animals belonging to the farm, this
difference in the mode of rising in the horse and in the ox—the
sheep and the pig—and generally in the cud-chewing and non-
cud-chewing animals, but that he, the farmer, was not aware of
it; and I recollect myself, many years ago, in college combina-
tion room, a conversation arising as to whether a sheep had a
double row of teeth in front, similar to the horse (and in the same
way the cow), when, strange to say, although every one seemed
to know that it was the case with the horse, yet not more than
one or two were aware that the sheep had not; and so many
doubts were started about it, that two young men of the party
walked a considerable distance to a field where there were some
sheep, and caught one of them in order to examine it.

It is obvious that all this and the whole system of practical
teaching would be infinitely furthered by the industrial
element. Let a child be trained to apply what it learns,
and to have a hand in the work, so as to realize it, and it
will be a great benefit and furtherance to its progress in
all kinds of practical education.

In the school-room, as much use as possible should be
made of the black board, and of the objects themselves,
where feasible. There is a school called the William's
Secular School, in Edinburgh, on the same principle as the
Birkbeck Schools in London, where these subjects are well
taught. From an interesting report of it, the following
account of the mode pursued may be usefully extracted :—

The object-lessons are also made introductory to physiolo-
gical and moral science. A bone, a skull, the whole skeleton,
an anatomical diagram or preparation, is sometimes made the
subject of an object-lesson to the younger children; and thus
they become acquainted with the general structure, and some of
the functions of their own bodies, preparatory to entering upon
a regular course of physiology.

Rudimentary ideas of their own mental faculties are afforded,
by leading them to inquire how they know that an object is
brown, or hard, or odorous, &c.; and thus the organs and func-
tions of the senses and perceptive faculties are made, to a certain

-extent, familiar to them.

# * * * * *HIGHER BRANCHES,

111

The comparison of a natural with an artificial object—a piece
of flint, for example, with a piece of glass, or a tree with a table
—serves as the basis of elementary instruction on the distinc-
tions between raw materials and manufactured articles, on
wealth and its production by labour, on the capital required for
its production, on wages, profits, division of labour, interchange,
commerce, &c.

Having, in this manner, conveyed to the minds of the children
some simple, precise, and accurate notions of the forms and
qualities of physical objects, the next aim of the promoters and
teachers of the school is, to superadd a systematic knowledge of
the structure and functions of the human body, and of the
faculties of the mind. Physiology, illustrated by a human
skeleton, by casts of the muscular system, and by diagrams
representing the blood-vessels, the digestive and respiratory
organs, and also the brain, spinal marrow and nerves, are used
as the basis of explanations of the structure, modes of action,
laws of health, and uses and abuses of the bodily and mental
organs. Abstract terms and disquisitions are as much as possible
avoided, and objects, facts, relations, and mental states, falling
within the observation and consciousness of children, and
elucidated by numerous and familiar illustrations, are chiefly
relied on.

The success of the instruction in these departments exceeds
the most sanguine expectations of the promoters of the school,
and shows that God who ordained the human faculties, adapted
the remainder of creation to them, with a wisdom and goodness
•which promise results of unspeakable importance, whenever
adequate instruction in natural truth shall be generally and suc-
cessfully conveyed to the opening faculties of the young.

The best mode of ensuring due attention to these subjects
is} to give the children an opportunity of seeing as many as
possible of all the objects—manufactures, natural wonders,
or artistic processes, described. These are far better than
reimrds.

The following books are recommended :—

Useful Arts employed in the Production of Food. With
^numerous wood-cuts. 2s. 6d.

Useful Arts employed in the Production of Clothing. With
numerous wood-cuts. 2s. 6d.

Useful Arts employed in the Construction of Dwelling Houses.
With numerous wood-cuts. 2s. Qd.

The Writing-Desk and its Contents, taken as a Text for the112	religious education,

Familiar Illustration of many important Facts in Flxperimental
Science. By Thomas Griffiths, Chemical Lecturer at St. Bar-
tholomew's Hospital. 2 s.

Roads and Railroads, Tunnels, Bridges, arid Canals. One
Volume, with upwards of a hundred wood-cuts. 5s.

All published by Messrs. Parker and Son.

social and political economy.

Its rudiments, as far as they develop the conditions of
well-being, the laws of profit, capital, and wages, should be
assuredly taught to the more advanced classes. How
otherwise can our labourers be fortified against the anar-
chical errors contained in the vile publications which Mr.
Seymour Tremenheere, in the preface to his able and most
useful little work on the principles of political science, says?
never were more rife since the old French Revolution. Mr.
Senior's four introductory lectures at Oxford, on political
economy, should be studied by every teacher. Mr. Senior
is, beyond all comparison, the ablest modern writer and
most original thinker on this subject, and his works accord-
ingly are the best fitted to inform the minds of teachers.
For children, as a class-book, Chambers' Political Economy,
for Use in Schools, may be advantageously adopted. But
the best teaching will be from the head of the teacher.

Chapter V.

Religious Education and Moral Training.

RELIGION and morals are naturally combined, and
the notion that they are distinct things to be kept
apart and taught apart is, to say the least, very mischievous
to the due furtherance of both. It is to reduce religion to
theology and moral conduct to ethics. Scriptural instruc-
tion may indeed be so given; religious education cannot.AND MORAL TRAINING.	118

In most of the inferior schools Scriptural instruction
means simply the mechanical reading of the Bible. Mr.
Moseley found this the case in 100 out of 134- of his
schools. Whether it was understood in them, need
scarcely he asked. For how can a child instinctively un-
derstand the Bible without explanation and questioning ?

I have now here (he adds) found this constant reading of the
Scriptures associated with real Scriptural knowledge, except
where, in addition to this, the Scriptures are made the subject of
a special cause of instruction. It is a result, indeed, to which
the learning to read mechanically from the Scriptures does not
appear at all to contribute, but the reverse. Ideas of the same
class, presented incessantly to the mind under the same circum-
stances, lose at length their interest; and the repetition of them,
instead of strengthening the impression they have, tends (a certain
limit being passed) to confuse it.

Nor is this the case only with the mere unexplained
reading of the Scriptures: it is much the same when they
are explained, but where the knowledge so imparted is of
abstract truths, and where it is never put to practice. Ke-
ligion is not a mere code of rules and revelation of facts; it
has a living spirit; and that spirit can neither be fully felt
nor conveyed apart from action. Keligion is a thing of life;
without which faith itself is dead. We may no more
separate them in the seed than in the fruit,—in the school
than in the after world. It is the system of schools to do so
nevertheless: religion is taught in them just as astronomy
or logic, as an abstruse science or a string of truths. The
result of this untoward severance of the ethical and practi-
cal from the spiritual province of religion, is that each is
shorn of the vitalizing power indispensable to their proper
culture. The genial relation between God and man—be-
tween religion and nature is unseen. The link is wanting,
nor can the child supply it. The kingdoms of nature and
grace are to him utterly dissevered. The function of Chris-
tianity being not only to teach religion to the mind, but to
guide and train the native energies of the soul, that system

I1U

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION,

of education, however biblical its teaching, which stops at
the school door, has done but little for the religious disci-
pline of the heart, and nothing for the practical fruition of
its own code. Eeligion is regarded by children thus taught,
as an abstraction full of law and mystical solemnity, wrap-
ped up in a shibboleth of terms and phrases which impart
to their minds vague ideas and no realities.

They do not know, for they have never been trained to feel,
that there is a religion, in little, in every part of life: that it
inspires and animates all that is useful, as well as all that is
great and good and virtuous and ennobling. It is very com-
mon to find children who have a perfect knowledge of, at
least, the cardinal means of salvation, and all the leading
truths and doctrines of Scripture, and yet who turn out dis-
solute and depraved, and very frequently worse than those
who have been left in ignorance.

In the first place, the mode in which the teaching
is given and the questions are put is not sufficiently
searching. The wretched rote system is a great stumbling
block to all comprehension and all mind-work. To be able
to repeat the Church catechism, or indeed any catechism, is
absolutely nothing. It no more informs the mind than it
affects the body. Scarcely one out of fifty children who repeat
it are made thoroughly to comprehend it. And yet it con-
tains an epitome of the whole scheme of salvation and the
entire code of moral conduct. Dissenters frequently ac-
knowledge the extreme merit of this composition as a
whole, one or two doctrinal passages excepted. The clergy,
who are the mainspring of existing schools, insist almost
everywhere on its use, and yet, strange to say, so little is
it comprehended by the children, that in a great majority
of cases it might as well not be learned at all. It is im-
possible to insist too strongly on the necessity for constant
and zealous teaching of its full meaning.

If the epitome be thus neglected, it were vain to expectAND MOEAL TRAINING.

115

the Holy Scriptures at large, in such schools, to be better
understood. A system of teaching the Scripture more in
unison with the views above stated would, I humbly incline
to think, be more effectual. Though, during school instruc-
tion in them, there would be no means of applying the
doctrines of Scripture to practice, the teaching itself might be
made more practical and less dogmatical than it usually is.

The best routine is probably that of (after prayer)
reading the portion of Scripture selected distinctly and
reverently, taking care not to make it a reading lesson, but
simply correcting errors if made. The next step would
probably be that of questioning on and explaining the
meaning of any words which may require it, so that the
sense shall be fully understood. The master should then
himself give an explanatory comment on the whole pas-
sage ; it should be full and yet terse, not overloaded with
matter: and yet every difficulty should be explained, and
the full effect and bearing of each part be not only pointed
out, but Uktstrated by such facts and practical cases as may
be most likely to attract the interest and fix themselves,
and the truths they exemplify, in the minds of the children.
In this branch of the work there is ample opportunity for
practical application, and the whole may conclude with
brief and earnest exhortation. It is in this action that the
whole mental and moral power, as well as the religious zeal
and knowledge of the teacher will come into full action.
No rules can give him the skill, spirit, and animation
which the subject demands.

When this lecture is concluded, and it should never
exceed twenty minutes, and seldom seventeen; the chil-
dren should be left to read over the whole passage to them-
selves and silently reflect on it. Perhaps twenty minutes
may be thus occupied. It depends on the length of the
passage and the amount of difficulty and matter for reflec-
tion it contains. Whilst this is going on the teacher will

i 2116

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION,

be engaged in the quiet superintendence of one of the other
divisions—ex. gr., examining copy-books, and correcting
errors, &c. Thus he will obtain an interval of repose for
mind and voice. He then returns to the Scripture class
and thoroughly examines it in the whole lesson, according
to the system already pointed out in the chapter 011 'How
to teach,5 both by questioning and holding out of hands,
and elliptical explanations when required.

The object of the teacher should be to lead as much and
to drive as little as possible. Every effort must be exerted
to make the children think, by putting to and also by
drawing from them suggestions of facts, such as may lead
to a fuller development of the subject. To obtain ques-
tions from them is a great object. Habits of investigation
may be thus formed and turned into wholesome channels,
which will benefit the child to his life's end and beyond it*

It is impossible to dictate rules for questions on this all
important subject; it is, in fact, teaching in another shape.
The question should be such, however, as relates chiefly to
practice. Instead, for instance, of asking what is the com-
mandment against coveting? the question maybe put thus:
Suppose a boy wishes for something that does not belong
to him and thinks no more of it, would he break any
commandment? If the children know the difference be-
tween coveting and wishing for a thing, they will say 'no.5
But suppose he sets his heart on it and keeps on longing-
for it? Answer: The tenth. Suppose a boy tells a lie
about another boy, and says he saw him steal something in
order to get him punished, which would he break then?
The ninth. Suppose he gets into a passion and calls bad
names? The sixth. Why, and how do we know that?
The spirit of the commandments and their extended
meaning, as given in the sermon on the mount, will form
the subject of useful remarks. Each great doctrine and
duty may be made the subject of practical illustration.AND MORAL TRAINING.	IlT

The doctrine of atonement may be illustrated by tlie vari-
ous modes in which men can make amends to men for
wrongs done by them. God only can make amends to God,
and hence a divine atonement in the blood of the Saviour
was required.

It is of little use (says Mr. Stowe) merely to tell a child not
to sin. If you wish to train him not to sin—not to steal, for
example, illustrate by such occurrences as Achan in the camp—
not to tell lies, by the sad fate of Ananias and Sapphira—not to
indulge in pride and vanity by poor Absalom; and when these
and many others are fully and progressively pictured out and
analyzed the children will be quite prepared to know, and in
some measure to feel the principle, 4 Be sure your sin will
find you out'

The parables and precepts of our Lord will assist the
practical illustration of the moral duties.* The words,
'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass
against us,' will give occasion to ask what duty is thereby
enjoined, and the parable of the unjust servant illustrates
it. Some will answer, the good Samaritan. This will
open some useful questions on that parable, and also on
our Saviour's interview with the woman of Samaria at
Jacob's well, who told him 'the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans.' Instances and circumstances likely
to occur among the children should always be used. Sup-
posing Tom Smith did so and so, what ought you to do ?
Why so and so. Such cases are the most striking examples
which can be given to children, and are worth volumes of
formal exposition.

Every lesson (as the Rev. Mr. Bellairs judiciously remarks)
should be attentively studied by the Master so far as he might
glean information thereon before he proceeded to instruct the
children on it. By this means he would be able to bring forward
such information—historical, geographical, and etymological, as

* Scripture proofs and precepts, with references to the parables and
commandments, will be found in Appendix C.118

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION,

would awaken the intelligence of the children, teach them to
think, and supply them with intellectual food. From a want of
information springs a poverty and inability of interrogation, a
defect very apparent in many schools. A common method of
interrogating the children is by means of a book of questions.
From these the children are interrogated on the lesson in which
they are engaged, and no further explanation or inquiry is
attempted; if they answer in strict accordance with the words
of the book, it is considered that they know all that is needful;
frequently no other answer, however correct it be in sense, is
accepted, and this work of interrogation, as it is termed, be-
comes in a short time, on the part of the children, a mere effort
of memory but no exercise of the understanding. If the master
is conversant with his subject, he will require no book of ques-
tions from which to interrogate his scholars.

Mr. Kennedy also admirably remarks :—c It is only
active, ever-improving, energetic, living minds, which are
fit to instruct and form the minds of others.' Their
education has not been of the kind which leads them to be
themselves ever learning and thinking, and consequently
their minds stagnate.

One of the chief means of giving a knowledge of Scrip-
ture, and a lively faith, is to unite with it a thoroughly
efficient secvlar education. It is, I believe, the unanimous
opinion of her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, that ' sound
knowledge in secular learning and in religion go hand in
hand.'* There are not only thousands of illustrations and
references in the Holy Scriptures which are inexplicable to
a person who has no secular knowledge, but the intel-
lect and the apprehension are sharpened, together with all
the mental faculties, by it, and by that world-knowledge*
welt-'kwnde, as the Germans call it, which God intended
man to know. This is written on every page of nature,,
and just as clearly on that of revelation.

* Minutes of Council, 1844, vol. ii., p. 238.AND MORAL TRAINING.

119

MOEAL TRAINING.

Moral training of a practical kind is exceedingly difficult
to apply in a school-room, and it can only be done to a
very limited extent; and yet, without it, what are we
doing for the improvement of the heart and conduct of the
child 1 Next to nothing. Stowe well says :—' Eemember
that mere Christian knowledge in the head does not
morally elevate—practical knowledge alone morally ele-
vates. Doing, in conjunction with the understanding and
affections, is moral training.' So true is it, that ' know-
ledge puffeth up, but charity biMeth up'*

It is difficult to understand the ground on which people
expect that the ordinary run of schools will moralize the
poor. Why should they? Morals are not trained in them:
and surely mere reading, even if it be in the Bible, with a
complement of writing and arithmetic, has no such ten-
dency. The Eev. Mr. Moseley, though he entertains, per-
haps, a less unfavourable view of the effect of the prevalent
instruction in schools, says :—

Notwithstanding the favourable view which I have thus been
led to take of the progress of religious instruction in our schools,
there are some elements in which it appears to me to be deficient.
I have found in it, for instance, nothing to represent those ad-
monitions which a religious parent is accustomed to address to
his children, with a personal application to the conscience of
each, and an individual knowledge of its necessities; and which,
appealing to the heart and the affections, have an influence with
children greater than that which they yield to reason or to
authority. I have moreover, thought, that in the exclusive di-
rection to religious objects which the teaching in some schools
receives, the exercise of that discretion was wanting, by which
a pious and judicious parent would provide, in respect to the
education of his own children, that due care should be taken to
encourage a veneration for the Scriptures, and impress them
with a due sense of their importance; and that, of all the subjects
in which they are instructed, religion should be made the least
burdensome to them.

* Edifieth is a mistranslation.120

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION,

Miss Carpenter, in lier very interesting and able work
on 'Reformatory Schools/ after citing some startling
instances of the inefficacy of mere school reading of the
Bible, says:—c It is not sufficient to found schools to
communicate knowledge, or even to impart religious
£ wordiness,' as it is aptly called, without wisdom to
direct, and power to guide and control these wild beings.
These children were absolutely in a worse condition, one
far more dangerous to society, than if they had been left
alone to their own ignorance.'

Miss Carpenter says, that f in too many schools, the
Scriptures are made an ordinary reading lesson;—fami-
liarity with the words, without attaching any interesting
meaning to the sense, only deadens the heart to the holy
truths contained in them, and is a great hindrance rather
than help to subsequent benefit being derived from the
Scriptures. ISFor even is a full acquaintance with the
Bible, and understanding the meaning of it, sufficient to
influence the heart and conduct.'—' The most thoroughly
unprincipled and unimpressible boy I ever taught in the
ragged school,' says the same teacher, c was one who had
long been taught in a Church of England Sunday school,
and was thoroughly acquainted with all the facts of Scrip-
ture, together with various points of theology, which he
would willingly have discussed, had I permitted him. He
gloried in having been mentioned in the newspaper as the
head of a gang of thieves, and is now in prison. Several
boys have come to my class for a few times on leaving
jail, and I have been quite astonished at the full and
accurate Scripture knowledge they have acquired while
there; but in only one or two cases out of many has any
permanent good effect seemed 'to arise from this. They
had read the Bible only, as a Catholic boy said, c to pass
away the timeand it had not entered their hearts.'

But should such experience discourage us, or make usAND MORAL TRAINING.

121

doubt tlie value of that " Holy Scripture, which is able to
make us wise unto salvation T Shall we no longer believe
the pearl to be of great price to these children, because
they cannot discern its lustre and feel its beauty when
presented to them under a hard covering of words, to them
without meaning, their own eyes being dim with igno-
rance, and a veil being over their hearts ? Let us rather,
believing, as we do, that religion is essential to all reforma-
tion, strive to find out how it may be so communicated
as really to engage the affections, and influence the con-
duct. A few suggestions, founded on experience, may be
useful.

With those who are totally ignorant and uninformed,
formal religious lessons will seldom be advisable; though,
as the school improves, they may be made most inte-
resting in regular religious instruction. Eeliance must
not, however, be placed in these alone; but the teacher
whose heart is thoroughly awakened to the importance of
this work, will be ready to seize every opportunity pre-
sented by passing events, or the ordinary teaching, of
impressing on the child's heart some valuable lesson.
The affections must be roused, and a love of virtue and
holiness excited. The mere presence of goodness in others
has a tendency to soften and purify the most obdurate,
on whom its spirit is exercised.

Miss Carpenter also remarks, that religious instruction
almost necessarily includes moral teaching; yet with a
class possessing as yet so little distinct notion of right,
direct moral instruction, as well as training, must be made
a distinct and frequent subject of lessons. It has been
remarked by one well qualified to judge by his high legal
position, and by his long acquaintance with the juvenile
nature, that a large proportion of young criminals are
absolutely unacquainted with the " science of morals."

Rewards and Pimishments.—These are an essential122

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION,

part of moral training; but so admirably have the rules
for it been laid down by Mr. Stowe, that I should be doing
gross injustice to the subject were I to prefer my own
views or statements to his. I have only to say, that in
this, as in all other branches of moral training, he will find
the application of his rules infinitely facilitated by out-
door labour.

The understanding of the punishment must he present, or the
mere sensation of bodily pain is no punishment to him. Instead,
therefore, of passing into the understanding, through the phy-
sical department of the human being, we prefer punishing as
well as stimulating the higher sensibilities of our moral nature.

If a mother can make it an honour and a privilege to her child
to lift her handkerchief, and a punishment not to be permitted
to do so; or, if it be possible and practicable that for disobedience
or any other fault, a child's exclusion from table for half an hour,
is felt to be a punishment so severe, as almost to tear his heart-
strings asunder; then it is clear, that by the same process, and
by the additional power of sympathy of numbers, which the
mother cannot have, may the master of a training school punish
a child most severely, without corporal infliction; and so it is in
a properly conducted training school, and with a regularly trained
master. To order a boy out from the gallery, after being pro-
perly warned once or twice, is found to be really more severe

than half-a-dozen ' palmies.'

# # * # #

Corporal punishment in school tends to harden or break the
spirit. We ought never to associate the idea of punishment with
what we should love. A child ought to love school, and his
teacher, and his exercises. To punish a child by causing him to
commit a large task to memory, or write a large exercise, or read
six chapters of the Bible, is the most certain mode of generating
a dislike for all of these. Oar object is to stimulate from a fear
of offending, rather than from a fear of the rod. Nothing can
be more unjust than to punish a boy for a deficiency in the
power of calculation, or the memory of words, while he may
possess in a high degree reason and imagination—thus stimu-
lating the lower at the expense of the higher powers of the mind.

"Jv	w	"Jv»

The evil principle or practice is pictured out according to the
peculiar mode of the system, so that it is seldom necessary t©
bring out or even notice the individual—the finer feelings ofAND MORAL TRAINING.	123

nature have been brought into play—and the downcast look dis-
covers how fully the child feels himself condemned by his fellows
and by his own conscience.

Jf.	*S£?

•Jv	W	TP	W

Old teachers, and impatient young men, who have been accus-
tomed to use the literal rod to save time, or the trouble of inves-
tigating a fault, are apt to imagine that there are difficulties in
refraining from the use of it which do not exist. Patience in
this department of moral training is indeed ' a virtue/ and lies
at the root of all training. From long experience we know, that
in exact proportion as a schoolmaster trains, does the use of the
literal rod appear to him unnecessary.

Offences of any moment may be dealt with by trial;
the children^ or some five or six elected by themselves,
sitting as a jury, and the teacher as judge. These trials
may be made to form excellent practical moral lessons,
and aid in bringing home to the minds of the children
sound moral rules of judgment. They who pronounce
judgment, moreover, on moral offences, are less liable to
commit them themselves. They thus learn if the judge
does his duty, the reasons of moral laws, and obey them
the better for understanding and appreciating them.

Every event in the school should be invariably turned to
a moral account—every ebullition of temper, all devia-
tion from truth, honesty, or modesty. All merits, on the
contrary, should be noted, if not publicly praised. It is of
great importance that children should feel that their good
efforts are appreciated. The skilful teacher will know how
to do this without exciting vanity, or puffing up the object
of his praise. Let him also make it a rule scrupulously to
give the fullest meed of it, consistent with truth, to the
children he likes least, and to those who are generally the
least deserving, and whom he is often obliged to censure.
Its effect will be sometimes infinitely greater than any cor-
rective, when faults occur.

Above all things, the teacher should make his scholars
love him; it is as powerful an instrument for moral train-124

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION,

ing as it is for good discipline; and this is infinitely better
enforced by affection than by fear.

Mr. Stowe long ago discovered that so little does the
natural disposition of the child develop itself in the school-
room, that he must set the teacher to watch it in the
playground, in order to make moral training possible. It
€an be to a great extent so accomplished; but would it not
be a great improvement to substitute some useful work for
profitless play 1 The boy who is digging or planting is
surely better employed than he who is twisting himself
over parallel bars, or swinging himself round a pole. The
body is just as healthily exercised, and, in addition, the
boy is receiving most valuable information—feels himself
to be useful, and enjoys such employment tenfold more
than circular swings or parallel bars.

It is in the various developments of character, and calls
for exertion of all kinds of faculties and feelings occurring
in out-door labour, that the moral trainer derives his most
fruitful and valued opportunities of correcting what is
wrong, and encouraging what is right.

Yehrli's remark is wonderfully true, that—

There is 110 knowledge in books like an immediate converse
with nature, and those that dig the soil have nearest communion
with her.

Vehrli had good reason to make this assertion, having
done wonders by means of spade labour in the education
of boys. Although he may properly be regarded some-
what as an enthusiast, his long experience, earnestness, and
purity of purpose must entitle his opinions to the utmost
respect, and some degree of weight, even were his ex-
periences and conclusions not fortified and confirmed as
they have been by repeated experiments of a like nature
in this and other countries.

Sir J. K. Shuttleworth and Mr. E. Carlton Tufnell,
made an educational tour in the year 1840, in the courseAND MORAL TRAINING.

125

of which they visited Switzerland and several other
countries. In their very able report to the Poor Law
Commissioners; published in the Minutes of Council1842-3,
they thus describe the system which formed the basis of
the schools of industry instituted in the canton of Berne,
at Hofwyl, by De Fellenberg, and which forms an excellent
summary of the principles on which the recommendations
I venture to make on this head are founded:—

Those orphan and normal schools of Switzerland, which have
paid the deference due to the lessons of Pestalozzi and De Fel-
lenberg, are remarkable for the gentleness and simplicity 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 enlightened, in order that it may inform the
conscience, and that the conscience, looking forth through this
intelligence, 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 appropriate to the
duties of the station which the child must occupy.

Among the labouring class no habit is more essential to vir-
tuous 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 conducted as not only to assist the labourer in acquiring
mechanical dexterity, but 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 likely to
be affected. In a commercial country it is pre-eminently im-
portant to give him such an acquaintance with geography as
may stimulate enterprize at home, or may tend to swell the
stream of colonization, which is daily extending the dominion of
British commerce and civilization. Labour, which brings the
sweat upon the brows, requires relaxation, 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 distinc-
tions of society are as nothing before that God who searcheth
the heart. Keligion therefore raises the labourer to the highest126

school teachers.

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.

I have only one rule to add : The teacher must be what
he wishes to make the children. The moral temperament
of a school will depend as closely on that of the teacher as
will its physical aspect; and I have seen many wonderful
proofs of the change effected in the temper, and in the
outward aspect of children, by the change of a morose
gloomy teacher for a lively and cheerful one. The deceit-
ful or ill-natured teacher is just as little fitted to make his
scholars truthful or good-tempered, as a ploughman is to
make lace.

There are many good elementary books on Scripture
history, and religious knowledge. No teacher should be
without NicholFs Guide to the Study of the Scriptures, or
Outlines of Sacred History. The Irish Scripture Lesson
Booh cannot be recommended to Protestant schools. It is
much to be wished that a work on precisely the same
excellent plan were compiled for them from the authorized
version. Line upon Line, though dear, is a capital book
for children.

Chapter VI.

School Teachers.

IT would be very beneficial to the future progress of
Education if young men and women, and still more if
men and women at advanced periods of life would, before
adopting the vocation of school teacher, honestly con-
sider whether they have natural abilities for this mostSCHOOL TEACHERS.

127

difficult and arduous work. It is to be feared that few,
comparatively, do it. There is one class who wish to follow
it, because they are disqualified from following any other.
It were well if such persons could be divested of the delu-
sion that in such case they are any fitter for school teachers.
It is an office requiring health and strength,—a clear
head, a good heart (humanly speaking), a firm, and above
all a kind disposition, a vigorous spirit, great mental energy,
liveliness of character, and perfect command of temper.
No one of these qualifications can be properly absent in the
good school teacher. Now, it is very difficult to under-
stand how a person possessing these qualities should be
unable to succeed in any other vocation in life. I should
say that the man or woman qualified to fill the high office
of school teacher is, on the contrary, likely to be qualified
for almost anything; and they who are thus qualified, will
alone do for school teachers; an office which it is not only
difficult to fill, but as important as any which a human
being can aspire to.

Talkers and writers who are fond of bewailing the short-
comings of society in this country, are wont to cite a great
variety of our faults and foibles, blunders and abuses, but
strangely they seldom, if ever, hit on the immeasurable
mischievousness and folly of our low estimate of teachers.
All classes, from the dame school-mistress up to the most
highly salaried governesses and tutors, fall under this
ban. It is a great mistake. They are moulding for us
the character of the generations among which we and our
children are to live, and by which our highest interests
here must be determined. What is the importance of the
functions of the mere law-maker, for example, in compa-
rison to this; if we contrast, as we ought to do, the relative
power each wields in determining the destiny, moral and
social, of the community 1 The first thing is for society to
retrieve its error in this false estimate. It should be done128

SCHOOL TEACHERS.

first by an entire change in the social position of small
teachers. They should be placed in another phase, both by
sympathy and deference. Those whose rank and moral
and intellectual superiority gives them the power of bring-
ing this change to pass, should take means to do it. These
means need not be suggested. It is no more than what such
superiority owes to itself to have the will, and find the way.
Children, and all persons in inferior positions, should be
taught to honour teachers: and th^y will be best taught to
do so by example.

There is another way in which the same object may be
furthered—b^ a largely-increased liberality in the salaries
of school teachers. The standard of payment should rise
with that of the esteem in which the office is held. No
labourer is better, if so well, worthy of his hire as the
school teacher. Let us give it to him liberally. Largely-
increased grants from the State are among the means; but
where private benevolence can afford them, it is a shame
in it to seek public aid; for there can be no higher or
worthier object of benevolent effort.

There are now several normal schools of the utmost
value for the training of teachers. These institutions can-
not be too largely supported. Many more are wanted.
All have their merits, but that of Kneller Hall, where
systematic industrial labour, combined with excellent in-
struction, presents all the advantages in unison with the
views of education taken in this little book, is a model.

In all such establishments, admirable as their system of
training and teaching teachers may be, it is still to be
wished that more pains were taken to deter thoroughly-
unfitted persons from devoting themselves to the office.
The principals of these institutions may very easily, and
most likely do very quickly, perceive who are and who are
not qualified by nature for the work. The idea of ren-
dering them so by art alone is worse than hopeless.SCHOOL TEACHERS.

129

Schools are numerous where the children are now sacri-
ficed to the folly of supposing that because a man or
woman has attained a certain amount of knowledge, that
they can therefore teach or train children. The letting
loose of these people on our schools is a great injury, and
it should be prevented by all who have the power, and
assuredly none have more than the Principals of Normal
Schools, unless it be the parochial clergy, who often sug-
gest this vocation to the persons who adopt it. One great
point to be observed is, are they fond of children, and do
they like teaching ? If not, let them never hope to succeed.

It is not the proper province of this little work to say
more on the mode of training school teachers than is
expressed or implied in what has been suggested under
the heads of what they are expected to teach. To fit them
for doing so is the province of the normal school. Those
who cannot avail themselves of such an obvious advantage,
should endeavour to obtain admission into some good
school, and see how to teach, and try their hands. They
will thus learn more than by a year's reading at home, or
by any amount of oral instruction.

One word as to the choice of teachers. It involves a
great responsibility.

It is a common mistake, to appoint them, or to keep
them on, out of cha/rity. Let the good people who do this,
reflect for one moment on the injustice done to the many
children put under the charge of an incompetent teacher.
Are they not of infinitely more concern 1 and is it not a
bitter injustice done to them, for the sake of a single indi-
vidual, thus undeservedly pensioned, at the sacrifice of their
highest interests ?

K130

PART THE THIRD.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

Chapter I.

Field Gardening for Schools, with Sup-
plementary Employment in other
Handicrafts.

SPADE husbandry is generally admitted to be the best,
though it is by no means the only, sort of industrial
labour which is applicable to the case, and annexable to
schools; and this chapter will be devoted to the develop*-
ment of that which will usually be found the most useful
system—namely, the cultivation of ground on the most
approved system of field gardening, with a junction of some
one or two handicraft employments.

' Field-gardening' is a term applied by Mr. Nowell in
his useful manual on the subject.* It means the adapta-
tion of the spade, fork, rake, hoe, and dibbler, to the
cultivation of fields, and also those minuter and more
careful attentions to manuring, planting, weeding, bird-
scaring, &c., which are always devoted to gardens.

We at once see how applicable this is to boy labour. Most
of these minute operations require manipulations and in-
cessant bending, which the active fingers and lower stature
of boys enable them to perform far more easily than men
can do it. Even in digging and the other work to be done,

* Published "by Sim plan and Co., price 2s.INDUSTRIAL TRAINING,

131

the same result is found; and though, of course, allowance
is to be made for different strength, the boys work nearly
as well, and more continuously, than men. They enjoy it,
and stick to it much more steadily.*

Many persons, well-disposed to annex industrial training
to their schools, will doubtless be deterred by the fear of
its impracticability in their own locality; and there are,
doubtless, schools where any sort of garden or field labour
would be so, and for the present we must defer the con-
sideration of such cases. In the vast majority of country
schools, and in many of those situated at the outskirts of
towns, it is generally quite practicable, for there, more or
less land may always be had, A mere garden is better
than none. Do not let the impracticability be too readily
assumed.

Let us first consider what would be the most advisable
system for organizing industrial field labour where the
facilities existed in obtaining ground, and where the pro-
moters were willing to give full effect to the system. We
will afterwards descend to the cases in which a more limited
adoption of it would be alone feasible.

Ground should be obtained, if possible, adjacent to the
school. If this be impossible, it may be taken at a short
distance. The distance is, however, in all cases a disad-
vantage. The children have to go there and back; this is
a loss of time, and often prevents their going, and work
being done at all, on rainy days. It is almost fatal to the
excellent plan of keeping pigs or cows. It may be done
still, but under many disadvantages. The last and worst
drawback is, that the liquid manure has either to be con-
veyed to the land, or is lost; whilst there is also the

* See evidences in the letters in Appendix D. I have also some boys
taken from workhouses who live and work here, and speak from my own
experience also.

K 2132

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

carriage to the school of all tlie produce to be consumed,
there.

The rent given for the land is not of much moment; the
system of cultivation recommended will amply compensate
for a very high rent. With judicious management, how-
ever, and any approach to liberality on the part of the
owners, this drawback, such as it is, may generally be
obviated, and the land obtained at a moderate rate.

The quantity taken must depend on the number of boys
who can work it. It is not advisable to have more than
can be conveniently cultivated by the staff that can be
reckoned on. As nearly as I can reduce the experience I
have drawn from several establishments where the boys
are thus employed, I think the following scale will prove
nearly right:—

Number of Boys. Acres of Digging Ground. Meadow.

a.	r.	a. r.

5	1	1

7	12	1

9	2	12

12	3	2

16	4	2

22	6	2 2

The boys are supposed to vary in age from nine to fifteen
years, averaging twelve. If they are materially older or
younger, there must be an allowance made in proportion.
It is also assumed in this estimate that the schoolmaster
works hard with the boys. He must be, coat off, and at
it along with them. No line gentleman schoolmaster is to
be tolerated in any school for the education of working
boys. If a man is above putting his hand to the spade, he
may be fit for a dancing master, or a man milliner, or many
lady-like occupations, but assuredly he is not the stuff out
of which a schoolmaster, in these times, is to be made,
if education means the training of a future generation
of hard-working men and women. There must be noINDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

133

puppyism about the teachers of such a race. A capital
nursery for really good teachers is that of workhouse
schools; and had we but district industrial schools for
these poor children, apart from workhouse contamination,
instead of bringing them up as paupers, such schools would
train for us an excellent race of teachers. Some of the
workhouse schools are industrial already, and afford, in
many respects, excellent examples of spade labour, and of
useful household work for girls. In these schools three
hours, at least, daily are set apart for school instruction,
and a large portion of the rest of the day to labour.

In ordinary schools three and a half or four hours will
perhaps not be too much for school instruction; but
assuredly it never should exceed that period. This will
alone be a great gain over the old system of keeping
children at school for six or seven hours. It is a mistake
to do so; the attention cannot be profitably sustained for
so long a time. On the contrary, when the child's mind
Is relieved and enlivened, and his bodily vigour increased
by labour, he applies with zeal and power to mental work,
not sufficiently prolonged to weary him. It has been
proved that by this system he learns far more effectually
than by the old fashion of exclusive school-work for a
greater number of hours. The Quatt School can bear
ample testimony to this fact, and to the superior attain-
ments as well as mental activity of the boys educated and
worked there, when compared with others schooled, and
not worked, in other establishments. Again, it has been
noted in the same school, between children who do work
and those who do not, with like results. The mental
faculties of the former were always the most vigorous and
fruitful. The agency takes place not merely by means
of bodily energy, which invariably extends itself to the
intellect, but the child acquires new ideas, and his mind
itself is, directly as well as indirectly, stored and enlarged.134

INDUSTRIAL TKAINING.

If out door labour is adopted, it will be generally best
that tlie schooling should be in the afternoon. The:
morning is the best time for labour, and after dinner for
repose; and even if it were not, the plan here recommended
will render it almost necessary that this should be done.

We have already seen that it will not do to exact labour
from the children without giving them some share in its
profit. It is proposed to give them their dinner.* It
should consist of a small portion of meat, bacon, or soup,
alternately; and plenty of bread and vegetables, with
water. This meal, of course, is supplied to the boys only
who have worked for the allotted hours during the morning.

This will not interfere with the payment of the chil-
dren's pence. If possible, some of the girls should be
employed in cooking the dinner, and take their share
accordingly in eating it. It will be seen presently how
the expense is provided for. The great advantage of this
over every other plan is, that the working children will
spend their whole day at the school, and be thus more
under the continuous influence of the moral training, and
be kept from the perilous influence which beset too many
of them at their homes and on their way backward and
forward. The orderly meal with its short graces, is another
instrument for the teaching of decent habits. These are
all helps in the work of moral training, which no one will
slight who knows what it is.

The best arrangement as to teachers will be this. There
must be a master and mistress. The chief work of the
master will be the management of the industrial depart-
ment, with its continuous moral training, and next to this
the mental instruction of the whole school in the afternoon.
In this the school mistress will assist, and in the morning

* Bagged Industrial Schools are established at Edmonton on this
principle, after much deliberation. They are scarcely yet in operation*INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

135

it is proposed that she should employ the girls chiefly in
needlework and superintending the cooking department
and washing; those too young for it will be learning to
read and write under the eye of the schoolmistress, but
taught by a pupil teacher.

NEEDLEWORK*

Is most essential for girls; but by needlework we do not
meanymaking a variety of samplers or using the crochet
needle or worsted work, but plain work, such as hemming,
sewing, stitching herring-bone, &c. &c., all which are highly
necessary for, and should be taught to all girls, but especi-
ally to the poorer classes; as what can be a greater draw-
back to the comfort and economy of a poor family than to
have to employ and pay some one to mend and make their
clothes; and yet this is constantly done. All girls should
begin to learn at five years of age to hem; they should
begin on soft pieces of linen, or else they hurt their fin-
gers; and they are much longer over any stiff piece of
calico. When thoroughly versed in hemming, they should
learn to sew, which work should not be allowed in long
and deep stitches, or too slanting, as is often the case in
schools. In sewing, the teacher should be particular in
making the child double back her work over the nail of
her fore finger. When able to hem and sew well they
should make a pinafore.

Before teaching a child how to back-stitch, they should
learn how to run and fell, so as to make the seams quite
neat on both sides, not to have any raw edges. When
this is well understood, then put the child into back-
stitching and button hole stitch, without knowing which
it would be useless to attempt to make a shirt. The child
should be shown how to draw her thread in stitching, for if

* Communicated by a lady.136

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

she trusts to her eye she will invariably work crookedly,
and have her stitches of uneven lengths. Above all they
should never be allowed to take up a pencil and mark their
work. It is a very bad and idle plan. The herring-bone
stitch should then be taught.

As soon as the pupils are well versed in these different
stitches, let them learn to cut out shifts, petticoats, shirts,
and frocks; for a girl is only half taught who is obliged to
get another person to measure and cut out her clothes.

There are nineteen parts in a shirt, and before it is
begun to be put together I should make each girl under-
stand thoroughly every one of those parts; how they are
made and how joined together.

Darning.is another important step, for what looks so ill
as to see stockings, &c., looking as if those who mended
them, had darned for the first time iji their lives. A good
way to learn to darn is, to begin on a piece of yellow can-
vas (yellow, because on that colour long, irregular stitches
are more visible), neither fine nor coarse, but a medium
texture.

SCHOOL HOURS, ETC.

The school hours would probably be these. From the
1st of May to the 1st of October the children should arrive
at eight o'clock, certainly not later at that season. It is
absurd to encourage late hours for working children, or
indeed for any children. It is a mistake to open school at
the usual hours. At 12*30 the non-working children are
dismissed, and the workers clean themselves for dinner.
Dinner at 12*40. From 1 to 2 play ground; it being
optional for the working boys to1 resume their work during
this hour instead of playing. The non-working children
to have permission to assemble in the play ground at 1, or,
under certain regulations, to bring their own dinner when
they come in the morning, and dine with the working
children. This should, by all means, be encouraged; but itINDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

137

should be expressly provided that they do not bring with
them better fare than the working children have. Possibly
arrangements might be made for cooking the provender so
brought. It would, probably, be always a little more than
the providers could eat, and the extra work (if any), would
be compensated by the extra contribution to the general
meal. After consulting several practical persons on this
scheme, I am convinced it might be made to work well in
all respects. The school beginning at 2 should close not
later than 6 o'clock. An arrangement might then be
-made to give some of the working boys bread and cheese,
on condition that they worked one or two hours longer
when occasion required. Those turned twelve years would
be able to do so perfectly well. In all out door labour
these extra supplies of work must depend much on season
and weather. It is impossible to lay down cast-iron rules
as to the apportionment of the work to be done daily.

The selection of boys for the working staff must be de-
termined by age, strength, and inclination. If the land
will not support so large a number as are ready to work, a
selection should be made according to merit. It should
be held as the post of honour, as it will assuredly be that
earnestly desired and sought for by the boys themselves, or
they will be very different boys to any I have yet met
with in the course of tolerably extensive experience. In
the industrial workhouse schools in my district (extending
over a fifth part of the kingdom for the last four years) I
have found it universally felt as a severe punishment not
to allow a boy to work when he has misbehaved himself:
though occasionally parents will be found to object
from vanity, but this will rarely happen. From the
1st of February to the 1st of April, and from the 1st of
October till the 1st of December, the arrival hour may be
8*30;; from the 1st of December till the 1st of February,
at 9 o'clock, the other hours always remaining unchanged.188

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

OTHER EMPLOYMENTS.

As it will be the object of these schools to train and
to educate children destined for country pursuits in such a
way as to make them good labourers and prosperous cot-
tagers, so that they shall not only acquire habits of industry
and means of livelihood, but such knowledge of useful arts
as may conduce hereafter to improve their stock of com-
forts and welfare of their household, it is expedient to give
them some knowledge of common handicrafts. The boys
at the Ealing school used to perform nearly all the work
that was required to be done on the premises. To a cot-
tager, there is no knowledge more useful than that of car-
pentering, shoemaking, and tailoring. In addition to bare
necessaries, our labourers and mechanics rarely have the
means of supplying the small comforts which add to the
decencies of life, and minister to independence. The
leisure hours spent at home will supply them when the
labourer has skill enough to cultivate his garden; its
vegetables add .greatly to his table, while the flowers
nourish a sense of beauty, and contribute to the cheerful-
ness of his dwelling. A very small number of carpenters'
tools, if he has learnt to use them, would keep his furniture
in order and his house in neatness, enabling him to con-
struct cupboards, shelves, screens, clothes-chests, &c.;
while the power of mending clothes and shoes would
materially lessen his expenditure, and add to the comfort
and respectable appearance of himself and his family. For
this purpose there should be a carpenter's, as well as a shoe-
maker's and tailor s shop, besides the bakehouse and
kitchen at the school. During the winter months and the
wet days, time might be thus most usefully occupied
which is now wasted in knitting or idling. It should be
an inflexible rule, that there should be no unemployedINDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

139

time. It should be a course of almost incessant Industry
from morning till night. This is no hardship to the chil-
dren, but quite the reverse. They all delight in industrial
pursuits. The boys should, in rotation, pass a certain
number of hours in each of the shops, and also work in
turn at all the various occupations in the farm of which
they were capable; each being duly explained to them, as
well as performed by them; for it is all important that
the industry be instructional, and that each child be shown
how to do every thing in the best way, and also that he
should learn why it is done so. Variety of work is essen-
tial to prevent fatigue, and due care must be taken to
apportion it in kind, as well as amount, to the strength of
the child.

Cheerfulness should be imparted to labour, and for this
purpose vocal music is most useful. It not only relieves
fatigue, and prevents weariness, but it cherishes good sen-
timents and kindly feelings.

Its great influence over bodies of men, especially in the
effects of the vocal chorus of the German armies, has been
often noted. The young are even more impressible by
music than adults.

Singing is a natural gratification to most children; and
they ought not to be debarred from it, for it is not only an
innocent but an improving taste. The children in district
schools should be taught to improve this faculty, and strike
up a merry song as they go. forth to and return from their
work.

In the appropriation of shop-work to the children, some
regard should be had to their natural capacity, just as in
the school-room. The carpenter's shop should always
exist; and the schoolmaster and pupil teacher must take
lessons of the village carpenter for a couple of hours daily,
if they really have had such a curious bringing up as not
to know how to manage a few ordinary tools. There will140

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

be no expense in the carpenter's shop; the making and
mending of fences, tools, and the doing of all kinds of odd
jobs, will fully repay the small amount of wood to be pur-
chased, and the Committee of Council makes grants for
the tools. To erect a hut for the shop, or to convert some
outbuilding into it, would be part of the work to be done.
The shoemaker's department might possibly give some
trouble and expense, and would require a shoemaker to
teach the boys. This might be managed by means of a
small extra payment for those who learned it.

The growth and preparation of flax is strongly recom-
mended by Mr. Warne of Suffolk, who has written much
and ably on the subject. Bope-making and mat-making
are both occupations which are suitable to wet weather.

The ground labour is so important that it must be the
subject of a separate chapter.

It is also very desirable that there should be a hand corn-
mill purchased, to grind the flour for the bread. Cobbett,
in his inimitable work on Cottage Economy, says about
this :—

What I would recommend to gentlemen with considerable
families, or to farmers, is a mill, such as I myself have at
present.

With this mill, turned by a man and a stout hoy, I can grind
six bushels of wheat in a day, and dress the flour. The grind-
ing of six bushels of wheat, at ninepence a bushel, comes to four
and sixpence, which pays the man and the boy, supposing them
(which is not, and seldom can be, the case) to be hired for the ex-
press purpose out of the street. With this same mill you grind
meat for your pigs, and of this, you will get eight or ten bushels
ground in a day- You have no trouble about sending to the
mill; you are sure to have your own wheat, for, strange as it
may seem, I used sometimes to find that I sent white Essex
wheat to the mill, and that it brought me flour from very coarse
red wheat. There is no accounting for this, except by supposing
that wind and water power has something in it to change the
very nature of the grain ; as when I came to grind by horses,
such as the wheat went into the hopper, so the flour came out
into the bin. * * * The cost of this mill is twentyINDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

141

pounds. The dresser is four more; the horse-path and wheel
might possibly be four or five more ; and T am very certain that
to any farmer living at a mile from a mill, having twelve per-
sons in family, having forty pigs to feed, and twenty hogs to
fatten, the savings of such a mill would pay the whole expenses
of it the very first year.

A bakehouse is the next requisite. The girls and a
strong boy will assist the schoolmistress in making and
working the bread. It should, of course, be all made and
baked at home.

It may be anticipated, that many a benevolent clergyman
and other promoter, will, when he shall have got so far,
say to himself, why should not the girls have similar train-
ing ? A washing and ironing house arise in the vista by
the side of the bakehouse, and the children allowed to wash
their own things, finding of course every expense. Thus,
what admirable housewives and provident little wives will
be furnished for the coming generation; able not only to
make and mend their own and children's clothes (now a
rare accomplishment), but to be dairy maids, to cook nicely,
and to make bread, and eke to bake it too. Will not there
be lots of good and handy servants besides, whom every
body will be glad to have from this useful sort of school?

Whether in-door or out-door, the ruling principle of the
establishment should be to make the children themselves do
all work. Their pursuits would be chiefly the following:—

Boys.

1.	Spade husbandry in all its

branches.

2.	Attending to the cattle, pigs,

&c.

3.	Shoemaking, bating.

4.	Preparation cf flax for the

spinners.

Girls.

1.	Household work of all

kinds,* including cooking.

2.	Dairy work (for eldest

girls).

3.	Washing and ironing (idem).

4.	Needlework.

5.	Spinning flax.

* The school teachers should always live on the premises, and the
working girls will thus have ample means of learning all kinds of house-
hold work.142

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

Moral training should pervade the entire system of
labour and instruction from morning till night. The
practice of true religion should imbue the whole system.
The teachers, moreover, I repeat, must be fitted to obtain a,
hold on the hearts of the children. There can be no efficient
moral discipline without it.

That which the play-ground is to Mr. Stowe's system of
discipline in town schools, the farm and the handicrafts will
be to these schools. It is there that the ideal will become
the real, and that application will be given to the lessons of
the school and the fireside. It is the nursery-ground
where the young trees are placed for nurture and develop-
ment previously to their transplantation into the world.
For want of this practical adaptation of instruction to
conduct, this training of the faculties, as well as storing of
the head, nine-tenths of our existing schools are nearly use-
less, and, in many cases, do more harm than good.

The great deficiency in the instruction of our poorer
classes, is in that sort of practical knowledge of the ordinary
objects and operations, both of nature and art, which it is
most useful to them to understand; a want of acquaintance,
not with those branches of knowledge which do not, but
which do belong to their condition in life and to their daily
avocations.

We must now devote a chapter to the management of
the land; but cannot better close this than by citing
the following testimony to the practicability of the scheme,
from the last report of the Kev. Mr. Bellairs, who cites
instances of its adoption in some part of his large district in
the western counties:—

Adverting to some former remarks, a well-arranged system of
manual employment, in connexion with our present schools,
especially if in any respect reproductive, would have the effect
not only of retaining children at school to a higher age than is
now the case, hut if the employments were those of the locality
in which the school is situate, would fit them for their futureINDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

143

occupations. In manufacturing and town districts there would
be, as I before observed, greater difficulty in making the neces-
sary arrangements for giving instruction in the various employ-
ments of a locality. But in such places this varied instruction
would be the less necessary, inasmuch as so far as the children
are concerned, superior intelligence would compensate for the
absence of particular manual dexterity. And I think it probable
that some common works of industry might be cultivated,
which should sufficiently exercise the muscles for general pur-
poses, leaving them to secure hereafter dexterity in any particular
branch to which they might be called.

This would not be the case in agricultural districts, for there
the children would require to be acclimatized by outdoor work,
in order to endure inclemency of weather. But in such dis-
tricts industrial occupations are comparatively easy of arrange-
ment ; a small piece of ground, a few spades, rakes, and hoes, a
master moderately acquainted with horticulture, and some
scientific work upon gardening, form all the requisites for, at
all events, the commencement of such outdoor occupations.

In addition to this, if a carpenter's or a blacksmith's shop was
added, of course additional opportunities of securing informal
tion and practice would be afforded. This last appendage has
been introduced during the last year at Hagley, by the Hon.
and Hev. W. Lyttelton, and from the general character of the
school I do not doubt of its success.

Connected with this subject, at this school, Hagley, a plan
has been adopted which I think is likely to exercise a very
favourable influence on the girls there. Certain ladies in the
parish take under their patronage certain girls in the school,
who attend on stated days at their houses, for the purpose of
learning practically some of the most important parts of domestic
work; in this way they are instructed in washing, making
bread, cleaning furniture, &c., and thus in many respects pre-
pared for domestic service.

Such a plan, independent of its advantages in improving the
industrial habits of these girls, will have a considerable influ-
ence on their character, and tend to bind the employer and
employed more closely together—a point by no means to be
undervalued.

The three schools in this district in which manual industrial
occupations are most successfully carried out, are Hagley,
Cubington, and Forthampton. To Cubing ton your Lordships
have been pleased to make a grant of 91. 15s., on this account;
21. 5s. as a gratuity to the master for superintending the agri-
cultural department; and 71. 10s. to the managers for purchase
of tools.144

the school farm.

Lord Lyttelton has written to me thus of his schools
yery lately, in reply to my inquiry whether any disad-
vantages had resulted from this system:—

I am not aware of the slightest disadvantages attending them.
They seem to have produced some effect in keeping boys for
some time longer at school than they might otherwise have re-
mained, and I should suppose they are beneficial in a more direct
manner in instilling into them some knowledge of gardening,
&c.; but perhaps we can hardly judge of that yet. They find
their own seeds and plants, but pay no rent: I give them tools
and manure, from which they get no small profit.

Chapter II.

The School Farm.

" The farm" sounds rather grandly, especially as I
mean to confine my estimates and remarks to four and
a-half acres, which puts our operations on rather a homoe-
opathic scale, and relieve farmers of any painful amount
of alarm at the effect we shall be likely to produce on the
agricultural interest. This is as well, as we hope to have
a good deal of kind aid, and many useful hints, from the
experience of those around our little establishments. We
shall not fail to be rather proud of their notice, and of
any little encouragement they may be pleased to give to
our humble labours.

It must always be remembered that we do not aim at
giving the children a finished education in farming, but
simply an aptitude and handiness for labour. We want
to establish schools of useful industry, not agricultural
colleges.

The object of the cultivation of the land besides that
of training the children, is to pay for their dinners, andTHE SCHOOL FAHM.

145

leave perhaps a small surplus as a perquisite for the
master; or if this be arranged otherwise, towards a school
fund. Let us see how this can be done.

It is so obvious that any system of cultivation, and its
results, must depend so mainly on the soil and on the
skill bestowed on it, that it is almost hazardous to put
forth any general scheme or calculation. It would not,
however, suffice to leave the matter to mere assertion.
That the land may be well made to supply what we
require from it, any market gardener would be able to
vouch for, and would give information how to crop it in
his way, as the farmer would how to farm it with a degree
of skill which would render it quite needless to say any
thing about it here, were we going to adopt either of their
systems. That, however, which has been found to answer
best for schools, is a system distinct from either.

After much consideration of the matter, and taking
counsel from experienced men on the subject, it seems
that the cultivation of light loam land by spade husbandry,
with liquid manure, will be at once the most profitable for
the school and beneficial to the children. The liquid
manure which results from a large establishment, and
which is in many cases now thrown away, is a certain
source of largely increased produce from land. Then
again, the labour of boys being used for certain minute
operations in the cultivation of the ^crops, as well as in
digging and preparing the soil, is, as has been said, another
source of increased produce. This will give, if properly
managed, on a sufficient quantity of land, a return which
may be made to cover all expenses' from the dinners of
such a school, over and above the cost now incurred, and
which of course must continue to be paid whether there
be a dinner or not.

Supposing the four acres to be arable, and the half acre
meadow, it will be advisable to keep at least two or three

L146

THE SCHOOL FARM.

cows stall-fed, and as many pigs as there is food for.
This is the quantity of land, and the system adopted at
the Quatt school for several years, and the accounts there
have been kept with great accuracy.*

The cropping and rotation of crops must necessarily
vary with the character of the soil; but, in the ordinary
run of loam soil, the following has been found to be appli-
cable and productive. I shall here avail myself of the
report I . have already made to the Lords of the Committee
of Council on this subject, laid before Parliament in 1849,
with such additions and corrections as subsequent expe-
rience or information have supplied, and adapted to the
object immediately in view.

I may briefly state, that every research I make for reli-
able information on this point confirms my original view,
that no system will afford so much useful instructional
employment and moral training for the boys, and even
for. the girls, or so much profitable produce for the esta-
blishment, as one which shall comprise the following
elements :—

1st. A dairy farm.

2nd. A loam soil.

3rd. Cultivated by spade husbandry exclusively.

4th. Crops Roots and green crops, Italian rye grasses, &c.,
garden vegetables, and no grain crops.

5th. A small proportion of meadow land.

6th. Good milking cows, increasing with the crops, to be
exclusively stall-fed.

7th. As many pigs as there is food for.

8th. Drains in the cow-stalls so arranged as to collect every
atom of manure from the cows, and likewise from the
pig-cots, the stable, and the house; to run into tanks,

* I make the assertion with perfect confidence, notwithstanding the
nnjust attacks made on it by a very few persons, who chose to assume
that it was pretended that this establishment was self-supporting, just as
if 60 or 70 mouths; and by others, who wilfully misrepresented the
accounts published. They have been thoroughly tested, and are quite
trustworthy.THE SCHOOL FARM.

147

to be skilfully prepared and applied by water-cart to
the land and growing crops, and especially to the
grasses.

9th. Mineral manures skilfully applied.

10th. Gorse to be grown in all the hedge-rows and waste
corners for the cows.*

11th. Flax, to a moderate extent, for food for the cows, and
for manufacture in the winter by the children of both
sexes.f

12th. Vegetables for the house consumption, to be also liquid
manured, potatoes excepted.

13th. The growth of seeds for sale and use.

The arable land may be divided into seven equal parts,
if flax is to be grown, and into six if it is not. In the
former case, there will be ninety-one poles to each crop, in
the latter nearly one , hundred and seven.

The rotation would be as follows :—First year, imrzels
and swedes. Ridge land in [November, and in spring
redig, and manure both solid and liquid. This crop well
repays it. Sow wurzels in April, by dibbling rows in
.small ridges, well apart, and each plant eighteen inches.
Take especial care that the wurzel seed when trodden in
is not more than an inch deep in the ground, or it will
never come up. Two or three seeds in each hole. Steep
seed for twenty-four hours before sowing. More liquid
manure when plants are young. Thin the leaves in July.
Take up in October or November.

NB. If the flies attack these plants, or swedes, nothing
is so good as ivood ashes. It will effectually destroy them.
Coal ashes will do.

Second year, potatoes. The land would be ridged as
"before, in the previous December. In March, it would be
manured, dug, and planted. The crop would be off by
the latter end of August. In September the ground would

* See Paper "by Richard Spooner, Esq., M.P., on its uses. Appendix E.
f See a little work by J. Warne, Esq., of Norfolk, and also by George
Nicholls, Esq., on its culture.

L 2148

THE SCHOOL FARM.

be well dug, and manured., and Italian rye-grass sown as
soon as possible.

Third year, Italian rye-grass. The first cutting would
be about the first week in May; the second in twenty-five
days afterwards; and a third, fourth, and fifth* would
follow at intervals of nearly a month each, till the early
frosts set in. After each cutting the plants must be well
watered with liquid manure. In December the land would
be dug, and ridged as before, but not manured.

Fourth year, flax. The land should be dug over early
in April, but not manured. The seed should be in as soon
as the frost disappears. The crop would be off early in
July, and a catch crop of rape, after digging in solid
manure, might be obtained the same winter, which would
be ready in the following February or March.

Fifth year, carrots, or parsnips and turnips. The
ground should be dug, but not manured, as soon as the
last crop was off. Sow immediately then, in August, and
the crop would be off the ground during the month of
November. Ridge and manure in December.

Sixth year, cabbages. Dig and manure, and plant in
March. Crop off the ground by end of August. Manure
and dig in September, or sow vetches and clover.

Seventh year, vetches or clover. Crop in May and June.
Another catch crop might then be taken before sowing the
wurzels,*

There will, of course, under any circumstances, be some
modification of this scheme. By reducing the number of
perches to each crop, a portion of land might be reserved
for onions, parsley, spinach, and a variety of small vege-
tables, which it is useful to cultivate. Also for flowers.

Drains and Tank. The estimates of produce which are

* Mr. Dickenson, of Curzon-street, May-fair, had ten cuttings in one
year.THE SCHOOL FARM,

149

to follow, depend mainly on this mine of agricultural
wealth, and their due arrangement is thus important.
There should be one or two tanks, according to the number
of the animals, <fec. One for the excreta of all the ani-
mals, and another, quite distinct, for the privies and house
drains. There are different properties in these; and Mr,
Johnston's excellent works on the subject are beginning
to give us an insight into their due uses.

The reservoirs should contain at least 500 gallons.
They may be about twelve feet deep, and five or six in
diameter. This is the best proportion. Common labourers
can construct them. The floor is either composed of brick
or of stone work, embedded in grey lime mortar, and coated
with Parker's cement—no clayjbeing used in any part of
the tank. The sides are circular, and are walled up in the
same manner; and the top"or dome is then built by circu-
lar layers of bricks, flint, or chalk, resting on the top of
the side wall, each course advancing one-third of their
length beyond the previous layers, which are regularly
backed in, during the progress of the work, by the earth.
The top, or aperture, is secured by slabs of wood or mason
work a foot or two high. A pump of iron, or wood,* for
drawing out the liquid, is inserted; so as to be easily
removable and cleaned, if choked up.

A still cheaper tank may be made, by sinking two or
three old oil casks, which, if iron hooped, will last a few
years. They should communicate at the bottom by short
lead pipes.

The drains should be so constructed as to bring into
these tanks all the refuse, wash, and liquid of every descrip-
tion from the house, together with the night-soil of the
out-buildings and the excreta of the pigs' cots, of which

* These may be made for 15,?., of deal, about six inches square. If
bound with iron hoop, they will last a long time.150

THE SCHOOL FARM.

latter the floors should be made to slant for the purpose of
facilitating their drainage.* By far the most valuable part
of the liquid manure results from the cowstalls; and this
is one reason why dairy farms on this system are the most
lucrative, owing to the return they yield to the land for
the produce they derive from it.

I am inclined to think that the mode of constructing
drains in the cowstalls of Switzerland and Germany presents
advantages for school farms. The cattle stand on inclined
floors flagged with tiles, bricks, or planks, to which latter
there is an objection. At the lowest part of this inclined
plane (it should be slightly inclined only at the heels, or
rather beyond them), close to the heels of the cows, runs a
gutter along the whole length of the stalls. It should be
about nine inches deep by nine inches in width; this trench
should communicate with the reservoir at one end. The
trench should have a sluice door at the end next to the
tank, in order that its contents may be retained for a few
days before they are voided into the tank. Such portion
of the excreta of the cattle as does not fall or drain itself
into the trench, may be raked and swept into it, or used
as solid dung.

/ The next process is to pour a quantity of water into the
ireneh. The object of this is not only to liquify the
manure, and increase the quantity, but to assist the chemi-
cal process it must undergo. By this means the water in
the trench, in the first place, keeps the air cool, and free
from the effluvia which would otherwise arise. Cow-stall&
on this principle are much freer from odour than on the
ordinary system, without trenches. This is, however, the
least of its advantages. In the ordinary process of putre-
faction which the manure, and especially the urine, under-
goes, the escape of ammonia, in the form of gas, occasions

* I have foimd by experience that this may be overdone.THE SCHOOL FARM.

151

a considerable loss of the richest element of its manuring
property. It is, therefore, very important to add to the
compost some substance of an acid quality which may
combine with the ammonia as it is generated, and neutralize
and retain it.

The manuring properties of the liquid may be further
increased by the addition of green copperas, humus (sul-
phate of iron), or the alum of commerce, which generates
sulphate of ammonia, which is one of the strongest saline
manures in existence. When the trench is full, it is well
stirred; the sluice door is opened, and it empties itself
into the tank, where it remains till the putrefactive fer-
mentation is complete, and the caustic qualities of the
ammonia (destructive to vegetable life) are removed.

When all the ammonia is thoroughly saturated with, and
fixed by the carbonic acid, it has arrived at its proper matu-
rity. The period varies with the atmosphere. Three months
always suffices; 44 cows will yield on this process full
30,000 hogsheads of liquid, besides the straw dung, every
year. The mixture thus prepared may be applied in
autumn, winter, and spring, not only on the rye-grass, but
on barley and rape, when they are a foot high, without
injury. It may be applied to almost any growing crop
with benefit. This cannot be done with solid manure,
which can alone be applied to the land itself prior to the
sowing of the crops, and a period of one or two years
elapses before complete decomposition ensues. The grow-
ing plant, on the contrary, absorbs the salts and nutritive
properties of the liquid manure, imparted to it by direct
contact and without diminution or delay.

Much depends on the equal distribution of the liquid
over a field. I venture, therefore, to append the following
suggestions as to the means of doing this:—

The liquid is pumped from the tank into the water-cart,
of which the following is the best and simplest description,152

THE SCHOOL FARM.

being at once lighter and stronger than those usually-
adopted. A common wine-pipe will supply the cask, and
the carriage may be constructed by the commonest work-
man. The cart can be drawn by a strong pony, or it may
be made lighter still, so as to be drawn by hand. The fol-
lowing sectional elevation and plan are drawn to a scale of
a quarter of an inch to a foot. The wheels should have
broad fellies, in order not to cut deep when drawn over the
land and crops. The flow of the liquid is best effected by plac-
ing a flat board opposite the spout in a slanting direction,
with ribs of wood nailed on to it in a fan shape, in order to
spread the liquid; the liquid falling thereon, splashes and
distributes itself in the best manner on the land or crops.
The ribs are about an inch in height, and there is a narrow
piece of wood nailed at right angles on the top, to prevent
the liquid from splashing over.

A common plug is placed at the ordinary tap hole, and
being withdrawn, the liquid rushes against the board; the
advantage over the other plans being, that it not onlyTHE SCHOOL FARM.

153

spreads the liquid perfectly, but it throws it under the cart,
and is therefore more cleanly to use.

As there are no holes for the liquid to run through, as in
water carfcs, however thick, it cannot choke.*

Mr. Sillett, in his ' Practical Hints,' suggests and uses
the following barrow, which appears to be well adapted for
small plots of ground, as it can be managed by one man or
boy with ease.

The little apparatus at thg left hand handle A, enables
the driver to lower the barrel forwards. B is a trough
which receives the liquid, and the opening or slit at the
bottom can be enlarged or lessened by means of the screw
C, so as to regulate the flow of the liquid. This is made
by Messrs. Eansome and May of Ipswich.

The other tools required are the light spades and forks
and the Derbyshire hoe, which Mr. Sillett strongly recom-
mends, and with good reason. Here it is.

This is an excellent tool for cleansing and loosening the
ground between growing crops.

* It can also foe put on with garden-engines or watering-pots.154

THE SCHOOL FARM.

Here also is a most useful tool for lightening sub-soil
without the trouble of double digging.

SUB-SOIL PRONG.

The handle and shaft are like those of
a spade, but made straight; the length of
the handle being 32 inches, and that of
the lower part 20 inches, consisting of
a bar of iron made about f of an inch,
in thickness by 1^ inch, so as to present
as little resistance to the soil as pos-
sible, but terminating with a flat spear-
like head, C, which operates on the sub-
soil only. A is a flat piece of iron about
5 inches wide, ih. order to bear on the
top soil, which acts as a fulcrum. It is
thrust down into the ground like a spade,
and the foot being placed on the bar D,
the handle is depressed, just as in dig-
ging, only that no attempt is made to
lift the soil, the handle being depressed about 2 feet the
work is done, for the spear head, operated on by the lever
power, has disturbed the sub-soil and opened it. It
should be used at 1^ feet distances both ways to act effec-
tually, or in lighter soils 2 feet. It can of course be used
when the plants are growing, and between them as well as
before they are put in. I can attest its practical useful-
ness. This invention is due to Mr. Crutchley, the master
of the Market Drayton workhouse, whose ingenious inven-
tions and skill in gardening have raised produce far ex-
ceeding what I have calculated on for farm schools, but no
more than the same appliances may produce anywhere
with fair soil to work on. The spear point 'comes'
about 3 inches.

So much for tools.THE SCHOOL FARM.

155

The course of cropping has been adopted with reference
not only to the food required for the animals, but for the
dinners which the potatoes, parsnips, carrots, turnips, and
part of the cabbage, besides the smaller vegetables, will
directly supply.

The Italian rye-grass is one of the most prolific crops
known. It has been cut by Mr. Dickenson, of May Fair,
London, ten times in the year; four times is under the
average. It is, in fact, a condensed meadow, supplying the
use of four times the same amount of grass through the
summer months. Adopt it whenever the meadow land is
insufficient. The meadow should be made into hay, if
possible; two crops got off it by liquid manuring.*

Cows always require a little hay to amuse them when
milking, and also to digest the roots which will form their
staple food through the whole of the winter months. By
no means omit the swedes. They should be given with
the wurzel, in the proportion of two swedes and three
wurzels (and so grown). These swedes counteract the
watery and aperient properties of the wurzel, which alone
impoverishes the milk; and the wurzels counteract the too
stimulating properties of the swede, and prevent them
from affecting the taste of the milk, which, however, may
be also prevented by that extreme and spotless cleanliness
which is all important in the dairy, churn, and pans.
The pigs will supply plenty of fresh pork and bacon.
The butter or the milk should be all sold. It fetches a
fair price anywhere, if good. In towns, a great deal more
may be made usually by milk than butter, but some should
always be made, if only to teach the little maidens how.t

* It is most important that it should be well drained, if needed. See
an economical mode of doing this in Mr. Sillett's pamphlet.

f If the dairy is carried to any extent, a dairy-maid will be required,
whose keep and wages it will then repay.166

THE SCHOOL FARM.

As the dairy is the great source of the produce, it is
important to ascertain what amount of food is requisite for
stall-fed cows. An experiment has been made, and it is
from its result that my estimate has been made of the
number of cows which could be maintained by stall-feeding
from the roots and seeds derivable from the land in
question. It has been found that a stall-fed cow, well
supplied with food, consumes in twenty-four hours no less
than from 150 to 170 lbs. weight of green-meat in summer,
and 150 lbs. of roots in winter, with a very small quantity
of hay, some of which I think would be obtained from the
clovers and rye-grass. The breeds most esteemed for milk-
ing appear to be the Yorkshire and Irish; and middled-sized
cows are generally deemed the most advantageous, as yield-
ing more milk in proportion to their feed than the large
heavy cows.

There are few branches of husbandry which are more
lucrative than that of dairy farms. It is not easy to
ascertain from tenant farmers the amount of produce
attainable from a cow. Their yield in quantity of milk,
and again, in its quality, varies very greatly. I have heard
of well-attested instances where 28?. and 30?. have been
made in a single year by the calf and milk of a single cow,
in other cases it will not exceed 10?.; but if due care be
taken and a fair price paid for good milkers, there is no
doubt that an average of 16?. is below rather than above the
gross annual value of the produce of a fair cow. Always
buy young cows with a calf by their side, sell the calf, and
sell the cow when dry, and buy again, unless you get a
first-rate milker. Buy Mr. Cuthbert Johnson's little book
on the Modern Dairy* and attend to all he says. The
mode of feeding, milking, and managing cows at Quatt,

* Published by Ridgway, priceTHE SCHOOL FARM.

157

where great success has resulted, was thus described lately
by one of the boys employed there:—•

The length of the cowhouse is 24 feet 6 inches, in which there
stand three cows, one pony, and a part for the calves' cot. The
standing-place for each cow is 4 feet 2 inches, which leaves 8
feet 4 inches for the pony, and 3 feet 8 inches for the calves'
cot.

The width is 16 feet 6 inches, out of which there is 3 feet 1
inch for passage before cows, to give them their food, 2 feet 4
inches for feeding troughs, 7 feet 6 inches for standing-place for
each cow, and 3 feet 7 inches for causeway behind them.

The drains run into a large tank which lies west of the cow-
house, and holds 1400 gallons, and also receives the drainage
from the privies, pigsties, and washhouse, which lie south of the
cowhouse.

The cows are always tied up, summer and winter, except for
an hour or two, when they are let into a piece of ground about
a quarter of an acre in size, for the purpose of airing and ex-
ercise.

Their food is carried to them, and consists of wurzels, carrots,
hay, swedes, cabbage, vetches, rape, and Italian rye-grass, the
latter of which is cut three or four times during the year. The
first green crop that comes into use is rape, which is sown the
previous autumn, and comes into use about March; after that
vetches, which were sown last October; after that, early cabbage
and grass, carried to them with a little hay. We then find
ourselves at about midsummer, at which time we have plenty of
green food, such as grass, oxcabbages, thinnings of the wurzels
and carrots, &c. We then give them wurzel leaves stripped off
and carried to them, with a little grass and hay, which lasts till
about JSTovember. We then give them wurzels and carrot-tops,
with the remainder of the cabbages, with a little grass, and about
8 lbs. of hay per day, which last till about this time, when we
have to depend upon the roots through the winter till March,
when the green food comes in again. The following is an ac-
count of the cows dietary:—

At 5 o'clock in the morning, they have 28 lbs. wurzels, which
last till milking time. After milking they have a few swedes.

At 9 o'clock they have a little hay, and then go to water.

At 12 o'clock they have 28 lbs. carrots.

At 4 o'clock they have 23 lbs. wurzels.

At 6 o'clock they are milked, and then have a few swedes.

At 8 o'clock they have 28 lbs. carrots.

At 9 o'clock they are supped up with hay, and left for the
night.158

THE SCHOOL FARM.

The cultivation of flax appears to afford a prospect of
success on school farms, both as regards the value of its
seed for feeding cattle, the saleability of, and profit deriv-
able from the flax itself, as well as the employment in the
operations of steeping, stacking, scutching, and spinning
it affords to the children. The annual value of the crop
varies considerably; the flax averages from 201. to 251. per
acre, and the seed from 51. to 6£, in Flanders; but in
England it will usually fetch much more. It appears from
the following work on flax in Flemish Husbandry, pub-
lished by the c Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know-
ledge,' that by the system of husbandry I propose to
adopt, very large crops may be fairly reckoned on:—

For this purpose a surplus of tillage and manure is given to
each crop, so that the soil is deepened and ameliorated at each
successive step, and is brought to as perfect a state as it will
admit of by the time the turn comes to sow flax. This may re-
move the surprise which is naturally excited by the amount of
tillage and manure given for each crop, which appears at first
sight far greater than can be required. The quantity of liquid
manure poured over the light lands, year after year, cannot fail
to make them rich, and the frequent trenching with the spade
must, in the end, transform the whole soil, to a considerable
depth, into a compost of rich vegetable and animal matter, inti-
mately mixed with the natural earths. It is, in fact, an accu-
mulation of humus, which is the best preparation to ensure a
good crop of flax. It is not, therefore, to the immediate prepara-
tion of the soil for the flax that its abundance or good quality
is to be chiefly ascribed, but to a gradual system of amelioration,
which has brought the soil into the high condition required for
this plant.

The following books are strongly recommended, as
containing admirable rules, and most valuable informa-
tion on all points required for the successful cultivation of
the ground, and the management of the stock and crops, as
well on the subject of spade husbandry, as on the manage-
ment of cows, pigs, &c.:—

The Classhook on Agriculture, by The Irish Society.THE SCHOOL FAKM.

159

C. Johnston's Book on the Management of the Dairy Cow.

Silletfs Practical System of Fork and Spade Husbandry. A
Shilling Pamphlet, with Drawings of Tools.

Manual of Field Gardening. (Simpkin and Marshall.)

The Finchley Manual of Industry.—On Gardening.

Cottage Gardening. (A reprint from The Agricultural Jour-
nal.) By James Main, A.L.S. Printed by W. Clowes &
Son, London.

The Flax Grower. By George JSTicholls, Esq. Knight,
London.

Stephens on Field Gardening.

EXPENSES.

The expence of the children's dinner will average, from
actual experiment, about tenpence per week per head.
If it much exceeds this, either an extravagant price
is given for the food, or too large a proportion of
meat, which need not exceed five ounces each, twice a
week.*

On the amount of land we have taken as our estimate,
four acres and a half, there would be probably thirteen
working boys, and say four working girls, to feed. The
produce of the land, after deducting all expenses, could,
according to the actual experiments made (of which some
fair specimens of the results are given in Appendix D),
scarcely fail to pay for the dinners of these children.
Supposing, however, that it did; it would, at any rate,
more than suffice for the allowance to the parents of some
return for the labour of their children.

Thus would the great object be attained, of giving the
parents such an interest in the child's labour as would
reconcile them to it, and also to his longer stay at school.

When the land is brought, on this system, into full
"bearing, the produce is often far beyond the amount calcu-
lated on here.

* They would be pretty sure to have it also on Sundays at home.160

THE SCHOOL FARM.

Farmers, indeed, who are accustomed to the results only
of plough husbandry, are very incredulous of high re-
turns. Their judgment is based on a system of cultiva-
tion which costs comparatively very little labour, and
makes proportionably small produce. This is a system
which requires, and has the advantage of a great deal of
labour, and proportionably large produce. ' Ay,' says the
farmer, 1 but look at the cost of this extra labour.' We
do look, and beg him to look : the boys supply it—boys
who were idle before. It costs nothing. And so far from
its being incredible that hearty and healthy boys and girls,
with skill to direct them, can earn their own dinners, it
would be incredible that they could not, and a great deal
more besides.

There is a capital required to start with; but, as regards
stock, it should not be too large at first. Tools, moreover,
are not expensive. But for these things grants are obtain-
able, and also in aid of the schoolmaster's salary in virtue
of his industrial superintendence.

It is scarcely necessary to go into the various modes
whereby a smaller adoption of the industrial system might
be accomplished by a smaller amount of land and fewer
animals; or by nothing beyond a vegetable garden, from
which there might or might not be funds enough to give
the dinner. The best mode of raising a large enough
return to do so in this case, would be by growing and
selling agricultural seeds. They are, when really genuine,
always saleable, and fetch good prices. At the Quatt
school an experiment was made last year, which yielded a
very astonishing produce, far exceeding 30£. per acre.
This hint will prove worth attention. The watching,
collecting, sorting, and subsequent care required of the
seeds, will afford plenty of useful occupation to the
children.

Where a dinner is impracticable, it will be always neees-THE SCHOOL FAKM.

161

sary to give the children a return for the labour, either in
kind, by a share of the produce, or in money, to the
parents.

By some one, therefore, of the several scales and schemes
suggested, it is humbly hoped that the practicability of
industrial farm schools, at least for any country locality, has
been demonstrated; and if the temporal means are thus
easy, and the return ample, the true friends of education may
rely on it, that the moral fruits will be tenfold more so.APPENDIX.

A.

MISSTATEMENTS OF INCREASE OP SCHOOLS.

As an example of the reckless manner in which it has been
attempted to mislead the public as to the increase of schools, by
some of the opponents of State aid, Mr. Edward Baines com-
mences his fourth letter, addressed a few years ago to Lord
John Russell, with this passage :

41 believe I shall be able to show, to the conviction of every
candid man, that the prevalent notions concerning the insuffi-
ciency of the means of education in this country are extremely
erroneous*—that the impression which Dr. Hook's pamphlet is
calculated to produce on this subject is exceedingly wide of the
truth,—and that no deficiency exists wrhich the people them-
selves, without any parliamentary compulsion, are not able with
ease to supply.'

He arrives at the conclusion that day schools were required,
when he wrote in 1846, for 1,945,111 children, from which he
does not deduct the children of the middle and higher classes.

Mr. Baines avails himself of the Returns of Education in 1833,
which resulted as follows :—

4 EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES.

Scholars in Infant Schools .... 89,005
„ in Daily Schools..... 1,187,942

Total in Infant and Daily Schools 1,276,947
Scholars in Sunday Schools . . . 1,548,890 5

Mr. Baines adopts this return without any remark as to what
classes of day schools it comprises. And as he afterwards adds
to it those established by grants from the Privy Council Office,
which are exclusively given to schools for the humbler classes,
the inference at first is that Earl Kerry's returns relate also to
such schools only. Now in the very page before that in whichAPPENDIX*

168

the summary is given in the report (p. 1331), under the head of
4 Remarks on the Summary in England and Wales,' the fol-
lowing clause is conspicuously printed:—

4 2. Daily Schools,—include Colleges (except those at Oxford
and Cambridge), Grammar Schools, Boarding Schools,
Proprietary, JSIational and Lancasterian Schools, and
Preparatory Schools of every description where the
children remain beyond seven years of age.'

This passage occurs in the remarks which introduce the sum-
mary Mr. Baines adopts, and render it useless to his purpose.
The return comprises, for instance, the great schools of 4 West-
minster,' 4 Harrow,' 4 Rugby,' 4 Winchester,' &c. together, as
he was informed, with every Boarding and Proprietary School
in England, and yet, knowing this, he did not scruple to couple
it, without note or comment, to an estimate of schools exclusively
provided for the working classes, and he presents the whole as a
statement of the amount of school accommodation for the hum-
bler classes, accompanied by a positive assertion that it settles
the question which relates exclusively to a deficiency of schools
for the humbler classes—for of none other is there a question,
and of none other was he treating. Not satisfied with this, he
actually takes credit for a larger number of scholars than these
Returns give,—talks about their 4 incompleteness'—and on the
score of some alleged omissions in three or four towns, sums up
"by saying,

4 Thus, thirteen years back, we have official evidence of
1,276,947 children being in the Day Schools of England and
Wales; but those numbers were confessedly below the truth,—in
some important towns, to the extent of one-third.'

(To which he annexes as a note, what follows:)

4 Probably two-thirds of the children in Infant Schools would
be below five years of age; but, considering the admitted defect-
iveness of the returns, I shall be more than justified in consider-
ing the whole 1,276,947 children as of the school age.'

He proceeds to estimate the number of scholars for whom
school accommodation has been afforded since 1833, and which is
alleged to amount to 600,000 or 650,000, and says:—

4 Let us take the smaller number, and add it to Lord Kerry's
incomplete returns.

Day Scholars in England and Wales in 18B3 . . 1,276,947
Schools provided since 1833 for...... 600,000

Total . . .

M 2

. 1,876,9471 u

APPENDIX.

4Here then, my Lord, are the results

Day Schools acquired for .... .
„ Existing for.....

Present deficiency . .

1,876,947

1,945,111

68,164

41 lay those figures before your Lordship and the country.
"What need I say more ?'

Mr. Baines' reason is now obvious for making no deduction
from the number who ought to be at school on account of those
who belong to the non-working classes. He intended to include
them in the returns of those who were at school in 1833. He
well knew that, inasmuch as there is no deficiency of schooling
for the richer class of children, those among them at school
would be a far larger proportion of the whole number there?
than they would of the total number of children of the school
age. He therefore omitted to deduct them from the number
who ought to.be at school, in order to include them among those
who are at school, and the result is, whether intentional or noty
a gross mis-statement of the facts in question.

It is by aid of Dr. Hook's estimate (whose accuracy Mr. Baines,
in the former part of his letter, had demolished, but who now errs on
Mr. Baines' side of the question), and with the Minutes of Council
before him, that Mr. Baines arrives at the conclusion that the
number of scholars from 1833 till 1846 had increased by 600,000.

He says, 4 Those schools would probably supply accommoda-
tion for 493,650 children, according to the average ratio of the
number of children to the grants of money observed in the
Minutes.'

The number which the schools, aided by these grants, are to
accommodate, is in each case published in the annual Minutes of
Council, and instead of being 4 probably' for 493,650 children
and for 3,291 schools from 1833 to 1846, the numbers entered
opposite to each grant under the head of 4 number of children ta
be provided for in schools at six square feet each,' amount, from
1840 till 1846, to 271,461 children in 1280 schools.-* This was,
it seems, the result of the grants of 1840—45, amounting during^
that period, according to Dr. Hook, to 275,000/. In like pro-
portion, the grants, from 1833—39, of 120,000/., would provide ^
accommodation for 118,455 scholars and 558 schools, giving a

* This is of course exclusive of Scotch schools, but including all grants
for the enlargement as well as erection of schools in England and Wales.APPENDIX.

165

total accommodation, from 1833 to 1846, for 389,916 scholars
(instead of 493,650), and 183-5 schools (instead of 3291). Di\
Hook sums up with the following wild supposition :—

' If we suppose (and this would be a liberal estimate) that 100
such private schools have been annually erected without Par-
liamentary aid since 1833, then 1300 elementary schools (the
results of unaided private benevolence) must be added to 3291
schools built with public aid; and the proportionate number of
scholars accommodated since 1833 may perhaps be raised to
600,000 or 650,000. But this latter estimate must be regarded
merely as an approximation to the truth.'—pp. 8, 9.

And this is termed 4 a moderate and cautious calculation/ and
forthwith adopted on the authority of a writer whose trustworthi-
ness has just been demolished! Where are these 1300 schools
erected by private benevolence in thirteen years without any aid
from the state? Can a quarter or even a tithe of them be
named ? Can Dr. Hook ? I greatly doubt it. Until Mr.
Baines or his authority does so, I must be pardoned for question-
ing the accuracy of the statement, which I believe to be sheer
surmise.

Supposing even that Dr. Hook were right in his estimate of
the number of scholars for which accommodation is provided
since 1833, what has this to do with the question ? Mr. Baines
undertook to show, not the area of schoolrooms, but " the num-
ber of scholars actually in the day schools.' I quote his own
words (pp. 25 and 28.) Does it follow that because there are
rooms built for a given number of scholars that that number are
in them ? The reverse is, if not a necessary consequence, at
least the probable result, for schoolrooms are usually built with
view to an increase of numbers, and the complaints of school-
masters are almost universal that the attendance is scanty and
irregular. He is perpetually confusing the number of scholars
with school accommodation, as if they meant the same thing.
The question is as to the size and soundness of the kernel, and he
makes a parade of shells and husks !

I shall not follow the example of making guesses at the num-
ber of children actually in the schools in question, being per-
fectly persuaded that no adequate means or record exist for
ascertaining them,^ but will recapitulate the blunders of this
palpably exaggerated estimate. In the first place, Mr. Baines
cites returns of the scholars in schools of every description as

* The returns in the late census are not yet published, but when they
are, we shall, perhaps, have hut little more knowledge of the facts, owing
ito the defective means of obtaining correct returns.166

APPENDIX.

being insufficient in an estimate of the schools of the poorer
classes. Secondly, he includes among them Infant Schools,
which do not properly fall within the category of Day Schools
at all, and relate chiefly to children not within the age which
forms the scope of the calculation. Thirdly, he couples an esti-
mate of scholars with an estimate of the amount of school accom-
modation, adding them together and taking credit for the latter
precisely as for the former. Fourthly, this estimate of school
accommodation since 1833 is exaggerated, and comprises, as
before, Infant Schools. It is safe to say that the conclusion is
widely above the truth and utterly without effect or bearing upon
the question.* Nor would it have been worth while to have
noticed these mis-calculations at all, but for the fact that, strange
to say, they are, I believe, the latest estimate which has been put
forth on the subject, and has obtained some degree of credence.

* Tor fuller details of these mistakes, see A Plea for Schools. Ridgway,
1847.APPENDIX.

167

APPENDIX B.

CRIMINAL OFFENCES DURING 1848, 1849, AND 1850, COMPARED
WITH POPULATION, ETC.

Counties.	Popula- tion in 1851.	Per- sons to each 100 acres.	Criminal Offences.			Criminal Offences, in each 1000 Persons.			Per Centage signing Register  with Marks in 1848.
			*  Grave.	*  Minor.	Total.	Grave	Minor	Total	
Beds . . .	129,789	43	85	442	527	*65	3*40		52-6
Berks . .	199,154	41	170	866	1036	•85	4-34		41-5
Bucks . .	143,670	31	137	702	839	•95	4-88		49-2
Camb. . .	191,856	35	129	726	855	•67	3*78		44-7
Chesh. . .	423,438	65	408	2423	2831	•96	5-72		44-5
Cornw. . .	356,662	42	152	623	775	•42	1-74		42-2
Cumb. . .	195,487	20	63	372	435	•32	1-90		23*3
Derby . .	260,707	40	117	647	764	•44	2-48		359
Devon . .	572,207	34	277	2347	2624	•48	4-10		31-7
Dorset . .	177,597	29	96	707	803	•54	3-98		36-9
Durh. . .	411,532	62	166	847	1013	•40	2-05		36-4
Essex . .	343,916	34	298	1609	1907	•86	4-67		47*1
Glouc. . .	419,475	53	360	2665	3025	•85	6-35		33*2
Heref. . .	99,112	18	129	635	764	1-30	6*40		41*0
Herts . .	173,963	43	144	837	981	•82	4-81		50-6
Hunts . .	60,320	25	40	247	287	•66	4-09		45*0
Kent . .	619,207	63	456	2502	2958	•73	4-04		56*8
Lane. . .	2,063,913	200	1440	8968	10,408	•60	4-34		50-3
Leic. . .	234,938	45	112	833	945	•47	3-54		38'6
Line. . .	400,266	23	190	1371	1561	•47	3-42		38-0
Middx. . .	1,895,710	1,059	1,629	10,820	12,449	•85	5*70		33-0
Monm. . .	177,165	55	177	924	1101	•99	5*21		56-5
Norf. . .	433,803	33	252	1775	2027	•58	4-09		443
Northam. .	213,784	33	132	750	882	•61	3*50		40-9
Northumb. .	303,535	26	175	570	745	•57	1-87		29*1
Notts . .	294,438	55	121	909	1030	•41	3*08		40*2
Gxon . .	170,286	37	105	746	851	•61	4-38		36-1
Rutl. . .	24,272	25	23	91	114	•94	3-74		29.8
Salop . .	245,019	28	146	813	959	•59	331		48*8
Somers . .	456,237	43	397	2130	2527	•87	4*66		36-9
South. . .	402,033	38	247	1918	2165	•61	4-77		36*6
Stafford. .	630,506	83	455	2727	3182.	•72	4-32		51-6
Suff. . .	335,991	37	194	1310	1504	•57	3*89		46-1
Surrey . . Sussex . .	684,805	144	524	2911	3435	•76	4*25		37-8
	339,428	37	201	1327	1528	•59	3'90		33*1
Warw. . »	479,979	83	469	2578	3047	•97	5-37		36*7
Westm.. .	58,380	12	20	154	m	•34	2-63		17'2
Wilts	241,003	28	169	1134	1303	•70	4-70		45-1
Wore. .	258,762	55	321	1620	1941	1-24	6-26		42-3
York . .	1,788,767	49	1053	4920	5973	•58	2-75		42*0
Wales, N. .	404,160	20	182	804	986	•45	1*98		55-6
Wales, S. .	607,496	22	267	1450	1717	•43	2-38		55-2
Totals & 7 Averages J	17,922,768	48	12,228	72,750	84,978	•67	4-05	4-74	38-31

* The grave offences consist of offences against the person, and offences
against property committed with violence.

The minor offences are mainly offences against property without violence;
and also all malicious offences against property, forgery, and all other offences
tried at assizes and sessions.168

APFENDIX.

APPENDIX C.

SCRIPTURE PROOFS AND PRECEPTS.

No. 1.

©crtl'g Sttrtfcutes*

God's Greatness and Omnipresence.—One God and Father
of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. JZphes.
iv. 6.

In the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Isa. xxvi. 4.

His Omniscience.—God is greater than your heart, and
knoweth all things. 1 John iii. 20.

Thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men,
Jer. xxxii. 19.

His Justice.—A God of truth and without iniquity, just and
right is he. Deut. xxxii. 4.

^ His Love and Mercy.—God so loved the world, that he gave
Ms only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life. John iii. 16.

^ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends. John xv. 13.

For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great
kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Joel ii. 13.

His Faithfulness.—The Lord is faithful, who shall stablish
you, and keep you from evil. 2 Thess. iii. 3.

®i)e ©rumples of i?aI&atton.

Our Sinful Nature.—We were by nature the children of
wrath. JEjphes. ii. 3.

The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
1 Cor. ii. 14.

t-A.ll have sinned. Mom. v. 12.

I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. 'Psalm li. 5.

The Punishment of Sin.—The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord*
Mom. vi. 23.APPENDIX.

169

Salvation Offered to All.—Whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. Rev. xxii. 17.

For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salva-
tion by our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thess. v. 9.

^Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Rom. x. 13.

And he is the propitiation for our sins : and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John ii. 2.

J?arable.—The Marriage Supper. LuTce xiv. 16.

Christ, Sole Means of Salvation.—I determined not to
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1 Cor. ii. 2.

I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh
unto the Father, but by me. John xiv. 6.

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which
is Jesus Christ. 1 Cor. iii. 11.

Parable.—The Vine and the Branches. John xv. 1.

The Atonement by Christ.—For he is our peace, who hath
made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall ot* parti-
tion between us; and that he might reconcile both unto God in
one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. JSphes.
ii. 14 and 16.

We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
we have now received the atonement. Rom. v. 11.

We are bought with a price. 1 Cor. vii. 23.

Grace.—For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that
not of yourselves : it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any
man should boast. JEphes. ii. 8.

My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made per-
fect in weakness. 2 Cor. xii. 9.

Faith.—Without faith it is impossible to please God. Heb.
xi. 6.

^Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
eternal life. John iii. 15.

He that believeth on me shall never thirst. John vi. 35.

He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. John vi. 47

Parable.—The Wedding Garment. Matt. xxii. 11.

But its.

i/ Brotherly Love.—Love is the fulfilling of the law. Rom.
xiii. 10.

l^A new commandment give I unto you, That ye love one
another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By170

APPENDIX.

this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love
one to another. John xiii. 34,35.

K Love as brethren. 1 Peter iii. 8.

P-Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
Gal. vi. 2.

^ Charity.—Above all these things put on charity, which is the
/bond of perfectness. Col. iii. 14.

I He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and
\ that which he hath given will he pay him again. Prov. xix. 17.
\ Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver
him in time of trouble. Psalm xli. 1.

> Forgiveness or Injuries.—If ye forgive not men their tres-
f passes, neither will your Father forgiye your trespasses. Matt.
vi. 15.

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
i them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
Vjyou, and persecute you. Matt. v. 44.

Parables.—The Good Samaritan. Luke x. 25. The Un-
merciful Servant. Matt. xviii. 23.

Gentleness.—The servant of the Lord must not strive; but
be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. 2 Tim. ii. 24.

V-^IYatchfulness.—"Watch therefore, for ye know neither the
day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh. Matt. xxv.
13.

The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 1 Thess.
v. 2.

Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be
sober. 1 Thess. v. 6.

Parable.—The Ten Virgins. Matt. xxv. 1.

Repentance.—Repent ye therefore and be converted, that
your sins may be blotted out. Acts iii. 19.

t^I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one
sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just per-
sons, which need no repentance. Luke xv. 7.

Parables.—The Prodigal Son. Luke xv. II. The Barren
Fig Tree. Luke xiii. 6.

Industry.—The hand of the diligent maketh rich. Prov. x. 4.
This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of
bread, and abundance of idleness was in her. JEzek. xvi. 49.

Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall
suffer hunger. Prov. xix. 15.

Parable.—The Talents. Matt. xxv. 14.

i^—UsE or Instruction.—-Whoso loveth instruction, lovethknow-
ledge : but he that hateth reproof is brutish. Prov. xii. 1.APPENDIX,

171

Search the Scriptures. John v. 39.

t<Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be
wise in the latter end. Prov. xix. 20.

lJFooIs hate knowledge. Prov. i. 22.

Parable.—The Sower and the Seed. Matt. xiii. 18.

Truthfulness.—Lying lips are abomination to the Lord; but
they that deal truly are his delight. Prov. xii. 22.

//Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with
his neighbour: for we are members one of another. JEphes.
iv. 25.

Prayer.—Watch ye therefore, and pray always. Luke
xxi. 36.

H/Yatch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. Matt.
xxvi. 41.

Parable.—The Importunate Widow. Luke xviii. 1.

Love of the World.^What shall it profit a man, if he shall
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? Mark viii. 36.

Set your affections on things above, not on things on the
earth. Col. iii. 2.

Parable.—Dives and Lazarus. Luke xvi. 19—26.

Obedience.—Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for
this is right. Ephes. vi. 1.

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves.
JELeb. xiii. 17.

See the Fifth Commandment.

Humility.—He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. Prov.
xxviii. 26.

/-Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little
child shall in no wise enter therein. Luke xviii. 17.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God,
that he may exalt you in due time. 1 Peter v. 6.

Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted. LuTce xiv. 11.

Parables.—The Wedding Booms. Luke xiv. 8. The Pha-
risee and Publican. Luke xviii. 10.

Good works.^If ye love me, keep my commandments. John
xiv. 15.

He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments,
is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his
word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know
we that we are in him. 1 John ii. 4, 5.

v<Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
James ii. 17.

Parable.—The Barren Fig Tree. Luke xiii. 6,in

APPENDIX.

SCRIPTURE PROOFS AND PRECEPTS.

No. 2.

^	Crjuttj).

v/Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Matt, xxviii. 19.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. 2 Cor.
xiii. 14.

©tin'mtg of Cijt'fet.

v Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the
government shall be upon his shoulder : and his name shall be
called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah ix. 6.

And this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord

OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. JcT. XXiii. 6'.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. John i. 1.

In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Col.
ii. 9.

Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness : God
was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels,
preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received
up into glory. 1 Tim. iii. 16.

But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever
and ever. JECeb. i. 8.

©t&mttg tl)e $%olv

The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Gen.
i. 2.

The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me. Isaiah xlviii.
16.

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
Twice i. 35.APPENDIX.

173

"Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost ?
* # Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. Acts
v. 3, 4.

iThe Lord is that Spirit. 2 Cor. iii. 17.

CIjc ffeclt) ©IjoSt prompt!) from t!)e dfatijn' anfc
tije g?on.

"When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you
from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth
from the Father, he shall testify of me. John xv. 26.

Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. GaL iv. 6.

Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ
-which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. 1 Peter
i. 11.

SttvflmttS of tfje Sob ©Jjogt.

He Gives Life.—The Spirit is life. Horn, viii. 10.

It is the Spirit that quickeneth. John vi. 63.

He is Omnipresent.—Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ?
or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up into
heaven, thou art there ; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou
art there. IPs. cxxxix. 7, 8.

He is Eternal.—Who through the eternal Spirit offered
himself without spot to God. Seb. ix. 14.

He is Eternal.—The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. 1 Cor. ii. 10.

He is Faithful and True.—It is the Spirit that beareth
witness, because the Spirit is truth. 1 John v. 6.

He is Holy.—Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. JPsalm
ii. 11.

Grieve not the holy Spirit of God. JSphes. iv. 30.

He is Loving.—The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.
John xiv. 26.

The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which he hath given us. Bom. v. 5,174

APPENDIX.

©perattons antf ©tfts a£ t^e ?talg (Sijogt.

Heavenly "Wisdom.—He shall teach you all things, and
bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said
unto you. John xiv. 26.

No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost. 1 Cor. xii. 3.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of
wisdom and understanding, the spirit of council and might, the
spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. Isaiah xi. 2.

The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
1 Cor. ii. 11.

Regeneration.—That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John iii. 6.

Justification.—And such were some of you; but ye are
washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name
of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Cor. vi. 11.

Sanctification.—God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of
the truth. 2 Thess. ii. 13.

The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness,
and truth. JBphes. v. 9.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Gal. v. 22.

Adoption.—As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of
bondage again to fear ; but ye have received the Spirit of adop-
tion, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Horn*
viii. 14—16.

Cjrtraortttnarg ©pevattong oi tlje Stol#

Inspiration.—The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God. JEphes. vi. 17.

The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
2 JPeter i. 21.

Miraculous Powers.—To another the gifts of healing by
the same spirit; to another the working of miracles; to an-
other prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to anotherAPPENDIX.

175

divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.
1 Cor. xii. 9, 10.

Knowledge of Futurity.—And the Holy Ghost was upon
him; and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he
should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Luke
ii. 25, 26.

Mnitv iif

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Deut. vi. 4.
To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all
things, and we in him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are
all things, and we by him. 1 Cor. viii. 6.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of alL
JEJphes. iv. 5, 6.

See also the First and Second Commandments.

®l)e ^Comment.

He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for
our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and
with his stripes we are healed. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. He was cut off out of the land of the living :
for the transgression of my people was he stricken. Isaiah liii.
S, 6, 7.

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world. John i. 29.

I/The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
1 John i. 7.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. 1 Cor. v. 7.

t^Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. Heb. ix. 28.

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us. Gal. iii. 13.

C|)rfct'g JXUtttattou ant? intercession.

Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access by faith into
this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of
God. Bom. v. 1, 2.176

APPENDIX.

atsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give
it you. John xvi. 23.

He is the Mediator of the New Testament. Ileb. ix. 15.
rj- There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man,
the man Christ Jesus. 1 Tim. ii. 5.

If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous. 1 John ii. 1.

He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the trans-
gressors. Isaiah liii. 12.

^ Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come
unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for
them. Ileb. vii. 25.

S&Ig Spirits ifnterceggum.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know
not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the
mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints
according to the will of God. Mom. viii. 26, 27.

SPrager tit tf)e |Janu of Stestis.

v/whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the
Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything
in my name, I will do it. John xiv. 13, 14.

i/" Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. JEphes. v. 20.

Js>octal antt Ihtjbltc Worship.

Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on
earth, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done
for them of my Father which is in heaven. UFor where two
or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them. Matt, xviii. 19, 20.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the
manner of some is, but exhorting one another. Ileb. x. 25.APPENDIX,

177

®i)e Sacraments'.

Baptism.—"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king-
dom of God. John iii. 5.

Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Matt, xxviii. 19.

^Lord's Supper.—And he took bread, and gave thanks, and
brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body,
which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Like-
wise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new Tea*
tamentin my blood, which is shed for you. Lulce xxii. 19, 20.
l^'As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show
the Lord's death till he come. 1 Cor. xi. 26.

©uttes.

Keeping the Sabbath.—Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and
reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. Lev. xix. 30.

See also the Fourth Commandment.

Abstinence prom Profane Swearing.—Above all things,
my brethren, swear not: neither by heaven, neither by the
earth, neither by any other oath; but let your yea be yea, and
your nay, nay, lest ye fall into condemnation. James v. 12.

Bless them which persecute you : bless and curse not. JRom.
xii. 14.

Temperance.—Every man that striveth for the mastery is
temperate in all things. I keep under my body and bring it
into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached
to others, I myself should be a castaway. 1 Cor. ix. 25, 27.

Sobriety.—Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it
giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At
the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
jProverbs xxiii. 31, 32.

Chastity.—Flee fornication. .1 Cor. vi. 18.

Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Ueb. xiii. 4.
v^Ionesty.—Render therefore unto all their dues. Owe no
man anything, but to love one another. Mom. xiii. 7, 8.

Clje dfuialJLu&gment.

^The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord, jRom. vi. 23.

N178

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX D.

PRODUCE OF FIELD GARDENING.

Market Drayton.

19th March, 1851.

In answer to your letter of the 17th instant, I am sorry it is
not in my power to give you the exact account of the time, and
the number of the men and boys employed in the cultivation of
our small spot of land. We have very rarely in the summer time
more than two or three old men that are able to do anything in
the garden, so that I am obliged to use the boys for what is
done, and as our garden has always a crop on it the labour is
very light, and is done as the land becomes vacant. The produce
has not made so much in money value this year as usual, in con-
sequence of the prejudice raised in the Staffordshire potteries at
the time of the cholera against the consumption of cabbage, and
it is on that market that the people of Market Drayton depend
for the sale of their garden produce; so that I was forced to sell
at 3d. per dozen, what I had used to sell at 6d. or 7d. a, dozen ;
in fact, I sold more last year for 71: 155. 8\d., than I did the year
before for 16/., and the crops occupied the land longer for the
smaller sum than they did for the larger one. My garden looks
extremely well at this time ; it is all set but one small flat, which
I intend to sow to-morrow (if the weather be fine), and has
only one fault, which is being too full of manure, and yet I have
some thousands of gallons of liquid manure that I do not know
what to do with. I am happy to inform you that the Guardians
have purchased upwards of five acres of common land to erect a
new workhouse upon, which will give us a good opportunity for
training the children to habits of industry, the employment of
such of the old men as are able to do a little, as well as afford an
opportunity for making the best of all the refuse that is unavoid-
ably caused by a large family; in fact I shall rigidly endeavour
to apply the precept ' Gather up the crumbs, that nothing be lost,'
to all that comes under my care ; for I have long been convinced
that no person ought to waste anything that can be turned to a
profitable account, but what they can create themselves; and we
all ought to consider that one atom wasted has a tendency to
produce scarcity, which ultimately falls with the greatest severity
upon the poor of the land, who are the least able to bear it; and
yet unfortunately, from the want of a better education, the poorAPPENDIX.

179

are the greatest wasters. Below is a statement of the proceeds
of 3J roods 15 poles of land, for the last year, under the most
unfavourable circumstances.

£ s. d.

Vegetables consume^ in the house 12,488 lbs. at 20d. per}

90 lbs., being rated at about 2.?. 3d., the value of po- > 11 11 3

tatoes in this neighbourhood........)

Sold vegetables for............ 7 15 8§

The value of onions, thyme, parsley, mint, peas, carrots. &c. 8 0 0
I consider that about £ of the garden produce is wasted
from the want of the better means of consumption, which,

being reckoned at half the price of the other vegetables,

would give ..........................1 12 24-

Total produce for the last year.........28 19 2

To which add...............8 4 3<|

The produce of the last year but one.......3735J

Hereford.

12th August, 1850.
1. In answer to your inquiries, I beg to say we have 7 acres
of land under spade cultivation. The first crop this year was 2f
acres vetches, which fed six milking cows through the months
May, June, and July. The land is now under the folio wing-

mamed crops :—	A p

Potatoes...........100

Mangel-wurzel........3 0 0

Carrots...........100

Parsnips...........020

Cabbage...........030

Turnips...........030

Total.......7 0 0

The whole of the crops are looking well, and give great satis-
faction to the Board of Guardians and a host of visitors.

2.	The boys I have to work vary from day to day, but I
think the average is about 10 boys, age from 7 to 14 years, and
one man.

3.	I think 6 boys with an overlooker would cultivate two acres
of land in the way we do ours.

4.	Boys may be profitably employed upon the land at 7 years
of age, if healthy and strong, at such work as weeding, hoeing,
watering, picking stones, and other light jobs; and lam quite cer-
tain boys this way employed will be better able to get their living

n 2180

APPENDIX.

at 10 years of age, than those unemployed at 15 or 16 years of
age. I know well by my own case; I myself went to work at 7
years of age.	^	^	^	*

3rd January, 1851.

The quantity of land under cultivation is seven acres, crop as
undermentioned:—2 acres mangold-wurzel, 1 J- potatoes, 1 cab-
bage, 1 carrots, an acre parsnips, 1 turnips. The exact amount,
as it stands in the daybook, from January 1, to the end of De-
cember, 1850r—

£ s. d.

Butter..........54 11 9

Milk............ 87 3 5

Cheese .......... 7 1 B

8 Fat Cows ......... 37 6 0

6 Calves..........14 4 8

8 Pork Pigs........12 17 11

Cabbage........ . . . 2 16

Potatoes..........17 16 6

Carrots.......... 335

Turnips.......... 0 13 8

Total......£187 0 1

The average number of boys per day amount to 8 as near as
possible, and men 2 per day. I consider the value of roots on
hand to be as follows :—Carrots, 51.; wurzel, 10I.; turnips, 51.;
potatoes, 8I. 16s.; Total 28£. 16s. We have 7 cows on the land;
the value of them, according to Mr. Racsters' valuation, would
be 77X, and 9 pigs, worth ] 81. There is growing one acre of
winter vetches worth 51. The Italian rye-grass I can say but
little about, but it appears well, and I have no doubt as to trial of
it proving favourable. I have spared no pain to answer your
inquiries correct.

Pembroke.

VIth August, 1850.

1.	The only parts capable of being cropped systematically of
our land are about 4484 square yards.

2.	We average 12 boys in the house between the ages of 8
and 13, who, under the superintendence of the schoolmaster, do
all the work without any other assistance. Indeed, I could work
the ground fairly with half the number of boys.

3.	About 8 boys would be sufficient.

4.	About 7 yenrs of age, and perhaps in setting wheat, beans?
potatoes, &c., after dibblers; picking stones, and cleaning the
offal, weeds, rubbish, &c., better than older boys.APPENDIX.

181

Hith January, 1851.

The extent of the ground under cultivation is nearly one and
three quarters of an acre, upon which wheat, vetches, swedish
turnips, cabbages, potatoes, carrots, mangold-wurzel, and other
small seeds are grown.

The number of boys above nine years old employed in the
cultivation of this ground has not averaged more than ten ; they
have not received any assistence from the old men, excepting
about one week in the spring of the year, when the small seed
and other work in the kitchen garden required it. I have no
able-bodied men in the house, and only eight old men; four
only of them are capable of being employed in this work ; two
are generally splitting wood, making balls (our country firing),
breaking stones, cutting straw, and such small matters as they
are capable of doing; one acts as gatekeeper, while the other is
employed as a messenger ; but they are all aged and very infirm.
The piece under wheat consisted of 1216 square yards, upon
which I caused six and a quarter pints of seed to be dibbled in,
in rows of nine inches asunder, and six inches between the
plants ; it produced 457 lbs., and was sold at 65. per Winchester
of 62 lbs., producing 21 4s. 2£d. f of a Winchester of vetches
was sown upon 1522 square yards ; it wTas cut green and sold to
various persons in the town, producing a sum of 21. 125. 7\d.
This crop was succeeded by one of swedish turnips sown in
drills twenty inches asunder, being first well dressed and hand-
hoed, leaving the plants ten inches apart: the weight was not
ascertained, all having been used in the house, and calculated at six
for a penny. I cannot accurately give the extent of ground under
cabbages, as I invariably kept filling up every vacant spot when
it did not.interfere with other crops. I begin to sow the seed
in the second week of March, and continue the operation about
once a fortnight until August, the final sowing being from the
6th to the 12th of that month, which at the beginning, middle,
and latter end of September, are in a fit state to be transplanted
into nursery beds to stand the winter and come to plant off
early in the spring, producing good cabbage about the end of
May or the beginning of June; this crop is accounted for in the
balance-sheet at \d. per pound. The potatoes occupied 3129
square yards, and the produce was used in the house debited to
in-maintenance at 101. 17s., and credited to establishment.

Belgian and Altringham carrot-seed were sown in 245 square
yards, dibbled in rows twelve inches apart, and at a distance of
five and a half inches between the plants; the other portions were
cropped with onions, leeks, beans, peas, and small seed, all which
appear in the balance-sheet, which I have hopes will be satis-182

APPENDIX.

factory, and prove that the system carried out here (although
upon so small a scale) answers the expectations of its promoters.
In the present, year there has been an excess of profit on the last
by 41. 12^. 7f d., while the boys employed have been younger and
less in number.

Garden account for the year ending Christmas, 1850.

! t !	j  Cost of the Seed, &c.	Wheat . . . Thatch, 300 Vetches . . . Cabbage plants. Potatoes debited to maintenance and credited to establishment. Brocoli . . , Cabbage. . . Lettuce . . . Carrots . . - Mangold-wurzel Turnips . . . Beans . . . Peas .... Onions . . . Leeks . . . Pigs . . . . Value of pigs not sold . .	Value of the Produce used in the House.	Value of the Produce sold.
"Wheat . . . Vetches. . . Potatoes . . Small Seed. . Mangold-wurzel Seed . . . Turnip Seed . Carrot Seed Pigs . . . . Value of pigs brought for- ward from last year. .  By profit .	£ s. d. 0 0 8 0 6 0 3 6 3 0 18 5  0 10 0 0 6| 0 2 0 2 17 0  13 0		£ s. d. 1 10 0  10 17 0 0 18 0  2	5 9  0	14 9  1	17 4  3	*5 2  0	9 6 0 2 0 0 12 0  1	10 0  1 19 0	£ s. d* 2 4 2i 0 16 2 12 74  0	5 2|  0 "6 8§ 0 2 lli 0 0 10 18 6  1	16 0  5 19 2|
	8 14 10J 31 17 4±		26 0 6 14 11 9	14 11 9
	40 12 3		40 12 3	

Garden account for the year ending Christmas, 1850.

P.S. The balance of the produce in the ground as described in
the balance-sheet for Christmas, 1849, is not accounted for in
this statement, as it was consumed in the house before this,
account was opened.APPENDIX.

183

Westbury-upon-Severn, Vicarage.

(Lancl, one-tenth of an Acre.)

Cabbages (Drumhead), autumn sown; planted four feet apart in
the row, and four feet between the rows—264 at 30 lbs. each,
viz.:—

Tons. Cwts. Qrs. lbs.

20 lbs. each of edible stuff..........2	7	0	16

10 lbs. each of rough cattle stuff. . .	1	3	2	8
Potatoes (Ashleaf), planted between the rows of

Drumheads—448 lbs., or 1J bags 228 lbs . .	0 4	0	0
Cabbages (Early York), planted between the drum-
heads—228, at 1J lbs. each............0	3	8	12

3 18 2 8

The manure was dug into the rows, so that the cabbages had
the full benefit of it.

Expenses.

& s. d.

Rent, rates, and taxes, £3 per acre—]«?. lOd......0 6 0

Manure.................0 15 o

Cabbages, Drumhead (BOO), 6d. per 100 .......	0 1 6

Cabbages, Early York (300), 6^. per 100.......0 16

Potato-seed (Ashleaf),home-grown, 6 pecks, at 1$. Qd. per peck	0 9 0

"Winter forking and spring digging, 6 days, at Is. 6d. per day	090
Moulding up cabbages and potatoes, and getting up potatoes,

3 days, at Is. 6 d. per day ...........046

£2 6	6

Profit.

Drumhead cabbages, edible, 2 tons 7 cwts. 0 qrs. 16 lbs., at

30,?. per ton...............3 10	6

Drumhead cabbages, cattle stuff, 1 ton 3 cwts. 2 qrs. 8 lbs.,

at 10 lbs. for Id..............12	0

Ashleaf kidneys, 1J bags, at £1 per bag.......1 10	0

Early York cabbages, 288, at Id. each........14	0

7 6	6

Deduct Expenses, as above ...... 2 6	6

Profit on one-tenth of an acre

£5 0 0184

APPENDIX.

Mr. John Sillett, of Kelsall, near Saxmundham, in his evidence
before a Committee of the House of Commons^ on July 19,
1848, deposed, that from two acres cultivated by the spade, with
stall-fed cows, he had realized 74£. from the sale of the produce,
after supplying his family, consisting of four persons, with milk,
bread, potatoes, and vegetables. He stated, moreover, that he
calculated his two cows in the year produced him 291.: they
ere the Suffolk cow.

Gloucester, 22nd ofYlth month, 1849.

Esteemed Friend,

In reply to thy inquiry as to the probable produce of good
land under high cultivation, I must confess (in common with
many others, I presume) that I have seldom taken the trouble
to test carefully the produce per acre of my own land. I have,
however, in,two or three instances, tested it, and certainly with
very satisfactory results. The one instance was a crop of mangel-
wurzel planted in rows a yard apart, with early potatoes between
each row. I sold the potatoes, when dug in June or July, at the
rate of 151. per acre, and I found, by carefully weighing two
rows of the mangel-wurzel all through the field, that I had thirty-
three tons of roots and ten tons of leaves per acre, and as I could
have sold the mangel-wurzel at 11, per ton, the gross produce of
the'land would in that instance have been 48£. per acre.

I also tested the weight of the two first cuttings of my Italian
rye-grass this last summer, and found the first crop was eighteen
tons, and the second was ten tons to the acre. I out it twice
afterwards, but the weather being dry, the crops were compara-
tively light, and I did not weigh them. The crop was sown in
the autumn, after potatoes, and fed off . with sheep three separate
times through the winter.

With respect to the quantity of provender to be purchased to
maintain the stock proposed to be kept on thirty acres, I cannot
form any estimate; but my own opinion would be rather in
favour of keeping only such a quantum of stock as-the land
would feed without purchase, and what this would be experience
can accurately determine.

P am, Very respectfully and sincerely, thy friend,
To Jelinger C. Etymons. r	Sam. Bowjlt.

,, * See Report °f> Committee on National Land Cam<pamj) Session 1848,
p. 63,APPENDIX.

185

APPENDIX E.

THE FOLLOWING QUERIES WERE PUT TO MR. RICHARD SPOOLER,

AND THE ANNEXED ANSWERS SENT BY THAT GENTLEMAN.

Q, How long have you used whins, or gorse, for cattle, and
whether partially or for your whole establishment?

A, Fourteen years this season for dairy cows, fattening cows,
and horses.

Q. What animals do you consider it to suit ?

A. It equally suits all the above animals. Sheep I have not
tried it with. I doubt whether they will easily be got to eat
it: they do not like anything which has been much bruised with
iron. Whins must be bruised, and my machine is iron.

Q. In what quantities, and whether alone or mixed with other
fodder ?

A. Not mixed ; three bushels and a half per day is sufficient
for each cow. I have four and twenty cows in one house; besides
the whins, they eat per day one hundred weight of hay and eight
bushels of swedish turnips amongst the twenty-four cows;
being about four pounds and a half of hay per cow per day, and
twenty pounds of swedes per cow per day. On this dairy cows
are kept in excellent condition, and the butter is remarkably
good; fattening cows will feed fast. When swedes fail or are
scarce, I substitute about four pounds of oil cake per day to each
cow, and as the fattening cows get forward I increase the quan-
tity of oil cake gradually; the most I give is twelve pounds per
day to large cows, and that only for the last month.

Q. By what machinery is it prepared for use ?

A. First cut through a common chaff cutter, then bruised in a
mill similar to the old cider mill; the revolving wheel sur-
rounded with fluted iron; at the bottom of the chase a plain iron
plate.

Q. In what manner is it cultivated, and at what age, and in
what manner cut for use, with the average produce ?

A. Sown as clover seed, with a crop of barley or oats—is fit
to cut the November twelve months after sowing; it is then
mown every year during the winter, as wanted, with a common
scythe close to the ground; on good dry land will cut from seven
to ten tons per acre.

Q. Is the plant you use the common whins, or gorse, or any
particular variety of it?

A. It is called French furze, but is very common in England,

Q. On what do you grow it ?	*186

APPENDIX.

A. On an old woodland, stocked up, part a burning gravel?
part a strong clay, but very dry at bottom, and very hilly. Half
an acre of this land is on the average sufficient to keep a cow
twenty weeks. On rich loomy dry land I have no doubt nearly
double quantity may be grown.

Q. What do you consider the peculiar advantage, and what
the danger of using it ?

A, The advantages are apparent from the above answers.
The is no danger in using it if well ground, and mixed with salt
in the proportion of four ounces per cow per day.

Q. State the expense of cutting in the field and bruising for
use?

A. Mowing, carting, cutting, and bruising, cost not quite a
penny a bushel.

Q. State any general observations on the subject.

A. It requires no manure, but in its consumption creates a great
deal. Will grow on poor hilly land, if dry, which will not pay
for cultivating. When once sown and well rooted, it yields a
great quantity of food for cattle at no other expense but the one
above stated. I have cut the same ground now for fourteen years
—have done nothing to it, and, with the exception of some parts of
the burning gravel which the hot weather has this year affected,
it seems to promise as good a crop as heretofore. I generally
begin to mow it as soon as grass is gone, and it lasts till grass
comes again. If there is an appearance of snow, I mow some
quantity before hand, and it will keep thrown down in heaps in
the rick-yard; but it must not be bruised till it is wanted, as it
will not keep after bruising. The quantity of seed to be sown
per acre, is twenty pounds. Mine is sown broad cast, but I
should recommend it to be drilled as near in the rows as will
admit hand-hoeing for the first year or two, if the land is inclined
to run to grass. I do not feed with furze on a Sunday, as the
cows do not like it unless it is given them fresh from the mill.

Richard Spooner.APPENDIX.

187

APPENDIX F.

GLOUCESTER BAGGED SCHOOL.

At a meeting of some friends of education, held this day, it was

resolved that it is expedient to establish a ragged school for

boys in this city, on the following principles :—

1st. That the object of the school be to afford practical,
religious, and secular instruction to children above the age of
six years, of the most destitute class, and who are now without
the means of education.

2nd. That the Holy Scriptures be read and explained daily.

3rd. That industrial training be a main feature in the system
pursued.

4th. That a suitable house, or rooms, be rented, in or near the
island, for the school; and that about four acres of land be also
taken near the city, for teaching the elder boys spade husbandry.

5. That the school hours be from nine to half-past twelve
daily; at which time the elder boys only (not exceeding forty in
number) be supplied with a plain dinner, according to the dietary
of the Union Workhouse; and that these boys comprise the
working staff for the cultivation of the ground.

6th. That the working staff of boys be employed in the
grounds five days in each week (weather permitting), between
the hours of half-past one and five o'clock; indoor employment
being provided for them when prevented from working on the
land.

7th. That the ground be cultivated as a vegetable garden; the
produce, after supplying the boys' dinners, to be disposed of in
aid of the funds of the establishment.

8th. That the entire control of the school be vested in a com-
mittee, to be annually elected by subscribers of 1/. and donors of
10L, in whom the power of making new laws shall be vested, at
special meetings summoned for that purpose.

9th. That there be an annual meeting of all subscribers and
donors, at which a report of the proceedings of the year shall be
read.

10th. That the school be conducted by a school-master who
shall be thoroughly competent to teach and train according to the
system of the Ragged School Union, and to undertake the entire
management of the ground.

11th. That as soon as the funds permit, arrangements be made1.88

APPENDIX.

for extending the benefits of the school to girls, who, in addition
to mental instruction in the morning, shall be taught needlework
and knitting in the afternoon, by a competent school-mistress;
who shall also have the charge of the younger boys, and employ
them in some suitable work at the same time.

12th. That the school be supported by voluntary contribu-
tions, aided by a grant from the Lords of the Committee of
Council.

Gloucester, 24th March, 1851.

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