22 AUGUST 1874, Page 2

Sheffield having, from old trade outrages, the reputation of being

the most ruffianly town in England, which it is not, has determined to educate itself. The School Board is spending £100,000 upon new schools, nine out of sixteen of which are ready ; the number of children at school -has been raised from 12,000 to 24,000, and the Archbishop of York, in a speech on Tuesday, when four of the schools were opened, calculated that in twenty years there would not be an uneducated man or woman in the place. This is the result, says Mr. Forster, who was also present, of three years of compulsion, and it helps to confirm him in his belief that the time has arrived when compulsion may properly be applied,—a belief which, ,in his opinion, is shared by a majority of the House of Commons. Mr. Forster also mentioned that he had intended, if the Liberals had remained in power, to introduce the Scotch system, and tempt the Masters, by more liberal payments for the higher standards, to teach branches above mere reading, writing, and arithmetic. Mr. Forster further intimated that he hoped, by applying the half-time principle uni- versally, to make education compulsory up to fourteen years of age,--an immense improvement, which would incidentally remedy an unintended injustice. A boy under the Workshops Act only attends school half the day, but a boy not under that Act, but still earning money, may be compelled to attend the whole day, the Board having no option in the matter. Mr. Forster hopes the present Government will compete with the old one in measures such as this, and forgets that it has already lowered the standards, refused increase of pay to Irish Schoolmasters, and tried to restrict Endowed Schools to the Church of England. Like Joseph II. of Austria, it "wants obedient subjects, not an educated people."