The National Society for the Education of the Poor in
the Principles of the Established Church held its annual meeting on Tuesday, the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding, and certainly gave a good account of its work. The National schools educate 431,255 more children than the School Board schools, and the Church contributed in 1887 2580,872 towards these schools, in addition to all the great previous outlay on building and improvements. The Church and its members had now spent thirty-one millions sterling on education since the foundation of the National Society, and the Archbishop hoped that the subscriptions to the National Society would rise instead of falling off, in proportion as the Church gets at the classes which have prospered of late, instead of being dependent, as she still is to a considerable extent, on the classes which have been declining in prosperity. Indeed, it will be a good test of the life and energy of the Church if she can get at the smaller tradesmen who have lately been far the most prosperous of English classes, and induce them to contribute to religious education in proportion to their means.
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