24 DECEMBER 1836, Page 9

EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES.

[Front Mr. MERIVALE'S Paper in M.CuLt.ocn's Statistics of the British

Empire.]

ADVANCE OF NATIONAL SCHOOLS.

The progress of the National Schools since 1813, two years after the forma- tion of the Society, has been as follows : 1813, 230 schools, with 40,484 chil- dren ; 1820, 1,614 schools, with about 200,000 scholars ; 1830, 2,609 places, containing 3,670 schools, with about 346,000 scholars. According to the An- nual Report for 1835, the schools and scholars were-3,642 places, containing 3831 Sunday and daily, and 1698 Sunday schools, with 178,740 boys and 145,305 girls, as Sunday and daily scholars, and 93,929 boys and 98207 girls, as Sunday scholars only; making in all 5,559 schools, with 516,181 scholars.

ETON STUDIES.

The amount of classical works actually read through in the course of school business, is very small. Even in the upper school, Homer's Iliad, Virgil's .,Encid, and Horace, are the only books which it is customary to read through by fixed portions; and these are so small (thirty or forty lines in general) that it takes a very long time to get regularly through them. In reading them, the bos- is required to attain a correct grammatical knowledge of construction and of historical and mythological subjects by their perusal. The well-known Eton Latin and Greek Grammars form the bases of the grammatical instruction of the school: these are learnt by heart, chiefly in the lower school; and boys also are required to be able to repeat and apply their rules, when called upon, on the occasion of a passage from the author whom they are reading. Other classical workroom read only in volumes of extracts taken from a kw of the Greek and Latin poets and prose writers, mostly compiled for the use of Eton School in particular. A play of some GI eek tragic author is also usually in the course of reading by the upper school.

But in almost every part of the school, and more especially as the boy ad- vances towards the highest, his powers are especially directed towards classical composition. A certain number of exercises, as they are termed, are expected .every week from each boy, unless in the event of one of those occasional festi- vals which are termed whole holydays without exercise' on which one is ex- cused. These exercises, in the upper school, consist of Latin themes, that is, prose compositions, generally on moral subjects; translations into English from classical writers; Latin verses, lyrical, heroic, and elegiac ; and, occasionally, Greek verses and themes. A certain length of exercise is required ; but boys are allowed and stimulated to exceed that amount; and when the exercises ,(after being revised by the public tour) are sent in to the master, he selects a few of the best, which are publicly read in school, and for which certain re- wards are given. As the actual work done in school is about the same for all the upper school, that is, for boys varying in age from fourteen to nineteen, it may be supposed that by far the greatest share of labour, by the most advanced and industrious boys, is bestowed on composition; and hence arises the merited celebrity of Eton in this branch of classical attainment. Little attention was paid at Etua, until lately, to religious instruction: it is, however' now considerably increased. The Duke of Newcastle a few years Aro, fuusided scholarships both in classics and divinity for boys proceeding toth .

Universities: there are usually about thirty candidates for the latter, and very fair proficiency is shown.

FUNDS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES IN ENGLAND.

It appears from this table, that, under the present defective and slovenly management, the income of endowed schools in the above counties, exclusive of the sum appropriated to that purpose by the chartered companies of the Metro- polis, amounts to 180,309/. a year, and the income of the uneadowed schools to 16,938/. a year. But nine of the most opulent English counties, including Cheshire, Essex, Kent, and Lincoln, are omitted in the above abstract, not having been inquired into by the Commissioners when it was published. And allowing for this deficiency, and supposing th it the estates and other property appropriated to educational purposes were reasonably well managed, we believe we shall be n ithin the mark if we lay it down that a free income of from 400,1100/. to 450,000/. a year is at present partly, and should be entirely devoted in England and Wales to the support of school education. But, exclusive of this, it is seen, from the above table, that a large mass of property, amounting, perhaps, if properly managed, in England and Wales, to not less than 1,000,000/. a year, is appropriated to other charitable purposes; the utility of many of which, though undisputed when the grants were made, has now become exceedingly doubtful. We admit the difficulties that stand in the way of legislative interference in such cases, but they are not insuperable; and it appears to be at variance with every principle on which society is founded, to continue to lay out property on institutions or for objects that have been as- certained to be either injurious or of little utility, when it might be employed to promote objects of undoubted national importance. The subject of endow- ments ought to be carefully sifted. The regulations of the founders should be respected only so long as they conduce to, or. at all events, are not opposed to the public interest. Whenever they come into conflict with the latter, they certainly ought to be modified, and made to harmonize with what it may reason- ably be presumed would have been, could he have foreseen the results, the con- duct of the founder. By cautiously acting on this principle, we have little doubt that a free revenue might bi• obtained, without injury to any useful pur- pow, for educational objects, in England and Wales, of from 750,0001. to 800,000/. a year.