PROGRESS OF THE GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE
ON EDUCATION.* THE annual publication of the Minutes of the Committee for directing the disbursement of the Parliamentary grant in aid of education, acquires in- creasing interest with the growth of the field that the labours of the Committee embrace. The volumes which have recently appeared are not deficient in new and important matter, well calculated to attract general and earnest attention.
The plan proposed for the distribution of the Parliamentary grant of 30,000/. to augment the salaries of teachers in the workhouse schools is the first novelty we meet with on opening Volume I. Four classes of certificates of qualification are to be given to teachers passing the proper examination, and these certificates entail a claim for an in- crease of salary varying from Si. to 50/. per annum ; the last-named sum being (in addition to the salary paid by the Guardians) the higher:It premium offered for efficiency. The teachers are to have the privilege of selecting apprentices amongst their pupils, to whom also an allowance is granted; but it is only to be paid to the pupil on his leaving the work- house, and thus forms a small capital wherewith to begin the world. The second new arrangement relates to a provision of books and maps, which are supplied to schools at a reduced price where the founders or patrons of the schools contribute at least two-thirds of the value of the books * Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education. 18474848. Volumes I. and 11.
distributed. A list of books and maps sanctioned by the Committee of Education is published in Volume I.; and these, it appears, are to be furnished by booksellers who have entered into contract for the purpose, at a reduction of 45 per cent on the selling price. The calculation based upon this arrangement is that a sum of 10,000/. expended by the Com- mittee of Council will elicit a contribution of 20,000/. from the patrons and managers of schools. This sum of 30,000/. at the reduced price of the books will be equivalent to 50,000/. disbursed in the ordinary way, while an effort is made to insure its employment in the most efficacious manner by limiting the grants to works of acknowledged reputation. The following minute forms also a novel feature in the proceedings of the Committee during the past year. "By the Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Council on Educe- tion;—Resolved,
.1. That the Roman Catholic Poor School Committee be the ordinary channel of such general inquiries as may be desirable as to any school applying for aid as a Roman Catholic school. "2. That Roman Catholic schools receiving aid from the Parliamentary grant be open to inspection; but that the Inspectors shall report respecting the secular instruction only.
"3. That the Inspectors of such schools be not appointed without the previous concurrence of the Roman Catholic Poor School Committee.
"4. That no gratuity, stipend, or augmentation of salary, be awarded to school- masters or assistant teachers who are in holy orders; but that their Lordships reserve to themselves the power of making an exception in the case of training- schools, and of model-sehools connected therewith."
The defective state of education in Wales had been forcibly pressed upon public consideration by the report of the Special Commissioners published in 1847; and we find here evidence of the activity which this appeal has awakened in all classes of the community. Memorials by the Welsh Education Committee of the National Society contain suggestions respecting the facilitation of admission to the training-col- lege at Caermarthen, as well as with regard to the proportionate pay- ments to be made in aid of the salaries of Welsh teachers, which have been complied with. Two other memorials, one addressed by a number of the ministers and deacons of the Calvinistic Methodist connexion, and another by several inhabitants of Caermarthen styling themselves friends of religious liberty and equality, have elicited a declaration that Inspec- tors shall be appointed for the Welsh schools who are proficients in the Welsh language. With the Wesleyan Committee of Education several points of minor importance appear to have been arranged to the satis- faction of both parties. An interview between the deputation from the Education Committee of the Free Church of Scotland and the Lord President led to the acknowledgment that "the deputation are bound to say, that, so far as regards the application of the present plan to the schools connected with the Free Church of Scotland, the deputation found the utmost anxiety manifested to obviate difficulties, and to administer impartially the public grant; and every assurance was given that appli- cations for aid to these schools will receive all the consideration to which they are entitled."
Sincere friends to education will regret that the tone of harmony which characterizes the communications of the bodies above named should be departed from in the published correspondence which passed between the Committee of Education and several ardent members of the Church of England. The points at issue between the Committee and these clergymen have been for some time before the public. They partly regard the Minutes published as regulations to be observed on granting aid for the building of schoolhouses, and partly the Minutes prescribing the mode of management required in schools built with the aid of the Parliamentary grant. While Lord Wharncliffe was Lord Pre- sident, the necessity became evident of securing in the trust-deed of schools built with funds granted by the Education Committee under Par- liamentary sanction, both permanency for the sites and buildings, and specific obligations on the part of the recipients to instruct youth in a satisfactory manner. Nothing could exceed the looseness of the mode of selecting the managers of schools, before the Minutes of the Committee reduced the point which it thought desirable to a form, which has since been inserted into all trust-deeds.
"In the early period of their administration, before the necessity for such inter- ference had become apparent, clauses of the most various and questionable cha- racter had been inserted in school-deeds, forcibly illustrating the fact that the discretion of the local managers cannot be accepted in the stead of general rules. "As examples, I may enumerate arrangements by which the parochial charac- ter of the school was unnecessarily departed from, the management being confided to clergymen of several surrounding parishes and their successors, or even, though rarely, to the trustees of the church, though resident in different and remote parts of England, or to the patron of the benefice, even when the patronage was vested in a non-resident corporation, or in rarer cases, to municipal or other officers, without any other provision as to their qualification; or power was given to some Person or persons to appoint managers, without any definition of their qualifica- tions; or a school erected in one ecclesiastical district has been under the superin- tendence of a clergyman in another ecclesiastical district, who has resisted all interference with management by the parochial minister."
When, however, in any parish there are no literate and respectable lay subscribers to the school who are bona fide members of the Church of England, the Committee had provided that the management of the school shall devolve on the clergyman alone, until the Bishop direct a committee of subscribers to be appointed. We are bound to declare that a perusal of the Minutes has cleared up all our doubts as to the meaning to be at- tached to the clauses in dispute. The line adopted by the Education Committee has often been criticized.as tending to discourage the meri- torious exertions of clergymen who may happen not to be surrounded with wealthy and educated parishioners : in such cases, the poor would be deprived of the succour of their pastor at the time when they most needed it. But in the pages now published nothing will be found tending to deter the most susceptible clergyman from the discharge of his duty. That schools built by aid of public grant should become the property of the parish rather than that of the clergyman is a point so much in har- mony with the constitution of the country, that it appears strange a doubt should ever have been raised on the subject; nor could any reasonable person expect that the raising of such an objection would lead to any other consequence than the strongest affirmation of the principle it impugned.
The second point of dispute arose from a veto on the proceedings of the managers of schools accorded to the Bishop of the diocese by the Na- tional Society in cases where an appeal was laid against a decision of the managers even by a single dissentient voice. Here too we agree with the opinion proffered by the Committee of Education on this point,— namely, "that there is no precedent in English institutions for so complete a subjection of a body of local managers to any central authority." Public opinion seems to have sided with the Committee since the mat- ter has been fully explained. Far from finding a confirmation of the fears expressed by a portion of the National Society as to the nature of the in- fluence reserved by the Committee of Council where schools have been aided with the public money, we gather from the volumes before us, that no objectionable result has occurred ; and it, is therefore but fair to infer that no discouragement of charitable exertions was ever intended. A tabular view of the incomes and expenditure of schools which have received annual grants in aid of the salaries of masters and teachers, shows, on the con- trary, a marked wish on the part of the Church of England to avail itself of the assistance offered by the Parliamentary grants ; from which it is natural to conclude that the management clauses have not borne to any repressive extent upon the members of the Established Church. Of 517 schools which on the application of the managers have had annual grants apportioned to them, we find by this table that no fewer than 458 are of the Established Church, 45 stand in connexion with the British School Society, and 14 have been founded by the Wesleyans. It is not easy to ex- plain this promptness of the members of the Church of England to seek the advantages offered by the Parliamentary grant in any other manner than by that power of acting decisively which is conferred by the parochial organization of the Church of England, when a general consent prevails on any subject amongst its members. This efficiency would, however, be altogether crippled in any case where the clergy dissented from the laity ; and as it has here been fully tested, the inference seems to be that which we have drawn. The great want of the country is schools—give schools first, almost on any terms : when established in anything like a per- manent manner, it is easy to agree about or to discuss the modes of management.
We have paid the more attention to this table of the annual grants from another peculiarity attaching to it. The sums thus spent do not tell us so much about the extension of the accommodation for youth, as about an improvement in the establishments already subsisting, which, to say the least, was fully as much needed. Whoever has had any insight into the condition of the schools to which the poorer classes a few years back were obliged to send their children will assuredly read the state• ments of the School Inspectors on the change that has been effected with sincere pleasure. The distance between the degree of efficiency now re- quired of teachers, school-patrons, and scholars, as compared with that common under the Dame school system, is so great as to disarm criti- cism, and to make us unite with all our hearts in the wish that such im- provement may be extended as rapidly as possible, much as it may still leave to desire. There is we are glad to say, a radical change in the views of all parties as to What education really should be, with a corre- sponding desire to accomplish what now appears to be indispensable to the wellbeing of the nation at large. This change is perceptible not only in the construction and management of the schools themselves, but in the views of patrons, parishioners, teachers, in short of all who are na- turally concerned in the welfare of each locality, and who now recognize how much the school must be looked to for insuring the durability of prosperity. It is upon this change, pregnant with so much prospective advantage to the nation, that we dwell with the greatest pleasure ; re- garding it as a most beneficial addition to the capital of the country, whether its usefulness be directed to the safety, the wealth, or the hap- piness of the people.
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