MR. SEEBOHM'S SUGGESTIONS ON THE EDUCATION QUESTION.
[TO TER EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—The suggestion made by Mr. Seebohm in your last number on the subject of compulsory attendance at primary schools seems so valuable, that I hope it may not be allowed to drop. The only practical objection that can be made to the employment of com- pulsion universally in the case of " Denominational " as well as of "Board" schools, is that the secular teaching in the former may be inefficient. Let it, then, be tested in the way suggested by Mr. Seebolun ; let the inspectors be sufficiently numerous thoroughly to watch the conduct and progress of each school throughout the year, and let this be done either instead of or in addition to the formal annual inspection. The managers of these schools, having long ago accepted the principle of Government inspec- tion as a condition of their receiving grants is aid from Parliament, can offer no reasonable objection to a change which would make the inspection a greater reality with- out altering its essential character. The expense of so large a staff of inspectors might be considerable, but this could be no difficulty to those who advocate " free " education ; and besides, it is not necessary for this work that the whole body should be so highly educated or so highly paid as those gentlemen who have hitherto exclusively filled the office.
I am incumbent of a large and poor parish, where there is no Board school, and no necessity for any, the accommodation in existing schools being quite sufficient; and when I see the vacant places in these schools, and the many scores of children now re- ceiving no education, but whom we have no power to force into the schools, I long for some such solution of the difficulty as the compromise (if it be a compromise) suggested by Mr. Seebohm.— I am, Sir, &c., ONE WHO WOULD GLADLY SEE COMPULSION UNIVERSAL.
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