EDUCATION RETURNS (SCOTLAND.)
A arcs "blue book," bearing the above title, just issued from the printing and publishing establishment of the House of Commons, is an apt illustration of the manner in which the House of Com- mons transacts business.
In 1838, a "Select Committee on Education in Scotland" cir- culated a list of queries among the teachers of that country. In 1841, the answers returned are printed at large, just as received, without any attempt at classification, and without any digest of the results. Without classification—for the arrangement of the an- ewers under two heads "parochial" and "non-parochial schools" is unparalleled in point of vagueness, except by that of the learned professor of botany at Gottingen, who commenced his prelections, " Gentlemen, every plant may be viewed as consisting of two parts ; this here is the root, and this is the rest of it." Without digest—for the value of two very slovenly got-up tables may be estimated from this fact, that the sum of the statements of average attendance in all the schools from which returns have been received is given as the sum of all the children at school. Now there be- ing separate returns from most of the private teachers in the large towns, and from several of the teachers in grammar- schools and academies, the same children are thus in many in- stances counted twice, thrice, and even so far as five times over. On the other hand, the average attendance throughout the year only being required, the numbers attending country schools, where the pupils attend by relays as their labour can be dispensed with, is much understated. These two sources of error are not of a na- ture to compensate each other. The foundation, therefore, of the only feeble attempt at generalization in these returns, is utterly worthless.
It is not only in point of classification and digesting that these returns are defective. The framing of the questions indicates much ignorance of the information previously collected regarding the state of education in Scotland. It is evident that the Select Committee must have been ignorant of the existence of any publicly-endowed schools except parish schools in Scotland—of the distinction be- tween the burgh-school, or grammar-school, or academy, as it is variously designated, and the parish-school. And this ignorance has incapacitated them from framing and addressing their queries in such a manner and to such parties as to elicit answers convey- ing acurate information, or to detect the truth even where it was almost forced upon them by the returns. There is also in the wording of the questions a straining after metaphysical accuracy of expression, which, combined with the inquirer's ignorance of the actual organization of Scotch schools, has tended only to make confusion more confused. "What is the average duration of the continuance of their attendance ?" The object of the " Select " in putting this question was to ascertain during how many years or months it was customary for the children to attend the school without intermission : but it will surprise no one to learn, that many have replied, they do not understand the question ; while others preface their answer with " If I understand your meaning," &c. The parties interrogated seem to have taken a pretty accurate guage of the capacity of the querists, for many of the answers read very like the exercise of dry humour at their expense. One teacher replies to the question, "By whom are they appointed, and for how long ? " with a sentimental sigh, "Fate I believe, and for life I fear." The same gentleman, to the inquiry whence his salary is derived, answers, "Have no objection to be enabled to say H. M. Government." Another answers the question," Where was the present teacher educated ?" thus—" At the schools and college of Edinburgh ; and finally at Dornoch in the important branches of domestic economy and practical starvation." But it is principally in their replies to the question, "What mode of punish- ment is adopted ?" that the fancy of the Scotch Dominies rune riot. From one end of Scotland to the other, the tawse, (a strap of leather, cut for the greater part of its length into a number of slender thongs,) applied to the palm of the hand is the prescrip- tive instrument of discipline—as fertile a source of moral illustra- tion and pathetic or humorous allusion as the birch or ferula in
England. No one who has not perused the volume of Returns now under review could conceive it possible to describe such a simple mode of punishment in such diversity of phrase as has been invented by the apologetic eagerness of the tawse-wielders of the North. Here are a few specimens. " Pandys with a soft leather strap" ; "stripes on the hands "; "the tawse to the finger. ends"; "sometimes the tawse applied"; a stroke on the fingers"; "try their fingers"; "a strap on the hand"; "strokes on the hands with the tawse;" "the tawse" ; "flogging in a temperate degree" ; "chastised with a pair of leather tawse" ; "immediate lashing"; "the tame is used moderately"; "temperateflagellation"; "a few lashes"; "some- times a whipping "; " the terror of the tawse" ; " flogging with a
leathern belt " ; "a few lashes on the palms of the hands"; "the tawse sparingly "; "the tawse in the usual way " ; "a leather strap to keep in fear " ; "the tag is very seldom resorted to " ; "a light stroke on the palm of the hand with a small strap"; "a whip with a piece of leather on the hand " ; " stripes on the hands with a slight leather thong or strap cut in two" ; "a pandy on the hand"; "the common mode in Scotland" ; "the use of the tawse, a good leather thong " ; "the lash"; " in particular cases it is found ex- pedient and highly useful to adopt the advice of Solomon " ;
"manual punishment"; "physical punishment " ; "the tawse for major offences dr crimes " ; "a palmy, or sometimes two" ; "skulls with the tawse" ; "corporal punishment with the tawse, always mercifully applied, it is to be hoped" ; "the old approved mode of the tawse" ; "a skelp with a piece of leather cut into thongs,
commonly called a pair of taws " ; "frequently a touch up with
the tawse"; " the Scriptural mode is resorted to, vide Pro- verbs everywhere." The innovators upon the ancient disci-
pline are scarcely less felicitous than the floggers : many report that they make use of " affronts " ; others that they employ "stern reprimands, quotations from Solomon with some feeling comment": one states that " a wig is kept in the house for the thick skulls, and the teacher's tongue goes like n windmill"; and a Highland sage mysteriously adumbrates his method in his native Gaelic- " An ti a chaomhnas a slat is beag air a mheac." And, at the very least, fifty pages of the Returns are filled up with this small wit, or unconscious pedantry, in addition to similar impertinences pro- fessing to be answers to other queries. For this the Select are re- sponsible. The absurdity of some of their questions tempted the teachers to this folly ; and, at all events, the blame of throwing away the public money in printing it is theirs. Were the "Education Returns (Scotland) " a solitary example, they would not have deserved notice. But they are merely a sample of a class of voluminous and worthless returns in all departments of statistical inquiry annually printed at the expense of the country. The composition of the Legislature is the source of the evil. Par- liament is composed of a sprinkling of dilettanti mixed up with a multitude who have as little taste as talent for their vocation. The utterly inefficient memnrs, perhaps, do rather less harm than the amateurs. Of the manner in which the latter proceed, the "blue book" before us is an example. One or two zealous gentlemen are seized with a vehement desire to do something, in some depart- ment—say the promotion of education. They get themselves ap- pointed a "Select Committee for inquiring into," &c. One of their number draws up a series of questions, wide of the mark, which are circulated in all directions. During two or three years, answers come dropping in at intervals ; but by this time the zeal and ac- tivity of the Select have evaporated. The business, however, must
be got off their hands somehow ; so the Returns are printed ver-
batim as received, without any Report from the Committee, and the volume is laid upon the table of the House of Commons. The members of the Committee, in virtue of their office, have come to be looked upon as influential friends of education. Nobody looks into their "blue book," for, probably, before it makes its appear- ance, another " Select Committee" is busy circulating a bran-new series of questions. As to bringing forward any practical measure regarding education, (or any thing else,) no man can think of that before the necessary information has been collected ; and what chance there is of its ever being collected, this review of the pro- cess of gathering it in may show.
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