Mn. DE MONTMORENCY begins very much at the beginning. He

takes us back to prehistoric man, not to the earliest times, indeed, though it might be argued that technical education began when a Neolithic father showed his son how to fashion a flint foot-scraper, but to the Age of Bronze, the " Ogham" alphabet, and so on to the Cymric Celts, to Llywarch Hen and Taliesin, to the singers whose typical work has been preserved for us in "Beowulf," and to Bede. By this time— and it is curious that Bede, prodigy of learning as he was, was little more than two centuries removed from the bar- barians from Jutland and Engleland--we find a regular system of education. Our author quotes an early Saxon Canon, adopted from the code of Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, in which he sees an indication of a " complete system of Church schools under the control of the parish priests." This, we cannot but think, is saying a little too much; at least, the statement stands in need of some explanation. The reader who should infer from it that there was, even in the conception of the most energetic educationist of the time, anything like our school system would surely be much mistaken. Great ecclesiastics, then as ever, were anxious to secure for the Church all the avail- able ability which was to be found. They did not look for it, they bad, indeed, no need to look for it, in the noble or gently born class. If it existed there, if there was a lad in the family of a baron, knight, or squire who had a vocation for the priestly office, he was sure to find his way into it. It was plebeian talent that had to be searched for and provided with its opportunity. Hence the "parochial schools." The parish priest was to gather the promising lads of his charge about him and pick out the best for the ecclesiastical Order. The rest would anyhow be put forward in life, and would not forget the Church which had helped them. Probably only a few priests out of the whole mass of the clergy would be capable of • The Progress of Education in England: a Sketch of the Development of English Educational Organization from Early 'Mars to the Year pos. Ity J. E. 0. de Montmorency, D.A., LL.B. London : Knight and Co. Os. net.]

as axiomatic, that every child has an indefeasible right to such education as may be best suited for it, the elementary for all, and for all the opportunity of rising to the highest levels.

This is the true democratic ideal of education. When the mediaeval Church is spoken of as democratic, the adjective is used, correctly indeed, but in a limited sense. In its search for those who might worthily carry on its work it put aside all considerations of rank and birth, drew upon the great reserve of the people, and was amply rewarded by the treasure which it found. It is very interesting to trace—and the student will be greatly helped in his search by this very able book—how the modern ideal was developed. It cannot be denied that religious zeal had a great deal to do with the

process. But the zeal that was thus active was not that which we see, often so noble and so pure, in mediaeval

Christianity. It was the result, though very tardy in its coming, of the Reformation spirit. The enthusiasts, whether clerical or lay, who believed that they were bound by the most sacred obligations to teach every child the reason of his faith, were on the high way, though they may not have been conscious of it, to the modern ideal. We may see a certain narrowness in the proviso which they added,— " instructed in the principles of the Established Church " ; but then we are bound to take into account their point of

view. The actual service which they rendered ought not to be ignored. It is scarcely reasonable to require that those who labour in laying the foundations should have a complete conception of the whole edifice that is to be reared upon them. It is in his fifth and sixth chapters—" National Education from 1833 to 1870," and "National Education from 1870 to 1903 "—that Mr. de Montmorency deals with the most diffi- cult part of his subject. We cannot speak too highly of the patience with which he has followed out the complicated

details of a long, and it must be confessed a painful, story. Few indeed of the great names which we meet as we accom- pany him in his narrative receive any new lustre from what we read. In 1854 Lord Salisbury (then Lord Robert Cecil) thought that a scheme which differed little from what was actually adopted in 1870 " would make England a nation of in- fidels." Two years afterwards Mr. Gladstone expressed himself as " greatly opposed to the steady increase of the education vote," and thought that the proposed. Minister of Education would have "nothing to do " for his £2,000 a year. However, it is an ungracious task to record -the limitations and errors of

great men. It is more pleasant to acknowledge the force of the apologia which our author makes for Mr. Lowe, a

statesman who never had the appreciation which he deserved, partly, of course, because he had a fatal ingenuity in putting himself in the very worst of all possible lights.

"The Elementary Education Act, 1870, at once lifted national education into a larger sphere." That is but a just tribute to its merits, nor is it any derogation from this praise when our author points out its defects. The chief of these was the want of a regular correlation between the elementary and

the secondary systems of education. The School Boards, " by a very natural process, and by virtue of highly patriotic motives," intruded into a province which did not belong to them. There has been so much beat, and so much unconscious

misrepresentation of this matter, that we will quote Mr. de Montmorency's excellent summing up of the case :—

" The School Boards, indeed, made every effort to bring them- selves into touch with both the University and the Science and Art movements, and paid the fees to enable scholars to take the local examinations. To most lawyers the position adopted by the School Boards seemed illegal, but the fact that the move- ment was widely helpful in disieminating a love for higher learn- ing made it difficult to attack. The position, however, had one ill effect, and that of a most serious character. It brought the Board schools into competition with the endowed secondary schools, and the wealth of the Boards practically enabled them to dictate the exact lines that the competition should take. In order to com- pete with the higher elementary schools, the endowed schools

• were rapidly being driven to adopt the higher elementary standard of education instead of the secondary standard. Now, this ap- peared to most pure educationalists—men interested in education per se and not in any particular form of education—dangerous, for it tended to substitute what Sir Joshua Fitch called a cal de sac education for an education that is a natural stepping stone between the elementary school and advanced technical or Uni- versity education. The advanced elementary school could give a child the nomenclature of culture, but could not give an outfit of The Act of 1902 should make such mistakes impossible in the future. That it has created, or rather brouglit into prominence, other, and perhaps more serious, difficulties can hardly be denied. We do not propose to discuss the question ; it must be enough to make a brief quotation :—

" The party that from the lawyer's point of view is wrong is the tertium quid, which, under the name of passive resistance, refuses to accept the decision (always open to revision) of Parliament on the question. The passive resister's reply to the lawyer's condemnation is not without weight : 'If we accept without protest a law that we believe to be unconstitutional, we not only violate our conscience, but all chance of revision is gone. In passive resistance we find a weapon that has historical sanction in controversies of this type.' That may be so, but it must be remembered that the use of the same weapon in support of denominational teaching might be justified later by the same argument in the event of Parliament withdrawing the protection given to denominational teaching by the Act • of 1902. The refusal to pay education rates on conscientious grounds, first by one party and then by the other, would certainly be very-bad for education at large. All men have by nature a conscientious objection to paying rates, but the good of the country at large demands that in this matter conscience should be kept in check."

The civil strife that would ensue if all the friends of denomi- national education were to follow the example of the "passive resister" would be to the present agitation as a hurricane to a moderate breeze.

The subject of secondary and University education we must leave untouched. It is treated by our author with as much fulness as limitations of space permit, and with modera- tion and good sense.

NAPOLEON'S VISITORS AND CAPTIVES.*