At a meeting of the subscribers to the public library
in Tamworth, yes- terday, Sir Robert Peel appeared in the character of a liberal promoter of middle class education. He presided at the meeting, and took the oppor- tunity to announce that he had just completed a plan for remodelling on a more extended scale the public school which his father endowed in Tam- worth.
It had struck him that the very general attention now turned by the public to education was limited to the benefit of the poorer classes; what were called the middle classes—on the individuals of which the burden of well educating their children fell with heavy pressure—were somewhat overlooked in the movement. He; proposed to provide in his father's school the means of a first-class education—not classical, but one embracing geography, natural philosophy, history, and science in its different branches—for the benefit of the middle class who reside in Tans- worth or its neighbourhood. He would provide an endowment for a master of first-class attainments; namely, 701. a year, and 101. for a house till one was pro- vided, in addition to the liberal allowance made by the Privy Council—for the school should be placed under the Privy Council inspection. The present foundation arrangements should remain, and should be for the benefit of the poor. The scholars of the new endowment should be admitted on a very small annual payment —21. a year and their expenses of books, &c. The pirodlice of these payments should go, if the school were encouraged, towards enlarging and benefiting the original foundation. If necessary he would build a new school-room twice the size of the present. A treasurer should receive all monies, and the schoolmaster none. He had obtained a master highly recommended, and would carry out his plans forth- with.
The announcement was received with much applause.
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