On Tuesday Sir John Pakington's motion for a committee to
consider the advisability of putting the Board of Education under a single responsible Minister in the Commons, and of extending the benefits of the Board so reorganized to the whole people of Eng- land, was discussed with great ability in the House of Commons, and reluctantly assented to by the Government. The argument against the present loose constitution of the Board, with a head in the House of Lords where no money-grant can be allowed, and a Vice- President in the Commons who throws the responsibility of every great step on the Minister in the Lords, was unanswerable. As to the second object of the commission, the discussion chiefly turned on Mr. Walter's proposal to aid any school which satisfies her Majesty's Inspectors in every respect,—of course not merely in respect of teaching, but in respect of the discharge of the teachers' and managers' duties as a whole, —that it deserves aid. Mr. Lowe made an able and rather angry speech against this step, and in favour of the certificate for schoolmasters as the only satisfactory guarantee of good teaching. We confess we think the beat proof of the teaching is in the effect on the school, and if that be good we may be sure the teacher has the power to teach. As a matter of fact the cram-schoolmasters are often the least adequate to their task.
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