Sir George Trevelyan introduced the Educational Estimate for Scotland on
Friday week, and Mr. Acland that for England and Wales on Monday. The Scottish vote was £548,073, an in- crease of £16,000, but the total cost of education in Scotland is £1,250,000, each child costing £2 5s. 9? d. Out of 540,000 children, 357,000 had been classed as "good," and 148,000 as " excellent," leaving only 35,000 as below the class of "good." Mr. Aeland, on Monday, asked for £3,894,782, to complete the total cost of £G,200,000 for education in England and Wales, the largest sum ever asked for. The children on the registers were just over 5,000,000, the average attendance being 8,870,000, or not far short of 4,000,000. The number of children present at examination was 4,500,000. Mr. Acland denied that he had tried to discourage the Church schools. He had only tried to make all schools efficient. He quoted the language of an inspector, who said that some of our schools are so insanitary that he would much prefer to see the children playing in the streets, instead of confined in school. Mr. Acland's only wish was to get the schools improved and rendered more fit for the children. The subsequent discussion rather went to show that the Department is pressing on too fast in relation to the poor country schools, and that the application for the establish- ment of School Boards is accepted and enforced, however small is the number of the ratepayers who carry the resolu- tion in favour of that course. Surely no notice should be taken of these applications, unless the number of ratepayers who apply is a fair proportion of the whole number.
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