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other European population. Our religious literature, on the vast extent of which few people reflect, the influence of the religious public upon our legislature, and the support given to our great religious Societies, all speak to this fact, and show the vitality and the power of religious principles among us. The independence of the national character may too have its part in the sturdiness with which Englishmen give practical effect to the right of private judgment in matters of religion. If we consider what has been the fruit of the attempts made to stifle differences of opinion in the Romish Church, by conceding infallibility to its head, and in the so-called Evangelical Church of Prussia, by the fusion of the Lutheran and Calvinistic communions, under the authority of a royal edict*,

we shall be the more disposed to rest satisfied with the existence of dissent among us, and be thankful that the Gospel is preached to the people with some measure of adaptation to their wants, although it may not reach them by the ministry of the Church of England.

It is under the deep sense of the necessity of a positive and personal religion, unluckily coinciding with great sectarian_jealousies, that the ground of education has been seized on and appropriated by the different Christian communities of this country; -each taking upon itself the responsibility of educating the youth of its own communion. In this way, the National Society represents exclusively the interests of the Established Church; the British and Foreign School Society, those of the Dissenters also, and therefore mainly. The whole educational destinies of the country appear to have been left with these Societies until the year 1833, when the State first intervened; - Parliament voting, in that year, on the motion of Lord Althorp, an annual grant of 20,000l., to be applied through the two Societies in aid of the erection of school-houses. In 1839 the Government undertook the administration of this grant through the Committee of Council. It was increased annually in amount - voluntary efforts for the extension of education to meet the public grants being greatly increased by this offer of assistance - but it continued to be limited to the original object of the building of schools, until the year 1846. Under the authority of a minute of Council of that date, it was then applied to various other objects.

On the 30th June, 1847, an order of the Minister of Home Affairs abolished the names of Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinistic) Churches, and also the historically significant and distinctive name of Protestant Church, and enjoined and commanded the general use of the name Evangelical Church only.-Laing, Notes of a Traveller, p. 183.

What-and how extensive-these measures of Government for the advancement of education really are, is not, we believe, generally known; we have therefore collected the following particulars in respect to them from the volume of Minutes for the years 1848-9-50, which is now before us. They appear to be framed with a due regard to the rights of conscience and the diversities of religious opinion; and, with a wise and statesmanlike precaution on the part of the Government, to avail itself of local sympathies, and to stimulate voluntary contributions.

1st. Aid is offered by these minutes towards the erection of school buildings; and since the year 1839 Government has contributed under this head an aggregate sum of 470,8547. towards the erection of 3782 school-houses, drawing out, thereby, voluntary contributions to, probably, four times that amount, and affording space for the instruction of 709,000 more children than could before be taught. These grants have been distributed as follows:

Eighty-two per cent. of the whole amount granted under this head has been paid to Church-of-England schools.

2ndly. Aid is offered towards the erection of normal schools for the training of teachers or for the improvement of the buildings of such schools; and the total amount thus granted in aid of eighteen normal schools is 66,4507.; of which 35,950l. is to the Church of England; 12,000l. to the British and Foreign School Society and the Wesleyan body; and the rest to the Scotch Church.

3rdly. Aid is offered towards the maintenance of such students in these normal schools as shall appear, on examination, to possess the qualities and attainments likely to make them good teachers, in sums varying from 207. to 30l. annually for each student. The total sums so contributed to thirteen training schools were, in the year 1847, 17057.; in 1848, 21387; in 1849, 23731.

4thly. Annual grants are paid in augmentation of the salaries of such teachers of elementary schools as, upon examination,

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have been judged worthy to receive certificates of merit, such certificates being of three different classes, and the augmentations varying from 15l. to 30l. The number of teachers so certificated is 681, and the total amount payable annually in augmentation of their salaries 61337.

5thly. Stipends are allowed to apprentices to the office of teacher, increasing during the five years of their apprenticeship from 107. to 187. The number of schools in which such apprentices have been appointed being 1361, and the number of apprentices, 3581.*

6thly. Provision is made for the instruction of these apprentices by annual payments to the teachers to whom they are apprenticed, being at the rate of 51. annually for one, and 47. for every additional apprentice, their competency to instruct them being tested by annual examinations. The sums payable under the three last heads are stated in the following table:

7thly. They offer supplies of books, apparatus, and school fittings, at reduced rates, the reduction being effected by the purchase of large quantities at wholesale prices+; and by grants to the extent of one-third of these reduced prices. The total re

In England, 3104; Scotland, 328; Wales, 119; the Isle of Man, 30. 2424 are boys, and 1157 girls.

†This reduction averages 433 per cent. See Minutes, 1847-8, p. xviii.

duction thus effected averages sixty-two per cent. on the retail price; and, the total amount of the grants so made by the Government being 66647., it is probable that the retail price of the books, maps, &c. so distributed, is not less than 17,5007.*

8thly. They provide for the annual inspection of normal schools, and of all elementary schools in which apprentices are appointed, or which are taught by certificated teachers. Also for the annual examination of apprentices and of candidates for the office of apprentice, and of teachers who are candidates for certificates of merit.

For this purpose they maintain a staff of twenty-one inspectors of schools, of whom eleven are inspectors of church schools; two of British and Foreign, and Dissenters' schools; and two of Scotch schools; one of Roman Catholic, and five of Workhouse schools. The cost of this inspection, in 1849, for salaries and travelling expenses, was 16,8261. The schools at present liable to inspection are 12 normal schools, 4296 elementary schools, and about 700 workhouse schools.

The general result of this action of the Government on the education of the country, in respect to quantity, may be gathered from the fact, that in the ten years from 1837 to 1847, the number of children under education in Church schools had increased from 558,180 to 955,865†, being an increase of eight elevenths.

It was not, however, so much in respect to the quantity of the education of the country, as in regard to its quality, that an alteration was needed; and it is in this respect that most has been done. The two questions of quality and quantity have, however, a relation to one another, for a good school is almost always a full one. This relation of the number of the scholars to the quality of the school is strikingly illustrated in the returns made from schools in which certificated teachers and apprentices have been appointed, and which are, therefore, regularly inspected. These schools may be reasonably supposed to have improved from year to year; and it appears that the numbers of children who attend them have, in like manner, steadily advanced. In the first year after these measures came into operation, 1847-8, the total number had thus increased 7.45 per cent.; in the second year, 16-66 per cent. No third year's apprenticeships are yet completed.

The whole question of the quality of the instruction, after

* The total sum granted under the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th heads of expenditure, is 600,000l.

† Nat. Soc. Monthly Paper. March, 1850.

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all that regulations can do, will be found to be involved in the character of the teacher; for such as is the teacher, such invariably is the school. The first step towards the formation of a more efficient body of teachers was taken by Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth and Mr. E. Carleton Tuffnell, when, in the year 1840, they founded a school at Battersea for training Masters for the schools of pauper children, --- maintaining it at their private cost, aided by some of their friends. That no personal exertions might be wanting to its success, Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth went to reside in it; adding to his duties as Secretary to the Committee of Council on Education the cares and difficulties of a position, in which surrounded by youths but recently the inmates of workhouses, he sought to lay the foundation of a new and improved state of education throughout the country. This honourable example of private benevolence has been followed by various public bodies. The National Society soon afterwards established St. Mark's College, Chelsea,-an institution for the training of a superior class of Church schoolmasters, — and Whiteland's House School, for the training of mistresses: And within four years of that time there had sprung up no less than seventeen diocesan schools for the training of teachers of Church schools. These are now increased to twenty, of which Chester, York, Durham, Cheltenham, and Caermarthen are the principal.* The Battersea school having been transferred to the National Society in 1844, there are now twenty-three or twentyfour training schools in the country for the education of Church schoolmasters.

The existence of these training schools the people of England and the Church of England owe to the Committee of Council. Their importance is not to be measured by the amount of good they have been able up to this time to do, or, are now doing. They are poorly supported; the number of students who attend them is small, not exceeding in the whole from four to five hundred, and the education pursued in them at present appears to be but imperfectly adapted to the formation of the character of the teacher. But our conception of that character is as yet very imperfect in England; and in all that concerns the formation and developement of it, we have no experience to guide us. Each of the training schools admits of developement; and the State would do well to lend its aid to this end with a more liberal hand (we should say a less sparing hand) than it has hitherto attempted; -respecting, as far as is consistent with guarantees for the proper application of its aid, the independence

These have been all aided by the Committee of Council.