THE Country is, in one way or another, spending about two millions in the elementary education of the working classes. It will, of course, be understood that in this estimate are included as well the offerings of private benevolence as the funds derived from the

parliamentary grants. Now, two millions are a large sum. They do not, indeed, make a very great show when compared with the amount annually expended on wine, spirits, and tobacco; they cut an insignificant figure by the side of army and navy estimates; but still, looked at in the abstract, they are not contemptible. Assuredly the country is entitled to expect some substantial return for them. And what is the real state of the case? Are these two millions well laid out? Is the work of education now going on a successful one? Is it producing any solid, permanent, beneficial results? The Report of the Education Commissioners makes its appearance very opportunely to answer that question; and the answer it gives is fairly satisfactory. It does indeed expose some defects and shortcomings. It warns us that in the majority of inspected schools more attention is paid to the superstructure than to the foundation; that reading and writing are too often slurred over in order that a very limited "First Class," into which few of the children find their way, may astonish inspectors and visitors by a display of multifarious acquireNo. 19.-VOL. IV.

ments. But, after all, the two millions are not begged, voted, volunteered altogether in vain; a good deal is in course of being done, though not perhaps quite as much as sanguine friends of education hoped-not quite as much as our elaborate educational machinery would seem to call for. The following facts cannot very well be disputed. A great many bad schools in different parts of the country have been converted into schools more or less good, and a great many good schools have been established in places where aforetime there were no schools at all, good or bad. Teachers regularly educated for their work have taken the place of teachers who knew very little and were unable to impart the little they did know; method and system have superseded haphazard and chronic irregularity; inspection and supervision have given a stimulus to exertion; and the countenance and sympathy of persons of influence are enlisted in the cause.

there is by no means unanimity of opinion among the patrons and promoters of education. Some say that things are very bad in this respect-so bad as almost to nullify the advantage of improved methods of teaching, and to make the sums expended in highlytrained teachers and accomplished inspectors and elaborate apparatus, little better than a waste of money. Others go so far as to say that the outcry about the early desertion of school is a mere delusion, partaking in some sort of the nature of those general panics which are occasionally epidemic with the British public. I have heard both opinions stated ex cathedra with the most unhesitating confidence. That the truth lies mid-way between these two extremes seems in this case a very safe conclusion to arrive at. Let it be granted that children for the most part leave school at the age of eleven, and it does not therefore follow that the pains taken to teach them up to that age are altogether thrown away. The five years between six and eleven are surely worth something. It may be a mistake to endeavour to cram too much into that narrow interval; but powers may, during that time, be called forth which shall never become quite dormant again; impressions for good may be made which no future influences can altogether obliterate. On the other hand, to deny the fact that children are withdrawn from school at so early an age as greatly to interfere with the completeness of their education, is to deny what the statistics of any half-dozen neighbourhoods would most incontestably prove. As to irregularity of attendance, the question seems to admit of very easy settlement. Most people, doubtless, know that schools under government inspection are entitled to a capitation grant on account of every child who has attended during 176 days in the course of the year. In 1859 the amount paid in this form was 61,1837. The number of children on account of whom this sum was paid, was 247,691, while the average attendance was 599,903, and the entire number

borne on the school registers, 847,879. Thus it appears that little more than a quarter of those professedly under education spend as much as half the year at school, while in the case of many their connexion with school is SO broken and intermittent that it is only by some license of expression that they can be said to be under education at all.

In the face of such facts as these there is some ground for the objection that the system of national education now in course of development is all too vast and elaborate for the work it has to do. I do not, however, propose to discuss this question, but to make a different use of the points to which I have been calling attention. The limited time during which children attend the day-school, and the irregularity of the attendance of most of them, make it very important to carry out some plan for supplementing ordinary school education. The demand for juvenile labour has been for some time increasing-is still on the increase-will continue to be so as long as trade and manufactures are prosperous, unless some unlooked for and unlikely contingencies should change the direction of events, and modify the laws which regulate employment. The school cannot compete with the labour-market. When the choice is between paying twopence for schooling and receiving four or five shillings for labour, the instincts of the great mass of unlettered English parents can only be expected to choose in one way. Children then must continue to leave school with a very slender stock of knowledge-with a few miscellaneous historical, geographical, and physical facts, not very clearly or coherently grouped in their minds, and with a moderate degree of skill in reading, writing, and ciphering. But how long, if left to themselves, will they retain these accomplishments? Will the boy who, at the age of twelve, is able to read a page of English prose with average fluency and intelligence, retain much of that ability at sixteen, supposing the intervening years are spent in a factory or at the plough? No attempt, as far

as I know, has yet been made to ascertain the present intellectual condition of those boys and girls who left our best national schools four or five years ago. The fact, indeed, that above forty per cent. of the marrying population still continue to make their mark instead of signing their names in the register is significant, but it must not be too strongly insisted upon. It indicates imperfect skill rather than total inability to write. But, whatever advantages the national school may confer, it is certain that those advantages will be very imperfectly realized, and will in a very great degree become evanescent in the case of most of those who have enjoyed them, unless something can be done to carry on education concurrently with labour.

How is it again with the youth of the working classes generally, from fourteen years of age to twenty, as regards moral tone? Let those who know them speak, and they will confess that their condition is very unsatisfactory. They are difficult to get hold of, difficult to impress. They are fond of license, and call it liberty. They are rude, boisterous, given to appetite, fancying there is some connexion between manliness and vice. They are the despair of ordinary clergymen. They are seldom seen at church, but continually at the corners of the streets, though their occupation there is less edifying to their neighbours, and more unprofitable to themselves, than that of the Pharisees of old. There are, of course, very pleasing exceptions to this state of things, but in the main the description is neither exaggerated nor extravagant. I say nothing of the darker phases of life and morals which too often grow out of thisjuvenile recklessness and roughness. Sottish intemperance and gross impurity too frequently characterize the social condition of the people, and are too constantly the theme of philanthropic lamentation to make it necessary for any one to prove their existence, or to enlarge upon their evil.

And where must we look for a remedy or a palliative ? Undoubtedly

the first step towards finding one is to ascertain clearly the beginning of the mischief. Now, I would strongly insist upon it that the mischief takes its beginning from that age when the salutary influences of the national school are no longer in operation, and when no other checks and responsibilities have as yet been substituted. In the comparatively neglected condition of English lads from the age of thirteen to eighteen, lies the secret of a great deal of the vice of their maturity; and therefore we must somehow contrive to act vigorously on the young during this period of their lives, if we would infuse a better tone into the masses, and raise the standard of adult morality among them.

Now, what are the agencies at our disposal for effecting this?

I. There is, first of all, the time-honoured SUNDAY-SCHOOL. And this institution, which has been in existence for more than sixty years, is not without its merits. In some parts of the countryin Lancashire especially-it is by no means wholly inefficient, and certainly exercises a good deal of indirect influence over the young persons associated with it. At the same time there are many lets and hindrances to the thorough and substantial efficiency of the Sundayschool. One is the almost universal absence of method and organization. Little is taught, and that little is very imperfectly digested. The teachers are often very earnest and right-minded, but seldom very competent. Courses of instruction there can hardly be said to be, for in most cases the lessons consist of a chapter of the Bible selected for no particular reason, and on no particular principle; the book of Chronicles being, I believe, rather a favourite with volunteer teachers of the humbler class, as affording good scope for testing mechanical skill in reading hard words. But another hindrance to the usefulness of the Sunday-school is to be found in the fact that it is nothing more than a preliminary to attendance on a long service in church. Hence, not only is the time available for the Sunday-school contracted within the narrowest limits,

but young persons are tempted by the instinct of weariness to bring their connexion with the school to a hasty and premature conclusion. As a rule, boys and girls of sixteen and seventeen do not make their appearance in Sundayschools; and, in those exceptional cases where they do, it is not unusual to hear complaints of their unruly conduct and their determined self-will-no unnatural consequence of the absence of moral control during six days, followed by imperfect and unmethodical efforts to enforce it on the seventh.

That something more might be done with Sunday towards advancing the moral, intellectual, and religious training of the youth of the working classes there can be no doubt. To effect this, however, it will be necessary to get rid of certain ingrained habits of routine and conventionality. We must learn to apprehend, more clearly than is generally done, the full significance of the position that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." There must be some bold and felicitous innovations. Short, simple, and adapted religious services must, in the case of all under a certain age, be allowed to supersede, or rather to prepare the way for the full orthodox measure of public worship. A system of teaching must be adopted which shall not only instruct but allure. Interesting illustrations of Bible history, oral descriptions of those countries which are the fields of missionary labour, practical lessons on the social and moral virtues, a methodical but not unduly dogmatic exposition of Christian doctrine based on the apostles' creed, are amongst the obvious and easily available materials for furnishing forth such a system of teaching.

Again, the services of educated christian men and women must be more extensively enlisted; and, by a sufficient sub-division of labour and a sufficient variety of work, many may be induced to co-operate, while none are required to make too complete and continuous a sacrifice of their time and attention. Finally, it would be of great advantage to interweave with the Sunday-school

system some sober and rational kinds of recreation. Sacred music would serve this purpose, as would also the reading aloud by a skilful and accomplished reader of select poetry or prose.

On the whole, however, the Sunday by itself supplies a very imperfect opportunity of carrying on the moral and intellectual training of the youth of the working classes. The work which it allows of must be supported and seconded by other agencies.

II. What else, then, have we at hand for the purpose? There is the MECHANICS' INSTITUTE. It is now some thirty-five or thirty-six years since Mechanics' Institutes were first established, under the auspices of Dr. Birkbeck, and the patronage of Lord Brougham. The original design of these institutions was not so much to educate as to afford opportunities for self-education. Educate indeed they could not, for they had no provision in their constitution or machinery for doing so. They did not pretend, except very indirectly, to exercise any moral influence; they neither initiated nor carried on any processes of mental training. They opened readingrooms; they established libraries; they provided courses of lectures on miscellaneous subjects. It is obvious, then, that they presupposed a taste for reading, a thirst for knowledge, a craving for self-improvement. They could only do a little, through the zeal of their promoters and the eloquence of their lecturers, to awaken these appetites. In the main, the supply took for granted the demand. And, as the demand was not great amongst the class for whom the Institutes were designed, the supply hung on hand. Mechanics' Institutes were not very actively patronized or supported ; and the patronage and support which they did receive, came not from mechanics, but from the class above them. This was very soon seen. Lord Brougham referred to it in a speech delivered by him at the Manchester Institute, in 1835. There were, it seems, "nearly 1,400 indi"viduals actually subscribing and placing "at the disposal of the directors a fund "quite sufficient to bear the current ex