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which they have never received themselves! And when the poor are the victims of such deception, who is there to stand between master and pupil? who to see that the worth in tuition of even the miserable pittance paid by needy parents with so much difficulty has been received by their children? Even among the more independent classes, how many parents are but indifferent judges either of what their children have learned, or of what they should learn! so that, if the teacher be ignorant or indolent, he may escape with impunity; or if he be eminently efficient, he may miss the high respect due to his superiority. How many teachers also, tolerably competent in point of mere learning, and thoroughly well meaning, but themselves the slaves of ancient customs and unexamined prejudices, compel their pupils to waste the precious years of youth in painful drudgery harshly enforced, and send them forth at last, having learned (from their master at least) little or nothing that is available through life for any good purpose, moral, intellectual, or practical! How many other teachers again, with tempers naturally unsuited to their task, untrained themselves in their own childhood, and without judgment or conscientousness to correct their tempers, are, by the ignorance of the public mind on the paramount subject of moral training, suffered to tyrannise over their pupils till they have destroyed every sympathy of the young heart, and rendered the children intrusted to their care for improvement unamiable, and consequently miserable for life themselves, and sources of misery to their future families!

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These, however, are but the natural, inevitable results of education never having been reduced to a regular science, based on a thorough acquaintance with the science of mind. Surgeons are expected to understand the anatomy of the frames they are to operate upon. Is the texture of the mind, then, less delicate to handle than that of the body? Our universities, no doubt, give degrees which may be supposed to answer to the diplomas of the College of Surgeons. But, in the first place, it is not for a knowledge of the anatomy of mind that the degrees most frequently demanded in tutors are given, but merely for acquaintance with a certain number of the separate branches of learning, which rather adorn than constitute education. In the next place, there is no absolute law to prevent self-constituted teachers from operating on the minds of the young without possessing a degree of any kind. Thus it is that minds are mutilated, and some of children's noblest faculties destroyed, merely because the misdirection of those faculties has produced unruly symptoms. Without a favourable change in this the very foundation of the whole fabric, we cannot anticipate better things for the future. Neither can we expect that in a world in which the majority of mankind have still to struggle for their daily bread, that, even if the right prin

ciples of education were more generally understood, the parents of intended teachers would incur the necessary expenditure without some fair prospect, both of pecuniary remuneration and of that consideration in society which is even more universally coveted than wealth itself. It is thus evident that, without the organized machinery of a complete national system, it is 'next to impossible to fulfil all the conditions necessary to render education an efficient instrument for the production of moral order and consequent happiness.

CHAPTER II.

Some details of plan.

The system, when completed, should be worthy of a great nation, and consist of a Model Department, a Minister of Public Instruction, Boards of Commissioners, Central and Local, with the whole series of Schools, Infant, Primary, Secondary, Finishing, Normal, Agricultural, Industrial, and Special; also Schools of Science and Schools of Art, embracing every branch of human knowledge, useful, ornamental, and curious in research, and accommodated with the necessary libraries, reading-rooms, lecturerooms, orreries, observatories, scientific apparatus, work-shops, gardens, farms, &c. &c. The infant schools, with their playgrounds, everywhere; all the other portions of the series recurring at convenient distances in proportion as the demand for them and the possibility of supplying them with efficient teachers should increase.

The whole course should be thus calculated, in time, to carry real education, with every species of research, to the utmost discoverable limit, and yet should be open, as a matter of right, to all; while each individual's destination would indicate to his or her parents or their representatives, when to withdraw such persons from the general course and devote them to special callings by attendance on special sections, or when to devote them to daily labour by sending them forth direct from the primary schools to earn their daily bread; it being to be clearly understood that attendance for some hours of each day on the agricultural or industrial schools, or both, is to constitute the exercise and recreation of the pupils of the primary schools, that such pupils may thus be fitted for labour of every kind, and learn trades without the expense or loss of time of an apprenticeship.

If, however, after this withdrawal, such persons should find spare hours or spare days for partial attendance on any of the advance schools, the whole course or any part of it should continue to be still and always open to all such as desire so to attend.

The fees for such partial attendance, like the fees for regular attendance, to be always paid out of the education rate of the pupil's own parish, be the school he attends located where it may; each teacher to receive a fixed sum per head for each pupil who attends his school. This sum never to vary in amount, whatever be the rank or the number of the pupils. Such sums to be paid by the local commissioners out of the local rate of the parish or union to which the pupil belongs, without reference to where the school may be situated which his parents wish him to attend. This regulation identifies the pecuniary interest of the rate-salaried teacher with the success of his school as effectually as if it were a private establishment; while the amount of his income would thus depend, not only on his efficiency, but on his discharging his duties impartially to all; the non-attendance of a poor pupil being as great a loss to his pocket as the non-attendance of a rich one.

Nor need this power of attending schools out of the parish cause any intricacy in the accounts of the local boards; the teachers would merely have to send statements of the number of pupils who had attended their schools, with their names and addresses, to the local commissioners of each parish to which each set of pupils belonged, instead of sending in accounts to the parents of each child as in private schools; while each board of local commissioners, having only the pupils of their own parish to pay for, could easily check the teachers' accounts by a reference to the parents, and also, on receiving such accounts, know what amount of rate to levy. The local boards should give tickets to such adults as wish to attend occasionally on the schools of their own or any other parish; and those tickets, returned signed and attested, should serve as vouchers, entitling the teachers of the schools so attended to receive payment from the local boards.

These regulations would be of importance to prevent any parish from having a pecuniary inducement to suffer its schools to fall into decay; as it would, by this means, have its rate to pay notwithstanding-that is, so much per head for every pupil from the parish who attended any rate-supported school in any other part of the kingdom.

In the course of years, the very houses and farms of a neighbourhood which did not afford good schools, would be in danger of being forsaken, or at least considerably lowered in value. But, to defeat every possible device of avarice, it might, perhaps, be desirable, that attendance on some school, under certain regulations, were made compulsory. Then, as parents would naturally prefer having first-rate education at their own door, to the trouble and expense of moving to another parish to seek it, they would generally take care to use every means and influence in their power, to render the school nearest to themselves as perfect as

possible. However, as all persons possessing any property would have to pay the rate, whether they sent their own children to any school or none, they would, in general, be anxious, even from avarice, to send their own children to school, that they might reap the benefit of their unavoidable expenditure. Nor is it unreasonable to expect, that persons of the highest rank would, in time, become alive to the advantages of availing themselves of the very superior system of education to which they would be entitled in right of their rate, instead of paying four hundred pounds per annum for the expenses of one boy, as is not now uncommon. When a few such persons lead the way, and the public mind becomes accustomed to the idea of possessing a national system of public instruction, as a part of the national wealth, people will be in no danger of confounding its institutions with the old notions associated with charity schools; and ultimately, therefore, will be as little deterred by false pride from sending their children to those establishments, as from accepting the protection of our armies and navies.

What an invaluable resource would this prove to innumerable families, who, with limited means think themselves obliged, from their connections, to maintain a certain standing in society and who, under the present system, lead a life of painful struggle to do so, yet give their children anything like a tolerable education! To these, the education rate would prove a light burden-a mere subscription to a benefit-club, in comparison with its mighty advantages. It would be only the very rich, who would pay something more than the cost of educating their own families on the present system. Thus, it would be the very rich, who, in point of fact, would bear the burden of educating the very poor-an arrangement which appears to be about the most benevolent, and the most just, that could well be devised.

No teacher of any rate-supported school can be permitted to take one pupil from whom he is to receive, on any pretext, whether as board, present, price of books, or payment for accommodation of any kind, the slightest remuneration, either beyond or in lieu of the stated rate fee to be paid him by the local commissioners. Either, therefore, all the rate-supported schools must be day-schools, or, if it be found necessary to have boardingschools, they must be distinct establishments, experience having proved, that even a lawful payment for board, when day-scholars and boarders are mixed, has the same bad effect as a direct bribe; the day-scholars, who are generally the poor, finding themselves so neglected for the boarders, who are more profitable to the master, that they cease to attend the school.*

Sessional Papers, 106.-Boarders paying thirty and forty guineas a-year each, are educated out of charity property of 13,627 acres of land, while the schools thus munificently endowed, afford education, some to two, some to three, some to four, and some not to any free scholars.

CHAPTER III.

Application of foundation funds.

In consequence of the many such shameful abuses of educational foundations which have come to light, it would be desirable that, in every parish or union possessing any educational endoyment, all funds, lands, buildings, &c., being the property of such endowments, should be, by Act of Parliament, vested in the local commissioners of education for that parish, in trust, towards the whole sum required as educational rate; and the difference only, if any, to be levied on the private property of the rate-payers. Thus, the inhabitants of each parish would be given an interest in correcting the abuses of their local charities, and the few individuals having a direct interest in continuing the abuse would be compelled to yield to the general feeling; while persons who for years had seen the poor robbed, and thought it no business of theirs, would thus be marvellously aroused to a perception of justice.

As to thus taking the property bequeathed by the pious for the education of the poor, entirely out of the hands of the old trusts, where, in so many instances, it is utterly lost, and devoting it to the maintenance of an efficient system for the promotion of the original intentions of the testators, the justice in spirit is manifest: all objections, therefore, to such a proceeding, are absurd. Shall a nation look on at such an abuse of a testator's intention to educate the poor, as an endowment of nine hundred pounds per annum, received and appropriated by an absentee master; while the locality which ought to be a school, is a sawpit, and is attended by one pupil only? *

The letter of the law is indeed a most necessary defence against the selfishness of individual interpretations, but it should never form a bar to the admission of the spirit of benevolence and justice, as recognised by the whole community through its representatives in Parliament.

CHAPTER IV.

Model department.

The model department of public instruction should have the minister of public instruction and the central board of commissioners at its head.

It should receive into itself every educational improvement

* Pocklington school. Evidence under Lord Brougham's Bill.

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