temporary inconvenience, it ought to have been confined to future and prospective engagements.

The Committee do not profess to suggest measures in substitution for the proposals to which they object. They admit that after the Report of the Royal Commission, some changes in the existing system could not but be expected; but they at present wish to leave it to the wisdom of the Government and of Parliament, to consider further what better steps might be taken than some of those now under consideration.

I. With respect to the bearing of the Revised Code on the religious character of our schools, the Committee are aware that the former engagements of the Government on this head are untouched; that (as they believe) the position and duties of Her Majesty's Inspectors remain apparently the same; and that there is no direct difference, in this regard, between the Revised Code and the corresponding document which was issued last year. But they submit that a real difference, sufficient at least to call for some further precautions, is created between the two systems by some of the peculiar provisions of the Revised Code. For the first time, the income of the schools from Government, so far as it, and the qualifications for its reception, are positive, specific, and defined, is made to depend solely on three elements of secular knowledge. And, further, though it is theoretically possible that an Inspector may still assign their due relative positions in examination to all the branches of the school into which he is to inquire, still, according to the system laid down, so much time will inevitably be occupied in dealing with those three elements, that, without an increase of Inspectors so enormous that they

do not believe it can be proposed, there must needs be great risk of other matters being dismissed with slight and perfunctory notice.

At present the Committee are only looking at this matter in its religious aspect; and, while they do not wish to see religious knowledge introduced into the scheme on the same footing as secular, still they cannot but think that, if not in the Code itself, in some document of equal publicity, it should be plainly laid down, that the religious condition of the school, where examination into such condition is admitted, will continue to form an integral and essential part of the Inspector's Report. They cannot believe that less than this will satisfy the minds of those who look on this as by far the most important part of the question of Education.

II. The Committee cannot believe that the method provided by Sect. 40 for testing attainment in reading, writing, and arithmetic, with a view to the Capitation Grant, will work fairly or satisfactorily.

Experience seems to have shown that the system of Inspection of schools, and public support to them according to that system, on which we have thus far proceeded, has worked, on the whole, evenly and harmoniously through the country. It will be different when the Inspection and its results are to proceed on a system of specific examination, so rigid in one view, and yet leading to so much diversity in another, such as is here laid down. It is rigid in this respect, that the Inspector has no option between allowing the whole sum claimable on account of any given child in regard to performance in a given branch, and refusing it altogether; while the same rule must inevitably lead to endless dis

crepancies between different parts of the country, according to the lenient or severe temper of different Inspectors. Suppose a child makes six errors in a dictation exercise of ten lines, one person no doubt would allow the grant on account of that child, while another might refuse it.

III. The Committee concur in the obvious objections which have been made to several points in Sections 40 and 41, founded on the fluctuating character (wholly beyond the control of School Managers) of the attendance at schools, and, in particular, on the many accidental circumstances which may diminish the number of children who shall have been present during the month previous to the Inspector's visit.

They also concur in objecting to provision (d) in Sect. 41, of which the effect must be to terminate school-attendance, in the great majority of cases, at the age of 11. The Committee cannot conceive that any counteracting influences that shall approach to being adequate, can be brought against the powerful discouragement to longer attendance which this provision. must cause.

After the experience and the universal agreement of so many years respecting the evil of children leaving school too young, the only reason which they can conjecture for this singular limitation would be one that presumes a total revolution in our view of the right province of the State in respect of education. It may be said that instead of the State caring for its young members of the lower orders having a certain amount of intellectual culture and moral training-which is the ground hitherto taken-its duty warrants it, first in

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disregarding altogether the latter at the time when it becomes most important, and next in limiting its demands to the acquisition by children of the means whereby they may get for themselves mental enlargement and cultivation. The Committee trust that so profoundly retrograde a principle will not be adopted. They have always believed that the reasons why the State has interfered at all in the matter of the education of the poor, have been grave political reasons; that for its own interests and objects it has deemed it of vital moment to endeavour to secure for those children a far higher amount of intellectual enlightenment, mental power, and moral discipline, than the care of their parents or the tendencies of the class among which they move would provide for them. The Committee would much regret to see this far-sighted attempt altogether abandoned.

IV. The Committee concur in the objections, to which they have seen no attempt at an answer, against the grouping principle of Sections 43 and 44; and, in particular, to that of Group I., which, it seems to them, must almost wholly destroy Infant Schools depending upon Government support.

V. The Committee have already intimated that, considering the other provisions of the Code, the directions about "faults of instruction," in Sect. 47 (and also in Sect. 74), are too slight and vague. Unless it is intended fatally to discourage all the subjects of instruction beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, some advantage must be definitely held out to Schools in which such subjects are taught, and well taught, above those in which they are not.

VI. The Committee submit that, unless the Diary or Log-book required in Sections 50-57 is more clearly and minutely described, the attempt to keep it will be very embarrassing to school teachers.

VII. With regard to Pupil-Teachers (Sections 75-84), the Committee, if it is assumed that the State is to give up the relation it has hitherto maintained with some classes of Teachers (which does not necessarily follow from the Managers being left to make their own terms with them, and to which the Committee must not be understood to assent), do not object to the general principle of these provisions. But the principle is applied in an unfair and one-sided manner. The Managers are required, under heavy penalties, to have a certain number of Pupil-Teachers, and, when they have got them, they are further compelled to undertake large pecuniary liabilities on an uncertain prospect of partial repayment. One effect will be, as has often been pointed out, that in very many cases it will be more for the interest of Managers to do without Pupil-Teachers than to have them.

On the assumed principle, Managers should be left to decide whether to have Pupil-Teachers at all, and to arrange when, as well as what, to pay them. Moreover the Committee conceive that at least it should not be made impossible to continue the present system of apprenticeship for a term of years, even if in order to it the beginning of such apprenticeship should be fixed somewhat later than at present: for it is doubtful whether an able race of Teachers is not much more likely to be produced under that system than under one of terminable and precarious engagement.