SCHOOLS WE HAVE VISITED.

III. ALLENHEADS.

IN the very pretty valleys which branch off from the point of contact between Durham, Northumberland, and Cumberland, viz., Weardale, and East and West Allendale, may be found a cluster of schools which well repay a visit. A large portion of the district belongs to W. B. Beaumont, Esq., M.P., whose lead mines provide the chief employment of the people. Mr. Beaumont and Lady Margaret Beaumont take a very lively interest in education, not only education in general, but the instruction and training of the lads and lasses more or less directly connected with their own mining operations. Since the year 1848, when the school premises at Allenheads (schoolrooms and teacher's house), which stand in a commanding position opposite the Hall, and overlooking the works and the village, were built, Mr. Beaumont has been ready to give personal attention and large sums of money to building and maintaining schools at Allenheads, Sinderhope, Brideshill, Keenly, Ninebanks, Carshield, and Newhouse. His benevolent efforts have been warmly seconded by Mr. Thomas Sopwith, M.A., the principal mining agent, whose intelligent supervision and ready help have gained him the title of "The Teacher's Friend." The rooms are neat substantial stone structures, with stone or tiled floors, which, however suitable to the ironbound Cumberland clogs, strike a southern eye as somewhat cold. In the seven sets of premises there are nine departments, the schools at Brideshill and Newhouse having the boys in one room, and the girls and infants in another, while in the other cases the schools are mixed. Accommodation is provided for 1,200 children, and the number on the books is large. The average attendance is 542, and the number in attendance at the time of our visit was 500. The discrepancy would seem to point to the need of compulsion, yet there are many "reasonable excuses which it would be difficult to disallow. Take Allenheads as an example. At the head of a narrow valley, and not far from the topmost ridge of the high and bleak moorland of the district, with, in the popular estimation, "nine months of winter, and three of spring, summer, and autumn in the year," it is frequently almost impossible for the scholars to assemble in any numbers. The posts along the road, which we took to be the future bearers of telegraph wires, turned out to be road marks, just high enough to be visible after a snowstorm. No wonder that the summer holidays are obliged to be long enough to cover what is termed the "peat harvest," when all available hands are required to use the fine weather for drying and gathering in peat fuel for the winter. The average attendance does not show the number of children under instruction. In this school, where the average (reduced during the stormy weeks of winter, and the valuable harvest-time of summer) is 120, there are sometimes as many as 170 scholars. The number present on the occasion of our visit was small, viz., 134, from another The fees are paid monthly; one shilling for children above seven, eightpence for those under. If three or more children of the same family attend, one is admitted free. This arrangement is found on the whole to work very well, and induces them to come younger; but it has one inconvenient consequence; if the scholars reassemble

reason.

at the middle or end of a month, many of the parents extend the holiday until the beginning of the next. These difficulties have been surmounted by the energy and perseverance of the teacher, Mr. James Bates, of the Borough Road College, who with one assistant, two pupilteachers, and three monitors, has succeeded in bringing the school into a very efficient state. We can heartily endorse the report of H. M. Inspector, the Rev. C. W. King, M.A., who examined the school six weeks previously, viz.,-"This school has passed a creditable examination. The Standard subjects have been carefully taught, and geography and grammar with fair success. Drawing is encouraged, and the children's maps in the upper classes are neat and generally correct. The specimens of needlework are satisfactory, and the order is generally good.'

The school at Allenheads is the model school of the district, but the reports received respecting the others are favourable. Mr. Bates has lately been requested by Mr. Beaumont to exercise some supervision over, and visit at least once a quarter, schools at Sinderhope, Carshield, and Newhouse.

INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE NEW CODE (1871).

(Issued by the Education Department.)

Articles 10 and 12. I may remind you that two or three days spent in rapid visits to schools without notice (Article 12) will enable you to sign the time-tables and certificates, and to examine the registers and log-books of a large number of departments. These visits of surprise, moreover, will enable you to learn more of the general condition of a school, of the regularity with which the attendance is registered, of the habitual presence of the school staff, and of the manner in which the time-table is observed, than is possible when the day of your visit is announced beforehand, and everything arranged for your coming.

You will bear in mind that under Article 10 of the New Code you will be able to employ your assistant somewhat more freely than has hitherto been the practice in examining schools. You will naturally make use of him in the case of those schools with which you are already well acquainted, and may not think it necessary to visit this year. You may also yourself inspect schools and examine the upper standards, leaving your assistant, or sending him before you, to take the examination of the younger children; or you may be able to economize time by arranging with the managers for the collective examination of the upper standards of several schools at some convenient centre. By these and other expedients, which your experience will suggest, you will probably be able to gain, for the purpose of ascertaining the supply of public school accommodation in your district, some of the days which are now spent by you in the examination of individual scholars.

Article 12 moreover of the New Code will enable you, by visits of surprise, to test the condition of schools that have been visited by your assistants, in case they report to you anything which appears to call for inquiry or special notice on your part.

Article 17 (c). The offices of a school cannot be regarded as "suitable" unless they are used exclusively by the children attending the school. In a mixed school of children above seven years of age there must be

a separate set for each sex, accessible by separate approaches from the schoolroom.

Article 19 B 1 (6). The 10s. capitation grants under this Article will be made only when the infants are taught as a separate department, i. e., in a room specially set apart for their use, and by a certificated teacher employed exclusively in their instruction. This teacher, if the infants are fewer than 60 in number, may be an ex-pupil teacher provisionally certificated under Article 60.

Article 19 B1 (a). The 8s. capitation grants under this Article will be made when the infants are treated as a clase of a school for older children, in which case they will be taken into account in settling the school staff required by Article 32 (c).

Article 17 (g). makes it a condition of the award of any grant whatever to a school to which infants are admitted, that they shall be instructed suitably to their age, and so as not to interfere with the instruction of the elder children. The grant to the whole school, and not merely that on account of the infants, will consequently be endangered unless the arrangements for their instruction are carefully attended to. Whenever, therefore, the infants in a school which claims grants under this Article are sufficiently numerous, they should be placed in a class-room of their own, either opening into the main school, or so near it as to be under the direct superintendence of the principal teacher, who ought to give some time daily to the instruction of the infant class. This should be provided for by the time-table, which should also show under whose immediate care the class is placed during the rest of the school hours. The pupil-teacher or assistant teacher who may be employed in teaching the infants ought not to be confined to this class, but should take a part in the ordinary work of the school.

In a mixed school under a master, the sewing-mistress, who will generally take the girls in the afternoon, may be usefully employed with the infant class in the morning.

ATTENDANCE OF INFANTS.-If infants be admitted to a school before they are three years of age, their attendances while under three must be registered; because they will be taken into account in calculating the accommodation required under Article 17 (c), as well as the staff of teachers required by Article 32 (c).

Their attendances while under three must be separately registered; because they will not be taken into account in calculating the grant under either section of Article 19; but attendances made between three and four may be taken into account,

(1) In calculating the grant under Article 19 A (average attendance). (2) As part of the 250 attendances required as a condition of the payment of a capitation grant under Article 19 B 1. An infant must be four years of age before being presented for such a grant; but may have made part of the prescribed number (250) of attendances before completing its fourth year.

Article 20. The minimum qualifications by attendance are two only (a) Two hundred and fifty attendances (simply, whether made under a half-time Act or otherwise).

(6) One hundred and fifty attendances under a half-time Act, or (in rural schools) after the completion of a boy's tenth year. The privilege

annexed to the smaller number of attendances (half-time or rural) does not accrue at all until their numbers in the year (Article 13) reaches 150.

E. g., A. B., who makes 50 attendances as a half-timer in the course of the year, must make 200 attendances as an ordinary scholar to qualify him for examination. B. C., who makes 150 attendances while under ten, must make 100 attendances when over ten, to qualify him for examination.

Article 20 (6) This Article is intended to meet the cases of boys withdrawn from school at an early age for employment in agriculture. In the manager's yearly return (Form IX.) they are required to state whether the boys for whom grants are claimed under this Article are so employed when not at school.

Article 23. RECREATION. Any interval allowed for recreation in the time prescribed for secular instruction by Article 23 of the New Code, must not exceed :-(1) For infants under seven :--Half an hour in the course of a school meeting, of two and a half hours and upwards; quarter of an hour in a shorter meeting. (2) For children above seven : A quarter of an hour in the course of a meeting of three hours, or from five to ten minutes in a shorter meeting.

or a

ATTENDANCE AT CHURCH.-The two consecutive hours of secular instruction required by Article 23 of the New Code must be the same for the whole school or department. If these are secured, at each meeting of the school a time-table may be approved which provides for the attendance at church on certain specified days of those children whose parents do not object, so long as (1) no part of such attendance is registered as school attendance; (2) the time-table shows what arrangements are made for the instruction of the remainder of the children in secular subjects during the absence of part of the school at church. You will bear in mind the requirements of the minutes of the 7th February, 1871 (section 5) which provides (3) that if the school premises admit of it, the children withdrawn by their parents from religious observances or instruction, receive by themselves, in secular subjects during the time or times set apart from religious instruction or observances.

HYMNS.-While my Lords entirely approve of the introduction of singing in schools, it must not, so far as it forms part of the two hours' secular instruction required by Article 23 of the New Code, be the practice of a religious observance, or for the purpose of giving instruction in religious subjects.

READING BOOKS.-It is not proposed to prescribe the use of any particular books, but no instruction in religious subjects may be given in any lesson during the hours fixed for secular instruction under Article 23. My Lords will deal as they arise with cases in which objection may be taken to the manner in which any particular lesson-book is used in a public elementary school.

Article 24. DRILL.-This article is meant to apply (1) to day scholars only; (2) to drill forming part of the ordinary routine of school work, and therefore falling within the ordinary school hours. A school meeting (Article 23) may be held on Saturday morning for "drill" or "music," or both. But my Lords are advised that not more than one hour at a time should be devoted to drill in the case of children.

Article 29 (6). This Article refers to the standards prescribed in Article 28 of the New Code, and not to those prescribed by the Revised

Code. At the first inspection after the introduction of the Code of 1871, children who have been examined in Standard I. of the Revised Code (1870) may be presented in Standard I. of the New Code, and so throughout the succeeding Standards. Scholars examined last year in (what was commonly known as) Standard VII. of the Revised Code may not be presented again in Standard VI. of the New Code.

Article 32 (a). Under the New Code, the amount of their Lordships' grants to a school will not be affected by any income which such school may derive from property inalienably appropriated either to the school itself or to education. Any income from property which is not so appropriated will be treated as a subscription under Article 32.

Articles 47 (b) and 59. In cases where acting teachers obtain certificates under one of these Articles, no grant can be paid to their schools in respect of any period before the date at which they (1) passed the examination for a certificate or (2) obtained (Article 59) a favourable report from the Inspector.

Article 59, 2 (b). The requirements of this Article in respect of the number of children to be examined, and the Standard in which they must pass cannot be relaxed. It is intended to meet those cases only in which teachers who apply for a certificate without passing an examination can appeal to the results of their work in schools large enough to furnish a fair test of its efficiency.

* * *

FOURTH SCHEDULE. English grammar and literature are separate subjects. Either or both of them may be taken up under this schedule. Article 19 A. Circular as to attendance. * * * * * My Lords cannot regard a school as in a satisfactory condition, if a large proportion of qualified scholars are either absent without good cause, or not presented for examination on the day of inspection. Some remark of this kind has frequently to be made by their Lordships, and is scarcely consistent with a favourable report to which it may be appended.

The fifth supplementary rule in the New Code allows the managers to keep back children from examination for the purpose of a grant; but the children so kept back ought to be present on the day of inspection, and may be examined (though not entered on the examination schedule) in whatever manner the Inspector chooses. The results of their examination should be taken into account by the Inspector in his estimate of the general efficiency of the school.

In your visits during the current year you will inform the managers of those schools in which too few children are presented for examination, that in future my Lords will make a deduction from their grants unless they are satisfied with the reasons given for the non-presentation of qualified scholars. I am to request that you will look to this point very carefully before you report favourably either in Form X., or on a teacher's certificate.

The children in schools under an active management and efficient instruction are generally present, and presented in sufficient numbers. In such schools, the plea that a former scholar is no longer on the register does not prevent his being brought up for examination, and cannot in other schools be recognised as a legitimate excuse for his absence. Unless, therefore, illness, tempestuous weather, removal from the district, or some other bona fide reason for non-attendance can be given, my Lords must