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II. — Middle - Class Education, icith special reference to our 

 Grammar Schools. By the Rev. Lewis Evans. 



Education is one of the leading questions of the day. To show 

 what importance the subject has attained, and how gradually 

 but surely it has risen to this importance, we have only to 

 review the history of the last thirty years, and direct our atten- 

 tion to two or three leading facts. The first and most gratifying 

 is the great increase in the number of educated persons in this 

 country during that period. The next is the large and rapidly 

 increasing grants of the public money made for educational 

 purposes. Last, and not least, the interest excited by the several 

 Royal Commissions issued to inquire into the existing state of 

 our most important institutions for the promotion of education. 



If we look into these three points in detail, we shall find, with 

 regard to the first, that, from a recent report of the Registrar- 

 General, 32"7 per cent, of the male minors v»'ho married in 1841 

 Avere obliged to sign the register with marhs. This proportion 

 diminished year by year, till 1862, when the percentage was 

 23*7. Among women, in 1841, 48'8 per cent, of minors could 

 not write their names : in 1862 the percentage was only 28*5. 

 In other words, during twenty years, from 1842 to 1862, the 

 proportion of men who can write has risen from being only two- 

 thirds to be three-fourths ; and of women, from being one-half 

 to be nearly two-thirds : or, we may put it thus, that where four 

 persons had to " make their mark " then, there are only three 

 now. 



With respect to the second point, it appears that in 1840 the 

 parliamentary grant for public education amounted to 30,000/. ; 

 in 1850 it rose to 180,110/.; in 1862 to 774,743/. From the 

 Report laid before Parliament in 1863 Avith the Estimates, it 

 appears that the grants for education from the public expenditure, 

 from 1839 to December, 1862, amounted to 6,710,862/. 14^. lOd. 



As to the third point, we may simply remark, that the ' Report ' 

 recently published on the Public Schools of England, has not 

 only been the universal topic of conversation and discussion, 

 but there is not a single periodical, possessing even a verv mode- 

 rate amount of circulation, that has not made it the subject of a 

 special review. 



The subject of education, then, having excited such general 

 interest, it is a very striking fact that this great educational 

 development is confined to one class alone, and is mainly, if not 

 solely, due to the fostering care bestowed on the primary schools. 



With regard to the great public institutions of the country, the 

 benefits of which are manifestly limited to a small class, we 



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