140 How Science Teaching | April, 
Those liberal measures had the effect of calling into existence a 
large number of Science schools and classes, which were well at- 
tended by intelligent artizans, and were, as a rule, ably presided 
over by teachers of no mean scientific attamments. 
A change of Government, however, initiated a new, if not a 
wiser policy, and when Mr. Lowe took the direction of affairs he 
extended the system of “payments on results,” with which he was, 
and still appears to be, so well pleased, to the Science teachers of 
the country ; and whilst he effected a considerable reduction in 
the payments made to those gentlemen who were already engaged 
in the work, he, or the department under him, made great efforts 
to establish new classes, and to swell the list of pupils and teachers 
which is published in each new ‘ Directory.’ 
It is not very difficult to anticipate what would be the result 
of such a change. ‘Teachers who had been receiving 1002. or 
150/. from the State, soon found their incomes dwindling away to 
one-half or a fourth of that sum, and when the Government issued 
a “recommendation,” as they did soon afterwards, that the fees of 
students should be increased to meet the deficit, accompanied by 
the gentle hint that State aid was liable to be withdrawn altogether, 
the School Committees had no alternative but to follow their in- 
structions, and to drive away a considerable number of those persons, 
both pupils and teachers, who had been attracted by the bounty 
of the State. Between the years 1860 and 1864, with a rapidly- 
increasing list of teachers, entailing an amount of work which ren- 
dered tt necessary to double the sum expended in the management 
at South Kensington, there was hardly any increase in the estimates 
for the payment of teachers, so that practically the Government 
was “robbing Peter to pay Paul;” and it was at this stage of 
the movement that the article appeared in which we pointed out 
the injustice and impolicy of such a proceeding, and predicted that 
it would have a most injurious effect upon the scientific education 
of the people. Our remarks concluded with an explanation of the 
reason why the Science teachers had not protested against the 
breach of faith on the part of the State, and it simply amounted to 
this: they had been decoyed into a profession, for which they were 
willing to make great sacrifices; they were comparatively few in 
numbers; and any resistance to the heads of the department would 
only have made its initiators marked men, and might have sub- 
jected them to great annoyance. 
They suffered as long as they could, and many of them were 
compelled for a time to live upon a pittance which we should con- 
sider it an insult to offer to a skilled labourer. One gentleman 
(one of the best teachers in the three kingdoms), who was at first 
in receipt of a fair income from the State and from his pupils, many 
of whom were distinguished by the possession of valuable medals, 
