GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



387 



continued and increased in number because in 

 the latter no religious instruction is given and 

 none of a sectarian character could be intro- 

 duced. When the question arose of abolishing 

 school fees in the state-supported schools and 

 substituting an additional subvention from the 

 Government a demand was made for like assist- 

 ance for the voluntary schools. A large section 

 of the Liberal party favors the assumption of the 

 voluntary schools by the state and the institution 

 of a general system of public elementary schools, 

 such as exists in the United States and in most 

 European countries, and few of the Tories would 

 venture to propose the extension of state aid 

 free from state control. Any sort of interfer- 

 ence on the part of the state would discourage 

 religious contributors and diminish the revenue 

 of the voluntary schools from private benefac- 

 tions. The introduction of gratuitous education 

 in the board schools would entail an expense to 

 the Government of not only the 2,000,000 rep- 

 resented by the school fees now collected; it 

 would lead to the transfer of the education im- 

 parted in the voluntary schools to the Govern- 

 ment, increasing the yearly expenditure by 30,- 

 000,000 or 40,000,000. 



The new education code, embodying the rec- 

 ommendations of the Royal Education Commis- 

 sion, does away with the system of " payment by 

 results," which leads to cramming, overstudy, 

 and loading of the memory with uncongenial 

 knowledge learned by rote and quickly forgot- 

 ten. Leaving school at the age of eleven in the 

 rural districts and at eleven and a half or twelve 

 and a half in the towns, during the interval that 

 elapses before the children are put to useful oc- 

 cupations the knowledge with which they have 

 been hurriedly crammed in order to increase the 

 teacher's allowance passes from their minds. In 

 the future teaching is to be adapted to the physi- 

 cal and mental condition of the pupils, who will 

 be made to comprehend and assimilate what 

 they acquire. Physical and manual training 

 will be made prominent, and kindergarten or 

 similar methods will make learning attractive 

 to little children, while later drawing and manu- 

 al training of an advanced kind are to be com- 

 pulsory for boys, and a larger share of the school 

 time of girls will be claimed by cookery and 

 laundry work. The inspector is no longer obliged 

 to examine each individual pupil. All are re- 

 quired to be present at the examination and all 

 are liable to be examined, but it is left to him to 

 examine as many as he may see fit. Teachers 

 will have more liberty in arranging the educa- 

 tional course. It is no longer necessary for a 

 child to be in the same standard in all three ele- 

 mentary branches. For pupil teachers the new 

 code requires severer tests before they receive 

 certificates. Instead of being examined by the 

 inspector at the end of their apprenticeship of 

 four years, they must pass the examination for 

 the Queen's scholarships, and two failures dis- 

 qualify them. The system of merit grants and 

 of percentages by results disappears, though the 

 principle is retained to a limited extent in vari- 

 able grants for higher degrees of efficiency. Ev- 

 ery school that is found efficient by the inspector 

 receives 12s. Qd. If his report is favorable this 

 is increased to 14s. For discipline and organi- 

 zation there is a further grant of Is. or Is. 6d. ; 



for needlework, and an equivalent for boys, la. ; 

 and for class subjects, according to the efficien- 

 cy shown, Is. or 2s. The best schools can earn 

 1 Qd. per pupil, to be increased by payments 

 for specific subjects and by the grant for draw- 

 ing, which is made compulsory for boys. For 

 girls there are special allowances where cooking 

 and laundry work are taught. A principal 

 teacher is held competent to teach 60 children, 

 and for every 70 children additional there must 

 be a certificated teacher who has received a 

 normal-college training, or, if untrained, he only 

 counts for 60 children. Infant schools receive 

 a fixed grant of 9s., which may be reduced to 

 7s. if the school does not satisfy the require- 

 ments of the code, and if .it surpasses the mini- 

 mum requirements there is a supplementary 

 grant varying, according to the merits of the 

 school, from 2s. to 9s., with Is. for needlework 

 instruction for girls and drawing for boys and 

 Is. more for music, subject to the condition that 

 the older children can sing by note. The new 

 code went into force on Sept. 1, 1890. Ele- 

 mentary education was made free in Scotland 

 in 1889. The Government grants paid to Eng- 

 lish primary schools in 1889 was 3,245,827 and 

 to Scotch schools 488,713, besides 433,708 for 

 special branches in Great Britain, while the 

 grants to Irish schools amounted to 902,577, 

 making the sum given by the Government for 

 elementary instruction 5,071,005. The income 

 of the schools from endowments, local rates, 

 voluntary subscriptions, and other sources was, 

 in 1888, for England 3,839,408; for Scotland, 

 586,942 ; and for Ireland, 194,984. There were 

 in England and Wales 19,221 schools, with ac- 

 commodation for 5,356,554 children, and 3,614,- 

 967 in average attendance; in Scotland, 3,105 

 schools, with accommodation for 687,297, and 

 496,239 in attendance; in Ireland, 8,196 schools, 

 with an average attendance of 493,883 pupils. 

 The total number of children between the ages 

 of five and fourteen in England and Wales was 

 5,962,488 and in Scotland 833,109. Of the 

 schools in England and Wales 4,562 were direct- 

 ly under school boards, 11,838, were connected 

 with the National Society or the Church of Eng- 

 land, 554 were Wesleyan, 895 were Roman Catho- 

 lic, and 1,375 were British, undenominational, 

 and other schools. In Scotland 2,608 were pub- 

 lic schools, 76 were connected with the Church 

 of Scotland, 157 were Roman Catholic, and the 

 rest were connected with other religious bodies 

 or were undenominational. In England and 

 Wales there were 44 training colleges in 1888, 

 with 3,277 students, and in Scotland 7 colleges, 

 with 857 students. 



Commerce. The imports in 1889 reached the 

 total of 427,210,830, against 387,635,743 in 

 1888, and 362,227,564 in 1887. The exports of 

 domestic products amounted to 248,091,959, 

 against 233,842,607 in 1888. and 221,414.186 

 in 1887; the foreign exports to 64,939,715, 

 against 64,042,629 in 1888, and 59,348,975 in 

 1887. The value of the total trade per capita 

 was 19 11s. 7d., which was a greater average 

 than in any year since 1883. The share of Eng- 

 land and Wales in the total was 90 per cent., of 

 Scotland 7, and of Ireland 2 per cent. The 

 shares of the principal foreign countries and 

 British possessions in the imports and in the ex- 



