CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



roll, but in the English and Scotch schools 84 

 per cent. First-class teachers have a salary of 

 42. A teacher is trained for ^50. Ireland, in 



1870, had 976 endowed schools for secondary 

 education, with an annual income of .68,570 from 

 funds and lands ; they are denominational, and 

 mostly for Protestants, but 91 towns of above 

 2000 inhabitants each, have no grammar-schools. 

 Ireland has many unendowed schools for the 

 Roman Catholics. The only efficient teaching 

 open to the Irish middle classes is in the National 

 Board Model Schools in some of the Irish towns 

 for training teachers ; but religious feeling pre- 

 vents the Irish using them. 



In England, elementary education for the 

 lower ranks, who constitute three-fifths of a 

 nation, began with schools attached to the 

 monasteries. Grammar or secondary schools 

 arose in the time of Henry VIII. Then arose 

 parish and charity schools, which for 200 years 

 did much for primary education ; but till 1870 

 England had never a national system. The 

 strictly modern era in the education of the Eng- 

 lish lower ranks began about 1780 with Sunday- 

 schools, and, soon after, the Mutual Instruction 

 System. The state, 1833, began to aid the 

 schools of all sects on condition of inspection ; 

 and the Committee of Privy Council on Education 

 was constituted in 1839. Parliamentary annual 

 grants for education in England and Wales have 

 risen from ^20,000 in 1833, to j i ,830,000 in 1874. 

 The Act of 1870 for the first time established a 

 national system of education in England. The 

 Act empowers, but does not compel the estab- 

 lishment of district school-boards ; but once estab- 

 lished, they can enforce the attendance at school 

 of all children aged 5 to 13. The old voluntary 

 schools aided by state grants still remain where 

 the Act has not been adopted. In England, i in 

 17 of the population was at school in 1818, I in 

 11-5 in 1833, I in 8-3 in 1851, and I in 14 in 



1871. In 1818, a third of the parishes had no 

 school. In June 1874, not half of the popula- 

 tion of England and Wales were under school 

 boards. 



In spite of the spread of education of late years 

 in this country, half the poorer classes, and many 

 above them, cannot read or write. 



The higher education of the middle classes of 

 this country has been left to the higher or second- 

 ary schools, and the universities (mostly endowed 

 by private persons during the last few centuries), 

 and especially in the case of females, to private 

 adventure schools, on no uniform plan, or guar- 

 antee for efficiency. At the Scotch universities, 

 there is i student in 1000 of the population ; at 

 the German, I in 2930 ; and at the English, i in 

 5800. 



To improve the education of the higher opera- 

 tives, artisans, shopmen, clerks, &c. in practical 

 science and art, by classes, lectures, and libraries, 

 mechanics' institutions arose in 1823, and have 

 been much extended. In 1853, there were in the 

 United Kingdom 702 such institutions, with 

 120,081 members, 18,120 persons at the evening 

 classes, and 815,516 volumes in the libraries. In 

 1874, the Yorkshire Union of 136 mechanics' insti- 

 tutions had 28,000 members. 



To instruct youths and adults of the industrial 

 classes in the principles of science and art r 

 applicable to mechanical and chemical opera- 

 tions, the Science and Art Department of the 

 Committee of Council on Education was founded 

 in 1853. Instruction is given in schools, and 

 by lectures, laboratories, museums ; and prizes 

 and money payments are awarded on passing 

 certain examinations. Any schoolmaster in the 

 United Kingdom (certified as having passed the 

 local Science and Art examination, or who is a 

 university graduate), can send pupils to the exam- 

 inations, and receive payment if they pass. In 

 1872, at 653 local centres of examination in the 

 kingdom, 19,568 pupils from 1238 schools were 

 examined, and 133. 8d. paid for each who passed. 

 Special courses of scientific instruction were given 

 to 1 86 teachers. Connected with the Science and 

 Art Department are the Royal School of Mines, 

 the Royal School of Chemistry, the Royal Irish 

 School of Science, the Royal School of Naval 

 Architecture, the South Kensington Museum, and 

 other museums in London, Edinburgh, and Dub- 

 lin. On these objects was spent ,209, 1 19 of public 

 money in 1872. The Geological Survey of the 

 United Kingdom is also connected with the de- 

 partment, but is paid by a separate parliamentary 

 vote. 



At the census of 1881 the population of the 

 United Kingdom was 35,262,762, an increase of 

 about 3^ millions since 1871. The population of 

 the city of London was at the same time 4,764,312. 

 The annual birth-rate in London in 1886 was 32-7 

 per looo, and the death-rate 20-7, as compared 

 with 27-6 and 24-4 in Paris, and 33-5 and 25-9 in 

 Berlin. In 20 English towns at the same date, 

 the average birth-rate was 33 -5, and the death-rate 

 21-8. The marriage rate in England in 1886 was 

 14-2. The number of criminal convictions in 

 England and Wales in 1885 was 10,500, a gradual 

 decrease since 1866. The number of criminal 

 convictions in Scotland, out of a population of 

 less than 4,000,000 in 1885, was 1956. In Ireland, 

 out of a population of over 5,000,000, there were 

 1573 convictions. The railway accidents in 1885 

 amounted to a proportion of i in 6,835,421 pas- 



MM 



sengers. The total killed in the same year was 

 957, and the injured 3467. Of primary schools in 

 Great Britain, 21,976 were inspected in 1885 ; the 

 number of children who could be accommodated 

 was 5,658,819, and the average number of children 

 in attendance was 3,826,980. At the same time, 

 great advances had been made in the cause of 

 technical education, schools for industrial training 

 having been established in many large towns in 

 the kingdom. The parliamentary vote for the 

 Science and Art Department in 1856-57 was 

 ^64,675 ; in 1886-87 it was ^400,043. The 

 number of persons receiving art instruction in 

 elementary schools had increased from 30,000 in 

 1857 to 810,000 in 1885, while 889,149 persons 

 received instruction in some form, in the same 

 year, through the agency of this department 



