698 Outline of a Plan for 



page may have as many perpendicular columns as there are studies and 

 accomplishments to be taught, with an additional one for general remarks, 

 and as many lines across as there are weeks in the year, with two additional 

 lines for summing up half-yearly. Taking O as the minimum, and 100 as 

 the maximum, of excellence in each study and accomplishment, and also in 

 general conduct, cleanliness, and health, every scholar ought to have his 

 progress in studies, manners, and conduct, entered weekly, and all the 

 columns summed up at the end of every half year would give the data for 

 the premiums. This large book ought to lie at all times on the table of the 

 library, for the inspection of parents and visitors ; and abstracts of each 

 examination, with the sum of each scholar's columns, ought to be printed 

 half-yearly, and a copy preserved in the museum to be bound up in what 

 may be called the Transactions of the school, and another sent to the 

 parents as a family record, and as affording data for estimating the future 

 characters of the children. But these, and many other details, would require 

 further consideration. If the general idea were adopted, it might be worth 

 while for government to offer a handsome sum for the best general plan for 

 regulating and managing such schools. Much also must and ought to be 

 left to the local authorities ; and, above all things, no regulation ought to 

 be introduced which would prevent the introduction of any subsequent 

 improvement in the art of teaching. 



IV. Obligation of Parents to send their Children to the Local School. — A 

 law should be passed, rendering it obligatory to the parents or guardians of 

 all children born or residing in the parisli, to send such children to the 

 parish school, under certain penalties, and with certain exceptions. The 

 penalties may, perhaps, be left to the vestry, under defined limitations; but, 

 with respect to this part of the law, the experience of thirty years in Ger- 

 many has shown that it hardly ever requires to be enforced. As the lower 

 classes become cultivated, they no more think of refusing education to their 

 children than food. The exceptions may be, distance, ill health, poverty, or 

 superiority of rank. Distance would preclude infants from being sent to the 

 infant school, but it would not apply to boys and girls of six and seven years 

 of age.* Children so situated, and also those in ill health, unless indepen- 

 dent, ought to be sent to school for some time beyond the age of puberty, 

 so as to bring them up to the par of cultivation of the other boys and girls 

 of that age. This also might be left to the vestry. The children of poor 

 persons, pauper children, foundlings, &c., ought to be regularly sent to 

 school at the expense of the parish ; and it should be at the option of the 

 vestry to require the service of such children, after they have left school, 

 for such time as should pay back the expenses of the session fees. This 

 repayment would not apply to foundling children, or to those of parents who, 

 after the children were born, were, from causes not originating in misconduct, 

 incapacitated from gaining their bread. As to persons of wealth or rank, it 

 would be sufficient for them to satisfy the vestry that their children were pro- 

 perly educated somewhere. At the same time, as it was before observed, 

 we think it would be greatly for the advantage of all classes in a parish, if 

 the children of the rich and poor went to the same school, from infancy till 

 the age of puberty. The effect would be to humanise both classes, and to 

 create a sympathy between them which does not at present exist; It is evi- 

 dent that, by this means, both classes would know more of human nature; 

 and " knowledge is pleasure as well as power." It would produce a salu- 

 tary feeling of gratitude to Providence, in the mind of a rich man in the 

 enjoyment of his wealth, to be able to compare his state with that of the 

 poor ; and, in the day of adversity, it would be useful to him to be able to 



* Little children are taken by their elder brothers and sisters to the infant 

 school in Marylebone, and left there in their way to the higher school. 



