310 EDUCATION 



ships to restore the measure to the form in which it had 

 passed its second reading in the Lower House. This was 

 done ; the Bill became law, and thus there was introduced 

 into rural districts the principle of indirect compulsion which 

 it was hoped would save agriculture from the application of 

 rigid compulsion, when that may hereafter become a feature 

 of national education." (Annual Report, 1873.) 



At the May meeting, in 1873, the Council appointed a 

 Committee to consider the question of Middle-class Education 

 in Rural Districts, and to report to the Council. The Com- 

 mittee presented their report in the following 'November, 

 signed by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach (now Viscount St. Aldwyn), 

 who was Chairman of the Committee, as well as of the Central 

 Chamber for that year. The report was as follows : 



" The views which have been expressed by various Chambers 

 of Agriculture on the urgent need of further provision for middle 

 class education in rural districts testify to a want which has long 

 been felt, and has been recently brought into more prominent 

 notice by the extension of the system of elementary education. 

 For the result of this extension may very shortly be to provide, 

 mainly at the public expense, a better education for the children 

 of labourers than can be claimed even at considerable cost to 

 their parents, by the children of the middle classes. 



"It is no answer to this to urge that the national elementary 

 schools are open to all classes, and that farmers' children may 

 avail themselves of their advantages at will. It is impossible in 

 this country to ignore the existence of social distinctions, and the 

 reluctance with which many parents look on any system proposing 

 to associate their children with those beneath them in position. 



" Your Committee are therefore of opinion that the time has 

 fully come for the adoption of a system for the education of the 

 middle classes as complete as that already provided for the children 

 of those above and below them ; but they believe that such a 

 system may be better and more cheaply provided and more 

 effectively carried on by a provincial organisation based on the 

 county area, than by any direct aid and control from the central 

 Government. 



" It has been suggested that the means for the establishment 

 of an organisation of this kind might be found within the limits 

 of each county, by a combination of voluntary subscriptions 

 and the existing endowments for secondary education. 



" Examples already in existence show that middle -class 

 schools, if properly conducted, would pay a commercial interest 

 on the capital and endowments thus applied to them, and under 

 such an arrangement the interest of an endowment would not, 



