486 



scmJS'CE. 



[Vol. VUL, No. 199 



the present time we may divide iato three sub- 

 periods. 



First, the period of the pure subsidy system. 

 Each year the appropriation was increased, until 

 in 1860 it was thirty times as great as in 1832. It 

 was originally intended that this appropriation 

 should be distributed by the treasury department ; 

 but in 1839 this duty was transferred to the edu- 

 cation committee of the privy council, which 

 then began to take the form of an executive de- 

 partment for educational affairs. The principles 

 which were to guide the committee in the distri- 

 bution are found in a ti-easury minute of 1833, 

 and were, 1", that the sum granted was always to 

 be expended in the building of schoolhouses ; 2°, 

 no grant was to be made unless one-half of the 

 cost of building was met by voluntary contribu- 

 tions, and unless the application for the money 

 was recommended by the national or the British 

 and foreign school society ; and finally, 3°, popu- 

 lous places were to have the preference in the al- 

 lotment of the grants. When the subsidies were 

 increased in amount, these rules were somewhat 

 relaxed ; so that, for example, teachers who had 

 passed the committee's examination might be paid 

 from the grant. 



It will be noticed from this that all connection 

 between the schools and the state was vokintary 

 on the part of the schools ; but, so long as this 

 connection lasted, the school was subject to state 

 inspection. Under this system great material 

 progress was made, as is seen from the reports of 

 the committee of the council of education. The 

 most imiiortant for this purpose is that contained 

 in Parliamentary papers, 1864, vol. xlv. This re- 

 port marks the end of this first sub-period, and 

 shows that during it the inspection districts had 

 increased in number to sixty, that 4,628 school- 

 houses had been erected, and that from 1839 to 

 1864 £7,400,000 had been expended. But the 

 quality of the education given in the schools was 

 very poor. The teachers originally had no peda- 

 gogic training whatever. The monitorial system 

 of teaching, as developed by Bell and Lancaster, 

 had been adopted. By it the pupils taught each 

 other under the nominal supervision of a teacher. 

 Instruction was principally in religious matters, 

 ■ since the schools were mainly sectarian ; and 

 though secular instruction was thus given a dis- 

 proportionately small share in the system of edu- 

 cation, yet no sound religious instruction was 

 given to counterbalance this disproportion. This 

 may be seen from the following written answers, 

 from children of average intelligence in an in- 

 spected school, to the questions, ' What is thy 

 duty towards God?' and 'What is thy duty to- 

 Avards thy neighbor ?' "My duty toads God is to 



bleed in Him, to fering and to loaf withold your 

 arts, withold my mine, withold my sold, and with 

 my sernth, to whirchp and give thanks, to i)ut 

 my old trash in Him, to call upon Him, to onner 

 His old name and His world and to save Him 

 truly all the days of my life's end." " My dooty 

 toads my nabers, to love him as thyself and to do 

 to all men as I wed thou shall and to me ; to love, 

 onner, and suke my farther and mother ; to onner 

 and to bay the Queen and all that are pet in a 

 forty under her ; to smit myself to all mygooness, 

 teaches, sportial pastures and marsters," etc. 



To remedy a system which could lead to so 

 lamentable and at the same time so grotesque re- 

 sults, a trained staff of teachers had to be ob- 

 tained. This was done by establishing training- 

 colleges, to which school managers were to send 

 students, and from which they were to receive 

 back teachers, to be paid in great part by the 

 state, and provided with certificates granted by 

 the state, which thus guaranteed their efficiency. 



In 1851 as many as twenty-five of these train- 

 ing-colleges were established. But the establish- 

 ment and maintenance of these institutions neces- 

 sitated a great increase in the parliamentary 

 grants, which in 1853 reached the sum of £160,000. 

 As the greater part of these grants went to the 

 schools founded by the national society, the 

 agency of the state church, which did most of the 

 educational work (during the years from 1889 to 

 1864, out of £7,400,000 the church schools had 

 received £4,450,000), the dissenters became very 

 much alarmed. They claimed that the grants 

 were an artifice for increasing church revenues. 

 In the course of this dispute there arose, for the 

 first time in the history of English education, a 

 party which advocated the adoption of a state 

 "secular system, administered, irrespective of 

 religious belief, by local and elective bodies ; " 

 while the dispute itself led to the appointment of 

 what is knowm as the ' Commission of inquii'y of 

 1858.' Though the plans proposed by this coqi- 

 mission were not adopted in the form in which 

 they were submitted, still they were the j)oint of 

 departure for the new movement, which we may 

 say begins with the Revised code of 1863. 



The second sub-period, then, is the period of 

 the Revised code. The education department had 

 been getting ready to revise its system. To do 

 this, an abstract of all of its regulations was made 

 in 1858. In 1860, Mr. Lowe, the vice-president of 

 the committee of council, draughted the regula- 

 tions in the form of a code, arranged in chapters 

 according to subjects. It now fell to him to 

 embody in his code the suggestions contained in 

 the report of the commission of 1858. This he 

 did by revising the code, which was thereafter 



