488 



SCIEN'CE. 



[Vot. \an., No. 199 



and have the power to make by-laws by which 

 children from five to thirteen years of age may 

 be compelled to attend school. This is the only 

 provision in the act of 1870 relating to compul- 

 sory attendance, which was thus inade absolutely 

 dependent upon the will of the school boards. In 

 the localities where no such board existed (i.e., in 

 localities supplied with a sufficient amount of 

 proper school accommodation), compulsion was 

 impossible, while in those possessed of a school 

 board it was in the power of the board not to 

 adopt the necessary by-laws. 



The expenses of the schools established by the 

 local boards were to be defrayed from a school 

 fund provided for by the act. This was to con- 

 sist of school-fees, of parliamentary grants, and of 

 a compulsory local rate. As much of the expen- 

 diture was of a permanent character, the school 

 board was given the power to borrow money oil 

 the security of the school fund. 



The whole educational system was kept under 

 the control of the education department, which 

 inspected all the state-aided schools, revised the 

 accounts of the school boards, and could enforce 

 the execution of the law by means of its power to 

 step in and do any work that had been omitted 

 by a defaulting district, at the expense of such 

 district. 



Such were the leading features, of the act of 

 1870, whose main purpose, it has been said, " was 

 to establish a fixed and statutory local authority 

 where the casual efforts of local benevolence and 

 zeal had failed ; " and this purj^ose was in the 

 main accomplished. Both the statutory and vol- 

 untary agencies increased greatly in number. 

 School accommodation nearly doubled between 

 1869 and 1876. In 1876 the schools cost £3,500,000, 

 of which £750,000 came from subscription, £370,000 

 from local rates, and more than £1,500,000 from 

 the parliamentary grants. 



One point for criticism and amendment yet re- 

 mained, — the attendance was very small : indeed, 

 it hardly exceeded 2,000,000. This subsequent 

 statutes have attempted to remedy. The most 

 important of them are the elementary education 

 acts of 1876 and 1880. These made it the duty of 

 the parent to have his child educated in the ele- 

 mentary branches, and also placed nevv restrictions 

 on the employment of children when it might 

 interfere with their education. They added a new 

 local authority, called the ' School attendance 

 committee,' which, as well as the school boards, 

 must pass by-laws requiring compulsory attend- 

 ance ; and they gave the local school authorities 

 more extensive powers for the enforcement of at- 

 tendance in case of neglect, and for the encourage- 

 ment of regularity among those children who 



professed to attend. The result of these acts was, 

 that in 1885, when compulsion was in operation 

 throughout the entire country, the average at- 

 tendance was over 3,400,000 ; there was acconamo- 

 dation for more than 5,000,000 ; while the parlia- 

 mentary grant had reached £3,867,000, the sub- 

 scriptions £756,000, the local rates soaiething 

 more than £1,140,000. and the school pence 

 £1,791.000. The schools thus cost, in all, for their 

 annual maintenance, £6,550,000 in 1885. 



From this short sketch of the history and pres- 

 ent position of Eoglish primary education, we 

 see that its characteristics are, 1°, universal com- 

 pulsory attendance ; 2°, obligatory maintenance 

 of proper unsectarian schools by the various 

 localities ; 3°, supervision of the whole system by 

 the central organization, — the educsrtion depart- 

 ment, — which has power to step in and remedy 

 the neglect of recalcitrant localities. 



As a result of the fact that these elementary 

 education acts are simply to supplement a system 

 of schools existing at the time of their adoption, 

 the present elementary schools of England fall 

 into three classes. The first class is composed of 

 the denominational schools, as they are called, 

 supported by the school societies, and existing in- 

 dependently, as before, in all towns and places in 

 which foundations, private subscriptions, and the 

 large resources of the school societies, are sufficient 

 to provide the school accommodation required by 

 law. About one-third of all the school-children 

 in England attend these schools even now. The 

 second class is composed of schools denomina- 

 tional in name, and connected with church 

 societies, but supported only in part by church 

 funds, the remainder of the cost of their main- 

 tenance being made up from state grants or local 

 rates. These are spoken of as public schools, are 

 under the inspection of the school authorities, and 

 are maintained as schools for all denominations. 

 The majority of the schools belong to this class. 

 The English church maintains naost of them, re- 

 ceiving for so doing half of all the state aid 

 granted. In the third class are the newly formed 

 board schools, under the direct administration of 

 the district boards, and existing in the poorer dis- 

 tricts. These are continually increasing in num- 

 ber. They receive a sum from the state grant 

 which is considerably larger than the amount 

 received by all the denominational schools outside 

 of those directly connected with the church, 



Frank J, Goodnow. 



The freshmen at Cambridge university, Eng- 

 land, this term, number 938, of whom 197 go to 

 Trinity college. The freshmen at Oxford number 

 616, 



