Public education, like every other department of human policy, depends in the last resort on the money which is forthcoming to support it; and every fresh departure makes a new demand on the Treasury. In 1833 Great Britain began with a vote of £20,000; in 1860 it was £800,000; in 1897 it was over £9,000,000 in public grants for elementary education in this island alone', exclusive of nearly five millions raised by rates for the same purpose. For the first quarter of a century after the passing of the first Elementary Education Act, the total expenditure in England and Wales under this heading, from all sources, public and private, is estimated at £219,000,000. Secondary and technical education draw £1,500,000 sterling annually from endowments and local rates, while the universities and university colleges derive more than £1,000,000 from income and subsidies. The total education fund from public grants, endowments, and other sources must amount to fully £20,000,000 a year for Great Britain and Ireland 3.

How much money are we willing to spend? How much ought we to spend? How much are we justified in spending on our national education? I cannot but think that any one who reads the following pages, or investigates the facts for himself, will conclude that the sum will have to be increased considerably beyond £20,000,000.

takings with a commercial element, however slight, like the Girls' Public Day School Company (p. 160), or miscellaneous bodies, like the Association for the Better Endowment of the University of Edinburgh. 1 Vide p. 307.

2 Sadler: Special Reports, 1897, p. 30.

In this there is very little living-money included, except so far as it falls under the head of endowments. The bills paid by the parents of the pupils at secondary boarding schools must amount to over a million a year, possibly a million and a half; but of this a considerable portion is allotted to maintenance. It is notorious that the financial prizes of the teaching profession are the boarding houses of good schools; among the house-masters are many men of the highest character and of the greatest ability as teachers, but it is only very indirectly to their teaching that their good fortune is due.

I. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 1.

A. In England and Wales.

1. UNDER THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

i. The Education Department.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century there was no system whatever of elementary education existing in England and Wales. Many endowments had been created, various societies raised considerable sums annually for the purpose, the clergy and ministers in many parts of the country were zealously promoting schools according to their different ideals, but there was no relation between the different bodies, no independent test of their work, and no control over them if they failed in the performance of it.

It was known that the elementary instruction given was very defective, and that the foundations of pious benefactors were in many cases badly administered; and in 1816 Henry Brougham moved for a Select Committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the former of these subjects 2, and himself sat as chairman until the report was presented in 1818. In that year he introduced a Bill for the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into

I have not thought it necessary to look beyond the generally recognized division of education into elementary, secondary, and higher, nor do I offer any definition more subtle than that elementary education is the education given in public elementary schools, that higher education is that general training which is given in Universities and University Colleges, and that secondary education is that mass of instruction which lies between the elementary schools on the one hand and the Universities on the other, whether it ends in itself or leads to higher instruction. The Education of the Lower Orders.'

2

B

educational charities existing in England and Wales; and these Commissioners were appointed and re-appointed until 1837'. The scope of the first inquiry was confined to the metropolis, and that of the second was much restricted by the House of Lords' amendments to the enabling Act, but the results showed that neither needs nor abuses had been exaggerated.

Education was in the air, but it was some time before Parliament proceeded to deal with it as a practical question.

A Bill had been introduced by Mr. Whitbread in 1807 to found a school in every parish, as in Scotland, with power to employ local rates; and this first measure dealing with English elementary education as a whole was passed by the House of Commons but rejected by the House of Lords. In 1820 Brougham brought in an Education Bill based on his investigations, but religious jealousy and dislike of change rendered all attempts at legislation abortive, and it was not until 18332 that the House of Commons voted a sum of £20,000 'for the purposes of education.' It was passed late in the session, and carried by a majority of twenty-four, only seventy-six members being present. Joseph Hume voted against it on the ground that Brougham's reports had shown that there was a sum of half a million applicable to these purposes. Cobbett declared that the sole result of the movement was 'to increase the number of schoolmasters and mistresses, that new race of idlers'; and that this was nothing but an attempt 'to force education on the countrya French, a Doctrinaire plan,' to which he should always be opposed3. As it was a vote in Supply, it needed no confirmation from the House of Lords, and the money was given to the Treasury to be administered in the erection of schoolhouses in Great Britain 1.

1

58 Geo. III, c. 91; 59 Geo. III, c. 81; 10 Geo. IV, c. 57: 1 & 2 Will. IV, c. 34; 5 & 6 Will. IV, c. 71; vide p. 155, The Charity Commission; Parliamentary Papers, 1877, lxvi. p. 21.

2 August 17, 1833.

3 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Third Series, xx. 734.

4 Appropriation Act, 1833, 3 & 4 Will. IV, c. 96. In the following

In 1833 two voluntary societies shared between them the main part of such weekday teaching as was given to the poor in England and Wales. The larger of these, the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church1, had been founded in 1811 to take up the educational part of the work of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, founded in 16982, and its schools were carried on in accordance with the ideas of Dr. Bell. The pupils were all obliged to receive instruction in the Liturgy and Catechism of the Established Church of England, and were required to attend its prayers and services. If the Society ever consented to admit the children of other denominations to its teaching, it was only for missionary purposes and on its own terms, but it never sought nor desired their attendance 1. The British and Foreign School Society was founded in 1808 to carry on the work of Joseph Lancaster, and received its present name in 1814. The Bible was read in its schools, but no denominational religious teaching was given; children of Church folk, Dissenters, Roman Catholics, and Unitarians were all received and taught. It naturally derived its chief support from Dissenters, and was regarded as the society representative of them.

As there was no State machinery in existence for the administration of the new grant, the Treasury Board employed the best means ready to their hand, and relied solely on the recommendations of these two Societies to

years the same sum was voted for 'school-houses in England' only (4 & 5 Will. IV, c. 84).

English National Schools, i. e. schools in connexion with this Society, must not be confused with the Irish National Schools under the Commissioners of National Education, p. 88.

2 Account of the Efforts of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge on behalf of National Education: T. B. Murray, 1848.

An Old Educational Reformer: Dr. A. Bell, by Prof. J. M. D. Meiklejohn: Blackwood, 1881.

Archdeacon Denison, Notes of my Life, pp. 105, 137: Oxford, 1878. Dean Gregory, Elementary Education, p. 70, 1895: National Society. * The National Society in fact allotted £69,710 in grants in the next five years, while the British and Foreign Society only found use for

make grants in aid of building new school-houses, subject only to the condition of half the cost being met by voluntary contributions, actually received, expended, and accounted for, while preference was given to applications from large cities and towns', and therein to schools intended to accommodate four hundred scholars and upward 2. Some useful work was begun by Parliament in the way of facilitating the provision of sites for schools 3.

During the sessions of 1834 and 1835 a Select Committee of the House of Commons took evidence on the state of public instruction, but made no recommendations. In 1838 another Select Committee, reporting on the best means for providing useful education in large towns in England and Wales, considered it desirable that provision. should be made for not less than one-eighth of the population, but 'under existing circumstances and under the difficulties which beset the question,' they were not prepared. to propose any means for meeting the deficiency beyond the continuance and extension of the grants at present made by the Treasury for the promotion of education through the medium of the two Societies. The proposal to create a Board or Office of Education under the control of Parliament was negatived without a division. Mr. Wyse fought stoutly for tolerance and enterprise, but to no apparent purpose 7.

6

Nevertheless in 1839 a further step was taken. From the attitude of the House of Lords it was evident that no popular educational measure had any chance of passing into law. What, however, could not be done with the aid of £34,145, and granted only about a third as many applications as their more popular coadjutor (P. P., 1837-38, xxxviii. pp. 327, 354; vii. p. 166). Successful applicants must submit to an audit, and to making periodical reports on the state of their schools (Minute, August 30, 1833; P. P., 1834, xlii. p. 525). But the matter was left to the superintendence of the two Societies (P. P., 1837–38, xxxviii. p. 365).

1 Minute, August 30, 1833.

2 Minute, March 7, 1834; P. P., 1834, xlii. p. 529.

3 School Sites Acts, 1836, 1841, 1844, 1849, 1851.

✦ Of which Mr. Slaney was chairman and Mr. Gladstone a member. 5 Report, p. xi. 6 Vide p. 102.

7

V P. P., 1837-38, vii. 157.