Trinity College and the University of Dublin have continued on their way, not very much affected by Test Acts or reformed constitutions, preserving their 'distinct Protestant aroma' and discharging the duties of a Protestantminded University with success. The Universities of Dublin, however, stand alone (with the exception of London) among the Universities of the United Kingdom in dispensing with residence as a condition of graduation in Arts, and yet no official body ever seems to have thought of suggesting that this requirement should be enforced in the case where there is no real obstacle in its way.

The poverty of Ireland has no doubt affected both the efficiency of its education and the supply of its scholars, but it is the religious difficulty which has prevented it from developing along the lines which were laid down for it. The Catholics refuse to receive any instruction except from Catholics; they demand that Catholic practices shall be allowed in schools which do contain and need contain none but Catholic pupils, and that a Catholic University, or at least a University with a Catholic atmosphere, shall receive endowment and State recognition. The question depends not in the least on the merits of any particular form of University or of any system of education. There is a direct. refusal of the spiritual rulers to allow their people to accept any but an education administered by themselves, and as the Catholic educational institutions in Ireland have long been struggling with imperfect resources, the bulk of the Catholic population is therefore imperfectly educated. It is ungenerous to find fault with a nation which is ready to forego the material advantages of secular instruction from a devotion to the purity of its religion, and this is no place for subtle distinctions by which to adjust the rival claims of an education by which the intellect is trained and a faith which is above intellect.

In the meantime it is evident that Ireland is in far worse need of preparation for technical instruction than of any increase in university teaching.

There is a new factor introduced into Ireland this year by the Local Government Act, which has created the County Councils to which Mr. Wyse and his Committee looked for help sixty years ago'. It may be doubted whether religious difficulties will become less acute by being localized, but in other respects experience may well encourage us to hope for greater local vitality and interest in education when it is controlled less exclusively by a remote central administration.

If Ireland has been treated as the poor relation of the family, Scotland is the happy woman who has no history. The schools and Universities of Scotland have no more sensational a record than is compatible with a long and successful existence. Even the delights of theological controversy and the fierce joys of sectarian persecution were early laid aside to foster a homogeneous system of education. The Scotch Education Act in 1872 resulted in no half-hearted compromise, but found the denominations ready to transfer their schools to the new School Boards which were created throughout the whole country, and Voluntary Schools are thus few and of small importance. Already before the Act there existed in all the towns public secondary schools, which also gave elementary instruction when it was needed, and in the country districts there were rate-aided masters of parish schools who trained their best boys for the Universities.

The characteristic of Scotch education was that no one grade was entirely separate from another. Nearly all the schools were in some measure both elementary and secondary2, and the Universities, as their enemies alleged and their friends must to some extent confess, were secondary too. When it became necessary to extend this system and render it complete, the application of English codes and English

1 Vide p. 202.

2 Even now in fourteen out of the thirty-two counties there is no Higher Class Public School and no Secondary Public School, but secondary instruction is given only in the higher departments in the ordinary schools. School Board Chronicle, June 11, 1898, p. 634.

classifications was found to produce more irritation than benefit, and even the creation of a separate Education Department and the appointment of a Minister for Scotland have not secured her altogether from the effects of the supposed identity of organization with the system established in England.

In no respect has Scotland been more conspicuously in advance of the rest of the Union than in her resolve to provide free education. First, she applied to her elementary schools the money which England and Ireland appropriated to relief of rates; and when Parliament eased her from the burden of this voluntary self-denial, £90,000 of the money so released was applied to secondary education and-somewhat under protest-to the Universities, the maintenance of which she considered to be rather an Imperial duty.

Comparisons between countries are invidious and often untrustworthy, but the example of Scotland is the weapon generally used to intimidate England into effecting the reforms most needed in her elementary schools. Children attend school longer in Scotland'; the proportion of teachers is greater 2; more class subjects may be and are successfully taken; the 'woman over eighteen' is only an occasional substitute for the pupil teacher. These and other details are held up for the example of impenitent England.

Poor Law children are boarded out and educated in the ordinary public schools. Poor Law authorities have greater responsibility towards industrial schools, but the local contributions to industrial schools and reformatories are nevertheless proportionately smaller than in England.

By a curious anomaly the most important charitable foundations had become boarding schools, which withdrew

1 The percentage of children between thirteen and fourteen in Scotland in 1896 was 5.91 against 4.27 in England (Times, March 23, 1898). 2 One to sixty-two children against one to seventy-eight in England (ibid.).

their children from public instruction, although private boarding schools were the rare exceptions in Scotland.

The number of the Scotch Universities has always been large in proportion to the number of her inhabitants, and only one university college has been added to her system. The level of education has been considerably raised, a corporate life has been encouraged as far as is possible among students who live dispersed in lodgings. Those who have had a defective education are still admitted to the Universities, but are excluded from qualifying for degrees. Financial competition between the Universities has been checked by an ordinance of uniformity of fees, which still remain lower by a half than those of the London colleges. The generosity of individuals has gone far to remedy the former inadequacy of endowments. Edinburgh alone in twenty years acquired almost £500,000 sterling. Aberdeen received £300,000 in thirty-five years1. Glasgow obtained £250,000 from private sources alone for her new buildings; while a few years ago St. Andrews benefited by a legacy of £100,000.

To return to the United Kingdom as a whole, nowhere has there been a greater change than in the education of In the development of elementary education girls have received an equal share with the boys, and in the remodelling of endowments at any rate the principle of equality has been recognized. The growth and improvement of their secondary schools have been incredible. The trials and the benefits of examinations have been opened to them even in the least liberal quarters, instruction has been extended to them almost in an equal measure, and it is only the outward mark of having passed the complete round of the highest examinations and fulfilled the most exacting requirements that has been denied them by the ancient Universities of England. At all events the reproach 1 The Universities of Aberdeen: by R. S. Rait: Bisset, Aberdeen, 1895, p. 362.

But the University of Dublin refuses the degree, and Trinity College refuses the instruction, vide p. 288.

of female ignorance has been taken away from our education more quickly than other deficiencies of which we have no less reason to be ashamed.

It is not possible to close these few general remarks on national education, even from the central point of view, without some reference to the numerous associations of individuals which have promoted the advancement of particular views, or preserved the independence and guarded the interests of particular classes. To write a history of these organizations would perhaps be the best way to do justice to the variety and energy of individual and local effort in the education of this kingdom-if any one could be found with the knowledge, the discrimination, and the courage necessary for this task 1.

1 Even in my pages reference will be found to the share taken by the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society in the commencement of public elementary instruction in England, and the former society has found its historian in Dean Gregory (Elementary Education: National Society, 1895). The National Public School Association and the Manchester and Salford Committee played their part in the middle of the century, while the action of the Education League between 1869 and 1877 over the early Education Acts is recorded by Mr. Adams (The Elementary School Contest, pp. 160, 295). The North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women (1867-74) laid the foundation for University Extension lectures and University examinations for women, and it has long been a society which was responsible for University Extension in London. The work of the National Association for the Promotion of Technical and Secondary Education, founded in 1887, has been most valuable.

Almost every division of teachers now has a separate association. The Headmasters of the Public Schools held their first Conference in 1869; the Association of Headmasters was incorporated in 1885, while the Association of Headmistresses dates from 1874. The largest of all these bodies, the National Union of Teachers (i. e. in public elementary schools), numbers, in 1898, 38,683; the Teachers' Guild of Great Britain and Ireland (chiefly of secondary teachers), founded in 1883, has some 4,300 members.

In Scotland the Educational Institute, numbering over 5,000, has existed since 1847 for all classes of teachers and persons interested in education. There are also an Association of Headmasters of Secondary Schools, and a Scottish Assistant Teachers' Association with 3,700 members. Ireland has an Irish National Teachers' Association for elementary teachers, and, since 1869, a Schoolmasters' Association.

I have omitted all mention of the College of Preceptors (pp. 184, 192) and of the National Home Reading Union; I have said nothing of special educational associations, such as the Froebel Society, or under