another set of visitors, emboldened by the example of the romantic sisters, is seen ascending up the precipitous and treacherous bank! I feel an unaccustomed savageness seize upon me!

"Is it permitted to see your picture ?" cries a lady's voice, as a fresh figure emerges upon the narrow platform. "Is it permitted to see your picture?"

"You may see it in the exhibition," I mutter, fiercely.

"May we ask the subject ?"

"You will see it in the catalogue."

Upon this a general retreat ensues, and a blessed silence at length closes upon the scene.

III.-ENDOWED SCHOOLS, THEIR USES AND SHORTCOMINGS.

Ir is recommended in the Report of the Royal Commission on Education, that the funds of all ancient charities found to be useless or mischievous in their action should be placed at the disposal of certain commissioners to be applied to the purposes of education. The annual income of the charities included in this description and recommended to be abolished, amounts to no less than £101,113 9s. 3d.*

If, therefore, the proposed plan should meet the approbation of Parliament, the principles by which the yearly distribution of so large a sum are to be regulated will become a matter of no little

moment.

One of the objects which it is intended to promote by these means is the establishment of endowed or assisted schools to meet the wants of those portions of the community which are the least provided for by existing institutions, but which yet require educational aid. This principle is perfectly just. A large sum being unexpectedly added to the funds devoted by the nation to the purposes of education, it is right to bestow the bonus on those who have hitherto received little or nothing from the public, but who are not the less in want of help.

The justice and reasonableness of this proposition will recommend itself to every one, but some difficulty will perhaps be found in deciding which is the class that comes the most under this description. It is for the object of clearing up this point that these pages have been written and the tables, to be found further on, compiled.

The working classes seem at the first glance to have the strongest claim, but we are told on high authority that they are already so well provided with National Schools that there is a strong probability of their becoming more intelligent than the class immediately

* Abstract of the Royal Commissioners on Education. G. Herbert Skeats P. 109.

above them,* and the Commissioners themselves and the general public seem to be of opinion that they have lately received a higher education than is likely to be of use to them in their humble station. The upper classes being wealthy, have of course no need of help. The portion of society then which most requires assistance must be sought for among the various sections of that large division called the Middle Classes.

Some of these, however, are already at least tolerably well provided from existing endowments; let us then take a brief review of the present condition of Middle Class Education, with a view of discovering whether there are any sections which, though in want of help, receive as yet little or none. But first we will specify what are the benefits which endowed schools do, or at least ought to confer.

The benefits which proceed from endowed schools are twofold. First there is the direct good done of providing those educated in them with useful instruction, and secondly there is the indirect but more widely spread good which they effect by raising the standard of education generally.

Before deciding on the subject of new endowments, we must make up our minds which of these purposes we consider to be the most important. If the object we set before us is to provide every tradesman or other person above making use of a national school with the means of giving his children a good education at a rate below prime cost, then the number of schools required will be very large and the requisite sum of money beyond that to be placed at the disposal of the Commissioners. But if our object is to provide a certain number of well-conducted schools as models, found to offer at the same time a good education to those who will hereafter become teachers in private educational establishments, then the number of schools required would be much smaller and the expense far less heavy. If the amount of money at command were unlimited, it would perhaps be desirable to attempt the first object, but this is not the case. hundred thousand a year cannot provide education below prime cost for all who would be benefited by receiving it; we must choose therefore, whether we will provide for some one section in this manner, wholly neglecting the others, or whether we will divide the benefit equally among all, by giving to every section model schools and places of education, where the teachers of private schools can be trained.

A

The first course would be manifestly unjust. To educate one portion of the community highly out of public money, while leaving another portion equally in want of assistance wholly unaided, is an injustice that can never be committed intentionally, but it is one into which we may easily be led unless we become well instructed! in the facts of the case, know how the existing schools are distributed, which classes they benefit, and which they leave unassisted.

* See Mr. Gladstone's speech at Oxford. Times, November 23rd, 1861.

With the view of making this part of the question clear, the following table has been compiled from Kelly's county directories. and the Census of 1851, Education Department.

The united income of these schools amounted to £400,000,* a sum

* At Abbas Milton there were no income of the school was £199 10s.

scholars on the foundation, though the At Plympton there is frequently only

so large that the additional £101,000 a year, though considerable in itself, is comparatively small. In some of the higher kind of grammar schools boys receive an education which fits them for college at a cheap rate; and the sons of ill-beneficed clergy and poor professional men, of farmers and the upper class of tradesmen, often avail themselves of the advantages here offered, sometimes boarding and lodging with the head master. In other schools a good commercial education is given at a rate so far below prime cost that the poorest tradesman can afford to send his sons if within reach of a walk. As a general rule the common endowed schools are but little superior to ordinary national ones, and the class of children that frequent them only a shade above those of laboring men. But in some of these noble establishments the orphan sons of poor tradesmen are gratuitously received, boarded, clothed, educated, and finally apprenticed to any trade they wish to learn; thus these children are protected from the evil influences which would otherwise surround their poverty and helplessness.

Doubtless in many instances these schools are ill-managed and fail to produce the good effect they ought, but this partial failure is owing to want of superintendence and is not caused by the poverty of the endowments, for in some of the instances of inefficiency cited by the Commissioners the pay of the master is very large.*

"

Under proper regulations these schools would be wealthy and numerous enough to provide all the classes whom they are intended to benefit with good model schools and good training places for private masters; and even now, imperfect as is their management, they have a great effect in these respects and raise the standard of education among these favored classes considerably above its natural level.

But a study of the table will show that these benefits are unequally divided, and that some sections are almost entirely excluded from all share in the advantages. For instance, in the common endowed schools it will be seen that the number of girls educated in them is small compared to the boys, the number being, Boys, 100,849; Girls, 60,511.

The number of male and female children existing in every class being the same, we must conclude either that there are more boys' schools than are wanted, or that there are not enough for girls. It having never been stated that the former is the case, it is impossible to avoid coming to the conclusion that there is a great deficiency in the latter respect.

This deficiency ought therefore to be made up out of the new fund and the number of boy and girl scholars brought to about the a single pupil, although the income is £220. At Wotton-under-Edge there is a free grammar school the income of which is £536, the scholars ten in number. At Coventry there are seven endowed schools with an aggregate income of £2,808; the number of boys educated in them is estimated at 350. Several other instances are quoted in the Commissioners' Report.

* Edinburgh Review, July 1861. Popular Education, page 34, and Abstract of the Royal Commissioners on Education, page 100.

same before any new schools for boys of this class are built and endowed.

In the list of scholars at Grammar schools, the difference is still greater, the number of boys being 31,528 and of girls 3,374, barely a tenth.

The reason here is evident: these schools were founded for the purpose of giving a cheap classical education, a kind of teaching which would have been of no use to girls, and from which they were therefore excluded; and though the classical education has now become very generally a secondary object, comparatively few boys going eventually to college, yet the foundations being as a general rule originally intended for boys only, they are rightly kept exclusively for them.

But this exclusion from all means of obtaining a good education falls heavily on the sisters of the boys who are taught at these schools, for girls of this rank can seldom or ever be provided for by their parents, but must after their father's death, and sometimes before, earn their bread for themselves, until they marry; and if they do not marry, for all their lives, and must lay up something for their old age.

Among women of the laboring classes a good education is of comparatively little importance, for health and strength are of more service to a laborer's daughter than knowledge or intelligence; but in the middle ranks, a woman cannot become a domestic servant: she would feel that to do so was a degradation; and even if she did not, she would not possess the requisite physical powers from want of early training.

Her livelihood must be earned then, if earned at all, by intelligence; and to all who gain their bread by the exercise of their mental powers a good education is the first necessary, and the privation of it a most serious injury.

Private schools for girls are not only worse than boys' endowed schools, but are very inferior to boys' private ones.* The reason of this is, that there exist scarcely any places where girls of the middle classes can be trained as teachers. A boy who is intended to become a private teacher can get well taught at an endowed school

66

*The Times early last December in animadverting on boys' private schools stated that the only subjects well taught in them were "penmanship and arithmetic." But this blame is in fact high praise, as these are precisely the two essentials of a middle class education. The boy who can write and reckon well and quickly can earn his bread, even if his knowledge of history and geography is rather vague. In girls' schools nothing is well taught, not even penmanship and arithmetic;" indeed, if they were, there would be small ground for complaint. Many girls leave school writing a scarcely legible hand, and unable to add up a bill of parcels with correctness. A girl who had been several years at a "seminary for young ladies" and wished to become a book-keeper, was asked if she knew arithmetic well, and replied that she did, having been as far as Practice at school, but on examination it appeared that she could not multiply correctly. This is one instance out of many that could be quoted.