Mr. Bonner, after speaking favourably of compulsory rating proceeds: Forty-five per cent. of the accommodation provided in my district (Salop and Stafford) is still unoccupied; and I feel sure that if managers generally were sure of due attendance, which implies a large amount of income both in school pence and grant, complaints of inability to provide requisite funds for a certificated teacher would cease at once; in other words, I believe that compulsory attendance would render compulsory rating needless. It is irregularity of attendance which is the sore point in our schools; which frustrates the efforts of the most energetic teachers, and deters managers from engaging in what may turn out to be useless expenditure. It is confessedly difficult to apply the principle of the Factory Acts to agricultural labour. A simple half time system is imprac ticable; but it might be provided that all children employed between the ages of 8 and 12, or 10 and 13, should be compelled to produce at the beginning of each year a certificate of attendance at school for 75 or 100 days in the course of the year preceding. If this rule were made applicable only to children living within a mile and a half of a school with unoccupied room, all ground of complaint would be taken away. I cannot see any abridgment of liberty in compelling parents to provide for the education of their children. A father who leaves his child to starve is liable to be criminally punished; and it is no less injury to the person whose rights are first to be considered, i.e., the child's, to keep him in ignorance, and thus to condemn him to a permanently lower station in life, and to deprive him of those higher pleasures which chiefly make life worth having.'

Mr. Moncrieff:-
:-

'I have reserved for the close the expression of an earnest hope that the time at hand when something effectual will be done to secure a fair chance for our schools, and brighter prospects for our poorer children. Confining myself strictly to what is within my official knowledge, the state of those children who do, more or less, attend inspected schools, I have for years held the same language-that all our teaching was powerless for effective good so long as nothing was done to compel the attendance of children up to a reasonable age. It is with no small pleasure that I have seen that this ugly word "compulsion" ha lost some of its terrors for the public mind. I do not, indeed, see my way quite clear to the advocacy of compulsion in its full and proper sense-the direct forcing of the parent to do his duty to the child. Nevertheless, if the choice were to be made between compulsion in its broadest form and the indefinite postponement of the attempt to secure the real education of the people, I cannot see how any educationalist could hesitate between the two. For our national school children it is a narrower question. Our main hindrance here is not absolute neglect but the encroachments of juvenile employment. I trust

it may notbe long before a measure is passed to regulate such work as brickmaking, and to place some restrictions on the less tangible occupations of fruit picking, hop-picking, and other miscellaneous harvests, as well as the desultory employments of watering places. To most of these, I fear, the half day principle would prove inapplicable, on the ground that every child capable of the work is wanted at the same time. Yet I should be glad to see the question fully considered, having from my old Yorkshire experience more faith in half time than in any other expedient. If this may not be, it would not be difficult to devise a scheme for rendering steady attendance at school during winter the condition of employment in summer. The very abundance of work in summer might thus be made to secure a minimum of regular schooling. The minimum should be set high, not less than 200 half days in the year, so as to restrict the time of work to the months when it is really necessary. There should also be a minimum age, below which a child should not be employed at all. One, at least, of the above named modes of employment-brickmaking—would require separate considerations and possibly stronger restrictions.'

Mr. Oakeley :

'In alluding slightly to Compulsory Education, it is, of course, beyond the scope of my report to consider it in any sense as a political question; but I cannot omit to refer to the most important point which vitally affects Education in my district generally, particularly the evil of the extreme irregularity of attendance amongst the children actually at school. Without compulsion in some form or other, whether direct or indirect, a number of children will never be educated at all, and of those actually at school a considerable proportion (those who leave for permanent work before they have come up to the exceedingly moderate degree implied by the 2nd standard) will continue to forget everything they have learnt by the time they are twenty years old. That an inconvenience would at first be felt on the introduction of any compulsory system may be conceded. Most great beneficial changes (to wit, the introduction of machinery) have caused dislocation, greater or less, in society, but I venture to predict that twenty years afterwards the compelling every farent to take care that his child shall learn to read and write will be considered (as it is now in Germany) of the same order of importance and necessity as that parents shall clothe and feed their children.'

Mr. Renouf:

'It is by no means surprising that a large number of managers, finding it hopeless to overcome such difficulties as the irregularity of attendance. the short duration of stay at school and removal at any early age, should wish them to be met by legislative measures. The opinion favourable to Compulsory Education has been quietly but steadily growing among

managers for the last three or four years, but I am not quite sure that those who are most determined in advocating it have very clear notions as to the mode of harmonizing it with the denominational system.' Mr. Sewell :

'If I may add a conviction of my own it would be that, as the want of children to be taught is the most real and serious cause to assign for the low character of the English primary education, the removal of the difficulty will be followed by the silent disappearance of many other difficulties, which, while it exists, appear insurmountable. If the authority of the law could be worked to deal with it in such a way as to diminish and not increase the present popular distaste to education, and the self denial that it requires, the interest of managers, which must naturally be languid as long as children and their parents can, by simple inaction, thwart and disappoint the most earnest efforts on their behalf, would awake to vigorous action. The dignity of school and the value of education would rise in popular estimation and popular use as people learned that the better kinds, if not all kinds, of respectable labour were closed against those who neglected it.'

Mr. Sharpe :

In the first two classes of schools' (rural and suburban) 'there would be very little difficulty in enforcing compulsory attendance. The 'mauvais sujets' at these districts are well known to managers and scholars. But in that part of my district which lies within a radius of about a mile on the average from the Elephant and Castle (London) the migratory habits, poverty, and indifference of parents would increase the difficulty of tracing and punishing the worst offenders.'

'Mr. Watkins :

The Educational Conference at Manchester, which is proceeding while I write, has already spoken with a clear, a loud, and a commanding voice as to the compulsion needed; there is no doubt of the need-the only doubt is how to provide for it. There are many and considerable difficulties in the way, difficulties arising from the friends as well as from the enemies of education; from the working classes as well as from the higher; but there are none so great as not to be removable by earnest determination, by patient forbearance, and by intelligent devotion to the most important subject which in this century has risen up and taken its rightful place in the minds and hearts of the people of Great Britan.'

EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

(Communicated.)

The Rev. R. W. Vanderkiste, of Sydney, writes thus to a friend :

'In lieu of sending you the annual report of our Council for Education fo 1867-a large but deeply interesting volume-I will send you a few items culled from it, and should you have occasion for the report itself, let me know. To me, this first report of our now amalgamated Board, National and Denominational, is indeed full of interest. The poor bush, over which, during my first six years of missionary labour in this colony, I find by my notes I rode just twenty-four thousand miles, is receiving more educational attention. Nevertheless its present spiritual and educational destitution is really appalling. The following statement of the report reads like a streak of light; and so, blessed be God, it is. But it is only like a loaf of bread cast amongst a gathering of starving thousands:-“ The appointment of itinerant teachers in sparsely populated districts (which hold about half of the children of the colony), as contemplated by the 12th Section of the Act, has received much consideration. Half-time Schools have been established

in twelve localities." The Council is evidently determined upon doing what they can, but, unfortunately, the starving thousands do not ask to be fed, and the present system cannot compel them to eat. Even with reference to localities possessing schools, one of the ten Inspectors of the Council-all men of considerable educational standing, and great teaching experience-writes:-" The usual causes of irregular attendance are in operation in this district;" he then enumerates them, and adds, "Some of which I am strongly of opinion will not be overcome until a compulsory system of education is introduced." Another Inspector writes:-"In many of the schools inspected the attendance of the pupils, both as regards regularity and punctuality, is very unsatisfactory. I am strongly of opinion that a compulsory system of education will have to be introduced." And a third Inspector writes:-"Nothing short of the establishment of a compulsory system will meet the requirements of the case."

'The three clauses of the Public Schools Act of December, 1866, which open up a new arena of usefulness for the bush are the 12th, 13th, and 14th, which I copy. 12. Itinerant Teachers to be appointed.—" In districts where, from the scattered state of the population or other causes, it is not practicable to establish a Public School, the Council of Education may appoint Itinera nt Teachers, under such Regulations as may be framed by them for that purpose.

13. Private Schools may be assisted.-"In remote and thinly populated districts, where no Public School may exist, the Council of Education may grant assistance to other Schools established by private persons, under regulations to be framed by such Council for that purpose, notwithstanding that the children in attendance at any such school do not number twenty-five, (the mininum average attendance to which a Public School Teacher can be appointed), provided that all such schools shall be subject to the inspection prescribed by the Council of Education. 14. Provision may be made in Public Schools for Boarders.-"It shall be lawful for the Council of Education to authorize provision to be made in any Public School building, for the boarding and lodging, either weekly or monthly, of such children as by reason of the remoteness of their homes, may not otherwise be able to attend at any such school, provided that a sum be charged for such board and lodging, which shall in no case exceed the estimated cost thereof."

'At present this last clause has not been developed into action, the Council Dssessing no power to compel shepherds, hut-keepers, stockmen, free selectors, or any persons, to send their children. If they sent them they

* Public Schools Act of New South Wales, 22nd Dec,, 1866.

must pay for them. This they will not do. Nor, I fear, would such persons send their children—at least to any extent commensurate with the requirement -had they no payment to make. Apathy is very far from diminishing as we journey from the poles towards the equator of the earth. The Council possesses no compulsory power beyond its own officials. So our situation is this,perhaps half the children, out of a colonial population of four millions and a half of souls, are schoolless. Not uneducated; Satan attends to that. Meanwhile the bell of time sounds 1868.

'Now a paragraph of ways and means. At the commencement of 1867, the Council possessed a balance, which added to the Government grant for 1867 of £90,000, made the sum of £102,960 15s. 7d. The disbursements for 1867 were:General management, £12,241 16s. 5d.; schools, £86,368 4s. 6d. At the close of the year £12,000 was refunded to the treasury, and a balance of £2,350 14s. 8d. remained in the hands of the Council.'

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE

And the