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No public or general provision has ever been made in England for the education of the great bulk of the people. All that has been accomplished in this way has been the work of benevolent individuals and associations; and it is astonishing how much has been effected within the present century by their exertions. Still, however, there is much room for improvement. The different associations act frequently on contradictory principles; and being necessarily confined to towns and populous districts, no inconsiderable portion of the children of the agricultural classes are yet either entirely without the means of school instruction, or are but very indifferently supplied with it. Supposing, however, that charity schools were as extensively introduced as national ones ought to be, and that they were furnished with equally good masters, neither of which suppositions is of a sort likely to be realised, - still they are not without some very weighty drawbacks. Something of degradation always attaches to the idea of being educated at a school supported either wholly or in part by voluntary subscriptions. Those who send their children to such schools, and even the children themselves, cannot but feel that they are admitted to them only because they are, in some degree, paupers, indebted to the bounty of others for what they cannot obtain for themselves; and this feeling has a tendency to weaken that sense of independence, of moral dignity, and self-respect, for the want of which the best education cannot fully compensate. In other respects, too, the charity system is open to various objections. Mr. Malthus has not scrupled to say, that it is a national disgrace to England that the education of the bulk of the people should be left to Sunday and other schools, supported by the subscriptions of individuals, who may give to the course of instruction in them whatever bias they please.* We are disposed to concur, with but little qualification, in this opinion. The attention of the legislature cannot, as it appears to us, be too early or earnestly directed to this subject. It is of the utmost importance to the well-being and security of the public. The experience of Scotland, Prussia, the United States, and various other countries, is decisive as to the vast advantages to be derived from the establishment of a well contrived system of national

Essay on Population, 5th ed. vol. iii. p. 204.

educaţion - a system that should bring education to the door, as it were, of the poor man, and supply individuals of all classes with the means of obtaining really good and useful instruction at a reasonable cost.

Various charity schools for the elementary instruction of the poor were founded at different periods between 1690 and 1780; but it was not till about the latter epoch that the desultory efforts of benevolent individuals began to be systematised, and that exertions were made on a large scale, to procure for the poor the inestimable advantage of elementary instruction.

At present the primary instruction of the great mass of the population is principally supplied through,-1. Sunday-schools; 2. National schools; and 3. British and foreign schools.

1. Sunday Schools.-These excellent institutions, which have contributed essentially to the improvement of the lower classes, were projected by, and owe their origin to, the sagacity and active benevolence of Mr. Robert Raikes, a printer of Gloucester. Mr. Raikes established Sunday schools in Gloucester in 1781 and 1782. The plan was soon after patronised by Dr. Barrington, then Bishop of Salisbury, and by many other reverend and learned individuals. Though still capable of much extension, it has been eminently successful; and has been carried to an extent which, at the outset, no one could have anticipated. The pupils are instructed in the principles and duties of religion, and are taught to read and write; they consist of adults as well as children. The meetings are generally in the afternoon of Sunday; so that, while they supply valuable instruction to the poor, they do not encroach on their employments, but make that time be devoted to the acquisition of knowledge that would otherwise be, most probably, wasted in idleness or dissipation. According to the official returns, there were in England and Wales, in 1833, no fewer than 16,828 Sunday schools, attended by 1,548,890 children and adults; of these, 6,247 schools, attended by 750,107 children and adults, were established by dissenters.

2. National Schools. Under this term is comprehended a great number of schools, both new and old, conducted under what is termed the national system. This system originated in the efforts of various district sccieties, in different parts of the kingdom, to apply the principles of Dr. Bell, of Madras, to the government of the existing parochial free schools. In 1811 the different district societies were incorporated as members of a central association, for the education of youth in the doctrines of the national church. This society having acquired large funds, has been able, in the course of the present century, to found a large number of additional schools, in which education is given at a slight expense to the parents; and a central school (such as on the continent is termed a Normal school) for the instruction of masters and mistresses. The schools, therefore, under the management of the National Society are of two classes: the old parochial and free schools, and those of modern foundation, consisting of daily and Sunday schools. The characteristic of the system is, the use of the church catechism, and attendance on church worship by the children. The progress of the national schools, since 1813, two years after the formation of the society, has been as follows:-1813, 230 schools, with 40,484 children; 1820, 1,614 schools,

with about 200,000 scholars; 1830, 2,609 places, containing 3,670 schools, with about 346,000 scholars. According to the Annual Report for 1835, the schools and scholars were – 3,642 places, containing 3,861 Sunday and daily, and 1,698 Sunday schools, with 178,740 boys, and 145,305 girls, as Sunday and daily scholars, and 93,929 boys, and 98,207 girls, as Sunday scholars only; making in all 5,559 schools, with 516,181 scholars.

The society has itself collected and expended about 120,000l.; and about 500,000l. obtained by benevolent contributions, in erecting, improving, and fitting up school-rooms, &c.-(See Appendix B. p. 1339, of the Abstract of Education Returns for 1833.)

3. The British and Foreign School Society was founded in 1810. It arose out of the exertions of Mr. Joseph Lancaster. It is designed to promote the education of the working classes of every sect and denomination; and to facilitate this grand object, all religious tests are excluded, and no catechism or creed is allowed to be used in any of the schools. This society maintains a considerable number of schools in all parts of the country; and has established, in the Borough, a model school, on a large scale, and an establishment for the instruction of masters. Different opinions are, of course, entertained as to the distinguishing principle on which these schools are founded; but the education they afford is favourably spoken of by good judges. Mr. Pillans of Edinburgh, an excellent authority as to such subjects, says that the instruction given in the Lancasterian shools is very superior; that "there is much more play given to the faculties, more spirit in the instruction, and a vastly greater fund of knowledge acquired," than in most other schools. - (Report on Education, 1834. p. 42.)

The following is a summary of the returns, as to education, obtained pursuant to an address of the House of Commons in 1833.

SUMMARY OF EDUCATION RETURNS, ENGLAND AND WALES, 1833.

The Resident Population of England and Wales in the Year 1831 amounted to 13,897,187; which Number, at the usual Rate of Increase (1 per cent. per Annum), must have become 14,400,000 when the Education Inquiry was made and answered. At that time the Children under Instruction at Infant and other Daily Schools (being 1,275,947) were nearly 9 per cent., and the Children who attended Sunday Schools (being 1,548,890) were nearly 11 per cent. of the above Population; the Proportion of Children from Five to Fifteen Years of Age being 24 per cent. of the entire Population, as was ascertained by Enumeration in the Year 1821.

Sending libraries of books detached to schools in England and Wales are 2,464,*

11,285 1,123,397

Free, Endowed, and Grammar Schools. - The names, free school, endowed school, grammar school, &c., are often used with some degree of confusion; but their proper meaning appears to be as follows: A free school is, strictly, any school in which elementary instruction is afforded gratuitously (or nearly so) to the children of a particular locality, without reference to the source whence the funds are derived, whether from private subscriptions, as in many of our parochial schools, &c., or as in some corporate towns, from the general property of the corporation. Endowed schools are those of which the expenses are wholly or partly defrayed out of endowments, given or bequeathed by the munificence of a founder. Grammar schools are endowed schools, to the constitution of which the founder has annexed the condition, that classical instruction should form either the whole or a part of their discipline.

We give these returns as we find them without, in any degree, vouching for their authenticity. We believe, indeed, that they are but little to be depended on. The statements of the numbers attending Sunday schools and national schools, are said, by Mr. Hill, to be very greatly exaggerated. (Treatise on Education, vol. i.

p. 8.). A report by a committee of the Statistical Society of Manchester, on the state of education in that town, points out some very gross errors in the official returns respecting it. "In the township of Manchester alone," say the committee, "which contains a population of 142,000, there are entirely omitted, in these returns, 1 infant school, 10 Sunday schools, and 176 day schools, which existed at the period these returns were made, and contained 10,611 scholars. False returns were made by one individual of three Sunday schools that never existed at all, and which were stated to contain 1,590 scholars; and double returns were made of three other schools, containing 375 scholars; so that the total error in these returns for the township of Manchester alone was 181 schools, and 8,646 scholars. Besides this, 8 dame schools were reported as infant schools." The committee point out some equally gross errors in the returns as to some of the places contiguous to Manchester; and we understand that these blunders are by no means confined to the returns from Lancashire.

The number of children in England and Wales, between the ages of 7 and 13 years complete, may be estimated at about 2,000,000, which, of course is the maximum number of scholars that could be at school between the ages in question. But the actual number at school falls very far short of this. Provided, however, a compulsory system of education were enforced here, as in Prussia, the number of children attending school would not differ materially from the above.

The English free and endowed schools constitute a very peculiar feature in the educational establishments of the country. They afford, perhaps, the only example at present subsisting in Europe, of an extensive, numerous, and wealthy class of national foundations for the purpose of elementary instruction, in which the hand of government has never interfered to modify, reform, or direct, or in any way to alter the original dispositions of their creators, except in a few insulated instances in which parliament or judicial tribunals have taken cognisance of cases brought before them.

Although some of these schools are of considerable antiquity, by far the greater part were founded during the century and a half following the Reformation. Some are of royal, but the great majority are of private endowment. Some, again, are open to scholars from all parts of England, or to any one nominated by the governors, &c., of the school: the greater part are local, and their benefits confined to the natives of the place in which they are situate. The endowments are, of course, extremely various in amount; but the general intention of the founder, even in the humblest of these institutions, was, that the education afforded to the boys on the foundation should be gratuitous, and the schoolmaster paid by a salary arising out of the endowment.

Those among the free and endowed schools which were constituted without any express stipulation on the part of the founder, that instruction in the dead languages should form a part of their discipline, have remained, for the most part, as charity or gratuitous schools of elementary education. They have in general fallen, by degrees, into what is termed the national system. But the fate of those numerous schools in which the boys were, by the original statutes, to be instructed in Latin, that is, of the grammar schools, has been very different. It is probable that the general disposition among charitable individuals, during the age which followed the Reformation, to devote their liberality to the endowment of schools, was owing to the deficiency of education felt after the suppression of the monasteries and the chantries, which were of considerable service in the instruction of the lower classes. But, before the Reformation, the number of clergy, both regular and secular, was very large. Latin was a language in ordinary use for the purposes of the church; and those who recruited its ranks were taken, not from the superior classes only, but from the mass of the population. Hence the extraordinary number of students who thronged the universities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: and hence, also, elementary instruction in Latin was not thought misapplied when bestowed on the humblest youth of the kingdom. By the Reformation the use of Latin in the churches was indeed abolished; but that event happened in a scholastic age, when ancient learning was still regarded as the fundamental groundwork of all knowledge. Hence the benevolent founders of our endowed schools did not scruple in requiring that instruction in the dead languages, or at least in Latin, should be communicated in their institutions, even when open to and intended for the poorest of their townsmen and fellow-parishioners. The equalising spirit of the Roman Catholic church, under which the