INSTRUCTION IN DRAWING IN ELEMENTARY DAY AND EVENING SCHOOLS.

VALUE OF DRAWING CERTIFICATE.

AMONG the many changes in the plans and procedure of the Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education, some of the most recent are of considerable value and importance to the managers of schools, and especially to those teachers possessing drawing certificates. The following have application to British Schools, and also to evening schools in connection with them :

AID TO SCHOOLS FOR THE POOR.

1. A school for the poor is one established to promote the education of children belonging to the classes who support themselves by manual labour. 2. A payment of 1s. will be made for every child who gives under examination satisfactory evidence of having been taught drawing.

3. A payment of 2s. will be made for every child showing proof of proficiency in drawing.

4. A payment of 3s. will be made for every child who may excel in the examination.

5. A small prize will be given to every child who may exhibit the required standard of excellence.*

6. A payment of 10s. will be made on every exercise of the 2nd grade satisfactorily worked at an annual examination by a pupil-teacher of the school who has been taught drawing in the school.†

7. The above-named payments will only be made on the account of children instructed in drawing by teachers holding certificates of the 2nd or 3rd grade granted by this department.

9. A payment of £1 will be made to the managers of schools for the poor for conducting the annual examination, provided 20 children give satisfactory evidence of having been taught drawing.

10. These examinations will take place in the month of May, and must be conducted by the local committee, or managers of the school, who must undertake

a. To provide a room or rooms of sufficient size to carry out the examination according to the detailed regulations under that head.

b. To send in to the Secretary of the Science and Art Department, before the 31st of March, a statement of the number of children to be examined in each subject of the 1st grade, and of pupil-teachers to be examined in the 2nd grade; to be responsible for conducting the examination; to give out the examination papers which will be sent

* Prizes.—These will consist of drawing boards, books, instruments, colours, &c. When pupil-teachers receive instruction in a School of Art or Night Class, they should present themselves for examination with that class. They cannot be examined both in the School of Art or Night Class, and in the School for the Poor.

for that purpose; to see them fairly worked according to the detailed regulations in the presence of at least two of their number; to send the worked papers, under seal, by the first post after the examination to the Secretary of the Science and Art Department.

c. To certify that the school is one established for the education of children belonging to the classes who support themselves by manual labour, and that the children have been instructed by a person holding a certificate from this department.

d. That the school shall be open at all times to the visits of the Officers of the Science and Art Department.

11. The Department will give aid to the extent of 50 per cent. towards the purchase of examples of suitable character.

AID TO NIGHT CLASSES.

1. A night class is a class for instruction in elementary drawing held after 6 p.m., to which the public is admitted on payment of fees within the reach of persons who support themselves by manual labour.

2. The Science and Art Department will give aid to such classes when conducted under the direction of a local committee of not less than five well-known responsible persons, and instructed by a teacher, or teachers, holding the certificate of the Department for Elementary Drawing, called of the 2nd grade, or the Art-master's certificate, called of the 3rd grade.

3. The Department will pay annually to the local committee or managers of such classes the undermentioned sums on account of the instruction of artisans, teachers, or their children, above 12 years of age, viz. :—

a. Ten shillings for every exercise in freehand drawing from the flat, practical geometry, drawing from models, perspective, or mechanical drawing, satisfactorily worked in a given time by an artisan who pays fees for being taught.

b. Ten shillings for every student who shall submit satisfactory works executed, in the class, by him during the previous year in drawing from flat examples; mechanical, or architectural drawing; drawing from geometric models, objects of general utility, or casts of ornament; drawing flowers and foliage from nature.

It will be seen that to a qualified teacher an opportunity is afforded to obtain in a pecuniary sense (if his school be attended by considerable numbers) more than an equivalent for the money value of this drawing certificate under the former regulations. We hope also that the encouragement thus given may excite increased attention to the subject of evening classes, the full importance of which, to a large class of our own population, has not yet been developed.

EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

In our last we proposed to review some of the evidence given before the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed on the motion of Sir John Pakington "to inquire into the Constitution of the Committee of Council on Education, and the system under which the business of the office is conducted, and also into the best mode of extending the benefits of Government Inspection, and the Parliamentary Grants to Schools at present unassisted by the State."

On "the Constitution of the Committee of Council on Education, and the System on which the Business of the Office is conducted," the first witness examined was Mr. Lingen (the Secretary), which office he has held since the commencement of 1849. The questions put by Sir John Pakington (the chairman), related chiefly to the constitution and ordinary practice of the Committee of Council on Education, the functions of the Lord President and the Vice-President.

The following questions by the Chairman, and replies by Mr. Lingen, will probably interest some of our readers :—

71. What has been the system of the office with regard to the preparation of Minutes; can you describe the history of a minute before it is submitted to the House of Commons ?-It would usually arise from either an apparent need of a greater measure of assistance to schools, or from the need of settling some question which had provoked a great deal of correspondence. A certain number of letters would probably be received from private correspondents, or the official correspondence might raise the question. The Lord President, after a certain length of time, would give instructions, probably to the Secretary, to draw up the draft of a Minute, which would be confidentially printed and circulated among the members of the Committee, and very often remarks would be made upon it, and when finally settled a Committee would be called at which that Minute would be passed, and then laid upon the table of the House of Commons.

72. Am I to infer, from that answer, that even when the Committee were not summoned to attend at the office, no Minute was submitted to Parliament until it had been circulated amongst all the members of the Committee?— That would not be the uniform practice. In some instances the Lord President would take the Minute with him to the Cabinet. There has been no settled uniform practice as to the mode of ascertaining the views of the Committee upon any Minute; sometimes it has been printed and circulated, and sometimes the Lord President has settled it, as it were, in the office, between himself and his subordinates, and then has taken it with him to the Cabinet; or he may have summoned a Committee to consider it, without any of those previous steps. I have no means of knowing what steps he may have taken, after the Minute had been commenced, for ascertaining the opinions of his colleagues.

73. The action of the Cabinet is of course quite a separate question. With regard to the action of those members of the Cabinet who are also

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members of the Committee of Council, from your last answer I infer that there is no regular system as to the preparation of those Minutes, and that it is quite uncertain how they are prepared ?—This much is certain, that they are always prepared by the Secretary under the instructions of the Lord President in the first instance.

Again, on the matter of the supplementary rules :—

86. We have heard a good deal of late of supplementary rules; when did the practice of making supplementary rules first commence in the Education Office?—The supplementary rules were really in the nature of instructions and directions; a Minute is framed as concisely as may be, and the details are left to be supplied in practice; those Minutes circulate all over the country, and it is necessary, in order to transact business with precision, that there should be directions to the persons who have to act under those Minutes, as to much that is not expressed in the Minutes themselves; that is done sometimes by letters of instruction to the inspectors; but, in the particular case of the Code, it was done by what were called supplementary rules, which might, however, equally well have been called instructions to the inspectors.

87. But you have not answered my question as to when that practice of supplementary rules first began ?-The actual words "supplementary rules" were used I think about twelve months ago, with reference to certain rules which were printed in explanation of the Revised Code, but the term was a simple accident; the practice of instruction to the inspectors dates as far back as the Minutes date back; there never was a Minute in which there were not instructions to the inspectors upon it explaining to them the scope of the Minute, and the mode of administering it.

89. Have not several of those supplementary rules assumed very much the importance of Minutes, and have they not had as much influence in the mode of carrying out the education of the country as some of the Minutes themselves?—The process of administration undoubtedly is that of a judgemade law; you pass a Minute, and a practice arises under it; that practice becomes generalized, and those generalizations become subordinate rules, but very often of equal importance with the primary ones. It is under every Minute as it is under an Act of Parliament.

91. How were those supplementary rules decided on; was the process the same as with the Minutes?—The supplementary rules were decided upon chiefly between the Secretary and the Vice-President; in the working of the Revised Code they represent really the generalization of decisions which arose in the daily practice of the office.

92. Then I infer from that answer that, with regard to those supplementary rules, the Lord President was not consulted?—I really cannot answer that question for certain, but in the main I should say that he was not consulted.

The so-called "Conscience Clause" was one of the topics on which Mr. Lowe was examined, whose statement as to its real object and origin, as well as his own view of the matter is contained under Questions 647 and 648:

647. With reference to the conscience clause, how long is it since the office first commenced, with regard to the National Church of England schools, making the insertion of that clause in some of the deeds a condition of assistance?—I cannot admit that that is a correct description of what has been done.

648. Will you give your own description of what has been done?—I should state to the Committee that the question of controversy which relates to the conscience clause was in existence before I came to the office, so that, of course, I cannot describe exactly what was done about it previously to that time, but anything that I had to do with it arose thus :When I came to the office, the practice was that a paper awarding a building grant was brought to the Vice-President for his signature, and then I inquired into the nature of the district, and the population, and the religious views of the people whose children would attend the school, and the number of schools in the district, and all those things which go to influence the decision of the question of a building grant. Sometimes I thought that the grant was not properly given, and then I was always told that those things had been settled in previous correspondence, and that it was too late to object then. I said, that is a bad system, and I will change it, and go into the thing earlier where I can take objection with effect; and I desired that the rudiments of the correspondence should be brought to me, and that I should see it in its first inception; and then, guiding myself as well as I could, not by any abstract rules or principles of my own, but by what I understood to be the practice of the office, so far as it could be ascertained, I began to consider the terms on which I should grant this assistance, and I soon found that there were cases in which I could not, as it appeared to me, in accordance with the principles of the office, and with justice to the public, and to the parties concerned, grant the assistance which was required. Taking, for instance, a moderate sized parish with 60 children to be educated, 40 of whom belonged to the Church of England, and 20 of whom were Dissenters. If the clergyman asked for a school for 60 children, I felt that I ought not, in accordance with the principles of the office, to give a grant for a school for 60 children if he insisted upon the National Society's rules. I could not allow him to count the Dissenters' children, because no provision was made for their religious instruction, except that they might be forced to attend Church services, and to learn the Church Catechism, which would be contrary to the views and feelings of their parents; and, therefore, I could not make a grant in that case for a school for 60 children. Then there was an alternative, and the alternative was, could I grant a school for 40 children? I said, No; because the Dissenters would say, We want a school for our 20 children; and then we should have had two little schools in one parish, ill-managed and poor, and unfairly onerous to the revenue. I have considered, in all such cases, that it was my duty to refuse the grant, and that there my duty ended. But if the persons to whom I refused the grant chose to come and say that they would remove the difficulty respecting the religious feelings of those parents whose views differed from their own, and engaged that the children of those parents should not be compelled to learn