order to compel those who neglect their duty to perform it? That excellent institution, the Manchester and Salford Education Aid Society (an institution which affords an example for imitation in every town of the kingdom), have taken steps for a systematic canvass of the town, and have found that everywhere a majority of the children between the ages of three and twelve are found to be neither at school nor at work. This was not owing to the poverty of the parents, for in many districts' (I quote from the report of this year) the number of children who are not sent to school, but whose parents are able to pay school fees if they were willing, approaches very nearly to the number of those who are neglected on account of poverty.' In one district, out of 142 children not at school, only 31 were found to belong to parents too poor to pay for their education. In the districts already examined, of 5,787 children neither at school nor at work, 2,175 had parents able to pay for them, 3,612 were the children of parents unable to afford this expenditure. In other words, out of every 19 children absent from school, 7 were so by the wilful negligence, 12 by the poverty, of their parents. Their latest returns show that while they have made 24,000 grants to enable these latter children to attend school, only half of that number, or 12,000, have availed themselves of this aid. And this fact is attributed to the apathy of the parents. It is clear-and this fact is one which must never be forgotten during the discussion of this subject that it is not the employer of labour who is the competitor of the schoolmaster. the children between three and twelve years of age, less than one in fourteen is at work, while out of every twenty-two of such children only nine are at school. Miserable as this is, it seems to be hardly as bad as that which remains to be revealed. The committee has hitherto shrunk from visiting some of the worst and most populous districts in Manchester and Salford, because so large a proportion were below the reach of their influence. There is a lower depth yet to be sounded. While we await the revelation of these dismal researches, let us take a general view of the state of education in Manchester and Salford. In these towns there are 104,000 children between the ages of three and twelve. A minute inquiry has established the fact that the numbers on the books of all the day schools of every class in Manchester and Salford in 1865 was 55,000. Add to these 7,000 who may, judging by the sample already examined, be assumed to be at work, and there yet remain 42,000 neither at school nor at work. It is not, of course, to be assumed that none of these children get any schooling, but after making every allowance for a short and occasional attendance at school of a portion of this vast horde of neglected children-equal in numbers to the population of a considerable town,-what a picture of the state of our urban fellow-countrymen does it present! And let us not solace ourselves with the hope that Manchester, which has thus manfully laid bare her sore places, and thrown light into her darkest lairs, stands alone in educational destitution. I know that the enormous population of such a city as Manchester imposes a task of peculiar difficulty upon those who devote themselves to supply and keep pace with its religious and intellectual wants. But have we no other great cities in England? And if the state of things in Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, were depicted with equal honesty and skill, have we any reason to hope that they would exhibit different results? Are their merchants more liberal, their ministers of religion more zealous, their missionaries of good more numerous or devoted than

those of Manchester and Salford? An inquiry less minute and exhaustive than that made at Manchester, but sufficiently careful to deserve confidence, has, at the instigation of the Bishop of London, been made under the auspices of the Committee of the Diocesan Board of Education into the state of education in the metropolis. Already, in 1861, the Royal Commission, presided over by the late Duke of Newcastle, had proclaimed the fact that, whereas the proportion of the population of all classes receiving some sort of education in England and Wales was one in seven, or fourteen per cent., the proportion in Middlesex was one in thirteen, or eight per cent. The inquiry just made shows no improvement in the interval. The most that has been done has been to keep things at their level, and prevent retrogression. The committee reports that the means of education are wanting in the diocese of London (which, be it remembered, does not include all the metropolis, a considerable portion of which is in the diocese of Winchester) for from 150,000 to 200,000 children. Add to this statement the fact that the average increase of the metropolis calls for an annual increase of school accommodation for 5,000 children of all classes every year, and what stronger demonstration could be furnished of the necessity of devising some elastic machinery capable of adapting itself to these tremendous numbers, this gigantic growth? But the want of accommodation is not the only, nor even the most pressing evil. The Committee of the Education Aid Society, on whose information I have so largely drawn, assert their belief that more valuable than the aid they have extended to 7,000 or 8,000 perishing children, more than the knowledge of their social wants which they have revealed to their fellowcitizens, is the proof they have supplied that no voluntary or private effort can reach the depths of this evil in the social constitution, and that further legislation is urgently needed, such legislation as shall boldly seek to provide for, and, as far as possible, secure the primary education of every child in our great community.' I have dwelt hitherto on two of the imperfections in our educational system which have been selected for discussion on the present occasion. I will now briefly put before you the best estimate I can form of the work to be done-i. e., of the number of children of the poorer classes to be educated,-together with a statement of what has been done by Parliament. The population of England and Wales at this moment cannot be less than 21 millions. The proportion of children of all classes between three and twelve years of age is about 4,420,000. The rule of the Education Department of the Privy Council Office, which has stood the test of much experience, is that there ought to be school accommodation provided for one-sixth of the whole population. It may fairly be assumed, therefore, that there are 3,500,000 of the working classes between three and twelve years of age whom it would be very desirable to have at school. During the year ending August 31, 1865, her Majesty's Inspectors visited 10,519 departments of annual grant schools, with 1,247,379 children on the books, and 881,948 in average attendance. I will assume that all these children are provided with good schools; to them I will add (a very liberal estimate) 350,000 children receiving their education in good unassisted schools, making 1,600,000 sufficiently provided for. I will further add (a much more liberal estimate) 800,000 in different schools, and we get a total of 2,400,000 children at school, leaving, 1,100,000 unaccounted for, of whom probably, following the experience of Manchester, 250,000 are at work. Let me now briefly advert to the action of Government. And

here let me remark, that it is only just to the eminent statesmen belonging to the two great political parties to recall the fact, that they have acquiesced from necessity in the compromise on which our present system is founded. The names of Earl Russell and Earl Granville, Lord Lytton, Sir John Pakington, Mr. Adderley, and Mr. Milner Gibson may be found appended to measures not identical-differing, indeed, in important particulars-but far more comprehensive and stringent than either Parliament or the country were prepared to adopt. The demand of the advocates of a national system is that the legislature should provide machinery by which schools should be built and maintained wherever they were wanted. To this demand Parliament has declined to accede. However urgent the need, however absolute the destitution, Parliament refuses to supply, or to enforce the supply, of a single school. It contributes with no reluctant or niggard hand towards the erection and maintenance of schools which have received a certain amount of local support, and give certain guarantees of good management and efficiency. But it initiates nothing. That the grant voted by Parliament, and dispensed under the superintendence of the Committee of Council on Education, has done immense good, and has not yet reached the limit of its useful operation, I should be the last to deny. I doubt whether any nine millions of our vast expenditure have been ever so beneficially applied as those devoted to the promotion of education. The annual grant has provided for the inspection, and largely contributed to the maintenance, of schools in England and Wales, at which some 1,200,000 are receiving an excellent elementary education. These schools are taught by upwards of 11,500 certificated teachers, probably the best of their kind that any country contains, the cost of whose training has been mainly contributed by the State. It has greatly improved our school buildings and apparatus, and everywhere, even where it gives no direct aid, it has tended greatly to raise the standard of education. It has, indeed, improved in a far greater degree than it has extended education. I do not deny that the £1,600,000 it has contributed towards the erection and enlargement of school buildings, have added something to their numbers and still more to their convenience. But the real substantial work done by the parliamentary grant has been to give us better masters and mistresses, and to test their work by the instrumentality of inspection. If any one doubts the correctness of this statement, a reference to the estimates of last year will satisfy him. During the year 1865 the State contributed only to the building of 65, and the enlargement of 46 schools, providing additional accommodation for 15,302 children. But during the same time it extended its aid to no less than 610 schools not previously in receipt of annual grants. The 112,000 children present at inspection in excess of the numbers of the preceding year must be considered, not as additions to the number of children at school, but to the number of those attending good schools. And the value of the work thus done it is hardly possible to exaggerate. But beneficial as is this work of improvement, it must not be forgotten that other work has to be done, and that to provide schools where there are none, and to secure the attendance of our youthful population, are matters well deserving the attention of our legislature. For this work I do not hesitate to say that our existing machinery is not only inadequate, but unsuitable. Some modifications in the practice of the Committee of Council may, I think, be advantageously introduced. The contribution towards the erection of the schools might, considering the increased cost

of building, be made on a more liberal scale. The difficulty of maintaining efficient schools in our rural and some of our poorer manufacturing districts would be alleviated by raising, in all cases, the rate of payment for the first 100 children. Possibly other alterations, not subversive of the principle on which the grant is made, may be suggested; but anylarge departure from its present practice, by making special allowance for the supposed poverty of a district, would be inconsistent with its fundamental principle, and inevitably lead to its overthrow. If poverty be pleaded as an excuse for the meagreness of the local subscriptions, what test can be applied to the validity of the plea? The Valuation List? But many of the places most needing aid are districts of great rateable value, having the misfortune to be removed from the presence, and therefore the sympathy, of their proprietors. Even in the rural districts there is good reason for doubting whether the failure to reach the conditions of the Government grant is not due to other causes than poverty. Much important evidence on this subject may be found in the report of the Select Committee on Education which sat during the present session. It is undoubtedly conflicting. Many witnesses stated that in a large proportion of rural parishes it was not possible to raise sufficient funds to fulfil the essential condition of employing a certificated teacher. On the other hand, in the diocese of Bangor, no less than 104 out of 110 schools in connection with the Diocesan School Society obtain an annual grant. In the diocese of Canterbury 66 per cent. of the schools receive the aid of Government, and the causes which prevent the remainder from doing so were stated by the diocesan inspector to be accidental and temporary, and not due to poverty. So in the diocese of Oxford, it was shown that the majority of the rural schools found no insuperable difficulty in complying with the conditions of the Government grant, and that the parishes in which they were situated were not distinguishable from the remainder by their superior wealth. The disabling cause was the indifference of the landowners; the lethargy, sometimes the caprice, of the clergyman; the unwillingness to remove an old uncertificated teacher; in fact, any cause but poverty. In one diocese, a diocesan inspector of great ability and experience stated that the absence of annual grant schools in his district was due to the dislike by the clergy of State interference—that is, of the visit of the inspector. Now while I acknowledge the hard case of the population which finds itself deprived of the benefit of the grant by the apathy, caprice, or secret hostility to education among those who, from property and intelligence, should be the promoters of schools, I confess myself unable to discover any method by which the present system can be rendered sufficiently elastic to meet such cases, without making a fatal inroad on the very principle on which it rests. We must, instead of having recourse to petty and mischievous makeshifts, boldly face our difficulties, and by enlightening the public mind and awakening the public conscience, enable Parliament to supply us with the machinery which will impose on all alike the duty of providing education for our whole population. I know the objections to such a proposition; I appreciate the difficulties of carrying it; I foresee the religious controversies to which it will give rise; I admit that we run the risk of losing some considerable advantages connected with the present system; but it is my deep conviction that the balance of good lies on the side I advocate. Briefly and generally stated, my proposition would be to maintain the present system where it works well, but wherever satisfactory evidence is given that the

provision of education falls short of the wants of the population, to supply the deficiency by an education rate. It is affirmed that even this partial introduction of the rating system would be the death-blow to all voluntary effort. I have no doubt that many schools now maintained with difficulty by the voluntary sacrifice of a few over-weighted men would be devolved upon the rate. But I do not believe in the extinction of the voluntary system. It is too deeply fixed in the habits of a large portion of our people; its advantages are too strongly felt, both by Church and Dissent, to be easily uprooted or readily surrendered. Nevertheless, experience has proved that the voluntary spirit, in its full power and development, is the growth of certain favourable soils, and that there are wide ungenial regions in which it can find no sufficient nutriment. In districts like the principality of Wales, where the population is not collected in overpowering masses, and the voluntary system is thoroughly organized; in many of our rural parishes, where the squire and clergyman work heartily together; in those portions of the country where the rich, poor, and middle classes co-exist in fair proportions; our present system has very nearly supplied the means of education, and may be trusted to make up the deficiency within reasonable time. But in the poorer districts of our larger cities, in parishes where the clergyman struggles in vain against the niggardliness of the landowner and the apathy or hostility of the farmer; in those places, in fine, which the voluntary system, after 30 years' trial, has failed to reach, some other means more stringent and peremptory, and independent of individual caprice or illiberality, must be found. The alternative is the growth of a vast population in ignorance and vice, with ever-increasing danger to the State, and to the reproach and scandal of a civilized and Christian people. This settlement of the question, whether we are to have a national system of education,' must, it seems to me, precede the consideration of any measure of compulsory attendance; and I confess that I should regret to see the energies of the friends of education expended in that direction. Laws of compulsory attendance may almost be said to exist only where they are not needed, as in Prussia, in some of the Swiss cantons, in Massachusetts, where the conviction of the value of education is so deep and general that the only use of such enactment is the formal recognition of the duty of parents to their children. I am satisfied that among ourselves such a law would simply be inoperative, that it would not and could not be enforced; and I would therefore venture to recommend that, placing our chief confidence in the growth of a better spirit among our people, and sparing no effort to evoke and cherish it, we should exert ourselves to obtain such indirect aid from the legislature as is suggested by the precedent of the Factory Acts. The last extension of the principle of these acts in the Pottery districts, and to some five or six new trades, has already had the most beneficial results, unalloyed by any of the predicted inconveniences. There can be little doubt that similar regulations will shortly be extended to many other occupations, in accordance with the suggestions of the Children's Employment Commission. When this great step has been taken, and one more proof afforded of the feasibility and advantage of such legislation, Parliament will, I hope, gain courage to make one general law that no child under twelve or thirteen years of age shall be allowed to work without producing a certificate that he is able to read and write. Such a law, accompanied by an adequate provision of schools, would not be lon in conveying, even to the most