those who paid for it. Nevertheless, free education is a thing undoubtedly designed by the pious founders of many endowments, and the commissioners hoped to carry out the spirit of those intentions, not by permitting in any school gratuitous education to all comers, but by reserving, wherever the endowments will admit, some free places attainable by merit. There would thus be two distinct classes of free scholars. First of all there would be exhibitions tenable in the school itself; for instance, in a third-grade school with two hundred boys, ten or a dozen of these would have their fees paid out of the endowment, but who would acquire that right by ability and industry as evinced in a competitive examination. Another set of exhibitions for each school would be intended expressly to take the best scholars to a place of higher instruction. Of course it was not contemplated that a school of the third grade should be a preparation for the second, and the second for the first. Many persons on looking rather superficially at this subject would imagine that the graded scheme was intended to form a kind of ladder by which the pupils should be advanced from one place to another. The whole curriculum of each school assumes that the scholar remains in it till a certain age, and therefore the instruction in the several grades will be from the first very different in character. For instance, if the course of the third-grade school is complete at fifteen, it is very desirable that by the time a scholar is thirteen it should be discovered that he is a suitable candidate for a second-grade school, in order that he may spend the last four years of his school days in the higher school, and be able to gain all that it can give him. The same remark applies to the firstgrade school, into which a scholar should be drafted not later than his fourteenth year.

He might mention incidentally that by the "Endowed Schools Act" all freehold masterships are for ever abolished. Everywhere the system was found to be a great evil. Henceforth every teacher will hold his office subject to removal by the governing body after due notice. The experience of those present would tell them that a good and conscientious teacher need never fear his own position endangered by a measure of this sort, which is absolutely necessary in the public interest. Under the old system people could say, as an old clergyman at the head of a grammar school said to him the other day, "The trustees have had my best days, they shall now have my worst." This gentleman was aware of his legal rights under the old system, but such rights could of course never again accrue. He had three reasons for especially desiring the present opportunity of bringing this subject before an audience of elementary teachers. First of all because he hoped they were all as citizens generally interested not merely in the particular work in which they themselves were engaged, but in the relation in which that work stands to the whole machinery of public education in this country. No man can understand his own special place in the world properly unless he widens the range of his observation, and tries also to ascertain what are the other movements of the body politic more or less connected as that in which he is himself at work. Beyond the sphere of each man's personal and professional interests there was the larger sphere of patriotism; and no teacher who was also a good citizen could fail to be interested in any measures likely to interest the intellectual future of England.

Secondly. This matter seriously affects the scholars of elementary schools.

Wherever the endowments are large enough there will probably be 'a number of free places in the third-grade schools, and also in the secondgrade schools, and some of these would be limited to the children of the primary schools of that particular district. It is not to be desired that they should all be so, some of course should be open to all comers however educated. But suppose a boy or girl is to be chosen at eleven or twelve years old, and taken out of the first primary school, and lifted into a school of higher pretensions, and have his fees paid for four years for him in that school, it is evident two conditions ought to be fulfilled. First, the children should be of more than average merit; and secondly, they should be children whose parents, without giving an actual written guarantee, should express their readiness to forego their wages and to keep them at school to the time when the curriculum of the higher school would naturally come to an end. It is manifest that it is a very great mistake to offer as a prize to a boy of eleven or twelve years old the right to go to a higher school, to send him there, and allow him to be removed at thirteen. He would have done far better to have remained in the elementary school from which he was taken, than to get from the higher school a frustrated and incomplete portion of its scheme of instruction.

He entered fully into the feelings that would rise into the mind of every teacher on considering this point. The children who would obtain exhibitions are exactly the scholars from whom, the schools would be likely to get most credit, and from whom the teacher would least like to part. Nevertheless they would forgive him for reminding them that schools existed for the nation and for the scholars, and not for the teachers. If a thing be right on public grounds, it does not become wrong because the personal interests of one particular class may seem to be a little affected by it. Therefore he felt quite sure that, if they were once convinced it would be good for the child to be lifted from their school to a higher, no personal or selfish consideration would prevent them from co-operating heartily with those public measures necessary to carry out that object.

They had also to consider that the number of children who would be able to carry on their education to fifteen or seventeen, and whose parents would be ready to make that sacrifice, is very small. Suppose it comes to one per cent.; think what incidental advantage would arise from the simple fact that a boy had such a career open to him. Consider the influence on the public opinion of a whole school, and on its estimate of the worth of knowledge when a prize is offered, not in a material shape, but in the form of improved education.

· Think of the stimulus of preparing for the examination which would affect not only the one chosen, but the many other candidates who would not be chosen. Think of the reputation the school would win by obtaining frequent successes of this kind. Add this to a conviction that the withdrawal of the scholar, though a loss to the school, is a gain to him, And these considerations would, he thought, go a long way to outweigh the first impressions with which an elementary teacher would naturally view the scheme. This would be a subject well deserving their future and more mature deliberation. He suggested that the Association would

do well to form a committee of those who possessed their confidence, to think over the whole subject, and to determine what are the conditions under which boys and girls of merit might be removed from the elementary to the higher schools with the maximum of advantage to the public and the minimum of disadvantage to their own schools. If they thought it desirable, he would very willingly put forth the conditions of the problem in a written form, and it would be of great value to the commissioners to receive, after the committee had considered it, any resolutions which its practical experience had led them to pass on the subject.

He did not apprehend much difficulty likely to arise from the system in connection with the future supply of pupil-teachers. Apprenticeship to an elementary teacher was more valuable than a place on the foundation of a third-grade school, because it has the advantage of giving a continuous, higher, and professional education, and of allowing a salary to be earned during that time. He hoped the committee would also consider what would be the wisest and safest form of competition. There were obvious dangers in applying the Competitive System to children of eleven years old; nevertheless every teacher knew that even at eleven years old some children are better than others. There are some who offer indications of higher powers, some of whom even at that early age it may be safely asserted that they would repay any additional labour bestowed upon them. There must be some way of discovering them, and his present audience were exactly the persons who ought to be heard on that point, and they would do well to consider it in detail.

Thirdly. The bearing of this question on the teacher's personal and professional prospects is obviously important. A number of schools of a wholly new type will be brought into existence by the Endowed Schools Commission. He hoped that in every town in England, having more than two thousand inhabitants, and in many country districts, there would be third-grade schools-good sensible English schoolswhere there would be no attempt at what is vulgarly called a commercial education," but where, nevertheless, an English education suitable for the needs of the lower trading classes would be given, and where, at the same time, something ennobling and stimulating would also be taught.

Such schools will supersede many of the smaller grammar schools, and will appropriate their endowments. Now the number of academically educated men in England who can teach Latin and Greek, who can teach nothing else, and who look for their whole credit and success in life from teaching those subjects, is greatly in excess of the demand. But the number of men who know how to give a really sound and liberal education, in connection with English and modern subjects, falls very far short of the demand. This class of men and women will have to be found, and where are they to be found? He believed that they would be looked for among the most successful and promising elementary teachers.

He had good reason to know for many years past that there existed a class of men and women who, not content with merely fulfilling the demands which are required for a certificate of merit, sedulously work on at their own improvement, aiming high, not only as to their school work but also as to their studies, their associations, and the pursuits of their leisure. They are in the highest degree qualified to do other work than that

in which they are now engaged. They They are persons who not only possess that knowledge of school management, and that power over the art of teaching generally possessed by successful elementary teachers, but who also possess a more than average amount of knowledge and of mental culture. They are the teachers of the future; they are the persons most of all in demand for many of the second-grade, and for almost all of the third-grade schools which will have to be established. There is now, for the first time in the history of teachers, what he had long most earnestly desired to see, something like a legitimate field for the exercise of ambition. He believed that most young teachers, who were really fond of their work, looked wistfully forward into the future of life, and hoped the time would come when they would be invested with larger responsibilities and more honourable work. If there were a profession in which there were no prizes and no chance of advancing, that profession would not be likely in the long run to attract or to return in it men of enterprise and ability. He therefore sympathized entirely with the reasonable ambition which he knew to exist in the minds of so many young teachers, who feel that they could occupy other and higher positions well. This is a point, however, in which self-deception is very easy and great mistakes may be often made. After all, the highest work for every man in this world is that work which he is qualified to do best. If a man is fulfilling one duty with honour and success then it may be that the longing after other work, merely because it is better paid and gives more social distinction, is a misleading ambition, a temptation which ought to be resisted. It is not, in fact, higher work to teach twenty rich scholars in a grammar school than to teach a hundred boys or girls of the poorer classes in an elementary school, and the man who does the former is certainly not a more useful or honourable public servant. When persons talk of "higher work," they must beware of the fallacy which lies hidden in the expression. If a person feels conscious he can win more distinction in teaching the higher subjects to older pupils than in teaching the elementary subjects in a primary school, then when he has thoroughly gauged himself and his own qualifications he has a right to work towards the former end, and the way to do this is first to determine that the one thing he has now in hand shall be done supremely well. Nothing is more dishonourable, nothing pulls down the self-respect of a man more than the habit of slurring over present duty, and treating it contemptuously, because it is secretly intended to serve as a stepping-stone to something higher. A right-minded and conscientious man, who wishes to get honour in some higher position, will seek first to win distinction in that position in which God has placed him. If, all the time that a teacher labours hard in school, he works steadily at his own improvement, avails himself of every opportunity of culture and refinement that comes in his way, and brings all the knowledge he can get to bear on his daily work, then, without doubt, a noble, useful, and probably a more lucrative career is open to him. Years ago, as Principal of that Training College, he would have hesitated to speak in this way, but the conditions of public education in England had now altered. He hoped that those who remembered him knew well that he had then as true a sympathy in the aspirations of those who evinced superior qualifications as he could possibly express now. But they had now come to the end of that state

of things in which one department of State would concern itself exclusively in the education of the poor and the administration of the grant, and so would jealously endeavour to prevent persons engaged in that particular work from finding their way to the other. They were now within sight of arrangements, whereby all the several departments of public education would be co-ordinated and made to work under the supervision of the same public officer, and when it would be for the interest of the State that every man and woman who had been trained in the art of teaching, should find out the work which he or she could do best.

The great problem for each one of them was, In what kind of work could they do the greatest service to the State and give the most honour to God? There is a sort of magnetism in the human spirit which would help them to solve this question. If, after self-examination, they found that the needle of their lives, and destinies, and character pointed steadily in one direction, then they would do wisely and well to take heed to its indications and to shape their course accordingly. On the whole, the present crisis in the educational history of the country is one on which they, as a body of elementary teachers, might be fairly congratulated. For the great new work to be done in connection with the reorganized secondary instruction of the country was one in which some of them might hope to bear an honourable and a useful part. He ought to apologise for taking up so much of their time, but yet he could not sit down without indulging in one personal reflection. It was a great satisfaction to him to receive from their honoured secretary an assurance that he and his subject would not be unwelcome at this meeting. It was a still greater gratification to him to find himself standing again on a spot endeared to him by so many happy recollections, and to see around him, mingled with many faces which were young and unfamiliar, many other faces, to which in old days he had been accustomed to look, and never to look in vain, for the intelligent response of earnest students or for the kindly smile of faithful friends. He desired to assure them that those recollections were very precious to him, that he gladly renewed them today and that he hoped to cherish them all his life.

When Mr. Fitch resumed his seat, Mr. RYDER, of the North London British Schools, proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Fitch, which was seconded by the Secretary, and carried with acclamation.

After refreshments had been handed round there was some conversation on the subject of the paper, and Mr. Fitch kindly offered to put down in writing the questions he had referred to for the more mature consideration of the Society.

The following is an abstract of the questions arising out of Mr. Fitch's address which he suggests for the consideration of teachers, and which will form the subject of discussion at the next meeting of the British Teachers' Association :—

I. On the supposition that exhibitions tenable in endowed day schools of a higher kind will be awarded to pupils in primary schools, what is a probable estimate of the percentage of scholars in an average primary school who (1) are intellectually qualified, and (2) would be permitted by the parents to pursue their instruction to or beyond the age of fifteen in a superior school?