the poor.

The first question was, whether the alteration would not be unfair towards the certificated masters and the training schools. If the grant for attendance were only given to those schools the masters of which were certificated, that alone would be a sufficiently powerful inducement to every manager to get certificated teachers if he could possibly do so. More than that, if it really were the case that the certificated masters were better teachers than the uncertificated — and that, of course, was the essence of the argument of those who pleaded for them-it must then follow that the certificated teachers would be most likely to secure to the school a larger proportion of the proficiency grant. The managers would therefore have strong pecuniary motives for getting a certificated teacher-first, with the view of securing the attendance grant; and secondly, with the view of obtaining the proficiency grant, through the children being better up in their reading, writing, and arithmetic. But even if those pecuniary motives were less powerful, who could doubt that managers would be eager to get the best masters they could? Certificated teachers would therefore still be able to sell their services at full value, and there would be the strongest motives to young men entering on that profession to obtain certificates, and therefore to go to the training colleges. The alteration, then, would cause no wrong to any vested interest. On the other side, justice demanded the change. The managers of schools were taxed for the educational grant; and if their children were well taught, it was unfair to debar them from sharing in it by an arbitrary restriction. It was also unjust to the masters of such schools.

Then came the question whether they would not be ruining that mighty educational organization which had been erected with so much labour and outlay during the last thirty years. By degrees that system had been developed with its certificated masters, its pupil teachers, and so forth. Last year they had made an important reform in the mode of administering it; would it not be rash again to set their hands to it, and perhaps tumble it down altogether? Now, he allowed that nothing could be worse in the administration of affairs than to be setting up one day and pulling down another, and in a love of tinkering to forget the inestimable value of stability. And

He would now pass on to the question of expense. They must all, he thought, have felt some anxiety of late years in looking at the rapid increase of outlay under the head of Education, and he hoped they would all shrink from making any lavish increase in that direction. But the proposed alteration would, at the outside, cause an increase of £200,000 per annum. It was shown last year that, in all probability, the amount that under the Revised Code would be given under the head of the proficiency grant to the schools now under inspection, would amount to a little less than £300,000 a year. These schools contained 1,000,000 children. That left a balance of 600,000 children in the other working-class schools. They might fairly suppose that only half a million of those children, at the very outside, would obtain the grant. In that case-and that was a most liberal computation-the increased outlay in the shape of the proficiency grant would only reach £150,000 per annum ; but he would give a margin of £50,000 for the increase of staff expenses, salaries of inspectors, and so forth. He had no doubt himself that in making that allowance he was going a great deal further than the case really demanded. It must be remembered that under the Revised Code it was reckoned that a saving of more than £100,000 a year would be made; consequently, half the proposed increase would be, so to speak, provided for by that saving. He owned, however, that even that increase was serious. At the same time, he utterly denied that the argument from expense was a legitimate one to use in order to prevent schools that now lay beyond the action of the national system from being connected with it. The country

had deliberately accepted the principle that stimulus and superintendence should be given by the Government to the education of the working class. That conclusion had been come to, and had been acted upon for many years, with the goodwill of the whole people; and it was an anomaly, not to say an absurdity, deliberately to adopt such a policy, and in accordance with it to give lavish aid to a certain portion of the schools, but, after all, to shut out one-third of them upon the ground of expense. It clearly would be right rather to give small aid to all, so as to cover the whole area, than to give abundant help to a few and none to others. It was a breach of principle, nay it was a breach of common sense, to let their frugality lead to such an arbitrary distinction. These, however, were comparatively secondary considerations.

The real, the essential question was, would the change be likely to make or to mar the work the State had undertaken, of raising the character of the working class? That was the end they all had in view. What they wanted was, that in days to come the working class should be raised to the highest practicable point of intelligence and morality. It was with that view that they had established an immense educational machine. Would their machine be more or would it be less potent if they made the change? Now, on the one hand, the only way in which the alteration would damage education would be if it caused non-certificated teachers to be substituted for certificated. But he had already given reasons for believing that that would very rarely, if ever, be the case. Let them, however, assume, that in some considerable number of schools such a result would follow. His hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire, in a speech last year, and in some of his letters, had given solid grounds for doubting whether the certificated teachers were so very much better than the noncertificated. He (Mr. Buxton), however, was ready to take for granted that the difference in value was very great indeed, and that it would be a serious loss in those cases to lose the certificated and substitute a non-certificated master or mistress. But it might be observed in passing that the managers would be likely soon to find out their mistake if they were in reality getting an inferior teacher. However, let them grant the outside of damage that would be done to education in that way. But then they must weigh, on the other side, the immense increase of value that would be given to

the education of the children in those schools which, unless the rule be modified, would be excluded from connection with the Committee of Council. They must bear in mind the striking fact, that although the so-called National System had been at work for a great number of years, schools containing 600,000 children of the working class were debarred from connection with it. Some of them, no doubt, from various motives influencing their managers, or from other circumstances, would not in any case be brought under the Committee of Council. But they might fairly believe that the managers of five-sixths of those schools would be very glad indeed to connect themselves with the Board, to receive inspection, and to obtain grants, were it not that, from various causes, their teachers had not obtained certificates. And let them not give way to the delusion that the reason why so vast a number of masters and mistresses had not obtained certificates was, that they were too ignorant, or too immoral, to be able to obtain them. In a small number of cases that was true. But in by far the greater number the reason simply was that the school was a small one in some outlying district. It would not be possible for the managers to obtain as a teacher of such schools the services of a person 66 who was able [he was quoting Mr. Norris] to give a year's hard study to the subjects on which he or she would be examined," and, further, to give a whole week to the examination, involving the expense of the journey and of board during that time, and to pass successfully an examination which, unless it was to be degraded into a useless absurdity, must really show that a man or woman had a highly-cultivated mind. It would not be either practicable or desirable for petty schools in agricultural districts to be superintended by teachers with such high qualifications, pecuniary and mental, as those which the certificate must imply. It was the vainest thing in the world-it was utterly against common sense to hope, or even to wish, that the mass of small schools, for the poorest class, could have teachers of so high an order. The instrument would be too valuable for the work to be done. Such schools were not unworthy of aid; they might be very efficient for the purpose for which they were intended. But, though they could not hope ever to obtain certificated teachers for those schools, it would be of the highest value to them to be examined by inspectors sent down from the Government. Nothing could give a

stimulus so potent as that, and he lamented extremely that the existing restriction. should deprive half a million children of such a vast advantage. But, besides the advantage of inspection, the Government grant would enable the managers to adopt a better apparatus, and in every way to improve the education they were bestowing; and it seemed to him as clear as daylight that the good they would be doing to the education of the working classes, by giving these benefits to those outlying schools would a thousand times outweigh the possible contingent evil that might arise, here and there, from non-certificated teachers being substituted for those with certificates. These, be it remembered, were the very schools that wanted aid. The schools for the upper part of the working class in the wealthiest districts were, almost without exception, under the Government Board. But that portion of the working class which most wanted training, and from whose want of training the country suffered most severely, was found in schools of the lowest class, by far the greater number of which were at present debarred from those benefits of which he had spoken. If it be the fact that Government superintendence and aid really made the training in the schools better, it would be wiser to throw the whole of its force upon the lowest class of schools, rather than, as now, to exclude that class from all aid, and concentrate all endeavours upon the schools of a higher rank. But more than that, he had no doubt that the effect would be very good upon the schools that were already under the aid of the Council. At present they had not that stimulus which they ought to have from competition. They received the whole aid, while many other schools near them were deprived of it. Now, if those additional schools were in that respect placed on the same level with them, the effect of that touch of free trade would be to make them exert themselves more vigorously. Upon the whole, it seemed to him that the proposed change would not ruin, or in any way endanger their educational organization. It would not involve the country in extravagant expense. It would not be a breach of justice, but would, in fact, do justice to those who were at present wronged. In the long run it would spread the blessings of a sound education over a far wider space, and would give an additional stimulus to that good education which already existed.

VOL. CLXX. [THIRD SERIES.]

Motion made, and question proposed, "That it is the opinion of this House, That the sums annually voted by Parliament for Educational purposes ought to be made applicable to all the poorer schools throughout the Country (not being private schools, or carried on for profit), in which the attendance and examination of the children exhibit the results required, under the schools." Revised Code, by Her Majesty's Inspectors of

MR. LOWE: Before I offer any remarks, I wish to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire whether it is his intention to persevere with his second Resolution. [Mr. WALTER: Certainly. That is the Resolution to which I attach the most importance.] Then I think my hou. Friend and his seconder scarcely appreciate the gravity of the step they have resolved to take. They have placed on the papers of this House Resolutions embodying directions which I, in the management of the Department which I have a share of governing, am to obey. I have endeavoured, as well as I could, to make myself master of these Resolutions, and have come down prepared to give my reasons why I cannot agree to them. But what have my hon. Friends done? They have moved and seconded the first Resolution in speeches which are entirely contradictory to its spirit; and not only that, but they do not offer the least explanation of parts of the Resolution which to me are utterly incomprehensible. Suppose they carry that Resolution-a Resolution contradicted by their own speeches, a Resolution which contains very important matter to which they have not made the slightest allusion what course am I to take? I object exceedingly to the proceedings of the hon. Gentleman. It is not fair to a person in my situation, whose words are weighed and scanned with more minuteness perhaps than those of any other public functionary, because upon what I may say depend the pecuniary interests of many classes who receive grants of the public money-it is not fair to give notice of one proposition, and then change it without giving any intimation or warning of the change. I am bound to great care and circumspection in every word I utter, and therefore I have a right to expect that hon. Gentlemen who make a Motion after months of notice and preparation will condescend to make one which conforms to their speeches, or that they will make speeches which conform to their Motion. The House has heard the speeches of the Mover and

2 Q

Sir,