National Education.

OUGHT EDUCATION TO BE SETTLED ON THE PRIN CIPLES OF THE LEAGUE OR THE UNION?

"The Education movement is going forward with a rapidity which justifies the most sanguine hopes; and the two great principles of the League-that Education should be compulsory, and that State Education should be undenominational-are striking root deeply into the mind of the nation. Having held the first opinion for many years, and the last always, I heartily rejoice at the progress both are making towards general recognition."-J. S. Mill.

THE LEAGUE.-I.

THE principles of the National Education League are plain, simple, and thoroughgoing. The object is to agitate for "the establishment of a system which shall secure the education of every child in the country;" and the means are briefly these:-that local authorities shall be compelled by Law to provide sufficient school accommodation for every child in each district; that the founding and maintaining of the said schools shall be provided for by local rates, supplemented by Government grants; that these schools shall be managed by the local authorities, and be under Government inspection-be unsectarian-be free to all--and children may be compelled, if necessary, to attend them. This scheme is practical, straightforward, and adapted to the times. The League asserts that education is as necessary to the proper vitality of man as food is. It affirms that here and there education may be had if it be taken out of a sectarian feeder; but in almost all cases it cannot now be had apart from the sectarian condiment. The League is of opinion that education pure and simple may be provided with as little sectarianism in it as there is sectarianism in a soup-kitchen or an hospital. Besides, it sees that sectarianism works fitfully, wastefully, and for the effecting of a purpose beside or beyond the main object. It is set in operation to gain converts, not to make scholars competent for the duties of this life.

In looking upon the educational machinery now in existence no one can fail to recognise its want of permanency, its dependence on the life of some good old Lady Bountiful, the yearning for notoriety of some young clergyman, or the zeal of some chapel deacons ; that it is not originated with the distinct and definite design of preparing pupils for the work of life, but of biassing them towards a particular creed. That where sects are contentious, schools abound, and where a truce of God is held among the sects, or the adherents are only lukewarm, education languishes and fails. It expands,

not according to the requirements of a district, but in proportion to the energies of sects; it is founded on the free will of individuals, and is therefore liable to fluctuation instead of being established by law, and made permanent by the will of the nation. The education of the country has hitherto been provided by us as a charity or a bribe-a charity in support of which brazen-faced mendicancy has been practised by clergy, deacons, and tract distributors, and a bribe held out to secure the influence in one parish of the Church of England, in another of the Wesleyans, and in another of the Independents. Education is a right-a right which ought to be provided for in the arrangements of the State, and it ought not to be given as a charity, nor used as a bribe.

There is thus a great waste of educational effort-the competition of sects causing competitions of schools, two or three being set up where only one can be adequately supported, and the result being that while the teachers are nearly starved, the children are enticed into one or other school, not so much for the education to be got, as the favour, the clothes, or the parish relief, which is to be gained by going to one party in preference to another. Besides the waste in building expenditure and in teaching power, we have the waste of inspectoralism. Then in other places, where zeal is worn out, or the parties are so evenly pitted against each other that there is no chance of changing the percentages by the institution of schools, or where the poverty is so great that money cannot be raised to comply with the government regulations, schools are not be found. There is neither completeness nor universality, a proper purpose, nor a trustworthy basis, for schools as they are now. Besides, the denominational system is a fallacious one. It implies that schools are for the inculcation of doctrines, and that education is only a half-way house to some religious body; whereas education is the means of making men useful and happy, profitable to themselves and beneficial to the State. Too often the school is looked upon as a foundation of, or an adjunct to, the church or

chapel.

Why should churchism and pauperism be always branded on education? What relation is there between the Alphabet and the Articles, the Multiplication table and the Communion table, the copy-book and the Creed, the uses of slate pencil and the habit of church-going? Why should the perusal of the Abecedary be regarded as constituting a good claim on the clergy for charity, the learning of the art of writing be combined with the receipt of dorcas-flannel, or the acceptance of instructions in geography be considered as a stepping-stone to the soup-kitchen. Now a great many of the present schools are kept up from motives no better or more enduring than these, that they shall be avenues to the church or chapel, and are nourished upon charity because it flatters the vanity of the squire, gives interest and occupation to his daughters, brings all the possible fruit-stealers, poachers, &c., under the eye f some one in the interest of the squire, and makes children spies

OUGHT EDUCATION TO BE SETTLED

for the wealthy. Perhaps in some instances the lady of a demesne wants tidy, demure parishioners, and the pick and choice of the parish, for servants, or has some ideas about the management of the dependents on her bounty, or some fuzziness of disposition, and she gets up a school for a while, and then, finding it an annoyance, or more a care than a joy, drops it again, or leaves it to struggle till it dies, its master or mistress a begrudged pensioner. Instead of this we want education conducted on principle. We want it to be accepted by society as a privilege and a duty. We must have it made a public responsibility and a private necessity. The nation must gird up its loins to the great task of substituting schools for prisons and workhouses, and must stir itself up to restrain pauperism and crime by instruction such as shall make chil dren fit for the duties of life, and induce them to perform what society requires of them when their turn comes to do their share of true labour in the earth.

Denominationalism does not reach the masses. It can get at the church-going and the respectable; it can get at those who hang on by the skirts of every society to take what can be got out of them; it can get hold of those who like to have the patronage or trade of those who live decently and go to chapel, but it does not reach the useless, the degraded, and the careless, it does not go down into the lower levels of life and "excavate the home-heathen." We want a system which will thoroughly alter all this, which shall press and impress the duties of life upon every one, which shall refuse to hand over the guidance of the young to pet schemers and pulpit agitators, which shall make it imperative on every parent of every child to see that he gains such schooling as may fit him for being of use in the world.

The League will secure this by compelling attendance. We compel men to pay taxes to provide for their families, to obey the laws, to abstain from the practice of many things enjoyable in themselves when we think they ought not to be indulged in, and to conform to certain regulations which are thought to be beneficial. We compel the cleansing of towns and the laying in of water, and we even, in some cases, compel to pay for museums and freelibraries. Why not compel to the attendance on that which, if attended to, would render all other compulsion unnecessary. If men were thoroughly educated they would be much better fitted to guide and train their families, to do their work, to appreciate cleanliness, to use libraries, and to benefit from museums. To compel attendance for education would be a great deal preferable to compelling attendance at law and police courts, and residence in prison. Then, by the proclamation of free education, the League takes away all possibility of complaint on the score of compulsion. No one can plead that he cannot afford to give his children education. The League has arranged that every child shall not only be compelled to go, but have a perfect right to get to school. There can

therefore be no difficulty as to the concession of attendance. The de da doors will be open, and every one will be required to enter some een one or other.

pa To secure this free education for all, the League insists that the schools shall no longer trust to the precarious bounty of the charitable, or the varying results of canvassing mendicancy. It insists that the schools shall be paid for by all and be open to all. Recogpienising the education of its members as a duty incumbent on society -it demands that society shall pay for it. Society had better far pay for education than for crime or pauperism. From these it gains no advantage, from that it would attain much. If there is good reason why it should save itself from crime by prisons, there de if still more reason why it should do so by schools; and if it is necessary to provide workhouses for paupers, it would be still better to provide by schools to prevent people from sinking into the ranks of pauperism. To gain a national benefit-the benefit of improving the future workers and merchants of the country-it is right to make a national effort, and we believe that there is no better investment the nation could make for its own prosperity than the general education of the people. If we can afford to spend so much in war as we do, why should we hesitate to commence a holy war against ignorance, and spend our millions in making men useful, rather than in destroying them as food for powder?

It is certain that all the earnestness and energy of the Church, that all the zeal and efforts of voluntaryism, that all the exertions. (if any) made by the secularists, and that all the considerate help afforded to schools by the Government in their distribution of the public funds, have not been sufficient to bring more than a small portion of the children of the working classes under efficient eduTcation, and that in populous places especially, and even in country districts, ignorance much more abounds than many people could believe. There are 14,877 parishes in England and Wales. In these there are only 7,406 approved schools, and these do not educate so many as 60 per cent. of the population of the parishes in which they are situated. Here then we have more than half of the country deficient in school supplies, and many competent authorities affirm that there is certainly not a fifth part of the educatable population of the county-children between four and thirteen-who are under systematic training. Every writer or speaker on the subject admits that "in no place, in town or country, is the educational condition of the people in a proper or satisfactory system," and we know almost every means short of compulsion, and a good deal short of compulsion too, have been employed to bring about a better state of things. Hence the League advocates and approves of compulsory measures.

Now only consider what an efficient agent this compulsory education would be. It would make it the interest of the parents to see that proper heed was given to preparation, every permitted time of laziness would be felt to be a period of loss, and every intermission of study that could be avoided would be reckoned

as a slice of wages gone. Instead of parents not caring that their children should neglect their lessons and disobey the injunctions of the teacher, every one would be made anxious to have progress made. What a change this would make in our schools; children diligently prepared with their tasks would make it pleasant to teach them, and they would find it a delight to be taught, while (by the way we may remark) it would be highly beneficial to the parent to be put in a position which made it advisable that he should see to the proper preparation of the school studies. We may make duty and interest coincide in this way; in the way we are pursu ing, and which the Union proposes to perpetuate, interest and duty are set against each other-the interest of getting the earnings of the child against the duty of seeing that the child is properly edu cated. Let compulsory education be established, and parent, teacher, child, employer, would all work harmoniously and earnestly for the one purpose, the diffusion of education through the nation.

The Union proposal is one of compromise, not of principle, and compromises always fail to be satisfactory. What sort of an exchequer would Mr. Lowe have if he were not to make the taxation compulsory, but made it optional, or entered into a compromise as between his charges and the people's payments? The Union proposes to perpetuate what has already proved to be a failure. Denominationalism has been already trying and trying to solve this educational difficulty for us, but it is not doing it. It is crying out for more Government help, that is, more taxation, to enable it to boast of its triumphs. With nearly a million of money granted to it, it is scarcely keeping progress with the increase of popu lation; and while the contributions of Government have increased from £20,000 in 1833 to £1,000,000 in 1869, what has denominationalism done? It has been-as indeed clerical schemes almost always are like the daughter of the horse-leech, crying, "Give! give!" instead of coming forward and saying, "I'll give! I'll give!" If we are to get a proper education for the country we must reform it altogether, and join with the League for unsectarian, self-supported, locally managed, free in fee, and compulsorily-attended schools; then only shall we be a properly educated and duly qualified nation. S. W. R.

THE UNION.-I.

EDUCATION is the leading out of all the faculties and powers of a human being to their proper ends, in the best manner, and to the production of the wisest results. Man is not a mere working and workable machine, which has only to be got up, at the least possible expense, to such a pitch of industrial power and skill as will make him a useful drudge and a good investment for capital, in the shape of wages. Man is a creature of many possibilities over and above his capacity for work, his value in the eyes of the political economist as a wealth producer, and of the manufacturing capitalist as a speculation out of which profit may be got. Against the base at