his spirit to ascend to his God and Saviour. He died in perfect peace and in full assurance of faith, and a lay brother committed his remains to a grave dug upon the sea shore. So also died Francis Xavier on the island of Sancian, upon the same coast of China. He also had no brother minister, and was beholden to the charity of a lay friend to lay him in his grave. The warriors whose deeds of arms are known and read of all men, need no other burial than the battle-field affords.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT BILL ON NATIONAL EDUCATION IS, AND HOW TO WORK IT.

THE passing of the Education Bill of 1870 will form a memorable era in the history of England and Wales. No doubt the Bill has not yet passed the House of Lords, but there can be no doubt that it will pass without material alterations; and we may add, there can be little doubt that, once passed, it will never be repealed. Our legislation may go forward to the right hand or to the left, but it will never recede. A rating system, once established, will continue so long as the British Constitution endures. Under these circumstances it is exceedingly desirable that a fair and candid view of the whole subject should be taken, and more particularly that the members of the Church and the friends of religious education should see clearly what course, under an entirely new aspect of affairs, it would be advisable for them to follow.

There are three points which especially deserve attention; viz., Voluntary Denominational Schools; Rate-supported Schools; and Training Institutions.

1. The Denominational Schools will have one advantage under the new system; they will be capable of earning larger grants from the Privy Council. To what extent this concession may be actually available will depend upon the action of the authorities of the Privy Council, who may carry out the intentions of Parliament in a liberal or a penurious spirit. Not only are the minutes themselves, under which the grant is to be administered, liable to be altered from time to time, but the application of them to particular cases will be influenced by the general views taken by presidents, vice-presidents, and inspectors.

On the other hand, among the disadvantages to which the Voluntary Denominational Schools will be subjected, we may advert first of all to the fact that the Inspectors are no longer to enquire into the religious knowledge of the scholars; and, instead of being clergymen of the Church of England, may be

laymen of any religious persuasion, or of none. This is a heavy blow and great discouragement to the most important part of education. Any subject not enquired into by the examiner is in great danger of being neglected: to prevent this result will require constant vigilance on the part of the clergy and school-managers.

Another disadvantage is, that the adoption of a conscience clause is to be an indispensable condition of obtaining Government aid. We attach no great importance to the particular terms in which the conscience clause is expressed; for whatever be the form of words made use of, the school-managers and teachers will consider themselves bound in honour and conscience to abstain from teaching the children anything to which the parents object. It may be hoped that in practice this general rule will not cause serious embarrassment. Teachers appear to be universally of opinion that the supposed hardship, which the conscience clause is designed to remove, has no real existence, and that parents scarcely ever, of their own accord, object to their children receiving the ordinary religious instruction of the school. The evil of which we are more apprehensive is, that the clergy, school-managers, and subscribers may take less interest in the school when they are not allowed full license to carry out their own views of education in the school which they support. We trust, however, that they will see the mischief which would result not only from the general failure of the Denominational system, but from the substitution of a ratesupported school under a local board for the school which they have been conducting in the manner which they themselves consider most conducive to the welfare of the children. The gain which would result from the withdrawal of a guinea subscription would be as nothing in comparison with the mischief which it would tend to produce.

2. When the proposal was first made that a new burden should be imposed upon the heavily-taxed ratepayers of the country, we conceived that a strong opposition was likely to arise; but it was not so. Ratepayers have been led to believe that the burden will be light, not more in any case than threepence in the pound; and no political party has seen fit to rouse a spirit of opposition. We have little doubt that in populous and poor districts a threepenny rate will be found utterly inadequate, and it will be found necessary to give the local board a much much more extensive command over the pockets of the ratepayers. We are not sure that in many populous and poor places a two-shilling rate will suffice to build and maintain efficient schools for the whole population.

The burden of education will be still more oppressive if compulsion is resorted to; for we do not see how compulsory

attendance can long be reconciled with the payment of schoolfees.

We cannot mention compulsion without expressing our conviction that it is only practicable where large numbers of children, as in the case of factories, are congregated together, and may thus be all conveniently swept into one net. But in the case of a scattered population, we apprehend that direct compulsory legislation would prove inoperative. Where children are not employed in factories, it is impossible for a school board to decide upon the excuses which parents may allege for keeping their children at home: illness, want of clothing, want of shoes, occasional care of younger children, farming work, messages, and the thousand forms in which light juvenile labour is required. Accordingly, in many parts of Europe and America, where compulsory laws had been enacted, they are allowed to remain a dead letter. The proper authorities make no attempt to put them in force. As regards our own country, if it were seriously determined to carry into general operation some stringent compulsory enactment, a spirit of discontent and resistance might be awakened, which it is formidable to contemplate. Our quiet country labourers might become as recalcitrant as the Radicals and Socialists of our large towns.

We have already hinted that although, in our opinion, direct compulsory legislation would, to a large extent, prove inoperative, indirect measures might be useful. We refer especially to Mr. Denison's Act, which enables guardians to pay the school-fees of children whose parents they relieve. This Act is permissive only; we think it might be made imperative. Guardians might be required to withhold aid from parents who declined to send their children to school, and were thus bringing them up in ignorance and vice, to the detriment of the community.

It is provided in the Bill that school rates shall be levied and administered by local boards, elected by town councils in the case of boroughs, and by the ratepayers in country parishes. At first it was provided that the boards should determine the kind and degree of religious teaching to be given in the ratesupported schools. It was afterwards considered that the exercise of this power would be dangerous. Squabbles would arise among ratepayers, or members of the town councils, as to the election of the parties by whom so important a power was to be exercised; and it was finally agreed that in rate-supported schools, although religion was to be taught, it should be taught through the Bible only, and not through the medium of any catechism or formulary. Great power is thus vested in the teacher, who, to a large extent, will teach whatever doctrine he thinks fit. The great contest, therefore, will be among the

members of the Board, with reference to the choice of teachers.

Local boards are liable to fail in two respects. On the one hand, when full of zeal, they may be animated by party spirit; and on the other, they may be wanting in zeal, and allow their school to sink into apathy and inefficiency. To avert the first of these evils, the Bill, as we have seen, prohibits the use of catechisms and formularies; the remedy for the other evil, viz., want of zeal, is to be found in the supervision of the Privy Council, which may curtail or withhold its aid, and thereby impose an additional burden on the parish in case the Inspector makes an unfavourable report. A negligent local board, therefore, will be taken angrily to task by its constituents, heavily mulcted, and thus compelled to do its duty.

In this respect our Government scheme has a decided superiority over the systems adopted in the neighbouring Continent and in America. In some of those systems all power is given to the Government, and local boards have little or no independent agency; in others the local boards are all in all, and there is no superior power to set them right when they go wrong, or to stir them up when they are careless. Wise and careful superintendence on the part of the Council Office, with a competent body of inspectors, will be inestimable, and will constitute the peculiar and most hopeful feature of our system.

It appears to us a very judicious provision in the Bill that the electors of the local boards may give cumulative votes, that is, may give to any one candidate as many votes as there are vacancies to be filled up; thus all parties will be represented, and some really efficient men, lovers of education, will be included in the Board.

3. Proceeding to the third point which we propose to consider, viz., the Institutions for training Teachers, we cannot but express our regret that no provisions on this subject were introduced into the Bill; and that we are left entirely in the dark as to the views of the Government on the subject.

Under the Revised Code it was provided that no training institution should receive from the Council Office more than seventy-five per cent. of its annual expenditure. This allowance may appear large, but we must always keep in mind, that although training schools are absolutely necessary, they are maintained with far greater difficulty than any other part of our educational machinery. On this point the promoters of education throughout the country are unanimous. It may be hoped, therefore, that when the Revised Code is again revised, such rules will be established as may enable training institu tions, if well conducted, to obtain at least the seventy-five per cent., to which they had been restricted, and which they had been led to hope for.

It appears to us that it would be a great error for the Government to resume the scheme which it proposed in 1839, of establishing training schools of its own. The religious difficulty would immediately present itself in its most aggravated form; and it would not be easy for the Government to prevent them from becoming schools of infidelity. In reading accounts of the state of education, whether on the Continent, in the United States, or in Canada, it is to the last degree painful to read descriptions of the moral and religious tone of the teachers. We find good men grieving over it, as blighting the prospects of the rising generation both in time and in eternity.

As regards cheapness, it would be far more economical to assist others to the extent of 75 per cent. in doing an indispensable work, which they can do far better, than to expend 100 per cent. in the vain attempt to do it equally well themselves. One of the best hopes of England and Wales has for many years been the high character of the teachers, to whom the education of the working classes has been confided. God forbid that this hope should now be blasted.

Before concluding these remarks, we desire to offer some suggestions to which they naturally give rise.

And in the first place, we would urge the clergy and promoters of Church education not to be dispirited or disheartened by the provisions of the Bill. While it was under discussion in Parliament, efforts might very fairly be made to resist or amend it. But it is now virtually passed: it is, or soon will be, the law of the land, and our only course is to make the best of it. If we refuse to do so, we shall be sure afterwards bitterly to repent, and to feel that we have incurred a very serious responsibility: we may feel that we have indulged our spleen and ill humour at the expense of our religion and our Church. When we are grieving over the defects of the Bill, we must always keep in view, that denominational schools are not, as we might have feared, to be superseded; but, on the contrary, under the new system, may obtain larger grants than ever; and that our educational arrangements will no longer rest upon the slippery basis of Minutes of Council, but have all the stability which an Act of Parliament can give.

Another suggestion is to make the most of the term of grace, the six months allowed us for supplying the deficiences of our educational machinery. If we begin to build the schools we require within the next six months, they will be included in the Government system, and entitled to Government aid, as much as schools already in operation; but if we lose this term of grace, there is no remedy. Local boards will be established, the wants of the parish will be supplied by rates; we may see our error and repent, and try to repair the mischief, but our