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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 allow ance 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

opportunity is gone. Any schools that we may build will remain outside of the established system, stranded and helpless. We hope that the heads of the Church will impress the solemnity of the crisis as strongly as they can upon their clergy, and the clergy upon their parishioners.

To compensate as far as possible for the want of inspection by clergymen of the Church into the religious knowledge of the scholars, and for the restriction imposed on religious teaching in denominational schools; to compensate also for the necessary vagueness and probable inefficiency of the religious teaching in rate-supported schools, it is absolutely necessary that great attention should be given, far greater than has hitherto been thought of, to Sunday schools and Evening schools. Happily the Church has now 12,000 schools ready for that purpose; schools which have been built by great sacrifices on the part of churchmen; the pecuniary sacrifice alone amounts to millions; the ordinary estimate is twenty millions. The Bill gives school managers power to convey these schools to local boards, preserving only the right to use them on Sunday. But when once the schools are handed over to the board, and the school managers have been thus reduced to the position of interlopers, entitled occasionally to the use of their own building, the result may, without much difficulty, be anticipated. We protest, therefore, against this transfer. We look upon it as an act of confiscation, and we trust that the House of Lords, as the constituted guardians of property and civil rights, will entirely alter the clause, or strike it out of the Bill. In case, however, the clause remains, and remains unaltered, we trust that school managers, even where they cannot maintain a week-day school, will not hastily and disloyally give up the whole concern, and put the Church in a false position in regard to the property which it has acquired at so heavy a cost, and which it has confided to their honour.

Another point which immediately and most urgently requires attention is, that schools not now in connection with the Governments hould be put in connection with it within six months, otherwise they will be ignored by the Privy Council authorities as mere private seminaries. A Local Board will then be formed, and a rate-supported school built and maintained, exactly as if no school existed. The disagreeable necessity of receiving an inspector, and submitting to the Government regulations, would be as nothing in comparison with so disastrous an alternative. We would therefore urge the clergy and promoters of schools to enter without delay into communication with the Government.

Our only remaining suggestion is, to watch carefully, but in a spirit of candour, the proceedings of the Council Office. The power of that Council under the Bill over schools is enormous.

It may virtually grant or withhold assistance at pleasure; it may liberally support or starve them. We know that Nonconformist members will be constantly endeavouring, by solicitations or threats, to prevail on the Government to make the machinery at its disposal work favourably to Dissent, and against the Denominational system. Granting the Council authorities to be impartial, they will have difficulty in remaining so, if representations are made and influence is exerted only on one side. A counteracting influence is indispensable: all that we desire is a wise and fair administration; we claim no special favours; we adhere to the Bill; we stand by the principles it has established. We do not ask the Government to move to the right hand or to the left; let it carry out fairly what we believe it now honestly intends, and we are satisfied.

We began by adverting to the vast importance of the present crisis; we cannot conclude without again adverting to the anxiety we feel as to the momentous interests now at stake. The future condition of the most influential country in the world will, to a large extent, be determined by the training given to the rising generation. We think it will be efficient as regards secular instruction: God forbid that through any negligence or perverseness on our part it should be wanting as regards the great essential, Religious Training.

KIRK'S HISTORY OF CHARLES THE BOLD.

History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. By John Foster Kirk. Vol. 3. London: Murray. 1868.

SOME years have elapsed since a review of the earlier volumes of this work appeared in the Christian Observer. We then took occasion to speak favourably of the merits of Mr. Kirk as a historian, and of the conscientious fidelity which he seems to have bestowed upon the interesting period of history to which he has devoted himself. From the very brief introduction prefixed to the concluding volume, we gather that the intervening time has been spent in procuring materials from manuscript sources, chiefly in the archives of Switzerland. The result is a very valuable contribution to our knowledge of the times of Charles the Bold, and we may fairly congratulate the author on the successful termination of his labours. A manifest improve ment in style is conspicuous, which adds to the reader's enjoyment. The description of the Jura, with which the volume opens, will awaken pleasant recollections in those who have

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