formerly made once a year, has increased the inspectors' traveling expenses. The decrease of £3,645 in the charges for pensions which appears on the estimates is apparent and not real. In previous years £6,710 had to be provided in order to defray the temporary cost of the exchange from half-yearly to quarterly payments, and, so far from there being a diminution in the charge for pensions, there is really an increase of £3,065, and an increase in the number of pensions given of 129. Another cause of the increase in the expenditure is the increased payments which will have to be made to school boards under the ninety-seventh section of the act of 1870, a section which was very much discussed in our education debates. The effect of that discussion was to reveal to some school boards rights to grants out of the consolidated fund, which they had previously overlooked. The consequence will be that every school board which is entitled to such a grant will make a demand for it, which we calculate will take £8,850, and even that may prove too small a sum.

INCREASE IN SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN DAY AND NIGHT SCHOOLS.

But the great increase in expenditure this year, as in other years, is due to the increase in the grants made to day scholars. The increase we anticipate this year is 70,000 in average attendance, a penny increase in the rate of the grant earned, and an increase in the amount which has been charged on the consolidated fund for that purpose of £86,000. Since 1891, when the last education act was passed, the increase in average attendance is as follows: In 1891 the increase was only 0.86 per cent, the normal increase; in 1892 it sprang up to 3.22; in 1893, to 5.92; in 1824 it sank to 3.47; in 1895, to 2.3; and this year, we anticipate, to 2.2; so that, although the increase has become less rapid, it has not yet gone down to the normal rate of 1890. Then there is an increase in the fee grant of £48,500. There is also a satisfactory increase in the charges for evening schools. In 1893, when the evening school code was first introduced, there were 1,977 evening schools and 115,000 scholars. Now there are 3,421 evening schools and 270,000 scholars; so that, while the evening schools have doubled, the scholars have more than doubled.

SCHOOLS FOR THE BLIND AND DEAF.

The schools for the blind and deaf also show an increase. In 1895 there were 79 schools certified with accommodations for 4,130 children, and there was an actual grant made that year out of the consolidated fund in respect of 3,148 children. This grant is 3 guineas a year for every deaf and dumb child receiving an elementary education, and an additional 2 guineas for every child who receives manual instruction or industrial training. The whole of the 3,148 children in 1895 received the grant for elementary instruction, but only 1,934 obtained the grant for industrial training, so that the average grant per child that year was £3 8s. For the current year we estimate that the grant will be for 3,148 children, being an average of £3 10s. 9d. per child.

CONCERNING COOKERY AND LAUNDRY WORK.

Cooking and laundry instruction in the elementary schools is, on the whole, making satisfactory progress. The number of girls taught cookery in the past year was 135,000, an increase of nearly 13,000 during the year. Looking to the fact that there are more than half a million of girls attending elementary schools in England and Wales who are qualified to be taught cookery, it is evident that there is considerable room for expansion in the teaching of that subject, and it is to be hoped that the progress will go on with accelerated rapidity in the years to come. The teaching of laundry work in the elementary schools has only gone on for four or five years. In the last year the advance in the number of girls to whom grants were made was very extraordinary. It was 62 per cent over the number in the year before. In 1891,

Providing for special aid in exceptional cases.

when the grant for laundry work was first made, the number of girls was 632; in 1892 it was 2,766; in 1893 it was 5,610; in 1894 it was 7,338, and in 1895 it was 11,720; so that the teaching of laundry work is only beginning. It has already made such progress that we may anticipate a great increase in the number of girls taught in the course of the next few years.

THE SUPPLY AND TRAINING OF TEACHERS.

I do not think that, in regard to the supply of teachers, we are making that progress we all desire. There will be in the present year an increase of £36,000 for training colleges. But this increase is really only an apparent increase. There is a temporary reduction in the estimate for 1895-96 owing to the change in the academical year from December 31 to June 30, and therefore the increase in the grant to training colleges is apparent only, and not real. I wish we could see our way to a very great increase in the expenditure upon the training of teachers. At present there are 43 residential colleges, and these are attended by 1,384 men and 2,100 women. Besides these, there are 14 day training colleges, attended by 385 men and 426 women. Taking these colleges together, the whole number of teachers they had in training was 4,296, and they turned out annually teachers who are qualified to take charge of. schools to the number of about 2,100. This number is quite insufficient to meet the requirements of the existing schools, and if the wishes of the Government were carried out, and the education in all the voluntary schools of the country and the poor board schools made more efficient, the number of teachers turned out would be lamentably deficient.

THE INTRODUCTION OF THE UNQUALIFIED PRACTITIONER.

I have no doubt that in the course of the discussion upon this vote I shall be taken to task by honorable members, perhaps on both sides of the House, for the failure of the provisions of the code to secure that every teacher is a properly qualified teacher. I will not anticipate my answer to those objections further than to say that we could not get properly certificated and qualified teachers, and that we had to take those we could get. It is most desirable that some provision should be made carly to secure a very much greater increase in the number of efficient teachers for our schools, especially if we are to make some progress in the efficiency of our elementary education. I may be told that the account I have given to the committee is a very sanguine one, but the committee must recollect that I have been talking only of the averages, of the result of the summing up of the educational proceedings of all the schools in England and Wales. And when you look at it in the aggregate it is a very satisfactory progress, and one for which we have reason to be thankful. But this does not in the least contradict what I stated to the House in the early days of the session, and it would be a very great mistake if the committee were to run away with the idea that because things in the gross are very satisfactory there is therefore no room for any reform in large classes of schools in this country.

INEFFICIENT BOARDS OF MANAGEMENT.

Notwithstanding this excellent total, there are many schools in the country, both board and voluntary schools, in which it is impossible to say that the education is efficient or satisfactory. There are voluntary school managers who have not got the means to provide that standard of teaching which it is desirable should be secured for the children of the people; there are managers of voluntary schools in many of our great cities who are quite unable, from lack of means, to bring up the standard of teaching in their schools to the same level which is attained in the board schools in their immediate neighborhood, and which have the advantage of support out of the rates. And there are many school boards, some in country districts, where they care very little for education, and where the conduct of their small village schools is exceedingly nsatisfactory and very much to be desired. There are also many school boards

in large and populous centers who have efficient schools and who do their utmost to keep their schools efficient, but who, owing to the small ratable value of their areas as compared with the enormous number of children they have to educate, have a strain put upon them which is almost intolerable, and under which there is every probability that, unless Parliament does something to relieve it, they will be entirely broken down.

TIMELY WARNING "OUR RIVALS IN FRANCE AND GERMANY AND THE STATES."

Therefore I hope the committee will not go away with any idea that in what I have now said I intend to unsay what I said in the earlier part of the session as to the urgent necessity which we are under if we intend our education to advance and if we wish to give to the children an education anything like that which is being given by our rivals in France and Germany and the States. If we mean to keep to the general level and not to fall behind the general level of education which is now given in the civilized world, I solemnly warn the committee that there is a great deal to be done, and a great deal that administration alone can not do. The wisdom of Parliament must be applied to this problem, and I wish I could think it could be applied not in a party spirit, but with a sincere desire, in all quarters of the House, to promote education.

THE STATE AND RURAL EDUCATION.

Mr. YOXALL congratulated the vice-president upon the tone of his remarks, and echoed his aspiration that this question of education would be treated in future not as a party, but as a national, question. He quite agreed that there were many schools in the country, both voluntary and board schools, which sadly required the provision of further funds. But he wanted to say a few words more, especially upon the position of rural schools. He did not care very much whether they were rural board or rural voluntary schools-they were much in the same class-and he would point out that the rural schools of England and Wales were, taken as a whole, the worst supported, the worst staffed, and the worst managed of the public elementary schools in Europe. They lacked means, they lacked teachers, and they lacked proper government and proper supervision. It was quite a common thing—and this was probably true of 6,000 or 7,000 schools in the villages of this country-to find in a school one adult teacher only with the charge of six and sometimes seven different classes, and teaching in something like sixteen or seventeen different subjects. That was a system which was bad educationally, bad nationally, and bad economically. The great need of the country schools was more staff; but he warned the committee, and he would warn the vice-president if he thought he needed the warning, that they could not expect these schools to have more staff and better support upon a maximum income in the case of voluntary schools of 33 shillings per scholar per year and in the case of board schools of 49 shillings. If the education depart ment were to realize the wishes of the vice-president, if the committee were to assent to continued, to real progress in their educational affairs, the committee would have to vote a very much larger outlay upon education than had been the case hitherto.

EXPENDITURES ON EDUCATION.

The demand for further expenditure upon education was not a popular idea to put forward, but he would point out that this year they were spending upon the army and navy at the rate of 30 shillings per head of the population, while upon education they were only spending at the rate of 7 shillings per head. Thirty shillings on ships and sailors; 7 shillings on schools and scholars! He submitted that 7 shillings per head of the population upon public education was not an extravagant outlay. In other countries they did not consider that outlay at all sufficient. The average expenditure upon maintenance of board schools in England and Wales last year was 48s. 9d. per child. In the case of voluntary schools it was 36s. 1d. per child.

In Scotland they spent more than that, while in Germany, France, Belgium, and Switzerland their rates of expenditure were also higher. In the United States, too, they found that after allowing for all differences between the cost of maintenance in the two countries, the sums expended on education were far in excess of what they spent here. Whereas the expenditure in London per child for public education might go up as far as 50 shillings, in New York it went up as high as £5 per child, and in Boston it went up even higher. He did not suggest that they should at one leap go so far as that; but he did suggest it was the duty of the House and of the education department not to stint the expenditure year by year. The expenditure of money on public elementary and secondary education, but especially elementary education, was a good national investment. The effect of the working of the education acts in the last twenty-five years had been to decrease pauperism, and to deplete the gaols, and to raze prisons to the ground, and to reduce the amount of drunkenness. A board school scholar cost the country 48 shillings a year, a pauper cost £15 a year, an ordinary prisoner cost £25 a year, and a convict cost £40 a year. So the money spent on education was well spent.

THE FOOTNOTE TO ARTICLE 73.

He wished to thank the vice-president of the council for giving effect to several promises made last year. He referred especially to the questions of teachers not trained in the colleges and the system of teaching and inspecting drawing. But he was sorry that the department had acceded to the suggestion to suspend article 73 of the code until March 31 next. That article provided that after August 31 in the present year the size of the classes in the elementary schools should be reduced in number. Even in the largest and best board schools it was no uncommon thing to find classes of 80, 90, and 100 children, and no teacher could efficiently teach so large a class. It was possible to have larger classes than the code permitted, because the classes were not examined in detail, but the number of children in the school was divided by the number of teachers. The right honorable member for Rotherham had given two years' notice of the requirement in respect of smaller classes, and it was greatly to be regretted that the operation of the requirement had been postponed. When the class was too large the scholars lacked individual attention, and consequently their school life was wasted. In the grammar schools the average number in the class was from 15 to 20, and in a girls' high school the average was from 15 to 30. There was, besides, no need for the suspension of the requirement. The Bishop of London had declared that 90 out of 100 voluntary schools in the country could meet the increased requirements without difficulty.

THE UNQUALIFIED PRACTITIONER.

As to the failure of the supply of fully qualified teachers, every year there were four times as many applications for admission to the training colleges as there were vacancies. The fault was that there were not enough properly established training colleges. The supply of teachers depended on local enterprise and denominational initiative. If there was a failure in the supply of pupil teachers, it was because the education department did not make the career sufficiently attractive. Something could be done under article 68 of the code which enabled a young woman without qualification, but with the inspector's approval, to teach in the school. These girls belong to two categories-those who had failed to pass the pupil teachers' examination and those who had not even had that training. At first their employment was narrowly restricted, but now they were to be allowed to teach even in boys' schools. Out of 92,570 adult teachers in schools, 66,310 were women, and out of 34,000 pupil teachers 26,000 were girls. It looked as though the men were to be thrust out of the profession altogether, and no doubt in many circumstances petticoat government was not a bad thing for children. But there came a time in a boy's school life when he wanted something more, and therefore he hoped that the department would

not assist further the tendency to replace men teachers by women. The department was so anxious to get graduates of Oxford and Cambridge into the elementary schools that now they were permitted to accept head masterships without any previous training. Against this policy of introducing untrained and unqualified men into the most responsible positions he must protest. However high a man's academic attainments, he might be a complete failure when put in charge of large classes and when required to teach them.

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND THE TEACHER.

He wished to say a few words as to the whole attitude of the department toward its teachers. The treatment of the teachers by the department, not in detail but in principle, was wholly wrong; it was shortsighted, out of harmony with the usual practice of Government departments, and rather cruel. Down to 1862 the department took direct responsibility with regard to teachers; it recognized them and treated them as civil servants. Since 1862 the department had disclaimed all responsibility; it had said that it was no party to the engagement of a teacher; it refused to be a court of appeal or even a moderator in regard to dismissals; it shuffled off all responsibility. It tested the teacher and certificated him; it dismissed him from a post for which he was not qualified; it took a great deal of care that he performed the functions assigned to him, but it declined, though it had often been asked to do it, to see that the salary paid to him was sufficient. It shuffled off the responsibility for that onto a board or committee, which was in the position of a contractor with the State. In other cases the Government took care that contractors did their work well, paid their employees properly, and treated them in a proper way; it secured fair play to the workers; it repudiated this responsibility only in the case of teachers in their relations with school managers and school boards. It insisted on certain conditions as to fair wages, proper hours, and suitable management in shipbuilding yards, in army clothing factories, in printing works, and as to their carpenters employed at South Kensington. The local government board took interest in the officials and employees of the boards of guardians.

THE TEACHER'S PAY.

If a board of guardians appointed a medical officer at an insufficient salary, the local government board said, "You must pay him more." The education department never did that kind of thing. Why should it not do so? If it did, the present lamentable state of things as to teachers would not exist. There are 50,836 certificated teachers. There were 435 who had salaries of under £40 a year, or less than 16 shillings a week; 1,342 at under £45 a year, or less than 18 shillings a week; 2,666 at under £50 a year, or less than 20 shillings a week; 18,395 at salaries under £75 a year, or less than 29 shillings a week, and only 2,397 who got salaries of £200 a year and over. This state of things could not exist if the Government dealt with school managers as it dealt with other contractors and saw that they fulfilled their contracts; and he had a right to ask that the attitude of the education department toward school managers and teachers should be radically changed.

TENURE AND EXTRANEOUS TASKS.

These contractors exacted from teachers tasks which did not properly belong to them-the performance of extraneous duties in connection with church and parochial work; and it was the duty of the department to secure teachers against these exactions and impositions. Then managers could dismiss teachers without just cause, and for the teacher there was no remedy. If a question was asked in that House about a wrongful dismissal the vice-president would reply, "We have no power to interfere." Well, it was high time they had power to interfere. The teachers were as much entitled to protection as carpenters at South Kensington or tailors in army