in 1874, to bring the dry light of experience to bear upon the cloudy region of mere theory and prognostication, to survey briefly the results of the past, and so to estimate with some greater degree of probability the prospects of, at least, the immediate future.

But before we deal with these questions, we are forced by recent events to glance at a larger subject, which a few months since it would have been thought a work of supererogation to treat we mean the question whether any legislation at all was needed and was advisable three years ago. In 1870 there was no whisper of doubt in any quarter. The two great parties were represented by the Education League and the Education Union. The League-the party of innovationwas loud in exposing all defects of the old system, in demanding some immediate legislative action, in organising an agitation which made it impossible to refuse that demand. The Union, including as it did all the more conservative elements of opinion, nevertheless publicly acknowledged the necessity of some new law, and avowed itself willing and even eager to co-operate in carrying it out. The only question was, not whether there should be legislation, but what the legislation should be; not whether the old state of things should continue, but whether it should be reformed or revolutionised? But political memories are short. The National Society, or at least those who are allowed to speak in its name, have begun to question the necessity and efficiency of the new system, and to represent that the same results might have been attained, as successfully and far less expensively, under the old. This perhaps we might have expected: but this is not all. Mr. Bright has recently astonished the world by a declaration that the time was not ripe for legislative action. The revolutionary party, who shelter themselves under the shadow of his great name, looking back on the actual course of events, regret that the policy pursued was not that of the true revolutionist-to preserve abuses and acquiesce in defects, with a view to some explosive reaction against the Society of which they form a part. But Mr. Forster, in his recent admirable speech at Liverpool, stated what was unquestionably the fact -that in 1870 the counsel of inaction, so far as it was heard at all, came only from a few of the devoted adherents of the

Its Report for 1873 is emphatic in this sense; and the same language was held at a great meeting at St. James' Hall last November. Similar ideas are expressed or implied in an article in the 'Quarterly Review of October last.

old voluntary system-that almost all parties were then agreed on the necessity of energetic action-and that of all the cries for a new law, none were so loud as those which came from the camp of the Birmingham League.

We cannot wonder at the general concurrence of opinion that the old system could not permanently represent the whole of our national duty, or meet all the needs of the community. Far be it from us to depreciate that system. It did noble work, and it did that work in a noble spirit. It was a characteristically English system in this-that the original motive' power lay in individual and voluntary zealthat the British and Foreign Society began the work in 1805, and the National Society took it up with far greater resources in 1811, while the first timid attempt at State action was not made till 1833, and that action did not become prominent and systematic till 1846. It was hardly less characteristic that the mainspring of that voluntary zeal was found not in mere philanthropy, but in a philanthropy quickened and deepened by religious zeal; and that, although the first impulse was felt outside the pale of the Church of England, yet the Church, with a true instinct of her national duty, carried it on with an energy of zeal, a wealth of resources, a completeness of organisation, which left all other influences far behind. Nor are we concerned to deny that, even if it had been left alone, it would have made considerable progress; and that, if it had received a more liberal support and encouragement at head-quarters, it must have spread far more widely and rapidly.

But there were certain defects about it which precluded the possibility of its being accepted as a complete and permanent system. It was not strictly National-in the sense of being under the full control and direction of the nation itself: and it has always been obvious that the jealousy of other influences, co-ordinate or predominant in the work, far more than any merely economical considerations, was the real motive which led Mr. Lowe to adopt the severe and discouraging measures of the Revised Code of 1862.* Nor did it even represent

the

*It is a remarkable fact, to which Dr. Rigg draws our attention (see his National Education and Public Elementary Schools,' p. 377), that in an address delivered at Edinburgh in November 1867, Mr. Lowe foreshadowed many of the main principles of the Education Act of 1870

'I would say, commence a survey and report upon Great Britain parish by parish; report to the Privy Council in London the educational wants in each parish, the number of schools, the number of

whole of the voluntary educational zeal or the religious enthusiasm of the country. The party of Secular Education naturally protested against the enforcement of religious teaching, which it involved. Even the Nonconformist bodies-by a policy which we have always considered short-sighted and disastrous-soon relinquished the initiative which they had once taken, and left the work almost entirely to the Church. Moreover by the very nature of its action, and especially by that provision which made Government aid contingent on strictly local exertions, it could not reach the most neglected and therefore the most needy localities; or, if by a convulsive effort it did gain a footing in such regions, the schools established were apt to languish for want of sufficient resources, pecuniary and moral, to sustain them in vigour. Lastly, it could not, being a voluntary system, invoke the aid of the strong arm of the law, to reach by compulsion the localities which had not public spirit enough to provide schools for their poorer classes, and the careless or selfish parents, who, with good schools at their door, refused to send their children to them.

These defects were acknowledged on all hands and the friends of education were almost equally unanimous in confessing that the results attained under it were insufficient, both in the number brought into elementary schools, and, still more, in the standard of education actually reached. Those who looked below the surface were indeed well aware that these defects were in great measure due to social causes-to the pressure of poverty, to the tyranny of labour, to the migratory character of large masses of our population, and the like-causes which no Education Act could remove. still the want of a complete educational machinery was obviously one cause of our shortcomings; and, moreover, it was

But

children, and what is wanted to be done in order to place within the reach of the people of that parish a sufficient amount of education. When that has been done, I think it should be the duty of the Privy Council to give notice to that parish that they should found a school, or whatever may be wanted for the purposes of that parish. If the parish found a school, then it would be the duty of the Privy Council to assist it, and that in the same way as it assists the schools already in existence. If the parish does not agree to do what needs to be done, then I think there ought to be power vested in the Privy Council, or the Secretary of State, or some other great responsible public officer, to make a compulsory rate on them to found that school. I think the schools they found should be entitled to the same inspection and examination as the schools already in existence, and receive the same grants for results.'

a cause which could easily be removed, while the other cause had to be dealt with gradually, and in some instances needed the slow action of social influences, at least as much as the summary process of legislation.

The Education Act of 1870 was the expression of these convictions. That it bore the marks of compromise, even when it issued from Mr. Forster's hands-that these marks were multiplied and deepened during its passage through the House of Commons, is too obvious to need any proof. We should, indeed, be prepared to contend that this very fact proved its wisdom in theory and its practical fitness to attempt the actual solution of the educational problem. Mr. Gladstone said at Hawarden, not long ago, with perfect truth, that it was intended to give fair scope for educational action to the two great parties-the party which desired a complete State system, and only tolerated voluntary schools; and the far larger party which believed that the voluntary principle had a real and substantial value, and were only desirous of supplying by State agency what that principle was unable to effect. It had, therefore, the first requisite of a good measure, that it reflected the opinion of the country, even where that opinion was divided; it had also the second requisite, that it took the responsibility of leading, as well as expressing, public opinion. It does not satisfy fanatics on either side; and accordingly neither it nor its author is in any danger of the woe pronounced on those of whom all men speak well. But for that very reason we hold that it is a pre-eminently good and useful Act, and that the country owes a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Forster for the original conception of the measure, and for the manly and statesmanlike determination with which, through evil report and good report, in spite of the reproaches of those who had been his political friends, in spite of the accusations of timidity, retrogression, timeserving, which must be peculiarly painful to such a temperament as his, he has maintained what we believe to be accordant with true liberality and even-handed justice, and essential to the real well-being of the people.

But at the present moment, considering the clamour which is raised against it on the side of the League, and that description of it by Mr. Bright at Birmingham (that it was a 'Bill 'for encouraging denominational education'), which we venture to think as erroneous historically as it was rhetorically effective, it seems to us only right to point out that almost every change which it introduced was distinctly adverse to the denominational system. It dealt with the existing schools

boldly, almost rudely, with a vigour which, twenty years ago, would have created a religious war. It stopped all building. grants to voluntary schools after a short notice; it swept away the old restriction that all schools recognised by the Department should either be attached to some religious denomination or should read and teach the Scriptures; it not only enacted a Conscience Clause, but regulated the time-table of every school, often at the risk of much inconvenience and some hardship, with a view to make that Conscience Clause effective; it abrogated the rule that denominational schools should be inspected by members of their own denomination; and, not content with this, abolished all inspection and all reward of the religious teaching which, even intellectually considered, was often the highest teaching in a school. And, what was of even more consequence, it provided, wherever a School Board was formed, a serious and, as was thought, a fatal rivalry to the voluntary schools, in a system of schools built and maintained at the expense of the whole community ; and, as it emerged from the House of Commons, it forbade, by the Cowper-Temple Clause, the attachment of Board schools, even if any Board desired it, to a distinctive denomination. Every one of these provisions was a marked discouragement to the denominational schools. The only single provision in their favour was the increase of the capitation grant from the Government, and this was only shared by them with their rivals. Otherwise the one great boon given to the voluntary schools was simply that they were allowed still to exist, if they could, and still to be recognised to the same extent as their betterendowed rivals, if they produced good results. The party opposed to these schools not unnaturally hailed these provisions of the Act as going a long way towards their ideal, and prognosticated that painless extinction' of the old system which they desired. We were ourselves always surprised that the supporters of the old schools accepted the Act so willingly. Such acceptance appeared to us to argue a conviction of the inherent strength of the voluntary system, and at the same time a candid acknowledgment that a new agency was requisite to do the work which was demanded by

*

* Dr. Rigg, who speaks with the authority of long experience, contends (p. 365) that this increase is far less than was supposed from the terms in which Mr. Gladstone announced it. The maximum payment per head is now 15s.; under the old system many good schools earned 138., 148., even 158.; and the average has only risen as yet, from 108. to 128. (about twenty per cent.).