public necessity. Now, however, the remarkable vitality of that system has surprised both parties. It has produced from the camp of its enemies loud cries of dissatisfaction against an Act under which it was possible, and which accordingly has been accused of favouring it, because it did not destroy it root and branch. It has also produced, although far less strikingly, a certain reactionary tendency on the other side, showing itself in assertions of the sufficiency of the old system, and in a desire to starve the energy and arrest the progress of the new. But we are convinced that both parties are wrong; that in these points 1870 was wiser than 1873, and that its verdict will be established by the logic of results, and accepted accordingly by posterity. We are glad to see by Mr. Forster's speech at Liverpool, that he holds firmly to the original principles of the Act, undismayed by clamour on the right hand and on the left. Even Mr. Bright's speech at Birmingham, although it certainly sinned against ministerial etiquette, and possibly embarrasses at this moment the policy of the Government, by its denunciation of the general principles of the Act, and its expression of a confident belief that speedy failure and ultimate reversal lie before it in the future, yet hardly commits the eloquent speaker to any decided action, except in respect of the celebrated 25th Clause, on which all moderate men desire to find some ground of conciliation and agreement. Whatever may be the case as to the future, the present work of education is regulated by Mr. Forster's Act; whatever changes and developments may be needed hereafter, the chief necessity at this moment is security against constant agitation and inconsiderate change. The land must have rest; there are times--and this is one,-when the nonum prematur in annum is as applicable to political and social devices as to literary ventures.

We proceed then, with a safe conscience, to consider the various questions about the working of the School Board system, to which we referred above.

The first question is, What was the work to be done that is, in other words, what had the old system been able to effect, and what were the chief points of its failure and deficiency?

Now, there are various ways of answering this question. The first is by observation of the extent to which School Boards have been created. Our readers will probably be aware that under the Act a School Board for the Metropolis was ordered absolutely, and other localities in town or country were allowed to petition for School Boards, as soon as they pleased. The effect was, that in a short time all the great

towns established School Boards; the country districts generally declined them, either hastily supplying their deficiencies or waiting till the Department should prove their shortcoming and enforce its amendment; in the towns of moderate size there were often struggles between the more conservative and the more progressive parties, and these struggles had various issues. But the general result is, we believe, at this moment, that the population under School Boards in England and Wales is 10,126,019, that is, nearly one half of the whole; that of these we have

These other districts' are mostly country districts and small towns, although occasionally towns of some size, which are not borough towns, are included. The borough towns' are both large and small; but it is to be noted that of towns above 20,000 inhabitants 76 have School Boards, and about 33 are still without them. Now, it is true that the Education Act. put a premium on the creation of School Boards, by laying it down that compulsion should be exercised only through them; and therefore some districts (of which Salford with 124,000 people is the most remarkable) have established Boards, although no deficiency existed. But, generally speaking, this has not been the case. In at least nine cases out of ten, the applications for School Boards show the existence of some considerable deficiency; and the result therefore given above proves conclusively, that, in spite of all the exertions made under the voluntary system, there was a large residuum of work to be done.

The same conclusion will be arrived at by considering the educational condition of the rest of the country. This is not yet entirely ascertained, although it is now under the consideration of the Education Department, with a view to putting in force the powers given by the Act-viz., to require supply of deficiency within a given time, or, in default of this, to order

Of these we have five cathedral towns-York, Chester, Lincoln, Gloucester, and Hereford; nine towns in Lancashire-St. Helen's, Warrington, Accrington, Bury, Leigh, North Meots, Over Darwen, Pendleton, West Derby; of the others, the most important are Birkenhead, Cambridge, Dover, Chatham, Shrewsbury, Cheltenham, Leamington, Great Yarmouth, and Cardiff.

the establishment of a School Board. But there can be no doubt that here also the deficiency will be considerable. Up to May 31, 1873, notices of inquiry had been issued to 8,551 parishes, and of these, while 3,465 gave satisfactory answers, no less than 5,086 had to confess deficiency to a greater or less degree. It is supposed that about 14,000 notices in all will have to be issued, and, if the same proportion be preserved, there will be some 8,400 districts, in which the operation of the Act will be necessary in order to supply educational deficiency.

*

But we must proceed next to inquire what has been discovered to be the amount of this deficiency in places where it has been proved to exist. To this no answer for the whole of England can yet be given. But the results obtained in London and from other great towns are before the world, and they are singularly instructive. It has been found that there are in the metropolitan district some 452,000 children, who should be attending elementary schools; for these there had been provided under the voluntary system about 313,000 places in schools satisfactorily efficient; and there is therefore a necessity, if the Act be carried out to the letter, to provide 139,000 places in Board schools. The result therefore is that voluntary agency has actually done nearly three-fourths of the whole work-most of it before the Act was passed, but a considerable portion under the stimulus which the Act supplied, and to which the voluntary system so nobly responded. Rather more than one-fourth remained to be done by the Board; and it concerned localities and classes, which only some legal agency could reach, and which all considerations of humanity and of the interests of society forbade us to neglect.

* The investigations of the Board give a remarkable example of the fallacy of general averages. The rule laid down by the Education Department, as not only theoretically, but practically correct,' states that one-sixth of the whole population should be in elementary schools, after all due correction for causes of absence. This would have given in London about 560,000 children. But a careful census made by the Board on the basis of the Government Census of 1871, with corrections by their own enumerators, gave a result of 452,000 children—no less than 108,000 below that given by the average. What ruinous waste would have been caused if the Board had been content with the results of the authoritative average!

Thus, for example, the city of London and the borough of Westminster have no gross deficiency, although, from defects in the distribution of the existing accommodation, some slight additions may be necessary; while in Tower Hamlets the deficiency is about 30,000, in Finsbury nearly 20,000, in Hackney 27,000, in Lambeth 24,000.

If we turn from the metropolis to our other great towns, the result is not widely different. At Liverpool, out of a required school accommodation of 74,597 places, the Board has to provide 16,667, or considerably less than one-fourth; at Manchester 8,283 out of 58,557, or about one-seventh; at Leeds 15,060 out of 47,340 places, or rather less than one-third; at Birmingham 16,553 out of 54,958, or about three-tenths; at Bradford (so far as we can judge from returns rather less definite than usual) less than one-fourth; at Bristol the necessity appears to be still less, and even such deficiency as exists. is caused, in great degree, by the migration of population from the older to the newer quarters of the city.

Now, it is allowed on all hands that the voluntary system has been weakest in the great towns, because there it has been unable to cope with the rapid aggregation of great masses of poverty. It will therefore be fair to argue that, if we took the country as a whole, we should find that its achievements were greater still, and that the residuum left behind was still more limited and manageable.

These remarkable results seem to supply a complete justification, both of the passing of the Act and of the nature of its main principles. They show, we think distinctly, that things could not be left as they were that much had to be done, which it was an imperative duty to do; they show still more distinctly that voluntary agency had done and was doing a magnificent work, which it would have been absolute madness to neglect or to destroy, at the loss not only of vast pecuniary resources willingly given for the public good, but also of an amount of philanthropy, public spirit, and universal interest in the work, which are simply priceless. We commend it to the attention of the advocates of the Voluntary system, pure and simple, on the one hand; we commend it still more to fanatical supporters of the Birmingham League on the other. Such was the work to be done. We turn now to consider the nature and working of the machinery which was to do it. It is clear, at first sight, that this machinery must be, in some degree, cumbrous and unwieldy by the very nature of its constitution. In London, and in the large provincial towns, the number of members is very large, and the deliberations of the Board, especially in the presence of reporters, are apt to assume far too rhetorical a tone. Even where this is not the case, the necessity of giving a representative character to the Board, which is good for it in its legislative capacity, is bad for it as an executive. Balance of parties, free Balance of parties, free scope and opportunity for the advance of various principles and the ventilation of

educational theories, a certain amount of deference to the opinions of constituents-all these things a Board ought to have under its present constitution, especially in view of the action of the cumulative vote; but it is obvious that all these are serious drawbacks to executive efficiency and vigour. Perhaps an even more patent evil is the regulation, which changes the whole Board every three years, and so tends entirely to break the continuity of its action. It is true that its officers remain, and if they are men of energy and ability they will be likely in the long run to rule in many things an unpaid and variable Board. It is also true that, in most cases, many of the old members will be re-elected. In London, for example, we observe that the Board just elected is composed in almost equal proportions of old and new members. But this need not always be so; and, even if it is so, the mere transference of a majority from one side to the other of any great educational controversy may suddenly alter the whole policy of a Board, wasting both time and money, and producing a dangerous sense of insecurity and unsettlement in the whole system. The sudden and violent changes, which are being made at Birmingham, by a bare majority of one in a Board of fifteen, afford a flagrant instance of this evil. Whether the blame lies with the old Board or the new, or is to be divided between both, the evil is equally real, equally serious.

We are well aware that some of these drawbacks are inevitable. A body, which is to impose considerable taxation and moreover to interfere by its compulsory power with individual liberty, must necessarily have something of a popular and representative character; and as the exercise of both powers is local, we suppose that such representation must be local and municipal. It is easy to see the defects of the Board system, not so easy, at least in the outset, to propose any satisfactory substitute for it. But it is well, nevertheless, that these defects should be recognised, partly in the hope of removing what is removable, partly for the sake of fairness of judgment as to the actual performances of the Boards. Probably there may be changes in the constitution of at least some of the Boards; possibly, when the main principles are tolerably well settled and the routine business. increases, we may see some extension of the principle indicated in the permission to have a paid chairman which the Act gives to the London Board, and some provision which shall vacate only a portion of the seats of a Board at one and the same time. And we observe that the Boards are practically