ART. VII.-NATIONAL EDUCATION. 1. On the means of rendering more efficient the Education of the People: a Letter to the Lord Bishop of St. David's. By W. F. Hook, D.D. 2. Letters to the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, on State Education. By Edward Baines, Jun. 3. Popular Education in England. By Robert Vaughan, D.D. 4. Companion to the Almanac. 1847. Progress of Education in England. 5. Minutes of Committee of Council of Education. 18441846. THE first step towards a National provision for the Education of the People must be to establish the necessity, to make it clear that the supply derivable from existing and reliable sources is hopelessly short of the demands, and still more so of the wants, of the Country. Mr. Baines with too much of a catch-word oratory, apt enough for exciting prejudice and enlisting ignorant antipathies, which characterizes too large a part of his pleadings on what he calls State Education, and has influenced him in the selection of that title, calls this necessity the tyrant's and the robber's plea.' We had supposed it was their own necessities, which served the tyrant and the robber as an excuse for oppression and plunder. Whilst Necessity' for a national provision for Education means only, that a good thing, a benevolent thing, a righteous thing, a religious thing, on which depend the future well-being and glory of the great English people, can be accomplished in no other way than by a national instrumentality. Mr. Baines has a full right to dispute the fact; there may be no such necessity; but to call the only means, for that is the supposition, of effecting the greatest blessing that can be given to a people, and of effecting it too by the constitutional consent of the people, the tyrant's and the robber's plea,' is not worthy of his practised intellect, nor likely to avail much with the illustrious nobleman to whom his Letters are superscribed. Yet this is the kind of writing that makes partizans; and unfortunately it is a kind of writing in which England abounds. Mr. Baines' Letters though directed to Lord John Russell, are not addressed to him. Astounding diversities of statement and opinion, threatening one's faith in figures, are put forth just now upon these two points, 1st, the difference between the existing amount of School accommodation and the amount required to meet fully the wants of the present population; 2nd, the annual extension of School accommodation required to provide for the constantly growing wants of an increasing population. If the population increased by a constant quantity, if the same number of souls were yearly born in England, then each year would furnish precisely the same number of children requiring for the first time accommodation in our Schools, and if the School provision was once adequately adjusted to the population, it would remain right for ever, because the number annually seeking admission to the lowest form would also, death apart, be the number annually dismissed from the highest into the world. But population does not increase by a constant quantity; each year shows a large addition to the increase of the former year, and it is just to the extent of this amount of increase of year upon year, that our School accommodation, supposing it to be right for any one year, would yet have to undergo an annual expansion. Thus supposing that each year England, with its present increase made constant, furnished 400,000 children of an age to be placed under instruction for the first time, which is not far from the truth;-then whatever number of years is fixed upon for the proper duration of Education, by that number must you multiply 400,000, to give, death again apart, the whole number of children that ought always to be found in the Schools of the Country. If ten years are taken as the proper period of School-life, then for this very year we ought to have accommodation for nearly four millions of Children, which is about the number now existing between the ages of five and fifteen; each year one-tenth of these would have their education completed and vacate, leaving their room for the 400,000 annually rising to the School altitude; and be yond this, each succeeding year for ever would have to originate a new provision for the excess of the numbers arrived at the first year of their School-life, over the similar numbers of the year before. In these statements we have reference only to the increase of Children which each year arrive at an age ripe for instruction, and not to that increase on the whole population which is ascertained by striking a balance between the deaths and the births. Such averages are too rough for educational statistics; whoever may die after fifteen, it is the number that live up to and through the School-period that is alone important in this relation. These principles of calculation have been strangely overlooked. Dr. Hook takes the annual increase of the population as 365,000, and assumes that to be the extent to which School-provision in this Country would have, every year, to be supplemented by a new expansion. There are more blunders in this than we have time to set right. In the first place it would be true that the annual permanent increase to the population was the measure to the annually required increase of School-accommodation, only upon the supposition that people went to School all the years of their lives, and that no place ever became vacant on a School-form except by death. Now, whatever may be fixed upon as the School-period of human life,--if it be from five to fifteen, then a tenth; if it be from five to twelve, then a seventh, of all the Children in School this year pass out of it, with the year, into the various Schools of daily work, and by so doing make way for the whole of that yearly new accession of instructible Children, which proceeds from the permanent increase of the population. The other errors of Dr. Hook consist, 1st, in taking the difference between births and deaths as the measure of the permanent increase of Children, instead of the numbers that yearly arrive at the age when Education should commence, which is considerably more than 365,000; 2nd, in misstating the permanent increase to the population, taken on the difference between births and deaths, which is very considerably less than 365,000; and 3rd, in overlooking the only material consideration, the excess of births in each year over those of the year preceding. Mr. Baines falls into similar errors. He takes the --- increase of the population as 200,000 a year, and assigning one scholar to eight inhabitants, concludes 25,000 to be the annual increase of Scholars. But if our educational adjustments were once fully made, the annual increase of Scholars would be simply the difference between the number of Children then reaching the age of five, assuming that as the commencement of School-life, and the number who had reached the same age in the year before. All the rest would simply take the vacant places of those who had completed their School-course. This excess would be greatly less than 25,000, and clearly bears no constant ratio to the annual increase of the population, as measured by the difference between births and the deaths of persons of all ages. To suppose such a constant ratio implies that an increase of population depending, not on increase of births, but on a prolongation of life, would yet furnish a corresponding increase of Children to be educated. Mr. Baines, in fact, slides here into Dr. Hook's error of keeping those who are at School at School for ever, though he only consigns one in eight to the scholastic discipline. On no other supposition than that one in eight of the whole population go to school and remain there till they die, can one-eighth of the permanent increase of the population be regarded as the measure of additional School-accommodation annually required. We shall now attempt to clear our way to a fair and moderate view of the important points of this great question; commencing with an estimate of what ought to be the Educational Condition of England and Wales; and proceeding to compare this with the extent, quality, and distribution of our existing School-provision. If a deficiency appears in quantity or in quality, or in both, we must also consider on what are our reliances for a future approximation to right condition. And 1. The present population of England and Wales may be taken, in round numbers, as seventeen millions. How many of these are of an age to be found in Schools? of all who from their age might be found at School, how many ought to be in actual attendance at any one time? The answer to the first of these questions will depend on the ages between which we suppose School-attendance to be distributed; and to the second, on what we suppose to be the desirable length for the whole period of School-life. From five to fifteen has been regarded by common consent as that portion of life, within which, either extending over the whole of it, or attaching to some part of it, elementary education is comprised. We omit for the present the consideration of Infant Schools, which, however, ought not to affect the question. Now if it is a desirable thing, and in the Social Condition of the country a practicable thing, that the education of every child should extend over the whole of these years, if every child from five to fifteen should be under instruction, then the proper duration of School-life is fixed at ten years, and the accommodation required will on calculation be found to be an educational provision for (to give exact numbers) 3,881,950 Scholars. But ten years may be considered an unreasonable, or, in the circumstances of the country, an impossible term. What reduction can we make upon it without destroying the efficiency of the Education imparted,-so as not, by impairing its thoroughness and quality, to defeat its very object? An able writer in the Companion to the Almanac, for the present year, fixes upon seven years and a half as the shortest period that can be assigned for Education, without a sacrifice of its efficiency. But it must be remembered, if we take this as the average educational Period for all the children in the community, and make it the basis for a calculation of the School-accommodation required, that as many children as attend the full term of ten years, which will be at least all belonging to the wealthier and middle class, occupy their places for two years and a half beyond the average, and so, with a given accommodation, practically reduce the School period of an equal number to five years. Now the number of scholars paying for their own education in private and respectable Schools, and to whom therefore the longer period may reasonably be assigned, is calculated to be upwards of a million, not including the large number educated in endowed Schools, and consequently, on a general average of seven years and a half, many more than a million of the children of the poorer class would practically be reduced to a period of five years. It is clear therefore that with no safety to the end contemplated, the efficient education of the great mass of the people, can a shorter term be |