Church schools the catechism was taught to all the scholars, and they were often compelled to attend Sunday School or Church, "There can be no doubt that this sort of interference engenders the bitterest feeling of hostility to the Established Church." (1) The difficulty of introducing a comprehensive system lay with the founders of the schools, and not the people. In Sunday Schools, reading and writing were incidentally taught, but their primary object was religious instruction, and by this machinery religious denominations increased the number of their adherents. The gross amount of education was subject to large qualifications and deductions, on account of irregularity of attendance, and the quality of instruction. It was assumed that half the children between three and fifteen ought to have been on the books of some school -in actual numbers, 2,655,767. The real numbers on the books were 2,535,462—leaving a deficiency of 120,305 who received no education. The children of the poorer classes receiving instruction were estimated at 2,213,694. (2) Of this number 917,255 were under inspection, the remainder being in private adventure schools, dame schools, and charity schools. With the exception of the children of out-door paupers or vicious parents, nearly all the children in the country capable of going to school received some instruction. The general conclusion arrived at was, "There is no large district entirely destitute of schools, and requiring to be supplied with them on a large scale.” (3) "The means of education were diffused pretty generally and equally over the whole face of the country, and the great mass of the population recognised its importance sufficiently to take advantage to some extent of the opportunities afforded to their children." (4) The attendance was distributed over about four years, as to most children, between six and twelve. About one-third attended less than 100 days, 43 per cent. attended 150 days, 2 Ibid, 79. 3 Ibid, 86. 4 Ibid, 86.

and 41 per cent. attended 176 days, entitling them to the capitation grant. (1) Only 10 per cent. attended the same school between three and four years. "This state of things leaves great room for improvement, but we do not think that it warrants very gloomy views, or calls for extreme measures." (2) Compulsion was not recommended. The demands of labour could not, in the opinion of the Commissioners, be resisted. There was an increasing tendency to the employment of children, and they were of opinion. that independence was of more importance than education. (3)

The inspected schools were found to be much superior to others, but there were great complaints of the mechanical character of the teaching. The inspection was not valuable as a criterion of results. The schools were judged by the first class. Three out of four left school with such a smattering as they picked up in the lower classes. "They leave school, they go to work, and, in the course of a year, they know nothing at all.” "We are successfully educating one in eight of the class of children for which the schools were intended." "The mass of children get little more than a trick of mechanically pronouncing the letters, and the words which they read convey hardly any ideas to their minds.” (*)

The suggestions of the Commission amounted, in substance, to an effort to supplement the system which had grown up under the Privy Council, without having recourse to such a measure of local rating as would disturb the management, or give the general body of ratepayers any control over the schools. They advised that assistance should be given by means of two grants; one out of general taxation, dependent on attendance, and one from the county rates, based on examination. For the rural districts it was advised that County Boards should be appointed. Quarter Sessions 1 Report, 173. 2 Ibid, 173. 3 Ibid, 188. 4 Ibid, 250.

were to elect six members, being in the Commission of the Peace, or Chairmen or Vice-Chairmen of Boards of Guardians, and these members were to elect six others. In towns containing more than 40,000 inhabitants the Town Council was to be authorised to appoint a Borough Board of Education. The Committee of Council was to appoint an Inspector as a member of each Board, and the Boards were to choose their own examiners.

The Commissioners declined to recommend a compulsory conscience clause, which they thought would give a dangerous shock to the existing system.

The suggestions of the Commissioners, being evidently the result of a compromise between conflicting opinions, gave very little satisfaction to any party. (1) The conclusions and recommendations were alike attacked. Lord Shaftesbury impugned the accuracy of their reports on ragged schools. Mr.Dillwyn complained of their injustice to Dissenters. The school Inspectors denied that the conclusions on the general results of the teaching were trustworthy. Grave doubts were also raised as to the accuracy of the enumeration of schools and scholars. For this purpose the Inspectors had chiefly relied on returns from voluntary societies and religious bodies, a method of enquiry which the statistical societies had previously condemned as untrustworthy. In a subsequent debate on the returns made to the Commissioners by the National Society, Mr. Lowe demonstrated their inaccuracy, and said, "It would be paying too great a compliment to those figures to base any calculation on them." (2) But they were a great consolation to those who objected to any change,

1 The Commissioners were the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Justice Coleridge, the Rev. W. C. Lake, the Rev. William Rogers, Mr. Goldwin Smith, Mr. Nassau W. Senior, and Mr. Edward Miall. The report was signed by all the Commissioners. Mr. Senior also presented a separate paper containing Heads of a Report.

and ten years later they were circulated throughout the country to prove that the system of education, as it existed in 1860, was perfectly adequate to all needs. They have since been conclusively falsified by experience in the working of the Education Act.

It at once became evident that the division of opinion which the Commissioners hoped to avoid by their report could not be averted. Sir John Pakington appealed to the Government to bring forward a measure, for which the circumstances appeared to be favourable. The Duke of Newcastle was a member of the Cabinet, as well as Earl Russell. But the very moderate suggestions of the Commissioners had already given rise to alarm. Mr. Henley said there was very much in the report which gave sanction to secular education. 'The Committee appointed to watch proceedings in Parliament with reference to grants for national education," of which the Duke of Marlborough was Chairman, and several Bishops were members, had met and declared their fears that the radical changes proposed would prepare the way for bringing schools at no distant period under the control of the ratepayers, and extinguishing the religious element altogether. The National Society also saw in many parts of the report a grave danger to the maintenance of religious teaching.

The Ministry of Lord Palmerston was not inclined to face the dangers which threatened any attempt to solve the question. The Prime Minister with easy nonchalance postponed all attempts at reform, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not exempt even the education vote from the rigorous economy he practised. In moving the estimates for 1861, Mr. Lowe entered upon an exhaustive criticism of the report of the Commission and explained the views of the Government. He admitted that the system was expensive, that the instruction was deficient, and the machinery com

plicated. But he said it was not the intention of the Government to infringe on the organic principle of the system; its denominational character, its foundation on a broad religious basis, and the practice of making grants in aid of local subscriptions. The Government were asked to propose a bill on the basis of the report, but they would rather some one else did it. Such reductions as would not impair efficiency would be effected by a Minute of Council, but it was promised that no innovations would be made until the end of the next financial year. The capitation grant was not given on sufficiently stringent conditions. They ought to be satisfied that the children had been properly taught. They did not propose to base payment simply on results. The capitation grant would still be paid on the number of attendances above a certain number, but the Government went a

step further. They proposed that an Inspector should examine the children in reading, writing, and arithmetic. If a child passed in all subjects the full capitation grant would be paid. Failure in one subject involved a reduction of the grant by a third, in two subjects by two thirds, and in case of complete failure the whole of the grant would be withheld.

This was the foundation of the "Revised Code," and the system of "payment by results." The Minutes were submitted to Parliament at the end of the session, and during the recess were the subject of animated discussion and agitation. The vested interests, which had been gradually entrenching themselves for a quarter of a century, took alarm, and raised the cry of invasion and confiscation. The system which professed to be doing so much, and to be capable of such vast expansion, and productive of such admirable results, shrank with the self-consciousness of inherent weakness and incapacity from any real test of its quality. Mr. Buxton quoted Spencer," They raised a most outrageous,