mills, and providing that during the first four years of service, instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic should be given at the expense of the master, in some part of each working day. (1) The act, however, was easily evaded. The letter could be fulfilled by nominal performance, while in practice it was altogether powerless and ineffective. Some small measure of protection was subsequently given to young children by an Act passed in 1819, prohibiting their employment in factories under nine years of age. (2) In 1833, the exertions of Lord Ashley, the present Earl of Shaftesbury, secured a further reform, and the daily labour of children under thirteen was restricted to eight hours, and that of older children to twelve hours per day. (3) These concessions were regarded, and in the then existing circumstances, actually were of great importance and value. (*) The debates on the early factory bills of this century will satisfy any one how urgently a strong legislative and administrative control was needed. The growth of all branches of manufacturing industry had created a great demand for cheap labour, and as children's labour was the cheapest to be had, it was eagerly sought after. Almost as soon as they could walk, the little children were swept into cotton manufactories. Waggon loads of children were taken from the London streets and apprenticed to manufacturers in Lancashire. In defiance or in evasion of the law, they often began to work at the age of five or six, and the ordinary hours of labour were twelve hours per day, often protracted to fifteen. Such laws as existed failed to guard their health, to provide for their education, to preserve their morals, or to protect their persons from abominable cruelties. Sir Samuel Romilly wrote of them, "the poor children have not a human being in the world to whom they can look up for redress." Their 1 Duke of Newcastle's Commission, Report, 202. 2 Ibid, 202. 3 3 and 4, Wm. IV. c. 103. + Walpole's History of England, 3, 208. sufferings were often unendurable. For girls, apprenticeship was the beginning of a life of shame, and for boys, one of misery and vice. (1) Such is the history in outline of the apprentice system. Various circumstances combined to break it down altogether. The Act of Geo. III. repealing the restrictions on labour (2) hastened its destruction; and the introduction of machinery, and the revolution in many departments of industry, completed the work. That the system had been deeply rooted in a past society is proved by the fact, that charities of the value of £50,000 per annum had been left for providing apprentice premiums, ranging in amount generally from £5 to £25. (3) The charities were of themselves an evil, and the cause of much fraud and malversation. All that was good in the system of apprenticeship is still capable of preservation under a judicious scheme of technical education, and this it seems would be the most legitimate purpose to which the funds, which are still available, could be applied. We owe to the Roman Catholic Church the first planting of Education in England, as well as in Scotland, (*) and that intimate connection of the subject with religion, which preserved in dark ages the desire for knowledge. But while this alliance has sometimes advanced education, it has often proved one of the most effective agencies for preventing its spread amongst the masses; and is wholly responsible for the acrimonious controversies of modern times. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury in 680, laid the foundation, by turning St. Augustine's monastery into a school of learning. Dean Hook tells us that Theodore "found the English people eager to be instructed and appetent of knowledge" and that he converted all the larger and better monasteries into schools, 1 Walpole's History, 1, 187; 3, 200. 2 54, Geo. III., c. 94. 3 Report of Newcastle Commission, p. 531. 4 Lecky's Eighteenth Century, 2, 42. in which the laity as well as the clergy imbibed a respect, and sometimes a love for literature. (1) In them ancient manuscripts were transcribed, and the foundation of libraries was laid. The oldest grammar school now extant-that of Carlisle, dates from about the period referred to. The present foundation was erected by William Rufus towards the close of the eleventh century, but tradition says that it was built on the ruins of an earlier school, established by St. Cuthbert in 686, but destroyed in 800. (2) The first English tax was a tax for education, and was raised in the eighth century to support a Saxon school at Rome. (3) The vicissitudes of education in those early days were great. There was the same tendency in the monasteries, then as in later years, to relapse into idleness and dissipation. The monks had also frequently to fight for existence, and all traces of gentle culture were lost in the necessity for military training. Two centuries after the time of Theodore, when Alfred was king, and Plegmund was Archbishop of Canterbury, the country had fallen into a condition of great ignorance. There was, however, another revival. Alfred was anxious that all English youth of position should be put to learning until they could read English writing, (4) and he even attempted to found something like a system, by passing a law that all freeholders who possessed two hides of land should give their sons a liberal education. (5) These were schools for the nobility. During the same period we learn of a famous school at York. (6) A century later the work was carried on by Dunstan. The monks again were the teachers of the people, in manual 1 Hook's Lives of Archbishops, 1, 163. 2 Schools Enquiry Commission, 37 app. * Hook's Lives, 1, 337. 5 Carlisle's Grammar Schools, 1, xiii. arts as well as in learning, and the Canons of Dunstan ordered all priests diligently to instruct youth, and dispose them to trades, that they might have a support to the Church. (1) The ecclesiastics were skilful workers in metals. Every priest was a handicraftsman. Attached to every monastery were carpenters, smiths, shoe makers, millers, bakers, and farm servants, and they provided the industrial education of the period. (2) From the monasteries sprang the humanising and civilising influences of the age. In the Anglo-Norman era they were the popular institutions of the country, as well as the schools in which ecclesiastics and statesmen were trained. At this period the school room was open to all who chose to profit by it, though these were probably few in number. (3) After the Conquest, Cathedral schools were established where "fair and beautiful writing" was taught, and many persons of rank and fortune were educated. (4) Of those which remain Hereford is the oldest. It was probably founded soon after the Conquest. (5) Many Jewish schools were also set up, which were open to Christian children. In the time of Roger Bacon, and after the granting of the great Charter, we are told that schools were erected in every city, town, burgh, and castle. (6) So that historians have concluded that the ignorance of the laity was owing to taste rather than to the want of opportunity. Mr. Herbert Spencer holds the opinion that in the 11th and 12th centuries, besides monastic schools, there were village elementary schools, and some city schools and academies for higher culture. In 1179 the Council of Lateran decreed a school in every cathedral, with head 1 Hook's Lives, 1, 419. 2 Spencer's Descriptive Sociology, table 2. 3 Hook's Lives, 2, 21. Carlisle's Grammar School, 1, 19. Schools Enquiry Commission, 37, App. • Carlisle's Grammar Schools, xxi. masters having authority over all subordinate teachers in the house. About the same period lay teachers were first heard of. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were founded about 1200. The only literature of the common people, at this time, were the unwritten songs. (1) Of the pre-reformation schools, William of Wykeham's foundation, at Winchester, is one of the most famous. This was established about the year 1373 or 1387, and from this time, Dean Hook tells us, the public mind became habituated to the idea of the ultimate confiscation of monastic property for the purpose of establishing schools and colleges. (2) The respect and devotion of the people for the monasteries began to decline as early as the 12th century. The opportunities they offered for instruction were little used, and the 15th century found the people in the grossest possible ignorance. Parishes were neglected, the Universities were deserted, and no rewards were held out to learning. (3) This period, however, contemporaneous with the introduction of the printing press, the reformation of the Universities, and the revival of learning throughout Europe, was the dawn of a new era in education, and within thirty years before the Reformation, more Grammar schools were erected and endowed in England than had been established in the three hundred years preceding. (*) There is no complete record of the provision for Education prior to the Reformation. Much that passes for history, has no other basis than tradition. There are authorities which go to show that there were schools connected with every monastery and convent. In his life of Bishop Ken, Mr. Bowles says that before the Reformation, there was a school in every church over the porch. (5) As some estimates 1 Spencer's Descriptive Sociology, table 3. 2 Hook's Lives, N.S., 2, 3. 4 Tanner's Notitia Monastica, xx, iv. 8 Hook's Lives, 5, 291. Bowles' Life of Ken, 2, 98. |