which they best perform." And again, in Sect. IV., "The moral effect produced by the schools is more important than the instruction given in them, although not so appreciable. The standards by which it can be measured are less definite. We believe it to be very great,' etc. But these results, though paramount in importance, are coolly set aside as unimportant or non-existent, because the New Code cannot test and measure them.

In the second place, this principle is not fairly applicable, when the work set to be done is liable to hindrance or failure from causes over which the agent has no control, and for which, therefore, he should not be held responsible. We do not send sailors to explore the northwest passage, deny them pay or rations till they have returned to show us the results of the expedition, and pay them then at so many pounds for so many miles of new ground. We do not pay the army, only in the event of success, at so much money for so many results. Yet the obstacles to the success of the teacher's labours, such as irregular attendance, premature withdrawal, capricious changes from school to school, parental mismanagement, and torpidity of intellect produced by disease or other causes, are as much beyond the control of the teacher, as the obstacles to be encountered by the soldier or the sailor are beyond theirs.

Erroneous as this principle has been shown to be, the application of it, as detailed in the New Code, is, through ignorance or design, more objectionable still, more ruinously unjust; for the forlorn hope held out in the principle is falsified in the details, as far as ingenuity can do so. For example: If pupils capable of passing the examination have attended less than ten weeks of the current school year, at the time of the Inspector's visit, the results are not paid for, and these first ten weeks of all the pupils' time are deducted from the payment in every case. That is not paying for results. Pupils who may have attended nine or ten months of the year, and failed to attend sixteen times during the month preceding the Inspector's visit, are not admissible. Is that paying for results? Pupils who attend the whole year, but who are detained at home, whether necessarily or otherwise, on the day of inspection, cannot be presented for examination. Is that paying

VOL. I.-NO. IV.

for results? The best pupils in a school, and those most likely to pass, are usually the pupils above eleven years of age. But these are not to be presented, if they have appeared in the same group on a former occasion. Is that what is meant

by paying for results? The youngest infant class, along with the pupils above eleven, form about one-sixth of the whole. But from the nature of the examination in

group I. it is impossible that these can pass. And yet that is paying for results! The Commissioners strongly recommend to the authors of the New Code, the encouragement of infantschools; and these respond, by making such demands upon the poor infants as are quite incompatible with health of brain and mind, and inconsistent with all the acknowledged principles of infantschool training. In this way, it is contrived to ruin infant-schools, by demanding the production of results which it would be improper to force from them, even if it were possible. There is a grim humour in this method of paying for results. If the inspector fix for his visit a day which may be unsuitable from local circumstances, such as markets, etc., or if, from press of agricultural labour at certain times of spring or harvest, many of the pupils be absent, the results will not be paid for. Let the day of inspection be stormy, and the teacher will have no salary for the year. The results achieved during the year will not be visible to the inspector, and will therefore be held not to exist. Let inspectionday occur during the prevalence of an epidemic, and the school will be financially ruined, however well taught. And yet, that is paying for results. In country districts, where schools are far between, the younger children can attend only during summer, and the school is occupied during winter by a class almost entirely distinct, viz., lads who have been engaged at farm-labour and other summer and harvest work. Whether the inspector visit these numerous schools in summer or in winter, at least one-half of the results produced will not be paid for, from this fact alone; and if he should come soon after the change of season, not one-tenth of the results can be paid for. Moreover, as the winter attendance of the elder boys averages eighteen weeks, of which the first ten weeks are to be deducted by the Code, more than onehalf of the payment due for them is thus cut off at a blow. If the inspector visit

21

before the first ten weeks have elapsed, not one penny is paid; if after the eighteenth week, the pupils have left school, and the results are not paid for; if, by a rare chance, he visits between these two points of time, about one-tenth of the winter results may be paid for, but none of the results of his summer's labour. I say may, because that one-twentieth may be still farther reduced-to one. hundredth, or even to nothing-by the operation of other regulations introduced into the Code as if for the purpose of preventing payment for results. The results of inspection are, besides, liable to reduction (never open to increase) from a great variety of subordinate causes, which the teacher cannot obviate, but which he must of course pay for. If the inspector is a stranger-if he have any peculiarity in his style of questioning, or his style of language, the children are puzzled. If he should be hasty, or appear so, the children become flurried, lose their presence of mind, and the results of the teacher's labours are not paid for. Throughout, it will be noticed that payment is offered, not for the amount of results actually produced, but for the average amount of results on hand, and producible on any day which the inspector may select.

It is quite in accordance with the penal spirit of the Code, that after deductions have been made for all sorts of reasons, it is expressly provided that if the results realized should exceed a certain sum, these extraordinarily good results should not be paid for. Another similar provision is that the inspector may deduct one-half at pleasure from the payment of the results actually achieved. And while these multiplied precautions are taken to prevent the teacher receiving what he has earned, there is not a single provision to prevent his receiving nothing at all. So much for the "principle" of not paying for results.

II. But the teacher's position is rendered, by the new Code, quite as precarious as his income. Much ingenuity has been expended here, by heads and hands, that must have been otherwise idle.

(1.) The Committee of Council retains all its former power over him, and claims power to alter his position for the worse, without notice, without reason assigned, without inquiry (as in Scotland), or after an inquiry, which has re

sulted favourably, with the exception of one point, already discussed. And yet, it has now subjected him, absolutely, to the separate and often conflicting authorities and powers of all the other parties with whom he comes into contact, whether above him, or nominally under him.

(2.) The inspectors, according to the Commissioner's Report, must now be taken from a class of men, highly estim able in their own sphere, but not specially qualified to estimate educational results, and not qualified at all to judge of the circumstances that affect these results, and thus trace failure or deficiency to their real source. And yet it is specially provided, that they shall not only judge results and their causes, finally and without appeal, but that they shall be empowered to deduct onehalf from the due payment of results achieved, and that not for any of the numerous reasons rehearsed above, but upon their mere dissatisfaction, not with these results, but with things in general. This dissatisfaction is quite as likely to arise from the unsatisfactory state of the inspector's digestion, as from anything else. After deductions have been made for all sorts of assignable reasons, this sweep of one-half of the school grant is to be made, without reason assigned. "Sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione, voluntas." Against the present inspectors I have not a word to say; but what class of fallible men can wield aright powers so unlimited? The inspector, then, is to be the teacher's absolute master, and not the only one; for,

(3.) The dependence of the teacher on the managers will also be practically absolute. In the new circumstances, created by the revised code, it is mockery to tell him to make the best terms he can with them. For many years, the Privy-Council has been pouring men into the profession, by means of a bounty, at the rate of four apprentices to each educated teacher. The inevitable consequence of this is, that the remuneration for this species of work must fall, if not artificially kept up by that body which has artificially lowered it far below its natural level. Hitherto, the Privy Council have palliated the injustice of their violation of economic laws, by demanding that school managers must pay the teacher a certain minimum salary as the condition of assistance, and that his salary must not be lowered on

receipt of this grant-in-aid, which must be regarded as strictly supplementary. This safeguard against the evils caused by the action of the Privy-Council is now withdrawn, and the teacher is referred, without remorse, to the natural operation of the laws of supply and demand, laws broken in every way by the Committee's scheme. No local contribution whatever is now necessary; and this important source of school income, will, to a certainty, be entirely dried up. The authors of the new Code have recklessly thrown these funds away.

And not only are school committees absolved from their obligation to guarantee a minimum salary, or even to contribute a single penny to it, but they are permitted to deal as they please with any payments that may be made by Government for the results of the teacher's labour. If they do not divert them altogether from educational purposes, they may squander his earnings on their own hobbies, which they can thus ride at his expense. On the danger of this arrangement, Dr. Temple says, in his examination, "I should think it a very great evil. I am sure that, in the end, a good deal of the money would be simply thrown away.'

(4.) The teacher's relations with his apprentices, under the new Code, will not be more satisfactory. It is well known how difficult and delicate, frequently, are the relations of master and pupil-teacher, even at present. What must they be when the latter shall be apprenticed to the managers, and the teacher shall be nobody, though still responsible for the studies and school-work of the pupil-teachers, who may safely defy him. It must be recollected that the pupil-teacher's stipend is secured to him unconditionally. For any failure in

assiduity and success the pupil-teacher does not suffer, but the teacher does.

(5.) The fact that the grants are to be made for each individual child, and depend on conditions which that child and his parents may or may not satisfy at pleasure, will place teachers in a false position towards both parents and pupils. The consequences will necessarily be detrimental to all discipline, and, consequently, to all moral and intellectual training. Do my Lords not know that in his little realm, the teacher performs the functions of judge? Comparing great things with small things precisely similar, how would it do to make a judge's salary depend on the mere good pleasure of those whom he judged? Moreover, are my Lords not aware that a parent, in considering how his child is disciplined and judged, is, as a parent, swayed, not by his reason, but by his instinct, and that this instinct prompts him to act unreasonably? Among the lower classes, for the Education of whose children the new Code is specially designed, this instinct reigns supreme, and it is considered "unfeeling" to allow reason to control or guide it. Teachers know, and others can easily infer, how the provisions of the new Code will operate in destroying the teacher's discipline, authority, comfort, and useful

ness.

Thus, in his relations with all the parties with whom he comes into contact, the teacher will be absolutely helpless. And yet it is seriously expected that he should have the skill and foroe of character to combine this helplessness with powerful personal influence and effective authority. Thus, in all respects, the new Code will affect the teacher's position as injuriously as his income. - I am, etc., A TEACHER.

SIR, Those who have watched the working of the Privy-Council know well that all its regulations and provisions have had special reference to the circumstances and wants of England, and that the educational peculiarities and claims of Scotland have been contemptuously ignored. Nay more, attempts have been made to suppress them, and to reduce our time-honoured institutions to a level with the mushroom growths of England. I do not mean to enter into any illustration of

the truth of my statement in the past legislation of Downing Street, because I could not expect you to allow me the necessary space; but three of the provisions of the Revised Code lately issued -a Code of whose objects and principles I approve, in the main, spite of all that has been said against it will of themselves exemplify the kind of legislation of which I, as a Scotchman, complain.

(1.) It has been found that of the chil. dren in the primary schools in England

the number above twelve years of age are scarcely appreciable, therefore no claims for grants are to be admitted for children above that age. This is bad for England-most meagre and contemptible policy it seems to me; but for Scotland it is worse, it is positive injustice. The tendency of such a regulation is to throw us back a century or two. One of the special characteristics of Scotch labour ing youth has been their length of stay at school, and their frequent return to the old familiar benches after they have begun to earn wages. Go into any good old-fashioned country parochial school any day this month, and what will you find? I undertake to say that at least twelve per cent. will be found in their teens, and perchance four per cent. in their

regulation, therefore, is good for England. But in Scotland, where mixed schools are the established and traditionary way of instructing the people, the case is different. The sagacity of certain gentlemen in Downing Street, however, is not equal to the discerning of this difference, and their minds being filled with the English view of the question, like Englishmen, they are incompetent to throw their minds into a different attitude, and to comprehend a state of things unlike their own. It is quite true that in many parishes, especially in the Highlands and islands, sewing schools do not exist, but we deny that there is any want of them elsewhere-at least any such want as would justify so harsh a clause as that which we have referred to. Why, in the Annual Report recently issued by the Church of Scotland Education Committee, we can count 700 sewing-schools as returned in purely landward parishes. How many in all does this return represent? In the vast majority of Scotch parishes, all that is required is encouragement, and compulsion only in those parishes where no sewing school exists, or where the girls above eleven, for whom grants are claimed, are returned as not receiving or as not having received instruction in sewing.

But there is another serious effect of this regulation. I shall illustrate it by one example. In the parish of A, a proprietor has set on foot a good mixed school, which has been in receipt of Government aid for many years. Within one hundred yards of this school is a female school erected and maintained at great cost by the same proprietor. The effect of this regulation will be to deprive the mixed school of Government aid, unless a sewing-mistress be engaged to attend an hour a day, and to do this would be to defeat the objects of the female school and to render it useless. The buildings would have to be sold for their worth, as old materials. Such is the necessary operation of this regulation in a country where the mixed system is the national custom.

(3.) A tendency has been feared in England towards the employment of school-buildings as dissenting chapels, and of the teachers as Methodist or other preachers. Thus Government would virtually be supporting religious ordinances for adults, where it imagined itself to be promoting the cause of the education of the young alone. Hence the rule, "lay persons are alone to be recognised as teachers," and, in the circumstances we have explained, a good rule. But how stands the case in Scotland? We do not say that it is a sound state of things that men looking for church livings should regard the parochial schools as a sufficiently good antechamber in which to kick their heels while waiting, but such has been and such is the state of things in Scotland. Were such men notoriously bad teachers we should join most heartily in any desire for their exclusion from elementary schools, but this is not the fact. As a body, they are better teachers than the less educated men whom our Normal Schools turn out. Again, a large number of these early give up all hope of a "living," and give themselves finally and fully to the work of their school; and much good it does to the profession to have men of their educational standing throwing in their lot with it. Yet these men are disqualified for Government aid

in other words, schools taught by them are not admissible to a share of the education grant. Why? For no other reason that we can see than that they have completed a theological as well as an Arts course in one of our Universities. Is this fair? Technically,