1852. Plans of National Association: Manchester & Salford. 319 National Public Schools' Plan. 3. Each county shall contain an educational system complete within itself. I.-1. Municipal boroughs and districts governed by local commissioners, shall form separate school districts, independently of the parishes of which they may be composed or form a part. VIII.-3. The county boards shall unite districts containing fewer than inhabitants, and parts of parishes not included in boroughs, or districts, to adjoining districts, and thereby to form school unions, which unions shall act in every respect as if they were districts of themselves. Rejected. Local Plan. 4. Reference to existing Municipal Authorities. I.-(1.) For the purposes of this Act, hereinafter mentioned, the municipal boroughs of Manchester and Salford, be, and be hereby constituted respectively, school districts; and in each of the said boroughs the municipal council shall, out of their own members, annually elect a school committee for such districts respectively. XI.—(3), (4.) If, when additional school accommodation is required, no notice be given to the municipal council, of any intention to erect, within six months, such school room by voluntary effort, the district committee to issue notice of their intention to erect or provide the necessary school accommodation. 5. New Authority for Levying and Expending Rates. III.-3. The school committees shall be required to establish and support four descriptions of schools, for which purpose they shall be empowered to levy rates. VIII.-20. The county boards shall establish, support, and manage normal schools, for the training of teachers; and shall have power to establish schools for the deaf, the dumb, and the blind (10). VI. The school committees shall have power to levy and raise, in each school district, a rate for the purposes of this system. 2. And may purchase, lease, or hire school buildings, and may purchase land, either absolutely, or on chief or ground rent, and erect school buildings thereon. 3. And may purchase, lease, or rent existing school rooms, notwithstanding any trusts or endowments for any specific kind of teaching therein. VIII. If any district neglect to establish or support schools, the county board shall levy rates for the purpose, Not admitted. National Public Schools' Plan. Local Plan. and appoint a school committee for such district. 13. The expenses incurred by the county boards shall be defrayed by the districts, in proportion to the rateable value of their property. 6. Recognition of existing Authorities in the Levying of Rates. Not provided for. 7. New Authority for VI.-7. No master or teacher shall be appointed to any school who has not received a certificate of qualification from the examiners appointed by the county board, so long as there is a candidate for the vacancy who has received a certificate, unless the county board, on special cause shown to it, shall authorise the school committee to dispense with the certificate. VIII.-5. The county boards shall prepare such course of instructions as they shall deem best suited to the four descriptions of schools, due regard being had to the requirements of different localities; and they shall have power to enforce the adoption of such courses of instruction. 6. It shall be necessary for the county boards to sanction all books before they are admitted into any of the schools. III.-(1.) The municipal council, on the recommendation of the district committee, for purposes hereinafter mentioned, shall lay a school rate within that district. (2.) On the same assessment as the borough rate. (3.) Proviso: the school rate not to exceed, in any one year, sixpence in the pound upon the rateable value of property within the respective boroughs. prescribing Instruction. Not instituted. 8. New Central Authority. IX. Commissioners shall be appointed by the crown, whose duty it shall be to carry out the provisions of the Act. It shall be also their duty to procure as much information as possible of the state of education in this and other countries, to convey whatever may appear useful to the county boards, and to present an annual report to Parliament. Rejected. 9. Existing Central Authority. XVI. Complaints or appeals against district committee or inspector to be made to committee of council on education, whose decision is final. 1852. Plans of National Association: Manchester & Salford. 351 10. Free Education to be the Right of all. National Public Schools' Plan. V.-1. All persons shall have the right of free admission, at the ages mentioned, to the day, evening, or infant schools of the district in which they reside. Local Plan. VII (1) All schools admitted as aforesaid into union, to be free schools. (6.) Margin. Free education to be the right of all. 11. Respect to Opinions of Ratepayers. IX. The provisions of this system to be enforced by adequate penalties. III.- (7.) Any ratepayer may require his rate to be appointed, under the provisions of this Act, for the support of any class of schools in union; and the amount of this rate shall be appropriated accordingly. (8.) Proviso; if, in any case, the amount of rate so required to be appropriated to any class of schools as aforesaid, shall exceed the amount of aid required by such schools, under the provisions of this Act, the municipal council shall apply such surplus to the general purposes of this Act, as if such special appropriation had not been made. Here we have a tolerably clear view of the systems of management which these rival associations propose to establish. The following sets forth the provisions which it is proposed to make in each for guarding the rights of conscience among the supporters of existing schools: National Public Schools' Plan. VI.-3. The school committees may purchase, lease, or rent existing school rooms, notwithstanding any trusts or endowments for any specific kind of teaching therein. Provided always that the trustees, managers, or proprietors of the schools so transferred shall have power to reserve to themselves the sole right to use the buildings for Sunday schools, and for the purpose of communicating religious instruction in conformity with their respective trust deeds, at such times as they may not be required for the purposes of instruction under this system. (See s. VIII. c. 2.) BASIS OF THE ASSOCIATION. The National Public School Association is formed to promote the establishment, by law, in England and Wales, of a system of free schools, which shall impart secular instruction only; leaving to parents, guardians, and religious teachers the inculcation of doctrinal religion, to afford opportunities for which the schools shall be closed at stated times in each week. IV. In which school children shall be instructed in reading, grammar, writing, Local Plan. VI. (1.) Lawful for the proprietors or managers of all schools open to the inspection of H. M. inspectors, or to inspectors to be appointed under this Act, and employing teachers who have obtained certificates of merit, or teachers whose competency to conduct the schools is certified by the inspectors thereof, to place such schools in union with district committee. VII. (2.) In all schools which, at the time of the passing of this Act, are permitted or permissible, by some minute of the committee of council on education, to participate in any of the benefits of the parliamentary grant for educational purposes, the following conditions of union to be imperative; in addition to the conditions prescribed by any new existing minute of such committee of council, so far as is applicable to any such schools or classes of schools: i. To keep a register of attendance, absence, and conduct, of the scholars, and periodically to furnish a copy thereof to the district committee. ii. To admit the secretary, or other officer of the district com National Public Schools' Plan. arithmetic, geography, history; in the various qualities and uses of the objects by which they are surrounded; and generally in such kinds of useful knowledge, together with industrial training, as may be deemed advisable, or the growing intelligence of the people may demand. In addition to these, shall be sedulously inculcated-a strict regard to truth; justice, kindness, and forbearance, in our intercourse with our fellowcreatures; temperance, industry, frugality, and all other virtues conducive to the right ordering of practical conduct in the affairs of life. VI.-5. The school committees shall set apart hours in every week, during which the school shall be closed for the purpose of affording an opportunity to attend the instructions of the teachers of religion in the various churches and chapels, or other suitable places. No compulsion shall be used to force attendance, nor shall any penalty or disability whatever be imposed for non-attendance on such religious instruction. (See s. VI. c. 3.) VIII. 7. In regard to all the books employed in the schools, and in regard to the instruction and discipline therein carried on, the county boards shall make and enforce such regulations as shall secure to dissidents and objectors the full rights of conscience. VI. 16. No minister of religion shall be capable of holding any salaried office in connection with the schools. Local Plan. mittee, to compare the attendance of the children with the register. iii. Not to compel children attending such schools either to learn any creed or formulary, or to attend any Sunday school or place of religious worship, to which their parents, or persons having the care and maintenance of them, shall, in writing object. iv. All schools, not being infant schools, to produce annually to the district committee in form, hereunto in schedule A. annexed, a certificate from the teacher of the school, countersigned by the inspector thereof, that the general instruction of the children includes reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, English history, and the elements of geography; and, in the case of girls' schools, plain needlework also. (2a.) Proviso: No school not otherwise subject to the inspection of H. M. inspectors, shall, by the provisions of this Act, be required to admit any other than the local inspectors hereinbefore provided. (3) In all schools, not permissible as aforesaid to participate in the benefits of the parliamentary grant for educational purposes, it shall be required as a condition of union, in addition to the four conditions aforesaid, that the reading of the Holy Scriptures in the authorised version shall be a part of the daily instruction of the scholars. NOTE. But it is declared that no school which is permissible under section 2 of this clause shall be admitted under this section. (5.) The district committee not to acquire by union, any right to interfere with the internal management, discipline, or instruction of such schools; except in relation to the conditions of union before stated. V. (2.) Committee of council to appoint local inspectors, in conformity with existing regulations in respect to the several classes of schools, which H. M. inspectors may examine. X. (2.) Guardians of the poor to require, subject to the rules and regulations of the poor law commissioners, children of persons receiving out-door parochial relief to attend school. IX. (4.) Proviso; no payment out 1852. Actual Schools, as Ash in Kent. 353 of the rate shall be made to any school, in which the master or teacher shall be a person in holy orders, or a minister of religion. It is unnecessary to pursue this parallel further. Both schemes have something to recommend them: both a good deal that may be objected to; though, unquestionably, if we be driven to select one or the other, we shall prefer the Manchester and Salford devise. But why choose either? Why leave either to independent members of Parliament, or to individuals, however influential out of doors, to do in part what ought to be done wholly, on the suggestion of the head of the Executive Government, and by a solemn vote of the Legislature? Let us explain ourselves. The There are scattered through England, especially in the agricultural districts, many endowed schools, of which the revenues are considerable, though the uses to which they are turned correspond but little with what we may assume to have been the purposes of their founders. of their founders. One of these, in the parish of Ash next Sandwich, Kent, occurs to us. It is maintained out of the produce of a farm, which fifteen or sixteen years ago used to let for 1207. a year, and may now be worth 807. will of the founder directs that a certain specified number of boys and girls shall be educated; and the numbers so fixed must have included all, and more than all, the young people of the place, who could have required such help to educate them at the death of the testator. The parish has doubled and quadrupled its population since; yet the trustees of the charity refuse to throw it open, and pertinaciously adhere to the items of instruction specified in the will of the benefactor. Surely this is a case in which the Legislature might, with perfect propriety, interfere; and it is by no means a singular case. England is dotted over with charitable endowments—some classical, some for general educational purposes which accomplish nothing, because the age has outrun their sphere of usefulness, and executors and trustees are unable to enlarge it. Surely an Act of Parliament would be well applied which should throw open the doors of these temples of learning, and so modify both their constitutions and systems of management, that the people might be enabled to participate in the advantages which they were meant by their founders to dispense. Though eminently wise and beneficial, even this measure would not be enough. The law should require that every town, borough, parish, and hamlet of which the population may reach (say to three hundred souls) shall provide one or more school-houses, with residences for teachers, according to the educational wants |