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on individual examination by inspection. Mr Robert Lowe gave us that incubus,-payment by results, where practically the whole of the grant depends on individual examination. Only in the last decade has this terrible weight been removed, and it still seriously affects us because so many of our elementary teachers have been trained and have taught under these bad conditions. The remedy suggested by the Royal Commission has been frequently attacked, and Matthew Arnold, with far clearer insight than the Commissioners, thought "that what was really needed was to deal with the irregular attendance and premature withdrawal of scholars."

The effect of the Revised Code of 1861 was very fatal to elementary teachers. It made the conditions of teaching less advantageous to those already in the profession, and it made the profession unpopular, reducing the number and the quality of the teachers.

In 1870 came a third sudden increase in the demand for teachers. The first increase in this century was in its first decade, when for religious motives the nation began to take a greater interest in the education of the people. The second increase came in the 3rd and 4th decades, when factory Acts for half-timers tended to make education compulsory in the manufacturing districts; and now again in 1870 Forster's great Act caused a sudden increase in the number of schools and a greater demand for teachers. Elementary training colleges were enlarged and increased in number, new and improved regulations were made for pupil teachers, the burden of payment by results was gradually lessened, and finally disappeared, and in 1890 Day Training Colleges were established in connection with most of our universities and university colleges. The gulf between secondary and elementary teacher is rapidly tending to disappear, the advantage of a cheap university education is being utilised largely by elementary teachers, and university extension has been a great boon to many of them.

The development of the training of elementary teachers in

England during this century has been remarkable, and our training colleges now can be compared safely with those of other countries. Indeed the development has been so rapid, it is not uncommon still to hear even English teachers attack faults in English elementary training colleges which no longer exist.

Meanwhile there are still some serious defects. We have no State normal colleges, and in so far as the majority of exist ing training colleges are still sectarian, Nonconformists are at a disadvantage. We have not nearly enough room in our training colleges for our teachers. We still employ as teachers children and uncertificated men and women. It is still difficult for secondary teachers to enter elementary work. Elementary teachers are still too isolated in education, training, and teaching. But as we look back through the century and remember how it began and how it finishes we have some reason I think for satisfaction.

I have no time to refer, as I had hoped to do, to training in Scotland, Ireland, and our Colonies, to say nothing of training in foreign countries. I have no time even to refer to the training of Kindergarten and other specialist teachers. Let me end by briefly enumerating what seems to be at present the most advanced view in England on the three functions of an ideal Training College,

First, it must be a sieve to keep out from the profession certain classes of persons,

(a) Those who are physically, mentally, and morally unfit to educate.

(b) Those who are intellectually not above the average, because it is only from the intellectual aristocracy of a community that we can hope to obtain those who can carry on effectively the difficult and important work of teaching.

(c) Those who have not the necessary knowledge.

(d) Those who have not the necessary education, which is by no means the same as class c.

(e) It must be a still finer sieve to keep out also those who during the course of training show clearly that they will never make good teachers.

Secondly, it must give the conditions for a scientific and philosophical professional training for teaching as it is carried on to-day. Any discussion or even enumeration of these conditions is obviously impossible in a lecture of one hour, but I need not remind an audience largely English, that the conditions of an ideal Training College should respect and foster individuality, not repress it; and that the conditions should make it unlikely that the students should even be tempted to forget that a teacher who is only a teacher can never be a good teacher, because in our schools we are preparing human beings. for a many-sided life, and consequently teachers must have a many-sided life themselves.

Thirdly, it must be a centre of educational experiment, and it should initiate educational reform, i.e. it must take a leading part in the evolution of education in the country.

The task of education grows more difficult not less as civilisation becomes more complex and the centuries roll on. As our ideal of education rises we demand better teaching and better prepared teachers. As history and science and philosophy develop we shall demand more and more that all these shall contribute to the professional training of our teachers.

Thus we dream to-day! A hundred years hence another lecturer will doubtless give to successors far higher and clearer dreams of training, and unroll a far more successful history of a century's progress in the training of teachers.

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It is now rather more than forty years since the old Universities of England began to take a definite part in the education of persons other than their own matriculated students, by instituting the Local Examinations of Schools. It is twenty-seven years since the system of local teaching known as University Extension took its rise; and the circumstances. of its origin are noteworthy. In the year 1872 the University of Cambridge received memorials from a number of public bodies and educational organisations. Among these bodies were some large municipalities, such as those of Birmingham, Leeds, and Nottingham; the Educational Committees of some Industrial Societies and Mechanics' Institutes; and the North of England Council for the Education of Women.

These memorialists said, in effect:-"We know that in many great towns and rural districts there are large numbers of persons who desire the benefits of higher education. These persons have passed the age of attendance at school. But they have not the means, or the leisure, to spend three or four years at a University. Many of them are young men of the

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day as clerks or shopHow are we to provide

middle classes, employed during the assistants. Many others are artisans. for the higher educational needs of such persons, who can study only in the evening? We turn, in this difficulty, to the old Universities of England. They are the national centres of the higher education. Why should not the Universities come to us, since those for whom we plead cannot go to them? Why should they not send us teachers, men of high attainment in various branches of knowledge? Such men could render a new and great service to the nation, if as missionaries of the Universities, as interpreters of the liberal spirit in education, they would conduct evening classes in our towns for men who have no leisure during the day."

At the same time the memorialists pointed out that such teachers might render another service of a somewhat different kind. In the great towns there are always large numbers of persons, more especially ladies, who have more or less leisure in the daytime-persons of good education, who desire to enlarge their knowledge and to improve their minds. Such persons would welcome regular instruction in literature, history, or science by able lecturers from the Universities. Arrangements might be made with the various towns desiring such instruction, so that each University teacher should have a circuit assigned to him. His time would be sufficiently occupied with evening classes, as well as lectures in the daytime; and he would receive adequate remuneration.

Such was the substance of the memorials. The University of Cambridge, in 1872, appointed a Committee to consider the matter. The Committee reported in 1873, recommending that the University should begin with an experiment on a small scale, by organising courses of lectures in two or three towns. This recommendation was accepted. In the winter of 1873 the University of Cambridge inaugurated the Extension Movement by establishing courses of lectures at three towns in the Midlands, viz., Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham.

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