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pace only with the growth of the population. In their estimate for the future, however, the Commissioners assign 100,000l. a year to the building vote. The magnitude of the sum surprises us, when we call to mind the fact that the annual average expenditure has been only 50,000l. for twenty years, during which an immense number of school-houses have been erected.

The next and by far the most useful and important steps taken by the Committee of Council were the measures designed to raise the profession of teachers in this country, and indeed to create a class of men and women in which we were lamentably deficient. The Report states, as we have previously remarked, that 2,544,000l. have been devoted to this object, partly by contributing to the erection and maintenance of training colleges for teachers, partly by grants to pupil-teachers in the five years previous to their entrance at the colleges. There are now thirty-four of these institutions in England and Wales, containing an average (in 1858) of 2065 male and female students. The Government contributes to the maintenance of these colleges not less than 75 per cent., and in one case as much as 94 per cent. They may therefore be considered as institutions maintained at the public expense, in which a certain number of young persons of the middle and sometimes of the lower classes in society receive a most excellent education in consideration of their devoting themselves to the business of popular education. These institutions send forth 1500 trained teachers every year; a number which, the Commissioners report, would be enough to supply the vacancies of 33,000 teachers, and to teach 2,000,000 of children, on the assumption that the average tenure of office of each teacher was twenty-two years.' (Report, p. 165.)

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That an immense amount of positive good has been done by these training colleges we are quite certain. The young persons who have had the benefit of such an education have received from their country the greatest benefit which can be conferred on man they are qualified not only to become schoolmasters and mistresses, but to fill all sorts of useful and lucrative positions in society, and to raise themselves materially above the condition of life in which they were born. These advantages may be said to commence with the system of pupil-teachers when they are about thirteen years old. The most promising children of a school, whose parents consent to their adopting teaching as a profession, are selected to be trained for that purpose. Under a recent Minute the number of them cannot exceed four in each school. These juvenile teachers, who remain for five years in this condition of apprenticeship, fulfil a twofold

purpose. On the one hand they form a superior class of monitors or assistant teachers for the instruction of the junior classes, and they are paid for their work at the average rate of 157. a year: at the same time they are preparing themselves for a higher position, and for entrance into the training colleges at the age of eighteen.' Pupil-teachers are now employed in schools under Government inspection, in the proportion of one to every fifty children; the contribution of the Government under the head of teachers and pupil-teachers in these schools amounts to 9s. 84d. per head per scholar in attendance.

The number of pupil-teachers in 1858 was stated to be 14,024; and it must be observed that in respect to all the young persons who have entered upon this apprenticeship the Government has contracted a prospective engagement, first, to retain them in its employment as pupil-teachers at certain rates of pay for five years; and secondly, to place them as Queen's scholars in the training colleges at the public expense, upon their passing a certain examination, at the proper time. This is a very serious engagement, and the more so as there are already more pupil-teachers now in preparation than the training colleges can receive, and again there is a possibility that the number of certificated teachers turned out by the training colleges may exceed the demand, which must have the effect of reducing the current rate of their salaries. The Commissioners say:

"Of the whole number of pupil-teachers 87.32 per cent. successfully complete their apprenticeship, and 76-02 per cent. become candidates for Queen's scholarships, which most of them obtain. The 11.3 per cent. who do not become candidates for Queen's scholarships include those who either adopt other pursuits or follow the calling of a school

The wages of a pupil-teacher (paid annually) are at the rate of 3s. 10d., 4s. 94d., 5s. Id., 6s. 84d., and 7s. 8d. a week, at 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 years of age respectively; but " boys of 13 and 14 years "of age can get from 8s. to 10s. a week in some of the Sheffield "trades." Telegraph clerks on the railways earn 10s. and 11s. a week, with the prospect of increase, whilst "other offices, merchants', "lawyers', canals, &c., are almost as enticing to young lads, besides "the common openings in trade, which in a great part of the district "have a higher money value than the situation of a pupil-teacher, have none of its uncertainties, little of its trials, and a present "instead of a prospective and conditional payment." But it must not be forgotten that the pupil-teacher, during the whole of his apprenticeship, is receiving an education which fits him for other situations; and the sum paid by Government to the principal teachers for the instruction so given must be taken into account in estimating the pupil-teacher's wages.' (Keport.)

master without going through the course of instruction given at the training colleges.'

The exact amount of public money spent on the education and maintenance of these young persons may be taken at more than 150l. a head. They receive 15l. a year for five years as pupil-teachers, in all 751.; they are then maintained and instructed in a training college for two years at the cost to the State of 401. per head per annum, and they then become entitled to receive from Government 201. a-year as augmentation of salary. But as a set-off against this expenditure must be taken the work done by them in the schools, and the engagement to work as a teacher for an indefinite period. To dispose at once of this last condition, we must observe that very little reliance can be placed upon it. In the case of female teachers, in fact, none; for it would be contrary to nature and to common sense to suppose that these young women have entered into an engagement not to marry, and once engaged to be married, their future destination in life depends on their husbands. In the case of men, some reliance may be placed on habits already formed and a calling steadily pursued; but we entertain great doubts whether such an engagement will long be kept under the temptation of more remunerative and more attractive employment. The life of a schoolmaster is monotonous, and not unfrequently depressing. The fatigue of body and mind is great: the result seldom proportioned to the efforts made. It is unreasonable to expect that men, possessing a higher amount of education, and consequently of ambition and refinement, than commonly falls to the lot of their class in life, will very long be satisfied with inculcating the rules of arithmetic or the facts of geography on succeeding generations of little boys. To estimate the average tenure of office of a schoolmaster at twenty-two years, is, in all probability, a great exaggeration. Our own opinion leads us to believe that at the end of seven years many a highly trained schoolmaster will be very anxious, if possible, to take his acquirements and abilities to a better market. It is impossible to blame him, for no man is bound for life to a particular calling: but in relation to other classes of persons in the community, the teacher is placed in an exceptional and highly favoured position, and it may be confidently affirmed that there are no other persons in any rank of life who receive from the State so large a sum as 150l. towards their education and maintenance between the ages of thirteen and twenty. It is equal to the best scholarships at the Universities, which are prizes awarded to the highest merit.

Several of the witnesses examined by the Commissioners pointed out the evils of this forcing system. At first the career of a schoolmaster appears brilliant enough. A lad, the son of a day labourer earning 10s. a week, finds himself at the age of twenty in the receipt of 801. or 90l. a year. At twenty-two he may be earning 100%. or 1207. a year-considerably more than a barrister or a curate at the same time of life. But the schoolmaster may never attain a larger income. He reaches in early life a table-land and may tread it till he dies. Hence arise discontent, complaints, the desire of change, the desire of other employment. The whole course of instruction is regulated by examinations which cannot fail to stimulate personal feelings in a very high degree; and these feelings are certainly inconsistent with the homely duties, the quiet position, and the simple habits of a teacher's after life. They render him, on the contrary, conceited, assuming, and discontented.

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They naturally think,' says Mr. Robinson, the Principal of the Training School at York, 'more of what education has made them than of what it first found them. They easily lose sight of the fact that they have risen from a very humble social position, and they crave for that status which education seems generally to secure. think, too, that in some cases they are too apt to forget that they owe the culture they have to the public provision made for them.' (Report, p. 162.) The Commissioners add, that Sir J. K. Shuttleworth's hopes that the teachers might be taught to look upon popular education in a missionary spirit, and be trained to a life of humility and self-denial, have been disappointed. The precautions against personal ambition which he tried to establish in the shape of extreme plainness of diet and hard manual labour have been given up; and though efforts are made to impress upon the training colleges a religious character, there can be no doubt that views of personal advancement have as much influence upon teachers throughout their career as upon other persons.' (Report, p. 162.)

The system of pupil-teachers is probably the most popular portion of the whole Government plan. Mr. Arnold considers the pupil-teachers to be the sinews of English primary instruction, and it has struck a deep root in the country. But there is some reason for this besides the real utility of the institution. The liberality of the Government in this form has created a protected interest. The whole mass of pupil-teachers themselves and their families are deeply interested in the maintenance of a system which gives to these young persons 157. ayear and the prospect of a position for life. Thousands of

scholars who are aspiring to become pupil-teachers, and their families, participate in this interest. The managers of schools

are no less interested, for it places in their hands an instrument of enormous power in parochial business. Among the managers of schools the clergy largely predominate. They virtually hold in their hands these prizes, and they have under them in every village school a staff of young persons, paid by the Government, but who have everything to expect from clerical patronage, and everything to fear from clerical displeasure. The clergy, who were twenty years ago bitterly opposed to the intervention of the Government plan, have long ago found out that Government intervention means Government money placed to a great extent at their own disposal.

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It has, however, been already discovered that the system cannot be worked out to its full extent, because the race of pupil-teachers would soon outnumber the vacancies in the training colleges and the vacancies in schools: it would moreover involve an expense of two millions sterling per annum. Dr. Temple thinks it might rise to five millions. Sir James Kay Shuttleworth asserts in his Letter to Earl Granville, that the public grant may in a few years rise to 1,000,000l. or 1,200,0007., but at that point by well-devised antecedent expedients its increase may be arrested.' Why at that point? Precisely the same causes which may raise it to that point, will tend still further to augment it. In fact the demand for augmentation must perpetually increase. The more you have given the more you will be required to give. Dr. Temple compares the Privy Council plan to a series of concentric circles, the richer and the most zealous districts being nearest to the central authority. At every advance, he says, into the poorer districts you have to make a relaxation of the conditions, which relaxation, when it has once been applied to the poorer districts, must also be applied to the richer; and he adduces the example of the capitation grant, which was at first intended to apply only to rural parishes, and at last was extended to all.

Restrictions have therefore already been put upon it, and still further restrictions must be applied. But the moment you begin to reduce the bounties or the protection which have fostered a highly artificial system, you create a considerable amount of individual hardship, and you must be prepared to face a vehement outcry. We believe that these donations will one day be withdrawn, or at least converted from a State grant into a local charge: but we have no doubt that this charge will be violently resisted by the managers of schools throughout the country, and by the classes which have thriven so largely at the public cost. Throughout the evidence taken by the Commissioners, the testimony of the witnesses is largely and strongly

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