any suggestion as to ascertaining and dealing with such cases, knowing that the Commission has in its own body the best advice (Mr. Erle's).

As to Question I. generally.-I conceive that the endowments of a school should be applied in the following order :

a. To provide a good schoolroom and its appliances, including a playground.

b. A house for the master, but not such as to be calculated to receive boarders, except two or three apprentices, in the nature of pupil teachers.

c. A moderate fixed remuneration for the master, such as with the probable school fees may tend to secure a competent person.

d. Prizes for industry combined with good conduct.

e. Exhibitions for those who, having shown superior intelligence and industry, are going to higher schools.

f. Pensions to retiring masters.

In deciding on the amount to be allotted to any retiring master regard should be had to the practical result of his labours, as exhibited in the progress in life of his scholars.

The stimulus of prizes and exhibitions should be applied with caution, especially at the early age of schoolboys. It is useless as regards boys below the average of intellect, and these are they who require most teaching.

Qs. II. and III.—I have already said what I have to say on them in my replies to I. 2 and I. 3.

IV. To secure a proper supply of teachers I would depend mainly on examinations and certificates granted thereon, leaving parties to qualify themselves as best they may. Pædagogick should be an important subject in these examinations.

I would encourage schoolmasters to take two or three apprentices. I certainly would, as far as practicable, abolish the restriction, where it exists, of the office of schoolmaster to persons in holy orders.

November 1866.

JOHN GEORGE SHAW LEFEVRE,

The VERY REV. HENRY LIDDELL, D.D., Dean of Christ Church. MY LORD, June 30, 1866. In answer to the important questions which you did me the honour to send me in your letter of the 28th May, I beg leave to offer the following remarks :—

I. Respecting endowments.

It is suggested that, where fixed incomes are given to the masters and free instruction to the scholars, the education is apt to become bad, and the masters to become indifferent to success; and it is asked whether the endowments may not be better employed in giving exhibitions to deserving boys and retiring pensions to worn-out masters.

Pensions to retiring masters are, I think, very much to be desired; and probably they will be found more requisite than

hitherto, if, according to a suggestion made in a later portion of your letter, more schoolmasters than hitherto are taken from the laity. For many clerical schoolmasters at least ecclesiastical preferment serves to provide a kind of retiring pension.

I should be loth, however, to see the masters of endowed schools left without any fixed income. It appears to me that a fixed income of a certain amount is useful to secure the services of able and intelligent men. The income need not be large; but if there be no such income, good men may well prefer to try their fortune in independent schools, which they can manage as they please, without being subject to the control of any board or council.

But to regard the fixed income as payment for the instruction of free scholars seems to me extremely likely to produce the ill consequences indicated above. I should think the endowment could not be better employed than if part of it were assigned to pay for the education of deserving boys who stand in need of such help, either by granting thern exhibitions or by paying their school fees, those fees being made, if possible, of the same amount as the fees paid by other boys. The master will then have (so far as payment goes) no conceivable motive for neglecting one class of boys in favour of another class; and since the amount of his income will depend on the gross number of boys in the school, free or not free, he will have every motive to stimulate him to continued exertion.

II. Respecting the government of endowed schools.

Where there are a number of such schools with inconsiderable revenues respectively, it seems probable that a better and more intelligent government would be obtained by grouping such schools in districts.

My own experience of local boards has taught me that the chief problem to be solved is to get a board sufficiently interested in the work to give it proper attention, and sufficiently disinterested to be free from all suspicion of favouritism.

To solve this problem in the present case seems to me very difficult. Supposing there existed in each district an adequate number of intelligent men, willing to take the necessary trouble, how are these persons to be selected and appointed? Election is a rough and dubious method, unless the electors also are intelligent and willing. Appointment by a central authority would be apt to create suspicions and jealousies.

But I have no doubt that this difficulty can be got over in a more or less satisfactory manner.

When the board has been constituted its powers ought to be carefully limited. The masters ought not to be interfered with in their teaching and government of the boys, excepting on the report of the examiners or inspectors, officers who would (I take it for granted) be employed periodically in every school.

And if (as is suggested), the local board be made subject to the control of a central authority, this authority ought to be as circumspect in using its powers over the board, as the board in

d

using its powers over the masters. Able and independent men will not act as masters if subject to constant interference; nor will able and independent men act as governors under the same conditions.

On the whole, I am of opinion that the best mode of keeping the endowments active and beneficial will be, to frame (so far as may be) a self-acting system, requiring as little control and interference as possible.

Such a system I look for in the use of endowments which I venture to suggest, viz., in providing such fixed incomes as may be sufficient to attract good men, and in furnishing instruction wholly or partially free for those boys who deserve and have a claim upon the funds of the endowment.

III. Respecting the application to educational purposes of endowments now wasted, I possess too little information to enable me to speak.

IV. Respecting the supply of teachers.

I am inclined to think that the proposal to grant certificates after examination would be more effective than a system of training schools. Is it not the case that young men brought up at training schools are apt to carry their wares to better markets than can be found in school teaching? Pledges might be exacted; but an unwilling master is sure to be a bad master; of all professions, none more than that of schoolmaster requires a man to have his heart in his work. Is it not more likely that this end will be attained by appointing young men who have deliberately chosen their profession after arriving at years of discretion, and whose capacities have been tested by a well considered scheme of examination, than by endeavouring to train up boys who are too young to choose wisely their future course of life?

If this argument appears worth anything, I think that arrangements could without difficulty be made with the Universities for conducting such examinations and granting the required certificates.

V. Respecting the restriction of the office of schoolmaster to persons in holy orders.

Generally, one would wish to see all restrictions removed, unless they have been found necessary or beneficial; and I apprehend that the supply of able men to act as schoolmasters is not so great as to make any needless restriction unimportant.

In favour of the restriction it is urged (I believe) that holy orders offer a security for good conduct and character, and that it has been found of great benefit that a master should be able to give religious teaching to his boys, not only in school but from the pulpit.

There may be something in these reasons. But I think that a large proportion of schoolmasters will always seek to be admitted to holy orders, partly because their training and education will commonly lead them in this direction, and partly because ecclesiastical preferment offers the best chance of retiring from duties that after a time at least are sure to become irksome. Even if

a system of retiring pensions were adopted, the pensions would not be considerable enough to supersede this hope.

As to security for good character, this (I think) may be obtained as well from laymen at the present day as from clergymen. In former days it was probably not so. But if the appointments are placed in proper hands, it would be very unjust to lay much stress on this argument.

The advantage of being able to address boys from the pulpit is no doubt considerable, when the master is an earnest man and a good preacher. When he is so, he will probably have been ordained. But if not, he will have many means, by exhortation, by precept, by example, of influencing his boys. I will only add, that if this restriction had been in force at the grammar school at Manchester, that school would have lost the services of one of the best schoolmasters now existing.

ON some of the important questions proposed to the Royal Commissioners for inquiring into schools I have the honour, in obedience to your Lordship's request of the 28th May, to submit a statement of such opinions as I have been able clearly to form.

1. The best use of endowments. It may be taken for granted that where the founder has prescribed a particular use, which has not become obsolete or at variance with his benevolent intent, it should retain its authority as against any experimental application of the fund; and that when the question of some new disposal of it is fairly opened by failure of the old one, it should be determined, on the legal principle of cy-près, with an approximate regard to the original design. Supposing a choice to be left within these limits, the support of masters out of fixed salaries would appear to be the least eligible of all applications of income. Provided, however, the responsible head of a school has a predominant dependence on its known efficiency, a moderate basis of secured income is not necessarily, perhaps, an evil. Whilst inadequate as a temptation to idleness, it may sustain the master against the pressure of a popular opinion lower than his own; and as it gives him the power, may carry with it the obligation, to provide a sufficient number of under masters. By a similar mixed system it seems to me possible to save the independence and self-reliance of the poor scholar, without unconditionally withdrawing the opportunities of gratuitous education. So long as scholarships are awarded only on examination, and their continuance is made conditional on progress periodically tested, they may confer great benefits, without any countervailing abuse, in cases of orphanage, or of exceptional ability in straitened families.

They then become, in fact, "exhibitions to deserving boys ;" and might, at their later stage, assume the form of " University scholarships," enabling such boys to carry on their education till they take an academical degree.

The pensioning of retiring schoolmasters appears to me a very questionable application of school endowments; difficult to manage without relaxing the motive to exertion; superfluous where meritorious work has had its fair recompense; convenient only for getting rid of incompetency.

2. The management of endowments. For this purpose the great desideratum is to secure, through well-connected administrative links, adequate responsibility to a competent tribunal. The necessary judicial authority exists in the Charity Commissioners. But to bring cases before the Commissioners, a machinery of administrative scrutiny is required, the head of which would naturally be a minister of education, responsible to Parliament, and invested with the functions of the present chiefs of the Education Committee of Privy Council. The difficulty would be to give to this central authority suitable provincial ramifications; and I doubt the possibility of forming local boards sufficiently free from prejudice and party-habit to serve the State well in this matter. Nor, on the other hand, would a mere staff of inspectors sent from the head office suffice; for it is not the instruction merely, but the management of property, that requires supervision; and that by some one on the spot, who has power to call for accounts and be present at meetings of managers. The end would seem to be most simply gained by appointing, on behalf of the public interests, an official trustee, who might take his place with the ordinary trustees of a school at any of their meetings, and who might be appointed to as many of these trusts as he could fairly attend to. The county court judge is the kind of person most fit, perhaps, to be entrusted with such functions. Where his duties, recently increased by equity business, are too numerous, a second judge or assessor might divide the work with him. To be the medium of communication between the central authority and the particular trustees some officer is needed, who shall be locally resident without being locally connected, and who shall be able, with sufficient authority, to call for accounts and reports, and exercise or direct visitatorial functions.

3. How to get at neglected endowments. Perhaps the most effectual method would be to establish, in connexion with the Charity Commissioners' jurisdiction, a registration of trusts, with provincial branches; and to render registration by a certain date imperative, under suitable penalties of personal responsibility of trustees for every subsequent act. With such a provision, and an official trustee resident in each district, few endowments would escape discovery and supervision.

4. How to secure a supply of qualified masters. Wherever the condition exists that the master shall be a person in holy orders, and has no justification in the special character of the school, it would surely be desirable to substitute the condition of a Univer