I think middle schools should not attempt more of a classical education than the study of Latin grammar and easy reading books. Some exhibitions might be provided from their endowments to higher schools, and even to the Universities for the more promising of the middle class, or of any of their pupils. The cost of education at endowed middle schools need not exceed 107. a year, and 301. including board, even in the dearer parts of the country. Numerous small exhibitions would enable the poorest of the class intended, to pay this amount, and in a way which would not impede private competition. All absolutely gratuitous education of the middle class on foundations should be abolished, and uniform fees in all cases made leviable. Masters should only be eligible, to the recognised and improved endowed middle schools, possessed of some testamur, either from the Universities or from training colleges. I think the latter the best. All such schools should be inspected, Either by Privy Council inspectors, who might have sufficient time, economised by the assistance of sub-examiners of primary schools; Or by the Universities in connexion with the AA. examinations, when the competitive examinations for exhibitions might also be conducted. No exhibitions should be allowable to uninspected schools. I am against all local or central boards, or one head in London, thinking they would attempt too rigid a system of uniformity, and would lose local spirit and adaptation. The kind of trustees into whose hands many of these endowments fall should be open to correction by the Charity Commissioners, whose powers should be extended beyond authorizing dismissal of masters, and made more operative. I think Mr. Estcourt's suggestion of official trustees in all cases a good one. C. B. ADDERLEY. RIGHT HON. T. SOTHERON ESTCOURT. 1 and 2. Power should be taken to introduce into the managing authority of every endowment some trustee, appointed by the board if endowments are grouped; By the Charity Commissioners if they are kept separate, or by the local justices. Also some central authority to which an appeal may be made by this trustee, if he is outvoted or thwarted by local jobbing. I believe such a provision being made, i.e., of an independent trustee, who must be consulted, and who has a central authority to back him, all the rest would be accomplished in time, for the real reason why small trusts are jobbed is, that it is no man's business to interfere. But in order to render this provision adequate to the emergency, it ought to be applied without exception in every endowment of a value under (say) 100l. a year. I agree with Mr. A. that the payment of the master irrespective of results, and gratuitous education of the child independent of proficiency, ought to be done away with; but you must have official inspection, in order to ascertain these two points. How will you defray the costs of this? 4. I am entirely opposed to normal training in Government schools or institutions as a means of supplying teachers. Open the trade, and the demand will ensure the supply required; but I should think well of a provision that no man should be capable of accepting the post of teacher who has not obtained a certificate of competency at a Government examination somewhere. 3. I should make out a list of these endowments said to be wasted, and postpone all action on the subject until after an improved system has been established, for any movements in this particular will be watched with great jealousy. 22nd June 1866. T. S. E. REV. JOSEPH ANGUS, D.D., President of the College, Regent's Park, and Examiner in the University of London. MY LORD, College, Regent's Park, N.W., WHEN I received your lordship's letter of the 28th May my impression was that I could easily supply information on the subjects which have been referred to the Schools Inquiry Commission. Further thought has not confirmed that impression: the field is so wide, I find it difficult to select ; nor can I be sure that the points on which I may touch have not already been sufficiently illustrated and enforced in the evidence laid before you. I will however state, though it must be somewhat at random, what seem to me first principles in relation to some of the questions on which you wish for opinions. 1.-Gratuitous education ought in no case to be given. True of National and British Schools, this principle seems specially applicable when the education is of a higher kind. If there are endowments, 'let them be used, first, to cheapen the education generally, and then, secondly, to found a large number of small scholarships (from 10l. to 201. a year), available for deserving boys, not for acceptance, but for acquisition. This is, I believe, the plan adopted in the City of London school; and it is obviously fitted to secure the best results with the least mischief. 2. As a matter of fairness, the master's income should vary, with his success, if by success be meant numbers and progress in learning taken together. I think it unwise to treat diminished income as of necessity a penalty on neglect, or increased income as a reward of greater conscientiousness: for the penalty would often as penalty be undeserved, and the most conscientious teacher would often object to receive extra pay for what he probably felt to be only his duty. But let it be understood that a salary represents work done-an average number of boys with average results in an examination, and then, in fairness, more will be paid as the numbers increase and as the success is greater; for there must have been more work, as with lessened numbers and diminished efficiency there must have been less. 3.-Exhibitions and scholarships available for boys on leaving school should be made available for other places besides the older Universities, and for other studies besides those that are pursued there. Within the last hundred years the conditions of education have been greatly changed: there are schools of mines, schools of art, lectures on law, medical schools, both provincial and metropolitan; there are also the Universities of London and Durham, Why might not a clever boy go to any of these, according to his aptitudes and preferences? Grammar schools would be much more popular if they were the common entrance to them all. 4.-The system adopted in all schools should be such as to encourage all classes to use them. From the use made of scholarships, and from the fact that the masters of endowed schools are practically required to be clergymen, there is a wide-spread feeling that none can use such schools but members of the Church of England. This feeling is not owing so much to illiberality on the part of inasters as to the system. The result I believe to be mischievous to the Church of England, to Dissent, and especially to the interests of education itself. The Commission would probably be surprised to learn how few of the educated Dissenters of England owe anything to the endowed schools of the country. 5.-I deem it important that the master should be a man of earnest religious feeling and living under the influence of the truths held in common by most of our religious parties. Such qualifications are (speaking generally) essential to secure public confidence and to complete the real efficiency of the master himself. Whether he be in fact a clergyman is not material either way, but it is most unwise to make it essential that he should be; such an arrangement, excluding by law all besides, implies that he is there inter alia to teach and defend what is peculiar to the English Church. It puts him, if he is a largehearted man, in a false position, and if he is disposed to narrowness it seems to justify his tendency. 6.-Higher education for girls is in England lamentably defective. Can nothing be done by the wise use of existing endowments to promote it? 7.-If from local or other circumstances any school cease to do the work for which it has been endowed the endowments should be used for other schools in the vicinity, or, if necessary, elsewhere. I have known this rule work well. 8.-There is great need in all quarters of efficient teachers for superior schools. Where the blame lies it would not be easy to say; but the fact is undoubted. Separate institutions for training such are not in my judgment the best means of supplying this need; but scholarships might be given as the reward of teaching ability, and masterships might be made open to all competent teachers. 9. From what I have seen of the Charity Commissioners I should recommend a somewhat similar board for purposes of education, to act promptly, authoritatively, and economically within certain well-defined principles. I know of several cases in which old educational endowments have been modified, so as to meet altered circumstances, in a month or two, and with no other expense than the cost of the advertisement of the new scheme. Under such a board with more than permissive powers, municipal bodies might with advantage be used to regulate local schools. I attach great importance to the combination of a central board and local management, and, if possible, elective management. Of course the master would be left supreme (though responsible for results) within his own province. Most of these suggestions I am prepared to sustain by argument and facts; but these I understand are not required. I may add that my remarks are intended to apply only to those endowments with which trustees or chancery or Parliament have the right to deal. I am, &c. JOSEPH ANGUS, D.D., President, College, Regent's Park, and Examiner in the University of London. The Lord Taunton, &c. &c. MOUNTAGUE BERNARD, Esq., Chichele Professor of International Law, Oxford. 1. a. Assistance given directly to children or their parents may, no doubt, be more profitably given in the form of exhibitions for merit than indiscriminately. Given as exhibitions, it finds out for itself fit recipients, if not the very fittest-those who work successfully for it will, as a rule, be those who both want it and will turn it to account; it stimulates, as well as assists, those who get it; it stimulates also those who do not get it; it tends to raise, continually and progressively, the standard of instruction in the school. Gratuitous instruction given indiscriminately not only misses these advantages, but has a positive tendency to keep the standard low. I do not enter (as I am only answering a question) into the qualifications which I might think necessary if I had to defend my opinion, or to apply it practically. The point is, whether the principle of awarding assistance by merit has sufficient claims to be adopted as the governing principle on the whole. I ani satisfied that it has, and that it is a principle of the utmost importance. May I add that the two propositions which in my view lie at the root of the whole matter are these,-first, that education depends mainly on the amount and direction of the mental effort elicited; and, secondly, that the education of a country or a class can only be effectually raised by raising, in that country or class, the sense of the value of education. : b. The question whether it is well to give fixed incomes to masters out of foundation funds is a wholly different one. It is clearly good that the schoolmaster's emolument should, in some degree, depend on his success as a teacher; and it is a positive evil that the income of a foundation should be so applied as to destroy this incentive to exertion. It does not follow that he should depend for his subsistence altogether on his success. That is a question of circumstances. If you want to establish, in a particular place, a teacher of a higher order than the profits of schooling in that place will purchase in the market, you must pay him something extra. This was the common state of things when most of the existing endowed schools were founded. It is the case generally with primary schools, as they now existday-schools, designed each for a small area, and for the poorest class. Schools of a superior class, situated in large towns or taking boarders, ought, I conceive, if well placed and well managed, to support their own staff without aid from foundation. funds and large schools have so many advantages over small ones that the multiplication of them is an object to be aimed at. Permanent and absolute appropriations of foundation funds to stipends seem to me unwise. The practical effect of them, in a great number of cases, has been to put small additional sums of money into the pockets of masters who were really paid, and paid enough, out of the profits of their respective schools; in many others, to keep up sinecure masterships, with empty schools, in places either not wanting schools or wanting schools of another kind. I am aware that the prosperity of schools is liable to great fluctuations; that even the best and largest schools complain much of want of means for improved and extended teaching; that a small foundation stipend has sometimes kept alive schools which have subsequently recovered and become useful; that such stipends are often prized by masters beyond their pecuniary value. But to the latter consideration I cannot attach much importance; the others are arguments rather for allowing to the governing body an ample discretion in the disposal of foundation revenues than for fixed permanent appropriations of them. 2. I can hardly say whether, supposing the schools themselves to remain as they are, economy and care in the management of the endowments would be better secured by entrusting them to a district board (say, of magistrates, or of magistrates and others -it is not a ratepayer's question), which would probably employ one solicitor, than by leaving them to separate bodies of trustees. Probably they would. Endowments in many places, I believe, have been lost by neglect, the blame of which it might be difficult to bring home to anybody. But I should anticipate that the schools will not be left as they are, but will, sooner or later, be made (by amalgamation of endowments or otherwise) to serve, at least in a great number of cases, larger areas than they |