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"He was very frugal, and was often sneered at as a niggard, but he said to himself 'throwing words is not so bad as throwing stones, and calumny must have vent on some one.'

"He had a son named Velt, who became very clever at learning. In the 'head school' he was in the head class. He was apprenticed to his father for four years, and in all his spare hours attended school as before. Here he generally studied the chemistry of metals, earths, acids, and salts, which was of great service to him in his trade.

"His father was employed by the government, and his son's knowledge was very beneficial to him in completing his work. He said his son had learnt useful things, not the dead languages, nor the useless histories of the walls and fortifications of ancient nations, just as though he was to live backwards. He rejoiced that he had acquired a knowledge of the practical arts and sciences in the schools he had attended.

“When Velt was twenty years old he travelled for improvement. Before he set off his father said to him, 'learn the why and wherefore of everything, study modern facts, avoid ancient novelties, shun public-houses, ask much, and be ignorant that you may learn.'

"He spent five years travelling and working in Nurenberg, Munich, London, and Paris, and in the latter his employer finding him industrious and faithful, made him his partner.

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"In the course of time he became opulent, and then returned to his native place, but not to be idle. He established the first foundry there, and an industrial school for the training of artiThis was very successful, yet the inactive said it was the pride of modern ideas, whilst the canters said it was the worship of learning, and the forerunner of the downfall of religion. These two classes never did love a clear understanding, a home-spun talent, nor the conjoint industry of the brain and the fingers."

"Well," said the worm-doctor on the conclusion of the narration, "what has this tale to do with us?"

"Everything," said the Swiss; "if you had been trained like Velt you would have been a useful member of society instead of

a vendor of semi-poisons; if you, (addressing the match-maker) had been so taught, you would very likely have been a wholesale maker of lucifer matches instead of eking out a miserable, halfstarved life by hawking. Had you," said he to the fork-maker, "been so educated, you would have been a large wire-work manufacturer; and if you will narrowly look at the state of English society, you will find that it is from the very imperfect education of the people that nine-tenths of the vagrancy, the crime, the pauperism, and the dissoluteness, which curses your otherwise happy land, arises. And more than that, the very severe competition amongst small traders, who are generally an uneducated class, and the universal system of trade peculation and worship of money arise from the same causes."

"I believe," said the worm-doctor, "you are correct, in all you have said, but as to peculation you must not say it belongs to the ignorant alone; look at the recent exposure of the bishops' overplus incomes; the deans' and chapters' robbery of their schoolboys, and of all the under-officials, from the minor canon down to the sexton; and the pluralities, and sales of livings. Look, too, at the government offices, the fees of lawyers, the high charges of the medical profession, the avariciousness of the heads of Colleges and Halls, and the fact of the large revenues belonging to many free grammar schools being handed over to clerical occupiers, instead of being devoted to the enlarged benefit of the sons of the parishioners. You must not, I say, assert that peculation belongs to the middle and working classes alone, and I believe that had we been better educated, and had the Press been free, these enormities would never have been committed, or if they had, they would have been nipped in the bud and cured."

"When your government encourages education on a large scale," said the Swiss, "and when boys and girls are kept to school until they reach fourteen years of age, and are taught what is practically useful, you will find that when they grow up you will have quite an improved age and generation." There was no reply to this; the hour was late, and the itinerant traders and tramps of the lodging-house went to their beds.

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

This story as told by the Swiss tramp is a condensation to some extent of a production by Zschokke, called "Labour stands on golden feet," wherein is shown, in narrative, the excellency of the Swiss system of education.

The Report too, of Mr. Matthew Arnold, a Government Education Assistant Commissioner, on the state of secondary education in Switzerland, and other continental countries (Vol. 6, Schools Inquiry Commission, published in 1868, and presented to both houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty,) is well worth perusing; the price of this vol. is only 2s. 9d. It contains 283 pages, devoted to the continental schools alone; as also a Report on the state of education in Scotland, by Mr. D. R. Fearon, embracing 234 pages. It would be very beneficial in all respects if the Government would order an issue of these Reports to be published in 1d. numbers weekly.

The following instance, taken from Mr. Arnold's Report, shows how important the education of the children is looked upon by Swiss parents :"Winterthur is, I think, for its school establishments the most remarkable place in Europe. It is the second town for importance in Canton Zurich, and thrives by its manufacture of muslins; but it has not more than 8,000 inhabitants. The schools of this small place recall the municipal palaces of Flanders and Italy. They are the objects of first importance in the town, and would be admirable anywhere; besides the elementary schools there is a middle school, an industrial school, and a gymnasium, all built within the last 25 years and which have cost the town not less than £100,000. I found about 80 scholars in the gymnasium, two-thirds of them Winterthur boys; the rest come from a distance, and board under regulations similar to those in Prussia, with the masters or with families in the town. I heard a lesson in Livy in the class which with us would have been the fifth form; the performance was quite as good as that which I remember in the fifth form of Winchester or Rugby. In the Industrial School I found about 200 scholars; in the upper division of this there is the same grouping of scholars for different lines which obtains at Zurich. The teaching is said by competent judges to be particularly well organized in these higher real schools of Switzerland. The Winterthur higher

schools, though not cantonal schools, have, and deservedly, an exceptional position; they are under the inspection of a cantonal commission, and in immediate relation with the Education Council. These Winterthur burghers seek competent advice with as much zeal as in England a batch of local people show in resisting it. Nor is it to get money that they have a recourse

to the State; the grant from the state to these Winterthur establishments is £80 a year, and the town of Winterthur itself spends £3,200 a year on them. This sum is supplied from the communal property, and it is to be observed that generally in a Swiss parish it is the commune that is the great proprietor, as in England it is the squire. The sons of Winterthur burghers have free schooling; others pay much the same rates as at Zurich. As at Zurich, too, half of the school fees is divided among the teachers; the other half goes to the school-chest.

The teachers in Canton Zurich form a sort of guild, and exercise considerable influence. In the higher schools they form Convente and Specialconvente, the Convente being for each school, the Specialconvente for each division, upper or lower, of each school. They are in fact masters' meetings, as at Rugby we used to call them; but in Switzerland they have a legal status and regularly report to the Commissions of Superintendence. They are said to be of great service in keeping the school work properly graduated and in maintaining uniformity of standard. New rules they can only make for points which the school law and the regulations of the Education Council have not already settled, but changes cannot be introduced without their opinion being taken upon them. In the same way, the teachers of the primary and secondary schools of each district, form a school chapter, which meets four times a year, forms sections for the discussion of any special matters in which schools and teachers are interested, reports to the Education Council, and has a right to be heard before any change in the work-plan or in regulations of the popular schools are adopted. These chapters, again, unite with the whole body of teachers of the higher schools of the canton to form a School Synod, having for its business the promotion of education in the canton, and to convey the wishes and proposals of the teaching body to the authorities. This Synod meets once a year, its business and method of proceeding being always prepared beforehand by a Pro-Synod."

CHAPTER XVI.

""Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing, or in judging ill :

But of the two, less dang'rous is th' offence,

To tire our patience, than mislead our sense."—POPE.

As a set off to the troubles entailed upon me by being elected churchwarden and guardian, there were many new and gratifyassociations springing up with persons in the neighbourhood, to whom, before the school question arose, I was personally unknown.

One of the most pleasant instances of this was when I was invited to the Wolverley flower show and dinner, at which I met with many old, and became acquainted with many new friends. The dinner was held at the Queen's Head, Mr. Saunders, the clerk to our Board of Guardians being chairman.

On this occasion the Kidderminster school reformation was the chief theme of conversation, and the great contrast between that and the Free Schools at Wolverley was much descanted upon. In the latter not a penny was charged for education nor for books, slates, or anything else, in either boys, girls, or infants' schools, and the masters were not allowed to take any boarders.

As the state of these schools at that date is shown in my "History of the Free Schools of Worcestershire" I need not dwell upon it, but as that volume does not contain a copy of the Founder's Deed, I think it well to say here that I shall insert it in the appendix at the end of this Work.

It will be seen therein how singularly wise and foreseeing the Founder was, in ordering that the vicar of the parish should "in no wise" be the school-master, and that should the school-master ever become vicar, that he should thereupon be discharged from

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