Lord, when I look upon all that has been done, I ask, what is the result ? I must contend that, compared with the educational wants of the country, we have done next to nothing ; we have lighted a lanthorn which only makes us more sensible of the surrounding darkness : we have caused the waters to flow, but what we have effected is but as the jets of a fountain, and not the steady copious stream which is required.

I count for nothing the reports of societies. Without intending it, societies are from their constitution braggarts, and the committees are generally too anxious, as advocates, to make the best of their statements, to be very rigid in examining the details upon which they are founded. Reports are drawn up as advertisements; failures are judiciously passed over, and by that very circumstance the good accomplished is given in an exaggerated and therefore an untrue form. The Treasurer of the National Society has put forth a statement that in 1838 there were 6778 schools in union with the Society, affording accommodation for 587,911 scholars, and he

supposes that the schools have now increased, including all of every sort connected with the church, to 10,509, with 911,834 scholars.

The return on which he makes his calculation did not, I believe, attempt to ascertain how many

school buildings were secured for education by trust-deeds. Many of these schools may therefore have been held in hired rooms; and we know, in point of fact, that this is the case.

In rural parishes they are often merely dame schools, held in rented cottages or rooms. Neither does the statement show how many of these

children were in attendance only on evening schools or on Sunday schools. No evidence is given that sufficient care was taken to prevent a double enumeration of the children in attendance, both on evening schools and Sunday schools, or both on day schools and Sunday schools.

I have said enough to show that I think the results of the return, as published by the Treasurer of the National Society, desirous of making out the best case for his constituents, are of very little value ; and I have ascertained from him that there are in his possession no additional statistics. It is not however difficult to estimate the number of school buildings which have been erected with the aid of grants from the Government. The Parliamentary grants from 1833 to 1839 were 20,0001. a year; from 1839 to 1842 inclusive they were 30,0001. ; in 1843 and 1844

; they were 40,0001.; and in 1845 they were 75,000l. ; or from 1833 to 1846 the whole amount of money granted by the Government in aid of the building of schools was 395,0001.

The grants to individual schools appear from the minutes of the Committee of Council on Education to be 1201. on the average for each school building, if that average be extended over the whole period. The number of school buildings erected, or in the course of erection, in England and Wales, with aid from the Parliamentary grant since 1833 is therefore 3291, if the whole grants be applied to this object, but on this subject the minutes do not contain information. These schools would probably apply accommodation for 493,650 children, according to the

average ratio of the number of children to the grants of money observed in the minutes. During the same period a certain number of schools has been annually built without aid from Government. The latter schools are often private property, and may therefore, at any time, be resumed for private uses unconnected with education.

If we suppose (and this would be a liberal estimate) that 100 such private schools have been annually erected without Parliamentary aid since 1833, then 1300 elementary schools (the results of unaided private benevolence) must be added to 3291 schools built with public aid ; and the proportionate number of scholars accommodated since 1833 may perhaps be raised to 600,000 or 650,000. But this latter estimate must be regarded merely as an approximation to the truth.

There are no exact statistics as to what has been done in building schools secured by trust-deeds, before the interference of parliament in 1843.

Such are the facts of the case, so far as I am able to ascertain them from the printed documents; and the proportion between the present annual outlay and the wants of the country may be shown by one simple fact. The parliamentary grant of 1845 was 75,0001., being more than double the average annual grant since 1833.

If 625 schools may be annually built with the aid of this grant of 75,0001., accommodating 93,750 scholars, these numbers represent only one-fourth part of the annual permanent increase of the population, which proceeds at the rate of nearly 365,000 in the year.

To what has now been stated we must add the sad fact that in the majority of the schools erected by parliamentary assistance the salaries of the masters barely amount to the level of the wages of a skilful mechanic, even where they are best remunerated; in a much larger proportion of the schools, indeed, the salary of the master is permitted to fall below the wages of a labourer by task-work, and in a third class to those of a day-labourer. There is no provision whatever made for the payment of apprenticed pupil teachers, which, according to an estimate I shall presently lay before your Lordship, ought to amount to 623,4001., or, at the very lowest calculation, to 374,9851. Instead of apprenticed pupils and trained assistants, we commit the education of the people of England to the wisdom, experience, and discretion of unpaid instructors in the shape of monitors, whose average age is ten years. The fund for the provision of books and apparatus is, according to the reports of the inspectors, extremely low, and the supply meagre. In many instances the Bible, I regret to say, is desecrated by being used as a mere class book, because Bibles can be purchased cheaply ; nor can I here refrain from saying that it is discreditable to the National Society that it has not supplied us with a better class of school books, especially on religious subjects. The blame, perhaps, will be thrown

upon the Christian Knowledge Society; but wherever the blame rests, the censure is deserved, for it ought to be one of the first duties of an educational society to select educational works, or to have them composed.

Proceeding to the consideration of the quality of our education, I must begin by remarking that we possess some admirable schools: I have schools in my own parish which might challenge comparison with any schools anywhere established. If I were employed as an advocate of the present system of education, I might appeal to our bitterest opponent, and if he has common feelings of honesty, he would freely admit that we have done much more than, with our scanty resources, he could have supposed to be possible. But where are these schools to be found ? In localities inhabited by the wealthy; in districts where the clergy are not only active, but numerous and influential, and where a laity possessing leisure are willing to discharge gratuitously the office of teachers or at least of inspectors.

But go to our poorer districts, not to our towns, but to our manufacturing villages, and there you

will perceive how great our educational destitution really is. I am myself surrounded by a district containing two hundred and fifty thousand souls, exclusive of the large towns, in which there are thousands uneducated, or receiving an education worse than none; for where a number of children are gathered together, if some good is not going on, much of evil must ensue from the mere aggregation of numbers. Not one in a hundred attends any place of worship, but the usual practice is for the men to lie in bed on the Sunday morning, while the women cook the dinner, and for an adjournment in the evening to take place to a publichouse. I am sure, from what I have witnessed, that however low in principle, and consequently in prac