fundamental laws of our society, and pleading the sanction of the most sacred duties-nobody has been at the pains to describe the condition to which all inspection must, in this country, be subject. That condition is, that its mode of operation is indirect. In England, the affairs of the Church, of the parish, of the city, of the school, and of the prison are administered by local bodies-by the clergy, by the aristocracy, or by those assemblages of free citizens which enjoy collectively a power equivalent to the personal privileges of the priest or the noble. To overturn this state of things by the introduction of a general system of centralization, would be to breed a revolution, to impair our public rights, and to destroy our national character. But whilst we hold this doctrine, no one will suppose that we mean to assert that the State has no duty and no right to see that the public interests are faithfully provided for. On the contrary, the State is bound to see that the trust of self-government is faithfully discharged. It is bound, not to do these things, but to see that they are done. It is bound to enlighten the twilight of local proceedings by the broad day-beams of public opinion; to counsel, to direct, to visit, and, as far as possible, to bring the administration of the country to a uniform system by the influence of public justice and political truth. In this sense, the State, in the person of the sovereign, or the sovereign's representatives, does, in fact, inspect almost all the more important institutions of the kingdom. When this kind of inspection is revived or asserted in some point on which it had fallen into desuetude, a clamour is invariably raised as if the whole exercise of local rights was usurped. If such were really the case, the proceeding would be unconstitutional, and the measure would defeat itself. Inspection, which is necessarily occasional, not constant, can afford no substitute for the incessant vigilance of those to whose hands our administrative system confides the actual performance of complicated and numerous public duties; but it is indispensable to secure and to reward their proper fulfilment. Its direct action would be destruction its indirect influence is necessary to regulate and guide the machinery of the country.

Thus the Crown is ex-officio Visitor of various collegiate

or commercial schools, will be afforded; and the present central schools, in the Sanctuary, or other suitable institutions in London, will be organized and adapted for the practical exercise of teaching."— Nat. Soc. Rep. 1839. P. 11.

The primary outlay of this establishment is estimated at not less than 20,000l., and the gross annual expenditure at an amount of about 3000l. The sooner it is founded the better: we have only to regret that the ignorance of the multitude, misdirected by the incredible assertions of jealous sectaries, should have succeeded in postponing the foundation of other training schools under the management and responsibility of the State, as was projected by men not less pious or able than the committee of the National Society-by men, too, who were prepared to extend the benefits of such training schools to the various sects whose errors and ignorances (as we think them) place them as foremost claimants for education and improvement. For we cannot but admit, that education, though vested in the Church and promoted by her, does not end with her; and that when the law made dissenters and Roman Catholics citizens of Great Britain, by the abolition of all tests of exclusion, it admitted within the theory of the constitution, and placed under the protection of the State, those institutions of the land by which all citizens are prepared for the performance of their duties. The attack, however, which was directed against the Government Normal School on the first appearance of the Minute of Council of the 10th of April, was transferred with equal vehemence to the slender remnant of Government interference which survived the abandonment of the former plan. The question of inspection then became the issue by which the matter was to be tried. Here, too, the former course of misrepresentation was adopted: and it was assumed, first, that the most improper persons would be chosen to perform this delicate and arduous duty; and, secondly, that their instructions would be of a nature to put them in flagrant hostility with local and clerical authorities— in other words, to make the accomplishment of their task wholly impossible.

It appears to us, that in the discussion which has arisen on this point-a discussion involving the high distinctions and

fundamental laws of our society, and pleading the sanction of the most sacred duties-nobody has been at the pains to describe the condition to which all inspection must, in this country, be subject. That condition is, that its mode of operation is indirect. In England, the affairs of the Church, of the parish, of the city, of the school, and of the prison are administered by local bodies-by the clergy, by the aristocracy, or by those assemblages of free citizens which enjoy collectively a power equivalent to the personal privileges of the priest or the noble. To overturn this state of things by the introduction of a general system of centralization, would be to breed a revolution, to impair our public rights, and to destroy our national character. But whilst we hold this doctrine, no one will suppose that we mean to assert that the State has no duty and no right to see that the public interests are faithfully provided for. On the contrary, the State is bound to see that the trust of self-government is faithfully discharged. It is bound, not to do these things, but to see that they are done. It is bound to enlighten the twilight of local proceedings by the broad day-beams of public opinion; to counsel, to direct, to visit, and, as far as possible, to bring the administration of the country to a uniform system by the influence of public justice and political truth. In this sense, the State, in the person of the sovereign, or the sovereign's representatives, does, in fact, inspect almost all the more important institutions of the kingdom. When this kind of inspection is revived or asserted in some point on which it had fallen into desuetude, a clamour is invariably raised as if the whole exercise of local rights was usurped. If such were really the case, the proceeding would be unconstitutional, and the measure would defeat itself. Inspection, which is necessarily occasional, not constant, can afford no substitute for the incessant vigilance of those to whose hands our administrative system. confides the actual performance of complicated and numerous public duties; but it is indispensable to secure and to reward their proper fulfilment. Its direct action would be destruction its indirect influence is necessary to regulate and guide the machinery of the country.

Thus the Crown is ex-officio Visitor of various collegiate

but the necessity of submitting their trust to this inspection. In like manner, the inspectors of prisons have, by their admirable reports, exposed the evil and advanced the good in the system of our jails-not by depriving countymagistrates of their authority, but by affording them aid and advice, which have been rejected by none but the ignorant magistrates of the city of London, who still disgrace the metropolis and the kingdom by prisons which bear witness to the abuse of their powers of self-government. But if it be objected, that these instances are borrowed from the history of modern innovation, we have another case in store, to which that remark will not apply. The Crown, when it issues its congé d'élire to the chapter of an episcopal see, recommends, or, in other words, commands that body to name A. B. to the episcopal throne. The Crown, acting as inspector of the chapter, procures the nomination of an inspector of the whole diocese, to whose care the conduct of the gravest spiritual matters is entrusted. We do not contend for powers so extensive as these; but can it be argued in the teeth of these precedents, that the Crown, which can visit a college or name at pleasure an inspector (TiσKOTOS) of the Church itself, cannot constitutionally attach the condition of inspection to schools now built with the public money voted to the Crown for that purpose?

But if there be erroneous opinions afloat on the origin and nature of inspection, those which are entertained by the National Society as to its object are not less unfounded and still more prejudicial. In Mr. Sinclair's letter to Dr. Kay, the following objections are urged :

With respect to the object of such inspection, they desire to remark, that if secular instruction to the exclusion of religious be made the subject of investigation by a person acting under royal authority, and of official reports made by him to the legislature, the former will undoubtedly be encouraged to the disparagement of the latter. The master will almost unavoidably direct his chief attention to that department in which his scholars by a display of their proficiency will bring him credit with the government, and will neglect the other, which the government passes over without notice. He will be more anxious to see his pupils exhibit their attainments in geography, arithmetic, or history, than to instil into their minds, and impress upon their hearts, that less showy but more valuable

secondary and subservient; and by which alone they can be trained to moral duty here, or prepared for happiness hereafter. The same pernicious prejudice will be apt to arise in the minds of parents, and still more of children, who will naturally undervalue lessons to which no regard is paid on the day of examination."-Correspondence of the Committee of Council and the National Society.

In this and all the other communications of the National Society on the subject, inspection is treated as only another term for a periodical examination of the children, to determine their proficiency in certain branches of learning. Examinations of this kind may be of use as far as they furnish a means of appreciating the character of the management and the master. But it is not as a mere class-examiner that the inspector will be most useful. His influence upon the children must necessarily be extremely slight and transient. The presence of a stranger in authority may embarrass them; and the preparation for set-examinations is rather to be deprecated than recommended. The business of an inspector is far less with the scholars than with the master-far less, again, with the master than with those whom the master serves :-the clergyman of the parish, who is the appropriate visitor of the school, or the committee, in whom the administrative function is vested. Unless he secure the co-operation of those agents, whose duty and position give them a paramount claim to the whole direct management of the school, the mission of the inspector is vain. So far, then, from interdicting the clergy from the superintendence of schools, so far from shutting the door of a parish-school in the face of the parish-priest (we believe that even the Duke of Wellington condescended to use this gratuitous fiction), the inspector would avail himself of the only proper or permanent means of improving a school, by the instrumentality of those who founded it and who manage it, leaving, of course, to them a veto on his suggestions, subject to no restraint but that of example, public opinion, argument and common sense. Probably the Government do not intend to enforce a harsher mode of inspection than what is defined in the following sentence from the Report of the Diocesan Board of Exeter :

"Your Committee, in mentioning inspection among the proposed terms