think in the largest number-the clergy do take a very careful interest in their pupilteachers and in their religious education. But between the close of the pupil-teacher's pupil-life and commencing the commencement of the teacher's life, there occur two very important years-I mean the years of his residence in the training college; and I think it of the first importance that at the training college the spiritual privileges and the spiritual care of the pupil-teacher should not be less than during the years of his apprenticeship. For example, if a pupil-teacher has been very carefully trained in the spiritual life, if to the age of eighteen he has had constant intercourse upon the affairs of his spiritual life with his pastor, it is most desirable that he should have a similar opportunity when he is in the training college. If, again, he has had an opportunity of early celebration of the holy communion once a week at home, and if there has been impressed upon him the importance of the self-denial of our daily communion-and I put it upon no other groundit is vastly important that at a training college we should have something more than a monthly communion, and that in the middle of the day. These points I give only by way of illustration. Now if my brethren of the clergy are satisfied that after their pupilteachers have left them for two years, with whom they have taken very great pains and care, if they find them return to them advanced in the spiritual life, then I have spoken in vain; but if they find some of the delicate bloom which they have so carefully cultivated in the spiritual life of their pupil-teachers is shaken off, then I think it is worth being noted at a Church Congress.

The REV. HENRY BOWLBY, M.A., Rector of St Philip's,

Birmingham.

I THINK I shall best use the short time which is allotted to me, if I say a very few words upon the subject of the Church and the School Boards. The first word that I should like to say to my brother school managers of existing denominational schools, is to reiterate the advice that has been already given, not to transfer their schools to the School Boards. There may be great difficulty in carrying on voluntary schools, and the terms of transfer offered at the present moment may seem to be tempting and advantageous, but there is no guarantee that those terms will be permanent, that they may not be modified and altered in a sense disadvantageous to the voluntary school, after a lapse of time, during which the whole school machinery has been laid aside, and it is almost impossible to re-establish it upon its old basis. The next word of advice that I would venture to give, is also a reiteration of what has been already said, do not assume a position of antagonism to existing School Boards: consider the good that they have already done. We have a very distinguished member of the London School Board present, who has already addressed you, Canon Barry, but he did not tell you, I believe, what has been put before the public lately, with reference to the beneficial operation of the London School Board, that they have filled 40,000 vacant places out of 50,000, in the voluntary schools by the agency of their summoning officer, and here I would bear testimony to the impartial way in which the summoning officer in Birmingham fulfils his duty, by filling the vacant places in voluntary schools, as well as in the Board Schools. He has not told you what Sir Charles Reed, the chairman of the London School Board, has told us recently, in his admirable summary, what a large proportion of the street arabs have been gathered into school, through the agency of the London School Board. When we look at this, and the other enormous benefits which have accrued to the cause of education from the action of School Boards, I think it would be improper on the part of the Church to assume any opposition of antagonism to them; rather ought we to utilise this most valuable instrument to endeavour, as far as possible, to take part in the election, and endeavour to secure the best and most efficient members of the Church, who understand the subject of education best, to represent us on the School Boards, and to work that system honestly and fairly. But what if certain School Boards should, as I have good reason to know to my sorrow

they do, refuse altogether that religious instruction should be imparted by their own paid school teachers? What if School Boards should refuse to carry out the 25th clause of the Education Act, and decline to pay the fees of indigent parents in denominational schools, thereby in the name of liberty restricting the religious liberty of the parents? What if they should set up free schools, or penny schools in the immediate neighbourhood of existing schools? I say then they must be treated as we would treat a patient in a fever. This cannot last, it is indefensible upon their own principles, and therefore it cannot endure. So in the School Board if you can, send the best representative even to these School Boards that you possibly can, and I believe that a time will come, when this which is a mére theoretical illustration of extreme visions, will pass away like the fever of a sickly patient. It is most unfortunate, that politics have been mixed up with the election of School Boards; it is most unfortunate that they have assumed to themselves a position which the Education Act never intended to give them; and that there has been a tendency in certain quarters to erect themselves into a separate education department, professing to control the education, both of the higher and middle classes; and this must be resisted.

The REV. EVAN DANIEL, M.A., Principal of the National Society's Training College, Battersea.

I PROPOSE addressing myself to the effects of recent legislation upon Church schools. They are in the position at the present moment, with regard to educational matters, of an invading army which has ceased to conquer. We find it as much as we can do to maintain our ground and hold our own. After planting schools through the length and breadth of the land, the Church of England suddenly finds her arm paralysed, and the provision of school accommodation has practically ceased, so far as the Church of England is concerned. Here and there some bold clergyman may still be found who is prepared to undertake the enormous difficulty of planting a new school or extending an old one, but practically the Church of England has ceased to provide additional school accommodation for the poor of this country. [No! No!]* I am speaking of facts which can be attested by the returns of the Government blue books, and I know perfectly well that I have abundant authority for saying that the provision for school accommodation has practically ceased. We are not only not adding new schools at the same rate as formerly, but we are losing our hold upon the schools we have. A recent Parliamentary return shows that 166 schools have been transferred to School Boards. Some 70 of those have been transferred in perpetuity, and the Church has lost hold of them entirely; large numbers have been transferred for a lease of seven years. Now this is a most serious matter. I cannot understand how any clergyman can recommend the transfer of a Church school to a School Board. The command, "Feed my lambs," was given by our Lord, not to a School Board, but to the Church of Christ, and I cannot understand how the Church of Christ can surrender its obligation in this respect. But we have not come to the end of the matter; there are large numbers of schools at this moment in a most critical condition, and the difficulties are increasing, so that we may look forward to a still larger transfer than has already taken place. We must not shut our eyes to this fact. There are numbers of schools at this moment in a most critical condition; their clergymen are carrying them on under the greatest possible difficulties, and unless some efforts are made to aid them, these schools will inevitably be transferred to the School Board. Now what can be done? Something must be done, and immediately. I believe that the Church, by making a great effort, may at least keep her hold upon the schools we have already. I believe by making a bold effort she may even do more, and go on providing additional school accommodation, but at present her arm is paralysed; it is not merely that the Government building grants are now withheld.

* The speaker desires to say, that in making this assertion, he had mainly in view those places where School Boards have been established.

They do not feel that, By the Act of 1870 a

it is that Church men do not feel any security in providing schools. having built a school, it will remain in the hands of the Church. school may now be transferred to a School Board, even though its founder be a man opposed to that transfer. With this sense of insecurity is it surprising that the Church of England does not go on building schools as she did formerly? It seems to me that the bishops might do much by intervening to prevent this transfer. I know of one case in whicb, when a clergyman contemplated a transfer of his school to a School Board, the bishop most kindly intervened, came down and preached sermons for the school, and raised in the offertories of a single day enough of money to place the school in a solvent position. There are two things we must insist upon, and must insist on them before the meeting of next Parliament. We must have a share in the School Board rate. It is a shame and a disgrace that Churchmen should have to maintain their own schools, and at the same time have to maintain the School Board schools. If we provide secular education as well as religious education, we ought at least to receive out of the school-rates a certain sum that would help to defray the expenses of the secular part of the instruction we give. This is a simple matter of justice and equity, which we as Churchmen must insist upon. There is one other point we must insist upon; we must have larger grants, proportioned to the increased cost of maintaining schools. We were promised them, but we have not had them, and I do hope we shall not be satisfied until we get them.

The REV. J. M. DU PORT, M.A., Vicar of Mattishall, Norfolk. I WOULD supplement the advice which has just been given to Church of England people not to surrender their voluntary schools by an example from history. Up to the last eight years the Nonconformists most nobly sustained their own chapels, while they continued to pay their church-rates. Will not the Church of England be noble enough to copy this example, and will not her members who have the misfortune to live under School Boards undertake to pay their school-rates, and at the same time not only continue to pay, but even increase, their subscriptions to the voluntary schools? The other point upon which I wish to say a few words is the instruction of our pupil-teachers. The fact that the pupil-teacher is engaged usually for five years necessarily requires that the subjects in which he is to be instructed should be divided into five periods, and that the matter contained in these periods should be distributed over those five years. Now, that may be done in two ways, and that which is most common is, I believe, open to many serious objections. The usual way is to divide the subject, be it the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the Prayer-Book, into five portions, and to teach the pupil-teachers of the first year one of these portions-we will suppose, the early part of the history, from the Creation to the death of Moses; then with the second year pupil-teachers to take the next period, from the death of Moses to the death of Joshua, and so on to the end, treating the New Testament and the Prayer-Book in exactly the same manner. To teach on this plan may be all very easy where you have only one pupil-teacher, but in those schools where you have three or more pupil-teachers, it is not possible, in the limited time which the exigencies of the case require, and with the limitation of the time which the parish priestand, I may say, that in my opinion the parish priest should take some part in the education himself has to spend in such an education,-it is not possible, I say, to give more than two hours a week to this part of the education of the pupil-teacher. Now, how is it possible if you give two hours a week (and if you can do so much as that, probably you would give one hour to the boys and another to the girls), to teach those subjects to three or more pupil-teachers of different standings? You divide your time into three parts; that allows twenty minutes to the Old Testament, twenty minutes to the New, and twenty minutes to the Prayer-Book; and each of these twenty minutes is to be divided into three or four parts, according to the number you have to teach; that leaves just five minutes for teaching the Old Testament, five minutes for the New, and five minutes for the Prayer

Book. The plan which has been adopted in the dioceses of Norwich and Exeter, and in one other diocese, I believe, seems to be much more practicable than that. The subjects are divided into five portions as usual, but all the pupil-teachers, whatever their standing, are taught the same portion at the same time, those of each higher year being carried a little more deeply in the subjects than those of the lower ones. That particular portion of the subject which forms the basis of the instruction of all the pupil-teachers is changed every year, and thus in the five years' course the pupil-teacher is instructed in the whole of the subject. The advantage of this method of arrangement is that all the pupil-teachers in a school, whatever their standing, can all be taught together; and the teaching of the fuller details to the pupil-teachers in the higher years only impresses the subject more forcibly on the younger ones, though these are not required to master the more advanced parts of the subject. I think that we, the clergy, might well spare the hour a week which, with some such arrangement as that sketched out, would be ample for the important work, and thus roll away the reproach that Canon Norris has most justly laid at our doors, that not 40 per cent. of the students that enter training colleges have ever had any religious instruction from their parish priest.

The REV. JAMES SWEET, M.A., Rural Dean, Rector of Barton in Fabis, near Nottingham.

I AM anxious to say, in the presence of this representative meeting of the Church, a word on behalf of an aggrieved class, to which the sympathies of Churchmen are more due, I think, than most of the previous speakers have realised; I mean that large class of educationalists, not merely in the Church of England, but to be found also amongst Roman Catholics and Methodists, who struggle to maintain voluntary schools for the sake of definite religious teaching, against all the difficulties which the Act of 1870 has raised. There is a system of what is called painless extinction going on at the present moment, the extent of which the National Society has ascertained and published. This grievance is not imaginary, but is very extensive, and is one upon which this great Congress ought to express itself. Yet until the last speaker but one addressed you, scarcely a word was said except in the way of hope, and I think very delusive hope, of the continuance of voluntary schools in spite of the weight under which they labour. Now I desire to state in a summary way what are the three grievances imposed by the Act of 1870 upon persons maintaining voluntary schools from religious motives side by side with ratesupported schools. I am not questioning for a moment the honourable intention of the promoters of that Act; I am speaking of the unforeseen issues and results. There is a threefold grievance, and it may be very simply stated. Let us suppose that we are in the position of working an extensive voluntary school, for God's sake and our fellow creatures' sake, side by side with a Board School, with which we may not wish in any undue way to interfere. This is our grievance; we are first required either to strike our flag and sacrifice our conscience, or to pay twice where others pay once. That has been already spoken of. In the next place, we are required to pay upon one of these two occasions for what our conscience disapproves; and as if that was not enough, we pay this to enable those who approve the system which we disapprove, to put our system under that painless extinction of which I spoke before. We pay for what we disapprove that it may ultimately destroy that which we do approve. But again, as if this were not sufficient to make a grievance which any but that long-suffering community, the Church of England, would long since have trumpeted before both the Houses of Parliament, if the Board School fail, to meet the requirements of the Government Inspector, the managers of the Board School can come to us to make up the deficiency, to make us bear a fresh burden to supply the lack of the Government grant which fails; but if our schools fail, where are we? We are ourselves compelled to make up that deficiency, without succour from other sources, and thus to maintain these three great grievances of a fiscal nature, which ought to be regarded by the

House of Commons and the House of Lords as a very ample reason for remedying the evil under which we suffer. I would therefore draw the attention of this Congress to a form of petition, which I hope may be within their reach to-morrow, to which one and all, who desire to promote education without any undue rivalry with other bodies, but with the liberty which Englishmen and Churchmen have a right to expect, will sign. It is a form of petition issued by the National Society. It is asking Parliament to provide some relief on the Education Act of 1870, on the ground that it presses unfairly upon subscribers to voluntary schools, especially on those who conscientiously disapprove of the religious teaching, or rather the absence of religious teaching, in the Board Schools. It asks Parliament to provide a remedy; it does not dictate the exact form; but had not the bell struck, I would have asked you to suggest the adoption of the Canadian form.

The REV. W. MAXWELL M. BEN-OLIEL.

THERE can be no question that the tendency of the age is to dissociate the secular from the spiritual. Rome herself has felt the power of the spirit of the age, and has had to give up the temporal power, and it will be a happy day for Rome, when he who sits in the Vatican will be content to wield the spiritual sceptre, and abandon all hopes o grasping again the temporal sceptre. We, too, in this country are feeling the effects of the spirit of the age. The Act of 1870 is a fact. No one, so far as I know, and I have been a member of a School Board, proposes to repeal that Act. We must, therefore, make the best of it as it is, unless we can indeed, as has been suggested by previous speakers, pass some amendment for the better working of its provisions. Now, what has that Act done? I consider that that Act has in principle taken away the education of the poor from the Church, and given it to the State. The Church has no option now but to adapt herself to this altered state of things. I am not aware that any one considers it the duty of the Church, primarily, to teach arithmetic and book-keeping. The mission of the Church is to teach men religion and morality so as to fit them to discharge their duties on earth, and to gain by and by an entrance into that better world, for which God has made us all. Now, why not let the State take charge of the secular education of its subjects, and let the Church confine herself to the spiritual, moral, and religious education of her children, not only on Sundays, but on week days. This is the only suggestion which I have time to bring before this great Congress. The School Boards, as a rule, make it a bye-law, that attendance at school should be limited to about five hours a day. It strikes me that the Church would do well if she were to catch the children on their way to school and take them to Church, first, for half-an-hour's instruction, and catch them again as they come from school in the evening, and give them another half-hour's instruction. Why not? Thank God we have many of our churches, I wish we could say all, open for daily service, and for private prayer. Why not take the children after matins of a morning, and give them half-an-bour's catechising, and another half-hour's catechising before evensong in the evening. I have no hesitation in saying that if the Church would only rise to her duty in this matter, and thus gather the lambs of Christ's flock into Christ's own fold, the Church, and there in God's House teach them God's truth; in sight of the font where they have been baptized,'in sight of the altar where one day they will receive the sacrament, and the body and blood of the incarnate God-there teach them religion, morality, and duty, then I think this Education Act will not have been altogether an unmixed evil.

The REV. C. F. LOWDER, M. A.

I WISH, if possible, to touch upon what has been said about the transfer of voluntary schools to School Boards, by putting before you this thought, that we must ignore School Boards as providing any religious education, if we take the standard which Mr Kennedy has so beautifully set before us this morning as the standard of religious educa