and strengthened by the addition of certain members nominated by County Councils, the problem of unification would be solved. much more simply than by so doubtful an expedient as the complete transfer of the powers of our present educational authorities to a non-educational body already overworked. In a former article in this Review (February 1901) it was urged that 'the ideal School Board of the future with a wider area and larger responsibilities should, though not concerning itself with nonlocal institutions, such as Eton and Harrow, be so constituted as to represent the best attainable experience and the fullest knowledge of the educational wants of each district.' The efforts of statesmen and of the public are now needed in the attainment of this ideal. Meanwhile it is desirable to take into consideration a few simple statistical facts respecting the gradual growth and present position of the School Boards of England and Wales. In the year of the Education Act (1870) the only schools of which the Education Department had any cognisance were voluntary schools, and the number of scholars returned as in attendance was 1,152,389. During the thirty succeeding years the number of scholars in these schools rose steadily though not rapidly, and in 1900 to 2,486,597, the annual number having been practically stationary during the last eight years. In the course of the same period the returns show that from 1872, when the number in attendance in Board schools was 8,726, there has been a large increase in each successive year, and that in 1900 it amounted to 2,201,849. The total number of voluntary or now Board schools in England and Wales is 14,354, of which 11,772 are connected with the National Society or with the Church of England, 1,045 are Roman Catholic, 458 Wesleyan, and 1,079 are British and undenominational, while 5,728 are Board schools. The general inference from these figures is that in Board schools alone has there been considerable growth, somewhat more than in proportion to the growth of population, but that the voluntary schools still provide a full half of the accommodation needed for the children of school age.

Other inferences respecting the meaning of these figures as an index of the preferences of the parents should be deduced with great caution. Over a large part of the country, and in rural districts generally, the schools are small; there is often only one school within the reach of the children's homes, and that is almost always a Church school. There is no room for the exercise of choice. If we take the statistics of administrative counties alone, excluding London and the county boroughs, the children in voluntary schools number 1,718,675, and those in Board schools 1,031,559. But if we take London and the county boroughs alone, with a total population of 11,851,435, the figures are reversed; for there the voluntary schools show an attendance of 767,922, and the

Board schools 1,169,490. It would appear from these figures that in towns in which for the most part there is a choice open to parents the Board schools are more in favour, since the returns show a smaller proportion of vacant places in these than in the voluntary schools. This conclusion may be still further verified by reference to several of the largest towns:

In Leeds last year's returns show an attendance of 48,118 in 61 Board schools, 16,331 in 38 Church of England schools, and 4,953 in 10 Roman Catholic schools.

In Liverpool, in which there is an exceptionally large Roman Catholic population, there are 62 Church of England schools with 40,708 school places, 35 Roman Catholic schools with 31,296, 6 Wesleyan schools with 4,095, 4' British' with 2,223 school places, and 48 Board schools with accommodation for 44,644 scholars.

In Sheffield the average attendance in National or Church of England schools last year was 14,564, in Wesleyan schools 2,143, in Roman Catholic schools 2,868, and in the Board schools 37,908.

In Manchester the Board schools show an average attendance of 39,938, the Church of England schools of 27,592, the Roman Catholic schools of 13,134, British and undenominational schools 3,395, and Wesleyan 2,455.

In Birmingham the average attendance in the Board schools is 51,133, and in all the non-Board schools put together it is 24,272.

There is no exact uniformity in the shape in which the several Boards furnish their annual statistics; but it is reported that in all these and most other districts in which Board schools exist all the more recent and the prospective accommodation has been, or will be, provided by the Boards.

The particulars respecting London are equally striking. In 1870, when the Education Act came into operation, 173,406 scholars were registered in voluntary schools in the whole metropolitan area. The number rose a little in subsequent years, and reached the highest point in 1876. The accommodation in these schools is now estimated at 221,121, but the average attendance (173,937) was curiously the same in 1900 as in 1871. Meanwhile the provision made by the School Board for London has grown rapidly, and now amounts to 552,869, in 487 separate establishments, each in three departments (boys, girls, and infants, 1,408 departments in all), with an average attendance of 446,866. Out of a total of 620,803 in attendance at all the public elementary schools of the metropolis, nearly three-fourths are being instructed in the schools of the London School Board.

It is a legitimate inference from these facts that the spirit of statesmanlike compromise which inspired Mr. Forster and secured the adhesion of Parliament in 1870 still survives, and that the cooperation of the State with religious bodies still furnishes the key to much of the educational policy of the nation. Though the propor

tion of children instructed under the care of School Boards increases every year, the vitality of schools with a definite religious character is well sustained. The fact that after thirty years Boards have not superseded voluntary effort, and that statesmen of both parties have, when in charge of the Education Office, given full credit and assistance to voluntary schools, shows at least the political expediency of dealing generously with the churches which are willing to give money and personal service in order that they may take a share in the business of popular education. Voluntary subscriptions both from Church of England and Roman Catholic managers show little signs of diminution, although they can hardly be expected to keep pace with the growth of the population. The Board of Education, in the Report for 1900, express satisfaction that they are able to record that in many Associations the amount of voluntary contributions is higher than it was before the passing of the Act.' In Church of England schools alone the subscriptions rose from 603,241l. in the year 1899 to 624,156l. in 1900.

It is no less in deference to the opinions of a large body of the supporters of the present Government than in harmony with the genius and traditions of the English people and with the spirit of compromise which has in the main controlled the educational policy of the State from the first, that the voluntary schools should continue to be regarded as an integral part of our provision for national education, and should receive still more liberal aid and recognition from the State. The supporters of those schools are justified in asking for this. It has been proposed that they should, when certified as thoroughly efficient, become entitled to receive assistance from the local rates as well as from the Imperial grant, on two conditions: (1) that the subsidy thus provided should not exceed the amount of the voluntary subscriptions contributed by the managers, and (2) that the ratepayers should be entitled to nominate a number of persons, not exceeding one-third, as members of the local committee of management to each school so aided. This arrangement would have the effect of giving substantial relief to voluntary subscribers and enabling them to keep their schools up to a high standard. And it would bring the denominational schools into closer touch with the general wants of the district, would increase the public confidence in their management, and would help to make the schools more 'National' in character as well as in name. Few more serious mistakes have ever been made by some of those in high places who have assumed that the ratepayer was the natural enemy of the Church, that he should be kept at arm's length by her friends, and that any association with him would be fatal to her interests. If this assumption were true it would be a very humiliating admission to make on the part of a national Church. Happily however it is not true. The British ratepayer might become a very helpful ally.

He is after all a person of average fairness and common sense; and except in a very few cases, in which a denominational school is conducted in an intolerant and aggressive spirit, he is almost sure, if the opportunity be afforded him, to nominate, as his representatives on the managing body of a really good school, persons belonging to the same communion as the other managers. There is every reason to hope also that if an arrangement for such representation were offered it would be cordially accepted by the best friends of Church, Catholic, and Wesleyan schools.

As to the proposal occasionally put forth in Episcopal charges, Roman and Anglican alike, as well as in Church newspapers, that all schools, whether denominational or not, should be sustained wholly by public funds on the same conditions as apply to the schools of a Board, while the management of voluntary schools remains in the present hands, it is sufficient to state it to show that it is utterly indefensible. The conditions are not and cannot be the same. If voluntary subscribers ask to be relieved by ratepayers of the duty of maintaining the schools, they must also expect to be relieved of the responsibility of managing them. Payment and control must go together. That a small body of local managers, for the most part self-appointed, should, on the sole ground that their predecessors left to their care a building which was once designated a Church school and which is perhaps nearly worn out and unsuited to modern requirements, be enabled to use for all future time public funds for the furtherance of the interests of their own denomination, although they neither contribute anything to the school revenue nor represent contributors, is a proposal which is, to say the least, astonishing, and which would not be listened to by any Government in Europe. The present Archbishop of Canterbury has wisely reminded his clergy more than once that the continuance of voluntary subscriptions is the necessary condition of the maintenance of denominational schools. It is, in fact, the only guarantee for the reality of a demand for such schools, and the only justification of their existence.

But while it is both wise and expedient to utilise and encourage voluntary effort, and to give all really efficient denominational schools increased public grants on certain conditions, a retrospect of the past shows us plainly that such schools are becoming and are likely to become less and less relatively important, and that it is after all on the School Boards that the future destiny of English primary education mainly rests. Even as at present constituted, it is to them the nation owes all the best educational enterprise of the last few years, the best school buildings and equipment, the most rational and effective experiments in the direction of good organisation and better teaching. In particular it is wholly to their initiative that we owe the higher Board schools, and the continuation and evening schools, which are so popular in our great industrial centres, VOL. LI-No. 299

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and which have done so much to invigorate the life and to increase the power and resources of the people. And it is rather to measures which will improve the constitution of the Boards and invest them with new powers and responsibilities, than to a revolution that would destroy them, that the best friends of education look for the adaptation of our machinery to the changing circumstances and the intellectual and social advancement of the nation in the coming century.

Yet it cannot be denied that for the moment a reaction has set in; the public are urged to look to County Councils as rivals which, in the whirligig of time, may have a chance of coming uppermost and trying their hands at a fresh effort to do the work hitherto done by the Boards. There are two classes of persons who may be safely relied on to welcome and to support any measure which promises to discredit and to weaken the School Boards and to place their work under new checks and restrictions: (1) there are those who hate the progress of education altogether, who believe that it has gone too far, and that any further advance in the intellectual ambition of the lower classes' will imperil the social order, and ought therefore to be resisted; and (2) there are those who wish to make our educational system more denominational than it is, and who see in any possible repeal of the Act of 1870 a chance for introducing the clergy and creeds and catechisms into the common schools. It is not to be assumed that the statesmen now engaged in determining the educational policy of the future belong to either of these classes. Yet they can hardly be unaware that both classes are to be found among their own supporters and are able to command votes. They are therefore under a strong temptation to secure these votes if possible. But the truth is that either party would prove in the end to be a most dangerous ally to any Ministry which desired to secure the honour of placing our educational system upon an efficient, an equitable, and an enduring basis.

As to the former of these two parties, its real reasons are only half-avowed. But it comprehends a large number of country gentlemen and others who sincerely think that popular education does more harm than good, and that the discussion of it is a public nuisance. They are probably gratified to learn that, partly in consequence of the recent judicial decision there has been in the whole country a diminution during 1901 of upwards of twenty thousand in the number of evening scholars. If this result has been brought about even by the incomplete legislation of last year and its promised sequelae, what may not be hoped from further measures such as may bring the educational enthusiasm of the Boards under new restraints?

As to the second of these classes, their aim, to do them justice, is not to discourage education, but to bring it under ecclesiastical control. Their dislike is not so much to School Boards as to Board