The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-01-31 00:00:00

LORD DERBY AT LIVERPOOL.

The annual distribution of the scholarships, prizes, and
good-attendance certificates granted by the Liverpool
Council of Education to the pupils of the public elemen-
tary schools of that town was made on Monday in the small
concert-room, St. George's-hail, by the Earl ot Derby. The
Mayor, Alderman Bernard Hall, presided, and there was a
large and influential attendance. Before distributing the
awards,

Lord Derby, who was warmly received, said,—l
could not refuse the invitation lately received from the
Liverpool Educational Council to distribute the
scholarships and prizes awarded by them for the work
of
rl a
as t
uy
seeafru, b
public
cuabul wp
uhrepno
seen, e 'a
and
cdo .wo pheerna tni oon
pi sr
easaskuer de
of private business stands in the way, it is un-
gracious to decline such assistance, however little it
may be worth. We have all got to justify our
i existence, or, n homelier words, to "pay for our keep"
in some shape; and, though I am not sure that
making speeches about education is the most useful
kind of employment that a man can be put to just
now, still, 80 far as I am concerned, it is the first that
comes to hand, and therefore I have had great ileasure
in coming here. (Cneers.) I need not tell you the
nature of the duty which the Liverpool Council of
E!tication performs. It has been only five years in
existence, but it received last year above £l,BOO in
donations and subscriptions; it has a scholarship
trust fund amounting to £4,000, and it has a list of
prizes which is already considerable, though small,
as, we hope, in proportion to what it will be hereafter.
(Hear, bear.) It has permanently founded eight
scholarships, at a cost of £5OO each, and I notice the
fact because I hope to see the number at these scholar-
ships largely extended. A good many people are
billeted with what a Frenchman called In manic de lig
perpautit6, who wish to be able to sayi non omnis
moriar, who desire to live in something they have
done when they themselves have, in the ancient
phrase, gone over to the majority. Now, it is not
given to many persons to play a part in history, or to
write a book which, as Gibbon said of his great historical
work, will be "read and abused a hundred years hence,"
or even to connect their names with some large
national foundation, such as that of Mr. Peabody in
London and Sir William Brown in this city. But there
is a kind of local immortality which any one may
secure who has a thousand pounds and the will to
spend it. Let him found a scholarship, and he may
have the assurance that his money will not be wasted,
that it will not be jobbed, that it will be a help to
deserving students in distant timea„ and that his
disposition is as little likely to be beteg/bee-ad with as
any arrangement which in these days it would be
possible to make. His name will be handed down to
posterity, and some people at least will think kindly
of him perhaps two or three hundred years hence.
(Hear, hear.) You may like to know what is the
exact state of the case at present, as regards these
scholarships. Of the seven which I am about to announce
presently, five are permanently endowed; the remaining
two are temporarily provided for. All these are held
for three years. Next year there will be seven more
to give away, and I am authorised by those who are
best able to judge to say that they confidently hope
and expect that before the time comes for their distri-
bution these seven will also be endowed by similar
gifts. But, returning to what is immediately before
us, I wish to express my conviction of the good work
which this local Council of Education is doing. (Hear,
hear.) There are many things in regard to elementary
schools which in a great city like this ought to be
done, and which a School Board in its official capa-
city cannot do. Official machinery must always have
something stiff and hard in its working, and you
want it in these matters supplemented by indi-
vidual care and by personal encouragement.
Honours and rewards conferred on the teachers
of the most succeteful schools, as well as on the
children in those schools ; prizes and certificates of
merit to pupil teachers; and, speaking generally, the
public recognition by the community of Liverpool of
all useful services rendered to the cause of education
in Liverpool—these are not things which can be done
by official authority or paid for out of the rates, but
they are things which ought to be done nevertheless.
(Hear.) I see that in regard of average attendance
there were at the end of 1874 less than 40,000 children
attending public elementary schools. At the end of
1879 they had increased to nearly 56,000, being in the
proportion of seven to five, or 140 now as compared
to 100 five years ago. That is satisfactory as far as it
goes, and, though I do hear it whispered that not all
the Liverpool children who might;be at school are there,
though a certain per-centage still slips through your
fingers, yet if that per centage is yearly decreasing, as it
is, we need not be ashamed nor discouraged because we
have not got perfection in nine years. (Hear,
hear.) Compulsion is a rough and clumsy expedient.
In some cases it is necessary, but it is apt to create
hardship, unless cautiously employed, and to rouse
against the School Board, and even against education
in general, a feeling of suspicion and distrust which it
is most undesirable to create. In Liverpool the object
has been to lead instead of driving; to do away as far
as possible with the necessity of exercising compulsory
powers by attracting to the schools children whose
parents are not much inclined to send them there.
(Hear, hear.) You may ask how is that to be done.
We answer that by the prospect held out
of rewards and prizes, and of public distinction,
the parents are induced not only to send their
children more freely than they otherwise would
to schools, but also to keep them there longer.
That latter point, as you know, has always been a diffi-
culty, I may say one of the greatest difficulties,
which teachers have had to contend against. We say
further, that by these annual competitions, conducted
by independent examiners (I lay a stress upon this,
for we don't believe in auditing our own accounts), if
a boy shows more than ordinary talent he is brought
forward, and has a chance given him which otherwise
he would not have. And, lastly, the effect of this
annual competition, not only between scholars, hut
betweeu schools, keeps alive in both teachers and
taughb a hurt, ut healthy emulation. It in any .salaoul
the method of teaching is defective, the detect may
very long escape notice unless the school is compared
with others, But under our system of yearly grim-
parison, no such deficiency can long exist without being
brought to light. I must also mention one other fe %tura
of the system, which is this,---that when the attendance
of a child has been punctual and regular fornot le,s than
yeer, when, in that year, the absences have not exceeded
five, a reward is granted which practically confers tree
education in the same school for the whole of the
succeeding twelve months. Tnat is a kind of prize
which, I am told, is greatly valued; and it has this
advantage, among others, that it can be gained by
anyone, that success in gaining it does not depend
upon the extent of talents nor on the actual inferiority
of revels. It is a moral rather than an intellectual
test, and the habit which it tends to create is equally
useful in any department of life. (Hear, hear.) The
working of the educational scheme here leads me to
one remark which I wish to make. It is no use
denying the fact that a good deal of jealousy prevails
in some parts of the country against the eaten-
iron of School Boards. Every now and then you
see in print a piteous appeal to the public in
general to help some little parish school of which
you never heard before, and to save it, not from being
swept away altogether—that would be, apparently, a
minor evil—but from being taken over by a School
Board. Well, that is only nature. Power is power,
even on a small scale; and when two or three men,
with some cost and trouble, have set up a school,
which they can manage in their own way, naturally
they do not like handing over the control of it to a
committee of which, though they may be leading
members, they are only members like others, But in
this country, we soon learn to reconcile ourselves to
the inevitable. When a rural police was first set up in
the counties it was necessary, for many years, to make
its establishment optional; but, in time, the squires
began to see that the plan was the right one, and the
obligation to adopt it was accepted in the end without
difficulty. It will be just the same with School Boards.
(Cheers.) It was, and is, quite right to hurry nobody,
hut to give people time to gut used to a new notion;
but that they must before long become universal is, 1
think, as certain as most things that are not matters
of actual calculation, But what I would respectfully
urge on our educational friends in the. smaller towns
ani in the country, is to look at what is being done in
the great cities, and to satisfy themselves that cheap,
good, and moral teaching can be given at least as
effectually under a School Board as without one,
while the burden falls much more fairly; for
though I am an admirer of voluntary age.ncies
eherever they can be brought to bear, there is no
doubt that when a public duty is discharged
by voluntary agencies alone it is apt to to be thrown
on a very few shoulders. The willing horse draws
all the load. (Hear. hear.) I ha, seen thet repeatedly
and I think I see it in the case of many of ou- Liver-
pool charities ; and I remember looking over the
yearly record of work done in a very large London
parish, where, cut of many thousands, some 50 or 60
individuals supplied nearly the whole of the funds re-
quired, That is not fair,
where, as is tha case with
schools, the State and the public recognize them not
as a luxury, but as a necessity. (Hear, hear.) We
need not fear but that there will be plenty of room for
volunteers in educational matters—the very arrenge-
merits which I have been describing to you as in force
here show that, even if every icheol in the country
were put under the School Board. (Hear, hear.) There
is one thing more about our Liverpool system which
I ought to note, if only because it is not as common as
it might be. Neither in the School Board, I believe,
nor in the Council of Education has there been
the slightest hitch or unpleasantness caused by sec-
tarian dieputce. You know what controversies on
ecclesiastical satbjects are when once they begin; how
reasonable people Cease to reason; how amiable people
say and do uutpletteant things; and how, figuratively
sneaking, mud and had eggs are always flying about.
'When people go in kr dispwtes of that sort his elec-
tion time with them every year and all the year round.
(" Hear, hear." and laughter.) Well, we have kept
clear ot that trouble in Liverpool; all sects have been
represented—all have been equally and fairly dealt
with; and, on the neutral grounds of moral and
i
intellectual training, they have worked n friend-
ship together. Why should it not he the same
everywhere? I -cannot tell, except that Liver-
pool is a busy place, and that when men
have got useful work to do, they have neither
time nor taste for wrangling. (Hear, hear.) That is
nearly all with which I need trouble you to-Aay. I
spare you the well worn commonplaces about the
advantages of mental culture and of literary tastes;
but I will give you one result of personal experience,
and I will suggest to you one ob-ervetion, which
you may make for yourselves. I have been many
years a magistrate, and as chairman at Kirkdale, I
have had to deal in the last 23 years with the oases of
I more than 1,500 offsnders against the law. That is a
I sufficient number to judge by; and nothing has struck
me more forcibly than toe utter stupidity and brain-
lessness of 99 out of every 100 of those unlucky
iudividuals. It is not merely ignorance—that might
be explained by their mostly belonging to the poorest
class ; but. as far as my observation goes, they are for
the most part as much below the average of their own
class intellectually as they can be morally, Nine-
tenths of them might be Zulus for any good that they
have got from civilization; ai3l that is my answer to
the fooliea talk you sometimes hear about the
worthlessness of merely ietellectuel training, (Cneers )
Civilized beings will at 18a°. not have the vices ot
savages or of brutes. My other remark is this:'—
aLfoaolkl
tabbaoßuetpyaora%uas
we
hew youroywo nu
knowye e an
ad
njsutdhisi
nmge
on
ft , an
whod
have gone to the bad, just observe how many have any

turn for books or study. You will find one, perhaps,
here and there; but only as a rare exception. Intel-
lectual activity is in itself a moral safeguard—it kills
vicious tastes, just as in the bodily life a healthy appe-
tite for food keeps out the morbid craving for drink.
Therefore it is that to the spread of School Boards,
and of all that goes with them, I look for moral and
social, as well as intellectual improvement. When it
will not come of itself there must be willing hands
to work. There must be co-operation of classes and
of sects, and though money must not be wasted, it
must not be unduly sPiT4; `That on earth is the use
of it if not to promote civilization? (Hear, hear.) Yet
you hear people cry out about the monstrous burdens
imposed by the School Board who would vote for
spending a hundred times as much in other ways
which we will not talk of here. I will trouble you no
further, but proceed to the business of the day. (Loud
cheers.)
In the evening the Earl of Derby, with a large
number of the leading inhabitants of Liverpool, was
entertained at a banquet by the Mayor, Alderman
Hall. The gathering took place at the Town-hall,
hot in accordance with precedent on such occasions
the proceedings were strictly private.

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.
A girl in Georgia brought a snit against a recreant
lover, claiming ten thousand dollars damages, but she com-
promised for four bales of cotton and a new parasol. Her
lawyer took the cotton for his fee, and she kept the parasol
to heal her wounded affections.
The following verdict was Riven in writing by the
foreman of a coroner's jury in Nebraska :—."We are of A
Pinion that the Decest met with hir death from Violent
Infirmation in the Arm prdust from sum Nnoan Canoe."

The people of Johnson County, Indiana, are ex-
periencing the keenest pangs of mortification because, after
spending forty thousand dollars on a new goal, a little
wizened chap was able to dig his way out of it, with a jack-
knife, in tweaty•four hours.
An Ohio paper says, 'a mad bull broke loose laßt
week in the streets of Cincinnati, and rushed furiously
through a crowd of men and boys. It was an instance of
the knocking down of a score of persons by a bull rush."
A Cincinnati paper brags a little over the dexterity
with which its butcher boys does their work :—" The opera-
tion of killing and dressing Is so rapidly performed that if
you study the faces of the hogs after they are hung up to
cool, you will find an expression of the most intense be-
wilderment upon them, as though puzzling themselves to
make out what had been going on and where they were."
A lady who had quarrelled with her bald-headed
lover, said, in dismissing him, "What is delightful about
you, my friend, is that I have not the trouble of sending
you back any locks of your hair." Els reply was, "Mad
you given one one, you would not have known whose lock
you were sending."

_ -
"Did you ever," asked a brother humourist of Josh
Billings, "stand at the hall door after your lecture, and
listen to what the people said about it as they passed out 1"
Replied Josh, "1 did—once" (a pause and a sigh), "but I'll
never do it again I"

- A Yreka (California) man has invented a torpedo in
the shape of a kernel of corn, which is designed for the
bigailement of festive crows. As soon as the offensive crow
takes hold of it, it explodes and blows the top of its head
off. This affords a cheap and innocent recreation for the
crow, and at the same time does away with a grievous evil.