The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

RIGGED AND REFORMATORY SCHOOLS will for the
future, according to the deckion of the Committee
of Council on Education, be granted by the State
substantial and permanent aid. The minute by
which this resolution is made known to the managers
of these institutions provides that no school shall be
admissible to aid " unless it be industrial in its
character, and unless the scholars be taken exclu-
sively from the criminal and abandoned classes."
These conditions being complied with, the council

J. To pay half of the rent. 2. To pay one-third of the
annual cost of tools and of raw material for labour. 3. To
make grants towards the cost of books, maps, and appa-
ratus upon the same terms as to other schools. 4. To
pay 351. to the treasurers of any reformatory in respect of
every person qualified to teach who shall hue been
boarded, lodged, and trained as a master for a year in the
institution, and holding certificates of merit frout her
Majesty's inspectors of schools. 5. To grant half of the
salary paid to the teacher, and half of his assistant's
salary ; no teacher to have more than twenty-five scholars
for the master, and between twenty-five and fifty for each
assistant. 6. To grant as capitation on every child
(according to the number in average attendance during
the year preceding the annual inspection) who is not paid
for by the Lords Commissi•mers of the Treasury uuder
the act the 17th and 18th of Victoria, chap. 86, the sum of
535. per annum, provided that such child be fed at the
school.

Reformatories and ragged schools coming within the
operation of this act are to be under the special in-
spection of her Majesty's inspectors of schools. The
instructions to the inspectors are very minute.
On the subject of appointing teachers, the minute
of instructions says, "You will observe that the
Government leaves the choice of teachers absolutely
to the managers, interposing no test whatever except
the inspectors' annual reports upon certain specified
points." As regards the standard of education, it is
provided that the literary ability of a teacher may be
regarded as sufficient if the inspector is satisfied
that the boys under his charge learn to read, write,
and cipher in such a manner as to acquire a practical
command of those arts in earning their bread and
making their way in the world. As to religious
knowledge, the inspectors are " enjoined to ascertain
that the doctrines and maxims of Christianity are
taught in such a manner as Gi be likely to become
motives and rules of conduct;" and in respect of
practical duties in the workshop, the inspectors are
instructed to see that the work of industrial schools
is really properly done

You are to bear in mind (says the council), that no oral
delivery of moral lessons can be so effective as that which
results from daily practice. Yon will not, therefore, allow
any general professions to weigh against the evidence
which a school or workshop may present in itself of a
want of order, obedience, and cleanliness. A disobedient,
dirty, ill-conditioned lad " is not to be talked out of •hose
habits," but can only be cured by being obliged to live in
daily and hourly contact with the practical opposites of
them.