The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-15 00:00:00

tation of 50s. for every scholar who attended regularly.
The real cause of the repeal of that minute, he believed,

was that it was found to be too costly. The great expense,

he believed, was due to the item for the main-
tenance of the scholars, but more especially to the cir-

eumstance that the minute was extended to refugees and

other places that did not at all come properly under the de-
finition of ragged schools. The minute which was substi-

tuted for this- allowed one-half the rent for premises in
which industrial instruction was carried on ; ss. per annum
was allowed for the scholars according to the average num-
ber under industrial instruction. Now what he was assured

of by those who were well informed on this subject was,
that the grants for the industrial portion of the system
were barely sufficient to carry on the industrial training,
and that there was no margin left for other purposes except

the grant of books and maps, and the augmentation of a
certificated teacher's salary. Now certificated teachers were
not the teachers for ragged schools, v hich required a par-
ticular and special class of teachers. The ragged schools
were peculiar in their nature, and must therefore be dealt
with in a peculiar manner. It was clear that the council
were not disposed to grant any aid to those schools beyond
a very limited amount, as would appear from the minute
of council explanatory of the minute of December, 1857.
The right hon. baronet having read the minute proceeded
to say—He would then read a document entitled a " Me-

morandum," which had been signed by about 112 gentle-
men who had always been conspicuous for their advocacy
of the ragged school movement. Amongst the names he
saw those of Mr. Thompson, of Banquarrie, near Aberdeen,
Dr. Guthrie, Mr. M. D. Hill, the Recorder of Birming-
ham, and a number of gentlemen who had supported the
ragged school system in Aberdeen, Arbroath, Ayr, Bristol,
Cardiff, Chester, Dumfries, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool,
Manchester, Paisley, Salford, Stirling, and York. That
memorandum referred to the report of the committee ap-
pointed to consider the state of public education, which
committee sat for two sessions, and ultimately reported
that voluntary contributions had been found insufficient,
and therefore that the ragged schools ought not
to be excluded from participation in the national
grant. They also intimated that it would not
be advisable to fix the standard of education neces-
sary to qualify for a certificate so high as it had for-
merly been, owing to the exceptional character of the
schools themselves. Those gentlemen then drew up their
views under nine different heads. The first very truly
stated it was not only the duty of the Government to punish
crime and vagrancy, but also to attempt to prevent it by
education. The sth resolution stated that, as a matter of
simple justice, the ragged schools ought to be supported,
because the parliamentary grant was intended to aid volun-
tary effort, and in no schools in the kingdom had there been
a greater amount of voluntary effort exhibited than in the
ragged schools. (Hear.) Those schools were therefore fully
entitled to participate in the amount annually voted. What
was the reason given by the council for not assisting those
schools more liberally ? It was to be found in the report of
a committee which he regretted to find bore the names of
" Granville" and "Robert Lowe." It was that, because
sometimes the children at ragged schools received some
little gifts and charities in addition to their education, it
would be confounding the system of public instruction
with public maintenance. He quite agreed with Miss Car-
penter in thinking that a great mistake, and that a more ex-
tended inquiry by the council would no doubt have led to a
different result. (Hear.) In-one school the evidence showed
that the parents of one half of the scholars had been in re-
ceipt of parochial relief, and that many of the children
came to school frequently without their morning meal. A
vei, importantquestion was, " Were those schools 'attended
by a class of children who but for such institutions would
be in the streets ?" He believed incontrovertibly that they
would ; and that to cut down the grants to them was a most
unwise economy. (Hear) The Government were unwill-
ing to give the shilling to support ragged schools, but they
were perfectly ready to advance the pound for the expense
of prosecuting those who had been led into crime simply
from having been driven out upon the highway without
education and without friends. (Hear, hear.) On the
4th of June, 1860, there' was a meeting of the Western
Union of Teachers held at Bristol, at which a resolution
was carried, to the effect that there were large numbers of
children who were utterly inadmissible to any other schools,
to whom it was most important that some kind of educa-
tion should be given. They stated, also, that keeping up
the ragged schools mi st prove beneficial to the national and
other schools next above them. (Hear, hear.) He would
shortly state the result in a few "instances of the change in
the system of the council in a financial point of view. In
the case of the Harrington British schools at Liverpool,
the volerataly contributions in 1855 had been £l2l, and the
Government grant £224 10s. In 1858 the voluntary con-
tributions had fallen to £Bl 125., but the grant was £332
lls. At Bristol and Cardiff, however, that state of things
had been exactly reversed. The voluntary contributions to
the Bristol school were, in 1853, £257 ; 1854, £246 ; 1855,
£175 ; 1856, £251; and 1857, £242 ; while the Government
grant had been £3B in 1853 ; £Bl in 1854 ; in 1855 and 1856,
under a more liberal system, it rose to £ll3 and £lO5 ; but
in 1857 it had fallen to £59. At Cardiff last year and the
ypqr },Afore the contributions had been £265 and £262, and
the Government aid in 1856 was £7O the first year, and the
next nothing. In 1858 the Government aid to Bristol
school had fallen to £36, and to Cardiff to £34, though the
expenditure remained just the same. These were the com-
plaints made against the present system ; he would not go
further into them, but would express an earnest hope that
the Government would take a favourable view of the reso-
lution he had brought forward. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. BLACK seconded the resolution.
Mr. ADDERLEY said there could be no doubt that the
priMary object of the educational grant was to instruct
those children whose parents were not able to educate
them. The right hon. gentleman thought that the ragged
schools had not been sufficiently assisted by the Govern-
ment; but if they put themselves under Government in-
spection they would have grants exceeding £7 per head per
annum. What objection had the ragged schools to come
under that regulation ? It was wise on the part of the
Government not to make those grants without a system of
Government inspection, for otherwise the funds of the coun-
try might be unnecessarily wasted.
Mr. BRISCOE said it was important that the house
should have accurate information with respect to those
schools. He advocated the public money being applied to
the support of the ragged schools, as they could not go on
without public aid. These were most useful schools, and
tended very materially to prevent crime.
Mr. A. MILLS said that they were threatened that
unless the ragged schools with which he was connected
had young criminals amongst the scholars, the grants of
public money would be withdrawn from them, and he was
actually writing daily to police :magistrates to get such a
class of scholars to attend these schools. He doubted the
policy of inducing children to matriculate in crime before
they would be entitled to any benefit from ragged schools.
He thought that if this policy were carried out it might lead
to the breaking up of many of those valuable schools.
Mr. CAVE concurred in the observations made on this
subject by the last speaker. He agreed that those schools
in which young criminals were taught ought to be placed
under the Home-office, but it would be most unwise to trans-
fer the whole of the industrial schools from the control of
the Committee of Privy Council to the care of the Home-
office.

Mr. HENLEY said the subject before the house was a
most important one. When industrial schools were origi-
nally established, they were more or less identified with the
criminal element, and the question raised by his right hon.
friend was this—couldthey separate the penal element from
these schools, and could they carry ottt the schools upon
the bases suggested by his right hen. friend ? The ground
on which the Privy conheil granted the money to ragged
schools rested ulnn the literary and industrial information
afforded to the children. Now, there was nothing in this to
ex)force religious education amongst the young persons edu-
cated at the ragged schools. If they were going to alter the
status of these schools, they ought to see that the religious
element formed a feature of it. The right hon. gentleman
said that while there were at least four million of children
to be educated in England, the whole number educated
under the auspices of the Committee of Connell was only
800,000. The right hon. gentleman read an extract from the
report of Mr. Norris, the Government inspector of schools
in Staffordshire, showing that, while those who remained
longest Ut the schools received a tolerable education, those
who left them early were almost entirely uninstructed, and
he further showed that the system of education, as it
worked, was unsatisfactory and required reform. In Staf-
fordshire about 45 per cent. of married women only could
Write their names. In Westmoreland, which was consi-
dered the most highly educated county in England, with
the exception of the metropolitan county, Mr. Moncrieff,
the school inspector, reports that the population of the
county was about 100,000, that the educational grant was
about £5,000, and that only 47 per cent. of married women
could write their names ; and in Cornwall only 54 per cent.
of the married women could write their names. The sys-
tem, in fact, had failed lamentably, and in morality, which
was one of the things they should look for in any system
of education, the system was by no means satisfactory in
its results. It was quite clear that instruction was not edu-
cation. In Westmoreland, for instance, where instruction
was said to be the highest, the standard of morality was the
very lowest. Looking at the statistics of the registrar of
births, marriages, and deaths, he found that in that county
one child in every ten•and a fraction was born illegitimate,
whilst in Monmouthshire, which stood nearly the lowest
in point of education, the standard of morality stood there
immensely higher. How did they account for this P In
Monmouthshire 47 per cent. only of the married women
were able to write their names, and yet one in every 28
children were born out of wedlock, and 53 per cent. of the
women were unable to write their names. He would not
be understood to mean that the instruction of children
would make them immoral ; but it was of the defective
mode of instruction that ho complained. (Hear, hear.)
In Cornwall the standard of morality was higher. Ille-
gitimate children born in that county were one in seven-
teen, and in Huntingdon one in nineteen, while in
Staffordshire they were one in ten. According to all ac-
counts:the system was not effecting all the good that could
be hoped from it, and it was quite clear that the Govern-
ment should be prepared at one time or other to adopt
a system which would combine sound moral instruction
with education. Mr. Mosely, when retiring from thee
Privy Council, expressed his opinion to their lordships that