The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-16 00:00:00

SCHOOL ACCOUNTS.

Canon Girdlestone has addressed a letter to the
Times on the subject of rural schools. He gives a
summary of last year's accounts in his own parish
of Halberton, showing that while the annual
working expenses of the school are £133, the
Government grant, the subscriptions, endow-
ment fund, and school pence together amount
only to about £lOO. This leaves a balance of
nearly £23 to be defrayed by the vicar. The annual
subscriptions are only £25, though that sum, small as
is it is, chews some improvement on the state of
affairs when Canon Girdlestone first took charge of
the parish, when the contributi,ns were only £ll.
He thinks the case of Halberton is identical with that
of many other agricultural parishes, where the burden
of the school has to be borne by a very few
of those who ought to contribute. The vicar of
Halberton is therefore of opinion that even with im-
proved legislation there will still be a large number
of agricultural parishes without schools in which the
children of labourers can receive a sound elementary
education. He thinks that some effective means
should be devised by which all persons who are
responsible for the education of the labourer shall be
compelled to undertake their proper share of the cost.
Education is an indispensable condition of the per-
manent improvement of the agricultural labourer, the
object which the now existing Commission have
especially in view.
THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN
AGRICULTURE.

The Hon. E. Stanhope is collecting a large amount
of opinion in prosecution of his inquiry into the
employment of women and children in agriculture.
Chambers of Agriculture supply him with a means
of getting at the farmer's view of things, which is
both convenient and safe, and Mr. Stanhope is
making good use of it. On Saturday he got from
the Staffordshire Chambers the opinion that there
was nothing in the system pursued in the county as
to female labour which required alter.ttion by law.
There seemed to be great differences of opinion as to
children's labour, but ultimately it was resolved that
no child under eight years of age should be employed
at all, and that the hours of children between the
ages of ten and thirteen be so regulated as to afford
an opportunity for attendance at school.
" THE CLTAP.ITIES OF LONDON."

The Times recently, with more enterprise than
discrimination, published pages of statistics,
shelving the receipts of "the charities of London."
This formidable table included the great societies
which have their offices in London, but whose opera-
tions are spread over the whole kingdom, perhaps
even the whole world. For instance, the Additional
Curates and the Pastoral Aid Societies are con-
sidered as metropolitan charities, although the larger
portion of their funds are spent in the provinces.
Again, the hospitals, orphanages, and other similar
institutions are considered to be purely for the benefit
of London, although their buildings contain a large
number of persons who go up from the country to
receive the benefit of them. It is difficult to imagine
how either the Lord's Day Society or the National
Sunday League can be considered a London charity.
Nor is it intelligible why the receipts for books sold
by the Tract Society should be estimated as pure
profits, when in the case of a bookseller (who would
sell the same works at a higher price) only the
difference between the cost of production and the
selling price is debited to his balance. Altogether
the broad sheet of ligures may be taken as a specimen
of industry, but is worth very little as a basis of
argument.