The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-12 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 12, 18e1.

An annual Education debate is a necessity. The
money we have to vote demands it—the various
crotchets of our Educational philanthropists
demand it. And one thing more demands that we
all give attention enough to know it is going on—
we are yet only feeling our way to a final national
system. Nothing is more certain than that the
present plan cannot be the permanent one. It is
central, complicated, and because central and com-
plicated, enormously costly. Again, it Fails in the
first grand desideratum of a national system—it
does not reach the class who most want its aid. If
any plain man of common sense were asked—" Who
ought to be the first subjects of Xational Educa-
tion ? " he would cutainly reply, " Those
whose parents are too poor to educate them
themselves," and he would perhaps add, those whose
parents are too irreclaimably vicious to allow any
hope that their children would be sent to school-
In a word, it is not the business of any Govern-
ment to help those who can help themselves. But,
as with regard to material food, no one must be
left to starve because he cannot earn his living, so
with regard to what is deemed the requisite
mental aliment for every member of a civilised
community, if the child cannot obtain it by the
regular means, the State must step in. It must
meet the %lases of educational pauperism.
Now this is precisely what the present system
does not do. Admitting, for argument's sake, all
the good clainaed to be done by it as really done,
which we are fcir from doing, what it has left un-
done is its great condemnation. It enriches the
richer parishes and sends the poorer parishes
hungry away. :it says. "For every £lOO we have
given we have called forth voluntary contributions
to the amount of £200." But the parishes with
fewer than six hundred exclaim, in reply,—" We
hardly know you; we are too poor to support any-
thing like a decent school, and yet we cannot get
a farthing from you, while we see our neighbour
parish larger, more populous, and wealthier,
with two school-rooms, one for Dissenters and
one for Churchmen, with their well paid teachers,
and pupil teachers, and capitation grants, all
paid in great part out the national taxes to which
we have contributed our share, while we, who need
it most, cannot get a shilling in return." And this
is the cardinal vice of the system. It just shuts
out from its benefits those who most need it, and
who have a dii cot claim to their proportion of the
national bonuses out of the fund to which all must
contribute alike.

Within its own selected splice also there is much
calling loudly for remedy. Since the earliest in-
vestigations there has been indeed a great advance
in the numbers of the population at school, they
were at first one in seventeen ; in 1833, they rose
to one in eleven, and in 1860 they had reached the
very high proportion of one in seven. This is as
high a rate as can probably be attained ; hardly I
any European state shows so high an average. But
as the Commissioners remark in their report, nothing
can be more delusive than these returns of numbers.
The capitation grants are made upon the attend-
ances. Hence there is every stimulus to the
teacher to make these as -numerous as he can,
but the number of the children attending who have
obtained even an elementary education, does not
appear to b 3 more than one fourth of the whole.
The error of capitation grants based on attendance
merely, is one, however, which the Government has
seen and proposes to remedy. Were attendance
not made a consideration, the masters might pro-
duce 1303's to the inspectors who had received their
instruction from other masters; but it is now pro-
posed to require that those for whom the grant is
paid should show a fair acquaintance with reading,
writing, and arithmetic. If a scholar fails in any
of these the grant on
his account is to be propor-
tionably diminished. A
sour money, if paid, ought
to be paid for results, though we have much to ob-
ject against the whole capitation system, we yet
much gratified with the alteration -
dli attendances in it. Trawlrree.
LowE says—" Having thus secure
propose to go a step further. IVe propose that an
inspector shall cxan 'line the children in reading,