The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-11 00:00:00

THE NEW EDUCATION MINUTE.

DEPUTATION TO EARL GRANVILLE.

Yesterday afternoon a deputation of managers,
directors, and teachers of schools receiving the Go-
vernment grant throughout various parts of the coun-
try waited upon Earl Granville, President of the
Council, and the Right Hon. Mr. Lowe, M.P., for ,
the purpose of representing the injurious effects of
the recently issued Minute of Edueation. The
deputation was composed of several hundreds of
persons. The following among other places were
represented :—Manchester, the Rev. J. Bardsley,
Mr. T. C. Woodhouse, and Mr. H. Biekley ; Leeds,
the Revs. B. Crosthwaite and E. Jackson and Mr.
B. Gott ; Sheffield, the Revs. W. Wilkinson and E.
S. Earnshaw ; Bradford, the Rev. J. L. Frost and
Mr. W. Walker ; Hull, the Rev. J. Scott ; Nun-
eaton, the Rev. R. Savage ; Halifax, the Rev. C.
Musgrave ; Doncaster, the Rev. T. King ; Preston,
the Rev. T. Clarke ; Rotherham, the Rev. S. B.
Poles; Bristol, the Revs. A. Rogers and H. G.
Eland ; Bath, the Revs. C. Kemble and G. E. Tate ;
Norwich, Archdeacon Hawkins ; Northampton, the
Rev. S. Gedge ; Cambridge, the Rev. J. Scott ;
Nottingham, the Revs. J. W. Brook (represent-
ing (28 schools) and J. Cooper ; Cheltenham,
the Revs. E. Walker and C. H. Bromby and
Colonel Hennell ; Brighton, the Revs. S.
R. Drummond, H. M. Wagner, and T.
Cook; Winchester, the Rev. Canon Jacob; Chi-
chester, the Rev. M. Parrington ; Weymouth, the
Rev. D. Cottler ; St. Helen's, the Rev. Dr. Carr (re-
presenting 10 schools) ; Southampton, the Rev. W.
Wilson (secretary of Rural Deanery) ; Belper, the
Rev. R. Hey (secretary of Diocesan Board) ; S win-
ton, the Rev. J. Levett ; Cantley, the Rev. S. King;
Tunbridge Wells, the Rev. E. Hoare ; Abingdon,
the Rev. A. Putt ; Deal, the Rev. H. Dombrain ;
Dorking, the Rev. W. B. Calvert; Bury St. Ed-
mund's, the .Rev. J. Gedge ; Lynn, the Revs. E. F.
C. Hawkinson, J. Freeman, and W. W. Clarke ;
Kirklington, the Rev. J. Prior; Hayfield, the Rev.
W. J. Brock; Little Baddow, the Rev. W. B. Ady ;
Brailsford, Mr. W. Cox ; Harbury, the Rev. W.
Wight ; Charlton-Kings, the Rev. I. L. C. Gabb ;
Claypole, the Rev. T. Woodman Wembley, the
Rev. C. C. Layard ; Sandon, the Rev. Dr. Tucker;
Warley, the Rev. Dr. Robinson ; Great Warley, the
Rev. T. H. Bunbury ; Llandaff, the Rev. C. R.
Knight (Rural Dean).
The deputation having been introduced,

Archdeacon SINCLAIR presented a memorial
for the withdrawal of the revised Code, which
stated that the deputation did not act in their in-
dividual capacity, but were not connected with the
National Society, the Church of England Educa-
tion Society, the metropolitan training institutions,
provincial training institutions, &c.
The following is the memorial :

"My Lord,—We desire, in the first place, to
thank your lordship for this opportunity of address-
ing you on the important subject of education.
Under the existing minutes of the Committee of
Council on Education, your memorialists have co-
operated for many years with the Lords of the
Privy Council. They have gladly contributed their
personal effort and pecuniary aid to render those
minutes effective, and have rejoiced at the success
which has attended their operation. Your memo-
rialists are no advocates for any expenditure of
public money on national education which shall not
be found to produce a corresponding amount of pub-
lic good, and will gladly hail any improvements
which may be suggested for distributing the grant
on just principles, and rendering it more effective
for the sound instruction of the labouring classes.
We wish we could regard the Revised Code as cal-
culated to accomplish this important object; but,
after patiently examining its provisions from every
point of view, and having tested them as far as pos-
sible in their various localities, your memorialists
are convinced that the Revised Code can in no sense
prove an amendment of the existing minutes ; but
are compelled to regard it as an abandonment of
the system found so largely successful during the last
15 years, and as endangering the existence of many
important elementary schools and the stability of
the Training Colleges. We trust your Lordship
will permit us to state a few of our principal ob•
jections to the regulations of the Revised Code.
"I. In the first place the Revised Code intro-
duces what we consider to be a false and dangerous
principle in national education. It gives to secular
a dangerous advantage over religious learning; for
it encourages the former by bounties which afford a
perpetual stimulus, while it protects the latter by
penalties which cannot be expected to ope-
rate except in extreme eases. There is a
natural tendency in teachers, against which
every system of training and every plan
of remuneration has to guard, to direct their efforts
rather to the intellectual proficiency than to the
moral improvement of their pupils. This tendency
the provisions of the Revised Code are obviously
calculated rather to foster than to check ; and,
however the ill effect thence arising may be con-
trolled by the clergy and other religious ministers
in their several schools, yet they will have to con-
tend with an additional difficulty, which will be
especially felt in the private or adventure schools,
the number of which will be largely increased un-
der the regulations of the Revised Code. We
deprecate the separation, even in appearance, of
secular from religions teaching, a distinction fraught
with such injurious consequences, we cannot but
regard it with the deepest anxiety.
" 11. In the second place, we regard the regula-
tions of the Revised Code as unjustifiable in refer-
ence to the teachers. It cancels positive engage-
ments with upwards of 20,000 individuals. Lecturers
in Training iColleges, schoolmasters and school-
mistresses, and pupil-teachers, were induced by
promises of certain money payments and
other advantages to qualify themselves for,
and to enter upon, the work of elementary
education. The Revised Code suddenly and entirely
cancels these engagements, on the faith of which
these teachers entered upon their work; and there-
by it inflicts a grievous and unexpected injury on a
numerous class of deserving men and women ; it
casts a public dishonour, in the estimation of a large
body of the community, on the good faith of a most
responsible department of her Majesty's Govern-
ment ; and it places school managers in a false posi-
tion, who have induced so many young men and
women to choose the office of the teacher, by pre-
sentinc, to them on the credit of the Augmentation
Broadsheet, prospective advantages of which they
are to be deprived. This is the more remarkable,
because the Committee of Council, by a recent alte-
ration in the Augmentation Broadsheet, appear by
implication to acknowledge their engagements for
the past to be of a definite character, inasmuch as
their lordships have omitted the word • will' from
the clause commencing ' their lordships will grant,'
&e., thus depriving the document of that form of
expression which impressed it with the character of
a permanent.engagement, if not of a legal contract.
" 111. Thirdly, we consider that the attempt to
make the pecuniary aid afforded to schools depen-
dent upon a prescribed number of attendances on
the part of the children, combined with a specified
age and a standard of individual proficiency—with-
out regard to the local circumstances and pecuniary
necessities of the schools, and to the difference in
grades of the children by whom they are attended
—will necessarily lead to consequences never con-
templated by the authors of the Revised Code.
"It must, in the nature of things give an amount
of aid to schools of the higher class in favoured dis-
tricts, where the attendance 6 is regular and pro-
longed, 'wholly disproportionate to that which it
affords to schools, not less efficient, though produc-
ing less tangible results, in poorer' districts where
the attendance is fluctuating and brief. Thus the
former will be unduly assisted,
casesd,whi lethe latter will
m
be impoverished, and in broughtinto theth
verge of insolvency. And so far from helping
hitherto unaided rural schools, the Revised gCodee
will financially ruin many whose existence is de-
dependent upon the amount of Parliamentary aid
they now receive.
„ iv. While wo highly approve the Principle of
payment for results, we believe that under existing I
minutes this important principle is now, or maybe
applied ; whereas we consider
very satisfactorily
the educational test proposed by the Revised Code
to be exceedingly objectionable. It is unfair to
school managers and teachers. On the day of exa-
mination 50 children, for instance, duly qualified
may be presented to the inspector, while in the
course of the year as many more may have been
brought up to the required standard, who, from
causes over which the School Committee and teacher
can have no possible control, are not present. Thus
it is evident that the master will not be paid ac-
cording to his work. Again, the fact of sums of
money, varying from 20s. to 285., being payable in
respect to individual scholars, will render the funds
to a great extent dependent upon the good sense
and right feeling of the parents in sending their
children to school on the day of inspection. A power
is thus placed in the hands of parents which may
be very capriciously and wrongfully exercised, and
may most injuriously affect both the discipline and
moral standing of the school.
" We further observe with equal surprise and re-
gret, the grievous discouragement the Revised Code
will inflict ta ietupon the establishment and support of
schools, The great majority of the children