The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-29 00:00:00

THE EDUCATIONAL MINUTE.

During the present month the questions raised by the re.
♦ ised Code of the Committee of Council have made consi-
derable, and we may add, very gratifying progress. To the
first outbreak of unnecessary panic and the first undisguised
apprehension of pecuniary loss has succeeded a calmer mood,
which is willing to hear and to examine, to suspend a con-
demnation too hastily and rashly pronounced, and to look
forward with confidence to the decision which Parliament,
enlightened by preliminary discussion, may finally see fit to
form. It is no exaggeration to say that for the first month
of the controversy those who met together to denounce the
Education Minute treated it as a purely wanton and gratui-
tous piece of mischief—the act of an official Puck, who, for
the love of confusion and disorder, had disarranged a state
of things which was working to the entire satisfaction of
everybody. We are glad to see that the controversy is pass-
ing into other hands, and is being conducted in another
spirit. The men who now come forward to speak on edu-
cation are members of Parliament, and others holding posi-
tions which make them responsible for what they say.
Hence the controversy has lost much of its recklessness, and
is every day more and more restricted within the bounds of
reason and candour. Those who have already expressed
opinions when called upon to express them again do so with
much more moderation and much more fairness. We may
particularise as an instance Lord Lyttelton. He is of
opinion " that the danger lies in saying too much ;" that
it is not advisable " to treat the subject in violent or exag-
gerated terms. He regrets that:the interests of individuals
should be mixed up with an abstract question." He thinks
" that when Government found that one-half of the report
that relating to the question of putting some part of the
education of the county on the county rates, could not be
dealt with at all, it was not surprising that they should
have done what they have done."
This is very different from the bitter denunciations of a
few weeks ago from the same high authority. The state-
ments of Lord Lyttelton seem to imply that upon full con-
sideration he thinks the principle of the minute a good
one, since he regrets that it is connected with personal
interests ; that he disapproves the violence of the langUage
that has been used, and that Government was placed
in a position in which it was forced to do something,
and something very like what it has actually done. We
are sorry to see even Lord Lyttelton envenom the discussion
by the charge that it was intended to withdraw the question
from the consideration of Parliament, which we are not sur-
prised to find re-echoed by Sir J. Pakington. Whatever
may be thought of the merits of the minute, such a charge
cannot bo maintained. It was not in the power of
the Committee Of Council to withdraw this subject from
the consideration of Parliament. It must come before
Parliament in estimates framed to meet the charge. It
involved the interests of the Church of England, the Dis-
senters, the Roman Catholics. 7,000 teachers, and 16,000
pupil-teachers, besides that of all managers of schools in
the country. It cast a new and doubtless unwelcome bur-
den on the shoulders of the inspectors of schools, a class
naturally of great power in the creation and direction of '
opinion on educaticnal subjects. To suppose that such
persons, so numerous and so influential, would not obtain
the 'fullest and fairest hearing from Parliament on any
question affecting their interests is simply ridiculous. Even
if the minute had not been suspended, no irremediable step
could have been taken under it, for the simple reason that
it contained a clause almost entirely suspending itself, ex-
cept with reference to the creation of new vested interests
in the shape of new pupil-teachers. We are not asserting
that this was a judicious way of giving effect to the inten-
tions of the Privy Council—the result has proved the con-
trary—but only negativing any imputation of bad faith.
The argument that the minute came into effect immediately
would have great weight if the first provision of the
minute had not bean to suspend its agency, by requiring
that every school should receive a payment on the old sys-
tem before the new one was introduced.

At a soiree of the Leeds Mechanics' Institute, Lord Stan-
ley said that, "so far as the new Educational Code tends to
confine school teaching to simple elementary matters, and
to test the merits of the teachers by the plain standard of
what the pupils have learnt—in se far, without entering
into the question of pledges given or expectations disap-
appointed—it appeared to him a wise and rational mea-
sure." This view, in different words, seems pretty nearly
identical with that of Lord Lyttelton, and may, perhaps,
not unfairly be taken to represent the present state of the
public mind on the question. Not very dissimilar is the
opinion of Mr. Dunlop, in a speech to his constituents
at Greenock. The object of the minute, ho says, is to
connect the grants with the results attained in the
education given, which is a perfectly right and proper
object. lie then proceeds to blame the minute for not
throwing a portion of the expense on the county rates,
and for persevering in the extravagant expenditure on pupil.
teachers. The first is an impossibility, the second a mistake,
for the extravagant expenditure on pupil-teachers is put an
end to, and the managers are left to engage them on any
terms they please, under pain of losing £lO from the grant
if a sufficient number are not provided. But the most hon-
ourable testimony to the true character of the minute has
been given by Mr. Adderley. Instead of giving way to a
not unnatural spirit of rivalry, and using the knowledge
which he had acquired at the Education Board to foment
the discontent felt at the conduct of his successors, he has
omitted no opportunity of expressing, with all due reserve
as to details, his approbation of the step which has been
taken. "I do not find," said Mr. Adderley, at Stoke-upon-
Trent, " that any one objection advanced really touches the
essential principle of the changes proposed by the Govern-
ment. Tho change was intended to increase the responsi-
bility of the managers on the spot, and to awaken the zeal
and interest of the scholars by attaching the Government
aid to a necessary and tangible result, instead of granting
aid, broadcast as it were, without reaping anything like
adequate or satisfactory results. I say that in that sense,
and if such be the intention of the change, it is an impor-
tant and a good one.," As to the question of vested inte-
rest in the teachers, to which public attention seems now
by the progress of the controversy to be directed, we may
remark that these teachers have almost universally been
taken from the very poorest class of society, that they have
been supported during their apprenticeship to a well -paid
and honourable calling at the public expense, and that at
the public expense they have received a subsequent train-
ing, the only complaint against which is that it is too high
and too ambitious. The original intent of the augmentation
of their salaries was to raise them to a sum not less than £6O
a year, and we are informed by the commissioners that the
average salary is now £97 a year ; so that if the augmen-
tation be withdrawn the original object of the grant will
still be obtained. The tendency of payment on results is
to raise the position of the teacher, since by his ability
alone can grants be obtained, and consequently in some de •
gree to raise his salary. The teacher with an excellent
education can, if he chooses to quit his profession, find em-
ployment remunerated fully in proportion to his ability and
industry, and no one has a right to demand 'more. The
salary of teachers is already in the power of the Privy
Council. The Council might continuo their payments
in
augmentation of salary, but if they listened to the entreaties
of Training Colleges, and kept up the number of students
in them to the present amount,
hey :day
they would in a short
time so effectually glut the market with
.tehacthers a
salaries would fall far below the limit to whitcattaney
They
be reduced by the withdrawal of
is
augmenting salaries by public grants isddi.rtinew:tinly contrary to
11 b e, we sus.
the principle of payment on results, an
pect, found impossible to devise a systeml in 'which the two
shalt efficiently work together. The
against
i
against the existence of any such vested nt ere .
ust as the train-
mand of the masters is nothing less than the masters should
ing colleges require that the interests of
the molle
sacrificed to the interests of the trainbg ges) 09 thQ

•
system of education throughout:the country should be sae •
rificesd to the protection of the existing. class of masters.
Sic J. Paington views the question as bearing on his
own claims to the pr3phtio character, and prognosticutes
the speedy downfall of the privy council system. Mr. Adder-
ley and Mr. 1):Inlop announce that the minute of the Privy
Council will not be carried into effect. That its details will
undergo modifications we do not doubt, hut without pretend •
ing to the gift of prophecy, wo think we can see that all the
Principles involved in it which are really worth contending
for—payment by results, requiring all managers to make
their own terms with teachers and pupil-teachers, the
lowering the ~,,t,indard and extending more widely the area
and benefit of popular education—commend themselves to
enlightened public opinion, and will not be repudiated by
any Legislature in which th et opinion predominates so de-
cide dly as in the House of Commons. .