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

SUPPLY.

The house then went into committee, and upon the vote
of £643,724 being proposed for public education in Great
Britain, _ _

Mr. LOWE said:the estimate for this year was necessarily
forwarded to the Treasury before the report of the com•
missioners, and the consequence was that no trace was
to be found in it of any opinion, or of any measure
the Government might have adopted upon the report. The
estimate was of a very ordinary character, being only
£5,000 in excess of the estimate of last year. The right
gentleman the member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington)
had stated that the estimates of this department had on one
occasion reached the enormous sum of £836,000. That
was an error in fact, but for which he attached no blame to
the right hon. gentleman. The estimate for 1859.60, being
the first year in which he (Mr. Lowe) had the honour of
moving these estimates, was increased to that amount by
the deficiencies of three former years, which amounted to
£75,000, and the actual estimate for the year was there-
fore only C 61,000. In that year the number of children
found in the schools was 821,000. In the following
year, 1860-61, the number of children found by the inspec-
tors in the schools had increased to 880,000, showing an
increase of 60,000, and the estimate had increased to
£798,000, or by £37,000. In the present year the
estimate was £803,000, and the number of children now
in the schools 962,000. Considering what they heard
of the Increase of this =Ail:nate tiv irraevtoadtlao h..... -a....mid

not consider that the result since he had been connected
with the department was unsatisfactory ; the number of
children had been increased by 141,000, while the estimate
had only increased by £42,000. Certainly, he had not ex-
pected to be rebuked on account of the increase in the esti-
mate by the right hon. gentleman the member for Droit-
wich, who in the same breath had reproached him for
attempting to economise. During the whole of the time that
he had been in office this question had been before the com-
mission, and any measures of importance had been post-
poned for their decision. But a reduction had been effected
in the number of pupil teachers by the right hon. gentle-
man the member for North Staffordshire, and there had
also been a reduction in the building grant effected by
the Lord President; and he (Mr. Lowe) could not regret
that the sum of £40,000 had been saved to the country
without, as far as he could see, in any way damaging educa-
tion. (Hear.) He now passed to a question of very great
interest, namely, the criticisms of the commissioners upon
the working of the department, upon which he had been
challenged by the right hon. gentleman the member for
Oxford (Mr. Henley) to plead guilty or not guilty. The
charges made by the commissioners were four. The first
was the great expense of the present system. They com-
puted that in the course of time, at its present rate of in-
crease, the vote would reach £2,100,000, and they very truly
said that that was an enormous expense. But when he
looked to these criticisms he endeavbured, as far as pos-
sible, to discover how much was the fault of the system
upon which they were working, and how much the effect
of maladministration, and he was satisfied that whatever
might be the merits or demerits of the system, it could
never be an economic one. If persons were spending their
own money, or if the expenditure were under local control,
economy could be practised or enforced, but all that the
Privy Council could do was to insist that certain conditions
should Le observed in return for the grants, and those who
were the best able to pay were the best able to comply with
the conditions. 'lbis, therefore, must always be the evil of
a central system, that its benefits must fall to a great extent
upon those who were able to do without them. (Hear.)
The grants were also paid out of two funds, and they could
never adapt the one so closely to the other as to save expense
in the manegement. But no doubt there were some ex-
penses in the system that might in some degree be reduced,
and he should when he recurred to the subject, point out what
view the Government took of the recommendation of the
commissioners in this respect. He thought it was the duty
of those who had charge of the public money, and of the
system upon which it was spent, to make it as economical
as they could; for he was satisfied that there was nothing
more likely to bring the system to the ground than to make
it intolerably burdensome. (Hear, hear.) Another charge
brought against the department by the commissioners was
that the instruction was deficient—that it was too ambitious
and too superficial—that the lower boys were neglected for
the sake of the upper ones—that a child ought to be able to
read, write and cypher in an intelligible manner when he left
school. But all that the department was responsible for
was the collecting and tabulating of the inspectors' state-
ments; for the words themselves the inspectors were re-
sponsible. He believed the criticism was well founded, that
the clever boys were pushed forward instead of the modest
and unassuming ; but there was not a school in the coun •
try to which it did not equally apply. (Hear.) The next
objection was, that a great number of children left school
without the degree of instruction which they ought to have.
It would serve no good purpose to deny that; and though
he hoped and believed the system was capable of great im-
provement in this matter, he did not expect to see the time
when the same might not be said under any system of pub-
lic education in this country. There were some defects
arising from the manner in which the system was worked.
The right hon. gentleman opposite spoke of tha high train-
ing of the schoolmasters. He did not pretend to say whe-
ther it was too high or too low. It certainly was too high
if the schoolmaster had only to teach persons
between ten and eleven years of age. But they
were called upon not only to instruct these children
but the pupil teachers who were to be the future school-
masters of the country up to 18 years of age, when they
were sent to the training colleges. If those training colleges
were, as he thought they should be, in the hands of the Go
vernment, he should feel more responsibility in this matter,
but though the Government exercised considerable influence
over these colleges, it was not in their power to make them
exactly what they wished. Then the right hon. gentleman
raised the risibility of the house by his remarks on the
circumstance that these teachers were taught something of
political economy. Not withstanding what the right hon.
gentleman said, he considered that in these days of strikes,
when class was set against class, it was desirable that there
should be persons throughout the country who should be able
to give a sensible opinion on these melancholy contests. If
they knew somewhat less of the contests between the Roses,
something less of the Gnostic and other heresies, and could
show that the amount of wages did not depend altogether
on the master, they would not be the less serviceable mem-
bers of society. (Rear, hear.) Neither did he think it
wrong that they should know something of sanitary science
—that open drains and eesspools led to disease and death—
that 'they would do wisely in throwing open their windows
and selecting healthy situations for their dwellings, (Hort