The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-30 00:00:00

KERRY.

_ -
The Cork Examiner says :—" It is stated, and
with apparent authority, that an election of a re-
presentative for Kerry is not by any means a remote
contingency. It is said that the honour of the
peerage is about to be conferred on Colonel Her-
bert, who, as it is known, is soon to enjoy the
privilege of entertaining her Majesty at his splendid
residence at Muokross.

THE EDUCATION OF ..D..kSTITUTE

CHILDREN.

The reportg the select committee appointed btr.
the House of Commons to " inquire how the edu
cation of destitute and neglected children may be
most efficiently and economically assisted by any
public funds," was published yesterday. The docu-
ment is as follows :

"Your committee were appointed at an advanced
period of the session ; but they have prosecuted
the inquiry with diligence, and have examined wit-
nesses most competent to elucidate the entire sub-
ject, and sufficient, in the opinion of your com-
mittee, to support the conclusions, which they
submit without further delay to the judgment of
the house. No child should be encouraged to go to
a ragged school, for whose education provision can
be made elsewhere:, For children who have acquired
criminal or vagrant habits, provision is made by
the Industrial Schools Bill. Until that measure has
been tried, no other provision at the expense of the
state should be made for this class. The children
of out-door paupers, destitute orphans, and deserted
children, receiving out-door relief, ought to be pro-
vided for under Mr. Denison's act by the guar-
dians of the poor; but it appears to be the
opinion of those who have paid attention to the
subject, that they are not likely to be so generally,
unless the act be so altered as to make it com-
pulsory upon the guardians to enforce the child's
being sent to school as a condition of relief.
The difficulties which would have to be encoun-
tered in the introduction of a system of compul-
sory education such as this are great. Some
questions of detail which are touched,'upon in
the evidence are worthy of attention with refer-
ence to this subject. It has been suggested to your
committee that the Committee of Council on Educa-
tion might provide for the admission of children of
out-door paupers into schools receiving Government
aid ; but your committee have received no evidence
on the subject of this suggestion, and therefore re-
frain from expressing an opinion upon it. Children
receiving in-door relief are provided for in the union
district or workhouse schools. Provision, however,
ought to be made for compelling boards of quardians
to maintain workhouse schools in a more efficient
state than they are generally in at present, or else
to erect district schools. After all these reduc-
tions there still remains a residue to be dealt
with, though of its numbers the committee have
no evidence. Aid to ragged schools and other insti-
tutions where children are fed, or fed and lodged.
is really aid in relief of the poor rate, and this is
true even when the aid is given as salary to a master
for such a payment sets at liberty an equal sum
to be employed in feeding or lodging. The
only ragged schools, therefore, to which relief
can be given, are those which neither feed nor
clothe, and the only children requiring their aid
are the residue which remain after all the above
deductions. The evidence of Mr. Rogers shows
that where strenuous local exertions are made,'
the poorest and lowest districts in towns are
capable of supporting schools under the Privy
Council; and that the poorest parents may be in-
duced to pay small fees towards their children's
education.. Still a residue exists which has not yet
been reached by any other machinery than a rag-
ged school ; and the question remains whether
ragged schools, which have undoubtedly been of
considerable benefit, ought to receive further as-
sistance from the State than at present. The
London Ragged School Union, with Lord Shaftes-
bury at their head, are opposed to any Government
grants being made to ragged schools, believing
that such grants would interfere with their reli-
gious and missionary character, and relax the
interest now taken in them. Much difference of
opinion, however, prevails upon this subject among
the managers of the schools themselves; and the
managers of refuges, which are likewise institutions
of a religious and missionary character, take a
wholly different view of the question. The with-
drawal of the Government grant to schools capable
of being certified under the industrial acts, touches
refuges, but not ordinary ragged schools. These
ordinary ragged schools if they give industrial train-
ing, may have certain allowances from the Privy
Council for rent and raw materials, and are permitted,
even without giving industrial training, to earn any
grant from the council, on compliance with the con-
ditions prescribed to other schools, No rules have yet
been suggested or which further grants of public
money could safely be made; and the present grant
for raw materials has been grossly abused and should
be discontinued. Ragged schools closely resemble
Sunday schools. They are strongly impressed with
a missionary and religious character. Their primary
object is to reclaim and civilise a child, and then to
place it in some honest calling. To these objects
instruction is secondary and subordinate. Yet
Government inspection must be chiefly based on
instruction. The grants made on that inspection
would tend to divert the school froms its main
object. Infant schools, which take the child
►efore it has been contaminated, appear to strike
at the root of the evil which ragged schools only
attack in its more advanced stage. 'They are compa-
ratively cheap, because they require only female
teachers; are very acceptable to parents, whom they
relieve of the care of ehildren at a helpless age, and
not only keep them from evil, but lay the founda-
tion of order, industry, and attention. Your com-
mittee, therefore, recommend that one or other of
the measures to which reference has been made in
the third paragraph of this report [the paragraph
here referred to is near tho commencement, com-
mencing with ' The children of out-door paupers,'
and ending with 'refrain from expressing an
opinion upon ft.') be adopted, whereby admission
into Government schools might be secured to desti-
tute orphans, deserted children, and the children of
out door paupers ; and that whatever children axe
not reached by the Industrial Schools Bill now
passing through Parliament, or by the proposed
measures, be left to the missionary exertions of the
tagged school managers, without any further
interference by the Government than exists at
present."
Several ineffectual attempts were made to amend
the report. It was ultimately adopted in the above
form by six votes to four, the majority consisting
of Mr. Lowe, Sir I. Graham, Sir B. Leighton, Mr.
Liddell, Mr. Adderley, and Mr. Bruce; and the
minority of Sir J. Pakington, Mr. Hanbury, Mr.
Black, and Mr. Cave. Sir Stafford Northcote,•being
in the chair, did not vote. The report is dated the
23d of July.