children; 10,193 certificated teachers; 608 assistant teachers; and 11,712 apprentices. Of the schools or departments 2,231 were for boys only; 2,008 for girls only; in 5,139, boys and girls were instructed together; 1,550 were confined to infants (children under seven years of age); and 890 to night scholars. Of the children, 633,810 were males, and 499,481 were females.

"The inspectors also visited 39 separate training colleges, occupied by 2,739 students in preparation for the office of schoolmaster or schoolmistress. In December last these students, and 1,757 other candidates, were simultaneously examined at the end of the first or second year of their training, or for admission, or for certificates as acting teachers. The number of inspectors employed upon this duty was sixty-two, and the number of inspectors' assistants fourteen.

"In England and Wales the Revised Code was in operation during the whole of the year; in Scotland, only during five months of it, and only so far as regards the manner of inspecting and examining schools; payments in Scotland continued to be made according to the Code of 1860, pending inquiry into the state of education by a Royal Commission, which is not expected to report before the early part of 1866. The capitation grants (as they were called), introduced by the minute of 2nd April, 1853, were never extended to Scotland; hence,

the grants continuing to be made to elementary schools in that part of Great Britain are confined (as heretofore) to the augmentation of teachers' salaries and the stipends of apprentices.

"The result of the first trial of the Revised Code in Scotland did not differ much from that in England. It showed a somewhat better average of reading, and one considerably worse of writing and arithmetic. As might have been anticipated (from the better social position of a considerable number of the scholars in Scotch elementary schools), the failure of the children above ten years of age to be presented, and to pass, in the higher standards, was a little less marked than in England, though still such as we hope will not fail to attract the notice of the public and of the Royal Commissioners.

"The number of children individually examined in Scotland under the Revised Code between 25th March and 31st August, 1864, was 31,789 out of 48,171, the average number attending 521 schools, or 66 per cent. The ratio of failures was-reading in Scotland, 1864, 10-89 per cent. ; in England, 1863-64, 11.87 per cent. Writing in Scotland, 28-6 per cent.; in England, 13.98 per cent. Arithmetic in Scotland, 33-4 per cent.; in England, 23.69 per cent.

"Out of the number 31,789 examined, 12,973 were over ten years of age, and were presented for examination as follows::

working of the two Codes. Mr. Middleton has arranged sixty-five schools in order of merit, according to a numerical scale, which represents discipline and proficiency.

"This table,' he says, 'does not measure the capacity of the teachers, their scholarship, or their incomes in the Order of Merit. It is not influenced by month of visit, locality of school, grade of certificate, or scale of fees. It marks no difference between highland school and lowland school, town school and country school, large school and little school. orders and conditions of schools are sown over the table apparently with the broad-cast hand of chance.

All

"But it measures, I believe pretty accurately, something that the public desire more to know, namely, in what comparative degree the schools are fulfilling their main mission, by training children to habits of order and honesty, and by giving them sound instruction in the essential elements of an English education.

"It is true that we in Scotland are, with reason, proud of higher branches in our common schools than the Revised Code reaches up to. Wherever time permitted, I tested these "middle class" branches by oral examination. I need not say on which foundation, the firm or the feeble, I found them strongest, or to which moiety of the merit table I should direct an inquirer who wished to meet them in any considerable force.

"In the sum of merit column there is a graduated and remarkable range from the maximum 772 to the minimum 278. It is no less remarkable that these schools have hitherto, under the Old Code, received their "annual

grants" without the amount being affected by merit so various and so widely different, that the lowest schools do not present one-half of the merit of the highest.'

"In another part of his report Mr. Middleton remarks:

"My experience of the financial working of the Code was but short. It extended from the 4th of May to the 13th of June, when authorized news arrived that the annual-grant operation of the Code was suspended. It embraced twenty-eight schools, most rural, all in Perthshire. As far as my calculations extended, it seemed clear that the grant overhead in these schools would have been about ten shillings per child in average attendance during the year. This rate would probably have amounted in gross to not far from the total sum eventually paid under the Old Code. But the distribution of money would have been different, and no doubt the feelings of these twenty-eight teachers at the suspension of the Revised Code were very different.'

"The number of day scholars individually examined in England and Wales under the Revised Code, in the year ending 31st August, 1864, was 523,713 out of 794,387, the average number attending the schools visited, or 66 per cent. The number of night scholars individually examined, out of 25,981 attending, was 15,627, or 60.14 per cent.

"The per-centage of failures was in-reading, 11.87 per cent.; writing, 13.98 per cent.; arithmetic, 28-69 per cent.

"Out of the whole number 539,340 examined, 222,467 were over ten years of age, and were presented for examination as follows:

"The result as to the day scholars may be thus stated:-The per-centage of children over ten to those over six years of age was 39-49 upon the whole number examined; but the children who were both above ten years of age, and who also were presented for examination above Standard III., were only 16 per cent., and who passed without failure only 11-12 per cent. of the whole number examined. These last two per-centages are slight improvements over the corresponding ones in 1863, viz., 16 instead of 14.18 per cent. presented for examination; 11-12 instead of 10-09 passed without failure.

"The following table (made up from the official registers to 31st December, 1864) shows the number of teachers actually serving in aided schools. Its numbers differ in some degree from those given at the beginning of the report, which represent actual inspection for the year ending 31st August, 1864, and are taken from inspectors' reports :-In 1864 there were in England and Wales 9,037 certificated teachers, 631 assistant-teachers, and 10,199 pupil-teachers. In Scotland 1,772 certificatedteachers, 57 assistant-teachers, and 1,962 pupil-teachers. Total, 10,809 certificatedteachers, 688 assistant-teachers, and 12,161 pupil-teachers.

"The average number (945,055) of dayscholars attending the schools in which these teachers are serving allows one certificatedteacher to every 93 children, beside one pupil or assistant-teacher to every 77 children. The increase (673) in the number of certificatedteachers employed in 1864 over the number employed in 1863 marks so many new schools, or departments of schools, brought into receipt of annual grants. The decrease in the number of pupil-teachers has already been explained by the fact that under the Code of 1860, their number might be pushed to the maximum in each school without any increase of expense to its local funds' (Report 1863-4, p. xvi.); whereas, under the Revised Code, the managers are under no temptation to employ a greater number of pupil-teachers than enables them to satisfy the minimum ratio of teachers to scholars required by the Code, and to obtain the best grant they can for their scholars. A reduction in the number of pupil-teachers is not everywhere prejudicial. A pupil-teacher

is a boy or girl generally between thirteen and eighteen years of age, and is not likely to be as competent, especially for the first two years of service, as a certificated-teacher. If teachers of the latter kind could be multiplied in such numbers as to be the only teachers, the advantage to the children under instruction would be palpable. But this is impossible on account of cost, and so (inasmuch as one head teacher alone can no more conduct a large school than a colonel alone can command a regiment,) pupil-teachers were introduced as the best kind of under-teachers who could be, afforded. Under the old system they might be apprenticed (wholly at the public expense) in any school with an average attendance of forty scholars, and of course few such schools were without their pupil-teacher. But it is quite within the power of a skilful head-teacher, by a judicious arrangement of the lessons (Time Table), to teach this number of children himself. A part of the children are kept at work over their slates or copy books, while he is engaged upon the oral lessons of the rest. In this way the whole school is brought into direct daily contact with his own mind, instead of being left (as was not unfrequently the lot of the junior classes) to the management of a child, under the name of a pupil-teacher. The Rev. H. Sandford gives an illustration, in regard to religious instruction,

"The religious knowledge of the lower classes is not so satisfactory as that of the upper; it is apt to be left too much in the hands of the younger teachers.''

"Elementary schools have no direct and immediate interest in the multiplication of pupilteachers beyond the point at which the head teacher ceases to be able to multiply his own presence by good organization of his classes. The anxiety which the decrease in their number inspires in the minds of many able and zealous promoters of education springs from another cause, viz., the supply of future schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and the means of filling the training colleges with candidates for that employment.

"The question thus raised is far from simple. No adequate data exist for determining what number of trained teachers will ultimately be required. The degree in which schools of private adventure for the poor may be super

seded by schools under trustees, the rate of vacancies per annum in the ranks of teachers, the maintenance of the teachers' certificate as a condition of public aid to schools, are all questions affecting the demand for trained teachers. In 1858 the Royal Commissioners estimated that upwards of half a million of children belonging to the poorer classes were educated by private teachers. Professor Moseley, in his report 1851-2, pp. 274-6, suggested, chiefly from Prussian data, that five per cent. might represent the annual vacancies in the ranks of teachers. His successor, the Rev. B. M. Cowie, in his report of this year, concludes that the rate of vacancies cannot at present be determined. It cannot, therefore, be stated absolutely what number of candidates for the office of teacher ought at this moment to be in training. No diminution of the future supply is involved in confining access to the training colleges with greater strictness to those who seriously intend to pursue the profession. Nor is it a reason against making necessary changes in the mode of examining and aiding elementary schools, that the office of teacher no longer attracts the same class or the same number of applicants. Such applicants are means to an end, and valuable only so far as they conform to it. The Rev. Mr. Mitchell, one of your Majesty's inspectors, gives the following account of the diminution of pupilteachers :

"The loss of that prestige which attaches to employment in the Government service, and the security of Government salary, through which the Government obtains for every office better men for less money than private individuals, have all had their effect upon parents, and the office of pupil-teacher is not in consequence so much sought as it used to be, and the candidates do not offer from so superior a class.'"

"We think the fact, that such ideas could prevail respecting the service of pupil-teachers, is a sufficient proof that, even at the risk of some present diminution in the numbers of the class, the time had come for marking more emphatically than before that they stood in no relation of service to any one except their local employers, and that these 15,000 or 16,000 boys and girls were not so many Government officers.

"An analysis of the numbers which make up the total reduction in the number of apprentices and of students in training colleges, shows that the reduction is affecting male more than female candidates. The number of male pupilteachers was - In 1862, 7,963; in 1863, 7,048, less by 11.5 per 100; in 1864, 5,725, less by 18.7 per 100. The number of female pupil-teachers was, in 1862, 7,789; in 1863, 7,137, less by 8.8 per 100; in 1864, 6,436, less by 9.8 per 100. The number of male students in normal colleges was, in 1863, England 1,167, Scotland 392; in 1864, England 1,056, Scotland 288; in 1865, England 860, Scotland, 238. The number of female students in normal colleges was, in 1863, England 1,177, Scotland 373; in 1864, England 1,147, Scotland 248; in 1865, England 1,156, Scotland 228.

“The reduction of students in Scotland may be dismissed from consideration. It is not denied that, in that part of the kingdom, the old system of grants concurring with the absence of all limit upon the number of students, such as is imposed in England by their residence within college, had multiplied them beyond all pretence of proportion to the demand for their services in schools of the poor. Confining attention, therefore, to England, it appears that while the number of male students was less in 1864 than in 1863 by 9.5 per cent., and in 1865 than in 1864 by 18.5 per cent., little variation has occurred in the number of female students, and indeed the number in 1865 is rather above that in 1864. The Rev. F. C. Cook reports :

"The training colleges for schoolmistresses have remained in the same satisfactory condition which I have described in late reports. Last year I stated that no perceptible effects have been produced upon them by the changes introduced into the system of elementary education. They were then all full of Queen's scholars; they were all organized upon a complete and efficient system, varying in details but nearly uniform in principle; the demand for trained and certificated students, though not so far in excess of the supply as I had formerly to report, was sufficient to absorb the whole number which they sent forth; and the salaries which the mistresses received, though they may upon the whole fall somewhat short

of the amount upon which they might formerly calculate, were certainly not unsatisfactory, being quite sufficient to maintain them with comfort and respectability in their station, and to enable them to provide for the contingencies of sickness and failing strength. I have no alteration to record.'"

"Considering the early age at which the greater part of the children leave school, and the difficulty of raising funds in those parts of the country which admit only of small schools, the employment of female teachers in schools for boys and girls together cannot fail to be extensively 'adopted. The number of certificated masters serving in inspected schools, at the end of 1863 was 5,857, and at the end of 1864 was 6,130, the increase being 4.6 per cent. The number of certificated mistresses serving at the same dates was 4,279 and 4,679, the increase being 9.3 per cent.

"The number of separate schools, for boys only, was 2,549 in 1863, and 2,231 in 1864; for girls only, 2,357 in 1863, and 2,008 in 1864; for infants only, 1,604 in 1863, and 1,550 in 1864; but the schools for boys and girls together had increased from 4,431 in 1863 to 5,139 in 1864, and the evening classes from 284 in 1863 to 890 in 1864. In all cases the infants, as far as possible, should be taught apart from the older children, and where the means exist of separating the latter into a department of boys under a master, and of girls under a mistress, and the numbers are sufficiently large, it is better to do so. We should regret, therefore, the retrograde tendency which these figures disclose if we thought it likely to be permanent. We believe it, however, to be only a passing effect of the change in the manner of payment under the Revised Code. Formerly a large part of each teacher's salary was paid directly by the Committee of Council. The managers now receive a gross sum in aid of their funds, and are left to make their own payments. The first effect of such a change is naturally in the direction of economy, and often to an unwise extent. But we have every confidence that, in proportion as the average of aid to be relied upon from our grants comes to be better understood, managers will not allow their schools to suffer in consequence of their own greater freedom, but will gradually restore their establishments to the old scale,

wherever they have been injudiciously reduced. We should not willingly believe that the voluntary system, having within its reach something like the old rate of public subvention, could not be trusted to maintain so much of the old organization of schools as experience has justified, without all the old leading-strings of appropriated grants-so much for the master's salary, so much for the apprentice, so much for books, and the like. To some extent the increase in the number of schools for boys and girls together, as distinguished from schools for boys and girls separately, is only apparent, and due to a more exact classification. Schools are now returned as mixed, which used to be registered as boys' schools, or girls' schools, according to the sex of the teacher, or of the majority of the scholars.

"The detailed reports received from your Majesty's inspectors on particular schools show that women are least satisfactory as teachers of arithmetic.

"The fact that the per-centage of failures of the children examined under the standards of the Revised Code in arithmetic is 23-69 per 100 against 12.92 per 100, the joint average per-centage of failures in reading and writing, is significant of the weak point of elementary teaching everywhere.

"As regards male students, the diminished supply is not accounted for by any general difficulty in obtaining employment. Mr. Cowie gives particulars (pp. 326-355 of Report) from 14 colleges, which show that out of 445 male students who became qualified to take charge of schools in December 1864, as many as 299 were known to be actually engaged before the end of January 1865, while 11 others were still in treaty for appointments, and 9 more had been so, but were in hopes of getting better offers. In other words, within a month, there had been a demand for 71.6 per cent. of the whole number, and effectual demand for 67-2 per cent. (nearly). One college (Exeter) is not included in this table. Mr. Cowie has not in that instance given the numbers, but he reports that all had found engagements.

"In 1864 the average receipts of a certificated master were (excluding Scotland, where payments are continued under the Code of 1860,) 887. 19s. 5d., of a certificated mistress 58/. 16s. 2d., or (in infant schools) 541. 13s. 5d.