Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/349

Rh in 1870 it was only beginning (despite the great advance on 1851) to be of real value. In 1870, out of every 1,000 children qualified by age and attendance for the examination in the two higher standards, 319 ought to have been prepared to pass. In fact only 98 were presented for the examination. Slow as was the progress between 1833 and 1870, ceaseless efforts had been made to hasten that progress. Population and the congestion of soul-ruining unsanitary areas, however, progressed more rapidly than the education movement and 1870 found a million and a half of little children without the means of education. Yet philanthropists and statesmen had striven manfully enough to solve the awful problem, A select committee of the House of Commons in 1838 reported on the deplorable conditions of education in the great towns. This led to the institution of the education committee of the Privy Council. The inquiry made by the National Society in 1846-7 showed that the established church was striving with might and main to do its duty, for it was actually educating one million children in its day schools. A select committee of the House of Commons in 1853 reported on the Manchester district of England and showed a school attendance improvement of no less than 300 per cent. The Duke of Newcastle's commission appointed in 1858 recommended, after a lengthy examination of the education problem, grants out of rates as well as out of the imperial exchequer, advised the creation of local boards of education in every county area, advocated a more efficient system for the training of teachers, and an extension of evening schools. The grants out of the rates were to be paid in respect of individual scholars upon examination by examiners appointed by the local boards of education. The revised code introduced by Mr. Lowe—the code governing the conditions under which the education committee of the Privy Council made the grants to the schools—adopted the principle of individual examination and the payment of all grants direct to the managers of the schools that earned the grant. Mr. Lowe in a famous phrase promised that the system should be either cheap or efficient. When he made this promise it was dear and inefficient. Under the revised code the parliamentary annual grant fell from £813,441 in 1861 to £636,810 in 1865. The system, however, was not efficient and it was found necessary once more to strive after educational legislation. In 1843 an effort had been made to pass a factory act that would secure some measure of religious and useful education to all children in the factories. The bill, however, in consequence of nonconformist opposition, was withdrawn. In 1853 a bill was introduced enabling those borough councils that chose to adopt the act to appoint a school committee for the purpose of controlling the elementary education of the district. It was proposed in this measure that any elementary school should be admitted to this control and reap its manifold benefits on the application of the school