J A. IRELAND AND CO., PRINTERS, MANCHESTER. THE Cittrofetr ^tijools Commission: SHALL IT BE CONTINUED? " The ancient virtue is not dead, An 1 long ifliiy it endure ! May wealth iu England never fail. Nor pity for the poor ! " Mr. (Jludiito)ie's Speech at Greenwich, S9th Oct., 1871. PRICE SIXPENCE LONDON: WM. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. 1873. CONTENTS. Part I. The Act and its Admixistkation .... 3 „ II. The Commissioners and their Principles . . 18 ,, III. How they Exercise their Powers . . 26 „ IV. The Case for Parliament 36 APPENDIX. I. Extract from Mr. Forster's Speech . . . .46 II. Extract from Journal of House of Lords . . .50 III. Extract from Appeal for Help to the .... Mission District in London 51 rV. Eeport as to the Grey Coat Hospital . . .54 THE ENDOWED SCHOOLS COMMISSION. PART I. The Act and its Administeation. In a recent article* the Saturday Review drew atten- tion to the fact that 24 only out of 3,000 endowed schools had been dealt with up to February by the Endowed Schools Commissioners, and the Daily Telegraph some time agof suggested that the work of the Commissioners would probably be finished about the time of the Greek Kalends. We take leave to suggest that it should be finished at once, and the Commissioners, instead of drawing between £14,000 and £15,000 a year from the taxes levied upon the people, sent about their business " to live " in time to come by their honest labour," to use the words of Lady Dacre when she founded Emanuel Hospital. :|: We have stated our thesis at the com- mencement, and propose to demonstrate it. We do not desire to convey that no more than twenty-four schemes have been made up to this moment ; but there is no authentic statement of the * December 23rd, 1872. f February 2n(l, 1872. X Their powers expired on the Slat December, 1872, but have been extended for twelve mouths by an Order in Council of the 27th November. b2 operations of the Commissioners to refer to since February. Many schemes have probably been forced after that date upon unwilling neighbourhoods unable to resist them : Ripon, for example, where, in place of an excellent free grammar school, the citizens are now liable to pay £15 a year for a son's education, because the Lord President does not think the existence of perfectly free schools is right. In the course of the last Session of Parliament, the Commissioners presented to the Privy Council a report of their proceedings, which was laid before Parliament. It is avowedly intended to be not only the justification of their remarkable career, but to contain the reasons for the prolongation of their existence. The cause of education in England, and the protection of the poor, alike demand that the other side of the question should be heard. If we do not imitate the example of the Commissioners in writing a book of 125 pages, it is because we are sensible of the enormous demands upon the time of public men in these days of shortened hours of labour and increasing work ; but none the less we ask for this brief consideration of the subject the attention which its importance demands. It must never be forgotten that it involves an income of £3710,000* per annum, before their appointment under the protection of the law, but now without any. The examination of this question cannot be com- plete without also referring to the course pursued by the Committee of Council on Education ; and, if "' Fide Appendix, post p. 47 we speak unreservedly and plainly, it is because the assumptions of tlie Commissioners, after they have had a full opportmiity of learning how the country views their proceedings, must be very differently regarded now, to what they were at the outset of their existence. It is not too much to say that they proposed to deal with all educational establishments in such a way, as the possession of despotic power could alone carry through, and that they have paid and pay little or no regard to the many expressions of dis- appointment and indignation with which their proposals are everywhere received. The Government, and particularly Mr. Forster, the Vice-President of the Committee of Council, will, no doubt, not like to admit the total failure of their plans for dealing with the question of secondary education ; but if Mr. Forster has chosen to work with mifit tools, and to support the Commissioners in their proceedings, he cannot escape from the consequences. Rightly to understand the matter, it is necessary to go back to the appointment of the Commissioners. They are no part of the ordinary Government of the country, but simply the creatures of a temporary Act of Parliament. In December, 1864, a Com- mission was appointed to inquire into public schools, understanding principally thereby numerous endowed grammar schools spread over England, and many of which, from causes not necessary for the present purpose to set forth, were in a declining state. This Commission expeditiously discharged its duty. In less than three years (December, 1871) it presented a report extending to no less than ten thick volumes, and making many suggestions for giving life to the grammar schools ; but it acknowledged in emphatic language the respect due to founders' wills. The Government accordingly introduced a Bill into Parliament in the Session of 1869 authorizing the appointment of three Commissioners to reform abuses. No speech had been made upon the occasion of the first reading of this Bill, and great was the alarm felt when its sweeping provisions came to be known throughout the country. The well-managed schools objected to be mixed up with the bad, and to have the same measure meted out indifferently to all. The opposition would have assumed such formidable dimensions, that Mr. Forster found it necessary to commend the further progress of the Bill to the country, by a carefully prepared and elaborate speech in moving the second reading. To what he then said, speaking with the weight and responsibility of the Minister of the Crown, not only in charge of the Bill, but with whom its execution, after it became law, would entirely rest, we beg particular attention. The speech is too long to quote in extenso here, but the " ipsissima verba " are given in the Appendix,* as extracted from Hansard. Suffice it to say that the speech obtained for the Bill general approval and sympathy. In it Mr. Forster laid before the House in forcible language, supported by *■ Vide pod page 47. extracts from the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission, many gross cases of neglect and abuse of school endowments ; but immediately after the statement of those cases came his assurance (after- wards rejDcated to the trustees of the Bristol Schools), that the Bill was not intended for good schools; and further on in the same speech was the expression of his lioj^e that it was possible to reform bad schools, and ' ' that, when freed from the abuses which had " arisen in their administration, they would be pro- " ductive of great good in the future." The whole tenor of this speech disarmed an opposition which would have been sufficiently powerful to prevent the Bill passing, if there had been the least notion in the public mind, that a general scheme of confiscation was to be entered upon by the persons entrusted with the execution of its powers. It is true that some of the members who heard Mr. Forster were disquieted by doubts, and, as the result has shown, were prophetic in their utterances. Mr. Howard, for instance, " believed it would be " a great national disaster should gentlemen be ap- "pointed Commissioners who had imbibed educa- *' tional hobbies or crotchets, or who were under the " influence of narrow or stereotyped views for dealing " with so great and comprehensive a subject." Mr. Locke too ' ' looked with dismay upon the " enormous expense to which the public and schools " might be put in appealing first to the Privy Council " and then to Parliament." Mr. Goldncy said "the stupid children ought to 8 " be educated as well as the clever ones ; " and Mr. Walter "objected (as well he might) to the limit of '' forty days for presenting an address condemning " the scheme." He is probably satisfied by this time that, instead of being negative addresses, they should have been affirmative. This Bill no doubt gave very ample powers to the Commissioners — "stringent and di'astic " they call them, — and such powers as it is believed have never before been given by Parliament to any persons, and never must be again ; those powers may have been necessary to be in the hands of the Commissioners where a bad school had to be dealt with, but their possession does not justify their exercise upon good schools ; and for the Commissioners to apply them to good schools, and for Mr. Forster to sanction such application, is a breach of public faith, which no consideration whatever can justify. Acts of Parlia- ment are not our only laws in the affairs of life. Yet, with a perversity of jDurpose for which nothing, but the desire to make their office last as long as possible, can account, the Commissioners at once proceeded to attack the well-managed schools, and gave no attention to the bad ones ; nay, more, they proceeded with the exercise of their powers, not as if they had to reform abuses in grammar schools, but as if they had come into possession of the entire educational endowments of all England, to refound them at their pleasure; and they have the temerity to allege, in effect, that the Act under which they derive their powers has bodily incorporated into it the 9 entire report of the previous Inquiry Commis- sioners, and made that their guide.* Nor is this amazing pretension the only one put forth by the Commissioners. They assert it not only to be their right, but their duty, to take possession of and divert every endowment given for providing elemen- tary or, as they call it, primary education, and apply it for secondary or middle-class education. f Their own conclusion is summed up in these words: "It is difficult to see what advantages the elemen- '' tary scholars get from an endowment if it only '' meets those expenses which must otherwise be met, '' and are met, perhaps, in the next parish by other '' resources." In vain do the trustees of this class of endowments plead that it is undisguised confisca- tion to pervert them from the plain j^urpose to which the bounty of a former parishioner gave them. Neither this argument, the preamble of the Act under which the Commissioners are actinir, which says that the main designs of the founders are to be carried into effect, nor the founders' direction, nor the intention of the Legislature in passing the Elementary Education Act, have the least weight in their eyes; indeed, so strong is the desire with which they are animated to dispossess somebody or something, that they have not the common justice to let poor children * See House of Commons Paper, No. 297, Session 1871, pp. 10 and 18; Copy Correspondence Emanuel Hospital; and Report of the Commissioners, p. 9. t See Report, pp. 27-30, and Paper S, p. 72. 10 remain In schools in which they arc lawfully placed until the expiration of their time, but they actually command their being turned out the day the scheme becomes law. Since the days of acts of attainder, these are the first retrospective laws we have had in this countr}^. But "these three" stick at notliing, and in the case of the Grey-coat Hospital, at West- minster, although it was pointed out to them that part of the endowment even of the charity would be forfeited if the Governors did not fill up the places as they became vacant, the Commissioners refused to alter their decision : perhaps, as that excellent charity is close by Victoria Street, they hoped to have ocular proof of at least one scheme being in work, by meeting some j)Oor little orphan girl turned out into the street as they walked down one morning to their office there. For gentlemen who were confessedly hunting "the pious founder" con a?)iore, this could not but be an exhilarating sight. No wonder the Commissioners have made but slow progress. Not one word was ever breathed in Parliament of an intention to confiscate endowments for primary education doing their duty, nor the various meritorious hosj^ital schools ; reform of abuses in grammar schools was held out as the object to be dealt with by the Commissioners, and even "blazing principles" (without which, accord- ing to some, there can be no Government long in power), would have recoiled at the universal confiscation thus contemplated by the Commissioners. The widespread distrust and aversion engendered 11 by their violent and arbitrary policy is an impassable barrier now to the success of their work. A spirit of moderation alone could have won the confidence of the public and the assistance of localities where they had to work, and without which success was impossible. Even if their schemes are tyrannically forced down the throats of Englishmen, in the face of protests against them, tliey have afterwards to be worked; and no one but a visionary philosopher will look for success without a large measure of public sympathy and hearty support. We believe that Mr. Forster and the Government intended that the Endowed Schools Commission should enter upon the important work confided to it in a spirit of moderation. There was am^^le scope for vigorous reforms in the condition of a large number of endowed schools and charities. In many cases the trusts were mischievous, or no longer ajiplicable to the circumstances of the present age. In others were exhibited all the vices of maladministration, extravagance, and malversation of the funds. The public hoped and believed that the Commission would at once apply itself to redress this state of things, leaving useful and well-managed foundations untouched, and use its energies for the cor- rection of proved abuses. But, when the names of the Commissioners came to be known, the pub- lished opinions of certain of its members and officials completely disappointed this expectation, and their manifestoes, notably Papers F and S,* * See Eeport, pp. 44-72 12 soon confirmed this mistrust. Their pohcy was at once seen not to be limited to the institution of necessary reforms, but as conceived in a spirit of revolution. It contemplated a general reversal of trusts, however wholesome and bene- ficent their purpose ; a sweeping disestablishment of the existing governing bodies ; and the ultimate abolition of all provision for the gratuitous educa- tion and maintenance of the children of the poor. It was declared that the wills of founders must be treated as waste-paj)er, and that endowments must be forcibly released from '' the grasp of the "dead hand." Gratuitous education was declared to be a cause of demoralization to the poor, and it was intimated that henceforth it would only be given as the reward of educational merit established in com- petitive examination. It was seen at once that the whole tendency of the views of the Commissioners was to abolish the gratuitous education of the poor, and to apply the funds to the establishment of cheap schools for the middle classes. It was no marvel if the great body of trustees, governing bodies, and school managers — looking upon themselves as the appointed guardians of the rights of the poor — should rise in revolt against a policy which contem- plated the wholesale confiscation of the endowments bequeathed expressly for their benefit. The Commissioners protest that they have been egregiously misunderstood ; but the condemnation they have provoked rests not merely upon a paper programme, but upon the practical exhibition of 13 their policy in the various schemes they have put forth from time to time. We defy contradiction when we say that the purpose and effect of their Emanuel Hospital scheme, for instance^ is to cut off the })rovision for the gratuitous education of the poor, and employ it for the establishment of cheap schools for the middle classes. Tlie only qualifi= cation to the general character of the scheme is the proviso by which the child of a poor man may gain a free schooling if he can establish his educational superiority in a competitive examination with middle- class- children, who may have been undergoing the process of "cramming" for months beforehand, for which the poor man cannot afford to pay. With this exception, there is hardly any mitigation of the general intention of the Commissioners to appropriate the endowments distinctly bequeathed for the benefit of the poor, to lessen the cost of edu- cation to the middle classes. They reply that the Elementary Education Act does away with the necessity of maintaining this provision for the indi- gent classes. No more wrong-headed interpretation could have been given to that Act. Parliament and the country intended by passing that measure to supply the existing voids in education ; but these Commissioners, by seizing and diverting all endow- ments for elementary education, proceed to quadruple that void, and much the country will thank them for it, if they should be (may it not be so!) successful. What do the London ratepayers think of the taxes they have at present to submit to for the London 14 School Board's operati»»ns, at present only in its in- fancy ? But what will the outcry be when the taxes for education come to be levied all over the country, because the Endowed Schools Commissioners have taken away the endowments for primary educa- tion ? Do you doubt their intention to do this ? Eoad again their Report and Paper S.* Without further j^ursuing that view of the question which affects the ratepayer, it is obvious, on the equally important view of it which affects the poor, that a cheap education in a public school is no equivalent to a poor man for the gift of a free education, with lodging, clothing, and maintenance for his child. Nor will he be any more satisfied with the exchange, because he may be told that if he is all the -worse for it, the class immediately above him is all the better. What a preposterous thing to tell the poor man that it demoralizes him to subsidize his scanty means with an endowment for his children's educa- tion, but that it is a most excellent things for the class above him ! What affection it will give him for the institutions of his country, when they take away from him the endowments expressly given to him, and transfer them to the middle class ! He will certainly ask, if the grasp of the dead man's hand is to be no protection for the security and safety of estates left in trust for his benefit and his relief, why should it any longer protect the Eeport, pp. 27-30, 72. 15 private inheritance of Lord Lyttelton and his com- peers ? As a keen observer lately said, upon observ- ing the Marquis of Ripon and Lord Lyttelton in the Council Chamber at Whitehall, striving to take away the grasp of Lady Dacre's hand from Emanuel Hospital, he wondered whether those great lords remembered for a moment that it was a dead man's hand that had entailed their estates and possessions on themselves, and whether they reflected that it was a dead man's hand which had placed their coronets upon their brows, and their ermined robes upon their shoulders ; and whether, when the grasp of the dead man's hand had been removed, and every Act of Parliament and charter which had insured the possession of his property to the object which he gave it, had been abrogated at the instigation of these noble lords he should live to see the children of some Citizen Odger, who had passed Lord Lyttelton's competitive examination, smoking their clay pipes among the stately ruins of Studley Royal, or desecrating the classic groves of Hagley ; the same law which protects the estates and titles of their fortunate possessors being treated of none effect to prevent the poor man's inheritance of charities left in trust for him, being confiscated. If this evil precedent of the removal of the founder's dead hand be insisted upon, will it be surprising, when comi)ulsory education shall have more generally diffused knowledge among the lower classes — as will be the case in another decade — to hear the question why the revenues of the 16 dissolved monasteries should be retained by private owners instead of being restored to the Church or to the State ? By what other title than the "dead hand " of King Henry VIII. do tlie noble possessors of Bolton, Covent Garden, Croyland, Furness, Foun- tains, Tavistock, Thorney, AVoburn, and many other rich abbeys now hold them ? * Surely their title, as receiving these grants for assisting that clerical and educational reformer in the gratification of his passion for Anne Boleyn stands lower than than that of the poor of Westminster to Lady Dacre's estates, the fruit of a life of self-denial and Christian charity! Reflecting upon these ques- tions, will the House of Lords, the guardians of the rights of property, allow so fatal a precedent of confiscation ? Does this argument beg the question that the endowments are to be taken from the poor and given to the middle-classes ? What said Lord Lyttleton in his place in the House of Lords? ''He admitted " it would be the effect of the work of the Commis- " sion to give the lion's share of the endowments *' under their control, taken as a whole, to the middle- *' class rather than to the highest or lowest class, "f Do the facts in the test case, which the Commis- sioners themselves have selected to try ther powers, Emanuel Hospital, agree with Lord Lyttelton's * One-twentitrth part only of the propt rty of the monasteiies reached the State, ihe remainder -was di.>tjibiited amcDg Henry's favorites. f nansflril, vol. 95, p. 1567. 17 avowed intentions ? Lady Dacre founded that charity for the gratuitous education of poor children. The bulk of the benefits henceforth are to be ob- tained only upon payment of £25 a year. The best of the working class do not earn, even now, more than forty shillings a week, or £10-1: a year. If the parent has but two or three children to educate can he afford to pay £50 or £75 a year for them at the new Emanuel School? But the middle-class father can. Is £25 a year less than the value of the maintenance and education the cliild will receive there ? What other conclusions can possibly be deduced from these facts than that Lady Dacre' s endowment will give to the middle- class child an education at a price less than its value — in other words, the parent's payment to the school will be subsidized by Lady Dacre's money. 18 PART II. The Commissioners and their Principles. Had it been known at the time the Bill was in Parliament into whose hands its powers would have been placed, and what sentiments they entertained, small was the chance of its ever being read a second time, much less reaching the House of Lords. The sayings and doings of Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Hobhouse, two of the three Commissioners, had not at that time gone beyond the walls of the Social Science Association. Mr, Hobhouse prepared the way by reading a paper to that select body on the 8th July, 1869,* in which he laid it dowm, with singular charity and philanthropy, that " To talk of " the piety or benevolence of people who give proj)erty '' to public uses, is a misuse of language springing ''from confusion of ideas. As a matter of fact, I "believe, as I have elsewhere said more at length, "that donors to public uses are less under the "guidance of reason and conscience, and more " under the sway of the baser jDassions, than other " people." Alas ! poor Lady Dacre ! And further on he says :'\ — "Having now reviewed the princijjal doctrines " and arguments on this subject, I am in a position '' Journal of the ^'ocial Science Assoication, 18CD, p. 595. i Ibid, p. COl. 19 ''to state tlie two simple principles which should ''be established with respect to foundations. " The first is that the public should not be com- " pelled to take whatever is offered to it; . . . . the " second j^rinciple is that the grasp of the dead hand " shoidd be shaken off absolutely and finally." Lord Lyttelton, speaking at the same meeting, after listening to this instructive paper, said,* " that if "himself and Mr. Hobliouse were allowed to do "what they certainly w^ould feel it their duty to " attempt, the pious founder would go to the wall." These being the deliberate views of Lord Lyttel- ton and Mr. Hobliouse, was it fair to Parliament, to' the country, and to their intended victims, to ap- point them Commissioners ? This was not putting reformers to work, but revolutionists. Let us do Lord Lyttelton the justice to say that he deprecated being appointed ; his words are, " he still doubted ' ' whether the managers of endowed schools had " not some cause of complaint in not being placed " under the control of men of less pronounced " views on this subject than himself . . . and " Mr. Hobhouse."t Mr. Gladstone's confidence in his brother-in-law no doubt outweighed such delicate considerations. But worse is to follow. Parliament intended to provide a safeguard against the arbitrary action of the Commissioners, by requiring all schemes to be submitted to, and ^'- Journal of the Social Science Association, 1869, p 609. I Ibid., page 610. C 2 20 approved by, the Committee of Council on Edu- cation, before they had any effect whatever, and, secondly, in giving an appeal to the Privy CounciL Now, the official of the Committee of Council to whom these schemes are sent for examination is one of the permanent assistant secretaries of the department, Mr. Patrick Cumin, who was one of the Assistant Commissioners under the Popular Education Commission. In their report * we learn Mr. Cumin's deliberate views about charity in the following words: "No charity should be conferred ''on man or woman unless some consideration is given "for it. No doubt there are cases of meritorious " servants disabled by old age, disease, or accident "who may be allowed to claim assistance on the "ground of past services or the visitation of God. " But, generally speaking, the person benefited ought "to do something to entitle himself to the benefit." Mr. Cumin has not explained how the poor orphan or destitute child can in the first instance do anything to entitle itself to charity ; but, entertaining these views, it seems scarcely fair to Parliament or to the schools that schemes should be prepared by Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Hobhouse, and judged by Mr. Cumin, especially as, in the case of small endowments over the country where the income does not amount to £100 a year, there is no appeal after the scheme has passed the Committee of Council on Education. For schools whose income exceed ^100 a year there was still the supposed safeguard of an appeal to * Vol. iv., page 282. 21 five members of the Privy Comicil against the errors of the Commissioners, but this protection also turns out to be worthless. Tlie Act, whilst giving an appeal, has not provided how the Court shall be formed. Considering that the Endowed Schools Commissioners not only make laws, but without ap- peal to any court or tribunal but the Privy Council, repeal and abrogate every Act of Parliament, charter, deed of trust, decrees of the Court of Chancery,* in short, everything that comes in their way, some impartiality might be expected in the choice of the judges to hear the appeal. Practi- cally, these appeals are against the aj^proval of the Committee of Council on Education, consisting of the Lord-President and the Vice-President, for the Commissioners are the mere creatures of the execu- tive Government, appointed by and removable at their pleasure. The Act says so, and Mr. Forster meant it to be so. We again quote Hansard :f ''The Commissioners alone have no power what- '*ever. The Commissioners are merely officers ' ' assisting the Government, it is the Government " of the day working by special help. The respon- '' sibility will rest on the Government whether they " approve of the scheme." The Lord President of the Council being thus the party appealed against, directs who shall form the court over which he presides to hear and determine appeals against his own acts and deeds ! * Vide section 46 of Endowed SuLoola Ac;t. f Yul. cxciv., page 1.S71. ')'> Again "\vc quote authority for this statement : the evidence given before the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Appellate rJurisdiction, Session 1872. Question 71, put to Mr. Reeve, the Registrar of the Privy Council : " Does the Lord President settle on all occasions ''what judges shall sit in a particular case?" Answer : '' The Lord President or the officers under " him, who act solely by his authority." The hands of the Commissioners, upraised all over the country against hospital schools, have been stayed, waiting the result of the recent aj^peal in the case of Emanuel Hospital. Those interested in the schools were watching the appeal with even more interest. What happened ? The Lord President being the party appealed against, actually nominated himself and another of his colleagues in the Ministry (Mr. Childcrs) to sit and determine upon his own acts and deeds. Well, they sat on the 25th November, 1872, very appropriately in what used to be the Star Chamber ; if it still went by that name, we should know what we were about. The ])liw of '• Cromwell" might draw more and " Charles I." less. But what can be the value of a decision given by a tribunal so constituted? In fact, althougii the ordinary forms of hearing an appeal are used, any- thing but the ordinary course of the administration of justice is observed. The press reports the case and the arguments of Counsel, but no decision is given in public, much less any reasons for it ; and all that the unfortunate appellants learn afterwards is 23 that tlic scheme will be laid before Parliament in due com'se. But not only in the constitution of the tri- bunal, but also in the powers with which it is clothed, is there an entire absence gf even the appearance of justice to the unhappy schools. The case had been hardly opened when Lord Justice James, one of the Privy Council, said, "I hope you don't propose to " discuss the expediency of the scheme." Further on, " We are not sitting by way of appeal from the '' discretion of the Commissioners." Again, "• I think ^' you ought to bear in mind we are not a Court of '' Appeal from any matter which it was within the '' jurisdiction of the Commissioners to do. You " must show us in what way they have exceeded '' their jurisdiction." And again: ''We must see " that they have not disobeyed the Act." So that the whole attention of the Appellate Com% accord- ing to this view of its powers, is directed to whether the Commissioners have or have not exceeded the authority given them by the Act. It may at once be admitted that there is hardly any outrage upon existing institutions which the words of the Act of Parliament do not justify. Mr. Forster, in the same speech we have before alluded to, assured the country that the Commis- sioners' 230wers would be found fenced round at every point. It seems to be a fence they can, without any effort, leap over. Having thus shown that all the schools in England are handed over to the irresponsible authority of three Commissioners, we might well leave off hero 24 and say that our tlicsis — the sooner the Com- missioners are sent about their business the better — had been proved, because it is clear that the distinct understanding upon which the Act of Parliament was passed turns out to be an entire mistake. But it may reasonably be asked of us that, as their work is confessedly not finished— in fact, hardly begun — notwithstanding some £40,000 they have cost the taxpayers. What is to be done ? Well, we say, without hesitation, that if any persons, under whatever name, are to be entrusted with legislative powers of any kind, it is a fatal mistake to make them judges as well as prosecutors. No one, with knowledge of their constitution and their proceedings, can restrain a smile at the claim of the Commissioners to a judicial character,* Ultra sentiments alone and exclusively were represented upon their commission at the outset, and scarcely modified now that Mr. Roby, the Secretary, has taken Mr. Hobhouse's place. There is no kind of counterpoise to the destructive measures which their avowed sentiments naturally prompt. The spirit of the Act, as might be expected, has been entirely violated by such a tribunal. What can be greater proof than, although it is not against the letter of the Act, for them to amalgamate foundations having an income exceeding £1,000 a-year; yet their doing so is entirely opposed to its spirit, and renders its 32nd clause imgatory. That clause gives the gover- nors of foundations having net incomes exceeding * Eeput, p. 1> 25 £1,000 a-year tlie right to submit their own schemes to the Commissioners. Not that the Commissioners were to be thereby bound to accej^t the scheme so submitted in every part and detail ; but it was clearly the intention of Parliament that a yearly income of £1,000 was to be considered ample to be employed independently. A distinct character was thus given to large endowments ; but the administration of the Act by the Commissioners has treated this provision as so much dust thrown into the eyes of the j)ublic. In dealing with old institutions, it is entirely con- trary to the spirit of this country to throw aside the consideration of their separate existence ; whereas the Commissioners have proceeded uj^on the prin- ciijle of how far a given amount of income could be made to go by pouring it all into a common fund, and again deaUng it out. Nothing has ever yet been so dealt with in this country. Kesi^ect has always been paid to what exists, and not merely of the maximum effect it might be possible to obtain, if everything had to begin de novo. To deal with old institutions upon the Commissioners' j^lan is, disguise it as they may, the principle of communism, 23ure and simple. Recent speeches of members of the Government have, indeed, led to the belief that this principle is to be carried further, and that possession of all landed property held by corporations is to be taken by the State. How long the estates of private individuals would be safe after that has happened does not require much foresight. 26 PART III. How THE Commissioners exercise their Powers. We have, at present, dealt with generalities. For- tunately, the actual mischief whicli the Commis- sioners have done, beyond drying up the springs of charity in this country, is not great. We purpose now to give a few examples of cases of individual mischief whicli they are contemj^lating, if their course is not arrested by Parliament. The case of the City of Ripon, under the shadow of the Lord President of the Council, is irreiDarable It shows how small is the protection given by the right of Parliament to stop any scheme. The free grammar school there, founded in the reign of Philip and Mary, by all testimony steadily increasing in value, neglecting none of the branches of a useful English education ; educating a fail* per-centage of the middle-class population of Ripon (so reported by the Schools Inquiry Commission) has, notwithstand- ing the all but unanimous protest of the people of Ripon, been turned into a boarding-school, nearly half its endowments dii-ected to be sunk in build- ing this boarding-school, whicli the people of Ripon do not want, and simply because the Endowed Schools Commissioners do not think that a free grammar school was good for the town. In other words, they set themselves up as knowing better than the people of Ripon what was good for them. 37 The forcing any such theory upon places in England is of itself a great hardship ; but, happily, one can judge of the Commissioners' conduct in this case by another town, Colchester, where there is also a grammar school ; and in that place thoy are en- deavouring, also against the wishes of the people of Colchester, to put an end to that being a boarding- school, and to turn it into a day-school only. Now, both the grammar school at Colchester, and the grammar school at Ripon, Avere flourishing schools ; they were not such schools as were intended to be within the purview of the Act, at all, and it is simj^ly an abuse of power to interfere mtli either one or the other. The Colchester scheme is not yet com- pleted, and, wc hope, never will be. The sentiments of that town are, "That endowed schools in general, " and our own school in particular, will do better '^ witlioutthe interference of her Majesty's Commis- " sioners than they will with it." * The same tiling is happening at Wimborne. A grammar school in full life exists in that ancient town, founded by Margaret Countess of Richmond, in 1509. The Commissioners, however, desire to apply the revenues to a boarding-school for girls. No one denies that providing for the education of girls is a desirable object; but why is it to be done at the expense of the education of boys ? The great battle of life must after all be with men, and the only excuse made for the alteration at Wimborne * See Essex Gazette, January 3, 1870. 28 is, that there is a good school for boys at Sherborne, wliich is no answer to the protest of the inhabitants of Wimborne, who desire to have their boys educated as intended by their founder's bounty. Wliy should they send their boys to a boarding-school at Sher- borne, instead of to a day school at Wimborne ? If there are any surplus educational resources, either at Wimbourne or elsewhere in the country, now devoted to the education of boys, by all means let them be applied to the education of girls ; but if there is no surplus, the proper way for those who desire to have endowed schools for girls, is to do as our forefathers did when they founded the schools for boys — put their hands in their pockets and provide the schools for gii'ls. We have no hesitation in saying that the general desire to make education universal, and to provide schools for the purpose, would have been sufficient to prompt the existing generation of Englishmen to do this, but for the serious shaking which the action of these Commissioners has given to their faith in the safety of money given for charitable purposes. Nor are we speaking now upon specula- tion. It is not very long ago that a large-hearted man made the British Orphan Asylum a present of a new home at Slough, by di-awing a cheque for the amount of the pui'chase-money — some ^12,000. Now we have — on the other side— -the fact that the sub- scriptions to Christ's Hospital from new governors, which averaged for some years past between £6,000 and £7,000 a-year, have entirely fallen off, and not 29 only have the governors of that well-known hospital been j^revented from taking yearly as many children as heretofore, but they are actually obliged to sell part of their capital stock to meet the current expenses. But mischievous and unnecessary interference is not all that we have to allege against the Com- missioners. The Skinners' Company had entrusted to their management the famous school at Tun- bridge, founded by Sir Andrew Judd, a citizen of London, in 1553. Like the Corporation of London, that Company loyally sought to carry into effect the wishes of Parliament when the Act was passed, by making the most of the endowment entrusted to them ; and they prepared and sent, more than three years ago, a scheme for the future government of the school to the Commissioners, and they made a munificent offer not only to increase the number of scholarships in the existing school, but to found out of other funds belonging to the Company, and which were at its absolute disposal, an entirely new commercial school. No response whatever has been made to this offer by the Endowed Schools Commissioners. But why ? Be- cause the Skinners' Company no doubt insisted and desired that, having faithfully administered the trust in the past, it should be continued in their charge in the future, and this the Commissioners did not want to concede. No amount of good management will ensure that right being continued by the Commissioners. Tliey started into existence with a statement that ' ' whatever arrangements were 30 ^' made for the future of endowed schools, they were '^ unwiUmg on general principles to commit the whole '' government of important educational endowments " to a single corporation, however eminent or dig- '' nified." * Quite lately, a Draft Scheme has been published taking the management of their important educational trusts from another City Company, the Haberdashers. Notwithstanding the decision of the House of Lords in the case of Emanuel Hospital, that the Corporation of London should not be removed from the government, as they had, in that and every other educational endowment committed to their care, faithfully discharged their duty, the Endowed Schools Commissioners within a week of that de- cision again returned to the charge, and, by a second new scheme, proposed to remove the Cor- poration from the government of Emanuel Hospital, a com'se they are still persisting in. It is true that within the last month ('' Tell it not in Gath andjDub- lish it not in the streets of Askelon ") there has been a sad falling away from their principles. They have prepared a scheme for the establishment of schools in connexion with another Company of the City of London, the Grocers', which received the a23proval ot the Committee of Council on Education on the 3rd of December, 1872, and in which the exclusive manage- ment of those schools is given to the Court of the Grocers' Company. This is indeed a curious com- * Sec Emanuel Hospital Correspordence, p. 10. 31 ment upon their principles. What ! not continue to entrust the Court of Aldermen of the City of London with the management of Emanuel Hospital, when the members of that body are elected by theii' fellow-citizens from their knowledge of their capacity for public service, and because they are eminent in their several stations, but give the management of a new school to the self-elected Court of the Grocers' Company, the only qualification to reach which is that a man's father was a Grocer before him ? But we have not yet done with these Commis- sioners. There is a well-known educational esta- blishment at Dulwich, also founded (like the Tun- bridge schools) by a citizen of London. But some ten or fifteen years have elapsed since the whole of that charity was regulated by a new scheme under an Act of Parliament. Every traveller to Dover must have seen the large buildings of the new school, raised at a large expense under the pro- visions of that new scheme, and all men in England (except the three Endowed Schools Commissioners) would probably have been of opinion that a large educational institution like that, just started on a new career of life, should have been left alone to see how it worked. Not so ; that also has received their attention, and if (of which there is but little chance) the scheme should be carried into effect, Dulwich College will be entirely destroyed, as the Commissioners most fully intend, for the college chapel is to be turned into a parish chm-ch ! Yet a specimen of another class of case where the 32 Commissioners are absolutely a hindrance to the cause of education. The parish of St. Dunstan-in- the-East, in the City of London, is possessed of a very considerable amount of parish charities. The alteration of the circumstances of the parish, and the increase of the value of these charities, led to a new scheme for their application being established by the Court of Chancery as recently as the loth of June, 1867, just two years before the Endowed Schools Act passed. The present income of the charities thus dealt with is about £3,600 a-year, and rightly to appreciate the action of the Endowed Schools Commissioners it is to be noted that, with the exception of £10 a-year, none of the charities are educational charities, nor can, without the consent of the parishioners, be applied for educational purposes. But with their full approbation, given at two public meetings, the Court of Chancery author- ized the trustees of the charities, after making certain specific payments out of the income, to purchase a site and erect thereon schools suitable for a middle-class day-school, to be called St. Dunstan's College, and to be capable of accommo- dating 400 boys ; or, if thought more desii^able, the trustees were to be at liberty to erect the school on part of the charity estates. The course of instruction provided was a liberal one, following very closely the cui-riculum of King's College, London. Ten scholarships (subject to increase in the discretion of the trustees) were to be founded in the school, to be given as the reward of merit, as also fom* exhibitions 33 to be held in any of tlie English universities, in addition to the ordinary school prizes, for which £50 a-year were to be set aside. The trustees fixed upon a portion of their own lands contiguous to a railway station, and accessible to the metropolis, upon which to build St. Dunstan's College, and prepared the plans; but before the buildings could be commenced the approval of the Court of Chancery was, by the terms of the scheme, required to the plans. Here, unfortunately, the Endowed Schools Commissioners came into play with mischievous effect. Their Act had, in the meanwhile, passed, and the 55tli section prohibits all trustees of schools from erecting any school buildings during the continuance of the Commis- sioners' powers, except with their written consent. Application was accordingly made to them for this consent, but the trustees were informed that the Commissioners could not deal with the case until they had the leisure to frame a scheme. This com- munication somewhat startled the parishioners of St. Dunstan's, as well it might, considering that they had only just obtained a scheme from the Court of Chancery at a cost of £3,300, and they not unnaturally regarded another new scheme as tend- ing both to unnecessary delay and expense. With all respect to the Endowed Schools Commissioners, the parishioners thought that the Court of Chancery, with the help of the Attorney-General, having so recently determined the whole matter, after length- ened deliberation, there was not much room for re- D 34 consideration. However, the Endowed Schools Commissioners, strong in appreciation of their own wisdom, think otherwise ; for no consent can be obtained from them to the building of the school being commenced. The matter has, in fact, been brought to a com- plete stand-still by the Commissioners. More than five years have elapsed since the Court of Chancery approved of the parish appljdng these charities to education pui'poses. They have the site, the plans prepared, and the money in their pocket ; but not one step can they take to provide for the education of the 400 boys who are all growing up in the mean- while. We know, too, of another instance in a large town, not far fr-om the metropolis, where an old grammar school might with great advantage have been revived, with the assistance of other charities applicable to the purpose, for the use of a population of some 25,000 around it ; but, although the atten- tion of the Commissioners has been called to this case, nothing has been done, simply because they are too much occupied in the work of destruction to attend to improvement. We should like now to ask the affirmative question, Where is the evidence of any good these Commis- sioners have done ? If they had been content only to carry out the purpose for which they were called into existence — the remodelling of comatose and ill- managed foundations — all might have been effected long ere this. Their entire legitimate work might easily have been got through by this time, but that we were all to be made so good and clever by their educational nostrums, the outcry of a small party of specious reformers given to much talk and bent on giving laws to somebody. They have their head- quarters in that self-satisfied body — the Social Science Association — where they produce "women governors " and other evidences of the strong- minded female, and they offer their services every- where as social tinkers, ready to make, patch, or mend schemes for everybody and everything. We believe we have now stated enough to show that the sooner the Commissioners are sent about their business the better. That the work they were intended to carry out has been left undone, no one can doubt ; but public confidence is entirely des- troyed in them and their mission, and can never be restored. After all, the Charity Commissioners, in the exercise of their ordinary jurisdiction, are able to make new schemes; and many schools throughout the country have already been thus remodelled by them, and more would have been, but that the unfortunate Endowed Schools Act has suspended their powers whilst it lasts. There is sufficient public spirit abroad to assure the work being got through in this way. D i; m PART IV. « The Case for Parliament. There remains to be considered what should be done with the Westminster School Charities, which stand for immediate consideration by Par- liament. The scheme for the Grey-coat Hospital has unfortunately but one day out of the forty days left to run, and it is too much to hope that on the first day of the Session an address can be acrried, stopping that scheme. The Commissioners have committed a gross injustice by turning these admirably-managed schools into boarding-schools, in which' the greater part of the places are to be paid for at £25 a-year . They have done this in the face of the protest of the governors, and they have also taken away almost entirely the maintenance of the girls in the school. Ever)'- one supposed that the provision of the 29th Section of the Endowed Schools Act, that nothing should be construed to prevent scJiemes from providing for the continued application of the endowment to this purpose, if the governing body so desire, was intended to prevent the Commis- sioners from confiscating this help to the helpless. It is idle to suppose that education simpliciter is a substitute in the case of the poor man's child, be 37 it orphan or not, for roof, food, and raiment. Every sixpence heretofore applied to this purpose that is taken away to j^rovide boardinp^-schools for the middle classes, where the children are to pay £25 a-year, is an express confiscation of the rights of the poor. It is a substantial benefit to them to have this maintenance, and there is no reason or justice in diverting such funds for the benefit of the class above them, which is well able to pay. According to the construction which the En- dowed Schools Commissioners have given to the Act, the words that nothing shall be construed to pre- vent a scheme relating to any such endowment from providing, if the governing body so desire, for the continued application of such endowment to the pur- pose of maintenance, is a mere legislative declaration that the governors may express a wish. Ordinary persons would have thought that the only possible construction of such words was that if the governors did desire it, the Commissioners were bound to give efiect to the desire, but the Com- missioners say, ''No; unless we agree with you, " no effect is to be given to your wish."* So that what it is really reduced to, as before stated, is this, that the governors are, bv the Act of Parliament, allowed to express a wish. We did not know before that wishes could not be expressed in this country except by the authority of Parliament. As to Emanuel Hospital, and the other AYest- * Report, p. 27. 38 minster Charities, they stand on a different footing. The schemes have not yet been laid upon the table of the House, and we earnestly trust that the House of Lords, if they are ever placed there, will uphold its own decision, and not allow it to be set at naught by the Endowed Schools Commissioners. The resolution of that House, come to on the 30th of June, 1871, expressly rejected the scheme for Emanuel Hospital, and the other charities proposed to be affiliated with it, on the ground that "The " scheme would have the effect of diverting a "large portion of the endcuTnents of the said "hospital from the education of the poor to which " they were assigned in the charter of foundation " and of withdrawing the government thereof from " the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of " London, against whose management no charge " had been established."* It is not proposed to argue here that case again at length, but to state only the salient features. EstabHshed under the will of Lady Dacre, solely " for the relief of aged poor people, and the bringing "up of twenty poor children in vii'tue, and good ' ' and laudable arts in the hospital, whereby they "might the better live in time to come by their "honest labour;" and, the constitution of the charity being expressly delegated to her brother and heir. Lord Buckhurst, and her executors, the}'- together applied to Queen Elizabeth, for the charter, by wliich its management was committed to the * Title Appendix j90s^ p. 51. 39 Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, by which the Corporation became as much the trustees of Lady Dacre's choice as if she had her- self named them. Receiving from the Corporation, from the time the Trust came into their hands in 1623 until this moment, thefr constant and assiduous attention ; the income of £100 a-year raised to nearly £4,000; an Act of Parliament, applied for in the last century, to enable the numbers to be increased beyond the limits of the Charter ; two-thirds of the income given to the poor children, and one-third only to the aged people ; the part given to the poor children scrupulously divided equally between boys and girls ; the estates forming the endowment of the charity drained, enclosed, and well managed, with a prosperous tenantry, secure in their holdings ; the education of the large village of Brandesburton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where the estates are situate, provided for by the Governors as an example to the surrounding country, long before education was fashionable and popular; the manage- ment of the property, as well as the application of its income, has done credit to the foresight of Queen Elizabeth, Lord Buckhurst, and Lady Dacre's executors, when they made the wealthy Corporation of London the permanent executors of Lady Dacre. Nor was this the only claim for consideration which the Corporation had at the hands of the Endowed Schools Commissioners. They could point to another foundation (Jolm Carpenter's) 40 left for four boys only, which they have now extended into the most flourishing day-school in this country (the City of London School), educating 600 boys. They could point, also, to the public confi- dence in their management of this school as evi- denced by no less than 21 scholarships and exhibi- tions being founded there since its establishment in 1839. They could point, also, to the Freemen's Orphan School, established and supported by the City, at an expense, above its endowments, of nearly £5,000 a-year, maintaining and educating 150 children of both sexes. Surely, if any alteration for the better was thought necessary in Lady Dacre's foundation, the commonest justice required that the opportunity of carrying on the altered trust should first have been offered to such faithful stewards. But no; the founder's property, the founder's intentions, were alike to be swept away ; and the Corporation, after two and a-half centuries of unimpeachable management, deprived of the trust, and the Brandesburton Schools shut up. Part of this '' drastic scheme," it is true, has been mitigated ; but the substantial objections still remain, and, after nearly four years of toil and contest, the Corjoora- tion are found as firm as ever in their resistance to the spoliation of the poor and the abandonment of their trust. As we have before stated, the Commissioners, nothing daunted, returned to the charge within a week after the decision of the House of Lords, to which they were bound to yield 41 imi^licit obedience. The address of either House of Parliament was to be another safeguard for schools; like the others, it is leaped over by the Commis- sioners. This is one of the grounds of appeal which the governors lately presented to the Privy Council ; but that tribunal declined to entertain it, and stated that the House of Lords must take care of its own decisions ; which they no doubt will when they find how slight is the difference between the new scheme they will be asked to assent to from the one they rejected. It must not, for one moment, be supposed that this is a question confined to Emanuel Hospital. There are large foundations of a similar character all over the country, equally well managed, awaiting the result of the decision of Parliament in this case. There are the large schools connected with Colston's Charities at Bristol, the governors of which are also firm in their resistance to the confiscating scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners sent to them. There are also equally, if not more, valuable charities in the hands of the municipal trustees of the City of Bristol, Queen Elizabeth^s Hospital for instance, also awaiting decision. In both cases the Commissioners have done nothing for a long period, pending, no doubt, the result with Emanuel Hospital. So likewise at Exeter, at Halifax, at Gloucester, at Leicester, at Lincoln, at Oldham, at Stourbridge, and in many other places over the country there are most valuable schools of a similar character, in all of which the Com^nissioners 42 tell us that deserving cases have prm'itf/ of attention^* but shall have them no more if they can help it. It is true that in the face of the firm resistance again offered by the City of London to the endow- ment of the poor being taken away for the middle classes, some concessions have been made by the Endowed Schools Commissioners; but there can be no mistake, and must be no mistake, that the bulk of the endowments are to go from the poor and be given to the middle classes, j* The scheme, as amended at the last moment, and as it is to be laid before Parlia- ment, provides that sixty places in the Emanuel School shall be wholly exempt and forty partially exempt ; but these free places are to be obtained by compe- titive examination, except as to one-third of them^ ivhich may he given on the ground of poverty ; so that, whereas at present Emanuel Hospital and St. Margaret's Hosj^ital are between them freely edu- cating, maintaining, and clothing 100 poor children, thirty, and thirty only, will be the number henceforth who will be entitled to the benefits of the charities under the claim of adversity , twenty wholly enjoying them, ten partially only ; but as to this ten no defi- nition is given of what this partial exemption is to be, and thus twenty poor childi-en only have any certain provision made for them, or just one-fifth of those now enjoying the founder's bounty, and one- tenth of those that would,- by this time, have been enjoying it, if the Endowed Schools Act had never * Report p, 26. t See Lord Lyttelton's words, page 16, ante. 43 passed ; and, moreover, the children in these schools have been equally boys and girls heretofore, but, henceforth, they are all to be boys. Beyond what these twenty and these ten children may cost, the whole of the rest of the funds are taken to provide a boarding-school for the middle class, the benefits of which are to be obtained by annual payments of at least £25 by the parents, or as the re- sult of comj)etitive examination, from which the poor man's child must be shut off; and thus two schools founded expressly as a charity for the poor, except as to thirty of their inmates, and who will certainly be regarded as in an inferior position to the other scholars are taken for the middle class. Here we have at last the concession by the Com- missioners of the principle that adversity is to have some claim to Lady Dacre's money, but the numbers to be thus benefited in comparison with what Lady Dacre's money will extend to, and the governors proposed and are still anxious to carry out, are so small that, except as yielding a principle, the concession is comparatively worthless. But if the Commissioners feel compelled to yield tlie principle, why is it not to be carried out in its integrity ? and why, as long as there are objects to fill them, are these hospital schools to be interfered with at all ? We received the other day an appeal for help to a mission district in London. It seems to us pouring water into a sieve to contribute to such pm^poses whilst the Commissioners are engaged 44 in confiscating all the revenues mthin their power applicable to such cases ; we quote the cases the incumbent of the parish appended to his appeal as justifying it, and we ask, How many thousands of similar cases are there in London, and which we are to be prohibited for the future putting into Emanuel Hospital and similar foundations and compelled to turn over to the poor-laws and taxa- tion ?* The dealing of the Commissioners with the Westminster Charities is to be the more con- demned, as there is an income in Westminster arising from Palmer and Hill's school charities, but not hospital schools, amounting to nearly ^1,400 a year, which the trustees of those charities were not unwilling should be apj)ropriated to the purpose of middle-class education. But no ; perversity and pique at their former defeat will not allow the Commissioners to listen to so easy a solu- tion, and so Emanuel Hosj)ital must be brought down at all hazards, without reference to the wishes of Westminster, the directions of the founder, or the views of the governors. The governors both of Emanuel Hospital and the Grey Coat Hospital strongly urged, but in vain, that for the great number of boys and girls of the poorer classes the main business of their daily lives was how to gain their living by honest labour, and that by gi^^ng the boys a good elementary education and teaching the girls to make and mend, to cook and clean, in short * See Appendix, post p. 52. 45 to practise the details of domestic management, was the wisest and best thing that could be done for them ; both sets of governors were quite willing and disposed to set apart funds for the case of any boys or girls who might show superior abilities, and give them the means of continuing their edu- cation, and thus rising to better things, — three in a thousand, being the number who require this provision, according to Mr. Forster and the Bishop of Exeter; but this did not suit the ''philosophical politicians" whom the Duke of Somerset has recently derided with so much justice and such marked sarcasm. Nothing but theories of perfect education fall in with their views.* The scheme for Emanuel Hospital is again the old battle-ground. Is the poor man's child to have the gratuitous education intended for him ? If indeed there is to be hereafter no gratuitous education except as the reward of merit, the very first element of this merit should be deserving need. Whether the object be clever or stupid, he is equally entitled to the inheritance bequeathed to him by the tender- hearted ; and before Emanuel Hospital can be swept away by the hard-hearted decree of the three despots of Victoria Street, the living hearts that beat with true sympathy with the troubles and needs of others must first be stilled. There was a time when it was thought a good thing in the sight of God and man to deal bread to the hungry and clothing to the naked. The parable * See Appendix post p. 55. 46 of the good Samaritan has been left for our instruction and example for all time ; but if he were living now he would be told to hold back his twopence before he relieved the man who fell among thieves, that he miffht first ascertain whether he could work an algebraic problem, or face a competitive exami- nation. 47 APPENDIX I. Extract from 3fr. Forster''s Speech on moving the second reading of the Endowed Schools Bill, as reported in " Hansard,^^ Vol. 194, Series 3, p. 1360. "But passing from that part of the subject, I come now to another portion of it, into which we were ordered to inquire — / mean the resources of Endowed Schools ichich tcere provided by our ancestors chiejty for the purpose of giving secondary education. It was our business to examine into the number and income of those schools, and ' the following are the statistics on the subject which I am enabled to furnish as the result of our inquiries : — Of Grammar Schools, into which it was more particularly our province to inquire, there are, independently of the seven Public Schools for which Parliament legislated last year and including St. Paul's School, but not including Merchant Taylors', 782, whose gross income is £345,757, of which there is a net income for the purposes of education of £202,684. Those schools have also control over exhibitions amounting to £14,265. There are 2,175 schools, whose total endowments amount to £247,480, of which, I believe, about half is applied to education. We have consequently 2,957 Endowed Schools whose gross income is £593,281 out of which at least £340,000 is at present appropriated to education. *' Now that is an income which ought to do a great deal. I have had one or two maps made with the Endowed Schools marked on them, and it may be seen that they are scattered all over the country ; so that one would expect that, if this 48 APPENDIX I. large income were well bestowed, it must have a great effect on education. I will now briefly describe the result of our inquiry into the condition of these schools, and, in doing so, I will refer to some of the cases which came under our notice ; not mentioning the names of the schools, which, however, can be furnished to any hon. member who may desire it. The head master of one of the schools told an Assistant Com- missioner that — " ' It was not worth his whUe to push the school, as, with the endowment (about £200 a year) and some other small source of income, he had enough to live on comfortably without troubling to do so.' " Another master of a large Endowed School, having an endowment of £651, put his nephew and son into the respective positions of second and third masters. The Assistant Commissioner — " ' Found the discipline most inefl&cient, and the in- struction slovenly, unmethodical, and unintelligent ; there was no one subject in which the boys seemed to take an interest or which had been taught with average care or success.' " At another school — at a short distance from the one just mentioned — with an income of £610 a year — " ' There Were thirteen pupUs, and it appeared as if even this number would be reduced ; the school-rooms were in a shameful state, and the scholars, though showing signs of having had teaching, were in a thoroughly bad state of discipline, and apparently only staying on to qualify for the school exhibitions.' '* There was another school reported on in the same dis- trict, with an income of £204 ; so that if all these schools had been well and carefully administered, the education of the whole district might almost have been provided for. At this school — A1'1'EN1>IX I. 49 " ' The sons of the master and of the incumbent of the parish appeared to absorb an inordinate share of the teaching- ; none of the town boys had made e"ven respect- able progress in the ordinary rudiments of education.' " ' Then, again, there was a school with a " ' Net income of £792 a year, where the head master taught three boarders and no others ; the under- master only attended when he chose. The usher taught an inferior village school.' " In another school, where two masters received £300 between them, and one had a good house also, one boy was receiving instruction, while a private school close by had eighty boarders and forty day-scholars, paying higher than the grammar- school-fees. At another school, with an income of £266, there were only eleven pupils, and ' the whole place wore an aspect of decay and desolation,' but the master objected to a new scheme being procured. In another instance, the master had other business, and at one time carried on, continuously with the school, the business of a flour and spinning mill. The upper half of this school ' were profoundly ignorant on all subjects.' In another, where the master — since dead — received over £*200 a year, the Assistant Commissioners found him occupied in preparing a system of ' teaching prime numbers,' the system being contained in two per- fectly unintelligible cards which were shortly to be brought into use in the school. There is another case in the South of England in which the trustees made it a condition with the master on his election that he should take boarders, but he fixed the terms so high (£120 a year) that they were practically prohibitory. " ' Six day-boys, all very young and paying fees, com- posed the school. The boarders' dining-room was occu- pied as a coach-house by two of the master's carriages ; the night study was a laundry, and the large dormitory a billiard-room.' 50 APPENDIX I. " Our Assistant Commissioner in Suffolk found that at one school the master — " ' Did no work whatever, but supports an old age in the comfortable school-house; at another he was almost helpless from age and paralysis ; at a third he was honest enough to declare that he was no longer fit for work ; at a fourth he was deaf; while at three others he was no longer in the prime of life, and was lanquishing under his work. That is to say, more than a fourth of the grammar schools in one county were suffering from the bodily infirmities of the master.' " Now I do not say that those instances give an average impression of these schools. There are many good schools among them, and many more aiming to be good. There are many which give a substantial education, and with regard to those which do not succeed in giving it, it often arises as much from the system not meeting the necessities of the time, which require something more than a mer6 classical education, as from any want of zeal and earnestness on the part of the master. / could point to several most excellent schools tvhich we discovered in the course of our inquiri/ ; and since I introduced this Bill I have found objections made to it, not by the bad schools — they never come near me — but by some of these good schools. They are afraid of the Bill. Now, I wish to assure them and the House that it is not for the good schools that the Bill is framed. We cannot, of course, exempt such schools by name, for in that case there would be no end to endeavours to obtain it ; but schools- ivhich are well managed need fear nothing from the operation of a Bill which is to introduce good management," 51 APPENDIX II. kxtract from journal of house of Lords. Die Veneris 30 Junii, 1871. "Emanuel Hospital, — Moved that an humble address be presented to Her Majesty representing that the proposed Scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners for the management of Emanuel Hospital in the parish of Saint Margaret, in the City of Westminster, will have the effect of diverting a large portion of the endowments of the said Hospital from the education of the poor to which they were assigned in the charter of foundation, and of withdrawing the government thereof from the Lord Mayor and Alder- men of the City of London, against whose management no charge has been established, and praying that Her Majesty will withhold her assent from the said scheme." 52 APPENDIX TIL Extract from Appeal for Help to the Mission District in London. The following cases, selected out of a large number, mil show the kind of poverty with which we have to deal, and will plead their own cause with every one who can sympa- thize with the afflictions and son-ows, and "deep sighing of the poor." (1.) H., suffering from chronic rheumatism, is a cabinet maker by trade. His wife and four children, one of whom is d)dng of consumption, are entirely dependent upon him ; their ages are nine, eight, six, and two years. Everything pledged; No parish relief. (2.) M., a carman, met with a serious accident which disabled him from work, and brought on low fever. Has sold all to keep his family, which consists of a wife, and three children aged twelve, ten, and six years. Has no parish relief. (3.) J., has a wife and four children aged fifteen, thirteen, eleven, and eight respectively — the youngest lies dead at home. The mother is suffering from small-pox, and is now in the hospital. The father, who is an ostler, has no work, has pledged everything, and has no parochial assistance. (4.) M., a blacksmith, with a wife and four children, the eldest of whom is fourteen years, and the youngest only a year and seven months old. The husband has had a severe illness which has involved the loss of his situation. Has been compelled to pledge all his firrniture, and does not receive any parish relief. APPENDIX III. 53 (5.) M., a widow, has three children dependent upon her —the eldest is eighteen years of age, and, being a cripple, is unable to do anything ; the other two are ten and six years old. The mother gains a scanty subsistence by needle- work. Has pledged everything, and does not receive any help from the parish. (6.) C, a widow with three children, aged twelve, eleven and ten years, one of whom is an idiot. Is also dependent on occasional needle-work for a livelihood, but scarcity of employment has compelled her to sell nearly everything she possessed, and she is now in a very distressed condition. She has no parish relief. (7.) A., has a wife and six children; is a shoemaker by trade ; suffers severely from rheumatism ; has no work. The eldest boy, aged fourteen, earns 4s. a week, the other children are ten, nine, six and tliree years, and the youngest nine months old. Such are the trials and sorrows of many and many a family in this poverty-stricken district ; and although much of this suffering is imdoubtedly due to improvidence, or other inexcusable causes, a very large proportion indeed is altogether unavoidable, and practically without remedy. Surely then, as fellow- Christians and fellow-men, they have a genuine claim on those whom God has blessed with cheerful homes, in which such want, misery, and sorrow as theirs is altogether unknown ; the Incumbent, there- fore, confidently appeals to his wealthier brethren for aid to carry on the blessed work of ministering to the necessities of the poor, and of visiting the fatherless and widows in their afiliction. 54 APPENDIX III. Lastly, he begs to ask for votes for the following Insti- tutions, for all of which he has, at the present time, several most urgent and deserving cases, viz. : — (1.) Royal Masonic Institution for Girls. (2.) Asylum for Idiots. (3.) Infant Orphan Asylum. (4.) National Benevolent Institution. (5.) Royal Hospital for Incurables. (6.) Merchant Seamen's Orphan Asylum, 55 APPENDIX IV. Report as to the G-rey Coat Hospital. Education Department, Privy Council Office, Downing Street, London, S. W., ith April, 1872. WliSTMINSTER GEEY-COAT HOSPITAL. Sir, I am directed by my Lords to forward to you, at the request of Mr. W. H. Smith, M.P., a copy of Mr. Judd's Peport on the above School. " The School-buildings are satisfactory, and weU supphed with suitable furniture and apparatus. The instruction in both schools comes up to the required standard, and in the Boys' is thorough and well- diffused in the lower classes, while it is carried to a fairly advanced stage in the upper. In the Girls' School thie examination showed far less satisfactory results : the time devoted to the ordinary school instruction appears to be unduly restricted. " T/ie time given to needlework and industrial teaching inter- fere iadlg vjith the instruction in the ordinary branches of school icork" I have the honour to be, Sii% Youi' obedient servant, P. P. SANDPOPD. W. M. TiicJLLOi'E, Esq;