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 A LECTURE 
 
 IlltL /AC 
 
 I ERED BKFoRE THE 
 
 Liu (liii 
 
 CHURCH SCHOOLMASTERS' - 
 ASSOCIATION,- 
 
 AT THE 
 
 central school in the sanctuary, Westminster, 
 On SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20th, 1858, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. SANDERSON ROBINS, 
 
 r of St. Peter's, in the Isle of Thanet 
 
 PRINTED AT THEIR REQUEST. 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE. 
 
 LONDON: SIMPEIN AND MARSHALL, STATIONERS HALL COUR1 
 CANTERBURY: \V. GINDERS ;— RAMSGATE : \V. A. HUNT;— 
 
 MARGATE:— T. H. KEBLE.
 
 T. H. KEBLE, PRINTEK, HIGH-STEEET, MARGATE.
 
 LECTTJE/E. 
 
 TN the lecture which I am about to deliver, 
 I do not so much propose to deal with the 
 subject of education in its broad and general 
 aspect, as to call your attention to a special de- 
 partment of the work, which, though it is of the 
 very highest importance, has hitherto received a 
 great deal less than its due consideration. Allow 
 me to premise a few words on two successive 
 schemes of public instruction, that namely which 
 prevailed at the beginning of this century, and 
 that by which it has been recently supplanted. 
 
 The older persons among us are able to recall 
 the time when the system of Dr. Bell was in 
 full operation, and in the height of its popu- 
 larity. Education had been confessedly neglected 
 for many years ; the urgency of the case made 
 itself felt; and the plan which promised to effect so 
 much, and so easily, was welcomed by thousands 
 of good and thoughtful persons. The results 
 seemed to surpass the most sanguine expectations; 
 no statistics could appear more satisfactory ; it 
 was like a mathematical demonstration. In a 
 population of a certain amount there was the 
 proper per-centage of children attending school. 
 The tabulated returns, between the day-schools 
 and Sunday-schools of the Church, shewed such an 
 array as seemed to take away all ground of com- 
 plaint for the present, and of alarm for the future; 
 while the dissenters followed, or, as I believe I
 
 ought rather to say, preceded us, under the 
 auspices of Lancaster, and with similar success. 
 It seemed as if a difficult problem had received 
 a most satisfactory solution ; and for some years 
 no suspicion was entertained in respect to the 
 permanence of the work. It was only after a 
 long time that doubts began to be expressed about 
 the benefit really conferred. It was discovered 
 by degrees, that children did not grow up to love 
 the Church whose services they attended so regu- 
 larly and so long ; that they did not comprehend 
 even the elementary truths of religion, though 
 they could repeat correctly enough the form of 
 words in which they were embodied ; and that 
 their moral conduct did not seem to be much 
 mended by the strictness of school discipline. 
 When the Madras system had been for some 
 years in operation, its results began to be 
 anxiously scrutinized. A suspicion gradually 
 arose, which examination confirmed, that the 
 quality of the instruction given was by no 
 means equal to its quantity ; and when there 
 appeared the report of the inspectors appointed 
 to investigate the state of education, prelimi- 
 nary to the measures taken by the Committee 
 of Council, the reaction long expected came 
 at last ; and the scheme which had been pop- 
 ular for so many years fell into immediate 
 and well-earned neglect. I doubt whether 
 we could easily find a more humiliating or 
 afflicting document. It turned out that, in 
 numberless cases, children had learned words, 
 and nothing else; with no comprehension of what 
 they read, no enquiry aroused, no habit of thinking 
 produced. What else could be reasonably ex- 
 pected when an ignorant child was employed to 
 
 U.UC
 
 teach children, that is, an inexperienced learner 
 entrusted with one of the most difficult tasks to 
 which manhood can devote itself? The Bible 
 was often the only reading book in use, and 
 God's blessed Word was thus associated with 
 stumbling progress, and a child's stammering 
 tongue, often too, with the remembrance of harsh 
 treatment. And the catechism was repeated by 
 rote, as if its wise and well-considered words con- 
 tained a spell to keep heresy and sin aloof. 
 Meanwhile the mechanism of the national system 
 was perfect ; at least there was the chain, and the 
 balance, and the cog-wheel of the clockwork, 
 though the main-spring, the principle of life, was 
 wanting. There was the maximum of order, 
 with the minimum of mental progress. I well 
 remember visiting a famous school. The master 
 was walking to and fro like a troubled spirit, his 
 office indicated by a stick, which certainly was 
 not idle, dealing, from time to time, a blow on a 
 boy's head to help him over a tall word, or on his 
 shoulder, perhaps, to punish him if his foot were 
 an inch beyond the line. When I asked him 
 what part he took in the instruction, he replied, 
 with a look of contempt, " I teach nothing sir, it 
 is no part of the system that the master should 
 teach; I overlook and regulate." A school in those 
 days wore a hard and chilling aspect. Who can 
 wonder that children did not love learning, when 
 it came in such an unlovely garb t or that school 
 promoters grew at last to be ashamed of a scheme 
 which had become a deception, and nothing else ? 
 I have dwelt the rather upon the result of 
 the plan which had possession of the field when 
 some of us were young, because it may serve for 
 a warning to ourselves against over-confidence ;
 
 6 
 
 and may lead us the more earnestly to guard 
 against other causes of failure, to which in our 
 turn, we may be exposed. Let us not forget 
 that the fashion of teaching which we all now 
 agree to discard, was devised by men at least as 
 good, and as wise, and as earnest-minded as 
 ourselves. 
 
 The lesson conveyed by this great failure was 
 not thrown away on those upon whom the next 
 educational movement devolved. They prepared 
 a remedy adequate to the evil, by the liberal en- 
 couragement which they afforded to those who 
 desired to devote themselves to teaching, and by 
 the wise methods which they adopted for securing 
 better qualified candidates. They have laid a 
 foundation deep and broad enough to carry the 
 edifice which the next generation may raise to a 
 statelier height. I do not mean to say that all 
 has been yet attained which the friends of national 
 education reasonably require ; how much remains 
 to be perfected of what we have taken in hand, 
 you may learn from the admirable report of 
 Mr. Brookfield, in the minutes of Council, pub- 
 lished last year ; but that great and important 
 progress has been made is beyond denial. The ob- 
 ligation which we owe to the Committee of Council 
 is immense; they are among the foremost benefac- 
 tors of the age ; for the work which they have 
 inaugurated and carried on is producing its good 
 results in every corner of the land. They have 
 an especial claim for thankfulness on us who are 
 engaged in the business of educating. We owe 
 to them the improved arrangement of our school- 
 rooms, the material helps and instruments of 
 teaching, the systematic and progressive assort- 
 ment of books ; but especially we have to thank
 
 them for the effectual assistance which they have 
 rendered in raising the qualifications, and conse- 
 quently, the social status of masters. There was 
 a time, and not very long ago, when every man 
 thought himself capable of teaching a school. 
 He might have failed in everything else, but here 
 was the one resource open to him at last. By a 
 strange kind of delusion he persuaded himself 
 that, though he had no previous knowledge or 
 experience, he might safely undertake this im- 
 portant charge. The result was exactly such as 
 we might have anticipated. There was at once 
 a degradation of the office, and a deterioration 
 of the work. By the system of certificates, 
 granted on strict examination, the standard has 
 been raised, and in proportion to the severity of 
 the test the exclusion of unqualified persons has 
 been made complete. Candidates who are dis- 
 posed to complain of the amount of preparation 
 required, must remember the great benefit derived 
 to the whole body of teachers by the authorized 
 recognition of their fitness ; and if any person 
 should object that higher attainments are required 
 than can be called into exercise by the demands 
 of an ordinary school, it is answer enough that no 
 one can teach well in any department if his own 
 knowledge is not very considerably in advance 
 of the point to which he desires to bring his 
 pupils. Let his own acquirements be contracted 
 within a narrow circle, and the information which 
 he conveys will always be crippled and one-sided. 
 A man will teach arithmetic the better because 
 he understands algebra ; and the same may be 
 said in a multitude of similar cases. School- 
 masters have benefitted in many ways by the 
 intervention of government authority, not only in
 
 the increased remuneration which they enjoy, 
 and which they have so well earned, but by the 
 countenance and encouragement which they re- 
 ceive ; by the benefit of careful and searching 
 inspection ; and especially by the system of pupil 
 teachers, on which however, I am the less in- 
 clined to dwell, because I believe that it was first 
 transplanted from a school of which I had for a 
 considerable time the oversight, and with which 
 some among you are well acquainted, Our first 
 pupil-teacher was apprenticed in the year 1836, 
 that is to say, twenty-two years ago. 
 
 While I make this acknowledgement, heartily 
 and unreservedly, of the debt which the Com- 
 mittee of Council has laid upon us, I must 
 frankly express my persuasion that the system 
 which has the possession of our national schools 
 under their authority, needs some revision. It 
 was natural, and indeed inevitable, that on the 
 discovery of the low intellectual state which a 
 past system had produced, we should fall into the 
 danger of an opposite extreme ; and if children 
 had been actually taught too little, we should 
 attempt teaching them too much ; that is to say, 
 more than they could learn accurately, or without 
 sacrificing more important acquirements. Let 
 me explain my meaning. In the progress which 
 we were anxious to make towards an enlarged 
 circle of instruction, the art of reading, because 
 it seemed to have only an elementary character, 
 received far less than its dua consideration. We 
 took it for granted that a boy who has reached 
 the highest class can read well. He reads the 
 book which is put into his hands daily, whether 
 it be the Holy Scripture, or some selection which 
 may happen to be in use ; but it is very seldom
 
 that he is tried in a chance volume, which is of 
 course the only availing end to which his powers 
 of reading can afterwards be put. He may suc- 
 ceed well enough in the routine of school, at least 
 so as to pass muster ; but can he read fluently 
 and with " due emphasis and discretion " whatever 
 falls in his way, Pilgrims Progress, for instance, 
 or Robinson Crusoe, or a leader in the Times, or 
 a bit of poetry, or a page of Macaulay ? I believe 
 that, if we made the trial on a large scale, we 
 should be surprised, and disappointed by the 
 result ; and yet reading is the key of knowledge, 
 and unlocks vast storehouses to which there is 
 no other way of entrance. A certain facility is 
 indispensable, but it is so far from being generally 
 attained at school, that the want of it is the real 
 cause to which the failure of reading-rooms and 
 mechanic's institutes is to be ascribed. Good 
 reading is a beautiful, but very rare accomplish- 
 ment. Few of us reflect how much it has to do, 
 not only with personal progress, but with the 
 pleasure of social life ; how many evils it might 
 keep at bay, and how greatly it might promote har- 
 mony in the sacred circle of home. But if a boy 
 is to read with pleasure to himself, or to make 
 the fireside cheerful, or to comfort his blind father, 
 or his sick mother, with a book, he must gain 
 more accuracy, and fluency, and expression than 
 is common even in the head classes. Much the 
 same may be said of writing, which is a kindred 
 art. A boy passes from slate to paper, from large 
 text to running hand ; bis copy-book is all well 
 enough, but how is it when he has left school and 
 gone out into the world ? Has he acquired a 
 good, plain, legible hand ! When he writes to 
 his brother in Australia, or to his sister at service,
 
 10 
 
 or to his sweetheart, or to the old folks at home, 
 what sort of letter does he turn out ? I am 
 afraid that we should often find it a poor speci- 
 men of calligraphy, to use the old writing-master's 
 phrase. And then for arithmetic ; a lad is well 
 up, perhaps, in the four rules and their combina- 
 tions, his cyphering-book is in a very presentable 
 state ; and yet, when he leaves us it is not at all 
 certain that he can make any practical application 
 of what he has learnt, because, in spite of apparent 
 progress, he has not become familiar with figures 
 in their ordinary use. While he is at home, he 
 ought to be able to market for his mother, and 
 make no mistake in quantity or price ; to draw 
 out an account for his father, of the week's work, 
 and materials used ; or, if he gets a place at the 
 shop, he should take down orders rightly, and be 
 able to tell whether the money he brings back 
 tallies with the goods he carried out. 
 
 But that which I believe to be the point of 
 pressing urgency, and to which I desire on this 
 occasion to call your special attention, is the 
 necessity for giving a more practical character to 
 the instruction which is afforded in our schools. 
 Inadequate notions of the nature and extent of 
 our work still prevail to a great extent. The very 
 force of the word which we employ is not generally 
 comprehended. Education reaches a great way 
 beyond the years of childhood and youth ; it is 
 carried on through the whole of a man's allotted 
 course, and is limited only by his lifetime. So, 
 again, the instruments of the work are not only 
 the commonly recognized methods and agencies, 
 but such as abound through the whole sphere of 
 of Divine providence. Everything that happens, 
 joy and sorrow, health and sickness, success
 
 11 
 
 and failure, are parts of an appointed teaching. 
 This view does not diminish, but greatly enhances 
 the importance of the work which we have in 
 hand. The education which we undertake to 
 give, and that which, in this way, is to follow, 
 ought to have so much likeness that they may be 
 joined, and, as one might say, welded together. 
 If, up to thirteen or fourteen, a child has been 
 confined to a course of training which bears no 
 resemblance to the fashion of life into which he 
 is then launched, who can wonder if the one has 
 no influence on the other ? From nine to twelve, 
 from two to five, daily for some years, he has 
 been sitting on a bench, handling books, and 
 pens, and slates ; keeping down the active prin- 
 ciple of animal life as well as he can, and subduing 
 to regulation pitch his buoyant and overflowing 
 spirits. Time wears on, and at last he gets free 
 from school restraint, and he begins his experience 
 of actual life. He finds it partly pleasant, and 
 partly the reverse ; his employment may in a 
 degree suit his taste, and yet there may be a good 
 deal which he finds hard to bear. But, which is 
 the noteworthy part of the case, there is nothing 
 to connect his present with his past ; there has 
 been little or no preparation ; and, in this im- 
 portant particular, the education which we have 
 given him proves defective. " Train up a child 
 in the way that he should go, and when he is old 
 he will not depart from it ; " but if the road on 
 which we guide his steps during childhood is not 
 that which he is afterwards to tread, his departure 
 is not only probable, but certain, and inevitable ; 
 that is to say in other words, the daily and hourly 
 discipline maintained during some previous y< 
 will be inoperative and ineffectual, in so far as it
 
 ]'). 
 
 has been disconnected with what is to make up 
 the staple of his life. But you may reply that 
 the holy text has reference to religious,, and not 
 to secular guiding ; and that the one may suc- 
 cessfully go forward, even while the other is 
 omitted, and overlooked. Beware of allowing 
 this distinction ; they are but different phases of 
 the same subject ; what under one view is ranged 
 as secular, may, under another, be clothed with 
 a distinctly religious character. Our lives are not 
 to be divided into two halves. The principles of 
 a Christian man are to be written on his daily 
 conduct ; and as he labours to shape and conform 
 it to a heavenly pattern, he will grow in knowledge 
 and love. His calling, whatever it may be, be- 
 comes to him a means of grace, a help, and not 
 a hindrance. We teach a child to repeat, in the 
 language of the catechism, that he is bound to 
 " learn and labour truly to get his own living. 
 and to do his duty in that state of life unto which 
 it shall please God to call him." When we put 
 this form of words into his lips, which we believe 
 to be sound and true, we pledge ourselves, as it 
 were, to help him in carrying out practically what 
 we have taught him to acknowledge for a duty, 
 forming part of the commandment contained in 
 the second table of the law. While we instruct 
 him in piety and reverence towards God, no less 
 are we bound to enforce lessons of industry and 
 painstaking, and that not as a means of worldly 
 advancement, but as a religious duty ; not merely, 
 or mainly, on the ground of interest or good 
 repute, but as an indispensable branch of Christian 
 ethics. 
 
 It may perhaps be said that we follow the same 
 system in our schools for the middle classes :
 
 13 
 
 giving general instruction to all alike, and leaving 
 special training to be the subject of subsequent, 
 and separate consideration. The answer is ob- 
 vious. In this case the subjects taught connect 
 themselves directly with future employment. 
 A boy learns to write a good hand, and gains 
 comparative skill in arithmetic, or, he acquires 
 mathematics, or gets a good knowledge of Latin 
 and Greek. In due time he becomes a clerk to 
 a merchant or a banker, or he is sent to Wool- 
 wich, or Sandhurst, or to the University. All his 
 previous work tells on his after success. At 
 school he has been laying the foundation on which 
 he has but to build ; what he has learnt already 
 is the indispensable preliminary to what he has 
 yet to learn. The boy who has been educated 
 in a national school, on the other hand, begins 
 life at an immense disadvantage, because his past 
 and present have no necessaay connexion, and 
 may be so utterly unlike in texture and com- 
 plexion, that the one forms no introduction to the 
 other. They are successive portions of life which 
 do not cohere. 
 
 We complain that parents remove their children 
 too early from our care, and that they shew in- 
 difference to the great interests at stake, by 
 preferring a little present earning to the perma- 
 nent benefit of more complete instruction. Our 
 remonstrances do not accomplish much. At 
 eleven or twelve the boy is taken away whom we 
 would gladly retain for two years longer. Clergy- 
 men and schoolmasters are entirely agreed about 
 the evil ; it is a standing topic at educational 
 meetings, a sort of recognized subject for lamen- 
 tation ; and we use it sometimes as an excuse for 
 our shortcomings, as if it were a hindrance in the
 
 14 
 
 way of any great and effectual progress,, for which 
 we are not responsible. What is to be done ? 
 I suppose there are not many persons now who 
 believe that the compulsory school attendance up 
 to a certain age, which prevails in some conti- 
 nental states, could be enforced in England ; or 
 that much benefit would result, if it could We 
 must try some other method. Parents are not 
 to be coerced in the management of their children ; 
 we cannot take on ourselves the responsibility 
 which God's providence has placed elsewhere. 
 But, after all, is it so certain that we are entirely 
 right, and the fathers and mothers entirely wrong 
 in this matter ? Let us remember that the em- 
 ployers of labour, the farmers, the tradesmen, the 
 manufacturers, and others, including heads of 
 families, are much of the same mind, and urge 
 the same objection. We must not shut our ears 
 against their statement; it concerns the acceptance 
 of our work, and consequently its success. It is 
 not, after all, education which they oppose, but 
 a certain form of it which, as they allege, does 
 not fulfil its promise. They complain, and not 
 altogether without reason, that their children are 
 not better fitted for the occupations which are 
 open to them on leaving school, but to a certain 
 extent even the reverse ; for it cannot be denied 
 that much time has been spent in getting infor- 
 mation and habits which are either cast aside 
 when school attendance closes, and so are unpro- 
 ductive of any good; or else incidentally cause an 
 amount of positive harm, by making children dis- 
 inclined for manual labour. 
 
 And as it often happens that the acquisition of 
 knowledge is conversely proportioned to the 
 amount of practical readiness, we cannot prevent 

 
 15 
 
 an unfavourable contrast from being drawn, especi 
 ally by those who appreciate the former a great 
 deal less than the latter. Sometimes a boy could 
 tell you what was the third article of the treaty 
 of Utrecht, or give some other bit of out of the 
 way information, who would set about the com- 
 monest handiwork in the clumsiest manner 
 possible. A girl knows perhaps the latitude and 
 longitude of Hong Kong, or the course of the 
 river Peiho ; does she understand how to clean 
 the house ; can she darn her stockings, or make 
 a beefsteak pudding ? Parents and other persons 
 interested in the future services of those whom we 
 are training, will never give in their full adhesion 
 to our plans of education, unless they see more 
 tangible effects as the result. They affirm, and 
 not untruly, that children when at work are being 
 educated ; it is the complement of the instruction 
 which we have given. 
 
 Again, the real character of a school must be 
 proved by its effects, on a broad and extended scale. 
 Many persons, and I confess myself of the number, 
 are distrustful of a set and formal examination. If 
 it is honestly conducted, which let me tell you is a 
 very difficult matter, it does not touch the ques- 
 tion of main and permanent interest. The test 
 of our success is to be sought on a wider sphere : 
 in the field, and the workshop, and the factory ; 
 it is to be furnished by the weaver at his loom, 
 by the artizan at his bench, by the servant in the 
 family. A most important point in the estimate 
 of a school, is its fitness to produce these good 
 and satisfactory evidences. 
 
 If we only admit the necessity of adding in- 
 dustrial training to the other departments of 
 school instruction ; and earnestly set ourselves
 
 16 
 
 to supply an evident and undeniable deficiency, 
 we shall find the difficulties to be encountered in 
 carrying out our purpose far less than we supposed. 
 In my own case, there have been but few. The 
 parish of which I am vicar lies near the sea ; the 
 population is partly agricultural, and partly mari- 
 time ; as the boys grow up, they are employed 
 in husbandry, or they go to sea. As an industrial 
 preparation for the former, we have provided a 
 piece of ground contiguous to the school, in which 
 they cultivate a certain regulated portion, them- 
 selves deriving the benefit ; for the latter we have 
 established a naval class, in which they receive 
 elementary instruction ; and we are about to add 
 some practical training, under the direction of a 
 sailor. Our girls belong, for the most part, to 
 families divided between the same occupations, 
 and they are generally destined for service. We 
 have provided for them a kitchen and a laundry, 
 in which, under the charge of a separate mistress, 
 they are taught cookery, washing, ironing, and 
 household work. The number of those who be- 
 long to this department is eighteen ; six are 
 employed during the mornings of every week, 
 so that the ordinary school teaching goes on with 
 little interruption ; and even this is compensated 
 by the increased earnestness which follows on the 
 change of occupation. We have hitherto en- 
 countered no hindrances. Parents and children 
 have willingly fallen in with our wishes, and the 
 progress which has been made is fully as great 
 as we could anticipate. The period at which we 
 made our commencement is, however, too recent 
 for any sufficient evidence to be afforded as to 
 the final result ; but we have every reason for 
 hopefulness. I will add, that success in this de-
 
 17 
 
 partment of a school very largely depends on the 
 qualifications of the teacher, even more, if possible, 
 than in the ordinary and accustomed routine. 
 
 In other places, different plans have been 
 pursued, and always, I believe, with a certain 
 measure of success. I am acquainted with a small 
 parish in the county of Kent where boys have 
 been instructed in basket making ; they shew 
 much interest in the work ; some who are slow in 
 book learning display great manual dexterity ; 
 and the youngest boys who can yet take no other 
 part are pleased to look on. The sales have 
 hitherto covered all expenses incurred. Other 
 employments might be found without much 
 difficulty, having some relation to the ordinary 
 employments in which the surrounding popula- 
 tion are engaged. I am well aware that the case 
 of town boys is less manageable, yet it would 
 probably not be very hard to find some handi- 
 craft, or the lower and easier part of some ordinary 
 trade, which they might learn at stated hours 
 from an industrial teacher, under the general 
 superintendance of the master charged with the 
 chief management of the school. And there 
 would arise an incidental benefit by ascertaining 
 the turn and bent of a boy's inclination, before 
 his calling became finally settled. It would not 
 of course be proposed that this school teaching 
 should take the place of an ordinary apprentice- 
 ship; the special and habitual training which an 
 apprentice to a trade or other occupation has to 
 pass through would be just as needful, only the 
 previous discipline would tend to make it easier 
 and more effectual. 
 
 There is a countervailing advantage in the quick 
 and ready apprehension of town-bred children,
 
 IS 
 
 which may partly compensate for some disadvan- 
 tages of their position. What they are capable of 
 we may gather from one of the lowest class, a 
 London street boy. Talk to him; hear his shrewd 
 slang ; see how ready and clever he is ; observe 
 his knowing look ; listen to his wrangle with a 
 policeman, or his defence before a magistrate. 
 Poor lad ! he might have been made better if 
 somebody had taken him in hand a little earlier, 
 but it is too late now for ordinary methods. 
 Even such as he is, he maybe useful in his way ; 
 he may serve for proof what capacity there is in 
 boys like him ; and for warning, too, that industry 
 needs to have a prominent place in our educa- 
 tional scheme. Whoever takes pains about this 
 degraded, yet interesting class, has found the 
 necessity for manual occupation. Books alone 
 would never reclaim them ; it is a common 
 sense view which experience confirms ; only re- 
 member that it is as applicable to those who are 
 not yet corrupted, as to those whom we are trying 
 to reform. 
 
 When we have adopted a well-considered plan 
 of industrial training, whatever it may be, we may 
 confidently reckon on cordial encouragement and 
 assistance from the Committee of Council. These 
 tried friends of the school and the schoolmaster 
 are fully alive to the urgency of the claim ; they 
 have done much already, and are ready to do 
 more, as we furnish the occasion. In the circular 
 letter, which you will find at page xxii. of the 
 minutes for 1850, they have laid down certain 
 rules, according to which, they are prepared to 
 grant assistance in the support of field gardens, 
 trade workshops, and school kitchens and wash- 
 bouses, by making contribution towards the
 
 19 
 
 payment of rent, the purchase of tools, and the 
 remuneration of the industrial superintendent. 
 In the minutes for 1856, we find the statement 
 of grants made for the six years ending at Christ- 
 mas, 1S55, as well as the names of schools assisted, 
 amounting in the whole of England to about 
 eighty. The following year seems to have pro- 
 duced a considerable increase under both these 
 heads. You will find in the volumes published 
 with the authority of the Committee of Council, 
 detailed accounts of the establishment, and main- 
 tenance, and working of various industrial schools. 
 Let me especially direct your attention to the 
 report of the Rev. J. P. Norris, for the year 1857. 
 The half time system, that is, the arrangement 
 by which boys are permitted to attend school and 
 to engage in remuneratve employment alternately 
 at regular periods, has been found in many cases, 
 especially in manufacturing districts, to produce 
 good results ; it is, in fact, a form of that indus- 
 trial training for which I have been pleading. 
 The views of the Committee of Council on this 
 head are clearly expressed at page 47 of their 
 minutes for 1855. "Whenever there are two 
 boys of an age to be regularly employed, and 
 whenever there is regular employment for one of 
 them, it must be possible to arrange with perfect 
 regularity, for their working and going to school 
 alternately, whether by alternate days, or weeks, 
 or months, the last period being perhaps the 
 longest interval which should be allowed, and one 1 
 of the other two being preferable." In laying 
 down rules for the payment of-capitation grants, 
 provision is made for remitting, under certain cir- 
 cumstances, eighty-eight days, that is, one half 
 from the minimum period of attendance, " in
 
 20 
 
 order/' as it is expressed, " that labor and instruc- 
 tion may be combined on some regular plan." 
 
 The establishment of navigation schools, or 
 rather, navigation classes, in the national schools 
 of our sea-side parishes, forms, on many accounts, 
 an important branch of our present subject. You 
 will find some valuable information on this head 
 in the letter addressed by Mr. Moseley to the 
 Committee of the Bristol diocesan school society, 
 dated September, 1855. It has an equal appli- 
 cation to all maritime places. " The experience," 
 he says, " of the royal naval school at Greenwich 
 hospital, has shewn that a sound knowledge of 
 this service, in theory and in practice, may be 
 communicated to boys of fifteen years of age 
 (that being the age at which pupils of this school 
 leave it). It has moreover been shewn, beyond 
 possibility of doubt or dispute, that boys having 
 received this previous instruction in the theory 
 and practice of nautical science, are, when they 
 go to sea, eminently benefitted by it ; not only in 
 this, that when they rise (as many often do) to be 
 mates and masters of merchant ships, they navi- 
 gate those ships better thanthey otherwise would, 
 but that while they are still sailors, they are better 
 conducted and more efficient than they otherwise 
 would be, and more contented, and more willing 
 to undergo the hardships of a sea-faring life." 
 
 The training of which I have spoken, whatever 
 special direction it may take, must produce benefit 
 independent of its separate results, which will 
 make itself felt, and remove many of the popular 
 objections to the education which we are giving. 
 Those who are children now, will be the men and 
 women of the next generation, the staple and 
 strength of English life when we are gone. If
 
 21 
 
 we have taught the boys of our time to be active, 
 and ready, and diligent, as well as to be intelligent 
 and well-conducted, we have been laying the 
 ground for an improvement, material as well as 
 moral, in their future condition. 
 
 The case of girls, with some incidental differ- 
 ences, is essentially the same ; let them be well 
 trained now, and they will reap an ample advan- 
 tage when they have households of their own. 
 If in place of an ill-kept home, ragged garments, 
 and food ill prepared, there is a bright and cheerful 
 dwelling, and a well cared for family, the beer 
 shop will lose its attraction, there will be fewer 
 aching hearts, and fewer early graves. In the 
 words of the Committee of Council, (minutes 
 1850, page xxiii.,) "Boys and girls thus educated 
 will carry habits of neatness into their homes, 
 and will, at every leisure moment, be resorting to 
 those little labors of repairing and cleaning, which 
 make all the difference between a tidy and an 
 untidy house, and are of far greater practical im- 
 portance than they appear to be when barely 
 stated." Or, as it was well expressed by a school 
 inspector, two years ago ; (Rev. W. H. Bellairs' 
 report in the minutes for 18.5 6, page 269;) "Indus- 
 trial teaching has a great influence upon character, 
 so much so that lessons of labor, economy, cleanli- 
 ness, tidiness, and exactnesspractised in the garden, 
 in the carpenter's shop, or at the washing tub, or 
 the kitchen grate, would, I conceive, produce 
 effects upon the character which would prove to 
 be valuable to their possessor throughout life." 
 
 In conclusion ; if the views which I have 
 ventured so urgently to enforce are sound and 
 true, they ought to be carried into practice, 
 and embodied in a certain definite line of action,
 
 22 
 
 I believe that they are the views of those who 
 have the chief administration in the educational 
 department of the state. But there is no hope 
 of any successful issue, unless we have also the 
 willing and hearty co-operation of the great 
 body of schoolmasters. I am not sure that 
 up to the present time they have thoroughly 
 appreciated the importance of the question, and 
 its ultimate connexion with the successful working 
 of our present system. Mr. Bellairs speaks thus 
 in his report for 1856. " Of the disinclination of 
 teachers generally to industrial occupation, I had 
 a striking instance at the recent examination for 
 certificates of merit, at Cheltenham. Out of one 
 hundred and four male candidates, four only, and 
 out of seventy-eight female, only one had been at 
 schools where industrial work was attempted.'* 
 Perhaps when the opportunity has been more 
 freely afforded, candidates for government cer- 
 tificates will more generally add this practical 
 knowledge to their other qualifications. You are 
 aware that it is not only very important in itself, 
 but that it will for the future very considerably 
 influence the place in the class list on examination. 
 I do not know whether it is needful to notice 
 an objection which may arise in the minds of 
 some whom I address, leading them, unconsciously 
 perhaps, to esteem the proposed industrial training 
 to be an infringement on the higher standing 
 which belongs to their office, a derogation, as 
 it were, from the dignity of mental teaching. 
 If such an impression prevails, bear with me if I 
 say that it results from misapprehension. It is very 
 common to mistake the nature of true greatness. 
 There is nothing really higher and nobler than 
 to be useful ; this is the great ambition and ulti-
 
 23 
 
 mate aim of a true christian heart. Who will 
 venture to affirm that there is a more useful 
 member of the body spiritual than one who helps 
 in guiding the young, as they take their first steps 
 along that path of daily occupation which God's 
 providence has marked out for them, the issues 
 of which are inseparably bound up with their 
 everlasting hopes. 
 
 Let me also remind you how injurious it would 
 be to the efficiency of our schools in their main 
 and ultimate purpose, if we allowed the notion to 
 pre vail of antagonism between intellectual progress 
 and industrial training, as if the one could proceed 
 only at the expense of the other. The contrary 
 is the truth ; the two departments are mutually 
 helpful ; manual labor, especially of the higher 
 and more delicate sort, will be better performed 
 when the intellect has been cultivated ; and our 
 pupils will return the more willingly to their 
 books when they have been refreshed by change 
 of pursuit. 
 
 Some difficulties there will be to encounter, 
 and some prejudices to surmount, but experience 
 and observation will in time work out the desired 
 conclusion. Parents, when they see that our 
 teaching has its practical side, will learn to appre- 
 ciate its value, and will leave their children longer 
 under our care. Some persons may indeed be 
 lukewarm from whom we hoped to get active 
 help ; and some, through misapprehension, posi- 
 tively hostile to our purpose ; let us wait till time 
 shall change them. We may be sometimes mis- 
 represented, and often misunderstood ; fathers 
 and mothers may be unreasonable, or school 
 patrons too requiring. Let us be certain that the 
 discipline was needful on our own account, for
 
 24 
 
 while, on the one hand, we are by our office 
 teachers, so on the other, we are ourselves but 
 learners still ; and all that happens to us while 
 instructing others, is part of our own great lesson. 
 All the ministries of God's Church are full of 
 sweetness ; and it is a blessed thing to be em- 
 ployed for Him in the daily occupation of our 
 lives. Let us labor with glad hearts, each in his 
 place, and all in the sight of the great House- 
 master and Head. The shadows of the evening 
 will soon gather around us, and we shall be sum- 
 moned to the reckoning. Friends, and fellow- 
 workers, let us go onward hoping and trustful, in 
 spite of discouragements and disappointments, 
 weakness and failures. May God give us the grace 
 of patient, persevering stedfastness. "Finally we 
 shall reap if we faint not." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 R1NTBD BY 1 HlGH-BTJUHW.
 
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