The Act of 1870. basis of the system subsequently known as "payment by results." 1 At this time, too, the "standards" or classes still in use were established, and the old classification by age was given up. The steady diminution in the Government grant that followed in 1861-5 showed that many of the schools which had hitherto received it were unworthy to do so. The proposer of the Bill obtained the result he sought; for if elementary teaching was still inefficient, it was at least cheaper. One drawback, however, was quickly discovered. The code was found to encourage teachers to give an undue amount of time to the three standard subjects, and statistics were worked out to show that a child under the Revised Code spent 2,920 hours in learning to read. To amend this, an arrangement was made in 1867 by which the higher subjects were allowed a certain measure of encouragement in the form of grant. In 1869 it was estimated that the accommodation in inspected schools could supply places for 2,000,000 children, or nearly double the number provided for in 1859. The average attendance had also doubled; still the accommodation was only half of what was required, the attendance only a quarter of what it should have been. In 1870 Mr. Forster's Elementary Education Act was passed to remedy the deficiency in the supply of efficient elementary schools. The country was mapped out into school districts, coinciding generally with the boundaries of boroughs or parishes; and on the complaint of the inspectors of returns that the school accommodation in any district was insufficient, a School Board was to be formed, elected by ratepayers in a parish, or burgesses in a borough. There were two saving clauses : first that the complaint could be challenged by ten ratepayers or the school-managers, when fresh inquiry would be made; and, secondly, six months' grace was given, during which the want might be voluntarily supplied. It was made possible to remit school fees on account of poverty, and where the poverty of the inhabitants of a particular district required them, free schools were to be established. The religious difficulty was met by requiring that in all public elementary schools, whether Board or Voluntary schools, [Its last remnant, individual examination, was abolished in 1893.] attendance at religious worship or instruction should not be The Religious made a condition of admission: if the parent chose to withdraw Difficulty. his child he was free to do so, and, further, any religious observance or instruction must be at the beginning or end of school hours. In Board schools the Act requires that no religious formulary distinctive of any denomination shall be taught, and that parents shall be free to withdraw their children from religious observance at the beginning or end of school hours. All public elementary schools are to be open to inspection at all times, but the teaching in religious knowledge is not to be examined. The aid to Voluntary schools was limited by the rule that the grant in any year should not exceed the income of the school derived from voluntary contributions, fees, or other sources during that year. This rule was changed in 1876, when it was ordered that no reduction of grant should be made on this ground unless the grant exceeded 17s. 6d. a head. The Act of 1870 used only tentative measures to secure the attendance of children. School Boards were empowered, but not compelled, to pass bye-laws fixing the standard of exemption, and it was left to the magistrates to deal with the offenders as they thought fit. In 1876 the principle of compulsion was extended; the duty of the parent to have his children educated in the "three R's" was formally propounded, and a minimum requirement was fixed which the bye-law, if accepted, must enforce. Where there was no School Board, school-attendance committees might enforce bye-laws. In 1880 the acceptance of bye-laws was made compulsory on all school districts. Public education has been assisted in Great Britain by steadily increasing Government grants. Thus : The growth of the system described above in outline can be most easily set forth by a table: Boys and girls leaving elementary schools half taught, before the period closes, could in many places continue their education by means of evening classes. The University Extension Lectures, too, since 1873, in all populous districts had begun to bring educational opportunities within the reach of the working classes. The popular desire for greater intellectual advantages has been shown in the large towns throughout the period. The Mechanics' Institutes in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Coventry; the Birkbeck Institute (1823), the Polytechnics, are among the older institutions founded to satisfy these needs, and since 1854 working men's colleges, and since 1860 working men's clubs, have shown that the movement is real and lasting. Cheap popular literature found a market early in the period. The Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge began its work in 1825, and soon after there poured forth Family Libraries, Libraries of Entertaining Knowledge, penny magazines, and cheap encyclopædias, which needed no charitable society to support them, and the cheap issues of English and foreign classics followed in the way thus prepared. Free Libraries, since the Acts of 1845 and 1850, have supplied many large towns with the means of every form of literary enjoyment. As early as 1835 the educational methods pursued at the THE EDUCATION PROBLEM. MASTER FORSTER. "PLEASE, M'M, I'VE DONE IT, M'M!" SCHOOLMISTRESS (BRITANNIA). "AND HOW HAVE YOU DONE IT, WILLIAM ?" MASTER FORSTER. "PLEASE, M'M, I'VE REDUCED ALL THE FRACTIONS TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATION." SCHOOLMISTRESS. "GOOD BOY! GO UP !" [The Good Boy enters the Cabinet. THE ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT, 1870. 1 Boys' great public schools for boys were widely censured by popular Secondary opinion. At Eton the number of school hours was said to Schools. be only eleven a week, and there were complaints of the tyranny exercised by the elder scholars, of the constant assembling of too many boys in one hall, of the unequal treatment of the rich and noble, of the excessive exercise of memory, the few subjects taught, and the antiquated methods used. The education was almost exclusively classical, and it was contended that even Greek and Latin were ill taught, with bad grammars and by means of mere fragments of the great writers. The greater part of the boys' time was spent in the composition of Greek and Latin verse. At Charterhouse Bell's "Madras system" was in use, and the elder boys were set to teach classes in the Lower School, after |