power to reserve a case for a court for land causes in Dublin, to be composed of equity and common-law judges. At that time there were four descriptions of holdings in Ireland, which Mr. Gladstone thought it his duty to keep specially in view. The first of these was known as the Ulster custom. This custom, where it existed, the bill was to convert into a law, to which the new courts would give effect. The second class of holdings were those which prevailed under customs and usages other than that of Ulster; and these, too, were to be legalized, subject to the restriction, that the tenant might claim the benefit of them as an absolute right only in cases where he was disturbed in his tenancy by the act of his landlord, if he had not been evicted for non-payment of rent, and had not sublet or subdivided his holding without the landlord's consent. All arrears of rent and all damages done by the tenant to the farm might be pleaded by the landlord as a set-off, and the landlord might bar the pleading of any such custom if he chose to give his tenant a lease for not less than thirty-one years. Where the buildings were not connected with any custom, there was to be a scale of damages for evictions. In the case of holdings above fifty pounds a year, the parties might contract themselves out of the scale of damages on the landlord giving a thirty-one years' lease, and undertaking to execute necessary improvements. In cases of eviction the following was to be the scale of damages. If the holding was not valued in the public valuation over £10 a year the judge might award the holder a sum not exceeding seven years' rent; between £10 and £50 a year, a sum not exceeding five years' rent; between £50 and £100 a year, a sum not exceeding three years' rent; and above £100 a year, not exceeding two years' rent. In addition to this the question of permanent buildings and the reclamation of land had to be dealt with. For the purpose of promoting improvements, advances of money would be authorized to landlords, to enable them to defray any charge made against them in the way of im provement in the case of tenants retiring by an act of their own. The principle on which it was proposed to deal with improvements was, that they must have a rentable value, and be suitable to the holdings, and the burden of proof was to be laid on the landlords. In other words, improvements should be the work of the tenant, and the landlord should show that they were not necessary; and the measure was not to be limited to future improvements, but was to be extended to those already made. No claim would be allowed for any improvement made twenty years before the passing of the act, unless it was an improvement of the nature of a permanent building, or a reclamation of land, nor if the tenant held under an existing lease or contract which forbade it; and in the case of past improvements the court might take into consideration the terms for which, and the terms on which, they had already been enjoyed by the tenant. claim would be allowed in respect of improvements contrary to a future contract voluntarily entered into by the tenant, and which were not required for the due cultivation of the farm. No As to lands under lease, a landlord might exempt his lands from being subject to any custom except the Ulster custom, provided that he agreed to give his tenant a lease for thirty-one years; but the lease must leave to the tenant at the close of that term a right to claim compensation under three headsnamely, tillages and manures, permanent buildings, and reclamation of lands. From the moment the bill was passed every Irishman was to be absolutely responsible for every contract into which he entered. Non-payment of rent would be held as a bar to any claim on the landlord, reserving, however, discretion to the courts in certain cases. Notices to quit were to be for twelve months instead of six, and to date from the last day of the current year; and the notice must have a stamp duty of two shillings and sixpence. The bill also proposed to deal with the question of the county cess, which it would assimilate to the poor-rate. In every new tenancy it would have to be paid in moieties NATIONAL EDUCATION. by landlord and tenant, as the poor-rate was then paid, and in every old tenancy under £4 a year the occupier was to be at once relieved. Such were the principal provisions of the bill. Mr. Gladstone, in concluding his explanation, said that the government were far from believing it to be a perfect measure, and invited in thorough good faith the co-operation of all parties to make it as nearly perfect as possible, for their desire was that it should become a great gift to Ireland, and be the means of putting an end to the grievances and sufferings that had so long been associated with the tenure of land in that country. "I am sanguine," said Mr. Gladstone," in the hope that it will pass, not as the triumph of a party, but as a great work of good-will for the common good of our common country, and that its result will be to diffuse the blessings of peace, order, and industry over a smiling land." Mr. Gathorne Hardy, acting for Mr. Disraeli, seemed disposed to receive the proposed measure in a more frank and friendly manner than was afterwards displayed by his chief, who, touching upon the various objections which had been taken, wound up by saying that a more complicated, or more clumsy, or a more heterogeneous measure, had never been brought before parliament. He ended in his satirical vein, ridiculing the proposed tribunals for settling claims, and wound up with the advice to the house to decide in a becoming manner upon the matters to be brought under their consideration. Of course there was a strong opposition, especially on the part of some Irish landlords, who regarded as revolutionary the changes which gave the tenant an interest in the land. They virtually argued that land was either a privileged possession or a commodity for freedom of contract. Mr. Gladstone had pointed out, that though the general effect of the measure might be to impose the possibility of an immediate loss on the landlord, he would not be ultimately a loser. There was a huge fund of national wealth in the soil of Ireland yet undeveloped. By imparting a stimulus to the agriculture of the country the price of labour 279 also would be raised because of the increased demand for strong arms to carry on the necessary work. On the second reading a division was insisted on by a few members who had determined to vote against it. Mr. Disraeli and all but four or five Conservatives went into the lobby with the government, and a minority of only eleven (chiefly Irish members who were not satisfied with the proposed changes) were left to make their demonstration. In the course of the bill there were three hundred notices of amendments, since such a movement in favour of Ireland was calculated to arouse demands in the interests of English tenants. Every clause of the bill was jealously examined. When it went to the Lords, final amendments were proposed; but ultimately, without any serious alteration, it passed both houses, and received the royal assent on the 1st of August. The question of National Education had become of such immediate importance that it engaged the attention of parliament and the country, at the same time that the Irish Land Bill was being so closely discussed. At the instance of Mr. Gladstone morning sittings were held for the purpose of securing time to consider several other measures. The most important of these in public estimation was that which had been brought forward only two days after the introduction of the Irish Land Bill. With dauntless courage and an energy that nothing seemed able to subdue, the prime minister had determined to deal with several great and difficult questions, and he was supported by colleagues who shared his enthusiasm and responded to the call made upon their ability and endurance. To Mr. Forster as vice-president of the council fell the arduous duty of dealing with the subject of national education, a question which at intervals during nearly the whole period with which these pages have been occupied had repeatedly been discussed, and even the approximate settlement of which had been frustrated because of the apparent impossibility of reconciling the demands of the various religious bodies. By certain sections of Nonconformists and Dissenters it had been argued that the state had no claim to introduce or to support religious instruction, and that, therefore, no state aid should be given to schools of any religious denomination; that the rates contributed by Roman Catholics, Protestants of all denominations, Jews, and persons of no religious persuasion whatever, should not be devoted in any degree to the teaching of tenets to which the contributors were opposed; and that those schools alone should receive grants for their support, in which the teaching was strictly secular. Many speakers represented that the larger part of the state-aided schools had for years been under the influence, or wholly under the control of the clergy of the Established Church, and that numbers of persons who had conscientious objections to sending their children to be taught doctrines from which they themselves differed, were compelled to avail themselves of schools supported by voluntary contributions, or of private schools of an inferior class where the teaching was inadequate. These "genuine non-cons," as they were sometimes called by their admirers, did not, of course, object to the teaching of religion; but they opposed its introduction into any national system of education in elementary schools, contending that it was the duty of the schoolmaster or schoolmistress in such institutions to impart only secular instruction; religious teaching being left to the ministers of religion, the parents, or the conductors of Sunday-schools. It is no part of our present purpose to discuss the question how far it is possible to give lessons in history, or to carry on the education of children at all, without some kinds of appeal, in which an extreme analysis might discover religious doctrine; but it may be mentioned at once that a very large number of those who strongly objected to the introduction of what may be called dogmatic or denominational teaching did not insist on the entire exclusion of Scripture reading, nor oppose references by the teacher to those sanctions which are acknowledged by most religious sects. The necessity was, they thought, to secure the schools against any ordination of denominational teaching, or even religious teaching, as a part of the regular instruc tion for which aid was given by rates or government grants, and to provide "a conscience clause," by which parents might obtain for their children the full benefit of the secular instruction without being compelled to keep i them at school during the reading of Scripture or any other observance which could be reasonably regarded as religious teaching. Again, however, there were large numbers of persons belonging to various religious bodies, who were unable to believe that there could be any true or effectual teaching at all which did not include, and even depend upon, that religious influence which, they contended, could alone make it of real worth. These were the conditions under which the "Elementary Education Act" was brought forward, and the chief difficulty against which it had to contend was the resistance of those uncompromising Nonconformists, of whom Mr. Richard (representing the Welsh dissenters), Mr. Miall, and Mr. Dixon were regarded as the champions. The difficulty was increased by the fact that these gentlemen had been firm supporters of Liberal measures. Nearly everybody agreed that something should be done. In agricultural districts the church schools had held some sort of authority, but the actual amount of secular teaching was often so meagre that the children were committed to an unintelligible routine which left them ignorant even of the elements of education. In the large towns, such as Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool, to say nothing of London, there were hosts of children between the ages of three and thirteen who received scarcely any primary instruction at all. In Leeds only 19,000 out of 58,000 were at school, in Manchester 25,000 out of 60,000, in Liverpool 30,000 out of 90,000, in Birmingham 26,000 out of 83,000. In London it was not easy to estimate the amount of ignorance, for though free schools, parochial schools, and so called national schools provided a very defective and inadequate elementary education for a large number, there was a vast horde of neglected and destitute children who roamed the streets and appeared to be without parental care or responsible guardianship; while a still larger number were either kept in NEGLECTED AND DESTITUTE CHILDREN. ignorance because they were able even in infancy to contribute to the family support, or only occasionally attended the "ragged" or evening schools provided by the voluntary efforts of benevolent subscribers and unpaid teachers. No system was in existence possessing the controlling power or the settled resources which alone could ensure even the primary instruction of the poorer class of children. Nearly every church and chapel seemed to make an effort to provide day-schools or infant schools, many of which languished for want of funds and employed inefficient teachers, who frequently had to perform their duties in buildings not only inadequate but dangerously unhealthy. In many schools which claimed and received grants of money the conditions were so hopelessly unsatisfactory that various expedients had to be adopted to secure the attendance of a sufficient number of children to obtain external support; while in some cases endowments were misapplied, and funds originally intended for the maintenance of an efficient foundation had been diverted, either because there were few poor inhabitants remaining in the district, or because there was no authority which could compel the parents to avail themselves of the teaching provided for their children, even if it had been in accordance with modern requirements. The provision of the means of education was not the chief difficulty. The problem was how to overcome the indifference of parents, and to compel them to take advantage of such a provision. How could the vast number of boys and girls, amounting to two-thirds of the juvenile population, be brought under instruction? In large towns, and especially in London, destitute, neglected, and apparently friendless children formed a phalanx which appalled benevolence, and dismayed the administrators of justice. Boys and girls, untaught and uncared for, were to be seen in the large thoroughfares as well as in by-ways and slums, some of them making pretences of selling matches or sweeping crossings, others begging or haunting the doors of eating-houses and taverns, many of them hanging about the markets to seize upon the refuse, or to pilfer from the stalls. What were 281 known as "the dark arches of the Adelphi," that series of arches which ran along the river bank at the upper part of the Strand, and spanned the steep lanes and alleys leading to remote and mostly solitary wharves—were the resort of a horde of wretched children who slept there at night, and by day sallied forth starving, wretched, and with the scared cunning look of hunted creatures. The number of neglected children in London had been more than a disgrace and a reproach; it had become a terror and a danger for the future. Magistrates, because of the want of any regular provision, were unable to deal with prisoners whose heads (to use the phrase of police-court reporters) "scarcely reached above the level of the dock." To send them to prison was to brand them with the criminal mark, to promote their graduation in dishonesty and vice. Nor were the industrial schools, the schools providing for a comparatively small number of children convicted of offences against the law, much better than the prisons. The evil was, that no provision had been made for friendless, houseless boys or girls, except they had made themselves of some importance to the state by committing crime. The urchin who lacked food and shelter, but who had too much virtue or too little courage to pilfer from a shop-door, or from the back of a market cart, was an unconsidered fraction in the national estimate. Only by committing an offence against the law did he or she become an integer of some social importance of sufficient importance to be arrested, charged at a police court, and sent somewhere to be fed and warmed and clothed, and taught,—what?— perhaps to become an habitual criminal by the artful communications of fellow-convicts, or by the difficulty of obliterating the prison. taint. The Elementary Education Act aimed at remedying this condition of things, and to a certain extent it diminished the number of "gutter children," by directing its officers to seek out the parents and bring them under the compulsory clauses which demanded that the children should be sent to school; but as a matter of fact, the schools which came to be established did not for a long time lay hold of this class. The actually homeless and destitute children they could not bring under instruction, for the provision of food and clothes came first, and there were no elementary breakfast and dinner tables. To voluntary efforts, which had chiefly grown out of the ragged-school movement, the most necessitous of the children of the large towns were left, and are left still. Industrial schools, however, now include refuges as well as reformatories. Crime is still regarded as a primary claim to participation in the advantages of schools where the reformatory system is adopted, and such schools are entirely apart from the provisions of the Elementary Education Act, but the schoolboards, through their officers, make use of industrial schools for the purpose of rescuing children who are so friendless that they are not eligible for the board-schools. Like many of the institutions of this country, the two systems have come to work affinitively, though they differ so greatly that at first they appeared to be opposed in principle. The authorities of the board-schools, supported partly by rates, partly by government grants, and partly by fees paid by parents, soon discovered the value of schools originally founded by benevolent contributions, as refuges for the reception of the homeless and the destitute, and many of these institutions were made certificated industrial schools, supported partly by benevolent support, partly by the government grant-which is now in some instances their chief dependence. While philanthropists were almost disheartened by the aspect of large towns, and especially of the metropolis, with regard to the condition of destitute children, there were agricultural districts in which no less stringent measures were needed to protect children employed in farm or field labour. A commission of inquiry into the employ ments of women and children in 1865-66 had disclosed a large amount of suffering among a million and a half of young persons and children, occupied in various manufactures and employments not coming under the regulations of the Factories Act. The details of the evidence elicited on the subject were so painful that bills were brought in to place all manufactures previously carried on without government inspection under regulations analogous to those under those acts. The sixth and final report of the commission, however, related to women, children, and young persons engaged in agriculture, and its revelations respecting the system of employing agricultural gangs, or companies of young persons and children of both sexes, in Lincolnshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Nottinghamshire, and to some extent in Bedford, Rutland, and Northampton, were appalling. - Gang- masters, mostly depraved and drunken ruffians,-were employed to provide field labour, and they did so by collecting from the surrounding villages, companies of boys, girls, and women-some of the children being mere infants, whom the parents, miserably poor, sent out with the rest for the sake of the few pence they could earn. The gangmasters had almost entire control of the children, for they alone could find them regular employment, and that employment could scarcely have found a parallel in negro slavery, for the gangs were driven to labour under conditions in some respects worse than those to which slaves on plantations were subject. Of children of eight years old, or even younger, and lads and girls of 14 or 15, or older, these gangs were composed, and the report on the evidence says— "When the gangs are working at a considerable distance from home the children leave as early as five in the morning and do not return before eight at night, and the few who attend the Sunday-schools after the labours of the week are described as in a state of exhaustion which it is distressing to witness. A little boy only six years of age is stated to have regularly walked more than six miles out to work, and often to come home so tired that he could scarcely stand. Walking, the gangmasters themselves admit, is more trying to the children than working. When the gang has a long distance to go the children become so exhausted, that the elder ones are seen dragging the younger ones home, sometimes carrying them on their backs. In winter the children often return from the fields crying |