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General Report, by Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, JOSHUA RUDDOCK, Esq., on the Schools of Parochial Unions in the Counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hants, Oxford, Somerset, and Wilts, and in portions of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Gloucestershire; for the year 1852. MY LORDS,

1853.

THE condition of the schools within my district has varied so little, during the past year, from that described in my previous Reports, that I have thought it expedient to confine the few observations which I have to submit almost entirely to such statistical data and matters of fact as would seem to bear more particularly upon the question of Central Pauper Schools. The aggregate of changes among the teachers has been 83, or two-fifths of the whole number, viz.,

33 Masters;

50 Mistresses.

No inconsiderable portion of these changes is to be ascribed to the dissatisfaction of the teachers with the system of fixing their salaries according to the average number of scholars. They feel that the amount of this average cannot be increased (but may be diminished) by their exertions, and the better teachers therefore seek to obtain a village school, where, if successful, an increased number of scholars is certain to reward their efforts.

As compared with the year ended December 1851, the past year (Table A., in Appendix) exhibits a decrease of 168 children in the workhouses, and 231 in the schools (vide Report for 1850–1, p. 114).

One Union in Cornwall and one in Wilts are included in the present Table which were not in the preceding. decrease is about equal among all the classes of children.

The

The proportion of children to the whole number of inmates continues the same, being 46 per cent. for the past year. The children over 9 years of age are nearly one-half of the total number; viz.

2,251 boys
1,772 girls

The number of boys is one-third greater than the number of girls; the causes mentioned in my last Report having operated with still greater force during this year.

Table B. exhibits the children as borne upon the school books. Under the head of boys' schools are included all such as are schools for boys alone; under the head of girls' schools, schools for girls only, or for girls and the younger boys, which latter are afterwards drafted into the boys' schools. The mixed schools are those of boys and girls of all ages, under one teacher.

Of these there are 35 in my district, about 10 of which are managed by a master, assisted by a sewing mistress.

The ages of the children in attendance according to this table are, I believe, more strictly accurate than those given in Table A., having, in the majority of cases, been corrected by the teachers down to the day of my visit. Your Lordships will remark that 1,353, or one-fifth of the whole, are over 12 years of age.

Deducting from 6,724, the total number on the books, 6,386, the number actually present at the inspection (Table A.), it appears that 338 only were absent; a very small number to include the sick, &c., and those employed at work.

This fact would seem to indicate that the attendance is now more regular than it used to be.

The total number of admissions during the year appears to have been, 8,088; discharges, 7,832.

This result, showing an increase instead of a diminution in the total number, is not quite correct. The error arises from the fact that some teachers have not kept a strictly accurate record of all the admissions and discharges. The figures, however, I know, approximate to the truth sufficiently near to give a very fair estimate of what has been the fluctuation of the schools. Yet it must be borne in mind that a large proportion of these numbers have reference to the same children who are constantly going from, and returning to the workhouse with their parents.

I am inclined to believe that in every workhouse school about one-fourth of those present, at any time, have been admitted within the previous year; one-fourth are fluctuating, and one-half are permanent.

These figures seem to be important, as bearing upon the question of industrial or district schools; first, with regard to the comparatively large number of children over 12 years of age who would be benefited by their more general adoption; next, as refuting the frequently urged objection on the score of the difficulty and expense that would be incurred by the too frequent fluctuation among the children.

Another point to which I would wish to draw attention is the low average number of children in each school.

The aggregate average of attendance in the 193 schools included in this table is 6,528, or nearly 34 in each school. This mean average is increased by the 10 or 12 schools, averaging more than 80 each, therein included. The mean average of at least 120 schools is not more than 25 to 30. So minute a subdivision of the children into a multitude of small schools is prejudicial in a variety of ways.

In the first place, good teachers are unwilling to accept small schools. Independently of the necessarily small remuneration, there is no scope for their abilities. In such schools there are not sufficient children of the same age or standard to form a class; the teaching, therefore, becomes individual and desultory.

Each one of these small schools contains the same constituent elements. There are the very young children who know nothing beyond the alphabet and the Lord's Prayer; there are some among the newly admitted who are not even so far advanced, but they are much older,—many 12, 13, or even 14 years old (this is particularly the case among the girls); there are the children between 8 and 11, just beginning to learn writing or figures; and, lastly, there are the three or four senior children, older both in years and attendance, who are further advanced, and are beginning really to learn something.* A clever well-informed teacher is quickly disheartened in such a sphere, and the more readily as he soon perceives that no efforts of his can increase the number of his scholars, but that, as he finds the school, so, in a degree, it must always remain.+

*The ordinary composition of a school averaging 30 may be fairly stated as follows:-There will be three classes; first class, about 8; second class, about 11; third class, about 9; and 2 unclassed.

The third class will be learning the alphabet and the commandments; perhaps some attempting to read in the first Irish book, and making strokes upon slates.

The second class will be reading the second Irish book, spelling simple monosyllables, writing on slates, three or four beginning to write on paper, and learning the multiplication table, and simple addition.

The first class will be reading the third Irish book, writing on paper, in arithmetic (two or three elder ones excepted), working easy compound multiplication and division, and receiving some oral instruction in elementary geography.

The two unclassified will be either those elder children spoken of who enter completely ignorant, or such as are physically or mentally disabled.

†The elder boys will be provided with situations, and be replaced by two or three more out of the junior division; there will be fluctuation in the very young children and the elder "ignoramuses;" but there can be no great change in the main staple of the school; and the teacher who is conscious of his own capacity to manage and instruct a school of 80 or 100 children, and who pines for the relief afforded by the occasional introduction of the higher branches of education, will feel that he is condemned to a perpetual routine of the most elementary nature.

In a village school this would not be the case. Improved methods of instruction and greater efficiency in the school invariably attract increasing numbers; and independently of the pecuniary benefit, if he derives any, the teacher is gratified and encouraged by this evidence of success.

But if the several workhouse schools of a given district were united in one establishment, there would be at all times a sufficient number of each description of children to afford full employment for the mind of an energetic teacher; there would be ample materials for proper classification, according to capacity, to receive certain specified instruction; and, as a result more important than all, there would be in each class at the command of the teacher that sympathy of numbers, that amount of general intellect, which is so important a lever in oral tuition. It would be possible also to have more than one adult teacher in each school, or, even if the school were large, a trained teacher to each division of the children, as was the case at the Norwood school in 1847. Such a division of labour is highly advantageous to intellectual progress. Most teachers have special qualifications; and it would be possible, by a judicious apportionment of their duties, to assign to each that sphere of action for which he might be more especially qualified.

But it is not only as regards the mental instruction of the children that pauper education suffers from the existence of so many small schools. Physical and industrial training is rendered comparatively unattainable. Wherever, and under whatever circumstances, pauper education is discussed, it is invariably urged that work should be one most important element of the instruction afforded; that, as it is by their hands chiefly, and not by their heads, that they must earn subsistence, the latter must not be the sole instructed-in short, that their education should be adapted to that station of life in which it has pleased Providence to place them.

In order to effect this, three objects should be kept in view :1st. To accustom the children to habits of industry and toil; leading them to recognize labour as one of the conditions of existence.

2nd. To give them that physical training which will enable them to support the fatigue consequent upon their several employments.

3rd. To give them such special instruction as may be most in accordance with the demands of the labour market in their particular district.

The last-named object is the least important of the three; inasmuch as its attainment, failing the two former, would be useless. How far are these attainable in a small school? Scarcely at all.

With the boys the labour assigned is desultory in its nature and irregular in amount. As to its recurrence, if the workhouse garden is cultivated by them, at seed time and harvest there is a press of work; at other times, the labour of a gang of boys in weeding or picking up stones is little better than organized idleness.

Throughout my district I know of no handicrafts adopted as industrial training other than tailoring or shoemaking. ` Independently of the manifest inapplicability of these as elements of training for an agricultural labourer, there are other special objections:-First, the amount of work varies with the condition of the clothing stock; of late, owing to the diminution in the number of in-door poor, there has been less need of clothing, and consequently, in many places, no new articles are made; in others, these are always contracted for, and the repairs alone are done in the house; the cause before-mentioned has also diminished the amount of repairs. Secondly, the instructing tailor or shoemaker is most commonly a pauper inmate, and, should he leave, the work ceases; sometimes, but rarely, he is an inferior artizan at low wages, who accepts this employment until he can do better. The same objection on the score of irregularity in amount and recurrence attaches also to this species of industrial training. Among the girls, needlework affords at all times a ready resource for systematic industry and the performance of household duties (if restricted to their wards) does to some extent prepare them for their future career. But they, independently of the evils resulting from their unavoidable intercourse with adult females, are exposed to other disadvantages in these small schools. The diminution. in the in-door poor being principally among the able-bodied, an amount of household work falls upon them greater than they ought reasonably to be expected to perform, or than they can perform, in fact, if all receive the prescribed amount of instruction during the specified hours.

Besides, industrial aptitude becomes an element in the qualifications of a mistress more important than any other. Consequently the schools fall into the hands of persons but slenderly qualified to afford even the moderate amount of instruction professed to be given.

In other respects, there are few means of industrial training adopted for the girls; a reference to the statistical tables in the Appendix will show that there are very few schools where washing forms a part of the industrial routine. The nature of a workhouse dietary does not offer much scope for training in kitchen work, and, except in those Unions where one or two girls are employed in the master's kitchen, very little is done in this department. But the labour-routine of the girls is