open to the same objection as that of the boys. Based as it is solely upon the varying demands of a small workhouse, it is unequal in pressure and irregular in recurrence. The children must and do feel that it is because their services are needed that they are employed, and they lose the salutary influence which would be the result of labour imposed as a means of training and instruction. The first condition, therefore, is most imperfectly attained. Without some approach to regularity in amount and incidence of work, habits of industry cannot be formed; and in a workhouse there is no necessary connexion between the tasks exacted and the physical comforts which the inmates may enjoy. The second condition is equally unfulfilled. The boys are essentially fair weather labourers if employed in the garden, and neither the nature nor the amount of work imposed upon them generally is such as would accustom them to bear the ordinary fatigue of farm service. I say nothing of those who are solely employed in handicrafts; if put to other occupations they are positively unfitted for them by the training which they have received. The employments of the girls accomplish more nearly the physical training required; nevertheless the small number of schools in which laundry work is assigned to them leaves a large number of children unaccustomed to the fatigue of this necessary branch of female labour. I feel doubtful also how far in many cases the children acquire habits of neatness, order, and cleanliness, sufficient to make them hereafter acceptable as domestic servants. The last-mentioned condition I conceive to be simply unattainable (except in handicrafts), either in a workhouse or a district school. No amount of special training can make of a number of children, successively, either good plough-boys, good horse-boys, or accomplished domestic servants. This can only be the result of actual practice and experience. The utmost that can be done is to render them willing and able to work, and obedient and honest towards their employers. Their first attempts may be awkward and unskilful; but, if the groundwork of a good will and a sufficient physical ability has been laid, the result is not doubtful. In other respects, also, I would observe that this multitude of small schools is detrimental to pauper education. I am convinced that it is impossible for one teacher to discharge creditably his duty to all the classes of children under his care; to superintend the industrial labour; and to perform satisfactorily the multifarious domestic duties which devolve upon him. The nature of the instruction which ought to be given varies so completely in each class, comprehending, as these schools in most instances do, children from 3 years old to 15, that it is vain to expect that many teachers will be able to instruct all with success; consequently I find many schools (principally boys') where the elder classes are fairly taught, and the juniors learn little or nothing; and, on the other hand, many (among girls' schools for the most part) where the very youngest are doing well but the seniors do not progress. Again, in superintending the industrial department, the teacher's time and attention is devoted solely to those elder children who are capable of taking part in it. The juniors, of necessity, are either left without surveillance, or are confided to paupers and monitors. With respect to the domestic duties devolving upon them (in many cases expected to be discharged personally by them), an accurate detail would show that, in addition to the qualifications necessary to obtain one of your Lordships' certificates, the teachers, male and female, must not be unwilling to perform the functions of nurse, housemaid, gardener, and servant of all work. This multitude of small schools, moreover, is under the control and direction of as many different Boards of Guardians, whose views and practice with respect to the children vary in each locality, and who concur only in not promoting the improvement of pauper education, either from a false idea of economy, or from simple indifference to the subject. It having been suggested at various times that the existing machinery of Boards of Guardians should be made use of in promoting the extension of popular education, I have no hesitation in recording my opinion that a more unfortunate selection could not be made. Elected for a totally different object, and often on account of special qualities which would not be required by a board for school management, they would be found wanting in that earnest faith in the sure result of improved mental training, as well as in that intelligent sympathy with the intellectual progress of the children under their guidance, which form the primary constituents of an efficient board of management. With respect to the educational position of the district, I have very few remarks to make. Individual schools have varied--some improving, some deteriorating-accordingly as in a change of teachers the new comer has been better or worse than his predecessor. But, in the aggregate, the standard has scarcely altered since 1849. Some degree of religious and moral training is effected, and a certain amount of elementary |