The lists issued to me by your Lordships contained, in addition, the following names:

Brenchley-Aided by your Lordships; the school open for the first time only on the day fixed for my inspection.

Bransgore-Inviting inspection; omitted through a mistake as to its geographical position (near Christ Church, Hants).

Exbury and Silchester-Both inviting inspection, and both requesting the postponement thereof, on account of a change of teachers, and the schools being in a transition state.

Plumpton-Aided by the Treasury, and open only as a Sunday

school.

I

Barcombe-Aided by the Treasury, and omitted through my mistake as to the payment of the grant; the school not having been erected when the parish was visited on my previous tour. heard of several instances of evening schools for lads and adults during the winter, and I witnessed the working of one that is assembled two evenings in the week in the Rectory at Godstone. Every clergyman who has tried these schools will, as I believe, bear testimony to their value in many points of view.

Looking at the district as a whole, the prospects for education must be regarded as encouraging. Many in the higher classes, and the clergy generally, take year by year an increasing interest in the condition of schools, and spend more of their time and labour therein. I have also met with some very gratifying instances of persons in the middle ranks of society, of farmers, tradespeople, and artisans, being deeply interested in the prosperity of schools for the poor. Although very much remains to be done, the mass of persons in all grades, so far as I have had opportunity of judging, appear to me to have made, during the last few years, considerable progress in ascertaining what are the ends that should be chiefly aimed at in education,-what is the proper position and bearing of the most important matters,-what necessity there is for the instruction that is professedly given being really communicated with intelligence,-as well as in recognising the obligations all of us are under, to make sacrifices for the right spiritual culture of those that have been intrusted to our charge.

Out of the 394 teachers whom I saw at work, there were, as it appeared to me, barely one-third whose efforts could be witnessed without sensible pleasure. In three-fourths of the schools visited, I found abundant evidence of help being afforded to the teacher from the gratuitous services of persons of superior education and intelligence, ordinarily the clergyman and members of his family. In very many instances the pains that had been taken to train the children in right habits, and to instruct them with intelligence, had been followed by marked success.

The great want is that of properly-trained teachers; and to secure these, we must not only extend and improve the efficiency of our training schools, but we must also with earnestness sup

plicate the landowners to make sacrifices for the payment of proper salaries to teachers. The cases where the landowners have exerted themselves to provide fit education for the children of their tenantry, in the parishes I have visited, as at Elvetham, Falmer, Hartley-Wintney, Hursley, Kingswood-in-Ewell, Loseley, East Stratton, and Withyham, are, as I hope, indications of a state of feeling that will be found to spread throughout all our agricultural districts.

At present, however, the following table, marking the limits of the salaries of more than 200 teachers, shows, in too many instances, a sadly low estimate of the position and claims of a teacher of the poor. This table does not take in dame-schools :

Bearing in mind the complicated engagements by which the real property of this country is so often burdened, one cannot speak as if one deemed it sufficient to point to the nominal proprietor and say, "It is your duty to see that the peasantry that are reared upon the soil are rightly nurtured and cared for." Every one must decide for himself as to his own responsibilities; in such a matter we are not commissioned, and we are not qualified to act as judges of those around us. And yet I suppose, that no one could go as an observer through one or two of our agricultural counties without having it suggested to his mind that, perhaps, it would be well for many country gentlemen, even as regards their mere temporal advantage, if they were seriously to put to themselves the question-What proportion the sum that they contribute towards the maintenance of schools for the poor, bears to any one of the annual items of what is spent upon that which cannot but be regarded as simple luxury, and which offers no real or lasting prospect of any recompense of good. A sense of the responsibilities attached to property is happily, year by year, gaining ground in the country; and, doubtless, the more this conviction is acted upon, the more reasonably may we hope for the stability of the commonwealth, as well as for the greater happiness, present and future, of each individual member.

The scanty salaries that are offered to masters and mistresses meet one at every turn in the endeavour to put things on a better footing; but, as soon as it is felt by the owners of property in this country that the wages of one who is fit to teach the children of the poor ought not to fall below those paid to a humble mechanic, this blot on the face of our social condition will be got rid of. The means for removing the next obstacle in the way of the improvement of our schools for the poor, I mean the early age at which the boys go out to work, do not seem to be so readily within reach. The children of our husbandmen are often sent to keep birds off the fields before they are eight years old, and very few boys older than ten, from the poorer class, are to be found in regular attendance at our village schools. The girls, in some instances, stay two or three years longer. Nevertheless, the better the school is, the older will the children be found to be that are in attendance, and the more regularly will they come.

The payments of the children are ordinarily Id. or 2d. a week; these are sometimes managed so as to help the regularity of attendance. Thus, at Otterborne, the younger children, of whom the parents are glad oftentimes to be free from the charge, pay 3d.; and the older children pay 1d. At Fareham the children pay nothing for attendance, but are fined for absence. At Effingham the parents are encouraged to make their payments quarterly in advance, by being charged 1s. a quarter, instead of at the rate of d. a week, which is the cost to those who pay for schooling weekly; the consequence is, that most of the children are paid for

quarterly, and the parents are more in earnest about receiving the worth of their money, and take pains about the attendance of their children.

How far a thoroughly good school in an agricultural village may have a tendency to support itself, may in part be judged of from a letter which the Rev. R. Dawes, of King Somborne, has written at my solicitation, and which is given in the Appendix (A). The King Somborne school appeared to me in all respects a remarkably good one: it has, perhaps, some peculiar features, in the pains with which the younger classes are exercised by the clergyman in the analysis of sentences and the use of words: or, to express myself more simply, are taught their mother tongue; as well as in the care taken to make them familiar with some of the first elements of natural philosophy. But in giving up so large a portion of the Appendix to an account of it, which appears to me most interesting, I by no means intend to draw comparisons between that and other schools, whose names only appear in the foregoing tables. A visitor, in entering many of those schools, would be as much delighted as he would be at King Somborne by the cleanliness of the children, the intelligence and humanity of their countenances, and the amount of information possessed on the ordinary subjects of instruction. And especially in that respect which is most important of all, there are schools singularly happy in their teaching which are not characterised in this Report, except by those general notes which are given in the foregoing Table.

Your Lordships have inquired as to the suggestions made in the schools visited. I have commonly abstained from expressing my opinion on what I saw, except where I was invited to do so, thinking it better (especially on a first visit) to comply strictly with the printed instrctions under which the inspection is carried on. There is reason, however, to believe that some school-managers have been disappointed in not receiving a letter of advice subsequently to the inspection of the school; but on a second tour, when I shall have had some experience of the systems now at work in the several schools, I shall be better qualified to give counsel to those managers who may be desirous of knowing all that occurs to me as capable of improvement. The observations that follow include, as I believe, the substance of the suggestions that have been offered; they make no pretensions to novelty; indeed, many of them will be found to range themselves under some one or other of the observations noted in former Reports that have been printed in your Lordships' Minutes; as experience enlarges, one takes faster hold of, and attaches more importance to, certain principles although, perhaps, one's confidence in theories, apart from the particular agency by which they may be worked, lessens, and more reason is continually seen for the qualification of general observa

Our ordinary teachers have very little sense of how much is intrusted to them, and therefore if a school is to be of real value, except in very rare instances, there must be constantly at hand the unbought services of some one, either clergyman, esquire, or member of their families, who, keeping the most important ends constantly in view, will be capable, both by education and intelligence, to give that counsel, and infuse that spirit which cannot be looked for from our present race of teachers. Doubtless teachers are being now trained (I have seen some at work in this district) who appreciate the nature of their calling, and who give themselves with intelligeuce heartily thereto; but as a general rule, no school-manager can count upon having a good school who will not himself do work therein. It has been a common maxim, as is the teacher so is the school; my experience would rather lead me to make the statement, "As are the pains bestowed therein by the clergyman so is the school." The first question then that a school manager has to ask, when desirous of improvement, is, Have I the time and the will to labour at it myself? The humblest materials, under proper superintendence, are found to work results of excellent worth.

The question is repeatedly asked, How may we provide for right moral training in a school? And to such a question the most obvious answer is, By setting before the children a good example. This affords incessantly the most effective teaching, teaching that will be found in some cases to have life and force after a long interval of seeming torpor. If a teacher be himself habitually under the influence of the highest motives, seeking first, and above all things, to do his Master's work in the station wherein he is placed, with a hope grounded upon his Master's promises as the chief incentive to diligence, such a teacher will in numberless ways, and in a degree wholly inappreciable by outside observers, exert a most healthful influence upon his scholars. The tones of his voice, his general bearing, his justice and consistency, his silence oftentimes, will have effects that will be looked for in vain from the operation of any code of rules, however perfect, that are not ani. mated by a living spirit. I need not repeat what I have previously urged as to the propriety of distinctly recognising the teaching of Scripture as the law of the school, an appeal being made with reverence habitually thereto, whenever the occasion may arise for correction or rebuke. The instruction of Scripture was intended to be continually before our eyes as the rule of our conduct, and it is our own fault if we are not led thereby to perceive where the necessary help is to be sought for under our moral difficulties, and what are the great remedies for the ills of our social condition. I have also previously remarked upon the special necessity for gentleness in the teacher of the poor, the duty laid upon him to strive to bring into action a compensating process, so as that he may be the means of doing most for those in whose behalf their