fore, wonder that the adherents of the old system look on the present state of things with alarm and even despondency, and that some of the supporters of the League quietly rejoice in anticipation of the 'painless extinction' which they were good enough to propose for the existing schools.

But we do not believe that such a result need follow, and we are sure that it would be a great evil if it did follow. There will be some counteracting influences of a secondary nature. It is quite possible that old associations, social prejudices, the notion that all rates are much alike, and that a rate school is something like a workhouse school, may tend to fill our voluntary schools, and even make it possible for them to charge higher fees, so as to compensate for diminished subscriptions. The effect would be-and we have heard it anticipated by many whose opinion is valuable-that the Board schools would gravitate towards the lower stratum (speaking socially) of the classes needing elementary education, while the other schools assumed. a comparatively aristocratic character. If the Boards should incline rather to remit fees in their own schools for those unable to pay, than actually to pay fees in other schools, this tendency would, no doubt, be enhanced. But, after all, such causes as these are at best merely secondary, and are apt to be exceedingly capricious in their operation. No one can well reckon upon them. They may be very powerful, or all but ineffective; they may work as men expect, or turn round, like elephants in a battle, and destroy the ranks for which they were intended to clear the way,

If the voluntary schools are to exist, they must prove that they have a right to exist-that they can do work valuable enough to stimulate and to reward the effort which their maintenance will need. Now we are strongly convinced that the success of our first attempt at a true national education largely depends on the co-existence of the two classes of schools, and their action, direct and indirect, upon each other. The rate-supported schools will improve the old by the simple fact of their present rivalry, and the readiness of the new system to absorb the old, if the old should fail. Many, we suppose, especially of the private adventure schools, will be improved off the face of the earth;' and, speaking generally, we shall not regret them, for they will be those which are shams, or, at any rate, are starved and ineffective. But those which are good in various degrees-and most of the public schools are good in capacity, if not in performance-will be forced to be better. They will be obliged to become 'Public Elementary Schools' in the meaning of the Act, i. e. ; to maintain a proper teaching staff, to submit to Govern

ment

ment inspection, and to provide strictly for the rights of conscience. All those changes, whether welcome or unwelcome, will really be benefits, received from the co-existence of the new rate-supported schools.

But they will do more than repay those benefits. There is a great value in the voluntary principle itself; in the greater freedom and variety of which it admits; in the union of various classes as fellow-workers in a labour which is one of love, or, at any rate, of duty, and not of compulsion; in the unpaid and often priceless service which it can command; in the absence of that hard compulsory tone and jealous watchfulness which belong to all merely legal functionaries. Every one knows the difference between a voluntary hospital and a workhouse, or even a workhouse infirmary. The law can at best be just; it has no power and no right to be generous. We believe that, if the ratesupported schools were allowed to cover the whole educational area, they would be liable to sink to a lower level of conception, and to assume a more perfunctory tone in work, especially when the heavy burden of their maintenance began to be felt, and when colder reasoning succeeded to the present heat of enthusiasm. The existence of the voluntary schools will keep them up to the mark of vigour and spirit, just as they preserve their rivals from fitfulness and want of steadiness in work. The two will be just like a party of riders and a carriage pursuing the same road; the riders alternately start on and fall behind the carriage, and so produce spirit and variety; while the steady roll of the wheels keeps the whole together, and secures a good average of pace. The want of such friendly rivalry appears to be sadly felt in the American system.

Then again (to anticipate in some degree what will be said hereafter), the religious character of education will depend very much still on the voluntary schools. It is true-we rejoice that it is true that Bible teaching and religious influence are to be the rule in Board schools; and indeed this very fact, while it tends to sustain the Christianity of the country, will, in some degree, militate against the prosperity of voluntary schools. If the Board schools had been mainly secular, we feel convinced that, under all disadvantages, the religious schools would have beaten them; as it is, the contest is more doubtful. But the religious teaching of the new schools is encumbered with much difficulty, because of the condition of 'undenominationalism,' which is held to be implied in the Cowper-Temple Clause. There is an active and intelligent party, who will watch for such difficulties, eagerly endeavouring to exaggerate them where they exist, to create them where they do not. At present the majority of

the Boards and the school-managers whom they appoint, will be honestly anxious to work the system efficiently, and may expect to find many difficulties vanish as they grapple with them. If the old schools shall exist, preserving a religious tone, and offering an easy refuge from actual or virtual secularism, then, we believe, their attempt will succeed. Even for the sake of self-preservation, to say nothing of the contagion of a noble example, the new schools will preserve, under all difficulties, a substantially religious character. Let the voluntary schools decay and vanish, and we do not feel so sure of this result. The example of the United States is not encouraging. It is generally known that the common schools have there become virtually secular; in ordinary cases nothing is left except the reading of a passage of Scripture, and the use of some very general prayer at the opening of school. But it is not so well known, that originally the system was intended to provide religious instruction for all children,' and that it has gradually faded into what it is, because it is provided that this religious instruction shall not 'favour the tenets of any particular sect of Christians.' We trust that such might not be the case in England, if the new schools were left in undisputed possession of the field; but we cannot feel sure that the same causes would not operate to produce the same results. Doubly then we believe that the old schools are of paramount value here. They can work most effectively for religious instruction themselves. Most of them are connected with the Church, and all the prestige and influence of the Church is brought to bear upon their religious tone, while the absence of all fetters on the religious teaching should help it to greater definiteness and vigour. But, besides this, their reflex action on the new schools is of at least equal importance. To lose it would be, in our view, nothing short of a calamity to the Christianity of England.

Connected with both these considerations is the fact that, in our old schools the influence of the clergy and other ministers of religion will always be felt, while from the Board schools, it is, at least in London, to be jealously excluded. It is acknowledged on all hands, a few rabid fanatics excepted, that the past education of the country owes more to them than to any other class-we had almost said, than to all other classes put together. Their service has this especial value, that it is wholly voluntary, for a clergyman has, legally speaking, no obligation whatever to aid a day-school; it is from the nature of the case, the service of men of higher education and character, than any who are likely otherwise to take part in the work; it must, even if it be occasionally spoilt by a narrowness and intolerance, be a distinctly

a distinctly spiritual influence, tending to enforce the highest view of education, and-last, not least-it will be so long as the Church is established, the most universal and the most unfailing service. It is impossible that it should not tell very powerfully and very beneficially upon the education of the people. At the present moment the Boards will probably sacrifice it, as the London Board has already done, in simple fear of sectarianism, either in the clerical teachers, or in the anticlericals who exclude them. It is possible that they may hereafter get over this jealousy, and feel that they have made a very needless and ruinous sacrifice at its shrine. But this is still doubtful; and, while it is so, we must regard the old schools as specially valuable, in the fact that they preserve for us this influence, which, whatever may have been its defects, has certainly been as yet the leading influence in the great work.

The general result to which we come, for these reasons and others which might be adduced, is that the voluntary schools will be, to a great extent, our security for what may be called 'the spiritual element' in our education, by which we mean, not only religious instruction and influence, although these are its highest form, but all that tends to give to education, in its subjects and in its tone, the really noble aspect of a process, which as developing man's faculties is its own reward, and which it is incumbent on the community to give, simply for the sake of duty, and in obedience to a great law of God's Providence. The schools created and sustained by the compulsory power of law, will give body to our education, greatly enhance its strength, extend its area, improve its organization; but, if they are left alone, there will be a danger of their directing it to lower objects, and conducting it on lower motives. Unite the two, and keep them both in vigour, and the system will approach a perfection, which neither element, even if indefinitely extended and strengthened, could secure.

If these views are in any degree correct, and if their correctness is recognised, then we believe that the old schools will continue and even flourish. A great effort was made in the 'time of grace' allowed (up to Dec. 31st, 1870) to occupy all possible ground with them. The various religious bodies of the country are energetically endeavouring to sustain and invigorate them. Perhaps the Church of England, the Roman Catholics, and the Wesleyans, are most alive to the necessity; other religious communities are content with an 'undenominational' system, and have not sufficiently reflected, although on their own principles they are most of all bound to reflect, that it may become a different thing, if it be a State system having a monopoly

a monopoly, from that which it is at present in the hands of the British and Foreign Society, existing side by side with 'denominational' societies. We wish all success to this action, proceeding as it does on purely religious grounds; but we feel convinced that the duty of keeping up the voluntary schools rests on a wider basis, that it should come home to many of those who delight most in the introduction of the new system, and that it may appeal even to some who regard education in its higher aspects, although they may not be inclined to give supremacy to religion. We do not venture to prophesy what the future may bring forth; we listen, with suspension of belief, to the gloomy forebodings of the men of the old school, who still doubt whether the new Act was needed, in the face of plain and terrible facts; nor do we give more credence to the exulting prophecies of those on the other side, whose wish is father to their thought, when they picture to themselves the paradise of State education, which, by the way, has in America been found to have thorns in the midst of its roses, and a serpent

under the grass. We think that the principle of voluntary action is dear to the hearts, and familiar to the practice of Englishmen; we believe that still the religious bodies, as such, have a strong hold over public opinion, and an almost irresistible influence in action. But we have yet greater confidence in the conviction that the voluntary schools have still a raison d'être, and that, while this is the case, they will not be allowed to pine away. They may be destroyed; but, if so, it will be by their own fault, because they show themselves inefficient, or because they misuse their special opportunities. Those who fought so hard and so successfully to resist the destructive energies of the League, and to carry the Bill, just because it was a supplemental and not a revolutionary measure, will surely not allow the life, which they have secured from direct violence, to die out of sheer inanition.

II. We pass on to the next question, which after all is the one nearest to the hearts of Englishmen generally, and inquire, How will Religion fare under the new system?

We do not think it necessary here to lay elaborately the foundation of first principles, by insisting on the paramount importance of the question, and the utter impossibility of shelving it. Religious education does not consist merely in giving a certain amount of theological or religious instruction; it implies, in the first place, the starting from a certain basis, by treating the child, not merely as an individual being, not merely as the member of a family and of a state, but as a child of God-that is, a being created by God to have communion with Him, and to

do