June 23, British School, Dock Green, Hull.-This presents merely the relics of a school, encompassed by almost all the evils which the monitorial system, feebly carried out, is liable to give rise to. June 26, Infant School, Bridlington Quay.-An interesting little school, occupying excellent premises, but destitute of the necessary furniture for giving full effect to infant-school edu cation. June 27, Infant School, Bridlington.-This is held in a building comfortably though roughly fitted up for the purpose, and is conducted by an elderly couple, who seem to take great interest in their little charge. The appearance of the children (about 120 in number) is orderly and neat, and the manner in which they go through their exercises, and both sing and recite their hymns, shows that considerable care is bestowed upon them. There is the prevailing error, however, of aiming too much at making a display, instead of developing the faculties gradually and intelligently. June 29, Lincoln Wesleyan Day-school.-An excellent school, thoroughly trained on the Glasgow system. The master is assiduous and kind, exercising a good influence on his pupils. It is one of those schools which appear to be thoroughly answering the objects contemplated in a primary school. June 30, British Schools, Gainsborough.-These are good average schools of the monitorial kind. The master and mistress both intelligent and efficient. The oral instruction appears particularly successful; in no case have I observed so correct and extensive a knowledge of English history. The writing, spelling, and arithmetic are not quite so good as might be wished. July 3, High Pavement Girls' School.-A small school, which has been very fairly conducted on the individual plan, but which, in the event of increased numbers, will require an entirely new organization. July 4, British Schools, Bardon Park.-These are useful village schools, in a neighbourhood greatly in want of instruction. The present effort owes its rise solely to one family, and has succeeded in its object beyond expectation. I have the honor to be, &c. To the Right Honorable the Lords of the J. D. MORELL. Report on Schools inspected in the Presbyteries of Hamilton, Meigle, Langholm, and Kintyre, in the year 1847; by JOHN GORDON, Esq., one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools in Scotland. MY LORDS, Edinburgh, January, 1848. THE Presbyteries of Hamilton, Meigle, Langholm, and Kintyre include portions of the counties of Lanark, Forfar, Perth, Dumfries, Roxburgh, Argyle, and Bute. They contain a population somewhat exceeding 145,000, employed mainly in mines, agriculture, or fisheries. There is, it may be presumed, no inconsiderable difference in their social and moral condition consequent on this variety of occupation; but in one respect little or no difference of condition subsists among them; all are in possession of some means intended to provide a measure of education for their children. It is remarkable that, within the bounds of these Presbyteries, schools are wanting for no part of the population choosing to take the benefit of them; and that all the young, before arriving at fourteen years of age, have been taught to read, and nearly all to write. I have the honour to present to your Lordships an account of the schools which I lately had occasion to inspect in these four Presbyteries; and in doing so, shall notice, first, the provisions that have been made for their support; and next, the character of the instruction which they afford. It will remain to indicate how far the people actually receive from these schools the instruction and culture they are fitted to afford. Means of Instruction. It is observed, in the first place, that all the schools now to be referred to are not formed for quite the same description of instruction; and that there is, amongst them, a specific difference in that respect, as well as a difference in the manner of upholding them. A district such as one of these Presbyteries comprises is supposed to require for the complement of its means of education, 1. what is commonly understood by an Elementary School for children of both sexes; 2. a School of Industry for female children; 3. a Sabbath School; 4. a Grammar School or Academy. In nothing less than a provision of this fourfold description is there any very general disposition to acquiesce in Scotland. All of these schools, indeed, are supposed to be required for each parish, except only the last named. The Grammar School is not needed in every parish, because the school which, by law, is established in every parish, serves, or can serve, or ought to serve the same purpose, to a considerable extent; and because, in many parishes, the population is such as to require nothing more of what belongs peculiarly to the Grammar School. Infant Schools and Industrial Schools for male children are not included in this requirement-because the objects of both are, in part, attained at the common Elementary Schools; because the kinds of industry followed in a parish are often either so simple as to call for no preparatory lessons upon them at a school, or else so various that to furnish the corresponding variety of appropriate instruction would be impracticable. It is perhaps for these same reasons, that such schools are few, and that they are maintained with great difficulty. Infant Schools are never found to subsist without a more liberal patronage than usual; and so little in demand is instruction of the industrial kind for male children, as in the principles of agriculture, that, to procure any attention to this branch at all, it has generally been found necessary to offer it without addition to the school charges. The four Presbyteries comprise 42 parishes; of which 24 possess all the varieties of seminary here considered requisite for a parish. The female school is wanting in eight parishes; the Sabbath School in ten. It is observed, that in the Presbyteries of Meigle and Hamilton all the parishes but nine are provided with female schools; and that, throughout the bounds of the four Presbyteries, there appears a marked disposition to multiply semiteries, there a naries of that description. The parish which appears to be most largely favoured with the means of education is that of Campbelton in Argyleshire, containing a population of 9600, and having no less than 18 schools, not a few of them unusually well endowed. In the opposite extreme stands another very populous parish, which in a remarkable degree was unprovided, at the time referred to, with advantages of the kind; but happily, the defect has since been supplied by a very generous effort on the part of the inhabitants. In none of the four Presbyteries is there a school of the rank and designation of an Academy; by which is meant a school that affords the higher branches of instruction, classical and mathematical, under masters appointed to the teaching of these exclusively. There is, however, a remarkable approximation to this order of seminary in the parish schools of Cupar Angus, Cannobie, and Avondale; where, along with the elementary, the more advanced branches are taught in a very competent manner and to a considerable extent. It may be regretted that seminaries of this class are so few in Scotland, occurring only in burghs, and in two or three landward parishes, such as those of Dollar and Closeburn, where they have been established upon large casual endow ments: for, while they afford a liberal education to many who would not otherwise have aspired to it, and the commencement of a still more liberal education to others, who are thereby put in a capacity and under motives to pursue their studies further at the universities, it is not to be forgotten, that they raise the tone of education in the lesser seminaries of the district. In these and other points of view, they are a class of schools which appear to merit more encouragement than they have received; and perhaps the aid of Government might not be misapplied, if applied to their formation in many places where they have been hitherto unknown. It has sometimes been considered as the part of Government to supply to all the people a complete provision of the means of an elementary education, but to leave to those who desire more to obtain it wholly by their own efforts,-presuming that that desire is not often separated from that ability, and thereby avoiding the evil of over-education. In Scotland, however, it is plain that there exists no occasion for so large a claim upon the aid of Government, in the matter of elementary education, the people at large being at once able, willing, and accustomed to do much in this respect for themselves; while, on the other hand, some limited degree of patronage from that quarter might be given with advantage to education of a higher kind, since that has not kept pace either with the increase of the population or with the development of those branches of industry with which that higher education might very well consist, and to the successful pursuit of which it might be eminently conducive. The constitution of the schools visited in the four Presbyteries may be understood, in part, from the appended table, in which they are arranged under six different denominations, according to the manner in which they are maintained; and, referring to that statement, I beg to offer the following remarks: 1. It appears that each of the parishes in these Presbyteries has one school, at least, established and endowed by law,excepting only the united parishes of Kilcalmonell and Kilberry,-a case so uncommon, that it seems proper here to state the circumstances under which it takes place. The heritors of this united parish, in 1806, assessed themselves in 600 merks, or the value of three chalders, for the support of two schools, one in the district of Kilcalmonell, the other in that of Kilberry, dividing the amount equally betwixt the two teachers, but providing for neither the accommodations which, in that event, it is supposed the statute does not require. Subsequently, an attempt was made by legal process to remove the teacher at Kilberry from his office, for misconduct; but failing in this from some informality in the procedure, the heritors procured his retirement in 1842, by allowing him the salary of £25. Since that time, the parish school of Kilberry has been discontinued, while that of Kilcalmonell remains unprovided with accommodations, and has attached to it for salary no more than the sum originally apportioned,—an uncertainty existing among the heritors whether it was incumbent on them to resume the school at Kilberry or to establish one at Kilcalmonell with all the advantages to which, if it had been the single school in the parish, it would have been entitled under the statute. It appears, therefore, that there is one parish in which the requirements of the School Act have not been fulfilled. On the other hand, there are some parishes where these requirements have been exceeded; the most remarkable instances of which occur in the Presbytery of Langholm, where four parishes, by the bounty of his Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, have twelve schools of this description, possessing in the whole an unusual amount of endowment by means of salary, houses, and ground, the three species of gift which form the complete title of a school patron, but which are seldom all derived from one individual. 2. In two of these Presbyteries, some advantage is derived from the aid of Education Societies, viz.-the Forfarshire Educational Association, the Society for propagating Christian Knowledge, and the General Assembly's Committee. The first-named was recently formed on the model of the Educational Association for the County of Ayr, noticed in a former Report. It confines its exertions to an increase of the means of education throughout the county of Forfar. The funds are raised by subscription, mainly in that county, and amounted for the last year to £166; they are applied in salaries, for the encouragement of about 40 schools, at stations where the population is mostly of inconsiderable amount, but where schools of an ordinary kind are useful and necessary. The other two Societies direct their attention to localities where the people are more numerous, but less able to provide for themselves, that is, to the Highlands and the poorer districts of the low country; the funds of the one arising mainly from the produce of accumulated capital; of the other, from contributions made throughout Scotland, and collected mainly in the parish churches. The Societies last named have long performed a very important part in the education of the country,-a part which they have not performed so well, without understanding the whole compass of the duty which their task involves. They have perceived, for example, that if the end of education be, not merely to impart knowledge, but to form and influence the moral principles and affections, then education is not only II. 2 B |