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in spite of the following sentence which we quote from the Biographie Universelle :-"La méthode de Pestalozzi suppose dans l'esprit une puissance indépendante des circonstances extérieures, et qui n'a pas besoin de leur secours." Such a supposition would go far to excuse the present state of the educational appliances in London schools. By the end of 1871 all the reports on the efficiency of the schools in the metropolitan divisions should be in the hands of the Education Department, though some of those for the rural districts will probably not be completed until the spring of next year; their tabulation will show the amount of efficient school accommodation now existing, and the deficiency yet to be provided for, of which at present we can form no approximate estimate. The adventure schools as a body will theoretically be swept away, though a certain number may be deemed temporarily efficient, in consequence of their decent performance of a certain amount of work-such, for instance, as those of which Crabbe wrote:

"Where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits,
And awes some thirty infants as she knits;

Infants of humble busy wives who pay

Some trifling price for freedom through the day.
Her room is small, they cannot widely stray;
Her threshold high, they cannot run away."

Civilisation has effected many changes since the year 1810, but it evidently has not in the least altered the characteristics of the dame's school. We do not, however, see the possibility of the continued recognition of even a fraction of them. No class requires such constant supervision; yet how is the supervision to be exercised, and how is Government to prevent the use of a room by fifty children which is only capable of holding thirty? Unless the number of inspectors exceeds that of the children, they will have very much their own way. They will disappear from one place to start up again in another, and the hunt after a dame's school will continue to be one of the most exciting among the pleasures of the chase. We have already pointed out the difficulties likely to ensue in the case of those which have been condemned, through the first "reasonable excuse" in the 74th section of the Act. Some, we fear, will be enabled to raise their terms, and to give precisely the same

education in the same premises, owing to the inherent vulgarity of the British parent, unless the definition of elementary education is amended, and the present maximum of 9d. no longer adhered to. Many changes will naturally be made during the next few years, if only the present Act is given a fair trial. It has not begun its operations, yet the results which its complete success could alone produce are already required from it. The Boards have as yet hardly any data on which they can proceed. Being composed of very human and sectarian materials, it is quite possible that they may fail; but if they do so, it will only indefinitely protract the settlement of a question which, though complicated enough in Mr Forster's hands, would become in those of his successor simply insoluble.

METROPOLITAN SCHOOLS.

THE "Report of the School Board for London to the Education Department," which has recently been issued, enables us to supplement the information we gave in a former article on metropolitan schools (November 4, 1871), in which we speculated upon the probable consequences which would result from the inquiries conducted during the course of last year, and suggested some of the difficulties likely to occur. The Report before us consists of fourteen pages, and is followed by three appendices, containing the census of children, the tabulation of the reports sent by the inspectors of schools and of returns, and the deficiency of school accommodation. It begins by describing the labours of the Board since its first meeting in December 1870. On

the 20th of April, 1871, the Board received instructions to report upon the following points:

"1. The number of children within its limits for whom means of elementary education should be provided between the ages of three and five, and between the ages of five and thirteen.

"2. The provision to meet the requirements of these children already made by efficient schools, or likely to be made by schools either contemplated or in course of erection.

"3. The deficiency (if any) in the supply of efficient elementary education, as shown by comparing 1 and 2.

“4. What schools are required to meet this deficiency. "5. The localities in which such schools should be provided."

Of these five points the first alone can be said to be accurately ascertained. The Board, with the help of the Census Office and their own staff of enumerators, after eliminating children who attended or should attend a school not elementary and children in institutions, arrived at the conclusion that the gross number of children between the ages of three and thirteen who were attending elementary schools was 398,679. The number of those who required elementary schools, but did not attend, was 176,014. After deducting the reasonable and necessary causes of absence, it was computed that 80,039 had no excuse for non-attendance, and consequently

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