(a.) Table showing the number of children in attendance, and the payments made by them in 1853, under the old scale:

(V). A similar table or the first three-quarters of 1854, under the new scale.

Sewing.

SUMMARY OF TABULATED REPORTS, FOR 1853-4, ON SCHOOLS INSPECTED BY H. M. INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS J. BOWSTEAD, ESQ.

Simple Addition.

* The amount of accommodation in square feet, divided by 8, will give the number of children who can be properly accommodated. Calculations of area in school-rooms, as compared with the average attendance of scholars, should be made upon this basis. + At the date of closing this return.

These per-centages are confined to boys' and girls' schools, and do not include infants.

SUMMARY B.

Aggregate Annual Income, as stated by Managers, of 103 of the Schools
enumerated in Summary A.

General Report, for the Year 1854, by Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, T. W. M. MARSHALL, Esq., on the Roman Catholic Schools inspected by him in Great Britain.

MY LORDS,

DURING the official year, terminating on the 31st of August 1854, I have visited 137 schools, situated in 90 different places. The total number actually present in these schools on the days of inspection was 10,788, viz. :

:

Total

As my acquaintance with the greater part of these schools now extends over a period of six years, I have felt justified in attempting at length to indicate the precise degree of efficiency which they appear to me to have respectively attained. Such an appreciation, founded as it is upon the brief observations of an annual visit, is no doubt liable to correction, and cannot claim the character of unerring accuracy. I am inclined, however, to regard it as substantially exact; and if so, as not without a certain degree of value. It may serve at least to indicate, however imperfectly, the measure of progress already accomplished, and so to stimulate the efforts by which a higher degree of merit is to be attained in cases where success has hitherto been imperfect.

Dividing, then, into four classes the schools with which I am most intimately acquainted, and which, for the present, I limit to 124, the following terms may be conveniently selected as indicating their respective character,-Excellent, Good, Fair, Indifferent. The last three are sufficiently unambiguous, but

it may be well to say in a few words what the first is intended to express. I consider then that that school alone deserves to be called excellent, in which, the buildings and apparatus being suitable, the true ends of Christian education are solidly attained by a wise and judicious cultivation of the intellect, skilful methods of instruction extending through an adequate range, the creation of definite and abiding religious habits, and the gradual formation of that peculiar and supernatural character, the attainment of which is the real object of man's existence, and the special and perfect result of education properly so called.

Assigning this definition to the term "excellent" as applied to an elementary school, I am by no means discouraged in being unable to concede that character to more than sixteen schools in my district. Of the remainder, fifty-eight may be classed as good, forty-five as fair, and five as indifferent.

The following table will show more distinctly the classification, which, after careful and mature observation, I have been led to adopt :

It would perhaps be inexpedient to name the sixteen schools which I have placed in the first column, and most or which my tabulated reports will indicate with sufficient clearness; but as I have spoken in more than one of my annual reports of a special class of teachers, belonging to religious communities, as alone capable, so far as my experience enables me to judge, of developing the most perfect fruits of education, it may be mentioned in confirmation of that opinion, that of the sixteen schools which I have marked "excellent,” fifteen are under the charge of "religious" teachers; and of the fiftyeight marked "good," thirty-five owe their character to the same influence. In other words, of seventy-four schools which have already reached or are surely tending towards a high standard of excellence, no fewer than fifty are conducted by persons whose success is due to special causes; singular elevation of character, purity of motive, inexhaustible gentleness and patience, and careful intellectual training. In the few cases which cannot justly be included, for there are a few such, either in the columns marked "excellent" or "good," the comparative failure is to be attributed, not to deficiency of zeal or industry, but to want of natural abilities or scientific cultivation. It is much to be wished that all such cases should gradually disappear. I must add, with sincere regret, that in the fifty schools to which I have referred, the average daily attendance does not quite amount to 5,000. There are, indeed, other schools of the same classes in my district, but they have not hitherto invited inspection.

It would be very unjust, in speaking of schools whose actual condition is one of progress, not to recognise dis