One conclusion comes out very distinctly from our review of the range and gradations of public school instruction in these three great cities, which, beyond question, stand at the head of all the cities in the States so far as regards school provision and educational organisation and development. The range of educa tion in the States, age for age, is decidedly lower in the graded public schools than in good English schools. If our English public elementary schools were and had been for many years attended by the great mass of the children of our middle classes, with a sprinkling, besides, of those of the higher professional classes, there can be no doubt that their educational results would be far superior to such as we have passed under review in the three American cities. Any one familiar with first-class English private schools for middle-class children, must know how poor and backward, in comparison, are the results shown by the Boston, or Cincinnati, or New York public schools. And, if we turn to such public schools as the Bedford Schools, the Manchester Grammar School, the City of London School, any thought of comparison is simply ridiculous. What would American schools, on their own statement of studies and results, say to the Oxford and Cambridge examinations? We know, indeed, the worthlessness of many English middle-class boarding-schools, and of the wretched private schools which so thickly stud the less conspicuous streets, often the low by-streets, of our towns. In comparison of these, doubtless, the American public schools in the large cities have been enlightened and meritorious institutions. But no private school in an English town could well be worse than many of the country schools, the district-schools, in the United States. A majority of teachers,' wrote the Education Secretary for the State of Vermont, only six years ago, 'are unqualified for teaching school. Many teachers can hardly write their names so as to be read, and yet we employ them in our common schools.' In the Report for the same State for 1869, there occurs the following passage, which is so pertinent to our present discussion, sums up so admirably what should at this point be said, and possesses such decisive authority as coming from the pen of a very competent American official, that we cannot but quote it :—

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'We claim,' says the Report (pp. 5, 6), as a people, to take great interest in popular education, and in some sort we do. A man by dint of rare native gifts and great industry and perseverance, with only the advantages of a common school education, rises to a leading position among men. We shout at once, "See what the common school can do!" But this is no fair test of the efficiency of the common school. These men learned little more than to read poorly, and

to

to write worse, at the common school. The true test is, What are our schools doing for the masses? Who does not know that a good reader among those who have attended our common schools is a rare exception? Who does not know that a great number of the children of Vermont have left its schools without the capacity to write a letter legibly and intelligibly? We speak of the rural districts, where the great masses of the children attend school, and where twenty-eight out of every thirty children in the United States are to be found.'

It is true that this is not the picture of American education which has been given by many English travellers in America; but it is the only one compatible with all the facts of the case, as indubitably ascertained. It is the picture painted by the light of truth falling on the facts of American life and organisation; it is the picture painted by real authorities in the country itself. It may be added that nothing is more common than for a cursory visitor to judge a school by its buildings and furnitureof which latter he may be no judge whatever-by its singing, led by a piano, and by its military precision of drill. In these matters New York especially makes a brave show.

Within the last three years free schools appear to have become the law in all parts of the Union. This has arisen naturally enough from the special circumstances of the country. Whether it is a beneficial arrangement is another question. That a good and fit 'humane' and civil education should be costly to obtain can never be a good thing; hence educational endowments, wisely husbanded and administered, ought to be a chief blessing to a country; and hence, in particular, public provision to meet in part the case of those to whom an adequate education for their children is too costly a demand on their means is wise and just. Such provision is most conveniently and equitably made out of public endowments, if such exist. But, on the other hand, a parent is as much bound to provide education for his children, according to his ability, as to provide bread; and any arrangement, which relieves the parents of a nation altogether of this personal responsibility, tends to demoralise the family institute, and introduces a strong taint of communism into the national economy.

It cannot be denied that the American free-school system has very naturally grown up as the result of circumstances. The common school was and is the necessity of young settlements or sparsely populated districts, and was as natural a provision in America as the parochial school in England or Scotland. The common lands the land as yet unappropriated -of the State, or of the Union at large, constituted a natural endowment

endowment out of which to meet more or less the charge of the common school. But the school should not have been absolutely free. In our own country endowed free schools have generally done more harm than good; they have been nests of indolence and abuse. So has it also been in the States. 'It requires a good deal of nerve,' as the Vermont secretary writes, for a man to deny the daughter of his friend a certificate (as teacher), especially if the parent should chance to be a member of his parish, or on the list of his patients, or to be trading at his store.'* In a free school there is no direct or obvious reward for efficiency, no personal loss to the teachers in case of inefficiency. Nor does the parent feel that, if his child fails to go to school when he ought, or receives no effective instruction at school, he is losing his money's worth.

In many cases, indeed, till within the last few years, the common schools were not always or absolutely free. The money derived from the public funds was applied as far as it would go, and then, when it was exhausted, the balance due was paid by means of rate-bills' levied on the parents. This arrangement, however, worked so irregularly and so unfairly, that it was the source of perpetual discontent. Often the difficulty was, and is still, avoided by keeping the school open for just so many months or weeks as the funds last, and then closing for the year. The Commissioner's Report still contains lamentations, year after year, that this practice is by no means brought to an end. Here, indeed, we see the reason of the wofully short school-term in some parts of the country. The outcome of the whole matter is, that 'rate-bills' are now universally abolished, and that the schools, be they open for a longer or a shorter term, are free schools. In New York the requisite funds are derived from (1) a State school-tax of one and a-quarter millions on the taxable value of real and personal property; (2)

I hope,' says Mr. John B. Thompson, Superintendent for Fagston Township, Vermont, the day will soon dawn when only those who are well qualified will teach, and those who are afraid of manual labour must meet the foe, or seek refuge elsewhere than in the teacher's desk' ('State Report, 1869,' Appendix, p. 53).

This relates, it must be remembered, to old-settled and highly-civilised Vermont, which has been called the Arcadia of the States.' Mr. C. M. Bliss, Superintendent of Public Schools for Woodford, in the same State, thus states his experience: I have lived in this town over fourteen years, and during that time I have seen no improvement in the schools. We employ teachers of a low grade. I have given certificates' (as teachers) to girls who did not know so much of arithmetic as a boy ten years old ought to-in America this is very little indeed, as we have seen- and who had about as much knowledge of the geography of their country as an Esquimaux Indian. As to grammar, they hardly knew what the word meant. But the question was-these or none' (Report,' 1869, Appendix, p. 8).

an

an equal amount from the city and county; (3) one-twentieth of one per cent. on the taxable property of the city and county of New York; (4) the balance derived from the municipal taxes and revenue of the city of New York, but not to exceed $10 per capita on the whole number of children taught. The total cost last year was not less than $2,800,000, the entire average number of children taught being not quite 108,000; that is to say, the cost per head for each scholar was $26.

There is nothing, assuredly, in the results of American freeschool education to encourage us in this country to adopt so costly an experiment. Neither as to efficiency, nor attendance, does it promise for us any improvement; and as respects compulsion, we have seen how absolutely mythical is the idea that the United States have mastered, or even attempted to grapple with, that problem. Boston may have its truant-officers; New York City a compulsory law, which from the first has been absolutely a dead letter; Rhode Island and Connecticut may be in the infancy of an attempt to carry out a degree and extent of compulsion, which would be futile and ridiculous in this country; New York State may have lately passed the remarkable law to which we have directed attention; but over the great breadth of the States no attempt whatever has been made, even on paper, and no practical attempt has been made in any great city, except Boston; and even there waifs and strays still defy the law and the truant-officers.

Meantime we cannot fail to connect the principle of free education with that weakening of parental influence, and that perilous depreciation, not to say contempt, of family responsi bilities and duties, which are at this moment the most painful and portentous symptoms in connection with the fast and ambitious social life of the States. This is a subject on which we dare not enlarge; but it cannot but be felt that for children to be educated, not under any direction or responsibility of the parent, but solely at the charge and under the direction of the State, and for parents to shrink from family responsibilities, are two facts which well agree. Other points, also, may be noted. The youth whom the State has educated, in loco parentis, has scarcely left school before he becomes, in most parts of the Union, an independent citizen and voter, from whom an original and individual opinion on civil and political questions is due; and so, under his father's roof, he becomes an independent political power. All these matters go together, and all tend to add intensity to the social evils, over which the wise and good in the United States lament.

It is impossible not to admire the liberality with which, in

the

the foremost cities of the United States, educational institutions are provided and sustained; and the energy which, throughout such vast territories, has everywhere made some provision, without hesitation or delay, for the education of the young. But the example of the United States is certainly not such as to encourage us to revolutionise our own principles and methods of public instruction, whether elementary or more advanced. Meantime let us hope that the misrepresentations as to American school education, which have been current in this country for so many years, and which, in particular, the party of secular educationists have so diligently propagated, will at length come to an end. The ideas and projects of Massachusetts theorists have been accepted as if they were the facts of universal American law and life; whereas they have never become realities even in New England, and have found no place whatever in the States generally. This illusion has bred not a little confusion and error in the views of English educationists, and it is high time it was finally exploded.

ART. V.-1. A Letter addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, on occasion of Mr. Gladstone's recent Expostulation. By John Henry Newman, D.D., of the Oratory. London, 1875. 2. The Vatican Decrees, in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. London, 1875. 3. A Reply to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone's Political Expostulation. By the Right Rev. Monsignor Capel, D.D. London, 1875.

4. Vaticanism: an Answer to Reproofs and Replies. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. London, 1875.

WE

WE held from the first that Mr. Gladstone had rendered a signal service to the causes of civil and religious liberty by his Expostulation' addressed to our Roman Catholic fellowsubjects. Even those who blame him most for ever raising the controversy stirred by his pamphlet, must admit that it has certainly had the effect of eliciting ample explanations from those best qualified to offer them. The challenge flung down with remarkable vigour has been taken up with as remarkable promptitude. Roman Catholics of all degrees have come forward to vindicate the Vatican Decrees, and to confute the notion that they involve innovations menacing the rights of the Civil Power. Amongst those who have stepped into the arena to do battle for Rome, there are three whose titles will be universally recognised as spokesmen for their Church, on the

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