§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONrose to call V attention to the regulations in force under the New Code with respect to the number of attendances, standards, and ages enforced in Night Schools; and to ask the Lord President of the Council, Whether it is proposed to make any, and, if so, what change in the regulalions? The noble Lord proceeded to say that in a great part of the agricultural districts a boy was only kept at 2 school until he was old enough to earn small wages, so that when once a child could earn 3s. 6d. a-week by field labour it was hopeless to expect his attendance at a day school. The only means, therefore, of instructing children above 12 years of age in agricultural districts was by machinery specially adapted for that purpose, or, in other words, by means of night schools. Such schools were recognized by the Committee of Council; but there were certain points in the regulations respecting these schools which he thought reprehensible, as standing in the way of the education of the agricultural population, and to these points he wished to call attention. First, as to the number of attendances. As the Code stood originally the minimum of evenings on which the school was required to be open was 80, and the minimum of attendances by each scholar was 50; but by a subsequent Minute the figures were so far modified that the former was reduced to 60, and the latter to 40. Where the surrounding influences were good—in those districts where the clergyman felt a lively interest in the school, and the landowning and farming classes were favourable, 3 which was not invariably the case—that number of attendances could be secured; but in many instances it was only with the utmost difficulty that it was possible to obtain that number of attendances from the greater number of scholars—especially where the area from which the scholars were gathered was a large one. Then as to the number of evenings on which the school was to be kept open, in places where the schoolmaster had no assistance—and this was the case where the school was not in the centre of a dense population—he thought a little more consideration ought to be shown to the schoolmaster. It was necessary that the night school should be kept open from the middle of September to the middle of March, with, perhaps, a fortnight's vacation at Christmas; and it was just possible that by keeping open for three evenings a-week during 12 weeks, and for the remainder of the time on two evenings in the week, to fulfil the requirements of the Code. Now, remembering that the schoolmaster was engaged for five hours in the day school for five days in the week, and for another hour afterwards while giving instruction to a pupil teacher, or to pupil teachers, as the case might be, an hour or an hour and a-half in the night school, for 60 nights, during 24 weeks, made up too severe an amount of duty. If, through illness, the schoolmaster was obliged to close the school on some evenings, he had to pull up for lost time by keeping it open as many, perhaps, as four nights in the same week. He (Viscount Midleton) would venture to suggest that every master might fin future be permitted to limit his duty in the night school to a general superintendence—that the schoolmaster should not be required to be present throughout, but might avail himself of voluntary efforts to second his own exertions. If that suggestion were not thought advisable, he would, as an alternative, propose that the minimum number of evenings for keeping school might be reduced from 60 to 40, or 45 evenings a-year. He would further suggest that the standard of proficiency required by the Code for the scholars who attended night schools should be lowered. At present it was on a level with that required in the case of day schools; so that scholars who attended school 40 or at most 60 times were expected to have the 4 same amount of knowledge as those who attended 250 times. He thought it would be well to so modify the Code that a child might go up in the same standard for two successive years, and that it would be advisable to allow a more moderate standard for night scholars who had not come from a day school, or had not been well instructed in their infancy. The ages for those who attended for instruction at night schools were 12 years as the minimum and 18 at the maximum. Formerly youths up to 21 were allowed to attend. He would be for a further extension, and allow persons up to the age of 25 or even 30 to attend night schools if they were really anxious for instruction. The present system also bore hard upon the country as compared with the urban parishes. He submitted that, until we should have succeeded in diffusing education throughout the length and breadth of the land, we must be prepared to proceed with very moderate regulations—at would not do to attempt to lay down a "hard-and-fast" line; we must tempt those to learn whom it was impossible to drive. It was rumoured that by a further modification of the Code contemplated by the Committee of Council, matters were to be made even more difficult than they were at present, by the minimum of school evenings being raised to 80, and the minimum of attendances to 50. If this were carried out, the result would be that in many cases managers would withdraw their schools from the supervision of the Government, and place them under that of voluntary organizations. He knew that this was contemplated. In his opinion such a result would be one which all the friends of education must regret; for, valuable as some of the private educational societies were, they could not perform the work of supervising and encouraging education in so effective a manner as the same work could be done by the State. It was because he believed that their Lordships were to a man interested in seeing the work of education fully and fairly carried out, that he had ventured to call their attention to this matter. With these observations he begged to ask the noble Marquess the President of the Council for an answer to the Question of which he had given Notice.
§ THE MARQUESS OF RIPONsaid, he entirely agreed with the noble Viscount (Viscount Midleton) as to the importance of night schools, provided always that those schools were efficient for the purpose intended. In order that the House might understand the reasons which had induced him and his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council to take the measures they took last year, he must call attention to the state of things which had existed before then. The state of things they had had to deal with was that they had the strongest evidence from School Inspectors, that a very large number of night schools to which State aid was given were in a very unsatisfactory condition. Their Lordships knew that the night schools were intended for children above the age of 12 years. Well, it appeared by the statistics in the possession of the Department, for the year ending in August, 1870, that this was the result—that of a total number of 74,692 children attending night schools examined, 24,695, or one-third, were presented in the first standard, which was the standard intended for the examination of infants; and out of the total of 74,692, as many as 56,881 were presented in the first three standards. Now as Standards 2 and 3 were those for children of seven and eight years, their Lordships would see that the vast majority of the 74,692 examined, all being 12 years of age or upwards, were presented only in the standard for infants or in those for children of eight years. In 1871, the number examined was 83,512, of whom 25,960 were presented in the first standard and 62,724 in the first three standards—the examinations of 1871 thus disclosing precisely the same state of things as had been shown by the examinations of 1870. There were a number of Reports from Inspectors which testified to the same condition of inefficiency. He should quote one or two, which would illustrate the character of the others. Mr. Du Port, in his Report for 1868–9, said—
I fear that in no small number of cases youths are presented at the night school examinations at the close of every season in standards a good deal lower than their standard of attainments, and where this is the case the examination does them no good; it in no wise stimulates them during their season of work, for one thing, and it in no wise tends to show them their weak or failing points, for another. To make my point clearer, I will state it in the exaggerated form in which I once found it existing 6 in a night school that in other respects was decidedly above the average. Boys able to read easy narrative, to spell fairly easy sentences from dictation, and to work at any rate easy sums in simple rules were examined in Standard 1, that is, their capitation was paid upon an examination as to their power of reading monosyllables, adding and subtracting numbers not involving a figure even in the answer above 10, and making the alphabet letters from dictation.Mr. Binns, in his Report for 1869–70, says—A few instances have occurred where scholars who have already passed all, or nearly all, the standards in the day school are presented in a lower standard at the night school. Teachers, I fear, often understand the expression in column 8a in the examination schedule 'Under what standard last examined?' to refer only to the night school, and therefore ignore whatever had been previously done in the day school. Again, the invariable accuracy with which long rows of figures are sot down in the exercises of the lower standards in arithmetic almost leads to the suspicion that they have not always been dictated as prescribed by the official instructions, or else that they have been overlooked by the teacher and a hint conveyed as to their correction.Their Lordships were aware that under the old system the examinations in reading were conducted by the managers, and those in writing and arithmetic by the Inspectors. The result of the examinations for the year ending August, 1870, was that the failures in reading were only 7.50 per cent, while those in writing were 14.78, and those in arithmetic 17.60. In 1871 the failures were 7.24, 15.72, and 17.79, showing that examinations by the managers were not nearly so stringent as those by the Inspectors. In the Code of last year, in order to encourage this class of schools, the grants were increased. By the old system the grant was 2s. 6d. on the average attendance, and 5s. on passing; these had been increased to 4s. and 7s. 6d. But when they were increasing the grants, the Government were bound to see that they got good and efficient work for the money paid. It was on this ground that the changes to which the noble Viscount had adverted were made last year. The noble Viscount objected to the number of evenings on which the night schools were required to be kept open, as being too high; but when the noble Viscount spoke of 60 as being too high, he (the Marquess of Ripon) must draw his attention to the fact that, in 1869, of the 2,240 schools examined, it was found that the average number of meetings of these schools was 57 in the year. 7 In respect to the minimum of attendance, formerly it was fixed at the ridiculous figure of 24; but he (the Marquess of Ripon) thought the Government were not unreasonable in fixing it at the present figure, 40. He could not say precisely what the average number of attendances had been under the old system, but he knew that he was under the mark when he said it was in excess of what the Government now required:—so that the experience of the Department did not tally with that of the noble Viscount, which must necessarily be more limited. Then the noble Viscount took exception to what he called the high standard which the Committee of Council required. He (the Marquess of Ripon) had shown from the Returns that in the majority of cases that standard was the one laid down for infants, and that in the vast majority it was either the standard for infants or the standard for children of eight years—the age of the scholars examined being from 12 years to 21 years. The Committee of Council had thought it right to lay down a rule to prevent the scholars in night schools from being examined twice in the same standard. Nothing could tend more to the stagnation of education than that managers should be able to present youths year after year to be examined in the same standard, and that an exceedingly low one. He must say that he did not think the Government were asking more than they were entitled to expect, not only in justice to the public, but also in justice to the schools themselves. The noble Viscount objected to the reduction in the maximum age at which scholars were admissible to the night schools from 21 to 18. He must at once say that the noble Viscount evidently took a different view of the object for which those schools were intended from that which he held, because the noble Viscount said that they should not fix the maximum even at 21, but should allow persons to attend the schools up to the age of 25 or even 30. That would be a perfectly intelligible proposition if the public grants were intended for the education of adults; but they had never been held to be for any such purpose. They were for the education of young persons, boys and girls. This was a point which ought to be kept in view, and the Committee had endeavoured to keep it in view 8 when they fixed the maximum at 18 years of age. The noble Viscount had said there was a rumour that the Committee intended to make an alteration in the Code with respect to the number of meetings of night schools and the number of attendances, and had asked him whether there was any intention to make such an alteration. The matter was hardly one of rumour since it appeared in the Code of the present year, which laid down that, in 1873, the number of meetings was to be 80, and the number of attendances 60. That Minute had been suspended for the present year, but it had been intended to put it in force next year. The Committee agreed, however, with the noble Viscount as to the desirability of maintaining the night schools, and their experience had led them to the conclusion that to attempt to raise the number of meetings or attendances in the manner contemplated by the existing Code would be unadvisable. Consequently, it was not the intention of the Education Department to carry out the proposed change, and they would retain the number of meetings at 60, and that of attendances at 40, as they stood at present.