Schools, with the Infant Schools in some instances attached to them.

ABOVE SCHOOLS.

writing, and arithmetic for nearly 30 years, with great reputation for the rapid technical progress which the boys make in these arts, and for the perfect regimental discipline of his school, which has a gentler and more subdued toue, and greater general intelligence, than is usual in schools of the same date.

174. Baldock.-A British school of the most recent stamp, under a young master, in excellent tone and discipline, with reading clear, distinct, and intelligent, but the writing and arithmetic scarcely equal to it; indeed the population is limited, the subscribers are few, and the parents are tempted by "plait " and poverty to take away their children very early.

175. Hitchin.-Au important institution, based on an old endowment, vested in trustees of integrity and education, including the vicar, who sought the Treasury grant merely to build a new boys' school-room, which has been doue on a very handsome scale, with warming and ventilation worthy to be imitated; the boys' school is sufliciently supported by the endowment and the children's pence, and has good discipline, and a considerable amount of technical instruction, to which the trustees hope to give a higher character, by the employment of an assistant teacher in addition to their head master, the numbers being so very great; on the same premises are good girls' and infants' schools, under their respective ladies' committees, supported by subscriptions and the children's pence; both are respectable schools, but the infants' relatively the best; straw-plaiting coming, in addition to the sewing, to occupy a large portion of the school time of the girls, whose employment at this industry their parents will not forego, and in good times" it cripples the school.

177. Newport Pagnell.-Small schools for girls and infants, under their respective committees of ladies, and both of them in respectable condition, the former under a teacher wanting only in system; there is likewise a vigorous British school for boys, erected without grant, and conducted by a very energetic master.

179. Berkhampstead.-The boys' school is organized in three divisions, alternately taught by the master, and held by monitors; and I have seldom seen more done, more carefully or conscientiously, with means so limited as the master here has at his disposal; the tone, discipline, and manners of the school, are equally creditable, as also the progress in singing by note among the top boys; the companion school, which is for infants, is in feeble condition; the mistress wanting both education and training; it is aided out of charity funds, to an amount challenging greater effort on the part of the committee; this was formerly a girls' school, until extinguished as such by "plait," poverty, and opposition.

180. New Windsor.-The boys', though under temporary depression, is a school worthy of the handsome quarters in which it is located, under a master able and devoted to his work, who knows how to move and govern the minds of the children, but wants neatness to follow out the details of the monitorial working, &c., a remediable deficiency, from which there arises an imperfection in spelling, very singular amidst so much general intelligence; the girls' school reflects the same characteristics; the tone of both schools is excellent, and the singing the best that I have yet heard in a British school; it is by note on Hullah's system.

181. High Wycombe.-The activity and intelligence, combined with gentleness and steadiness, prevailing through all the lower mass of the boys' school, are more remarkable than the proficiency of the higher classes, and speak more powerfully in praise of the honest ability of the master than this could possibly do, were it ever so great; the girls' school has just changed teachers, and is always enfeebled by the lace-making which prevails in the neighbourhood, but has zealous friends in the ladies' committee, and a respectable teacher, under whom it promises to acquire new strength,

TABLE IX. (A.)-continued. Operations and Results in the Aided British

182. Chinnor. The children are very young, and very irregular in attendance, and the school is very dirty; but read. ing, writing, and arithmetic are taught to them well, by a master who does not neglect his duties to the boys although he has to eke out a subsistence by chair-making; with a little assistance in the shape of apparatus, he would do more.

183. Thame.-The boys' school is a very good one, under an able and improving master, availing himself, with industry and effect, of modern methods, and addressing simultaneous lessons to his elder and younger boys alternately; the tone and discipline of the whole being thoroughly good; the monitorial operations admit of improvement, however; and the girls' is merely a dame-school for sewing, with the elements of reading and writing, in which the children are chiefly of infantile ages, and suggest the question whether an infant school organization would not be more effective, and in the end less expensive to the subscribers, the female children being employed even yet earlier than the boys.

184. Wokingham.-The younger boys taught clearly and affectionately, but the higher classes defectively; the girls' school is under a mistress possessed of resources, but wanting order and care in the employment of them; the schools are supported with difficulty by a counexion more desirous thau able to supply the pecuniary means for the support of good schools; in the committee, however, is a spirit which will not abandon the endeavour.

186. Andover.-A school labouring under the depression of poverty and indifference among a poor and ignorant population, with a master ingenious and earnest in personal teaching, but wanting in a systematic attention to the de tails which are requisite to give success to it; the girls' school is in higher condition; but both require a complete

refit and recommencement.

187. Pimlico.-The infant school is discontinued; the girls' school has declined to a mere dame school; and the boys' school, which until recently enjoyed an uninterrupted career of success and usefulness under an able master, is at present in a feeble state, under a young teacher provisionally employed, partly for his own improvement, from the Normal School in the Borough-road.

183. Corfe Castle.-A school in excellent condition, under a master and his wife, superintended by a minister deeply interested in the success of their conscientious and intelligent labours; the tone and discipline of the school are equally good, and an additional grace is added by the children's practised skill in chanting, acquired by note under dilettante instruction.

189. Blandford Forum.-The boys' school is quite full, under a master devoted to his work, and monitors well trained to their duty, so as to produce a satisfactory and consistent progress throughout; the girls' school, though likewise full, has only just been reorganized, and has a large proportion of "little ones," who require treating as infants; as yet, therefore, it is relatively in lower condition; the tone of both schools is excellent.

190. Shaftesbury.-These are not, as originally intended, schools for girls and infants, which might have co

of that to hood of rge pro

TABLE IX. (A.)-continued. Operations and Results in the Aided British

199. Leicester.-The boys' school under a practised master, of industry, energy, and invention, is a good study of what can be accomplished on the monitorial plan by one teacher in the instruction of 300 children, the actual at tendance at the time of inspection being defective, on account of the fair, in no part is the instruction at all finished, for obvious reasons, but the amount of intelligent and active, though chiefly technical, teaching which is made to pervade so vast a mass is very remarkable; each monitor has his appropriate manuscript manual of arithmetic and geography, and his school-made map, to help him in these departments, as the notes in the B. and F. readingbooks are designed to help him at the reading drafts, and the discipline of the whole is perfect; this is one of the best schools of the old style that I have seen, and yet the master wants both appliances and assistance; the girls' is a true companion school to the boys'.

201. Coventry.-A very respectable girls' school, but not such, either in numbers or activity, as to do sufficient credit to so important a city, the efforts of its few zealous friends not being well seconded.

202. Coventry.-A school on admirable premises, and under an able master, but one who is permitted to keep a separate school for tradesmen's children in one of the class-rooms, contemporaneously with the discharge of his duties in the "common school," which receives no monitorial aid from the upper one; and the result is, a British school decapitated of its monitors, and altogether in a very low condition; I did not include the upper school of individual instruction in my inspection.

204. Burton-on-Trent.-These schools are in very respectable condition; the boys under a young master, who will have to exert great vigilance throughout his school to keep it in the good condition in which it was recently handed over to him; and the girls, under a young mistress, who appears to be gradually organizing a good school out of the rather discordant materials which she found here on being recently appointed, by a watchful committee. 206. West Bromwich.-The girls' school is in very pleasing condition, in regard equally to instruction, tone, and discipline, under a good teacher and one zealous patroness; but the boys' school is just the reverse, without any such elements of progress, and a few top boys engrossing the limited instruction.

207. Willenhall.-Schools occupying good premises, and placed under trained teachers, but so destitute of books and appliances, of friends to provide them, and of a people caring to use them, that they are merely feeble little village schools, although surrounded by a very large population.

208. Wolverhampton.--Both boys and girls' schools are British, under young teachers of recent training, and both are in very respectable condition; the mistress of the infant school is also possessed of good abilities for her task, though deficient in training; but neither the girls' nor the infants' school have that management and finish which are commonly given by a ladies' committee; and the boys' school would not have had its present meed of efficiency but!

ols, with the Infant Schools in some instances attached to them.

pendent connexion here, to whose chapel they are attached, to carry them on; the premises are as unfortunate eschools; one liberal resident offered to pay off half the debt upon the schools if the parties more immediately effer was declined, although the only other British school in the town was at the time about to be closed; and as population. properly a village school, though surrounded by an enormous population, which should create a demand for a far 70 30 25 125 40 40

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ional school, and in both rooms it is organized in large classes, held by the teacher alternately, with a few abler be summer holidays.

which are properly village schools, and a more particular one of the top class of boys, English, in expressing themselves in that language, and in the acquisition of useful knowframed except in the infant school at Swansea; the tone and manners of this and the judicious superintendence of one lady, but the situation of the school is not convenient

2; each at 10 ft. x 10 ft.

or the temporary vigour thrown into its affairs by a liberal subscriber to the Congregational Education Fund, ap>lying the amount of his subscription in aid of it. The former chief supporter of this school appears to have eased to take an interest in it.

215. Ruiton.-These schools form a very respectable pile of buildings, contiguous to the Independent chapel yard; he boys' and girls' schools being properly village schools, under untrained teachers of respectable character, who Lave their several schools in good discipline, and are zealously instructing them in reading, writing, and arithmetic. (with needlework in the girls' school), but with little development of intelligence; the infant school is one of the by rote" class, but cheerful; the order and appearance of everything perfect; and the general effect, therefore, very gratifying in a district where the state of education is generally so disheartening.

216. Clifton. An old Lancasterian school, re-opened with vigour and effect, by a Congregational committee; the boys' school is full, but the mass of it is not making proper progress though under a good and unaffected teacher, a result which appears to arise from his being under the necessity of resorting to private tuition in the evening, without having the strength, also, to train his monitors' class, as well as instruct it; the boys in the top class are not employed at all in the most important labour, that of the reading drafts, and the whole body of the school is therefore backward; the girls' school is not yet strong, but is in rising condition.

217. Woodburrow. A good village school, in which the mistress teaches the girls needlework and reading, and the master takes the instruction of all the boys, and likewise teaches the girls writing and arithmetic; being under good superintendence, and in excellent discipline, it is of great value to so remote a neighbourhood.

218. Street and Walton.-The school for boys and girls, even at the time of its fullest attendance, is merely a village school, under a very respectable young female teacher, while the infant-school is an enlarged dame-school, under a kind and worthy person, also; both are superintended by a ladies' committee, but present little prospect of Heater vigour, for immediately that the teachers should be improved by training, they would be worth a higher emuneration than they can bere obtain; the school buildings and premises are neat, substantial, and spacious. 224. St. Dogwell's.—In this case handsome school-rooms, for boys and girls respectively, with apartments for both master and mistress, have been provided by the proprietor of the surrounding lands, but such is the difficulty of maintaining day-schools among their poor Celtic population, for whose advantage they were desigued, that the sepa ate girls' school was never opened, and the boys' school used for the instruction of both boys and girls under a daster of sufficient ability, has never flourished, except for a time, before his attention was divided between the chool and a little farm, which he now holds to eke out a subsistence; renewed efforts are, however, contemplated by he patron and friends of the school.