With a view more especially to the convenience of country correspondents, arrangements have been made by which they may obtain any books or other materials they may require, which are not in the Society's Catalogue. Teachers will now find it greatly to their advantage to send all their articles direct to the Depository, as every article they may need, either for the use of their schools, or for their own studies, will be procured without any delay, and supplied at cost price. Catalogues will be sent by post gratis, on application at the Depository, Borough road. **It is particularly requested that when books or school materials are ordered, which are not found in the Society's Catalogue, an exact description of such should be given, with the price and publisher's name. By observing this rule the execution of orders will be greatly facilitated, and mistakes will generally be prevented. GEORGE A. BURBIDGE, Depositary. All remittances should be enclosed to SAMUel Bradford, Accountant, and Post Office Orders made payable to him, at the Borough Post Office, London. Bolton 13 13 0 2 20 Ralli, A., Esq., 102, West- Robartes, T. J. A., Esq., Smith, Richard, Esq., 300, High Holborn Steedman, Mrs., Keene's-row, Vivian, H., Esq., M.P., 104, Wrightson, W. B, Esq., street. SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTIONS-£5,000 FUND. Don. Ann. Sub. £ s. d. £ s. d. 1 1 0 220 500 110 1 1 0 220 Remittances from Auxiliary Societies and Corresponding Committees, &c., from 7 17 6 £ s. d. Birmingham.. 35 13 0 March 1st, 1855, to May 31st, 1855. Subscriptions and Donations will be thankfully received by SAM EL GURNEY, ESQ, Treasurer, 65, Lombard-street; Messrs. HANBURYS and Co., Bunkers to the Society, 60, Lombard-street; and at the Society's House, Borough-road. Printed by JACOR UNWIN, of e.. Give Place in the Parish of St John, Hackney, in the County of Middlesex, a' his Printing Office, 31, Bucklers ury, in the Parish of St. Stephen, Walbrook, in the City of London; and Published by PARTRIDGE OAKEY. & C. 34. Paternoster Row, in the Parish of st.-Faith-under-St.-Paul's, in the City of London.-MONDAY, JULY 2, 1855. THE EDUCATIONAL RECORD. BRITISH AND FOREIGN SCHOOL SOCIETY. SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS FROM MARCH 1, 1855, TO SEPT. 1, 1855. One hundred and thirty-five students have been in training in the Normal College. Thirty-nine have received appointments to schools. Ten have withdrawn, either from illness, a desire to change their occupation, or a want of fitness for the work. One hundred and thirty-five remain in the Institution. Thirteen schools have received temporary assistance during the illness or otherwise necessary absence of their teachers. AGENCY AND INSPECTION. The schools in London have continued to receive visits from Mr. Baxter, whose engagements have also extended to eighty-six towns and villages in different counties. Assistance has also been rendered by him at numerous public meetings and school examinations. Mr. Wilks's engagements have been interrupted by temporary indisposition. The schools in seventy-three towns have, however, received the benefits of his inspection and counsel, in addition to those in Manchester. In the West, thirty-two places have been visited by Mr. Madgin, who reports the opening of several new school-rooms within that district. Mr. Phillips has extensively employed himself in inspecting schools, lecturing on education, and holding conferences with school managers in North Wales. Eightyfive places have had the benefits of his visitation. In South Wales, Mr. Roberts has made visits to fifty-five places for educational objects. His reports, while they reveal how very much need for the Society's operations exists in that part of the Principality, yet give much reason for encouragement and hope. FIFTIETH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SOCIETY. Since our last publication, the Society's Annual Report has been issued to the subscribers. It represents on the whole a very satisfactory condition, both in regard to finances and general operations. We offered in our last a brief summary of the most important facts which it contained; and we now lay before our readers one or two of the most interesting extracts from the Report itself. After adverting to the loss of four members of the Committee of Management during the year, the Report pays the following tribute to the memory of those gentlemen : "Mr. Nisbet, who first departed, was widely known as the friend and supporter of almost every institution established during the last half century for the promotion either of religion or philanthropy. He had been for upwards of thirty years a member of the Committee, and had latterly devoted a good deal of time to its interests. "Mr. Vaizey, who had been associated in the same work for above sixteen years, was also a frequent attendant in the Committee-room, assisting by his counsels, and manifesting in his conduct a deep and growing attachment to the principles of the Society. "Mr. William Brodie Gurney, although for nearly forty years a liberal contributor, had only of late been able to take any active part in the management; but the deep personal interest he always felt in the welfare of the Institution had long identified him with its proceedings and greatly endeared him to its friends. As the treasurer of the Baptist Mission,-as the president and founder of the Sunday School Union, and as the active supporter of almost every great movement for the benefit of mankind, Mr. Gurney will long be remembered both at home and abroad, and as long honoured for his catholicity of spirit, his munificence in giving, and his personal devotedness. "Mr. Richard Barrett, a well-known member of the Society of Friends, had been twenty-two years on the Committee, and not unfrequently a large contributor to its funds. For several years past, failing health, and peculiar attachment to more recent forms of benevolence, especially that for the promotion of temperance, had prevented much active co-operation; but his loss is not the less deeply regretted by those who, from personal acquaintance, were able to appreciate the amiability of his disposition, and his humane and philanthropic spirit. 'In no single year of the Society's history has death removed so many of its friends, or so forcibly reminded survivors of the weight of the exhortation, 'Work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh when no man can work.'" The Committee continue to attach great importance to the frequent and searching inspection of the local schools. During the year, the Agency operations of the Society have been carried on with more than usual vigour, and have been attended with encouraging success. On this important point, the remarks of Mr. Baxter, the Inspector of Schools for the London District, are well worthy of attention:— “In nearly every place I have visited, whatever may be the opinions entertained respecting the action of Government, there is a firm and extending conviction that a systematic and thorough inspection of schools is a great advantage alike to teachers and to committees. In some cases I have at first experienced difficulty, from misapprehension of this branch of the Society's operations; but when this has been removed, the school has been cheerfully thrown open, and at the close of the proceedings, the usual question is, 'When will you come again?' or, 'Why can we not have this every year?' That local committees are attaching increased importance to inspection by the Society is proved in many ways, though in none more fully than in the fact that a written report on the state of the school inspected is very extensively asked for; while the applicants manifest all the readiness which their means will allow, to adopt the improvements or suggestions which such report may embody. "I have endeavoured constantly to keep before me the fact that inspection, to be of any value, must be a true thing. In attempting to realize this, I have, in some cases, found it necessary so to report on the condition of a school as inevitably to bring me into apparent collision with the teacher. I cannot, however, sufficiently express my admiration of the thoroughly honest way in which such teachers have, with very few exceptions, endeavoured to turn the occurrence to good account, and, after the first surprise, asked for suggestions or advice. Nor ought I to omit mentioning a class of teachers who have continued their good work with untiring zeal, in the absence of inspection, without suggestions from fellow-labourers, without access to other schools where recent improvements are to be found, and with but little assistance of any kind. It is greatly to their credit that, under such circumstances, they have not allowed their discipline to languish, or their order to decline, whilst the instruction they have imparted, if not equal in extent to what is now frequently demanded, has been given systematically and with steady perseverance. "To the Scriptural instruction given in the Society's schools I have devoted much attention, both in those which have the advantage of pupil-teachers apprenticed by the Committee of Council, and in those which are carried on without such assistance. In many of both, I am happy to be able to state, that the children possess a clear, extensive, varied, and intelligent acquaintance with the Word of God. In schools where this branch of knowledge is less satisfactory than could be desired, various causes may be assigned for the deficiency. As a general rule, however, I am of opinion that the evil lies not so much in any lack of teaching, as in the want of sufficient and suitable questioning on what is taught.” Mr. Wilks also, in reporting on the schools in the Northern District, testifies to the same effect, and observes with much truth :— "If, during the past year, there has been no public excitement in this district in reference to popular education, there has been an amount of interest manifested among intelligent and influential men which is telling both on the character and quality of the instruction given in the schools. “The higher standard of attainment now required ensures, for the most part, in the North of England, in British Schools, a corresponding rate of remuneration to the teacher, whilst it also operates favourably in securing for him increased respect, both from parents and children. "The indifference of parents must still be considered the great barrier to the spread of education. This fact has been kept in view in the efforts put forth for its extension, and various expedients have been resorted to, as circumstances and locality permitted, to mitigate the evil. Instances of success in this direction have not been wanting, which, though isolated, are nevertheless encouraging." One of the most interesting passages in the Report is that which refers to the general question of our educational needs, and of the present and future provision for supplying them. We give the remarks on this important subject at length. "I. According to the most favourable computations, from half a million to a million of children who ought to be at school are not receiving any education at all. "II. Of the 44,000 schools supposed to educate the remainder, 30,000 are private schools, nearly 14,000 of which are avowedly inferior, 800 of the teachers actually signing the returns with a mark, being incapable of writing their own names, while of 2,144,378 children, whose names are on school registers, only one half are learning arithmetic. "III. Of 5,677 men recently enrolled for the militia in five counties, very little more than one-third could write their names. "IV. In Preston Gaol alone, during three years' observation, the chaplain was brought into contact with 1,733 men and boys, and 387 women and girls, altogether unable to read; with 1,588 men, women, boys, and girls, who knew not the name of the Sovereign; and with 1,583 (to use his own words) so incapable of receiving moral or religious instruction, that to speak to them of virtue, vice, iniquity, or holiness, was to speak to them in an unknown tongue!' "Well might Sir John Pakington say, 'I was so struck with horror on reading these tables, that I wrote to Mr. Clay to ask if there were no mistake, and if I could venture to state these startling facts to the House of Commons; and he wrote me back to say I might rely on their accuracy.' "V. In the metropolis alone, according to an official report by Captain Hay from five metropolitan police districts, 'the number of children at large, and living in idleness-without education, and apparently neglected by their parents, of the lower classes, who are generally in the receipt of wages-amount, as nearly as can be ascertained, to 20,641 under fifteen years of age.' "In a multitude of cases,' as Mr. Mann very justly observes, in his able Report, where great numbers of children live from day to day without instruction, they have actually in the midst of them an ample school provision, many buildings being occupied by barely half the number of scholars who might assemble in them ;' but it is equally true that while there is superabundant provision in some places, many districts still remain miserably destitute. "The improvement of schools, as your Committee observed in their last Report, will certainly tend to increase attendance at them, since it will supply more tangible and practical evidence of the value of education; while the great question of all, the right of society to compel parents to provide in some degree for the minds as well as for the bodies of their children, will in due time find its proper solution. "The question now returns, What is the British and Foreign School Society doing to diminish the evil it cannot cease to deplore? The answer furnishes but little reason for complacency, yet no other can be given. The Society is doing all it can with the limited means placed at its disposal. It is sustaining good model schools, training teachers, promoting by a constant and active agency the establishment of schools in destitute districts, inspecting them when established, aiding them by grants of material, co-operating with every form of effort, both at home and abroad, for the elevation of the labouring classes of society, and, by the presentation of constantly accumulating evidence, demonstrating that there is no practical difficulty whatever in educating the entire population on principles at once consistent with a righteous demand for liberty of conscience, and a just sense of the claims of Divine truth, beyond that which always has, and always will be found, in the selfishness of human nature." MINUTES OF COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION, 1854-1855. THIS Volume has been presented to Parliament since the publication of our last number. Owing, we suppose, to the increasing bulk of the reports, and to the number of additional details which have to be recorded from year to year, it has been determined to omit the tabulated results of the inspection of particular schools. With this exception, the contents of the present volume resemble those of its predecessors. It comprises the minutes of the Committee, correspondence relating to |