Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and with the consent of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, an estate at Kneller Hall, comprising about 45a. 1r. 24p., was purchased for 10,500l., or, including interest on purchase-money from the 8th of August to the 17th of September, 1847, for 10,557l. 10s. 6d. The expenses attending the title and conveyance amounted to 3661. 8s. 5d.

"A contract with the builder has been entered into for 17,336%. 6s. 2d., with subsequent additions, amounting to 1,788l. Os. 5d.,3 with the same approval and consent.

"Fixtures of various kinds, exclusively of furniture, have been contracted for to the amount of 2,293l. 9s.

9

"A clerk of the works has been employed for 68 weeks, at 4l. 14s. 6d. per week, 3217. 6s. A gardener and general workman, living on the premises, has been employed for 63 weeks, at 18s. per week, 56l. 14s. ; and for 26 weeks, at 20s. per week, 26l. Total expense of servants up to present time, 404/.

"Miscellaneous expenses, such as repairs, &c., 422l. 19s. 51⁄2d. ; against which is to be set proceeds of sale of grass and crops, 236l. 16s.; balance of expenses, 186l. 3s. 51⁄2d.

"The foregoing expenses are charged upon the grant annually voted by Parliament for education.

"The officers already appointed, are :—

"1. The Rev. F. Temple, M.A., lately Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, Principal, at a salary of 600l. per annum, to rise to 8007. in three years, with a furnished house.

"2. F. T. Palgrave, Esq., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, Vice-Principal, at a salary of 400l. per annum, to rise to 5007. in three years, with furnished rooms.

"3. Mr. Tate, one of the masters in the Battersea Normal School (author of some of the most approved works connected with elementary instruction, and a highly successful teacher), third master.

"4. Mr. Tilleard, formerly a student at Norwood and Battersea, and for some time a pupil of M. Fellenberg, fourth master." Though it is here stated in general terms, that "the foregoing expenses are charged upon the grant annually voted by Parlia ment for education," it does not appear exactly how this large outlay was met. It is by no means improbable that the amount was

saved out of the 30,000%. grant for workhouse schoolmasters and mistresses which came into operation on the 1st of October, 1846. Of the appropriation of this money, amounting to the close of the current quarter to 90,000l., no account appears in the volume before us; the salaries, according to the scale fixed by the Commissioners, did not come into operation till the 1st of April of the present year; and, up to the end of June last, the annual salaries sanctioned by the Committee of Council did not amount to more than 10,9747. 16s.-This one year alone, therefore, would leave a large balance at the disposal of the Committee; and, whatever may have been the payments made under the previous arrangements, it is hardly to be supposed that they greatly, if at all, exceeded the above amount. In any event there must have been a large margin left, for defraying the expense of the five inspectors, and, it is not unreasonable to suppose, for the erection of Kneller Hall. The first grant specifically for Kneller Hall, was for 18,000l. in the present year; yet the Hall is already built at an outlay, including the purchase of the site, of upwards of 30,000l., as was correctly stated by the John Bull in July. But even then no intimation was given of the nature of the Kneller Hall establishment, nor, we may be sure, would the unostentatious character of the whole of the proceedings connected with it have been dragged into light, but for the disclosures which took place through the vigilance of the friends of the Church, and the consequent inquiries in and out of Parliament. The money, therefore, which has been spent upon this establishment is money spent distinctly without Parliamentary sanction, for an object distinctly repudiated by Parliament. The discovery having taken place so late in the Session (the return being "ordered to be printed" on the day of the prorogation) rendered it impossible for Parliament to follow up the inquiry; but we trust that the surreptitious manner in which 30,000l. has been spent, literally behind the back of Parliament, in pursuance of a scheme against which, had it been honestly announced and canvassed beforehand, the country would have risen as one man, will not be suffered to escape next Session, but that the whole of this flagrant transaction will then be brought under the consideration of both Houses, and the entire Poor Law Education Scheme, of which Kneller Hall is the focus, dealt with according to its deserts.

Meanwhile it will not be uninteresting to investigate the capabilities of Kneller Hall, as far as they can be ascertained by examining the lithographs before mentioned. On them we have counted eightysix dormitories-besides the principal's and master's bedroomsof the average dimensions of 8 feet by 12; capable, therefore, of accommodating at least two beds each, or, in the whole, making

allowance for the sleeping accommodation of domestics, at least 160 to 180 candidate teachers. This calculation is confirmed by the size of the dining-hall, 30' 6" by 29' 6", in which there would certainly be room for five tables seating thirty-two persons each; and by the size of the "oratory," 36 feet by 21, also large enough to accommodate about that number. On comparing the Minute of the 21st of December, 1846, which speaks of 100 candidate teachers, with Mr. Kay Shuttleworth's letter, on which the Minute is founded, and which supposes an annual supply of fifty teachers, it would appear that two years is the average period fixed for training, and that, therefore, Kneller Hall is capable of providing eighty teachers per annum.

The question, then, arises, what employment there could be for eighty schoolmasters issuing annually from this academy of secular knowledge and "general religion." The workhouseschools are, as we have seen, from 600 to 700 in number; and of the old masters 226 have already obtained certificates. About 400 new masters, therefore, is the very outside of what can be required, and these would be supplied in the course of five years; after which there would be no market for the alumni of Kneller Hall, supposing them to be destined for workhouse-schools only. But even this is reckoning upon a far larger demand than will actually occur, the Committee of Council having determined upon the formation of district schools in which the children of from four to five unions would be collected together. After this measure shall have been effected, there will be from 150 to 180 district schools at most; a number abundantly sufficient, at the rate of from 140 to 160 boys in each school, to accommodate 25,000, that is the total number of boys, being one half of the 50,000 children under inspection in workhouse-schools. Now it is quite impossible to suppose that an establishment able to roduce eighty new teachers per annum should be set on foot for supplying say 180 schools. We know from Mr. Kay Shuttleworth's letter that he reckons the average servitude of each master at twelve years; consequently 180 schools would not require more than fifteen teachers per annum; and the supply, therefore, would be more than five times the demand. Comparing this with what has before been stated as to the contemplated extension of the scheme to the children of out-door paupers, we have a remarkable confirmation of the conclusion to which we were led by the remarks of Mr. Symons. For schools containing upwards of 200,000 boys, an annual supply of eighty masters will not be too much, yielding, with an average servitude of twelve years, the requisite number of recruits to keep up a staff of 960 masters, or one master to about 200 boys.

There is, however, a further question which suggests itself. It

is this: If Kneller Hall provides masters sufficient not only for the in-door but for the out-door paupers' children, detaining each master for twelve years in the service of the pauper education department, what is to become of all those teachers when their period of servitude shall have expired? Supposing the pupilteachers of the pauper schools, who are to recruit the Kneller Hall establishment, to be transferred to it between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, they would, after remaining at the Hall for two years, and conducting a pauper school for twelve years, be in the very prime of life at the end of their servitude, and, if replaced by other men, they must necessarily seek employment in other schools. Into what market, then, would they be thrown?

The answer is obvious. The Committee of Council have long sought a quarrel with the National Society, and have got it at last. While they have thrown every obstacle in the way of cordial co-operation with them on the part of the Church, they have made every preparation for meeting the emergency of an open rupture. While consistent clergymen may be compelled to forego all assistance from the State for the foundation and support of their schools, and Diocesan Training Institutions may have to contract their operations, partly from a diminution of their funds through the loss of State assistance, and partly from a decrease in the demand for strict Church schoolmasters, the Committee of Council will be ready to supply, from their stores at Kneller Hall, teachers after their own heart to any parochial school, where the clergyman shall, either with a view to pay his court to the powers that be, or to a latitudinarian diocesan, or else from dire necessity, be induced to accept State assistance, and a Statetrained master. Thus by a gradual but sure process, by an insensible expansion of the State system of education, and a progressive cramping and hampering of the Church, that great change will in due time be brought about, against which the Church raised her voice ten years ago in solemn protest.

The change will be brought about, that is to say, if the Church is sufficiently blind to the machinations of her enemies, and sufficiently supine and unfaithful to her trust, to permit their schemes to be carried into effect. But we hope for better things. The Education battle is about to be fought between the Church and the Committee of Council. The coming session of Parliament will on this subject be decisive; and it is not amiss, therefore, that the Kneller Hall scheme should have exploded at this very time, completing the evidence, if evidence were needed, of the perfidious designs of that most unconstitutional, as well as arbitrary, of State authorities, the Committee of Council on Education. Let only Churchmen in general, and the clergy in particular, remember the sacredness and weightiness of their trust

in this matter, which is a trust not only for the good deposit of God's truth and ordinance, but for the souls of the poor committed to their keeping; a trust which we cannot better describe than in the forcible language of Archdeacon Manning, in his recent Charge:

"We are the guardians of the children of the poor-the busy, the over-laboured, the untaught, of all who need instruction; and this wardship none but the parents themselves can revoke. We should betray our trust to our Master and to our flocks if we suffered any person or power to come between us and the children of our people. So long as their parents confide them to us, none may take them away. "When we speak, therefore, of the laity, we do not mean a number of politicians, nor a handful of benevolent theorists, nor a few active friends of education, nor the subscribers of 10s. or 20s. a-year to a parish school, but the great multitude of our people, and specially the heads of houses and families throughout the ten thousand homes of our land. In the name of this great multitude, in the name of the poor of Christ, and in the name of the whole body on whom the baptism of Christ has impressed the spiritual priesthood of faith, we, as pastors, taken from among them and set apart, not for ourselves but for their sakes, to be the servants of their necessities, and the trustees of their spiritual inheritance, are bound in duty to stand firm against the assumption of the sacred name of laity by any other person or persons whatsoever. Let the true laity be called on to speak for itself; not, I say, the handful of those who can afford a few yearly shillings to vote in school committees, but the millions of the free and great flock tended by fifteen thousand pastors,-let them say to whom they will intrust the care and oversight of their children, the guardianship of their Christian rights, and the execution of their Christian duties, and we shall readily acquiesce in their decision. In so popular a question, nothing less than the voice of the people ought to decide it.

"If the laity of the Church are to be invoked, it must be not the laity of wealth-the laity of any particular grade-not a class-laity, but the laity of the whole people of Christ. As pastors and trustees for the rights of parents, we hold in their name and by their powers the guardianship they have intrusted to us over the education of their children. No experiment may be tried upon them; and the voice of the poor father who cannot contribute ten yearly pence to the parish school, where his child is taught, is weightier than the vote of all those who have confided to us no such sacred trust. When a fraction of the laity is invoked, we must invoke the whole, the whole flock of Christ in this land; and they, be it remembered, have not as yet spoken, and are not as yet represented in this great question. They and all they hold dearest are at stake, and yet they have neither voice nor vote. In behalf of those who have been solemnly committed to us, and whose representatives in this their deepest interest we are, we are entitled to be heard, speaking in the name of the laity."-Archdeacon Manning's Charge, 1849, pp. 65-67.