372 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
been well prepared,” is a phrase not infrequently met with in Her Majesty’s Inspectors’ 
reports on schools, i. e., for examination, but not for the battle of life. It is a common 
saying that children, after having left school for a year or two, forget the facts with 
which they have been crammed, and could not again pass the examination by which 
they formerly earned grants for their school. This Code was very unpopular with school 
authorities, but nevertheless remained in full force until 1890, when more liberty in 
olassification was allowed. Teachers in London have availed themselves of this permis- 
sion to a considerable extent, but whether this be the case in the provinces I am unable 
i0 say. 
But these measures I have rapidly described did not carry education to the places 
ghich most needed it, where the destitution of the people, both moral and physical, 
osrecluded the hope that they could share in any effort towards the education of 
‘heir children. Ragged schools had indeed done good service in giving to the poorest 
and most neglected some amount of instruction, but the standard to which they could 
attain very rarely entitled their managers to any grant from the Educational Depart- 
ment; they were obliged to rely entirely on voluntary contributions, and the work was 
Far too gigantic for philanthropy unaided by the State to accomplish.® 
Moreover it became plain that England lagged behind some other countries in the 
matter of education, and she might in consequence lose her supremacy in manufactures. 
The passing of the Representation of the People’s Act in 1867, extended the Parliament. 
ary franchise to a less educated and very large class of the community. Education 
was essential to enable this class to exercise their newly attained power with safety to the 
country. All these circumstances combined, led to the passing of the Educational Act of 
(870, introduced and carried through the House of Commons by W. E. Forster, with 
whose name it will ever remain associated. The ideal of the Act is ‘“ A school place for 
svery child, and every child in its school place.” 
The Act created school boards, bodies of men and women elected in different parts of 
‘he country by the local ratepayers. Attendance at school, between the ages of five and 
fourteen, could be made compulsory, and, when so made, boards were given the power of 
summoning parents who infringed the law, before a magistrate authorized to impose a 
Ane for this offense. The enforcement of compulsion was at first left to the discretion of 
sach school board, but by further amending acts, attendance at school has been made 
compulsory. The boards are responsible for the attendance of pupils, not only at schools 
ander their own management, but at every elementary school in their respective dis- 
iricts, whether entirely supported by voluntary contributions and free to scholars, or 
partly supported by fees, or whether beyond these two sources of income, supplemented 
by government grants. Such schools are known as voluntary schools, in contradistine- 
;ion to those belonging to the boards. 
At the time of the passing of the Education Act there were 8,881 voluntary schools in 
@ngland and Wales receiving grants ; 6.382 carried on by members of the Church of 
England, 1,549 belonging to the various bodies of mnonconformists, and 450 to the 
Roman Catholics. Up to the end of 1891, twenty-one years after the creation of school 
aoards, there were 14,816 voluntary, and only 4,779 board schools, a proof that in England 
and Wales the creation of the latter has not, as it was feared would happen, destroyed in 
she present day the zeal and activity which our ancestors displayed in their efforts to 
spread education throughout the land. 
Compulsory attendance at school was a new feature in English law, and could only be 
gradually introduced. It ismnow more or less strictly enforced all over the country, and 
has received on the whole the cheerful acquiescence of the people. The school boards 
* As far as I know, the ragged school in St James's Back, Bristol, founded in 1846 chiefly by the 
fforts of Mary Carpenter, was the only one in England which was able to earn a grant.