Λ BY WILLIAM W. MACKENZIE, M.A., Of Lincoln's Inn and the Northern Circuit, "Universal Education is the first great thing."-Carlyle. LONDON: SHAW & SONS, FETTER LANE & CRANE COURT, LAW PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS. -classed TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE Sir UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, Bart., M.P., WHOSE INTEREST IN THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS HEREDITARY AS WELL AS PERSONAL. a 2 PREFACE. IT T is a trite but true observation that the history of public Elementary Education in England is an illustration of the law which characterises the growth of so many of our national institutions, in that it originated in the convictions and efforts of individuals or private bodies, and only when it appeared to have outgrown the means or the powers of the original promoters, did the State step in to gather up their work and place it on the basis of a national institution. At the beginning of the present century an impulse was given to popular education by the formation of two great educational societies—the British and Foreign Schools Society in 1808, and the National Society in 1811, both supported by voluntary contributions. Previous to 1811 the work of furthering Elementary Education had been undertaken by a sub-committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Public attention began thenceforth to be more and more directed to the subject. In 1816 a committee of the House of Commons, of which Mr. (afterwards Lord) Brougham was chairman, reported that " they had found reason to conclude that a very large number of poor children were wholly without the means of instruction." One of the reports of this committee contains the first public assertion of the principle that the education of the people is a matter in which the State has a vital concern. Schools were now being established and supported entirely by voluntary contributions and school fees. In 1833 the Government, for the first time, undertook a |