fact that the charity schools movement—largely supported by dissenters—to some extent synchronized in its early rapid development with this school endowment movement. The Act of Uniformity (1662) pressed with great severity on the dissenting schoolmasters, and, in order to give them relief, Dean (afterwards Archbishop) Tillotson and Richard Baxter (the distinguished writer and dissenter) combined in 1674 to draft a 'Healing Act' that should make the spread of elementary education possible. The bishops would not accept the compromise, but it is probable that it had some indirect effect, for the church made few attempts to interfere with dissenting schools, though they were often attended by church children.
The earliest 'voluntary' schools were started in Wales in 1672 by Thomas Gouge, a clergyman of the established church, who had been ejected from his living on Bartholomew's Day, 1662, under the provisions of the act of Uniformity. The bishops sanctioned his Welsh schools, and in 167-1 a strong committee of churchmen and dissenters was formed in London to carry on the good work. In 1675 there were 1,850 children at school, of whom 538 were educated by Welsh voluntary subscriptions. John Strype, writing before 1720, connects this work with the charity school system, started in 1698 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. This latter movement was immensely successful and spread all over the country. In 1729 there were no less than 1,658 schools, containing 34,000 children. I have elsewhere estimated that, allowing a considerable margin for overlapping between the endowment movement and the charity school movement, there were over 2,500 schools of all classes founded in England and Wales between 1660 and 1730, that over one hundred schools received supplementary endowments and that 650 unattached educational charities were created. These schools supplied the poor with such education as was to be had in the eighteenth century—the education given was ineffective enough, but it was at any rate better than nothing. Special efforts were made in heathen Wales. Griffith Jones, a clergyman of the established church, in 1730 started 'circulating schools' in the towns, villages and wild country districts. The teachers stopped in each district for a few months only and then passed on to other centers. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge helped the movement, and large funds were supplied by a Mrs. Bevan, who carried on the schools after Griffith's death in 1761. At that date there had been 3,000 schools opened, in which 150,000 scholars had been taught. There were 10,000 children in the schools in 1760. In 1779 Mrs. Bevan died and bequeathed her large property to the carrying on of the work. Her estate was thrown into chancery and the schools were closed for thirty years. Such were the changes and chances of education in the eighteenth century. All higher education—apart from the work, often great, of individuals here and there, such as Isaac
