Board whilst administering its own fund, and regulating its own outlay, to be responsible to the Central Office in case of doubt, difficulty, or defect; such central department supplying some share of the original and annual cost, and exercising a general and, if it pleased, a minute and particular inspection, as a guarantee for the proper use and expenditure of the public funds. This really would be a much greater step than it at first looks. It is a great step really to say any where "You must have a school." Nothing like it has yet been. It really is much more than saying to a lot of children, "You must go to school," and probably will much more ensure that injunction than any direct utterance of it. The Central authority must require that the building be fit, the teacher apt, the success adequate, both in attendance and attainment, and must expect that these results be worked out by the local direction. Quarter Sessions would probably have to institute a well-chosen Educational Board, who would elect one or more competent Inspectors and Examiners, and, considering that the public itself is more enlightened in the question than it used to be, and that the Central Office could always turn its bull's-eye upon them, we might, perhaps, expect that the want to be met and the duty to be discharged would not be marked by the prejudice and ignorance which are often regarded as the characteristics of local administration.
But there are three points, which it would be disingenuous and unwise to avoid. They will still as much influence men's judgments as they ever have, and should be fairly faced and candidly treated. These three points have been already touched upon; they are,—1. The condition of attendance, is it to be optional or compulsory? 2. Are the schools to be free, or is payment from parents to be exacted? 3. Is there to be any religious element in the teaching; and if so, what?
My opinion on the first may be gathered from what has preceded. Compulsoriness is not nearly so ugly as it is made to look. It is one of those hobgoblins whose terrors fade away under contact.
As the Augsburg Gazette lately said, after a little use, the instrument loses its character. It is like a dip in cold water, or getting up early—only against the grain till practised. Those who denounce it as counter to the healthy play of free and spontaneous conduct, would probably find it merely that discipline which tutors the free spontaneity of action into systematic vigour. The tonic is only needed, but is needed, when the natural appetite fails; and it is for its restoration, not its destruction, that it is needed.
Still it perhaps need not be made an antecedent condition. It may be left to the working. The public and the parents are partners in the duty of Education. If the public, by Rate-aid and State-aid, secure schools for the parents, it is not likely to let the junior partner defeat the end, by a remiss attendance. A Rate-supported school will insure compulsion if it is needed, and the point may be so left. There will be no difficulty in getting legislative sanction if it is demanded.
