You have done me the great honour of asking me to come to Manchester, in order to distribute the prizes and certificates awarded by the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, at the last local examinations, to the candidates from this town and neighbourhood. I hesitated some time before accepting your flattering invitation, because I could .not help feeling that, while those who had performed this office in former years had, by their very presence, reflected honour and lustre on these meetings, and had even imparted to them a political importance, I could bring you no such help. If I allowed myself to be persuaded at last, by the repeated requests of your committee, it was because I believe that, however much I may be excelled by my predecessors in everything else, I need not yield to them in the warm interest which I have felt all my life in the cause of education, in the widest sense of the word; and I may add, because I feel, and have felt from the very beginning, most deeply interested in that system of local examinations which has now been carried on for many years with ever-increasing success, and the results of which we see before us to-day. Perhaps few here present recollect the first beginnings of these local examinations, carried on under the auspices of the two universities, Oxford and Cambridge. I recollect them well; and when I see how the tree has grown, and is growing, and spreading its branches wider and wider every year, I feel no slight satisfaction at the thought that I was present when it was planted - nay, that I rendered some assistance, however small, in planting it. And, gentlemen, I can assure you, it was no easy matter to plant this tree. The first generous impulse came from Oxford, but from Oxford came also the first repulse. I go back in my thoughts to the year 1857, when Mr. Acland, now Sir Thomas Acland, first mentioned to me this idea, that much might be done to improve the middle-class schools all over England, if the universities would undertake to examine them, and to give some kind of academic recognition to the best candidates and to the best schools. There were some men at Oxford who An address delivered in the Free-Trade Hall, Manchester, 27th October, 1875, by Professor Max Müller. at once perceived the excellence of such a scheme; but there were others, too, who treated it with open scorn and derision. We were told by some that no one would come to be examined of his own free will; by others, that there would be such a rush of candidates that the university could not supply a sufficient staff of examiners; while as to giving the academic title of associate in arts to candidates who might not know Greek and Latin, that was considered simply high treason. While these discussions were going on, Mr. Acland and some of his friends resolved to try the experiment, and in June, 1857, they held the first examination of middle-class schools in Devonshire. There is nothing like trying an experiment, and Mr. Acland's experiment proved at least three things: I. That the middle-class schools required to be looked into most carefully. 2. That the middle-class schools were willing to be looked into most carefully. 3. That the examinations presented no insurmountable difficulties to frighten the universities from undertaking this important task. I was myself one of the examiners at Exeter, and I well remember the enthusiastic meeting that was held there, for it was the first time that I allowed myself to be persuaded to speak, or, rather, to stammer in public.* Mr. Acland's scheme was soon after accepted by the university; and when I look at the excellent results which it has produced during the last seventeen years all over England, it seems to me that Sir Thomas Acland, the worthy son of a worthy father, has deserved well of his country, and that no honour that the nation could bestow on him would be too high, in recognition of the great and lasting benefit which, by taking the initiative in these local examinations, he has conferred on the nation. I do not speak at random, and I know I can appeal to all here present, parents, teachers, and pupils too, who have been successfully taught under this system, and are here assembled to-day to receive their prizes and certificates, to support me in saying, that these examinations have been a real blessing to the teachers as well as to the taught. "Some Account of the Origin and Objects of the New Oxford Examinations for the Title of Associate in Arts and Certificates, for the year 1858," by T. D. Acland, Esq. London: J. Ridgway, 1858. And their capacity of usefulness is by no means exhausted. At present, schools consider it an honour, if they can pass a certain number of their pupils, and if a few gain prizes and certificates. The time will come, I hope, when schools will not be satisfied unless they can pass nearly all their pupils, and if at least one-half of them do not carry off prizes and certificates. Till schools consider themselves in duty bound to send up, at certain periods, every one of their pupils to be examined, the true scope of these examinations has not been reached; nay, I fear, their object may be defeated, if they encourage schoolmasters to aim at high excellence in a few, rather than at an average excellence in all their pupils. na is, and always must be, has freely indulged. But I may confess that I was influenced, perhaps, not only by a national bias, but by what is now called family bias, or atavism, that mysterious power which preserves certain hereditary peculiarities in certain families, and which, if it is true that we are descended from some lower animals, may even help to explain some strange and perplexing features in human nature. My own atavus, or at all events, my great-grandfather, was Basedow (17231790), a name which perhaps none of you has heard before, but a name well known in Germany, as the reformer of our national education, as the forerunner of Pestalozzi, as the first who, during the last century, stirred up the conscience of And not only schools will benefit by the people of Germany and of their rulers, these local examinations, but home edu- and taught them at least this one great cation also, and more particularly the home lesson, that next to the duty of self-presereducation of girls. Allow me to put bevation there is no higher, no more sacred fore you my own experience in this mat- duty which a nation has to fulfil thanter. As there was hitherto no good school tional education. for girls at Oxford (I am glad to say a This sounds to us almost like a truism, High School for girls will be opened there but it was not so a hundred years ago. next week), my children had to be taught The idea that the nation at large, and at home; but I told them, and I told their each man and woman in particular is regoverness, that I should have them exam-sponsible for the proper education of every ined every year at these local examinations. That put them on their mettle, it gave a definite direction to their studies, it made them fond of their work, and, in spite of all the drawbacks of home education, the results have been most satisfactory. I sent my two eldest girls to be examined last year, chiefly in order to find out their weak and their strong points; I sent them again this year, as junior candidates; and if you will look at the division list which is now in your hands, you will find both their names in a very creditable position. I shall send them again next year, and year after year, till their education is finished, and I can assure all parents who are obliged to educate their daughters at home, that, however excellent their governess may be, they will find these examinations affording a most useful guidance, a most efficient incentive, and, in the end, a most gratifying reward, both to pupil and teacher. In 1857, however, I had as yet no such selfish interest in these examinations; and you may wonder, perhaps, what could have induced me then to go from Oxford to Exeter, in order to be present and to help in the first experiment of these local examinations. Well, you know that education has been for many years our national hobby in Germany, the one great luxury in which so poor a country as Germany child, is a very modern idea-it is really not much older than railways and telegraphs. Great men like Alfred and Charlemagne had a glimmering of that idea, but the times were too dark, too stern for them. During the whole of the Middle Ages we see little more than cathedral and monastic schools, chiefly intended for the education of the clergy, but opened in certain places to the laity also. Schools for the nation at large, and supported by the nation at large, there were none. Then came the Reformation, the very life-spring of which was the reading of the Bible by the laity. The reformers at once called for schools, but it was like a cry in the wilderness. Much, no doubt, was done by the reformers, many of whom were excellent schoolmasters, many of whom knew but too well how even Christianity could be degraded and well-nigh destroyed in countries where the education of the people had been neglected. Every Protestant clergyman became ipso facto a schoolmaster. He had to see that the children of his parish were able at least to read the Bible and to say the catechism. This is the historical explanation why, in Protestant countries, the school has so long remained a mere appendage to the Church. After a time, however, the clergyman, having plenty of work of his own to do, secured the assistance of the sacristan, or sexton, who, in addition to his ordinary duties of bell-ringing, organ-playing, waiting at christenings and weddings, and grave-digging, had now to act as schoolmaster also, and teach the children to read, to write, and to count. This was the beginning of our schools and schoolmasters; but in Germany even these small beginnings were soon swept away by the Thirty Years' War. When, in the eighteenth century, people began to breathe again, and look about, the state of the lower and middle classes in Germany, as far as education was concerned, was deplorable. There were Church schools, town schools, private schools, scattered about here and there, a few good, some indifferent, most of them bad; but as to any efficient machinery that should secure the proper education of every child in the country, it was never even thought of. It was my atavus, it was old Basedow, who, about a hundred years ago, raised the first war-cry for national education in Germany. It would take too much time were I to attempt to give you an account of his life (I had lately to write it for the "Deutsche Biographie," published by the Bavarian government). It was a chequered life, as the life of all true reformers is sure to be. Perhaps he attempted too much, and was too much in advance of his time. But whatever his strong, and whatever his weak points, this one great principle he established, and it remained firmly established in the German mind ever since, that national education is a national duty, that national education is a sacred duty, and that to leave national education to chance, Church, or charity, is a national sin. That conviction has re mained ingrained in the German mind, even in the days of our lowest political degradation; and it is to that conviction, and to the nation acting up to that conviction, that Germany owes what she is, her very existence among the nations of Europe. should give no offence to any one of the Christian sects, not even to Jews or Mohammedans. But in that attempt he naturally failed. His was a deeply religious mind, but national education had become with him so absorbing a passion, that he thought that everything else ought to give way to it. I confess I fully share myself the same conviction. If it were possible to imagine a religion, or a sect, that should try to oppose or retard the education of the people, then I should say that such a religion cannot be a true religion, and the sooner it is swept away the better. I say the same of national education. If there were, if there could be, a system of national education that should exclude religious education, that system cannot be the true system, and the sooner it is swept away the better. Poor Basedow soon came in conflict with the Church; he was deprived of his professorship in Denmark, though the king, more enlightened than his people, granted him his full salary as a pension for life. In Germany he was excommunicated, not by the pope, but by the Protestant clergy at Hamburg, who excluded him, and every member of his family, from the communion. The mob at Hamburg was roused against him, his books were prohibited, and he found no rest till the duke of Dessau, a man who dared to think and to act at his own peril, invited him to his capital, to help him to introduce into his small duchy a more perfect system of national education. All these things have become matter of history, and are almost forgotten now, even in Germany. Many of Basedow's theories had to be given up, but the two fundamental principles of national education remained firmly established, and have never been shaken. They have spread all over Germany; they are adopted in Denmark, Sweden, Russia; they have lately found their way into Italy, a country which is making the greatest efforts for national education, knowing that her very existence depends on that. Another principle, which followed, in fact, as a matter of course, as soon as the Two countries only, France and England, first principle was granted, was this, that still stand aloof. Yet, when we hear a minin national schools, in schools supported ister of instruction in France (Jules Simon) by the nation at large, you can only teach say, "Yes, there are schools, many that on which we all agree; hence, when schools, but one thing is still wanting, and children belong to different sects, you it is for this that I do not die; we have cannot teach theology. However irre-not yet obtained compulsory and gratui sistible the argument was, the opposi- tous instruction;" when in England we tion which it roused was terrific. Base- see that convictions with regard to nadow thought, for a time, that he could tional education become too strong for frame a kind of diluted religion, which party, that Mr. Forster would rather break cartridge if he still possessed one single ball-cartridge in his pouch. away from his friends than yield his deep and honest convictions, that Mr. Cross is more liberal, more bold than even Mr. I am the very last man to say that the Forster, in favour of compulsory national German system of national education education; when you consider how one of should be transplanted to England. I the most distinguished divines of the speak only of certain broad principles, Church of England, whose death the which are either right or wrong in themcountry is mourning this very day, insisted selves, and have nothing whatever to do all his life on the separation of Church and with national character or historical cirschool teaching, as the only solution of the cumstances. No one could have lived educational problem; nay, when you re- half his life in England and half his life member the words spoken not long ago in Germany, without knowing how utterly by your own excellent and outspoken unpractical it is to try to transfer English bishop, that it was better for the Church institutions to Germany, or German instito surrender her schools than to allow the tutions to England. Germany has had to existence of one single inefficient school; pay heavy penalties for attempting to copy you may be certain that the time has come the English form of constitutional govwhen England also will recognize these ernment, and national education in Entwo fundamental principles, education by gland would be a certain failure, were it to the nation and for the nation, and com- be a mere imitation of the German or the plete separation of school teaching and French system. You do not want a minChurch teaching. And, believe me, asister of public instruction who could look soon as these two principles are acknowl- at the clock and then tell you that at this edged, most of the difficulties that now be- moment every child in France is reading, set the educational question, whether the-"Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres." ological or financial, will vanish. The clergy will be relieved from its present false and invidious position. They, whether Protestant, or Nonconformist, or Roman Catholic, will be able to teach during certain hours on week-days, and in Sunday schools, that religion which it is their right and duty to teach. The time will be amply sufficient, for the less a child learns of theology, as distinct from religion, the better. There will be no conscience-clause, no conscientious scruples, to disturb the teachers of religion. We shall have real, not half-and-half, religious teaching in every school; and as to the proper remuneration, I hold that if every shilling that is now subscribed for Church schools were given to the clergy, particularly to the poor curates, as the religious instructors of their flock, the money would be well bestowed. Then, no doubt, the whole charge for national education, a large portion of which is now covered by private charity, will have to be paid by the nation at large, as in the case of the army, the navy, and the civil service. Whenever I state this, the ready answer I receive is: "Yes, it is very well for a foreigner to say that, but it is an utterly unEnglish idea; no sensible Englishman would listen to it for one moment." I always look on that answer as a most hopeful sign; it shows that all other argumentative ammunition has been expended, for no gentleman would fire off that blank But if you could have a president of the council who could look at the clock and' say, "At this moment no child over six or under thirteen is loitering in the streets," would that be so very intolerable? How much should be left to local boards and authorities in the management of schools, what subjects should be taught, what books should be used, what hours should be kept, what fees should be paid, all these are matters of detail, which would admit of great variety, if only the great principle was once recognized, that the school belongs to the State, and that the State is responsible for its efficiency, as it is responsible for the efficiency of the army, the navy, nay, even of the postoffice. It is a misdemeanour to convey a letter otherwise than by the post. It is criminal to sell poison. Would it be carrying the same principle too far, if Parliament insisted that no one should open a private school, unless the government was satisfied of the wholesomeness of the moral and intellectual food sold in these schools to helpless children? Paternal government, I know, has not a good sound to English ears; but if anybody has a right to a paternal government, surely it is "these little ones, who should not perish." These are not questions of politics, they are questions which concern every man, be he English, French, or German. They are religious questions, in the truest sense of the word. I hardly wish to touch on smaller points | Do gentlemen shrink from offices which connected with the great question of na- seem at first most repulsive, in the medtional education. However large they ical profession? Has a schoolmaster fewer may appear at present, they would dwin- opportunities of doing good than a clergydle away, if once national education was man? If gentlemen can be inspectors of looked upon in the light of a national duty. schools, why could they not be teachers of Take, for instance, the financial difficulty. schools? Make education a branch of By making national education an an- the civil service; make the schoolmasters, nual charge on the national exchequer, what they really are in the true sense of what is it you do? You simply substitute the word, servants of the queen, and you a national and rational taxation for an irra- will find the best talent and the best moral tional and haphazard taxation. It is John stuff in the country ready at hand for makBull who pays the taxes; it is John Bull ing really efficient schoolmasters. who pays the charities; and the only people who have any intelligible motive for opposing an equitable distribution of the educational taxes are those who do not want to pay their proper share. Secondly, nothing can be more wasteful than the present system, when every parish, or at all events, every clergyman, wants to have his own little school. By combining three or four schools into one, you would not only save money, but you would be able to bring the teaching power, which is now often miserable, to the highest degree of efficiency. However, with all the saving that could be effected by combined schools, there would still be, no doubt, a large expenditure at first; only let us call it by its right name; it is not expenditure, it is investment, and the best and most lucrative investment in the world. That is what I often preach to parents who think that the education of their children is too expensive. I do not say that education is not too expensive. It is often scandalously expensive. But I still maintain that it is far better to spend the money on the very best education that can be had than On this point, if you will allow me, I to leave to each child a thousand pounds should like to say a few words more. In more. The same should be preached all order to have a good education, you must over the country, till the nation at large have good educators. It is true, we no - which, after all, consists of so many longer employ the sexton, who, in addi- parents-understands that it will receive tion to bell-ringing, organ-playing, and far higher interest from capital spent on grave-digging, has to teach the children in English education than from capital inschool. But it is very bad still. The vested in the English, nay, in the Turkish, schoolmaster is still in many places the funds. As foolish parents have to pay servant of the clergyman; his work is their children's debts, foolish nations have hard, and he never rises to much more to spend for prisons and workhouses, nay, than about £150 a year. What can you for lunatic asylums, what they might have expect on such conditions? A young spent on national education. schoolmaster might begin with much less than that, if there were a career open to him. In the army a man begins as a lieutenant, but he may end as a general. Is teaching a lower profession than drilling? In every department of the civil service a gentleman begins with little, but he rises, and he has the prospect of a retiring pension in the end. Is the place of a schoolmaster too low for a gentleman? Let me read you what Niebuhr said about this and remember he said it after he had been Prussian ambassador at Rome: "The office of a schoolmaster, in particular, is one of the most honourable, and, despite of all the evils which now and then disturb its ideal beauty, it is for a truly noble heart the happiest path in life. It was the path which I had once chosen for myself, and how I wish I had been allowed to follow it!" Is teaching so very repulsive—even teaching the ABC? But it is not that only. Every nation at present is trying to improve its material by national education; and in the peaceful, but not the less fierce and determined warfare of commercial competition, in the permanent international struggle for life, depend upon it the worst-drilled, the worsteducated country will go to the wall. A man in these days who cannot read is like a blind man; a man who cannot write, is like a deaf and dumb man. Are those the men whom England wants to rear? Once show to the people of England what is right, and they will do it. Is England a poorer country than Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, or Italy? If all these countries tax themselves to the uttermost for compulsory and gratuitous education, is England to say, "I cannot afford it?" When slavery was to be abolished, did England count the cost? When, more lately, the army was to be relieved |