ample provision we have made for education should be fully employed; how to get the best return for our large expenditure. True economy suggests that we should not drive the children from the schools, but entice them in. There are now a million and a half vacant places in our schools every day, representing an unproductive sum of fifteen millions sterling for schoolhouses alone. But besides school-buildings we supply machinery, staff, and teaching powers which would be nearly equal to the education of all the children who are absent. Look at the enormous waste of force which lies here, the greater part of which, it can be shown conclusively, is caused by the exaction of fees. The law, as laid down in the case of Richardson v. Saunders, is that fees must not only be paid, but prepaid, and that the children may be excluded if they do not take their fees. Since this decision the practice of excluding children has increased enormously. The Education Department encourages the regulation requiring prepayment and refusing admission. The School Board Chronicle, which is a high authority on this subject, says that thousands of children in the country are every morning turned away from school for the lack of the fees in advance. When they are sent home for their fees they generally remain away, frequently they play truant, and truancy leads in time to the industrial school. At Willenhall seventy children were turned away on one morning, after the guardians had exercised their power of payment to the full extent which their regulations authorised. In another town the children of many families were shut out of school for the whole winter because their parents could not pay the fees. In one instance eight children in one family were sent home, although a letter was sent to the teacher explaining that there was no money in the house. At Wellingborough thirty-four children were sent back from one school. At Newcastle-under-Lyne a hundred boys were sent back in a week. At Walsall there were three hundred applications for remission on a single Monday morning. This process goes on all over the country all the year round. The parents have not got the fee on Monday morning when it is wanted. Commonly it is all they can do to scrape the rent together, often with the aid of a pawnbroker. If the children are sent back on Monday they generally stay away all the week. Meanwhile those who are at school are marking time, and waiting for the absentees. What is the use of elaborating new codes and administering stimulants to teachers when this drag is left on the wheel?

Having sent the children away, or tempted the parents to keep them at home, the process of gathering them in begins. This varies in different towns, but it is always complicated and troublesome. First the parents have to be hunted out, then notices are sent to them; then, usually after some evasion on their part, there are applications to the board for remission, or to the guardians for payment, or sometimes to both. There are visits from attendance officers and reliev

ing officers, followed by investigation into circumstances, hearing of appeals, notices to parents and teachers that fees will be paid or remitted, or the reverse; then there are accounts to be kept, the fees to be collected, and finally audited. Or there may be a prosecution for breach of bye-laws, and a small portion of the fine and expenses may be recovered, the remainder being charged against the rates. In the last alternative there is imprisonment. But very often the law is made a laughing-stock, for many magistrates will not convict where the children have been excluded for not taking their fees. This is regarded as a victory over the staff of boards, teachers, officers, policemen, paid and unpaid functionaries, and the education law becomes the object not only of odium but of derision. The waste of precious hours in all these proceedings is a painful and obvious feature. It is a rule of school boards and of many unions that the father must himself apply for the payment or remission of the fees. For this purpose he is obliged to leave his work, and perhaps loses a larger sum than that in dispute. In the conflict of administration between school boards and guardians the poor parents are harried and worried between the two authorities till they are at their wits' ends. The anomalies created by the overlapping of the poor-law and education systems have induced many school boards to petition for the re-enactment of the 25th clause, not because they approved of its principle, but because it was less intolerable in practice than the present law. The relief of conscience, if conscience has been relieved by transferring payments out of the rates to denominational schools from one local authority to another, has been purchased at the sacrifice of the convenience and welfare of the poor. After all their trouble they very often fail to get the relief they apply for. In one large town where applications are investigated by the school board and passed on to the guardians, it is said that not more than 40 per cent. of the cases recommended apply, and of the latter not more than 10 per cent. get relief. Instances could be brought forward in hundreds of parents tramping many miles to workhouses from remote parts of unions, and after waiting many hours being sent away empty handed, or offered the alternative of "the house."

There are many school boards which admit children without prepayment. The London Board has adopted a regulation that no child shall be turned away for non-payment of fees; and many provincial boards have rescinded their resolutions requiring prepayment. How these regulations may be affected by the judgment in Wright's case remains to be seen. If that decision should be upheld by the Court of Appeal, either prepayment must be insisted upon or no fees can be recovered. But suppose the judgment should be reversed, and the right of recovery should be authoritatively declared, what would be the substantial gain? The world of trouble involved in keeping the numberless petty accounts and in collecting the arrears would

more than outweigh the small pecuniary result which might be obtained. One of the most wasteful features of the system is that this unthankful and unproductive labour is thrown upon the masters, who ought to be doing other work, and who have been trained as teachers, and not as accountants and debt-collectors. In any case, whether fees are abolished or not, the teachers ought to be relieved of this tiresome duty, and allowed to keep their minds free for higher work. Instead, they are held responsible for fees, or their salaries are partly dependent upon what they can collect. As a consequence, besides their distraction from their legitimate work, they are brought into conflict with parents and children, and instead of dealing with receptive minds they are met by sullenness and resistance.

The effect of these contentions on the progress of the scholars must be harmful. If they are ever so much interested in their studies, continued irregularity will make them careless, and the more intelligent they are, the quicker they will be to understand the struggle which is going on between their homes and their schools. They will suffer from the taunts of their comrades, and will become an isolated class. They are often subject to slights in the schools. Sometimes there are separate entrances for those whose fees are paid or remitted. At one school board it was proposed that the children whose fees were in arrear should be excluded from the school-treat; in another place they were not allowed to receive prizes; in another they were locked in after school-hours as a punishment for not taking their fees. In some schools they are publicly reminded, as their names are called out, that their fees are in arrear. There is no reason to

suspect the general impartiality and fairmindedness of the teachers, but it is not in human nature that they should take equal pains. with scholars who are constantly harassing them, and whose irregularity prevents their own advancement and helps to keep the schools at a low standard.

It is not easy to set down exactly the pecuniary loss which is caused by the exaction of fees, but it is evident that it must amount to a formidable item. Dr. John Watts estimates "that 25 per cent. of the Government grant to primary schools is thrown away by the necessity of extracting fees, and that 25 per cent. of the fees paid by the parents is also thrown away." If this estimate is reliable, and it seems to be a moderate one, and if the proportion holds good throughout the country, it accounts for an annual loss of a million sterling. The Rev. W. Wood, chairman of the Leicester School Board, states that it costs 10s. to get in every 1s. of arrears. A visitor in that town was occupied all day in collecting 4d. To collect the fees of 9,000 children it takes the entire services of seven teachers all the year round. In addition, the school board employs seven visitors, five of whom might be dispensed with if the schools:

were free. Fees have been abolished in other countries for two reasons: because they were not worth the trouble of collection, and because they operated against attendance. In the United States they get a much better attendance without compulsion than we do with all our irritating compulsory machinery. It is true that it is the fashion amongst the opponents of free schools to discredit the results in the United States. A clergyman stated at a meeting of the London School Board that the average attendance in the eight principal cities of America was only 58 per cent. Such a conclusion can only be explained by assuming that the speaker had been imposed upon or had been loose in his inquiries. On examining four reports for last year it appears that the average attendance in New York was 90 per cent., in Philadelphia 89 per cent., in Chicago 93 per cent., and in Baltimore 82 per cent. There is no doubt that the attendance in Boston, Cincinnatti, and St. Louis is quite as good. But in quoting American figures some allowance must be made for dissimilar conditions, and also for the fact that we are not always sure that the calculations of attendances are made up in the same way as our own. But one solid fact about American experience remains, which cannot be explained away by any manipulation of figures, and which any candid man may satisfy himself about; that is, that the attendance has largely increased since fees were abolished. Fortunately, however, we need not go from home to learn a lesson which common observation and daily experience enforce in our own work. The simple lowering of the fees results in an increase of income, derivable from the fees themselves. This was the case in Bradford and in Birmingham. In Liverpool also it has been demonstrated that the proportion of attendance is directly affected by the rate of the fee. Teachers also know that the reduction of the fee increases the Government grant. They often ask poor scholars to come without fees in order to help make up the grant. Some of the London teachers pay a certain proportion of fees to add to their own incomes. In eight schools at Rochdale it was found that teachers were paying 2s. and 38. per week to keep the children at school. At Dalton the fees in the higher standards were raised with the result that a class of thirty-five in the Fifth Standard was reduced to fifteen, incurring a prospective loss of grant amounting to £20. In another parish it was estimated that a threepenny rate was lost by absence from school.

The percentage of attendance in Southwark, Lambeth, and other parts of London is in favour of the scholars whose fees are remitted. The same result has been observed in Birmingham. Dividing the scholars of the Birmingham board schools into three classes :-1, those who pay regularly and without trouble; 2, those who pay irregularly and give trouble; 3, those whose fees are remitted or paid, the percentage of attendance in each class is as follows: Class 1. Boys, 88 per cent.; girls, 78 per cent. ; infants, 87 per cent.

Class 2. Boys, 74 per cent. ; girls, 60 per cent. ; infants, 63 per cent. Class 3. Boys, 86 per cent. ; girls, 75 per cent. ; infants, 85 per cent. The advantage in favour of those whose fees are remitted, and who belong to the poorest class in the community, over those who pay irregularly, is-boys, 12 per cent. ; girls, 15 per cent.; infants, 22 per cent.

Dr. Watts makes some very instructive comparisons in Manchester. The qualification for admission to the Manchester Free School is the total inability of the parents to pay fees. The pupils are of an inferior grade to those in the board schools. From the report for last year it appears that the average attendance was 98 per cent., while the percentage of passes was 99-6. Out of 450 possible attendances, ten boys made all but three, fifteen boys made all but two, twentynine boys made all but one, and 150 boys made every possible attendance. The report says, The report says, "In the board schools of Manchester every child who makes 350 attendances in a year receives a prize. If the same standard were accepted in the Free School, no less than 278 boys, or 82.7 per cent. of the average number on the roll, would be entitled to prizes." In a paper read before the Manchester Statistical Society, Dr. Watts compared the attendance at the Free School with that of three board schools, all of them producing good results. The average attendance was in favour of the Free School by 37 per cent., 25 per cent., and 22 per cent. Of the children who had made a sufficient number of attendances to qualify them for examination, the comparison shows 43 per cent., 27 per cent., and 17 per cent. in favour of the Free School. There is one very significant fact showing how attendance depends on fees. It is well known that Monday is the worst day in the week for paying fees. The attendance at the Free School on Monday is 38 per cent., 38 per cent., and 35 per cent. better than at the three board schools selected for comparison. The attendance at the Free School also extends over a longer period. The length of attendance at the three board schools was 1.7 years, 2.50 years, and 2.9 years, while at the Free School it was 3.75 years. Dr. Watts says that he believes "the difference is entirely due to the absence of fees and the annoyances connected therewith." These figures are convincing that a great improvement in attendance would result from free admission, and the attendance would not only be larger but steadier. Strict compulsion would still be necessary for a few; but if our school system were relieved from its fetters it would take an astonishing leap forwards. The teachers would throw off a disheartening burden; the regular scholars, who are now kept back by the desultory and erratic attendance of others, would have far better opportunities, and the productive power of the schools would be increased incalculably. At the same time an inestimable boon would be carried into countless homes.