Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848

We would also beg our readers to observe that, in the case of these commissions of inquiry into the existing state of education in any given district, but especially in Wales, the commissioners had not got to look into what the existing government, or previous governments, had done, nor into how their systems acted – those governments had done nothing, and they had no system; but they rather went to see what the people, abandoned to their own resources by the state, which ought to have aided them, had been able to effect out of their own means and goodwill, and to witness the results of the voluntary and fortuitous systems which were then in full and unaided operation. Whatever causes of blame and offence the commissioners might meet with – whatever imperfections, and shortcomings, and ill doings, they might perceive – these could not so much be laid to the blame of the people, as they might in fairness be attributed to the neglect and apathy of the nation at large. It was entirely owing to the private efforts of the people in their various localities, unconnected with each other – to their desultory and varying efforts – that any thing had been done at all. It was obviously better that something should have been done rather than nothing; but the debt of gratitude for the "something" was due to the people – the blame of the "nothing" lay with the legislature and the nation at large.

It would, therefore, be highly unbecoming in such commissioners, to show any flippant petulancy in their animadversions on the generally defective results which the isolated operations of the several parishes and districts might evince. It would behove them to look on with rather a benevolent eye, and to speak with a guarded tongue concerning the evils they might witness. We think they have not altogether shown these qualifications in the Reports now before us; and after perusing them, we rise with the feeling that the commissioners seem to have thought themselves authorised to find out how far the various teachers, &c., had neglected duties imposed on them by the public, and that they had expected to find perfection pervading the country; whereas they should have anticipated that imperfection and neglect would prove to be the rule – perfection and care the few and distant exceptions.

It is by no means so easy to inspect a school, or to find out the knowledge and the modes of thinking of young people, as might be supposed. It is not to be done by any one stalking stiffly into a school-room, giving himself the airs of a Dr Busby, and putting questions with the consequence of an examiner in the schools at Oxford. The very idea of a stranger being in the room, and much more of one authorised to examine, is enough to dislocate the thoughts of children, older and riper than village boys and girls commonly are; and the mere interruption of the usual formalities of class arrangement and class work is sufficient to break up the discipline which, in all parochial schools at least, rests upon a very precarious and doubtful basis. Much less is it possible, by a flying visit of one, or two, or three hours, to get at a true perception of what the average knowledge of children may be fairly rated at: it is only by repeated and patient inspection that the ordinary amount of work done, and knowledge gained, can be discovered. The young mind, too, does not commonly retain facts – it rather receives general impressions, and, though this is not produceable knowledge, it is, nevertheless, information, and cultivation of the mental powers, and formation of the character, not without great value. But because a child cannot answer certain questions at a certain time and place, it does not therefore follow that it is ignorant of the subject. The thoughts cannot be concentrated, the powers of the memory and of expression have not been sufficiently cultivated; the faculty of reproduction, and the method of arrangement and classification of ideas, do not exist. It is impossible for such a child to pass through the ordeal. And yet the common expression of young people, when the question they could not answer is explained for them – "Oh yes! I knew that – only I could not remember it," tells the whole truth, and reveals at once the constitution and the weakness of their minds. Examinations, unless they immediately follow the subject learnt, are not suited to young children, and may tend to give a false idea of their real acquirements. But, if to this dread of answering questions be added the awe arising from an examiner's – a strange examiner's presence, the physical impossibility of obtaining satisfactory replies is thereby confirmed. We remember it in our own case at school; in the presence of the university examiner, who periodically visited us, it was and even in the schools of adolescent life, the examiners put us many a stiff question in Plato and Aristotle at which we hung our heads and stammered out nonsense; but which, as soon as we got back to our rooms in college, came to our memory in provoking vividness.

The commissioners seem to have hoped for unimpeachable examinations – and in almost every case they were disappointed: they could often hardly get a reply to the commonest questions. Much of this arose from their examining chiefly in subjects that were taught in a foreign language. But of this more anon.

The nature and object of this inspection of Welsh schools are sufficiently explained in the instructions from Mr Kay Shuttleworth, the secretary to the Committee of Council, which preface the first of the three goodly volumes to which these Reports extend. These instructions say: —

"Attention was called, during the last session of parliament, to the state of education in Wales, by a motion in the house of commons, for an address to the Queen, praying her majesty 'to direct an inquiry to be made into the state of education in the principality of Wales, especially into the means afforded to the labouring classes of acquiring a knowledge of the English language.'

"The secretary of state for the home department undertook on that occasion, on behalf of her majesty's late government, that such an inquiry should be instituted, and he intimated that it should be conducted under the authority of the committee of council on education.

"The object of your commission is, to ascertain, as accurately as circumstances will permit, the existing number of schools of all descriptions, for the education of the children of the labouring classes, or of adults – the amount of attendance – the ages of the scholars – and the character of the instruction given in the schools; in order that her majesty's government and parliament may be enabled, by having these facts before them, in connexion with the wants and circumstances of the population of the principality, to consider what measures ought to be taken for the improvement of the existing means of education in Wales."

It will be perceived from this portion of the instructions, that the inquiries of the Commissioners were to be limited to the schools intended for the lower classes only; and therefore that they would have to look for the workings of the voluntary and the isolated system in its fullest extent. The further definition of the object of the Commission is thus specified: —

"The schools for the instruction of the poorer classes in Wales have chiefly been erected by private beneficence, and some have been endowed from the same source; such of them as have no permanent endowment are supported by the small payments of the poor, by collections in religious congregations, and by voluntary subscriptions.

"Their lordships cannot confer on you any absolute authority to enter into and examine schools, nor to require from any persons information respecting them which they may be unwilling to communicate.