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REESE

LIPRA

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

GREAT BRITAIN.

INTRODUCTION.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE consists of the British Islands (generally designated Great Britain, and Ireland); Indian Possessions; Australia and New Zealand; Dominion of Cananda, and other large possessions in North America, and the West Indies; and various colonies and settlements which dot the whole surface of the civilized world with forts and government houses, over which floats the meteor flag of England.

The following table exhibits the extent, population, finances, and commerce of the different portions of this great Power:

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Totals......

| 4,605,302 245,539,733 £139,168,337 £903,280,039) £776,504,464

The British Isles consist of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), and Ireland, with a population in 1869 of 30,873,682.

England is divided from Scotland on the north by the Cheviot Hills and the rivers Tyne aud Solway, and from Wales by the Severn and the Dee. The western part of England was known to the Phoenicians, and was resorted to by them for its tin, four centuries, or so, before Christ; and hence the whole country was known by the name of Cassiterides or Tin Islands. When invaded by Cæsar (B. C. 55) it was called Britain, or some time Albion. The Romans subdued all England, and parts of Scotland and Wales, but did not reach Ireland, although its existence was known to them. In the third century, when the power of Rome was on the decline, an officer called the Count of the Saxon Shore was appointed to withstand encroachments from the opposite coasts; about the year A. D. 410, the Britons revolted, and the Romans abandoned the island, after a rule of 450 years. The Britons, being divided into as many hostile States as they had cities, were unable to resist the fresh hordes (now called Saxons and Angles) that poured into the island, and

about 457 the kingdom of Kent was founded. The Britons still fought stubbornly, but were gradually driven westward, and by the year 584 the kingdom of Mercia (meaning the march land or frontier State) was established, being the last of the seven kingdoms founded by the invaders, whence the whole is usually styled the Heptarchy. The kings of the Heptarchy made war on each other, but at last in 827 Egbert of Wessex obtained the supremacy of the whole, and styled himself King of England. His descendants, of whom Alfred the Great was the most illustrious, held the throne for more than 200 years, but the country suffered greatly during the time from the ravages of the Danes, who, under Canute and his sons, became its rulers for twenty-five years (1017-1042). The Saxon line was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, to whom Harold succeeded; but his death in the battle of Hastings, on the 14th of October, 1066, gave England into the hands of the Norman kings, who reigned from 1066 to 1154. Then came the Plantagenets (1154-1485); the Tudors (1485-1603); and the Stuarts (1603-1714), to whom the House of Brunswick succeeded on the death of Queen Anne. Her present Majesty is the sixth sovereign of that line.

The conquest of Ireland was begun in the year 1170, but can hardly be regarded as completed until the surrender of Limerick in 1691. Wales was conquered by Edward I. in 1282, and formally annexed to England by Henry VIII. in 1536. Scotland successfully resisted the efforts of Edward I. to subjugate it, maintained for ages a close alliance with France, and in 1603, gave a ruler to England in the person of James VI., who became James I. of Great Britain, a title then first assumed. This was but a personal union, but the union of the kingdoms was effected under Queen Anne in 1707. Ireland, which had been hitherto only styled a lordship, was declared a kingdom in 1542, and this kingdom was united to that of Great Britain by the Act of Union, on January 1, 1801.

The form of government is a limited monarchy, consisting of the Sovereign and the Houses of Lords and Commons, without whose joint approval no legislation is complete, though a large discretion is left to the executive, and for the proper exercise of this discretion the Ministers of the crown are responsible, as it is a legal maxim, that "the Sovereign can do no wrong." For administrative purposes, England is divided into forty counties, Wales into twelve, Scotland thirty-three, and Ireland thirty-two. To each of these counties there is, with some few exceptions, a lord-lieutenant and a sheriff, and a number of justices of the peace, beside stipendiary magistrates in London and other large cities.

The policy of the English Government, down to a very recent period, has been to leave the promotion of Science and Art, even in their obvious connections with national industries—the mining, commercial, manufacturing, and mechanical productions of the people,-to individual and associated effort. Within the last half century, and more rapidly and thoroughly within the last twenty years, this policy has undergone great changes, until there is not a government in the world which appropriates such large sums annually for the advancement of Education, Science, and Art. We give a list of annual appropriations from the public treasury for these purposes, mostly for 1869.

I. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.

1. England and Scotland-through Committee of Council.-
(1.) Central Office and Administration,...
(2.) Inspection (68 Inspectors)-Salaries and Travel,
(3.) Training Colleges* (38) for Elementary Teachers,.
(4.) Sums paid toward Teachers' Salaries-Scotland,...
"L England and Wales,..

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(5.) Building grants, apparatus, &c.,†. Total for England and Scotland,

2. National Schools, Ireland:

(1.) Central Office,.

(2.) Inspection-Salaries and Travel,..

-

£22,531

64,103

74,250

79,500

549,639

45,500

.£835,523

17,412

35,461

8,245

5,828

26,952

360,194

£454,092

.£1,289,615

(3.) Normal Establishments,

(4.) Agricultural Schools,..

(5.) Books and apparatus,.

(7.) Teachers' Salaries,.

Total through National Board for Ireland,

Total for Elementary Instruction in Great Britain,

II. HIGHER EDUCATION.

The principal expenditures for Institutions of Secondary Education in Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland, are met by endowments (the annual income of which is about £1,000,000) and parental payments.

The 8 great Universities of England, Scotland, and Ireland, have endowments to the annual value of over £700,000.

To aid Universities and Colleges of Superior Instruction, Parliament made grants in 1869 as follows:

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2. Schools of Science and Art-Central and Provincial,.

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6. Schools of Mines and Chemistry, and Geological Museum,.. 12,253

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4,500

10,000

5,000

.£139,422

1. British Museum, London,

2. National Gallery,...

3. Historical Portrait Gallery,

4. National Gallery of Ireland,.

Royal Institution, and Board of Manufactures, Edinburgh,..

5. Art Ornamentation of Parliament Houses,...

6. Annuities, &c., on former Donations and Bequests,.

Total,..

VI. MILITARY AND NAVAL SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION-1868-9.

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Navigation Schools (exclusive of Science Department aid),. 2,000
Greenwich Hospital Schools (Funds),...

20,000

Total,.

.£202,890

VII. JUVENILE CRIMINALS AND REFORMATORIES.

For England and Wales,.
"Ireland,

.£123,000
48,960

These objects, numerous and important as they are, do not exhaust the list of Parliamentary appropriations for Education, Science and Art in 1869, but the sums, large in single instances, exceed in the aggregate (£2,500,000) those made by any other government for the same period. It only needs a more systematic administration of the public grants, to stimulate and direct wisely local, institutional, and individual activity, and supplement their deficiencies by doing well what individuals, associations, or local communities can not do thoroughly, if at all-to bring the Special as well as the General Instruction of the whole country on to a higher plane than they now occupy in any other State.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN GREAT BRITAIN.

I. INDIVIDUAL PROMOTERS OF REALISTIC INSTRUCTION.

Under the Church system of education, which supplanted the barbarism of an earlier period, and which prevailed throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as in Europe generally, all institutions, endowments and methods were designed to foster instruction in language, and those speculative studies which were found particularly useful in ecclesiastical affairs. But English literature is not without occasional witnesses to the defective arrangements then existing, and appeals and suggestions for other institutions and instruction.

SIR THOMAS ELYOT.

SIR THOMAS ELYOT, in "The Governor,"* first published in 1544, which was designed to instruct men, and especially men of noble birth, in good morals, and in the ways of usefulness, recommends that young gentlemen be brought up "to draw, paint, and carve," and put to frequent practice "with poises made of lead," lifting or throwing the heavy stone or bar, in wrestling, running, swimming, riding, dancing, and shooting with the long bow. In addition to these recreations, he praises the industry of the king of Prussia, "who in a timę vacant from the affairs of his realm, planted innumerable trees, which long before he died brought forth abundance of fruit."

FRANCIS LORD BACON.

Francis Bacon (born in 1561 and died in 1626) was the earliest and ablest champion of a broad educational policy, both in opening up the whole field of science for better culture, and in founding new places of learning, and holding out stronger inducements for ingenious minds to devote themselves to natural science. In the preface to the Second Book on the Dignity and Advancement of Learning, addressed to the king, and written in 1605, he thus speaks of the deficiencies in the provisions for higher culture in his day, and the necessity of new schools dedicated to the study of the Arts and Sciences at large, as well as professorships, laboratories, and other facilities of experiment and practice.

First, therefore, among so many noble foundations of colleges in Europe, I find it strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and none left free to the study of arts and sciences at large. For if men judge that learning should be referred to use and action, they judge well; but it is easy in this to fall into the error pointed at in the ancient fable; in which the other parts of the body found fault with the stomach, because it neither performed the office of motion as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head does; but yet, notwithstanding, it is the stomach which digests and distributes the aliment to all the rest. So if any man think that Philosophy and Universality are idle and unprofitable studies, he does not consider that all arts and professions are from thence supplied with sap and strength. And this I take to be a great cause, which has so long hindered the more flourishing progress of learning; because these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage, and not drunk deeper

For copious extracts, see Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. xvi. 483–496.

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