Mr. Forster made a very able speech on education at
St. James's Hall on Tuesday night. He declared himself for State
interference to enact "ignorance laws" against the st:uvation of the mind, analogous to our "poor laws" against starvation of the body. He put the standard of primary education tolerably high,-- speaking of its three stages,—the educational "necessaries" of reading, writing, and cyphering,—the educational " comforts " of a little sound knowledge of physical geography of the earth, and the history of the people upon it, at least of our own English history,—and the e3ucational "luxuries" of an elementary know- ledge of political economy, of the general principles of science, and of one foreign language—French. All this, up to the highest standard, is given in the Swiss primary schools, and why not in ours ? Mr. Forster did not propose to interfere with voluntary foundations, or with denominational schools. On the contrary, he would give them every encouragement to become the best schools of their district, on condition of accepting a conscience clause,— for he thought that in such schools there would be most hope of reaching the highest level of primary education,—the level in- cluding the educational "luxuries." Mr. Forster thought that whenever a new school is absolutely essential in any district there should be a compulsory rate imposed to found and keep it up, and that this rate should be assisted by Government grants, given on condition of satisfying the Inspectors. He would not allow any theology to be taught in a State school, though approving it in schools founded by a denomination, and assisted by the State on condition of their adopting the conscience clause. His views on " compulsion " we have discussed at length elsewhere.
