In regard to the age of those engaged in mines, thirty, forty, or fifty years ago it was the rule rather than the exception to send boys to work at eight or nine years of age. The Mines Act of 1872 wholly prohibits the employment below ground of women or girls of any age, and fixes for boys the minimum age at twelve for a full day’s employment, and that only when a certain educational standard has been reached. Curiously enough, however, a boy _above_ ground cannot be engaged full time until he is thirteen years old. Surely it is one of the unintentional anomalies of the Mines Act that in the open air boys are precluded from working till they are a year older than they may be at work underground. A warning note may be sounded in regard to the age at which boys are engaged. We know that many are employed in mines at the minimum age of twelve, irrespective of their educational standard. If the Education Act and the Mines Act are here at variance, or if there is the want of a public prosecutor to see them enforced, the wants should be without waste of time supplied, and not cause beneficial clauses to be inoperative. Respecting the education of miners’ children, the Education Acts have been highly advantageous in giving compulsory powers to School Boards and managers; but even before their introduction, this class of children had many comparative benefits in a much less degree enjoyed by others. The works-schools have always been a feature in Scotch mining centres. We have not seen any pointed allusion to the fact that these schools, long before the introduction of Education Acts, solved the problem of free education in a way satisfactory to all concerned. Happily, in many places these schools are still left under the old management, though nominally connected with School Boards. Under the works-school system, all the workers, whether married or single, agreed to pay a weekly sum, say, of twopence. This insured the education of the workman’s family, however large it might be. The unmarried suffered by this voluntary sacrifice on their part, but they did so at a time of life when they were least burdened; but the struggling married man reaped the full benefit when he most needed assistance. In the case of a workman with four children of school-age at one time, the almost nominal cost of a halfpenny per week paid for each child’s education. Small though this sum is, we have known schools self-supporting under the system for years, with no other aid than the government grant earned at the annual inspection, besides being able to supply night-school education in the winter months to the elderly youths of the place.