Nearly a thousand years ago Alfred the Great encouraged education of the higher classes to the exclusion of the masses--a principle that has governed education in England until within recent times. Statistics taken in 1845 showed that only one in six of the inhabitants could read, one in four write, and one in fifty cipher as far as the Rule of Three. Since 1870 important changes have been made, and the number of children in the elementary schools of England has increased from 1,500,000 in 1870 to nearly 6,000,000 in 1902.[179] "The principal features of the law of 1870 were (1) the obligation assumed by the government to secure school provision for all children of ages 5 to 14; (2) the recognition or creation of local agencies (private or church managers or elected boards) for the execution of this purpose; (3) provision for securing efficient instruction by means of an annual grant from the treasury to be distributed to the local managers upon the results of examination and inspection by government inspectors; (4) the creation of a central agency to carry out the provisions on the part of the government and of new local agencies or school boards which every school district must elect except upon satisfactory evidence that schools efficient and adequate to the needs of the district were otherwise provided; (5) the admission of private and public elementary schools to a share in the government grant upon the same conditions; (6) the requirements that board schools should be strictly non-sectarian and the children of private schools protected from enforced sectarian instruction by a conscience clause."[180] The most important modifications of this law are the laws of 1899 and 1903. The law of 1899 has reference to the general administration of education in England and Wales, while that of 1903 entirely changes the local management of schools and extends the sphere of public education to secondary as well as elementary schools. =Administration.= 1. _General._--Under the provisions of the law of 1899 the general administration of educational affairs is committed to a board of education consisting of a president, appointed by the crown, lord president of the council, the principal secretaries of state, the first commissioner of the treasury, and the chancellor of the exchequer--not less than five nor more than fifteen members. By means of a sufficient number of royal inspectors who are trained educators, whose duty it is to visit the schools and report thereon, the board of education is able to reach every school in the kingdom. There is also a consultation committee, two-thirds of whom are "persons representing universities and bodies interested in education," whose office is to advise the board of education.