all questions of comparative economy, and of advantages arising from an honourable competition, are as nothing compared with the reflected influence in the direction of bringing up the average religious character of Board Schools to the highest point which the shackles of legislation allow. In addition to the work of voluntary elementary schools, there are two other departments in which voluntary efforts are doing much in support of the religious and Christian character of English Education. There are no less than thirty Training Colleges in connection with the Church. The pupils trained in these Colleges are not in general bound by any rule to accept posts only in Church schools; as a matter of fact, many are drafted into Board Schools; but it is impossible to exaggerate the importance to the subsequent influence for good, in a school of whatever kind, of a thorough religious training in youth upon definite religious principles. So far as an opinion can be formed, it would seem that these Training Colleges must always rest upon a voluntary foundation; it is difficult to conceive of their being carried on upon State principles; you may make religious teaching optional in an elementary day school, and the evil results may be not easily perceptable; but when eighty or a hundred young men or young women are brought together into one home, to lead a common family life with common purposes and prospects, the religious equality principle breaks down; you must have common religious teaching and common worship, and these must be utterly vapid and miserable, unless there be a hearty agreement upon the grounds and articles of faith, such as is only possible for those who are of one Church, or at all events of one denomination. Doubtless on this very account efforts have been made, and efforts will be made, to break down the Church Training College system, or to erect something on broader principles which shall gradually extinguish it; but on all grounds we trust that these efforts may fail, and that at all events no change may be introduced which shall be successful in rendering impossible the carrying on of institutions, to which we are convinced that the education of the poor children of England is indebted more than to almost any other. We have but been working out under new conditions the great problem which De la Salle perceived to lie at the root of elementary education: the forming of the instrument wherewith to do the work was, as he clearly perceived, the great thing to be accomplished; and for that purpose personal influence was needed; it was necessary to stir up in each young aspirant to the office of a teacher something of the enthusiasm of teaching, to breed a high conception of the value and responsibilities of the office, to make it felt that self-denial and self-devotion were essential conditions of any lasting success. English Training Colleges differ very widely from that