The New Codes, English and Scotch

THE country is once more within a month of a new Education Code. Once more the Lord President and the Vice-President of the Council are being besieged by representatives of all interests and opinions, anxious to impress them with the exclusive importance of their particular views. Last year, it will be remembered, the Code—great advance as it was on its predecessors—fell a victim to the fears of one party and the lukewarmness of the other. The extreme School Board partisans gave but scant support to any scheme which did not practically embody the recommendations of the minority of the late Royal Commission, while the champions of voluntary schools shrank from any changes which, by raising the standard of efficiency, seemed likely to accentuate the difference between the Board school, which has the ratepayers' pocket to draw on, and the voluntary school, which depends on a fast-shrinking fund of private subscriptions. And so the Code was sacrificed, and the friends of education were condemned to wait another year.