e distance of
every family, especially in rural districts, with "adequate
representative public management"; it has most earnestly deprecated
the exclusion of the Bible, and suitable religious instruction
therefrom by the teachers, from the day schools; but, so long as
denominational schools form part of the national system, it is
resolved to maintain our schools and Training Colleges, in full
vigour. Difficulties, undreamed of sixty years ago, surround this
great question; but assuredly Methodism will be true to its trust and
its traditions.

The cost of Wesleyan schools last year was L215,634, and was met by
school fees, subscriptions, and a government grant of L185,780. The
Education Fund of 1896, amounting to L7,115, was spent on the
Training Colleges, grants to necessitous schools, etc.

Wesley approved of Sunday schools as means of giving religious
instruction to the children of the poor, and Hannah Ball at High
Wycombe, a good Methodist, and Silas Told, teaching at the Foundery,
both anticipated the work of Raikes by several years. In 1837 there
were already 3,339 Sunday schools, with 341,442 scholars. Today the
schools number 7,147, the officers and teachers 131,145, and there
are in the schools 965,201 children and young people. The formation
in 1869 of the Circuit Sunday-school Union, and in 1874 of the
Connexional Sunday-school Union, has done much for the schools, in
providing suitable literature for teachers and scholars, and in
organising their work. An additional motive to Scripture study is
furnished by the "Religious Knowledge Examinations" instituted by
Conference; certificates, signed by the President, being granted to
teachers and scholars who succeed in passing the examinations. In
recognition of the value of so important a department of the Church,
adequate representation at the quarterly meetings is now accorded to
the Sunday schools.

It is not in our day only that the pastoral oversight of the young
has been deemed worthy of attention; the duty has always been
enforced on ministers; but in 1878 there were first formed junior
Society classes, to prepare children for full membership. There are
now seventy-two thousand in such classes.

In 1896 we note a new effort to bring young people into the kingdom,
in the foundation of the "Wesley Guild," of which the President of
Conference is the head, with four vice-presidents, two being laymen.
The guild is "a union of the young people of a congrega