The establishment of “week-day schools” in connexion with this great Church owed its origin to the declaration of the Conference in 1833. that “such institutions, placed under an efficient spiritual control, cannot fail to promote those high and holy ends for which we exist as a religious community.”  The object was to give the scholars “an education which might begin in the infant school and end in heaven,” thus subserving the lofty aim of Methodism, “to fill the world with saints, and Paradise with glorified spirits”; a more ambitious idea than that expressed by Huxley when he said, “We want a great highway, along which the child of the peasant as well as of the peer can climb to the highest seats of learning.”

[Illustration:  Queen’s College, Taunton.]

In 1836 the attention of the Conference was directed to education in general, and especially to Wesleyan day schools; the Pastoral Address of 1837, regretting that children had to be trained outside the Church or be left untaught, expressed the hope that soon, in the larger circuits, schools might be established which would give a scriptural and Wesleyan education.  Already some schools had been commenced; and the plan was devised which has been the basis of all subsequent Methodist day-school work.

In 1840 it was decided to spend the interest of the L5,000 given from the Centenary Fund for the training of teachers, work which was at first carried on at Glasgow.  The determination of Conference to perfect its plan of Wesleyan education was quickened when an unfair Education Bill, not the last of its kind, was introduced into Parliament in 1843, proposing to hand over the children in factory districts to the Church of England.  An Education Fund was established.  Government, in 1847, offered grants for the training of elementary school teachers; and in 1851 the Westminster Training College was opened, with room for 130 men students.  In 1872, in response to an increased demand for Wesleyan teachers, a separate college for mistresses was opened at Southlands, Battersea.  Already four thousand have been trained in these institutions.  Many hold positions in Board schools.  In 1896 the number in Wesleyan and Board schools was 2,400.

The system thus inaugurated met a great and real need, and under it excellent work has been done on the lines laid down by the Department at Whitehall; for, receiving State aid, the training colleges and all the schools, like other similar denominational institutions on the same footing, are inspected and in a measure controlled by the national educational authority.  In 1837 there were only 31 Wesleyan day schools; to-day there are 753 school departments, and on their books 162,609 scholars.  But the introduction of free education has made it difficult for the Methodist Church to maintain her schools, efficient though they be.  Since 1870, when school boards were introduced, the number of Wesleyan day schools has only increased by 10, while 9,752 Board schools have arisen, and the Church of England schools have increased from 9,331 to 16,517; the Roman Catholic schools actually trebling in number and attendance.