Aston School Board.—­The first election took place July 29, 1875, and, as in Birmingham, it was fought on the usual political basis, the Liberals gaining the day.  The Board has nine Schools, with an average attendance of 11,500 children, out of nearly 15,000 on the registers; 187 teachers, and a debt of L110,000

King’s Norton Board.—­The first election took place March 19, 1876.  Eight Schools have been built since that date.

Schools and Colleges.—­What with thirty board schools, about sixty church and chapel schools, and nearly 300 private enterprise schools, Birmingham cannot be said to be short of educational establishments, even for the 100,000 children we have amongst us.  At the end of 1881 there were 93,776 children in the borough between the ages of three and thirteen.  Next to the Free Grammar School, the oldest public school in the town must be the Lancasterian School, which was opened September 11, 1809, and was rebuilt in 1851.  The National School in Pinford Street was opened in 1813, the Governors of the Free Grammar School having the privilege of sending sixty children in lieu of rent for the site.  The Madras school was formerly at the bottom of King Street.  The first Infant Schools we read of were opened in 1825.  The first stone of the Industrial School in Gem Street was laid April 13, 1849.  Ragged Schools were opened in Vale Street, September 11, and in connection with Bishop Ryder’s, September 17, 1862, and in Staniforth Street, January 11, 1868.  The schools in the Upper Priory were erected in 1860; those in Camden Drive in 1869.  The Unitarian Schools, Newhall Hill, were opened in 1833; the New Meeting Street Schools in 1844.  Winfield’s in one sense must be called a public school, though connected with a factory and built (at a cost of over L2,000) for the education of the young people there employed.  The respected owner of the Cambridge Street Works, like many other Conservatives, was one of the most liberal-minded men, and hundreds owe not only their education, but their present position in life to the care bestowed upon them at this school.—­A Roman Catholic School was opened in Bartholomew Street, October 1, 1872; in Brougham Street, December 27, 1872; and new Schools in Shadwell Street, (costing about L4,500), June 25, 1883—­The Palmer Street Congregational Schools, which cost L2,500, were opened February 12, 1877.  The old Wesleyan chapel, in Martin Street, was fitted up for schools in 1865.  The same body opened schools at Summer Hill, in 1874; in Icknield Street West, January 1, 1875; and laid the first stone of another school in Sterling Road, September 22, 1884.—­the Hebrew National Schools, Hurst Street, were opened May 21, 1844.