>*,-'K Ip f^i^S jii'^'^' :--'.;^ V .^ . r^ *". o v^ .., V ^'^ ^f^ ,,. V '-°' \<&' -^ ^°'*. ':^o^ ,♦ .^'% °m' /\ --pi-" .^^' .,0^ V» A •^►^ Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2010 witii funding from Tine Library of Congress littp://www.arcliive.org/details/evolutionofelemeOOgree Intattatioiral €immiian Btxm EDITED BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A. M., LL. D. Volume LVI INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. 12m.o, cloth, uniform binding. THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES was projected for the pur- pose of bringing together in orderly arrangement the best writings, new and old, upon educational subjects, and presenting a complete course of reading and training for teachers generally. It is edited by William T. Harris, LL. D., United States Commissioner of Education, who has contributed for the different volumes in the way of introduction, analysis, and commentary. 1. The Philosophy of Education. B7 Johann K. F. Rosenkranz, Doc- tor of Theology and Professor of Philosophy, University of KQnigsberg. Translated by Anna C. Brackett. Second edition, revised, with Com- mentary and complete Analysis. $1.50. 2. A History of Education. By F. V. N. Painter, A.M., Professor of Modem Languages and Literature, Roanoke College, Va. |1.50. 3. The Kise and Early Constitution of Universities. With a Sur- vey OP Medieval Education. By S. S. Laurie, LL. D., Professor of the Institutes and History of Education, University of Edinburgh. $1.50. 4. The Ventilation and Warming of School Buildings. By Gilbert B. Morrison, Teacher of Physics and Chemistry, Kansas City High School. $1.00. 5. The Education of Man. By Friedrich Frobbel. Translated and an- notated by W. N. Hailmann, A.M., Superintendent of Public Schools, La Porte, Ind. $1.50. 6. Elementary Psychology and Education. By Joseph Baldwin, A. M., LL. D., author of " The Art of School Management." $1.50. 7. The Senses and the Will. (Part I of "The Mind of the Child.") By W. Preter, Professor of Physiology in Jena. Translated by H. W. Brown, Teacher in the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. $1.50. 8. Memory: What it is and How to Improve it. By David Kay, F. R. G. S., author of " Education and Educators," etc. $1.50. 9. The Development of the Intellect. (Part n of " The Mind op thb Child.") By W. Prbyer, Professor of Physiology in Jena. Translated by H. W. Brown. $1.50. 10. How to Study Geography. A Practical Exposition of Methods and Devices in Teaching Geography which apply the Principles and Plans of Ritter and Guyot. By Francis W. Parker, Principal of the Cook County (Illinois) Normal School. $1.50. 11. Education in the United States : Its History from the Earliest Settlements. By Richard G. Boone, A.M., Professor of Pedagogy, Indiana University. $1.50. 12. European Schools ; or, What I Saw in the Schools op Germany.. France, Austria, and Switzerland. Bv L. R. Klemm, Ph. D., Principal of the Cincinnati Technical School. Fully'illustrated. $2.00. 13. Practical Hints for the Teachers of Puhlic Schools. By Georgs Howl AND, Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools. $1.00. 14. Pestalozzi : His Life and Work. By Roger db Guimps. Authorized Translation from the second French edition, by J. Russell, B. A. With an Introduction by Rev. R. H. Quick, M. A. $1.50. 15. School Supervision. By J. L. Pickard, LL. D. $1.00. 16. Higher Education of Women in Europe. By Helene Lange, Berlin. Translated and accompanied by comparative statistics by L.R. Klbmm. $1.00. 17. Essays on Educational Keformers. By Robert Herbert Q.uice, M. A., Trinity College, Cambridge. Only authorized edition of the work as rewritten in 1890. $1.50. 18. A Text-Book in Psychology. By Johann Friedrich Hebbart. Trans- lated by Maegaret K. Smith. $1.00. 19. Psychology Applied to the Art of Teaching. By Joseph Baldwin, A. M., LL.D. $1.50. TEE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 8ERIES.~(Ckmtinued.-) 20. Koussean's Ii:inile ; or, Treatise on Education. . Translated and an- notated by W. H. i^AYNK, Ph. D., LL. D. gl,50. 21. Tke Moral Instruction of Children. By Felix Adler. $1.50. 22. £nglisli ^Education in the Klementary and Secondary Schools. By Isaac bHARPLEss, LL. D., President of Haverford College. $1.00. £3. !Edacation from a National Standpoint. By Alfred FotJiLLfeE. $1.50. 24. Mental Development of the Child. By W. Preter, Professor of Physiology in Jeua. Translated by H. W. Brown. $1.00. 25. How to Study and Teach History. By B. A. Hinsdale, Ph. D., LL. D., University Oi Micuigan, ^1.50. 26. Symbolic Education. A Commentart on Froebel's " Mother-Plat." Uy yusAN L. Llusv. $1.50. 27. Systematic Science Teaching. By Edward Gardnier Howe. $1.50. 28. The Education of the Greek People. By Thomas Davidson. $1.50. 29. The Evolution of the Massachusetts Puhlic-School System. By G. H. Martin, A. M. $1.50. 30. Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. By Fbiedrich Feoebel. $1.50. 31. The Mottoes and Commentaries of Friedrich Froehel's Mother- Play. By Susan E. Blow and Henrietta R. Eliot. $1.50. 32. The Songs and Music of Froehel's Mother-Play. By Susan E. Blow. ^1-50. 33 The Psychology of Number. By James A. McLellan, A. M., and John Dewey, Ph. D. $1.50. 34. Teaching the Language-Arts. By B. A. Hinsdale, LL. D. $1.00. 35 The Intellectual and Moral Development of the Child. Part I. By Gabriel Compayr^. Translated by Mary E. Wilson. $1.50. 36 Herbart's A B C of Sense-Perception, and Introductory Works. By William J. Eckofp, Pd. D., Ph. D. $1.50. 87 Psychologic Foundations of Education. By William T Harris, A.M., LL.D. $1.50. 38 The School System of Ontario. By the Hon. George W. Ross, LL. D., Minister of Education for the Province of Ontario. $1.00. 39. Principles and Practice of Teaching. By James Johonnot. $1.50. 40. School Management and Methods. By Joseph Baldwin. $1.50. 41 Froehel's Educational laws for all Teachers. By James L. Hughes, Inspector of Schools, Toronto. $1.50. 42. Bibliography of Education. By Will S. Monroe, A. B. $2.00. 4^. The Study of the Child. By A. R. Taylor, Ph.D. $1.50. 44. Education by Development. By Friedrich Fjjoebel. Translated by Josephine Jarvis. $1.50. 45. Tetters to a Mother. By Susan E. Blow. $1.50. 46 Montaigne's The Education of Children. Translated by L. E. Rec- tor, Ph. D. $1.00. 47. The Secondary School System of Germany. By Frederick E. Bolton. $1.50. 48. Advanced Elementary Science. By Edward G. Howe. $1.50. 49. Dickens as an Educator. By James L. Hughes. $1.50. 50. Principles of Education Practically Applied. By James M. OiKEENWOOD. Revised. $1.00. THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SEBIES.-iContinued.) 51. Student liife and Customs. By Henrt D. Sheldon, Ph.D. $1.20 net. 52. An Ideal School. By Pheston W. Sbakch. $1.20 net. 53. Later Infancy of tlie Cliild* By Gabriel Compatkb. Translated by Mary E. Wilson, i'art II of Vol. 35. $l.iiO net. 54. The JSducational Foundations of Trade and Industry. By Fabian Wake. $1.20 net. 55. Genetic Psychology for Teachers. By Chables H. Judd, Ph. D. $1.20 net. OTHEK VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES THE EYOLUTIOI^ OF THE ELEMEl^TARY SCHOOLS OE GREAT BRITAII^ BY JAMES C. GEEENOUGH, A.M., LL.D. FORMERLY PRINCIPAL OF RHODE ISLAND NORMAL SCHOOL, PROVIDENCE, R. I. LATER PRINCIPAL OF MASSACHUSETTS NORMAL SCHOOL, WESTFIELD, MASS. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1903 V Two Cowiee Ri3e»i^«b ft i.i. V / Copyright, 1903, By d. appleton and company. PiiMished November, 1903 Electrotyped and Printed AT THE Appleton Press, U. S. A. EDITOR'S PEEFACE It gives me pleasure to commend this book of the International Education Series as a competent study of one of the most important national educa- tional systems in the world written from the stand- point of an American director of schools for the training of teachers. On account of the similarity of language and an identity of national traditions the English people seem to be much closer to the people of this country in educational ideals and practises than they really are. Upon a superficial view it seems to an American that there is not much difference be- tween an hereditary king or queen and the President of the IJnited States, and that the Parliament is very similar to our Congress. But the more one becomes acquainted with those governments the deeper seems the difference. But this difference in governments is slight as compared with that between what may be called the sense of social standing or caste which ex- vi ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN ists there and our own, and, inasmuch as this differ- ence is rarely commented upon, I have thought it de- sirable in my preface to this book to present some studies upon this peculiarity of the English people as viewed from the standpoint of the American citi- zen with a view to aid in the understanding of the first and second chapters of Doctor Greenough^s study, which present very clearly the facts in the case that are not in accord with our own course of experience. The English Government the Resultant of A Struggle Between Different Social Tenden- cies. — Properly to conceive the situation in England one must think all the social elements as existing in a state of tension, namely, each popular interest in Great Britain as existing in a constant struggle with all the other elements for its due consideration in the aggregate of all national interests : The manufactur- ing population, its capitalists and its laborers; the agricultural population, its landowners and its gentlemen farmers who lease the lands, and the masses of people who perform the common labor; added to those who manage its commerce, capitalists, supervisors, and laborers in the shops and markets and engaged in transportation, and besides these the titled classes of gentlemen who live upon their in- PREFACE vii comes from the land — and count with these the eccle- siastics, those engaged in governmental service, the civil list, and the army and the navy, and add what- ever other classes there may be : each pushes accord- ing to its strength and according to its particular in- terest, and the resultant is a balance of forces, an aggregate result, not the choice of any single per- son or party nor the victory of any single person or party, because the result is a compromise made which represents all the forces — each force limited through all the other forces. The aristocracy strives to retain its power and to get all that it can from the other classes. The mercantile population, the transporta- tion population, the church, the farm laborers, and the manufacturing population, all strive each to get its own and to get the highest amount of well-being for its expenditure of strength and material means. This struggle reminds one of the principle in evolu- tion known as the survival of the fittest. It seems to be a selfish struggle for the possession of means and power — each class against all the other classes, the strongest getting the lion's share and the weakest get- ting a pitiful morsel only, not sufficient for the food, clothing, and shelter demanded for a rational life. But this cruel and unfeeling struggle for survival is supplemented by the national philanthropy which viii ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN ekes out the stipend of the lower and lowest ranks of society by the poor-rates collected for the support of the paupers and for occasional aid for those ranks above the paupers who fall into circumstances of spe- cial need. It is said in behalf of the existence of the grand struggle that it develops individual strength as noth- ing else can do, and as regards the people who get underneath in the struggle, it is said that the church and the state look after their actual needs of sub- sistence. And on the whole there is a development of individuality such as could not be expected under a different organization of society. '* Every people will have weaklings who must be in a measure super- vised and cared for by the rest of society just as the children in the family must be more or less guided and provided for by their parents and the older mem- bers of the family." To some persons this explanation seems a forced one, designed specially to justify what is called the competitive organization of society. To others, and especially those engaged in the social philanthropies, it seems inadequate. This competitive struggle exasperates the student, who happens to be a partizan (for he takes sides with one party and does not feel a tolerant spirit toward PREFACE IX the others), and it seems to him tyrannical that his favorites should get no show. But English fair-play means just this thing — the free contest of all and an aggregate result in which each is represented at its full force — each force reduced to its true value as measured by its ratio in the strength of the whole. There are castes founded on conquest long ago and on wealth inherited from remote ancestors. But there are new conquests in war and new heroes, and layers of new castes, and especially of new strong people are continually arising through acquired wealth — through inventions, through new industries and new conquests in distant border lands. The cap- tains of industry, the organizers of capital, all those who make combinations in transportation and invest in distant lands capital for public improvements, form a large class in the ranks of the new higher caste. But an estimate that counts only the total process of the struggle of each against the whole gets only a half of the elements of the problem. There is besides this struggle the philanthropy that comes to the help of the weaklings of society, with hygiene at public expense, with alms distributed for the paupers, asylums for orphans, feeble-minded X ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN and defectives, and with juvenile reformatorie3 for reprobate children. It is this curious make-up from two contradictory elements— the cruel collision of brute force and the tender-hearted philanthropy — that puzzles students from other nationalities. It is difficult to see both sides at once. At one view it is a heartless struggle for control, each one for itself and no consideration for the others. Then at another view Great Britain is the nation of all in the world for the benevolent consideration of the " under dog." The Feeling of Caste as an Educative FoECE IN Geeat Beitain. — -In no particular per- haps is the English ideal more different from the American than in the fact that the caste system de- mands an habitual feeling of the necessity of re- straint within one's sphere of life. It demands con- tent and a cheerful acceptance of one's lot in life — the determination to do faithfully the duties involved in one's sphere. American life and education go to- ward the creation of enterprise and a heart hunger for adventure. This, too, is the spirit of English literature, from Defoe's Robinson Crusoe or even Spenser's Fairy Queen down to Kipling's latest poems and stories. In this we see in some of its phases what it is to PREFACE XI have an established church. Such a church belongs to a caste system in which the orders of the popula- tion are fixed by the constitution, whether written or traditional. All Europe in fact separates its orders by hard and fast lines as compared with the United States and Anglo-Saxon colonies. The estab- lished church teaches this acceptance of one's lot in life as predetermined by heredity and accident. A settled conviction arises in the mind of the English citizen that it is for him to know his duty and per- form it as prescribed by the functions of his caste. He has duties to those above him in the social rank and to those below him. He performs these duties and exacts as far as he is able a similar performance from others. His superiors should behave toward him with paternal condescension and humanity, and his inferiors should perform their duties toward him with some trace of filial consideration. It is difiicult for people in the United States to conceive the true inward attitude of mind on the part of the inhabitant of Great Britain. It is some- what difficult even for a Canadian or an Australian to conceive the state of mind of English peasantry in the rural districts. Large opportunities wait on all individuals in the colonies and limitation comes only from within^ not from without in the form of social xii ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN caste. But the grandfathers now living in the United States can remember hearing their grandfathers tell of the deference paid in the town to the squire and his family, and to petty dignitaries of the kind. In colonial times it was in many places customary for the congregation to rise and remain standing while the squire and his family moved down the aisle and took his front seat in the church. The view of the world of the person who recognizes caste and feels it as an ordinance founded in the nature of things, compared with the view of the world of the person who is brought up to believe all social distinctions accidents not affecting the fundamental rights of freedom and equality before the law of each indi- vidual, explains for us the radical difference which the Declaration of Independence has in the course of three generations produced in public and private opinion in this country. The continued readjust- ment of public opinion, rendered necessary by the Declaration of Independence and its doctrine of free- dom and equality of all men in the substance of their humanity, has progressed so far in this time that the old view of fixed orders of rank in society, as defined by the written or unwritten constitution of the nation and as justified by the religion of the established church, seems to us impossible to a rational being. It PREFACE xiii looks to us as though it were possible only to a people with some moral obliquity in their view of the world. The equality of all has become a political axiom with us. And yet the thoughtful person will readily admit that the world at large outside of the United States has not arrived at this conviction. The citizen of the United States, however, is in the habit of supposing that his view of freedom must be the internal or private opinion of every human being on the planet however different may be his practise. It is only, he says to himself, the practise that has not yet come up to the theory. But those who have made a careful study of the philosophy of history and of the comparative psychology of nations have come to see that the difference lies deeply in the political conviction of peoples and not merely in their prac- tise. I have dwelt on this point because the people of Great Britain come so near taking our political point of view that we are unable to explain their difference in practise. We are just coming by means of animal psy- chology to understand in the case of bees and ants the rise of separate social orders and of a funda- mental instinct that determines the vocation of the life of the individual, limiting it to special functions / xiv ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN as in the case of laborers, drones, queens, etc. We are on the way to understand tribal life and the sub- stantiality which caste based on heredity attains. By and by perhaps we shall see and understand all the degrees of emancipation from caste which the nations of farther Asia, the Chinese, and the East Indian civilizations, have made on the way from savagery. These nations of farther Asia seem on a superficial view to have reached the acme of the caste idea. They have achieved a great emancipation as compared with savage life wherein nature rules with absolute sway. It is a great step when human nature gets reflected in literature and also in codes of customs and laws like those of Confucius and Mencius in China, or in the East Indian " code of Manu." Eor mere use and wont without reflection is mechanical as compared with a use and wont which is contrasted step by step with its ideal in literature, because the indi- vidual employs in this operation of comparing his deeds with their ideals a vast ainount of seK- activity. Assuming the point of view of our Declaration of Independence, the establishment of a caste system and of divine rights, founded on hereditary descent or the accident of history, seems like a struggle of selfishness to obtain unwarranted power. PREFACE XV On the other hand, setting aside this American view and approaching the study of the institutions of Great Britain from the standpoint of comparative history, we are filled with admiration for the de- vices invented by the unconscious spirit of the people to make the higher ranks, the hereditary nobility, and the possession of wealth founded on monopolies, serve the lower ranks of the people. From this it looks as if the higher ranks had for their chief func- tion the creation of opportunity for the lower ranks. The uneducated peasantry are more or less in the condition of " The man with the hoe," and contented with a lot in life which demands only a minimum of directive power. But the British East India Com- pany creates opportunities for wealth and compe- tence for hundreds of thousands of this stratum of the home population. It elevates them and their fam- ilies into castes many degrees higher than those they filled at home. And so the governing caste of Great Britain take possession of Australia, 'New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada with no end of expendi- ture of wealth and of military power, all for the creation of opportunity for the average common citi- zen. When it is asked what the highest classes of people in England do, history answers with the de- tails of British colonization by which the ranks of xvi ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN the poor and scantily educated castes of its people under the leadership of those highest classes have planted civilization and nurtured it in all quarters of the world — and one may say the record of growth of the United States, and of its prosperity, belongs to this part of British history. But the possession and colonization of territory is not the only exhibit which history makes of the united force of the British Empire ; there is another sphere which belongs to what may be called ^^promo- tion," or the capitalizing of industrial enterprises, such as the building of reservoirs for cities, trans- continental railways, naval vessels, steamboats for river navigation, the improvement of harbors, the building of sewers, and all that class of operations which invests capital in internal improvements in advance of the power of the border-land nation to provide the capital for building them out of its own income. The border-land nation can not spare the capital to provide what is necessary for its own hygiene and good government, namely, pure water, electricity or gas for its illumination, and street rail- ways for the cheap transportation of its population, but it can afford to pay a good rate of interest on capital thus invested. The small sum that is neces- sary to furnish a hundred gallons of pure water a PREFACE xvn day for each inhabitant can be afforded by the poorest of populations when paid in the form of water-rates which in the aggregate pay the interest on the bonds that purchased the water-works. The actual cost of sinking wells, or the actual labor of bringing the water in buckets from a muddy river, is an immensely greater tax measured in terms of money or daily labor. Builders of works for public hygiene make it possible to begin now to stamp out fever and pestilence and those dangers to public health to such a degree as to reduce the death-rate to half its normal standard as compared with the con- ditions prevailing in the eighteenth century, and do this a generation earlier than would be possible were the enterprise left to the border-land people. English capital prompted by a prudent philanthropy has re- duced the death-rate of London to the annual average of twenty deaths in each one thousand of the popu- lation. The estimate of the annual income from capital invested outside of Great Britain exceeds half a billion of dollars, or twelve dollars apiece for each man, woman, and child in Great Britain and Ireland. These investments in financial undertakings in all parts of the world carry with them opportunity not only for the lower ranks of the British population, xviii ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN but also for all ranks of people in the countries bene- fited by these outlays of capital. The Established Chuech as the Chief Edu- CATioi^AL PowEE. — The English act of 1839, ap- propriating £30,000 for education in England, was passed about the time Horace Mann was beginning his gigantic efforts for the improvement of the com- mon schools of Massachusetts. The church had in charge the education of the English people up to this time, and it was the church in all countries that had looked after education through the centuries up to the time that Erederick the Great first moved in the matter of people's schools. In England, as in- deed in all European countries, the idea of caste is firmly established. Education seeks to fit the in- dividual for his station in life. Each caste seeks to establish its class privileges and defend itself against the castes above and the castes below it. But from the beginning the church has trained for its sacred offices men from the lowest ranks equally with the highest, and persons of the humblest birth have been able to mount to the highest ecclesiastical places. This is the democracy of the church. But this is more characteristic of the Catholic Church than of the English Established Church. While the first born of the nobility and of the gentry inherit the PREFACE XIX rank, titles, and wealth of their station, the younger brothers find places in the army or positions in the government at home or abroad, and many of the younger sons enter the church. The endowments of the church have come in past times from those who owned the wealth of Great Britain, and the livings created by these endowments go mostly to younger sons and younger branches of the aristo- cratic families. This is the aristocracy of the church. While the Established Church is sacred and treated with deference, having its adequate repre- sentation in the upper house of Parliament, the dis- senters are tolerated, merely, but not tolerated be- cause of their deserts and the respectability of their cause, but by reason of the strength which they show politically. As they have to be reckoned with they command a certain degree of tolerance and respect. But as to their cause they are regarded by official re- spectability as not only in error but as in some de- gree sinful in manifesting a reprobate perverseness which they have to answer for in the sight of Heaven. There is a progress from age to age in this matter of toleration, but it is slow ; indeed it appears exas- peratingly slow to the dissenters themselves in Eng- XX ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN land and to people of the same views residing in the British colonies and in the United States. The English Church furnished the old education according to caste, teaching each individual the man- ners and aspirations fit for his caste, teaching to every one the Christian view of the world, and appealing powerfully to the religious sense of all by its ritual, its music, and its solemn festivals and significant ceremonial. The church education in religion and manners was so important that the proposed secular school education in arithmetic, geography, history, reading, and writing, and select specimens from the richest literature in the world did not seem to have any at- traction for the majority of the nation. The school education proposed was looked upon as a godless edu- cation not needed by the lower castes, a barren intel- lectual repast not to be compared with the education given by the church in religious duties and the catechism. Meanwhile science has arisen in the opposite camp, the camp of the dissenters, and has attacked the basis of all this teaching, beautiful and edifying as it is, given by the church. Free thought and investigation has invented what it is pleased to call " the higher criticism " and has PREFACE xxi attacked the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. The influence of Bible language and modes of view- ing the world when set apart and consecrated as it were for the use of the church, has been and is one of the most important " evidences of Christianity." But all this is very much weakened when the Bible is reduced to the common order of secular experience, for it deprives the church of its chief instrument in addressing the religious sense. ^tsTatural science and philology come as reenforce- ments to the dissenter in England who attacks the church as the possessor of the sole right to the educa- tion of the people. This explains the great struggles that have gone on for more than half a century in England. It has been the struggle on the one hand of the dissenters, who are especially numerous in cities, to get posses- sion of the control of their own schools, and on the other hand the struggle of the Established Church with all the prestige it has to hold secure possession of its inestimable right of educating the entire peo- ple in its parochial schools. In other countries of Europe there come violent upheavals of public opinion, cataclysms which shatter the defenses of time-honored authority and prestige. These upheavals are more or less modeled on the xxii ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN French revolution. But in England there are no revolutions of this kind, for the conservative forces yield slowly to the pressure when it becomes irresist- ible and manage to bring forward the reform meas- ures contended for by the opposite camp. The new reform measures are thus administered by the con- servative parties who manage in this way to retain control. It follows as a matter of course that the victory gained becomes more or less of a defeat in the subsequent administration of the reform. But there are no Waterloo defeats in Great Britain. The contest is settled step by step with such small advances and such modifications as arise from yielding on both sides what seems to be least important or too extreme to command a political majority of votes — in the parish, in the county, in the city, or in Parliament. The church will hold its own, but it will do it by permitting and acknowledg- ing from time to time a triumph of the opposing party in some particular and then converting the new measure as much as possible by compromise to its purpose. Perhaps the most important instrumentality of the conservative classes in Great Britain is their con- stant effort to proselyte to their way of thinking the fringe of the dissenting party that can be changed by PREFACE xxiii personal attention and by the attraction of recog- nition on the part of the old and established order, as well as by the education of the youth of all well-to-do people at Oxford and Cambridge. W. T. Harris. Washington, DC, July 23, 1903. AUTHOR'S PREFACE The progress of the last thirty years in elemen- tary instruction forms one of the brightest chapters in the history of Great Britain. During my recent residence in London and Oxford for the greater part of a year I gave my time mainly to visiting schools, conferring with teachers and oth- ers interested in education, and in availing myself of the abundant facilities for studying the origin and progress of the elementary schools of England fur- nished by the library of the British Museum. If I should name those who have helped me, and to whom I desire to express my gratitude, the list would be long, but I can not refrain from making special men- tion of Sir Joshua Fitch, to whom I am under lasting obligation; of Mr. Joseph H. Cowham, of the West- minster Training-College; and of Miss Elizabeth P. Hughes, eminent as a teacher in Cambridge and for many other services to the cause of education in Eng- land. I have omitted a list of the several reports and books that I have consulted in preparing this XXVI ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN little volume, as it would savor more of pedantry than of utility to note them. m The secondary schools of England, especially the' great public schools, have received much attention on the part of Americans; the elementary schools have received little. Many elements in the progress of our primary-school system are traceable to Ger-' many, few to England. In colonial days our schools were in form largely English; but at the first they contained the germs of a new life which evolved a system of free public schools covering our land, when the civic duty of educating all the children within the limits of the state was still regarded by the majority of the people of England, as " the stuff that dreams are made of." The meager attempts of former times to provide for the education of children, in the light of a more pervasive philanthropy, a wiser patriotism, and a broader sympathy, are seen by the people of Eng land to have been unworthy of a great people. It has been said that no one knows his native Ian guage who knows it alone. It is equally true that no one knows the system of education in his own land who knows it alone. We may learn much from the elementary schools of England. The Irish system of elementary schools, owing to peculiar social conditions, differs in very many details from that of England and Scotland. A study of it AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxvu does not promise m"ucli help to teachers and others interested in education ; hence I have closed the pres- ent volume with an outline of the elementary schools of Scotland. In the following pages I have denoted the central education authority of England and Wales by the term Education Department. The central authority, in accordance with the Act of 1899, has been reor- ganized under the title Board of Education. This Act of reorganization went into operation April 1, 1900. At the close of the first chapter some of the new and important provisions of the Act are outlined. The account of the schools of England and Wales closes with the Act of 1902. The Act, as printed by order of Parliament, is here given with brief com- ments. This Act is second in importance only to that of 1870, by which the system of public elementary schools was established. J. C. Geeenough. CO]S'TE]SrTS CHAPTER I PAGE Origin and Development of the Schools of England and Wales 1 Attitude of the state toward popular education pre- vious to 1870 — Views of Cobbett and Disraeli — The first parliamentary grant " for the purposes of education " — The interest of the youthful Queen in the educational movement — Organization of the Department of Educa- tion — Condition of the elementary schools — Measures taken to secure better teachers — The educational policy of England and Prussia compared — The Royal Com- mission of 1858 — Payment according to results — Justin McCarthy's view of the situation — Debates in Parlia- ment previous to the passage of the Act of 1870, occa- sioned by the " religious diiBculty " — New provisions of the Act — Increase of school-buildings — School attend- ance — County councils — Increased expenditure for schools — Better modes of inspection — Criticism of In- spector Holmes — Increasing interest in popular instruc- tion — Elementary schools in charge of Home Office — Charity Commission, local government board, and Lords of Admiralty. CHAPTER II The Religious Question in England and Wales . 49 Attitude of the Anglican Church in 1870 — The Con- science Clause — Objects of religious instruction in 3 xxix XXX ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN PAGE Church schools — Syllabus of Scripture lessons in the board schools of London — Thoroughness and interest in Scripture lessons in board schools ; statements of Sir John Gorst — Testimony of H. M. Asquith, M. P., and of Sir Joshua Fitch — Origin of British and Foreign School Society — Origin of the National Society — Found- ing of training-colleges — Some conditions of admission to Anglican training-colleges — Economical and relig- ious reasons for maintaining Anglican schools — State- ments of member of Parliament from Carnarvon — In- crease of influence of the clergy, especially in rural districts — General attitude of the Church party — In- crease of board schools in towns — Attempt to "capture the board schools " — Effects of increasing ritualism — Influence of the Anglican Church upon Bible study — Bible study as stated by Matthew Arnold. CHAPTER III Training-Colleges in England and Wales . . 83 Monitorial schools of Lancaster and Bell— The Moni- torial School in Portland, Me. — Effect of monitorial system upon the monitors — Other results of monitorial schools — Appropriation for State Normal School and founding of the first training-colleges — Contemporane- ous movements in Massachusetts — Increase of training- colleges — The pupil-teacher system — Objections of non- conformists to Anglican training-colleges — Examina- tion of candidates for admission to training-colleges — Defects of preparation for training-colleges — Govern- ment aid to students in training-colleges — Reading for university examinations — Multiplicity of examinations — Students in practising schools — Supervision of stu- dents in practising schools — Modes of training in the art of teaching — Definition of education and of teach- ing — Principles of teaching — Heuristic teaching and lecturing — Model lessons in training-colleges — Criti- cism lessons in Borough Road College — Criticism lessons in Wcsleyaii College — Some account of Slockwell Col- CONTENTS xxxi lege — Practising schools — Optional third year— Stu- dents of pedagogy on the Continent and in America — Eecreation rooms — Out-of-door sports — Aspirations of students in training-colleges — Professional enthusiasm of elementary teachers in England and in the United States — Teachers' associations — The National Union. CHAPTER IV Conclusions . 148 School-buildings — Building rules — Curriculum of ele- mentary schools, outline of — Methods of teaching — Use of blackboards — The medieval method — Examinations — Applied psychology — The proper work of a primary or elementary school — The distinctive work of the sec- ondary school — The teacher as a student of psychology — Supply of teachers, why inadequate — Permanence of teachers — Text-books — English literature — History and geography — Coeducation — Relations of teachers and pupils — Out-of-door sports — The English system, na- tional — Evidences of progress — Act of 1903. CHAPTER V The Elementary Schools of Scotland. . . 240 The Reformation and the schools — John Knox — Revo- lutionary settlement, 1696— Act of 1861 — Tolerance of the Presbyterian Church — Report of commissioners for Scotland, 1867 — Objections to the working of Vice- President Lowe's revised code — Sir Henry Craik — Good results of parish and other schools previous to 1872— The broader provisions of the Act of 1872 for Scotland — Sectarian schools in Scotland, as compared with those of England — Extension of school boards — Organization of Education Department — Substitution of board for voluntary schools — Unity of religious sen- timents — Scotland's appreciation of education — Sir William Harcourt — School attendance vigorously en- forced — Commission of 1882 — Additional provision for xxxii ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN instruction in advanced studies in 1892 — Provision for the education of the blind and deaf — Industrial schools — The Scotch in valuing education are rivals of the Swiss — The elementary school system more efi&cient be- cause of the absence of a dominant aristocracy. Index 263 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND AND WALES CHAPTER I OEIGm AND DEVELOPMENT The public elementary-school system now pro- viding for the instruction of all children of school age in the British Isles dates from 1870. The Education Act of that year for England and Wales, to be fol- lowed two years later by an act for Scotland, was the outcome of the democratic revolution which led to the Reform Bill of 1867-'68. The Liberals in 1868 were in power. Parliament, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, extended the right of suffrage to a large class hitherto excluded from taking any part in the national Government. " Let us edu- cate our new masters," said Mr. Lowe, then member of the House of Commons, as he saw millions of the common people of the realm about to exercise an authority in public affairs for which they were hardly prepared. Previous to 1870 the state had generally ignored its duty to provide for the education of children. 2 ENGLAND AND WALES This duty belonged to parents, and they were not to be interfered with in its discharge. In 1833 the House of Commons made its first grant " for the purposes of education/' voting £20,000. In this grant there was no proper recognition of the duty of the state to pro- vide for the education of the children within its limits. The meager appropriation was made in a niggardly spirit. Cobbett even, one of the most progressive men of his times, was a vigorous objector to the grant. " Take two men, one that can plow and make hurdles and be a good shepherd, and one that can plow and read, and the first," he said, " is the best man." To this statement some one replied in the Guardian : " If reading is such an injury to the working man, why does Mr. Cobbett continue to inflict further injury by writing articles week after week in the Poor Man's Guardian, which is chiefly circulated among working men? " Cobbett described the grant as a movement "to increase the number of school masters and mis- tresses, that new class of idlers." In 1839, when a plan of national education was debated in the House of Commons, Disraeli said that the theory was specious, but he doubted whether it were authorized and supported by facts, and whether it were consonant with the experience of the people of Great Britain. He added that nearly all that had been done had been effected by individual enterprise; that it always had been held that the individual should ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 3 be strong and the government weak, and tliat to di- minish the duties of the citizens was to peril the rights of the subjects; that wherever was found what was called paternal government was found a state educa- tion; that it had been discovered that the best way to secure implicit obedience was to commence tyranny in the nursery; that the truth was, where elementary instruction was left to the government the subject be- came a machine; that if the movers of this measure persisted and succeeded, they would eventually find that they had revolutionized English character, and when that was effected they could no longer expect English achievements; and that he should oppose to the utmost of his power this rash attempt to centralize instruction. Such was the specious argument and such the wisdom of one of the most eminent statesmen of England when Germany was laying the broad founda- tions of her prosperity in her improved method of public instruction, and Massachusetts, by the estab- lishment of a board of education and by the founding of normal schools, was opening a new era in the his- tory of her public schools and in the schools of the United States. The £20,000 appropriated by the House of Com- mons in 1833, the first appropriation made by Parlia- ment " for the purposes of education," avoided the fatal attack that awaited it in the House of Lords by 4 ENGLAND AND WALES being put in tlie form of a vote of supply. Such votes became law without the concurrent action of the upper house. This grant and those in subsequent years were regarded in the nature of charities. Day-schools quite inadequate in number and in equipment left a large portion of the children with- out any suitable instruction. Teachers were often gray-haired dames whose chief recommendation was their poverty, or men physically or mentally in- capable of efficient service. These teachers eked out a scanty supply of food and raiment with the penny fees received from parents. The great public schools of England, such as Eton, Westminster, and others, had been founded long before, but these were now in- accessible to children of the working classes. As, previous to 1839, there was no central depart- ment of state to disburse parliamentary grants for education, these were disbursed mainly by two socie- ties. One of these, the National Society for Pro- moting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, had large resources and was the more influential. A prime object of this society evidently was to " lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes " of the Established Church, and thus to promote the religious welfare of the peo- ple. The other, the British and Foreign School Society, claiming to be equally loyal to religious in- terests, secured the sympathy and support of the non- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 5 conformists. It was formed in 1808 to aid in carry- ing forward the work of Joseph Lancaster, famous as one of the founders of monitorial schools. In schools aided by this society the Bible was read and stud- ied, but all sectarian teaching was disallowed. For several years the parliamentary grants were used by these societies in building schoolhouses in the com- munities where at least one-half of the expense of building was paid by subscription. Thus, as has often been remarked in the distribution of Parliament grants, those least needing aid received the most. The convictions and the courage of the youthful Queen were with the House of Commons in their slender endeavors to aid elementary instruction in the realm, year by year, by voting an appropriation in the form of a bill of supply. In 1839 she published an order in Council in accordance with which a com- mittee of the Privy Council consisting of four men was appointed to administer the annual grant of the House of Commons. The House of Lords saw that this measure not only evaded their opposition, but tended also to perpetuate the policy of aiding ele- mentary instruction by parliamentary grants. They tried to defeat the measure by a petition addressed to the Queen indicating their disapproval. In her reply, refusing for good reasons to accede to the petition, occurs this sentence of queenly rebuke : " I can not help expressing my regret that you should have 6 ENGLAND AND WALES thought it necessary to take such a step on the present occasion." This committee of the Privy Council, thus estab- lished in 1839, constituted the head of the Depart- ment of Education for the United Kingdom. It con- sisted of the president of the Council, who was also a member of the House of Lords and of the Cabinet, and the vice-president, who was a member of the House of Commons, and two others, whose duties were for the most part advisory. Since 1886 the vice- president, the active Minister of Education, has had a seat on the Government benches in the House of Com- mons, and has been appointed by the Prime Minister. This official by some Premiers has been included in the Cabinet. The chief of the administrative force of the Council or Committee of Education is their secretary. He and his subordinates, including a large clerical force, hold office independent of parlia- mentary changes. Many of the measures for the im- provement of the schools urged in the House of Commons are first planned by the secretary. His Majesty's inspectors, nearly 100 in number, se- lected by the Council, but nominally appointed by the sovereign, since 1839, advise concerning the con- duct of the schools, and, assisted by subinspectors and other subordinates, determine by careful inspec- tion the condition of every school applying for its share of the parliamentary grant. The inspectors ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 7 with their subordinates are supervised by 12 of his Majesty's chief inspectors, who are under the super- vision and direction of his Majesty's senior chief in- spector, a sort of primus inter pares. Two chief inspectors are detailed to inspect the training-colleges in England and Wales. Thus the Government inspectors are a sort of hierarchy, whose duties in general are to inspect all elementary schools and to advise the teachers and local managers respect- ing the application of the code of management and in- struction annually prepared by the secretary of the Council of Education and submitted to Parliament for approval. The parliamentary grant is distributed in accordance with the reports of his Majesty's in- spectors. The basis of apportionment is now mainly the number of pupils in average attendance and the efficiency of the school. The people of England have ever cherished local government, and have considered centralization of civil affairs, unless the public welfare clearly de- manded it, a hindrance to individual enterprise and at variance with civil freedom. During the last century civil power has more and more passed from the aris- tocracy to the common people. It has been estimated that only one in fifty of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom could vote in 1837. One in six now has the right of suffrage. As a result local government has been reenforced in many ways. As the parliamen- 8 ENGLAND AND WALES tary grants for the elementary schools have largely increased since 1870 and the Educational Depart- ment has become more completely organized, the tend- ency to substitute the central for the local manage- ment has increased. To meet this, the inspectors are clearly instructed that the conduct of the schools be- longs to the local managers, and that their responsi- bility for the excellence or defect of the schools is in no way to be diminished. While the English strive to secure unity and efficiency by organization, they dread an enfeebling paternalism. But to return to the condition of the elementary schools in 1839 and the years immediately following. The inspectors found the schools shamefully inade- quate to the number and the needs of the children, and very many of the teachers sadly incompetent. Eight years later, Macaulay, speaking of these teach- ers in the House of Commons, said : " How many of these men are now the refuse of other callings, dis- carded servants, or ruined tradesmen, who can not do a sum of three; who do not know whether the earth is a cube or a sphere, and can not tell whether Jerusa- lem is in Asia or America ; and who would not be able to write a common letter ? " In the discussion, an- other member of the House quoted the words of one of the school-dames, " It's little they pays us, and it's little we teaches them." In one of the schools of Yorkshire an inspector asked a teacher why he did ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 9 Hot teacli aritlimetic in Ms school. " Because I know nothing about it," was the honest reply. At this time less than two-thirds of the children in England and Wales between the ages of five and thirteen were re- turned as attending school. The crying need of competent teachers for elemen- tary schools induced Parliament to make a grant of £10,000 for the purpose of establishing a normal school. This enabled the ^National Society to open St. Mark's Training-College at Chelsea, in 1841, and the British and Foreign School Society to open an- other training-school in the Borough Road, London, in 1842. Much of the progress of this period was due to Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth. Before 1846 some seven other training-colleges were established, but the candidates for training were not abundant, many of those admitted to the colleges were inferior in ability and acquisitions, and the instruction they received was very limited. In 1846 the Department of Education made many progressive changes. To improve the teach- ing force, they provided, by the assistance of Par- liament, for larger grants to pupil-teachers — i. e., pupils in elementary schools who teach part of the school hours — that they might be better trained and be substituted more rapidly for the more tran- sient and inferior monitors, yet very generally em- ployed. 10 ENGLAND AND WALES Pupil-teachers were to receive £10 tlie first year, with 25 per cent increase each year until the five years of their apprenticeship were finished. Grants were also made to head-masters for instructing pupil- teachers. Those pupil-teachers who passed a success- ful examination for admission to a training-college were to be known as Queen's scholars, and to receive, if especially successful, a prize or grant to assist in meeting the expenses of the course in the training- college. To further reduce these expenses, grants were to be made to training-colleges for each student in attendance, provided there was evidence of good progress in the annual examinations. In the years following, the larger number of candidates qualified to enter the training-colleges and the grants received greatly strengthened these colleges or normal schools and led to the founding of additional schools or col- leges for training. The increase of the force of inspectors and the larger annual grants of Parliament in 1846 and the years following showed that the state was beginning to feel its responsibility for the condition of the schools of the realm. The policy, however, was main- tained that the amount received from the state by a school should be proportioned to the amount sub- scribed by its patrons, which left the more ignorant and needy children, for the most part, without any suitable instruction. The state maintained that it ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 11 was the duty of parents to provide for the education of their children, but failed to recognize the truth so aptly stated by Lecky: "Education in its simplest form, which is one of the first and highest human in- terests, is a matter in which government initiation and direction are emphatically required, for unin- structed people will never demand it, and to appre- ciate education is itself a consequence of education." The principles in accord with which German states, especially Prussia, had maintained public schools re- veal the secret of the superiority of elementary schools in Germany as compared with those of Eng- land. Some one has formulated these principles: " It is my duty to myself to develop to the utmost the powers with which I am endowed; it is my duty toward my neighbor to help him develop his ; we can best help each other through the state; the state, therefore, establishes a complete system of education, making the lowest kind imperative for all and the highest accessible to all." A " royal commission " was appointed in 1858 " to inquire into the state of popular education in England and as to measures required for the exten- sion of sound and cheap elementary instruction to all classes of people." In 1861 the six volumes of their report appeared, giving abundant evidence of a dis- position to speak approvingly of the schools, while they were compelled to speak clearly of their ineffi- 12 ENGLAND AND WALES ciencj, their failure to secure adequate results, and the crying evil of non-attendance. At the time of the publication of this report, Mr. Robert Lowe, then vice-president of the .Council of Education, was strenuously laboring to rouse the schools from the lethargy that seemed to have long rested upon them. He published the revised code, in- cluding all of the minutes issued by the Educational Department. In accordance with this code, embody- ing the laws of the realm pertaining to the conduct of schools by managers, and teachers, payments were to be made from the parliamentary grants to local man- agers of schools according to results attained in read- ing, writing, and arithmetic, though payments might be awarded for additional results in grammar, geog- raphy, and history. The results in each of the studies were to be determined by individual examina- tions of pupils conducted by her Majesty's inspectors and their assistants. This system held sway for several years. Soon, however, such statements as the following began to appear in the annual reports of the inspectors : " The tendency of the new code," says one inspector, " is to cause the managers and teachers to regard simply the pecuniary grants, and all that does not tend to produce an increased result is hardly taken into account.'' Grammar, geography, history, and other subjects are now, as might be expected, comparatively neglected for the more profitable ele- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 13 mentary R's, nor has the inspector time to lay great stress upon them/' To make every pupil " rate per- fect in the three R's " was the profitable thing pecuni- arily to do. If a boy could write and state the shib- boleths of these, whatever might be his ignorance, whatever the method by which he was taught, he could help, by mechanically preparing for examina- tion, to " earn the grant '' to the school. As the grade of the pupil was also determined by the ex- aminations, these were solemn, if not tearful, exer- cises. As payments were now made from the na- tional treasury to the managers, rather than as here- tofore in part to teachers, the latter were no longer recognized as in direct relations to the central depart- ment, but were wholly at the mercy of the local man- agers. These could drive close bargains with teachers and make the salary small, however large might be the parliamentary grants. It seemed to many man- agers thrifty business to make any loss in receipts from the national treasury owing to the failures of pupils in examinations the loss of the teacher. The grant of Parliament to any school was not allowed to exceed the amount raised by subscriptions and fees, and if these in any locality were very generous, the parliamentary grants would be correspondingly less, for in no case was a school aided by these grants to receive in all more than 15 shillings per annum per pupil to the pupils in average attendance. The in- 14: ENGLAND AND WALES come of the schools did not increase nor did tlie schools improve in their methods of work. Sub- scriptions in many localities diminished, fees were low- ered, and cheaper teachers were hired. Very poor teachers would suffice when pupils could be prepared for examination by learning to state answers or write them without knowledge of their meaning. Matthew Arnold, one of his Majesty's inspectors, said in one of his reports: "The mode of teaching has fallen ofi in intelligence, spirit, and inventiveness. It could not well be otherwise. In a country where every one is prone to rely too much on mechanical processes and too little on intelligence, a change in the Educa- tion Department's regulations, which, by making two- thirds of the Government grant depend upon a me- chanical examination, inevitably gives a mechanical turn to the inspection, is, and must be, trying to the life of a school." Education, as determined by the study of children or by the recognized laws of mental activity, could not be expected. The rack of exami- nation was ever in full view of teachers and pupils. Mr. Lowe said to an inspector who called to consult with him : " I know what you have come about — the science of education. There is none." His policy was in accord with his belief. Another inspector, who had evidently surrendered himself to the mechan- ism of the department, wrote, " The studies of the class room must be those wherein progress can be ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 15 definitely measured by examination," and teachers of elementary schools were compelled by circumstances to respond in deeds if not in words, " Amen." The retrenchment consequent upon the failures of pupils in examination fell largely upon teachers. This tended to narrow the work of the schools to " earning grants," and to drive really good teachers to other employments. Excellence of teaching under such conditions could not be expected. The watch- words of those in Parliament who had championed the plan of "payment by results" had been: "If the new system will not be cheap, it will be efficient, and if it will not be efficient, it will be cheap." It was efficient in developing mechanical methods, and it was cheap. Yet this mechanical period in the history of the schools of England was not without some good re- sults. Sir Henry Craik, one of the most efficient educational officers that has hitherto graced the ad- ministration of the schools of Scotland, says : " The application of the somewhat military methods of Mr. Lowe and his associates to the schools was productive of some good results. The irregular and careless ways of managing the business of the schools were checked, fewer pupil-teachers were employed, the number of certificated teachers was largely increased, and as every pupil was a candidate for examination, the teachers no longer sought reputation by training 16 ENGLAND AND WALES first classes for exhibition, to tlie neglect of duller and slower pupils." A better era for the schools of England, and eventually for the United Kingdom, was at hand, but before considering it we may dismiss the period we have already considered with the words of Justin Mc- Carthy in his History of our Own Times: "The manner in which England had long neglected the education of her poor children had long been a re- proach to her civilization. She was behind every other great country in the world; she was behind most countries that in no wise professed to be great. . . . Private charity was eked out in a parsimoni- ous and miserable manner by a scanty dole from the state, and, as a matter of course, where the direst poverty prevailed, and ^aturally brought the ex- tremest need for assistance to education, there the wants of the people were least efficiently supplied. For years the statesmanship of England had been kept from any serious attempt to grapple with the evil by the doctrine that popular education might not be the business of the Government." In 1868, as we have said, the Liberal party came into power. Gladstone was Prime Minister. The conviction that more and better schools must be I provided had been increasing for years. In 1870 the Education Act was introduced into Parliament. Its object was to make provision for the instruction of all I ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 17 children of school age in England and Wales. Similar legislation respecting Scotland and Ireland was to follow at an early date. In preliminary de- bates the Liberals warmly supported the bill. Many of these were non-conformists, and they ardently hoped or confidently expected that the bill when com- pleted would provide a system of national schools from which denominational teaching would be ex- cluded. " They laid down the broad principle," says McCarthy, " that no state aid whatever should be given to any schools but those which were conducted on strictly secular and undenominational principles. It ought to be superfluous to say that the non-con- formists did not object to the religious education of children. It ought not to be supposed for a moment that they attached less importance to religious in- struction than any other body of persons. Their principle was that public money, the contributions of citizens of all shades of belief, ought only to be given for such teaching as the common opinion of the coun- try was agreed upon." While the non-conformists stoutly maintained a great general principle to be observed in administer- ing funds raised by general taxation for education, yet it must be admitted that their opposition to sec- tarian teaching was increased by the fact that most of the existing elementary schools were connected with the Established Church, and that to use public 18 ENGLAND AND WALES funds in aid of these schools and allow them to con- tinue the teaching of denominational dogmas would be an efficient means of strengthening the influence and power of that Church — a Church that never favored and often stoutly opposed the growth of other Protestant churches. The supporters of the schools of the Established Church, " voluntary schools '' as they were called, urged that hitherto these schools, at large private ex- pense, had furnished buildings, apparatus, and teach- ers for the instruction of the majority of the chil- dren of England and Wales; hence that to withhold parliamentary grants from these schools would be un- just; that economy required Parliament to utilize the means of education already secured and so long fos- tered by private gifts and public grants; and that the moral and religious welfare of the state demanded the maintenance of the Church schools. Earnest Churchmen felt that unless the influence of the Church was continued in the elementary schools they would become godless schools, dangerous to public and to private morality. But many of the Liberal party were determined to so modify the act before its final passage that no sectarian teaching should be al- lowed in any elementary school receiving parliamen- tary grants. But at a certain stage in the prolonged debate it was agreed to supplement and not to sup- plant the Church or voluntary schools. A compro- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 19 mise in the form of a " conscience clause " was at length reached. A pupil was not to be required to attend any place of worship or Sunday-school or to re- ceive any religious instruction to which his parents or guardians objected. Any religious instruction or ob- servance in a school must be at the beginning or end of school sessions, and no benefits should be forfeited if the pupil was withdrawn from religious exercises. Though a large section of the Liberal party voted against the act, it was enacted, owing to the favoring votes of the Conservatives. The compromise embod- ied in the conscience clause has never been regarded as ultimate by Churchmen or by non-conformists. The act of 1870 included three new provisions: a compulsory local rate — i. e., a tax levied on the pro- ductive value of property — to provide elementary schools in localities where voluntary schools were un- able to make needed provision; representative local authorities called school boards to manage the board schools to be established under the provisions of the act; and the compulsory attendance of children. The voluntary schools were to provide elemen- tary instruction as heretofore, and in any locality requiring additional school accommodations those who favored voluntary schools might by subscriptions provide them. Applications for parliamentary aid in construction of new buildings for these schools might be made to the Educational Department during 20 ENGLAND AND WALES the remainder of the year 1870. If measures were not taken to provide adequate schools by voluntary effort, the community was to elect a school board which, by local rates and parliamentary grants, was to provide schools needed in order to furnish elemen- tary instruction to all of school age. The school board was to levy rates and to organize and manage these schools. The matter of compulsory attendance was to be determined by school boards having author- ity to make by-laws enforcing attendance. The old English notions respecting parental rights hindered the enactment of a general compulsory law. The at- tempt to compel attendance in many communities was ineffectual, until the act of 1880, when complete attendance at school was made compulsory for all children under ten. Some communities, however, like Birmingham, availed themselves of the compulsory provision of 1870 at once, by electing a school board and enforcing attendance. In many communities the taxpayers found they would have to pay less money in helping voluntary schools to provide additional accommodations than in establishing board schools. Hence the desire of heavy taxpayers tb save money led them to join hands with the clergy and others zealous in gathering chil- dren into Church schools. The clergy especially dep- recated the setting up of board schools, and urged that the Church schools should be so cared for and in- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 21 creased that there would be no place for board schools. Mr. Holman, his Majesty's inspector, says: " One of the most striking immediate results of the passing of the act was the comparatively enormous applications for building grants. The Church party was called upon to make full use of the grace allowed them, and manfully responded to the call. 'No less than 3,111 applications were made, of which, however, 1,332 were withdrawn in less than five months, the usual rate having been in former years 150 a year." While the Established Church was especially active in pro- moting its interests, it must not be inferred that the Methodists and other non-conformist bodies were lack- ing in denominational zeal, though some of these would gladly have transferred their schools to boards — representative bodies — could they have known that the Established Church would do the same. Mr. Forster, who as vice-president of the Council framed the act and whose name it bears, made the parish in rural communities instead of the union or the county, the area to be considered in providing schools, thus intensifying the denominational feeling and exposing very many of the schools to the narrow politics and favoritisms of small communities. Between 1869 and 1876 more than £3,000,000 was subscribed for voluntary-school buildings, to which sum the state added about one-fifteenth. In this way accommodations for 1,600,000 more pupils 22 ENGLAND AND WALES were added. In ten years following the passage of tlie act the Church had furnished accommodations for nearly 1,000,000 additional pupils. This is a signifi- cant comment upon the dire educational needs that had hitherto prevailed. The Church at once availed itself of the provision of the act allowing voluntary inspection during one or two days of a year by organ- izing a system of diocesan inspection to plan and test the religious instruction. Her Majesty's inspectors were to give no attention to religious instruction and were not to report thereon. Since 1870 the clergy or committees appointed by religious bodies have con- tinued to supervise religious instruction in voluntary schools, while local managers have carefully planned and supervised Scripture lessons in the board schools. The supporters of the board schools were hardly less active than friends of the voluntary schools. Not waiting for a requisition from the department, all but one of the boroughs having 50,000 inhabitants elected school boards. In 1870 there were no board schools. At the close of the century nearly one-half of the pupils of England and Wales were in the board schools. E'ot many years may elapse before a large majority of the pupils will be in these schools of the people. In 1872 Parliament amended and strengthened the act of 1870 and passed a similar act for Scotland — a part of the empire which since the time of Knox i ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 23 had a far more honorable record in the annals of ele- mentary education than England and Wales. In 1876 an act was passed which secured the appoint- ment of " school attendance committees " to secure attendance in parishes and boroughs where there were no school boards. Urban sanitary districts could also secure the appointment of such committees. Hence- forth compulsory laws were more effective. By an act passed in 1880 all school boards and at- tendance committees were obliged to make by-laws to enforce attendance. JSTo pupil between the ages of ten and thirteen was hereafter allowed to be absent from school unless he had a certificate of having com- plied with the requirements of the local school authorities fixing the standard that must be reached. Allowing local authorities to fix the standard — i. e., the grade a pupil must reach before he can be al- lowed to leave school — has proved to be an arrange- ment that is not effective for good in many communi- ties. It is not easy to overcome the traditional inertia of the English in this matter. In the elementary schools of England there are seven grades, reckoning upward from the infant or primary schools; these grades are termed standards. Sadler, in his Special Eeport of 1897, tells us that one-fifth of the in- habitants of England and Wales have their children excused from attendance at the fourth standard, and that more than 1,000,000 persons are allowed to with- 24 ENGLAND AND WALES draw their children a part of the time as soon as the second standard is reached — i. e., as early as the tenth year of age. Sir John Gorst, when vice-president of the Coun- cil and exponent of the Education Department in the House of Commons, in one of his recent speeches, said: " After twenty-five years of the operation of the Act of 1870 there are nearly three-quarters of a mil- lion of children whose names ought to be on the books of some elementary school, and who do not appear there at all — that is, almost one-eighth of the whole child population. They escape the school boards, the attendance ofiicers, and the Government machinery altogether. Of those who are upon the books of the elementary schools, nearly one-fifth are continually absent." This last sentence refers to the fact that the average attendance is not much above 80 per cent of the students enrolled. In 1897 it was 81 J per cent. Sir John Gorst, in his speech of April 19, 1898, said: " In the minds of the committee of the Council and all persons responsible for the education of the country there is no doubt as to what reform is most urgent ; ... it is to get more children into the existing schools, to get them there in a condition fit to receive instruction, and to keep them to an older age." By the Act of 1893, in force when Sir John Gorst made the above statements, children were not to be ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 25 employed during school hours, whether half-timers or not, until they were eleven years of age. In the same year provision was made for the instruction of children too deaf or blind to be taught in the ordinary schools; these are to be in school from seven to sixteen years of age. By the elementary education acts of 1899 and 1900 the age of half-timers has been raised from eleven to twelve years; the maximum penalty for neglect of school attendance has been raised; 350 attendances per annum for Rve years is required in- stead of 250 attendances per annum as heretofore; school boards are to revise their by-laws in conformity with these recent provisions, though they are not under any obligation to make any provision for half- timers ; and full-time attendance up to fourteen years of age may be enforced, with a proviso for total ex- emption of scholars passing the sixth or higher standard after twelve years of age. In 1888 Parliament passed the Local Government Act establishing county councils. These already ex- ercise important educational functions in the man- agement of technical schools, and it is to be hoped that much of the management of schools in petty parishes will be transferred to them. When this is accomplished, the county council, if properly represented and aided by an executive officer, who is an expert in school matters, may be able to over- 26 ENGLAND AND WALES come, by the liberal sentiment of a larger area, the narrowness that now, in many small communities, is so prejudicial to the progress of the elementary schools. Since 1892 the schools of England and Wales have been practically free, as parliamentary grants exempt from the compulsory payment of tuition in all elementary schools. One way of measuring the advance made in the schools of England and Wales is to compare the money expended in 1870 and in 1899. In 1861 the report of the royal commission had shown that less than two-thirds of the estimated children in England and Wales were returned as attending school at all. Hence a large portion of the children of England and Wales was not reckoned in 1870 in apportioning grants. In 1870 £1 5s. 4:d, was the average expendi- ture per pupil. In 1899, provision having been made for the instruction of all children of school age, £2 15s. 7d. was expended per pupil in board schools, and £2 5s. l^d. in voluntary schools. The annual ex- penditure per pupil has increased in Scotland in about the same proportion. Some £10,000,000 are annually appropriated by Parliament for schools in England and Wales, exclusive of the sums voted to universities and colleges. A more important evidence of the advance made is the better method of inspecting the schools and of ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 27 apportioning tlie grants, implying as it does broader views of education and more competent teachers. Yet tlie new method does not award a premium to schools of superior excellence. The poorer schools are fostered somewhat at the expense of the better. The withholding of variable grants based upon the proficiency of the pupils in certain studies diminishes the amounts received from the national treasury in several very progressive cities. In the recent report of the School Board of Leeds, a city perhaps second to no other in Great Britain in the excellence of her elementary schools, occurs this paragraph : " Another most important change is connected with the Govern- ment code of education. The system of separate grants is abolished, and ' block ' grants substituted. The ' block ' grant has been based upon the average amount earned by the schools throughout the country, with the results that the boards which have hitherto earned the highest grants will receive a less grant in future. The code makes very little difference be- tween good and poor schools, and all schools are, as a rule, to be assessed as good. Thus school man- agers are incited not so much to rise high, as to be careful not to fall low. The results of the working of this code occasion, therefore, some misgiving." In- stead of " earning grants " by a sort of mechanical proficiency determined by oral and written examina- tions, as previous to 1870 and for many years follow- 28 ENGLAND AND WALES ing, the schools are now inspected in their ordinary working. The spirit and earnestness of the pupils, the methods by which they are taught, their note- books and other graphic work, as well as the results of the periodical examinations which teachers give under the direction of the local managers — all that pertains to the welfare of the schools — are now con- sidered. Eeferring to the " revised instructions " issued to the inspectors in 1899, we find that the Edu- cation Department now " emphasizes, by means of a special and graduated grant for ^ discipline and organi- zation,' the importance of conduct and moral training as essential factors of the success and usefulness of a public elementary school," and affirms that " experience has proved that efficient school inspec- tion of their ordinary working, if supplemented by careful periodical examinations as a part of the ordi- nary working of the school, is a more real guarantee of a proper distribution of public money than an an- nual examination, with all its attendant drawbacks." Accordingly the code now provides " that at least one visit of inspection " by his Majesty's inspectors " shall be made to every school in the course of the school year, and that it shall usually be followed by a second visit of the same nature, unless the school is subject to an annual ^dsit." These visits are as a rule with- out notice, though notice of the time of a proposed visit may be given to secure the presence of the local ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 29 managers, to secure the attendance of pupil-teachers whose teaching is to be inspected, or for other reasons. If a school falls below a required standard of excel- lence so far that the inspector maj feel that it should not be reported as deserving the parliamentary grant, the inspector is expected to make an individual exam- ination of the pupils in writing before reporting and as a means of bringing home to the managers an exact knowledge of the condition of the school. Some of the advantages of the more liberal and comprehensive mode of inspection are: that it re- lieves pupils and teachers from much nervous strain; gives more prominence to the intellectual power of the student than to his facility in memorizing verbal statements; puts the periodical individual examina- tions into the hands of the local managers, upon whom properly rests the responsibility of the conduct of the school; leads the inspector to take a broader view, to make a juster estimate and to frame a wiser criticism of the school, allowing teachers more liberty in teach- ing in accordance with principles and in adapting their work to the needs of individual pupils; and de- mands and strongly tends to secure men skilled in the art and wise in the science of teaching to supervise and inspect the schools. The staff of his Majesty's inspectors belonging to the Educational Department consists of a senior chief inspector, who is one of the 12 chief inspectors, nearly 30 ENGLAND AND WALES 100 inspectors, upward of 50 first-class subinspectors, and a much larger number of second-class inspectors. There is a special inspector of music, a directress of needlework, and an inspectress of cooking and laun- dry work. Two of the chief inspectors are appointed to inspect the training-colleges. Each of the remain- ing 10 supervises a school district. Each district is divided into 10 divisions, in which the inspectors and subinspectors do their work. Previous to 1882 young men who had ranked high in honor at the universi- ties, however ignorant they might be of elementary education, were appointed inspectors. Since 1882 some others have been appointed who have special qualifications for inspection. The subinspectors are largely recruited from the head teachers of the ele- mentary schools. Since 1896 a few mistresses have been appointed, who have rendered admirable service. In the offices of the Education Department the exam- iners of the inspectors' reports and of examination and other papers are honor men from the universities. The term " organizing teacher " is applied to one ap- proved by the department who either inspects schools and advises managers and teachers in view of the in- spector's visit or instructs or examines teachers in special subjects or educational methods. This hierarchy of inspectors accom.plishes much in improving the schools, yet an inspector has no power to enforce a change unless it be by reporting ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 31 the school to be so inferior that the parliamentary grant will be withheld. This is seldom done. The duties of an inspector admit of helpful criticisms to teachers and managers. They are to so perform this advisory work as not to relieve the local man- agers from any responsibility in the management of a school. Still it must be admitted that much of the recent progress in elementary schools is the result of the counsel and the courage of the inspectors. In some of their features a high degree of excellence may be claimed for the elementary schools of England, but the more progressive teachers of these schools and all candid observers of European schools allow that the schools of Switzerland and Germany are yet clearly superior. One of the late chief inspectors notes among the prominent hindrances to intellectual development the large size of classes, unconnectedness of subjects taught, an excessive amount of oral teaching, and the employment in some voluntary schools of cheap in- competent persons. An inspector in one of his late reports says : " The old examination stimulus has been withdrawn, and the teachers are not yet able to make the best possible use of the liberty that has been given them. It is probable that the schools, taken as a whole, are neither as efficient as they were two or three years ago nor as they will be two or three years hence. But this is not 82 ENGLAND AND WALES a matter of very great importance; what is of impor- tance is the growing tendency in elementary, as in every other grade of education, to do everything for the pupil, to coddle him, to spoon-feed him, to tie him to his nurse's apron and to keep him in leading- strings, to direct his studies for him, to arrange his amusements for him, to fill up his leisure for him — in short, to do everything for him except what is of all things most truly educational, viz., to leave him to his own devices and throw him upon his own re- sources. ... If we do not do for a pupil what he ought to do for himself, we certainly hold his hands for him while he is doing it.'' It may seem that schools organized under a code issued by a central educational department and ap- proved by Parliament — schools supervised and ex- amined by his Majesty's inspectors, receiving their instructions from officers of the central department clothed with parliamentary authority, would prove a somewhat rigid mechanism, with little capacity of adaptation to local needs; but there is much in the English temper and tradition that makes for local freedom. The parish, the county, and other local divisions have rights which no sovereign nor central authority can disannul or disregard. Even William the Conqueror recognized and permitted the local government of the counties. Fostered by tradition and supported by common ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 33 law, local rights can not be set aside by Parliament. Hence in planting a school system and in its working Parliament has always instructed its agents to advise and encourage local managers to take the initiative rather than to coerce, ever recognizing, as far as the well-being of schools would allow, the right of local managers to conduct their own schools. The elementary school system of the United King- dom was originated when an absolute and aristocratic government had gradually yielded its powers to a democracy. Ever since the time of Henry YIII this change had been going on. The realization of a de- mocracy was greatly accelerated during the reign of Queen Victoria. The people of the United Kingdom to-day maintain one of the most democratic govern- ments on the face of the globe. In some of its fea- tures it is more democratic than our own. An Englishman prizes a strong centralized au- thority that will maintain order and conserve the good things gained in the past; he equally prizes his indi- vidual rights and the heritage of local government, which he regards as essential to his manhood. The annual issue of an educational code by Parliament he approves — ^he does not see how order in school affairs and progress can be secured without it — yet he none the less insists upon his right to care for the school in his own community and to initiate new measures demanded by the varying conditions. Through the 34 ENGLAND AND WALES interaction of this localized individualism and the cen- tralized authority progress is secured. Inspectors are instructed in the applications of the code not to detract from the responsibility of local managers, not to discourage them from inventing and utilizing whatever promises to be reasonably helpful to the schools. Mr. Bernard Bosanquet, writing from London, says : " The inspector stretches an arti- cle of the code to give scope to an exceptional capacity in the teacher or to meet a local need. Or he insti- tutes an experiment outside the code altogether. He brings in ambulance classes, or manual training, or teaching of horticulture, under the nearest kindred heading of the code. The experiment succeeds. The teachers are interested, and work out new methods. The children are the better for it, and the local man- agers are delighted. All this, in due time, is re- ported to the department, not as a mere chimera in the inspector's head, but as a hard fact, a local achievement. The department, when satisfied that the thing is a real improvement, modifies its next issue of the code so as positively to suggest the improve- ment in the curriculum instead of barely allowing it to be possible. The inspector, when an enthusiast, is in an ideal position to study the theory of education. He will travel in his vacations and observe the systems of other English districts or other countries ; and the philosophical basis of educational theory is placed I ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 35 ■within his grasp by his university training. Thus he is in a position to inspire the mind of his district with the best educational ideas and to report to the cen- tral department, for the general benefit, the actual progress which is made by their application. This, we believe, is the real working of the system by which the 'code,' however imperfect it may be, has come to have a width and adaptability quite other than its characteristics twenty years ago. English elemen- tary education, it has been said, was a system devised by clerks for a nation of working men. But it has not remained altogether so ; and that it has not is due to the working of local minds in contributing and ap- propriating suggestions through the agencies which communicate with the center. . . . The English kin- dergarten department, for example, is not a copy of a Continental school ; it is the application of an idea to new experience." The interest in public instruction was never greater in England than at the beginning of the twentieth century. The people have come to know something of the value of the intelligence, good order, and morality which a system of public schools tends to promote. The trend of events is stirring the Eng- lish to make more strenuous efforts to promote a higher degree of intelligence among the common peo- ple. Great Britain has been of late losing ground in many of the markets of the world. Germans and 36 ENGLAND AND WALES especially Americans are taking places in trade long lield by the English. By official inquiries widely ex- tended and carefully tabulated the English are becom- ing convinced that they are outdone in trade by those who have better trained, more inventive, and more in- telligent workmen ; that, if they are to hold their own in the present competitions of trade, they must make the public elementary schools more efficient and pro- vide a broader training and culture by a system of public secondary schools. The leaders in mechanical improvements in the United States and in Germany are usually the sons of workmen, practical because of their early training, and skilled by technical training, for which not only the elementary, but the secondary school prepared them. The productive energy of the common people of England must be better schooled if England would reap her share of the benefits of modern skill. A financial argument never fails to gain the apprecia- tion of an average English statesman. The elemen- tary schools of England are destined to improve, we may believe, more rapidly in the future than in the past. The system of secondary schools which sooner or later must supplement them must react upon them to secure better work and to provide better teachers. ^ In speaking of the " alarmist fears " of the early opponents of the elementary system, Mr. Holman says : " The fear that education would make more and ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 37 cleverer rogues and rascals has been shown to be en- tirely groundless. On the contrary, it is admitted on all sides that crime has very largely decreased in con- sequence of the spread of knowledge. Of course the rogue has been made a cleverer rogue, but the number of criminals has grown less, and other people have been made more capable of guarding themselves against roguery." He adds that " the working classes have become more and more constitutional, and less and less violent and revolutionary, as they have become more educated." Speaking of the results of the elementary schools of the United Kingdom, Mr. F. H. S. Escott, in his Transformations of the Victorian Era, says : " A new generation has sprung up, which is demonstrably better educated and more humanized than any of its predecessors. The diminution of pauperism and crime, the gradual disappearance from London and from other great towns of the uncontrollably rough element among the street observers of public holidays, the competition among the industrial classes of mu- seums or picture-galleries with drinking-bars on Sun- days and on popular feasts — these are the more super- ficial signs of the progress already made and still going forward. Intelligent foreigners, the very men who are said to anticipate the judgments of posterity, de- clare that within the last twenty years the physiog- nomical type of the London street loungers and 38 ENGLAND AND WALES loafers has visibly improved ; that the look of the vul- ture which was habitual on faces pinched by hunger and puffy or pallid with debauchery is no longer the dominating expression of features; that the rapacious arabs of the pavement who were formerly ready to devour the newcomer outside Victoria Cross or Vic- toria railway-stations, where they have not disap- peared, have become orderly, intelligent, and not al- together the reverse of polite. It requires perhaps an Englishman to appreciate at their true worth the more delicate gradations of this improvement elsewhere. . . . Schools, elementary, whether of the first or second grade, secondary, technical, or scientific, ex- plain much of this new improvement in the facial characteristics and at all public places in the general deportment of the humblest of her Majesty's sub- jects." A limited number of elementary schools receiving parliamentary grants are not under the control of the Education Department. A few elementary schools having an endowment of £100 or over are under the supervision of the Charity Commission. The Home Ofiice has general charge of the edu- cation of children in factories and mines, of the in- mates of prisons and reformatory and industrial schools. Some of the industrial schools are adopted by school boards as truant-schools. Of late, the policy of this office favors sending children to the ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 39 public elementary schools so far as circumstances will allow. The schools under the direction of the Home Office are largely conducted in accordance with methods adopted by board schools, and there is an in- creasing disposition on the part of Parliament to place all elementary schools, as far as it is practicable, under the control of the Education Department. The local government board was created in 1871 to take the place of the poor law board and to super- vise the public health and local government. This board has made progress in the elementary instruc- tion of children in workhouses by securing their ad- mission to the public schools when conveniently ac- cessible. Special provision under the department of " the Commander-in-Chief" is made for the education of soldiers and their children, and under the " Lords of the Admiralty" for the education of those in the navy. The evening continuation schools no less than day-schools furnish evidence of recent progress. Owing to the restriction of the teaching principally to elementary subjects and to persons not over eighteen by the Act of 1871, the number attending these schools was small. Though in 1876 the upper limit of age was raised to twenty-one, the attendance diminished rather than increased. In 1886 it was only 26,009. 40 ENGLAND AND WALES In 1890 the restriction limiting the instruction to " principally elementary " subjects was removed. In 1893 a special code was published by which pupils over twenty-one years of age were allowed to attend, and many secondary studies were allowed. As any one might now attend without being compelled to take elementary studies, the attendance rapidly increased. In 1894 the number attending was 358,268. In the report for the year ending 1900 the number is 474,- 563. About three-fifths of these were boys or men and two-fifths girls or women. Of these about one- seventh were under fourteen, more than one-half be- tween fourteen and eighteen, about one-seventh be- tween eighteen and twenty-one, and about another seventh over twenty-one. These schools have done much to help those who are anxious to better fit them- selves for some industrial career and those also who are attempting to bridge the way from the elemen- tary school to some technical institution. In some cases these schools have been a direct aid to poor students aspiring to gain university degrees. By the Act of 1893 provision was made for the education of the deaf and the blind. Attendance is now made compulsory at schools provided for these up to the age of sixteen. Deaf children, however, are not required to attend until seven years of age. The number of schools reported in 1900 was 101, in which 3,530 deaf children were registered and 1,795 blind. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 41 The Act of 1899 provides for the elementary in- iBtruction of defective and epileptic children. Ar- rangements are already made for the organization of schools for such children in different parts of the country. The Act of 1899, which went into operation April 1, 1901, establishing the Board of Education, by which the Education Department, organized in 1856, is superseded, raises the expectation of a new era in the history of elementary education in England and .Wales. This board is charged with the superintendence of matters relating to education in England and Wales, and consists of a president and a lord president of the Privy Council (unless he is appointed president of the board), his Majesty's principal secretaries of state, the first commissioner of his Majesty's treasury, and the Chancellor of his Majesty's Exchequer. " The existing vice-president of the committee of the Privy Council on education shall also be a member of the board; but on the next vacancy in his office the office shall be abolished and the Education Depart- ment Act of 1856 shall be repealed." (In 1902 Sir John Gorst resigned and Sir William Anson was ap- pointed parliamentary secretary of the Board of Edu- cation.) The science and art department, which has hither- to been collaborative with the Education Department, 42 ENGLAND AND WALES is hereafter to be a department under tlie direction of the Board of Education. The educational functions of the Charity Commission are also hereafter to be- long to the board. " It shall be lawful for his Majesty in Council, by order, to establish a consultative committee, consist- ing, as to not less than two-thirds, of persons repre- senting universities and bodies interested in educa- tion, for the purpose of '' (a) Framing, with the approval of the Board of Education, regulations for the formation of a register of teachers; and " ih) Advising the Board of Education on any matter referred to the committee by the board." This consultative committee is a new and impor- tant provision. The provision for inspection of secondary schools, in addition to the inspection of ele- mentary schools as heretofore, promises ultimately to unify elementary and secondary instruction. This provision will doubtless result in a system of free secondary schools the counterpart of the free elemen- tary schools and supplementary to the existing sec- ondary schools. The middle and upper classes have long been provided with secondary schools for their children. These schools are inaccessible to the chil- dren of the poor, save as a few of the more brilliant obtain scholarships while in advanced grades of the elementary schools. The germs of a system of free ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 43 secondary schools already exist in these advanced grades fostered in some of the elementary schools of London and other large towns. Special buildings are now being provided in London and elsewhere for these grades, though the claim that they legally have stand- ing as a part of the elementary system is invalidated by the recent Cockerton judgment. One of the first acts of the board was the issuing of a minute which was approved by Parliament, en- abling the board to recognize a new class of public elementary schools termed higher elementary schools. Though some of the sciences are to be taught in these schools, and other subjects some of which belong to a secondary course of instruction, the schools will be greatly narrowed by the fact that students are not to be retained beyond the age of fifteen. This restric- tion has not before been imposed upon students in the advanced grades of the elementary schools. Perhaps the board think that this age limit will help the board to enroll these schools as part of the elementary sys- tem, and thus keep the field open for a distinctive system of secondary schools composed of students over fifteen years of age. The School Board of Leeds state in their report, approved ^N'ovember 19, 1900, that they " have not seen their way to apply for the recognition of any school as a higher elementary school," and consider that the minute of the Board of Education, owing to 4:4: ENGLAND AND WALES age limit and other embarrassing restrictions, " must be amended to be of any educational value." In another connection the Leeds board, after speaking of the remarkable success of students who have availed themselves of the science school, one of the higher-grade schools of Leeds, say: " At the end of last session, May, 1900, there were in attendance 303 pupils who were either fifteen years of age or would have been in the session, and who would not have been allowed to be in attendance. This session there are in attendance 441 pupils either over fifteen years of age or who will be over fifteen during the session, and these, if the minute were accepted by our school board, would cease to be recognized as pupils." The Central Higher-Grade School of Leeds, main- tained by the ratepayers of that city, has been essen- tially an excellent secondary school. While in its science department fitting students for leadership in the practical affairs of life, it also prepares them to pass the matriculation examinations of universities; students from this school have received their share of university honors. The Southern Higher-Grade School of Leeds, though smaller, has worked in the same lines as the Central. Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, London, and other important centers have, through the action of their school boards, evolved higher-grade schools which have already begun to link the elementary ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 45 schools with the universities, while supplementing the work of the elementary schools with instruction in scientific and other studies preparatory to the practi- cal affairs of active life. Parliament will make a sad mistake if it in any way withdraws its encouragement to the development of secondary instruction by local effort. It is much to the credit of the English that with their interest so largely centered in the secondary in- struction of the public schools, as they are called, though on private foundations, such as Eton, Eugby, and others, they should take into serious considera- tion the great work of organizing and equipping free secondary schools that shall supplement the instruc- tion of the elementary schools and open a way for youth of all classes to reach the universities. In London and in other boroughs and towns where board schools are maintained the local rating authori- ties are able, by means of the rates levied in addition to parliamentary grants, to make more liberal pro- vision for board schools than can be made in most cases for voluntary schools which depend upon volun- tary subscriptions to supplement the parliamentary grants. Most of these voluntary schools are con- nected with Anglican churches. The payment of one's subscription to a denominational school is no ex- emption from the payment of one's rate for the main- tenance of a board school existing in the same com- 46 ENGLAND AND WALES munity. The rate, a local tax, is collected by tlie civil authorities. The subscription is a free-will oft'er- ing in the interest of one's Church, with a view to the religious training of the young in the faith and doc- trine of that Church. The motive of the donor is most worthy. He believes that by maintaining the schools of his Church he so far promotes the highest welfare of the young and the well-being of the nation. The ratepayer who is also a contributor to a vol- untary school has an eye quick to detect any ex- travagant expenditure in the board school of his community, and is often ready to contrast with this expenditure the necessary frugal, if not penurious, administration of his Church school. In the parishes of the rural districts there is little necessity for the establishment of board schools. The voluntary or church schools are able to provide ac- commodations for all children of school age. The agricultural population over large areas has for many years been diminishing. The increasing facilities of transportation have brought distant grain-fields and other food sources nearer to England and rendered farming in the United Kingdom less profitable. Population is gathering in cities and in manufactur- ing centers. The rural districts are becoming more scantily populated and pupils in the elementary schools in country parishes are steadily becoming I ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 47 fewer in number. The Cliurch schools in most rural districts are directly or indirectly cared for by clergy- men, who are generally acknowledged to be better school managers than the average rural voters. In sparsely populated parishes an elementary school cared for by an earnest clergyman is a better product, though a Church school, than a board school cared for by men who often regard education as one cause of the advanced price and scarcity of agricul- tural laborers. Those who till the fields seem very generally to believe that " book-learning '^ tends to alienate their children from the manual employments of their parents and to render them discontented with their homely ways. Landowners and those who hire farms, finding land less profitable than formerly, in part owing to the scarcity of suitable laborers, often agree with the parents that ignorance somehow fosters con- tent, and that board schools, in addition to the burden- some taxes which they impose, tend, in proportion to the facilities they offer, to denude the agricultural districts of laborers. Such landowners and such parents can not be expected to tax themselves largely to maintain public elementary schools. The edu- cated clergyman, who knows something of the sweet- ness and light of learning, and who makes the inter- ests of the families in his parish his own, may be ex- pected, though with limited resources, to maintain a 48 ENGLAND AND WALES better school than the board school which his parish- ioners, with their penurious and narrow views, would maintain. Sir John Gorst has affirmed in the House of Com- mons that the board schools of London and other towns and boroughs, because of their liberal and in- telligent management and abundant resources, are evidently superior to the voluntary schools. He affirms with equal emphasis that in the rural districts the reverse is true: that there the Church schools, though far inferior to what they should be, are better than the rural board schools would be under the present conditions. The English peasant is proverbially behind the Scotch in his appreciation of an education. The Scotchman believes that every advance in useful knowledge and manly discipline renders any one so far more effective whatever may be his employment, and the enthusiasm and self-denial shown by parents in educating their sons have helped youth from all conditions of life to find their way to the universities, and through them to places of influence in all parts of the world. Education in England is traditionally the privilege of the upper classes. In Scotland it has been regarded an heritage rightfully belonging to all. CHAPTEE II THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION We have seen that, when the Act of 1870 was under debate in the House of Commons previous to its passage, the " religious question " elicited intense and prolonged discussion. On the one side it was urged, as we have noted, that religious teaching in schools maintained at public expense should not present the peculiar dogmas of any denomination, but those truths that received the assent of all denominations. On the other side it was urged that the Established Church was the national Church; that its teachings had been authorized by the state; that it had long been the chief agency in providing elementary in- struction; that economy demanded that the schools already equipped should be continued; and that the moral welfare of the nation demanded that the schools of the Church should continue to teach religion as heretofore. We have seen that the prolonged debate resulted in a compromise unsatisfactory to each party, which was embodied in Sections 7 and 14 of the Edu- cation Act, and is now designated as the " conscience clause." Its main provisions are as follows: 49 50 ENGLAND AND WALES " It shall not be required, as a condition of any child being admitted into or continuing in the school, that he shall attend or abstain from attending any Sunday-school, or any place of religious worship, or that he shall attend any religious observance or any instruction in religious subjects in the school or else- where, from which observance or instruction he may be withdrawn by his parent, or that he shall, if with- drawn by his parent, attend the school on any day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which his parent belongs. " The time or times during which any religious observance is practised, or instruction in religious sub- jects is given, at any meeting of the school shall be either at the beginning or at the end of such meeting, and shall be inserted in a time-table to be approved by the Education Department, and to be kept perma- nently and conspicuously affixed in every schoolroom ; and any scholar may be withdrawn by his parent from such observance or instruction without forfeiting any of the other benefits of the school. " The school shall be open at all times to the in- spection of any of her Majesty's inspectors, so, how- ever, that it shall be no part of the duties of such in- spectors to inquire into any instruction in religious subjects given at such school or to examine any scholar therein in religious knowledge or in any re- ligious subject or book. THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 51 " ' Every school provided by a scliool board shall be conducted under the control and management of such board in accordance with the following regula- tions : " ' The school shall be a public elementary school within the meaning of this act. " ' No religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any particular denomination shall be taught in the school.' " The sentiments of earnest Churchmen were ex- pressed in the monthly paper of the ^N'ational Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in such state- ments as these : " All that is happening in the matter of education is a call to the Church to put out her strength and to do valiant battle for her principles in the schools." " Our work is to teach children the facts of our religion, the doctrines of our religion, the duties of our religion. We must teach them the facts of our religion that they may be intelligent Christians, not ignorant as heathens; the doctrines, that they may not be Christians only, but Churchmen; the duties, that they may not be Churchmen only, but communi- cants. This last, in fact, is the object at which we are uniformly to aim, the training of the young Chris- tian for full communion with the Church; and as pre- liminary to that, a training for confirmation. The 52 ENGLAND AND WALES whole school-time of a child should gradually lead up to this.'' " The time has come when probably the whole fate of the Church of England, humanly speaking, will turn upon the hold she may have upon the rising generation. Political changes are giving more and more power to the people. If the Church has the people with her, she will be beyond all danger from adverse legislation. Let her, then, educate the chil- dren of the people in her principles." Many of those who opposed the establishment of board schools, and who gave of their time, their money, and their influence to aid the Anglican Church in maintaining elementary schools, did so because they feared that if the Church schools gave place to board schools, under popular control, the schools would become not only non-sectarian, but irreligious. This fear has greatly strengthened the Church party. Those who believe that the teaching of the pecul- iar dogmas of the Anglican Church is essential to any true religious teaching, to-day believe that board schools are non-religious and tend to eliminate re- ligion from the communities in which they exist. However groundless the fear of the Churchman, and however fallacious his argument for the main- tenance of the teaching of the peculiar doctrines of the Anglican Church, the fact remains that his in- sistence upon the teaching of religion in elementary THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION • 53 schools has had a tremendous influence upon the board schools. It has helped to make the managers of these schools earnest in securing excellent teaching of Scrip- ture lessons and the faithful memorizing of selections from the Scriptures. The board schools do not intend to be behind the voluntary or Church schools in Bible teaching nor inculcating practical lessons in morality. In London more than twice as many pupils are in board schools as in voluntary schools, and the Bible instruction in the schools of this city may serve as a sample of what is generally given in board schools elsewhere. The code of the London board schools requires that " the Bible shall be read and then shall be given such in- structions therefrom in the principles of the Christian religion and of morality as are suited to the capacity of the children." Each head teacher of an infant school prepares a syllabus of moral instruction for her school subject to the approval of the board inspector. The syllabus of Bible instruction for grades above the infant school in the board schools of London for the year 189 Y, much the same as in more recent regu- lations, is as follows: STANDARD I Pupils seven to eight years of age Learn the Lord's Prayer, and Psalm xxiii. A few simple stories from the book of Genesis. Sim- ple lessons from the boyhood and youth of Samuel 54: ENGLAND AND WALES and David. Leading facts in the life of our Lord told in simple language. STANDARD II Eight to nine years of age Kepeat the Lord's Prayer, and Psalm xxiii. Learn the Ten Commandments. Learn St. Matthew V, verses 1-12, and St. Matthew xxii, verses 35-40. Simple stories from the books of the Pentateuch. Simple outline of the facts in the life of our Lord told in simple language. STANDARD III Eepeat the Lord's Prayer; Psalm xxiii; the Ten Commandments; St. Matthew v, verses 1-12; and St. Matthew xxii, verses 35-40. Learn Deuteronomy xxvii, verses 1-14. Lessons from the books of Joshua, Judges, Kuth, Samuel, and Kings. Fuller outline of the life of our Lord, with lessons drawn from the following parables : The Sower. The Lost Sheep. The Laborers in the Vineyard. The Talents. The Good Samaritan. The Lost Piece of Money. The Prodigal Son. The Pharisee and the Publican. STANDARD IV Pepeat the Lord's Prayer; Psalm xxiii; the Ten Commandments; St. Matthew xxii, verses 35-40. THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 65 Learn St. John xiv, verses 8-21, or First Epistle of John iii, verses 11-20. Lessons from the Penta- teuch, with special reference to the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, with the practical lessons to be derived therefrom, together with the teaching of the law of Moses with reference to the " Poor," " Stranger,'^ " Fatherless," " Widow," " Parents," and " Children." Lessons from the Gospel according to St. Luke. STANDARD V Kepeat the Lord's Prayer; Psalm xxiii; the Ten Commandments; St. Matthew v, verses 1-12; St. Matthew xxii, verses 35-40. Learn Ephesians vi, verses 1-18, or 1 Corinthians xii, verse 31, and chapter xiii, and also any two of the following Psalms, cxliv-cl; and the following proverbs to illustrate the duty of (a) Truthfulness; Proverbs xii, verses 17, 18, 19, and 22; xiv, verse 25; xix, verse 22; xxvi, verse 28; xxviii, verse 13; (h) Temperance: Proverbs xxiii, verses 20 and 21. Lessons from the books of Samuel and Kings. Lessons from the Gospel according to St. Mark. STANDARD VI Eepeat the Lord's Prayer; Psalm xxiii; the Ten Commandments; St. Matthew v, verses 1-12; St. Matthew xxii, verses 35-40; and the following 56 ENGLAND AND WALES Proverbs to illustrate the duty of (a) Truthfulness: Proverbs xii, verses 17, 18, 19, 22; xiv, verse 25; xix, verse 22; xxvi, verse 28; and xxviii, verse 13; (b) Temperance: Proverbs xxiii, verses 20 and 21. Lessons from Isaiah, chapters liii-lv, and Psalms xc-cvi. Lessons from the Gospel according to St. Matthew. STANDARD VII Repeat the Lord's Prayer; Psalm xxiii; the Ten Commandments; St. Matthew v, verses 1-12; St. Matthew xxii, verses 35-40. Learn Isaiah Iv; any two of the following Psalms (other than the two learned in Standard Y), cxliv-cl; and Ephesians iv, verses 1-19. Lessons from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah xxxii-xlvi. Lessons from the Gospel according to St. John. Book of the Acts of the Apostles i-viii, and xiii-xv. EX-STANDARD VII Study of Isaiah liii-lxvi; and the Gospel accord- ing to St. Mark. SYLLABUS FOR CANDIDATES AND PUPIL-TEACHERS The course at the pupil-teachers' schools should afford a general acquaintance with the Old and New Testaments, with especial reference to those portions THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 57 ■which are included in the syllabus of instruction for children. This course should include not merely a general outline of the history and literature of the different periods referred to in the Bible, but also special at- tention should be given to the teaching contained therein. FOR CANDIDATES AND PUPIL-TEACHERS Lessons from Jeremiah xxxii-xlvi. Lessons from the Gospel acording to St. John. FIRST-YEAR PUPIL-TEACHERS Study of Isaiah liii-lxvi and the Gospel accord- ing to St. Mark. SECOND-YEAR PUPIL-TEACHERS Study of Deuteronomy and the Gospel according to St. Luke. THIRD- YEAR PUPIL-TEACHERS Study of the First Book of Samuel, the Gospel according to St. John, the Acts of the Apostles i-xiv. FOURTH-YEAR PUPIL-TEACHERS Study of Genesis, the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and the Acts of the Apostles xv-xxviii. A very few school boards in England and Wales do not provide for religious instruction; most of these 58 ENGLAND AND WALES are in Wales, in localities maintaining a very efficient system of Sunday-schools, in which parents prefer to have the Scripture lessons given. The Sunday-school system has been said to be most complete in Wales and least complete in London, though this city is well supplied. One thoroughly acquainted with the social and re- ligious conditions of Wales writes: ^' On the whole, the Welsh are a more religious people than the Eng- lish, but the Church of Wales is not the church of the majority, and non-conformist Wales consequently voted against religious instruction in board schools. The Sunday-schools of Wales are unique, as they in- clude adult Sunday-schools.'^ In the board schools of London working lists of Scripture lessons based upon the syllabus of instruc- tion are drawn up at the beginning of the year and submitted to the board inspector when he visits a school. Teachers are instructed to make the lessons as practical as possible, and not to give attention to unnecessary details. The pupils are regularly ex- amined in their Scripture lessons as in other lessons. By referring to the syllabus it will be seen that the Scripture lessons provide for ample reviews, so that a pupil can easily retain what he has learned in lower grades or standards. Interest is also stimulated and thoroughness is promoted by prizes awarded by the Eeligious Tract Society and by private individuals. THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 59 The extent of the Bible instruction in board schools is evident from the admission of the Guardian, a publication in the interests of the English Church. In the issue of September 25, 1895, occur these state- ments of the Bishop of Carlisle: " We who are most strong for the maintenance of our denominational schools must, after the recent publication of the Blue Book on religious teaching in board schools, thought- fully recognize that the term ^ godless ' is one which can not be justly applied to the board-school system while of 2,390 school boards, there are only 9 in Eng- land and 48 in Wales which make no provision for religious teaching." Similar statements as to the ex- tent, and statements showing the excellence, of the re- ligious or Bible instruction may be gathered from the utterances of Dr. Temple, late Archbishop of Canter- bury, and others holding high positions in the Church. Sir John Gorst, when vice-president of the Education Council not long ago, said in the House of Commons: " I am not certain, if it came to a real test, that you would not find that the facts and history of the Chris- tian faith are better taught to children in the board schools " (than in the voluntary schools). Later, be- fore the House of Commons, in June, 1898, Sir John Gorst said : " It is a common practise in a large number of Church schools to give Bible teaching on the first four days of the week and the teaching of the catechism on Friday. When I was speaking in the 60 ENGLAND AND WALES house some little time ago, I expressed doubts whetlier the teaching of historical facts was not given better in board schools than in voluntary schools. I entertain that doubt no longer. In London, at any rate, I have no hesitation in saying that the teaching in board schools is so superior to the teaching in voluntary schools that there is no comparison between them. In voluntary schools it is given in open school, in board schools in separate class rooms. In the volun- tary schools it is given by untrained, uncertificated teachers, in the board schools it is given by trained and certificated teachers. The pupil-teachers are there, but they listen." These statements were sharply challenged, but not disproved, by articles written by Churchmen and pub- lished in some of the leading papers of the metropolis. It is easy to believe that the statements of Sir John Gorst are correct when one reflects that at least one- fifth of the time set apart for instruction in morals and religion is devoted in the Church schools to in- struction in the catechism and other formulae of the Anglican Church, with especial emphasis upon the distinctive dogmas of the Church, while in board schools all the time set apart for such instruction is devoted to Scripture lessons and lessons in practical morality. As to the value of these lessons, Mr. H. H. As- quith, M. P., speaking not long ago in the Queen's THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 61 Hall, said : " I believe that there are thousands and tens of thousands of Churchmen who regard religious instruction given in the board schools as most valu- able for the purposes for which it is intended, and who do not think that its value is neutralized or its utility disproved because the minds of little children are not under it compelled to travel outside the simple facts and the elementary principles which are common to all forms of Christian faith." Sir Joshua Fitch, than whom, because of his broad views, genuine enthusiasm, and distinguished services as teacher, educational writer, and H. M. Inspector, no man is better able to judge, says that " a suc- cessful effort is made in the board schools to bring up the children in the fear of God, with a reverence for his "Word, a considerable knowledge of the history and poetry of the Bible and its plainer moral lessons, and especially of the life and teaching of our Lord; but that it is no part of the duty of the teacher to give instruction in controversial theology or to permit the school to serve as a propaganda for the tenets of any particular religious denomination. 'No one who knows the schools can well doubt that under these limitations religious and moral teaching of a very precious kind is imparted in the schools, and that the influence of this instruction on the conduct and char- acter of the children, and on the religious life of the nation, has been profoundly felt." Speaking of the 62 ENGLAND AND WALES adaptation of this teaching to the moral judgments of parents of different faiths, Sir Joshua adds : '^ It has, in fact, so far proved acceptable to the parents that out of about 500,000 scholars in the London board schools, the claim for exemption from religious lessons, which under the name of the ^ conscience clause ' is the statutory right of every parent, has only been made in the case of about 400 chil- dren, chiefly those of Jewish and Eoman Catholic parentage.'' Most of the training-colleges were founded under the auspices of the Anglican Church. Those who have completed the course in training-colleges are at- tracted to the board schools in London and in other large towns by the demand for specially trained teachers for these schools and the larger salaries paid. Hence much of the excellence of Scripture teaching in board schools must in justice be accredited to the instruction which teachers of board schools have re- ceived in Anglican training-colleges. The emphasis placed upon religious teaching in these colleges seems to produce an abiding impression upon students, though the distinctive dogmas of the Anglican Church may be disregarded in their subsequent teaching. The British and Foreign School Society has been very effective in establishing schools and in aiding schools, so far as its means would allow, in which un- sectarian religion based upon the Bible has been sys- THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 63 tematically taught. The present religious teaching of the board schools is in direct descent from the Lan- casterian schools. The success of these schools proved to a large proportion of the people of England that the Scriptures and those fundamental truths which all believers accept may be efficiently taught in schools free from the interference of the clergy and free from the peculiar dogmas of any sect. Soon after the founding of the British and For- eign School Society the jealous opposition of extreme Churchmen was aroused. They urged all Church- men to withdraw from the support of undenomina- tional schools. They considered any school instruc- tion dangerous that failed to inculcate the dogmas and doctrines of the Church, or that failed to habituate the children to its ceremonial. The dignitaries of the Church and very many of their followers withdrew from the movement so earnestly urged by Lancaster and others in favor of establishing unsectarian schools for all children, especially the children of the poor. The !N'ational Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church was founded. This and the British and Foreign School Society have long held the leadership of the great divisions of the people of England, who, while working alike for the elementary instruction of chil- dren, have differed sharply in their views respecting religious instruction in schools. 64 ENGLAND AND WALES For sixty years the friends of a state system of education were hindered by the inability of the com- mon people to initiate and sustain an educational movement, by the apathy of the upper classes, and by the attitude of the Anglican clergy, from establish- ing a system of public elementary schools, and, as we have seen, when in 1870, after a heated contest, it was established, the old order of things was undisturbed in the schools of the Church save as they were made quasi-public. The board schools constituted a system supplementary to the Church schools instead of a sys- tem national in extent and universal in curriculum. IN'either of the parties now show any sign of yielding; in Parliament and elsewhere each often conscien- tiously strives with the other for some advantage, giving rise to the statements often made by those en- gaged in school work, " We are two peoples in one nation." In 1839, we have seen, an attempt was made by the friends of popular education to establish a state normal school; but the scheme failed even after the ^ requisite funds were secured, owing mainly to the op- .| position of Churchmen. The result was that instead of an undenominational state normal school, the ap- propriation was divided for disbursement between the IN'ational and the British and Foreign School Soci- eties, and was used to establish one denominational ' and one undenominational training-college. The THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 65 I^ational Society is the agent of the Established or Anglican Church; the British and Foreign School Society is undenominational, but insists on moral and biblical instruction. In the years following 1839 several residential training-colleges were es- tablished. The Established Church during this period deeply felt the necessity of educating the children of the poor, and put forth no little effort in establishing col- leges for the training of elementary teachers. The supporters of the Established Church were superior to the non-conformists in influence, in wealth, and in education. They had a higher appreciation of edu- cation and were willing to make larger investments in schools and colleges. That they have so largely modi- fied the development of the elementary education of England is in no small degree owing to the fact that they first apprehended the economical and the moral value of elementary instruction when joined with religious training. During many decades previous to 1870, when the Parliament awoke to its duty to the children of the realm, the supporters of the Estab- lished Church, with no little personal sacrifice, were the main supporters of elementary schools. They founded most of the training-colleges for teachers in England and Wales. The whole number of training-colleges reported in the Blue Book for the school year 1900 is 61. This C6 ENGLAND AND WALES number included the 16 day colleges established at university colleges in England and Wales, and 45 resi- dential colleges. The large majority (about two- thirds) of the residential training-colleges are, in their religious instruction, under the control of the Angli- can clergy. In a circular issued from the press of the iN'ational Society, it is stated that " two-thirds of the entire number of trained teachers in the country '' have received their professional education in these schools. Since 1871 the universities have been open to students of all denominations without religious tests or hindrances. The large majority of the residential training-colleges of England are for the most part yet practically closed to those who are not, at least out- wardly, in accord with the ceremonial and formulae of the Church, though these colleges are now mainly sup- ported by parliamentary grants. Those who desire to see a real national system of schools in England can never be reconciled to this state of things. The six residential training-colleges of the British and For- eign School Society are among the best in England and Wales, but they, together with the day colleges, which are unsectarian, are quite inadequate to ac- commodate the large number of candidates who, having fulfilled the requirements for admission, de- sire to enter a training-college and there prepare for teaching, but who are not in sympathy with THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 67 the dogmas and the ceremonial of the Anglican Church. We give outlines of the special examination of candidates for admission to the Anglican training- colleges so far as pertains to religion, and also a syl- labus of religious teaching during the two years of the training course. For admission Octoher 29, 1898 O. T. : Moses and Joshua. ]^. T. : Transfiguration to beginning of Holy Week. Catechism: Text of the whole, with explanations. Prayer-Book: The offices for Public Baptism of Infants and Confirmation; Church History; Council of Mcsea and St. Athanasius. SYLLABUS FOR 1899 First-year students O. T. : Moses and Joshua. !N". T. : Transfiguration to beginning of Holy Week. Prayer-Book: Order for morning and evening prayer (including the Ember Prayers, the Prayer for all Conditions of Men, and the General Thanksgiving, but not including the Athanasian Creed, the Psalter, or Lectionary); the Litany; the Catechism to the end of the Lord's Prayer. 68 ENGLAND AND WALES Second-year students 'N. T. : Acts of the Apostles; the Epistle to the Colossians; Prayer-Book; the Nicene Creed, consid- ered historically and dogmatically. The Offices for Public Baptism of Infants. The Catechism (Sacraments). The Order of Confirmation. The Order of the Holy Communion. "While visiting one of the London board schools, the writer asked a young man in charge of one of the rooms whether he was graduated at a training-college. He replied that he was graduated at one in York be- cause that college of the Church was near his home. He added that though he was a Churchman, he should prefer to study at an undenominational college, for the reason that too large a portion of a student's time in a Church college was spent in the study of relig- ious topics — more time than was spent on any other subject. The undenominational training courses re- cently established in certain university colleges, and known as day colleges, furnish but a small propor- tion of the supply of trained teachers, though many of these colleges are doing very excellent work, and the attendance is destined, in the near future_, to be largely increased. We have seen that under the Act of 1870 the ratepayers in a school area must provide buildings THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 69 and maintain, by the aid of parliamentary grants, buildings and instruction for all children of school age who are not provided for in voluntary schools. Often, especially in the rural districts, the clergy plan to prevent the rise of any board schools by showing the ratepayers that it will be more economical to pro- vide additional accommodations by subscribing for the enlargement of the Church school than by establish- ing a board school. The average expense of maintain- ing a voluntary school is also shown to be in most cases less than the expense of maintaining a board school. An additional argument is pressed upon the con- sciences of those who believe that the peculiar dogmas and formulse of the Established Church are a neces- sary part of religion. In this way a Church school often holds its ground and maintains a degree of effi- ciency sufficient to secure its portion of the parlia- mentary grants, while the penurious ratepayers, by their scanty dole, are excused from making additional provision for the education of children. Mr. Lloyd George, M. P., of Carnarvon, said April 19, 1898, in the House of Commons : " In the Penrhyn quarry dis- trict the Church schools are substantially maintained by the owner of those quarries. He pays £400 to help maintain the Church schools, and this saves pay- ing £2,100 which he would pay if a board school was maintained at the same rate as in the adjoining quarry districts. But the schools of the latter are infinitely TO ENGLAND AND WALES better. But it is claimed that the voluntary schools, if inferior in secular education, are superior in moral instruction. Birmingham is a board-school district. Liverpool is a city of rampant denomina- tionalism in schools and in everything else. The criminal statistics of Liverpool are three times as high as those of Birmingham. London is far more of a board-school district than Liverpool. The criminal statistics are three times as high in Liverpool as in London. The same results will be shown to be appli- cable all over the country." The social conditions in Liverpool diminish the force of this comparison. The non-conformists in many rural sections affirm that during the late years clerical influence in schools has greatly increased. Mr. A. J. Mundella, secre- tary of the National Educational Association, says in his annual report presented at a meeting February 14, 1899: " There has been during recent years a distinct- ly retrograde movement in regard to the unsecta- rian character of the teaching of the public schools. There are now on many school boards members who are there as open foes of undenominational educa- tion, and whose main endeavor is to force the doctrine of one communion upon the children and teachers of different denominations. The clergyman of the parish is the ex-officio irremovable manager of the na- tional — i. e.. Church — school. Fifty years ago the THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 71 G overnment of the day secured to the subscribers to a national — i. e., an Anglican — school the right to elect managers from the laity, but latterly the gradual dis- appearance of subscriptions is leading to the disap- pearance of that constituency of independent lay sub- scribers, and in many parishes the clergyman is again in safe control. This fading away of the lay element has been accompanied by the creation of diocesan and other associations, clerical inspectors, and organizers ; all of these have brought into existence new forces, which are mainly directed toward making the schools more definitely sectarian. . . . " The clergy, if elected to serve on school boards, might be, and often are, valuable managers of the schools, but a clergyman in despotic control of the village schools, independent of the public opinion of his own parish, whether non-conformist or Anglican, is an unsuitable manager of the only school of the dis- trict which is supported by public funds, and which all denominations are compelled to use." It was much to the interest of the Anglican Church that the parish was made the unit of school area in 1870. That this Church should be allowed under the Act of 1897 to make the federations of voluntary schools coincide with dioceses is clearly an additional means of making denominational con- trol more effective. The Rev. J. Guiness Rogers, in one of his Bicen- T2 ENGLAND AND WALES tenarj Lectures delivered in London and commemo- rative of the revolution of 1688, says: " The Anglican clergy would fain have the world believe that from the first they have been the true and disinterested friends of education. It would be much more true to say that as a body (noble excep- tions there have always been) they have been opposed to education over which they themselves could not exercise control, that they have regarded with ill-con- cealed aversion all attempts conceived in a broader and more liberal spirit, and that their constant effort has been to make the school a channel through which their sacerdotal and sacramental ideas may be poured into the minds of the young. In their view, as ex- pressed more or less distinctly to-day, an education that is not shaped more or less by the priest, is a godless education. ... " This attitude of the Church party and its sympa- thizers — it would not be unjust to describe it as the priest party — has been, and still is, the one obstacle to a national system of education. There are other differences of opinion, but these might have been settled had there not been their constant attempt to turn national institutions into sectarian preserves." Mr. Eichard Waddington, head master in St. James's School, Bolton, England, and president of the ^N'ational Union Teachers' Association during the years 1898 and 1899, said in his annual ad- THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 73 dress : " As a Churclimaii and master of a Church, school, I recognize that the unfortunate and un- necessary introduction of dogma and doctrine has made progress in primary education difficult of ac- complishment." The writer not long ago attended morning services in St. PauFs Cathedral, London, and listened to a ser- mon prepared in the interest of the !N^ational Society, from Matthew xviii, 6 : " But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." In his introduction the dean showed that Jesus appreciated the excellent qualities of little children and would have adults make these their own by their own rational action and choice. He then urged that in order to form a proper character chil- dren must have religious instruction. To have such instruction, they must be taught the truths main- tained by the Church. The I^ational Society was formed for the purpose of teaching children religion — i. e., the principles of the Established Church. Hence, let all those who would have children become what they should be in religion and morality con- tribute to the I^ational Society. The inference was plain, whether stated in so many words or not, that those who would not so aid the Church by their con- tributions would "offend these little ones," and that it 74 ENGLAND AND WALES were better for them ^Hhat a millstone were hanged about their necks." In the course of the sermon the reverend dean found abundant opportunity to dwell upon the inefficiency of the board schools, character- izing them as ^' godless schools " teaching a " colorless religion." Whether the dean was eloquent in his de- nunciations of board schools from any actual knowl- edge of the lessons in morality and in the Scriptures that are there given, or based his statements on what he imagined, is a question. A lady who is a member of the Established Church, and who at the head of a large board school for several years has been success- ful in her Scripture and moral teaching, told me that she had been sorely tried by some clerical gentlemen in her district, who continued to make statements that were false respecting the teaching of morality and re- ligion in the board schools, without acquainting them- selves with the facts by visiting the schools and listen- ing to the lessons given. The Anglican clergy have always urged that Scripture lessons are of little value unless joined with lessons in the distinctive doctrines of the Church. To non-conformists this view is repugnant and irra- tional, and incompatible with a proper system of public schools. They can not see why the religion of Christ and of the ^ew Testament should not suffice for elementary schools. A Churchman would reply that the formularies of the Church embody in brief THE llELIGIOUS QUESTION 75 and usable form the great truths of the religion of Christ and of the New Testament. After all that the non-conformists can urge against the teaching of sectarian dogmas in elemen- tary schools, the fact remains that to the Anglican Church England is directly or indirectly indebted for the systematic and earnest teaching of Scripture les- sons in her elementary schools. The literary, moral, and religious value of these lessons can hardly be over- estimated. The tendency of population in England, as in the United States, to gather in cities and towns brings together people of different nationalities and faiths. In these centers the number of school-chil- dren is constantly overflowing the accommodations. The Church can not provide the needed buildings, even if all the parents were willing to send their chil- dren to the Church schools. Having the resources of ratepayers on which to levy, school boards can estab- lish schools as fast as they are needed; hence the rate of increase of board schools is much beyond that of voluntary schools. The tendency in England seems to be to appropriate larger and larger sums from the national treasury, thus relieving the local rate- payers and the subscribers to the voluntary schools. As might be expected, subscriptions for voluntary schools have relatively diminished as state appropria- tions have increased. 7G ENGLAND AND WALES The larger share of the money used for instruction in the voluntary schools now comes from the national treasury. As early as 1894 there were more than a thousand voluntary schools which were carried on without any subscription. The later bountiful grants of Parliament must have largely increased this num- ber. Sir Joshua Fitch says in an article in the Edu- cational Record, February, 1899 : " It is not to be be- lieved that Parliament will long sanction an arrange- ment of this kind which permits schools to be sup- ported entirely by public funds and yet leaves them entirely to private management, and without any con- trol by the inhabitants or other representatives of the public." Since those in favor of the Church schools can not occupy the ground with their schools nor prevent the steady increase of board schools, they have attempted from time to time to " capture the board schools." For an account of these attempts which have at times involved clerical gentlemen in doubtful politics while endeavoring to secure the election of " their men " on school boards I will quote again from the article of Sir Joshua Fitch, whose long experience as one of the chief inspectors and in other official relations qualify him to speak with authority : " A society calling itself the Religious Education Society, apparently on the supposition that no religious education is possible for young children unless it is essentially sectarian, THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 77 has been formed, mth the approval of several of the bishops and with the avowed object of obtaining leave for the ministers of religion and other teachers especially accredited by the several churches, to give definite dogmatic instruction, according to their re- spective creeds, in the board schools. . . . There is not the smallest evidence that the parents of the children in the board schools or in the schools of the British and Foreign School Society either demand distinctive sectarian teaching or would welcome it if it were offered. ^Neither does the proposal emanate from the Protestant dissenters. They are content with the Scriptural teaching of the day-school and with the opportunities of adding whatever denomina- tional instruction they deem necessary in their Sun- day-schools or in religious services. !Nor have the Koman Catholic or the Wesley an Churches asked for admission of their own ministers into the board schools. The only advocates of the proposal are those who profess to speak in the name of the Estab- lished Church, and who seek to make use of the rate- aided schools as instruments for extending the relig- ious influence of that Church, since the direct agency of the voluntary system has effected so little toward the attainment of that result. And it is to be borne in mind that the various organizations which have identified themselves with this movement — the Eng- lish Church Union, the Keligious Education Union, Y8 ENGLAND AND WALES and the meeting of Diocesan Conferences — are com- posed almost entirely of persons who do not nse the public elementary schools for their own children, and who have not evinced any anxiety to secure definite Church teaching in grammar schools, public schools, or other places of secondary or higher education. In fact, as it has often been pointed out before, the policy now recommended represents an attempt on the part of the richer classes to enforce on the acceptance of other people's children dogmas and formularies which they do not ask for, and probably would not tolerate if enforced on their own. . . . But as to all attempts to impress a sectarian character upon our municipal and rate-aided schools, or to recognize in those schools denominational differences in the teach- ing, or in the classification of children and their teach- ers, it may be hoped that the resolve of the best friends of education in England will be decisive and unmistakable." It is evident that the more the state contributes to the support of the voluntary schools the stronger the assurance that these schools are destined to come under the control of the central authority or repre- sentatives of the local community. A strong argument for the prevalence of board schools in all parts of the realm is that they are more efficient than voluntary schools. They can have the money needed ; they are not limited to parliamentary THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 79 grants and uncertain subscriptions. School boards assess the tax or rate requisite for the maintenance of the school. Again, the more earnest and ambi- tious teachers, unless deeply imbued with " the dog- matic sentiments," always seek to avail themselves of the more progressive methods and larger pay of the board schools. Another reason why the aggressive measures of the Anglican clergy will ultimately come to naught is that there is a growing lack of unity in the Church. In many places an excessive ritualism, unauthorized by the standards of the Church — a medieval Eoman ritual — is being developed. This ritualism excites the aversion of moderate Churchmen, and the disgust, the contempt, and sometimes the pious horror of the dissenter. The introduction of the teaching of the dogmas and formularies of the Anglican Church into the board schools the moderate Churchman sees may lead to ritualistic teaching which he can not approve, while the dissenter often regards this " attempt to cap- ture the board schools " as ultimately an attempt to Romanize the schools. The Protestant sentiment is very strong in England for the most part. It is said to be stronger in the House of Lords even than in the House of Commons. The more democratic house we should expect to be the more tolerant; but this house has shown, by its recent action, with great unanimity, that the people of England do 80 ENGLAND AND WALES not propose to allow the Established Churcli to be Romanized. In justice to the Anglican Church it should be said that its teaching of the Bible, making it the foun- dation of religious faith and the bulwark of civil liberty, has habituated the English mind to regard in- struction in the English Bible as essential to the well- being of the individual and the nation. Nothing can obscure this achievement of the Anglican Church. Though the Board of Education takes no cognizance of religious instruction, such is the prevailing senti- ment that managers of board schools generally are thoroughly in earnest to have the Scripture lessons as well, if not better, taught than any other branch. We have seen that we have good reason to be- lieve that they succeed in this even better than the Church schools; the emphasis that is put upon dog- matic teaching in the Church schools may in part account for this. But whether in the board or in the voluntary schools, no one can question the great benefit of Bible study as now pursued. The daily conning of Scrip- ture lessons in practically all the elementary schools of Great Britain results in an abiding knowledge of an outline of the Bible and of Scripture characters, especially of Christ. The moral lessons joined with the biographical study of the Bible must also for the most part remain, as this teaching is often very I THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 81 earnest and thorough. It is well for the children of the English people that thej thus lay hold of the English Bible. Leaving out of account the religious value of this instruction, we can hardly overestimate the literary value of reading and rereading, memori- zing and repeating, selections from the Bible. Mr. Matthew Arnold, for many years one of her Majesty's inspectors, was very earnest in his support of the curriculum of Bible study pursued in the board schools. In one of his reports to the Committee of Council on Education he said: " This could raise no jealousies, or if it still raise some, let a sacrifice be made of them for the sake of the end in view. Some will say that what we propose is but a small use to put the Bible to, yet it is that on which all higher use of the Bible is to be built, and its adoption is the only chance for saving the one elevating and inspiring element in the scanty instruction of our primary schools from being sacrificed to a politico-religious difiiculty." In his preface to The Great Prophecy of Israel's Eestoration, one of the Bible readings which he carefully prepared for the schools, Mr. Ar- nold says : " Only one literature there is, one great literature, for which the people have had a prepara- tion — the literature of the Bible. However far they may be from having a complete preparation for it, they have some, and it is the only great literature for which they have any. ... If poetry, philoso- 82 ENGLAND AND WALES phy, and eloquence — if what we call in one word letters — are a power and a beneficent wonder-work- ing power in education, through the Bible only have the people much chance of getting at poetry, phi- losophy, and eloquence. . . . Chords of power are touched by this instruction which no other part of the instruction in a popular school reaches, and chords various, not the single religious chord only. The Bible is for the child in an elementary school almost his only contact with poetry and philosophy. . . . All who value the Bible may rest assured that thus to know and possess the Bible is the most certain way to increase and perpetuate its influence." I CHAPTEK III TRAINING-COLLEGES The germ of professional training of teachers ap- pears in England early in the present century in the monitorial system of Lancaster and Bell. One hun- dred years ago, Joseph Lancaster, rightly termed an " educational evangelist," created a wide-spread en- thusiasm in the education of the poor and proved that large schools might be maintained at very little ex- pense for teachers. An educational millennium was thought by many to be just at hand, though the peo- ple of England as a state had not yet recognized their obligation to educate children. Eor many decades the education of children was to be left to the private efforts of parents and the promptings of Christian philanthropy. Children of the lower classes were largely excluded from school by the inability or un- willingness of parents to be deprived of the earnings of their children. School fees were also a barrier. The monitorial system promised education to all chil- dren almost without money and without price. This system was necessarily mechanical in the extreme, re- quired little or no professional training, and resulted 83 84 ENGLAND AND WALES in teaching which was meager indeed. Joseph Lan- caster was for a time in the United States, and his system then seemed destined to revolutionize our own schools. The monitorial schools of 'New Haven, Philadelphia, Portland, and other towns and cities at- tracted wide attention. The large grammar school of Portland, Me., in grade above the intermediate and below the high school, may be taken as a sample of monitorial schools as they were maintained for a time in America, and may help us to understand some of their evils and their excellences. The writer was a pupil in the school, not long before the monitorial sys- tem in that city gave place to a better system. The boys, nearly 300 in all, were seated in the central part of the long room in such a way as to leave a broad space or aisle behind and on each side of the pupils' desks, separating them from three walls of the room. Against these walls at regular intervals were seats for the monitors. The desk of the only paid teacher was in the center of the platform at the front end of the room. His desk was flanked by desks for the monitors of order. These were a sort of reserve detective police to serve in turn, as requested, when the master's attention was fully engrossed in inspect- ing copy-books or in other duties. The floor of the long schoolroom was a gradual ascent from the master's platform to the rear end of the room. Each recitation hour began with a signal, when all the TRAINING-COLLEGES 85 school, with the exception of the first or highest class, to which the monitors belonged, rose and filed toward the monitors' desks and stood about them in half- circles during the recitation. The position was the same while reciting in arithmetic, grammar, geogra- phy, and reading. These, with writing from copies and some attempt at composition writing, formed the intellectual pabulum of the school. During the recitation, the master, with one of his instruments of punishment tucked under his arm, visited the classes in turn, inspecting, examining, or punishing, as it seemed to him best. One form of punishment was the transfer of a pupil to a lower grade. If the master was at work at his desk instead of inspecting the classes his police functions were not suspended. An offender might frequently be seen with solemn face or smiling to " keep his courage up " going to report his misdemeanor to the master while the monitor watched the interview, and judged by the result whether the wrongdoer had been truthful. As it seemed a tonic to the good order of his class and in keeping with his dignity and reputation as a discipli- narian, it was not uncommon for a monitor to send up a boy. Unfortunately the unpopularity of some boys made it easy to report them for chastisement. The worst feature of the administration of the school appeared in connection with the monitors of order. A large-minded boy was quite apt to decline to 86 ENGLAND AND WALES occupy one of the honorable seats on the platform. If he yielded to the request of the master, he seemed to have such poor vision during the time of his service that his slate was often blank, when the master had expected a full list of offenders. This soon resulted in retirement. A boy who really felt himself hon- ored in helping the master distribute penalties to wrongdoers was quite apt to magnify his office by noting full lists. Sometimes a boy who thought him- self wronged by the reporting monitor would trounce him out of school. But the monitor had the advan- tage, as the jurisdiction of the master extended over the boys when between the home and the school, and an extra punishment might be secured as an offset against the trouncing. The lack of ventilation, the wearisome round of book study, and the lack of suit- able employment for leisure intervals, occasioned the most mischief during the afternoon session. At length the master, having finished most of his work, called for the slates of the monitors of order. As he read, the criminals named left their seats and stood in the wide aisles, most of the pupils dropping their work to observe the arraignment, until perhaps a score stood awaiting reprimand or punishment. Then, while the pupils seated were in a hush of excitement, the master passed up one aisle and down the other, flogging deftly the accused if old offenders, who responded in tragic tones, real or feigned, or defied the worst with TRAINING-COLLEGES 87 sullen, stoic pride. The performance having broken the monotony of the session and given the master the glow of generous exercise, the school was tolerably quiet till dismissal. If the boys could have had the fresh air which is now required by law in our school- rooms, with brief, vigorous gymnastic exercises at proper intervals, there might have been no occasion for the almost daily semibarbaric performance. Though many evils were inseparable from the monitorial system, in the hands of an enthusiastic tactful teacher, like Lancaster, much was accom- plished. An esprit de corps was awakened which made government easy, tended to develop manhood, and resulted in lessening the frequency of the more barbaric forms of punishment. The effect upon the monitors was in many cases most salutary; while some rested in a petty vanity, others, and the greater number, were made more earnest in their school work and more manly by their sense of responsibility. We boys had an abiding ad- miration for the head monitor, who occupied a low platform at the end of the room opposite the master's desk. He was ever firm but genial in maintaining order, and thorough in his teaching. He seemed to delight in restoring boys who had deviated from the path of right by persuasion rather than by penalty. "Not was he, in this, alone ; other monitors were sympa- thetic and helpful. The ability of one boy to help 88 ENGLAND AND WALES another is sometimes greater tlian that of an adult. To many in a monitor's desk came the revelation of their life work; there they first felt the enthusiasm and experienced the delight of a teacher. The wri- ter can speak from an experience which led to a glad service in school and college extending over a period of nearly fifty years. Though the instruc- tion given by monitors was crude and mechanical, it was in many cases improved by faithful masters who taught their highest classes with much thor- oughness. A progressive teacher felt the need of doing good work with those from whom his aids were drawn. The great awakening to the need of better meth- ods of instruction which characterized the third decade of the nineteenth century led to the final abolition of monitorial schools in the United States. In England, from the monitorial was evolved the pupil-teacher system. To the monitorial schools, when compared with the schools that preceded, may be credited the more rapid acquisition of reading, the use of ruled slates, of blackboards and wall charts, the coordinate teach- ing of reading and writing, and written spelling by dictation. The prominence given to class work pre- pared the way for graded schools. As all the pupils in the Portland school were in one room, it was easy to grade them in monitorial classes without grading TRAINING-COLLEGES 89 them according to their proficiency in all their studies. Some pupils were in the highest division in reading, though in a lower division in geography, and in a still lower in arithmetic. The monitorial schools also adopted better means of applying motives than the time-honored custom of frequent flogging, though the Portland school was not a brilliant instance of this improvement. Dr. Kay, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner in the eastern counties of England, thoroughly convinced of the defects of the monitorial system, planned and in a measure secured some teaching and training of moni- tors by skilled teachers. Thus, as early as 1836, we find the beginnings of the pupil-teachers system which obtains in Great Britain. Three years later Dr. Kay became secretary of the Committee of the Council of Education. His efforts to establish a state normal school failed; but his forcible exposition of the necessity of training teachers for their work was not without effect. In 1839, the £10,000 which had been voted in 1835 by Parliament for the establishment of a state normal school was divided equally between the IN'ational Society for promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Church and the British and Foreign School Society. The former, generally termed the ^National Society, we have seen, is main- tained by the supporters of the Established Church, the latter by dissenters and those who approve of the 90 ENGLAND AND WALES exclusion of sectarianism from public schools, though insisting upon the systematic study of the Bible. The training-college established in London by this society still bears the name of the Borough Road Training- College, though recently moved on to an ample site at Isleworth, a suburb of the city. Later, its counter- part, a college for women, was established on Stock- well Road, London. These two take high rank among the training-colleges of England. The £5,000 received by the E^ational Society was used to establish the first training-school, now an excellent college for men under the auspices of the Established Church, St. Marks, in Chelsea. This, of course, is a college in which the teaching of the dogmas of the Church is in- cluded in the curriculum. The religious wrangle, which is ever ready to recur when school questions are under discussion, in 1835 prevented the establish- ment of one undenominational normal school. Had such a school been established for the training of teachers it would have helped much in introducing a really national system of schools. It is evident that the movement to provide suit- able teachers for the schools of England by establish- ing training-colleges was contemporaneous with the organization of the Massachusetts Board of Educa- tion and the founding of the first two normal schools in America, that now at Eramingham and that at Westfield, Mass. The history of education shows TRAINING-COLLEGES 91 that these measures in England and in the United States originated in the patriotic efforts of Stein and others to restore the ruins of the Napoleonic wars and lift Prussia from her degradation by inaugura- ting an efficient system of public schools. Earlier, Kousseau had heralded the return to nature in the education of children. Pestalozzi, with an almost angelic love and sympathy for children, attempted to realize the theories of Eousseau, not follow- ing, however, the dicta of any who had preceded him, but gaining his practical philosophy and in- spiration by the study of the orphan children with whom he lived and labored, and for whom he spent himself and his substance with all the devotion of a mother. Froebel studied the child with a keener phil- osophic ken than Rousseau or Pestalozzi, and was led to emphasize the great fundamental principle of edu- cation that the human mind is developed through its own activity. Eroebel taught that it was the busi- ness of a teacher to furnish the opportunities and the occasions for the child to gain knowledge and power by his own self-activity. The child was not to be crammed and compelled, but guided and encouraged. These men, and others who, whether their contempo- raries or not, must be reckoned as their coworkers, ushered in for western Europe, for America, for the world, a new era of educational progress. The im- pulse they imparted has never waned. To-day, as 92 ENGLAND AND WALES never before, it is felt in every department of in- struction. In 1846 Parliament increased the education grant, for the purpose mainly of securing more competent masters and for the better training of pupil-teachers. Hereafter these were to receive special instruction in their work and to be allowed a limited sum for services. After five years of approved service, suc- cessfully passing the Queen's Scholarship and Stu- dentship Examination, they could be admitted to a training-college and receive from the national treasury a Queen's scholarship of £20 or £25 a year during the two years' residence at the col- lege. The proficiency of the students was to be determined by the examinations. As training-col- leges now received pay from the state in the form of scholarship grants for their students, so far as their competency to teach had been approved, and as each of the Church and other religious bodies desired to train its own young men and women as teachers, the number of training-colleges increased. In 1860 there were 35 in England and Wales. These were for the most part connected with the Anglican Church. Only two were undenominational. The act of 1870 gave new impulse to the training of teachers. Eour years' service as a pupil-teacher was long required of one who would pass from an elementary school to a training-college. A shorter TRAINING-COLLEGES 93 service as pupil-teacher is now required. Students in the elementary schools prepare for the Queen's Scholarship Examination while acting as pupil-teach- ers, receiving some advanced instruction from the principal teachers under whom they serve or from teachers at pupil-centers. These centers or teachers' schools are maintained in London and many other large towns. In London a pupil-teacher attends a center from three to ^ye half-days per week. In smaller towns and in rural districts the pupil-teachers are convened on Saturdays and on certain evenings to receive instruction in addition to that given by teach- ers during school sessions. Arrangements are some- times made for their professional instruction in private schools a part of some days of the week. The State Departmental Committee on the Pupil-Teach- er's System appointed on January 4, 1897, recom- mended that no classes of pupil-teachers meet in the evening. In some parts of Wales pupil-teachers must attend a secondary or high school the first two years of their appointment and practise two follow- ing years. At Barry, South Wales, and in other places, we are told, the experiment is already made of employing as pupil-teachers only those who come from a secondary school. Pupil-teachers also con- tinue their professional education, not in pupil-centers nor under the teachers of the elementary school in which they are employed, but in secondary schools. 94 ENGLAND AND WALES Probably this plan, or some modification of it, will be adopted in England when a system of secondary schools, as now proposed, is established. Then teachers will have a broader intellectual preparation, and will not as readily relapse after graduation from the training-school into the routine work to which they are now strongly habituated by their three or four years' practise as pupil-teachers. It is worth something to the state and to one who is looking for- ward to teaching as a vocation to test his aptness for the business; but he would make a far better teacher if a larger part of his time were spent in a generous preparation for the normal course of the training- college, and less time in practise. ^Neither Germany nor Switzerland, countries foremost in elementary education, would tolerate the pupil-teacher system of England because of its narrowing effect upon him who intends to become a teacher, and because of its injus- tice to the children whom he teaches. The system, we have seen, is an evolution from the monitorial sys- tem of Lancaster and Bell. It has been maintained because of the tendency of the English to do as they have done, and because of the wretched economy of saving money by employing pupil-teachers instead of more competent and more expensive instructors. 1898, when the " educational estimate " was before the House of Commons, Sir John Gorst said: "Pupil- teachers were, I suppose, originally sanctioned in the of J In* TRAINING-COLLEGES 95 school, and were paid for out of the public money in the expectation that they would only be temporary, but in practise they were so extremely useful as furnishing in the school cheap child labor that the object of their institution is liable to be lost in the secondary purpose which they serve." On another occasion he said, when speaking of the country schools which suffer most from the excess of pupil-teachers: " The general condition of the country pupil-teacher is to be a great deal more of a school drudge than a pupil. They have to go to school early, often walk- ing a long distance. They have to remain behind when the other children go home. They get their in- struction partly before school, partly during play hours, when the other children are in the playgrounds; partly during the dinner hour, when other children are eating their dinner; and partly after the instruc- tion is closed. It is teaching given by a tired teacher to a tired pupil. ... I am afraid, to this dire necessity of having cheap teachers in the schools, in the first place the welfare of the poor school drudges themselves, and in the next place the national interest in getting better trained and better taught teachers for the rural districts, will have to give way." About 25 per cent of the teaching force in England and Wales are pupil-teachers. The proportion in Scot- land is considerably less. The voluntary rural schools have the highest proportion. 96 ENGLAND AND WALES The officials of the Education Department are not ignorant of the evils noticed, and are trying to remove them. The code of 1899 when submitted to Parlia- ment for ratification contained the following clause: " After the 1st of January, 1900, no pupil-teacher will be recognized in a school in which there are not at least two adult teachers employed, except with the special consent of the inspector." There was so much opposition to this " advanced measure," especially on the part of Churchmen caring for parish schools, that it was struck out. The poverty of the parish schools was the grand argument. Another progressive measure was more fortunate in securing approval. We quote it: " For pupil-teachers admitted from the 1st of July, 1900, or any later date, the length of engage- ment will ordinarily be three years, but may be two or one, provided that (a) the candidate passes the ex- amination prescribed by Schedule Y for the first or second year, and (h) the end of the reduced term of service falls beyond the completion of the candidate's eighteenth year." The department are also doing what they can to raise the age at which pupil-teachers may be em- ployed. The code defines a training-college as " an institu- tion either for boarding, lodging, and instruction, or for merely instructing students who are preparing to TRAINING-COLLEGES 97 become certificated teachers in elementary schools." The former are called residential, the latter day training-colleges. A residential college may receive a few day students. Training-colleges are required " to include, either on their premises or within a convenient distance, a practising school in which the students may learn the practical exercise of their pro- fession." As the large majority of the residential training- colleges were founded by the Anglican Church before the act of 1870, the parliamentary grants for training- colleges help to maintain a system of religious in- struction that is very objectionable to many non-con- formists, and which in many sections practically ex- cludes conscientious non-conformist students from the professional training now provided mainly at public expense. The conscience clause in the act of 1870 permits children of non-conformists to be excused from religious instruction in elementary schools, but a conscience clause has not been applied to residential colleges. This condition of things gives ground to the following statements made in the House of Com- mons by Mr. Lloyd George, one of the Welsh mem- bers, April 19, 1898: " I think it fair to state that 75 per cent of the children attending Church schools in Wales are dissenters. !Not a single child of a dissenter can en- ter the teaching profession in these districts except 98 ENGLAND AND WALES on condition that lie abandon his faith. . . . The teaching profession is the only profession in which the state assists a poor child to climb. . . . That the non-conformists should receive worse treatment at the hands of the state than is meted out to Par- sees and Mohammedans in the state schools of India is to my mind a gross scandal." The grievance of which Mr. George justly complains is that in par- ishes occupied by Church schools it is impossible, with very few exceptions, for children of dissenters to become pupil-teachers, and hence impossible for them in this way to prepare for admission to a train- ing-college. In accordance with the Act of 1890, day training-colleges have been established in every town in England and Wales having a university or a university college. These training-colleges would be termed in America simply pedagogical courses in college. The term " college " in England is oftener than in the United States used in its broader and origi- nal meaning — to denote an association or class of men engaged in a common pursuit. The pedagogical classes that constitute the day training-colleges are usually small. The whole number making up the day training-college at Oxford during the year 1898 was 13 men; 22 were in the University of Cambridge. A good share of them, both at Oxford and Cambridge, were reading for a degree rather than attempting to gain the mastery of the principles of their profession TRAINING-COLLEGES 99 or skill in its practise. The attendance at the three day colleges in Wales, at Aberystwith, Bangor, and Cardiff, is much larger, and at other places where the expenses are less than at Oxford and Cambridge. If one is to enter any one of the three Roman Catholic training-colleges he must subscribe to the tenets of the Roman Catholic faith. The candidate for admis- sion to an Anglican training-college may be expected to be questioned respecting his confirmation and bap- tism and whether he is a communicant. The two Wesleyan residential training-colleges, one for men and the other for women, located in London, regard conversion as essential to a teacher, and ask the candi- date for admission to either college for credentials of Christian character. These Methodist colleges have done much to emphasize the Christian purpose and spirit which should characterize a teacher. In schools in London and elsewhere taught by teachers from these colleges faithful work is done and an excellent moral tone is maintained. As the authorities of each college and the local committees settle their own terms of admission, candi- dates usually select the college they wish to enter, pass its examination, and by recommendation from the college present themselves to officers of the Educa- tion Department for examination and admission. After one, by passing his examinations, is entitled to enter the college he previously elected he is not L.ofC. 100 ENGLAND AND WALES allowed to transfer himself to another college with- out the consent of the authorities of the college he had proposed to enter. We have already noted some of the different re- ligious tests a college may apply, as it is Roman Catholic, Anglican, or Methodist. The remainder of the examinations for admission to the different de- nominational colleges may be somewhat similar. I will note the examination of a candidate for admission to one of the Wesleyan colleges as prescribed by the committee in general charge of the college. In connection with credentials of Christian char- acter, credentials of preparation at a Wesleyan school are required. This is not a prescribed condition, but 16 a custom arising from the fact that the Methodist churches annually contribute to the support of their training-colleges. They also contribute to the sup- port of many of the Wesleyan schools in different parts of Great Britain. These schools furnish twice as many candidates as can be accommodated in the two colleges. The candidate is examined respecting his health, whether he has ever suffered from any form of chest affection, whether from rheumatism, whether any near relatives have been afflicted with consumption or insanity, whether either parent is dead, and if so, from what disease and at what age. The age of parents li^dng is also required, the condi- tion of their health and of the health of brothers and TRAINING-COLLEGES 101 sisters, if any. A certificate of healtli and of vaccina- tion is also required. The candidate is examined as to the books he has read, under the following heads: Biblical and theological; Methodist and devotional; history and biography; travel and natural history; science; poetry and literature. The candidates are required to give the names of the authors, as well as the titles, of the books. A short essay written in the preparatory school, with the teacher's marks of cor- rection, is also submitted. A report of the local com- mittee of the day-school in which the candidate has served as a pupil-teacher is handed in, stating the time of service, intellectual ability, teaching power, dis- ciplinary power, character, and general disposition. The candidate affirms in writing that if admitted to the college, he will remain in residence two years, health permitting, will conform to the rules and regu- lations of the college, will upon graduation serve as an assistant or principal teacher in a public elemen- tary school, and do his utmost to obtain as soon as possible, by good conduct and efficient service, a " parchment certificate.'' The candidate pledges himself not to remove from any school in which he is employed nor resign without the consent of the Wes- leyan Education Committee, and not to withdraw from the profession of a teacher in a public elemen- tary school before he has actually received his cer- tificate, without the consent of the Education Com- 102 ENGLAND AND WALES mittee. This declaration is indorsed by tlie parent or guardian. If signed by the parent the statement is in these words, " This declaration has been signed by my son with my full consent." The inquiries made of the candidate respecting diseases of the respiratory organs show that these diseases are most feared. These in England have re- ceived large attention from medical men, and the death-rate is only one-half of that fifty years ago, yet it is not very uncommon to find in London in the winter season a thousand teachers withdrawn for a time from the schoolroom by bronchial attacks. The state supports the colleges in securing com- pliance with their conditions of admission. In case of non-compliance, " the department may refuse to grant parchment certificates '' to the derelict students " or to recognize them as certificated teachers." After the candidate has passed the college ex- amination, and is recommended to the state authori- ties to be examined for admission to a training-college as a Queen's scholar, he presents to the Examining Board credentials of having passed successfully his annual examinations while a pupil-teacher. The ex- amination is conducted at the several colleges, but the examination papers are prepared at the central office at London. The subjects in which the candidates are examined for admission to the training-colleges include reading, repetition, penmanship, dictation, TRAINING-COLLEGES 103 theory of teaching, practise of teaching, geography, history, English composition and language, and liter- ature, arithmetic, algebra and English (for men only), domestic economy and needlework (for women only), elementary science, languages, drawing, and music. Candidates who have not been pupil-teachers must be over eighteen years of age. The written work of the candidate is inspected and marked by officials belonging to the Education Department. When the results are made up, the can- didates are divided into three classes. Those whose record places them in the first or second class can enter a training-college, if there is room for them. The total number of candidates presented for exami- nation in 1897 was 10,390. Gf these, 1,245 men and 4,256 women passed in the first and second class. Deducting those who stated on their papers that they did not desire to enter a training-college, 1,045 men and 2,494 women were qualified and desired to enter a residential college; but for 165 men and 1,194 women there were no places. In 1900, 4,085 students were enrolled in the residential colleges — 1,488 men and 2,597 women. The total grant for these colleges in 1900 was £151,933, including grants to day col- leges. Though the sifting process seems to be applied to candidates by abundant examinations, the lack of sufficient preparation before entering a training-col- 104: ENGLAND AND WALES lege is a common complaint in many colleges. My own observation of students and classes led me to be- lieve that the preparation for entering a training-col- lege was technically thorough, but narrow and book- ish, owing to the routine and mechanical work in- separable from the present pupil-teacher system. I found that many teachers in training-colleges were hopefully looking forward to the time when a sec- ondary course of instruction shall be substituted for a large part, if not for all, of the four years of pupil- teaching. A pupil-teacher must spend much of his time in preparing and giving drill in the elementary studies. The master must train the pupil-teachers to acquire skill in approved devices that they may be im- mediately efficient; he has little time and perhaps little inclination to discuss the deeper principles and broader views of the studies taught. There is much to admire in the accuracy and neatness of the papers of pupil-teachers. They should have the enrichment of culture studies as well as the thorough drill in read- ing, writing, and other elementary studies before entering a training-college. The elementary acquisitions of candidates is often defective. In the Revised Instructions, recently issued to his Majesty's inspectors, attention is called to the training of pupil-teachers, and to the need which exists for " making that training effective." A training-college includes a normal college and a TRAINING-COLLEGES 105 practising school. Tlie instructions add that " it is the frequent complaint of the authorities of normal colleges that much of their time and labor during the first year of training are necessarily expended upon elementary work which ought to have been done during the period of apprenticeship." And the re- port of his Majesty's inspectors bears witness " to the superficial acquirements of many of the pupil-teach- ers, and to the imperfect and unsystematic character of the preparation they often receive for their future work." Three-fourths of the ordinary expenses incurred by students during the two years of study at a train- ing-college is paid to the college by parliamentary; grants. Thirty-six pounds per male student in resi- dential colleges per year. A smaller sum is paid for women and for students in day colleges. This is paid to the college, but is not due until a student has com- pleted his course at a training-college, and as a teacher in the elementary schools has shown sufficient ability to receive from the Education Department, upon recommendation of his Majesty's inspector, a " parch- ment certificate." This is usually obtained within two years after graduation. This arrangement tends to prevent the expenditure of state money in training incompetent teachers, and to make the college careful in selecting and in training of students. I found teachers in the colleges plumed themselves upon the 106 ENGLAND AND WALES success of their graduates in tlie schools of tlie state rather than on the number of students in attendance. The prescribed studies of the two years' course in a normal college include physiology, psychology, school management, etc., reading and recitation, pen- manship, arithmetic, grammar, English language and literature and composition, geography, physiography, history, algebra, geometry, music, the elements of political economy, and the Latin and French lan- guages. E'eedlework and domestic economy are pre- scribed in colleges for women. These can omit a good share of the mathematics and political economy. Limited courses in the natural sciences are required in most of the colleges, if not in all. The local com- mittee or managers are held to be primarily responsi- ble for the condition and work of the college. They conduct, or require the teachers to conduct, indi- vidual examinations and to keep the results on file for their inspection and for the inspection of his Majesty's inspectors. As these state inspectors take no cogni- zance of religious instruction, the managers in de- nominational colleges give such instruction special attention. And the managers of the colleges of the British and Foreign School Society intend that these undenominational colleges shall take no second place in Scripture teaching. While there is a good degree of uniformity in the work of the normal colleges, as in the normal schools TRAINING-COLLEGES 107 of the United States, there is also much variety, owing to local conditions, the predilection of teachers, and the optional studies allowed. In some colleges the students are strongly encouraged to pursue optional studies that will enable them to enter a uni- versity, and thus ultimately secure a degree. The inspectors, as shown by their reports, seem generally to favor this reading for university examinations. There are some inspectors and some colleges, how- ever, who do not favor such reading during the two years' course, but deem it far better, unless the stu- dent has exceptional ability, that he should give him- self wholly to those lines of study and practise that tend to form the skilled teacher of an elementary school. This is the attitude of the two Wesleyan colleges, and the excellent work of many of their graduates, whose schools I have visited, seems to justify their position. Heading for university exami- nations does not seem to nourish the professional en- thusiasm of a teacher. The larger number of young men, I am told, prepare for these examinations by the study of the sciences, owing perhaps to the fact that a knowledge of the sciences is more closely linked^ to the objective teaching of elementary schools, or because it is easier by such study for most students in a normal college to matriculate at the university. The opinion is steadily gaining strength, that even in elementary schools all the more responsible positions 108 ENGLAND AND WALES should be held by those who have completed a course at a university and at a training-college. The unwise ambition of many students in a train- ing-college to secure a university degree is well stated in the official report of one of her Majesty's inspectors for the year 1898. " The student, ardent and ambi- tious of the distinction of a degree, is unhappily often ill prepared to undertake with any facility the univer- sity course; and, after a severe ordeal of study, much of which is devoid of any power to stimulate the in- tellect, such as the dry study of formal grammar, he leaves with the degree, it is true, but with very little of what a degree is supposed to betoken, l^or does he leave a better teacher. His higher studies have thrown little fresh light upon his professional ones. ... I am far from saying that there are not students who have taken degrees and been greatly benefited by the discipline of their preparation; but they are, as far as I know, quite exceptional. We are running before we can walk." The fact that students in a normal college are excused from a part of the prescribed curriculum, upon passing a university examination, is not adapted to give emphasis to the specific work of a normal col- lege. The university examinations come in to in- crease the multifarious examinations that crowd the closing weeks of a normal-college course. Inspector Barnett remarks in his report of the training-colleges TRAINING-COLLEGES 109 for 1898: "The time seems to have arrived for making some sort of a stand against the excessive number of examinations to which individual students are subjected. It would seem to be taken for granted that each student must be minutely examined and separately assessed in every subject of the curriculum which he or she pursues, and it is not too much to say that the last third of the year is spent in a perpetual round of examinations. I do not think that there can be any doubt that this is exceedingly injurious both physically and mentally, especially in the case of the overanxious and overburdened women, both teachers and students; and I am equally certain that the prac- tise does not secure more practical results in actual achievement than would come from a reasonable use of the sampling system which is succeeding so well in the [elementary] schools." Another inspector says: " It is only in the second year that the students are able to deal effectively with subjects of a general character; but as those subjects are numerous and marks must be gained, they push the professional studies into a corner. The evil is, that none of the general subjects are treated adequately from the pedagogic standpoint ; they receive a purely academic treatment. ... As things are now, it is much to be wished that the bulk of our Queen's scholars could undergo a three-years' course — ^the last of which should be a purely pedagogic one; but as this is 10 110 ENGLAND AND WALES impracticable, it is necessary to take steps to apply speedily a remedy for the evil of being obliged to ad- mit candidates inadequately prepared into the train- ing-colleges." The inspector then urges the prepara- tion of candidates in secondary schools. The four years' experience as pupil-teachers gives ease at the blackboard and before the class. Ease of class man- agement and freedom of manner are secured; but cramping habits by routine class work are too often acquired from which the students in a training-col- lege are not easily freed, and the tendency to cling to devices and ignore the application of principles pre- sented in the training-college is marked. The eight weeks given to practise during the two-years' course is not time used wholly in applying principles and in gaining better methods; while practising a week at a time the student also studies in his normal course, availing himself of the notes of his fellows, and thus endeavors to keep pace with his class. This, so far as observed, was the usual course. One of the inspect- ors says of the practising schools : " In several cases, and chiefly, of course, in those of the larger colleges, the schools are too small. To get over this difficulty, recourse is had to external schools of different types; but this has its own disadvantages, the chief of them being the absence of adequate supervision of the students working in them. ... Is it wonderful that under such conditions the work of the students TRAINING-COLLEGES 111 is comparatively barren of results? They lapse, as I have said, into their old faults, which gain in strength and vitality; and what should be stimulating and quickening is perfunctory and fruitless. I have late- ly visited several practising schools and seen students at work in them, and in no case did I see any proper supervision. ... I would suggest that the whole staff should be employed in supervising the work of the schools. This would produce greater unity of observation, and consequently of criticism. To several of the training-colleges these criticisms do not apply, for they have ample practising schools forming an integral part of the college. In some practising schools I found the student's practise was effectively supervised, in many it was not. The teachers in the normal college in many cases did not have the hold upon the practising school which is most desirable in order to make the teaching in the college bear fruit in practise." The stricture of the inspector above quoted will apply to not a few of the normal schools of the United States, so far as lack of effective supervision is con- cerned. There is often a lack of unity. The normal teacher instructs in principles and methods; the teacher in the practising school, all unconscious of the special instruction of the students in the normal classes, criticizes their teaching according to his or her own peculiar view. If a critic teacher is em- 112 ENGLAND AND WALES ployed, it is impossible for this critic to be so far informed of the progressive teaching in the several departments of a normal school as to adequately supervise and criticize the teaching of all of the students. Unity and effectiveness in professional training require that the heads of departments in the normal school shall, coordinately with the teachers in the practising school, plan and supervise the teaching of the normal students. The constant interchange of the views and the plans of the normal instructor and of the teachers of the children in the practising schools tends strongly to improve the class work of each and to render each more effective in supervision. The practising school should be so well supplied with expert teachers that there will be an ample staff even if students from the normal classes are not de- tailed to teach. These regular teachers, with such aid as the normal instructors may render, will consti- tute a sufficient supervising force. A whole division should be excused from work in the normal classes while engaged in teaching; this will give time to the normal instructor to supervise teaching and to cooperate with the teachers of the practising school. This will exclude all other work of the division, save teaching and preparatory study during the weeks allotted to practise. With such emphasis put upon teaching, four weeks will be more helpful ■ TRAINING-COLLEGES 113 than eight in which the student must teach a good part or all of the sessions, and at the same time at- tempt to keep pace with his fellows who are advan- cing in his normal class. Some refer the neglect of professional study in the training-colleges of England not wholly to the large place the traditional examinations still occupy in the training-colleges, but to the practical tendency of the English mind. Approved devices of teaching tested by use they adopt; theories and principles of teaching evolved by the study of psychology are less attractive. Englishmen have been compared to the Eomans, who seldom invented, but profited by others' inventions. While the English furnish brilliant in- dividual exceptions to all this, yet as a people they are often found conservatively cherishing the old, until Frenchmen, or Germans, or some other people, have established, proved, and enforced the value of the new. The Bishop of London in a recent public address affirmed that the English were somewhat " slow and old-fashioned." This feature of the Eng- lish character appears in the curriculum of the train- ing-colleges. Inspector Coward, in his report of those colleges for the year 1898, after naming a few colleges that have workrooms for manual instruction, adds: " Still it is true that in a majority of the col- leges there is an entire absence of what I can not but regard a most important adjunct to a training-college, 114 ENGLAND AND WALES and especially in the female colleges. The conse- quence of this is that their students leave without carrying away any practical knowledge of what the meaning, the limits, and the value of manual training to the citizens are. E^ay, more than this : they carry away no knowledge of any kind, of a branch of in- struction which is daily forcing itself into notice on utilitarian grounds, and which should take prominent rank in the curriculum of every type of school." The ways in which those who are to teach may re- ceive training in the art of teaching may be classed as follows: 1. Model lessons given by the normal instructor to a class of children, or to normal students, who, during the exercise, respond as children of the appro- priate grade. 2. Model lessons given by the normal students to a class of children or to fellow students who assume the place of children. 3. The teacher of a class of normal students in the first part of the recitation hour outlines a plan of teaching the next lesson, requiring the pupils to teach the same in the order of the topics given, during the recitation hour of the next day, using, as far as the subject permits, illustrations of their own. During the remainder of the hour the students individually teach several or all of their class the several topics of the lesson previously assigned. The mutual criti- TRAINING-COLLEGES 115 cism, wliicli is encouraged, and whicli follows the teaching, adds much to the value of this work. In some of the best normal schools in the United States this mode has taken the place of the academic recitations common in most schools, and tends strongly to eliminate mere academical work from every department of the school. Another result is, that students are led to estimate progress in their work not by intellectual acquisitions so much as by excellence in teaching. A still more important result is the rousing and sustaining of enthusiasm in acquir- ing knowledge useful in teaching, and especially in preparing it for use in teaching. This mode, next to teaching in one's own school, tends to form the habit of reducing one's knowledge to pedagogic form. 4. Teaching in a practise school under adequate supervision. The excellence of the supervision goes far to determine the value of this mode of acquiring the art of teaching. To gain the full benefit of this teaching the student should be versed in the princi- ples of teaching and intelligently apply them. Much reliance is placed upon this mode of training in the United States. In England it is too often allowed to lapse into the ineffective routine of the pupil-teacher. 5. Full charge of a school under the general di- rection and oversight of an experienced teacher. Those who by years of service as pupil-teachers have tested their ability to control pupils have less need 116 ENGLAND AND WALES of this training than the normal students of the United States, where there is no system of pupil-teaching in the elementary or other schools. But the time given to practise-teaching and vigi- lance in supervision have value or are valueless as the methods of teaching and control are or are not in accord with correct principles of teaching. To speak of the value of the work in English training-colleges, whether in the department of the normal college or of the practise school, we need to make some answer to the questions: What is teaching? What are its principles? What are its methods? Teaching is a means to an end, that end is educa- tion. As an end. Professor Laurie defines education as the realization of the ideal man; Aristotle, as that state in which we act according to reason; others, as that state in which one is able and disposed to act in accord with the laws of his being. These, and many others that might be given, accord in large degi-ee, though the phraseology will vary as the point of view varies and as one phrase or another is made emphatic. If we may infer from the teaching of the Great Master what would be His definition, it may be expressed in these words : that state in which one is able and dis- posed to do the will of God. The definitions we have noted, and many others that might be given, though differing in terms, will not be found at variance with the view of Christ. TRAINING-COLLEGES llY The term education is often defined as the means by which education as an end is gained. In this sense John Milton defines it when he says ; " I call that complete and generous education which fits a man to perform, justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war." Huxley's famous definition in his Lay Ser- mons also defines education as a means. Having education as an end in mind, teaching may be defined as occasioning knowledge and mental activity adapted to secure education. Some have used the word " causing '' instead of the word " occa- sioning," forgetting that the mind causes its own activity, and that all that a teacher can do is to occa- sion it. In order to properly occasion the self- activity of the pupil, the teacher must be aware of the ways in which the mind is made to act — i. e., of the laws of mental activity. Any one of these laws when used to determine teaching becomes a principle of teaching. Some of these are of such constant appli- cation in teaching that they are called the principles of teaching. These have never received a uniform statement, yet there is among thoughtful teachers a substantial agreement respecting many of them. One principle is that knowledge and mental activity are primarily occasioned by objects of thought. This principle applies whether the object is objective or subjective. When the mind has cog- 118 ENGLAND AND WALES nized an object and associated it with a word or otlier sign, then the word or sign becomes a means of repre- senting the object. The relative positions of words and signs and their varied forms may also indicate the relations of the objects of thought. Words and other signs are secondary occasions of knowledge and mental activity. In applying this principle in teaching any subject, the teacher first presents objects, subjective or ob- jective. All teaching of words must be preceded by object-teaching or the words will fail to represent the object and the pupil will not be taught. A second principle is, that the mind first gains a knowledge of the whole, then of the conditions and parts — i. e., we learn by analysis. A formula of this objective analytic teaching in accord with the principles noticed may be stated in this way: 1. Lead the pupil to fix his attention upon the object adapted to occasion the mental activity de- sired. 2. Direct him by questions, by topics, or by other means, in the study of it. 3. Lead him to express his own ideas. 4. Help him to secure correct expressions. In such teaching the self-activity of the mind, upon which Froebel and other emment teachers wisely insist, is duly regarded. TRAINING-COLLEGES 119 In a course of study another principle must never be disregarded, viz., the knowledge one gains and one's mental activity depend upon one's age and ac- quisitions. All teaching that aims at teaching scientific truth must also recognize the principle that the mind first gains knowledge of facts, and by thinking of these, of scientific truths. The teaching in ancient Greece previous to the time of Socrates, and later in medieval Europe, was the reverse of what this principle re- quires. Teaching and studying in accord with these principles have developed modern science. Due re- gard to these principles has led to the laboratory method of study in our schools. Pupils are led to gain facts by their own observation, to note them accurately, and, by their own thinking, to arrive at scientific truth. Such teaching is opposed to the text- book method that begins with general propositions, unintelligible until somehow the pupil has returned to them after considering some specific truths or facts on which they depend and which elucidate them. In all her schools England is freeing herself from medi- eval methods. Even in Oxford University, so con- servative and so slow in change, modern methods are prevailing. In her best elementary schools there is very much that a Eroebel or a Pestalozzi could but approve. While teaching in accord with the principles we 120 ENGLAND AND WALES have noticed and with others which might be stated, the way in which a teacher employs language in teach- ing naturally divides teaching into two classes: teaching proper, or heuristic teaching, as an English writer has termed it, and lecturing. In teaching proper, the teacher does not tell the pupil; but by questions, by topics, or by other oral or written ex- pressions, fixes the attention of the pupil upon the real objects of thought, and so guides his study that he finds out for himself in proper order what is to be learned, reporting to the teacher orally or in writing. Oral language is employed with young children, making the teaching exercises conversational. Writ- ten questions or topics direct older pupils in the study of objects or subjects, and have the advantage of re- quiring each to investigate for himself, to reach his own conclusions, and report for himself, unaided by the reports of his fellow students. This is eventually the laboratory method, adapted to make self-reliant, thorough students. It individualizes teaching. In lecturing, the teacher investigates the objects or subjects for himself, and in language, oral or writ- ten, endeavors to impart the results to his pupils. Text-books, exclusive of those that test the student's knowledge or skill, in general may be classed as writ- ten lectures. Like other books, they conserve the thought of the past, and, if the reader is properly prepared for them by genuine teaching, guide and TRAINING-COLLEGES 121 give impulse to study. And to these and other writ- ten lectures one may recur again and again, as one may not be able in the case of the oral lecture. The oral lecture has the advantage of allowing the lecturer to present the latest results of study and re- search; it also enables him to adapt his thought and expression to the needs of different classes. Often the best that a lecturer accomplishes is not the in- formation he imparts, but the enthusiasm he kindles and sustains in the study of the subject to which he is devoted. He helps the pupil to form an ideal of a patient and successful student. " The trophies of Miltiades,'' said Themistocles, " will not suffer me to sleep." The vantage-ground reached by a teacher encourages the student to overcome hindrances that once seemed insuperable. It is evident that where the facts to be con- sidered, as in history, are beyond the range of the pupil's observation and experience, the lecture must have place in teaching; yet even here genuine teach- ing should precede and give meaning to the words of the lecture. Teaching should also lead the pupil to infer for himself general truths from the facts pre- sented by the lecturer and to apply those truths. Diffuse, illogical, and desultory utterances, how- ever suited to the hours of recreation, are out of place in the class or recitation hour. The presenta- tion of objects and aimless talk about them is the 122 ENGLAND AND WALES modern farce that is but a burlesque of genuine object-teaching. This is yet the bane of our elemen- tary, as a similar treatment of subjects is of our higher schools. In the training-colleges of England model lessons are given at times by instructors in the normal col- lege. Some of these are prepared with consummate care, and with emendations from time to time are given to successive classes, though the greater number of object-lessons appear as parts of the regular course of instruction rather than as special illustrations of method. While visiting the Borough Road Training- College, I listened to an admirable model lesson given by the master of method. It was a lesson upon the geography of ^ew Zealand as compared with that of Great Britain, given in presence of a class of boys from an elementary school who had fairly mastered the geography of Great Britain, but were unac- quainted with that of New Zealand. The teaching was heuristic. The pupils were not told what they could infer from the maps, reliefs, specimens, and pictures used. Much was correctly inferred by the boys from facts of the geography of Great Britain, applicable to the geography of New Zealand. By vigorous apperceptions the pupils were led to so ex- tend their experience as to include a knowledge of New Zealand. Such model lessons in this college are called TRAINING-COLLEGES 123 demonstration lessons. In a recent report the prin- cipal says: "In the public exercises the main pur- pose in the first year is to present the students with examples of carefully planned lessons in the different subjects of school work, schemed in accordance with the principles of class teaching laid down in the lec- tures. This part of the work in the first year is there- fore almost entirely confined to demonstration lessons by the master of method or his assistant. * How to do it ' is more useful at this stage than ^ how not to do it.' The students do not criticize, but describe the lessons in their notes, and they are expected to be able to suggest reasons for the procedure adopted." Another means of training students in the art of teaching is termed the criticism lesson. One of his Majesty's inspectors. Sir H. Oakley, one of the two gentlemen whose duty has been to inspect the train- ing-colleges of England and Wales, remarks in one of his recent reports : " As regards the technical work, I agree with Professor Laurie that the most im- portant agency in training the teacher, whether pri- mary or secondary, in the practise of his art as dis- tinct from the theory and history of education, is the criticism lesson. It has been a distinct improvement in the last few years that several members of the staff besides the teacher of method have been present at the criticism exercises, and have taken part in the discus- sion." He urges that a new feature should be added 124: ENGLAND AND WALES to the buildings of training-colleges, viz., " a room so constructed as to enable the criticism lesson to be given with full effect." He says: " Its construction and arrangement should aim, as in a surgical oper- ating-room, to focus observation on the point of in- terest, and in such wise as to make everything plainly visible to the learners. ... In the majority of cases it is not possible to adapt the arrangements of the class room used for criticism lessons to serve that purpose efficiently.'' One or two colleges have rooms specially constructed for criticism lessons. The specific objects of the criticism lessons, as stated by the former principal of Borough Road Col- lege, are " to foster self-criticism through criticism of others, and for the purpose of preparing the students for their test lesson before his Majesty's inspectors." Much emphasis is placed upon the criticism lesson as a means of training in the art of teaching. In this college an attempt is made to have the lessons grouped under the different school subjects, though, judging from the lessons given to a class of children by a mem- ber of the senior class in the presence of the class and several members of the faculty, the subject-matter was hardly within range of the children's studies and too extensive to be grasped by them during the hour. The carefully and minutely prepared outline of the lesson had been submitted to some member of the faculty before the lesson was given. The neatness TRAINING-COLLEGES 125 and precision of many of these outlines deserve much praise. The outline is an essential part of every criticism lesson and its value is a part of the record in determining the student's rank; it is an additional stimulus to prepare the lesson thoroughly. Some outlines that I reviewed were prepared with the in- spection of the theoretical professor of the college in mind rather than the mental condition of the class to be taught. The fact that several of the faculty, as earnestly advised in a recent report of one of his Majesty's inspectors of training-colleges, are present at the lesson tends to the same result. Thus the lesson may be more learned than wise. The presence of several members of the faculty also tends to re- strict the freedom of the one teaching, and to make his work accord with the opinions and knowledge of the faculty rather than the instincts and acquisitions of the children. The criticism lessons should hold a definite relation to the regular work in the elemen- tary school, and not be like the purple patches de- scribed by Horace in his Ars Poetica. It is fair that I should quote the statements of J. J. Find- lay respecting the lessons; he has been trained as a teacher in the professional school at Jena under Professor Rein. In an article in a late volume of Sadler's Special Reports, he says : " In English training-colleges the tests of practical efficiency take the form of show 11 126 ENGLAND AND WALES lessons, given very often before strange children on a special occasion. " The elaborate notes presented for this occasion are necessarily artificial, and instead of displaying, as they should, but can not, an acquaintance with the actual children to be taught, they have to be adorned with meretricious additions, displaying the teacher's familiarity with modern devices. In the delivery of the lesson the evil is still more apparent, for the can- didate is being judged by a false standard; it is her words and her style and her resources that are esti- mated rather than the process resulting in the chil- dren's minds." The force of these critical remarks is the more evident when contrasted with the mode pursued at Jena, which Mr. Findlay thus outlines: " At Jena the normal student has charge of a class room some weeks in a subject, and then in the order of the subject gives a criticism lesson. The other stu- dents and their teacher have acquainted themselves with lessons of the series previously given, so they are prepared to criticize by some knowledge of the ongo- ing of the class, including knowledge of the children. Those who are to observe and criticize are helped by reviewing the student-teacher's plans in his note-book. Criticism on his teaching exercise is delayed for at least twenty-four hours. In the meantime the student-teacher criticizes himself in a written critique, another student writes another criticism under the TEAINING-COLLEGES 127 same heading, while a third notes questions and an- swers given in the exercise. Then all assemble, the writings are read and criticisms — written notes — discussed. Professor Rein acts as moderator and sums up." Some of the most satisfactory criticism lessons I observed were given in the Westminster Training- College for young men, in London. These lessons were evidently a part of the regular series of lessons given by members of the senior class to the classes in the practising school. The written outlines and the teaching were indeed prepared with more than the usual care and thoroughness, as the criticism lessons are regarded as very important tests of the students' ability and progress. All unnecessary nervous strain of the student teaching was avoided. The exercise was in the room of the practising school in which the student was accustomed to teach, the class was one with which he was acquainted, and only one of the faculty, the master of methods, the general supervisor of students' teaching, was present. While the class- mates of the one teaching were present to observe, to note, and to criticize, the spirit of the class was such, and the criticism lessons were so much a matter of course, that the lesson was taught with apparent ease and freedom. The lesson in geography comprised the county of Gloucestershire. A large wall-map of Great Britain 128 ENGLAND AND WALES was near at hand. Other apparatus were a sand or clay model and, on a blackboard, a map corresponding to the model, drawn as directed by the children. When they could readily read the map and the model, the pupils were led to observe and to state the phys- ical features of the county. The towns in their rela- tions to the physical features and the employments of the inhabitants were then considered; then the climate, soil, and productions of the open country, and the railways and other means of transportation and communication were taught. A lesson by another student following a lesson upon ^' the adverb " was for the purpose of leading the pupils to review the preceding lesson by finding adverbs in given sentences, and then to group and classify them. The main business of the teacher seemed to be to direct the pupils in their study and lead them to state the results in fitting language. The multiplication of fractions was the subject of an- other lesson. By colored crayons diagrams were made upon the blackboard to illustrate the several steps as the processes were evolved. The lesson in reading showed the same careful and logical prepara- tion. In all the lessons the children were led by at- tending to the real objects of thought, or, where that was not possible, to a representation, to find out for themselves, and reach their own conclusions, by their own observation and thought. Each lesson TRAINING-COLLEGES 129 closed with a " revision," not by calling for verbal statements, but by requiring original examples and applications. The teaching was in accord with sound principles, topics were arranged in proper order, the pupils gained the truth by their own effort, talking was not allowed to take the place of genuine teaching, and both teachers and pupils showed an excellent spirit. Following the lessons, the criticisms by the members of the class were freely and, for the most part, aptly given. At the Borough Road College the presence of several members of the faculty had seemed to lead the students to defer criticism to them. Here the criticism was mainly by members of the class. Some of the teachers of the practising schools connected with the training-colleges furnished some of the best examples of good teaching that I have seen whether in England or America. The practising school connected with Stockwell Training-CoUege is so highly valued that its pupils include a large number who came from other precincts than those of the school, and pay tuition to enjoy its privileges. The same is true of several other practising schools that I visited. I found the best teaching in those schools that prefer to have their students take high rank as skilful teachers rather than to subordinate profes- sional study and practise to the winning of degrees by university examinations. Each student before 130 ENGLAND AND WALES graduation must give at least four satisfactory criticism lessons, pass successfully the written ex- aminations of his Majesty's inspectors, and give proof, in presence of an inspector, of ability to teach a class. As this test exercise in teaching usually occupies twenty minutes or more, considerable time of the in- spectors is occupied in test examinations and exer- cises. The diocesan committees in Anglican, and corresponding bodies in other denominational col- leges, examine the students as to their proficiency in religious and Scripture knowledge. All elementary schools receiving parliamentary grants are also ex- amined by his Majesty's inspectors, whether con- nected with training-colleges or not. They are also from time to time examined under the direction of their local managers. Though each college works under the prescribed code of the central authority, giving a large degree of uniformity, yet much distinctive work is done by several colleges, and there are wide differences of excellence. For instance, the master of methods of Wesleyan has made that college somewhat famous by his teaching of geography. An area extending in different directions several miles and presenting many typical facts of geology and geography is carefully studied by each class. One result is that geograph- ical terms and explanations have a meaning based upon actual knowledge of geographical objects. An- TRAINING-COLLEGES 131 other result is that graduates who have been thus taught teach their pupils in a similar way, acquaint- ing them by their own observation with the basal facts of geography. The faculty of the Borough Road Training-Col- lege are doing much to broaden the course of study and to affiliate the college with London University. A late report states that " 100 men out of 134 were reading for London." Stockwell Training-CoUege and School for Young Ladies, in London, is one of the best training-colleges I was privileged to visit. Special prominence is given to professional training. Here I listened to teaching that in excellence I have seldom seen surpassed. The spirit of the school in every department leaves little to be desired. The practising school illustrates the best methods of control and of teaching. I subjoin an extract from a recent official report : " Great advantages are enjoyed by students of this college in the matter of professional training. The college practising schools are large, and com- prise an upper, senior, junior, and infant school de- partment, with an average attendance of more than 600 scholars. . . . Two mistresses of method give a large portion of their time to the supervision of the practise, and the principal also takes part of the school management and criticism. The arrange- ments are as follows: 132 ENGLAND AND WALES " The students of the first and second year are divided into six groups for practise in the schools. Each student enters in turn, for a week at a time, the girls', junior, and infant departments. The special courses of lessons are so arranged that not more than four students are teaching at any one time under the supervision of a college officer and the head mistress of the department. In addition, the whole of their work is carefully supervised and re- ported upon by each head mictress. In the senior school the head mistress has been helped by two of the assistant teachers, . . . who have periodically heard the special lessons given by students. By these means it has been possible to gain a more cor- rect estimate of the work done, and in the case of a weak student the critic has been able to render help of a more permanent nature. The students are as- sembled at the end of each week's practise for the pur- pose of hearing their week's work criticized, and of having returned to them corrected notes of lessons. A report of their work is sent in each week to the principal. Each student keeps a school diary in which to record what she has especially noticed with regard to observation and training. The third-year students have given special lessons in the senior school in geography, composition, and advanced dictation. The student of this year who is specializing in music is giving a course of singing TRAINING-COLLEGES 133 lessons to classes from the different practising schools. Each junior student is present at least in one public technical exercise per week, and each senior student at two or more such exercises. ... In the case of senior students, discussions on educational topics have from time to time continued to take the place of criticism lessons." Stockwell College enrolled, according to the re- port of 1898, 150 residential and 16 day students, a number but slightly exceeded by two other colleges. The average attendance at a residential college is about 85, as they were reported in 1898. In 1900 there were 4,085 in residential colleges. This in- cludes a small proportion of day scholars. The average attendance in day colleges — i. e., in the teachers' department of university colleges — was in 1898 about 60, in 1901 about 75. There were in 1898 nearly 1,000 students in the day colleges. In 1900 there were 1,355 students. These find opportunities for practise in the board schools in the vicinity of the university colleges. Comparing these practising schools with many of the schools in which students of the residential training- colleges practise, an inspector speaks of the latter as " frequently furnished with old-fashioned rickety desks; they are often ill equipped with proper appa- ratus; are not seldom gloomy and dingy; and in many of them the methods of instruction are not such as 134: ENGLAND AND WALES can benefit the student. . . . The students of the day training-colleges are better off. They go to large and always well-equipped and conducted board schools, and if in the direction of sound teaching there may be defects, there is the gain of seeing some good types of architecture, of good sanitary conditions, of new models of furniture, fitting decorations, and last, though not least, of school staffs organized on lines calculated to render the work as effective as possible. . . . There are in both classes of schools draw- backs and difficulties. ... In the case of the schools attached to the residential colleges, the first thing to do is to spend sufficient money upon them first, to put them in order and to equip them properly.'' The inspector then proceeds to notice the condi- tions that must prevail when students are sent away from the oversight of the faculty of the college to practise in outside schools. It is shown that though the head teachers of these schools are to supervise and report the work of the normal students, " it neverthe- less is true that this provision falls far short in the end ; for these teachers are not in possession of the principles and systems of the colleges, and are unable therefore to secure their observance. They have, besides, their own responsibilities to satisfy, and in the modern board school, organized on complex lines, their attention is constantly claimed and must be TRAINING-COLLEGES 135 given in many directions at once. Then there may be, and not infrequently are, teachers whose training and long practise have rendered them comparatively unable to see and appreciate new and more modern systems of teaching." These remarks will apply with equal force to the apprenticeship of normal students in the public schools of the United States as practised in Worcester, in Boston, and in several other cities. The practical training of teachers in the art of teaching by those who know little or nothing of the instruction those teachers have received in principles and methods tends directly to nullify such instruction and to the adoption of those devices that are approved by the teachers under whom they work, whether those de- vices are right or wrong. It is the great misfortune of very many of the training-colleges of England that they lack adequate practising schools in organic and sympathetic connection with the normal college. Where a suitable practising school is found, as at the Wesleyan and Stockwell and St. MarFs and other colleges, the superior quality of the training is always evident. 'Nor is such a practising school valuable alone as a means of training the normal students in the art of teaching. A good practising school in vital union with a normal school or college reacts upon it and makes its teaching more philosophical, natural, and practical. 136 ENGLAND AND WALES An optional third year is now available in many training-colleges for those who have completed the two years' course. ISTot many avail themselves of this advanced course. Some are attracted to it by the opportunity it affords to continue their studies pre- paratory to a university examination. A third year in foreign normal schools is provided for a few of those who have completed the regular two-years' course. In 1900, 44 were thus studying abroad. These students, while supplementing their professional training under able teachers, also study the working of the normal school they attend and of the schools of the city or district in which it is located. They have an excellent opportunity to perfect their knowledge of French or German, and to make a comparative study of English and foreign schools. Each student makes, once a month or at other intervals, a report, carefully penned in a blank book, of the results of his observations, comparisons, and thoughtful conclusions upon some special subject. These reports are the property of the training-college in England sending the student, and are very service- able to both instructors and students. They often suggest new and valuable improvements. One of these minute reports of the organization and working of a German normal school was the most satisfactory I have ever read upon that subject. Professional study on the Continent is not, however, limited to TKAINING-COLLEGES 137 these favored few. Some of the more earnest and progressive young men and women who are not satis- fied with their professional acquisitions in English schools pursue courses of study at Jena, Zurich, or elsewhere. Of late, several students of pedagogy from Eng- land have spent considerable time in the normal and other schools of the United States. These students in other lands, upon their return to England, quicken the study of other teachers, lead them to adopt better methods of teaching, and deepen their appreciation of those excellences in which foreign are superior to English schools. The venerable Sir Joshua Fitch, whose lectures on teaching are in all our normal schools, in his writings and in his occasional ad- dresses often comments with warm approval upon the excellences he noted in our teachers and schools while visiting the United States. Ere long, I believe, a large number of English teachers will be found ob- serving the working of our schools. While the English teachers believe our schools to be most fer- tile in fads, they give us credit for inventive genius and practical skill, and allow that American teach- ers are the most progressive body of educators in the world. Among the evidences of the increasing culture of the training-colleges are the large " recreation rooms " or parlors fitted up for the students. In 138 ENGLAND AND WALES cozy corners is the apparatus for various games. On the walls are hung choice engravings and paintings. In cabinets are curios attractively arranged, from his- toric places and from distant lands. Art and other books are gathered in charming cases, while the open fires give all an air of home. It augurs well that per- sons of culture are deeply interested in the work of these colleges. The late Duke of Westminster, re- puted by many the wealthiest and the most benevolent duke in England, and equally remarkable for his taste and for his refinement of manner, as those who have visited Eaton Hall will testify, was one of the man- agers of a training-college which I visited in London. By his presence, by his words, and by his gifts he cheered and encouraged the faculty and the students. He was a very regular visitor, and by his simple and most courteous manner made the most timid students at home in his company. The recreation room of another college was worth a journey because of the gifts of Euskin — the beautiful products of his own artistic hand. His Majesty's Inspector Oakley says: " I do not think that there was a single day or recre- ation room in 1886, and there is now scarcely a col- lege without one. Some of them are extremely well fitted up. ... It is not easy to overrate the value of a good recreation room both for the comfort and enjoyment of the students and for their general improvement." TRAINING-COLLEGES 139 The Englisli attach much importance to physical development. They wisely claim that a strong, well- trained body is essential to mental vigor and endur- ance. Hence at the training-colleges, as at other schools, they aim to allow ample time for out-of-door sports. At the Borough Road Training-College the students are allowed the afternoon, as at the univer- sities. The Germans in their schools rely upon gym- nastic drill mainly, the English upon out-of-door sports, for physical development, though gymnastics are very generally used to some extent in the schools of England. Most students in the normal schools of America look forward to their chosen work and prepare for it with an enthusiasm born of the belief that it is second to no other in its opportunities to realize the noblest aspirations for a useful life. There are many things that tend to check the aspirations of one who would teach in an elementary school in England. Socially his rank is quite inferior to that of the teacher of an elementary school in the United States. He can not expect to be promoted from his position as an elemen- tary teacher to schools of higher grade. Others train the children of the upper classes who are expected to fill positions of influence and power. His pupils are expected to finish their school education at fourteen, and most of them, he is sure, will finish from one to three years earlier. The path to positions of honor 140 ENGLAND AND WALES is, with rare exceptions, through the universities, and that path is open to very few, perhaps none, of his pupils. No system of free secondary schools makes it possible for them to go on to the college and the university. "Wales, however, has inaugurated a com- plete scheme of secondary schools with many scholar- ships for elementary schools, and other scholarships from the secondary schools to the university. Wales has opened an unbroken path from the elementary school to the university. The " little learning " the elementary teacher in- stils is still regarded by many of the upper classes as a " dangerous thing,'' making the rising generation of workmen restless and discontented in their servile toil. The scarcity of agricultural laborers and the decay of agriculture are frequently named among the results of the overschooling of the children of laborers. Teaching in the elementary schools seems to me to be regarded more as a trade, and less as a profession, in England than in the United States. Chief-Inspector Eankine says : " A profession which has no prizes and which demands at the very outset a vow of self-abnegation, a declaration that the trained teacher will devote himself to elementary edu- cation and to that alone, is not likely to attract the keener spirits in search of a career." This condition of things is quite in contrast to that which obtains in TRAINING-COLLEGES 141 the United States, where, according to his success and ability, one may advance from elementary teaching through every grade. The two years which a Queen's scholar spends at a residential college are usually very pleasant years, and the more so because of the hard life most of them have had during their apprenticeship as pupil-teach- ers. Then a double work was imposed — continual examination by his Majesty's inspectors, including the final and somewhat competitive examination of the last year, by which they were to secure or fail in securing admission to the training-college, and daily preparation for teaching classes, in addition to the strain of controlling them. In the training-col- leges they are generally cared for in good rooms, provided with healthful food, and well supplied with means and opportunities for quiet study and read- ing, for gladsome rest and recreation — all fur- nished mainly, as we have seen, by parliamentary grants. The professional enthusiasm of teachers as well as the educational zeal of others is evident in the United States from the number and variety of the associa- tions formed to study and discuss the principles and methods of teaching, school management, the history of education, and the results of each other's expe- rience. It is evident from the large numbers that gather in educational meetings and the interest there 12 142 ENGLAND AND WALES shown in the discussion of educational questions. It is evident from the number and the thoughtful character of the books and periodicals published to aid teachers in their work, and in the large propor- tion of teachers that avail themselves of these publi- cations. It is evident in the articles pertaining to education that from time to time appear in the news- papers, reviews, and monthlies maintained for busi- ness and literary purposes. It is evident from the readiness of citizens to appropriate their money, in town meetings and in representative bodies, for schools, for libraries, for admirable school-buildings, for helpful apparatus, and for other educational pur- poses. It is evident from the unity of effort of teach- ers of different grades. College presidents and uni- versity professors are seen laying aside all thoughts of caste and of scholastic distinctions as in gather- ings of teachers they sit side by side with teachers of secondary and primary schools and kindergartners, listening to papers upon the teaching of elementary as well as of scientific subjects. In the discussions that follow, men and women entitled to regard be- cause of success in their several fields, whatever the grade of their schools, have equal recognition with learned university professors. If the professor is able to make the elementary teachers his debtors by his lucid exposition of the principles and philosophy of teaching, he in turn is often more than repaid by TRAINING-COLLEGES 143 the skilful applications of his philosophy made pos- sible for him as he learns of the practical experience of the teachers of the primary schools. The distinctive object of associations of teachers in England does not appear to be the promotion of progress in the theory and art of teaching. The larger associations are rather for the purpose of in- creasing the influence of the teachers and for securing mutual assistance and protection. For instance, the Teachers' Guild, numbering some thousands, and having its central guild in London and its 20 or 30 local branches in different parts of the United Kingdom, made up largely of those teaching grades above the elementary schools, is organized for the fol- lowing purposes: " To form a representative body of all grades of teachers whose utterances upon educa- tional matters shall be authoritative; to secure for teachers professional standing; to make some pro- vision for sickness and old age; and to do what else they may be able to promote their own and the public weal." The guild maintains a library, assists its members by registration, and in other ways, to obtain positions, and to secure reliable life-insurance and safe investments. It provides at times excellent lec- tures. Though the Teachers' Guild is intended for all grades of teachers, elementary teachers feel more at home in their own association — the National Union. The deplorable gulf that still so largely separates 144 ENGLAND AND WALES elementary and secondary teachers is not bridged by this guild nor by any other association. The College of Preceptors is an organization of long standing in London, which, though now mainly an authoritative examining body, contributes to the social well-being and professional progress of teachers by the excellent courses of lectures and of class in- struction which at times it furnishes. The local associations for child study, in London and in other places, are giving new impetus to pro- fessional study. When we read the writings of Sully, Thring, Thomas and Matthew Arnold, Fitch, and many others, we can but acknowledge that among the teachers of England remarkable examples of scholarship, prac- tical ability, and professional enthusiasm are not wanting. The universities and higher schools at- tract men and women of large ability to the ranks of teachers. The enthusiasm of such men has done much to kindle the enthusiasm of others; but in gen- eral the teachers of the elementary schools of Eng- land seemed to me behind those of the United States in scholarly attainments and in educational zeal. Yet it must be granted that the local managers and his Majesty's inspectors, by frequent and thorough ex- aminations, testing the quality of the work done and by persistent endeavor, secure in the elementary schools the primary elements of culture and of char- TRAINING-COLLEGES 145 acter. A patient, plodding thorougliness steadily maintained throughout the schools of a whole people by the encouragement and the vigilance of a strong and intelligent body of national inspectors deserves much praise. The uniformity of standard secured by the code, annually issued from the Education Department at Whitehall, does not allow of the same liberty in adapting courses of study to local needs as is enjoyed in the schools of the United States, though the im- proved methods of inspection give the English teacher much more liberty than was possible under the method of inspection by individual examinations. The inventive genius of teachers has less opportunity in England than in the United States. 'New methods and original experiments are not as often presented. Yet the progress that has been gained is stoutly con- served until it is clearly evident that a new step for- ward should be taken. The N^ational Union of Teachers numbers some forty thousand elementary teachers. A few broad- minded teachers of higher grade are also enrolled who refuse to recognize caste in the great work of educa- tion. This is by far the largest teachers' association in the realm. Its influence is felt in Parliament. In many of its features this association is not unlike the trades-unions that those engaged in other employ- ments maintain to secure their rights and to promote 14G ENGLAND AND WALES their interests. The elementary teachers, being the lowest in the social rank, naturally chafe against the barriers which caste and the indifference of the upper classes interpose. This association for years has managed to keep in the House of Commons two members, one of each party, to champion its views and push its plans. These representatives have recently been strongly reenforced by the election of Dr. Macnamara, the accomplished educational writer and speaker. This association is a quasi-political body, if one may judge from the proceedings of its annual meeting in Cam- bridge, which I attended. Representatives of local associations from all parts of England and Wales and Ireland were present. Many of the questions discussed were suggestive of a political conference, and the manner of discussion was not adapted to dis- pel the illusion. In securing parliamentary action, the association is doubtless of eminent service. It is destined in the future to accomplish more than in the past. One of its latest important achievements was the furtherance of the Superannuation Bill, which was enacted in 1898. This act provides for the pay- ment of pensions to elementary teachers, from a fund obtained by assessment of teachers and by proportion- ate sums drawn from the national treasury. The protective and political aims of this association are very unlike the professional aims of teachers' associa- TRAINING-COLLEGES 147 tions in tlie United States. Hence the latter must be expected to lead in the evolution of the principles and the methods, the organization and the administration of elementary schools. The collective influence of teachers, however, is a potent factor in the legislative bodies of the several States, the more because the legislation urged by teachers, from time to time, is not to protect themselves and promote their own per- sonal interests, but to secure the weKare of the schools. This end is not disclaimed in the I^ational Union of Teachers, but it is somewhat obscured. CHAPTEK TV CONCLUSIONS School-Buildings. — The buildings of the volun- tary schools, which house about one-half of the school- children, are for the most part old and quite inferior to the modern school-buildings erected by school boards. It is not easy to raise money by subscription for rebuilding, and the English venerate the old. ]^ot long ago a member of Parliament said that in many voluntary schools children were kept in rooms that he would not kennel his dogs in. Yet near- sightedness and school diseases do not furnish evi- dence of such poorly lighted and ill-ventilated build- ings as still disgrace many German schools. The endowed secondary schools during late years have erected many admirable buildings. The newer school- buildings of board schools in London and in other large towns, where the increase of population fre- quently demands additional accommodations, are sub- stantial, well-lighted, and comely. At the central oflSce of the London schools I was directed to some of the latest school-buildings, which the architect con- siders the best in plan and execution. I visited one 148 CONCLUSIONS 149 that would accommodate about a thousand children. It was of brick, and three stories high. The first story was occupied by infant schools — pupils three to seven years of age — the second by girls, and the third by boys in standards or grades above the infant schools. The class rooms on each floor were entered from a large central room or hall. This was used for general exercises. The morning Scripture readings and prayers are held in these halls, the pupils filing in from their several rooms immediately after the record of attendance is taken, and standing during the ex- ercise. This central hall, in some schools, is beauti- fully decorated with engravings given by patrons or purchased by the proceeds of special entertainments furnished by pupils and their friends. Many of the older school-buildings are adding these commodious halls. The increase of school games is rendering them a necessity. In the class rooms the pupils were seated in double desks, on platforms each four or five inches above the one in front of it. Seated on these galleries, as they are called, no pupil is hindered by those in front from seeing all that is presented by the teacher. The building rules of the State Education Depart- ment may be outlined as follows : The ceilings of the schoolroom must be at least 12 feet high. If there are more than 360 square feet on the floor, the ceiling must be not less than 13 feet above the floor, if more 150 ENGLAND AND WALES than 600 square feet, 14 feet above. Roofs, as far as may be, are to be rendered impervious to cold and heat. At least 10 square feet of floor is allowed to each pupil. External walls are to be of brick or stone. The vegetable soil on the building area is to be removed and the surface covered with concrete not less than 6 inches in thickness. The entrances for boys and girls must be separate. The doors of the entrances and main rooms must open outward and inward. Staircases must be external to schoolrooms and fire-proof; flights must be short and landings un- broken by steps. Winding flights or triangular steps are not allowed. Windows are to be arranged so as to admit light on the left of the pupil, but no school- room lighted from one side only can be approved. The window-sills are to be 4 feet from the floor, and the windows are to extend to the top of the room. Though all of the older schoolrooms are arranged to be heated by grates, steam and hot water are employed in the larger buildings. The newer buildings are heated in a similar way, though less reliance is placed upon grates. In some buildings I noticed very thick pipes with small bore filled with superheated water. A temperature from 56° to 60° F. is required in schoolrooms, 10 degrees lower than that to which American children are accustomed. The buildings are generally ventilated by opening windows, a mode that can be more safely used in the climate of Eng- CONCLUSIONS 151 land tlian in tliat of New England, as the tempera- ture does not fall as low in winter in England. Tlie English believe in the healthfulness of the open air. Grates are valued in all buildings as means of ven- tilation, and are very generally used. Under the head of " Ventilation " the department issued the fol- lowing directions in the code of 1899 : " Apart from open windows and doors, there should be provision for copious inlet of fresh air; also for outlet of foul air at the highest point of the room; the best way of providing the latter is to build to each room a separate air-chimney carried up in the same stack with smoke-flues. An outlet should have motive power by heat or exhaust, otherwise it will frequently act as a cold inlet. The principal point in all ventilation is to prevent stagnant air. Particu- lar expedients are only subsidiary to this main direc- tion. Inlets are best placed in corners of rooms farthest from doors and fireplaces, and should be ar- ranged to discharge upward into the rooms. Inlets should provide a minimum of 2i square inches per child, and outlets a minimum of 2 inches. All inlets and outlets should be in communication with the ex- ternal air. Rooms should, in addition, be flushed with fresh air from windows about every two hours. A sunny aspect is especially valuable for children, and important in its effects on ventilation and health." 152 ENGLAND AND WALES In the matter of school furniture my impression is that the English schools are inferior to ours. Though desks 12 and 9 feet long are giving place to dual desks, school authorities do not generally seem to be aware of the superiority of the single desk. EXTRACTS FROM THE CODE OF 1899 Curriculum of the elementary schools as required hy the Education Department and approved hy Par- liament. (Abridged from the code of 1899.) Obligatory subjects: Eeading \ Writing I called "The Elementary Subjects." Arithmetic J JSTeedlework (for girls). Drawing (for boys in schools for older scholars). One of the " Class Subjects " named below, which must be taught by means of object-lessons in Stand- ards I, II, and III. Optional subjects: I. Tahen hy classes throughout the school^ and designated " Class Subjects.^' Singing. Recitation. Drawing (for girls and older children and for boys in infant schools and classes). CONCLUSIONS 153 English, or Welsh (in Wales), or Erench (in the Channel Islands). Geography. Elementary science. History. Suitable occupations (for Standards I, II, and III). E'eedlework (for girls), optional as a Class Subject. Domestic economy (for girls). II. Taken hy individual cJiildren in the upper classes of the school, and designated " Specific Suh- jectsJ^ Algebra. Euclid. Mensuration. Mechanics. Chemistry. Physics. Elementary physics and chemistry. Animal physiology. Hygiene. Botany. Principles of agriculture. Horticulture. !N'avigation. Latin. Erench. 154 ENGLAND AND WALES Welsh (for scholars in schools in Wales). German. Bookkeeping. Shorthand, according to some system recognized by the department. Domestic economy (for girls). Domestic science. III. Cookery, Laundry work ) ^ . , •^ V lor girls. Dairy work j Cottage gardening Manual instruction !■ for boys. Any subject other than those mentioned above, if sanctioned by the department, may be taken as a specific subject, provided that a graduated scheme for teaching it be submitted to, and approved by, the in- spector. The schedules of the evening continuation school code may be found useful for suggestions. Instruction may be given in other secular subjects approved by the department, and in religious subjects. ISTo more than two class subjects may be taken by any class, and the same number must be taken throughout the school; except that where needlework is taken by the girls as a class subject a correspond- ing subject need not be taken by the boys. The subjects taken may be different for different CONCLUSIONS 155' classes, but in each class, if two subjects are taken, one of the subjects must be taken as the first, and the other as the second, class subject. It is evident that under the limitations of the prescribed curriculum, large option is given to local managers in the choice of class subjects. This allows managers, in their several communities, to adapt the curriculum in some degree to the immediate needs of the children, or to stint them in accord with the views of penurious ratepayers. The obligatory subjects of the code are not on an adequate basis for a course of secondary instruction. Whenever a national system of secondary schools shall be established it will be found necessary to so broaden and define the obliga- tory studies of the elementary course that all pupils completing it will be ready to pursue the secondary course. Such a course can but tend largely to the im- provement of the elementary schools. Methods of Teaching. — "While the methods of teaching in some of the practising schools connected with the training-colleges are excellent, many of the elementary schools follow antiquated methods. Rapid improvement during the last decade is evident in many localities, especially in the board schools of the newer cities, such as those of Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester. In most schools that I visited I noticed the lack of those appliances for the facile use of maps and other apparatus which are so common in 156 ENGLAND AND WALES the United States. Elementary physics and chemis- try are taught objectively by the lecture method, suit- able experiments being performed in presence of the class; but the means of teaching other departments of natural science are scanty. School authorities of late show a preference for the teaching of physics, and are making better provision for its teaching than for teaching chemistry. In nature study, whether of minerals, plants, or animals, our schools are clearly in advance of those of England. Intelligent leaders in the Education Department present in the annual code plans for nature and other objective study, and his Majesty's inspectors do much to encourage it ; but on the part of teachers there seems to be an endeavor to satisfy the requirements of the code rather than that generous rivalry that is ever leading our teachers to develop better methods and to improve the cur- riculum. Blackboards on easels or in frames are generally used by the teachers for demonstration and for illus- tration ; but there is no such abundance of wall black- boards as with us. One enthusiastic teacher who had managed to increase his wall blackboards said to me : '^ These boards I had put up after my recent visit to America; I there saw such boards and learned their use." In none of the schools I visited did I see a class recitation in arithmetic, geography, or in any other study, conducted with the whole class at the CONCLUSIONS 157 boards. Some may claim that there is more thought in the absence of blackboards, but this is unproved, for when recitations are from slates and papers the pupil often merely reads what he has prepared or re- peats what he has memorized. If a class uses the board in recitation, all can advance together, the teacher can notice the steps taken by each pupil, and better test the rapidity and the correctness of each and the methods employed. By one method of teaching the teacher presents to the pupil the general statement to be memorized, tests his understanding of it, explains it, and gives or requires illustrations of it and specific applications. This is the method that lends itself readily to the lecturer and has long prevailed in the older univer- sities. So far as I may infer from what I observed in the schools of England, lessons in natural science are generally taught objectively by lectures. A paper upon the heuristic method of teaching in one of the recent volumes of Sadler's Reports, speaks of the heuristic method as a recent invention, showing that it is not yet in common use. But, as I have be- fore said, I saw admirable use of it in some of the training-colleges. His Majesty's chief inspectors and many of their subordinates are graduates of a university. Until 1882 high honors gained at a university rendered one eligible to the office of inspector without any practi- 13 158 ENGLAND AND WALES cal knowledge of elementary schools, l^ow, special qualifications are considered, yet the methods by which inspectors have themselves been taught in the univer- sities are quite apt to be regarded by them with favor. Improved methods do not as readily find place in the English schools as in ours. Though par- liamentary grants are now apportioned mainly ac- cording to the average attendance and general effi- ciency of schools, yet pupils and teachers have been so accustomed to work for results in examinations that much of the school study is narrowed to gain this end. Again, positions in the civil service and in other lines of employment are so often reached through examinations that cramming for examinations is not to be avoided in elementary schools. " Eeading for examination " is largely the business of students in the secondary schools and in the universities. The prominence given to examinations tends to secure a certain kind of verbal thoroughness. The course of instruction in the elementary schools is less liberal than in ours. Yet are not we ready to admit that our schools attempt more than they can well perform, and that we have something to learn from the more uniform and exact procedure of the English schools? Applied Psychology. — All the schools in Germany for the professional training of teachers give much prominence to the teaching of psychology, and they apply it in the selection and sequence of studies and CONCLUSIONS 159 in their metliods of teaching. In applied psychology we must confess inferiority to the Germans, but we are not so subject to custom and tradition as the Eng- lish, and are never quite happy in our school work unless we can give psychological reasons for our modes of procedure. The proper work of the lower grades in a primary school is to gain definite sensations and perceptions through the several senses and language to express what is thus gained. This work is often included under " language lessons," and is accomplished by lessons upon objects occasioning ideas of form, color, number, odor, sound, etc. In this way the child is prepared for the study of distinct subjects in higher grades. Professor Hanus, of Harvard University, says : " The special aims of elementary education are : (a) to nourish the mind of the child through the course of study which should comprise an orderly presenta- tion of the whole field of knowledge in its elements, and to provide the opportunity for the exercise of all his powers, mental, moral, esthetic, manual, construc- tive, through good instruction and wise discipline; (h) to guard and promote his normal physical devel- opment. " In the earlier stages of this period there are not, of course, distinct subjects at all; there is simply the diversified field of closely correlated knowledge; and because everything is interesting and equally yields 160 ENGLAND AND WALES incentive to activity, it is difficult, with possibly one exception, to think of different educational values for the different forms of activity. The one exception is the mother tongue. This is the instrument of all the pupil's acquisitions and of common intercourse with his fellows. Moreover, it is the embodiment of rich stores of information and of the highest ideals of the race.'' The work of the primary school is continued in the secondary school; but this is distinguished from the primary in that the pupil is here ready for the more definite development of his reflective powers. He is able to analyze the concrete groups of which he gained knowledge in the primary schools and make scientific classifications. For instance, he is able to analyze language and reach the general truths of grammar. In other words, he is able to pass from empirical to scientific truth. This is continued in the college or university. In the technological school the student pursues studies preparatory to some employment and receives specific training in it. The study of psychology is as essential to the teacher as the study of physiology to the physician. One has to do with the mind, the other with the body. Each must acquaint himself with that upon which he is to expend his efforts. Besides the professional knowledge gained by the study of psychology, it tends to make the teacher look beyond the words and out- CONCLUSIONS 161 ward actions of pupils to their minds and trace the individual sources of their conduct. It also leads the teacher to regard the several studies of the school not as ends, but as means of mental development. ITo book quotations will suffice for the teacher's knowl- edge of psychology. He should come to the truths of psychology by thoughtful introspection and by in- ference from the observed acts of children and of others, and his general knowledge of the subject should be constantly supplemented by the study of individual pupils. Supply of Teachers. — Among the reasons why the elementary schools are not adequately supplied with good teachers are : 1. I^either the salaries paid nor the social posi- tion of an elementary teacher are such as to attract a man or woman of any considerable acquisition and culture. 2. The training-colleges may be expected to fur- nish the most progressive teachers; but there are not enough of these training-schools to supply candidates for all vacancies as they occur in the ranks of elemen- tary teachers. The day colleges or training-classes established recently in connection with university col- leges are attempting to increase the supply, but hitherto they have not enrolled a sufficient number of students, nor can students in day colleges expect to be as thoroughly drilled in practical teaching as the 162 ENGLAND AND WALES students of residential colleges that include a well- organized practising school. Chief -Inspector Kankine, in his report for 1900 on the training-colleges, sajs: " From 1841 our training-college system quietly developed on the old lines till 1890, when a new ele- ment was introduced in the shape of day training-col- leges. Of these there are at present 16. They are all connected with university colleges. It was a step in the direction of bringing elementary education into organic coherence with the general intellectual life of the country. They have been eminently successful, but have their difficulties. . . . The day colleges have special difficulties of their own. The task of pursuing technical studies and at the same time pre- paring for a degree involves a strain, and the one or the other branch of study is apt to suffer. Their course of training is in most cases for two years only, while a university degree requires at least three. The result of this is that many complete their degree while serving in schools — much to their credit, but against their health. The universities are in a dilemma; if they take in candidates of higher attainments who have had no experience of school work, special ar- rangements have to be made for instruction in prac- tical teaching; if they take in those who have lower attainments but have been pupil-teachers, the diffi- culty arises how to make much of them in purely CONCLUSIONS 163 university classes. . . . The day colleges whicli I have inspected seem to me as efficient as is possible in the circumstances. Possibly the circumstances might be more favorable. They all suffer from the rawness of the material which they have to work up and the lack of funds." 3. Those who enter training-colleges have, for the most part, been fitted in the narrowing routine of a pupil-teacher's course, without the liberalizing culture of a good secondary course of instruction. 4. Large opportunity is given under Article LXYIII of the code to those who have .not made special preparation for teaching to enter the profes- sion. " In mixed and girls' schools, and in infant schools and classes, a woman over eighteen years of age, approved by the inspector, who is employed dur- ing the whole of the school hours in the general in- struction of the scholars and in teaching needlework, is recognized as an additional teacher." In boys' schools, with the special approval of the department, a woman over eighteen years of age who is employed during the whole of the school hours in the instruction of scholars in Standard I, II, or III — i. e., the three grades next above the infant school — is recognized as an " additional teacher." Such " ad- ditional teachers," upon passing the examination re- quired to enter a training-college and taking rank in the first class of candidates, upon the recommenda- 164 ENGLAND AND WALES tion of an inspector as teachers of practical skill, may be recognized as provisionally certificated teachers. Then, after having been employed two years, such teachers may pass another examination, and after an- other year's teaching a second examination, and then receive the full teacher's certificate. Successfully passing such a set of examinations implies progress at least in knowledge while teaching; but such progress can not be equivalent to a full course of professional training; it is " climbing up some other way." All who would have the elementary schools im- prove deplore the fact that under Article LXYIII of the code so large a number of women " over eighteen years of age " without any professional training what- ever should be admitted to the ranks of teachers. In his report on training-colleges for 1900, Chiefs Inspector Eankine observes : " A striking feature in the development of our educational system is the in- crease of teachers under Article LXYIII of the code. These are untrained teachers. The only require- ments in this case are that they should be women over eighteen, approved by an inspector. At first sight it looks like a recrudescence of the monitorial system. That it is closely connected with the large employ- ment of acting teachers seems probable. For the teacher who is not capable of taking charge of pupil- teachers is recognized as fully qualified to superintend these able-bodied monitors. Yery few of them are CONCLUSIONS 165 drawn into our training-colleges. They are too old as a rule and have not the intellectual alertness to master new and difficult subjects." The whole number of teachers of elementary- schools reported for England and Wales in 1900 was 139,818. Of these, 30,783 were pupil-teachers, 30,- 233 assistants, and 16,717 additional assistants under Article LXYIII, giving a total of 77,733 uncertifi- cated teachers. There were 62,085 certificated teach- ers, but of these only 36,020 had passed through train- ing-colleges — only about one-fourth of the whole number of total teachers. About seven-eighths of the teachers in the elementary schools of France have taken the regular course in the state schools for the profession of teachers. 5. The employment of pupil-teachers instead of adult teachers. From 1876 to 1894 the average re- duction of the pupil-teachers was only 11 per cent. The attempt to secure a decided reduction by the adoption of an article in the code for 1899 was de- feated in Parliament, largely by the influence of the Anglican clergy, who felt compelled by lack of funds to employ in their voluntary schools a large propor- tion of pupil-teachers. This is especially true in rural schools. The board schools of London and other large towns employ comparatively few pupil-teachers. One of his Majesty's chief inspectors remarks: " In a great many of our best schools the pupil-teacher 166 ENGLAND AND WALES is a supernumerary as regards the minimum staff re- quired by tlie code, and serves under a head master, who is not tied down to a class, but has both the abil- ity and time to guide and criticize bis pupil. In too many cases, however, these conditions of good train- ing are absent. The school in which these young people are apprenticed is sometimes itself far from a model, the head teacher has to do his own work and that of an assistant, and they, themselves, are ab- sorbed by the class which is entrusted to them. And the worse the conditions, usually, the more numerous the pupil-teachers, because they are considered to be cheap. Habits are then acquired which the sys- tematic and scientific training in college fails to eradi- cate. They may learn the better methods, but the old tricks remain. Considerations of this sort are all the more serious because so many of them become as- sistants and afterward certificated teachers, without ever having had any scientific training at all." Some provision for a more cultured class of teachers has recently been attempted by the code of 1899, by which persons who have passed certain uni- versity or equivalent examinations are admitted to training-colleges. Sixty were so admitted in 1900. This class of students in the training-colleges is ex- pected to increase from year to year. While these are inferior to those who have served years as pupil- teachers, in managing classes and in combining teach- CONCLUSIONS 167 ing and class control, it is said that " they have not acquired fixed habits of educational practise which prejudice them against new ideas. They have greater mental flexibility. They possess a keener apprecia- tion of the principles of method. They follow the lectures with more interest, and they seek to apply what they have learned." They are not slow in gain- ing facility in class management. Permanence of Teachers. — The lack of perma- nence of teachers is a source of weakness in our schools. Teachers are aided in making changes by agencies that profit by transfers. Yet it must be granted that these agencies are very helpful in select- ing and placing teachers. The uncertain action of school committees, who often elect teachers for other reasons than their fitness to care for schools, tends to drive to other employments men of ability who de- sire to maintain permanent homes. In England, while the local managers contract with the teachers, the examinations and the inspections by which candi- dates are admitted to the ranks of teachers and by which they pass the several degrees of preferment, are made by the central authority. Thus the teach- ers receive the sanction and the support of the state, as ours do not. The policy of permanence in civil ofiice in England also tends strongly to promote the permanence of teachers. The difiiculty of excusing from service teachers who have outlived their useful- 168 ENGLAND AND WALES ness is not easily overcome. The Superannuation Bill of 1898, retiring upon pension teachers at the age of sixty-five, unless retained by special action of the department, is expected to remedy this difficulty in part. While in English schools there is not the same preponderance of male teachers as in German schools, there is a larger proportion than in our schools, and the female teachers do not as readily pass by mar- riage from the school to a home of their own. The average time that teachers in America are retained in one school is probably less than three years. In some parts of our country the average tenure for men is not over three years, though in our cities, especially the older, there is a much higher average, many teach- ing in the same school the greater part of a lifetime. The tenure of the teacher's office must be much longer in England than in the United States, though I have seen no reliable statistics in proof. Text-Books. — School text-books are not as abun- dant or varied as with us. The uniformity of the curriculum of the elementary school, as deter- mined by the annual code of the department, tends to secure uniformity of text-books; but the depart- ment does not recommend or authorize the use of any set of books. This is left to the local managers. The text-books that I noticed in the schoolrooms were less attractive than ours in type and execution. The variety of text-books published in our country, where CONCLUSIONS 169 eacli city and town by its committee can fix its curric- ulum and select its school-books, entails more expense upon those who purchase, but the rivalry of publishers spares no pains to provide serviceable and attractive books. Their variety stimulates teachers to study the subject they teach in different lights. In the schools of London I learned that school-books, appa- ratus, and stationery are provided from the school funds. Pianos are furnished in many schools to assist music drill. In every permanent school there are lending libraries. If they are small, they are made up of books carefully selected. The enterprise and the liberality of Birmingham and of other large centers in providing for schools are fully equal, and in many cases superior, to that of London. English Literature. — No other language equals the English language in the value of the literature it contains. As the elementary schools are now eman- cipated from " earning grants " by passing individual examinations in the " three R's," we may reasonably expect that English literature in the years to come will be recognized in the elementary school as a means of culture, as it has not been recognized hitherto. In the use made of the literature of the Bible, by memorizing selections, by daily readings and study, and by learning definite outlines of Scripture biog- raphy, especially the life of Christ, English schools are far in advance of ours. The views of Matthew 170 ENGLAND AND WALES Arnold which we have in part quoted in the chapter on The Keligious Question, and which are generally approved by the thoughtful educators of England, should be pondered by all who prize literature as a means of culture. History and Geography. — England is rich in his- torical landmarks, in monuments, and in other memo- rials of the illustrious dead. The national pride of England is proverbial. History and geography are so taught that children can not fail to be impressed with the greatness of the British Empire. Little time com- paratively is devoted to the geography of lands not included in the empire, and it is not strange if school- children come to think that such geography and his- tory are of little value. In all the schools, however, by means of these studies is nourished that national spirit which, though sometimes giving rise to ludicrous self- satisfaction and a lack of appreciation of what other nations have accomplished, is the source of genuine patriotism, ever ready to find expression in the service of the country, whether on the land or on the sea. Personal interests may clash, different classes may contend with each other for their rights, political par- ties may strive for the mastery, but these contentions are never allowed to weaken their patriotism, nor to make them less valiant in promoting what they deem to be in accord with the public weal. Yet an educa- tional expert, with abundant opportunities to form a CONCLUSIONS 171 correct judgment, asserts that history is more poorly taught than any other subject. While history should be so taught as to cherish a national self-respect and to nurture an abiding patriotism, it should also be taught so as to broaden the view, enlarge the sympa- thies, and lead to an appreciation of the excellence of nations other than one's own. Elementary history should furnish the germs of liberal culture. The ele- mentary schools of England were founded to furnish a moiety of instruction to the children of those en- gaged in manual labor, and are still somewhat ham- pered by narrow traditions. Coeducation. — In London and in other large centers, the tendency seems to be, in grades above the infant schools (three to seven years of age), to teach boys and girls in separate schools, though each may be in the same building. In many parts of London, however, and in small communities, boys and girls are taught together. I^ot far from Hampstead Heath, I visited a school containing about 2,000 pupils which has ever been coeducational. The school seemed to be made up mainly of children of the middle class. The school was evidently established when the locality was more suburban than now and land was more easily obtained. The site included nearly two acres ; the buildings, unlike all others I visited, were, with the exception of an art room for pupils of higher grades, but one story high. They seemed to have 172 ENGLAND AND WALES been adapted to the increasing numbers by successive projections, or wings, making access easy and giving an abundance of window space, a feature very de- sirable in the gray, hazy atmosphere of London. In reply to my questions, the principal said that during the twenty years or more of his service in the school he had known of no serious evil arising from co- education. Almost the only annoyance in the man- agement that had occurred was owing to the lack of tact in the control of boys on the part of women on the staff who had never in their homes nor in schools been accustomed to boys. He very decidedly ap- proved of coeducation because of its wholesome effects both upon boys and upon girls, making each better in manners and more amenable to moral cul- ture. Relations of Teachers and Pupils. — The crowning excellence of a teacher is not acquisition nor peda- gogical skill, but a personality effective in influencing for good. What a teacher is in heart and in life is most effective in determining the pupil's thought, feel- ing, and purpose. Any one who during his formative years has felt the impress of an Arnold will testify to the value of personal influence. Is it not the object of the process we call education to bring pupil and teacher into such relations that the cultured spirit, the highest aims, and the finest enthusiasm of the teacher shall be shared by the pupil? The rela- CONCLUSIONS 173 tions of pupil and teacher in English schools, so far as I observed, are excellent. Teachers often supervise and take part in school games, and seem interested in the all-around development of those in their charge. While the disposition of the pupils to render prompt obedience is more evident in English than in our schools, there is no " dignified distance " separating pupils and teachers and hindering the interaction of minds. The English teacher seemed to me to suc- ceed in developing the self-reliance of the pupils. The military spirit, which apparently dominates the relations of pupils and teachers in German schools, does not obtain in English schools. Germans who visit English schools have often said that they would like to transfer to German schools the force and the enthusiasm of the English student in out-of-door sports, his self-reliance, and the relations of the teach- ers and pupils. The parental attitude of the teacher and the home feeling which lend such peculiar charm to many of our schools is not wanting in the elemen- tary schools of England, though the pupils do not seem to have the same readiness and freedom in the schoolroom in the interchange of thought with the teacher. Out-of-Door Sports. — The people of Great Brit- ain, more than any other people, I believe, value out-of-door sports as a means of physical development and as a means of forming manly character. How- 14 174 ENGLAND AND WALES ever great the stress of study in the preparatory and collegiate schools, ample time is allowed in afternoons for games and other forms of recreation and amuse- ment in the open air. Sound and sustained scholar- ship is not expected unless the body is kept in health and strength by abundance of out-of-door life. The best forms of exercise, the English believe, are plays which the students spontaneously plan and execute with enthusiasm and with skill. In the elementary schools, the teachers feel that the vigorous use of the play hours is of primal importance in developing man- hood. They are not troubled with the fact that boys in the German schools are in their studies often two years in advance of English boys, of the same age, for they feel assured that the spectacle-eyed, book-worn German boy, in later life, will fall behind in practical affairs the English boy whose whole nature has been made buoyant and forceful by the freedom and the training of the playground. The contrast at school recess between the demure German boy and the bois- terous and intensely active English boy is often re- marked by those who visit German and English schools. Systematic gymnastic training may be a necessity for the German boy. It accords with the military atmosphere of the German schools. Gym- nastics are included in the curriculum of most Eng- lish schools, but the teachers especially prize the manly development gained in well-managed sports. CONCLUSIONS 1T5 By their presence and by their cooperation the teach- ers strive to make the sports of the playground at- tractive and effective. The English System, National. — The English system of elementary schools is superior to ours in that it is organized under one central authority. The schools are a national interest. We are so tenacious of local institutions and so apprehensive that any na- tional centralization of school administration will tend to make the management of the schools a matter of party politics that we are unwilling to establish a national system. From the first, it has been our policy to have each State independent in all that per- tains to education. The J^ational Bureau of Educa- tion, at Washington, now so serviceable to all the States in collecting, collating, and distributing educa- tional information and germinal ideas, is of compara- tively recent origin, and was established with consider- able reluctance on the part of Congress. Local man- agement of schools is so strongly entrenched that State control is far less effective in most States than the welfare of the schools demands, especially in the older States. The Board of Education in Massachu- setts, a State acknowledged to be foremost in educa- tion, can advise and encourage what they deem help- ful to the welfare of the public schools; but they can enforce nothing save so much accuracy in school statistics as may be required by law as a condition of 176 ENGLAND AND WALES apportioning certain public funds. The suggestions embodied in the annual reports of the Board to the State legislature, the institutes held in different places from time to time, the general oversight of the normal schools in which a large proportion of the public-school teachers are trained, and the continuous work of the secretary and the agents of the Board in teachers' gatherings, in citizens' meetings, and in the schools, is very valuable, but not authoritative. A central authority, as in England, while making ample provision for local effort and interest, can render such firm and effective support to progressive measures as to make them general and permanent. The code an- nually issued by the Education Department and ap- proved by Parliament is school law. The danger is that a strong central authority will override the local administration and diminish local responsibility and local interest. That this is the tendency of the Eng- lish parliamentary authority is evident to any one conversant with the system of elementary schools. The people seem more and more disposed to look to the national exchequer for the funds to maintain the schools, about three-fourths of the annual expenditure being provided from that source, and it seems reason- able that so far as the Government maintains, it should control. We are not, however, to lose sight of the fact that a large amount is annually raised by local taxation in aid of elementary schools. Much is said CONCLUSIONS 177 in Parliament and in the instructions given inspect- ors against weakening the self-reliance of the local managers. The central authority is most serviceable in preventing schools in communities indifferent to education from falling below a minimum standard of excellence. The weak element in democratic communities like ours is the lack of strong central authority to conserve the conditions of progress and secure to more needy communities educational advantages similar to those enjoyed by the more favored. Evidences of Progress. — In the larger cities especially, and throughout England, the amount raised by local taxation for the maintenance of ele- mentary schools is steadily increasing, showing a growing appreciation of the value of the schools and better ideals of education. The people are more generous in their expenditure, because they wish to secure a more complete education than was originally planned by the Government. In London some 60 board schools of higher grade — i. e., schools teaching " Specific Subjects " to some pupils who have finished the seventh grade, though the legality of organizing and maintaining such schools under the elementary schools act is still questioned — are maintained at pub- lic expense by local efforts mainly. London is now taking measures to provide scientific schools having two- or three-year courses in which graduates of ele- 178 ENGLAND AND WALES mentar J schools may be taught. This is an indication that there is an increasing demand for a system of free secondary schools. This demand has already had an effect upon Parliament. The Education De- partment has recently been reorganized with a view of providing for such a system. But the ample pro- vision already made in schools on private foundations for the secondary and university education of the upper classes, and their persuasion that it is not wise to instruct the children of the laboring class in other than elementary studies, must retard the movement to establish free secondary schools. Since 1890 the greater part of the parliamentary grant has been apportioned on the basis of average attendance and the general efficiency of the school, instead of on the basis of the results of individual examinations conducted by his Majesty's inspectors. This change in the mode of inspecting is an evidence of the greater excellence of the teachers and of the in- creased confidence reposed in them. They are not hampered as heretofore by the limitations of regularly recurring examinations in all the studies " earning grants." They now have more freedom in devising and in realizing their plans for improving their schools. The change in the mode of inspection has also freed the inspectors from a continuous clerical work once so exhaustive as to leave little time or energy to study the methods of discipline and of CONCLUSIONS 179 teaching employed. The duties now demanded of an inspector are more attractive to men of large cul- ture and professional skill, and such men in larger numbers will be employed. The provisions for the culture and training of teachers, though still inadequate, have been enlarged and much improved. The last ten years is a period of decided advance. The establishment of day train- ing-colleges in 1890 enabling those who are to teach to receive instruction at a university college, while in professional training, is an unmistakable evidence of the advance of the elementary teacher both in oppor- tunity and in public estimation. If at Oxford and Cambridge well-endowed training-colleges could be established with a generous course of study, the caste feeling that now intervenes between the primary and the secondary teacher might be diminished. The teachers of the elementary schools, as a body, are clearly superior to those who have preceded them; the average salary is more; the number of pupil-teach- ers is relatively smaller. Men of broad views and high social standing are already looking forward to the time when the elementary-school teacher will not be excluded from the social advantages to be gained by mingling with teachers of higher grades. The Right Eev. J. Percival, Lord Bishop of Hereford, not long ago, in a public address, said that he would have all schools, whether primary or secondary, under 180 ENGLAND AND WALES one and the same administrative system, " so that there may no longer be what is practically an im- passable barrier of separation between primary and secondary teachers. . . . Teachers would thus be brought to look upon themselves as all belonging to one and the same body, and the ablest and most suc- cessful men and women in primary schools would have opportunities of passing from elementary to sec- ondary schools, so that the career of such teachers would be enlarged and their office made all the more attractive. And if every soldier in E'apoleon's army was stimulated by the thought that he might some day grasp the marshal's baton, the same principle of a career open to merit without let or hindrance would doubtless have a similar effect in the great army of our elementary teachers. On the other hand, men and women educated in secondary schools and of va- rious classes of society would thus be led to look to the profession of teachers in elementary schools, and we might thus hope gradually to sweep away the feel- ing of class distinction which now separates the pri- mary schools from the rest of our educational system, and so put an end to one of the chief defects in the education of the poor, that of leaving it almost en- tirely in the hands of teachers belonging to their own class. ... In our elementary-school system it is a cardinal defect that the teacher is confined through- out the whole period of his education within the circle CONCLUSIONS 181 of his own class and never mixes freely with students of any other class. He begins as a pupil in the ele- mentary school; he passes on to be a pupil-teacher, and next proceeds to the isolated training-college, and from this he returns to the elementary school. . . . I should be glad to see at least one elementary teach- ers' training-college established in each of our great universities, so that all the members might have the advantage of university association. . . . My last suggestion on this point is that steps should be taken to invite and attract students from the secondary schools to enter the elementary-school training-col- leges with the view of becoming elementary-school teachers." That the Education Department are desirous of attracting to the elementary schools as teachers men of broader culture, is evident from the fact that any one who has passed the examination entitling him to graduate in arts or science from any university in the United Kingdom, may be recognized by the depart- ment as a certificated teacher provided he holds a satisfactory certificate of proficiency in the theory and practise of teaching issued by a university or col- legiate body. Those holding the schoolmaster's di- ploma granted to graduates by the University of Edinburgh; or the certificate of the University of Cambridge in the theory, history, and practise of teaching, accompanied by the certificate of practical 182 ENGLAND AND WALES efficiency in teaching; or the teacher's diploma of the University of London, or the diploma of associate, licentiate, or fellow of the College of Preceptors, accompanied by the certificate of ability to teach ; or the certificate of the theory and practise of teaching issued by Durham University, may be recognized as certified teachers. Another evidence of progress is the good begin- ning made in London and in other large centers in the teaching of woodwork to boys, and laundry work, cookery, and practical housewifery to girls. Some- thing is accomplished in teaching cottage garden- ing in some rural schools. The recent instructions of the department show that increasing attention is to be given to the several forms of manual train- ing, and that they are to be so taught as to conduce to general or liberal, and not merely to technical, education. In 1895, 135,430 girls reached sufficient profi- ciency in cookery to receive grants, 11,720 in laun- dry work, and 35,964 in domestic economy. More recent returns will show a much larger number. Several hundred boys annually receive grants for pro- ficiency in market-gardening. The increasing proportion of teachers in the ele- mentary schools who have completed a course of pro- fessional training is an evidence of progress that should not pass unnoticed. CONCLUSIONS 183 The proportion of adult teachers has risen from 61 per cent to 72 per cent between 1876 and 1896. During the next decade the proportion of pupil- teachers will be more rapidly decreased than in the past. The attendance at evening continuation schools has much increased since 1893, owing mainly to the abolition of fees and the introduction of higher studies in the place of elementary, which are no longer obligatory. The applicants for admission to these schools were, we are told, 25,000 in 1897, and 50,000 in 1898, an increase of 100 per cent. The Cockerton judgment of 1901 relegating the continuation or evening schools to the province of elementary schools, and affirming that school boards have no power to spend rates on other than elemen- tary education, has dealt the heaviest blow to the con- tinuation schools which they have experienced for many a year. If this decision is to be strictly en- forced, the evening schools, so far as they are main- tained by local rates, must be literally continuation elementary schools. There will be no opportunity for mechanics and workmen to obtain that technical and that higher instruction which their employment or their taste demands. The attendance at these schools must greatly diminish. The Cockerton judg- ment may be technically correct in that it is in accord with the acts under which the system of elementary 184 ENGLAND AND WALES schools has been established; but, when municipalities and other communities by voluntary effort have adapted the instruction in their evening schools to the needs of workmen and the educational cravings of youth too far advanced in knowledge to be benefited by elementary instruction, it would seem that such communities should be encouraged to continue their good work. If good customs can not be allowed to modify or supplant laws that are wisely outgrown, how is prog- ress possible? The creation, in 1896, by the Education Depart- ment, of an office for Special Inquiries and Reports on Educational Subjects has already rendered much aid to the schools of the United Kingdom. The annual reports from this office by the director, Mr. M. E. Sad- ler, are destined to be of the same inestimable value as the reports of our l^ational Bureau of Education. Though England is far behind Scotland, Switzer- land, and Germany in securing the attendance of chil- dren at school, yet she is making positive advance. By a bill introduced into the House of Commons March 1, 1899, the age of exemption from school at- tendance has been raised from eleven to twelve years of age. In 1876 it was fijced at ten years, and in 1893 at eleven years. "No one can leave school un- less he has passed the fourth standard in reading, writing, and arithmetic, or has made 350 attendances CONCLUSIONS 185 for each of ia.Ye years at some elementary school re- corded as efficient. Yet the lack of attendance is one of the most grave defects of the elementary schools. Sir John Gorst, who for several years has been the vice-presi- dent of the committee of the Privy Council on educa- tion, not long ago said in the House of Commons: " There are 1,000,000 children in the kingdom out of school between the ages of five and fourteen who ought to be in school." Of the 754,000 enrolled in the elementary schools of London in 1899, 145,000 per day were absent, and it is estimated that not less than a sixth of the children of school age in London are not enrolled in any school. While some of these receive private instruction, the presumption is that the majority are deprived of their educational rights. As children are not required, as in our towns, to attend school in their own districts, but may attend in any other, provided the accommodations are there sufficient, it is in London easier than with us to avoid truant-officers. Doubtless the people of London would claim for themselves a higher social rank than they would award to the people of Glasgow, yet the average school attendance in Glasgow by recent returns was 89 per cent, while the average in London was 81 per cent. 18G ENGLAND AND WALES Thougli $200,000 are annually expended in Lon- don in securing school attendance, the machinery of the law is so defective that court dockets are often overloaded with cases of '' chronic irregularity." The penalties imposed are not sufficiently effective. The fines for non-attendance have been trifling compared with those in Scotland, a land far inferior to England in wealth. Magistrates in London often limit the number of prosecutions for non-attendance at school, affirming their inability to deal with all delinquents. But there are signs of positive improvement. Penal- ties have been increased. The average attendance is increasing. Citizens of England and of every land should heed the words of Ruskin: " Make your educational laws strict, and your criminal laws may be gentle; but leave youth its liberty, and you will have to dig dungeons for age." It would be well for the children and for the public weal if the people of England would give less heed to traditional notions respecting the right of parents to dispose of the time and strength of their children as they wish, and more heed to the means that should be used to secure the educational rights of those upon whom, in a few years, will devolve the success or the failure of the nation. ACT OF 1903 187 ACT or 1902 PRELIMmAKY After tlie preceding pages were written, tlie edu- cation bill of 1902 was enacted, becoming, Decem- ber 18, 1902, the Education Act of 1902. With a few preliminary statements, we subjoin this act — one of the most important that an English Parliament ever enacted. Since 1870 the elementary schools of England have made great progress, especially in towns and cities largely supplied with board schools. Yet the general intelligence resulting from a system of ele- mentary schools is in England inferior to that of Switzerland, of Germany, and of the United States. This inferiority is owing mainly to inefficient schools and to the withdrawal of pupils at an early age. There is no system of secondary schools to continue the work begun in the primary grades and to stimu- late to longer study in those grades. The inefficiency of the elementary schools is largely owing to the fact that more than one-half of the pupils in England are enrolled in voluntary schools that lack the means of doing what they would. The grants from the na- tional treasury, supplemented by private contribu- tions and the income in some cases from endowments, have not been sufficient to maintain such schools as 188 ENGLAND AND WALES England must have if the nation would hold its place in manufactures and trade among the more progress- ive peoples of the world. The supporters of the voluntary schools, by their lack of means to maintain their schools and by their disposition in many places to limit the expenditures of the board schools, have retarded the progress of elementary instruction. In the rural districts, where each parish is a school area, school communities are so small and often so poor, and so conservative, that board schools, if established, are often managed in a penurious way, so that a voluntary school coming under the oversight of some clergyman is usually con- ducted with more liberality than a board school in the same area would be. Again, there has been a waste of expenditures and a conflict of authorities owing to the jurisdiction of local authorities overlapping each other. County councils have been authorized to maintain technical or higher institutions in places where the school boards were maintaining similar institutions. The central authority emanating from Parliament was unified by the act of 1900. There has been pressing need of unifying local authority, of combining rural parishes, and other small areas, in larger school areas, and of providing adequate means for the support of the voluntary schools or of supplanting them by estab- lishing board schools that have the right to supple- ACT OF 1902 189 ment the grants from the national exchequer by levy- ing local rates. Sir John Gorst, in a recent article in the Mne- teenth Century, before the passage of the Act of 1902, said: " Unless reform is very promptly undertaken, the English nation will be less instructed than the people of European states, of America, and even of our own colonies. ... If it is true that the inter- national rivalry of the future will be one of commerce and manufactures, the uninstructed nations will have to reconcile themselves to be the menial servants of the rest of the world and to perform the lower and rougher operations of modern industry; while all those which require taste, skill, and invention gradual- ly fall into the hands of people who are better taught. If a race that aspires to exercise imperial influence in the world must possess knowledge as well as courage, and intelligence as well as wealth, the people of Eng- land must be content to see the empire decline, unless other citizens of the empire take up the task for which the lack of public instruction renders the people of England unequal. It is therefore no exaggeration to call the state of public instruction in England an emergency. The danger is imminent. There is no time to lose. Teachers and schools can not be cre- ated in a moment by act of Parliament. If all the authorities in England — the people, the parents, the 15 190 ENGLAND AND WALES churches, the county and municipal councils, the Cen- tral Government — get to work this day in earnest to improve public instruction, it would be years before the improved machinery could be got into working order and our public instruction brought up to the level of that which has for many years already been possessed by our commercial and industrial rivals." Speaking of the defects in instruction of the ele- mentary schools, aggravated by the poverty of the voluntary schools and their rivalry with the board schools, he says : " But waste of money is not the worst consequence of the dual system. Schools are tempted to teach not that which is most profitable to the scholars of the nation, but that which is most popular and will attract most pupils. Preparation for examination has taken the place of real education. ... In evening schools an increasing number dance and swim and gaze at magic lanterns; a decreasing number avail themselves of the opportunity for real study. As a plan of giving innocent recreation to the masses, the system of evening continuation schools has been a success; as a means of making up the terrible deficiencies of our people in commercial and technical capacity it is a failure. " Such is the state of public instruction in Eng- land. In Wales, which in education is linked with England, the Intermediate Act has mitigated to some extent the defects of higher education; the state- ACT OF 1903 191 ments on elementary education apply equally to both.'' Non-conformists now maintain, as they stoutly maintained in 1870, when the present system of ele- mentary instruction was inaugurated, that public funds should not be expended for the maintenance of voluntary schools — i. e., sectarian schools; but that public money for schools should be expended under the control of the public for the maintenance of board — i. e., unsectarian — schools. Hence the strenuous opposition of non-conformists to some of the provi- sions of the Act of 1902. But however correct the principle urged by the non-conformists, that public money should be expended for public and unsectarian objects, serious difficulties arise in its application. The Anglican Church by its voluntary schools for decades previous to 1870 provided about all the ele- mentary schools. Previous to 1870 Parliament left the education of children to parents and to the Church. When in 1870 Parliament attempted to provide for the education of all children of school age, it recognized the prescriptive rights of the Church and the value of its schools by leaving them intact, increasing grants to aid them and by limiting the establishment of board schools to those places in which seats in Church schools could not be provided for all children. Again, it is estimated that to provide board 192 ENGLAND AND WALES schools for pupils not attending voluntary schools would involve an expenditure of $150,000,000 for school buildings and grounds. A third difficulty is the sentiment of the present Parliament. It is a strongly conservative Parlia- ment inclined to do full justice to, if not to unduly upbuild, the Anglican Church. EDUCATION ACT, 1902 CHAPTER 42 An Act to make further provision with respect to education in England and Wales. [18th December, 1902.'] Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows : PART I LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITY 1. — For the purposes of this Act the council of every county and of every county borough shall be the local education authority: education Provided that the council of a borough with a population of over ten thousand, or of an urban district with a population of over twenty thousand, shall, as respects that borough ACT OF 1902 193 or district, be the local education anthority for the purpose of Part III of this Act, and for that purpose as respects that borough or district, the expression " local education authority " means the council of that borough or district. PART II HIGHER EDUCATION 2. — (1) The local education authority shall con- sider the educational needs of their area and take -r^ , ... such steps as seem to them desirable, Power to aid ^ ^ higher edu- after consultation with the Board of cation. . . i i Education, to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary, and to promote the general coordination of all forms of education, and for that purpose shall apply all or so much as they deem necessary of the residue under section one of the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, and shall carry forward for the like purpose any balance thereof which may remain unexpended, and may spend such further sums as they think fit: Provided that the amount raised by the council of a county for the purpose in any year out of rates under this Act shall not exceed the amount which would be produced by a rate of twopence in the pound, or such higher rate as the County Council, with the consent of the Local Government Board, may fix. (2) A council, in exercising their powers under 194 ENGLAND AND WALES this Part of this Act, shall have regard to any exist- ing supply of efficient schools or colleges, and to any steps already taken for the purpose of higher educa- tion under the Technical Instruction Acts, 1889 and 1891. 3. — The council of any non-county borough or urban district shall have power as well as the county council to spend such sums as they Concurrent n c i c t - powers of think fit for the purpose of supplying oughs and or aiding the supply of education other urban districts. ^^^^ elementary: Provided that the amount raised by the council of a non-county bor- ough or urban district for the purpose in any year out of rates under this Act shall not exceed the amount which would be produced by a rate of one penny in the pound. 4. — (1) A council, in the application of money under this Part of this Act, shall not require that any Religious particular form of religious instruction instruction. ^^ worship or any religious catechism or formulary which is distinctive of any particular de- nomination shall or shall not be taught, used, or prac- tised in any school, college or hostel aided but not provided by the council, and no pupil shall, on the ground of religious belief, be excluded from or placed in an inferior position in any school, college or hostel provided by the council, and no catechism or formu- lary distinctive of any particular religious denomina- ACT OF 1903 195 tion shall be taught in any school, college or hostel so provided, except in cases where the council, at the request of parents of scholars, at such times and under such conditions as the council think desirable, allow any religious instruction to be given in the school, college or hostel, otherwise than at the cost of the council: Provided that in the exercise of this power no unfair preference shall be shown to any re- ligious denomination. (2) In a school or college receiving a grant from, or maintained by, a council under this Part of this Act. (a) A scholar attending as a day or evening scholar shall not be required, as a condition of being admitted into or remaining in the school or college, to attend or abstain from attending any Sunday-school, place of religious worship, religious observance, or instruction in religious subjects in the school or col- lege or elsewhere; and (b) The times for religious worship or for any lesson on a religious subject shall be conveniently ar- ranged for the purpose of allowing the withdrawal of any such scholar therefrom. PART III ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 5. — The local education authority shall through- out their area have the powers and duties of a 196 ENGLAND AND WALES school board and school attendance committee under the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, Powers and ^nd any other Acts, including local demen?Ly ^^ts, and shall also be responsible for education. ^j^^ have the control of all secular in- struction in public elementary schools not provided by them, and school boards and school attendance committees shall be abolished. 6. — (1) All public elementary schools provided by the local education authority shall, where the local Manaeeraent education authority are the council of a of schools. county, have a body of managers con- sisting of a number of managers not exceeding four appointed by that council, together with a number not exceeding two appointed by the minor local authority. Where the local education authority are the coun- cil of a borough or urban district they may, if they think fit, appoint for any school provided by them a body of managers consisting of such number of man- agers as they may determine. (2) All public elementary schools not provided ^ by the local education authority shall, in place of the existing managers, have a body of managers consist- ing of a number of foundation managers not exceed- ing four appointed as provided by this Act, together 1 Voluntary schools are designated in the Act by words "not provided," etc. ACT OF 1902 197 with a number of managers not exceeding two ap- pointed — (a) Where the local education authority are the council of a county, one by that council and one by the minor local authority; and (6) Where the local education authority are the council of a borough or urban district, both by that authority. (3) ^Notwithstanding anything in this section — (a) Schools may be grouped under one body of managers in manner provided by this Act ; and (h) Where the local education authority consider that the circumstances of any school require a larger body of managers than that provided under this sec- tion, that authority may increase the total number of managers, so, however, that the number of each class of managers is proportionately increased. 7. — (1) The local education authority shall main- tain and keep efficient all public elementary schools Maintenance within their area which are necessary, of schools. ^^^ j^^^g ^Yie control of all expenditure required for that purpose, other than expenditure for which, under this Act, provision is to be made by the managers; but, in the case of a school not provided by them, only so long as the following conditions and provisions are complied with: (a) The managers of the school shall carry out any directions of the local education authority as to the 198 ENGLAND AND WALES secular instruction to be given in the school, including any directions with respect to the number and edu- cational qualifications of the teachers to be employed for such instruction, and for the dismissal of any teacher on educational grounds ; and if the managers fail to carry out any such directions the local educa- tion authority shall, in addition to their other powers, have the power themselves to carry out the direction in question as if they were the managers; but no di- rection given under this provision shall be such as to interfere with reasonable facilities for religious in- struction during school hours; (h) The local education authority shall have power to inspect the school; (c) The consent of the local education author- ity shall be required to the appointment of teach- ers, but that consent shall not be withheld except on educational grounds; and the consent of the au- thority shall also be required to the dismissal of a teacher unless the dismissal be on grounds con- nected with the giving of religious instruction in the school; (d) The managers of the school shall provide the schoolhouse free of any charge, except for the teach- er's dwelling-house (if any), to the local education authority for use as a public elementary school, and shall, out of funds provided by them, keep the school- house in good repair, and make such alterations and ACT OF 1903 199 improvements in the buildings as may be reasonably required by the local education authority; provided that such damage as the local authority consider to be due to fair wear and tear in the use of any room in the schoolhouse for the purpose of a public elemen- tary school shall be made good by the local education authority. (e) The managers of the school shall, if the local education authority have no suitable accommodation in schools provided by them, allow that authority to use any room in the schoolhouse out of school hours free of charge for any educational purpose, but this obligation shall not extend to more than three days in the week. (2) The managers of a school maintained but not provided by the local education authority, in respect of the use by them of the school furniture out of school hours, and the local education authority in re- spect of the use by them of any room in the school- house out of school hours, shall be liable to make good any damage caused to the furniture or the room, as the case may be, by reason of that use (other than damage arising from fair wear and tear), and the managers shall take care that, after the use of a room in the schoolhouse by them, the room is left in a proper condition for school purposes. (3) If any question arises under this section be- tween the local education authority and the man- 200 ENGLAND AND WALES agers of a school not provided by the authority, that j question shall be determined by the Board of Edu- cation. (4) One of the conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain a parlia- mentary grant shall be that it is maintained under and complies with the provisions of this section. (5) In public elementary schools maintained but not provided by the local education authority, assist- ant teachers and pupil-teachers may be appointed, if it is thought fit, without reference to religious creed and denomination, and, in any case in which there are more candidates for the post of pupil-teacher than there are places to be filled, the appointment shall be made by the local education authority, and they shall determine the respective qualifications of the candi- dates by examination or otherwise. (6) Religious instruction given in a public ele- mentary school not provided by the local education authority shall, as regards its character, be in accord- ance with the provisions (if any) of the trust deed re- lating thereto, and shall be under the control of the managers: Provided that nothing in this subsection shall affect any provision in a trust deed for reference to the bishop or superior ecclesiastical or other de- nominational authority so far as such provision gives to the bishop or authority the power of deciding whether the character of the religious instruction ACT OP 1902 201 is or is not in accordance with tlie provisions of tlie trust deed. (7) The managers of a school maintained but not provided by the local education authority shall have all powers of management required for the purpose of carrying out this Act, and shall (subject to the powers of the local education authority under this section) have the exclusive power of appointing and dismissing teachers. 8. — (1) Where the local education authority or any other persons propose to provide a new pub- Provision of ^^^ elementary school, they shall give new schools. public notice of their intention to do so, and the managers of any existing school, or the local education authority (where they are not them- selves the persons proposing to provide the school), or any ten ratepayers in the area for which it is proposed to provide the school, may, within three months after the notice is given, appeal to the Board of EducatioH on the ground that the proposed school is not required, or that a school provided by the local education authority, or not so provided, as the case may be, is better suited to meet the wants of the dis- trict than the school proposed to be provided, and any school built in contravention to the decision of the Board of Education on such appeal shall be treated as unnecessary. (2) If, in the opinion of the Board of Education, 202 ENGLAND AND WALES any enlargement of a public elementary scliool is such as to amount to the provision of a new school, that en- largement shall be treated for the purposes of this section. (3) Any transfer of a public elementary school to or from a local education authority shall for the purpose of this section be treated as the provision of a new school. 9. — The Board of Education shall, without un- necessary delay, determine, in case of dispute. Necessity whether a school is necessary or not, of schools. ^^^^ ^jj gQ determining, and also in de- ciding on any appeal as to the provision of a new school, shall have regard to the interest of secular in- struction, to the wishes of parents as to the education of their children, and to the economy of the rates; but a school for the time being recognized as a public ele- mentary school shall not be considered unnecessary in which the number of scholars in average attend- ance, as computed by the Board of Education, is not less than thirty. 10. — (1) In lieu of the grants under the Volun- tary Schools Act, 1897, and under section ninety- .., ^ seven of the Elementary Education Aid grant. '^ Act, 18Y0, as amended by the Elemen- tary Education Act, 1897, there shall be annually paid to every local education authority, out of moneys provided by Parliament — ACT OF 1903 203 (a) A sum equal to four shillings per scholar; and (&) An additional sum of three halfpence per scholar for every complete twopence per scholar by which the amount which would be produced by a penny rate on the area of the authority falls short of ten shillings a scholar; Provided that, in estimating the produce of a penny rate in the area of a local edu- cation authority not being a county borough, the rate shall be calculated upon the county-rate basis, which, in cases where part only of a parish is situated in the area of the local education authority, shall be appor- tioned in such manner as the Board of Education think just. But if in any year the total amount of parlia- mentary grants payable to a local education authority would make the amount payable out of other sources by that authority on account of their expenses under this Part of this Act less than the amount which would be produced by a rate of threepence in the pound, the parliamentary grants shall be decreased, and the amount payable out of other sources shall be increased by a sum equal in each case to half the difference. (2) For the purposes of this section the number of scholars shall be taken to be the number of scholars in average attendance, as computed by the Board of Education, in public elementary schools maintained by the authority. 204 ENGLAND AND WALES 11. — (1) The foundation managers of a school shall be managers appointed under the provisions of Foundation *^® ^rust deed of the school, but if it is managers. shown to the satisfaction of the Board of Education that the provisions of the trust deed as to the appointment of managers are in any respect in- consistent with the provisions of this Act, or insuffi- cient or inapplicable for the purpose, or that there is no such trust deed available, the Board of Education shall make an order under this section for the pur- pose of meeting the case. (2) Any such order may be made on the appli- cation of the existing owners, trustees, or man- agers of the school, made within a period of three months after the passing of this Act, and after that period on the application of the local educa- tion authority or any other person interested in the management of the school, and any such order, where it modifies the trust deed, shall have effect as part of the trust deed, and where there is no trust deed shall have effect as if it were contained in a trust deed. (3) E'otice of any such application, together with a copy of the draft final order proposed to be made thereon, shall be given by the Board of Education to the local education authority and the existing owners, trustees, and managers, and any other persons who appear to the Board of Education to be interested, ACT OF 1903 205 and the final order shall not be made until six weeks after notice has been so given. (4) In making an order under this section with regard to any school, the Board of Education shall have regard to the ownership of the school-building, and to the principles on which the education given in the school has been conducted in the past. (5) The Board of Education may, if they think that the circumstances of the case require it, make any interim order on any application under this sec- tion to have temporary effect until the final order is made. (6) The body of managers appointed under this Act for a public elementary school not provided by the local education authority shall be the managers of that school both for the purposes of the Elemen- tary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, and this Act, and, so far as respects the management of the school as a public elementary school, for the purpose of the trust deed. (T) Where the receipt by a school, or the trustees or managers of a school, of any endowment or other benefit is, at the time of the passing of this Act, de- pendent on any qualification of the managers, the qualification of the foundation managers only shall, in case of question, be regarded. (8) The Board of Education may, on the applica- tion of the managers of the school, the local educa- 16 206 ENGLAND AND WALES tion authority, or any person appearing to them to be interested in the school, revoke, vary, or amend any order made under this section by an order made in a similar manner; but before making any such order the draft thereof shall, as soon as may be, be laid be- fore each House of Parliament, and if within thirty days, being days on which Parliament has sat, after the draft has been so laid before Parliament, either House resolves that the draft, or any part thereof, should not be proceeded with, no further proceedings shall be taken thereon, without prejudice to the making of any new draft order. 12. — (1) The local education authority may group under one body of managers any public ele- mentary schools provided by them, and o/schooS ^^y ^^^^y ^^^^ *^® consent of the man- under one agers of the schools, group under one body of managers any such schools not so provided. (2) The body of managers of grouped schools shall consist of such number and be appointed in such manner and proportion as, in the case of schools pro- vided by the local education authority, may be deter- mined by that authority ; and in the case of schools not so provided, may be agreed upon between the bodies of managers of the schools concerned and the local education authority, or in default of agreement may be determined by the Board of Education. ACT OF 1902 207 (3) Where the local education authority are the council of a county, they shall make provision for the due representation of minor local authorities on the bodies of managers of schools grouped under their direction. (4) Any arrangement for grouping schools not provided by the local education authority shall, unless previously determined by consent of the parties con- cerned, remain in force for a period of three years. 13. — (1) l!^othing in this Act shall affect any en- dowment, or the discretion of any trustees in respect thereof: Provided that, where under Endowments. . . «• • the trusts or other provisions anectmg any endowment the income thereof must be applied in whole or in part for those purposes of a public ele- mentary school for which provision is to be made by the local education authority, the whole of the income or the part thereof, as the case may be, shall be paid to that authority, and, in case part only of such in- come must be so applied and there is no provision under the said trusts or provisions for determining the amount which represents that part, that amount shall be determined, in case of difference between the parties concerned, by the Board of Education; but if a public inquiry is demanded by the local education authority, the decision of the Board of Education shall not be given until after such an inquiry, of which ten days' previous notice shall be given to the 208 ENGLAND AND WALES local education authority and to the minor local authority and to the trustees, shall have been first held by the Board of Education at the cost of the local education authority. (2) Any money arising from an endowment, and paid to a county council for those purposes of a public elementary school for which provision is to be made by the council, shall be credited by the council in aid of the rate levied for the purposes of this Part of this Act in the parish or parishes which in the opinion of the council are served by the school for the purposes of which the sum is paid, or, if the council so direct, shall be paid to the overseers of the parish or parishes in the proportions directed by the council, and applied by the overseers in aid of the poor rate levied in the parish. 14. — Where before the passing of this Act fees have been charged in any public elementary school not provided by the local education Apportion- ^ *^ ^ ment of authority, that authority shall, while they continue to allow fees to be charged in respect of that school, pay such proportion of those fees as may be agreed upon, or, in default of agree- ment, determined by the Board of Education, to the managers. 15. — The local education authority may maintain as a public elementary school under the provisions of this Act, but shall not be required so to maintain, ACT OF 1902 209 any Marine school, or any school whicli is part of, or is held in the premises of, any institution in which „ , , children are boarded, but their refusal Schools attached to to maintain such a school shall not institutions. i ^i i i • n n render the school mcapable oi receivmg a parliamentary grant, nor shall the school, if not so maintained, be subject to the provisions of this Act as to the appointment of managers, or as to control by the local education authority. 16. — If the local education authority fail to ful- fil any of their duties under the Elementary Edu- cation Acts, 1870 to 1900, or this Act, Power to ' ' ' enforce duties or fail to provide such additional pub- under Ele- t i i i • . i . i mentary Edu- lic-school accommodation withm the meaning of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, as is, in the opinion of the Board of Education, necessary in any part of their area, the Board of Education may, after holding a public inquiry, make such order as they think neces- sary or proper for the purpose of compelling the authority to fulfil their duty, and any such order may be enforced by mandamus. PAET IV GENERAL 17. — (1) Any council having powers under this Act shall establish an education committee or educa- tion committees, constituted in accordance with a 210 ENGLAND AND WALES scheme made by the council and approved by the Board of Education: Provided that if a council hav- Education i^g powers under Part II only of this committees. ^^^ determine that an education com- mittee is unnecessary in their case, it shall not be obligatory on them to establish such a committee. (2) All matters relating to the exercise by the council of their powers under this Act, except the power of raising a rate or borrowing money, shall stand referred to the education committee, and the council, before exercising any such powers, shall, un- less in their opinion the matter is urgent, receive and consider the report of the education committee with respect to the matter in question. The council may also delegate to the education committee, with or without any restrictions or conditions as they think fit, any of their powers under this Act, except the power of raising a rate or borrowing money. (3) Every such scheme shall provide — (a) for the appointment by the council of at least a majority of the conimittee, and the persons so ap- pointed shall be persons who are members of the council, unless, in the case of a county, the council shall otherwise determine; (h) for the appointment by the council, on the nomination or recommendation, where it appears de- sirable, of other bodies (including associations of vol- untary schools), of persons of experience in educa- ACT OF 1902 211 tion, and of persons acquainted with the needs of the various kinds of schools in the area for which the council acts; (c) for the inclusion of women as well as men among the members of the committee; (d) for the appointment, if desirable, of members of school boards existing at the time of the passing of this Act as members of the first committee. (4) Any person shall be disqualified for being a member of an education committee, who, by reason of holding an office or place of profit, or having any share or interest in a contract or employment, is dis- qualified for being a member of the council appoint- ing the education committee, but no such disqualifica- tion shall apply to a person by reason only of his hold- ing office in a school or college aided, provided, or maintained by the council. (5) Any such scheme may, for all or any pur- poses of this Act, provide for the constitution of a separate education committee for any area within a county, or for a joint education committee for any area formed by a combination of counties, boroughs, or urban districts, or of parts thereof. In the case of any such joint committee, it shall suffice that a ma- jority of the members are appointed by the councils of any of the counties, boroughs, or districts out of which or parts of which the area is formed. (6) Before approving a scheme, the Board of 212 ENGLAND AND WALES Education shall take such measures as may appear expedient for the purpose of giving publicity to the provisions of the proposed scheme, and, before ap- proving any scheme which provides for the appoint- ment of more than one education committee, shall satisfy themselves that due regard is paid to the im- portance of the general coordination of all forms of education. (7) If a scheme under this section has not been made by a council and approved by the Board of Edu- cation v^^ithin twelve months after the passing of this Act, that Board may, subject to the provisions of this Act, make a provisional order for the purposes for which a scheme might have been made. (8) Any scheme for establishing an education committee of the council of any county or county borough in Wales or of the county of Monmouth or county borough of Newport shall provide that the county governing body constituted under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889, for any such county or county borough shall cease to exist, and shall make such provision as appears necessary or ex- pedient for the transfer of the powers, duties, prop- erty, and liabilities of any such body to the local edu- cation authority under this Act, and for making the provisions of this section applicable to the exercise by the local education authority of the powers so transferred. ACT OF 1903 213 18. — (1) The expenses of a council under this Act shall, so far as not otherwise provided for, be paid, in the case of the council of a Expenses. county, out of the county fund, and, in the case of the council of a borough, out of the bor- ough fund or rate, or, if no borough rate is levied, out of a separate rate to be made, assessed, and lev- ied in like manner as the borough rate, and in the case of the council of an urban district other than a borough in manner provided by section thirty-three of the Elementary Education Act, 1876, as respects the expenses mentioned in that section: Provided that— (a) the county council may, if they think fit (after giving reasonable notice to the overseers of the parish or parishes concerned), charge any expenses incurred by them under this Act with respect to edu- cation other than elementary on any parish or parishes which, in the opinion of the council, are served by the school or college in connection with which the expenses have been incurred; and (h) the county council shall not raise any sum on account of their expenses under Part III of this Act within any borough or urban district the council of which is the local education authority for the pur- poses of that Part; and (c) the county council shall charge such portion as they think fit, not being less than one-half or more 214 ENGLAND AND WALES than three-fourtlis, of any expenses incurred by tliem in respect of capital expenditure or rent on account of the provision or improvement of any public elemen- tary school, on the parish or parishes which, in the opinion of the council, are served by the school; and {d) the county council shall raise such portion as they think fit, not being less than one-half or more than three-fourths, of any expenses incurred to meet the liabilities on account of loans or rent of any school board transferred to them, exclusively within the area which formed the school district in respect of which the liability was incurred, so far as it is within their area. (2) All receipts in respect of any school main- tained by a local education authority, including any parliamentary grant, but excluding sums specially applicable for purposes for which provision is to be made by the managers, shall be paid to that authority. (3) Separate accounts shall be kept by the council of a borough of their receipts and expenditure under this Act, and those accounts shall be made up and audited in like manner and subject to the same pro- visions as the accounts of a county council, and the enactments relating to the audit of those accounts and to all matters incidental thereto and consequential thereon, including the penal provisions, shall apply in lieu of the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, relating to accounts and audit. ACT OF 1903 215 (4) "WTiere under any local act tlie expenses in- curred in any borough for the purposes of the Ele- mentary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, are payable out of some fund or rate other than the borough fund or rate, the expenses of the council of that borough under this Act shall be payable out of that fund or rate instead of out of the borough fund or rate. (5) Where any receipts or payments of money under this Act are entrusted by the local education authority to any education committee established under this Act, or to the managers of any public ele- mentary school, the accounts of those receipts and payments shall be accounts of the local education authority, but the auditor of those accounts shall have the same powers with respect to managers as he would have if the managers were officers of the local educa- tion authority. 19. — (1) A council may borrow for the purposes of the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, or this Act, in the case of a county council as for the purposes of the Local Gov- ernment Act, 1888, and in the case of the council of a county borough, borough, or urban district as for the purposes of the Public Health Acts, but the money borrowed by a county borough, borough, or urban district council shall be borrowed on the se- curity of the fund or rate out of which the expenses of the council under this Act are payable. 216 ENGLAND AND WALES (2) Money borrowed under this Act shall not be reckoned as part of the total debt of a county for the purposes of section sixty-nine of the Local Govern- ment Act, 1888, or as part of the debt of a county borough, borough, or urban district for the purpose of the limitation on borrowing under subsection two and three of section two hundred and thirty-four of the Public Health Act, 1875. 20. — An authority having powers under this Act: (a) may make arrangements with the council of any county, borough, district, or parish, whether a local education authority or not, for the Arrangements ^ . between exercise by the council, on such terms councils. 1 1 • T • 1 and subject to such conditions as may be agreed on, of any powers of the authority in respect of the management of any school or college "within the area of the council; and (h) if the authority is the council of a non-county borough or urban district may, at any time after the passing of this Act, by agreement with the council of the county, and with the approval of the Board of Education, relinquish in favor of the council of the county any of their powers and duties under this Act, and in that case the powers and duties of the author- ity so relinquished shall cease, and the area of the authority, if the powers and duties relinquished in- clude powers as to elementary education, shall, as ACT OF 1902 217 5*espects those powers, be part of the area of the county council. 21. — (1) Sections two hundred and ninety-seven and two hundred and ninety-eight of the Public _ . . , Health Act, 1875 (which relate to pro- Provisional ^ ' ^ ^ orders and visional orders), shall apply to any pro- SCllGIIlBS visional order made under this Act as if it were made under that Act, but references to a local authority shall be construed as references to the au- thority to whom the order relates, and references to the Local Government Board shall be construed as references to the Board of Education. (2) Any scheme or provisional order under this Act may contain such incidental or consequential pro- visions as may appear necessary or expedient. (3) A scheme under this Act when approved shall have effect as if enacted in this Act, and any such scheme, or any provisional order made for the pur- poses of such a scheme, may be revoked or altered by a scheme made in like manner and having the same effect as an original scheme. 22. — (1) In this Act and in the Ele- to elementary mentary Education Acts the expression educatfon^'' " elementary school " shall not include powers ajiy school carried on as an eveninoj respectively. '^ ^ ^ school under the regulations of the Board of Education. (2) The power to provide instruction under the 218 ENGLAND AND WALES Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, shall, ex- cept where those Acts expressly provide to the con- trary, be limited to the provision in a public elemen- tary school of instruction given under the regulations of the Board of Education to scholars who, at the close of the school year, will not be more than sixteen years of age: Provided that the local education au- thority may, with the consent of the Board of Edu- cation, extend those limits in the case of any such school if no suitable higher education is available within a reasonable distance of the school. (3) The power to supply or aid the supply of edu- cation other than elementary includes a power to train teachers, and to supply or aid the supply of any education except where that education is given at a public elementary school. 23. — (1) The powers of a council under this Act shall include the provision of vehicles or the payment „. of reasonable traveling expenses for laneous teachers or children attending school provisions. m i n or college whenever the council shall consider such provision or payment required by the circumstances of their area or of any part thereof. (2) The power of a council to supply or aid the supply of education, other than elementary, shall in- clude power to make provision for the purpose out- side their area in cases where they consider it expedi- ent to do so in the interests of their area, and shall ACT OF 1903 219 include power to provide or assist in providing scholar- sliips for, and to pay or assist in paying the fees of, students ordinarily resident in the area of the coun- cil at schools or colleges or hostels within or without that area. (3) The county councilors elected for an electoral division consisting wholly of a borough or urban dis- trict whose council are a local education authority for the purpose of Part III of this Act, or of some part of such a borough or district, shall not vote in re- spect of any question arising before the county coun- cil which relates only to matters under Part III of this Act. (4) The amount which would be produced by any rate in the pound shall be estimated for the purposes of this Act in accordance with regulations made by the Local Government Board. (5) The Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888, and so much of the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1891, as requires that land assured by will shall be sold within one year from the death of the testator, shall not apply to any assurance, within the meaning of the said Act of 1888, of land for the purpose of a schoolhouse for an elementary school. (6) A woman is not disqualified, either by sex or marriage, for being on any body of managers or edu- cation committee under this Act. (7) Teachers in a school maintained but not pro- 220 ENGLAND AND WALES vided by the local education authority shall be in the same position as respects disqualification for office as members of the authority as teachers in a school pro- vided by the authority. (8) Population for the purposes of this Act shall be calculated according to the census of 1901. (9) Subsections one and ^ve of section eighty- seven of the Local Government Act, 1888 (which re- late to local inquiries), shall apply with respect to any order, consent, sanction, or approval which the Local Government Board are authorized to make or give under this Act. (10) The Board of Education may, if they think fit, hold a public inquiry for the purpose of the exer- cise of any of their powers or the performance of any of their duties under this Act, and section seventy- three of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, shall apply to any public inquiry so held or held under any other provision of this Act. 24. — (1) Unless the context otherwise requires, any expression to which a special meaning is attached in the Elementary Education Acts, Interpretation. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ meaning in this Act. (2) In this Act the expression '^ minor local au- thority '' means, as respects any school, the council of any borough or urban district, or the parish coun- cil or (where there is no parish council) the parish ACT OP 1902 221 meeting of any parisli which appears to the county council to be served by the school. Where the school appears to the county council to serve the area of more than one minor local authority the county coun- cil shall make such provision as they think proper for joint appointment of managers by the authorities concerned. (3) In this Act the expressions " powers," " du- ties," " property," and " liabilities " shall, unless the context otherwise requires, have the same meanings as in the Local Government Act, 1888. (4) In this Act the expression " college " includes any educational institution, whether residential or not. (5) In this Act, unless the context otherwise re- quires, the expression " trust deed " includes any in- strument regulating the trusts or management of a school or college. 25. — (1) The provisions set out in the First and Second Schedules to this Act relating to education committees and managers, and to the to proceedings, transfer of property and officers, and "jHotof' adjustment, shall have effect for the enactments purpose of carrying the provisions of this Act into effect. (2) In the application of the Elementary Educa- tion Acts, 1870 to 1900, and other provisions referred to in that schedule, the modifications specified in the Third Schedule to this Act shall have effect. 17 222 ENGLAND AND WALES (3) The enactments mentioned in the Fourth Schedule to this Act shall be repealed to the extent specified in the third column of that schedule. 26. — For the purposes of this Act the Council of the Isles of Scilly shall be the local education author- ity for the Scillj Islands, and the ex- of Act to penses of the council under this Act Scilly Islands. . ^^ . ., ^ , shall be general expenses oi the council. 27. — (1) This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Ireland, or, except as expressly provided, to London. ^ ^ ^ (2) This Act shall, except as ex- Extent, com- ^ ^ ^ ' -"^ mencement, pressly provided, come into operation and short title. . . on the appointed day, and the appointed day shall be the twenty-sixth day of March, nineteen hundred and three, or such other day, not being more than eighteen months later, as the Board of Education may appoint, and different days may be appointed for different purposes and for different provisions of this Act, and for different councils. (3) The period during which local authorities may, under the Education Act, 1901, as renewed by the Education Act, 1901 (Kenewal) Act, 1902, em- power school boards to carry on the work of the schools and classes to which those Acts relate shall be extended to the appointed day, and in the case of London to the twenty-sixth day of March, nineteen hundred and four. (4) This Act may be cited as the Education Act, ACT OF 1902 223 1902, and the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, and this Act may be cited as the Education Acts, 1870 to 1902. SCHEDULES FIRST SCHEDULE PROVISION AS TO EDUCATION COMMITTEES AND MANAGERS A.— EDUCATION COMMITTEES (1) The council by whom an education commit- tee is established may make regulations as to the quorum, proceedings, and place of meeting of that committee, but, subject to any such regulations, the quorum, proceedings, and place of meeting of the committee shall be such as the committee determine. (2) The chairman of the education committee at any meeting of the committee shall, in case of an equal division of votes, have a second or casting vote. (3) The proceedings of an education committee shall not be invalidated by any vacancy among its members or by any defect in the election, appoint- ment, or qualification of any members thereof. (4) Minutes of the proceedings of an education committee shall be kept in a book provided for that purpose, and a minute of those proceedings, signed at the same or next ensuing meeting by a person de- scribing himself as, or appearing to be, chairman of the meeting of the committee at which the minute 224 ENGLAND AND WALES is signed, sliall be received in evidence without fur- ther proof. (5) Until the contrary is proved, an education committee shall be deemed to have been duly con- stituted and to have power to deal with any matters referred to in its minutes. (6) An education committee may, subject to any directions of the council, appoint such and so many subcommittees, consisting either wholly or partly of members of the committee, as the committee thinks fit. B.— MANAGERS (1) A body of managers may choose their chair- man, except in cases where there is an ex-officio chair- man, and regulate their quorum and proceedings in such a manner as they think fit, subject, in the case of the managers of a school provided by the local edu- cation authority, to any directions of that authority. Provided, that the quorum shall not be less than three, or one-third of the whole number of managers, whichever is the greater. (2) Every question at a meeting of a body of managers shall be determined by a majority of the votes of the managers present and voting on the ques- tion, and in case of an equal division of votes the chairman of the meeting shall have a second or cast- ing vote. (3) The proceedings of a body of managers shall ACT OF 1902 225 not be invalidated by any vacancy in their number, or by any defect in the election, appointment, or qualification of any manager. (4) The body of managers of a school provided by the local education authority shall deal with such matters relating to the management of the school, and subject to such conditions and restrictions, as the local education authority determine. (5) A manager of a school not provided by the local education authority, appointed by that authority or by the minor local authority, shall be removable by the authority by whom he is appointed, and any such manager may resign his office. (6) The body of managers shall hold a meeting at least once in every three months. (Y) Any two managers may convene a meeting of the body of managers. (8) The minutes of the proceedings of every body of managers shall be kept in a book provided for that purpose. (9) A minute of the proceedings of a body of man- agers, signed at the same or the next ensuing meeting by a person describing himself as, or appearing to be, chairman of the meeting at which the minute is signed, shall be received in evidence without further proof. (10) The minutes of a body of managers shall be open to inspection by the local education authority. 226 ENGLAND AND WALES (11) Until tlie contrary is proved, a body of managers shall be deemed to be duly constituted and to have power to deal with the matters re- ferred to in their minutes. SECOND SCHEDULE PROVISIONS AS TO TRANSFER OP PROPERTY AND OFFICERS, AND ADJUSTMENT (1) The property, powers, rights, and liabilities (including any property powers, rights, and liabilities vested, conferred, or arising under any local Act or any trust deed) of any school board or school-attend- ance committee existing at the appointed day shall be transferred to the council exercising the powers of the school board. (2) Where, under the provisions of this Act, any council relinquishes its powers and duties in favor of a county council, any property or rights acquired and liabilities incurred, for the purpose of the per- formance of the powers and duties relinquished, in- cluding any property or rights vested or arising, or any liabilities incurred, under any local Act or trust deed, shall be transferred to the county council. (3) Any loans transferred to a council under this Act shall, for the purpose of the limitation on the powers of the council to borrow, be treated as money borrowed under this Act. (4) Any liability of an urban district council ACT OF 1903 227 incurred under the Technical Instruction Acts, 1889 and 1891, and charged on any fund or rate, shall, by virtue of this Act, become charged on the fund or rate out of which the expenses of the council under this Act are payable, instead of on the first-mentioned fund or rate. (5) Section two of this Act shall apply to any bal- ance of the residue under section one of the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, remain- ing unexpended and unappropriated by any council at the appointed day. (6) Where the liabilities of a school board trans- ferred to the local education authority under this Act comprise a liability on account of money advanced by that authority to the school board, the Local Gov- ernment Board may make such orders as they think fit for providing for the repayment of any debts in- curred by the authority for the purposes of those ad- vances within a period fixed by the order, and, in case the money advanced to the school board has been money standing to the credit of any sinking fund or redemption fund or capital money applied under the Local Government Acts, 1888 and 1894, or either of them, for the repayment to the proper fund or ac- count of the amount so advanced. Any order of the Local Government Board made under this provision shall have effect as if enacted in this Act. 228 ENGLAND AND WALES (7) Where a district council ceases by reason of this Act to be a school authority within the meaning of the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Chil- dren) Act, 1893, or the Elementary Education (De- fective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1899, any prop- erty or rights acquired and any liabilities incurred under those Acts shall be transferred to the county council, and, notwithstanding anything in this Act, the county council may raise any expenses incurred by them to meet any liability of a school authority under those Acts (whether a district council or not), and transferred to the county council, off the whole of their area, or off any parish or parishes which in the opinion of the council are served by the school in respect of which the liability has been incurred. (8) Sections eighty-five to eighty-eight of the Local Government Act, 1894 (which contain trans- itory provisions), shall apply with respect to any transfer mentioned in this schedule, subject as fol- lows: (a) references to " the appointed day " and to " the passing of this Act " shall be construed, as re- spects a case of relinquishment of powers and duties, as references to the date on which the relinquishment takes effect ; and (b) the powers and duties of a school board or school-attendance committee which is abolished, or a council which ceases under the provisions of this Act ACT OF 1903 229 to exercise powers and duties, shall be deemed to be powers and duties transferred under this Act; and (c) subsections four and five of section eighty- five shall not apply. (9) The disqualification of any persons who are, at the time of the passing of this Act, members of any council, and who will become disqualified for office in consequence of this Act, shall not, if the council so resolve, take effect until a day fixed by the resolution, not being later than the next ordinary day of retire- ment of councilors in the case of a county council, the next ordinary day of election of councilors in the case of the council of a borough, and the fifteenth day of April in the year nineteen hundred and four in the case of an urban district council. (10) 1^0 election of members of a school board shall be held after the passing of this Act, and the term of office of members of any school board holding office at the passing of this Act, or appointed to fill casual vacancies after that date, shall continue to the appointed day, and the Board of Education may make orders with respect to any matter which it appears to them necessary or expedient to deal with for the pur- pose of carrying this provision into effect, and any order so made shall operate as if enacted in this Act. (11) Where required for the purpose of bringing the accounts of a school to a close before the end of the financial year of the school, or for the purpose of 230 ENGLAND AND WALES meeting any change consequent on this Act, the Board of Education may calculate any parliamentary grant in respect of any month or other period less than a j year, and may pay any parliamentary grant which has accrued before the appointed day at such times ; and in such manner as they think fit. (12) Any parliamentary grant payable to a pub- lic elementary school not provided by a school board | in respect of a period before the appointed day shall be paid to the persons who were managers of the school immediately before that day, and shall be ap- plied by them in payment of the outstanding liabili- ties on account of the school, and so far as not re- quired for that purpose shall be paid to the persons who are managers of the school for the purposes of this Act and shall be applied by them for the purposes for which provision is to be made under this Act by those managers, or for the benefit of any general fund applicable for those purposes: Provided that the Board of Education may, if they think fit, pay any share of the aid grant under the Voluntary Schools Act, 1897, allotted to an association of voluntary schools, to the governing body of that association, if such governing body satisfy the Board of Education that proper arrangements have been made for the application of any sum so paid. (13) Any school which has been provided by a school board or is deemed to have been so provided ACT OF 1902 231 shall be treated for the purposes of the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, and this Act, as a school which has been provided by the local education authority, or which is deemed to have been so pro- vided, as the case may be. (14) The local education authority shall be en- titled to use for the purposes of the school any school furniture and apparatus belonging to the trustees or managers of any public elementary school not pro- vided by a school board, and in use for the purposes of the school before the appointed day. (15) During the period between the passing of this Act and the appointed day, the managers of any public elementary school, whether provided by a school board or not, and any school-attendance com- mittee, shall furnish to the council, which will on the appointed day become the local education authority, such information as that council may reasonably re- quire. (16) The officers of any authority whose prop- erty, rights, and liabilities are transferred under this Act to any council shall be transferred to and become the officers of that council, but that council may abol- ish the office of any such officer whose office they deem unnecessary. (17) Every officer so transferred shall hold his office by the same tenure and on the same terms and conditions as before the transfer, and while perform- 232 ENGLAND AND WALES ing tlie same duties shall receive not less salary or remuneration than theretofore, but if any such offi- cer is required to perform duties which are not anal- ogous to or which are an unreasonable addition to; those which he is required to perform at the date of the transfer, he may relinquish his office, and any officer who so relinquishes his office, or whose office is abolished, shall be entitled to compensation under this Act. (18) A council may, if they think fit, take into account continuous service under any school boards or school-attendance committees in order to calculate the total period of service of any officer entitled to compensation under this Act. (19) If an officer of any authority to which the Poor Law Officers' Superannuation Act, 1896, ap- plies is under this Act transferred to any council, and has made the annual contributions required to be made under that Act, the provisions of that Act shall apply, subject to such modifications as the Local Gov- ernment Board may by order direct for the purpose of making that Act applicable to the case. (20) Any local education authority who have es- tablished any pension scheme, or scheme for the su- perannuation of their officers, may admit to the bene- fits of that scheme any officers transferred under this Act on such terms and conditions as they think fit. (21) Section one hundred and twenty of the Local ACT OF 1902 233 Government Act, 1888, which relates to compensa- tion to existing officers, shall apply as respects officers transferred under this Act, and also (with the neces- sary modifications) to any other officers who, by vir- tue of this Act or anything done in pursuance or in consequence of this Act, suffer direct pecuniary loss by abolition of office or by diminution or loss of fees or salary, in like manner as it applies to officers trans- ferred under this Act, subject as follows: (a) any reference in that section to the county council shall include a reference to a borough or urban district council; and (h) references in that section to " the passing of this Act " shall be construed, as respects a case of re- linquishment of powers and duties, as references to the date on which the relinquishment takes effect ; and (c) any reference to powers transferred shall be construed as a reference to property transferred; and (d) any expenses shall be paid out of the fund or rate out of which the expenses of a council under this act are paid, and, if any compensation is payable otherwise than by way of an annual sum, the payment of that compensation shall be a purpose for which a council may borrow for the purposes of this Act. (22) Section sixty-eight of the Local Government Act, 1894 (which relates to the adjustment of prop- erty and liabilities), shall apply with respect to any adjustment required for the purposes of this Act. 234 ENGLAND AND WALES THIRD SCHEDULE MODIFICATION OF ACTS, ETC. (1) Eeferences to school boards and school dis- tricts shall be construed as references to local educa- tion authorities and the areas for which they act, except as respects transactions before the appointed day, and except that in paragraph (2) of section nine- teen of the Elementary Education Act, 1876, and in subsection (1) of section two of the Education Code (1890) Act, 1890, references to a school district shall, as respects the area of a local education authority be- ing the council of a county, be construed as references to a parish. (2) Eeferences to the school fund or local rate shall be construed as references to the fund or rate out of which the expenses of the local education authority are payable. (3) In section thirty-eight of the Elementary Education Act, 1876, references to members of a school board shall be construed as references to mem- bers of the education committee, or of any subcom- mittee appointed by that committee for school attend- ance purposes. (4) The power of making by-laws shall (where the local education authority is a county council) include a power of making different by-laws for different parts of the area of the authority. ACT OF 1902 235 (5) The following provision shall have effect in lieu of section five of the Elementary Education Act, 1891: " The duty of a local education authority under the Education Acts, 1870 to 1902, to provide a suffi- cient amount of public school accommodation shall include the duty to provide a sufficient amount of pub- lic school accommodation without payment of fees in every part of their area." (6) The words " in the opinion of the Board of Education," shall be substituted for the words " in their opinion " in the first paragraph of section eight- een of the Elementary Education Act, 1870. (7) Section ninety-nine of the Elementary Edu- cation Act, 1870, shall apply to the fulfilment of any conditions, the performance of any duties, and the exercise of any powers under this Act as it applies to the fulfilment of conditions required in pursuance of that Act to be fulfilled in order to obtain a parlia- mentary grant. (8) A reference to the provisions of this Act as to borrowing shall be substituted in section fifteen of the Elementary Education Act, 1873, and a reference to the Local Government Board shall be substituted for the second reference in that section to the Education Department, and also for the reference to the Edu- cation Department in section ^Ye of the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act, 1893. 236 ENGLAND AND WALES (9) A reference to the provisions of this Act rela- ting to the enforcement of the performance of the local education authority's duties by mandamus shall \ be substituted in section two of the Elementary Edu- cation Act, 1880, for the reference to section twenty- seven of the Elementary Education Act, 1876. (10) The substitutions for school boards, school districts, school fund, and local rate made by this schedule shall, unless the context otherwise requires, be made in any enactment referring to or applying to the Elementary Education Acts, 18Y0 to 1900, or any of them, so far as the reference or application extends. (11) Eeferences in any enactment or in any pro- vision of a scheme made under the Charitable Trusts Acts, 1853 to 1894, or the Endowed Schools Acts, '■ 1869 to 1889, or the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, to any provisions of the Technical In- struction Acts, 1889 and 1891, or either of those Acts, shall, unless the context otherwise requires, be construed as references to the provisions of Part II of this Act, and the provisions of this Act shall apply with respect to any school, college, or hostel established, and to any obligation incurred, un- der the Technical Instruction Acts, 1889 and 1891, as if the school, college, or hostel had been estab- lished or the obligation incurred under Part II of this Act. ACT OF 1903 237 (12) The Local Government Board may, after consultation with the Board of Education, by order make such adaptations in the provisions of any local Act (including any Act to confirm a Provisional Order and any scheme under the Municipal Corpora- tions Act, 1882, as amended by any subsequent Act) as may seem to them to be necessary to make those provisions conform with the provisions of this Act, and may also in like manner, on the application of any council who have power as to education under this Act and have also powers as to education under any local Act, make such modifications in the local Act as will enable the powers under this Act to be exercised as if they were powers under this Act. Any order made under this provision shall oper- ate as if enacted in this Act. The editor of the London Chronicle in comment- ing on this Act says : " The Act is admittedly one of the most complicated and difficult to understand that has been inscribed on the statute-book for many years." The objects of the Act he states as follows! " To establish a uniform and efficient system of ele- mentary education at the public expense, without giving offense to the denominationalists on the one hand and the undenominationalist ratepayer on the other. To establish an efficient system of secondary education, and to coordinate the various grades of 18 238 ENGLAND AND WALES administration of one and the same authorities in suitable areas." This Act, involving as it does wide departures from the Act of 1870, must be regarded in some de- gree revolutionary. If that Act marked the first era in the public instruction of England and Wales, this Act must mark the second era. To what amendments the Act may be subjected in subsequent Parliaments no one can divine. The applications of the Act can but interest the friends of popular education the world around. May the second era of the public instruction in England and Wales be one of greatly accelerated progress. If the Act shall ultimately so settle administrative questions that local enthusiasm shall furnish the needed funds for the improvement and enlargement of the public schools, and a sufficient number of well-qualified, progressive teachers shall be employed, aided by a sufficient force of skilled managers or superintendents, then it will be possible as never before to study the children to be educated, the ends to be gained by education, the means to be employed, and the proper methods of applying the means. The interior life of the schools the Act can not reach, but conditions helpful it attempts to provide. While the Act has serious defects, it is well to note its excellences. 1. It is adapted to secure unity in the administra- ACT OF 1902 239 tion of all grades of public schools. It also tends to eliminate the spirit of caste which has been detri- mental to elementary and to higher schools. 2. The Act provides a local authority with the power and duty of securing efficiency in all public schools, elementary and secondary, denominational and undenominational. 3. The organization required by the Act provides opportunity to secure the services of men and women skilled in supervising schools and in directing the work of teachers. 4. The Act safeguards the religious interests of the denominational schools. 5. By the additional powers the Act confers upon the county councils, the Act strengthens the agencies of local government and thus tends to increase the interest of the people in public affairs and to stimu- late them to promote the general welfare. CHAPTEE V THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND In 1696, by public statute, provision was made for a school in every parish in Scotland. But, long before, the education of children and youth had been the earnest concern of the Scotch Parliament and of the Assembly of the Church. The first schools in Great Britain v^ere connected with religious houses, yet before the time of the Reformation in Scotland, as well as in England, gram- mar schools had been established in the principal towns. In each country the Reformation opened a new era in the progress of education. The schools of Scotland gained more, proportionately, from the ruins of the Catholic Church than the schools of Eng- land. One of the first plans of the Reformed Church under the leadership of John Knox and his cowork- ers was to increase the means of education by the distribution of the property of the Roman Church so as to secure a Latin or grammar school in every town ^^ of any reputation " and a teacher of the " first rudi- ments " in every parish. It was also proposed to 240 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OB' SCOTLAND 241 have a college " for logic, rhetoric, and the tongues in every notable town." Though in a measure baf- fled by the selfishness of those who had seized the church property, and by the poverty of the people, this movement so far succeeded that Scotland became famous for its parochial schools. Her people, in- cluding the middle and lower classes, were admitted to be the best educated in Europe. As the large towns increased in population the parish system failed to meet the new requirements. Additional schools were from time to time provided by private effort; but Scotland seemed destined to lose the edu- cational prestige she had gained. In the Eevolutionary Settlement of 1696 the na- tion joined hands with the Presbyterian Church in the endeavor to maintain schools throughout the land. The Church was to continue the supervision and management of the parish schools as heretofore, while the heritors of each parish were to provide a schoolhouse and a salary for the teacher. Those liv- ing in the Lowlands quickly responded by furnishing the buildings and the salaries. Those living in the Highlands were not in a condition to furnish and maintain schools for all children. The Highlands at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and later, were poorly supplied with elementary schools. The Act of 1803 supplemented that of 1696 ; but it failed in parts of the Highlands and in the islands 242 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND to secure the needed schools. The salary of the parish schoolmaster was now to be $75 or $100 (£15 to £20), with a free house and a small garden and the school fees. The independent home and the fact that he was in the same social rank as the minister dwelling in the manse went far in giving position and perma- nence to the teacher. His work, though different, was considered hardly second to that of the minister. Like him he was backed by the approval of the pres- bytery, like him he was required to subscribe to the Confession of the Faith and the Formula of the Church of Scotland, and often like him he was, in the Highland parish even, a liberally educated man. Though the minister was to supervise his school, he was regarded as a helper rather than as an inspector. During a good part of the first half of the nineteenth century, in spite of much effort on the part of church- es and individuals, elementary education, especially in the Highlands and in the islands, was sadly defi- cient. Many thousand children were beyond the reach of the parish schools. When Parliament began in 1839 to make grants to the schools of Scotland and to extend its system of inspection to her schools, the educational needs became more apparent. It was clearly evident that, owing to increased population and the secularizing of instruction, the Church was not able to meet the demand of the times in extending and improving the THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 243 condition of the schools. The United Kingdom, through its Parliament, must hereafter do more for the schools. By the Act of 1861 the teacher's salary was made to range between £35 and £70. He was still super- vised by the agents of the presbyteries, and was re- quired to give evidence that he was a member of a Presbyterian church; but hereafter he was to be ex- amined as to his professional qualifications by some one of the Scottish universities. The Reformed Church and its zealous and often militant offspring, with much prayerful endeavor, had laid the foundations of a national system and by earnest and self-denying effort had tried to make edu- cation universal. The schools, though for the most part closely linked with the churches, as were the schools of E'ew England in their earlier history, were, like them, maintained as a duty which the state and the Church alike owed to the children. The well- being of the nation required Christian men and in- telligent citizens. The Presbyterians, though ever ready to make large sacrifices for the maintenance of their faith, had administered their schools in no narrow sectarian spirit. Early in the nineteenth cen- tury the Presbyterian Church had enjoined the teach- ers not to attempt to teach the children of Roman Catholics in anything religious to which their par- ents or priests objected. The result was that the 244 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OP SCOTLAND children of Roman Catholics freely attended the parish schools. The religious instruction was scrip- tural and not sectarian, and in accord with funda- mental truths generally believed; and the religious views of the minority were not only tolerated, but duly respected. Before 1872 Scotland had come to occupy an en- viable place in the history of education, yet much remained to be done to secure a thoroughly efficient system. Sectarian zeal and rivalry had originated, in addition to the parish schools, those founded and maintained by different sects. Some of these fur- nished needed secondary instruction, thus making it possible for a large number of young men to reach the university. Many of them furnished needed ele- mentary instruction. But these schools, like the earlier academies of 'New England, tended to with- draw interest from the state schools and were in many small communities inefficient institutions. The com- paratively few Episcopalians and Catholics holding tenaciously that their peculiar forms and dogmas were essential to religion had a show of reason for private schools; but other sects essentially agreeing respecting religious instruction had little reason for maintaining separate institutions; yet the several di- visions of the Presbyterian Church deemed it neces- sary to make distinctive efforts in promoting educa- tion that each might not fall behind the others in THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 245 intelligence and in the influence inseparable from education and culture. A commission appointed to inquire into tlie condi- tion of the schools and to make recommendations, after thorough investigation, reported in 1867 that the sectarian schools were often established where the welfare of the children did not demand additional schools ; that grants in many localities were not appor- tioned to the needs of the schools; that the parochial schools proved inadequate to the needs of large towns and of certain Highland and island districts; that nearly one-fifth of the children were not enrolled in any school; that one-half of those enrolled were in schools whose excellence was not tested by efficient inspectors ; that the sentiment of the people demanded some effective means of securing attendance; and that a more general system of local assessment for schools must be devised. We have already considered the working of the revised code of Secretary Lowe in the schools of England. We found that apportioning parliamen- tary grants to schools in accordance with the success or failure of each student in his individual examina- tion in the prescribed studies, though resulting in more painstaking work with duller pupils, narrowed the work of the schools, making much of the work of the teachers a mechanical drill for examination. We found that " payment by results " brought least 246 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OP SCOTLAND money to those schools that were most needy, tended to diminish and render uncertain the salaries of the teachers and to drive the abler teachers into more congenial employments. The commission found in Scotland objections to the working of the revised code additional to those that vexed the schools of England. The parish teacher had held office for life or during good behavior and had enjoyed large freedom in the management of his school. State inspection was to him a disturbing element. He could not now gratify his scholarly am- bition as hitherto, in laboring in season and out of sea- son to help forward some brilliant and deserving boy toward some one of the universities, where his success might reflect lasting fame upon the school and bring honor to himself and to his faithful teacher. The code demanded individual examinations of each pupil in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Thus the teacher's standing and possibly his salary and his tenure of office were determined by his success in elementary cramming and drilling. The code had been framed to make the elementary instruction in the schools of England effective for the children of the poor. It had nothing to do with aiding pupils to reach uni- versities. " Payment by results " in the three Ws under individual examinations by state inspectors tended strongly to hamper the teacher in the realiza- tion of his ideals and to level all his instruction to the THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 247 elementary plane. Moreover, it grated harshly on Scottish ears, little accustomed to the terms of caste, so common in England, to hear that they were, by the code, put under a system of grants " to promote the education of children belonging to the class who support themselves by manual labor." The rich and the poor were the patrons of the parish school. Their children sat side by side on the school benches. The elementary schools of England were the outgrowth of charity schools; the schools of Scotland had been evolved under no such invidious conditions. While recognizing these and other objections to the working of the code, the commission were not un- mindful of the more just distribution of the teacher's labors which it secured, and the increased efficiency in elementary instruction which it promoted. On the whole, the report sustained the utility of the code, though stoutly maintaining that important changes should be made. The reorganization of the schools which the commission outlined was likely to rouse the jealousy and the opposition of the Scottish Church, that with untiring zeal had hitherto so faithfully guarded and guided public instruction. The people of Scotland justly feared that the Parliament at West- minster would make changes without due regard to the broader traditions and higher aspirations which had distinguished the Scottish ideals of national edu- cation. It was fortunate for Scotland that the Act of 248 THE ELE.MENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 1870 providing a system of schools for England and Wales was not at once, without change, foisted upon the Commonwealth of Scotland. Before noticing the important advance resulting from the Act for Scotland enacted two years later, it is well to notice the summary of Sir Henry Craik re- viewing " the part the parochial school had played in molding the national character." " In the first place, the national system was not confined to the parish schools. In addition to these, there were burg or grammar schools, which were em- braced within the scope of the statutes which had built up Scotch education and which were by no means dependent upon private benevolence or given over to voluntary management. These schools were, indeed, poorly endowed. But such revenues as they had were drawn from the common goods or public funds of the burg, and they were managed by the town councils. The qualifications of their teachers were carefully tested. They were not, indeed, able to carry on the education of their pupils so far as the leading English public schools. The country was too poor and the need of gaining a livelihood at an early age was too imperative to admit of a long time being spent before the serious work of life was begun. But within their own sphere they did a work which was unrivaled by the grammar schools of England with their vast endowments. They spread through the THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OP SCOTLAND 249 country a creditably high standard of education. They rested upon that most secure of foundations, the presence of a constant interest in and demand for higher education. All classes mingled together on their benches. Scanty as were their endowments, they were managed on a scale so economical that their fees were as small as possible. A long tradition of good educational methods had made their instruction most admirably fitted to call out originality and to stimulate industry. They were sending out pupils to all parts of the world to assume leading functions in every line of life. They made no pretense to high and intricate scholarship; but their efficiency, so far as they went, was such as to call forth the astonishment of those who made inquiries on behalf of the com- missioners of 1864. They had never been accustomed to those slipshod methods which had lowered the grammar schools of England into institutions carried on solely for the benefit of some well-dowered incum- bents, unnoticed and unpatronized by the class for whom they had been established. To this the Scotch burg schools offered the most striking contrast. But besides these burg schools, which were an integral part of the national system, the parish schools also carried on some work of a kind unknown to the English ele- mentary schools. In these parish schools all classes mingled. The teacher, scanty as were his emolu- ments, had the dignity which belonged to a learned 250 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND , profession, to the recollection of a university career, and to a freehold tenure. The organization of the parish school was indeed better fitted to bring out in the teacher the qualities of scholarship and culture than the thorough technical training called for in the elementary school. In many cases, no other means of preparation for the universities were open to large dis- tricts than those which were obtained in the parish schools. From these schools pupils passed directly to the universities; and the interest and energy of the teachers were often devoted mainly to carrying on the higher instruction of a select few of his pupils. Side by side with the clergyman, and often a member of the same profession, waiting only for clerical preferment, the parish schoolmaster became a center of culture in his district; and by this means, if scholarship in Scot- land reached no very distinguished standard as com- pared with the highest products of the larger English schools and the universities, it had at least the ad- vantage of wide and general diffusion and of pro- viding a ladder by which the humblest might rise to a distinguished place in the learned professions. If the battle of Waterloo was, according to the oft-quoted saying, won in the play-fields of Eton, the success of the Scotchman in after-life was often due to the train- ing of the parish schools. The contrast between the two courses of instruction sums up many of the fea- tures that marked off Scottish from English life." THE ELEMENTAHY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 251 The Commission of Inquiry had done its work. In 1867, as we have said, its voluminous report, the result of some three years of investigation, was be- fore the people of Scotland. Though their ele- mentary schools made a far better showing than those of England and Wales, as reported by a somewhat earlier commission, yet it was evident that the schools of Scotland were not adequate to the pressing needs of the people, nor such as the nation was willing to make them. The conditions of public education in Scotland were so unlike those in England that Parliament wisely deferred the organization of a more complete national system for Scotland until the elementary schools of England and Wales should be provided for. In the meantime the people of Scotland were gaining clearer views of what was best for them, from the pro- longed parliamentary debates that preceded the Act of 1870, from the working of the English system after 1870, and from the continued study of their own educational problems. By the Act of 1872 Scotland procured from Parliament a new charter for her na- tional schools, not a little in advance of that granted two years earlier to England and Wales. This Act of 1870 for England and Wales provided for elemen- tary instruction in little else than in reading, writing, and arithmetic, excluding from parliamentary grants schools attempting secondary instruction. The cur- 252 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND riculum has been much broadened during the last thirty years; but to allow any public elementary school to teach subjects pertaining to secondary in- struction is still regarded by many Englishmen as unwarranted. London, however, and other large towns, have provided schools for grades higher than the seventh, the highest in the elementary course. The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 is accomplishing much in providing secondary instruc- tion for Wales supplementary to that provided by the endowed grammar schools; but not till 1899 did Eng- land take the first step toward establishing a system of free secondary instruction, by the reorganization of the Department of Education. When this " put- ting of the house in order," as the head of the depart- ment, the Duke of Devonshire, phrases it, will provide for new occupants caring for secondary instruction, remains to be seen. There are large and varied vested interests in the form of the public and other schools on private foundations, engaged in secondary instruction, that, while providing abundant opportuni- ties for sons of aristocratic and wealthy families, are evidently in the way of an early establishment of a system of free, public, secondary schools. Any school in Scotland, by the Act of 1872, whether a burg school, an academy, or a parochial school, was allowed to teach what the managers di- rected. The remotest parish school in the Highlands THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 253 might still send boys to the universities fitted to win honors satisfactory to the scholastic fervor of the mas- ter, the aspirations of the parents, and the pride of the hamlet. Again, the Act was truly national for Scotland. It did not provide for the lower classes only. School boards representing the ratepayers (all who owned or occupied real estate of £4 annual value) were to be elected to take charge of all schools in parishes, burg schools, academies, and church schools which might be transferred to their care. Church or sectarian schools were comparatively few in number, and destined soon to be much fewer. Scot- land had no Established Church, as in England, claim- ing the right to control elementary education, and so strongly intrenched in tradition and usage that she is evidently far from surrendering her schools to a na- tional system. There is as yet no complete national system of elementary schools in England and Wales; the national system, so far as it obtains, is supple- mentary to the voluntary or church system. The sys- tem can become national by the absorption or dis- placement of the voluntary by the board schools. At present there is no fusion. At best it can be regard- ed as a mingling often as incongruous as the iron and the clay in the feet of ^Nebuchadnezzar's image. But the patrons of voluntary and the patrons of board schools are not passive as minerals. It is not uncom- mon for them to contend in Parliament for days in 19 254 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND acrimonious debate. Scotland has a system thor- oughly one and national. School boards represent- ing ratepayers are in every community, providing buildings and teachers and managing the schools. We have seen, in England and Wales, that sup- porters of voluntary schools in the year 1870 and in the years immediately following largely increased their school accommodations. This extension of church influence was stimulated by denominational zeal, by the desire to avoid the taxes consequent upon the setting up of board schools, and by the assurance of parliamentary grants in aid of the additional build- ings required. In Scotland, the building of schoolhouses and maintenance of parish schools had been the duty of the heritors. When these schools were surrendered to representative boards the matter of school-build- ings was in their hands. Hence the grants corre- sponding to the grants for school-buildings in Eng- land were placed in the hands of the boards, and practically lessened the local rates. Applications for grants for additional buildings in Scotland were al- lowed before the close of the year 1873, and were approved by a temporary board of education, which, for the purpose of aiding the organization of schools under the Act of 1872, had its office for six years at Edinburgh. By the Act, provision was made by Parliament for THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 255 an Education Committee for Scotland, to act under the same committee of the Privy Council that super- vised the action of the Committee of Education for England and Wales. In 1885 Parliament created the Secretary for Scotland and made him the vice- president of the committee for Scotland. This officer, with his assistants, is responsible for the ordinary ad- ministration of the affairs of the schools so far as the authority of Parliament extends. Scotland has three chief inspectors. To any one familiar with the tenacity with which a Scotchman holds his religious convictions, and the frequent divisions that have occurred in religious bod- ies, it may seem strange that there should be so much unanimity in the matter of public instruction. That parishes should change the machinery of administra- tion and place their schools under the care of ad- ministrative boards does not seem as strange as the surrender to them of schools especially provided by religious sects. But, with comparatively few excep- tions, the hundreds of voluntary schools, built at large sacrifice, disappeared as sectarian schools to be rejuvenated as board schools. They entered upon a new era of usefulness, strengthened by the increase of local and parliamentary funds, by state inspection, and by the employment of better paid and stronger staffs of teachers. If some were discontinued, it was in the interest of economy and to provide a better 256 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND distribution of schools. The Free Church, with a most commendable zeal for the public good, handed over 150 schools, with their buildings, furniture, and grounds, " as a free and patriotic gift to the repre- sentatives of the people.'' The explanation of this public-spirited action, so sharply in contrast with the action of the clergy of the Established Church in England, is not found in the fact that the Scotch are less religious than the English. In no country is religion more wrought into the warp and woof of public and private life. What people have been more self-denying in maintaining their faith ? One explanation is, that in the religious life of the people there has been much unity in the midst of great variety. While there have been divi- sions and subdivisions, so that the student of Church history is often perplexed in tracing them, there has been throughout Scotland for some centuries essen- tially one church more distinguished by its teaching of the truth of the Bible than by its teaching of vari- ous dogmas and creeds. The Assembly's Catechism, so generally used in the several divisions of the Church, and in many of the public schools even, is a biblical and not a sectarian manual. The general re- ligious sentiment of the people of Scotland demands the reading, the study, and the explanation of the Scriptures in public schools, but forbids the teaching of sectarian dogmas. THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 257 The chief explanation of the unity and the ear- nestness of the people of Scotland in providing for the education of all children and youth, not only in elementary but in secondary schools and universi- ties, is their settled belief that their interests and their duty demand it. More than three hundred years ago John Knox urged the necessity and the duty of pro- viding schools for all children, not only as a means of religious light and liberty, but as essential to the national welfare. He was a statesman as well as a reformer. The policy he urged has been accepted by his countrymen as sound. In no country, if we except Switzerland, is free, universal, compulsory education more valued than in Scotland. In gaining an educa- tion nowhere do we find more self-denial on the part of parents and students. Sir William Harcourt, in one of his speeches in the House of Commons, puts the question, " Why is Scotland superior to England in education ? " and replies, " It is because the Scotch people care more about education, and because they understand more its practical value in life." Domsie, the teacher in the parish of Drumtochty, expressed the sentiment of a true Scotchman when he said, " And a'm thinking with auld John Knox that ilka scholar is something added to the riches of the com- monwealth." We have seen that the people of Scotland were demanding more stringent measures for securing 258 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OP SCOTLAND school attendance before the passage of the Act of 1872. The Act gave every school board in Scotland power to enforce attendance by definite penalties. The Act of 1870 made the enforcing of attendance optional with school boards in England and Wales. 'No provision was made for compulsory attendance where a school board was not elected. With all sup- plementary acts to secure attendance, enacted from time to time, many magistrates in London and else- where are proverbially lax in enforcing school at- tendance. It has often been said, and municipal courts give evidence, that the English mind is so habituated to maintaining the rights of the parents that the rights of the child are not fairly regarded. In Scotland compulsory laws are persistently en- forced. The fine for non-attendance visited upon the parents, after due notice by a magistrate, was for years four times that in England. The people of Scotland seem determined that children shall secure the advantages of a good system of national edu- cation. The Acts passed in 1878, and in 1883 supplemen- tary to that of 1878, provided more effective means of securing attendance at schools and more carefully protected the interests of children employed in fac- tories. To be employed half of the time — i. e., dur- ing one session per day — a child must be ten years of age and have passed the third standard. One of this THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 259 age who has passed the fifth standard — i. e., one who has completed the elementary course with the ex- ception of the last two years — may engage in full employment. In England the lowest age of employ- ment is eleven, but the local authorities of the school may determine the other condition, the advance made in the studies of the school. Many children in Eng- land have been required to pass only the second standard. In Scotland all children must continue in full attendance until the age of fourteen, unless they can obtain the third-standard certificate. Allowing bright children, usually of sensitive nervous organization, to leave school and go to work before they have finished the first half of their ele- mentary course is by physical toil to dwarf the most brilliant minds and hinder proper physical develop- ment. These evils are sadly apparent in factory cen- ters, whether in England or in Scotland. Philan- thropists and statesmen in each land are earnest in their attempts to put an end to the half-time system and to secure attendance until the age of fourteen, or until the elementary course is completed. They are making progress and will succeed. In rural Scot- land it would be far better, if the children are needed in the fields in summer, to secure, as in the rural schools of Switzerland, complete attendance during the colder months and close the schools during the farming season. 260 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND In 1882 a commission was appointed under the Educational Endowment Act. This commission, by much painstaking and labor, extending through sev- eral years, investigated the endowments and charities of institutions in Scotland. They found much read- justment and redistribution needed. " Three hundred and sixty-seven schemes," says Craik, " received the approval of her Majesty in Council, and by means of these the endowments were turned to the best ac- count." One result of the work of this commission was the regular inspection of all higher schools, whether endowed, burg, or voluntary schools. An- other result was a system of " leaving-certificate ex- aminations," in accordance with which 13,173 candi- dates were presented in 1895. This measure tended strongly to induce students to complete their second- ary courses of instruction. A result equally impor- tant was the provision of funds in many districts to aid those who should have the requisite qualifications in adding to their elementary course a higher course of instruction. The funds available for this purpose, for inspection, and for expenses of " leaving-certificates " were largely increased in 1892 by a sum from the Imperial Exchequer in the form of £60,000 annually taken from the local taxation account. This grant from the Imperial Exchequer was an offset to the additional grants made to the schools of England and Wales, in order to relieve pupils from the necessity THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND 2G1 of paying fees in the elementary schools. The ele- mentary schools of Scotland were already for the most part free, the funds accruing from certain probate and license duties, after the passage of the Local Government Act of 1889, having been appro- priated to relieve parents from the payment of fees. There is opportunity in England and Scotland for parents to pay fees by sending children to schools out of their own locality. Social distinctions tend to the maintenance of schools on private foundations. It is said that less than 3 per cent of the children in Scotland pay fees, while in England not far from 12 per cent are tuition pupils. Since 1896, 10 shillings per scholar in average attendance has been paid from the national exchequer in lieu of fees in England and in Scotland. By the Act of 1890 school boards were empowered to provide for the education of the blind and the deaf. They are also empowered to establish day in- dustrial schools and to contribute to such schools on private foundations. Thus provision is made for relieving schools of truants and others who are not amenable to ordinary discipline. The history of education in Scotland gives abun- dant evidence of the high value in which the educa- tion of all children is regarded. In this respect the Scotch are rivals of the Swiss, the foremost nation in Europe in the value they attach to popular edu- 262 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND eation. England, by her great public schools on pri- vate foundations and allied institutions, culminating in the universities, has made ample provision for the instruction of the children of wealthy and aristocratic families. The attempts of England as a state to pro- vide; for the education of all children within her limits, instead of leaving the education of the poor to the fickle provisions of charity or to the sectarian zeal of churches, belong mainly to the last three decades. Great progress has been made. Much remains to be done ere England can rank with Switzerland or Ger- many in fitting her children for the intellectual strug- gles of life. Were the people of Scotland, because of an aris- tocratic class founded on wealth or lineage, less demo- cratic, their system of elementary schools might not have an overpowering interest for any one who would discover the secret of the intellectual ability, the gen- erous culture, and the moral energy shown by Scotch- men in every part of the world. INDEX Act of 1870, 1, 16, 18-21, 49, 68, 92, 97. Act of 1872, 251-254. Act of 1899, 41, 42, 252. Act of 1902, 187-239. Anglican clergy, attitude of, 47, 72-74. Arnold, Matthew, 81. Associations of teachers, 143- 147. Attendance compulsory, 20, 23- 25, 185, 186, 258-259. Bible instruction, 53-62, 67, 68, 80-82, 106, 256. Board schools, 22, 45-47, 75, 78. British and Foreign School So- ciety, 49, 63, 65, 77, 89. Buildings, 148-151. Buildings in Scotland, 254. Cobbett, William, 2. Code, 12, 27,32, 35, 145, 152-154. Coeducation, 171, 172. Commission, Royal, of 1858, 11. Conscience clause, 19, 50, 97. County councils, 25. Coward, W. Scott, 113. Craik, Sir Henry, 15, 248. Criticism lessons, 123-130. Deaf and blind, schools for, 40. Demonstration lessons, 122, 123. Department of Education, 6, 69. Disraeli, Benjamin, 2. Education, 116, 117. Enthusiasm of teachers, 139- 142. Equality and fraternity of teach- ers, 142, 179, 180, 181. Escott, F. H. S., 37, 38. Evening schools, 39, 40, 183. Findlay, J. J., 125. Fitch, Sir Joshua, 61, 76. Forster, Right Hon. W. E., 21. Froebel, Friedrich, 91. Geography, 122, 127, 130, 170, 171. George, Lloyd, 69, 70, 97. Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., 1, 16. Gorst, Sir John, 24, 185. Grants by Parliament, 2, 3, 9^ 10, 26-28. Half-timers, 25. Hanus, Paul H., 159. Harcourt, Sir William, 257. 263 264 ELEMENTARY SCEOOLS OF GREAT BRITAIN Higher - grade schools, 43 - 45, 177-178. History, 170, 171. Holman, Henry, 36, 37. Inspection of schools, 28, 178, 179. Inspectors, 7, 10, 29-31, 34, 106. Kay-Shuttle worth, Sir James, 9, 89. Knox, John, 22, 240, 257. Lancaster, Joseph, 63, 83. Laurie, S. S., 116. Lecky, W. E. H., 11. Lecturing, 120, 121. Literature, English, 169. Local government, 7, 25, 32. Lowe, Right Hon. R., Lord Sherbrooke, 1, 12, 14, 245. Macaulay, Thomas B., 8. McCarthy, Justin, 16, 17. Milton, John, 117. Monitorial schools, 80-89. Mundella, Right Hon. A. J., 70. National Society, 4, 9, 51, 53, 63, 73, 89. National system, 175-177. Normal school, 9, 64, 89. Oakley, Sir H. E., 135. Parochial schools in Scotland, 240-242, 248-250. Payments by results, 12-15. Payments in Scotland, 246, 247. Percival, Right. Rev. J., 179. Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, 91. Physical culture, 139, 173, 174. Practising schools, 110-112, 129, 131-135. Principles of teaching, 117, 118. Prussia and England contrasted, 11. Psychology applied, 158-160. Pupil-teachers, 10, 56, 57, 88, 93- 96, 98, 104, 165, 166. Queen Victoria favors grants for elementary schools, 5. Rankine, A., Esq., 140, 164. Result of commission of 1882 upon schools of Scotland, 260. Ritualism, 79. Rogers, Rev. J. Guinness, 71. Rousseau, Jean J., 91. Ruskin, John, 138, 186. Sadler, M. E., 23, 184. Scotland's earnestness in pro- moting public education, 255-257, 261. Secondary schools, 43, 94, 178. Teachers, 161-167. Teachers and pupils, relations of, 172, 173. Teaching, 117-121, 155-158. religious and ethical, 50-63, 67, 68, 97. Text-books, 168, 169. Training-colleges, 65, 66. conditions of admission to, 99-103. course of study, 106. examinations in, 109. INDEX 265 Training - colleges, modes of training, 114-116. physical training, 139. practising schools, 110-112. recreation rooms, 137, 138. relation to monitorial schools, 81. religious instruction, 67, 68. studies pursued, 106, 107. studying for university de- gree, 107, 108. Training - colleges, third - year students, 136, 137. Unity of schools in Scotland, 253, 254. Voluntary schools, 18, 20-22, 45-47, 65, 69, 75, 76. Waddington, Richard, 72. Westminster, Duke of, 138. (1) THE END THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. Edited by WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LUD., United States Commissionef of Education. A New Volume, — No» LV, Genetic Psychology for Teachers. By Charles H. Judd, Ph.D., Instructor in Psychology in Yale University. i2mo. Cloth, $1.20 net. This book deals with the facts and principles of mental development. It takes up the special phase of psychology which is of most importance to teachers, for it traces the changes which are pro- duced in mental life as a result of education in its various forms. It calls attention to many facts in the teacher's own mental life that illustrate and present to direct personal observation processes of develop- ment. This study of one's own mental development makes it possible to understand the nature of such development. Starting from this firm basis of self- study, the reader is carried forward to the less directly observable forms of development that appear in others. The essence of the argument is that ** teacher-study " is the only true basis for child-study. The book applies the principles of mental devel- opment directly to the problems of teaching, reading, writing, and the use of number. One of its unique features is that it takes up specifically, not in a vague, general way, but exhaustively and clearly, the prac- tical problems that confront the individual teacher. a APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. BOSTON. CHICAGO. LONDON. INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES* Educational Foundations of Trade and Industry. By Fabian Ware. Vol. 54. Price, $1.20 net ; post- age 10 cents additional. This timely book describes the educational foundations of trade and industry as exhibited in the school systems of the chief European peoples and of the United States. The promotion of industry through education is the burden of the author's appeal. To make this appeal effect- ive, he examines first the growth of national systems in general — their conditions, impulses, and directions. This leads to a series of chapters giving a detailed statement of the educational foundations laid in England, Germany, and France ; and finally, those in America. The section devoted to the United States gives an exhaustive r^sumd of the characteristics of American edu- cation, from the kindergarten to the graduate university. Since Mr. Ware treats the subject more on its practical than on its cultural side, his examination includes a thorough analysis of commercial and technological educa- tion in every aspect and branch. The latest information has been used, and a large amount of concrete illustration, drawn from the actual workings of individual schools, gives the argument freshness, clearness, and coherence. ••There can be no doubt that Mr. Fabian Ware's book will be of even more interest to Americans than to the English readers for whom it was primarily written. It is strictly up to date, and in view of the discussions that have recently taken place on the failure of England to keep her place in the race for trade and manufacturing supremacy, Mr. Ware has some obser- vations to make that have a strong faring on the subject." — New York Sun, D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. > A f ig. 9. ' l'-# #*-- ^ ' V To ' ^0•^ ^^ *»,-.* .'?,^ Kt DOBBS BROTHERSA ^V' y • o '^^ V * ' ^loL'-v LIBRARY BmOlKG CO., INC.) A,** ►!^^ • c> "^ ^^.g^^S^^^ §^^^^ .'v^.