^A ^ .^Y |LP 632 R4 [Copy 1 Ne-w York State Education Department EDUCATION IN ENGLAND ADDRESS BY WHITELAW REID LL.I). D.C.L. BEFORE THK ASSOCIATED ACADEMIC PRINCIPALS OF NICW YORK AND THE K E* YORK STATE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION, AT SVUACUSE, N. Y. December 26, 1907 H42»r-Ja8-35oo STATE OF NEW YORK EDUCATION DEPARTMENT Regents of the University With years when terms expire 1913 Whitelaw Reid M.A. LL.D.D.C.L. Chancellor New York 191 7 St Clair McKelway M.A. LL.D. Vice Chan- cellor Brooklyn 1908 Daniel Beach Ph.D. LL.D Watkins 1914 Pliny T. Sexton LL.B. LL.D Palmyra 1912 T. Guilford Smith M.A, C.E. LL.D. . . . Buffalo 1918 William Nottingham M.A. Ph.D. LL.D. . Syracuse 1910 Charles A. Gardiner Ph.D. L.H.D. LL.D. D.C.L. New York 1915 Albert Vander Veer M.D. M.A. Ph.D. LL.D. Albany 1911 Edward Lauterbach M.A. LL.D. . . . New York 1909 Eugene A. Philbin LL.B. LL.D. . , . New York 1916 LuciAN L. Shedden LL.B Plattsburg Commissioner of Education Andrew S. Draper LL.B. LL.D. Assistant Commissioners Howard J. Rogers M.A, LL.D. First Assistant Edward J. Goodwin Lit.D. L.H.D. Second Assistant Augustus S. Downing M.A. Pd.D. LL.D. Third Assistant Director of State Library Edwin H. Anderson M.A. Director of Science and State Museum John M. Clarke Ph.D. LL.D. Chiefs of Divisions Administration, Harlan H. Horner B.A Attendance, James D. Sullivan Educational Extension, William R. Eastman M.A. M.L.S Examinations, Charles F. Wheelock B.S. LL.D. Inspections, Frank H. Wood M.A. Law, Thomas E. Finegan M.A. School Libraries, Charles E. Fitch L.H.D. Statistics, Hiram C. Case Visual Instruction. DeLancey M. Ellis /v'^ ^ V V-^K EDUCATION IN ENGLAND It has been represented to me that this body of practical and prominent teachers of the Empire State would be interested in some account of what schools and teachers in England are doing. Nothing could be more natural. From the English came our first educational ideas ; to them we long looked, in colonial days and later, for the highest types of collegiate and university edu- cation ; from them we got the religious control so long felt in so many of our schools, as it is still felt in theirs. More important still; from them came the fervid, almost fanatical belief in the necessity of education, which we, in accordance with our cus- tom, broadened far beyond their original views, and have clung to through two centuries, and over a continent and many islands, with a tenacity which if it were not American might be called truly British. Plainly the educational fever runs in the blood! I shall speak to you, then, briefly, of some details of past and present English educational work. But I shall do no violence to the maxims either of Dogberry or Don Quixote ; shall enter upon no comparisons with our own work in similar fields. There are two reasons. First, all comparisons between countries are apt to be odious. Secondly, unless far more time were taken than is at our disposal tonight for a careful statement of vary- ing circumstances, all comparisons are sure to be unfair. In any consideration of English education for the masses, it must be remembered that a national system for it did not exist before 1870, and could not be said to have reached good working order before 1892. The government gave no assistance what- ever for elementary schools (i. e. for what we should call common schools, or primary schools) until 1834, when the House of Commons made its first appropriation of £20,000. This was to be used solely for new school buildings. Not till 1839 did the government make an appropriation for more direct aid to popular education. Yet meantime England had somehow trained Shakespeare and John Milton. She had also trained the Pilgrims, who began in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay that common school system which is now the pride of every American. Until William E. Forsler in 1870 carried through the bill to provide for public elementary education in England and Wales, the government itself could hardly be said to have taken much share in real educational provision for the poorer classes, and not a great deal even for the middle classes. Nevertheless, such as their system was, and for what it undertook, it had long been of rare excellence. It had admirably accomplished — for a cer- tain number — the highest aim of education; it had been a wonderful developer of character. Public schools, Eton and Harrow, Winchester and Rugby, and many another leading up to and cooperating with the two universities, had been such a nursery of statesmen, of soldiers and sailors and great procon- suls and civil administrators throughout the Empire on which the sun never sets, as the world had never before seen. It may have been a fanciful notion, attributed to the Iron Duke, that Waterloo was won at Eton, but certainly the secret of Anglo- Saxon superiority in the 17th and i8th centuries was largely to be found in the British schools and universities. The secret of some other things was to be found in the chaotic and undeveloped state of popular elementary education. The long reign of Queen Victoria had but recently begun, when in February 1839, Lord John Russell wrote to the Lord Lans- downe of the day: "I have received Her Majesty's commands to make a communication to Your Lordship on a subject of the greatest importance. Her Majesty has observed with deep concern the want of instruction which is still observable among the poorer classes of her subjects. All the inquiries which have been made show a deficiency in the general education of the people, which is not in accordance with the character of a civil- ized and Christian nation." Continuing to speak for Her Majesty, Lord John went on to specify a lack of qualified teachers, imperfect teaching, deficient inspection of the work done by the schools of both the established church and the Non- Conformists, and finally the neglect of the subject by Parliament. Four years later, inspectors reported that the teaching in these schools was so bad that only half the scholars learned to read and only a quarter of them to write. And four years after that, now almost in the middle of the 19th century, Macaulay, in a speech in the House of Commons, gave the reason : " How many of these teachers," he said, " are the refuse of other call- ings, discarded servants or ruined tradesmen, who can not do a sum of three ; who would not be able to write a common letter ; who do not know whether the earth is a cube or a sphere ; and can not tell whether Jerusalem is in Asia or America; whom no gentleman would trust with the key of his cellar, and no trades- man would send of a message." Even as late as 1861, about the time our Civil War broke out, the Newcastle Commission reported almost as unsatisfactory a state of affairs. It considered that only about one fourth of the children in the schools got a tolerable facility in reading, writing and arithmetic — the great majority leaving school between the ages of 10 and 11. It told of a public" school with such primitive facilities that, when the writing lesson was given, four boys were required to carry ink bottles up and down between the desks, so that each boy in turn might dip his pen in the ink. And finally this commission said concerning the private school teachers in one part of London: " None are too old, too poor, too ignorant, too feeble, too sickly, too unqualified to regard themselves and to be regarded as fit for school keeping. Do- mestic servants out of place, discharged barmaids, vendors of toys and lollypops, keepers of small eating houses, of mangles or of small lodging houses, needle women who take in plain or slop work, milliners, consumptive patients in an advanced stage, cripples almost bedridden, persons of at least doubtful temper- ance, outdoor paupers, men and women of 70 or 80 years of age, persons who spell badly, who scarcely write and who can not cipher at all — such are some of the teachers, not in remote rural districts but in the heart of London." In recalling this and other accounts of the time it is well for you to bear in mind that in all countries reformers have sharp voices and use many staccato notes. But Matthew Arnold was not of that class; yet he reported in 1869 that nearly half the children he examined had been less than one year at school, and half the rest for less than two years. Now, to end this statement of earlier conditions, which has been really necessary to a comprehension of the present situa- tion, it should be added that the schools thus described might be either purely private enterprises, sometimes aided a little by local taxation, or might be under the management either of the established church of England, or of the British and Foreign School Society, representing the bulk of the Non-Conformist churches, or of sundry minor religious organizations. By far the greater number were under some distinct and positive sec- tarian control. Great sums had been invested by the different denominations, in school buildings and in supporting schools, when there was little other support for them. Their work had come gradually to be supplemented not only by fees but by allowances from the local taxation, and finally from the govern- ment. Thus the churches controlled the schools : the local tax- payers had a pecuniary interest in them, the parents who paid fees had, and finally the general government had. As would be naturally inferred, the churches that built them up insisted on religious teaching. In the case of the established church this meant the Bible, church hymns, the. church catechism, and particularly the doctrine of the Trinity; and at first pupils coming into such a school from Non-Conformist families or Agnostic or Jewish families, or from aggressive unbelievers, had to receive the same instruction. Here, of course, was one open- ing for trouble ; and another was to be found among local tax- payers, not connected with the Church of England, or perhaps with any church. With Non-Conformist schools the difiiculty was somewhat different. They were disposed to be content with what was known as Cowper-Temple teaching; i. e. as legally defined in the Act of 1870, without " religious catechism or re- ligious formulary, distinctive of any particular denomination." Subject to that restriction, whatever religious instruction the local authorities desired could be given. This Cowper-Temple teaching, though apt to be satisfactory to the majority of Non- Conformists, did not satisfy the established church, or the un- believers, and might not always satisfy the local taxpayers. As a matter of fact, however, it evoked little protest, excepting from the established church. Now it is easy for an American to say that all this confusion and dissatisfaction could be avoided by confining the public schools to secular instruction, and leaving religious training to the church and the family. But it is not so easy to show how vested rights, going back often for a century or more, can thus be preserved; nor is it easy to show how the churches, which invested and were encouraged to invest their money and labors for one purpose, are to be reconciled to the arbitrary diversion of their investment, long afterwards, to another purpose. Between 1869 and 1876, houses for over a million school children were erected by denominational agencies, and the total of voluntary subscriptions for that purpose in that time was over £3,000,000. Besides the claim in equity which on the basis of such facts the churches assert, it is probably true that the majority of the English people, however much they may differ as to details, and to whatever rival sects they belong, would be still more discon- tented if all religious teaching were to disappear from their schools. There is increasing impatience, no doubt, with the con- flicting demands and disputes of the churches, a growing tend- ency to say " a plague on both your houses ; let the tax-paid education be purely secular!" But in spite of such outbursts, I believe the decided majority of the taxpayers still think religious instruction a necessity for the rising generation, and do not think they would have adequate security for getting it, if it were ex- cluded from the tax-supported schools. Until 1870 the daily reading of the Bible was an essential condition of getting any government aid for an elementary school, and it is still habitually read in most of the schools, even where not required by any authority. The leading English lines of thought on the subject finally found expression in two organizations which have contended for many years. The Birmingham League, made notable to us by the vice chairmanship of Mr Joseph Chamberlain, if not also by the secretaryship of Mr Jesse Collings, advocated a national system of education, to be compulsory on all, free to all, and unsectarian, but not to exclude undenominational religious in- struction. The National Education Union represented the established church and was organized to oppose the efforts of the Birmingham Union, and hold on to the church hymns and the church catechism. To this day the contest rages. The most hotly fought measure of the present Liberal government was Mr Birrell's bill (passed after long debate in the Commons and thrown out by the Lords), which attempted a considerable advance towards the ideals of the Birmingham League. The way in which the other side regarded it was hinted in the epithet by which many of the London newspapers had the habit of describing it — Bir-religion. During the popular debates over this measure, I received a letter from the editor of The Salisbury Times, besides several from private sources, all calling my attention to a startling state- ment made in a speech on the subject at a political meeting in Salisbury by a well known and perfectly reputable Conservative candidate, to this effect : In Australia, since religious teaching was abolished in the day schools, crime has increased 75 per cent. In the United States in 1850 there was one crime to every 3422 of the population, but today there is i criminal for every 300. In Denver, out of 10,000 boys, 2000 of them have been in jail. Now, we do not want the same thing to happen in Great Britain. I was asked if these statements were not misleading, and I prepared such a reply as careful inquiry seemed to show that the facts warranted.^ But there was at the moment no such storm center in British politics as this religious phase of the edu- cational question; and on second thoughts it appeared wiser for a diplomat to obey the old rule to avoid getting in any way in- volved in the domestic debates of the country to which he was accredited — even if it should be at the temporary cost of not promptly correcting misapprehensions about his own country. Now, it would have been easy, first, to call attention to the curious fact that the statements were strikingly like some unwise stories published from time to time, some only a few years earlier, in American reviews of high standing, concerning an alleged increase of juvenile crime in London, following the ex- tension there of the free school system. Next, as to the allega- tions concerning the United States, it might have been said at once that they were inexact, and that, even if they had been accurate, they would have needed to be made more complete to avoid giving an inaccurate impression. They were inexact because the latest census statistics avail- able, those furnished by the Census OfiEice in 1904, show that instead of i criminal to every 300 of population, there is only I to every 990; also that there has been a reduction between 1890 and 1904, not merely in the proportion of criminals to total population, but also in the actual number of criminals, in s^'ite of the increase of population ; and finally that the Census Office believes that its own returns of criminals before 1880 were im- perfect, making the number previous to that date too small, and consequently exaggerating the increase in the next decades. Next, even if these allegations had been exact, they would still have given an inaccurate impression anyway. It is obviously misleading to point to the number of criminals and say that is the work of your educational system, without show'- ing whether these criminals have ever been under the system. Plainly you must know what proportion of the whole population has not been taught at all in our schools, and next what pro- portion of the criminals that illiterate part furnishes. Thus in the largest states, New York and Pennsylvania, the wholly illit- ^ Valuable aid in securing the facts was kindly furnished by Dr Draper, the N. Y. Commissioner of Education, by Mr Eugene A. Philbin of the Board of Regents, and by Prof. Elmer E. Brown, National Commissioner of Education. The reports of his predecessor, Dr W. T. Harris, also shed much light on the subject. erate are only 4 per cent of the population, yet they furnish 33 per cent of the prisoners. If you add to the wholly illiterate in those states the others enumerated as very deficient, you find that the two classes furnish 60 per cent of the prisoners. Again, it is obviously misleading to use statistics of crime as evidence of a bad effect of the educational system, without mentioning that, while the educational S3'Stem has been steadily extending, the number of criminals in the same period has been shrinking — having been in the whole United States 132 to the 100,000 of population in 1890, and only loi in 1894. And again, it is obviously misleading to hold the educational system responsible for an increase of prisoners clearly caused by changes in the laws. Thus, in the state of Massachusetts, in a period of 35 years (between 1850 and 1885), commitments by the courts increased, yet crimes against persons and property rapidly decreased, and all crimes excepting intemperance de- creased. Now, more rigid laws against drunkenness and the more frequent arrests that followed can hardly with fairness be charged to the growth of the educational system ! As to the Denver case I know less, but from the report of the Juvenile Court of Denver for 1904 it appears, not that one boy in five was sent to jail each year, but that in the six years previous to the establishment of the court about one boy in seven out of the total population of boys between 10 and 16 years of age had been, as the court said, under the old system "thrust into jail." In the two years after the establishment of the court, it tried but 719 cases and committed only 44. Whether religious instruction should be enforced upon every- body in English schools is purely a question for English people. We have no right and no disposition to meddle with it; and I venture to think the facts just cited prove that there is nothing in either our educational or our criminal record to make it need- ful for any of them to import us into it. And yet I can not help feeling that on the general subject we might profitably take a hint from the old country. Whatever else we may say about the English schools they do turn out well behaved, orderly boys and girls, respectful to those set over them, grounded in the morals of Christian civilization, with an instinctive sense of obedience to law and a becoming regard for the authorities that represent it. Would we be any the worse off if we had more of these qualities here? i\Iay it not happen that in our effort to keep all questions of religion and morals in what we consider their proper place, they may in reality be left without any place in the training of a good many children? If the interest of the Republic requires that every child should be compelled to learn to read its laws, does not the same interest as imperatively require that every child should be taught, and should be unable to escape being taught, the absolute necessity of respect for those laws and of prompt and dutiful obedience to the officers of the law? Does not the interest of the Re- public further demand that the coming citizens shall have some idea of our old beliefs in the Fatherhood of God and the brother- hood of man, or at least shall be thoroughly grounded in the great principles of the moral law, without which neither ordered liberty nor civilization itself can exist? If English schools, according to our ideas, go too far, in teaching creeds, may we not be going too far the other way, in some parts of the country at least, in excluding altogether, or in giving too little space to teaching unsectarian religion and morals, to enforcing respect for authority, and to training the habit of mind that secures unhesitating obedience to law, and to its officers? In London the policeman, the representative of law, often controls the biggest and angriest crowd by lifting his hand, in cases where the New York policeman has to lift his club. Nay, here the giddy chauffeur, for a single example out of many, gayly snaps his fingers at the uplifted club, and has to be run down on a motorcycle. Even then, when caught, he is apt to tell the presumptuous policeman he means to have him " broken " for his pains. Such a threat in London would rail- road him to a long term in jail. The mere failure to stop, the moment a policeman lifts his hand, is generally in England un- thinkable ; the imagination is staggered to conceive the punish- ment that might befall the foolhardy person who should venture on such unprecedented lawlessness. Some cause has produced this diff'erence. Is it improbable that early training in a school that could be nowise escaped by the growing boy had something to do with it? It has been seen that even yet, to use a Hibernicism, the English system of elementary education is notably unsystematic. Besides purely private schools, sometimes receiving govern- ment aid, and some old public schools, having endowments running back for a century or more and also receiving govern- ment aid, there are " provided schools," i. e. council schools, or, in American parlance, common schools ; and " nonprovided schools," that is, voluntary schools, largely under church con- trol. The two classes last named had accommodation in 1906 for about 33^ million scholars each. Both receive aid from local taxation and also from the state. They had between them an average attendance last year of S/i millions, or over 86 per cent of the registration. To support the work of elementary educa- tion thus distributed, aside from other resources, there were public grants of nearly 113^ million pounds — say 57 million dollars. To indicate the nature of instruction thus given we may take the London " provided schools " as favorable examples. The curriculum, as first fixed by the board in 1870, included instruc- tion in morality and religion, reading, writing, arithmetic, geog- raphy, English grammar, English history, elementary physical science, elementary social economy, drawing, singing, mensura- tion for boys, needle work for girls, and physical exercises, be- sides a few discretionary subjects. By 1902 the latter had been materially enlarged, and the head teacher now had the liberty of selecting, according to the capacity and desire of the pupils, from algebra, geometry, mechanics, animal physiology, botany, chemistry, hygiene, bookkeeping, shorthand, Latin, French and German. Nearly all upper class boys also attend special centers for manual training, and upper class girls for domestic economy. American critics of tendencies in their own schools sometimes object to the " fads and frills " which, as they say, keep the children from learning " the three R's." It will be observed that the London elementary schools likewise provide for a good many so called " frills." But it must be noted that these are not per- mitted to take the place of the essentials. Whatever else a Lon- don child may learn at a " provided school," he must and does learn to read, write and cipher. Two out of the three at least he generally learns remarkably well. Nothing is apt to strike an American more, when he comes to know the product of Eng- lish elementary schools, than their thoroughness in these essen- tials. I have rarely seen a domestic servant who did not have a fairly good handwriting, spell with more accuracy than some of our own misguided college professors, and compose a clear letter, well expressed, in civil phrases, not offensive by an un- warranted familiarity or wanton assurance in demanding the time of a stranger, not verbose or slangy; in fact likely, by its appearance and manner at least, to create a good impression. Would that we could say as much for all the graduates of our colleges. In most of the London schools there are three departments, those for boys, girls and infants. An average number for the three would be about looo. There are also schools in which the sexes are not separated. About half the teachers in 1869 were women and girls, by 1900 they had become three fourths. Cer- tified masters of schools are paid about £129 per annum, say $640; and certified mistresses about two thirds as much. Pupil teachers are put in training, on application and favorable re- ports, at 14 years of age ; and after a year, study only half the day, teach the other half and are paid a graded salary which at the end of three years more, rises to £30 for boys and £24 for girls. Women are eligible for educational committees, and their ser- vice seems to be popular. The general limit for compulsory attendance at elementary schools was 13 years, but the local authorities now have the power to raise it to 14, and the prevailing tendency is towards an exercise of this power. The penalty on parents for neglect is £1 with costs. The pupils are graded by various standards, known as standard i, the low^est, and so on up to standards 5 and 6, which represent the highest elementary work, and standard 7, which denotes the distinct extension of the work into the second- ary field. Discipline in the schools is generally very well maintained ; pupils of both sexes are early taught obedience, courtesy and respect — sometimes even yet in the old way ! Persuasion and kindness are first tried ; the effort is to lead the pupil by rewards rather than to drive him by punishments. But the hard-headed local authorities have generally not the remotest intention of spoiling the child in order to spare the rod, and the traditional cane is still served out to the head masters and the head mis- tresses along with the other school supplies. It is not often used, and never without care and some thought of possible legal reprisals, but it is there and it is used if needs must. Per- haps the lad's opinion of Archbishop Temple, at Rugby, may be taken as the ordinary schoolboy's general notion about this ap- plication of discipline, when it does come : " He's a beast, but a just beast." There is a marked tendency in most of the elementary schools to freshen the work, take it away from the old routine methods and make it a real process of drawing out the latent capacities 13 of the child and encouraging it to think, to feel its own way, and to learn for itself. There are many illustrations and experi- ments, occasional excursions and object lessons. Efforts are made to use the successes of pupils as an abiding stimulus for the schools, and the permanent tablet on the wall serving as an " honor board " is a frequent feature. The local authorities sometimes offer a valuable picture as a prize to a class or a school that in some way distinguishes itself, and with a tiirift almost Yankee in its subtlety gain by what they give, since the picture remains as the permanent adornment of the school- house ! ( In i86i Matthew Arnold, after inspecting foreign school sys- tems, returned to report to the Royal Commission on Endowed Schools, which had sent him out, with the appeal : " Organize your secondary and your superior education." Ten years later Professor Huxley, in the first London School Board, urged an arrangement by which a passage could be secured for children of superior ability from the elementary schools, to schools in which they could obtain a higher instruction. No educational system, he said — in a notable speech, now familiar, I thini:, to most American educators — no such system would be worthy the name of a national system, " unless it established a great educational ladder, the bottom of which should be in the gutter and the top in the university, on which every child who had the strength to climb might, by using that strength, reach the place for which nature intended him." But in 1907 the appeal of Matthew Arnold is not yet fully answered, the dream of Professor Huxle)^ not yet fully realized. Unsystematic as the primary education has been found, sec- ondary education is still more so. There are in London " higher grade schools," " organized science schools," and " higher ele- mentary schools." Some of these are merely the highest class of elementary schools, reaching up into subjects proper to the first years in secondary education ; some others represent a rather confused effort to promote secondary education, technical education, and commercial art education side by side; some of them give efficient instruction in chemistry, physics, electricity, physiology, botany, French, German, algebra, geometry, trigo- nometry, English literature and history. It is not clear that many of them enable their students to pass on to the universities. A " higher grade " school at Leeds has a superior record in that 14 respect, 93 of its pupils having matriculated at London Uni- versity, and 65 having taken university degrees. There is another development of secondary education directly from the elementary schools, generally more practical in its na- ture, and tending often to scientific or technical courses. This is the one stimulated by a system of scholarships, junior, inter- mediate and senior, offered by the London County Council and open to competition by the pupils in the elementary schools. About 600 junior scholarships are thus given in a year to boys and girls under 13 years of age, and nearly all go to pupils of the council schools. These keep the children at a higher grade council school or at a secondary school for two years, pay fees where there are any, and give the pupil for his maintenance for the two years an allowance of £20; but the parents of the chil- dren receiving them must have an income less than £150, say less than $750. The boy or girl who gains one of these scholar- ships gets tuition one year beyond the usual 14 year limit, and is then able to compete for an intermediate scholarship. These again are open to any under 16, whose parents have an income of less than £400 a year ; and when won, secure any fees in sec- ondary schools, together with an allowance of £55 for main- tenance for two years. There are about 100 of them a year for all London, and they practically denote the high-water mark of council school education. There are still, however, seven or eight senior scholarships a year, and these carry the successful contestants for three years at a university, with tuition fees and a maintenance of £30 a year. This, it will be observed, consti- tutes a genuine scheme of state supported secondary education. It is not open to all who may have passed through the lower classes and feel like keeping on. But it is open to the selected few who have shown special qualifications for a higher training, and whose parents are poor; and to these most hopeful and most deserving children of the Empire their government extends not merely free tuition but free support. Those seeking the old universities, and many of those seeking scientific courses at the new ones, still resort, if they can, either to schools conducted for private profit, or to the public schools, so called, i. e. endowed schools like Harrow, Rugby, West- minster, St Paul's, Manchester Grammar School and 30 or 35 more. Many of these are ancient foundations, and they have borne a vital relation to some of the proudest pages of English history. At least two of them, Winchester and Eton, were well endowed for the time and in successful operation before the dis- 15 covery of America. A much larger number were established before the colonies at Jamestown and Plymouth were ; and most of the more noted ones before our Declaration of Independence. These schools belong therefore to our history, too. They recall to us as well as to Englishmen, in their scrupulously guarded rolls, the successive generations of eminent men, whose achieve- ments are a part of our inheritance. They make alive again the proud records above the sacred dust of myriads of the great departed all over the land, from stately cathedrals to the quiet churchyard of the remotest hamlet. This sacred dust it was that gave the inspiration to Oliver Wendell Holmes's eulogy of Eng- land and her illustrious dead, and justified his vivid outburst: One half her soil has walked the rest, In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages. These public schools are in general splendidly healthy and useful yet; within their field and for their purposes unsurpassed in the educational work of the world. But their field, until recent years, has been almost exclusively the humanities ; and their aim, senior wranglerships and double firsts in the uni- versities, the front benches in the House of Commons, and re- sponsible places all around the world in the administration of the Empire, or in their most esteemed services, the army, the navy and the church. Till 1851 mathematics was not compul- sory at Eton, nor French till 1862. Natural science was scarcely noticed. An English educational writer has unfairly said that " Eng- land is the country where dead systems live." A student of her educational history might be tempted to accept that judgment if he looked merely to the fact that it was only as late as 1895, and after the notable report of Mr James Bryce (now His Majesty's ambassador to the United States) on the best methods of establishing a well organized system of secondary education in England, that a central organization was created to coordinate all these previous divergent and unregulated schools which furnish the links between the elementary schools below and the universities above, as well as the technical and scientific schools that ought to be above. Before that date the most considerable part of the secondary education work was under the control of the Charity Commission ! The Science and Art Department had been administering the newer plans to meet the special demand for technical instruction and had the disposition of an income for this purpose of nearly a million pounds (5 million dollars) i6 per annum. The Education Department had charge of the ele- mentary schools, and, as has been seen, had developed from these some interesting advances into the secondary field. At last in 1900 a board of education was created, which took over the sec- ondary educational work of the Charity Commission, of the Science and Art Department and of the Educational Department. The work thus finally coordinated had reached great propor- tions. In 1892 the Charity Commissioners reported the educa- tional endowments in England alone, available for secondary education, as producing an income of over £697,000 a year, say 3>4 million dollars — not to reckon at all the value of their build- ings and sites. In 1897 the Educational Department made a census of English secondary schools. Its returns were thought to be vitiated by including many not really entitled to rank as secondary schools; but it reported 6209 of them, with pupils numbering almost 10 in the thousand of the whole population. The Science and Art Department received the customs and ex- cise money (popularly " the whisky money ") and from this fund technical schools were given nearly £864,000 in 1900, while the sum raised for the same purpose by rates (local taxes) amounted to iio6,ooo more, say in all over 4^ million dollars. Under the latest legislation this goes to the county councils, and the councils of county boroughs and of urban districts. It must be spent on secondary education. They have authority to raise more by local rates, but this in the case of counties must not exceed a two pence rate. At present the regulations forbid teaching more than 35 scholars together at one time. They permit fees that may be approved by the board, but require that one fourth of the school places be open without fees to pupils from elementary schools, who pass a satisfactory entrance examination. The number of such schools in England and Wales recognized by the board and given state aid was 689, in the years 1905-6, and the numiber of pupils was 94,689. As early as 1895 the feeling that general secondary education was in danger of being neglected in the rush for scientific or technical or trade training, took shape in the form of a require- ment for compulsory literary and commercial instruction. At the same time religious instruction is not made compulsory, and only nonsectarian instruction is permitted. I have not mentioned Scotch or Irish schools. The systems are different. There is only time to note that as to Scotland general popular education began early and has been thorough, 17 almost universal and highly successful; while as to Ireland the religious question has been even more controlling and more em- barrassing than in England. In all three there is more than ever before an acceptance of the idea tersely expressed by Presi- dent Roosevelt to Mr Moseley, that while education alone may not make a nation it would surely be ruined without it. Attendance at English elementary and secondary schools is still apt to stop at the age of 14, if not earlier, but the tendency begins to be toward a longer stay. Sports are still an absorb- ing part of the school work, and interest in them is almost as necessary for the teacher as scholarship. The teachers are not so apt to show individuality and energy as they are to be careful and pertinacious. Much attention has been paid to the training of teachers of late years, but the system of " pupil teachers " has still to eke out the supply. In the great cities there is an enormous and interesting development of evening schools. Trade schools are increasingly numerous and popular. In the great technical schools there is a noticeable absence of pupils who seek easy electives, and are there chiefly for the degree. The v/ork is often not very rapid, but it is apt to be thorough. ■ In all these directions the admonition of the Prince of Wales on his return from his eastern trip has been heard, and England has " waked up." It will have been noted that in elementary schools the pre- vailing tendency of late years has been toward sense-training, object lessons and manual employment. So among secondary schools the tendency has been toward studies fitting for practical scientific, or manufacturing and commercial life. Both are more democratic than the historic public schools ; and there begins to be a greater mingling of classes in the more recent secondary schools, in the scientific technological schools, and in the newer uni- versities to which they lead. Naturally, then, the chief new development of educational ac- tivity has been in the expansion or creation of advanced insti- tutions to carry on this practical training beyond the secondary stage. Until less than a century ago, there were only two uni- versities in England and Wales. Now there are 10. Practically all the new ones yield the preeminence in the old classical, mathe- matical, and philosophic training to Oxford and Cambridge, while they strive to occupy more thoroughly the less developed field of scientific and technological work. Then there are 23 technical institutions in England and Wales, recognized by the i8 Board of Education, and 231 schools of art applied to the in- dustries. The universities have been slowly led to examinations for the various kinds of secondary schools, some of which serve as leav- ing examinations for the schools and others as matriculation examinations for the universities, though often used by the recip- ients for other purposes. Oxford and Cambridge took up this work near the middle of the last century, first separately, then in a joint board. Subsequently London University undertook it on a large scale, and Durham, Victoria and Birmingham have moved in the same direction. The City and Guilds of London Institute also held examinations for technical schools and classes throughout the country. University work proper is beyond the limits of what 3'ou are considering at these meetings ; but a word in closing might be given to the Rhodes scholarships at Oxford. We have almost a hundred young American graduates there, distributed through the colleges of that venerable and illustrious university. They are chosen on examination, two from each state and territory; they are given free the best the university can ofifer through a three years' stay, and they receive from the fund an allowance of £300, say $1500, per year for their maintenance. The purpose of the great man who founded this trust was to increase intimate and friendly relations between the most highly educated classes of the mother country and those of her " giant offspring of the West"; and to further a good understanding between the three nationalities included in the arrangement, England, Germany and the United States. I have met with these Rhodes scholars at their annual reunion at Oxford; and I am glad to testify here at home to their admirable appearance and conduct, and to the favorable opinions of them expressed to me by the Oxford dons with whom I conversed. As one saw them together, breaking in upon the cloistered quiet of those historic halls, he might al- most imagine himself at a big Middle West college in our own country. He would scarcely be able to single out the German Rhodes scholars from the rest, and quite unable to tell Ameri- cans from Australians or Rhodesians or Newfoundlanders or Cape Colonists or New Zealanders. But about them all was the air of new worlds and a new era. One might almost fancy their eyes had already seen the glory of the time when, under the leader- ship of the English-speaking peoples, the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled, in the parliament of man, the federation of the world. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS % 021 496 134 9 HoUinger Corp. pH8.5