ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS r> LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class BOOKS ON PEDAGOGY. TALKS TO TEACHERS ON PSYCHOLOGY, AND TO STUDENTS ON SOME OF LIFE'S IDEALS. By William James, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. THE TEACHER'S HANDBOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY. By James Sully, M.A. Crown 8vo, 6s. 6d. PSYCHOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLROOM. By T. F. G. Dexter, B.A., B.Sc, and A. H. Garlick, B.A. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION. By T. Ray- MONT, M.A., Professor of Education in the Day Training College, Goldsmiths' Institute, New Cross. Crown Svo, 4s. 6d. THE ART OF TEACHING. By David Salmon. Principal of Swansea Training College. Crown Svo, 3J. 6d, TEACHING AND ORGANISATION. With Special Reference to Secondary Schools. A Manual of Practice. Essays by Various Writers. Edited by P. A. Barnett, M.A. Crown Svo, 6s. 6d. COMMON SENSE IN EDUCATION AND TEACH- ING. By P. A. Barnett, M.A. Crown Svo, 6s. WORK AND PLAY IN GIRLS' SCHOOLS. By Three Head Mistresses (Dorothea Beale, LL.D., Lucy H. M. Soulsby, and Jane Frances Dove). Crown Svo, "js. 6d. LONGMANS. GREEN, AND CO., London, New York, Bombay, and Calcutta. ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/englishhighschooOObursrich ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS THEIR AIMS, ORGANISATION, AND MANAGEMENT BY SARA A. BURSTALL, M.A. HEAD MISTRESS, MANCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS ; LECTURER IN EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER AND MEMBER OF THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE MANCHESTER CITY COUNCIL; SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF GIRTON COLLEGE, AND A MISTRESS IN THE FRANCES MARY BUSS SCHOOLS LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1907 BENERAl ^ INTRODUCTION. The following pages represent the endeavour, in- complete and partial as the work of any one student must be, to sketch the characteristic aims, organisa- tion and methods of a modern English High School for Girls as these have grown up during the latter half of the nineteenth century, and as they are de- veloping to suit the wants and difficulties of to-day. Broadly speaking, such schools are day schools with the direct intention of correlation between the school and the home in the girl's daily life; the writer's experience, indeed, has been almost entirely with such schools. The new schools which are being founded by local authorities are also for day pupils. It follows that the day school is the type mainly described here, but much in the matter of general educational principle and method applies equally well to boarding schools, and among the appendices is a note on the system of separate boarding houses sometimes attached to a high school. The type of school mentioned is also in the main public or pro- prietary, not private, and for the same reasons. V vi Introduction But here again also the sections deah'ng with actual teaching and organisation apply equally well to the school which is owned and fully controlled by a private individual. The question of the co-education of boys and girls, important and interesting as it is, is outside the reference of this book, which deals with schools for girls only, and with the system and methods which have grown up in England under the influence of women who thought mainly, almost entirely, of the needs of their own sex in education, since boys were already well provided with schools. The whole subject of girls' education is a very wide one and must be considered in sections. First must come its aims and ideals, and the limits of that part of it which lies within the province of this book, namely, secondary education, as dis- tinguished from primary or elementary, and from university or tertiary education. The characteristics of a girls' high school, as ex- plained in part by the historic evolution of such schools between 1850 and 1900, are suggested, and some discussion of possible differences in the edu- cation of boys and girls follows. An attempt is then made to analyse the aims and ideals of edu- cation for girls, and in broad outline to state the means required to carry these into practice. Then it is necessary to consider the organisation for the performance of such work. At once two divisions of the subject appear, which may be termed external and internal organisation; the first deals with the Introduction vii relation of the girls' school to the community and to other educational institutions, its place in the organ- isation of education administratively ; this division thus includes some treatment of the types of schools fitted for different localities and conditions, questions of finance and government, of endowments and grants, the legal status of a high school as well as the connection with primary or preparatory schools on the one hand, and the universities or technical colleges on the other. To these subjects Chapter II. is devoted. The second division, internal organisation, explains itself; it is a question of how a given school is arranged for the performance of educational work. To this is devoted Chapter III., which treats of the form system, bifurcation and specialisation, junior departments, hours and length of school sessions. The teacher herself is next considered, even prior to the building and equip- ment, since the living influence of a personality is more vital in education than the material body of brick or stone in which a school dwells. Chapter IV. deals with the qualifications, duties, appoint- ment and salary of the teacher, the functions of the form mistress and the organisation of her work, and the division of subjects among teachers. In Chapter V., building and equipment, on which whole books have been written, are treated briefly, and in special relation to the needs of girls and women. The next five chapters are devoted to the pupil ; first comes the healthy body (Chapter VI.), which viii Introduction involves physical training and games as well as per- sonal hygiene. The relation of school and home is dealt with in part at this point. Then follows the question of securing the healthy mind ; curri- culum, time-tables (Chapter VII.), methods of teaching (Chapter VIII.), with a note on the use of a school library. Last to be considered, as it is in part the product of physical and mental conditions, is character, and that part of a school life which deals definitely and explicitly with the training of character, discipline (Chapter IX.), form management and moral influences (Chapter X.). Closely connected with this last is the matter of personal relations (Chapter XL), though here the subject no longer concerns the pupil, but touches on parents, head and assistant mistresses, and the world without, in their mutual interaction. To-day it seems necessary, in view of the importance of the subject in England, to set aside a chapter (XII.) for the treatment of tests and awards, exami- nations, scholarships, inspections. For similar rea- sons it is desirable to consider separately (Chapter XIII.) the place of technical subjects in a high school course ; namely, domestic arts, music and painting, arts and crafts, and secretarial work. The last chapter (XIV., ** Social Life in a Day School ") is an endeavour to summarise what is done in some of the existing day schools to develop corporate life and public spirit. Of necessity the views and opinions of any one person must be partial and incomplete, must repre- Introduction ix sent one tradition of professional practice, and must be coloured by the feelings, experiences, and even the prejudices of the particular professional expert, physician, engineer, or teacher. There is, indeed, a marked degree of variation in English girls secondary schools, owing to the freedom they have had to grow up for themselves from the beginning, and make their own traditions, and owing also to the marked variety of English social life, which is reflected so definitely in the English school system. It may well be, then, that the present writer may state some principles which are not true universally, or even generally, over the area of the subject, and may ignore, through ignorance, much that is valuable and sound. But it is hoped that at least an ap- proximation is made to what a typical description should be. Professor Sadler's Reports on certain counties and towns have been largely used and are often quoted, and special acknowledgment of the valuable help gained from them is gladly made. Useful sugges- tions and comparisons have been drawn from the official French '* Rapport General," 1899, of the Enquiry into Secondary Education {EnquHe sur r Enseignement Secondaire), made by a special parlia- mentary commission of French educators. Much scattered information has been gleaned from educa- tional pamphlets and fugitive articles or addresses, too numerous to be separately acknowledged. The author has not scrupled to reproduce passages from such work of her own, prepared for professional X Introduction conferences, when suitable for a more permanent purpose- Three of the appendices are official documents issued by the Association of Head Mistresses and the Association of Assistant Mis- tresses, and the diagram in Appendix G is reproduced by kind permission of Mr. J. H. Reynolds, Director of Higher Education for Manchester. For details concerning the many important high schools of the Girls' Public Day Schools Trust reference should be made to the Secretary, Queen Anne's Gate, London. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction v CHAPTER I. The Aim of Girls' Education . i What education is — The teacher the centre of the work — Primary, secondary, tertiary education — Age limits — The " Four Years' Course " — Outline history of the movement for girls' high schools — Their characteristics explained by his- toric considerations — Views of Miss Buss, Miss Beale, Mrs. William Grey and others — Present day purposes — Differ- ences between the education of boys and girls — Threefold aim of a girl's education. CHAPTER n. External Organisation i6 First, external, in relation to the community and to other educa- tional institutions — Different types of girls' secondary school — The middle school — The high school proper — The technical high school — Relation to population, locality, city, suburbs, rural areas — Statistics — Differences due to size — A, up to 150 pupils, B, up to 300 pupils, C, up to 500 pupils — Cost, fees, endowments — The Board of Education and its grants — The girls' high school in relation to public elementary schools and the intending pupil teacher — Its relations to the university. xii Table of Contents CHAPTER III. Internal Organisation 36 Second, internal — Six forms leading to matriculation and college standards — The form system : what it means and does — Pro- vision for entry at various ages — Reclassification for certain subjects, e.g. mathematics — *' Sets " — Bifurcation, " slow trains and express trains " — Specialisation — Preparatory schools and departments — Kindergarten — Hours and terms. CHAPTER IV. The Teacher 55 Staff — Proportion to numbers, qualifications and duties — Con- tinuance of intellectual interests — Tenure — Cost — The form mistress : her functions and the organisation of her work — Subject teachers— Horizontal and vertical strata. CHAPTER V. Building and Equipment 71 Central hall plan, corridor plan, adapted house plan — General con- siderations — Ventilation and heating — Classrooms : lighting — Assembly Hall — Staircases — Laboratories — Studio — Dining hall and kitchen — Library and common rooms — Gymnasium, playgrounds and garden — Cloakrooms and sanitary accommo- dation. CHAPTER VI. Corpus Sanum 90 Care of health — Physical training — The school doctor — Physical measurements — Food and sleep — Dress — The journey to school — Relation of the school with the home — Games. CHAPTER Vn. Mens Sana : Curriculum 104 Need of electives, of stratification of subjects — The humanities — Latin and modern languages — Mathematics and science for girls — Technical subjects — Manual Training — Art — Standard of attainment — Division of time among different subjects — Tables pf courses of study, Table of Contents xiii PAGE CHAPTER VIII. Method 122 Method — Teaching v. lecturing — Text-books — Written and oral work — Home lessons — Methods for different subjects — Use of library. CHAPTER IX. Discipline 136 Discipline, negative and positive — Analysis of its value — How to secure it — Sanctions. CHAPTER X. Form Management and Moral Training 152 Daily routine : registers, marks, rules, rewards and punishments —Prizes — Manners — Direct moral teaching — Personal influ- ence — Religion in a day school. CHAPTER XI. Personal Relations 164 The teacher — The pupil — The parents — Head and assistant mistresses — Colleagues : the world without. CHAPTER XII. Tests and Awards 179 Examinations— Inspections — Scholarships. CHAPTER XIII. Direct Preparation for Practical Life, especially in the Home 194 Domestic subjects in girls' education — Handicraft — Art and music — Secretarial work. CHAPTER XIV. Social Life in a Day School 205 Games and gymnastics — Societies — Acting — Gardening — Phil- anthropic work — School visits and journeys — The school ^nd its alumna? — The making of a tradition. xiv Table of Contents B«.GE Appendix A — Some Quotations on Education .... 215 Appendix B — True Cost of Girls' Education 220 (Head Mistresses' Association Leaflet.) Appendix C — Tenure 227 (Leaflet, Head and Assistant Mistresses' Association.) Appendix D — Afternoon School 230 (Head and Assistant Mistresses' Association.) Appendix E — The Boarding-House System 238 Appendix F — The Training of Teachers in a Girls' High School . 240 Appendix G — Scholarship System of the Manchester Education Committee At end of book Bibliography of Prof. Sadler's Reports , . . . . . 244 CHAPTER I. THE AIM OF GIRLS' EDUCATION. There is much to be said for the old-fashioned plan of beginning a subject by defining the terms used in it, more particularly when such attempt at definition at once re- veals the difficulties implicit in a phrase. What is edu- cation? What is a girls' high school? — are questions which are much easier to ask than to answer. Definitions of the first word may be drawn from many sources ; ^ it may suffice here to state that the kind of education dealt with in these pages includes four objects : the formation of character; intellectual training; the acquisition of knowledge; and technical skill in some at least of the activities of later life. It is effected chiefly through the personal influence of the teacher on the pupil, which is the centre of all education. A girls' high school is by genus a school giving girls a secondary education, generally under some degree of public control ; that is, it is not conducted by an individual for private profit. It belongs as a rule to some corporate body, company, trust, local education authority, board of governors, etc., who own or rent the building, engage, pay and dismiss the staff, receive the fees through a clerk or other official, and are generally responsible for the manage- ment. This definition itself brings up another difficult phrase — '* Secondary Education " . What is this ? Author- ity after authority has tried in vain to define it, though ^ See Appendix A. 2 English High Schools for Girls most of us know what it means. The highest English Government authority, the Board of Education at White- hall, defines a secondary school thtjs, in its official regu- lations : — For the purpose of these Regulations the term Secondary school means a day or boarding school which offers to each of its scholars a general education of a wider scope and higher grade than that of an ordinary Elementary school, given through a complete progressive course of instruction continuing up to and beyond the age of sixteen. Here the relation of secondary to primary or elementary education is suggested ; nothing is said of its relation to tertiary or higher education. This is that given in a university or institution of university standing. In general, however, university education must be preceded by secondary education. The easiest way of understand- ing the difference between the three kinds is by consider- ing the limits of age. Primary education begins between three and six years of age, and finishes at twelve, thirteen or fourteen. Secondary education may begin at various ages, but is intended to end at sixteen, seventeen or eighteen. Tertiary, higher or university education cannot well begin before sixteen : eighteen is the usual age ; and it ends about the legal age of twenty-one, at which adult life begins. The Board of Education lays down a rule that there must be an approved Four Years' Course in a secondary school, intended to cover the years from twelve to sixteen, providing " instruction in the English language and litera- ture ; at least one language other than English, Geography, History, Mathematics, Science and Drawing" (Regula- tions, p. 4). Many girls' secondary schools cover not four years but ten (eight to eighteen) ; all would be found to comply at least with the Board's requirements stated above, The Aim of Girls' Education 3 The distinction between the three kinds of education is one of age, ability, and curriculum ; it ought to have nothing to do with social class. Mr. Birrell, then Minister of Education, speaking at Leeds in the spring of 1906, said : — Still more would one regret if the vulgar notion were to get embodied in anybody's mind that elementary education was something for the children of artisans and agricultural labourers, that secondary education belonged to the children of the professional, shopkeeping and middle class, while university education was the luxury of the rich. That would be a detest- able idea. And it would be a retrograde idea, something quite alien and hostile to the education in this country even as it was carried on in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeeth and eighteenth centuries. As a matter of fact, however, the children of the poorer classes are obliged to go out to work earlier, and thus the limits of age and cost in the three kinds of education bring in a certain element of class distinction. This is happily minimised by the provision of scholarships and mainten- ance allowances, out of public funds or endowments from the past, so that brilliant or even clever boys and girls may go right on to the highest university standards. \ Historically, the girls' high schools were founded in the ,/^first instance for the daughters of the middle classes, pro- fessional and trading, who could afford to pay fees covering part, sometimes the whole, of the cost of education. A very brief historical survey may make the subject clearer. There began in England about 1848-50 a very re- markable movement for the better education of women ; it was marked by the establishment of women's colleges in London, Cambridge, Oxford and elsewhere, as well as by the opening of different kinds of secondary schools for girls. It was helped by public-spirited and chivalrous men, but it was mainly carried on by women. Of these certain are reverenced as pioneers and founders : Frances Mary Buss, 4 English High Schools for Girls Dorothea Beale, Maria Grey, Anne Jemima Clough, who are no longer living; there are others still with us, of whom we must name one, Miss Emily Davies, founder of Girton College. In studying this development of girls' education, we are at the outset faced by the question of origin and causes. Why did this movement begin about 1850? Why did the nineteenth century see the wide diffusion of new ideals for women and the successful struggle against the limita- tions of the past? To these questions we can give no satisfactory answer. No great mind has yet grappled with the history, the philosophy, the details of research neces- sary for such a labour ; no writer on the subject has been gifted with insight keen and true enough to explain for us so remarkable a phase of human progress. There are of course broad and general influences which must have acted throughout the century : the vast and far-reaching waves of thought and action set up by that great explosion, the French Revolution ; the spiritual movements as- sociated with the names of Wesley, Simeon, Newman, Pusey, Maurice ; the effect of political reforms, themselves effect and cause of deeper reformation in the mind and life of the nation ; the enlightening power of scientific con- ceptions and modes of thought, the work of Darwin and Mill, Spencer and Martineau, which liberated reason from the superstitions and prejudices of the past; — all these had their share in bringing about the creation of girls' education as they brought about other good things in the Victorian era. The Reform Bill of 1832 gave the middle classes political power ; thirty years later they might well need and appreciate efficient schools for their daughters ; the Oxford Movement in the forties was bringing back medi- aeval ideals of womanhood, recalling stately ladies like the Abbess Hilda, leaders of thought and inspirers of action like Catherine of Siena and Theresa of Spain. Since 1837 The Aim of Girls' Education 5 the influence of the Queen and the Court had roused the chivalry and elevated the standards of society, and as the century rolled on the liberation of intellect, begun as far back as the period of the Renaissance, was continued and extended by men of science. Miss Zimmern in her book [The Renaissance of GirU Education) published for the Jubilee of the College Movement in 1 898, attaches great importance to the influ- ence of the sovereign : — The benefits which a woman's reign always confers on women have been experienced to the full during the long and peaceful reign of our present Queen. The interest taken by her and the Prince 'Consort in art and letters, in the general improvement of the people, set an example that was readily followed. Ladies of the upper and middle classes began to take a keener interest in the lives of the poor, and in dealing with the problems they thus encountered were often brought to realise their own want of education. It may be said too that the general advance in wealth and civilisation tended to help the cause of women. However this may be, there is no doubt as to the rapidity with which the movement spread. In 1848 the first women's colleges in London — Queen's and Bedford — were established. In 1850 Frances Mary Buss began her school, which was soon made more public in character, and after a long struggle was established and endowed by a scheme of the Privy Council as a first grade public school. The Ladies' College, Cheltenham, was opened in 1853, had Miss Beale as its head in 1858, and grew rapidly under her influence. The women's colleges began between 1869 and 1875. The Royal Commission of 1864-67, to inquire into the state of secondary schools, took cognisance of girls' schools. The National Union for the Higher Education of Women was founded in 1871 by Maria (Mrs. William) Grey, and the Girls' Public Day 6 English High Schools for Girls Schools Company established in the next year under the patronage of H.R.H. Princess Louise (now Duchess of Argyll). Its first school was at Chelsea, January, 18^73 ; the Notting Hill High School was opened the following September, and many others followed, till in 1875 the Company had in its schools 700 girls. ^ The North of England meanwhile had awakened, largely under the influence of Miss Clough, to the need of improving girls' education. In January, 1874, the Manchester High School was founded by a number of Manchester citizens, men and women, of whom two. Miss Gaskell and Mr, E. Donner, still remain on the governing body. In ten years it had become, like the Frances Mary Buss School, a first grade public endowed school under a scheme. The King Ed- ward's Schools for girls, Birmingham, the Harpur Trust Schools at Bedford, the Bradford and Leeds Girls' Gram- mar Schools came into being in the same momentous decade, 1872-82. The culmination of the movement is generally taken to be the opening of degrees to women at the University of London in 1879, ^^^ ^he " Three Graces " of the Senate of the University of Cambridge in 1881, admitting women of right to the Tripos examinations. When, between 1865 and 1875 the movements that gave rise to the girls' high school began, the cardinal faults of girls' education were, as the Schools Inquiry Commission reported (1867) — Want of thoroughness and foundation; slovenliness and showy superficiality ; inattention to rudiments ; undue time given to accomplishments, and these not taught intelligently or in any scientific manner ; want of organisation. Thus the reformers and pioneers emphasised the ideal of accuracy and thoroughness, and advocated the study of mathematics and Latin to this end. Miss Emily Davies urged : — ^ In igoo it had 7,000. The Aim of Girls' Education 7 The strengthening of the mind by studies of a bracing nature, and its enrichment by the acquisition of knowledge are among the duties of life (Home and the Higher Education^ 1878). Miss Isabella Tod writes {On the Education of Girls of the Middle Classes, 1 874) : — This study (mathematics) offers peculiar advantages for the correction of the mental errors to which the neglect of real culture has made women liable. She also advocates the study of Latin and Greek. She expresses admirably the general aim : — It is indeed in the first place on the duty of enabling them to be whatever Heaven meant them to be that we ground the claim of women to a full participation in the blessings of a liberal education. There is but one true theory of education for men and women alike ; just as there is but one religion, one morality. These statements also express Miss Buss's views ; the passages which may be quoted from the record of her life {Frances Mary Buss and her Work for Education, by Annie E. Ridley) emphasise another side of the subject, the need of qualifying girls to earn a living. She writes in 1871 : — But as I have grown older the terrible sufferings of the women of my own class ^ for want of good elementary training have more than ever intensified my desire to lighten, ever so little, the misery of women brought up " to be married and taken care of," and left alone in the world destitute. It is impossible for words to express my fixed determination of alleviating this evil. Miss Ridley, describing her friend, also writes, p. 42 : — In one of this girl's early sayings — "Why are women so little thought of? I would have girls trained to match their brothers ! " — we have the keynote of her harmonious life. It ^ Miss Buss was the daughter of an artist. 8 English High Schools for Girls was experience transmuted into sympathy. In the stress of her own girlish efforts she gained her life-long feeling for the half-educated, on whom is too early laid the burden of money- getting. We may quote also the words of an old pupil from p. 79:— Seeing, as she did, numbers of these, she was very strongly impressed by the absolute necessity for young girls to be trained to some employment by which they might, if necessary, earn a livelihood. For women to be dependent on brothers and re- lations, she considered an evil to be avoided at all costs, and she tried to keep before us the fact that training for any work must develop a woman's intellect and powers, and therefore made her — married or single — a better and nobler being. Thus, into the schools officered by teachers who knew how hard it was for gentlewomen to earn a living, there entered also the ideal of giving to girls of the middle class the thoroughness and accuracy and real intellectual training which would fit them to work like their pro- fessional brothers for something like a living wage. This, as well as the desire to enter into the inheritance of learn- ing so long possessed only by men, led to girls following the lines laid down by men in the past. A powerful in- fluence in this direction was also found in the need of showing that women could do the work of a university career, and were worthy of its opportunities. It was this principle that made Miss Buss fight so strenuously for the opening of examinations to girls and women on exactly the same terms as to boys and men, which made her welcome Girton College so enthusiasti- cally and send her girls there, and later, when London University opened its degrees to women, which made her so deeply attached to an institution which at last gave women an absolutely equal chance with men. This characteristic has coloured the tradition in which her old girls have been brought up ; in this generation we find them The Aim of Girls' Education 9 ardently supporting the newer Universities likeManchester and Wales, while the Frances Mary Buss Schools them- selves are now most intimately related to the University of London and to the London County Council's system of Scholarships. Miss Beale's views may be found clearly stated by herself in the book Work and Play in Girls' Schools (Introduction). She was not at first so strongly in favour of the identity of standard for boys and girls as were Miss Buss and Miss Emily Davies, though she believed in boys and girls having similar tastes. " Not that I would assimilate the teaching of girls to that of boys, but because the teaching of both should aim at developing to the highest excellence the intellectual powers common to both." She quotes in the Introduction well-known definitions by Milton, Bacon and Ruskin, of education, and continues : — So the task of the educator is in the first instance to develop to the highest perfection all the powers of the child, that he may realise the ideal of the A 11- Father. But the perfection of man . . . can be attained only when as a son he enters into and co-operates with the Divine purpose in thought and heart. Let us give to girls an invigorating dietary, physical, intel- lectual, moral; seclusion from evil is impossible, but we can strengthen the patient to resist it. Miss Beale places first among subjects of study the humanities " which have to do with man — language and literature, history and art, ethics, religion and philosophy ". It appears to one whose own tradition is not that of Cheltenham that a marked characteristic of it is the excel- lence of that side of its work — the humanities — a matter of peculiar importance to the wealthier girls of the social class for which the Ladies' College was from the beginning intended. The aims of the Girls' Public Day Schools Trust may lO English High Schools for Girls be formulated in the words of one of its founders, Mrs. William Grey : — Intellectual, moral and physical development, the develop- ment of a sound mind in a sound body, the training of reason to form just judgments, the discipline of the will and affections to obey the supreme law of duty, the kindling and strengthen- ing of the love of knowledge, of beauty, of goodness, till they become governing motives of action. Miss Mary Gurney, another of the founders, quotes this passage in a pamphlet published in 1872. The official statement of the Company as to its purpose runs : — To supply for girls the best possible education, correspond- ing with the education given to boys in the great public schools of the country. The motto of the Trust is " Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed ". All these several bodies of workers for the improvement of girls' education believed in large schools, not only on grounds of economy, which was a most important con- sideration, but on grounds of greater efficiency and better influence on character. They followed the principles laid down by the Schools' Inquiry Commission : — Small schools are in themselves as an instrument of instruction commonly inferior to larger ones. . . . Nor are the moral less than the intellectual advantages of a large school. It is easier to create a healthy public opinion. Assuming, as we may fairly do, that the homes of our middle class are commonly favourable to the growth and development of the female character, we are inclined ourselves to the opinion that in the case of girls more than in that of boys the combina- tion of school teaching with home influence, such as day schools admit of, is the most promising arrangement. Mr. Bryce's recommendations in the Commissioners' Report are of special interest, as reform has proceeded along the lines he traced. He advised : — The Aim of Girls' Education 1 1 1 . The establishment of schools for girls under proper authority and supervision ; it would be most desirable to provide in every town large enough a day school for girls under public manage- ment. 2. Considerable changes in the course of instruction ; it would be proper to lay more stress on arithmetic, introduce mathe- matics everywhere, and Latin where it was possible to give time enough. 3. The provision of institutions where women could receive the higher education given by the universities to men. By the study of such material, by going back to the origin of the movement, we can explain from historic causes the characteristics of the girls' high schools. They are, in general, fairly large day schools. They aim at a liberal education, cultivating the whole nature. They take as the standards for this the existing standards of the universities and of boys' education, while they retain from the older type of girls' schools the tradition of English, modem languages, music and art. They seek the most intimate relation with the universities, as the natural founts of all that is highest and best in education. At the same time the schools definitely prepare their girls for work in the world, paid or unpaid, and urge on them the duty of service to the community. One cannot quote many passages from the writings of the founders to this effect ; it was by example that they taught this duty ; the example of lives devoted to the good of others, whether in professional or public work. In no respect will their influence be more far-reaching and beneficent. Methods, curricula, and types of organisation may change to meet the needs of later years. But the two characteristics the founders fought and lived for, a liberal education in school, and preparation for service to the community when school is over, these are too deeply stamped on the original con- stitution of the girls' high school ever to pass away. The peculiar aim of English education, the formation of 12 English High Schools for Girls character, is so fundamental as to have been taken for granted by women like Frances Mary Buss and Dorothea Beale ; here again their example counts for much more than any words or sayings that might be quoted. They were both deeply and sincerely religious, as were many of the pioneers. Thus there was from the beginning in the aim of the schools, unexpressed often, but felt none the less strongly for that, the highest spiritual and moral pur- pose. This too, we hope, remains inseparable from the tradition ; it is shown outwardly in the school prayers with which the work of each day begins, which to offer is a head mistress's greatest privilege. It is embodied in the school routine of order and discipline ; it is the moving force of that faithful dealing with the individual girl in times of error, perplexity, sorrow, or joy by which we seek, however feebly and imperfectly, to teach her how to find herself, — and to lose herself We have now dealt, though somewhat briefly, with the origins, the aims, the inherited tradition of the high schools. More than a generation has now passed ; what of the present, of the future? The philosophical and scientific evolutionary ideas which have been popularised since the publication of Darwin's great book in 1859, ^^^ passing of the wave of reform that filled the last century from 1832 to 1880, the new emphasis on Collectivist principles, belief in the State and the claim of the State on the individual, have already begun to affect the education of girls. Greater emphasis is now placed on the special duties of women as such to the community, on the basic value to the social organism of the family and the home, on the reality and importance of biological and sociological differ- ences between men and women. As a consequence the schools are asked, or ask for themselves, " Should there be differences between girls' and boys' education?" "What are the special duties of girls and women, their place in The Aim of Girls' Education 13 the world, their work in the social order? " If the second question is honestly answered, the first must be answered in the affirmative. There must be differences. Bodily- strength and needs are different, and thus the physical education of girls and boys, at least after twelve years of age, must be different. Girls need more rest; they are more susceptible to injury through nervous strain during the years of secondary education. They should not do as much work in a given period as boys. For instance, one may confidently say that if a boy matriculates at sixteen, a girl ought not to matriculate till seventeen years of age. What differences there may be between the minds of boys and girls is not so easy to state. Boys are probably more original, girls more imitative ; a boy will find a new way to do a thing, a girl accepts what she is taught. It appears that boys do better, ceteris paribus^ in mathematics, chemistry and physics; girls in literature, history and biology. In classics, where one can eliminate the advan- tage boys have through spending a longer time on the subject, the girls do as well. However, even if these inductions from experience are true, they do not form a substantial basis for differences in educational programmes. After all a girl is a human being, with a right to complete development, to a share in the spiritual inheritance of the race, to the opportunities of making the best of her facul- ties, of pursuing even advanced studies if she has the ability. It is when we come to consider the work of education in fitting young people for life that the real difference comes. We see clearly now that the normal work of woman is to be the maker of a home, to be a wife, and above all a mother. Does a liberal education fit her for this ? The answer is surely yes, if it makes her a better woman, abler and stronger in body, in intellect, and in character. Thring's opinion ought to be decisive on the point, stated 14 English High Schools for Girls in his address at Uppingham, 1887, to the Conference of Head Mistresses : — Tender growth in the hands of tender but skilful womanhood. From this beginning all manhood starts. This* is the key to woman's mission. ... To form character requires character- power, character-power requires all good life, knowledge of all real factors of life, combined with the perfection of trained skill. . . . Such a mastery demands that women should be trained in limb and head, not as champions of limb and head, but as thoroughly capable in both, so as to be moulders of the character of the world. This defines accurately the aim and object of all womanly excellence in all things belonging to education. The problem of how far definite technical instruction should be given to girls in school to prepare them for home life is at the moment a burning question. It is discussed in Chapter XII. The task of the schools is however made much more difficult at present by the fact that the normal lot of the wife and mother, economically independent of the necessity to earn a living, is not the lot of all our girls Many, under modern conditions, must work for bread ; many others wish before they marry to work for bread and butter rather than waste their days waiting; many will never marry, and must find work to do outside home. Others, in our unstable society, may find their financial resources vanish even after marriage, and be deeply thankful for a professional training which will enable them to support their children as well as themselves. Thus, besides the human and the social aim in a girls' education, the professional must at present be considered. How to combine all these is the arduous task of those who are to-day responsible for the aims and the conduct of the girls' high schools. Another cause of unsettlement of thought about girls' educa- tion is that the training of many girls suffers, often unavoidably, from a divided aim. It would be comparatively easy to frame a curriculum and a course of school training which would fit The Aim of Girls' Education 15 a girl for the duties of home life. Again it would be com- paratively easy to plan curricula which would give at the least expenditure of time and effort a sound preparation for profes- sional or business life. But the difficulty lies in the fact that the future of so many of the girls is uncertain. They may not eventually decide or need to earn their own living in a pro- fessional calling. Their work may lie in domestic duties at home with their parents or in a home of their own. But during their school-days it is necessary, in a large number of cases to prepare them, so far as may be, for either event (M. E. Sadler). CHAPTER II. EXTERNAL ORGANISATION. In studying the administrative organisation of education, the first principle which emerges clearly in England is that of local control, devolution, decentralisation, a principle which obtains even more completely in America. The force of this principle is probably due not only to the historic English belief in local government, but to the fact of the extraordinary variety of types and ideals in our national life. We have never eliminated our minorities ; we have preserved feudal and social distinctions into an intensely industrial and democratic era ; while the broad geographical distinctions of North and South, town and country, Celt and Saxon, are but the general indication of profound differences in the physical, intellectual and spiritual conditions which inevitably influence educational needs. It would thus be impossible for any one type of school to satisfy the wants of the whole country. Free- dom and flexibility must be the notes of any educational organisation in England. This is fully recognised in the official documents of the Board of Education, especially " Regulations for Secondary Schools ". For girls the many varieties of type may be classified into four groups : the private school, day or boarding ; the high school proper, public or proprietary ; the middle school, always of necessity public for financial reasons; the new semi-public costly boarding school. The first is still that in which a very large number of English girls, though possibly not the i6 External Organisation 17 majority to-day, receive what is considered to be secondary education; many of the private schools are really giving primary education of a special kind to girls of a higher social class than that which attends the public elementary school, and are under very serious financial disadvantages owing to their low fees. Some with high fees are, like some American private schools, of peculiar excellence. Very remarkable are those of the fourth group, the new type, corresponding in some respects with the great public schools for boys, where fine buildings, games, the house system for boarders, preparation for college, and very high fees combine to satisfy the requirements of parents who object on various grounds to both the old-fashioned smaller private boarding school and the local high school for girls. These new schools have in some cases begun as private schools, but have assumed a public and permanent char- acter. They are, of course, like the great public schools for boys, non-local. There remains what is probably de- stined in the future to be the general type, though possibly with some modifications, the public secondary day school for girls, either " first grade " or not. The legal definition of a first grade school is that it may keep its pupils till nineteen years of age and prepare them for college : it is such as St. Paul's, London, or the Manchester Grammar School for boys. This is the high school proper. There is, especially in the South of England, a most important type, the middle school, where the pupils leave at sixteen or seventeen, which does not directly prepare for college, and where the fees are much lower than in the high school, averaging about ^^3 to £6^ whereas the high school fees average from ;;^io to ;^I5 or more per annum. The new municipal secondary schools which are now being founded and supported out of the rates will probably be inter- mediate between the two types ; such a school will in some 2 1 8 English High Schools for Girls places be definitely a middle school, and in others will be distinguished from the high school only by a difference in the fee. In some towns, e.g. Wigan, the high school for girls has itself already been taken over by the municipality, and is supported by the rates, and this process may happen in many places, especially where the high school is small or weak financially. In some of these cases, the high school, when taken over, loses its peculiar character. In other urban areas which are large enough to need two secondary schools, the high school and the municipal secondary school flourish without overlapping. Elsewhere there may be injurious or even fatal competition. In some cases where there is no existing provision, the local authori- ties will found what is practically a high school from the beginning, as, for example, the new girls' high school at Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The middle school is a characteristic of London, Bed- ford and Birmingham. There the high school and the middle school are to be found working side by side, each answering the demand of a particular section of the population. Scholarships provide for the transfer of abler pupils from the middle school to the high school at fifteen to sixteen years of age. The two schools in the North of London founded by Frances Mary Buss, the North London Collegiate, with a fee of ;^20, and the Camden School, with a fee of ;^8, under the same govern- ing body, and working in harmony, present an interesting example. So do also the two schools, the High and the Middle at Bedford on the Harpur Foundation, and the elaborate organisation in Birmingham under the King Edward VI. Trust, with three grammar schools for girls (fee £\ I OS.) and one central high school (fee £\2). As secondary education for girls develops in England it will be seen whether all these types will persist ; it is to be hoped so, as each has its own characteristic merits. External Organisation 19 New types may arise, possibly a technical secondary school for girls, Hke the American manual training high school for boys, in which training in domestic sub- jects and arts and crafts may take a leading place in the curriculum. Investigation and experiment in this direction would be of great educational value ; there is much to be said both for and against such a type of school. It is obvious that the question of the need and the supply of secondaiy education must depend very closely on the character of the population in any given locality and on the way it is distributed. There must be an effective demand, and if the schools are to be day schools for girls, they should be within easy reach of the pupils' homes. As things are, what is called a residential dis- trict in a city will exercise an effective demand, while a working class district will not. Rural areas again pre- sent two problems of peculiar difficulty in the case of girls ; the houses are scattered, and there are few tram or omnibus services, though the train is sometimes helpful. While boarding houses or schools are sometimes available, very often the scanty means of parents forbid such a solu- tion. Probably the co-educational school for boys and girls in the small towns which are the centres of rural districts will be the ultimate organisation. Some areas will be best served by a higher elementary school, like the colliery villages in Derbyshire. It is difficult to lay down any general rule even as to the number of pupils per thousand of population who require a secondary education. The materials on which statistics could be based hardly exist as yet in England, but the best authorities incline to state the proportion for girls as from four to five per thousand. In Prussia it is 3'68; in Birmingham, 5; in Hamburg, 117 in public and private schools combined. For boys and girls together, 20 English High Schools for Girls the following numbers per thousand of population ^ obtain in the places shown : — Manchester ........ 5* Liverpool 7'84 London lo* Bristol II* Newcastle 12*67 Birkenhead 15*3 England 8*5 Prussia 9*34 United States 9*5 North Central Section, U.S.A I2- New England towns 22* There is a remarkable variation in these figures due to differences in the effective demand, which varies accord- ing to the character of the district and the means of the parents, their ideas for their children, their belief in the value of a secondary education and the actual supply of secondary schools. If we take five per thousand as the standard for girls alone, it follows that the population must be 25,000 to 30,000 before a girls' secondary school of even moderate numbers (125 to 150) can be supported, while it follows equally that large cities with residential districts can keep up more than one school. At present it is generally considered that several schools of 1 50 to 300 pupils in suburban districts, away from the business centres of cities, are for obvious reasons of health and convenience preferable to a larger central school supply- ing the whole area ; but here again much depends on the locality, its topography, means of communication, etc. Great cities with a large secondary education population, like the western half of London, may require both types ; schools like the new St. Paul's Girls' School, in the outer suburban ring, also others towards the centre. There are ^ These figures are taken from Prof. Sadler's Reports or from Mr. Fletcher, H.M.L, in Moseley Commission Report, p. 132. The figures for London and England are probably now too small, since they date before the Act of 1902. External Organisation 21 indications of this double need in the Manchester-Salford area, which supports both central and suburban schools, in Liverpool-Birkenhead, and in Leeds. It is found in practice that the character of a school varies according to its size, as might perhaps be expected ; the school of 120 pupils must clearly be a very different thing from the school of thrice the number. Perhaps we may say there are three main varieties, according to size : the school of 100 to 150 pupils, which is a small high school ; the school from 150 to 300, or even 350, which is the normal type ; and the really large school, of 4CXD to 500. No one girls' school should exceed 500 ; some judges think 300 the limit, which, it may be remembered, was Thring's limit for Uppingham, since it was the number of boys he could really know. Many head mistresses find it very difficult to know personally 450 pupils ; very few can reach 500. The disadvantages of a school numbering 1,000 are strongly emphasised in the French Rapport General of 1 899, where the reformers demand as essential the ''dedoublement" of the large Lycees, i.e., the splitting of such schools into two. Since personal influence is the main force in secondary education, it would appear that the upper limit of numbers is fixed by the limits of human capacity ; the lower limit, on the other hand, is fixed by the necessities of internal organisation, as we shall see in the next chapter. Here it is sufificient to state that if the school covers eight years of life, from ten to eighteen, it must have eight forms at least, and with an average of only fifteen in each form (which is too low for economical working) 120 is the minimum for a satisfactory classification. If the school covers only the four years' course, twelve to sixteen years of age, with twenty-five in a form, it may work with a minimum of 100 or even 80, since not all will remain to the fourth year. The difference between the three types, small, normal, 22 English High Schools for Girls large, must be seen and felt to be fully understood. The small type, up to 1 50, has special virtues for girls ; it needs few rules, every one knows every one else, the influence of the head is closely felt by every individual pupil, and the general tone may be almost that of a family, so intimate, sympathetic, and united is it. On the other hand this type is relatively much more costly, the classification is not so minute and discriminating, and it is sometimes not possible to give the same intellectual advantages and stimulus as in a larger school. Pupils and teachers, however, who have begun with a school when it was small, and see it grow to 200 or so, generally declare that the earlier days were the best. A school of the normal type, which in general runs from 200 to 250, is, compared with the small, more econo- mical, admits of better classification and the employment of several specialist teachers, while it is not so large as to become formal, mechanical, over-organised, or to dilute too thinly, among over-powering numbers, the personal influence of the head. It is difficult for one whose own experience, whether as pupil or teacher, has lain in schools of the third type, over 400, to write of them dispassionately. Their dangers and difificulties are stated when we have recounted the ad- vantages of smaller schools. Chief of these dangers un- doubtedly are : first, formalism, elaborate rules, mechanical system ; second, a lack of unity ; third, the isolation and remoteness of the head from the individual pupil. All these, however, can be minimised, if not overcome; the first, if the rulers are sensible and human, and the building well planned ; the second, if the forces that make for union and fellowship are strong ; the third, if the particular head mistress is a strong personality. Furthermore, the great school, as it was shaped and developed by leaders like Frances Mary Buss and Dorothea Beale, has impressive External Organisation 23 advantages of its own. Its classification can provide with peculiar minuteness for every type of pupil ; its intellectual equipment, both in the personnel for advanced teaching and in the materiel for laboratories and libraries, can be of the highest type ; and, best of all, it has a characteristic dignity and power over those who are fortunate enough to belong to it, which is of no mean effect in the development of their natures. They learn " to see life steadily and see it whole" in the bracing atmosphere of a great school with a great tradition. Such a school fits a girl admirably for life; especially a life of struggle, whether with circum- stance or with the world. We, who belong to them, who owe often what is best in our lives to their influence, feel for them what public school men feel for the Greyfriars of Thackeray, the Rugby of Tom Brown, or the Clifton of Newbolt. Here, my son, Your father thought the thoughts of youth, And heard the words that one by one, The touch of Life has turned to truth. Here, in a day that is not far, You, too, may speak with noble ghosts. To-day and here the fight's begun, Of the great fellowship you're free, Henceforth the school and you are one. And what you are, the race shall be.^ Cost. The phrase, the sinews of war, is well enough known, and the need of a war chest of gold is a commonplace of the military expert. Equally vital is the question of finance in education, and nowhere has this been more misunderstood than in the secondary education of girls. Few persons realise the true cost of such education, still 1 The Island Race, " Clifton Chapel ". 24 English High Schools for Girls fewer what the true cost ought to be if the teachers were adequately paid, and the cost of building and equipment included. The actual fee paid is not at all the same thing as the cost of education per pupil ; as a matter of fact higher education of every kind, from the universities downward, is paid for only in part by fees ; the money has come from endowments, from grants of public money out of the Imperial Exchequer, and, since the Act of 1902, out of the rates levied by local authorities ; even in some places from gifts by individuals, though not to anything like the same extent as in America. In the great schools for boys the finance question is complicated by the boarding fees, which often make it possible for masters to receive a good income. Only in private and in certain types of proprietary schools does the equation cost = fees hold, and considering what the real cost of a good education ought to be, and what the average secondary school parent can afford to pay for each of his children, it will be manifest that too often either the teachers and the schools must be starved, or that the education which costs little is worth even less. A table of the cost per boy in certain well-known first grade secondary schools will make the matter clear. COST OF SECONDARY EDUCATION FOR BOYS.i School. Average No. Average Cost OF Boys. per Head. £18 4 5 20 9 8 21 16 o 23 o 9 41 17 II These amounts are independent of the capital cost of the original building and equipment, which may be anything from ;^5o to ;^iio per pupil without any extravagance. Details as to what should happen in a girls' school are ^ Report on Essex, M. E. Sadler, p. 44. Manchester Grammar School . 746 Norwich Grammar School . . 116 A Day School near London . . 254 Nottingham High School . 329 St. Paul's School .... . 600 External Organisation 25 given in a pamphlet published by the Head Mistresses' Association.! jn this the cost of the teaching staff only per annum varies according to the size of the school, from £\ 5 per pupil in a small school to £(^ 5s. in a large one. This estimate does not include expenses of equipment and administration, heating, lighting, cleaning, rates and taxes, etc., etc., as these vary much from place to place. In a large and first-rate London school, where the salaries and fees are high, where there are no grants, and only a very small endowment for equipment, the cost per pupil is balanced by the fee, which averages ;^20. In the King Edward's High School for Girls in Birmingham, where the fee is £\2 and where one-third of the pupils are free scholars, it is stated that 34 per cent, of the cost is defrayed by the fees (Report by Professor Hughes, p. 19). It would appear from this that the cost per pupil ap- proaches the ;^20 of the London example. In the Man- chester High School, with an average fee of £\2 12s., and with grants from the Board of Education and from the local authorities, and with ;^250 a year endowment from the Hulme Trust for repairs and equipment, the cost per pupil works out at ^^14 8s. (1906- 1907). The Girls' Public Day School Trust charges an average fee of nearly £1^ in their High Schools, and since these have no endowments and few grants, the fee must in general balance the cost of maintenance. The average in seven of their schools in 1903 was £1"^ 4s. 3d. The smaller schools of the Trust cost more, and any loss is made up by the surplus on larger schools. Professor Sadler in his Liverpool report considers that the cost ought to be £\^ to ;^i8, and recommends a fee of £g. It is clear then that a middle or second grade second- ary school (where pupils leave at sixteen), charging a fee of ;^3 to £6 cannot pay its expenses, even if the teachers ^ See Appendix B. 26 English High Schools for Girls are less highly qualified and the classes larger than in a first grade high school. Such schools are supported by endowments, Board of Education grants and rates. The true cost for them ought probably to be ;^i i to ;^I2, and may be only £10. The increased grant under the new regulations of £s P^^ pupil encourages local authorities to establish such schools. It must be remembered, however, that a good proportion of free places must be provided, which will add somewhat to the local burden. If a local authority opens such a school, and there is no endowment, the parents may pay a fee of £s ^^ more, while the Board of Education grant will be ^5 per pupil under the new regulations; the balance to come out of the rates ought to be £$ to £4, plus the cost of the free places per pupil per annum. If the school is to be really first grade, attract the best teachers and have smaller classes, it should cost at least £16 IDS. per pupil. If the fee were even £6 and the Government grant ^5 as before, the charge on the rates would be £s los. per pupil, together with the cost of all the free places. This simple calculation explains why the municipal secondary schools tend, on the whole, to be of the middle school type. All these amounts are for maintenance only, and do not take into account the capital cost for site, buildings and equipment. It is almost taken for granted that these should be provided out of public funds, endowments, gifts, rates. It is quite easy to spend ;^30,ooo on a building and site for 500 pupils, without extensive playgrounds and beautiful architecture. What determines cost is, most of all, the number of pupils to a teacher. The variation in the cost for main- tenance in different schools depends mostly on this. Ob- viously if fifteen pupils have a teacher to themselves, their education should cost nearly twice as much as if the class External Organisation 27 consisted of thirty. When parents can pay higher fees, or when the particular school is wealthy, the pupils can get more individual attention, and up to a certain point the education will, ceteris paribus^ be proportionately better. Endowments and Grants. Part of the cost of education in England of every type, from the university downwards, is met from what are called endowments. These are in general understood by us, but the meaning of the word is not always clear at first sight to Americans and foreigners. Ours is an old country that has had no revolutions; it has at the same time gradually changed and altered its laws and its political system to suit new needs. From the earliest times public spirited persons have spent their money and thought in establishing schools and colleges in different parts of Eng- land ; they have settled property, especially real property, i.e. land, upon these institutions, which have obtained from the sovereign or the courts or in some way or another a legal status as corporations. They may also have been entrusted to corporate bodies, a Dean and Chapter of a Cathedral, a City Company or Trade Gild, the Mayor and Corporation of a borough, and so forth, who act as trustees of the property. Such a school or college is endowed. Hospitals, parish or other churches, and various charitable institutions are in the same legal position, there being always at any given time some corporate body which administers the property. We consider, however, in Eng- land that this property is under the control of the State, and I that the State can regulate the way it is held and used. Educational endowments, like others, have increased in value — in some cases enormously increased — in the course of time. The State has intervened in such cases through Pariiament, inquired into the administration and 28 English High Schools for Girls value of the property, the way the revenue is spent, and the educational needs of the district ; if it has seemed desirable the State has made new rules for the tenure and use of such property. One of the new methods of use has been to allot such funds to the establishment and support of schools for girls. In some cases the property may have been left for the education of children^ and the boys in the course of time have monopolised it ; in other cases it was undoubtedly left for the education of men and boys. But if the amount is large, it has been considered that the public interest is best served by giving some of the advantage to girls, as the "pious founder" might have done had he or she been living to-day. There are most interesting cases of this kind ; the King Edward VI. schools in Birmingham ; the St. Paul's Schools in London, of which the Mercers' Company are trustees, the Girls' School, which is very wealthy, perhaps the wealthiest of girls' schools, being opened only within the last few years ; the Harpur Trust at Bedford, the Bradford and Bury Grammar Schools, and many many others scattered all over the country. Some areas are almost without edu- cational endowment. Liverpool is one of these, the old grammar schools having perished.^ Manchester, on the other hand, is fortunate in having as well as the Grammar School, founded 1 5 1 5 by Hugh Oldham, a very valuable educational endowment, administered by the Hulme Trus- tees, who were appointed by Parliament in the last century to manage a property which had increased enormously in value. This money, which was originally left in trust to be used in scholarships for youths at college, is now dis- tributed among various educational institutions, Brazenose College, Oxford, the University of Manchester, the Hulme Grammar School for boys, etc., etc., and three local Girls' Grammar and High Schools, the Manchester High School ^ See History of Liverpool, Ramsey Muir, 1907. External Organisation 29 for Girls receiving an endowment of ;^i,ooo per annum to be spent for the most part on scholarships, £400 of it on exhibitions to take gtr/s to college. The property has of late further increased in value, and a new scheme for its administration has recently gone through Parliament. The Hulme Trustees are persons of high standing and public importance in Manchester, and they appoint repre- sentatives on the governing bodies of the various schools their money endows. London, where the City Companies or Gilds were preserved, and not destroyed as they were under Edward VI., elsewhere, possesses very large resources of this kind. Many of these Companies have been distinguished for their success in administering these funds for education by establishing new schools and reviving old ones. The Clothworkers' Company has taken the lead in helping girls and women in all kinds of ways ; it and the Brewers' Company, which holds property in St. Pancras, have en- dowed the Frances Mary Buss Schools. The Clothworkers' Scholarships to college have given invaluable assistance to many young women. Old funds for purposes now obsolete, such as the apprenticing of boys to extinct trades or the observance of forgotten festivals, have been diverted to edu- cational purposes, especially to scholarships from public ele- mentary schools to places of higher education. All this has been done by Parliament, either directly by Acts, or indir- ectly through Commissioners and Boards, whose Schemes for the administration of endowments are laid before the Houses and if not objected to after a certain time become law. We have dwelt at some length on this subject of endow- ments, as it is not easy to understand, and as it is of great importance in the development of English secondary edu- cation. The process is still going on ; ^ the Corporation of ^ See the Report of the Board of Education for 1905-6 (Wyman & Sons). 30 English High Schools for Girls the City of London has become trustee for property left in Queen Victoria's reign to found a City of London School for Girls; the Royal Holloway College was es- tablished in 1887 by a modern founder by will; the women's colleges at Cambridge and even at Oxford are gradually becoming enriched by gifts and bequests, though their resources are very meagre compared with those en- joyed by the men's colleges founded by women at Oxford and Cambridge. One wonders whether Lady Margaret to-day would transfer her endowments from St. John's to Girton, and Lady Dervorgilla de Balliol hers to Somer- ville, or if Queen Elizabeth would found a new West- minster for girls by the Thames. The legal government and status of a girl's secondary school, if endowed, is that of any other corporate body administering property. Such bodies are established by a State document of some kind, which with such schools is generally a scheme of the Privy Council or of the Board of Education. This is a constitution, naming a governing body, stating rules for its continuance and proceedings, giving it power to do such and such acts, and in general laying down general rules for the management of the school, defining, e.g, the age of pupils, the subjects to be studied, the powers and duties of the head mistress and assistants, tenure, fees, the type of religious instruction if any, the award of scholarships and so forth. Such schools as these are in Englafid termed Public Schools. Other schools are established under the Companies Acts, the governing body being analogous to a Board of Directors but no profit being made ; these schools are called Pro- prietary. Some belong to ecclesiastical or philanthropic organisations such as Sisterhood Schools, the Masonic Schools, and others. The Society of Friends has a very elaborate organisation of its own. If a school is established by the local authority under External Organisation 31 the Act of 1902, it is managed by the Education Com- mittee of the County or City Council, generally through a sub-committee ; it is a County or Municipal School, and resembles in legal status an American Public High School. The Board of Education, part of the Central Govern- ment, directly controls, though in a distant and non-com- mittal fashion, all public endowed schools, especially if working under Schemes, since it may inquire as to how the Scheme has been obeyed. It has an indirect control of a much more detailed and effective character over all secondary schools which claim its grants. This system is of recent origin, and is being modified from year to year (Regulations for Secondary Schools in force from ist August, 1907 : presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of His Majesty. Cd. 3592. Wyman & Sons). The cost of good secondary education is so high, and the fees possible so low, that the schools have claimed these grants, even when they did not altogether like the conditions. The grants have varied from £2 to £^ per pupil over twelve years of age in the *' Four Years' Course ". Under the new rules they will be £^ for every pupil between twelve to eighteen following an approved course, if the schools comply with certain conditions. If not, the grant will be £2 los., or may not be given at all. The subject is a burning one at present and the future un- certain, so that further discussion of the subject here would be inopportune. Some of the wealthier schools have preserved their freedom and independence of grants, some less wealthy have found the few hundreds a year very welcome. The municipal secondary schools could not have been carried on at all without these grants; the burden on the rates would have been too oppressive. Thus the new £^ grant, the conditions for which municipal schools fulfil, will encourage the establishment of such schools. 32 English High Schools for Girls Relations of Primary, Secondary and University Education. The relation of the secondary to the public elementary school is an even more thorny question, on which opinion is sharply divided. Unfortunately, there has been in England, owing to historic causes and to the influence of class feeling, a great gulf between secondary and primary education. This is now being filled up and bridged ; but it is still there, and it will take this generation of educa- tional experts all they can do to complete the work. This gulf is not to be closed by the sacrifice of one heroic figure. It must be filled up bit by bit, as Stephenson did at Chat Moss, largely by the common action of secondary and primary teachers, based on mutual knowledge and mutual respect. Much was done by the recent regulations of the Board of Education requiring that all pupil teachers in elementary schools should spend at least two years as probationers in secondary schools: their new regulations (1907, Cd. 3444, Wyman & Sons) establishing a Bursary system are a further step in the same direction. The Board have also encouraged the secondary schools to provide for the half-time pupil teachers, who are actually teaching in the elementary schools, courses of instruction to continue their general education to the matriculation standard. In the South of England, and the Midlands even, this has been largely done ; in the North the Educa- tion Committees and their officials have in many places preferred to retain the Pupil Teachers' Centre system, where the pupil teachers are taught in a separate institu- tion for half the day or week, and teach the other half. The best system of division of time for the schools is that of teaching for a term when apprenticeship is begun, about sixteen, then returning to the schools for a year of study External Organisation 33 and then teaching for two terms. This works well under the London County Council. The question of scholarships for primary school children is dealt with in Chapter XIII. ; it must, however, be stated here that there is a certain risk to an ordinary girls' high school in receiving all at once a large number of scholars from public elementary schools. The ideals and ways of secondary and primary schools have unfortunately been so different that mixture is not easy. For example, owing to the different size of the classes, the relation of the teacher to the child is not the same ; in the primary school arith- metic, in the other English, is the most important study ; one school has been obliged in the past to think of instruc- tion and definite results ; the other has been free to work on broader lines; above all, the ideal of discipline has been different. But things are improving ; the new Code of 1904, with its fine Prefatory Memorandum laying down true principle^ for all education,^ was the great step to reconciliation. Primary teachers are now free, freer than some secondary teachers. As years go on the relation will become much happier and easier. To have a limited number of scholars from public elementary schools in an ordinary high school is per contra a real advantage. These girls have a spirit of earnestness and hard work which is of the greatest value to the tone of a form ; they have in some 1 The purpose of the Public Elementary School is to form and strengthen the character and to develop the intelligence of the children entrusted to it, and to make the best use of the school years available, in assisting both girls and boys, according to their different needs, to fit themselves, practically as well as intellectually, for the work of life. With this purpose in view it will be the aim of the school to train the children carefully in habits of observation and clear reasoning, so that they may gain an intelligent acquaintance with some of the facts and laws of nature ; to arouse in them a living interest in the ideals and achievements of mankind, and to bring them to some familiarity with the literature and history of their own country ; to give them some power oyer language as an instrument of thought and expression, and, while making them conscious of the limitations of their knowledge, to develop in them such a taste for good reading and thoughtful study as will enable them to increase that knowledge in after years by their own efforts. 3 34 English High Schools for Girls cases a different experience of the world, which helps to widen the ideas of their teachers and comrades, and they are sometimes really brilliant pupils. It must be remem- bered that in the more democratic districts, especially in the North of England, there is not the same prejudice against the public elementary school as there is in more conservative areas in the South, and that many well-to-do families do as they would in America or Switzerland, send their children naturally to what they call, as in New England or the West, the ''public school". As public elementary schools irnprove this will become more and more usual. There are some infant schools in the better- off neighbourhoods which are good enough for any child. The relation of the secondary school to the University is a much easier and simpler question. Historically, in England the relation has always been very close, one of the merits of our system ; it is typified by the relation of Eton to King's College, Cambridge, and of Winchester to New College, Oxford. The pioneer women followed this tradition, and worked hard simultaneously for the college education of women and the foundation of schools for girls. This tradition has strengthened and grown with years ; there is no more prominent and characteristic feature of the English High School for Girls than its very intimate relation with the women's colleges and the universities. In this it excels the corresponding schools of Switzerland, France, and even perhaps of America, not to say Ger- many, where the university education of women is now just beginning. By this time in England the high schools are staffed by college women, heads as well as assistants ; the university examines and inspects the schools (see Chapter XII.); in many cases, university professors help in the government of the schools. It is most important for the future of English education that this happy tradi- tions hould continue. We may adduce in this connection External Organisation 35 the weighty testimony of Dr. Rein, speaking (in German) at an English University : — The State in various countries has feared lest the freedom of the university teaching should hinder the narrower aims of officialism. On this point he said that the danger of State control is that it may make the whole of civic life like a huge machine. The temper of the university was fundamentally opposed to bureaucracy, and hence the " Lehr-freiheit," which was the proud motto of the German universities, might find itself in conflict with the State system. But this conflict was really not necessary, because the State aimed at the control of life in practical affairs, whilst the idealist teaching of the university gave an aim and a goal to which the common organisation of daily life should aspire. The ideal and the practical must here go hand in hand, and neither could dis- pense with the other. The somewhat elaborate and complicated explanations in the preceding pages, dull though they be, are, it is felt, necessary.^ The organisation of education in England is one of very great complexity and difficulty, since it is a compromise between ideals to all appearance incompatible and irreconcilable. Such is indeed the character of our political system, our national organisation. We do not eliminate our minorities ; they and the majority find a modus vivendi somehow or other for common citizenship. In our education we will not sacrifice character to know- ledge, spiritual ideals to practical needs, science to humanities ; nor will we reverse the process ; we mean to have them all. We neither ignore social distinctions as America does, nor isolate social classes in different schools like Germany. We welcome their mingling and fellow- ship in the work of the State and the halls of the pro- fessor, and we adjust our conflicting systems by contempt for logic, implied understandings, and best of all, by mutual respect and toleration. ^ See, for a foreign account of boys' education, U Education des classes moyennes et dirigeantes en Angleterre. Max Leclerc. Paris, igoi. 3 * CHAPTER III. INTERNAL ORGANISATION. Having considered the organisation of schools externally in reference to the community, we have now to deal with the internal organisation of a particular school, how it is articulated into divisions for the differing parts of its work, as the human body is provided with different organs, each discharging a special function. The unit of organisation in the ordinary type of English school is the Form, a group of twenty-five to thirty pupils approximately of the same age, ability, and standard of attainment, com- mitted to the charge of a form mistress, though not taught exclusively by her, occupying in general a room of their own — the classroom — working together in most subjects, and remaining in that form for a year or session, usually from September to July. The words form and class are practic- ally interchangeable in England ; there is no idea of the pupil having entered in any particular year, though natur- ally new pupils may begin together in a form and go up the school together like an American "class". The number of forms necessary depends on the length of the school course, but there is, in general, a form for each year. If a school has pupils from nine to eighteen years of age, it should have at least ten forms, the highest form being the Sixth, that phrase so laden with association of dignity and weight to an English boy or girl. The German order is reversed, Oberprima being the highest form ; the French traditional order is similar to it, the highest form but 36 Internal Organisation 37 one in the Lycee being classe de premiere. The English nomenclature has the advantage of beginning at the beginning, the Firsts being for the quite little ones, the Seconds for children of ten to eleven, the Thirds generally the forms where secondary education with two languages begins, so that the English table is rightly as follows : — Age. Name. 12, 13 . . Thirds — Lower and Upper. 13, 14, 15 . . Fourths — Lower, Upper, [and Middle]. 15, 16 . . Lower Fifth. 17 . . . Upper Fifth. 18 . . . Sixth. The number of Third and Fourth forms, and the names and the divisions of each, vary from school to school owing to the varying age of entering and leaving. At present, un- fortunately, fourteen plus is the age at which the maximum number of pupils is found in English secondary schools, since many enter late and others leave early.^ There are thus often several Fourth forms. [There are at present, e.g. three Lower Fourths and three Upper Fourths in the Manchester High School for Girls.] Schools with a four years' course, twelve to sixteen, must, if they have a Sixth at all, make it the form for sixteen-year-old pupils, and have one Fifth at fifteen years of age. Some schools with pupils up to nineteen have two Sixths, an upper and a lower, and only the upper has the special privileges of freedom and government. The matriculation examina- tion can be taken at seventeen years of age ; the Sixth form proper is generally specialising at work of a higher character, in preparation for an honours course of study at a university, and for college scholarships as a means to that end. The most important difference between one kind of secondary school and another is the relative number of pupils who remain till eighteen and nineteen ^ In Sept., 1907, fifteen to sixteen is the age of the maximum number in the Manchester High School. 38 English High Schools for Girls years of age, and the character and size of the Sixth depends on this. The high school proper is the one that has a really strong Sixth, with some pupils at least doing work beyond that of the ordinary matriculation. In a small high school such a form must needs be very small, but its influence and value is none the less for that. If we take 300 as the normal number for a school, we shall have — dividing by 25, the normal number for a form — twelve forms. What these will be depends on the number of years of the school course. If, as in most girls' high schools, this runs from nine to eighteen years of age, ten of these forms will be taken for the successive years of school life, and there will be an extra Third and an extra Fourth for the larger number of pupils at thirteen and fourteen years of age. If, however, the course began later and were for six years, there would be two forms for each year, which would admit of much more careful classification, and, if desired, of bifurcation. This scheme assumes the exist- ence of a separate preparatory school or department for younger pupils, where what is really primary education is given. If the school is small (say 150), and is to be organ- ised in ten forms for ten years of school life, each form averages fifteen, which is extravagant in working. This is the greatest disadvantage of the small high school for girls. But if its course be only six years, the proper normal number of twenty-five in a form is possible, and economy is secured. There is, however, no possibility of bifurcation, which is another, but less serious disadvantage. With a four years' course (twelve to sixteen) a school of 100 is possible and economical. The question is complicated in actual working by the varying age of entry into a girls' high school ; as a matter of fact, pupils come in at all ages, though the tendency is for the greater number to come when they are over ten and under fourteen. This is one of the greatest difficulties Internal Organisation 39 in the organisation of girls' secondary education, and it is not likely to pass quickly, except in schools which draw the majority of their pupils from elementary schools. These, of which the municipal secondary schools are examples, can fix an age limit and take their pupils only at (say) twelve years of age. If they are planned to follow the four years' course of the Board of Education, their organi- sation is absolutely simple ; they can work with a minimum number of 80 to 100 pupils in four forms, the higher forms being smaller to allow for the number leaving early before the end of the course. Pupil teachers' centres also are easily organised ; theirs is a two years' course, sixteen to eighteen years of age ; all the pupils have passed a definite admission examination, and have another definite exami- nation at the end. But the problem of an ordinary girls' high school is very different. In practice it is difficult to fix even the minimum age of admission, as parents wish to send the younger children to school in the charge of their elder sisters. This, the natural family plan, has many advan- tages, and is. probably responsible for the kindergarten and preparatory departments in so many of the high schools, either in the same or adjacent buildings, and for the ad- mission of little boys under nine to the junior forms. With the boarding schools this feature does not occur, though they have their own problem in the admission of girls of fourteen, fifteen and even sixteen years of age taught at home by all sorts of teachers, or in very various kinds of schools, and sent on to them to finish. The day school also receives pupils from home and from various types of schools, but at an earlier age, from ten to fourteen. Many high schools charge a higher fee for pupils entering over thirteen or fourteen; ten is the earliest age at which a child can begin the responsibility of going any distance alone to school. Probably it, and not twelve, is the ideal 40 English High Schools for Girls age to begin secondary education, a fact recognised in Germany (where the boy begins his secondary education when he is over nine years of age), in Switzerland, and in the new Board of Education regulations, which pay special grants on elementary school children from ten to twelve years of age, who have been transferred to a secondary school. In the larger and more central higher secondary schools, giving an advanced type of education up to nineteen years of age, there is a tendency for pupils from other secondary schools to enter at fifteen to sixteen for a three years' course. This works very well ; such pupils are properly prepared, often hold scholarships, and those from smaller schools profit by the stronger stimulus and larger fellowship of the great school. When there is a middle school and a high school connected and working together, as in the Frances Mary Buss Schools in London, the plan is seen at its best. It is specially valuable for the abler girls from poorer homes, whose parents could not afford high school fees, but can pay the middle school fees, and who them- selves have powers that need the higher type of teaching. It is also useful for the ablest pupils from elementary schools, who may do better by passing through the middle school first, and so becoming used to the differ- ent social environment of the higher secondary school. This has been shown in London, where the middle school has been well organised and correlated with the high school. The freedom and elasticity of the English school system, which admits of pupils passing from one type of school to another, has undoubted advantages, though it makes the task of the school harder. It must also be remembered that there is less definiteness of aim about girls' education, that parents change their minds more easily in accordance with circumstances. If times are bad the boys' education must be carried on, and the girls may take their chance and go without; or on the Internal Organisation 41 other hand, better-class parents may feel there is a greater need for their girls to be trained to earn a living, and may- send them to the day high school near at hand, rather than to an expensive foreign boarding school where ac- complishments are taught. Good times mean, in an industrial population, that the effective demand for girls' secondary education penetrates to a lower social class, who in bad times would have to be satisfied with the free primary school, or would send their daughters immediately to work. The girls' secondary schools have to adapt their organisa- tion to these varying demands, varying ages of entry, varying stages of previous education. They do this in two ways, by "sets" for mathematics and languages, and in larger schools by a special kind of bifurcation. " Sets." The " sets " are familiar in boys' schools ; two or three forms, or a whole department or school, are put together and reclassified for mathematics, (say) on lines inde- pendent of the particular boy's standing in his form for classics or English ; he may no longer have his form master, and may be working with other comrades, all the clever boys in algebra (say), doing much higher work than the others. In girls' schools Latin is more often a subject taken in " sets," and provision is made for beginning at various ages. It is not as a rule compulsory, and is often alternative with German or extra French and English. This provides for the different needs of various girls and the different ideas of parents. They may decide, for instance, late in her school life, that a girl should go to college, and she therefore may have to begin Latin even at fifteen. In a school which receives a fair proportion of pupils — 10 to 20 per cent. — from elementary schools, there must be " sets" for French, to admit of the proper teach- 42 English High Schools for Girls ing of such girls who have not learnt French in the primary school. On the other hand, schools which receive some older pupils from home teaching or old-fashioned private schools must have " sets " for mathematics, if they teach it to such pupils at all ; in most cases indeed, pro- vision for the speedy advance of the older girls in mathe- matics makes "sets" or parallel classes desirable, so that the clever girl can " go up," as we say, to a higher form for her algebra at the same time as her form mates take their ordinary algebra lesson. English subjects always, and science generally, are form subjects, and do not as a rule have " sets," though one has known science teachers who would like to reclassify for botany, as for mathe- matics, to give more advanced pupils a chance, and to send to a lower division the pupils who had begun late and know little. In some schools there are "sets" for other science subjects also, especially when the pupils work together in other subjects. The danger of the system of " sets " is of course that it may destroy the unity of the life of the form, and it should therefore be minimised as much as possible. Ideally only one subject should be taught in "sets," the classification into forms being so careful that the pupils can work together satis- factorily in other studies. Note on " Sets " in the Manchester High School. French is taught in " sets," two or three forms being together as follows : — I. Two Third forms : three sets, one of beginners, one good set who have done good work in the junior school, one medium set. II. Two Lower Fourth forms : two sets, poor and good. III. Three Upper and Lower Fourth forms: four sets. Internal Organisation 43 one set of beginners, three sets corresponding to the three forms. IV. Two Lower Fifth forms : two sets, poor and good. The Upper and Lower Sixth and the two Upper Fifths work as forms. By this time the girls have run together, or the feebler girls in French have generally left (at sixteen years of age). Latin is taught in " sets " and alternates generally with German. The Upper Sixth and the Upper Third work as forms. There are two blocks of sets as well : — I. All the Fourths, Upper and Lower : three sets, be- ginners, second year, third year. I I. All the Fifths and the Lower Sixth, including matri- culation girls : four sets, beginners, second year, third year, fourth year (the subject is elective). German has sets to correspond : it is also elective. Mathematics is taught much more in forms than was the case some years ago ; the system of A and B forms makes this possible. There are still some sets, and when taught in forms, the subject is placed at the same time in two or three forms, so as to admit of the clever girl " going up " for mathematics. Bifurcation. The principle of diflferent courses of study for different pupils is fundamental in secondary education ; it appears in the classical and modern sides in English Public Schools ; in the system of courses and electives in American High Schools; in the German Gymnasium, Progymnasium, Oberrealschule, Realschule ; in the French " Enseigne- ment classique" and " Enseignement moderne" of the Lyc6es. It appears also in girls' schools offering various courses of study in the higher forms, as we shall see in the' chapter on curriculum. But the bifurcation to be described 44 English High Schools for Girls now is somewhat different ; it is a bifurcation not accord- ing to studies, but according to the ability, previous edu- cation and health of the individual. In girls' schools as they are at present, there is a a certain proportion of pupils who are not capable, without injury, of a complete course of study, including mathematics, Latin and the harder sciences. If they are put into ordinary forms taking such a course, the diligent girls overwork in the effort to do what is really beyond them, become miserable, discouraged, and leave school early, or even break down altogether. Others drift along at the bottom of the class to the despair of the careful, conscientious teacher. If the forms are large, or the teacher is inexperienced or careless about detail, there may be a not inconsiderable number of such pupils escaping notice and wasting their time. The writer's experience of boys' schools is not sufficient to form an opinion as to whether there is such an element there. If there is, it is probably smaller than in a girls' school. Many girls are still badly prepared in the earlier stages of edu- cation, and have had little thorough teaching and training in methods of study ; the question of health is more serious with them during the years of school life, and some are really delicate and cannot do much hard work. Some again are naturally dull, and have not been brightened up, as even a dull boy is, by contact with life outside the home circle. The maternal instinct of care for the weak, inherent in women, has made the women organisers and teachers in girls' schools specially provide for these girls courses of study suited to their needs and powers. Such organisa- tion is obviously much easier in a large school, and in many schools of 200 and upwards some provision to meet this need will generally be found under one name or another, especially in the Fourth forms, for reasons of age and growth. Frances Mary Buss, in organising the great Internal Organisation ' 45 school which bears her name, made what may be called B forms, parallel with the A forms, in which a course of study was followed, equally thorough and sound, but better within the grasp of the feebler pupils. The A forms took the complete course, with Latin, physics and mathe- matics ; the B forms did no Latin, but good arithmetic, and possibly elementary geometry, with science of an easier kind. The English and French were supposed to be at the same standard, but naturally the A forms did this work better. The system has been developed else- where, somewhat elaborately in the Manchester High School, where the local conditions make variety and flexi- bility of organisation specially needful. Here the system has been termed by Professor Sadler " slow trains and express trains ". This is an admirable description, emphasising the fact that both sections have the same direction, the same aim, running on parallel lines, the same thoroughness and care in material and personnel^ permanent way and officials ; the essential difference is in the rate of progress. Translated into school language this means that the A girl can learn more subjects and harder subjects during her school career. The B girl can get to the same terminus, and does, only she takes longer over it. The metaphor is, however, inapplicable in one very import- ant particular ; it is the older and more experienced driver and guard who must have charge of the slow train. The brilliant young college graduate can take an A form at once, and teach it well ; it is easy to teach clever well- prepared girls who know how to work. For the B form peculiar qualities of mind and character are required, experience, sound method, sympathy, vocation. A head mistress must be on the look-out for teachers who have the gift; the difficulty and strain of their work should be recognised, and they should have occasional opportunities of teaching in A forms, if only as a rest, for it must be 46 English High Schools for Girls understood that they have to supply much of the driving force in a B form, where as a rule there is not the same spirit of eager intellectual advance as with A forms. Although the need for this special bifurcation in girls' schools is partly due to the present transition state of girls' education, the phenomenon is probably normal and will always exist. However complete a national system of education may be, there will always be at least three natural causes of difference between one pupil and another — ability, health, home environment. There will always be the A girl and the B girl, and it is much better when one can recognise the difference and fit the work to the pupil, than when one is forced to try and stretch or squeeze the pupil into a fixed scheme of work. Probably much remains to be discovered as to the best course of study, especially as to the value of handwork, for this type of pupil. It is also possible that there may be a reaction in girls' educa- tion ; Latin and harder mathematics may come to be the subjects for only an intellectual elite among girls, as Greek and the calculus are at present. If this be so (and it may happen), the B course of study with its good English and its modern languages, art and handwork, and its minimum of mathematics and science will be the normal course of study for the majority of girls. As things are, objection is sometimes taken to a separate organisation for slower pupils on two grounds : First, it is said that they get on even more slowly by themselves, without the stimulus of the brilliant fellow-pupils. This may be so, but it can be avoided by skill on the part of the teacher ; there is the compensating advantage that the slow pupil is not discouraged by having work which is too hard for her. Second, it is said that the B forms must feel they are inferior to the A forms, and that this is a great discouragement to them. Here again such an evil is possible, but it also can be avoided, especially by giving B Internal Organisation 47 girls subjects proper to themselves which A girls do not learn, or by having a curriculum of a somewhat different type. The forms are different, it is true, but there can be no real inferiority in school except that of either character or age, though there are of course differences of capacity, as of wealth, between one girl and another. B forms are generally older than the corresponding A forms. It rests with the mistresses of the B forms and with the forms themselves to show that in status, work and tone there is no inferiority ; and this they do, as experience proves. Provision must also be made for " shunting " at the end of the school session. There will be " slip " coaches that the express train will drop, girls who for reasons, of health (say) may pass from an A to a B form, and conversely, there may be girls in a B form who go on so fast that it is juster to them to transfer them to the A side. Cases have been known where nearly a whole form has been transferred bodily to the A side. Specialisation. This problem must be more fully treated when we con- sider curriculum ; but as the age at which specialisation begins materially influences internal organisation, it must be touched upon here. There is a general agreement that fifteen or sixteen is the earliest age, but some schools allow no specialisation till the matriculation standard at least has been reached. In the middle school girls leave at fifteen or sixteen, and ideally they should continue a purely general education to that age. In practice it is found that a definite preparation for bread winning must begin. Some such schools in London have to prepare for the Civil Service examinations ; many others are pre- paring for the Pupil Teachers' Entrance Examination, and both objects need some degree of specialisation. The curriculum of a particular school is often specialised to 48 English High Schools for Girls meet the needs of that school ; particular languages are chosen — French and Latin, say — and German is not taught at all. It is the same with particular branches of science. English, including history and literature, and mathematics are retained, one might say universally, till the matricula- tion or even higher. The choice of the other three groups of subjects to be studied itself affords a certain degree of specialisation. French, the traditional language for girls, is almost universally retained, except where it gives place to Greek. Some schools make Latin compulsory for matriculation ; some make science compulsory. On the other hand, some schools at fifteen or sixteen allow con- siderable specialisation in languages (all science being dropped), or in science only, the one language (French or German or Latin) being retained. If university scholar- ships are to be won at eighteen to nineteen years of age, there must be specialisation for three years before, especi- ally in classics and mathematics. Fortunately the colleges demand languages from history students, and in some cases from science students ; these latter must also take some mathematics. The groups of the Joint Board Higher Certificate Examination, and of the Cambridge and the Oxford Higher Local Examinations also admit of some specialisation (see their regulations). The lists show that English and history, Latin and modern languages and mathematics are the subjects generally taken by girls' schools, with some science. Recently geography has received some encouragement through the Board of Edu- cation regulations requiring it up to the matriculation standard for future primary teachers. Schools vary so much that it is difficult to make general statements. There is a distinct demand on the part of wealthier parents for specialisation in music, art and languages at fifteen or sixteen. To this the school takes care to add good English and history ; to insist on much mathematics, Internal Organisation 49 science and Latin would mean that the girl would leave to go to classes at some musical college or similar institu- tion. The need is a real one and should be recognised and met, as it is in many good boarding schools, by an organised course of study alongside of the course pre- paring for college. Such a course is provided in Swiss schools, and is called the Fortbildungs Classen, being found side by side with Handels Classen (Commercial Department) and Seminar Classen (Preparation for Teaching), at the top of the secondary schools, for girls of sixteen to eighteen years of age. The subject will be treated in greater detail in Chapters VII. and XII. Preparatory Departments. We have touched on the question of the Junior or Preparatory Department already {supra^ p. 39). Such a section of the school, is as we have seen, in general a necessity, both for family and educational reasons. The younger ones come with their big older sister, and for this reason the department is in the same building or close by. The separate preparatory school, as for boys, is not needed. It is also advantageous to the older girls to have younger children in the school ; it helps to develop their womanly instincts, and to check that selfish absorption in her own concerns which is one of the failings of the modern school- girl. There is, however, an increased liability to the spread of such infectious illnesses as measles if there are quite young children in the school ; it is therefore usual to have them in a separate part of the building. Kindergarten departments have their own rooms, including dressing- rooms, etc., and their own set of teachers, the senior mistress being specially responsible, and often seeing parents and nurses on matters of health, dress, etc. On educational grounds the department is found neces- 4 50 English High Schools for Girls sary in order that the children may be prepared suitably for regular secondary education. Some authorities con- sider that this special preparation should begin before ten years of age, French or Latin being begun early. In any case the particular school has its own views as to the stratification of subjects throughout the years of school life, and may wish to have the curriculum planned accord- ingly. If all the pupils could enter at ten, preparatory departments would not be necessary on educational grounds, though for convenience a department for young children from five to nine, including boys, may well form part of the school. A view has prevailed of recent years that twelve was the age at which the preparatory depart- ment should stop, and regular secondary education begin. This meets the needs of public elementary schools, but it is probably not the whole truth. If ten is the proper age, and if, as we have seen, fifteen to sixteen is another critical point, we should have an ideal internal organisation in three groups somewhat as follows : — Junior School or Preparatory and Kindergarten, five to nine years of age ; primary education ; much handwork and physical training, reading and writing, nature study, geography, elementary arithmetic, etc., no foreign language. Lower Secondary, ten to fifteen. Six years of general secondary education, including generally two foreign lan- guages, begun, one at ten, one at twelve or thirteen ; some science throughout, with of course English, geography, history, some mathematics, drawing and sewing, etc. Higher Secondary, sixteen to nineteen. English and one language compulsory, and, in general, mathematics. Speci- alisation allowed with elective courses of study, or special departments, should the school be large. One of these must be preparation for college, another technical (see Chapter XIII.), another for general culture, including art and music. Internal Organisation 51 Hours and Terms. English schools generally work on the term system, there being three terms in a year : September to Christmas, the Autumn or Michaelmas term ; January to April, the Lent or Easter term ; May to July, the Summer term. The session is now in most schools from September to July, when the long vacation comes ; some schools still finish their year at Christmas, however, and some authorities prefer public'outside examinations in December or January. July is hot and tiring, but as it is the end of the session it is the most convenient time for examinations on the whole ; the best plan is to have the important examination in June or early July before the heat of summer, and to rearrange the time-table somewhat for examinees in July, allowing them an easier time with greater opportunity for open-air games. Holidays are given between each term, unless the date of Easter divides the year awkwardly, when some schools give the spring holiday at Eastertide. There is a tendency to shorten the old-fashioned long Christmas holiday, which is really not required for health ; on the other hand, it has been proved, both by experience and formal experiment, that a spring holiday is required by school children, human vitality being at its lowest after the trial of winter. This is also the period for the most serious of school epidemics, measles and whooping cough. The total length of holidays varies ; in the ordinary high school it amounts during the year to thirteen weeks, leav- ing a school session of thirty-nine weeks. Municipal secondary schools are characterised by having much shorter holidays, for three reasons : they have been influ- enced by the elementary school tradition ; the pupils come, it is said, from homes where long holidays would be unwelcome ; and the local authorities, being largely com- posed of business men accustomed to short holidays, often 4* 52 English High Schools for Girls consider the traditional longer holidays of the grammar and high schools a waste of time and a mere indulgence to the teachers. This difference, one of the most marked between the two types of secondary schools, tends at present to prevent certain teachers, both men and women, from taking posts under local authorities, they value so much the opportunities for study and rest which the long vacation gives. We shall return to this question in the next chapter. As to what length of holiday is necessary for the pupils, it may be noted that in America and Scot- land the summer vacation is longer than in England and the others much shorter, and that in France, Germany and Switzerland the session of forty weeks, somewhat more or somewhat less, obtains. As a matter of fact, the ques- tion of amount of work done does not depend only on the length of the school session, whether annual or hebdomadal ; it depends on the intensity with which the work is done. As in the most progressive and best organised industrial establishments, the eight hours' day, with its intenser appli- cation and more careful precautions against waste, tends to prevail, especially where the labour is of a more intelligent and less mechanical type, so in girls' high schools has the value been recognised of thorough and intense work during short periods; a view which the most modem medical opinion is now beginning to advocate at hygiene confer- ences and elsewhere. The weekly school hours are in general shorter than in boys' schools, there being in the typical schools no compul- sory afternoon session. The morning session is generally four hours, nine to one, or nine-fifteen to one-thirty ; of this at least fifteen minutes are given daily to a period of relaxa- tion and play, when a light luncheon of milk and biscuits is taken, somewhere in the middle of the morning ; Satur- day is a whole holiday, so that the teaching hours in the week do not amount to more than eighteen and three- Internal Organisation 53 quarter hours, and are often less, the lessons being forty or forty-five minutes in duration. The afternoons are left free for either home life, many mothers preferring their girls to come home at once and be with them when school is over ; for organised games and recreative subjects like drawing ; or for the preparation of home lessons at school. The system was gradually evolved, both at Cheltenham, under Miss Beale, and in the Frances Mary Buss School, to meet the needs of the situation, to offer the advantages of a solid education without taking girls too much away from their homes. It has the great advantage of avowing day pupils to return before dark, and of making possible special consideration for health. In the middle schools charging a lower fee, it has been felt desirable to retain the old-fashioned afternoon session, sometimes giving part of the time to home work, as it was supposed the mothers would be occupied during the day, and the girls would not have facilities for preparation and games at home. On the other hand, some of the wealthier boarding schools or smaller schools in a residential area, which make games compulsory in the middle of the day, have a late com- pulsory afternoon session, which includes homework. In boarding schools this, even as late as from four to seven P.M., is probably a very good plan, and corresponds with the usual work hours in womens' colleges. Of late there has been an attack on the long morning session on two grounds : first, that it is too great a strain both on girls and teachers, and second, that the optional afternoon work, music, sewing, drawing, etc., has been extended in such a way as to fill up a girl's whole time, the amount of homework set being also excessive. This has happened in some cases, doubtless, owing to the pres- sure of competitive examinations and the desire of parents to have their girls learn as many subjects as possible ; but it is a mere abuse of the system, which a careful and 54 English High Schools for Girls strong head mistress can easily stop, and which in many high schools is not found. The first objection is one of principle, based on theoretical grounds, and coming largely from men who have lived as boys under the other system ; the best answer to it is given by the evidence of those who have had practical experience both as girls and teachers — the members of the Association of Head Mis- tresses and of Assistant Mistresses. They strongly sup- port the existing system (see xA.ppendix D.). It may seem perhaps to some that all the details of this and the previous chapters, classification, hours and sessions, bifurcation and the rest, are but lifeless forms, dull, mechani- cal, sterile, that true education has but little to do with such devices. Such a criticism has its truth, if only as a warning to the organiser. Without the real spirit of the teacher all this is indeed as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Carlyle, however, has taught us that forms which grow naturally are right; and all the formal types of organisation described have been naturally evolved as solutions to the practical problem of how to teach the individual girl with the maximum of success, the minimum of waste. We in England are learning of late, though slowly and painfully enough, how necessary organisation is to an army, though no tables of squadrons and transport will ever win a battle. But the battle is won by the soldiers whose food and ammunition, supports and reserves, are in the right place at the right time. The crown of achievement is won only by the teacher whose class is properly graded, suitably housed, adequately equipped, in such a way that the living influence of mind upon mind, character upon character — the real matter of education — may do its work unhindered and unrestrained, may effect the pupil not only for a few fugitive minutes, but to a lasting end, may perform its all-important function with the highest degree of permanence and efficiency. CHAPTER IV. THE TEACHER. It might be thought that having considered the aim and the organisation, both external and internal, of a school, the next duty would be to describe the external body of the school, its building ; but such a procedure would be philosophically and practically wrong. It is not bricks and mortar, pitch-pine and blackboards that make a school, not even sculptured marble, stained glass, and Californian redwood, but human beings, teachers. They are the soul of the school, its animating principle, its main sources of energy and power — " for soul is form, and doth the body make ". Unfortunately, when public authorities deal with educa- tion, they too often begin with the building, and even spend a disproportionate amount on it. Some of the magnificent American equipment is dearly bought at the price of inferior teachers. It is better and truer to begin a school with the teachers, at least at all events with the head, and let it grow gradually, even in inferior temporary premises, and let it shape its material embodiment to suit its character and needs. If the view taken in earlier chapters be correct, it is by the mutual action and reaction of the teacher and pupil that the real work of a school is achieved ; and further, the teacher means in English schools something more than the giver of lessons, the craftsman, however skilled, the professor, however learned. We mean a personality, a 55 56 English High Schools for Girls man or woman exercising influence over the impression- able mind and character of the growing organism, the pupil, and we have evolved the form system to provide the environment in which such an influence can best act. With the form teacher at work in her form room with her own girls, we therefore touch the veiy pulse of the machine ; it is here that the most part of what the school seeks to do is done. Such a form ought to be in number about twenty-five ; twenty is good, but below twenty there is hardly enough variety with older pupils to bring about a form consciousness ; over thirty is for most people too many ; thirty-five is probably the limit for even the best and most forcible teacher to know her girls and influence them. Though the standard of a school may be twenty- five to a form, the actual proportion of pupils to a teacher may often be smaller, fifteen or even less; some teachers are not suited to be form mistresses, either from in- experience, personality, age, or the nature of their subject. Science mistresses, who have a laboratory to care for, can rarely have a form, especially as they teach all up and down the school, a few lessons in each class. Teachers of drawing, gymnastics, singing, sewing and some other subjects, hardly ever have forms, even if they are not visiting teachers, though sometimes a form mistress can take one or more of these subjects with her form. In the ideal school a form mistress would have more free time than the others, and would have help from a junior or less experienced mistress with the details of registers, marks, class management, etc. When this is practically impossible, monitors elected in each form by the girls can do much to help the form mistress through this mass of necessary routine, while they themselves profit by the experience. In many schools visiting teachers are inevitable, but their number should be minimised for two reasons; The Teacher 57 first, they are more costly in proportion, and secondly, they cannot as a rule take so much interest in the school and the girls, or share in its social life. There is a plan which works well in some places, where a staff teacher, paid by a terminal salary, comes for part of the week, and, it may be, does research or other literary work, or rests the other part. Such a teacher can and does share in the social life, since she is not so pressed as the full-time mistress ; she is very stimulating intellectually to older girls, and even to her colleagues, since she brings a breath from wider horizons into the narrow world of school. On the qualifications of teachers much has been written ; the subject may be treated from the formal external point of view, as by a registration council, though even here unanimity is not secured. The university degree, or (magic words (!)) its equivalent, is now generally required in good secondary schools. Some head mistresses require training as well. The Board of Education states that in schools aided by its grants a certain proportion of the teachers must hold certificates of professional capacity. It is important to ascertain at what college or university an applicant has studied, and at what school she was educated ; these are often much more important than the actual degree. Mistresses of technical subjects have their own diplomas; mistresses of junior forms need special qualifications and training, towards the organisation of which steps are at present being taken by the Head Mis- tresses' Association, the University of Manchester, the National Froebel Union, and other bodies. The qualifications which cannot so easily be formulated or tested, but which are personal to the woman, are far more vital. We may borrow as a suggestion the phrase of Almond of Loretto, " character, physique, intelligence, manners and information," the objects of education in his 58 English High Schools for Girls opinion, as examples of these personal gifts. J. Lewis Paton, High Master of the Manchester Grammar School, formu- lates seven : a love for children, strength and sincerity of character, inexhaustible patience, simplicity of thought, method and orderliness, energy, physical and mental, and a happy temperament. These seven might be included under one, the pastoral gift, the power of managing and influencing girls for good ; this is the one thing needful. Without it, true success is impossible. Fortunately many women possess it by nature ; and thus it is that teaching is the woman's profession. This being so, we may hope that a sufficient number of able and vigorous women will always be found ready to take up the work. They must be properly paid, well treated, and have reasonable security of tenure ; otherwise they cannot continue to do efficient work. Professor Sadler in his Liverpool Report states (p. 151) that ;^iio should be the minimum initial salary for a fully qualified mistress, rising by annual increments to a maximum of (say) ;^200. There should also be some special posts with a salary of ;^25o. He also adds, *'that in all but very exceptional cases, a woman ought to give up her work as a teacher in a school when she reaches the age of fifty-five ". The following official statement may also be quoted : — Resolutions of the Head Mistresses' Conference, Winchester, 1905. Assistant Mistresses, (a) That the minimum initial salary for a fully qualified non- resident mistress giving her whole time should be not less tha,n ;£io5 to £120, rising to £iSo. (b) That provision should be made in every secondary school for salaries on a higher scale, between £i2>o and ;£"2oo, and occasionally rising to jQ^t^o. The Teacher Head Mistresses. 59 {a) That no non-resident head mistress should receive from the time of her appointment less then a salary of ;£^3oo. (d) That the general range of salaries should be between ;^35o and ;£"7oo; but, that in the interests of education, for the sake of the encouragement which is thereby given to all teachers, and the gain in the attractiveness of the teaching pro- fession, there should be, as at present, some prizes of substanti- ally higher value. As to tenure, reference should be made to Appendix C, where are set forth the conditions considered satisfactory by the profession itself As far as conditions of service go, the points of most importance are two: Freedom from excessive physical and nervous strain, and the maintenance of intellectual interests and freshness. Professor Sadler says in the Huddersfield Report (p. 55): "Each man should really love his subject, because a boy ' catches ' a love for study just as he catches the measles, i.e. from somebody else who has it himself. Intellectual interests are largely a matter of infection. A dull man cannot kindle them." The holidays are of course the main agents in securing these conditions ; many of our best women teachers, especi- ally in towns, would be quite unable to do work of such excellence as they achieve if they did not have good holi- days. Much can be done in daily routine to save teachers, without financial waste or injury to the pupils. We may desiderate the following: a comfortable common room, with an ample supply of couches for reclining, and a good fire most of the year ; provision for proper meals on the premises and freedom to go out of the building for dinner ; the reduction to a minimum of formal supervision and unnecessary written work or corrections ; the use of cheaper labour to do the inferior kind of work, like the manifolding of papers, the filing of reports, and the addition of marks ; 6o English High Schools for Girls above all careful organisation, and sympathy on the part of the authorities. It should be frankly recognised that women cannot safely do as much work as men, a fact which is some justification for paying them at a lower rate, and that they need more allowance in the matter of absence due to illness. This implies that the staff of a girls' school should be relatively larger than that of a boys'. Women tend also to overwork themselves, and this makes it the more difficult to secure that they shall preserve their freshness and their intellectual interests, lest these be " swamped by numbers, and dulled by hack work and routine". Mistresses ought to be able to enter into local conditions and needs, and have time and money for study. The American institution of the " Sabbatical Year " is advocated for this reason. In England, a leave of absence for a term, with salary, would probably be better; in a year one loses touch with school and the girls. The value of women teachers having interests, especially public and intellectual interests, outside the school, is considerable, and needs emphasising, since women teachers tend to become narrow and prejudiced. The whole question of the qualifications of men and women teachers is broadly stated by Professor Butcher in his Presidential Address to the Teachers' Guild : — Next the country must make up its mind what kind of teachers it required. Whatever kind it was prepared to pay for, that kind and quality it would get. As to what the country needed for its teachers there was no doubt. It needed not the leavings of other professions, but men and women trained to their difficult task, enlightened by knowledge, inspired by en- thusiasm, endowed with that sympathy and sincerity which go straight to the heart of the young ; teachers who never ceased to be learners, who knew that stagnation was death, who did not give a daily dole of fragments of information, old and cold ; but who could speak out of a full mind and say what they had to say in different ways, and not in a few set phrases and The Teacher 6i formulas; who kept their own intelligence alert and unjaded, and so kept alive the interest of their pupils ; so that when the pupil passed from their hands he carried with him the inward desire to learn and study for himself, and in passing out of the schoolroom felt that he was passing into the school of life — not ending his education but beginning it. If they wished to turn out that kind of scholar, they must secure the corresponding teacher ; and it was not right or reasonable to expect that these qualities of head or heart could be obtained for the wretched pittance which was sometimes offered for them. The teacher they needed must have some leisure, opportunities for refreshing and renewing the mind. He must, moreover, be able to live the life of a man and not of a celibate ; he must have freedom from sordid care, some margin of comfort beyond the bare needs of livelihood ; he must not, as old age came on, feel that the prospect was one of deepening gloom and penury ; above all he must be sustained by the sense that his profession had in the eyes of the community at large a dignity in some degree commensurate with its intrinsic value and national importance. We must now consider some important points concern- ing the organisation of the teachers' work in school. The first is the old controversy between the form teacher and the subject teacher. Is the form mistress to take all sub- jects except certain special ones, or are there to be separate teachers for each subject, who go from one form to another ? In other words, is the subject to be considered the most important matter, or the pupil? Put thus, the question in England can be answered in one way only ; we care about the character of the pupil, and the subject, the in- tellectual standard reached, is a secondary consideration. But there can be, there is in most good schools, between the two systems a compromise, that most English of ex- pedients, which we think secures the advantages of both. We preserve the form system, but there is a certain change of teachers for different subjects. Every mistress has at least two subjects she can teach well, e.g. classics, and her second subject, e.£: English. These, and proBably others, she can take with her form. 62 English High Schools for Girls If we imagine the form organisation as horizontal, like layers of floors in a building, we may call the subject organisation vertical, going from top to bottom like a staircase or lift. This subject organisation appears ab- solutely necessary for efficiency and unity, especially if no external examination is taken until the end of the pupil's school career. Each important subject should be in the charge of one teacher, the head taking her own subject or set of subjects ; all the teachers of each subject should meet and organise their work and agree to proceed along much the same lines. This is generally done for science, mathematics and languages. English subjects can be treated with greater freedom, and individual idiosyncrasies allowed a fairly free field. Unity can be secured by a carefully formulated curriculum on Herbartian lines, the history, geography, literature, etc., being connected — a point to be touched upon later. The head mistress should periodically examine the whole school in her subject with the assistance of the other teachers, if the school is large, and the head of each department should do the same. The results can be discussed in the departmental meetings, and records of them should be kept. This system means labour, but it is labour well bestowed. One among the many merits of this plan of vertical sub- ject organisation is that it gives greater responsibility and power of initiative to assistants, and leads to greater atten- tion to methods and to other teachers' ways of work. The difficulty between form and subject teacher is met in another way in some boys' schools, where there is a great variety and freedom of curriculum, and where every boy may have a separate time-table. It is that of a con- sulting master or tutor, to whom a particular boy is attached throughout his school career, and who is gener- ally responsible for his progress. This system is rarely met with in a girls' school, and it is open to some serious The Teacher 6;^ objections. The tutor may teach the pupil but seldom, and have little opportunity of influence or knowledge of character out of lesson time ; the tutor may be uncongenial to the individual pupil, and yet a change may be invidious ; and as the pupils of a tutor are scattered about all over the school, any common life must be arranged for apart from the ordinary school organisation. In a boarding school the house master or mistress is clearly a tutor of this kind, but the circumstances of the boarding-house life make such opportunities natural and valuable. Indeed a house mistress will know sides of a girl's character that her form mistress never sees. Practically, in an ordinary high school, the form mistress may feel that the boarders do not really belong to her as the other girls do. They look to their house mistress, and the complicated relation- ship may need careful adjustment. When an Englishwoman studies Swiss or French secondary schools, nothing is more surprising to her than the absence of a form mistress. The teacher, the professor, gives the lesson, often an admirable lesson, and departs. As an alternative the Government Report on French education suggests the plan of a directeur d'etudes^ a consulting master, to take the place in some respects of the form teacher. In England one sometimes sees a bad type of form organisation ; the form is but a registration unit, it has no life of its own; teachers come into the room and give lessons, or the form marches out to the laboratory or studio, but no one is really responsible for it. The form teacher keeps the attendance and such like, but her duty is with her own lessons, and the girls in her form are no more to her than any others. This plan may mean excellent in- struction, but to those who know of a more living relation- ship it seems poor and dull. Let us return to the normal case, of the form of twenty- 64 English High Schools for Girls five girls in their own room with their own form mistress. She is responsible for them, she more than any one else in the school ; no detail is too small, no question too serious for her help and attention ; she is in daily relation with them, sees them all first thing in the morning to take their at- tendance, teaches them some part, it may be a large part, of the day, supervises them more or less out of lessons, watches their appearance and manners, notes any special conditions of health {e.g. wet garments, cough, restlessness), and may on occasion give special and individual guidance to one or other puzzled, naughty or unhappy child. The form itself has its own character and life ; it is proud of the successes of its members, jealous of its own reputation ; the girls are trained to look after one another, especially in the case of the new, the delicate and the careless, who need the assistance, consideration and control of their fellows. The very form room with its pictures, flowers and trophies of success, bears witness to the common life and sympathy of its members. Now all this common spirit must be the work of the form mistress, though she is aided, of course, in the case of most girls, by the habit of the school ; it is for her to create and maintain the tone of her form. This, like all good things in education, takes time ; at least half a term (six weeks) is required for a new mistress and a form to get to know one another at all ; in the second term they will be pulling together efficiently, if they are ever to do so. The third term is needed to crown the work. It follows then that a mistress must have a form at least a year ; in practice it is found that a two-year period is better, if the mistress and the form are in harmony; they begin the second year knowing, and more or less liking, one another ; the mistress has discovered the weak places in her team, and has learnt how to manage the difficult girls; the form spirit is strengthened by common The Teacher 6^ experiences of joys and victories; and the course of studies goes on evenly for six terms. It may then be said, "Why not carry this principle further, and go on for a third year, or even all up the school, if a mistress is competent to teach varying ages, and all parts of a subject ? " The formative influence of the teacher then becomes very strong, and her individuality is stamped on her class for always. If this effect be our aim, then let us keep a set with the same form mistress throughout their school career. But the very statement of the result provokes the con- clusive rejoinder, "We do not want one influence, one individuality stamped on our girls; they must develop their own characters ". School, like life, brings us under various influences, and it is the part of a wise being to take from each what it needs for the building up of its own nature. No teacher is perfect and complete; each has some merits, some weaknesses, some failings. The girl, let us hope, will learn what is true and good in the work of each of her form mistresses, and by a change from one to another as time goes on, will supplement what has been already begun, and will grow and ripen in her own char- acter, the more because she has been under more than one powerful influence.^ So much for the year's organisation ; we must consider that of the week and the day. How much time should a form mistress spend teaching her own form ? The answer varies according to age; junior forms, under twelve, are better with their form mistresses for most of their time ; 1 '• When all we have said or done is forgotten, when our academic successes, our cleverest lessons, our brilliant achievements in adminis- tration, in school expansion, or, it may be in sport or in literature — a.\\ these have become a prey to dumb forgetfulness, this influence will survive. ' What we were like ' will be remembered. . . . Not therefore what we say, or even so much what we do, but as what we are, is the thing that endures — the ultimate lesson, good, bad, or indifferpnt, whicl] ejigh one of us teaches," — J. Lewis Paton. 5 66 English High Schools for Girls but they should not have her all day, both for her sake and theirs. A set of ten-year-olds, e.^., should have their English, arithmetic, and perhaps a history or nature lesson with their form mistress on a given day ; they should also have some one else, for a French lesson, say, and experience another change by a period in the gymnasium or studio with the specialist mistress there. Even the youngest class in the Kindergarten should have at least one or two lessons a day with another mistress ; to teach one set all day and every day adds much to the inevitable fatigue of teaching, and for the children also, the lessened strain of attention involved in a change of teacher is a real advantage. Up to thirteen years of age, the main body of the work should, however, be done by the form mistress, and as the standard of intellectual attainment is not high at this age, one teacher may very well be competent to do this. It is also important that subjects should not be isolated, but should be taught in relation, to one another. The younger the pupil the more important this correlation ; it may even be desirable sometimes to let one lesson melt into another, and to vary the rigid lines of the time table, so that, for example, a lesson may be so mingled of nature study, drawing, and the use of the mother-tongue in speech and writing, that one can hardly say which it is. In like manner, history, geography and literature melt into one another, even as high as a fourth form. In the thirds, at thirteen years of age, some important parts of the work must go to other than the form mistress. If she is literary, as is an honours graduate in languages, she may take French, Latin (or German), English grammar and literature, and one other important group with her form, but the science some one else must do, and probably either the geography or mathematics. A mathematical mistress, ov\ the other h^nd, will takq the arithmetic and The Teacher 67 elementary geometry, geography, physics, and either elementary Latin (say) or some English subject, leaving the French and history perhaps to another mistress. If there be twenty-five lessons a week, the form mistress at this stage ought to give at least half, twelve or thirteen {e.g. four French, four Latin, two English, two other subjects ; or five arithmetic and mathematics, two physics, four Latin and two geography). This is enough to give a mistress a grasp of her form. With a weak third, how- ever, on the B side, a greater proportion, fifteen periods at least out of twenty-five, is essential for real influence. In the fourths, two lessons a day are enough for the form mistress, that is ten per week ; but here again the more a mistress can be in touch with her form the better. If she can know them in three different groups, e.g.^ mathe- matics, science and a literary subject, her hold is the greater and the more effective. In the upper forms a mistress can hardly be with her own girls much more than once a day, say six to seven periods a week at most. In a matriculation form, an upper fifth or lower sixth, a classical teacher may take five periods of Latin and two periods of literature and composition. In the case of older girls, there is more intercourse outside lessons be- tween the teacher and the form, and this makes up for the diminished opportunities in class. If the form mistress is to be responsible for the character training of her girls, she must be able to use some of the lessons for that end. In a very important sense all lessons are such a means ; thoroughness, accuracy, steadfastness, truth are taught indirectly in every good lesson, and even the driest mathematics can be made the vehicle of moral influence. But it is found in practice that mistresses wish to have at least one literary subject with their own form so as to have opportunity and occasion of dealing with those problems of life, morals, character, and ideals on 5* 68 English High Schools for Girls which even the most thoughtless think now arid then, and on which the opinions of an older and wiser woman must be of great value to her girls. The Scripture or divinity lesson is the most natural place for such teaching ; the traditional rule in the boys' schools that the form master should take this subject is followed in many girls' schools, and is eagerly adopted, when the chance is given them, by many form mistresses, who would feel the best lesson of the week was lost if they could not take Scripture with their own form. Some mistresses, however, do not wish to take the subject ; they often find a literature, or history, or even an arithmetic lesson gives them the opportunity they need. In some schools the head mistress makes a point of taking all the Scripture teaching, just because this is a lesson where so much is done for the training of character. When the pressure of the time-table is not great, a period at the end of the week is sometimes left for the form mistress to fill in as she wishes, with, it may be, a form debate, a lesson on a subject of common interest, or a special talk on some moral question that has arisen naturally out of the week's happenings. Professional opinion in high schools for girls would probably support Mr. Paton and Professor Findlay in disapproving of direct formal moral instruction. A good form mistress is at the work of moral training all her time, explicitly or implicitly, from the routine of seeing that a careless girl has her locker tidy and her name on all her things, through the insistence on neatness of appearance and dress, orderly home-work, and good manners in and out of class, up to the weightier matters of judgment and the law ; in which from time to time the influence, the moral force and sympathy of a form mistress make all the difference to the girl between moral life and death. Only those who have had the experience know how much this means ; and they do not know how it is done. They The Teacher 69 know that as girls the influence of a teacher, exercised often unconsciously, made them care to work for the best things ; they see in later life a colleague's influence making a girl a new creature, repressing the evil in her nature and bring- ing out the good. It is not a question of sentiment or phraseology, fine talk or gushing emotion ; it is plain, hard fact, shown in the details of ordinary work, and ordinary behaviour ; it comes as a product of daily rela- tions, term after term, of thought and time and devotion on the part of the teacher, studying each girl, and unselfishly seizing each opportunity, as the daily routine brings the chance of help. It will be found in any given school that there are certain specially difficult places for which a particular mistress is peculiarly fitted. One of these is the third form in which some pupils are placed at twelve and thirteen. Another is the lower fourth, the backward, delicate, too often idle pupils of fourteen and fifteen, one of the most diffi- cult posts in the school ; another of very great importance, more important than the higher forms, is that where occurs a set of bright, vigorous, lapidly growing girls of fifteen, whose energies and abilities have to be turned to the higher intellectual and moral aims. It is the business of the head mistress to dispose all the members of the staff, year by year, where they are most wanted ; this is the tactics of her field. It is for her to decide whether a form is to go on a second year with the same mistress ; whether Miss A. should not be tried in another part of the school ; whether Miss B., who has had a hard time with difficult, backward girls for some years, can be spared to an easy form or even to have no form at all for a year. The question of the particular station for a teacher depends not only on which subjects she can best teach ; it is far more important to consider what kind of influence she has. At certain ages, and with certain girls, 70 English High Schools for Girls a firmer, more formal discipline and control is needed ; with others, motherly sympathy and care are the first considera- tion ; intellectual stimulus and inspiration may be the one thing needful at another stage with another form. To the work of the form mistress may well be applied the words uttered by Mr. Haldane, Secretary for War, in a recent address on the devolution of responsibility : — That conception of subordinate leadership is, to my mind, a very vital one in our higher educational system. ... In the devolution of responsibility lies the key to good administration. The more I learn of it, the more I am convinced that the good administrator is the one who knows how to pick his men, and having picked them, to assign functions to each, and then to put upon them the responsibility and expect of them the ful- filment of the duty of discharging these functions without interference. CHAPTER V. BUILDING AND EQUIPMENT. We have endeavoured to show that the teacher, not the building, is the most important matter in a school ; we must now emphasise the value and importance of the material body in which the school lives, the building and its adjuncts. Thring's phrase ^ " the almighty wall " is becoming classic as an expression of this ; the wall is all-powerful for good, because it prevents things going wrong. It is all-powerful too by its indirect influence of beauty and dignity, as well as by its direct usefulness. Some of us will estimate one or other of these ends more highly. We shall prefer to spend money on floor space, wide corridors, spacious cloakrooms, to have staircases, and studios, and halls, exactly where they ought to be for practical purposes, and be content with the severest sim- plicity of architecture ; we shall have plain bricks, iron girders, no decorative accessories, floor above floor as sternly restricted to its work as in a factory or a ware- house. We shall think all this austerity welcome if the business of teaching and discipline goes the better for the plan. On the other hand, we may think that beauty is so important an educational influence that we shall reserve some of our resources to secure architectural dignity, even if the school is a little crowded in the dressing-rooms, and the straitness of the space for free movement forces the ^ " One more word. Whatever men may say or think, the almighty wall is, after all, the supreme and final arbiter of schools J*^ 71 72 English High Schools for Girls observance of minute rules in daily business. The ideal would of course be to have both advantages ; some wealthy- schools do, like the City of London School for Boys on the Embankment. Most girls' schools must sacrifice one to the other, or seek a compromise. Probably the best way to do this is to have the assembly hall as beautiful and stately as means will allow; it is the centre of the school's corporate life. A fine example is seen in the Cloth- workers' Hall of the North London Collegiate School, with its memorial windows and its great organ. The rest of the building may be very plain, if resources are limited, so long as there is plenty of room, air, and light. Hand- some entrances are impressive, but of little educational use. It might be thought that special efforts should be made to have a girls' school beautiful, but there are two possible opinions even here. Well-to-do girls will have much in their homes and their out-of-school life to train their aesthetic taste; they can do without a beautiful build- ing. It is in the poorer quarters and in the schools for girls who see little beauty, dignity, and good taste in their homes that the beautiful schools are needed. A school for girls whose fees are £4 to £6 ought to be — though it rarely is — more beautiful than one for girls whose parents can pay ;^I5 to ;^2o. Let us turn from this difficult point of theory to prac- tical details. For building, these will be found set out in the Building Regulations for Secondary Schools of the Board of Education^ 1906 (price 3d., Form 1999). These lay down rules for new buildings, which the Board can recognise as suitable for secondary schools which are to be worked under their regulations for grants ; they are also intended to set a standard. The demands as to space are considered by some local authorities to be counsels of perfection, but teachers know that the Board is right, while some medical authorities think their requirements Building and Equipment 73 hardly enough from the hygienic point of view. The main point is the classroom area per scholar, the standard being 17 to 18 square feet, and the minimum 16. Some think the demands as to sanitary requirements also ex- cessive ; here again the experienced teacher, who knows where the difficulties are, would support the Board. Any one who wishes to study what English expert opinion holds as to secondary school buildings has only to consult these official regulations. Should they need further information there is an elaborate text-book on the subject, containing plans (ninety-five in number) of leading and typical schools, and a full technical treatment of the various problems ; it is Modern School Buildings^ by Felix Clay, architect (London, 1906). This is not merely technical, it goes into educational questions, and is marked by real insight into the disciplinary difficulties of heads of schools ; it also contains an admirable section on the hygienic side, ventilation, heating, etc. The first is indeed, as Mr. Clay says, a most difficult problem in schools, which are the hardest buildings to ventilate well. He carefully discusses the two prevalent systems, the Natural, where the fresh air comes in more or less of itself, and the foul air goes out by exits high up in the room, and the Plenum system, where the fresh air is forced in at the top and the foul air drawn out at the bottom by an elaborate mechanical system which means that the windows may never be opened. This, in the writer's experience, is a failure ; it goes wrong easily, needs skilled control, and is very uncomfortable, especially in summer, when with wide open windows one can keep school as if out of doors. It is not suited to England, nor required by the English climate. The natural system has the advantage that it trains girls on a system which will be that of their own homes. If they can learn to believe in the open window at school they will manage their homes better as women. There is 74 ' English High Schools for Girls no reason why every girl should not understand and learn to manage a system of simple exits for foul air, and of ventilating fireplaces, which go far when intelligently worked to secure ventilation. The girls should be taught in turn to notice the temperature, and learn to regulate it. A wise form mistress will make them see to the proper condition of the classroom, and take a pride in its being wholesome, as well as neat and pretty. Mr. Clay thinks the best ventilation is a combination of the two systems, when fresh slightly warmed air under slight pressure comes in at a moderate height in the room, and there are large outlets high up for foul air. Hopper windows, louvres, and a lifting of the sash, so that fresh air can come in half- way up without causing a draught are all useful devices. Tobin's shafts are good, but they need care in regular cleaning. The lids are apt to get shut, while on cold winter days with the wind against the outer wall, the lids are necessary, since, unless these are closed, there is a bad draught. If there are ample outlets for foul air, which is the really poisonous thing, ventilation will be simple in an ordinary room. In large buildings these outlets high up in the walls are sometimes connected with a system of pipes leading to a central exit tower. This should have a mechanical fan in it, to draw out the foul air from all over the building. If there is electric light power is obtained from the current. The great difficulty with the exits for foul air is that in certain states of the weather, especially cold days with a high barometer, they turn into inlets for cold fresh air. Every system wants sense to work it, and consideration of wind, weather and temperature at the time. As to heating, there is little doubt that the best plan is a combination of open fireplaces and hot-water pipes. The former must be of the kind that have ventilating chambers, through which in winter, warm fresh air may Building and Equipment 75 come ; they should not be so constructed as to send the heat up the chimney. For girls, fires in classrooms are most useful, apart from their excellence in ventilation ; a girl who is chilled or out of sorts will often get quite right, or even be saved from an illness, if she can sit by the fire for a time during lessons. Hot-water pipes are needed to warm the comer of the room away from the fireplace ; they should be under the control of the mistress, so as only to be used when necessary. They are needed in corridors, halls, studios, laboratories, etc., where the space is large, and fires would be unsuitable. Hot air is very bad for warming purposes ; stoves are worse. Speaking generally, rooms should not be too hot — 54° to 60° is the right standard. Girls should be warmly clad, take exer- cise, and be trained to dislike hot rooms. They are apt to be rather too fond of warmth. The form being the unit of a school, the form room is the first thing to be considered in planning a building ; it should be nearly square in shape, though some authorities prefer the oblong, the sides being in the proportion three to two. It need not be high; the space at the top is wasted and needs warming, and adds to the height of the building; over 12 and under 15 feet is right. The air space should be at least 250 cubic feet per pupil; with 260 cubic feet the air, according to Clay, is contaminated in sixteen minutes to a dangerous degree; the window space should equal from one-sixth to one-fourth of the floor area. For a form of twenty-five girls the following dimensions are given as ideal : 23 feet 6 inches by 19 feet by 1 3 feet 6 inches ; three windows 5 feet by 8 feet 6 inches. This gives over 240 cubic feet, and nearly 18 square feet of floor, per pupil. In the Girls' Public Day Schools, with a room which may have to hold thirty, the proper dimensions are said to be 21 feet by 19 feet 6 inches by 13 feet 6 inches. 76 English High Schools for Girls There are three types of school building ; the first and most popular is the central hall type, where the class- rooms are arranged round three sides (or less) of the central assembly hall, the upper storey ones opening into galleries. This is cheaper, convenient for clearing and filling the hall from the classrooms, and saves the time and energy of the head. This last is given in the books as its great merit ; the whole school can be more easily con- trolled and inspected, and disorder and breach of rules noted at once. It may perhaps be permitted to a head mistress to observe that this seems to her a very poor reason. Form mistresses ought to be able to take care of their own forms, and head mistresses should be suffici- ently agile and vigorous to go along corridors and up and down stairs, in making the necessary rounds of the build- ing through the day. It is a poor business sitting on a platform at a desk in the centre of the hall watching everything, lest disorder should arise ! In girls' schools it is quite unnecessary to-day ; we think few head mistresses would agree with this argument for a central hall plan. They would say the plan was more beautiful and very convenient, though if the hall is much used for other purposes than assemblies it has inconveniences too. The second type, which is more costly and often less impressive in appearance, is the corridor system, the one usual in America. Here the classrooms open into corri- dors, which must be wide, airy and well lit (or they favour disorder). This is the plan followed at the City of London School for Boys, St. Paul's School for Boys at Hammersmith, the new building of the King Edward's Girls' High School in Birmingham, the Manchester High School for Girls, and others. The assembly hall stands apart, either in a separate and very beautiful building, or in one side of the main building, or, as in America, at the top. The writer has worked in large schools on both plans, in Building and Equipment 77 the central type as an assistant, in the corridor type as a head, and unhesitatingly prefers the corridor type for ease in working, freedom of discipline, and general comfort. The third plan is that of an adapted house ; it has many merits, especially for a small school, numbering up to 150. Often, through changes in a suburban neighbourhood, a fine house and grounds can be secured at a low cost ; it may contain a music or billiard-room or hall which can be used for assemblies; it may have beautiful decoration, good staircases and wide passages. Extra sanitary accommoda- tion will always be required, and the provision of lavatory basins. Basement rooms, or rooms at the back can be used for dressing-rooms, and the new accommodation added in an annexe, adjoining and opening to the house by a well- ventilated passage orcoiridor; it must be so arranged as to be easily under control by mistresses. Sometimes an assembly hall has to be built specially ; it can be arranged to serve as a gymnasium. Attics can be turned into studios (see Clay, chap. xiv.). Some of the Girls' Public Day Schools are interesting and valuable examples of this method ; one recalls the Liverpool High School in par- ticular. If a new school building is to be erected, much care should be given to fitting the building to the needs and peculiarities of the school; the site should fulfil certain conditions ; to be high and well drained ; not on a noisy main street, yet accessible from trams and trains, if the school is large ; to have a whole block or lot to itself, with no conterminous buildings ; to have pleasant surroundings. In a girls' school this latter is especially important ; one should avoid the neighbourhood of factories, or works with heavy machinery, of hotels, theatres, restaurants or public- houses, of offices and warehouses where large numbers of youths may be about the streets at the dinner hour ; and go forth, It is very helpful if the site chosen be near a 78 English High Schools for Girls public park, museum or picture gallery, to which classes may be easily taken for special study. The proper aspect for the classrooms is south-east: this gets the morning sun in winter, and avoids the strong sunshine of noonday in summer. The latter makes a south-west aspect trying in the afternoon of half the year. Some otherwise excellent school buildings have the serious defect of a north or north-east aspect ; the sun is needed in rooms where children live. These buildings were put up at a time when authorities advocated a north aspect as best for light, and when the health-giving properties of the sun's rays were not so generally understood. Blinds may be considered a superfluity in this climate ; but they will be required in rooms with a south-west aspect and in studios. As a rule, there is too little light and not too much, in English classrooms, especially in towns. Full details of the technical questions concerning lighting, treated from an American point of view, may be found in The Lighting of Schoolrooms y by Stuart H. Rowe, of Yale, (Longmans, 1904). It is sufficient here to draw attention to the importance of having windows up to the top of the rooms (light near the floor is of no use to the children) and of seeing that the light should come from the left side of the pupil. The only artificial light for schools is of course electric light. It uses no air, and can be switched on and off to meet the emergencies of fog and darkness. The ordinary lamp is best ; arc lights are obviously unsuitable ; light from the ceiling by inverted arcs is very costly in current. Some of the patent lights giving extra strong illumination, like Nernsts, are required for sewing-rooms and for drawing on dark days. It is found that in an ordinary classroom for thirty girls seven points are required, each sixteen candle-power, one over the teacher's desk to illuminate the blackboard, and six for the girls. There should be four Building and Equipment 79 switches, one for the single light, which may well be on a pilot system, and the six in three sets. Elaborate switch- ing saves in the end, as only the light actually required is used. A room which will be used for parties and other functions should have the switches so planned that for these extraordinary occasions the " ballroom " standard of light- ing may be secured. It may be well, before treating of special parts of a building in detail, to quote the general statement of the Board of Education, even though one does not altogether agree with it : — Section i. — General. Before any instructions are given to an architect to prepare plans for a new building careful consideration should be given to the proposed organisation of the school; the number of masters or mistresses to be employed ; the probable size of the classes in the different parts of the school ; the relative import- ance of the teaching of Science, Art or Manual Work; the possibility of grouping sets of rooms conveniently for certain branches of the work, etc., so that the plan of the building may be fully adapted for the work to be done in the school. It is important to remember that as the actual numbers in a class can seldom be made to correspond closely with the various sizes of rooms provided, the nominal accommodation as shown by the plans should exceed the number for which the school is intended to provide. The custom of dividing up classes for different subjects again makes the provision of extra small class or division rooms desirable. The rooms should be grouped compactly and conveniently in order to secure easy and effective supervision, and economy in working and maintenance. Generally speaking, in the case of schools where the number of scholars is considerable, this result can most satisfactorily be secured by placing the class- rooms on three sides of, and opening from, a Central Hall. In the case, however, of small schools and those in which the hall is made to serve for a variety of purposes, it is often found more convenient to separate the classrooms from the hall in order to avoid disturbance, 8o English High Schools for Girls Where more than one floor is necessary the upper rooms can be entered from a gallery which should be in full view of the hall. As far as possible, passages and corridors should be avoided; if used, they must be large, airy and well lighted. The classrooms should have the upper panels of the doors glazed with clear glass, in order to facilitate inspection without disturbing the work in the room. The accommodation of a room depends not merely on its area, but also on the lighting, position of the doors, fireplaces and the general shape of the room. Assembly Hall. We must now very briefly enumerate the chief parts of a school building other than the classroom, with a few notes as to the requirements of each. The hall must be capable of holding the whole school ; the Board of Educa- tion requires 6 square feet per pupil. It may have to be used as a gymnasium, in which case, it cannot be seated ; it is always to be regretted if it has to be used as a playroom in wet weather. Some schools use it for drawing ; if it is at the top of the building this may work very well, and the art associations do not jar with its more serious use for prayers and formal school assemblies. Small classes may meet in it, singing classes may very well use it, if it is not a central hall. It must have a platform ; it may have a gallery. Many schools fit the platform up for dramatic performances. A great school should have an organ in the hall, beautiful decoration, and fittings as stately and good as means will allow. Staircases. There must be two for a school of over 1 50 girls ; there should be no winders. Stone stairs are not as good against fire as hardwood, teak or oak, with plaster beneath on the under ceiling. The Board of Education recommend the type usual in elementary schools with solid walls on both Building and Equipment 8i sides of the flights. This is quite wrong in a secondary school, where there is a great deal of passing up and down stairs at every change of lessons, and where it is most necessary to have an open staircase that can be controlled from above or below. With the Board's type elaborate supervision would be required ; with the open type it is easy to prevent disorder. Most girls' high schools are very strict about order on the stairs ; all speaking on the stairs is forbidden, and regulated movement enforced. This promotes smartness, checks waste of time, and prevents accidents. Laboratories. Generally speaking, there is a tendency to spend too much on these ; much can be done with benches of the kitchen table type, a sink, cupboards, some fitted Bunsen burners, and a steady safe place for balances. A girls' school needs a biological laboratory rather than a chemical one; though of course if it is wealthy, and intends to offer special facilities in science, it should have both, in a separate science block, with a physics room and a green- house for growing specimens and conducting experiments. Much can be done by having one good laboratory for general elementary science, physics and chemistry, and another for botany, nature study and biology. Details for construction should be sought in special treatises. Studio. This is best placed at the top of the building, with a rooflight regulated by blinds: a long room which can have different divisions of pupils in different parts through- out the week is best ; it should have ample stores' accom- modation. The Board of Education rules require 30 square feet per pupil. Its statements as to equipment are admirable. Wall surface for free-arm drawing practice 6 82 English High Schools for Girls by the scholars is very valuable. The storey in the roof of a building is hot in summer and cold in winter, and would be unsuited for form rooms. If a class only goes there once a week the objection does not so much matter. Dining Hall and its Offices. Cookery Room. Schools vary in their requirements here. If many stay to dinner and there are school societies havingtea frequently, a good dining hall is well worth its cost. The kitchen should be on the same floor, close at hand, with a hatch or a serving pantry with sliding walls between it and the dining hall, so that food can be passed quickly through. The scullery, etc., and tradesmen's entrance should lie beyond the kitchen on the other side. If all this can be in a separate wing, shut off by doors to prevent smells entering the main building, so much the better. If not, it should be on the upper storey, as in the City of London School for Girls, with a lift for provisions. It is conveni- ent to have the cookery room near. (Some schools use the actual kitchen for cookery lessons, but this is not advisable.) It should have a range and a gas stove, a sink, tables and raised benches at one end for demonstra- tion. The floor should be wood blocks, and the walls white tiles. Library and Common Rooms, etc. It is most desirable to have a separate comfortable room for a library, which may well be beautiful if funds allow. It should not be either the sixth form room or the head mistress's room. It should be available all day for study by older girls, mistresses, and if possible former pupils. Clay in his book says there should be a separate mistresses' library; this is not only unnecessary but in- expedient. Mistresses and girls are both students, and as Building and Equipment 83 such should use the same library. There must be a good mistresses' common-room, however, comfortably furnished, and free from interruption ; we think it a great mistake to put it next to the head mistress's room. This should be in a central position, near the main entrance, and next the office or secretary's room. If space admits, it is a great boon if there is a small private room at the head mistress's disposal where she does not see visitors, but can work or rest, send a sick girl or mistress to be quite quiet, and conduct difficult private interviews. Small odd rooms are always useful ; one never has too many, and often too few. Gymnasium. If means allow, a separate gymnasium, properly fitted, is very valuable. It serves as a playroom in wet weather and a common room for girls in the dinner hour, and as a dancing-room at all sorts of times as opportunities allow. It ought to be as large as possible, and must have a changing or dressing-room with wash-basins, and its own separate sanitary accommodation, opening out of it. In Germany and America baths are often found. It should have wooden blocks for the floor, leather covered mat- tresses, and good ventilation. Dust is a great enemy in gymnasiums ; some kind of spraying is desirable every evening. Playgrounds, etc. We cannot do better than reproduce the Board's rules. The area of the site should be sufficient not only to provide adequate playground space, but also, if possible, room for Cricket and Football, or, in the case of girls' schools, Hockey and Lawn Tennis. For this purpose it is desirable to secure from 3 to 4 acres for a small school, increasing with the size of the school and the extent to which such games are likely to be played. 6 * _ ^n ,__ 84 English High Schools for Girls In any case there must be an open, fairly square, properly levelled, drained and enclosed playground suitable to the size of the school, providing a clear unbuilt upon space of 50 square feet per head, but in no case must the playground contain less than 750 square yards. Special consideration will be given to the case of schools in large towns. A part of the whole of this should be covered with asphalt or other suitable paving, in order to provide a suitable place for drilling, etc. The playground should be given a warm, sunny aspect. Buttresses, corners and recesses should be avoided. There should be a covered shed for games on wet days. In dual or mixed schools the playground should be separate for the two sexes. Bicycle sheds should be provided. Asphalt or cement seems a necessity in towns with our climate ; either is bad. Falls on such hard material are dangerous ; the surface wears with the heavy use it gets in a large school, and wears out the children's india-rubber shoes. Would that some one could invent some bettei material ! Fives Courts may open into the playground. A school garden is highly desirable, and should adjoin the building ; if at even a moderate distance it is much more difficult to work. Whenever possible a girls school should stand in a garden or grounds of its own. Cloakrooms and Sanitation. The provision of cloakrooms or dressing-rooms is a very important matter in a girls' school. They must be roomy and well fitted, with a peg for each girl, clear of others' garments, and with a place for the outdoor shoes, it being the custom for girls in high schools to change their shoes when they come into school in the morning. There must be provision for drying garments and shoes on wet days. This is sometimes managed by having hot-water pipes below or behind the boot-racks. Places for umbrellas must Building and Equipment 85 also be provided. The best way is under each girl's peg, the handle resting in a catch and the point on a zinc tray which runs along below the pegs. The floor should be wood blocks. There are two ways of arranging cloak- rooms : one, the most popular, is to have one large cloak- room [as in the Birmingham High School] which can easily be supervised, or a range of cloakrooms side by side in the basement. The other way is more costly and less sightly, but infinitely more convenient to girls and mis- tresses, the American plan of having one cloakroom for a form, close to the form room. This may be seen in the Manchester High School for Girls, where the form rooms are on one side of a broad corridor, the cloakrooms on the other. This system also solves the problem of sanitary accommodation, which for hygienic reasons should not be in the main building, but which for reasons of discipline and womanly modesty should be easily accessible and easily controlled. It is most unsatisfactory to have the system now popular with architects, all the accom- modation in one block, separate from the building, and down a corridor. The best way is for each cloakroom to have a separate closet, opening out by two doors, and a small cross-ventilated lobby, somewhat as in hospitals ; they can be arranged in pairs, floor above floor, in wings standing out from the main building, separately ventilated, and with all the pipes easily accessible for repairs. The number required by the Board of Education regulations is " in 'the case of day schools one for every fifteen girls for the first hundred, and one for each succeeding twenty- five". Wash-basins may very well be placed in the cloakrooms, if the traps outside are properly disconnected, and if the cloakrooms are not crowded. If there is one for each form of twenty-five to thirty, two basins serve well. If there is one cloakroom for the whole school, it is perhaps better 86 English High Schools for Girls to have the basins in a separate place. We do not under- stand why the Board of Education recommends they should be in separate lavatories ; this may be needed for boys, who " lark " and throw water about. Well-behaved girls do not, and even rougher ones are more likely to be careless in a separate lavatory than in a cloakroom where their roughness would injure others. The Board's regulations are as follows : — Cloakrooms should be well lighted from the end. Gang- ways at 'least 4 feet wide should be made between the hanging- rails and seats. Pegs for hats and cloaks should be numbered, placed not less than 12 inches apart, and not placed one above another. In lavatories slate troughs with loose, not fixed, basins are recommended. The number of lavatory basins in day schools should be one for every ten scholars up to a hundred, and one for every fifteen scholars above the first hundred. The floors should be of asphalt or other impervious material and the walls of glazed brick or tile, or with at least a dado of 5 feet high of such materials. Glazed partitions should be used as far as possible. Changing-rooms should be provided with fixed seats, pegs, lockers and boot-racks. In small day schools accommodation for changing may be provided in the cloakroom. A lock-up slop sink, water-tap and cupboard are desirable for the caretaker. Cleaning, etc. The care of a building such as we have described is no small business; it must be cleaned, redecorated, kept in repair. The general charge is, as a rule, given to some respectable man of the artisan class, who can do small repairs and manage apparatus for heating, etc. If well selected, well paid and well treated, he may become a very valuable servant, devoted .to the place, and saving money to the governors by looking after the beginnings of mischief in the building. He should by preference be a skilled workman or a sailor, not a mere caretaker, or a Building and Equipment 87 man without a trade. He should do some of the cleaning, unless the school is very large. Maids and charwomen generally do this, controlled by a working housekeeper who may be the wife of the schoolkeeper, or in a large school by a lady housekeeper who ranks with the mistresses. There is something to be said for both systems of control, and both have their difficulties. Some responsible person should regularly inspect the closets and sanitary accom- modation generally. The amount of cleaning required varies with the district. Sweeping once a day is essential, and careful dusting. Dust is the enemy as it is the carrier of disease. Sawdust wetted with a solution of carbolic or other disinfectant should be compulsory in all sweeping. If the maids are few and the dusting is not thorough, one should ask for volunteers among the girls before school. Periodical scrubbing is necessary, but harmful to floors. Wood blocks can be cleaned best with wet sand ; floors should be treated with some of the patent polishing mixtures which do not make a slippery surface. Cork carpet thus treated is recommended by some. Window cleaning must be regularly seen to, and traps and gutters and gully holes regularly inspected and cleared. Periodic painting and whitewashing can be done in the long vaca- tion. If a school is prosperous and has a surplus revenue it should lay by for a repairs fund. After about twenty- five years serious repairs and renewals will be needed, such as new boilers, new sanitary apparatus and drains, new desks, teachers' tables, etc. Everything will wear out at once, and unless there has been a depreciation fund ac- cumulated, the burden on the finances will be serious. Few schools have yet come to this awkward stage in their history. 88 English High Schools for Girls Furniture and Equipment. The needs of schools vary so much, and the varieties of school furniture change so quickly, that it is impossible to treat the subject fully here. The value of the single desk is becoming generally recognised ; it is of enormous im- portance for health, discipline, and moral training. The realisation of personality, of self-respect, of the moral re- sponsibility of the individual are closely connected with it. The girl must have her place in the school, her desk, locker, peg ; it is like a citizen having a stake in the country. In a school whose tone is established, girls should be allowed to choose their places in the form room, subject to the mistress's approval. Desks should be adjustable to the height and proportions of the pupil, have a comfortable back, seat, and foot rest ; all these are provided in a new desk, the " Farringdon," brought out by the Educational Supply Association, Holborn, which is specially arranged for girls' physiological needs; it is popular with girls, a merit not always found in hygienic furniture, but it cannot be cheap or light, owing to the iron framework for adjust- ments. English schools are generally deficient in proper blackboards, which are absolutely necessary for accurate teaching and illustration, and for demonstration by pupils. America is far superior in this respect. Two if not three of the walls of a classroom should be lined with material for writing on (prepared glass or slate is the best, though the most costly) from the height of 3 feet 6 inches above the floor to 7 feet ; in rooms for small children this " black- board " space should begin at 2 feet, or in the kindergarten at I foot 8 inches. If the school cannot afford glass or slate, some prepared material can be used ; if it already has a boarded or plastered wall, prepared cloth can be fastened on. In regard to equipment to help in teaching, English schools are also lamentably deficient except for science. Building and Equipment 89 Germany can show us what there is in maps and pictures and diagrams. Models and lantern slides for use in classical teaching are now being introduced. 1 In history the teacher herself can do a good deal, but should make her own collection as she goes on, the school providing costly historical maps, and some good pictures, such as Meisonnier's " 1 8 14 " or Holbein's '' More ". Fine sculpture, if only in casts, has great educational value. One would like every girls' secondary school to possess a copy of the Venus of Milo. A sum, which need be but small, should be ear-marked for pictures in the original estimates for furniture ; good reproductions of the masterpieces, such as those of Braun et Cie., Paris, can now be had at a low cost. The science mistress should have a liberal annual grant for material and the renewal of apparatus, and should not be required to ask separately for each small article. A very practical chapter may well end with the most practical of details, cost, which again we owe to Mr. Clay's book. The rate is capital expenditure per head for a secondary school. With strict economy £25 to ;^30 Good, fulfilling Board of Education requirements . £^^ to ;£"5o Better class type ;^50 to ;^6o Reasonable maximum in some districts . . . ;^7o Boarding house £^5^ 1 " Such appliances as books, maps, charts, models, diagrams, lantern slides and electric lanterns, telephones, collections of specimens, physical and chemical apparatus, casts, photographs, pictures, typewriters and pianos. To try to teach without these aids is like trying to stop a con- flagration with buckets passed from hand to hand." — President Eliot, More Money for the Public Schools. CHAPTER VI. CORPUS SANUM. When, after considering organisation, teachers, the school building and equipment, we come to the pupil, the first thing to consider is bodily health. We want a sound healthy animal, trained in good bodily habits, if we are successfully to achieve intellectual and moral education. But, as we all know, the children who come to us are not by any means in this happy state of physical vigour ; they do not always possess the sound body. The secondary schools are not in such bad case as the primary, and the parents in general look after the children carefully. But the school finds it has something to do for them also (par- ticularly if the girls are to do hard head-work), remember- ing that the years of growth and adolescence, from thirteen to sixteen, which the secondary school course covers, are of such special importance to the future health of girls. Im- portant as are bodily vigour and active strength — kinetic energy — in the men of a country who may have to endure the supreme test of physical fitness in war, the vitality and passive strength — potential energy — of its women are even more important, since Nature has ordained women to be the mothers of the race. Thus on every ground, in- tellectual, individual and national, the high schools have been from the beginning obliged to secure healthy physical conditions for their girls, and to plan for the maximum of physical efficiency. The introduction of games and gyrtinastics for women is due to them, and they have helped in the extension of the English traditions of open- 90 Corpus Sanum 91 air life and exercise, from a select few of the upper class to multitudes of women in all ranks of society — a change in social conditions which is one of the most remarkable of the Victorian era. It was an important part of the ideals of the pioneer women in education that girls should be healthy and strong ; a characteristic utterance of one of them was " It is a sin to be ill ". If the laws of health were taught to and observed by women, she said, they would have the reward of their obedience in perfect health. In the days when feminine weakness and physical delicacy were thought to be womanly charms such a standard needed to be set up. The teaching of hygiene, and the inclusion in the curriculum of regular formal physical training by gymnastic exercises were marked characteristics of the high schools from their very beginning, as was also very careful supervision of the school building and equipment, and of the physical condition of the pupils. Regular medical in- spection by a school doctor began almost as soon as there were women doctors qualified to carry out such inspection. Organised games did not come at first ; that would have been too great a breach of continuity with the past ; but when, about 1880 to 1890, college women began to come into the schools as assistant and head mistresses, they brought games with them, the games they had learnt to appreciate at college. The locus classicus on girls' games at school is an article by Miss Dove, one of the first Girton students, called "Cultivation of the Body," in Work and Play in Girls' Schools^ St. Leonard's School, St. Andrews, N.B., being one of the first schools to lead in this matter. The article should be read ; it is the formal statement by an expert of the case for games.^ Gymnastics, however, since it is cheaper, easier to 1 See also, Games and Athletics in Secondary Schools for Girls, by Penelope Lawrence, Head Mistress of Roedean School, Brighton. Educa- tion Deparment's Special Reports on Educational Subjects, vol. ii., 1898. 92 English High Schools for Girls manage, more uniform, and more controlled, was at first the ideal of exercise. It has the great merit of preventing and checking nervous instability. Not only has the well- known Swedish system been followed, but also another less rigid type, the " German " system, which is eclectic, borrowing exercises from every system, and using music. Some authorities consider the German system much more suitable to girls, since it can be adapted to the cultivation of grace, is lively and spirited, and since it is much less of a nervous strain. Rhythm is a natural race instinct in physical actions intended for pleasure, as in the dancing of savage tribes, the ballads of primitive peoples, and the song games of children. The omission of music and rhythm, the constant word of command in Swedish exercises appear to some of us grave mistakes in physical training. Gymnastics to be good should be pleasurable. That they are so, the experience of many schools would prove, especially if by forming teams the element of co-operation can be introduced. If the school has a gymnasium eight, each of these leaders should have a team of her own, of younger and less expert girls, and work them up under the teacher's direction. Competitions may introduce an element of over-stimulation, but with care they may do good. The writer strongly disapproves, however, of a sports day for girls over twelve years of age. This is a mere imitation of the ways of boys' schools ; no benefit to physical training or health is secured by having sports, and they may lead to personal vanity, nervous excitement, and serious physical overstrain. This is not, however, a general view ; many schools have " sports " for their girls, and do not think that any harm is done by a pleasant after- noon's activity in the open air among parents and friends. Dancing on the other hand should be encouraged ; it is an ideal form of exercise for girls, if in well-ventilated rooms and in the day or early evening. Swimming, in a country like ours, ought to be as obliga- Corpus Sanum 93 tory as the three R's. It is an exercise especially valuable for girls if suitable precautions are taken; it, like gym- nastics, was advocated in the very early days, forty years ago. The public bath is often available; a separate swimming bath is in general an unnecessary expense. Supervision at the bath by the ordinary form mistresses, who should themselves be able to swim, is, however, neces- sary, as accidents may easily happen. Gardening is a form of exercise whose value should not be forgotten. It is excellent for anaemic and nervous girls, or those with heart troubles, who cannot play games. It is an essentially womanly occupation, and one whose cultivation at school is of importance to the community. If all girls could be made to take an interest in horticulture, the housing problem would be solved, for the women of the nation would refuse to have children brought up in a house without a garden. The importance of the medical examination of school children is now generally recognised. Many girls' schools have a woman doctor on the staff to conduct this, and very careful records are kept ; all the gymnastic teaching is supervised by her, and special exercises ordered for girls whose development is abnormal.^ We may quote Sir John Gorst in an address to the Teachers' Guild : — In the first place, the medical examination on the admission of a boy or girl into school ought to be made a great deal more comprehensive than it is at present. The school authorities have a perfect right to require such a medical examination to see if the intending pupil is fit to go through the school course, and, if the particular points to which the medical officer's attention should be called were carefully thought out, and a record of the bodily condition of the boys and girls kept, it would be of very great advantage. It would enable the teachers very often to report to the parents defects or weaknesses of which they have no previous idea, and it would be very valuable in relation to vital statistics and in enabling comparisons to be made with the child's condition later on. ^ The Clapham High School has remarkable results of this work. 94 English High Schools for Girls Health. The whole subject of the care of health at school is so large and important that it cannot be adequately treated here. Reference must be made to standard works on the subject, like Dr Clement Dukes' Health at School (Riv- ingtons). One can only underline, as it were, statements of special importance to girls. The first we would quote in Dr. Dukes' own words, the more emphatically as some of the girls' high schools have to some extent gone in exactly the opposite direction, and demanded from girls absolute regularity and steadiness of application to work. This is one of the very few points where the tradition is wrong, and where it must be modified. Continual application to work fi-om day to day, from week to week, and from month to month, should never be enforced on girls. Nor should they be allowed to make these efforts. Periodical cessation and rest should be both encouraged and enforced. How to obey this rule, which is a physical necessity for sound /^r;;^*^;^^;?/ health in most cases, and at the same time to prevent idleness, slackness, and hysterical self-in- dulgence, lis the most difficult problem head mistresses have to solve. It is for the mother, in the first instance, to look to the health of her girl, and to secure for her the necessary rest, to keep her at home in bed when she needs special care. But the school must help the mother, by putting no obstacles in her way, and by recognising the need for care. This co-ordination can only be achieved by happy and intimate relations between mothers and teachers, and teachers and girls, by relaxing the pressure of examinations, by the help of women doctors, and by leaving the education of girls in the control of women. It is impossible for men teachers to consider and care for the health of girls and women teachers as a woman can. Corpus Sanum 95 Another matter of importance for the day school is forbidding girls to sit in wet clothing. They must be compelled to have umbrellas and waterproofs, to " change their feet " as the Scotch have it, that is, shoes and stock- ings both, if wet ; there must be provision for drying the hair, skirts, etc., on wet or snowy mornings, when girls who have come a long distance to school can hardly with any care keep completely dry. All this is a great worry, but it must be done. Food and sleep are in general matters for the home ; but the school has its part. First, the amount of home work must be such as to admit of proper amount of sleep. This, according to Dr. Dukes, is at least as follows : — Under 13 loj hours. M 15 10 ., 19 9 Nowadays in towns most people do not sleep enough, and the school should use its influence in encouraging girls to sleep more. The old-fashioned exhortations to the sluggard are out of place to-day ; one should exhort girls to go to bed early always, and to put in extra sleep in the holidays. It may be well at this point to draw attention to the value of sending a girl to bed as a punishment. Her naughtiness is often due to nervous irritability and fatigue ; the absolute quiet and solitude of a day or two in bed, with no amusements and only simple food (such as bread and milk) is not only penal in most cases, but re- storative. Girls also need advice about food ; many do not eat enough, or enough of the right things. Consultation be- tween school and home may do good here ; in some cases the home arrangements need modification, especially as to breakfast. No girl should ever be allowed to come to school without a good breakfast ; if she cannot eat it, she is not 96 English High Schools for Girls fit to come to school. Nowadays, among the classes who send their girls to secondary schools, personal cleanliness is generally well cared for by home authorities, but some few younger girls need watching occasionally. The head master of a great urban day school has a home hygienic code for his boys which he calls the three B's — Bed, Bath, Breakfast. Teachers should know something about the signs of infectious illness ; measles and whooping-cough in a day school are the really troublesome things, as they are in- fectious beforehand. Some teacher on the staff should have a knowledge of first aid. Every school should have a room where girls can be sent to lie down, and there should be some competent woman in the place who is free to look after a suffering child without taking the teacher away from her lesson. A delicate growing girl is often much the better of being " turned out to grass " for a time, away from school for a term ; but she should not be lounging about at home, she should have a regular routine of life if with her mother, or should go away on a farm or to the sea or for treatment under proper conditions. The advice of a woman doctor is often very helpful in such cases. Dress with girls has an important bearing on health, and dress reform was advocated and encouraged more than thirty years ago by the pioneer women in education. The growth of games and gymnastics has done much, very much, for reform. Girls brought up to vigorous open-air exercise will not endure excessively tight, heavy, unhygienic clothing. This effect is one of the best results of the games movement. Far more harm has been done and is being done to women and their children by tight and unwhole- some dress, than is ever likely to be done by athletics for girls. Speaking generally, the tone of girls' public schools in England about dress is sound : neatness, simplicity and good sense prevail. Foreign visitors notice this, and they Corpus Sanum 97 are surprised that there is not more display, rivalry and vanity. We should be very much ashamed of ourselves if there were ! School authorities generally make sumptuary rules vjhich the homes on the whole loyally follow. Fortun- ately in England the highest social classes set the example of simplicity of dress for children and young girls ; and this makes it easier for the schools to enforce their regula- tions. The rules may require the wearing of a school hat or cap with the colours; forbid unnecessary ornaments, rings, necklaces, bracelets ; prescribe a certain arrangement of the hair ; forbid high heels ; require a special dress for gymnastics and games ; or a white dress with the school colours for public functions ; and so forth. Much is also done by personal influence and quiet private advice ; all this is part of moral training, as well as of physical. Tact is needed, lest the mother should feel her authority and taste interfered with, and sometimes there are difficulties. A weak school may have to give way : a strong school can stand up for what it thinks right. Indeed the girls' schools can do something in this direction to influence opinion about dress, and set a standard in a matter where the ex- travagance of the well-to-do women may be almost as injurious to national welfare as is drunkenness among the masses. The daily journey to and from school may affect health, and certainly affects manners. It must be under the control of the school authorities, that is, regulations made by the school for it must be obeyed. There has been a tendency sometimes for parents to think that the pupil was free from school control the moment he or she left the doors of the school building. This is not so ; the day schools must uphold their rights in the interests of the pupils themselves. The regulations must vary so much with local conditions that one cannot go into details ; trains, trams, walking, bicycling need different control ; 7 98 English High Schools for Girls rural, urban, and suburban neighbourhoods have different needs. It is found in practice that trams are much more suitable for girls coming to school than are trains ; municipal trams especially. Much can be done by prefects and monitors, and by friendly interest and care on the part of mistresses, to remove difficulties and yet avoid formal surveillance, which is contrary to the English spirit of freedom and self-control. Games. As we have seen, the introduction of games into girls' education began more than fifteen years ago. We can therefore estimate the effect from experience as well as from theory. The battle for games has not now to be fought ; the moral dangers due to an excessive indulgence in what is after all not the main business of life, either at school or afterwards, have already shown themselves clearly. Whether the physical injury due to excess in the case of girls, has already shown itself is disputed, and is a question for medical rather than educational authority. What matters to the school is that it should guard against excess, and be well aware of the very serious evils which may hence arise both to girls themselves and to the next gen- eration. The pendulum has probably swung too far in the direction of over-exertion, just as, years ago, girls were not allowed enough open-air exercise. This is especially true of the wealthier girls, who belong to the social classes in which men and boys care so much for games and sport that national efficiency is actually being impaired by their preoccupation. It would be a sad thing were it true of women, what A. C. Benson says of the men he knows: "If we are brought up ourselves to depend on games, and if we bring up our boys to depend on them, we are not able to do without them as we grow older ". ^ The head 1 From a College Window. Corpus Sanum 99 mistress of the Blackheath High School in her Presidential Address to the Association of Head Mistresses this year drew attention to the danger that girls were coming to think games the only form of pleasure or pastime, and that their days were too much filled up. Professor Sadler in his Huddersfield Report says the same thing : — In their excessive zeal for school games, there is reason to think that some English secondary schools are attaching too much importance to this side of school life. Compulsory parti- cipation in school games is not by any means a benefit to all girls. Dr. Jane Walker, at the National Union of Women Workers' Conference, 1906, is a third witness. She said : — So that, on all hands, judging from my own limited experi- ence alone, I feel compelled to give a warning note against making physical health and strength the principal aim of our national well-being. Far more important really is our intel- lectual supremacy, and immeasurably more important is our moral and spiritual prowess. There is a danger of making a fetish of exercise, and this is becoming increasingly marked amongst women. At this conference an afternoon was allotted to a careful discussion of the whole subject of games and gymnastics for girls, and reference should be made to the Official Report^ by those who wish 1 for further information. All the speakers, who represented home, school, colleges and the medical profession, recognised the moral value of games, both positively, in developing corporate life, teach- ing the virtues of co-operation, obedience and self-control, in little things, and negatively, in checking silly sentiment- ality, foolish chatter and hysterical morbidness. We may quote from the paper of Miss B. A. Clough of Newnham College : — ^ To be obtained at the Union Office, Parliament Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W., price is. 7* lOO English High Schools for Girls It is undeniable that they frequently occupy a place in girls' thoughts which might be filled by something more fruitful, but one has to take the probabilities into account, and consider what would be likely to be in the heads that games fill, and I incline to think there might easily be less wholesome matters. Games, I do believe, drive out much silliness ; they occupy the vacant space, and they also produce an antiseptic atmosphere. An active game is, I hold, more likely to produce a healthy atmosphere, a healthy outlook on things, than any other form of exercise, because of the concentration, the complete forget- fulness of self, and the quickening of the blood which ac- company it. Teachers know the truth of this ; a simple healthy tone, free from self-consciousness and nervous excitement, is much more easily secured in a school if the games are vigorous ; though in a day school, where the girls and teachers are not shut up in one another's exclusive society week after week, the need is probably less great than in a boarding school. On the other hand, the need for train- ing public spirit through games is greater in the day school, since the occasions for common action are less. Similarly all the speakers recognised the physical advan- tages and the physical dangers of games for girls. We may quote from Mrs. Corbett, who on that occasion repre- sented the mother's point of view : — / But there are serious dangers and these should be recognised ^nd guarded against by us mothers. The full and perfect life / of a woman contemplates her being a mother, and nothing must / be allowed to militate against her efficiency in this respect, her f citizenship demands it of her. During the years of change, and \ before growth has entirely finished, all the time indeed that she \ is physically incomplete, and that would be until she is two or V three and twenty, she must be discreet. Mothers are the only persons who can rightly direct the ath- leticism of the present day — teachers have the honour of their school or house at heart, and every consideration must be sacri- ficed to winning the match, but the mother can rule by reason and a wider knowledge, and can place the old head upon the Corpus Sanum loi young shoulders. Do not we all know of brilliant players for college or school ruined in health, at least for long years, by playing some violent game when physically unfit ? No one can regret such cases more than those who most approve of athletics for girls. We fear there are some young and inexperienced teachers, themselves exceptionally strong and vigorous w^omen, vi^ho may have given rise to Mrs. Corbett's reflec- tion on their excess of zeal. There was less unity of opinion as to the danger of mental over-absorption in games. The present writer ex- pressed the strongest view on this side : — The very charm and interest of games, of play, are them- selves a danger. Life is not all amusement, and young people are not sent to school merely to have a good time, but to be prepared for the duties and the troubles of later years. Boys' games do thus prepare them, men say, and it probably is so. But it is impossible to allow growing girls to risk the physical hardships and even suffering of some of the games which teach boys endurance — cross country running and Rugby football, for example. Girls' games, except for an occasional hack at hockey, must have the painful and dangerous element eliminated, and consequently they must necessarily miss the ascetic effect. Games thus become so delightful — we know they are delightful in themselves to boys — that girls and women come to care for nothing else. The claims of home, the interest of intellectual effort, the joys of art, the call of social work, and of duties even more sacred, all are disregarded for the mere physical pleasure of the game, and for the exhilaration of athletic success. That this is a very real danger, this absorption in games, a little ex- perience soon teaches one to-day, whether in society or in school. Some girls do tend to neglect for games their regular ordinary form work, not so much perhaps by leaving it undone, for a proper system of school discipline prevents that, as by diverting from it their main energy and thought. Each one of us has only a certain amount of vital force, and if it is spent on games, it is not there when wanted for work. " Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also " is a very deep saying ; life is too serious a thing for even a school girl to set her heart, as so many do, on the fairy gold of success in games. I02 English High Schools for Girls A younger woman, Miss G. Courtenay, an old high school girl, made a valuable addition to the discussion ; she thought that the abuse of games was due to very athletic schools where games were compulsory. A girl going to a school of that class became fascinated by games, to the exclusion of everything else. We shall see in Chapter XIV. that corporate life in school can be developed otherwise than by games. On the other hand there are secondary schools for girls where much more attention needs to be given to games than is at present the case: urban schools in congested areas; pupil teachers' centres; middle schools for girls of the social class who leave school at fifteen or sixteen ; rural schools in small places; many municipal secondary schools. The poorer middle class girl, who has to work hard to prepare for professional life, the lower middle class girl, whose home and social tradition are against athletic exercise for women, the country girl, who wants training in corporate life and public spirit, all these need games badly ; unfortunately it is often very difficult to get just these very girls to play. There is (in towns) no ground, no spare money for subscriptions, little leisure, and frequent disapprobation on the part of the home. At no other point in school life does the difference of social class show itself so distinctly as here. The upper class girl is likely to do and care too much for games ; the lower class girl does and care far too little. Thus different arrangements must be made for different schools and sets of girls. It is impossible to dogmatise or lay down detailed rules. There is one rule only, and that ancient indeed, " Not too much " (jjLTjSev dyav). In regard to the games chosen, it is important that they should be in the open air, should include a large number of players, and should possess the element of combination, Corpus Sanum 103 playing for one's side, not for oneself. The national game of cricket is the best, though of course the girls' game is not what the boys' is ; some would say it is not cricket at all. For a winter game hockey is popular ; some object to it as rough and leading to ungainliness. Lacrosse is better in some ways ; it is graceful and exciting, but more difficult and dangerous. Basket-ball or net-ball, a girls' game, is excellent ; it is like hockey or football in principle, but the goals are baskets or nets hung high up on posts, and the ball is thrown up by the hand and extended arm. Fives and lawn tennis are very good in themselves, but lack combination. Still they arouse interest, and lead to form matches and pleasant competitions, where girls play for their school or form, not for themselves. Fives takes little room or time; suits the winter and is cheap, once the courts have been built. It is a game for town schools with a bad climate. There is a very good account of games for girls in the Girls' School Year Booky which gives the argu- ments and organisation, details as to the leagues, and a careful account of the different games. In concluding what must needs be a superficial treat- ment of a subject that needs a book to itself, it should be noted that in a day school girls may, and often do, have opportunities out of school for games and physical training with their fathers and brothers, the girls they " know at home " and family friends. This is often on many grounds much the best way. Speaking generally the school should not seek to do what the home can do as well or better. This is a weighty reason, as well as others mentioned before, against compulsory school games for girls. CHAPTER VII. MENS SANA : CURRICULUM. After the healthy body comes the healthy mind : how is it to be made and kept healthy ? In other words, what are the best ways of intellectual education ? The answer divides itself into two parts, Curriculum, what we teach ; and Method, how we teach it. The first is thus formally defined : " An ordered sequence of studies, developing the whole nature, each taken at the time when the child is psychologically ready for it — each doing its part in train- ing the powers, and forming a complete outline or microcosm of the world of organised knowledge ". In this are included the three principles of curricula. The first is that of training. The school has to develop the various powers of the child, to make her think and act effectively. It is this principle which is responsible for the place of Latin in our plans ; it ought also to be responsible for the place of handwork as a compulsory study in every type of education. Historically the intro- duction of mathematics into the high school curriculum was due to the effort to check the inaccuracy and unreason which were then supposed to need special repression in women (Chapter I., p. 7). Second, we have the well-known theorem that the order of subjects in school life is conditioned by the laws of development of the child. The reasoning powers develop late ; hence geometry, algebra and Latin should not be introduced till twelve years of age. On the other hand, 104 Mens Sana : Curriculum 105 the imitative faculties are keen in childhood, and co- ordination of eye and hand easy. Physical and manual training should, therefore, be an important part of early education. The third, the value of knowledge^ is best stated in Nicholas Murray Butler's definition of education as ' ' the gradual adjustment to the spiritual possessions of the race ". There is a vast realm of spiritual inheritance, of knowledge, truth and beauty, won for us by the leaders of human thought, and forming the non-material part of our civilisa- tion. This is the right of our children ; from it we draw the subjects of our curriculum. Dr. Butler classifies these possessions as five-fold: — The child is entitled to his scientific inheritance, to his literary inheritance, to his aesthetic inheritance, to his institutional inheritance, and to his religious inheritance. Without them he cannot become a truly educated or a cultivated man.^ Science, literature and language, art, history and re- ligion must all be included in a complete education. These three principles lead us to a broad rather than to a narrow curriculum, for no narrow scheme of study can give to the child the fulness of its spiritual inheritance. The allgemeine Bildung of the German schools must be an ideal, including in it the acquisition of practical skill in some forms of handwork and bodily accomplishments which have much value as mental training. German pedagogy gives us in the work of Herbart, the great educational thinker (1776- 1 841), the deeper underlying principles of curricula. " Humanity," he said, "educates itself continuously, by the circle of thought which it begets." On the formation of the circle of thought {Gedankenkreis) depends the good, that is the enlightened will, which is the source of morality. Intel- 1 The Meaning of Education, pp. 17 et seq. London, 1893. io6 English High Schools for Girls lectual instruction helps to form this circle of thought by the presentations which the mind receives and understands. ** Both will and wisdom have their roots in the circle of thought, that is to say in the continuation and co-operative activity of the presentations acquired, and the true cultiva- tion of that circle instruction alone can give." This instruction depends on a many-sided interest, which is prompted by teaching, and is directed towards many objects. It will be seen that this psychology demands a broad curriculum, with emphasis on the humanities; Herbart's followers make history the centre of it. " The youth must see humanity in history." ^ Arnold, too, believed profoundly in the relation between intellectual and moral power, " the general union of moral and intellectual excellence". This was what he meant by moral thoughtfulness : " the inquiring love of truth going along with the devoted love of goodness ".^ He says in a Rugby sermon, " I have still found that folly or thoughtlessness have gone to evil ; that thought and manliness have been united with faith and goodness". History was, it is well known, his favourite study, and for this reason the promotion of moral vigour. The unity of education, the unity of history are his moving ideas ; and we shall fall short indeed of the true estimation of Arnold's work for the study of history, if we confine it to such matters as his co-ordination of geography with history. . . . Infinitely more important than all these important things was the clearness with which he himself apprehended, and taught others to apprehend, the bearing of literature and of history upon life, and of life, in its turn, upon literature and history. . . . Arnold, therefore, like Herbart, concentrates and unifies his curriculum ; but he does far more, he concentrates and unifies the whole of human life ; the core of his circle of studies '^The Science of Education. Herbart, translated by H. M, and E. Felkin. Sonnenschein, London, 1892. 2 See Findlay's/lmoW of Rugby. The University Press, Cambridge, 1897. Mem Sana : Curriculum 107 is active Christian citizenship, and their proportionate value depends upon the degree in which they help to make that citizenship intelligent and earnest.^ As we have seen in Chapter I., the curriculum of girls' high schools was formed historically by adding the boys' Latin and mathematics to the traditional English subjects, French and art, of the girls' education. When science came into the schools that, too, was added, and thus the curriculum has become terribly overcrowded, and a scattering of interest, over-pressure, superficial knowledge and cram have been encouraged. These evils are now being met in various ways, by an elective system for the later years of the school course, by a stratification of sub- jects, so that only a few need be learnt at once, and by correlating one subject with another, e.^:, history and geography, algebra and physics, drawing and nature study. It is one merit of the narrow curriculum that unity is preserved, that the pupil by giving a great deal of time to one subject is not distracted and confused, that she is continuously working in the same medium, and along the same lines, and that the trace of one day's work is followed by that of the next, and not obliterated by entirely different studies and subjects. In the tables at the end of this chapter will be found an attempt at stratification of subjects and concentration of interest.'^ We may now proceed to discuss briefly some of the chief subjects of instruction ; there is, however, a warning which must first be given. The subjects in a curriculum are means ; they are not really the material with which our art is concer ed. The children are our material ; the 1 H. L. Withers, The Teaching of History. Manchester, the University Press, 1904. 2 A valuable philosophical discussion from a somewhat different point of view will be found in Barnett's Common Sense in Education and Teaching, Chapters IV. and V. : '* Genesis of Curricula," " Manipulation of Curricula". The influence of national ideals on curricula is strikingly explained. io8 English High Schools for Girls studies are the means by which we affect it — though the real power lies in the personality of the teacher. The child comes into our class or our school ; we have to influence it. It would be possible to do this without any formal subjects of instruction ; ^ a brilliant and original teacher can influence and educate pupils by questioning, talking at large, as apparently Pestalozzi did in his lessons about the holes in the paper of the school-room walls. But, in any case, the child incorporates what we give into the substance of its mind ; to her the subjects are material for growth. First of these subjects is the group called the humanities, English literature and language, history and geography; with these should be classed pedagogically religious in- struction, for which we prefer the traditional title divinity. These subjects, essential for all, are the part of the curri- culum most valuable to a girl ; it is from these she must receive the mental and emotional training for her future life as a woman. They are in general well taught and popular in girls' high schools. Unfortunately, the influence of examinations on the best teaching of this kind is generally adverse. Much that is claimed for the effect of classics on boys as a humanising influence is found by experience to be provided for girls through the humanities in English. The excellence of this part of the work of high schools is one of the valuable elements they can add to English education — a fact fully recognised by several eminent authorities among men inspectors and experts. History ought to be indeed the centre of the curriculum ; it widens a girl's ideas, teaches her human nature, and lifts her above ^" Ce sont moins les mati^res de renseignement qui importent que la maniere dont elles sont enseignees. Les programmes n'ont qu'une valeur secondaire. Ce qui est essentiel, ce n'est pas tel ou tel precede de culture, mais la culture elle-meme, pourvu qu'elle soit assez profonde pour atteindre les sources memes de la vie intellectuelle et morale " (M. Ribot, Enquete sur V enseignement secondaire. Noe. 1196, p. 30). Mem Sana: Curriculum 109 pettiness, and narrow thoughts.^ " Vous enseignez la science mere," said an eminent Frenchman, of history teaching. Be this as it may, it is an essential education for a mother, if she is to teach her children culture and citizenship. Traditionally, French has always been a subject in girls' secondary education ; it still holds its own. Not only is this language of practical use, but it is worth learning for its own sake. The training in the use of language through grammar, and in the mental faculties of discrimination, accuracy and reasoning power given by the study of French is almost as good as that derived from the study of Latin ; further, the appreciation of another civilisation, another way of living, the broadening influence of understanding even a little of the literature and life of a foreign country, are of peculiar importance to a girl, whose horizon is often very limited, who may suffer all her days from narrow prejudices unless the school seeks to enlighten her. One way to do this is by the study of a people rich, as are the French, in just those elements of civilisation in which England is deficient. The instruction, therefore, should be literary and not wholly grammatical, and should be illustrated by what the Germans call " Realien," things from the real life of the foreign land. Next will come either Latin or German, for those who have time and ability to learn more than one foreign language. Latin at present is elbowing German out of the 1 " The question how to give a general education which shall be at once wide and at the same time not superficial, has been made immensely more complicated. It is to that question, on the solution of which our intel- lectual vitality in the future more than on any other depends, that we shall have to address ourselves in the twentieth century. " We must lighten our curricula not by throwing away this or that indis- pensable limb of the organic unity of knowledge, but by making those curri- cula consciously represent that unity, by showing the organic connection of their different parts and obliging each subject to play into the hands of all. When we seriously set ourselves to carry out that task, we shall find that history, in its widest sense, as the record of the process by which man has come to be what he is, already furnishes a subject by means of which it will be possible to correlate the various aspects of knowledge as they have in positive fact been correlated in the gradual upward progress of humanity" (H. L. Withers, The Teaching of History). no English High Schools for Girls girls' schools ; a clever girl can, however, learn all three, German last. Latin has such value in grammatical training and as an aid to the study of English that even two years of it are worth having. We have never heard a woman regret having learnt Latin, even a little Latin, in her youth ; we have heard many a one regret ignorance of it. Rome lies like a great rock at the basis of the civilisation of Western Europe, and no person is completely educated who knows nothing of Latin. At the same time girls ought not to be forced to learn it. Those who have only a short time at school, or have to begin to work at bread -studies early, as well as those who are dull or delicate, cannot afford the time and energy. It is customary to begin the language at twelve plus ; with careful teaching and the elimination of the unfit, the forms make progress at a rate which surprises the master in a boys' school ; in the end, girls who care for classics (and these are some of the ablest in our schools) do very well. They begin Greek at fifteen and often excel in it. Mathematics should be kept at a minimum for girls ; it does not underlie their industries as it does so many of the activities of men — engineering, building, the art of war, finance, manufactures. It is needed for training only ; an excess of it, the subject being useless to them and discon- nected with their life, has a hardening effect on the nature of women. In the opinion of the present writer, who, it may be noted, took the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge, it is much to be regretted that the universities make mathematics compulsory in their entrance examinations, and that the Board of Education now requires the subject for pupil teachers. Harmony, which can be made as hard as one pleases, or physics, might be taken as alternatives, the latter being more practical and less abstract than geometry or algebra. Science, on the other hand, is essential for every woman, not only as training, but as a preparation for domestic Mens Sana : Curriculum 1 1 1 duties and the care of children. For the latter duty, nature study, going on to botany and zoology, is the proper sub- ject ; these life sciences are as important in the woman's characteristic activity for the young of the race as are physics and chemistry for men's industries. The latter sciences in a formal sense are not necessary for girls ; they should come late in the school course for specialists. General elementaiy physics may be taught quite early ; this should be developed along the lines laid down by Professor Smithells, of Leeds, in his paper " School Train- ing for the Home Duties of Women," read before the British Association at York in 1906. Physics for girls should be the physics of the household. He says {School World, September, 1906) : — I have found it possible, as many others have done, to arrange a course of science lessons in which scientific discipline and scientific method can be inculcated by simple experimental work, based entirely on matters of the household and of daily life ; where the information required is truly useful knowledge ; and where the minds of the pupils are awakened to the fact that the household is, as I have said before, a laboratory of applied science that may constantly engage the intelligence. Syllabuses of this kind of work have been before the public for a long time, and among the earliest and best are those framed by Mr. Heller. We may call the subject domestic science. It is compounded of physics, chemistry, physiology, bacteriology; but these are hard names for simple things, and I prefer to suppress them. Such compulsory science in the middle stage of a girls' cur- riculum would go far to remove the reproach that the exist- ing system of girls' education has not taken sufficient account of the fact that the majority of girls are to be home-makers. Before a girl leaves school she should have a short com- pulsory course on the laws of health. It need not be scientific hygiene. It may, perhaps, best be taught authoritatively, as binding law, and as connected with moral and religious training. 112 English High Schools for Girls Technical subjects will be discussed in Chapter XIII. Manual training is traditional in girls' education, and rightly so. Sewing is the most important form, and if taught intelligently (the garments being drafted and cut out by pupils), and if eye strain is avoided, is very valuable. It should be compulsory. Drawing is not so essential, but it is very desirable and popular, especially with parents. Other forms of hand training should be used, according to age, opportunities and the type of girl. Music, too, is traditional for girls, and claims, perhaps, too much of the time of many. Over and over again in later life women are heard to regret bitterly the time they wasted over the piano. This subject is always an extra in a high school. Class-singing, on the other hand, is part of the ordinary curriculum ; voice production and sight singing are often well taught, and school singing, after the Harrow fashion, is enjoyed in many schools, some having their own songs. As a conclusion to this part of the chapter we may again quote Professor Sadler's opinion on the curriculum for girls (Huddersfield Report, p. 49) : — Much literature and history, good teaching of the mother- tongue and of foreign languages on the best modern methods ; provision for instruction in Latin, and in Greek for those girls who might require it ; sound training in mathematics and a course of general elementary science with instruction in botany and the laws of health ; the development of artistic interests, and of skill in vocal music and in drawing should receive special care. . . . No life is really happy unless there runs through it a vein of deep pleasure in some form of art. As regards standards of work for a given age, it is all but impossible to give definite statements, since children and schools vary, and must vary, unless the best traditions of English education, freedom and variety are to be driven out. But there are two points at which one can fix a reasonable standard of attainment. One is the matricula- Mens Sana : Curriculum 113 tion at seventeen plus (sixteen or even earlier for clever girls, eighteen plus for more delicate or backward pupils). This requires English (with or without history), mathe- matics, at least one language, and two other subjects. The official regulations of the various universities and their examination papers give the standard required (University of London, South Kensington ; Joint Matriculation Board of the Northern Universities, Manchester ; the University, Birmingham). Oxford and Cambridge have no actual matriculation ; the Senior Local with certain subjects is equivalent to, with others is much below, matriculation. The Higher Certificate of the Joint Board of Oxford and Cambridge is in some respects, especially in classics, above the matriculation standard. It is an eighteen years of age examination. These various examinations are now being equated, so that one will serve {pro tan to) for the other. Many of the good girls' high schools, especially in the South, take the Higher Certificate in the sixth form. Others prefer to take matriculation in the upper fifth and lower sixth and be free in the sixth to work for college scholarships. The other point for which one can state a definite standard is at twelve, when pupils should come in with Junior Scholarships from elementary schools. They should have the following attainments : — English. — To write an essay on an interesting subject, to read clearly from an ordinary book, and write in a good hand an ordinary piece of dictation from a newspaper. They may be required to recite poetry. Grammar should not be required. A rithmetic. — The ordinary rules, simple and compound, with the weights and measures used in ordinary life ; good decimals (not recurring), easy fractions, easy areas. Geography. — British Isles, and outlines of world geo- graphy. Easy map drawing from memory. 8 114 English High Schools for Girls General Knowledge. — History stories ; leading dates in British history ; some lives of great men and women ; facts in natural science and practical life. (This can be tested orally, with a written paper as supplementary.) Handwork. — Sewing and elementary drawing. Physical Training and Development. — A fair growth and chest measurement for age of pupil, a test in walking and swimming and in easy singing at sight. The latter section is most important, and should receive more attention than is the case. Credit should be given in any competition for physical excellence. We now give details and tables of curricula. Junior Department, Five to Nine Years of Age. The three essential groups, English, science, and physical and manual training, may equally divide the school hours, each receiving about a third of the time. At first much of the English time must be given to the teaching of read- ing. The elements of number and the simpler facts of nature study come to the child in school as an extension of that general knowledge of the world around her which she has been acquiring from the cradle, and so arithmetic and science can be introduced from the beginning. Nature study should be correlated with the instruction of the mother-tongue, especially with composition and reading. Geography, beginning with the study of the child's im- mediate surroundings, should be taught from the very first, and should receive considerable attention. History at first must take the form of stories and biography. Throughout this stage most careful instruction in English litreature, suited to the age of the children, should be held as of the greatest importance ; for much of this poetry may well be used. The grandest monument of English prose, our English Bible, will also be studied in divinity lessons. ■^"^^o Mens Sana : Curriculum "5 That a third of the school time should be given to physical and manual training, drill, calisthenics, drawing, writing, sewing, singing, swimming, is an ideal happily realised in many schools for young children. The distribution of time when secondary education proper begins at ten years of age may best be seen from the following tables. They are of course only suggestions, but they have been found to work well in practice, if and when the classification into A and B forms (see Chapter III., pp. 43-47) is properly made. CURRICULUM OF A SECONDARY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. Five years' course, 10 to 15, before specialisation begins. Morning session of 30 to 26 periods a week, of varying length, total 18 to 19 hours in class. Years Forms Ages Divinity ... English ^ . Geography V Correlated History J . Arithmetic'! Geometry >- Correlated Algebra J . . French . Latin or German Nature Study and Biology General Elementary Science Sewing .... Drawing . Singing . Gymnastics Games Total Lower II. lO-II. 30 11. Upper II. 2 I 2 Volunt 30 III. Upper III. 12-13. 2 4 I 2 2 2 2 3 5 2 Afterno pulsor 2 Afternoo I ary in Aft 28 IV. Lower IV. 13-14. 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 4 4 2 on Work y in One n Work: 2 ernoons 27 V. Upper IV. 14-15- 2 3 I 2 I 2 2 3 4 2 2 : Com- Year I Voluntary 26 If less time is given to a subject already begun, or it is dropped for the year, care should be taken to work it in as far as possible with other subjects. Drawing should be correlated with science. Gymnastic periods may be taken for occasional rest by older girls. Voluntary extra gymnastics in afternoons. 8* Ii6 English High Schools for Girls CORRESPONDING COURSE FOR B FORMS. No Latin and physics, very little geometry and algebra. More English, handwork and physical training than A Forms. Years . I. II. III. IV. V. Forms . Lower II. (as A Forms). II. B. III. B. Lower IV. B. Upper IV. B. Divinity . 3 3 2 2 2 English ^ iira 5 5 5 5(3) 4(3) Geography I g ^ 2 2 2 2 2 History J 3 " I 2 2 2 2 Arithmetic 5 4 5 3 2 Geometry . 2 2 Algebra . — — — — 2 French 5 5 5 5(3) 4 German . (5) (4) Nature Study . I 2 2 2 Domestic Science — — — 2 2 Drawing , I 2 2 2(0) Sewing . 2 I Aft ernoon Work: Vol untary Singing . 2 I I After noon Work: Voluntary Gymnastics {' /3 I 2 2(1) 2(1) Games Afternoo ns: Volunt ary 26 Total 30 30 28 27 Drawing correlated with nature study. Gymnastic periods may be taken for rest. In fourth and fifth years periods bracketed allow for optional German. It will be noticed that in the year when a new language is begun a larger proportion of time is given to it. Physics (General Elementary Science) should be correlated and connected with the mathematical subjects. It is a great advantage if mathematics and physics can be taken by the same teacher. The correlation of English, history and geography means that these almost form one subject, and the pupil's energies are not scattered, but concentrated. Only in this way can these subjects do their work in train- ing the mind and helping to form the "circle of ideas". Mens Sana : Curriculum 117 Middle School Curriculum. For girls whose secondary education is to begin at twelve and last till sixteen the subjoined table is suggested ; it is found in practice that the first three years of such a curri- culum can be fitted into the years III., IV. and V. in the former tables ; the fourth year, being one of specialisaton, must be specially provided for. Professor Sadler, writing of the middle school, which prepares for home life, business and elementary school teaching, states in his Sheffield Report (p. 33) : — These girls should all have a thorough good training in Eng- lish ; they should have a sound training in mathematics ; their foreign language, taught on modern lines but with great stress on grammatical accuracy, should be French (or, if thought well, German) ; and probably the best choice of scientific subjects would be botany and hygiene. Vocal music, drawing and the arts of home life should receive special attention. In girls' education there should be a strong artistic element. They should be taught to love and admire beautiful things, beautiful characters and beautiful literature. Specialisation. At fifteen some degree of specialisation may begin, especially the study of a third language, German or Greek. The former is much easier after Latin has been studied, since its real difficulties are grammatical. Chemistry should never be begun till this stage. Nature study or biology may now be differentiated into botany and zoology. Girls who take to languages will have to givQ up science at this point, and those who take to science keep on in general only one language, which should be German. Some girls will choose their optional subjects so as not to make any definite decision yet. The question of options at this stage needs very careful consideration on ii8 English High Schools for Girls N N m rf Th t3 t^ CO 1 H N N M o ' CO NG Pup: hers' RSE. :ic and matics >~. X! • • •ri O P « « .^ a. W) TEND Tea Co ithm( Math ience rt be c 9 ^ '^ ^ < ^ \ . N , , w * tl> • • »d • ' ' CO J3 x: S o p 4„- Mo .2 C o • • e c • • So c W II X3 .2 C Business C Arithmetic Knowledge Wares Book-keepi] respondei etc., etc. Art . N N N t^ N o (U • • •rt • • History Geography . Literature and C Domestic Arts Course, Domestic Scienc Arithmetic . Hygiene . Cookery an Household Management Art . N H CO ■* Tf IT) '<^ CO ~>^ 1 t c 1 « ^ . . O -X! ' 5 S • • 2^ • O 3 is T3 ISd ■>< T3 Ocn > ^ . . c . c •w • •^ rt • •2« ^cd W K So JobD < istory eograph; iterature sition [Extra rench erman o lish . rithmeti( matics cience Sewing Commei Art . ffiOJ feO < (n ^ ^ T^ M c^ M N H i ^ 5 S to H ■ hn n c CO 0) 6 a CO Arithme Geomet Nature ! Sewing Drawinj Singing N N W T^ m •a J, "»^ N N N N H • • • ,^*..^ • M . . . to .>> :>. o Humanities. History . Geography Literature Composition Grammar Reading, etc CO • if Science. Arithmetic Elemental gebra . Elementary Physics Nature Stud; Other Subje Sewing . Drawing . Singing . Mens Sana : Curriculum 119 the part of the girl, her teachers and her parents ; the matter should be gone into and finally settled after an interview with the head mistress.^ It will be at this stage sometimes that a girl will enter the technical departments (see Chapter XI 1 1.) and begin a special course in the domestic arts, etc., etc. For girls who remain at school to the matriculation standard or later, the alternate courses in the following tables are suggested. They represent what has actually been carried on for some years in the Manchester High School for Girls ; this scheme has been found so success- ful that it will probably remain, though the difficulty of arranging the time-tables for the various options is con- siderable, and the amount of teaching required costly in proportion, since the divisions for some subjects are small. It will be seen there are at least eight options. Most schools would not allow all these, either on the theoretical ground {e.g. they might make one science subject or Latin compulsory) or on the practical ground of cost. The best courses educationally are I. (^), II. {a), III. {a). Some schools warmly favour the option, Latin, chemistry, French. It has to us the fault of leading nowhere, neither to arts, science nor the teaching of younger pupils. It will probably be forbidden in the Manchester High School, as will be French, biology, geography in section III. Clearly each school must have its own system of elective courses in higher forms. ^"The elective system is much more costly than the prescribed; but it is also so much more effective for all educational purposes, whether mental or moral, that it advances steadily in all the faculties of arts and sciences, and never takes a backward step " (President Eliot of Harvard). I20 English High Schools for Girls 1 o H For General Culture. For Modern Language and Music Students. For Classical Students. French to be dropped at 15. Girls gener- ally take Biology, i.e. Botany and Zoology. Abler girls take Latin : the second option very easy and not ideal. 1 .