CHAPTER X

STATE AID FOR GIRLS

While private effort in the form of companies, endowments, and individual enterprises was building up a complete, though unorganised, system of girls’ education, another system totally unconnected was being gradually developed by aid of the State. For a long time the two were regarded as parallel, with no possible point of contact, except such as might be artificially established by means of scholarships. Now we are beginning to think that we may have mistaken the direction of the lines, and that there are some points of connection between the Board School and the High School pupil.

This change is due to the growing conviction that the education of its citizens is a matter of which a State should take cognisance. Far behind Germany in its adoption of this principle, England did at last wake up to the necessity of educating all her citizens. Whether out of self-defence, to ‘educate our masters,’ as Mr. Lowe bade us do, or, as Plato would have counselled, to make the men and women of the State as good as possible, the idea of universal education has at last gained a hold in this country. Very slowly, and with immense opposition on the part of the classes who regarded learning as their own peculiar privilege, and were jealous of any intrusion in what they considered their private domain. But they were powerless to hinder; when once the little flame was kindled, no force could avail to extinguish it. From the moment that one generation educated in the new schools took their place as voters, the system was secured. The democracy soon realised that education was a levelling agency, and that it was their interest both to maintain and improve it.

It is difficult for those who are familiar with our elementary education to realise how recent is its establishment in England, and how still more a matter of yesterday the full use of the opportunities offered. England was the last of the great European countries to accept the doctrine of the responsibility of the State for education. Schools for the poorer classes were for a long time either non-existent or a matter of local, largely denominational, effort. The first grant of public money to schools was made in 1832, when, without any previous legislation on the subject, the sum of £20,000 for this purpose appeared in the Estimates. Seven years later this was increased to £30,000, and by an order in Council a special committee of the Privy Council was established, with its own staff of officers to supervise the work. This was the first beginning of the Education Department. Thus gradually, almost imperceptibly, the State was beginning to intervene in education. When in 1858 the Duke of Newcastle’s Commission was appointed to inquire into the whole state of popular education, it found that much had already been done, but the great need was for some systematic control. The result of its findings was the celebrated Revised Code of 1861, whose main provisions were:—

‘1. That a school must be in approved premises.

‘2. That each child must make a certain number of attendances.

‘3. That children must pass individual examinations in reading, writing, and arithmetic.’

Thus originated the much praised and much abused system of ‘payment by results,’ about which so many a contest has waged.

Up to 1870, the whole system had grown up out of administrative machinery, without direct intervention of the legislature. Voluntary effort originated the schools, Treasury grants assisted them. The Education Act of 1870 was intended, to quote the words of its author, Mr. Forster, ‘to complete the voluntary system, and to fill up gaps.’ Its object was not so much to create schools as School Boards. Where voluntary effort was, by inspection, proved insufficient, a district could be called upon to elect a School Board, with power to raise a rate. A subsequent Act, by establishing school attendance committees for non-School Board districts, completed the system of local control; and the 1880 Act made attendance compulsory on all children up to ten (since altered to eleven), and forbade the employment of any children between ten and thirteen who had not reached a standard to be fixed for each district by its own local authority. Those who could not reach this by fourteen might claim the dunce’s privilege.

The School Boards found plenty of work before them. For some years they were chiefly occupied in drawing into the schools the great masses of the entirely uneducated; and the three R’s, which was all they could aim at, came to be regarded in many quarters as the ultimate aim of elementary school instruction. But this was a temporary stage, which had to be gone through before the red-brick school-house had become a regular feature of town and village throughout the kingdom. Education was compulsory till the age of ten; children who passed through all the standards would remain at school till about twelve or thirteen. For the masses that might be sufficient; for a select few it was either too little or too much. It served to kindle in their minds a love of knowledge, and to reveal a special inclination for intellectual pursuits, without offering the means of satisfying it. Gradually the need of building a second story on this lower edifice became manifest. A subject much debated during the last few years is the question whether this should be planted on the top of the primary building, or provided by special avenues leading from the elementary schools to existing secondary institutions. But while educationalists were discussing matters in the abstract, the necessities of the case were compelling the existing schools to build their own top story. When the Secondary Education Commission of 1894 came to discuss the best methods of establishing continuation schools, they found that a considerable number were already at work in different parts of the country. The change had come about little by little. Clever children had passed through the standards at an age when it was impossible or inadvisable to set them to work; it was natural that the school should be unwilling to turn them away. Thus originated an ex-sixth standard, and gradually the pressure of the Boards upward brought about the extension of the parliamentary grant to a new standard—the seventh—in which more advanced subjects of study received recognition. Thus while the obligatory subjects still remain reading, writing, and arithmetic, with needlework for the girls and drawing for the boys, the optional and specific subjects—of which, however, no child may take more than a very limited number—now range over several sciences, languages, and mathematics, as well as what are popularly called technical subjects. The great mass of schools are still obliged to confine themselves to elementary work; but with the introduction of other subjects into the code, a new element has entered the schools, and has without doubt ‘come to stay.’ The next development after the seventh standard was a system of ex-standard classes, which in large schools could be worked without a great addition to the staff. In particular, the instruction of the pupil-teachers introduced some more advanced classes; and as time went on, parents who had themselves enjoyed the benefits of education showed themselves more and more willing to leave their children at school as long as the school was willing to keep them. In this way the ex-seventh standard developed into the Higher Grade Elementary school.

This name belongs properly to two different types of school. The Higher Grade proper begins at the fifth standard, and gives an education for three or four years beyond the seventh. But the term is also applied to a school which includes all the standards, and gives more advanced instruction to a small number of pupils who remain after passing through these. The latter is the kind usually found in London; the former is popular in large manufacturing towns, especially in the north, and it is this which is stepping in to fill an important gap in the secondary system of the country.

These schools mark the existence of a new and vigorous educational impulse arising from below. They are a natural, though apparently unexpected, development of the elementary school, which, according to the words of the Act, is one ‘at which elementary education is the principal part of the education there given.’ Since the great mass of children do not go beyond the fifth standard, it is convenient in large towns to draw into a single school all who propose to continue their education, and by a systematic course of further study to encourage them to stay on as long as possible. Thus a secondary school has grown up so naturally and quietly on the top of the elementary, that many persons are hardly aware of its existence.

This sudden addition of a four years’ advanced course would obviously be impossible without funds, and the Education Department is officially unaware of the existence of any pupils beyond the seventh standard. The good fairy who steps in here is none other than that much abused South Kensington Department of Science and Art. This department, which, justly or unjustly, has come to be regarded as a red-tape-bound machine for examining and conferring grants by a sort of automatic process, has only of late years been brought into connection with day-schools. Though its grants began as early as 1837, their object was chiefly to encourage evening classes, and make cheap instruction possible for those men and women whose occupation or income shut them out from the ordinary means of education. An examination which could be used for the purpose of earning income naturally became popular; and in spite of protests from many quarters, in particular from some artists, who regarded the system of drawing-teaching as mechanical and cramping, there has been little diminution in its popularity as a money-producing agency. The establishment of technical institutes gave it a fresh impulse, since the adoption by these of the South Kensington examinations gave a welcome addition to the institute’s funds; and as the money for this purpose is supplied by annual votes in the Estimates, and not by a rate, it provokes none of that opposition which a local rate for any object, no matter how desirable, is sure to encounter.

The connection between South Kensington and the day-schools has grown little by little. The grants were originally meant for evening-schools, but there appeared no reason why day-schools should not also earn it, provided they were willing to send in their pupils for the evening examinations, which for some years were the only ones held. As early as 1872, the department had devised a regular scheme of instruction for schools that systematically followed its courses. Under certain conditions, schools under local management, approved by the department, might be registered as ‘Organised Science Schools.’ A certain class stamp was given them by requiring that the pupils should as a whole belong to the ‘industrial classes,’ the £400 income limit being used to define the term. Payments were made for success in examination: for Science, £2 for a pass in an elementary subject; £2, 10s. and £5, respectively, for a second or first-class in an advanced stage; and £4 and £8 for a second and first in honours. Extra grants were made for certain subjects. No payment was made unless at least twenty-eight lessons had been given to the class, or unless at least twenty had been attended by the individual pupil. Payments on similar principles were made for Art. The Organised Science School could also claim an attendance grant, which made it a more profitable undertaking. In return, a school was bound to allot fifteen hours a week to subjects taken under the department. As a matter of fact most schools gave more. There was money in Science, Mathematics and Drawing. Geography, History, Languages and Literature were unremunerative. They must go to the wall.

Such was the course which, originally designed for evening students, was gradually gaining favour in day-schools. A child who passed beyond the standards must still earn money for his school, and this could only be done by means of these South Kensington grants. Hence the wide diffusion of the Organised Science School, in spite of its too early specialisation, and the undue stress laid on grant-earning.

This arrangement marked the triumph of red-tape and apotheosis of the examination system. The narrowness of the curriculum made it unsuitable for many boys, and almost all girls. As attempts were made to adopt it more generally for the sake of the grant, condemnation became frequent. The obligatory fifteen hours’ Science were complained of; in 1895 new regulations reduced them to thirteen, and introduced a general _viva voce_ inspection, which was to take cognisance of literary subjects as well. Grants are still given only for Science and Art, but the other side is not wholly neglected. Ten hours must nominally be given to literary subjects, though this is held to include manual instruction for boys and cookery or needlework for girls. Less stress is laid on examination. In the elementary course, payments are made wholly on the results of inspection, and in the advanced course partly on inspection and partly on examination. The arrangements are extremely complicated, but they amount to—(1) an attendance grant on all students who have attended a minimum number of times; (2) a variable grant on each student; (3) grants for practical work; (4) payments on examination results in the case of advanced students of Science and Art; (5) payments for manual instruction, cookery, needlework, etc. Such are the means of financing a Science School (the term now adopted), and schools of this description are often found serving the purpose of continuation departments to elementary schools. Since 1897 examinations have also been held in the day-time.

A higher grade school which systematically organises its upper department is divided into upper and lower school, the former under the cognisance of South Kensington, and the latter of the Education Department. A four years’ course in the upper school usually leads to matriculation. But although they are in a sense two distinct schools, they fit into each other as the primary and grammar schools do in America. The methods are the same in both, the organisation similar, and children pass from one to the other without that breach of continuity which makes the transition from the elementary to the high school so sudden, and often so unprofitable. It is this continuity which conduces so largely to the success of the higher grade schools, and accounts for the extraordinary rapidity of their growth. As many as seven or eight hundred pupils have been known to enter one of these schools on the opening day; three hundred of these had free places, the rest paid small fees.

There are at present in England 169 Schools of Science, with an attendance of 20,879. What proportion of these are girls it is impossible to ascertain. A large proportion of these science departments are in higher grade schools. Although a higher grade school is not necessarily a science school, while science schools are sometimes found as departments of grammar schools or other institutions, the two are found in such frequent combination that the terms Higher Grade and Science School are not infrequently used as synonymous.

Of these schools the best known is probably the one at Leeds so ably directed by Dr. Forsyth. It is established in a huge block of buildings, and has two divisions—one for boys and one for girls—with a central double staircase opening into long corridors, separated from class-rooms by glass partitions. Its class-rooms are large and airy; it is admirably equipped with apparatus, etc., and has a good playground for the boys, though the girls are restricted to the use of the roof. With its chemical laboratory for 120 students, its physical laboratory, large lecture-room, workshop, gymnasium, etc., its large staff, and 1800 pupils, of whom about half are in or over Standard VII., it testifies with all the eloquence of material fact to the vigorous development of this new educational force. The nature of the work done in these propitious surroundings is best described in the Principal’s own words:—‘On a basis of elementary education it is intended to superadd a system of higher education which, at a moderate charge, will train pupils for industrial, manufacturing, and professional pursuits. This system of instruction will have its beginnings in the elementary school, but will be practically carried out in a three years’ course beyond the standards. It will embrace such courses as:—

1. The Classical (or Professional), in which Latin, Mathematics, Science, and Drawing form the chief subjects.

2. The Modern (or Mercantile), in which French or German, Commercial Geography, Mathematics, Science, and Drawing will receive most attention.

3. The Scientific (or Technical), in which Mathematics, Science, and Drawing form the leading subjects.

A school of this size can, of course, be broken up into a number of separate departments, since these numbers would, in any case, necessitate parallel classes, and the work of the upper school is greatly facilitated by carrying down such subjects as Latin, French, and Elementary Science as low as the fifth standard. This school takes pupils from the second standard. The fee throughout is 9d. a week. It contains a very important Organised Science department, but this only represents part of the work of the school. The curriculum of the girls differs but slightly from that of the boys. They take cookery and similar subjects instead of manual instruction, and calisthenics instead of gymnastics. At one time they were allowed to substitute botany for some of the mathematics, apparently with excellent results.

Similar schools, though not quite so large, are in existence at Manchester, Cardiff, Gateshead, etc.—in fact, almost every large town in England now has, at least, one school of this kind. At Leeds boys and girls are separated in the standards, but work together in the upper school, where the proportion of girls is very small. At Cardiff the two schools are distinct and under different heads, but the highest (matriculation) class is mixed. The plan of putting boys and girls together under the headmaster in the upper school appears to be gaining ground. This seems a mistake, since in schools of this kind the needs of boys and girls are of necessity very different. As far as boys are concerned, the continuation school of the working classes is bound, in fulfilment of its twofold function, ‘to carry on education beyond the elementary stage without breach of continuity, and to fit children for their future occupation’; to lay the chief stress on science, mechanical drawing, and similar subjects, which may help the future artisan to take a higher place in his trade. For girls the position is different. In fact, science schools were never meant for them, but they gradually gained admittance for want of a corresponding school of their own. Some persons think it a good course for intending teachers; for the general run of girls it cannot be considered suitable. The most crying need for them just now seems complete separation from the boys’ department, and some other scheme than that of science examinations for purposes of financing. A girls’ continuation school can hardly be a place for specialising. With due allowance for all possible outlets for feminine energy, it still remains a fact that the great mass of women are likely to lead a more or less domestic life, and the special training for what has been called the trade of ‘home-making’ does not necessitate a four years’ course of arduous study. A girl’s future, too, is harder to anticipate. She may marry and keep house, or she may work for her living, or she may do both, either successively or simultaneously. What she needs is good all-round training; if along with this she can get some good practical and theoretical instruction in domestic economy so much the better. But cooking and washing must not absorb as much time as boys give to chemistry and physics, else we run the risk of disgusting our girls for ever with household work. It is absurd to confound a domestic art with a theoretical and practical science, for it can only to a very limited degree replace mental training. This a girl can get from a variety of studies. The more general her curriculum, the better will she be prepared for the very miscellaneous demands of her after life. A certain number will doubtless pass through the intermediate school to the university college, but this may be done without excessive specialisation, and the number who remain long enough to make use of such opportunities is likely to be much smaller in the case of girls than boys. If a fair proportion stay for two years after the seventh standard, we should be well satisfied. If the parents have made sacrifices in order to keep them at school till fifteen, it is time for the majority at any rate to be apprenticed for their future work, or make a place for themselves in their own homes. A girl’s preparation for life is not entirely to be sought at school; matriculation is not an end in itself, and a girl who has not sufficient ability to win a scholarship to a secondary school, or a special aptitude for teaching, will do better to turn her attention to more lucrative fields of manual or commercial work. The school that, failing to recognise this, endeavours to drive all its pupils through the same examination mill is neglecting part of its duty, and taking too narrow a view of education. A two years’ course is what the majority of girls need to fill the interval between the seventh standard and the age of apprenticeship. If we could give this to all, and something more to the few, the State would not be neglecting its daughters.

Since under present circumstances these schools cannot be worked without some help from South Kensington, various experiments are being tried in organisation, to enable a school to earn some grant and yet pay more regard to the needs of girls than is usually done in higher grade schools. Some adopt the plan of Science Classes instead of Science Schools, registering for examination purposes the classes in science, drawing, etc., without offering up the thirteen obligatory hours on the altar of money earning. Unfortunately this plan is less advantageous from the pecuniary standpoint, and many a schoolmistress will declare with a sigh that there is nothing for it but to resort to the Science School. It is not so good for the girls, but it pays better.

Some day, before too long, a Secondary Education Act may enable us to change all that. Meantime we must give to South Kensington the honour of stepping in when education was languishing for want of funds, and helping us to build the upper story for our board school boys and girls. This department, like the county councils which administer the Technical Instruction Acts, has no power to subsidise subjects outside its own lawful purlieus, nor can it, while we lack a recognised educational authority, award its money grants by other means than inspection and examination. Thus the intermediate school is being forced through the mill of ‘payment by results,’ from which the elementary school has at last escaped. Perhaps this was a necessary stage for both to pass through; and though some victims fell by the way and there was some injustice done, yet it served to establish the general standard of efficiency which has made the institution of more liberal methods in board schools possible. Similarly the stern South Kensington Department may help to establish a better system of science teaching through its careful inspection and insistence on practical work, and it may certainly claim to have ‘succeeded in doing what no other system could have done, carrying science instruction all over the country without ever raising any sectarian difficulty of any kind.’[18] The county councils and the Science and Art Department have become our most important educational authorities, for the very simple reason that they alone have money at their disposal. Both are limited in their operations in a manner that forces them to be unjust to some most important branches of study. Legislation can and must alter this in the immediate future. Meantime the result is to emphasise a class distinction between literary and scientific schools. In making science the distinctive mark of the lower-class school, the Department has brought about the somewhat anomalous result of degrading in the public estimation those very studies which it designed to elevate. An attempt is now being made to improve the prestige of the science school by raising the income limit to £500, in accordance with the new income-tax regulations, and including among schools acknowledged by the Department those ‘managed by a public company in the articles of association of which provision is made that no dividend shall be paid exceeding five per cent.’ Under this heading come the greater part of our best girls’ schools, and this regulation would place it in the power of the governors of these to turn a part of their school into a Science School, or to register separate classes with a view to examination and grant-earning. It would be a convenient way of adding to their income, but whether it is desirable to complicate the harmonious working of a high school by a plan of dual control and a very exacting system of outside inspection and examination seems very doubtful. Should it ever be largely adopted the chief gainers would probably be the private schools, which would alone be left free to take a wide view of the present and future needs of their pupils. There would be a curious irony in such an outcome of all the efforts to improve girls’ education by making it a public concern; but as long as there is no compulsion beyond the elementary stage, we may always reckon on a healthy reaction and a revolt against excessive red-tape. Britons never will be slaves, not even to a Department which helps them to educate their children more cheaply.

While the higher grade school is designed to give more advanced instruction to those children from the elementary schools who can afford to postpone their working life till fifteen or later, it has also become necessary to do something for those whose occupations will not allow of continued day-time instruction. The Evening Continuation schools are intended to supply this want. The original night-school of olden time was one where the unlettered rustic or mechanic came to spell out his primer and laboriously manufacture his pot-hooks. Though election statistics show that the absolutely illiterate voter is gradually vanishing from the scenes, his complete extinction cannot be far off, and in catering for after-instruction the amount of schooling represented by three standards may as a rule be assumed. But in early days the school boards had to cater for a very ignorant class of evening pupils, and the work of the continuation schools was to a great extent parallel with that of the day-schools. For many years the codes insisted that pupils in night-schools earning grants should undergo examinations in the three elementary subjects—reading, writing, arithmetic. As the numbers who passed through the day-schools increased there was a corresponding diminution in evening attendances, and it became clear that the proper use of the evening-school was as a place of more advanced instruction. Accordingly in the 1890 Code the clause, that elementary education should be the principal part of the education there given, was omitted. In 1893 Evening Continuation schools received fresh stimulus and importance from an entirely new Code dealing with them separately. Its declared aim was to give ‘freedom to managers in the organisation of their schools’ by offering a wide choice of subjects with suggested syllabuses in some subjects. The aims of these schools were now declared to be twofold:—(1) to supply defects in early elementary instruction; (2) to prolong the general education of the scholar, and combine with it some form of interesting employment.

The effect of this new Code was remarkable. The total number of scholars on evening-school registers increased from 115,000 in 1892–1893 to 266,000 in 1893–1894. No less important was the change in the character of the work. To a great extent it has become secondary, although primary instruction is still necessary for many pupils, who are removed early from the day-school and have spent the interval in purely mechanical occupations.

Evening-schools have to contend against several obstacles. Chief among them is the diminished fitness for receiving instruction after the fatigues of the day’s work. This seems to vary with different persons, and to be largely a matter of temperament, sometimes of habit. The majority of persons certainly work better in the day-time. Another difficulty is the irregular attendance due to the absence of compulsion and the lack of special inducements. Nothing but the intrinsic attractiveness of the class will induce most pupils to study any other subject than those practical ones, like shorthand, mathematics, etc., which may help them to earn a better living. The framers of the Code, recognising this, suggested the introduction of popular elements in the shape of ‘lantern illustrations, music, manual work, discussion of some book which has been read by the class, field naturalist or sketching clubs, gymnastics or other employments of a more or less recreative character.’ ‘For many of these purposes grants cannot be given, but provided that the managers take care that at least one hour at each meeting is devoted to the teaching of the subjects mentioned in Article 2 of this Code, and that the instruction is systematic and thorough, every arrangement for making the school attractive should be carefully considered.’

The subjects recognised by the Code range from the elementary ones, practically the three R’s, over languages and sciences, commercial and miscellaneous subjects, drawing, domestic economy, cookery, laundry work and dairy-work, and needlework. Indeed, it would be hard to find a subject not included, always excepting literature, that step-daughter of English schools. Even this is now being taught under the London Board.

The scientific and technical subjects bring the schools into competition with technical institutes, with the result that in some towns there is an undue rivalry between the various educational agencies. To obviate this, the Science and Art Department has drawn up a new regulation, recognising an organisation for the promotion of secondary education in any county or county borough in England as the local authority for administering the Science and Art grants in its own district. As many towns other than county boroughs have classes working for the grants of the Department, this arrangement is only partially helpful, and there is still much undue rivalry. Where this prevails it usually falls to the lot of the School Board to attract the younger and more casual students, a class that is not altogether welcome at the more serious Institute.

Hitherto the work of the evening-school has been of necessity more or less desultory; and of the two agencies for prolonging the education of our working-class children, the higher grade school seems as yet to answer best. That the other plan has possibilities is proved by the example of Germany and the success of our own Polytechnic classes. A definite place for the evening-school may yet be found in our system. Meantime the school boards hold out the opportunities and invite, though they cannot compel, the multitude to come in. The improvement in the day-school will give a fresh impetus to the evening-school. This much at least it is safe to prophesy.