Chapter 382: , Laws of 1889, to read as follows (4)

"(3) Any transfer of a public elementary school to or from a
local education authority shall for the purposes of this
section be treated as the provision of a new school.

"9. The Board of Education shall, without unnecessary delay,
determine, in case of dispute, whether a school is necessary
or not, and, in so determining, and also in deciding on any
appeal as to the provision of a new school, shall have regard
to the interest of secular instruction, to the wishes of
parents as to the education of their children, and to the
economy of the rates; but a school for the time being
recognized as a public elementary school shall not be
considered unnecessary in which the number of scholars in
average attendance, as computed by the Board of Education, is
not less than thirty."

The main contentions were raised by these sections of the
Bill, and as soon as their bearing and effect were discerned
the Nonconformist opposition was rallied in strong force. "The
main ground of objection taken," says the Annual Register,
"was that, while throwing the whole charge of the maintenance
of denominational schools (apart from that of the fabrics) on
public funds, it failed to secure to the local public any real
control over the management of the schools so maintained, and
amounted in effect to a new endowment of the Church of
England; also that it perpetuated and enhanced the injustice
of the pressure of the system of religious tests in the
profession of elementary teaching, which would now, it was
said, if the Bill should pass, be the permanent monopoly of
Anglicans in the schools educating more than half of the
children of the working classes. Denunciatory resolutions
based generally on grounds of this character, were passed by
the National Free Church Council, the London Congregational
Union (April 8), the General Committee of the Protestant
Dissenting Deputies, and other bodies; and at an early date a
disposition, to which both encouragement and expression were
vigorously administered by the British Weekly, was somewhat
extensively shown to urge that it would be the duty of
Nonconformists to refuse to pay the education rate if the Bill
should become law. Dr. Parker, of the City Temple, in a letter
to the _Times_ (April 5), avowed himself earnestly in
favour of this policy, which was also defended by the Rev. H.
Price Hughs. It was opposed by the Rev. John Watson, of
Liverpool (known in the literary world as ‘Ian Maclaren’), but
the voices of restraint among the Nonconformist opposition
were less audible than those of indignant reproach and
menace."

_Annual Register,
1902, p. 107._

The following from an article by Rev. J. Guinness Rogers shows
the attitude and feeling of the Nonconformist opposition:

"Hitherto a certain proportion of the cost of these schools
has been borne by Churchmen themselves, and Nonconformists
have been content to regard that as fairly providing for the
sectarian teaching that was given. They did not regard the
arrangement as wise or salutary. But they acquiesced
considering that they had no responsibility whatever for the
denominational teaching that was given. The new Act altered
all the conditions. The State now assumes all the
responsibility for the support of these schools. The last
vestige of voluntary support is swept away, and they become in
every sense part of the National School system. The burden of
their support is thrown upon the public funds. Only in the
matter of control and of their religious teaching do they
retain anything of their private character. … They are to be
supported out of the public funds. But they constitute a
privileged class of schools under private managers, and their
chief teachers have to belong to a particular Church and to
give instruction in its principles and doctrines. It is this
which has stirred the indignation of Nonconformists. They
conscientiously object to pay for the support of schools
staffed by Anglican teachers and employed in the dissemination
of Anglican doctrines. …

"For thirty years the Free Churches of England have quietly
submitted to an arrangement which practically left thousands
of the schools under the absolute sway of the clergy. There
were thus vast districts of the country, and those the
districts least open to the free play of public opinion, in
which Nonconformist children were forced into the ranks of the
pupils, while Non-conformist teachers were just as resolutely
kept out of these favoured preserves of sectarianism. But even
this did not satisfy the clergy and their friends. During
almost the whole of the period in question there have been
continual attempts to secure better terms for those already so
highly privileged. At length came the period for decided
action. … The whole character of our educational apparatus has
been changed, and changed in a manner as unfavourable to
constitutional liberty as to religious equality. School boards
were institutions in which Nonconformists had taken a deep
interest and in which in many of the large towns they had
achieved conspicuous success. They have been ruthlessly swept
away, and henceforth the work of education in our large towns
and cities is entrusted to committees chosen by County
Councils; Mr. Balfour showing here the same dislike of popular
control as characterises his administration in the House of
Commons. Can it be thought wonderful that Nonconformists have
been goaded into resistance by a policy so high-handed and so
determined? We have heard enough of the intolerable strain put
upon the supporters of the voluntary schools. The strain of
clerical intolerance and Tory partiality has become still more
intolerable."

_J. Guinness Rogers,
The Nonconformist Uprising
(Nineteenth Century, October, 1903)._

A weightier and more statesman like objection to the Act was
set forth by the Right Honourable James Bryce in the
following:

"Of all the causes which have kept education in England,
secondary as well as elementary, below the level it has
reached in such countries as Switzerland and Scotland and New
England, the most deep seated is the want of popular interest
and popular sympathy. The people have not felt the schools to
be their own, have not been associated with the management,
have not realised how largely the welfare and prosperity of
the nation depend on the instruction which each generation
receives. Since 1870 something has been done to stimulate
popular interest by the creation of School Boards (whose
admirable work in the large towns is admitted even by the
Ministry which proposes to destroy them), by the introduction
of a large representative element upon the governing bodies of
endowed secondary schools, and by entrusting County and
Borough Councils with power to spend money upon technical
instruction.
{198}
What can be plainer than that a wise statesmanship ought to
follow in the same path endeavouring to create everywhere
local educational authorities chosen by the people and
responsible to the people, keeping these local authorities up
to the mark by making a share in the imperial grant
conditional upon full efficiency, but teaching them to look
upon the schools as their own, and to feel that it is their
own interest as parents and citizens to make their schools
worthy of an advancing nation? No such idea has been present
to those who framed this Bill. It reduces, instead of in
creasing, the element of popular interest and popular control.

"School Boards are to be swept away, and with them those
elected women members who have been so valuable and
influential an element. The substituted County and Borough
Councils are, no doubt, elective bodies. But they have so many
functions already besides those educational functions which
are now to be thrown on them that the latter will play a small
part, and their discharge of those functions cannot be
effectively reviewed by the people at an election. Moreover,
every Council is directed to act through an Education
Committee largely, or possibly entirely, consisting of persons
outside their own bodies. It is certainly desirable to secure
an element of special knowledge. But the policy of these
committees—and policy (except as regards finance) is to rest
with them—will never be subject to any review by the electors,
to whom the committees are nowise responsible. The fault is
still worse when we come to the local managers. Where there
exist only denominational schools, there will be no popular
control at all, for the permissive appointment by the
Education Committee of not more than one-third of the local
managers is a merely nominal concession, quite illusory for
the purpose of securing any local power, any local interest,
any local sympathy. In most cases this permissive right of
appointment will probably be used to add to the denominational
managers some person or persons recommended by them, or one of
them, to the Education Committee, which sits in the distant
county town and may know nothing about the locality.

"It is not from any superstitious faith in popular election or
in what are called ‘democratic principles’ that I deplore
these provisions of the Bill. It is because they tend to
withdraw from education one of its most valuable propulsive
forces. Let us hear the Schools Inquiry Commissioners of 1868,
among whom were the present Archbishop of Canterbury, the late
Bishop of Winchester, and another eminent ecclesiastic.

"‘No skill in organisation, no careful adaptation of the means
in hand to the best ends, can do as much for education as the
earnest co-operation of the people. The American schools
appear to have no great excellence of method. But the schools
are in the hands of the people, and from this fact they derive
a force which seems to make up for all their deficiencies. …
In Zurich the schools are absolutely in the hands of the
people, and the complete success of the system must be largely
ascribed to this cause. … It is impossible to doubt that in
England also inferior management, if it were backed up by very
hearty sympathy from the mass of the people, would often
succeed better than much greater skill without such support.’

"These words were spoken of secondary education. They apply
with even greater force to elementary. The experience of
thirty-four years confirms them. But there is nothing in this
Bill to give effect to their principle."

_James Bryce,
A Few Words on the Few Education Bill
(Nineteenth Century, May, 1902)._

The Education Bill passed its third reading in the House of
Commons on the 3d of December, by a vote of 246 against 123,
being a majority of exactly two-thirds. In the House of Lords
it received brief discussion and a few amendments, which the
Commons accepted, and it was sent quickly to the King,
receiving the royal assent December 18. And now there came
into action the stubborn revolt which took the name of
"passive resistance,"—the refusal, that is, of a considerable
body of people to pay the rates levied for school purposes
under a law which they held to be unjust. Their attitude, and
the consequences they suffered, in imprisonment and the
seizure and sale of their property, are described in the
following passages from an article by one of the leaders of
the movement:

"It is difficult to believe that, at the beginning of the
twentieth century, Englishmen of high character and
indisputable loyalty are being sent to prison for exactly the
same reasons as those which were urged for committing John
Bunyan to Bedford Gaol; for exposing Richard Baxter to the
browbeating of Judge Jeffreys and a sentence of eighteen
months incarceration; and for sending George Fox to the
noisome dungeons of Carlisle and Derby, Lancaster and London.
Americans cannot credit it. The colonists of Canada and
Australia say, ‘Can these things be?'?; and even Englishmen
would never accept the humiliating conclusion, if they were
not confronted by the undeniable fact. The fact is that nearly
one hundred freemen of England, respectable and God-fearing
citizens, have been sentenced to different periods of
imprisonment since November, 1903. …

"Imprisonment is only one phase of this advancing cause;
another is that of the public sale of the furniture, pictures
and books of those who refuse to submit. The first sale was at
Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, on June 26th, 1903; and it has been
followed by about 1,600 more in different towns and villages,
all over England. … In one extremely flagrant instance, one
hundred pounds’ worth of goods were taken for the sum of
fifteen shillings, and in many cases fidelity to conscience
has meant loss of trade and of position, … No less than 40,000
summonses have been sent forth by the overseers to compel
recalcitrant rate-payers to appear before the magistrates and
‘show cause’ why they will not pay. …

"Now, it is for that process we cannot and will not pay any
rate whatever. We object to many of the provisions of the
Education Acts. They are anti-democratic, unfair, unjust; they
are destructive of educational efficiency and social peace;
but the one thing that has created the Passive Resistance
movement is not the destruction of the School Board, not the
loss of popular control, but this intrusion into the realm of
conscience by the State.
{199}
That is the prime factor in this situation. To that ‘we will
not submit,’ declared Mr. Fairbairn to Mr. Balfour when the
Bill was before the House. In short, we say with Bunyan to our
persecutors, ‘Where I cannot obey actively, there I am willing
to lie down, and to suffer what they shall do unto me.’"

_John Clifford,
Passive Resistance in England and Wales
(North American Review, March, 1905)._

In Wales, where the Nonconformists are very strong, the
resistance became more than passive. The County Councils
refused generally to put the Act into operation, and
Parliament, in August, 1904, passed what was described as the
"Welsh Coercion Act," to compel their obedience to it. This
Act authorized the central Board of Education, in the case of
a county proclaimed in default to provide for Church schools
and to deduct such appropriation from the Government rant for
educational uses to the county. As the deficit thus caused in
the sum available for the National schools would have to be
made up by the county, the recalcitrant county would thus
indirectly be saddled with the maintenance of the Church
schools. But Welsh resistance was not so easily overcome; for
a new plan was devised, according to which every proceeding
under the Coercion Act would be met by the resignation of
county education committees and managers of the National
schools. This would paralyze the central Board, which has no
power to fill the places thus vacated.

EDUCATION: A. D. 1904.
Church Attendance in School Hours.

A circular issued by the Board of Education, in July, relative
to the taking of children from Church schools, during school
hours, to attend Church services on Saints' days, caused great
dissatisfaction and complaint in Church circles. The practice
had been permitted hitherto; but the Board ruled that school
time-tables making provision for this must have the sanction
of the local school authorities, which in many cases were
opposed to the practice. A "Church Schools Emergency League"
was now organized to contest the action of the Board.

EDUCATION: A. D. 1905.
Underfed School Children.

An order issued by the Local Government Board, in April,
directed that, in the case of school children under sixteen,
found to be underfed, who were not blind, deaf or dumb, and
who were living with a father not in receipt of relief, there
must be application for relief made to the guardians of the
poor by a teacher empowered by the managers, or by an officer
authorized by the education authorities. The guardians must
then investigate the case and decide whether relief should be
given as a loan or in the ordinary mode, and notify the father
accordingly; thus giving the parent the opportunity to make
the needed provision himself. If he did not do so, the
guardians were empowered to recover from him the cost of the
necessary relief by county court process.

The report of the Board of Education for the year 1907-1908,
published in March, 1909, states with reference to the feeding
of necessitous school children that: "From December 21, 1906,
when the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906, came into
operation, to July 31, 1908, 51 local education authorities
have been authorized to spend money from the rates in
providing food for school children. Of the 20 authorities
referred to in last year’s report as having taken power to
spend money for this purpose 14 have obtained sanction to
spend money in a second year."

EDUCATION: A. D. 1906.
Education Bill passed by the House of Commons and killed
by amendments in the House of Lords.

The defeat of the Conservatives and Unionists in the
Parliamentary elections of January, 1906, was ascribed very
largely to popular dissatisfaction with the Education Act of
1902. Hence, on the resignation of the Balfour Ministry and
the call of the Liberals, under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman,
to the administration of the Government, the new masters of
legislative authority were held to have received a mandate
from the people to amend the objectionable law. On the 9th of
April a Bill to that end was brought forward by Augustine
Birrell, President of the Board of Education and again the old
disputes over denominational religious teaching in schools
supported by the public at large were re-enlivened and
re-heated, in Parliament and out. In December it passed the
House of Commons by a majority of 192, and went to the Lords.
A succinct and clear statement of the intent of the Bill, as
framed by the Government, was given in an article contributed
to _The Outlook_ of August 4, 1906, by Dr. Clifford
Webster Barnes, Special Commissioner of the Religious
Education Association to investigate moral and religious
instruction in European schools. In the framing of the Bill it
had been assumed that the overwhelming majority which swept
the new Government into power had determined that the
following principles should be enacted into law:
1. Unification of the public school system.
2. Complete local control where public funds are received.
3. Abolition of religious tests for teachers.

"The new bill by its first clause," wrote Dr. Barnes, "has
virtually met these three requirements. It makes it impossible
for the State, hereafter, to recognize or provide for any
school unless it comes under the absolute control of the local
authority; and as church boards are thus supplanted, religious
tests for teachers need no longer be feared. In later clauses,
also, special safeguards are arranged to protect the teachers
from this sort of test. If the bill, after providing the
necessary machinery with which to carry out its first clause,
went no further, the extreme Nonconformist would undoubtedly
have given it most hearty support, and the wrath of the Church
party might possibly have been no greater. But love for fair
play has prevailed in the Cabinet, and the Liberal Government
has proved its right to the title by introducing, in clauses
2, 3, and 4, special provisions for leasing the denominational
schools and for permitting their owners to give the religious
instruction distinctive of the church to which they belong. …

"The bill, therefore, makes the following concessions:

"1. For the purpose of continuing any existing voluntary
school it permits the local authority, on some arrangement
being made with the owners, to take over such school, provided
it is structurally fit. The State will then pay the entire
cost of maintenance, keep the property in good repair, and use
it only between the hours of 9 a. m. and 4 p. m., from Monday
to Friday inclusive. At all other times the owners are
privileged to do with it as they see fit. On two mornings of
the week, between 9 and 9.45, the religious teaching peculiar
to the denomination owning the property may be given, but
children whose parents do not wish such teaching are to be
excused during that time.

{200}

"2. In urban areas where there is a population of five
thousand or over, a Church school may remain as denominational
as at present, the distinctive dogmas of the Church being
taught as much as may be desired, provided the parents of
four-fifths of the children vote in favor of this arrangement,
and provided, also, that there are accommodations in some
neighboring school for those whose parents prefer
undenominational instruction. In every case that portion of
the religious teaching which is distinctively denominational
must be paid for by the church giving it. Statistics show that
by this concession one hundred per cent. of the Jewish schools
will be able to preserve their denominational character,
seventy-five per cent. of the Catholic schools, fifty per
cent. of the Wesleyan, and twenty-five per cent. of the Church
of England. By the previous concession, of course, all the
remaining schools of the various denominations will be able to
give their distinctive theological teaching on two mornings of
each week.

"But this denominational instruction is not the only religious
education which the schools will provide. By the bill of 1870
local authorities were permitted to introduce a kind of simple
Bible teaching which has been nicknamed, from the author of
the act, ‘Cowper-Templeism.’ It consists of Bible lessons
covering the Old and New Testaments arranged according to some
well-planned syllabus, the majority of these being modeled
after that of the London County Council. The exercise opens
with prayer and a hymn, after which the children tell the
Bible story of the day and are assisted by the teacher to draw
from it some suitable moral lesson, but no creed or religious
formulary distinctive of any denomination can be used. This
teaching must be given in the first hour of the morning,
between 9 and 9.45, and any child may be excused from
attendance upon the request of its parent. It is a significant
fact that the Nonconformists of 1870 were unanimously opposed
to the Cowper-Temple clause, and that it was put through only
by the strong and united effort of the bishops. Now it is the
Nonconformists who, to a man, favor this kind of instruction,
while some at least of the bishops, in their eagerness to
preserve denominationalism, go so far as to say ‘this teaching
undermines the foundations of Christianity.’"

In the House of Lords the Bill came under the Church
influences which had dictated the Act of 1902, and it was
slashed with amendments which would totally reverse its
operation on all the controverted points. That procedure
killed the measure, of course; and so the burning school
question remains unsettled, while England gives much thought
to another question,—What to do with the House of Lords?

See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1906 (APRIL-DECEMBER).

EDUCATION: A. D. 1907 (November).
Failure to compromise the Religious Sectarian Differences
concerning Public Education.

Attempts to negotiate a compromise with the religious bodies
whose antagonism wrecked the Education Bill of 1906 went so
far as to induce the Government, in November, 1907, to
introduce a Bill embodying the points on which agreement had
been reached. The outcome was stated in the report of the
Board of Education for 1907-1908, as follows:

"It became apparent after some progress had been made in
Committee that denominational assent could only be obtained by
still further concessions, including a substantial increase in
the grant to contracting-out schools. Your Majesty’s
Government have always maintained that the number of schools
availing themselves of the privilege of contracting-out, must
be strictly limited, that the grant provided by the Bill was
sufficient to afford a limited number of schools a reasonable
chance of existence, and that to increase the grant beyond
this sum would enable the great majority of schools to take
advantage of the privilege, and would involve the
establishment of a system of contracting-out as the rule
instead of the exception. In view of the impossibility of
obtaining agreement without such amendments as were, in the
opinion of your Majesty’s Government, inadmissible, it was
found necessary to withdraw the Bill."

EDUCATION: A. D. 1908.
Provisions of the Children Act relating to Industrial and
Reformatory Schools.

See (in this Volume)
CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW.

EDUCATION: A. D. 1908-1909.
Oxford Teaching for Working People.

In 1908 the Convocation of the University of Oxford passed a
statute which gave the University Extension Delegacy power to
form a committee consisting of working-class representatives
in equal numbers with members of the Delegacy, with the object
of enabling Oxford to take its proper share in the work of
providing higher education for the manual working classes. In
January, 1909, the committee organized eight tutorial classes,
at Chesterfield, Glossop, Littleborough, Longton, Oldham,
Rochdale, Swindon and Wrexham. At the end of the first twelve
weeks of the work results were reported, as follows: "The
number of students enrolled was about 234, among whom were 20
women; and all of these pledged themselves to study
continuously under the supervision of the tutors provided by
Oxford for a period of three years. The subjects studied were
industrial history and economics. … The members with few
exceptions are men and women engaged in manual labour during
the day. Out of 169 students 48 were engineers, 35 were
engaged in the textile industries, 17 belonged to the building
trades, 12 were labourers, ten were potters, seven were in the
clothing trades, five were miners, and four were printers.
Sixty per cent. of the 234 students were under the age of 34.
Many of them were members' of working-class organizations. …
Few students abandoned the classes after beginning to attend
them, except for reasons such as illness, overtime or
unemployment. The average attendances are about 90 per cent.
of the maximum, possible. The paper work in some cases would
probably compare with the work done by first-class students in
the final honours schools at Oxford. … The committee consider
that any movement to shorten the hours of labour would
enormously increase the opportunities for higher education
among work people."

{201}

EDUCATION: A. D. 1909.
Official Reports and Statements of the extent and operation
of the English agencies of Public Education.

On the 2d of March, the President of the Board of Education,
Mr. Runciman, received a deputation of the Parliamentary
Committee of the Trade Union Congress, who presented a
resolution passed at the Congress stating that no solution of
the educational problem would be satisfactory that did not
give free education from the elementary school to the
University, and demanding the immediate abolition of fees in
secondary schools and technical colleges. One of the speakers
of the deputation complained that secondary school fees were
mounting so high that working people could not afford to pay
them, and that in some cases the rule as to the reservation of
25 per cent. of free places in secondary schools had not been
observed. Mr. Runciman, in reply, said that the difficulties
which had been raised centered around local finance. The Board
of Education had not been idle during the last three years in
assisting local authorities, especially for secondary
education. In the year 1906-1907 the grant for this purpose
amounted to £480,000; £691,000 was granted in 1907-1908; and in
the estimate for 1908-1909 £802,000 was put aside for secondary
education; and as far as he could see at present the amount to
be granted for secondary education purposes next year would be
even larger. … Of the total number of secondary schools which
were now required to comply with the free places regulation,
368, or more than half, provided in 1907-1908 more than the
stipulated 25 per cent., and the great majority of the whole
of them provided the 25 per cent. There were, it was true, a
number of cases where a smaller number of free places had been
granted, but that fact was due purely to local considerations.
… He should do all he could to prevent secondary schools from
becoming class schools, but it was not every child who was
suitable to enter a secondary school, and they must have a
fairly good standard examination for the child who wished to
enter. He would very much deplore indeed if the cost of
secondary education were to make it prohibitive, or so to
restrict to allow it to be open only to the children of
well-to-do-parents. He hoped, before the new regulations were
published, to clear away some of the obstacles in the
direction of throwing open a larger number of free places to
scholars and towards making the secondary schools as much
schools for the clever poor children as for the clever rich
children.

[Transcriber's note: The text between "must have a …"
and "… were published" is covered with an opaque ink stain.
Some words are guesses.]

A few days later in March the report of the general Board of
Education for the school year 1907-1908 was issued, bringing
statistical information of the English schools down to the
31st of July in the latter year. During the year then ended,
the number of new public elementary schools sanctioned under
the Education Act, 1902, was, in England, 215, giving
accommodation for 80,351 children, and in Wales 64,
accommodating 13,942 students. Enlargements, numbering 94 and
21 respectively, provided accommodation for 17,697 children in
England and 3,407 in Wales. During the year ending July 31,
1907, the number of ordinary public elementary schools in
England and Wales increased by 44, the council schools
increasing by 223, while the number of voluntary schools
decreased by 179. One hundred voluntary schools were
transferred to local education authorities. During the next 12
months the number of schools grew by 47, the number of council
schools having increased by 205, and the number of voluntary
schools having decreased by 158.

As regards higher elementary schools, 35 schools of the new
type existed on August 1, 1907, by which date there were left
26 such schools of the old type. The changes during the
succeeding year brought the total number of higher elementary
schools of the new type to 38, and the number of such schools
of the old type to 21 by August 1, 1908. The number of
scholars on the registers of elementary schools decreased
during 1906-1907 by 22,584, due mainly to a continued diminution
in the number of scholars under five years of age. During
1907-1908 the number of scholars on the registers increased by
12,166, a further decrease in the number of scholars under
five being more than balanced by a large increase in the
number of scholars between the ages of five and twelve.

The report records a growth of secondary schools receiving
grants from the Board, both in the numbers of such schools and
of the pupils attending them, and also in their effectiveness.
The Board adds:

"There are still areas where the amount of public secondary
school provision is wholly inadequate, or where its quality
falls much short of any standard that can be regarded as even
provisionally satisfactory. But there is no area in which the
Board have to note actual retrogression."

As regards evening schools, the report says:

"The total number of students enrolled in these schools during
1906-1907 diminished from 749,491 to 736,512; but there was a
considerable increase in the number of efficient students."

Statistics of the elementary schools of London for the year
1907-1908, published in March, 1909, in the annual report of the
education officer of the London County Council, showed that
the average number of children on the rolls of schools
maintained by the Council during the year was 731,706. Of this
number, 566,086 were on the rolls of London County Council
schools and 165,620 on the rolls of non-provided schools. The
average number of children in attendance during the year was
650,861, of whom 505,698 were at London County Council schools
and 145,163 at non-provided schools. The total number of
teachers engaged on March 31, 1908, was 17,562, of whom 13,030
were in London County Council schools and 4,532 in
non-provided schools. The salaries of these teachers amounted
to £1,820,816 and £443,468 respectively. On March 31, 1908,
the average salaries of head teachers and certificated
assistants (excluding teachers "on supply") were—for masters
in London County Council schools, £174 13s. 4d., and for
mistresses, £125 11s.; for masters in non-provided schools,
£144 1s. 7d., and for mistresses, £104 6s. 3d.

With reference to the size of classes the report states that
the number of pupils per class teacher was, in the case of
London County Council schools, 44.8, and in the case of
non-provided schools 37.5. Ten years ago the number was 55.2.

The gross expenditure on elementary schools was,
approximately, £4,000,000. The cost of London County Council
schools was about £3,400,000, and of non-provided schools
£600,000. About £1,257,000 of Government grant was earned and
of this £971,000 was in respect of London County Council
schools and £286,000 in respect of non-provided schools.

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Under the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, the
London County Council is empowered to provide vacation schools
or classes during the holidays, or assist voluntary agencies
formed for this purpose. Hitherto the council has given
assistance to voluntary agencies, but in 1909 it was proposed
by the Children’s Care (Central) Sub-Committee of the
Education Committee of the council that the council should
itself organize vacation schools.

Debate in the House of Commons on the Education Estimates was
opened by the President of the Board of Education, Mr.
Runciman, on the 14th of July. In the course of his speech he
made the following statements:

"The Board of Education is now one of the greatest of the
spending departments, and a rough estimate of the amount of
public money spent on public education in this country shows
that we have cognizance of an expenditure of something like
£28,000,000 on elementary, secondary, and higher education,
and over and above that of a sum of probably £8,000,000 to
£10,000,000 spent by other authorities and other persons.
These estimates affect no fewer than 3,000,000 parents and
about 6,000,000 children. The improvement which has been made
in the elementary education system during the last five years
has been mainly machinery improvement rather than improvement
in the curriculum.

"The secondary and technical branches of the work which were
formerly under the control of South Kensington are now treated
as two different departments. In the old days technical
education was too technicalized and too little in touch with
the practical affairs, necessities, and actual circumstances
of life. It has been the object of the Board of Education
therefore to generalize secondary education, and so far as it
comes under the control of the Board to make technical
education more practical with a closer bearing on the duties
likely to be required from the young men and women who pass
through these classes. The improvement has been led, as might
have been expected, in the North of England, where classes
have been definitely graded. …

"The secondary schools of England and Wales have shown a most
marked improvement, both in numbers and character, during the
last few years. Progress has been noted in several directions.
First of all, the number of schools aided by grants and the
number of pupils attending those schools have gone up year by
year since 1902. The 272 secondary schools of that year have
increased to 800, and even since 1905-1906 the increase has been
at the same rate. I think in 1905-1906 there were only about 600
secondary schools in this country; now there are over 800.
About 60 new secondary schools are being added every school
year, and the number of pupils is increasing to an even
greater extent. The increase during the years 1902-1905 was
about 6,000 per annum, and the increase now has risen to over
10,000 per annum, so that the total number of pupils in
secondary schools is now 134,000, or very nearly 135,000. The
grants which have been made to secondary schools have, of
course, increased very considerably. It is impossible to
expect local authorities to spend much of their money on the
expenses of secondary schools unless they receive a large
measure of State aid. The grants have gone up during the seven
years from 1902 to the present time from £129,000 per annum to
over half a million; and this great increase in pupils, in the
amount of money spent on the schools, and in the number of
schools in the country, has been marked at the same time by a
raising of the standard of the teachers employed in those
schools, by an increase in the length of the school life of
the pupils who attend those schools, and by an incalculable
improvement in the curriculum and the efficiency of those
schools. I think we may look back with satisfaction on the
increase of the secondary schools over which we have control."

At the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers,
held at Morecambe, in April, 1909, with about 2000 in
attendance, the address of the incoming President contained
some interesting statements relative to the national teaching
staff.

"The character of the teaching staff in the elementary schools
of England and Wales," he remarked, "as shown by the latest
available return of the Board of Education, was: Of
certificated teachers, 89,078, or 49 percent.; of
uncertificated teachers, 40,569, or 22 per cent.; of
supplementary teachers, 21,984, or 12 per cent.; and of pupil
teachers, 27,227, or 15 per cent. The 22,000 so-called
supplementary teachers, possessing scarcely any educational
equipment, were utterly unfitted in most cases for the
important duties they were called upon to perform. Their sole
passports to the teaching profession were that they must be at
least one year over 17 and had been successfully vaccinated;
yet they were answerable for the education of nearly 600,000
children. The Board of Education proposed that in future each
member of this class of teacher should count on the staff for
20 instead of 30 children, while other regulations provided
for the limitation of the numbers to be employed in the
schools, and for the withdrawal by the board of the
recognition of a supplementary teacher at any time if not
efficient. This was indeed a step in the right direction, and
showed that Mr. Runciman was really solicitous that there
should be an improvement in the quality of the teachers at
work in the schools. There were also many young persons termed
student teachers whose academic training was unexceptionable.
They were really apprentices, but the Board of Education had
regarded each of these young people, who might never have been
in an elementary school before, or done a day’s teaching
anywhere, and who were away one day out of every five, as an
efficient teacher equal to educating 45 children on every
occasion on which the school was opened. … There were some 500
well-equipped college-trained certificated teachers waiting to
fill the gap which would be caused by the new regulations of
the Board of Education, and an additional 4,000 would be
seeking employment in August."

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EDUCATION: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
Revival of Passive Resistance to the Act of 1902.

The defeat of the Education Bill of 1906 wakened the spirit of
"passive resistance" afresh; but it was not until May, 1909, that
a reorganization of the movement was undertaken. As the result
of a conference then held in London, under the presidency of
Dr. Clifford, resolutions were adopted for the "organizing of
the whole passive resistance forces of the country into a new
league," to act on the following lines:

"(1) Suffering imprisonment where the resister has no
distrainable goods;

(2) suffering the distraint of goods without repurchase;

(3) suffering distraint of goods and afterwards buying them
back;

(4) protesting before the magistrates and then paying, on
order, the rate."

It was also resolved to urge upon the Government "the absolute
necessity of encouraging from national funds the building at
the earliest practicable moment of council schools in those
areas in which there are no undenominational schools, and also
the provision of unsectarian colleges in all parts of the
country where these are needed."

To a delegation from the League which waited, subsequently, on
the Head of the Board of Education, Mr. Runciman, the latter
said, with reference to the Act of 1902, that it "could not be
got rid of by administration. It would be a mischievous
precedent for any Minister to attempt to undo what Parliament
had done. He was, however, prepared to administer the Act
fairly and justly, and he was not going to show any favour to
any particular class of school. Dealing with the question of
the improvements in the conditions governing the existence of
training colleges, he said that during the past 12 months the
accommodation in training colleges for Nonconformist teachers,
or those who were not prepared to be bound by any
denominational creed, had greatly increased. Since 1905 there
had been a gradual increase, until there now existed 3,800
more places for that class of teacher than existed when the
Government came into power."

EDUCATION: A. D. 1909.
Educational demands of the Trade Unions.

The British Trade Union Congress, at Ipswich, in September,
1909, adopted a resolution urging workers to continue their
efforts to secure Parliamentary and municipal recognition of
the trade union education policy, which demanded:

"(1) The State maintenance of school children;

(2) scientific physical education, with individual medical
inspection and records of the physical development of all
children attending State schools, and skilled medical
attendance and treatment for any requiring it; and in order to
secure this:

(_a_) the development of the Medical Department at the
Board of Education, the head of which should be directly
responsible to the Board of Education, to whom he shall
report annually;

(_b_) the payment of an adequate grant from the
Imperial Exchequer for purposes of medical inspection and
for the establishment under every education authority of
properly equipped centres for medical treatment;

(_c_) the establishment under every education
authority of scientifically organized open air recovery
schools, the cost to be borne by the community as a whole
and not in any part by charitable contributions;

(3) the complete dissociation of these reforms from Poor Law
administration;

(4) that secondary and technical education be an integral part
of every child’s education and be secured by such a reform and
extension of the scholarship system as would place a
maintenance scholarship within the reach of every child, and
thus make it possible for all children to be full time day
pupils up to the age of 16;

(5) that the best intellectual and technical training be
provided for the teachers of the children, that each
educational district be required to train the number of pupil
teachers demanded by local needs and to establish training
colleges, preferably in connexion with Universities or
University colleges;

(6) that the provision of educational buildings and facilities
be obligatory upon the local authority, who should always
maintain administrative control of the buildings and the
facilities so provided;

(7) that the cost of education be met by grants from the
Imperial Exchequer and by the restoration of misappropriated
educational endowments; and further, having regard to the
increasing cost of popular education, and also to the
increasing value and notoriously undemocratic administration
of the University and public school endowments, the Congress
called upon the Parliamentary Committee to press the
Government to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into and
report upon the educational endowments of the country."

EDUCATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1903.
Execution of the Associations Law.
Closing of the schools of the Religious Orders.
State Monopoly of Education established.

See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1901 (APRIL-OCTOBER), and 1903.

EDUCATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1907.
Enlistment of teachers in the Syndicalist
(Labor Union) Movement.

See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1907.

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1909.
A late awakening to the need of better technical and
industrial training.

France has been slow in understanding the modern necessity of
systematic industrial training and technical education, in
order to keep her workmen abreast of the more alert and
enterprising peoples in efficiency and skill. She has trusted
too long, it seems, to the old customs of apprenticeship, and
apprenticeship has decayed in her workshop practice, as it has
decayed everywhere else. The situation, as brought recently to
notice, was described as follows in a Paris letter to the
London _Times_, in May, 1909:

"Legislative enactments of recent date, limiting the hours of
labour for young people and placing under strict regulations
those workshops where children and adults are employed
together, have led to so much discontent among employers who
take apprentices that the majority of the masters, especially
those who obtain no immediate profit from the work of the
apprentices, have abandoned the practice of endeavouring to
train young people likely to be of use to them in the future.
The consequences are that the level of professional skill and
competence is becoming lowered among the rising generation of
workmen, and all are now agreed that the discovery of some
remedy is a matter of extreme urgency. It seems to be admitted
that in a very few years this evil may become one of fatal
importance in the case more especially of the art industries
and of those involving mechanical skill.

"The report of the Parliamentary Commission appointed to make
inquiry into this question has just been published, together
with the draft of the proposed legislation on this subject,
while the resolutions adopted at a Congress of Commerce and
National Industries, which has just taken place at Paris, are
entirely in accord with the views and suggestions of the above
Commission.

"The remedies unanimously demanded are as follows:

1. That it be made compulsory for all young persons of both
sexes, under 18 years of age, who may be employed either in
commerce or industry, to attend courses of technical
instruction (_cours de perfectionnement_).

2. These courses are to take place in the daytime, upon days
and at hours determined for each locality by committees
composed of representatives of the municipal authorities, the
associations of manufacturers, and of the workpeople. The
selection of the dates and hours in question is to be made in
such a way as to accord best with the respective interests of
the manufacturers and the educational requirements. Employers
will be bound to enable their workpeople to set apart
sufficient time to attend the classes.

3. The course of instruction is to be adapted in each district
to the requirements of the local trades."

{204}

EDUCATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1909.
Clerical attack on the Secular or Neutral Schools.

Antagonism between the Roman Catholic Church and the
Government was newly accentuated in October, 1909, by a
clerical attack on the so-called "neutral" schools,—that is,
the secular or lay schools, publicly maintained and
administered. This was opened by a pastoral letter, signed by
French cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, in which those
faithful to the Church were warned against sending their
children to these schools, whose religious neutrality was said
to be in reality a bitter opposition to religion and church.
The Catholic schools, it was urged, must be kept up if the
Church is to be kept up. "In proportion as the schools from
which religious instruction is banished keep on filling up,
our churches will grow empty." The pastoral letter put the ban
on more than a dozen text-books on French history and civics
whose views it found pernicious. "If, therefore," the letter
concluded, "parents perceive that the souls of their children
are imperilled in the so-called neutral schools, they must not
hesitate, under pain of forfeiting the sacraments of the
church."

This roused anti-clerical extremists to demand the
establishing of a State monopoly of education, making the lay
school compulsory and suppressing all private schools in which
religion is taught. But the sounder republicans, in public
life and in journalism, gave no countenance to this. The
_Petite République_ reminded its advocates that there are
at present 1,122,375 children who attend private schools, and
that to establish Government schools for them would cost some
$75,000,000; or, if secondary schools be included,
$88,000,000. In addition an annual expenditure of $15,000,000
would be necessitated for upkeep and salaries. The Temps,
taking higher grounds of principle, condemned the scheme as
one that would essentially parallel the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes. France, it declared, is a free country; every
creed has the perfect right to provide for its adherents the
kind of religious education which it thinks proper. At the
same time the _Temps_ pointed out that the opponents of
the lay schools are not merely attacking abuses that may have
crept into them, but mean to strike at the principle of
religious neutrality. It admitted the existence of wrongs that
need righting, saying it cannot be denied that some of the
school books are disfigured by partiality on various points
affecting history, patriotism, and religion, and that this is
contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of the law. This
evil must, the _Temps_ urges, be eradicated. But the
_école laïque_, says the _Temps_, cannot be
destroyed without destroying the Republic.

This, too, was the fundamental proposition of Premier Briand,
in a speech of admirable tone which he made, October 30th, at
a great banquet in Paris which inaugurated the new buildings
of _La Ligue de l'Enseignement_. The neutral school, he
declared, was the corner stone of the Republic. As reported in
_The Times_ of London, he went on to say:

"It was natural that the adversaries of the Republic should
attack the school—the mould in which the Republican spirit and
the character of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen was formed. Certain
people were pleading the dictates of conscience as the
explanation of the campaign which they had just started. Why
had they not attacked the school before? He would remind them
that the _école laïque_ existed before the recent
separation of Church and State; it had existed under the
Concordat. Why did not the conscience of its opponents seek
any expression till now? … The Government was determined to
give the country the means of defending the 'neutral’ school,
and measures to that end had been prepared by the Ministry.
But the most effective defence was that which would be
conducted by private initiative like that of the Ligue de
l’Enseignement and by the male and female teachers themselves.
The teaching in the schools, M. Briand continued, ‘ought not
to be directed against any one; in order to secure the
confidence of the parents it ought not to be of a polemical
character; in order to be effective it must not let the
passions of the street invade the schoolroom.’ Let them leave
violent language to their opponents and not play the game of
their opponents by indulging in violent methods."

This seems to have been the spirit in which the matter was
brought officially before the Chamber of Deputies, by M.
Steeg, the reporter on the Budget of Public Instruction. The
following is from a summary of his remarks on this subject:

"He says that it would be difficult to come to terms with the
Bishops of the disestablished Roman Catholic Church, who will
never, he thinks, agree to recognize with good will the
neutral school. He remarks, however, that no pretext must be
furnished to the Bishops for their attacks upon the school,
and that they must not be enabled to appeal against the
Republican Government to the idea of ‘neutrality’ itself. As
to the associations of parents, which are now being formed in
accordance with the Episcopal views, M. Steeg recognizes that
they are quite lawful. He only fears that they may sometimes
transgress by reason of excessive zeal; but he declares that
the best way of avoiding their interference is to make the
management of the schools irreproachable. The objections
raised against some of the school-books are, he thinks,
obviously exaggerated. But he considers that scrupulous care
ought to be exercised in resisting all temptation to borrow
for the purposes of the neutral school the weapons of
sectarian propagandism. … He continues; ‘We should not desire
that the book placed in the hands of a school child should in
any sense whatever contain a single proposition that is
perilous or open to suspicion. Let there be no veiled
proselytism supported by ingenious distortions of fact or
interpretations with an object.’"

{205}

The _Temps_ remarks; "M. Steeg’s language does him
credit, and it is a pleasure to see a politician of the
Extreme Left recognizing, with a strong sense of philosophic
truth, that respect for the past is perfectly compatible with
justice to the present and preparation for the future."

EDUCATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1909.
Appointment of the Abbé Loisy, Professor of Religions
in the College de France.

See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).

EDUCATION: Germany: Technical Education.
Causes of its great development and
wonderful industrial results.
Its influence on International Trade.