Chapter XLV: Schools after the Reformation

A little of the property which had belonged to the religious houses was saved and turned to useful purposes. Just a very few of the old alms-houses were allowed to continue their work, like St. Cross at Winchester, and some schools and colleges were founded.

There are quite a number of such schools which bear the name of King Edward the Sixth. But Edward VI was only a lad of sixteen when he died, and he had practically nothing to do with either the good or the evil which was done in his name. In other towns besides London, good men set to work and managed to get grants of some small parts of the property of old religious houses, and adapted them for school work. In some instances they were allowed to have part of an old ruin, which they patched up and turned into a schoolroom, and some of these queer old rooms continued in use for many generations. At St. Alban's the lady chapel at the east end of the Abbey Church was walled off from the main building in the time of Edward VI, and from that time it was used as the Grammar School until about a third of a century ago.

It is quite true to say that a good number of our present grammar-schools rose out of the ashes of the monasteries. But they were not great buildings intended for hundreds of scholars. Many of them were founded for ten or a dozen scholars drawn from a particular town or district. The sum set apart for the upkeep of the schools was usually very small, and not always readily forthcoming. The master was always a man who had taken a degree at one of the universities, but his salary was so small that he had to engage in other work as well in order to make a living. If he was an enthusiastic teacher, in some cases he attracted scholars from outside, who were not on the foundation, from whom he got fees, and in this way he increased his income, and was able to make a living. Some schools had an usher as well as the master; and at times when the number of scholars was very small they were left to the usher, the master devoting his time to other work, and only drawing the salary due to him. In such cases the school fell to a low ebb, the number of scholars dwindled, and the buildings were allowed to fall to decay. All of them had their ups and downs; at times doing good work, at others doing very little at all. That went on for many years. However, most of them are alive and active to-day, and many of them have histories of which they may be proud, and a past which should help them to excel in the future.

Children were often taught in the church and church porch in country places. John Evelyn was so taught in the early part of the seventeenth century, and many more people could read and write than we sometimes imagine; but knowledge was not within the reach of all.

The condition of the poor occupied a good deal of attention, and the poor laws were used to improve matters in many ways. At Norwich, for instance, in the year 1632, a children's hospital was provided for boys between the ages of ten and fourteen. They were to be taught useful trades, and fed and clothed. For dinner they were to have six ounces of bread, one pint of beer, and, on three days of the week, one pint of pottage and six ounces of beef; on the four other days, one ounce of butter and two ounces of cheese. For supper they were to have six ounces of bread, one pint of beer, one ounce of butter, and two ounces of cheese. For breakfast every day they had three ounces of bread, half an ounce of butter, and a half-pint of beer.

About the year 1686 the Middlesex magistrates established what they called a "College for Infants". This is what they said about their plan:--

"The Justices, having observed great inconveniences from the loose upbringing of parish children whereby very few of them come to good. Order made that a great part of the Corporation House is fitted up for that purpose, and excellent rules and methods are therein taken for their education in true religion and virtue. Order made for the parishes to send fifty children in all."

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, and in the early part of the eighteenth century, we find another sort of school coming into existence--the charity-schools. These were intended to give a simpler sort of education than that which the grammar-schools were supposed to give. They were intended for what was called the poorer classes. Now in the grammar-schools it was essential that the master should be a man of some learning and standing--he must have taken a degree at one of the universities. But in these charity-schools it was not thought to be essential that the teacher should have both learning and the ability to teach. They were managed by governors, who drew up rules and regulations as to what was to be done in the schools, and it was the teacher's business just to carry out these regulations as best he could. So there was much learning by rote. There was reading, in which the Bible was the chief, sometimes the only, reading-book, a certain amount of writing, and a little arithmetic. Where the master happened to be a person of ability, some good work was done. Writing was often very carefully and thoroughly taught, and the handwriting was far in advance of most of the abominable stuff which we scribble in these days and make do duty for writing. The girls were taught needlework, and had to spend long hours every day at the task. It is very interesting to read through the old order-books kept by the governors of these old-fashioned schools, and to glean from them something of the daily life in these humble schools. The rules and regulations made from time to time seem to us very strange and even ridiculous, and it is a very easy matter to make fun out of them. But we must remember that at the time they were drawn up the worthy governors had very good reasons for what they did, and we cannot but honour them for doing their best according to their lights. There were charity-schools in almost every town and in a good many villages; some founded by bodies of men, others by private individuals. The buildings varied according to the amount of money which the governors had to spend upon them. Some are very picturesque buildings. For instance, there is the Dewhurst School at Cheshunt, founded in 1640, and Mrs. Lucie Fuller's School at Watford, founded in 1704.

The scholars of these schools attended daily, on Sundays as well as workdays. On Sundays and some other days they were all marched off to church, where they sat in dreadful little galleries built mostly high up in dark corners on either side of the organ. These charity-schools were carried on in much the same way right down to the middle of the nineteenth century. The scholars were mostly dressed in the costume of the period at which the school was founded; and very quaint and curious they looked. Almost the last link now left of such dress is that in which a "Bluecoat Boy" may still be seen. That dress is a relic of the dress worn in the middle of the sixteenth century. The little charity-school boys wore leather breeches--which in later times were altered mostly to corduroy--coloured stockings; coats of a quaint cut with funny little tails at the back, of brown or green or grey or black cloth, and round, flat caps in colours to match their coats; pewter or brass badges on their breasts, bearing the name or device or the arms of the school, and two little pieces of fine linen fluttering under their chins, called "bands". This was the ordinary boys' dress in the eighteenth century, and the charity-school boys continued to wear it long after it had gone out of fashion. The charity-school girls had frocks and cloaks of a wonderful cut, in colours corresponding with the boys' coats; white tippets, aprons, and "such mob caps". In church they led the singing, what little there was, and their hours in school were long, very long, but they found time to get in a fair amount of play, and had plenty of time for getting into mischief as the order-books of the governors bear witness.

People often laugh at these old-fashioned charity-schools and speak of them with contempt. That is absolutely a wrong thing to do, because they were founded many years before Parliament troubled itself about the education of the people. We cannot too greatly honour those worthy old-fashioned men and women who did what they could to provide some teaching and training for poor boys and girls, and to put them in the way of earning their own living.

By the end of the eighteenth century people were beginning to be concerned at the ignorance of the great masses of the people in this country, and we find that in a good many places little schools were being kept, taught by the parish clerk or by some old lady; and here and there we find attempts being made to form parish schools. These were for the most part on the same lines as the older charity-schools, but maintained by subscriptions from private persons.

In the first year of the nineteenth century, Joseph Lancaster, a member of the Society of Friends, took over a big disused barn in the Borough Road, London, and set up this inscription over the door:--

"All who wish may send their children and have them educated freely; and those who do not wish to have their education for nothing may pay for it if they please."

He tried to teach, and keep in order, several hundred children at the same time. He had them arranged in little classes of seven or eight children spelling out verses from the Bible, printed on large cards, under the guidance of an older child. Groups of these little classes were under the charge of an older child still, called a superintendent. Writing was taught in little classes, the children tracing the forms of the letters in sand, strewn on flat benches. Everything was regulated by rule, and done at words of command, given by the head teacher.

From the painting,
"The Fight Interrupted" (1815), by William Mulready, R.A., in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London]

A few years later, a churchman, Dr. Bell, started a somewhat similar method of instruction, by means of monitors, which he had tried in Madras some thirty years before.

Those were the beginnings of the primary schools of to-day. From Lancaster's work there sprang a society, called the "British and Foreign School Society", and from Bell's work another, known as the "National Society". These two societies set to work vigorously to see what they could do to improve education and to promote the building of schools. They very soon found that the great need was for teachers, trained for this special work--folk who not only had knowledge as to _what_ to teach, but also who had been trained _how_ to teach. That was the beginning of a new order of teachers, and Training Colleges for Teachers was the outcome of their efforts. These private societies led the way in the face of much opposition; for there were hosts of people who "didn't see why" there should be all this fuss about the education of the masses of the people. At last, after much difficulty, in the year 1833, Parliament made a grant of twenty thousand pounds to these two societies, to be used by them in the work of building schools. That was the beginning of State Grants for Education.

Then in various parts of the country people were stirred to build schools, aided by grants and advice of these societies; and that was the beginning of our modern schoolrooms. In 1839 Parliament really took in hand the work of Education, and Inspectors of Schools were appointed, and the Education Department set up to look after the work of Education in the country. Much was left for private individuals to do; but, from that time, the work has gone forward slowly, and the State has taken a greater part in the work. In 1870 a great step forward was taken, and again and again since then things have moved onward; and at last, in 1918, another Education Act was passed which aims at making the Education of the Nation more than it has ever yet been one of the very first duties of the State.

The school buildings which the two societies set on foot in the course of time have become unsuitable for the work to be done in them, and changes have had to take place. Since 1870 a very large number of new school buildings have been erected; but changing times already call for many alterations to suit them for the fresh methods of carrying on the work in the best interests of those who have to be taught in them. So many things have to be considered now of which we knew but very little in the days gone by, and we can never sit down and say that the work is complete, and that no more improvements can be made.