348 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



successful in imparting in the great towns a considerable measure of 

 elementary education to the mass of the poorer children, had had a bad 

 influence in lowering the standard of secondary education by com- 

 pelling the strictly secondary schools to come down to the standard 

 of the higher elementary schools. Higher elementary education at its 

 best gave the child some smattering of culture but it ended there and 

 was in no sense a step in the ladder of education. In the rural and 

 urban districts, moreover, the voluntary schools had more than held 

 their own. The board schools of the.se districts were often badly 

 managed and were less efficient in many cases than the voluntary de- 

 nominational schools, which, despite financial difficulties, increased in 

 number and efficiency. The fine work done by these schools was con- 

 sidered to justify in 1897 the creation of a special aid-grant to volun- 

 tary schools. But even with such help the position of the voluntary 

 system had become precarious. The high standard of elementary 

 education, of accommodation and of teachers imposed by the Board of 

 Education could only with great difficulty be attained with the means 

 at the disposal of the managers of voluntary schools. The subscribers 

 increased their subscriptions, but since as rate payers these subscribers 

 had frequently also to pay a school board for schools competing with 

 their own schools, it was plain that the limit of subscriptions had been 

 nearly reached. It was clearly inequitable that a person should pay 

 to support both a voluntary and a compulsory system, and it was also 

 evident that both systems suffered in efficiency in consequence. 



The time, therefore, had been reached when all forms of education 

 required coordination and increased state help. The absence of con- 

 tinuity between the various grades and kinds of education had, by 

 the year 1902, become a serious national danger. I have noticed 

 already some aspects of this discontinuity. It is necessary here to 

 refer to certain other sides of the question. For nearly fifty years 

 the Science and Art Department of South Kensington had distributed 

 under the direction of the Education Department — now the Board of 

 Education — to schools of all kinds a large parliamentary grant in aid 

 of an elaborate scheme of education set forth by the South Kensington 

 officials. The school boards for a considerable period used the rates, 

 quite illegally, for the purpose of teaching science and art in accordance 

 with the South Kensington scheme in order to earn the grants. This 

 scheme provided the elementary schools with a kind of secondary 

 system and thus increased an undesirable competition with the endowed 

 secondary schools. On the other hand these true secondary schools from 

 the year 1890 have received in many instances parliamentary help of an- 

 other character. By an act of that year the residue of certain customs 

 and excise duties — a very large annual sum* — was directed to be dis- 



* Say £1 ,200,000. The Science and Art grants and these duties amount to 

 more than fl,. 500,000, so that it can hardly be said that secondary education 

 has, since 1890, been neglected in England. 



