GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



317 



only for 8.75 per cent, of the population. There 

 were 5,797 board schools, with accommodation 

 for 2,881,155, having 2,703,434 scholars on the 

 rolls and 2,239,375 in average attendance. The 

 number of voluntary schools was 14,319, with 

 accommodation for 3,729,261, having 3,054,709 

 scholars registered and 2,239,375 in actual average 

 attendance. The number in average attendance 

 in all the schools was 70,574 more than in 1900 

 and reached 82.17 per cent, of the total number 

 on the registers. Of the total number of schol- 

 ars, 5,116,384 were free and 644,275 paid fees. 

 The schools were taught by 66,149 certificated 

 or provisionally certificated teachers, 28,002 pupil 

 teachers, 34,716 assistant or provisional assistant, 

 and 17,956 additional women teachers. The num- 

 ber of women teachers doubled in seven years. 

 The cost of the schools in 1901 was 3 Os. 2d. 

 per child in average attendance in the board 

 schools and 2 6s. 8%d. in the voluntary schools. 

 The elementary schools have made progress 

 under the dual system by which church schools, 

 first independent rivals of the unsectarian public 

 schools, have latterly been partly supported by 

 the state and subject to inspection and examina- 

 tion. Intermediate education, on the other hand, 

 has remained unorganized and has made no prog- 

 ress. The defects in secondary education have 

 engaged the attention of the public and of legis- 

 lators because the greater industrial and com- 

 mercial progress of the United States and Ger- 

 many has been ascribed in a great measure to 

 the scientific and practical character of their 

 systems of secondary and higher education. An 

 educational commission in 1897 ascertained that 

 there were in England 6,209 secondary schools 

 in which 68,785 boarders and 207,759 day pupils 

 were taught, a total of 276,544, of whom 122,313 

 w r ere in boys', 114,239 in girls', and 21,252 boys 

 and 18,740 girls in mixed schools. Of the total 

 number, 5,167 were proprietary or private schools, 

 with 152,930 pupils; 197 were schools maintained 

 by religious and other communities and city 

 companies, with 18,666 pupils; 308 belonged to 

 limited liability companies, with 18,734 pupils; 

 619 were endowed schools founded by royal char- 

 ters, acts of Parliament, etc., with 76,671 pupils; 

 and 76 were established by local authorities, with 

 9,543 pupils. 



Wales and Monmouth have had since 1889 a 

 public board to examine intermediate schools, of 

 which 94, with 7,445 pupils, were inspected in 

 1900. The English Board of Education when 

 created was authorized to inspect secondary 

 sch x ools desiring inspection, of which there were 

 only 27 in 1901. The education act introduced 

 in the House of Commons by Mr. Balfour was in- 

 tended to coordinate the board and voluntary 

 schools and elementary and secondary schools 

 and lead up to a system of national education, 

 which is universally desiderated, which the Lib- 

 erals when in power sought to develop out of the 

 board schools, and which has made no advance 

 on secular lines on account of the religious tem- 

 per prevailing in the Church of England and 

 dominating Tory politics. The Protestant dis- 

 senters upheld the board schools as earnestly, as 

 the Anglicans opposed them. The education act 

 of 1897 \vas the first step of the English clergy 

 toward regaining control of popular education. 

 By their efforts and the sacrifices of their lay 

 supporters they had built up a rival system of 

 schools as extensive if not as efficient as the 

 public system created and fostered by the Gov- 

 ernment and supported by rates and taxes as- 

 sessed upon them as well as upon the classes 

 whose children were educated in the board 



schools, of which, indeed, they paid the larger 

 proportion. Having obtained recognition for 

 their schools as a branch of the national system, 

 a public standing for them alongside of the board 

 schools, with partial relief from their pecuniary 

 sacrifice in the form of the 5s. grant, they now 

 demanded an equal status and an equal share 

 of the school rates, relieving them entirely of 

 paying voluntary subscriptions to keep up their 

 own schools while bearing their full share of the 

 cost of the board schools. The non-conformists, 

 having witnessed what the church schools had 

 done as private institutions supported by char- 

 itable contributions, not only in competing with 

 the board schools in education and arresting 

 their growth as a national system of public 

 schools, but in proselyting the people, in building 

 up the state church while their own bodies were 

 not increasing, regarded this proposal as a blow 

 aimed at their religious doctrines and communi- 

 ties as well as at the principle of unsectarian 

 national education. The voluntary schools were 

 inferior in teaching staff, equipment, and build- 

 ings to the board schools, and the subscriptions 

 that supported them were falling off, so that 

 those more interested in the education of the 

 people than in religious conflicts viewed with re- 

 gret the inferior education that half the childien 

 received and with foreboding the prospect that 

 this would deteriorate. 



Mr. Balfour's education bill places board and 

 voluntary schools on an equal footing, to be 

 maintained by rates assessed by the county and 

 borough councils. The local authority in matters 

 pertaining to education is a committee, a ma- 

 jority of which must be appointed by the coun- 

 cil and will be chosen from among its members, 

 and the others will be persons of experience in 

 education or acquainted with the needs of the 

 various kinds of schools in the county or bor- 

 ough to be appointed also by the council, but on 

 the nomination, where it appears desirable, of 

 other bodies. All appointments to the educa- 

 tional committees are subject to the approval of 

 the Board of Education, which has far more con- 

 trol and power than the central educational au- 

 thority has exercised under previous acts merely 

 by virtue of the aid granted out of the taxes and 

 has the assistance and advice of a consultative 

 council of experts. 



In most country districts there are no -schools 

 except the church schools, and people of other 

 denominations besides the Church of England 

 help to support these in preference to paying 

 rates for board schools that would be necessary 

 if the voluntary schools went out of existence. 

 The bill proposed that country schools, where 

 in most cases the parish clergyman has been the 

 only manager, should be managed by a commit- 

 tee composed of the clergyman, three laymen of 

 his parish, and two representatives of the public 

 authority. The question of the management and 

 control of the voluntary schools was bitterly 

 contested in the House of Commons. The clergy 

 retained the direction of their schools in the 

 towns, and, as it seemed to non-conformists, of 

 the country schools as well, and this was re- 

 garded as boding a return to the age when all 

 education was prescribed and supervised by the 

 clergy. \Non-conforiiiist assemblies formed a sol- 

 emn league and covenant to refuse to pay school 

 rates or that part of them falling to the share 

 of church schools, and labor organizations re- 

 solved to elect municipal bodies pledged to ren- 

 der the bill inoperative. The bill gives the local 

 education authority one-third of the representa- 

 tion on the board of voluntary managers, but the 



