Januarst 14, 19 1 5] 



NATURE 



551 



private schools and less well endowed grammar 

 schools, attended partly by children of parents who 

 might be described without much inaccuracy as be- 

 longing to the "industrial classes," began to realise 

 that they might get help from the Science and Art 

 Department. On its side the department promised 

 an additional grant, first of 105. and then of \l. per 

 head for pupils taking a definite course of science 

 work, and passing successfully in at least one of 

 the subjects of the course. Thus arose the organised 

 science school. As has already been stated, most of 

 the grammar schools found that the requirements of 

 the department for an organised science school were 

 too severe, and continued to get aid for separate 

 science classes, and the organised science school 

 scheme was for a time mainly worked either bv 

 schools of a more or less private character, bv schools 

 held in mechanics' institutes as at Leeds and Keigh- 

 ley, or by school boards. In fact, the organised 

 science schools promoted and carried on bv the bigger 

 boards, as at Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Sheffield, 

 and many other places, were so successful as to 

 cause alarm to the grammar and endowed schools. 

 A lively controversy arose in which the catchwords 

 of overlapping and co-ordination made a frequent 

 appearance. 



By various modifications in the regulations, the 

 purview of the Science and Art Department in the 

 organised science schools was extended, first to re- 

 quiring a certain amount of non-science work, 

 secondly insisting on the teaching of at least one 

 language other than English, and finally by requiring 

 the whole of the secular portion of the curriculum to 

 be submitted to inspection. This, with the alteration 

 of the grant from one depending on results and 

 attendance to one on attendance alone completed the 

 process by which a large number of secondan.- schools 

 found themselves in receipt of State aid and open 

 to State inspection. 



But this change was no sooner complete than the 

 insistence on science instruction, which was the basis 

 of the early system, was relaxed, till in the present 

 day, when a grant of 774,000/. is taken for aid to 

 secondary schools, none of it can be said to be speci- 

 fically devoted to science instruction, although science 

 must, as a general rule, form part of the school 

 course. It is not too much to say that the weight 

 of official recognition has passed from the scientific 

 to the literary side of the secondary school, and that 

 the time and energy devoted to instruction and prac- 

 tical work in science have shown a remarkable de- 

 crease. So much for the secondary- school. We now 

 come to the universities and the universitv colleges. 

 Here the State aid has taken a variety of forms. 

 The grant to London University began in 1S39 with 

 a modest 5,050/. for the expenses of examiners in 

 various branches of knowledge, among which science 

 held a worthy place. Expenses of administration 

 were from time to time brought within the scope of 

 the vote. 



After the year 1891-2 the special vote for the 

 London L'niversity practically disappears from the 

 estimates. There had always been considerable re- 

 ceipts paid into the Exchequer, so that the sums 

 actually voted had long ceased to represent a clear 

 grant from the State, and in the succeeding ten years 

 only modest sums from 100/. downwards are entered 

 under this vote. At the same time, gradually increas- 

 ing sums were voted for distribution among the uni- 

 versities and university colleges and the constituent 

 colleges of the London University- received, and still 

 receive, substantial sums in this way. 



The universities and the university colleges have 

 enjoyed State assistance in a number of ways. First 



NO. 2359, VOL. 94] 



and for long the most important of these aids was 

 the annual grant administered by the -Treasury, and 

 applied to what was considered by the Treasury ad- 

 visers the proper work of universities — literature, 

 mathematics, and pure science, excluding rigidly any 

 applied science or technology, if such there chanced 

 to be within the sacred precincts. This aid began 

 in 1883-4 ^^■^th a modest grant of 4000/. for the 

 L'niversity College of Wales. It was increased to 

 8000/. in 1884-5, to 11,500/. in 1885-6, to 12,000/. in 

 1886-7, and to 14,000/. in 1887-8 and 1888-9. In the 

 following year England begins to participate in the 

 grant under this vote, and its subsequent fortunes 

 are as follows : — 



A portion of this vote, about 28,000/., is, however, 

 specifically voted for the purpose of Welsh inter- 

 mediate education, and should, in fact, not appear 

 here but in the vote for secondary education. 



In addition, the universities and university- colleges 

 have received considerable benefit from the grants 

 paid for the training of elementary-school teachers 

 in the day training colleges. 



Some instruction in science has always been a 

 necessan,- portion of the training course, though it 

 it must be admitted that the emphasis laid upon it 

 in the day training colleges was always less than in 

 the better residential colleges, and has in recent years 

 evolved or degenerated (according to the views taken 

 of its importance as a branch of training) into nature 

 study or general experimental science. The principal 

 value of this varietv of State aid has been, not in 

 any stimulus given to science instruction, but in the 

 support it afforded in the early years of these colleges 

 and universities to their arts side, a side which, 

 without these day training students, would often have 

 been non-existent. 



The earliest mention of the State solicitude for the 

 training in science of the future teachers in State-aided 

 schools appears, as already stated, in the directions 

 to inspectors in 1845 ^^^^ inquiries should be made as 

 to the attainments of the teacher in land sur\'eying — 

 an attempt presumably to give a rural bias to elemen- 

 tarv education — the rural bias which, after seventy 

 vears, we are still seeking to impart. A more serious 

 attempt was made in the newly-founded training 

 colleges of St. Mark's, Chelsea, St. John's, Battersea, 

 and Chester, where from the first some one or more 

 subject of science — and we may also add — of handi- 

 craft, were included in the training course, and we 

 may be certain that the inspector who reported 

 on these colleges — Canon Moseley — was not uns}"m- 

 pathetic to this infant attempt at a real general 

 education. 



Science teaching continued to flourish at the 

 training colleges for many vears. Laboratories were 

 gradually built and fitted up, systematic practical work 

 undertaken, and in the more powerful and well- 

 equipped colleges an increasing proportion of their 

 students were enabled to obtain the B.Sc. degree or 

 the Inter B.Sc. of the University- of London. Then 

 came a period of official repression, when rightlv or 

 wrongly the attempt was made to devote the training 

 college time more exclusively to the professional side 



