73^ 



Review of Reviews, 1I9I1S~ 



PROCURESS. 



THE REFORM OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 



IN ENGLAND. 



By REV. HERBERT BRANSTON GRAY, D.D, 



Late W arden of Bradfield College, Berks ; Member of the Moseh' Educa- 

 tional Commission to the United States, 1903 ; President of the Educa- 

 tional Science Section of the British Association, 1909. 



Educational reformers everywhere 

 have been looking forward with eager 

 hope, and " stalwarts " — or those who 

 have vested interests — with correspond- 

 ing anxiety, to the birth of the educa- 

 tional measure which Lord Haldane 

 first promised to the nation in January 

 last. 



Whatever be its scope, the one point 

 which has excited the hope of the one 

 party and the anxi«ty of the other is the 

 official promise that for the first time 

 in the histor\- of English Education the 

 Bill will form the basis of " a national 

 system." 



The " privileged " classes have, indeed, 

 always nourished an uneasy feeling that 

 any step taken by the State to guide the 

 lives of its citizens will subtract from 

 their own ascendancy, while the experi- 

 ence of the Nonconformists in the 

 " middle " classes has hitherto led them 

 to the suspicion that any action of the 

 legislature might show an undue leaning 

 towards the interests of the Established 

 Church. 



Happily, the readjustment of political 

 and religious inequalities during the last 

 half century has reduced the fears of 

 the latter to vanishing point, and, in the 

 sphere of secondary education at least, 

 they are ready to join hands with the 

 party of educational reform. 



The chief problem will undoubtedly 

 be how to deal with "the vested interests 

 of the ancient universities and the older 

 public schools. 



Half a century ago the late Cardinal 

 J. H. Newman declared that it was 

 almost hopeless to expect organic re- 

 forms from within on the part of any 

 institution which was financially inde- 

 pendent of public support, especially 

 when it not only enjoyed the advantage 

 of historic and social prestige, but was 

 also in a position to offer substantial 

 gifts to those on the lower rungs of the 

 educational ladder who were willing to 

 be trained in accordance with its own 

 traditional prescriptions. 



It has, indeed, been largel\- due to the 

 stubborn immobility of these privileged 

 institutions that educational chaos has 

 prevailed so long in the region of secon- 

 dary education. But the power of the 

 ancient universities has not been limited 

 to the few who have accepted their bene- 

 factions. Ever since the establishment 

 of the Oxford and Cambridge Local 

 Examinations, in 1858. the\- have 

 wielded an indirect but real domination 

 over the Curricula of the whole of the 

 secondary' schools in the country, not 

 one out of a hundred of whose aluvini 

 has had either the ambition or the means 



