70 Environment and Efficiency 



With regard to girls, let me refer to the records of the 

 Industrial Schools for Girls already given (p. 27). 



Some time ago it was remarked to me by a doctor, whose 

 wife generally engaged servants from an institution in the 

 neighbourhood, that they had no idea of the value of money. 

 But this seems a defect which could easily be rectified, as, 

 for instance, by some plan like that in the Boys' Industrial 

 School (No. 2) of allowing boys to sell the produce of the 

 garden and keep accounts of the same. 



2. A lower standard of education. One hears also the 

 objection that it is impossible to get really efficient teachers 

 in institutions of this kind, that the teaching is not up-to-date, 

 &c. &c. I am not sufficiently well informed with regard to 

 the educational work in such schools to be able adequately 

 to discuss this side of the question. 



But there are one or two points with regard to the industrial 

 training which I should like to mention : 



To quote first from Mr. Cyril Jackson's Report on Boy 

 Labour. In reference to certain returns made to him by 

 London schoolmasters he remarks : 



" One headmaster in the East of London divides the boys 

 leaving his school into two ' very distinct ' groups 



(1) "The boys who reach the upper classes pass the 

 Oxford Local Junior or the Council's Merit Examination, and 

 pass at once into good places in City offices. 



(2) " The boys who find their mental powers taxed to the 

 utmost in the lower classes, and pass out as errand boys, 

 postal and telegraph messengers, van boys, shop boys, &c." 1 



And to quote from a memorandum by the Rev. D. B. 

 Kittermaster : 



" The boy's schooling has been almost entirely book-work. 

 He has been fitted by his years at school for nothing but 

 office-boy work if he has reached one of the top standards, 



1 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, Appendix, 

 vol. xx. ; Report on Boy Labour, by Mr. Cyril Jackson, p. n. 



