April 17, 1902] 



NA TURE 



567 



some of its provisions voluntary on the part of the County 

 Councils — will doubtless be subject to much criticism and 

 to many amendments in detail before it passes into law. 

 Meanwhile it may be useful to review the chief features 

 of the Bill, as they affect (i) technical, secondary and 

 higher education, and (2) the public elementary schools. 



Part 1 1. of the Bill follows in the main the line indicated 

 in the former Bill of 1896, which was withdrawn by the 

 (iovernment of that year. It gives to each council of a 

 county and of a county borough, and to the council of 

 any other borough with a population of more than ten 

 thousand, the name of the "local education authority,'' 

 and empowers it to supply or aid the supply of education 

 other than elementary. The Technical Instruction Acts 

 of 1889 and 1891 are repealed, and with them disappears 

 the definition of "technical instruction," which has 

 practically restricted the application of funds under those 

 Acts and under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) 

 Act to technical and scientific instruction. The local 

 education authority of the future is therefore set free to 

 allot its revenues to advanced instruction in any form which 

 the circumstances of the district need, whether scientific, 

 commercial, literary, technical or manual, or whether, as 

 is more probable, the secondary schools include in their 

 programmes all of these forms of instruction in varying 

 proportions. This is a clear gain ; the Bill may, it is to 

 be hoped, encourage the formation of a sounder public 

 opinion respecting the true scope and purpose of a liberal 

 education, as distinguished from the specific preparation 

 of the student for any one form of practical or industrial 

 pursuit. Since in another part of the Bill (clause iS) 

 evening scholars and scholars above the age of fifteen are 

 excluded from the elementary schools, and presumably 

 from a share in the ordinary Parliamentary grant, it may 

 be inferred that, in addition to the existing grammar 

 and endowed schools, and technical and secondary 

 schools generally, all the higher-grade and continuation 

 schools, and evening schools now controlled by the 

 School Boards, will come into the domain of " higher 

 education " and will receive aid only under the provisions 

 of Part II. of the new Bill. Beside these,' it is to be 

 assumed that the local education authority will have 

 under its rare the training colleges for teachers, the pupil- 

 teachers' central classes, and the management of local 

 scholarships and of such endowment funds as are 

 applicable to education in their respective districts. 



The resources available for advanced education under 

 all these forms will be drawn from the fees of the scholars, 

 from the whole residue of the fund generally known as 

 " whisky money " and provided by the Local Taxation 

 Act, and from a rate which is not to exceed twopence in 

 the pound in counties and county boroughs, or a penny in 

 the pound in non-county boroughs. It is manifest that 

 these resources will not suffice to fulfil all the purposes 

 just enumerated, and will leave little chance for the 

 establishment of such new schools or colleges as may be 

 needed, or for any adequate organisation of secondary 

 instruction in the whole country on a generous scale. 

 Moreover, it is to be observed that the new edu- 

 cational, authorities will be only " committees " of the 

 County Councils. They will have no power to raise 

 rates or to give efl^ect to their own recommendations, 

 but will act in all respects in subjection to the veto of 

 larger bodies, which are chiefly concerned with county 

 business, with the water supply and with gas, tramways 

 and sewage, and will be strongly tempted to keep down 

 the rates and to give to the interests of education a 

 subordinate place. It may fairly be concluded that the 

 measure of the Government, if passed in its present 

 form, will have the effect of repressing rather than en- 

 couraging educational enterprise, the expansion of exist- 

 ing institutions, the establishment of new ones, or the 

 trial of new experiments. 



This serious defect in the constitution of the local 



educational authority becomes more evident when we 

 consider its probable influence on elementary education. 

 At present the School Boards, which are the popularly 

 elected administrators of the public funds available for 

 elementary education in a given district, are under no 

 restriction as to the local contributions to be levied in the 

 form of rates, and are responsible only to two superior 

 authorities — the ratepayers who elect them and the 

 central Board of Education at Whitehall. Under the 

 proposed measure, the managers of schools will be placed 

 in relation to three authorities— the Board of Education, 

 the County Council and the nominated Committee. It is 

 difficult to see what can be gained in administrative 

 efficiency or in unity of educational purpose by this 

 arrangement. The measure will certainly check the 

 ambition of " educationists" who are busy in discovering 

 new methods and increasing the usefulness of the schools, 

 and in effect it will encourage local authorities to prefer 

 economy to educational improvement. As to the Board 

 of Education — hitherto known as the Education Depart- 

 ment — its policy of late has been to abdicate many of 

 the most important functions which it once discharged to 

 the great advantage of the public. Until lately it set up 

 standards of excellence, and sought by graduating its 

 grants to secure that these standards were attained. It 

 has in recent years deemed it better to relieve itself of all 

 attempt to discriminate between good, bad and indifferent 

 schools, and has declined to examine the scholars and 

 has awarded practically the same grant to all schools 

 alike. It now proposes to leave to school managers the 

 responsibility of framing such scheines of instruction as 

 will satisfy the local public, and of seeing that these 

 schemes are carried into effect. Thus between a central 

 Department which is ceasing to exercise more than 

 nominal control and a County Council which may chance 

 to consist of persons hostile or at least indifferent to the 

 intellectual progress of the people, or are else absorbed 

 in county business of another kind, our principal safe- 

 guards for such progress, which have hitherto been found 

 in School Boards elected ad hoc, and presumably caring 

 most of all about the credit of their own town and the 

 goodness of their schools, will be seriously weakened. It 

 is impossible to look forward without grave misgivings to 

 the future of popular elementary education in England 

 under the new conditions contemplated in the Bill. 



But, after all, the true significance and the obvious 

 tiiotif of the measure are to be sought elsewhere. Its 

 best friends do not claim that elementary education 

 under the new conditions will become sounder, larger 

 in its scope, more scientific in its methods, or nobler and 

 loftier in its aims. They advocate it chiefly-because it 

 will bring relief to the supporters of voluntary schools, 

 especially to those of the Established Church. It is well 

 to recall the actual facts of the present situation. About 

 half of the children under instruction in England and 

 Wales are taught in Church schools, owing to the fact 

 that in the rural districts there is generally but one 

 school in the parish and that the parents have no oppor- 

 tunity for exercising a choice. In towns, however, where 

 such an opportunity exists, the Board Schools are 

 generally fuller and more popular. Out of a total 

 expenditure of nearly thirteen millions of pounds upon 

 elementary education, the Church of England contributed 

 last year about six hundred thousand pounds, in the form 

 of subscriptions, congregational collections, and grants 

 from local endowed charities. For this sum the repre- 

 sentatives of the Established Church secured the sole 

 management of schools attended by more than two 

 millions of scholars, and the full power to give distinctive 

 theological leaching and to administer the schools in the 

 interests of the Church. To a plain man this arrangement 

 appears to be an excellent bargain, from the point of view 

 of those who regard those interests as supremely impor- 

 tant. But it is always described in diocesan conferences, 



NO. 1694, VOL. 65] 



