43° 



NATURE 



[September j8, 191 i 



But this, n itter of expense, and as a matter 



1 pon the whole, too, I do not regret the substitution of 



1 For the original Si hool Boards. It 



- true thai the ideal picture of School Boards consisting 

 of educational experts who cared pre-eminently or ex- 

 clusiverj for the educational needs of their city is naturally 



pleasin- ti imagination. But the School Board, with 



its power of invading the public purse, lent itself to friction 

 with thi civil authority. Ai present the Education Com- 

 mittees connect the education of a city by a direct personal 

 n with its civic administration; and if the civic element 

 upon the Education Committees should ever seem to fail 

 lucational knowledge or interest, the opportunity of 

 coopting educational experts, and among tl 

 men and women who might often shrink from the ordeal 

 of a hotly contested election, would seem to afford a 

 sufficient guarantee against indifference. 



But after some careful consultation with persons who 

 in Manchester and elsewhere have studied for many years 

 the problem of public elementary education, I have been 

 led to the conclusion that the reforms needed at the 

 present time are principally the following : 



I In control of the Hoard of Education over local educa- 

 tion authorities has become too strong and too stringent. 

 It is probably stronger and more stringent now than it 

 has ever been since 1870. It would be wise, 1 think, to 

 leave or to place greater administrative power in the hands 

 of the local education authority. Local authorities under- 

 1 local needs. So long as they do not depart from 

 the general principles laid down by the Board of Education, 

 they should be free to expend each its share of the public- 

 monetary grant in the way which they hold to be best 

 for their own communities. 



I see no need for a dual system of inspectors in elementary 

 schools, and I think it tends to the interference oi II. M. 

 inspectors with details upon which their judgment is some- 

 times more confident than their knowledge is profound. 



It is difficult in speaking of inspection to refrain from 

 all allusion to the notorious circular letter which was issued 

 some time ago in the name of Mr. Holmes. That letter 

 was not, I think, so wrong in sentiment as in language. 

 Inspectors chosen from the ranks of the elementary- 

 school teachers may be deficient in breadth of sympathy, 

 as other inspectors educated in the ancient universities 

 may be deficient in practical experience. It is much to be 

 hoped that the unnatural contrast between the antecedents 

 classes of inspectors will pass into the background, 

 and that the duty, which lies upon all education authori- 

 ties, of appointing the best men or women as inspectors. 

 whatever anyone's antecedents may have been, will regulate 

 all appointments in the Future. 



The period of a child's school life is now too brief. 

 There should, I think, be a universal minimum age at 

 which children mav leave school. It should pri 

 fourteen years. But whatever that age is, it should be 

 absolute. It should he wholly independent of local by-laws, 

 of the passing of standards, or of attendance at school 

 before the age of fourteen. 



The question of evening schools is fraught with difficulty. 

 To make attendance at such schools compulsory would be 

 to run a serious risk- of over-pressure. It is probable thai 

 sympathetic cooperation between local education authorities 

 and the employers of labour in the locality will in this 

 matter afford the best hope of success. For it is the 

 interest of the employers themselves that their employees 

 should not cease to improve themselves in knowledge so 

 soon as they leave the elementary schools. 



III. need oi the local education authority for increased 

 help out of public funds was recognised, I think, 

 in Parliament during the debates on the last Education 

 Bill. The Slate cannot make fresh demands upon the 

 education authorities without granting them fresh funds. 

 i'el then can be little doubt that the feeding of necessitous 

 children and the care of the epileptic, feeble-minded, and 

 crippled children will soon or late become duties imposed 

 by Parliament on all local education authorities. 



Lastly, the connection between the clementarv school and 

 the university or the technical school should be made 

 mplete. At present the elementary school provides educa- 

 tion for children up to their fifteenth year. The university 



NO. 2l8;, VOL. 87] 



or the technical school does not admit pupils undei 

 years. But education, when it is once broken, is hard to 

 resume. I nal system, if it is i< 



must be continuous. 



A public , lementi of ed e com- 



plete in itself, so far as it prepares childn 

 intellectually, and morally for 1 1 



must ni ii of the possibility thai s :, and 



the most promising, of the children educated in elemi 

 schools will deserve to rise to a higher than an eleni 

 educational standard. 



It is probable that the ascent of pupils from one 

 of school to another will become more usual in ! 

 years. This ascent will be effected or facilitated, 

 some extent it already is, by the provision of free pi 

 bursaries, exhibitions, and scholarships. Even now 

 educated in elementary schools have attained the hi] 

 honours in the ancient as well as in the modern univers 

 Some such boys have won admission to the public scl 

 and among these schools to boarding school- 

 to day schools. Whatever amount of social exclusiwness 

 may still apparently linger in that most truly detm. 

 of English institutions, a public school, it - 

 impossible that in a democratic age there should ulti- 

 mately remain any school which will not open its 1 

 to pupils who are drawn from every social section of the 

 community. In the education of girls, the s, h, ,:. , 

 Girls' Public Day School Company and other similar 

 schools, whether publicly or privately governed, have done 

 much to mitigate, if not to dissipate, the social diffen 

 among girls living in the same locality. 



But the agencies by which children of comparatively 

 poor parents have in the past been enabled to receive an 

 education in the schools, and indeed in the universitii 

 the rich are, I am afraid, coming to be gravelv ab 

 Scholarships and exhibitions were designed to remedy the 

 disadvantage of the poor, not to accentuate the pri\ 

 of the rich. To confer pecuniary rewards upon bovs 

 girls whose parents can well afford to dispense with 

 is to foster a double abuse. It is to spend money where 

 money is not milled, and to withhold money where it is 

 needed. let in the public schools, and to some extent in 

 the universities, scholarships and exhibitions tend to bei 

 the perquisites of the rich. In the field of secondary educa- 

 tion the competition for scholarships and exhibitions has 

 become so severe that scarcely any boy in the examination 

 for them stands a chance of success, except at the cost 

 of three or four years spent beforehand in an expensive 

 preparatory school. Hut as rich boys are the only 

 whose parents can afford this preparatory expenditure, it 

 follows that rich boys are generally the successful candi- 

 dates for scholarships and exhibitions. The evil is scarcely 

 capable of exaggeration. It were bad enough that a rich 

 boy, if I I on equal terms with poor boys, should 



obtain a pecuniary reward which thev do, and he does 

 not, need iiional purposes. But when it is the 



rich alone who enjoy the opportunity, or the most favour- 

 able opportunity, of winning the pecuniary rewards which 

 were justly intended for the poor, a case for drastic reform 

 seems to be made out. 



At the ancient universities the sons of rich pan 

 although they are generally eligible for such prizes as 

 scholarships and exhibitions, do not possess the same advan- 

 tage in competing for them. More, too, has been done in 

 1 lie universities than in the public schools to provide means 

 by which tin' sons of rich parents mav enjoy the distinction 

 without the emolument of a scholarship. But it is an 

 urgent matter that, alike in the colleges f the universities 

 and in the public schools, the pecu ts, by which 



alone deserving boys can rise above their hereditary sur- 

 bursaries, exhibitions, or scholarships, 

 should be strictly confined to the sons of the poor. 



Here jiei haps it is permissible, as it is certainly natural, 

 to enter a protest against the established tyranny of 

 examinations. Examination was once the obvious remedv 

 for favouritism. But a mere examination in knowledge 

 can never test some of the highest qualities which fit men 

 and women for the service of the State. In India even 

 more than in Great Britain the failure of examinations is 

 conspicuous. A facility for answering questions upon paper 

 is easily a-s,,i iated with grave defects of intellect and 



