460 



HEPORT— 190L 



The alterations which have been made in this year's Code for England 

 and Wales, beyond embodying last year's Minute establishing Higher 

 Elementary Schools, consist mainly in the abolition of the schedules of 

 instruction ; teachers are thus left fz'ee to adopt whatever course of study 

 they think best, or to follow uioie or less closely the specimen schemes 

 which have been issued by the Board of Education for their guidance, 

 and which were referred to in last year's report. In the matter of Higher 

 Elementary Schools very little progress has been made. The School 

 Board for London and many of those in the larger provincial towns 

 proposed to put their Higher Grade Schools under the Minute, but very 

 few of their propositions have yet been approved by the Board of 

 Education ; the net result is that some half-dozen or so of schools which 

 were recognised as Organised Science Sciiools under the Science and Art 

 Department have been transferred to the Whitehall Board as Higher 

 Elementary Schools, and are doing under the Minute very similar 

 work to what they were doing before. Only one or two new schools 

 have been opened as such. If the School Boards in England and Wales 

 had the same freedom of adapting their schools to the special requirements 

 of the locality that is enjoyed under the Scotch Code, many more of the 

 Higher Grade Schools would ere this have been working under the Minute. 



There has been considerable discussion between the School Board for 

 London and the Board of Education as to the requirement by the latter 

 of fully equipped Chemical and Physical Laboratories for the first and 

 second years' scholars in these Higher Elementary Schools, as well as for 

 those of the third and fourth years. To comply with the conditions of 

 the Minute the children will have to be entered at about eleven years of 

 age ; and the School Board contends, and in this they are supported by 

 the opinion of eminent authorities, that special laboratories and elaborate 

 apparatus are not needed during the first two years, and that such would 

 be harmful rather than otherwise. The School Board maintain that 

 their proper function is to provide for these younger scholars practical 



