870 REPORT— 1903. 



was sure to entail a loss of grant. One became suspicious that some of those 

 who protested were aware that the last bulwark which defended the earning of 

 grants by cram was being removed, and that inspection might prove more irksome 

 than examination. This is past history now, and the new system works as 

 smoothly as the old and with not more complaints than are to be always expected. 

 As I have said, grants were for very many years supposed to be confined to 

 aiding the instruction of the industrial classes, but this limitation was more nominal 

 than real. It might probably be imagined that it was no very difficult task to 

 distinguish an artisan and his children from students who belonged to the middle 

 classes. This was not the case, however. Children belonging to the industrial class 

 were, on joining a science class, obliged to state the occupation of the father, and it 

 was no uncommon thing ibr fathers to be given brevet-rank by their children. 

 Thus, a bricklayer's son would describe his father as a ' builder,' which, if true, 

 ought to have brought him into the ranks of the middle class. These unautho- 

 rised promotions were one of the difficulties the inspector had to face when judging 

 as to the status of the parents. This difficulty was largely met by a rule that 

 all those who attended evening classes were supposed to be of the industrial 

 class ; but as day classes increased the numbers of those who by no possibility could 

 be of the artisan class also increased, and it became a A-ery invidious duty of 

 the inspector to put M.G. (Middle Class) against the names of many. It was 

 determined by superior authority that only those students or their parents who 

 could claim exemptioii from income-tax should be reckoned as coming within the 

 category of industrial students. In early days the qualification for abatement on 

 income-tax was a much lower figure than it is to-day, and almost each succeeding 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer has raised the figure of the income on which the 

 abatement could be claimed. To-day it is, I believe, 700^. a year, bringing the official 

 definition as to membership of the industrial classes to an absurdity. It became 

 evident to the official mind, which some people are good enough to say works but 

 slowly, that the definition must be amended or the limitation abolished. The 

 progress of events happily made the abolition the better plan, and was the means 

 of allowing inroads of science instruction to be made into secondary day schools. 



The history of these inroads I shall now give. Instruction given in so-called 

 organised science schools was originally aided by the Department by means of a 

 small Capitation Graut. These schools were supposed to give an organised course 

 of science instruction, and the successes at examination determined the payment. 

 They were not satisfactory as at first constituted, and they so dwindled away in 

 numbers that in 1890 only some one or two were left. A small increase in Capi- 

 tation Grant in 1892 revived some of them, and a fair number existed in the follow- 

 ing year. There was no doubt, however, that the conditions under which they 

 existed were most unfavourable for a sound education, which ought not only to 

 include science but also literary instruction. The latter was, in many schools, 

 wholly neglected, owing to the fact that the grants earned depended on the 

 results of examination, and so all the school time was devoted to grant earning. 



Mr. Acland; at this time Minister for Education, was made aware of this 

 neglect to give a good general education, and as I was at that time responsible 

 for science instruction I was directed to draw up a scheme for reorganising these 

 schools and forcing a general as well as scientific education to be carried out. 

 Baldly the scheme abolished almost entirely ^ payments on results of examination, 

 and the rate of grant depended on inspection and attendance. Further, a certain 

 minimum number of hours had to be given to literary subjects, and another 

 minimum to science instruction, a great deal of it being practical and having to 

 be carried out in the ' workshop.' The payments for science instruction were to 

 be withheld unless the inspector was satisfied that the literary part of the 

 education was given satisfactorily. 



The scheme was accepted and promulgated whilst the Royal Commission on 

 Secondary Education was sitting, and, if I may be allowed to say so, Mr. Acland's 

 tenure of office would be long remembered for this innovation alone, since in it he 



' Within the next four years they will entirely cease. 



