TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 711 
L.C.C. maintenance scholarships are given annually, by means of which girls from 
the elementary schools receive twelve months’ instruction in domestic subjects, 
while some eighty additional scholarships, awarded on special aptitude, carry for- 
ward the best of these girls into the trade schools, where under skilful and com- 
petent teachers they specialise in such work as dressmaking, corset or waistcoat 
making, upholstery, tailoring, or art needlework. 
The spread of such secondary education is one of the necessities of modern 
times, and when this is fully recognised by education authorities throughout the 
country a liberal supply of scholarships for the same should follow as a matter 
of course. iad 
3. The Scholarship System. By A. R. Picxuss, M.A., B.A. 
a, School Relationships.—-In view of the rapid increase of municipal secondary 
schools and of the modernising of many of the older foundations, and especially 
in view of the most recent pronouncements of the Board of Education in favour 
of a broadly democratic scheme of higher education, it is of importance to define 
the precise relationship between the primary and the secondary school systems, 
in order to be able to discuss a scholarship system with any real profit. 
b. The Aim of the Primary School.-The old conception of the primary 
school as a place for teaching poor children the three R’s, along with a smattering 
of history and geography, has happily receded, giving place to the new conception, 
which regards these schools as places for the formation of right habits, for the 
cultivation of thought and intelligence, and for fashioning the too]s of learning. 
To regard a child’s education as completed at the close of the primary school 
period is an absurdity, He may, by imitation, by the aid of a retentive memory, 
and by an oftentimes puzzling inquisitiveness, pick up many scraps of useful 
information; but the powers of reason, of independent thought, of balanced 
judgment, lie latent in the young child to a very large degree, It is in the vital 
years from about twelve to sixteen or seventeen that these powers attain working 
strength, and it may therefore be considered that all which goes before the age of 
about twelve is merely preparatory, and that the real educational development 
properly dates from this time. 
e. The Transfer to Secondary Schools.—As the artisan classes are taking an 
increasing share in municipal and national government, the supreme Imperial task 
of our time is the raising of popular intelligence, and it is as desirable as it will 
be beneficial to give the artisan as broad an education as is given to those whose 
privilege it has hitherto mostly been. As yet the greater number of our working- 
class children must go out at the age of thirteen or fourteen to earn a livelihood, 
but it is to be hoped that in the very near future a much greater proportion of the 
children even of poor parents will be able to proceed to a secondary school, 
especially if they desire and deserve it. So the essential thing at the present 
moment is to popularise secondary school teaching; to make the lower middle 
and artisan classes feel that they have as great an interest as anybody in our 
secondary schools. The narrow ladder must give place to a wide corridor 
between the primary and the secondary schools. 
d. The Present Scholarship System Inadequate and Wrong in Principle.—If 
this yiew of the aim of the primary school and of the relationship between the 
primary and the secondary school be granted, then it follows that our generally 
existing method of awarding scholarships is wrong in principle as well as 
inadequate. A local authority offers 2 scholarships, and primary school 
teachers far too often look upon the winning of scholarships more as bringing 
kudos to the school than advantaging the child. They eagerly scan previous 
years’ questions, and do their best to anticipate what questions may next be set; 
and, on the other hand, the examiner generally tries to set what he thinks the 
child will not know. Neither is to be blamed. Under present conditions they 
could hardly do otherwise. The system is at fault. Then the list is announced, and 
the child with 55:9 per cent, of marks may secure a scholarship, and the next 
