200 REPORT— 187G. 



Hie Results of Five Years of Compuhonj Education. 

 By "William Jack, LL.D. 



In this paper the author did not propose to discuss the question whether the quality 

 of elementaiy education in this country has improved or deteriorated in conse- 

 quence of the introduction of conipidsion. Few inquiries would be more difficult. 

 There is no absolute standard of quality. He used the word results for two things 

 which can be measiu'ed in figures : — 



(1) The change in the number of children attending efficient elementary schools. 



(2) The change, if any, in the regularity of attendance at school. 



In the EngHsh Education Act of 1870 the Government, for the first time, sanc- 

 tioned the principle that wherever the school boai'd of a locality believes that chil- 

 dren ought to be compelled to attend school, parents may be compelled to send them 

 under penalty of fine or imprisonment, subject to such bye-laws as the school board 

 may enact. 



Since that time school boards representing a population of nearly 12^ millions of 

 people in England and Wales have passed and worked compidsory bye-laws. Com- 

 pulsion is now adopted by forty-six per cent, of the whole popidation of England 

 and Wales, and by eighty-two per cent, of the borough population. 



In the new Education Act of 1876 England has adopted the principle of imi- 

 versal compulsion, creating a school attendance committee where there is no school 

 board, and enjoining that committee or the school board of the locality to make and 

 enforce bye-laws and otherwise carry out the pro^ isions of the Act. 



They are briefly these : — 



1st. It is declared to be the duty of eveiy parent to see to the elementary educa- 

 tion of his child above five and below fourteen. 



2nd. No employer is permitted to employ 



(a) any child imder ten years of age, with certain (no doubt considerable) 



permitted exceptions ; or 

 (V) any child o^■er ten and up to fourteen 

 without a certificate either of education or of previous attendance of a due amoiuit. 



These provisions will come into force fully in 1881. 



After giving the general results for the three countries the wi'iter proposed to look 

 .somewhat more in detail to the results of the application of compulsion in the large 

 cities, which are tyi^es of 82 per cent, of the borough population of England. The 

 Act of 1870 decreed a school board for London. The first step which llie board 

 took was to discover the actual school supplj' in the metropolis, and to malve a rea- 

 sonable estimate of what was wanted. The CT0\ernment theory was, that accomo- 

 dation ought to be provided for one in six of the population. After malring allow- 

 ances for the middle and \ipper classes, and for the necessary absences, the School 

 Board of Londim decided that a supply for one in eight of the population was enough 

 to provide for (■lc7nentayy schooling in its district. Accordingly it was necessaiy to 

 have accommodation for 420,000 children, the population in 1871 being approximately 

 .3,.350,000. The Board found schools existing in 1870, or erected or projected be- 

 tween that and 1873, for 308,000, so that their first duty was to biuld for 112,000 

 more children. Many of the existing schools were inefficient ; they had to work 

 gradually towards the remodelling or uprooting of these inefficient schools; they 

 had to alter the habit of irregular attendance. Between the spring of 1871 and the 

 Michaelmas of 1873, two and a half years, they had increased the average attend- 

 ance by 60,000. At midsummer, 1876, the average attendance had risen to 30.5,749, 

 an iuci'ease of 131,448 over the spring of 1871, when it was 174,301. Thus in five 

 years the average attendance on efficient schools has risen by sevent,y-fi-\e per cent. 

 m the metropolis, against tlie Irish eight per cent, in five years. Besides this there 

 were 42,C00 in non-efficient schools, which is 12,000 fewer than in the previous 

 year. There were 87,000 who ought to have been at school, but who were absent 

 from various causes at Midsummer 1876. This official estimate of deficiency is 

 fomided on the theoiy that 575,000 children between three and thirteen require ele- 

 mentary teaching — say one in six of the population. But the School Board of Lon- 

 don do not think it necessary to provide school accommodation for more than 440,000 

 — say one in eiglit : and in fact they have pro^ided, up to llie end of 1876, for 



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