SCHOOLS 



The school was under Mr. Phillpotts and is now organized into [a) classical side, {b) civil and 

 military side, [c) technical department, (d) preparatory department or junior school. The engi- 

 neering department has since been completely separated. Special classes are also organized for other 

 needs as occasion requires. 



There are now 37 assistant masters, of whom 14 are on the classical side. The boys 

 numbered in igo6 840, of whom 200 were boarders in eight houses. More than half the 

 boarders are sons of English parents abroad in India or elsewhere, about 20 are from places in 

 Bedfordshire, and 23 from London. The head master does not take boarders. Of the day boys 

 about 35 are from Bedfordshire. The tuition fees are, under ten, 10 guineas; between ten and 

 sixteen, 13 guineas; and over sixteen, 16 guineas a year. Boarders pay ^^63 a year, under 

 sixteen ; and £b(> 151. over that age. The only extra fees are for practical work in the laboratories 

 of a guinea and engineering of ^4 i oj. a term. 



The Modern School for Boys 



The Rev. R. B. Poole, afterwards D.D. and canon, was appointed the first head master of the 

 Modern School, which by the new scheme superseded the Commercial School, on 6 July, 1877, 

 and held office for twenty-three years. By successive invasions on the original scheme the leaving 

 age and the tuition fees of the Modern School were so raised that at last a year only separated the 

 leaving age, it being eighteen instead of nineteen as at the Grammar School, while the tuition fee 

 was low, being £^ for most boys, considerably below the tuition fee at the Grammar School. More- 

 over, boarders were introduced at an inclusive fee of ^^50 to ;^6o a year. The school also widely 

 departed from its original aim and prepared boys for the army and the university. When we read 

 that 'Varsity oars, two football internationals, and several county cricketers have been trained here, we 

 can only regret that the Charity Commissioners sacrificed to town pressure the restrictions scientifically 

 introduced in the scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners, and that the school, instead of a 

 different type of school, is a mere echo of the grammar school, to which parents whose families were 

 elastic and their purses tight, sent their boys to save a few guineas a year at the Grammar School. It 

 has been run as a first-grade school with a low second-grade tuition fee. The result has been that 

 the finances of the school have been continually in straits, and that a new scheme is even now 

 under consideration to raise the fees to relieve the pressure. 



The numbers in the school rose to about 600. Canon Poole resigned to take a living on 

 12 July, 1900. Mr. Cecil William Kaye, head niaster of Loughborough Grammar School, was 

 appointed on 18 October. He was educated at Marlborough College and University College, 

 Oxford, where he obtained a Second Class in Classics. There are now 420 boys in the school under 

 23 masters. 



The Girls' Schools 



The girls' High School and the girls' Modern School were intended to correspond to the 

 Grammar School for boys and the Modern School for boys respectively ; and have perhaps more 

 nearly carried out this intention than the boys' schools. 



Both were opened on i May, 1882, in Bromham Road. Mrs. McDowall was the first 

 head mistress of the High School and Miss Porter of the Modern School. Miss Belcher very shortly 

 succeeded to the High School in January, 1883. There were in that year 131 girls. Five years 

 later they had been more than trebled in number, amounting to 427 ; in another five years they 

 reached 536, and in 1898 600. Miss Belcher died in December, 1898, and was succeeded by the 

 second mistress. Miss Collie. The tuition fees are the same as at the Grammar School. There are 

 two Goring Exhibitions of ^^35 a year out of the Harpur Trust, and a Jane Benson Scholarship of 

 /60 a year, tenable at Bedford College, London, has been founded. An old girh' guild keeps up 

 the esprit de corps. There are now some 500 girls. 



The Modern School did not vary much in numbers under Miss Porter, there being 164 girls in 

 1883, 177 in 1898, and 148 in 1893. Miss Dolby became head mistress in September, 1894. 

 In 1898 the school was transferred to the old Earl Cowper buildings of the Grammar School. The 

 numbers have since risen, and are now about 300. The tuition fees are £j^ a year. 



The Bedford County School, now Elstow School 



This school was originally founded in 1869 as the school of a limited company by the leading 

 men in the county, including the Duke of Bedford, for residents of the county outside Bedford, as 

 the Grammar School was then limited to the borough. Since the scheme of 1872 again threw the 

 school open, and the Modern School was established, the County School has become an ordinary 



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