The History of Education / Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM

PROGRESS UNDER THE LAW OF 1870. Beginning in 1871 the Board Schools had, by 1893, come to enroll 41 per cent of the pupils in elementary schools in England, as against 44 per cent in Voluntary Schools, and by 1903 the proportions were 49 per cent to 39 per cent. By 1902 the government grants for maintenance had reached, for all schools, £8,000,000 a year, and the Board Schools were rapidly outrunning the Voluntary Schools both in numbers and in per-capita expenditures. The Board Schools had made their greatest headway in the cities. In 1895 there were still some 11,000 small parishes which had no Board Schools, and in consequence paid no direct taxes for schools. Of these, 8000 had only Church-of-England Voluntary Schools.

In 1880 elementary education had been made fully compulsory, and in 1891 largely free. In 1893 the age for exemption from attendance was fixed at eleven, and in 1899 this was raised to twelve. In 1888 county and borough councils had been created, better to enforce the Act and to extend supervision. The Annual Codes, from 1870 to 1902, gradually extended governmental control through more and more detailed instructions as to inspection, the addition of new subjects, and better compulsion to attend. In 1899 a Central Board of Education, under a President and a Parliamentary Secretary, was created, to consolidate in one body the work formerly done by:

a. The Committee of Council on Education (established 1839), which administered the grants for elementary education.

b. The Department of Science and Art (established 1853), which
administered the grants for special and evening instruction in
science and art.

c. The Charity Commissioners, to which had been given (1874)
supervision of the old educational trusts and endowments for
education.

d. The educational functions of the Board of Agriculture.

This new Board unified the administration of elementary and secondary education for the first time in English history.

By about 1895 the strain on the Voluntary Schools had become hard to bear. The Church resented the encroachments of the State on its ancient privilege of training the young, and the larger resources which the Board Schools could command. In 1895 the Conservative party won the parliamentary elections, and remained in power for some years. This was the opportunity of the Voluntary Schools, and in 1897 a special national- aid grant of five shillings per pupil in average daily attendance was made to the Voluntary Schools. This simply increased the general dissatisfaction, and there was soon a general demand for new legislation that would reconcile the whole question of national education. The Law of 1902 was the ultimate result.

THE ANNEXATION LAW OF 1902. The Balfour Education Act of 1902 marks the beginning of a new period in English education. For the first time in English history education of all grades—elementary, secondary, and higher; voluntary and state—was brought under the control of one single local authority, and Voluntary Schools were taken over and made a charge on the "rates" equally with the Board Schools. New local Educational Committees and Councils replaced the old School Boards, and all secular instruction in state-aided schools of all types was now placed under their control. Religious instruction could continue where desired. In addition, one third of the property of England, which had heretofore escaped all direct taxation for education, was now compelled to pay its proper share. The foundation principle that "the wealth of the. State must educate the children of the State" was now applied, for the first time.

The State now abandoned the old policy of merely supervising and assisting voluntary associations to maintain schools, in competition with state- provided schools, and assumed the whole responsibility for the secular instruction of the people. Though the law awakened intense opposition from those who felt that it "riveted the hand of the cleric on the schools of the land," it nevertheless equalized and unified educational provisions; paved the way for much future progress; made the general provision of secondary education possible; and represented an important new step in the process of creating a national system of education for the people. Under this Law much has been done by the new Central Board of Education, and subsequent supplementary legislation, to increase materially the efficiency of the education provided.

Since 1902 the cost for education per pupil has been increased more than one half. The local authorities, to whom were given large powers of control, have levied taxes liberally, and the State has also increased its grants. Since 1902 also there has been a continual agitation for a resettlement of the educational question along broad national lines. Bills have been introduced, and important committees have considered the matter, but no affirmative action was taken. By the time of the opening of the World War it may be said that English opinion had about agreed upon the principle of public control of all schools, absolute religious freedom for teachers, local option as to religious instruction, large local liberty in management and control, well-trained and well-paid teachers, and the fusing of all types of schools into a democratic and truly national school system, strong in its unity and national elements, but free from centralized bureaucratic control. It was left for the World War to give emphasis to this national need and to permit the final creation of such an educational organization.

THE INCORPORATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION INTO THE NATIONAL SYSTEM. For centuries the education of the small ruling class has been conducted by the private tutor and the endowed secondary school, and had been completed by a few years at Oxford or Cambridge. The Reform Bill of 1832 had raised the middle commercial and industrial classes to power, and had created new demands for secondary and higher education for the sons of this class. The old endowed schools were now no longer sufficient in numbers, and the result was the founding of many private and joint-stock-company secondary schools to minister to the new educational needs. The Second Reform Bill of 1867 enfranchised a very much greater number of citizens, and the increasing wealth and the increasing demands for educational advantages led to an insistence for a further extension along secondary and higher lines. The result was seen in the investigation of the nine "Great Public Schools" of England, [34] by the Lord Clarendon Commission (1861-64); and the appointment of the British Schools Inquiry Commission of 1864-67, to inquire into the 820 other endowed schools and the 122 proprietary or joint-stock-company schools of the land. The Report of the first led to the Public Schools Act of 1868, reforming abuses and regulating the use of their old endowments. The second pointed out the great deficiency then existing in secondary education, [35] and led to the enactment of the Endowed Schools Act of 1869, placing all endowed schools under centralized supervision. We see here the beginnings of state supervision and control of the age-old endowments for Latin grammar schools and other types of schools for secondary training. The repeal of the old Religious-Tests-for- Degrees legislation, at the old universities (R. 305), in 1871, transformed these from Church-of-England into national institutions, and opened up the whole range of education to all who could meet the standards and pay the fees.

Under the Act of 1870 many local school boards, especially in the manufacturing cities, began to satisfy the new needs by the organization of Higher Grade Schools, or High Schools, to supplement the work of the elementary schools and to extend upward, in a truly democratic fashion, the educational ladder. In this movement the manufacturing cities of Sheffield, Birmingham, and Manchester were the leaders. In these three cities also, as well as in four others (Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, and London) [36] new modern-type universities were created. The Department of Science and Art (created in 1853) also began, in 1872, to give large grants to the cities for the establishment of a three-years' course in science, for the encouragement of scientific training. These new secondary-type schools, providing for the direct passage of children from the elementary to the secondary schools, with many free places for capable students, served to increase the friction between rate-aided schools on the one hand, and voluntary and endowed and proprietary schools on the other. Carrying out, as they did, Huxley's idea of a broad educational ladder, [37] they also represented a very democratic innovation in English educational procedure.

In 1894 a Commission—a favorite English method for considering vexatious questions—was appointed, under the chairmanship of Mr. James (afterwards Lord) Bryce, "to consider the best methods of establishing a well- organized system of secondary education in England." The Report was important and influential. It recommended the creation of a general Board of Education under a responsible government Minister, with a permanent Secretary and a Consultative Educational Council (as was done in 1899); the establishment of local county and borough boards to provide adequate secondary-school accommodations, with aid from the "rates"; the inspection of secondary schools by the Central Board of Education; the professional training of secondary-school teachers; and a great extension of the free- scholarship plan to children from the elementary schools. On this last point the Report said: [38]

We have to consider the means whereby the children of the less well- to-do classes of our population may be enabled to obtain such secondary education as may be suitable and needful for them. As we have not recommended that secondary education shall be provided free of cost to the whole community, we deem it all the more needful that ample provision be made by every local authority for enabling selected children of poorer parents to climb the educational ladder…. The assistance we have contemplated should be given by means of a carefully graduated system of scholarships, varying in value in the age at which they are awarded and the class of school or institution at which they are tenable.

The Act of 1902 unified control of both elementary and secondary education. Any private or endowed secondary school was left free to accept or reject government aid and inspection, but, if the aid were accepted, inspection and the following of government plans were required. Secondary education must provide for scholars up to or beyond the age of sixteen. No attempt was made to unify the work and character of the secondary schools, it being clearly recognized that, in England at least, these must be suited to the different requirements of the scholars, the means of the parents, the age at which schooling will stop, and the probable place in the social organism of England which the pupils will occupy. By 1910, out of 841 secondary schools in England receiving grants of state aid, 325 were supported by local authorities and were the creations of the preceding four decades. Most of the others represented old Latin grammar- school foundations, thus incorporated into the national system, and without that violence and destruction of endowments which characterized the transformations in France and Italy.

[Illustration: FIG. 195. THE ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM AS FINALLY EVOLVED The years, for the divisions of English education, are only approximate, as English education is more flexible than that found in most other lands.]

A NATIONAL SYSTEM AT LAST EVOLVED. It is a little more than two centuries from the founding of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (1699) to the very important Fisher Education Act [39] of August, 1918. The first marked the beginnings of the voluntary system; the second "the first real attempt in England to lay broad and deep the foundations of a scheme of education which would be truly national." This Act, passed by Parliament in the midst of a war which called upon the English people for heavy sacrifices, completed the evolution of two centuries and organized the educational resources—elementary, secondary, evening, adult, technical, and higher—into one national system, animated by a national purpose, and aimed at the accomplishment for the nation of twentieth- century ends on the most democratic basis of any school system in Europe. In so doing Huxley's educational ladder has not only been changed into a broad highway, but the educational traditions of England (R. 306) have been preserved and moulded anew.

The central national supervisory authority has been still further strengthened; the compulsion to attend greatly extended; and the voice of the State has been uttered in a firmer tone than ever before in English educational history. Taxes have been increased; the scope of the school system extended; all elements of the system better integrated; laggard local educational authorities subjected to firmer control; the training of teachers looked after more carefully than ever before; and the foundations for unlimited improvement and progress in education laid down. Still, in doing all this, the deep English devotion to local liberties has been clearly revealed. The dangers of a centralized French-type educational bureaucracy have been avoided; necessary, and relatively high, minimum standards have been set up, but without sacrificing that variety which has always been one of the strong points of English educational effort; and the legitimate claims of the State have been satisfied without destroying local initiative and independence. In this story of two centuries and more of struggle to create a really national system of education for the people we see strongly revealed those prominent characteristics of English national progress—careful consideration of new ideas, keen sensitiveness to vested rights, strong sense of local liberties and responsibilities, large dependence on local effort and good sense, progress by compromise, and a slow grafting-on of the best elements of what is new without sacrificing the best elements of what is old.