Failing endowments, or even side by side with them, capital must be obtained from other sources: this was the problem which had now to be faced. On May 31st, 1871, Mrs. Grey read a paper before the Society of Arts on the Education of Women. She described its extremely unsatisfactory condition, and suggested three remedies. (1) The creation of a sounder public opinion respecting the need and obligation of educating women. (2) The redistribution of educational endowments so as to give a fair share of them to girls. (3) The improvement of female teachers by their examination and registration according to fixed standards.
In the following October, at the Social Science Congress at Leeds, she proposed the establishment of a national Union for the improvement of the education of women of all classes. Its objects should be—(1) To enlighten the public mind, through meetings and lectures throughout the country, on the present state of female education, on the national importance of improving it, and on the measures required for that end. (2) To collect and disseminate information respecting the best methods of education, the comparative advantages of large and small schools, the influence of endowments, and generally all questions connected with the training of girls. (3) To promote measures for the better training of female teachers, and especially for their examination and registration by fixed standards, so as to secure a measure of competency. (4) To assist the formation of councils similar to the North of England Council for the Education of Women in other divisions of the country, and, while endeavouring to multiply local centres of activity, to afford all workers in the same cause a common bond of union, and a means of intercommunication and combined action.
The proposal was favourably received; 300 names were at once given in for membership, and a provisional committee formed. Individual subscriptions were fixed at five shillings; and an affiliation fee of not less than a guinea annually entitled corporate associations to be represented on the annual general council, and to all the privileges of membership. This National Union supplied a real need. Members poured in fast. The Princess Louise consented to become president, and the roll of vice-presidents was a distinguished one. Branch unions were formed, and associations already existing at Belfast, Dublin, Birmingham, Cambridge, Clifton, Falmouth, Guernsey, Huddersfield, Norwich, Plymouth, Northampton, Wakefield, Winchester, and Windsor were brought into membership with the Union. Many of the Schoolmistresses’ Associations sought affiliation: the Ladies’ Council of the Yorkshire Board of Education, and the North of England Council also joined the Union, and consented to appoint representatives to the central committee. With admirably organised machinery directed by knowledge and enthusiasm, great reforms seemed possible, and in 1872 the Union proceeded to its first piece of constructive work, the establishment of the Girls’ Public Day School Company.
Proceedings were inaugurated at a meeting at the Albert Hall, with Lord Lyttelton in the chair. Proposals were brought forward for starting a shareholding company ‘for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in London and the provinces superior day-schools, at a moderate cost, for girls of all classes above those provided for by the Elementary Education Act.’ A capital of £12,000 was to be raised in 2400 shares of £5 each. The proposal found favour, prospectuses were sent out, accompanied by a letter from Princess Louise; 800 shares were at once taken up, and the company was floated. Among the earliest members of its council were the Marquis of Lorne, the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, Mrs. William Grey, Miss Mary Gurney, and Miss Shirreff, Sir Douglas Galton, K.C.B., and Mr. C. S. Roundell.
The next step was to open schools, and Chelsea was chosen as the scene of the first experiment. Miss Porter was appointed head-mistress, and a suitable house was hired. The school began with twenty-five girls, and rapidly increased. A few months later a second one was opened at Notting Hill with Miss Jones as head. For these first experimental schools no shares were specially taken up in the neighbourhood. In future, any place that wished for a high school was usually required to take up a certain number, as a definite assurance of local interest. Croydon was opened on these conditions in 1874, with twenty pupils. Then followed, in 1875, Clapham, Hackney, Bath, Oxford, and Nottingham; in 1876, Brighton, Gateshead, and St. John’s Wood; in 1878, Dulwich, Ipswich, Maida Vale, Sheffield. At present the schools number thirty-four. They are at Bath, Blackheath, Brighton, Bromley, Carlisle, Clapham (High and Modern), Clapton, Croydon, Dover, Dulwich, Gateshead, Highbury, Ipswich, Kensington, Liverpool, East Liverpool, Maida Vale, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Notting Hill, Oxford, Portsmouth, East Putney, Sheffield, Shrewsbury, South Hampstead, Streatham Hill, Sutton, Sydenham, Tunbridge Wells, Wimbledon, York.
The fees are: for pupils under ten years of age, £10, 10s. a year; entering the school between ten and thirteen, or remaining after ten, £13, 10s. a year; entering after thirteen, £16, 10s. a year. The company is on a sound financial basis, since the larger and more flourishing schools make up for the deficiencies of the smaller ones. Until 1896 a dividend of five per cent. was paid, now limited by resolution of the shareholders to four per cent. The capital has been increased to £150,000.
Meantime similar schools were springing up all over the country. At Plymouth one was started by a local branch of the National Union, at Huddersfield by a local company, at Southampton by the Hampshire Association, at Manchester by private subscription, at Bradford by an endowment. The impulse given by the Union and its pioneer schools was felt everywhere, and it seemed as though before long every large town in England would have a proprietary or public school for girls. A rival company was founded in 1883. The Church Schools Company differed from the Girls’ Public Day School Company in making definite Church teaching one of its objects, while the religious instruction of the Girls’ Public Day School Company had always aimed at being, as far as possible, undenominational. The promoters of the Church Schools thought that as there was room for voluntary schools side by side with board schools, so there might also be scope for Church High Schools in spite of the existence of the Girls’ Public Day School Company. Their original proposal was to start schools of various grades for boys and girls above the class attending elementary schools, where a general education should be given, in accordance with the principles of the Church of England, at a moderate cost.
A beginning was made with day-schools for girls, and hitherto little else has been done. It is probable that this Church Company did, to some extent, meet a need, but it was not a very large one. The majority of the Church of England parents are perfectly satisfied with the religious instruction of the Girls’ Public Day School Company schools, and the new schools drew their pupils, not so much by an appeal to those who disapproved on principle of the existing high schools, as by establishing themselves in towns which the other company had not entered. Naturally they appealed to a smaller class, and can never expect to attain the numbers of the undenominational high schools. Hence they have always been, to some extent, hampered, for though the company is financially sound, and gives a small dividend to shareholders, it has had to economise very severely in the matter of salaries and buildings. This must always re-act to some extent on the education, and it is probably for this reason that these Church Schools have never attained the high position of their rivals. The fees paid vary according to the locality, some being as low as £4, 4s., others as high as £18, 18s.; £9, 9s. to £12, 12s. seems the commonest fee. Many of the schools are very small. At present the number is twenty-six, and they are situated at Bournemouth, Brighton, Bury St. Edmunds, Derby, Dewsbury, Durham, Gloucester, Guildford, Hull, Kendal, Kensington, Leicester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Northampton, Reading, Reigate, Richmond, St. Albans, Streatham, Stroud Green, Sunderland, Surbiton, Wigan, Woolwich, Great Yarmouth, York.
High Schools can now trace back their history for a quarter of a century. In that time more than a hundred have been founded in England. They have become the typical girls’ schools of this country, private schools have been organised on the same lines, and the scheme of large day schools with no distinction of class, giving a good education at a low fee, has been almost universally accepted. It seems so simple and natural, that it is hard to realise that twenty-five years ago it was a strange and therefore a dangerous innovation. After all what do we mean by a High School? There is a general impression of the meaning of the term, though it would not be easy to define it. In the United States, a High School is an advanced school, which can only be entered by pupils who have already passed through the Primary and Grammar Schools; that is, do not enter before the age of fourteen or fifteen. It is thus a Secondary School, forming the link between the primary institutions and the University. Our English High Schools provide both elementary and secondary instruction, and the ages of the pupils range from seven to nineteen. Hence, although there is a natural division between the Lower and Upper School, the work is closely connected; the same mistresses teach in both, and subjects such as Latin and French are usually carried down into the lower classes. The lower part of a High School is not exactly parallel to an Elementary School; the pupils have begun more subjects, they have been taught in smaller classes, and by different, less rigid methods. The High School cannot therefore at present be regarded as the middle rung of the educational ladder. In England there is a gap between it and the Elementary School, which is sometimes successfully bridged by special means, but the existence of which cannot be disregarded in any general scheme of English education. As the need of secondary education is more generally felt, a system of schools leading upward in direct line from the elementary school is being naturally evolved, and connection between the two lines is being provided by scholarships and other means. But if we disregard a few exceptional cases, it seems best to look on the High School as an organic whole, taking the child from the nursery to the university, and sometimes even helping out the nursery by means of the kindergarten.
It is not uncommon to hear people talk of the High School system, but this is misleading. In so far as the High Schools have a special system, it is the natural outcome of the scheme of large classes and careful gradation. Hence it resembles in many respects that which has long prevailed in Germany and the United States. There is no High School Code, and even under the same management, e.g. in the Girls’ Public Day-School Company Schools, considerable latitude is left to the individual head-mistress; but there are certain arrangements which are found convenient in the organisation of large day schools, and which prevail with modifications in all the High Schools, as well as in many large private institutions.