An Association for Promoting the Application of Endowments to the Education of Women was formed, and offered to assist trustees of schools and other persons interested in education by supplying information and suggesting plans whereby available funds might best be applied to the education of women. It had a strong committee, which numbered among its members Miss Davies, Miss Clough, and Miss Bostock, as well as Mr. Bryce and Mr. Fitch, those constant and helpful supporters of all efforts to improve the education of girls. At this time the needs of the middle class seemed most urgent, since the State-aided schools were coming to the aid of the very poor, and the rich could pay the high terms that were then demanded by the better private schools. The immediate need seemed to be for schools of the second or third grade, i.e. those meant for girls who would leave school some time between fourteen and seventeen, and might be expected to pay fees ranging from £4 to £10 per annum.
Of such schools the first were founded out of the surplus revenues of King Edward’s Schools at Birmingham. Here four schools of the second grade were opened, each to accommodate about 160 pupils. These not only filled at once, but had to refuse admission to 500 candidates. In 1870 the Grey Coat Hospital at Westminster was opened; but on the whole progress was slow, and Mr. Roundell’s estimate in 1871 that there were in England and Wales 225,000 girls waiting for secondary education was probably not wide of the mark.
In that same year an event occurred of far-reaching importance. The admirable institution so long associated with the name of Miss Frances Buss was transformed into a public school for girls. Readers of her interesting biography now realise, what had long been known to her friends, with what a single mind and earnest devotion she had worked for the cause nearest her heart—the establishment of public schools for girls. As early as 1850, her own private school had been reconstituted on public lines, with the help of the Rev. David Laing, one of the promoters of Queen’s College, but her ambition was to make it public in fact as well as in its methods. Attention had been drawn to her work by her evidence before the Schools’ Inquiry Commission, and now some of its members themselves came forward to help her. If ever a school could lay claim to public aid, it was this one; and as soon as the enabling act was passed, active measures were taken to secure for it an endowment. With rare clear sight Miss Buss realised that a fully equipped school can only be self-supporting by the sacrifice of either suitable buildings, adequate salaries, or a scale of fees suited to the neighbourhood. She wanted to organise a pioneer school in which none of these good things should be lacking; nothing less than the best seemed good enough. Her enthusiasm and confidence were not to go unrewarded. In December 1870, a public meeting was held in the St. Pancras Vestry Hall, to announce the formation of a trust for carrying on the existing school, and starting another of a lower grade in connection with it. The upper school thus constituted took the name of the North London Collegiate, and in January 1871 removed with its two hundred pupils to 202 Camden Street, and at the same time the Lower or Camden School came into existence. According to Miss Buss’s principle, the fees under the new trust were calculated to meet current expenses only. The building was to be provided from other funds, as was done in boys’ public schools. A subscription list was opened, and every possible endeavour made to win public support. These were anxious years for Miss Buss; money came in slowly, and rather than abandon her principle she chose to sacrifice her salary. Nor did she wait in vain; the excellent work of the school won it recognition, and when in 1874 the Charity Commissioners were called upon to dispose of the Platt Charity derivable from property in St. Pancras, belonging to the Brewers’ Company, they recommended that £20,000 be given to the North London Collegiate and Camden Schools. Thus building funds were secured, afterwards supplemented by a generous donation from the Clothworkers’ Company. The scheme became law in 1875, and the two schools have continued since then to work side by side as endowed schools of the first and second grade, with different principals, but both under the superintendence of the head-mistress of the upper school. This arrangement has proved most valuable, as it promotes co-ordination instead of rivalry between the two schools. In other places where two grades exist side by side, it is not uncommon to find the lower one attempting with inadequate means to imitate the upper. The special needs of the class attending it are then neglected, and undue attention given to a few clever girls, for whom leave is sometimes obtained to stay beyond the appointed age. At the Frances Mary Buss Schools (as the two are now called in memory of their founder), this danger is obviated by a good system of scholarships from the lower to the upper.
At the Camden School girls may attend from seven to seventeen. The fees range from £5, 2s. to £8 per annum. The subjects taught are the usual English ones, with Class-Singing, Needlework, Drawing, and Book-keeping, and the elements of Science. Special attention is given to theoretical and practical Domestic Economy, and these classes receive assistance from the London County Council. French is the only foreign language taught. At the North London Collegiate, girls may attend between eight and nineteen, the list of subjects is much wider, and selections have to be made under the direction of the head-mistress. French, German, Latin and Greek, are included in the curriculum, and the practical subjects either omitted or reduced to a minimum. Since the work of the school is directed to the London University Examinations and the Cambridge Higher Locals, the course is necessarily laid out for girls who can stay long enough to enter the upper forms, and perhaps proceed to college. The fees range from £17, 11s. to £19, 14s. But girls over sixteen proceeding from the lower to the upper school pay only £14, 8s. Many pass up by means of scholarships.
These two schools with their thousand pupils, fine buildings, and noble roll of honours won by old pupils stand pre-eminent among girls’ endowments. The principle that with a scale of fees adapted to meet current expenses the endowment should provide buildings and scholarships has been triumphantly vindicated by the Frances Mary Buss Schools.
Almost simultaneous with the endowment of these schools was the appropriation of some part of the funds of the Bradford Grammar School, ‘to supply a liberal education for girls by means of a school or schools within the borough of Bradford.’ Public opinion was, however, hardly ripe for such a diversion of any large part of an old endowment, and although, as Mr. Forster pointed out at the inaugural meeting, a charter of Charles II. had assigned the land ‘for the better teaching, instructing, and bringing up of children and youth,’ ‘which terms are of common gender,’ the money assigned to the girls would not have been sufficient to start the school, but for the generosity of the Ladies’ Educational Committee, which raised a sum of £5000 for purchasing the buildings. Thus the Bradford Girls’ Grammar School came into being. The fees are £12 to £15, 15s., and girls may stay till eighteen or nineteen. It is thus technically of the first grade, and as such prepares the pupils in the highest class for the university. Many, however, leave school long before attaining this stage, and this appears to constitute one of the special difficulties of North of England schools. There is, however, a wide list of subjects which may be taught, and from these the head-mistress arranges each pupil’s curriculum. As the fees are the same as those of a high school, the endowment fund helps to supply better salaries, apparatus, etc. and thus to increase efficiency. A scholarship fund of £1000 has been provided by the generosity of two private donors, and forty-one scholars have by its help already proceeded to the university.
Manchester also has a first-grade endowed school, which originated like so many others in those active years that followed 1870. Here too the initiative was taken by an association for promoting the higher education of women. The school was started in 1873 by subscription, and in 1876 the present site in Dover Street was secured for building, and over £5000 raised for the purpose. A few years later, an opportunity occurred of securing some public money, as the wealthy foundation of Hulme’s Charity was to be reorganised. The school secured a share, receiving a capital grant of £1500, and £1000 a year on condition that the governing body should be reconstituted to give it a more representative character. Under the new arrangement, there are representatives of the Hulme Trustees, Oxford, Cambridge, Victoria, and London, Owens College, and the Manchester School Board, as well as other co-opted members. This representative character has proved of the greatest value to the school, which takes rank as one of the first in the country. The buildings are admirable in convenience and arrangement, and the scholarship fund amounts to £640 a year. Two smaller schools lately established by the governors at Pendleton and North Manchester have somewhat diminished the numbers of the parent school, but prove a boon to girls in those parts, since the means of communication at Manchester are somewhat inadequate. Only Manchester girls are received in the High School, or those residing with near relations. There are no boarding-houses; it is a purely local school. The fees are nine to fifteen guineas per annum. Manchester has been specially successful in ‘assimilating’ those girls that enter the high school from the elementary schools, several of whom have passed on to the university with scholarships, and been very successful in their after careers. Its chief want is a system of scholarships from the elementary schools, to enable it to extend its useful work, and take a place in a national system of education.
The most complete schemes of endowed schools for girls are at Birmingham and Bedford, and they are typical of two different systems. The King Edward’s endowment, one of the largest in England, had been so mismanaged that in 1828 only 115 boys were being educated on it, and the school building was in ruins. In 1831 by a Chancery scheme, two new schools, Classical and English, were established, and twenty years later there were sufficient funds to maintain eight elementary schools as well. Immediately after the passing of the ‘Endowed Schools Act’ further changes were made. The schools were reorganised in three grades (high, middle, lower middle), and four grammar schools founded for girls. When the spread of State-aided elementary schools made the third class unnecessary, these were abolished, and a girl’s High School substituted. This forms the last link in the chain; and a close connection between different grades by means of scholarships, leading gradually upward from the elementary school to the university, gives the necessary cohesion to the system. The High School can accommodate 260 girls, and the four grammar schools 780. Fees are charged in all, but not so high as to cover the cost of education. At the High School it is calculated that the expense of each pupil is £20 per annum, while the fee is £9. The endowment makes up the deficiency, and permits the reservation of one-third of the places for foundation scholars. Further, it enables the governors to offer their teachers good salaries, and to conduct the whole on those generous lines without which it is impossible to provide a liberal education for either girls or boys. In educational organisation as in municipal matters, Birmingham is a model to the rest of the country. It shows how an old endowment, sufficiently large and carefully distributed, can be made to meet the needs of all classes of a community. ‘We cannot reform our ancestors,’ as George Eliot so pertinently remarks, nor can we set down rich old endowments in the midst of places that have never known such benefactions. But fresh money is coming in from new sources, and we want object lessons in its application. Birmingham teaches the value of co-ordination, and incidentally the use to which public funds may be put in bringing a good education within the reach of the largest possible number.
The position of Bedford is different. A small town with no special industry happens, through the munificence of one of its ancient citizens, to be possessed of one of the largest endowments in the kingdom. For many years its benefits were confined to the inhabitants of Bedford, and as a result the population was constantly increased by persons who were glad to get free education for their sons. Many, no doubt, were well able to pay for it, but preferred, naturally enough, to get it for nothing. At the time of the Schools’ Inquiry Commission, the endowment was maintaining:—(1) A grammar school with 204 boys. (2) A commercial school with 358 boys. (3) A preparatory commercial school with 237 boys; as well as elementary schools for nearly 1200 children and a hospital for 13 boys and 13 girls, almshouses, etc. Considerable as were these numbers, they fell far short of the possibilities of the endowment. The institution of a fee, even a low one, would at once set free a goodly sum, and something, if only as compensation for the marriage portions, was due to the girls. A new scheme providing for a fresh distribution of the funds was drawn up in 1873, but the girls’ schools did not come into existence till 1882. Under the present arrangement one-eleventh of the available funds is used for eleemosynary purposes, two-elevenths go to the elementary schools, which until quite lately have served all the needs of the town and rendered a schoolboard unnecessary. The remainder is divided equally between the two higher schools—boys’ Grammar and girls’ High—and the two Modern schools. This looks very much like putting girls and boys on an equality, but a clause in the scheme explains that three boys are to be considered equal to five girls. In other respects the money is evenly divided; it is shared out annually ‘in proportion to the average number of scholars attending the said schools respectively during the preceding year,’ a curious application of a Scriptural doctrine, by which a rise in numbers in the boys’ school entails a corresponding deficit in the exchequer of the girls’ school and vice versa. Still, rightly managed, there is enough for all.
At Bedford no attempt is made to co-ordinate the work of the two schools, or to establish any but the very slightest connection—by means of a few scholarships—between the elementary and modern schools. Hence the benefit of co-operation is lost. The great difference between the fees—£9 to £12 at the High, £4 at the Modern school—makes active rivalry impossible. It is the state of the home exchequer that settles the choice of a school, far more than the preference for one system of education or a girl’s probable after-career. It is curious that, in spite of the general outcry for cheap schools, the low fee of the Modern School has not proved as great an attraction as was expected; it has filled but slowly, and is only now approaching 200, while the High School averages an attendance of 600. To some extent the curriculum of both schools is the same, but the greater economy requisite in the Modern school necessitates larger classes, less complete equipment, and lower salaries for the teachers. To families in straitened circumstances, local shopkeepers, and small farmers within a short train journey of the town, the school is a great boon; but it seems certain that at Bedford, whatever may be the case elsewhere, all who can afford the higher fee are willing to pay it for the sake of the greater social prestige of the High School. Prejudice of this kind must always be reckoned with, however carefully Parliament or Royal Commissioners may provide on paper for the needs of each class of the population.