On the other hand, the High School has more than fulfilled anticipations. Not only does it provide a first-class education for the sisters of grammar school boys, it has won a position and prestige of its own which attract considerable numbers from a distance. There are now several flourishing boarding-houses, all working in close connection with the school, and under the superintendence of the head-mistress. In this way Bedford High School, like the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, St. Leonard’s School at St. Andrews, and a very few others, has taken a position somewhat analogous to that of a boys’ public school, sought for its own sake, and not merely on account of its nearness or cheapness. The large numbers, ample staff, and sufficient funds enable the head-mistress to consider the needs of individual pupils more carefully than could be done in a small school. Forms are joined and subdivided lengthwise and crosswise, so as to bring together in small groups girls who are to give a good deal of time to Classics, Modern Languages, English, Drawing or Science, or any other special subject, thus avoiding the scrappiness with which the modern curriculum is sometimes charged. The girl who aims at the university is prepared for it, the girl who has a real taste for accomplishments receives first-rate instruction in music, drawing, etc. and at the same time is encouraged to give special attention to English. There is no attempt to force all through the same mill. The school is most fortunate in its buildings, which are beautiful as well as convenient. Hall, gymnasium, studio, laboratory, padded rooms for practising, nothing seems wanting to the equipment. It is pleasant to wander through the airy and tasteful class-rooms and realise that this is one of the many good things which the redistribution of endowments has given to girls. At Bedford there is not much risk of forgetting whence the money comes. The Harpur Trust seems to give its character to the town. The numerous schools, the Harpur Trust offices, the rows of almshouses, the ‘Harpur’ and ‘Dame Alice’ streets are suggestive of a town that has grown up about its schools, almost as Oxford and Cambridge have about their colleges. In the old church close by the founders lie buried; ever succeeding generations of boys and girls are entering into their inheritance.
Among the eight largest endowments of which the Commissioners had to take cognisance was that of Dulwich. In few places was the reformer’s hand more needed than in the assignment of those large sums which had accumulated under the charity of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift. At the time of the Schools’ Inquiry Commission—that date which marks a new starting-point in educational chronology, it maintained only an upper school with 130 boys, and a lower school with 90. In 1895 when some of the results of twenty-five years were summarised, it was supporting:—(1) A first-grade boys’ school—Dulwich College—with 630 scholars. (2) A second grade boys’ school—Alleyn’s School—with 540 boys; and contributing, (3) To James Allen’s Girls’ School a capital sum of £6000, and £650 a year. (4) To the Central Foundation Schools—boys and girls—a capital sum of £11,000 and £2300 a year. (5) To St. Saviour’s Grammar School, Southwark, a capital sum of £20,000 and £500 a year.
This is a result that should please all parties. In spite of the additional advantages given to boys, the girls gain two schools; for although the James Allen school had been founded as early as 1741 by James Allen, master of Dulwich College, it was really nothing more than an elementary school until its reconstruction in 1882 with a part of the Dulwich endowment. It can accommodate 300 girls, has eight class-rooms, laboratory, assembly hall, dining-room, recreation ground of two and a half acres, and a completely equipped gymnasium where lessons are given by an expert teacher. With a £6 fee it is always full, and admirably serves its purpose of ‘supplying to girls of the middle class a sound practical education.’
The fourth of the large endowments belongs to St. Olave’s Grammar School, and a school for girls is in course of establishment here.
The Tonbridge endowment, administered by the Skinners’ Company, now supports a school for girls at Stamford Hill.
The Manchester Grammar School fund has of late decreased in value, and has nothing to offer girls; but here they have had help from another quarter.
The Jones foundation at Monmouth now provides for 500 boys, and 100 girls, besides 50 elementary scholars, in place of 180 boys at the date of the Commission.
Of the eight endowments, by far the largest was that of Christ’s Hospital, and here there was no question as to the original intentions. The treatment of girls had been so unfair as to arouse general indignation. But the whole foundation really needed overhauling. After long delays an elaborate scheme was drawn up, providing for the removal into the country of the boys’ school, proper boarding-school provision for girls, and large day-schools in London for both sexes. Of all this, now nearly twenty years after the passing of the Endowed Schools Act, very little has been done, though the removal of the boys’ school from London to Horsham is now definitely settled. At Hertford the girls’ school has been reformed in its methods, and additional ward accommodation provided, but by a perverse system of election it is made very difficult to fill even that space. Girls can only be admitted on presentation of a governor—very difficult to obtain—or by a competition, to which only three classes are admitted. They must come either from—(1) Certain endowed schools in England and Wales, or (2) Public elementary schools in the London School Board district, or (3) Certain parishes which have hitherto exercised the right of presentation. As (1) and (2) represent the classes which are best provided, and least in need of the benefits of a cheap boarding-school, and (3) is, by its nature, very restricted, it is not strange that it has hitherto proved impossible to fill even the 140 available places, though there are thousands of girls in rural districts to whom a school of this kind would prove a priceless boon. There seems a curious irony about offering such nominations to the Bedford Modern School where girls are receiving an excellent education for £4 a year, and taking no thought for those less favoured places, which, because they have no endowment of their own, are therefore shut out from one that they could use. Of course all this is only temporary, but the transition stage seems a very long one. As far as girls are concerned, the chief needs seem to be the establishment of several cheap boarding-schools, the election of some women on the council of almoners, and a change in the present system of electing scholars. Let us hope that when the reforms come at last, they may prove to have been worth the waiting.
Besides these eight chief endowments, there are many others of which girls have now received a share. There are now in England and Wales over eighty girls’ endowed schools of a secondary type, though the distribution is curiously uneven; e.g. the West Riding of Yorkshire has nine, while Surrey has only one. Much has been done, and much remains to be done, but it is well that every kind of experiment should be tried, so that the newer schemes may be improved by the experience of the older ones.
Endowed schools are technically supposed to be of three grades, according to the age at which the pupils usually leave. For the first the limit is eighteen or nineteen; for the second, sixteen or seventeen; for the third, fourteen or fifteen. All admit them at seven or eight. There is something peculiarly English about this arrangement, which, on paper at any rate, appears needlessly wasteful. The natural division seems the American one. Here there are three successive grades, organically connected, by which a child may go through his whole school career, passing, as it were, from the kindergarten at one end to the university at the other. This arrangement of schools, all free, and meant for all the children of the community, is in harmony with the American democratic idea, but would be impossible in the midst of English class prejudice. Still even our social exclusiveness does not require such extreme differentiation, and experience shows that a system of three parallel lines, distinguished chiefly by breaking off at different points, is not altogether necessary. The problem, as it presents itself for girls, is not, however, the same as for boys. Boys’ schools of the highest grade naturally prepare their pupils for the university, and as most of them are boarding-schools, they are exempt from considering local needs. The first public schools for girls were day schools. At the time of the first Endowed Schools Act, university education for girls had hardly made any way. Girton was just struggling into existence, the other colleges were but a dream of the future. London still withheld its degrees. What girls needed most was a sound general education given cheaply in day schools. Hence the low fees fixed by the Girls’ Public Day School Company, and the still lower ones charged at the endowed schools of the second and third grades, which at that time met the most crying want. By 1883 ten of these third grade schools in London were educating over two thousand girls. Among them were the Greycoat Hospital at Westminster, and the Roan School, Greenwich, and others that have since extended their sphere of work up to the second grade limit.