The movement in favour of technical education was one that had been slowly gathering force. At first, as so often happens, the blame for the unsatisfactory state of things was laid at the door of the elementary school. It was pointed out that the education given there was not sufficiently practical; drawing was little taught, and that little badly, while science fared even worse. Modelling was almost unknown, manual instruction had scarcely been heard of, ‘the pen was the only industrial weapon that boys intended for handicraftsmen were taught to use,’ and, except needlework, domestic subjects for girls were terribly neglected. This was true enough, but it was absurd to suppose that a remedy could be found in the schooling given to children under twelve. Such benefit as might be derived from a change in their curriculum was quite inadequate for the end in view. The real need was for a longer school life, with technical training based on a proper foundation of general knowledge. Hence the National Association for the Promotion of Technical Education adopted into its programme: ‘the development, organisation, and maintenance of a system of secondary education throughout the country, with a view to placing the higher technical and commercial education in our schools and colleges on a better footing.’ It was doubtless for a similar reason that the Act excluded from its benefits scholars receiving instruction in elementary schools.
The money thus provided almost by accident, became a new and valuable source for endowing secondary education; and on all hands claims of the most varied kind were made on it. Administered by bodies of non-experts, who had to learn their business by doing it, much of it was misapplied; mistakes, often of a ludicrous character, were made, and there was some excuse for those producers and consumers of spirits who thought the money would have been better applied in relieving the tax. But in spite of repeated appeals by specially interested persons, Parliament kept firm in the matter; the money must be given to County Councils, and they must learn to use it. How well many of them have learnt can best be realised by a series of visits to the polytechnics of London and the large provincial towns, to the laboratories constructed in public schools, to the ambulatory dairy classes in village schoolrooms, to the beautifully equipped laundries, kitchens, and dressmaking schools all over the country.
Long before these Technical Instruction Acts were passed, isolated action had been taken. The Regent Street Polytechnic, long known as the Polytechnic, was already in full work. It originated in a Young Men’s Institute, privately founded by Mr. Quentin Hogg, with the large aim of providing a place where a young man could develop all the sides of his nature, and ‘find a reasonable outlet for any healthy desire, physical, spiritual, social, or intellectual, which he possesses.’ For some years the Institute flourished in Long Acre, and it happened that, just when increased accommodation became necessary, the old Polytechnic, long the home of Pepper’s Ghost, the diving-bell, and other joys and terrors of our young days, came into the market. It was at once secured, and the result was an unprecedented rush for membership. Mr. Hogg, who was the life and soul of the Institute, made a point of himself seeing every boy on joining, and on the first night in Regent Street, he began to interview new members at five o’clock. There he was kept at his desk, unable even to get a cup of tea, till a quarter to one in the morning, and by that time a thousand new members had been enrolled. With such encouragement, it was possible to try fresh experiments, and for the first time trade-classes and workshop practice were added to the programme. The Polytechnic thus became a pioneer in technical work. The London Trades Council in 1883 recommended its system of trade teaching to the London trades; members of the Technical Instruction Commission gave it their warm commendation.
Meantime other institutes were growing up. If Mr. Hogg claimed that the Polytechnic began its labours when he took two crossing-sweepers into the Adelphi arches, and made them the nucleus of a ragged school, the People’s Palace had an even more romantic origin. It was inspired by the picture, in All Sorts and Conditions of Men, of the Palace of Delight, of ‘the club of the working-people,’ where ‘we shall all together continually be thinking how to bring more sunshine into our lives, more change, more variety, more happiness.’ Here, even more than at Regent Street, the recreative side was to the fore, and the main feature was the Queen’s Hall, in which public entertainments were organised. It had a chequered career, and finally was saved to the East End by the liberality of the Drapers’ Company. Since then the educational side has been more fully developed, but apart from the recreative, which is absolutely independent of the East London Technical College. This is an unusual condition, since, as a rule, the Polytechnics, mindful of their double origin, aim at being centres of both work and play. They have a tendency to fall into two classes: those that began as social clubs, and added the classes to their programme, and those that began with classes, and then encouraged the students to form clubs for literary, athletic and recreative purposes.
The greater stress laid on the educational side by the more recent institutions was due to two causes. In 1883 the London Parochial Charities Act gave the Charity Commissioners powers to deal with certain sums, which had been left by benefactors long deceased, for purposes which had actually ceased to exist. It was lucky that this sum of money, which may be capitalised at over three millions, became available for public purposes at the very time when all this stir about technical education was taking place. The Regent Street Institute was chosen as a model. London was mapped out into twelve districts, and a Polytechnic was to be supplied for each, on condition of local aid supplementing certain sums which were offered conditionally. It was not long before this proposal brought munificent private donors into the field. The Marquis of Northampton and Lord Compton gave a site of the value of £30,000, Earl Cadogan gave ground of the value of £10,000; others gave less, according to their means. Eleven of these Polytechnics are already in existence; Paddington alone is waiting for the private benefactors who shall establish the claim to public help. The second impetus came from the Technical Education Board of the London County Council. The metropolis had been slow in following the lead of other counties, and it was not till 1892 that it resolved to apply its share of the whisky money to purposes of technical education. But when it did move it did so in good earnest. The Council conferred full executive power on a Board consisting of twenty of its own members, thirteen representatives of other bodies and two experts, one being a woman, co-opted by the Council itself. The bodies thus represented are: the London School Board, the City and Guilds of London Institute, the London Parochial Charities Foundation, the Headmasters’ Association, the National Union of Teachers, and the London Trades Council. Mr. Sidney Webb was elected chairman, Dr. W. Garnett was appointed secretary and organiser, and the superintendence of the domestic economy work was given to Miss Ella Pycroft. The Board has been most successful in its work, and a very complete scheme of technical instruction in London is being gradually evolved. Since the Board’s work is educational it is natural that this side has been specially emphasised in those Polytechnics which have been founded since its establishment, i.e. those at Battersea, Chelsea, North London and the City.
The help given by the Board to Polytechnics may be thus stated:
1. Equipment grants made from time to time for specific purposes.
2. A fixed contribution of £1000 a year.
3. Three-quarters—not exceeding £500 a year—of the principal’s salary.
4. 10 per cent. on the fixed salaries of the teachers.