‘The girls are taught the market value of foods. In some of the schools special arrangements are made for this. At Battersea they are taken out to purchase meat, greengrocery, etc. When the girls cannot be taken out to market, they are sometimes allowed to purchase from the teacher in charge of the stores. They are taught to compare prices, to judge of the freshness and quality of commodities, to expend a given sum to the best advantage in the cheapest market, and how to prepare and cook their meals in the shortest time possible.’
The fee for the complete course is £1, 10s., or 7s. 6d. per month, and this includes the cost of all books and materials. The greater part of the pupils come from the elementary schools, but surely they are not the only girls who need such teaching. Many pupils leave the high schools at fourteen or fifteen to live at home in somewhat straitened circumstances. To them such a training as this would indeed be a boon. It would even be worth the sacrifice of the last six months at school, since they must in any case leave without getting the best it can afford, the teaching in the fifth and sixth forms. Girls attending second grade schools, who naturally leave early, would find these domestic economy courses an admirable means of transition between school and home life; while those, whose bent lies in this direction, can go on to the training schools, and either become teachers of these subjects, or earn a living by their practical application. In fact, the domestic economy school is fast helping to raise the home arts into their proper educational place, as affording one among many suitable careers for women, no longer the Cinderella among occupations, who sits among the ashes, because the prince has not yet come to claim her. The neglect of the middle class to use these schools is another instance of their proverbial apathy; meantime, these good things are ready for them as soon as they will take the trouble to grasp them. Of course there is no reason why such teaching should be given free, except to a minority.
Even more widespread than these day-schools are the evening classes in the same subjects. These are found throughout the country, in towns at technical institutes, in villages in little classes taught by peripatetic teachers, who are sent from place to place by the county councils. In fact, ‘county council dressmaking’ has become such a feature, that it might be taken for a special system of cutting and fitting. The persons for whose benefit this instruction is given are young women who have left school, wives, and mothers of families. If experience has taught them their own deficiencies, they have now the opportunity of making up lost ground. Cookery, dressmaking, and nursing often attract large numbers. The teaching has no professional purpose. It is simply ‘for home use,’ as the Germans say, and has its place in a wide scheme of general education, which includes training the hand as well as the mind.
This village work must, to some extent, be desultory, while, in the large town institutes, it can be made more systematic. Its value is considerably affected by the construction of the board which controls it. A council which places experts on its technical education committee generally does better than one that simply adds education to its other manifold functions. Women are able to sit on these committees, and it is of great importance, for the more feminine side of the work, that they should be appointed in larger numbers than has hitherto been the case.
The female element is represented at some of the institutes by the appointment of a lady-superintendent of the women’s department. This is the case in the London Polytechnics, where the women’s work is very fully equipped. At Battersea, which may be taken as typical, the subjects taught in this department are: cookery, needlework, dress cutting and making, millinery, fancy needlework and embroidery, laundry work. In most of these subjects pupils can be prepared for the examinations of the City and Guilds of London Institute. The fees are low, and the courses carefully graduated. There is an interesting class in ‘homekeeping,’ intended for students whose occupation prevents them from getting the necessary knowledge of housekeeping during the day. This includes such items as spring cleaning, ordinary household duties and daily routine, and is probably of special use to that large class of housekeepers who, having learnt their own deficiencies from bitter experience, can value this opportunity of remedying them. Another useful course is elementary political economy, which includes value and distribution of wealth, rent, wages, and other similar problems. This instruction, to which both mistress and maid might listen with profit, can be had by Polytechnic members for 1s., and for 1s. 6d. by outsiders. Members may also join a reading circle and a first-aid class; they can use the beautiful gymnasium, and refresh their cramped limbs with musical drill. All this, with the social advantages which are manifold, is within reach of those girls and women who are lucky enough to live in the neighbourhood of a Polytechnic, and have some free evenings to spend there.
Institutes of this kind are fast being brought within reach of all dwellers in towns. The municipal schools of Manchester and Brighton need hardly shrink from comparison with those of the metropolis. In fact, when we look at the sumptuous equipment of such schools, we are tempted to exclaim that Cinderella has indeed left the ashes, and ascended into her palace. But these glories are not hers by sole right. The men’s department (of mechanics, engineering, etc.) is far larger than the women’s, and besides these two, where the sexes are of necessity kept apart, there are numerous classes where they meet on common ground. At Battersea the art department is open three days and five evenings a week, and the general scheme includes a thoroughly practical knowledge of designing, drawing, painting, and modelling, especially in its various applications to trades and industries, as well as life classes, and the commoner features of such schools. In the commercial school, arithmetic, book-keeping, typewriting and shorthand are taught, as well as French. There are classes in pure and applied mathematics, and every branch of science is taught with such advantages in the way of laboratories and appliances, as no private or self-supporting institution could attempt to supply. Most Polytechnics are centres for University Extension, some have fine gymnasia, some have swimming-baths; nearly all have a long list of social, athletic, and recreative clubs. In fact, a well-equipped Polytechnic is a kind of popular University, which provides for all the needs of its members, though with some neglect of the literary side. This, too, might be supplied by the omission or insertion of a few words in an Act of Parliament. The Polytechnics and Technical Institutes would thus at once be transformed into the most completely equipped and endowed scheme of secondary and higher education in this country.
With such resources at their disposal, it is natural that Technical Instruction boards and Polytechnic governors should have gone a step further, and tried to utilise their spacious premises and admirable teaching staff for the ordinary purposes of a day-school. Experiments on these lines are being tried in several places. It is thought that by establishing such schools, the polytechnic both gives and receives; if it helps the schools by allowing them to use its premises and staff, it is helped in turn by the training given to a number of boys and girls, who will some day be properly equipped to profit by the more advanced instruction in the evening. The school is largely a feeder for the polytechnic, and will help in time to raise the standard of its work. As such it should be judged rather than as an independent experiment in secondary education.
A joint school for boys and girls need excite no surprise in an institution that started at once as ‘co-educational.’ But unfortunately, in schemes of this kind there is always a tendency to let the girls come off second-best. This certainly applies to the arrangement of an ‘Organised Science School,’ which is the scheme usually adopted, both on account of its bias in favour of the scientific side and the power it confers to earn grants from South Kensington. Probably the admission of girls was to some extent an afterthought. The Battersea school had been open over a year before girls were admitted as an experiment. The present numbers are about one hundred and thirty, of whom two-thirds are boys. The average age of the junior division is fourteen, and of the senior fifteen. The fees are £1 a term, including books and stationery. The school hours are 9.30 to 12.30, and 2 to 4.30, five days in the week. The work of the three divisions is arranged thus:
1. Mechanical Division. Mathematics, five hours; Mechanics, three and a half hours; Physics, three and a half hours; Drawing, four hours; English subjects, four hours; French, two hours; Manual training, four and a half hours; Drill, one hour.
2. Science Division. Mathematics, five hours; Mechanics, two and a half hours; Physics, three and a half hours; Chemistry, four and a half hours; Drawing, three hours; English subjects, four hours; French, two hours; Manual training, two hours; Drill, one hour.