Since under present circumstances these schools cannot be worked without some help from South Kensington, various experiments are being tried in organisation, to enable a school to earn some grant and yet pay more regard to the needs of girls than is usually done in higher grade schools. Some adopt the plan of Science Classes instead of Science Schools, registering for examination purposes the classes in science, drawing, etc., without offering up the thirteen obligatory hours on the altar of money earning. Unfortunately this plan is less advantageous from the pecuniary standpoint, and many a schoolmistress will declare with a sigh that there is nothing for it but to resort to the Science School. It is not so good for the girls, but it pays better.

Some day, before too long, a Secondary Education Act may enable us to change all that. Meantime we must give to South Kensington the honour of stepping in when education was languishing for want of funds, and helping us to build the upper story for our board school boys and girls. This department, like the county councils which administer the Technical Instruction Acts, has no power to subsidise subjects outside its own lawful purlieus, nor can it, while we lack a recognised educational authority, award its money grants by other means than inspection and examination. Thus the intermediate school is being forced through the mill of ‘payment by results,’ from which the elementary school has at last escaped. Perhaps this was a necessary stage for both to pass through; and though some victims fell by the way and there was some injustice done, yet it served to establish the general standard of efficiency which has made the institution of more liberal methods in board schools possible. Similarly the stern South Kensington Department may help to establish a better system of science teaching through its careful inspection and insistence on practical work, and it may certainly claim to have ‘succeeded in doing what no other system could have done, carrying science instruction all over the country without ever raising any sectarian difficulty of any kind.’[[18]] The county councils and the Science and Art Department have become our most important educational authorities, for the very simple reason that they alone have money at their disposal. Both are limited in their operations in a manner that forces them to be unjust to some most important branches of study. Legislation can and must alter this in the immediate future. Meantime the result is to emphasise a class distinction between literary and scientific schools. In making science the distinctive mark of the lower-class school, the Department has brought about the somewhat anomalous result of degrading in the public estimation those very studies which it designed to elevate. An attempt is now being made to improve the prestige of the science school by raising the income limit to £500, in accordance with the new income-tax regulations, and including among schools acknowledged by the Department those ‘managed by a public company in the articles of association of which provision is made that no dividend shall be paid exceeding five per cent.’ Under this heading come the greater part of our best girls’ schools, and this regulation would place it in the power of the governors of these to turn a part of their school into a Science School, or to register separate classes with a view to examination and grant-earning. It would be a convenient way of adding to their income, but whether it is desirable to complicate the harmonious working of a high school by a plan of dual control and a very exacting system of outside inspection and examination seems very doubtful. Should it ever be largely adopted the chief gainers would probably be the private schools, which would alone be left free to take a wide view of the present and future needs of their pupils. There would be a curious irony in such an outcome of all the efforts to improve girls’ education by making it a public concern; but as long as there is no compulsion beyond the elementary stage, we may always reckon on a healthy reaction and a revolt against excessive red-tape. Britons never will be slaves, not even to a Department which helps them to educate their children more cheaply.

While the higher grade school is designed to give more advanced instruction to those children from the elementary schools who can afford to postpone their working life till fifteen or later, it has also become necessary to do something for those whose occupations will not allow of continued day-time instruction. The Evening Continuation schools are intended to supply this want. The original night-school of olden time was one where the unlettered rustic or mechanic came to spell out his primer and laboriously manufacture his pot-hooks. Though election statistics show that the absolutely illiterate voter is gradually vanishing from the scenes, his complete extinction cannot be far off, and in catering for after-instruction the amount of schooling represented by three standards may as a rule be assumed. But in early days the school boards had to cater for a very ignorant class of evening pupils, and the work of the continuation schools was to a great extent parallel with that of the day-schools. For many years the codes insisted that pupils in night-schools earning grants should undergo examinations in the three elementary subjects—reading, writing, arithmetic. As the numbers who passed through the day-schools increased there was a corresponding diminution in evening attendances, and it became clear that the proper use of the evening-school was as a place of more advanced instruction. Accordingly in the 1890 Code the clause, that elementary education should be the principal part of the education there given, was omitted. In 1893 Evening Continuation schools received fresh stimulus and importance from an entirely new Code dealing with them separately. Its declared aim was to give ‘freedom to managers in the organisation of their schools’ by offering a wide choice of subjects with suggested syllabuses in some subjects. The aims of these schools were now declared to be twofold:—(1) to supply defects in early elementary instruction; (2) to prolong the general education of the scholar, and combine with it some form of interesting employment.

The effect of this new Code was remarkable. The total number of scholars on evening-school registers increased from 115,000 in 1892–1893 to 266,000 in 1893–1894. No less important was the change in the character of the work. To a great extent it has become secondary, although primary instruction is still necessary for many pupils, who are removed early from the day-school and have spent the interval in purely mechanical occupations.

Evening-schools have to contend against several obstacles. Chief among them is the diminished fitness for receiving instruction after the fatigues of the day’s work. This seems to vary with different persons, and to be largely a matter of temperament, sometimes of habit. The majority of persons certainly work better in the day-time. Another difficulty is the irregular attendance due to the absence of compulsion and the lack of special inducements. Nothing but the intrinsic attractiveness of the class will induce most pupils to study any other subject than those practical ones, like shorthand, mathematics, etc., which may help them to earn a better living. The framers of the Code, recognising this, suggested the introduction of popular elements in the shape of ‘lantern illustrations, music, manual work, discussion of some book which has been read by the class, field naturalist or sketching clubs, gymnastics or other employments of a more or less recreative character.’ ‘For many of these purposes grants cannot be given, but provided that the managers take care that at least one hour at each meeting is devoted to the teaching of the subjects mentioned in Article 2 of this Code, and that the instruction is systematic and thorough, every arrangement for making the school attractive should be carefully considered.’

The subjects recognised by the Code range from the elementary ones, practically the three R’s, over languages and sciences, commercial and miscellaneous subjects, drawing, domestic economy, cookery, laundry work and dairy-work, and needlework. Indeed, it would be hard to find a subject not included, always excepting literature, that step-daughter of English schools. Even this is now being taught under the London Board.

The scientific and technical subjects bring the schools into competition with technical institutes, with the result that in some towns there is an undue rivalry between the various educational agencies. To obviate this, the Science and Art Department has drawn up a new regulation, recognising an organisation for the promotion of secondary education in any county or county borough in England as the local authority for administering the Science and Art grants in its own district. As many towns other than county boroughs have classes working for the grants of the Department, this arrangement is only partially helpful, and there is still much undue rivalry. Where this prevails it usually falls to the lot of the School Board to attract the younger and more casual students, a class that is not altogether welcome at the more serious Institute.

Hitherto the work of the evening-school has been of necessity more or less desultory; and of the two agencies for prolonging the education of our working-class children, the higher grade school seems as yet to answer best. That the other plan has possibilities is proved by the example of Germany and the success of our own Polytechnic classes. A definite place for the evening-school may yet be found in our system. Meantime the school boards hold out the opportunities and invite, though they cannot compel, the multitude to come in. The improvement in the day-school will give a fresh impetus to the evening-school. This much at least it is safe to prophesy.

CHAPTER XI
THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS OF WALES

A land of mountains seems to be a land of ideals. Separated by the elementary forces of nature from many of the currents of life that flow beyond it, thrown on itself, its own resources and its past, it cherishes its individuality with a fervour unknown to the people of a plain. Even ruthless modernity, with its complex train systems and mountain-borings, serves but to invade its privacy, not to change its character. Patriotism is stronger, national feeling more tenacious, the practical side of life has man less firmly in its grip. The Welsh people, with their proud claim to represent the original inhabitants of the island, their long roll of story and legend, their ‘estranging’ language, incomprehensible a few miles across the border, are still a race apart. Neither Saxon nor Norman, legislation nor intercourse, has ever been able to degrade them into a mere appanage of the English nation.