The establishment of this Central Board marks the completion of the Welsh secondary system. It furnishes a link between all the counties and schools, and exercises over these that general supervision which, in the initial stages, had devolved on the Charity Commissioners. Since the subjects to be taught had been prescribed by the Act generally, and by the schemes specially, the duties of the Central Board were not so much to lay down a scheme of studies, as to see that the course already prescribed was duly followed, that each school was in a state of general and educational efficiency, and that the provisions of the schemes were observed. For these purposes they arranged a system of inspection and examination. The Act had defined intermediate education as ‘a course of education which does not consist chiefly of elementary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, but which includes instruction in Latin, Greek, the Welsh and English language and literature, modern languages, mathematics, natural and applied science, or in some of such studies, and generally in the higher branches of knowledge,’ and the schemes fixed more precisely which of these were to be in each case compulsory. The Glamorgan scheme, which is in many respects typical, prescribes geography, history, English grammar, composition, and literature, drawing, mathematics, Latin, at least one modern language, natural science, vocal music, drill or other physical exercise, and such other scientific or technical subjects, including shorthand, as the school managers may determine. Scripture is not obligatory, but if included, it must be taught by a member of the staff. Some manual instruction must also be offered the boys, and a little cookery to the girls, but, as is inevitable, where the programme is already overloaded, this side of the work takes a very subordinate place. In all schools Welsh must be taught as an optional subject; in a stated few Greek may be introduced. But even without these additions, the compulsory curriculum is a very heavy one, when it is borne in mind that a large proportion of pupils come from the elementary schools, where the girls, at any rate, have been hitherto confined to reading, writing, arithmetic, and needlework, with possibly a little French and domestic economy. Even English history and geography are unfamiliar ground.
The aim of the Welsh Intermediate, as of the English High Schools, is to give a liberal education cheaply in day-schools; but there is one essential difference between them. While the high school is an organised whole, leading the pupils by gentle gradations from the primary department to the lower school, and thence on to the upper, the intermediate school receives no pupils below the age of ten. Since the majority are between twelve and sixteen, they break up naturally into two classes, according as they have received their preliminary training at a public elementary school or elsewhere. This division is by no means so sharply defined in Wales as in England. Wales is both poor and democratic, and inclines to the doctrine, familiar in the United States, that no stigma should attach to attendance at a school supported out of the rates, since the parents do in fact contribute towards the expenses, though indirectly. Hence we find a mixture of class in both elementary and intermediate schools, which in England would be neither possible nor desirable. The omission of the primary department in the new schools is in fact deliberate. There is already one kind of school assisted out of public funds and accessible to all, and it is therefore not thought necessary to subsidise primary instruction in another set of institutions. The intermediate school is so constituted as to fit straight on to the elementary, and in each school a certain proportion of scholarships must fall to elementary pupils. In accordance with the opinion of many authorities that the transplanting from an elementary to a secondary school, always a difficult process, should not take place too late, the admission age and requirements are put low, and the intermediate school is supposed to branch off from the elementary at about the fifth standard. In Wales, where poverty and dearth of educational opportunities have induced many persons of middle rank to make use of the free public schools, the difference between the two sets of pupils is by no means so strongly marked as it would be in England, but even here schools have two different characters, according as one or the other of these elements predominates. In a district where the population is largely industrial, the lowest possible tuition fee is chosen, and the largest possible amount of scholarships given to elementary pupils. Thus one scheme requires that not less than ten per cent. and not more than thirty per cent. of the pupils in each school, shall hold scholarships, and at least half of the number awarded shall go to pupils from public elementary schools, but there is nothing to prevent the whole number from being so given. In fact, several schools have more scholarships than candidates for them. According, therefore, to the interpretation of the clause adopted, the elementary scholars in a school of a hundred may vary from five—the minimum, to thirty—the maximum. In the latter class of school, the fees are usually low enough to attract paying pupils from the elementary schools; hence these furnish a majority of the pupils, and the school becomes a continuation, often a finishing-school for elementary pupils, many of whom stay one year, sometimes only a term or two, to get what prestige they can from attendance at a school of a higher grade than the one to which they have been accustomed. Those that remain for two years or longer usually do well, if their health is strong enough to bear the severe strain.
The other classification into separate and mixed schools is apt to coincide with this distinction. Of the eighty-four schools now in existence, there are twenty for boys and twenty for girls, while the remaining forty-four are mixed. This wholesale adoption of a principle popular in the United States, but regarded hitherto askance by England, in common with other European countries, is due, as in Scotland, to the force of necessity. It is not as a counsel of perfection, but as a means of economy, that the plan has been adopted in Wales. In a country intersected by mountains, and inadequately supplied with means of locomotion, where distances should, as in Switzerland, be counted by hours and not by miles, access to places that look near enough on the map is often exceedingly difficult; and it is useless to plant a large school-building in a central district in the hope of drawing in pupils from a radius of a few miles. The alternative lay between frequent small day-schools and a liberal sprinkling of boarding-schools. The former carried the day, on the ground that they were more equitable to ratepayers, and more democratic. In almost every county, the committee adopted the more expensive and troublesome plan of establishing and maintaining a large number of small schools, and most of the difficulties with which Welsh intermediate education has to contend are due to that decision. In some places there are schools of forty, or even less, difficult to finance and to organise. These might work for a year or two, but as pupils stayed on and began to range from the Fifth Standard scholar at one end to the Matriculation student at the other, with all the varying intermediate grades, failure became inevitable. One remedy in the case of those small schools which were not rich enough to provide a liberal staff for small classes, was to arrange from the first to mix the boys and girls, thus facilitating the grading by increasing the numbers in each class. In this way better results could be obtained with small means, at any rate as far as class lists and examination statistics were concerned.
Owing to the difficulties of grading, this system is being gradually introduced in many places where it was not originally contemplated; but the typical Welsh school, according to the first plan, was the dual. This was to consist of two distinct schools, one for boys and one for girls, built side by side, in such a way that they might have assembly hall, gymnasium, laboratory, etc., in common, and by the economy thus effected in site, buildings, apparatus, etc., it was hoped that the efficiency of small schools would be maintained. Unfortunately, the advocates of this system went a step further, and arranged to complete their economies by appointing a single head for both schools, to take the superintendence of both boys and girls. Obviously this head must be a man. Though some schemes contain the words ‘headmaster or head-mistress,’ it is at once explained to feminine applicants that the words are a mere matter of form. Indeed, it would be far better to omit them. The most ardent advocates of women’s equality would hardly propose to give a mistress full authority over boys of twelve to seventeen. However excellent feminine influence may be in a boys’ school, no one wants to see it supreme there. Though paramount masculine influence in a girls’ school is anything but desirable, it seemed the lesser of two evils; and both custom and convenience pointed to the selection of a master. This initial injustice paved the way for many others. Though most schools appoint a senior mistress, who is supposed to have a general control over the girls, it is out of the managers’ power, when once they have made the headmaster supreme, to make her position one of any authority. Like all the rest, she is appointed by the headmaster; she has no place in the scheme, nor status in the school, except what may be given her by courtesy. She has no voice in choosing her assistants, nor in making the time-table; her position is often inferior to that of a second mistress in an English high school. This kind of dual school was a new experiment, and it cannot be pronounced a successful one. Where the two departments were kept distinct, except for an occasional interchange of teachers, the real difficulties of classification were not obviated; and one set of managers after another took the final step, availing themselves of the permission accorded in most schemes, to ‘make arrangements for boys and girls being taught together in all or any of the classes.’ The forms are then mixed throughout, and assigned in turn to men and women teachers. Here the senior mistress loses even her semblance of authority, and the school is under the supreme and undisturbed sway of the headmaster. What number of schools have already taken this final step is nowhere definitely stated, but, as far as can be ascertained, it appears to be a majority. It is in fact the logical outcome of the dual plan, and since the tendency of the change is to diminish the proportion of girls, we may look upon these schools as organised for boys, but admitting girls as well.
The whole question of co-education is so exceedingly difficult that it is unfortunate that Welsh educationalists should have been compelled to add it to the number of complex problems with which they had already to deal. The small schools have necessitated this among other problems. Its warmest advocates do not deny that it makes discipline more difficult: constant supervision becomes necessary; boys and girls have to be kept apart out of class, and an attempt, usually doomed to failure, is made in some schools to control the walk home. The freer intercourse, the element of trust, and the bright out-of-school life, which in England have come to be considered as important a part of a secondary school as the Mathematics or Latin taught there, have little chance of development in the mixed school. That valuable moral impetus given by the direct and constant intercourse between the master and boys, mistress and girls, is missing. Thus they lose what is often the best effect of school life upon our boys and girls: the schools become places of mere instruction, not education; they are but elementary schools with advanced subjects in the curriculum; rivals, and not always successful ones, of the higher grade. Of course this is not solely due to the co-education scheme, but it has tended further to emphasise the social difference between the two classes of schools, and also to put women at a disadvantage in Welsh education, which could hardly have been contemplated by the original promoters. Yet now that this arrangement has been fixed by scheme and made fast by yards of red-tape, it must remain as it is, until some energetic band of reformers shall arise determined to end it. But that cannot be as yet.
The second class, the distinct schools for boys and girls, resemble our English high schools; in fact Swansea, one of the most successful, was actually founded by the Girls’ Public Day-School Company, and taken over by the Intermediate Board. The money supplied by the county grant makes up for the diminution of the fees, and the work proceeds with little change. Cardiff is also organised on the lines of a high school, with the chief intellectual work in the morning, considerable attention to games and physical training, and a liberal allowance of teachers. In these separate schools the fees range from about £5 to £9, being slightly lower than those of the corresponding schools in England. The allowance of mistresses to pupils is adequate, the elementary scholars are a small proportion, not enough to set the whole tone of the school. In the mixed or dual school the fees are usually low, sometimes even as little as £2 per annum, scholarships are more numerous, and the sprinkling of scholars from other than elementary schools is very small. Both kinds of schools doubtless have their use, though their aims are very different.
With all these varieties of organisation and character, the schools have a unifying influence in the general control of the Central Board, since all are subject to its examination and inspection. The latter is undertaken by the Chief Inspector, who visits each school in the course of the year, and reports specially on the following heads—
1. Character, suitability, and capacity of school premises.
2. School furniture and apparatus.
3. Facilities for recreation and physical training.