Endowments.—The act introduced a new principle into the administration of endowments by directing that their income so far as necessarily applicable in any case for those purposes of a public elementary school for which the local authority are liable must be paid to that authority for the relief of the parochial rate (§ 13). As the result of technicalities of legal interpretation the section has been found to have in practice a narrower scope than had been generally anticipated.
The act of 1902 was extended to London by a separate act in 1903, containing certain special provisions of only minor importance.
The hostility of Nonconformists to the extension of rate-aid to denominational schools led to the organization upon a considerable scale of what became known as the “Passive Resistance” movement, a number of Nonconformist “Passive resistance” to 1902 act. Default Act 1904. rate-payers refusing to pay the education rate on the ground that their consciences forbade their supporting the religious teaching in denominational schools; and their willingness to become subject to distraint and consequent inconveniences rather than pay the rates became the foundation of a widespread political campaign. In Wales, where in the rural districts the schools were commonly Anglican whilst the population was Nonconformist, particular difficulties arose in administering the act in consequence of the hostile attitude of the county authorities. Friction likewise manifested itself in one or two English areas, which reflected militant Nonconformist views. Accordingly the government passed the Local Education (Local Authority Default) Act 1904, empowering the Board of Education, in the case of default by the local authority, to make payments direct to the managers of the school and to deduct the amount from the sums payable to the defaulting authority on account of parliamentary grants.
When the liberal party came into power again in 1906, Mr Birrell as president of the Board of Education in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s administration introduced a bill to amend the Education Acts 1902-1903, with Bill of 1906. the object of securing full public control of all rate-aided schools and the appointment of teachers without reference to religious belief. The bill was of a highly complex character; its principal features were,—compulsory transfer of existing voluntary schools to the local authority, facilities for the giving of denominational instruction in transferred schools out of school hours by persons other than the regular teachers, and the recognition in populous districts, upon the demand of parents, of special publicly maintained schools in which denominational teaching could be included in the curriculum; the latter schools might (according to the bill as finally amended) in the last resort, i.e. if the local authority refused to maintain them, be recognized as state-aided schools. The bill encountered strong opposition from Anglicans and Catholics (though the Catholic Irish members finally voted for it as amended); it passed the House of Commons by a large majority, but after unavailing attempts at compromise upon the amendments introduced in the House of Lords, the two Houses failed to agree and the measure was lost.
Mr Birrell was soon transferred to another office, and nothing more was done to amend the act of 1902 till early in the session of 1908, his successor Mr McKenna introduced a bill based on what was known as “contracting out.” In Bills of 1908. single-school parishes the existing schools were to be compulsorily transferred, subject to the grant of denominational facilities out of school hours; elsewhere a sufficiency of places in schools with Cowper-Temple teaching, which the bill proposed to make compulsory in all provided schools, must be supplied by the local authority, while existing voluntary schools might become state-aided schools upon terms of receiving a grant of 47s. per head. The bill was accompanied by a financial scheme for a new system of allocating the parliamentary grant. In view of the improbability of its passing into law the bill was not pressed beyond the stage of second reading. Meanwhile, when Mr Asquith reorganized the cabinet, Mr Runciman succeeded Mr McKenna at the education office, and in the autumn he introduced a fresh measure framed as the result of negotiations between the government and the archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Randall Davidson) and designed to be passed rapidly through parliament by consent of all parties. Mr Runciman’s bill, like his predecessor’s, was based upon the principle of compulsory transfer in single-school parishes and contracting out elsewhere, but it gave a right of entry for denominational teaching on two days a week during school hours in all council schools whether transferred voluntary schools or otherwise, with liberty to employ for this purpose assistant teachers, but not (save temporarily at first in transferred schools) head teachers. Provision was also made for the payment of a small rent which would be applicable for or towards the cost of the denominational instruction. Unfortunately, the compromise failed at the last moment for want of agreement as to the financial terms of “contracting out,” the government offering 50s. per head and the Church demanding 7s. more. It is obvious that “contracting out” is open to serious objection upon educational and economic grounds, and that if resorted to upon any very considerable scale it would involve a disruption of the public elementary system, and a duplication of schools which would constitute a wasteful drain upon the national exchequer. Upon such a system, therefore, some check is necessary, and, once decided that the check should take the form of financial pressure, rather than request of parents as in Mr Birrell’s bill, or some form of administrative control, the question of pecuniary terms became one of principle and not merely of financial detail. Moreover, the difficulty of adjusting differences was intensified by the opposition of the extremists on either side, which daily gathered force, and the bill was withdrawn by the government when in committee of the House of Commons. The conciliatory efforts of Mr Runciman and Dr Randall Davidson revealed the existence of a considerable body of influential opinion among all schools of thought in favour of a national compromise, and the proposals embodied in the bill marked on the part both of Churchmen and Nonconformists important concessions to each other’s views, engendering reasonable hopes of an ultimate settlement being reached at no distant date.
Two subsidiary points as regards educational machinery have to be noted. The Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906 enabled local education authorities to aid voluntary agencies in the provision of meals for children attending Feeding of school children. public elementary schools, and in certain cases with the consent of the Board of Education to defray the cost of the food themselves. In 1907-1908 forty, and in 1908-1909 seventy-five authorities in England and Wales were authorized by the board to expend moneys from the rates on food under this act. In addition, a number of authorities expended funds on equipment and service.
In 1907 an uncontroversial act entitled the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, besides dealing with various matters of technical and administrative detail, laid upon local education authorities the new duty of providing for Medical inspection. the medical inspection of all children attending public elementary schools. In connexion with this act the Board of Education established a medical department to advise and assist them in supervising local education authorities in carrying out their statutory duties in this regard. The whole departure is significant of the new sense of the importance of physical culture and hygiene which has been one of the remarkable features in recent educational developments.
Sir Joshua Fitch, in his article on education in the 10th edition of this work, describes how experience had led the Education Department to abandon the system of payment by results, to establish “in place of testing General progress in elementary education. the proficiency of individual scholars, ... one summary estimate of the work of the school; in place of an annual examination, occasional inspection without notice; in place of a variable grant dependent on a report in detail on the several subjects of instruction and on particular educational merits and defects, one block grant payable to all schools alike.” He at the same time expressed some misgiving as to the effect of “so large a relaxation of the conditions by which it had hitherto been sought to secure accuracy and thoroughness in teaching.” The act of 1902, by placing secular education in public elementary schools under the control of strongly organized local education authorities may be said to have largely removed such dangers as were to be apprehended from the relaxation in question. Thus it was possible for the Board of Education in the code of 1904 to abolish the last traces of the system of payment by results, by setting forth (in the language of their report for 1903-1904) “a properly co-ordinated curriculum suitable to the needs of the children, with an indication of the relation which the various subjects of instruction should bear to each other, in place of the relatively haphazard list of possible branches of knowledge which were formerly presented to the choice of individual schools or authorities.” In the new code also the board for the first time endeavoured to state for the guidance of teachers and parents the proper aim of the public elementary school, laying stress upon that element of the training of character which the system of payment by results had so unfortunately obscured. The new spirit was strikingly manifested in the volume of Suggestions for the Considerations of Teachers, issued by the Board of Education in 1905. This volume represented a notable attempt to connect administration with educational theory, without in any way seeking to crush individual initiative, or to impose a bureaucratic uniformity of method upon those engaged in the actual work of the schools. Apprehension of the true aim of elementary education as essentially and primarily a preparation for practical life has led to a corresponding development of instruction of a practical character, observation lessons and nature study being treated as a necessary element in the curriculum, while handicraft and gardening, and domestic subjects (for girls), are encouraged by special grants. Particular attention has been bestowed both by the central and local authorities upon the problem of rural instruction, and much has been done in many areas to bring the schools into closer relations with the needs of agricultural and rural life generally. In this way the old and perhaps not altogether ill-founded distrust of popular education as tending to unfit the working classes for industrial pursuits is being broken down and a public opinion more favourable to educational progress in the widest sense is being created.
According to the official returns for 1907-1908, the total number of scholars on the registers (England only) was as follows:—council schools, 2,991,741; voluntary schools, 2,566,030; total, 5,557,771, and the total attendance upon which grant was paid was 4,928,659. The percentage of actual average attendance to average number on the registers was 88.50%. The parliamentary grant (England and Wales) for elementary schools, other than higher elementary, amounted to £11,023,433.
The development of higher elementary education in England is now proceeding very much upon the lines that have been noted in France. The old higher-grade board-schools (declared illegal under the Elementary Education Acts Higher elementary schools. by the judgment in the case of Rex v. Cockerton in 1901, and legalized temporarily by an act passed for the purpose in the same year) were mostly converted into municipal secondary schools under the act of 1902. In the succeeding years provision was made in the code for higher elementary schools of a specialized and technical type intended only for industrial districts. In 1906, as the result of the recommendations of the Consultative Committee, a new type of higher elementary school was admitted for children over twelve, corresponding generally to the French école primaire supérieure, described as having “for its object the development of the education given in the ordinary public elementary school, and the provision of special instruction bearing on the future occupations of the scholars, whether boys or girls.” It may be possible to supplement this system in the rural areas to some extent by “higher tops” to the ordinary elementary schools in cases where it is not practicable to establish a fully organised higher elementary school; but for such “higher tops” no central grant is available. The total number of scholars upon the registers of higher elementary schools (England) in 1907-1908 was: New Type, 3178 (against 2715 in the previous year); Old Type, 4492 (against 5866 in the previous year).